Dear Weekend Jolter,
The “era of good will” in the 2024 presidential race sure was brief.
Yes, unmistakably, Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech showcased a side of the man we’ve never seen before, maybe he’s never seen himself: subdued, soft-spoken, reflective. He spoke Thursday night of God, of feeling “serene” in the moment as bullets flew. His brush with death changed him, that he can tell you. And he made appeals for unity, saying he’s running to be president “for all of America, not half of America.” But Trump, even the low-energy and rambling Trump who took over from his somber half partway in, minced no words indicting his successor’s “failed” and “incompetent” leadership — on the border, inflation, and global chaos — and neither did the GOP convention’s other speakers.
“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created,” Trump boasted. Beneath the serenity, a familiar case was being made.
And on the Democratic side, the warnings that Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and is plotting an “extreme” attack on the American way of life have picked right back up again. President Biden on Friday declared without qualification that his rival wants to “rule as a dictator on day one.”
The attempt on the former president’s life last weekend shocked the race — but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the apocalyptic terms in which the election contest is being waged.
Looking back on this historic week, the quasi-truce that was observed between the parties after the shooting can be seen breaking down two days later. As Andy McCarthy noted, Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the Trump documents case (which, for the record, Andy anticipated) gave Democrats an opening to go on offense. Then Trump opted against a more conciliatory, bridge-building VP pick and announced he had chosen J. D. Vance. Then Biden, right after calling on the country to lower the temperature in politics, doubled down on his allegation that Trump represents a “threat to democracy,” while the DNC warned that the newly named GOP ticket “would undermine our democracy.”
As for the tacit truce that briefly calmed turmoil inside the Democratic Party over whether Biden should pass the torch — it, too, was cracking by Wednesday, when Pelosi ally and Trump antagonist Adam Schiff called on the president to drop out. A string of Biden appearances made clear that he is not getting any better, and arguably has gotten worse since his face-plant debate. Within 24 hours, the coup appeared back on, with even Joe Scarborough joining and Washington now atwitter with speculation that Biden could be convinced to step aside as the campaign fights back. The nominating calendar and old-fashioned hubris could yet defeat the effort to pressure him out — but party elders (and juniors) clearly have not forgotten about the issue that consumed them right up until Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire.
Speaking of hubris: This contest’s sharp turns should chasten operatives and columnists (including this one, whose mention last week of a smooth and uneventful nomination was catastrophically off the mark) trying to predict the course of the next few months. The one thing we can say with confidence, as Mark Wright did earlier this month, is that Trump’s uncanny luck has become an undeniable force, an X factor of immeasurable potency — an in-kind donation from the gods that nobody should tell Alvin Bragg about. Dan McLaughlin charts the remarkable sequence of favorable breaks here, up to and including the Republican nominee’s split-second turn from gunfire and subsequent victory in federal court.
Noah Rothman writes of a “near-cosmic confluence of events” working against the Democrats. Speakers on the GOP convention’s final night milked the idea, too. But even if the Fates are meddling in this election, the sustained vitriol on display and the convulsive effort to oust a sitting president from his party’s ticket indicate the actors in this political drama are determined to control their destiny.
