September 7, 2024

Tales From the Dark Side: Fresh on the heels of former Representative Liz Cheney endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, another family member came out to say that he’s with her: none other than her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney. This honestly made my head spin just a bit, as during the ’00s, many liberals saw the elder Cheney as one of the most “dastardly” members of former President George W. Bush’s administration. And here he is yesterday stating that, “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” Later on in his statement, he adds:

“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Will his — not to mention his daughter’s — endorsement of Harris move the needle much? Probably not. But if it gives enough non-Trump Republicans “justification” to hold their collective noses and vote for Harris, it could make a difference. This is, in football parlance, a game of inches, and every inch counts. LINK

Not Just a Fluke: As a side note, Liz Cheney yesterday also endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s opponent, Democratic Representative Colin Allred. Given stories of just how unliked Cruz is among others in the Legislative Branch, it’s not terribly surprising she’s endorsing his challenger, but it’s still notable that this is another Democrat that the former member of House Republican leadership has endorsed. LINK

Caesar’s Salad: This week, both Senator J.D. Vance and his boss former President Donald Trump were asked questions in regards to the rising costs of childcare. Neither gave a very satisfying answer. For his part, Vance suggested that extended family members, like grandparents, aunts, or uncles, should consider lending a hand, or that training and certification for day care workers should be cut down. This really won’t help much in the way of lowering costs, and could be seen as insulting for those who don’t have extended family nearby to help.

But then there was Trump’s answer during an appearance at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. This was in response to the question from moderator Reshma Saujani of, “If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable? And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?” I’m going to print it here, verbatim, as it really is remarkable:

“Well, I would do that. And we’re sitting down – you know, I was somebody – we had – Sen. Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka were so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that – because, look, child care is child care. It’s – couldn’t – you know, it’s something – you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly – and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care. That – it’s going to take care – we’re going to have – I – I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country. Because I have to say with child care – I want to stay with child care – but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just – that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first, it’s about Make America Great Again. We have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

While the answer garnered applause from the attending crowd, the moderator was tremendously unimpressed with the word salad that was delivered. Of course, Trump had a lot on his mind, as he returned to a court room yesterday for another attempt at appealing his conviction for sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll. He later in the day held a 45-minute press conference, listing other women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. His goal was to insist that they were all fabricated claims, but effectively just reminded the viewing public that there are a lot of them out there. LINK