2024 Elections

Donald Trump's decision to make personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris in front of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Chicago last week has Republican senators who had lined up behind his bid for a return to the Oval Office scrambling to come up with words to defend it or fleeing reporters looking for comment.

According to a report from the Washington Post, Republican lawmakers were enjoying smooth sailing backing the former president as the focus of the election was on whether President Joe Biden was up to running for re-election.

That all changed when Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped into the spotlight as the apparent Democratic presidential nominee.

ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast.

The report notes that things took a turn for the worse for GOP senators who had grown weary of defending Trump over the years and were enjoying the respite.

After the former president made his highly-criticized comments about Harris' ethnic background, insisting that she had "turned Black" while also holding forth on "Black jobs" in front of the NABJ, GOP lawmakers are now back to trying to deflect questions about Trump's words.

According to the report, "...as Trump marched through the GOP primaries without any serious competition, and as voters soured on Biden amid questions about his capacity to serve, Senate Republicans embraced what they considered to be a certain victor, especially since he led them to believe that he was a different candidate," adding, "By 3 p.m. Wednesday, all those hopes for a unity-and-policy-centric campaign came undone."

The report notes that Sen. John Thune (R-SD), a senior GOP leader, had to be asked to stop and talk to reporters about Trump's latest behavior, where he offered up, "Um, the campaign is — needs to be — mostly about the issues. There’s plenty to talk about, and I just think that’s where the focus needs to be."

According to the Post's Paul Kane, "In the flip of a switch, Republicans were back on defense, reassuming the same roles they had been playing in years past."

While the Post is reporting the former president has a few defenders unconcerned about his latest attacks, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) used the opportunity to rage at how the Trump campaign is going so far.

“Think about it," she told reporters on Wednesday. "What have we been talking about all week long? Childless cat women, DEI candidates. Now, is she Black? Is she Indian?”

On Thursday she doubled down and bluntly stated, "A campaign built on insults of an individual — we should be so far beyond that. It should not be about which nasty name you can call somebody. It should be about the issues.”

You can read more here.

Deep into an investigation into the unorthodox methods the Republican National Committee is sanctioning to get out conservative voters for Donald Trump in November, newly minted organizers at the state level are learning the ropes on the fly and brainstorming what could turn out to be controversial methods of voter outreach.

According to a report from the Washington Post's Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey, the RNC under Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump and other members of his inner circle, have chosen to outsource the party's get-out-the-vote efforts to conservative organizations as a method to save money to be used elsewhere.

Those groups, including America First Works, America PAC and Turning Point Action, have been working to get up to speed in states where there is no Trump campaign headquarters.

ALSO READ: 'Get pretty wild': J.D. Vance urged Republicans to ignore courts and do what they want

As the report notes, volunteers who are new to selling on-the-fence voters on the GOP's candidates are getting fast-tracked coaching with less than 100 days before the November election.

According to the Post report, at a Waukesha, Wisconsin Turning Point Action office, "about three dozen newly hired full-time community organizers got together with poster boards and scented markers to brainstorm techniques to meet their targeted neighbors."

That in turn led to a suggestion from Turning Point's Tyler Bowyer, "... they should research their marks and start reaching out through Facebook groups, community events, or neighborly gestures such as recommending plumbers or harp teachers. They could even arrange seemingly chance encounters on coffee runs or dog walks."

The Post reports one attendee whispered, "Some of these things sound like stalking,” to which another joked, "Professional stalkers."

The report notes that a slide that was part of Bowyer's presentation bluntly stated: "BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL.”

You can read more here.

On Saturday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign slapped aside a proposal from Donald Trump that the September debate scheduled for ABC be shifted to Fox News — and then taunted him for running to his safe space at the conservative network.

Late Friday night, the former president ran to his Truth Social platform and wrote, "I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th. The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest."

He then added, "The FoxNews Debate will be held in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at a site in an area to be determined. The Moderators of the Debate will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and the Rules will be similar to the Rules of my Debate with Sleepy Joe, who has been treated horribly by his Party – BUT WITH A FULL ARENA AUDIENCE!…."

In a statement posted to X on Saturday morning, the Harris campaign called the proposal a non-starter.

RELATED: 'This is rattling Trump': MSNBC host nails ex-president's biggest re-election roadblock

"Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of a debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out, " the statement asserted.

It then added, "He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept. 10. The Vice President will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience"

The statement also referred to the ex-president as "Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace" and added he "should have no problem with that unless he's too scared to show up on the 10th."

You can see the statement below

At the start of Saturday morning's edition of "The Weekend" on MSNBC, co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend broke the news about voter outreach efforts by Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign in the key battleground states needed to beat Donald Trump.

The numbers she quoted stunned co-host Michael Steele.

As Sanders-Townsend reported, "We begin with breaking news, from the Harris campaign moments ago. The campaign released a first look at its battleground state operation as it has kicked into high gear, since the vice president joined race."

"In the last 12 days alone, volunteers have placed 2.3 million phone calls, knocked on 172,000 doors and sent nearly 2.9 million text messages to voters in the seven battleground. This grassroots support comes as vice president Harris secured enough delegates to win her party's nomination," she added.

After introducing Dan Kanninen from the Harris campaign, co-host and former RNC chair Steele exclaimed, "Hey, those numbers are crazy."

"You guys," he continued. "Just the sheer level of organization is incredibly strong. You are looking at, for example, in blue wall states alone over a 100,000 voters have signed up to attend events. In sunbelt states like Georgia, North Carolina, you got thousands — tens of thousands of supporters signing up in the last 12 days. 63,000 sign-ups in Georgia, nearly 40,000 in North Carolina."

Watch below or at the link.

MSNBC 08 03 2024 08 01 36 youtu.be