Trump lowered the volume in the 2024 election Thursday night. But don’t be fooled: Neither side has lowered the temperature.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
Step down: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Must Resign
NR’s editorial on the Trump-rally shooting: The Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump
And on Trump’s speech: A Tale of Two Trump Speeches
And on J. D.: Trump Picks a MAGA Convert
Court-packing, by another name: Biden’s Assault on the Legal System
ARTICLES
Audrey Fahlberg: Soft-Spoken Trump Appeals for Unity, Gives Personal Account of Shooting in Lengthy Convention Address
Audrey Fahlberg: DeSantis and Haley Unite behind Former Rival at Convention as Trump Solidifies GOP Takeover
Rich Lowry: Joe Biden Is a National Embarrassment
Jim Geraghty: The Democratic National Committee Rushes to Nominate a Deteriorating Joe Biden
Haley Strack: Trump Rally Victim Corey Comperatore Remembered by Community as ‘Real-Life Superhero’
Zach Kessel: Quiet Western Pennsylvania Town Blinded by Media Spotlight after Shocking Presidential Assassination Attempt
Dominic Pino: The Secret Service Needs an Intervention
Dominic Pino: Remember Who the Teamsters Are
Andrew McCarthy: The Stunning Arrogance of the Biden DOJ’s Response to Judge Cannon’s Dismissal
Dan McLaughlin: Trump Dodges Another Bullet: Jack Smith
Dan McLaughlin: What a Biden Collapse Could Mean for Senate Races
Michael Brendan Dougherty: The Same Vance
Noah Rothman: J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Hokum
Philip Klein: J. D. Vance Pick Represents Another Nail in Coffin of Reagan Republicanism
Christian Schneider: The Republican Party Forgives You, America
Caroline Downey: Anti-Terrorism Training Conducted at U.S. Army Base Targeted Pro-Life Groups
CAPITAL MATTERS
Edward Ring offers suggestions for California to deal with its water-scarcity problem: California Policy Czars Ignore Water-Supply Solutions in Plain Sight
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
An “attempt at feel-good escapism” fails. From Armond White: Fly Me to the Moon Is the Wrong Stuff
Meanwhile, Brian Allen’s attempt at insane-news-cycle escapism succeeds. In Utica, N.Y., of all places: For Cole to Pollock, Go to Utica for the Best
EXCERPTS, THEY’VE GOT ELECTROLYTES
While the Trump assassination attempt briefly quieted the Democratic Party’s infighting over Biden, the president is only becoming more of a liability to the ticket. Jim Geraghty explains:
The debate wasn’t just a “bad night.” There is no sharper, more energetic, clearer-speaking Joe Biden hiding behind the curtain waiting to emerge.
The Joe Biden who addressed the NAACP in Las Vegas on Tuesday is the same guy we saw on the debate stage. Biden pledged to limit rent increases to 55 dollars when he meant to say 5 percent, claimed he “got my start” at historically black Delaware State (Biden graduated from the University of Delaware), and offered jumbled word salad like, “And guess what? Save billions of tons of because of, of pollution, because people, uhwhenuhh, all the studies show, when you get from point A to point B in a train or a vehicle at the same distance you take the train.”
He’s old, tired, mumbles a lot, offers thought and sentence fragments, and apparently can’t read off the teleprompter as well as he used to. He looks lost, even doing a routine meet-and-greet in a supermarket.
In a conference call with House Democrats Saturday, Biden reportedly lost his temper with Representative Jason Crow of Colorado. . . .
There’s no shortage of reasons for Democrats to panic. Biden’s taking advice only from his family and closest advisers. He’s losing his ability to communicate, and still looks old and doddering.
In case you were blindsided by the judge’s ruling this week dismissing Trump’s classified-documents case, Dan McLaughlin breaks it down in tidy fashion. The judge ruled that Jack Smith was not properly appointed as special counsel and so could not continue. Here’s why:
First, the power to initiate and prosecute criminal cases in the name of the United States is an executive power that can only be exercised by an “officer of the United States.” In a typical case, that power is exercised by the U.S. Attorney for a particular district, or by a senior official of the Justice Department — and carried out by subordinates under their supervision. The whole theory of an “independent” special counsel is that he is appointed as a substitute for such an officer, and operates without direct oversight by anyone in DOJ, although he is ultimately accountable to the attorney general. The special counsel regulation purports to vest him “with the full power and authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions of any United States Attorney.” Thus, standing in the place of a U.S. Attorney and exercising at least the same powers, he must be an officer of the United States.
Second, there are two ways to become an officer, and many positions meet both of them: You can be appointed by the president with Senate confirmation, or your position can be created by statute (thus, “established by Law”).
Third, many special counsels, such as David Weiss (the special counsel for Hunter Biden), are already officers of the United States because they are currently serving as U.S. Attorneys. Because of this, there have not been a lot of serious challenges to their appointments. But Smith was a private citizen when appointed.
Fourth, Smith isn’t appointed by Biden. He isn’t Senate-confirmed. So, he can be an officer only if some law created his position.
Fifth, it didn’t. Smith’s role is created only by regulations issued by the attorney general (they were promulgated by Janet Reno after the Independent Counsel law expired in 1999). Unlike the old Independent Counsel statute, there is no special-counsel law.
