Politics
Column: Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Convention Week
![Column: Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Convention Week Column: Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Convention Week](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2279bbe/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x3150+0+425/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1e%2Fce%2Fe372148841eda8ad27744fc8275d%2Felection-2024-trump-27234.jpg)
During the nine years Donald Trump has been running for president, his political superpower has been his feral talent for seizing media attention and knocking opponents off-stride with insults, falsehoods and demagoguery.
Until this year, it usually worked.
But over the last five weeks, as Kamala Harris launched her late-starting presidential campaign, Trump has been the one who appeared off-balance, seemingly unprepared to run against anyone younger than President Biden.
So as Democrats gathered in Chicago, Trump went back to his old playbook to regroup. He abandoned the already-frayed tradition of taking a break during the other party’s convention — what’s one more norm to break? — and set out on a cross-country tour aiming to cut the surging Harris down to size.
But Trump’s attempt to grab back the spotlight — his most frenetic week of campaigning in months — didn’t work.
Harris’ convention ratings were higher than his. Even worse, Harris’ rally crowds were bigger than his. Worst of all, his old nemesis Barack Obama made fun of him over it.
Trump was seething even before the week started, when Time magazine put a formal portrait of Harris on its cover.
“I’m a better-looking person than Kamala,” he complained.
He was still seething when the week ended, when Martha MacCallum of Fox News had the temerity to note that Harris was “having some success” at attracting young and minority voters.
“No, she’s not having success,” Trump snapped. “I’m having success.”
For those who missed it — because, after all, it didn’t get much media coverage — here’s a brief diary of Donald Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Convention Week:/
Monday: York, Pa. — Trump speaks to an audience of about 150 at a small factory and questions Harris’ origins: “I wonder if they knew where she comes from,” he muses. That evening, he watches Biden’s speech at the convention. “[I] was amazed at his ANGER at being humiliated by the Democrats,” he writes in a social media post. “I was happy to have played a part in his demise.”
Tuesday: Howell, Mich. — Trump falsely accuses Harris and other Democrats of using violence to push Biden out of office. “That was a coup,” he claims. “It was a vicious, violent overthrow of a president of the United States.” (“I think he has a problem,” Biden responds.)
That evening, Trump watches former President Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as they ridicule his obsession with crowd size. “Very nasty,” Trump says.
Wednesday: Asheboro, N.C. — At a rally, Trump charges that the FBI is faking crime statistics and the Labor Department is faking job statistics. (The numbers are often fallible, but there is no evidence that they are faked.)
And he returns to talking about the Obamas’ speeches. He acts out a mock dialogue with his campaign aides, who want him to cut back on insulting his opponents. “Do I still have to stick to policy?” he whines in a little-boy voice.
That evening, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school football coach, accepts the Democrats’ nomination for vice president and is celebrated by former players. “A total lightweight,” Trump scoffs. “They call him ‘Coach.’ He’s a semi-coach.”
Thursday: Sierra Vista, Ariz. — Trump starts the day on “Fox & Friends” talking about one of his favorite subjects: Crime in California, which he blames on Harris’ tenure as district attorney in San Francisco more than a decade ago.
“Everything she touched turned bad,” he said. “You can barely go into California anymore. … It’s got nothing. Drugs all over the place. You go into Los Angeles, you can’t walk down the streets.”
That evening, he watches Harris accept the presidential nomination and generates a string of furious social media posts.
“WORST SPEECH EVER,” he types.
“IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?” (She was.)
“SAY GOODBYE TO THE U.S.A.!”
If the Democratic convention won the race for the ratings, hate-watcher Trump may have been a small part of the problem.
Friday: Glendale, Ariz. — The Democratic convention is over, and Trump finally gets some good news: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspends his independent presidential campaign and endorses him. “A great guy,” Trump says, although Kennedy once denounced him as “a terrible human being.” It isn’t clear whether Kennedy’s endorsement will move many voters into Trump’s camp.
Trump was all over the map, both geographically and figuratively. He didn’t focus on a single, core message to appeal to swing voters who aren’t sure they really want a second Trump term.
Still, Trump can claim one solid accomplishment for the week.
