Hello, everyone! Welcome to the new edition of Insider Today. Please sign up here.QUOTE OF THE DAY
“She’s certainly not hostile to capitalism. …
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the new edition of Insider Today. Please sign up here. QUOTE OF THE DAY “She’s certainly not hostile to capitalism. She’s solidly in the left-center of the party, which is what I think this country needs right now.” — Ralph Schlosstein, co-Chief Executive Officer of Evercore Inc., a Wall Street investment bank, talking to Bloomberg about Kamala Harris. WHAT’S HAPPENING Business Insider / Andy Kiersz New weekly unemployment claims drop below 1 million for the first time since March. The 963,000 claims were slightly below predictions, though still much higher than any week before pandemic. The lower claims may reduce pressure on Republicans to revive negotiations with Democrats on the COVID relief bill. Trump admits he’s refusing to fund the Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting. He told Fox Business today that he’d block any additional funding so that USPS wouldn’t be able to handle mailed ballots. Trump also has close ties to the new Postmaster General, who’s made cost-cutting measures and postage hikes designed to limit and delay mailed ballots. New Zealand is racing to quash a tiny COVID outbreak, its first in more than 100 days. The country locked down Auckland after a cluster of 13 cases emerged. Meanwhile, the US recorded more than 1,500 deaths yesterday, the deadliest day of the summer. The New York Times estimates that when you add in other unexplained death, it’s clear more than 200,000 Americans have died of COVID. VIEWS OF THE DAY Former Vice President Joe Biden and U. S. Senator Kamala Harris take the stage before the start of the second night of the second 2020 presidential Democratic candidates debate in Detroit, Michigan, July 31, 2019. Lucas Jackson/Reuters Harris’ biggest weakness as a presidential candidate is now an asset Becoming Joe Biden’s VP solves the biggest problem Kamala Harris had with her presidential bid, and turns it into an asset.Last year, Harris struggled on the campaign trail because she had trouble deciding whether to emphasize her centrist bonafides or her progressive bonafides, both of which are real. The result was that her campaign seemed confused, or to some, inauthentic. Sometimes she was a “cop,” and sometimes she was a “cool Auntie.” Now that she’s with Biden, she has to commit to his platform, which is decidedly centrist. That doesn’t mean she can’t acknowledge her progressive record, but this does mean her messaging will be more focused. Biden wants to run a specific kind of gentle, middle-of-the-road campaign, and now it’s her job to help him with that. The fact that Harris can speak to both lanes of the Democratic party is an asset now that it’s unified under one standard bearer. Wall Street loves her, even though she doggedly pursued lawsuits against the major banks after the financial crisis. At the same time, she’s got the support of the LGBTQ community. This is a powerful combination to bring to the table on a ticket like Biden’s. As a former prosecutor and Attorney General of California, Harris will be difficult to paint as soft on crime. Instead it looks like the Trump campaign is going to resort to overtly racist and sexist dog whistles until Trump can come up with some other nickname aside from “nasty,” which he applied to Harris this week as he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016 before her. But Harris is not Hillary Clinton. And her record is diverse and hard to define, swinging from center to left on an issue by issue basis. Trump is going to need new material, but unfortunately for his campaign he’s a guy who likes to play the hits. — Linette Lopez Getty Trump and the GOP think everyone thinks like them, and it’s messing up their game No doubt Trump and the GOP were surprised when polling showed that running rapper Kanye West as a third party candidate would only attract 2% of the national vote.
