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Just read Ben Sasse's letter to the UF family. It was a masterpiece in how to leave a place you love. I've always thought he was an absolutely the most articulate, clear headed and forthright person in the Senate although it seemed that many did not like him at all. He was a helluva president at Florida. I am sad to learn of his wife's troubles and I never knew this about his family circumstances. I served as chief PR officer to three presidents at major research universities and not a one ever delivered such an eloquent and heartfelt farewell....especially to the "men and women who do the unsung work..." He is a damn top notch guy and and a real human being to boot. All the best, Ben Sasse. You've got a fan in Georgia.

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Doug Schoen, a Democrat, just got President Trump elected in his Fox News opinion piece.

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I had to go find it and read it. His take on the speech and the convention as a whole is a lot more realistic than most other democrats. Jessica Tarlov, for example, is still foaming at the mouth about how divisive Trump was. Still, Schoen was unable to admit that Trump has never been half as vitriolic as the democrats are on a daily basis.

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Jessica whines no matter what Republican she's talking about. She's a waste of good airtime.

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Biden's family is discussing an exit "that would preserve Joe's legacy".

More likely they are discussing preserving his grift-funded assets and annuities. And the freedom of Hunter from future investigations by a GOP House.

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Trump's RNC speech was long a boring only because of the long list of problems caused by the old political establishment that is headed by the Democrats. There is so much wrong... so much that needs to be reversed and improved... that it became hard to keep track of it all.

But that is what we need... we need leaders to acknowledge and list all these problems, and commit to the American people that they know their job is to make the improvements... and not just fill their bank accounts.

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I suggest reading this analysis from Puck which just appeared

Eight years ago, the Republican National Convention was a totally different, depressing, fractious scene. Rather than unrestrained jubilance over the prospect of a landslide victory, the polls were miserable, Republicans were yanking their hair out over their deeply flawed candidate, and many were resigned to the fact that Donald Trump was going to drag the whole party down with him. In the background, if you recall, Ted Cruz was leading an effort to oust the would-be nominee at the last minute. Sound familiar?

Alas, it’s hard to not draw parallels to the Democrats’ current political crisis. As Donald Trump prepares to speak tonight at the R.N.C., the walls are closing in on Joe Biden. Right now, my well-placed sources believe it’s not a matter of if he withdraws, but when. (The Times, in its careful prose, suggested this afternoon that the president has “begun to accept the idea that may not be able to win in November.”) Sure, the assassination attempt on Trump, and then Biden’s Covid diagnosis, may have bought the West Wing a few extra days, but I’m told party leaders on the Hill won’t stop pushing.

Of course, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are being less and less subtle in their redoubled campaign to orchestrate his ouster while making plans for the future of the party. In fact, I’ve heard they’ve largely bypassed the Biden family and the president’s inner circle, who have collectively pissed off the power brokers on the Hill. “Nancy is historically always a first mover on legislation, and Schumer is always a closer,” said a senior Hill source with knowledge of the matter, who described this situation as fluid. “It’s a campaign. There’s a lot of reinforcement—there’s no one person who’s going to be the person who ‘did’ it. It’s going to be the collective pressure.” To wit: On Wednesday, Pelosi’s right hand, Rep. Adam Schiff, the former Intel chairman and the next senator from California, explicitly called on Biden to step down from the ticket. If private conversations are a predictor of future defections, there will be many more to come.

Will any such statement come from party leadership? That’s T.B.D., but it’s clear from my partner Julia Ioffe’s exclusive report on Biden’s combative Zoom call on Saturday with dozens of moderate House members that it’s become almost impossible for him to have private conversations without them leaking. Members were furious about Biden’s stubborn, rambling demeanor on the call, and news of it would have leaked sooner if not for the attempted assassination on Trump just two hours later.

On the Zoom call, Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan confronted Biden about the fact that he’s down by four to five points in her purple state. The president said he didn’t believe her. “When Biden says ‘I haven’t seen it,’ he’s saying ‘I don’t give a fuck,’” said the senior Hill source. “They’re giving him a bunch of numbers that are ever-changing and fluid, so for Biden, Monday and Tuesday is a new day. He doesn’t believe what they’re showing him now is accurate.”

Another member on the call told me they started a text chain afterward to express their frustration. The initial purpose of the call, perhaps ironically, was to speak directly to Biden, since many Democratic members feared his inner circle was withholding data that showed him losing. “There was a belief that the president isn’t getting an accurate assessment of where the race stands right now,” the member said.

The Biden Bunker

It’s hard to overstate how much the president’s inner circle has alienated lawmakers. “The level of deep animosity among my House colleagues toward Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti is massive,” said the member who was on the call. For what it’s worth, I’m told Dunn is no longer in that inner sanctum alongside Ricchetti and Donilon. Nevertheless, members remain frustrated by her role in keeping the president removed from the public and media. (Of course, electeds have themselves to blame, too: They can’t plausibly claim they were blindsided by the president’s frailty; Democrats expressed plenty of anxiety before Biden’s successful State of the Union speech.)