He appears to have settled on a new nickname for Harris: “Comrade Kamala.”
Nicknames are a tell for Trump — a brand for his main line of attack. He struggled for months to find one for Harris, with misfires from “Laffin’ Kamala” to the inscrutable “Kamabla.”
“Comrade Kamala,” of course, reflects his argument than Harris is not just too liberal for most voters, but — in his absurdly inaccurate charge — “a radical left Marxist.”
Any real Marxist will tell you Harris doesn’t come close. Real Marxists believe the government should own major industries; Harris does not. Harris doesn’t even support Bernie Sanders-style “single-payer” health insurance, as she briefly did during her 2019 campaign.
But when Trump was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, almost any charge of communist leanings was enough to doom a politician. Back then, it was called McCarthyism, after the Wisconsin Republican senator who wielded groundless accusations as recklessly as Trump.
Will the same technique work half a century later? That may depend on whether Harris continues tempering her policies to make her liberal agenda sound like simple common sense, as she did in her acceptance speech. The test will unroll over the next 10 weeks.
But as the week ended, she appeared to have found her stride — and Trump was the one struggling to keep up.
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Politics
Pro-Palestinian group 'Abandon Biden' changes to 'Abandon Harris' ahead of election
![Pro-Palestinian group 'Abandon Biden' changes to 'Abandon Harris' ahead of election Pro-Palestinian group 'Abandon Biden' changes to 'Abandon Harris' ahead of election](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-2076700919-scaled-e1724520555827.jpg)
“Abandon Biden” is now “Abandon Harris.”
The pro-Palestinian group opposing the Democratic Party announced on Friday that its members were “now mobilizing under the banner of ‘Abandon Harris.’”
“While we will keep the registered name of Abandon Biden, our mission is now laser-focused on exposing and opposing Kamala Harris and her complicity in genocide,” the statement from the group explained. “We call on all people of conscience to join us in holding the Democratic Party accountable for the bloodshed in Gaza.”
HARRIS TRIES TO THREAD ISRAEL, GAZA NEEDLE WITH ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS A CONSTANT PRESENCE AT DNC
Demonstrators with the group “Abandon Biden” hold signs during a news conference prior to President Joe Biden’s visit in Saginaw, Michigan, US. (Photographer: Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The DNC’s recent actions have only confirmed what we’ve been saying all along: the Democratic Party has no interest in ending the genocide in Gaza,” the group continued. “They are not mere bystanders; they are active participants in this brutal, unforgivable violence.”
Abandon Harris is part of a larger movement on the left opposing the Democratic Party due to its continued support of Israel in the Jewish state’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Anti-Israel demonstrators expressed their discontent with Harris’ campaign throughout this week’s Democratic National Convention with marches, protests, and demonstrations against speakers.
CHICAGO DNC: ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS ERUPT AS KAMALA HARRIS SPEAKS ON FINAL NIGHT OF CONVENTION
![Kamala Harris takes the stage on Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/DNC-Kamala-Harris-Chicago-Day-4_61.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage on Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. (REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid)
The Democratic presidential nominee attempted to extend an olive branch to the anti-Israel protesters during her speech at the convention, telling the crowd that President Biden’s administration is “working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a cease-fire deal done.”
“And let me be clear – I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7.”
At the same time, Harris said, “what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating,” referring to the war casualties of innocent Palestinian people.
![Abandon Biden pro-palestine](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/GettyImages-2161175551-scaled-e1724520613823.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Professor Hassan Abdel Salam, founder of Abandon Biden, speaks to a few dozen fellow pro Palestinian activists gathering outside of the Biden campaign rally at the A. Phillip Randolph Vocational Technical Center in Detroit, Michigan. (Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In July, Harris met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reiterate the administration’s support for Israel, while also expressing her “serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there.” There was an apparent cease-fire deal also discussed at the time.
Fox News Digital’s Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.
Politics
With 13 days until voting starts, 'election season' kicks off sooner than you think
![With 13 days until voting starts, 'election season' kicks off sooner than you think With 13 days until voting starts, 'election season' kicks off sooner than you think](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/Trump-Harris-Photo-1.jpg)
There are 73 days until Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
But if Americans vote like they did in the last two election cycles, most of them will have already cast a ballot before the big day.
