It’s customary for me to write a piece this month titled “Beware the Ides of August.” It’s a take on Shakespeare, where Julius Caesar is warned “Beware the Ides of March.” The middle of March is what spells doom for Caesar. And over the years, I have found that the month of August – often the midway point – to be the most dramatic, historic and often volatile period in politics and government.

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974. The U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963. There was the riot in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. There was even an earthquake in Washington, DC in August 2011. And not the political kind.

Will August 2024 measure up?

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July of 2024 is like, “August, hold my beer.”

We’ve got a lot of August to go. But July earned a special spot in the pantheon of extraordinary political months. The shooting of former President Trump followed by the decision by President Biden to bow out of the 2024 campaign were extraordinary news events. And then there was the political hailstorm which pelted the news cycle for nearly three consecutive weeks after President Biden’s horrific debate performance in late June. We haven’t even mentioned the Republican convention in Milwaukee and Mr. Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio as his running mate. Those tectonic shifts were significant enough. But failed to rival the sheer intensity of the assassination attempt of the former President coupled with Mr. Biden dropping out.

An astonishing case study into the intensity of the July news cycle came on July 24. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to deliver a controversial speech to a Joint Meeting of Congress. Bipartisan Congressional leaders – but mainly Republicans – invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress for a record fourth time. But Netanyahu’s address would temporarily take a backseat to some of the other events.

Consider how the story shifted throughout the day on July 24.

Netanyahu would have constituted the news lede early that morning during any other period. But the testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray to the House Judiciary Committee that morning eclipsed Netanyahu for a time. Wray was already scheduled to appear before the panel prior to the Trump shooting. But the failed assassination of the former president now commanded most of the nation’s news oxygen. Especially with Wray appearing before a House committee to discuss the FBI’s inquiry into the shooting.

Netanyahu wasn’t due to speak to the Joint Meeting of Congress until the afternoon. But Netanyahu’s address infuriated the left and many pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel demonstrators. They flooded the streets of Washington and clashed with police. They burned American flags and hoisted Palestinian flags in front of Union Station, just blocks from the Capitol. The dramatic video and audacity of the demonstrations captured the news cycle for a bit before Netanyahu’s speech.

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Then came Netanyahu’s presentation to Congress. The news here was just not what the Israeli Prime Minister said. But multiple sub-angles highlighted the controversy of Netanyahu’s speech. Many Democrats boycotted the Joint Meeting. There was the fact that Vice President Harris – who serves as President of the Senate – did not preside because she was speaking to a Black sorority in Indiana. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., – the highest ranking Jewish member in Congressional history – refused to shake hands with Netanyahu on the House floor. Netanyahu railed against the demonstrators near the Capitol, calling them “useful idiots” for Iran. Democrats who did attend the speech lamented that Netanyahu failed to offer a plan to get hostages back or call for a ceasefire.

But by nightfall, Netanyahu was old news.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the chamber of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol on July 24, 2024, in Washington, DC.  (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

President Biden was now healthy enough after a bout with COVID. He planned to speak to the nation about his monumental decision against seeking a second term. Yes. The president formally told the nation via X on Sunday he was standing down. But a nationwide address to the country is another level.

Never mind that buried in all of this was the fact that Harris quickly wrapped up what appeared to be support from Democratic delegates and Democratic lawmakers to stand-in for Mr. Biden. The country was exploring who Harris was and determining how she measured up to former President Trump. There was also a deep dive amid this into Vance, his policy positions and explorations of his 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy.

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There was a lot going on.

So August, beware. You have a lot to live up to.

Not that those of us involved in politics or media are asking for another hellish news cycle.

Sure. There will be the Democratic National Convention at the end of August in Chicago. Harris just selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. There’s plenty to chew on. But these events don’t seem as dynamic as what we wrestled with in July.

Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appear on stage together during a campaign event at Girard College on August 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

That’s not to say that other major things won’t bubble up this month. The Middle East is white hot. There are grave concerns about a conflagration which could engulf the entire region. One could always fret about the chances of hostilities between China and Taiwan. Another major political narrative could emerge about former President Trump, Harris, Vance or Walz. Mr. Biden is still President and questions abound about his final months in office. And then there is the unknown. August has a way of surprising people with historic events and episodes which spring out of nowhere, shifting the course of history.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in early August, 1990, setting off the first Gulf War a few months later. The Soviets shot down a Korean jetliner in late August, 1983, killing an American congressman and hundreds of others. Walz was major political news. But the decision by 2008 Republican presidential nominee and late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to select former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as his running mate was a shock. Tapping Walz paled in comparison to the Palin pick. Never mind that a hurricane cut short the GOP’s convention that year. That’s because in 2006, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, forever altering the trajectory of former President George W. Bush.