A source close to the inner circle expounded: “The president is talking to Mike and Steve in this moment like he has throughout his political life. Mike has been one of the president’s closest advisors for 40 years. Steve has been one of his closest political counselors since the vice presidency and his main Hill conduit.” Biden, meanwhile, has maintained that the dust will settle in the next few weeks and that his polling will improve. He’s focused on the popular vote, I’m told, which shows him within the margin of error against Trump. “Ask Hillary how that goes,” the senior Hill source quipped.

According to the Democratic member, that’s precisely the problem. “We’re in the worst of both worlds,” this person said. “In an odd way, it would be better for them if the polling were 10 points worse, because it would spur change. He’s losing, but it’s close enough that he can squint and see a path to victory.”

But no matter how the polling looks or changes, it doesn’t alter the fact that two-thirds of Democratic voters don’t think Biden should run, and enough members of his party have come out publicly against him to supply the Trump team with a glut of campaign ads. “If he stays in, everything [Democrats] said in public would be used against him,” said one House Democrat who was on the call. “Our 25 percent chance of winning has gone down to 2 percent.”

Inside the Biden campaign bunker, there’s a feeling like they’ve done what they can, and now everyone is simply holding their breath. “We’re doing all of these things that have already been reported,” a Biden campaign official told me. “Using the lower stairs, honoring the 8 p.m. curfew that was mandated after the debate. We’re going out of our way to acquiesce to the candidate’s challenges that we should have seen coming. I’ve seen declines, but it’s been more recent and precipitous.” This campaign veteran, an Obama alumnus, recalled that Obama traveled three to four days per week during his reelection campaign. Biden is traveling one to two days per week, with one or two stops per day, whereas Obama would hold two or three events in a day. “It’s not like Obama in ’08, where it’s like, ‘Fuck yeah, let’s do this thing!’” the official said.

Meanwhile, things at the testosterone-soaked R.N.C. are about to get even more gladiatorial, with a lineup tonight that includes Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, and Dana White. The star attraction, of course, is Donald Trump himself, who’s spent the last several days seated above the crowd gazing down at the proceedings like the emperor. On the sidelines, Republican delegates and campaign officials privately tell me they’re practically praying that Biden stays on the ticket—or this may be their last party for a long time. After all, according to the OpenLabs polling memo recently leaked to my partner Peter Hamby, anyone on the Democratic bench other than Biden, including Kamala Harris, would pull five points ahead of Trump in the battleground states. The assassination attempt may have scrambled the numbers, but perhaps only on the margins.

One level below the convention floor, I spoke to Trump’s political director, James Blair, for my podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win, where he told me the campaign is expanding their sights to Virginia, Minnesota, and even New Jersey. “We have more than two dozen paths to 270 right now, and if you look at the Real Clear Politics average, I mean, we’re polling at 300-plus electoral votes,” Blair said. “You heard that right,” he said when I blinked, doubling down.

When I asked if they were ready to take on a candidate other than Biden, Blair replied, “We’ll take any of ’em. We’ve put up a good campaign that prepares for all possible outcomes, so that it can pivot and adjust as needed. I think that all the evidence indicates right now that Joe Biden will be the candidate, but if that changes, we’ll certainly be prepared. And I think the bigger question is, what do they do if the candidate changes? What is the game theory on that? All of their campaign is predicated around Joe Biden being the candidate. What happens if it’s someone else?”

He continued: “The idea that they’re just going to magically solve all of their problems as Democrats build some great coalition in a matter of three months around someone untested on the national stage? That’s a big bet to make.”

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I will believe Biden is walking away from the chance to have another term only when he walks to a microphone with Jill and Hunter at his side and says so while they nod their heads. I watched Trumps speech this morning. I cannot understand either those who think it was magnificent nor those who think it was horrendous. It was good, quite long, and nothing over the top. His style of speech is to state that anything his administration has done or will do will be the best in history, but I assume most adults would know that it is just a way to say the best that can be accomplished will be accomplished. He attacked no individuals, just policies, and invited everyone to take a chance on his policies. There are very few people I enjoy listening to, and Trump isn't one of them. However, it seems to me he was and is sincere, and that included the part where he kissed the helmet of the firefighter who was killed. I think people are so emotional over Trump that they can't look at him objectively at all.

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I agree. Because everyone in the country has heard his opinion about a stolen election in 2020, he needs to quit beating that dead horse. He has nothing new to add on that topic, and people are weary and don’t want to hear anything else about his grievances. I believe people want to know more details about what he will do if he becomes president again.

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"Iran is 1-2 weeks away from producing material for a nuclear weapon"

No wonder Iran wanted to take out Trump. He would immediately put the brakes on Iran's gravy train.