Early voting starts as soon as Sept. 6 for eligible voters, with seven battleground states sending out ballots to at least some voters the same month.
It makes the next few months less a countdown to Election Day, and more the beginning of “election season.”
VANCE PRAISED FOR ‘ABSOLUTE FIRE’ TAKEDOWN OF HARRIS-WALZ ‘TAG TEAM’ RIOT ENABLERS: ‘MAKE AMERICA BURN AGAIN’
Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Getty Images)
States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military or people with illnesses.
In some states, almost every voter casts a ballot by mail.
Many states expanded eligibility in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made it riskier to vote in-person.
That year, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail.
Early voting remained popular in the midterms, with 57% of voters casting a ballot before Election Day.
TIM WALZ’S SELECTION AS HARRIS RUNNING MATE DRAWS SKEPTICISM, EVEN AMONG ANTI-TRUMP FIGURES
![Voters casting their ballots.](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Voting-Photo-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
A voter fills out a ballot in Lake Orion, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Elections officials stress that voting early is safe and secure. Recounts, investigations and lawsuits filed after the 2020 election did not reveal evidence of widespread fraud or corruption.
The difference between “early in-person” and “mail” or “absentee” voting.
There are a few ways to vote before Election Day.
The first is early in-person voting, where a voter casts a regular ballot in-person at a voting center before Election Day.
The second is voting by mail, where the process and eligibility varies by state.
Eight states vote mostly by mail, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. Registered voters receive ballots and send them back.
Most states allow any registered voter to request a mail ballot and send it back. This is also called mail voting, or sometimes absentee voting. Depending on the state, voters can return their ballot by mail, at a drop box, and/or at an office or facility that accepts mail ballots.
In 14 states, voters must have an excuse to vote by mail, ranging from illness, age, work hours or if a voter is out of their home county on Election Day.
States process and tabulate ballots at different times. Some states don’t begin counting ballots until election night, which delays the release of results.
Voting begins on Sept. 6 in North Carolina, with seven more battleground states starting that month
This list of early voting dates is for guidance only. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes and deadlines, go to Vote.gov and your state’s elections website.
The first voters to be sent absentee ballots will be in North Carolina, which begins mailing out ballots for eligible voters on Sept. 6.
Seven more battleground states open up early voting the same month, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.
KAMALA HARRIS HAS AVOIDED INTERVIEWS FOR MORE THAN TWO WEEKS SINCE BECOMING DEM NOMINEE
![Michigan citizens voting early.](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Voting-Photo-2.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Early voters cast their ballots in Ferndale, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
September deadlines
In-person early voting in bold.
Sept. 6
- North Carolina – Absentee ballots sent to voters
Sept. 16
- Pennsylvania – Mail-in ballots sent to voters
Sept. 17
- Georgia – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
Sept. 19
- Wisconsin – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 20
- Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
- Minnesota, South Dakota – In-person absentee voting begins
- Virginia – In-person early voting begins
- Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 21
- Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
- Indiana, New Mexico – Absentee ballots sent
- Maryland, New Jersey – Mail-in ballots sent
Sept. 23
- Mississippi – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent
- Oregon, Vermont – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 26
- Illinois – In-person early voting begins
- Michigan – Absentee ballots sent
- Florida, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent
- North Dakota – Absentee & mail-in ballots sent
Sept. 30
- Nebraska – Mail-in ballots sent
October deadlines
Oct. 4
- Connecticut – Absentee ballots sent
Oct. 6
- Michigan – In-person early voting begins
- Maine – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
- California – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
- Montana – In-person absentee voting begins
- Nebraska – In-person early voting begins
- Georgia – Absentee ballots sent
- Massachusetts – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 8
- California – Ballot drop-offs open
- New Mexico, Ohio – In-person absentee voting begins
- Indiana – In-person early voting begins
- Wyoming – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent
Oct. 9
- Arizona – In-person early voting begins & mail ballots sent
Oct. 11
- Colorado – Mail-in ballots sent
- Arkansas, Alaska – Absentee ballots sent
Oct. 15
- Georgia – In-person early voting begins
- Utah – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 16
- Rhode Island, Kansas, Tennessee – In-person early voting begins
- Iowa – In-person absentee voting begins