So, beware the ides of August – just because it’s August.

But last month, it was “Beware the Ides of July.”

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris introduced running mate Tim Walz at a rally Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, where the Democratic duo pledged to restore freedom and hope they contend would be stripped away if former President Trump wins a second term in the White House.

The Minnesota governor, little known nationally before his selection Tuesday as Harris’ No. 2, told a raucous partisan audience that he is the product of small-town America, who believes in old-fashioned values.

“I was born in West Point, Neb., and lived in Butte, a small town of 400 where community was a way of life,” said Walz, 60. “Growing up, I spent summers working on the family farm. My mom and dad taught us to show generosity toward your neighbors and to work for the common good.”

Walz said communal strength loomed large in Minnesota, the state where he has governed since 2019 and that he planned to bring that culture to the White House.

“Minnesota’s strength comes from our values,” Walz said, “our commitment to working together, to seeing past our differences, to lending a helping hand. “

In introducing Walz, Harris pictured her running mate as the kind, common sense alternative to Republican policies that she said had stripped away fundamental rights.

“We fight for a future where we defend our most fundamental freedoms,” Harris said. “We fight freedom to vote, freedom to be safe from gun violence, freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body, not having the government tell her what to do.”

Democrats have been buoyed by Harris’ entry into the race two weeks ago, after President Biden’s withdrawal. Polls have shown a narrowing of an already tight race. The candidate’s campaign reported that she had collected more than $300 million in campaign donations, with a spokesperson saying an additional $20 million poured in after Harris announced on social media Tuesday morning that Walz would join her on the ticket.

The Democratic duo plans to visit battleground states in the Midwest, before flying west to campaign in Arizona and Nevada. Those states are expected to hold the key to victory in the election along with the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia.

Harris, 59, whipped through the resume of her new political partner, depicting him as an everyman who understood the travails of regular Americans. She described his youth on a family farm in Nebraska, his two decades as a high school social studies teacher and work as an assistant coach for a state champion high school football team.

She noted that Walz simultaneously coached linebackers on the West Mankato High School football team and supported students who wanted to start a gay-straight alliance.

“At a time when acceptance was difficult to find for LGBTQ students, Tim knew the signal that it would send to have a football coach get involved,” Harris said. “So he signed up to be the group’s faculty adviser. Students have said he made the school a safe place for everybody.”

It was that supportive stance that led to students voting Walz as the most inspirational faculty member, Harris said.

“We both believe in lifting people up, not knocking them down,” Harris said. “When we look at folks, our fellow Americans, we see neighbors not enemies.”

Walz said more than once that Harris had brought “joy” back to America’s public arena, but the folksy politician showed he also wasn’t above throwing a punch.

He chided his vice presidential rival, noting that Republican JD Vance’s rural roots grew into a much different life than one he recognized from Middle America.

“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” Walz said, before throwing his arms wide and chiding: “Come on! That’s not what Middle-America is.”

Walz drew knowing laughter from the crowd at the Liacouras Center arena at Temple University when he reprised one of his first attacks on the Republican ticket, saying Trump and Vance “are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.”

He found another punchline in the multiple criminal cases against Trump, saying of the former president: “He froze in the face of the COVID crisis. He drove our economy into the ground and make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump.” After a round of applause, Walz added: “That’s not even counting the crimes he committed.”

Saying he welcomed a chance to debate Vance, Walz then made a thinly veiled reference to a prurient, and unfounded, rumor about Vance’s purported fixation with living room furniture.

“I can’t wait to debate the guy — if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up!” Walz said.

Harris and Walz both suggested that a second Trump term would strike a crippling blow against progressive government programs. They said he would try to gut the Affordable Care Act, the law that brought health care coverage to millions of Americans; “gut” Social Security and Medicare; .and continue to crack down on abortion, a procedure that became much harder to obtain after Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices helped reverse the Roe v. Wade decision.

“Today in America, one out of three women live in a state with a Trump abortion ban,” Harris said. “Some of those bans go back to 1800s, before women had a right to vote. We have a message for Trump and those who want to turn back our freedoms: We’re not going back!”

That led to a prolonged chant from the crowd: “Not going back!”

Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will join her on the 2024 Democratic ticket for the White House, despite the pair previously having wildly differing views on the Second Amendment and gun control. 