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We have experience with crowd pleasing junior senators trying to grow into the Presidency. Not a great plan. Drawing crowds with inspiring speeches is not governing.

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It sure as h3ll worked for Barry Soetero.

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A good question was asked last night: Do the dems want Biden out because he is incompetent or because he can’t win?

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Because they think he can't win. If they thought he could win, they wouldn't care if he was actually dead.

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Probably both and its the dumbest thing ever to think they can just swap the candidate because he's losing. So what happens when the polls start being dismal for harris? I still don't get the rush to replace biden and install Harris. Do they really think she will do any better? Mrs. I got 2% of the nomination vote in 2020.

Either way every day that passes it gets more difficult to replace Biden. But if they dead set ont that and Biden does drop. They will lose anyway.

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The Democrat Party, rushing to save democracy by ignoring their voters' choice in the primaries.

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19

Two things I would bet someone $1000 today.

Biden stays in the race until Nov.

Dems will be defeated no matter who they out. Will lose worse if they install Harris.

No candidate in an open convention has ever won the election.

Trump has a lot going for him and I think this movement is now beyond Trump. Race would be much closer if not favoring Biden if it was all about Trump. I think people are ticked off at the Dems in general.

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Seriously hope you are right.

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I think we need to be careful in getting arrogant about Trump's upcoming landslide victory. There was supposed to be a Red Wave in 2022 and we all know how that turned out. And no, I don't have TDS and I'm not a NeverTrumper, and I despise the Fossil-In-Chief (FIC) as well as the Left. My candidate wasn't even trying to run this year. I just think the celebrations don't need to start just yet.

If/when Trump wins in November, I'm sure the Left is going to mass riot and cities will burn. We need to be ready for whatever lies ahead.

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19

Yep, we have to support Trump and can't assume anything. We MUST act as if Trump is behind and be very strategic in where money is spent.

Trump mentioned twice, I think, that he still believes the 2020 election was stolen. I was surprised he mentioned that, and democrats will launch off of that soon. I know it's uncouth to say or believe that it was stolen, but my gut (not-scientific a bit) says it was enough to nudge Biden over the line.

I say don't talk about it, just do everything humanly possible to watch physically and digitally the shenanigans the left will pull. I seriously believe that behind closed doors, stopping democrat election cheating is being discussed. Anyone with a platform can barely suggest cheating occurred, or they will be canceled. My non-scientific gut says cheating happened, but not looking backwards, looking forwards. Mike Johnson had a great answer to whether he believes the election was stolen, and Trump should respond as Johnson did. Johnson didn't deny it but just deflected it. I listen to and trust Erick. I think someday he will learn that there was cheating. But right now, guard against it and don't look backwards, except to instruct how to move forwards.

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You did note CrowdStrike's test-run of "loss of internet", right?

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Who’s celebrating? We all saw 2020.

We know what the dems are capable of and Trump could still be assassinated. There is no guarantees in this political landscape of insecure voting and fraud.

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Iran is 1-2 weeks away from producing material for a nuclear weapon - JI

Muslim obama lifted all sanctions, gave Iran the monies and Iran went shopping to Russia, China, NK, and they are approaching that capability. Biblically that Armageddon battle is a minimum of 7 years away. It is in the BOOK> Selah

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An argument can be made that Trump's repudiation of the Iran agreement in 2017 has given the Iranians an unexpected seven years to develop their nuclear weapon capability.

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If Nate didn’t like Trumps speech wait till the word salad pro hits the stump we’ll need a code talker off the Navajo reservation to figure out what she is talking about

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I don’t think Elizabeth Warren has any chance of being the nominee.

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No her ship has sailed. In any she's happy to continue being the captain of the frigate the GOP handed her during the Obama administration and stick it to them every chance she gets.

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It was a stupid joke. I should have used her nickname, Pocahontas. 😊

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I always enjoy guys like you making fun of her. She was perfectly happy being a mid-level political appointee in the Obama administration working on consumer financial protection. She crafted some legislation for a new agency which was aimed at helping people like you and me from the predatory practices of the financial service sector. The agency was created but the GOP-controlled Senate refused her nomination using epithets like "Pocahontas" as part of their attempted character assassination. She returned to MA and immediately beat the popular GOP incumbent who had taken over Ted Kennedy's seat.

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I thought Trump gave her that nickname.

A year ago she and JD Vance were working together on banking reform. But she’s attacking him now that he’s the VP pick.

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1.) You're right about the nickname but the issue is much older. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-pocahontas-taunt-warren/story?id=58530657

2.) Sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows - almost always transitory. How many different beds have the two jumped in and out of during their respective lives?

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Fauxcahontas.

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19

I see what you did there

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Jul 19·edited Jul 19

Why should we care about Nate Silver's response to Trump's speech?

Ok, quick search, he's a statistician with very good prediction abilities. But, his tweets were his personal reactions, so still not seeing why his opinion matters right as the speech was finished. His analysis in a few days will be worth talking about.

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