On Politics: Trump’s ugly closing argument
LETTER FROM JUNEAU, WIS. Trump's ugly closing argument
The latest, with 29 days to go
Never mind that he was in Wisconsin. Never mind that it was perfectly sunny, albeit windy. Former President Donald Trump was going to talk about hurricanes. It was the 9th minute of a campaign rally yesterday that would stretch to just under two hours, and Trump used it to accuse Vice President Kamala Harris of sending billions of dollars to foreign nations while providing only $750 each to domestic disaster victims — a falsehood that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been working for days to combat. He then went further still, falsely accusing the White House of playing politics with disaster relief while he did exactly that. "You know, it's largely a Republican area so — some people say they did it for that reason, I don't even think they're that bad, but they probably — maybe they are," Trump said in Juneau, Wis., where I had traveled to hear his final pitch to voters, or that day's version of it, in its entirety. There are less than 30 days to go before the November election, and Trump's closing argument, delivered at campaign rallies all over the country, is a slurry of polarizing disinformation, false claims about his opponents cheating in elections, and a series of unfounded personal attacks on Harris that his advisers and outside Republican allies have been urging him for weeks to stop making. For Trump, it's a strategy aimed squarely at delighting his base, and it brings to mind the way he careened toward Election Day in 2016. His claims have spread fast. At the rally, I spoke with a 22-year-old voter with 50,000 TikTok followers, Kruz Kitelinger, who cited the false claim about the $750 aid limit, which Trump had previously made elsewhere, practically word for word before Trump uttered it in Juneau. (On its website, FEMA says that people can apply for $750 in "serious needs assistance," which is an upfront payment to help with costs like food, and that they can also apply for additional funds to cover the cost of temporary housing, home repairs and more.) More concerning, the claims appear to have helped to fuel misinformation on the ground even as Republican governors have praised the federal response, echoing the way Trump has spread false claims about migrants in places like Springfield, Ohio, while local officials begged him to stop. It all involves considerable political risk for Trump, by playing directly into the case against him made by Democrats and others who have cast him as a threat to democracy that voters across the political spectrum ought to unite to stop. But he doesn't seem very worried about that. "I'd like to be nice. I want to be nice. I think I'm a nice person," Trump said. "But we can't take a — we can't, if we lose this election this country is finished, I really believe it." Ramping up personal attacksThe rally was Trump's fourth event in Wisconsin in eight days, and a follow-up to his much-hyped return to Butler, Pa., after he was shot at there in July. For months, Republicans — including his own advisers — have been urging Trump to deliver a focused message about the issues voters trust him on most, like the economy and immigration, while eschewing personal attacks on Harris, worrying that the latter could widen the gender gap and turn off key swing voters. He has often ignored this guidance. And in Juneau, he ramped up his attacks on the vice president, suggesting, as he did when she first ascended to the top of the ticket, that Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, had been selected because of her race. "They wanted to be politically correct and they picked her," he said, before finding several different ways to insult her intelligence. "We're not going to let her destroy our country, that dummy," he said. He also suggested, with a laugh, that anybody in the crowd who supported Harris might be subject to physical violence. "Is there anybody here that's going to vote for lying Kamala? Please raise your hand, please raise it," Trump said, before he changed his mind. "Actually, I should say, don't raise your hand — it would be very dangerous. We don't want to see anybody get hurt. Please don't raise your hand." A lack of disciplineIn many ways, Trump's presidential campaign operation has become a well-oiled machine, peopled with advisers and aides who stick to their talking points. But at his rallies, Trump revels in his ability to go off-script. In Juneau, he bragged about his casual relationship with his teleprompter and went on an extended riff about hydrogen cars. "If it blows up, you are not recognizable," Trump said, seemingly acting out the role of a local official dealing with the aftermath of an accident. "Please come down and identify your husband, uh, there's a blood stain on the tree. Can you identify it?" He drew the biggest cheers of the day as he described migrants in terms that have grown more ominous in recent weeks, calling them "savage." "Wisconsin will not be Wisconsin any longer, no state will be," he said. "The country won't be the U.S. any longer." Unfounded accusations of cheatingTrump's allies have all but acknowledged that his fixation on the 2020 election, which he has falsely maintained was marred by fraud, is a political liability. It was just a week ago on the debate stage that Senator JD Vance, his running mate, tried to avoid a question about whether Trump had actually lost the election, saying that he preferred to focus on the future; two days later, Harris and her most prominent Republican supporter, former Representative Liz Cheney, campaigned together in Wisconsin and called Trump a threat to democracy. But here in Juneau, as he does nearly everywhere, Trump railed about the last election and made dark warnings about the next one. "They're going to cheat. They cheat. That's all they want to do is cheat, and when you see this, it's the only way they're going to win," Trump said. "And we can't let that happen and we can't let it happen again." Democracy experts have expressed deep concern that Trump is seeking to stoke doubt in the result of the election, laying the groundwork for him to contest it if he does not win.
How Oct. 7 shaped American politicsMy colleagues around the newsroom — and the world — are covering the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, and I'd urge you to spend some time with their coverage. Reporters on the Politics team dove into what it has meant for American politics, one year later, in two key swing states. Pennsylvania: 'Our American Jewish community cries out in despair.'Jewish communities across the United States are gripped by an enduring state of anguish, writes my colleague Jonathan Weisman — divided, doubtful and feeling betrayed from within and without. "There is apprehension," Bob Bernstein, 70, said Friday night as he strolled with his wife down Murray Avenue in Pittsburgh, "and it's increasing." His wife, Ellie, also 70, chimed in: "But we can't live in fear." In Pennsylvania, the intensity of the political season — now overlaid by the High Holy Days — has only compounded those anxieties, as Jewish voters in this hotly contested battleground state are courted by the leaders of both political parties, while being repelled by elements in each of them. Michigan: The Mideast war threatens Harris's standing as Arab voters reject herThe relentless and escalating violence in the Middle East is threatening the Democratic coalition in the United States, my colleague Katie Glueck writes. Arab American voters show signs of abandoning the Democratic ticket, while some Jews worry about their future in a party their families embraced for generations. Nowhere are those tensions more politically important than in Michigan, a crucial battleground state with a significant population of Arab American and Muslim voters. In nearly two dozen interviews over the weekend with a range of these voters across levels of religious observance and familial countries of origin, just two told Katie they were voting for her. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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