No statute passed by Congress authorizes or creates the special-counsel role. And the current Supreme Court would not likely find that the attorney general can just create constitutional offices by regulation without a statute. Indeed, Judge Cannon, in a footnote, cites a 1998 article by Brett Kavanaugh arguing that a new statute would be needed to create the special-counsel position. And as she notes, Congress in the past has not only created such positions but also defined their powers — which it did not do here because it never created such a specific position. There are a number of statutes that authorize varying kinds of hiring by the attorney general of people to assist the Justice Department in criminal cases. Cannon found none of them persuasive.
Much has been said and will be investigated about the Secret Service failure inherent in last weekend’s assassination attempt. Dominic Pino provides a retrospective of agency scandals over the years:
In 2012, the federal government released a 229-page list of allegations against Secret Service agents going back to 2004. They included “involvement with prostitutes, leaking sensitive information, publishing pornography, sexual assault, illegal wiretaps, improper use of weapons and drunken behaviour,” the Guardian reported at the time. The list was heavily redacted, and it was not clear how many of the allegations were true.
That list came as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request after the Secret Service prostitution scandal that we know was true, in which agents brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms during then-president Barack Obama’s trip to Colombia. They were also out late partying and drinking hours before needing to report to work protecting the president.
The Colombia scandal was a major news story at the time and attracted significant attention from Congress. It also attracted more attention from the press, which has reported on numerous other Secret Service failures and misconduct over the years, such as:
- In 2009, a couple that was not on the approved guest list gained entry to Obama’s first state dinner, where he was hosting the prime minister of India. Secret Service later confirmed that the couple’s credentials were never checked. The couple shook hands with Obama.
- In 2011, Secret Service agents were reassigned from patrolling the White House to protecting the home of a personal friend of the agency’s director.
- In 2011, a man fired at the White House with a rifle. The Secret Service mistook it for a backfiring car. They only discovered that the gunfire hit the building four days later, when one of the White House housekeepers told them about it.
- In 2012, a van the Secret Service had rented that contained metal detectors was stolen from a hotel parking lot the day before then-vice president Joe Biden was supposed to speak in Detroit on Labor Day.
- In 2012, a Secret Service agent left a firearm in the bathroom of Mitt Romney’s campaign plane. It was discovered by a journalist.
- In 2012, a Secret Service officer was found passed out on a sidewalk in Miami. He was not on duty at the time and was working in a support role for Obama’s visit to the city, which had concluded twelve hours earlier.
- In 2013, a supervisor in charge of two dozen agents in the president’s security detail was removed from his position after having tried to retrieve a bullet he left in a woman’s hotel room near the White House. The investigation into the supervisor found that he also separately had sent sexually inappropriate emails to a female subordinate.
- In 2014, three agents who were part of the team tasked with fighting off attackers of the president were placed on leave after heavy drinking during Obama’s trip to Amsterdam. One of the agents was found in a hallway, passed out drunk.
Haley Strack reports from Pennsylvania:
Flags fly at half-staff in Buffalo Township, Pennsylvania, where Corey Comperatore served as a volunteer fire chief, before he was killed by President Donald Trump’s would-be assassin at a rally on Saturday. Comperatore’s boots and uniform are now set up on display at the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, memorializing the father-of-two.
Comperatore was with his wife and daughters at Saturday’s rally. He protected his family when shots rang out and was fatally struck by a bullet. The 50-year-old was Saturday’s only casualty, although Pennsylvanians David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, were shot and wounded at the rally. Dutch, a Marine veteran, was shot in the liver and the chest.
Neighbors describe Comperatore as a good friend, and a humble, giving person. Americans, and supporters from around the world, have since rallied to aid the Comperatore family and other victims’ families. Jason Bubb, a friend and personal trainer of Allyson Comperatore’s, Corey’s daughter, started a GoFundMe for the family that raised more than $1 million in one day. A Trump campaign-organized GoFundMe to help the victims of Saturday’s attack has raised more than $4.7 million “for donations to the supporters and families wounded or killed.”
Allyson said on social media that her father was a “a real-life superhero,” who “shielded my body from the bullet that came at us. He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us.”
Shout-Outs
Megan McArdle, at the Washington Post: How the media sleepwalked into Biden’s debate disaster
Salena Zito, at the Washington Examiner: ‘I was four feet away when I heard the bullets’
Matt Taibbi: The Surrender
CODA
Cliché and all, this song seems appropriate this summer, if only for capturing the mood of uncertainty and apprehension that’s cyclical in American history, and coming back round again.