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work,” Harris posted to X on Tuesday morning. 

Walz is in the midst of his second term as Minnesota governor, and previously served as a U.S. congressman in the state from 2007-2019, where he represented a largely rural population. Back when he served as a congressman in a district that typically voted red, Walz was seen as a champion of gun rights and hunting.  

The National Rifle Association awarded Walz an A rating for his commitment to protecting gun ownership and rejecting gun control laws pushed by left-wing members of the Democratic Party. 

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“Tim Walz is a gun owner. He grew up hunting and spent 24 years in the Army National Guard. Now in Congress, Tim stood up time and time again for the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen. It’s why the NRA gave Tim an ‘A’ rating,” a 2010 political ad declared. 

Walz’s celebration of the Second Amendment included earning him a spot on Guns & Ammo magazine’s 2016 list of 20 top politicians for gun owners. 

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“A Democrat, Rep. Walz proves that gun rights are not always partisan issues. Walz Co-sponsored ATF reform legislation back in 2008 and was a lead sponsor in the SHARE Act,” Walz’s feature on the list reads. “While most congressional Democrats have jumped on the gun control train with both feet, Tim Walz and a few others have stuck to their guns.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media after touring a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, with Gov. Tim Walz and Planned Parenthood North Central States chief medical officer Sarah Traxler, March 14, 2024. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Walz has since changed his tune to champion gun control measures, and lost his high marks among the Second Amendment community. The NRA slammed Walz as a “political chameleon” in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday after Harris officially announced him as her running mate. 

“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – changing his positions to further his own personal agenda. In Congress, Walz purported to be a friend of gun owners to receive their support in his rural Minnesota district. Once he had his eyes set on other offices, he sold out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun control agenda that emboldened criminals and left everyday citizens defenseless. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz cannot be trusted to defend freedom and our Constitutional rights,” Randy Kozuch, chairman of the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), said in a statement.

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Walz’s previous gun stances stand in stark contrast to Harris’ celebration in recent years that the Biden administration would take on the NRA and win, citing Biden’s work as a senator when he voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill. 

“@JoeBiden has taken on the @NRA and won. He can do it again,” Harris tweeted last year, accompanied by a campaign ad celebrating Biden’s determination to “ban assault weapons.” 

Biden, while serving as a Delaware senator, voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill, while the Democrat-majority House at the time passed the ban as a standalone bill. The bill ultimately was incorporated into the sweeping anti-crime package and required exceptions in order to pass, including a sunset provision. 

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Sen. Kamala Harris speaks at an event in Las Vegas on April 27, 2019. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in September of that year. It enacted a 10-year ban on the manufacture, transfer or possession of “semiautomatic assault weapons” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.”

The law expired in 2004, when George W. Bush was president and Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. 

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Fast-forward to 2009, when Barack Obama was president, Walz was one of 65 Democrats in the House who signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder opposing any bans similar to the one from 1994, the Star Tribune previously reported. Holder notably was chosen by Harris this year to head up the vetting process of the pool of potential veeps before Walz was ultimately chosen. 

Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a press conference regarding gun legislation at City Hall on Aug. 1, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

In 2017 and 2018, the then-congressman wildly changed his tune on gun control, joining fellow Democrats in their calls to tighten laws on gun ownership. Walz announced in 2017, following the tragic Las Vegas shooting, that he was donating the roughly $18,000 he received from the NRA to charity. 

Days after the tragic school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, Walz joined fellow Democrats in calling for gun control measures. Last year, the governor also signed into law universal background checks and a red flag order, which was slammed by Second Amendment groups. 

Walz wrote in an op-ed in 2018 that his views on guns are “evolving in some ways,” but that he’s “always been a reformer.”

“To finally come together to end gun violence, we’ll need a new approach. We’ll need to build a coalition we haven’t seen before: rural, urban, suburban and exurban folks; gun owners and gun-violence survivors; hunters and advocates and police officers and the young people who are stepping up right now. We’ll need a coalition of folks of good faith who haven’t seen eye to eye but respect the different ways of life in every corner of our state,” he wrote in an op-ed published by the Star Tribune in 2018. 

“That’s how we get things done in Minnesota: We come together. As a hunter, sportsman and veteran with a lifelong respect for guns, as a resident of greater Minnesota, a teacher, and a dad who just wants his kids to come home safe, I can and will bring together that coalition to end gun violence, preserve our ways of life and ensure that everyone gets home to their families safe.”

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