- Oregon, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 17
- North Carolina – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 18
- Washington, Louisiana – In-person early voting begins
- Hawaii – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 19
- Nevada, Massachusetts – In-person early voting begins
- Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas – In-person early voting begins
- Colorado – Ballot drop-offs open
Oct. 22
- Hawaii, Utah – In-person early voting begins
- Missouri, Wisconsin – In-person absentee voting begins
Oct. 23
- West Virginia – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 24
- Maryland – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 25
- Delaware – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 26
- Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, New York – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 30
- Oklahoma – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 31
- Kentucky – In-person absentee voting begins
Politics
Once seen as an environmental crusader, RFK Jr. sheds green mantle with Trump endorsement
![Once seen as an environmental crusader, RFK Jr. sheds green mantle with Trump endorsement Once seen as an environmental crusader, RFK Jr. sheds green mantle with Trump endorsement](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f21b7c9/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5945x3121+0+417/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4f%2Fdb%2Ff87e79ec41b29f6f27b6255371b5%2Felection-2024-kennedy-21522.jpg)
For decades, Robert. F. Kennedy Jr. worked as an environmental lawyer, filing lawsuits against polluters. He helped found a global green group that fought for clean water and helped defeat dam projects in Chile and Peru.
Yet even before he announced Friday that he was suspending his presidential campaign and supporting former President Trump, Kennedy had repeatedly disappointed and angered dozens of environmentalists, who said he had abandoned his green roots.
“It’s a shock to me knowing the Bobby I used to know,” said Dan Reicher, senior scholar at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability. “I could not have imagined him supporting former President Trump.”
Reicher, a former U.S. assistant secretary of Energy, once worked with Kennedy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and spent time kayaking with him on rivers in Chile and the U.S.
He said he had become increasingly dismayed by Kennedy’s campaign positions and statements on the environment. He pointed to how Kennedy had not presented any meaningful plans for cutting greenhouse gases. Instead, Reicher said, he had criticized the size of the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to clean energy projects in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
“He’s dismissed a lot of what we need to do on climate change,” Reicher said.
Long before he announced last year that he was running for president, Kennedy became known as an environmental advocate for his work in helping to clean up the Hudson River in New York with the group called Riverkeeper.
And up until 2020, he was the president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group he helped found to fight for clean water around the world.
While that background would seem to put Kennedy at odds with Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and overturned numerous environmental rules, some activists grew increasingly concerned about his candidacy in recent months as he questioned Biden’s policies. Some point to his post on X where he said, “Climate change is being used to control us through fear.”
In April, dozens of Kennedy’s former colleagues at NRDC, where he worked for nearly three decades, paid for advertisements in swing states, calling for him to “honor our planet” by dropping out of the race.
“In nothing more than a vanity candidacy, RFK Jr. has chosen to play the role of election spoiler to the benefit of Donald Trump — the single worst environmental president our country has ever had,” the ad read.
That same month, a dozen green groups, including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, signed a letter calling on Americans to vote against Kennedy.
“We can’t, in good conscience, let him continue co-opting the credibility and successes of our movement for his own personal benefit,” the groups wrote.
In some cases, Kennedy had spoken of policies that went further than those of Biden. For example, he had aligned himself with many climate activists in his call to end American exports of liquefied natural gas. The Biden administration said early this year that it was pausing approvals of new gas export terminals while it studied the economic and climate impacts of the exports.
Kennedy told Politico that he did not want an export ban for environmental reasons, but rather to protect U.S. gas reserves from being depleted.
In that interview, Kennedy also said he wanted to roll back part of the Inflation Reduction Act that funded carbon capture projects, which are favored by the fossil fuel industry. He said he believed that Biden had been manipulated by oil companies.
“He’s played into the hands of the carbon industry by focusing on geoengineering and carbon capture, and that is to me a disastrous endpoint,” Kennedy said. “And it’s disastrous from an environmental point of view, and it also is just a subsidy for Big Carbon.”
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