THE SHOW NOTES: Major Rate Cuts, Reclusive Kamala, & Trump’s Bad Polling

Welcome! A federal judge just blocked Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan AGAIN.

🚨 BREAKING: Chicago Public Schools teachers say they were told by administrators to give migrant students passing grades - WGN

NEW: Teamsters Union will not endorse Trump or Harris. - CNBC

OVERDOSE: The total number of yearly overdose deaths dropped 10% to 101K but is still drastically higher than before the pandemic.

DELUSIONAL NANCY: - “We had an open primary and [Kamala Harris] won it. Nobody else got in the race.” - X

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Major Rate Cut

The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates by 50 basis points to a target range of 4.75% to 5% despite claiming that the economy is strong.

Explain this like I’m 5: The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate of moderating inflation and employment with their primary tool being short-term interest rates. Inflation and employment are generally inversely correlated in the short term (known as the Phillips Curve) with demand pushing inflation upwards as unemployment falls. The Fed’s decision is significant because Powell is suggesting that they are shifting their focus from bringing down inflation and directing their attention to the labor market.

Reclusive Kamala

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are set to do fewer media interviews than any presidential ticket in modern American history.

Here’s the data from Axios since July 21:

• Local TV interviews: Trump, 7; Vance, 15; Harris, 1; Walz, 3.

• National print publications: Trump, 1; Vance, 8; Harris, 1; Walz, 0.

• National TV interviews: Trump, 2; Vance, 24; Harris, 1; Walz, 1.

• Trump, 3; Vance, 12; Harris, 0; Walz, 0.

Context: Some of Harris’s worst moments as Vice President were during media interviews such as the infamous Lester Holt interview on NBC. As Harris’s team works to prevent a similar disaster, this is a notably different approach for Tim Walz. The Minnesota Governor was quick to give local and national interviews and regularly held press conferences during his time in the governor’s office.

The approach carries inherent risk for Harris with this New York Times poll suggesting that a significant portion of voters still don’t know her.

Trump’s Bad Polling

A New York Times survey has Donald Trump and Kamala Harris tied in national polling with Harris up by four points in the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania. The New York Times’s Nate Cohn described his poll results as “unexpected” pointing out that Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points but won Pennsylvania by only 1.2 points. However, here’s why he claimed these results shouldn’t be dismissed.

It’s what we’ve shown before. It’s easy enough to dismiss any single poll result as a statistical fluke. But we’ve now found similar results in our last two polls of the nation and Pennsylvania.

This is becoming a trend among high-quality pollsters. Yes, our poll average shows Ms. Harris doing better nationally than in Pennsylvania, but if you focus only on higher-quality polls (which we call “select pollsters” in our table), the story is a bit different. Over the last month, a lot of these polls show Ms. Harris doing relatively poorly nationwide, but doing well in the Northern battleground states.

The poll also offered a definitive answer to who won last week’s debate performance: Kamala Harris. 56% of respondents (including 21% of Republicans) said Donald Trump didn’t do well while only 29% of respondents (and 2% of Democrats) said Harris faried poorly.

Here’s Harry Enten breaks down the bad news for Trump on CNN:

Reuters: Israeli planes bomb southern Lebanon after radio blasts

Israel bombed southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had thwarted an Iranian-led assassination plot after explosions in booby-trapped radios and pagers in the past two days caused bloody havoc in the ranks of its arch-foe Hezbollah.

Full story at Reuters.

LOL

CNN Pushes Abortion Lies

CNN and Kamala Harris are baselessly pushing the lies from ProPublica about two women who died in Georgia following an abortion. Watch my clip from yesterday:

Trending news:

• A wall of secrets may crumble as feds call out enablers of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' alleged sex crimes - LA Times

• Trump Speaks of Nonexistent Debate ‘Audience,’ Says ‘They Went Crazy’ - Mediaite

• Harris closes trust gap with Trump on the economy - Axios

• The US led on nuclear fusion for decades. Now China is in position to win the race - CNN

• Lions Dan Campbell has home address doxxed, creating series of security concerns - Fox 2

• New Docs Shed Light On Air Force’s ‘Goal’ To Reduce ‘White Male Population’ Joining Officer Ranks - Dailycaller

• Trump says he will visit Springfield, Ohio, 'in the next two weeks' - NBC

• US military aid packages to Ukraine shrink amid concerns over Pentagon stockpiles - CNN

• Jobless claims fall to lowest level since May - Marketwatch

Market snapshot: