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Chris Stirewalt

House, Senate conservatives eye impeachment

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On the roster: House, Senate conservatives eye impeachment – Police officer’s death raises stakes on riot probe – Haley turns on Trump at RNC meeting – Top spokeswoman says Trump misled supporters – ‘The eagle will fully recover’ 

HOUSE, SENATE CONSERVATIVES EYE IMPEACHMENT 

With time tight and options few, there is increasing interest among congressional Republicans in impeaching and potentially even removing President Trump from office before his term ends at noon on Jan. 20. 

“At the very least, we need some leverage,” said one Republican House member who asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting the ongoing negotiations taking place between the team around the besieged president and Republicans in Congress. 

The faint but persistent hope among several conservative members and senior staffers with whom we spoke was that Trump would follow the advice laid out by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board and resign in light of his offenses and to save the nation the pain of another Senate trial. 

But if that’s the goal, conservatives will need a credible threat that Trump really could be removed. 

“The 25th Amendment isn’t going anywhere,” said a top aide to a senior Senate Republican referring to the call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Vice President Mike Pence to initiate the constitutional process by which an incapacitated chief executive can be removed from office. “That’s a procedural nightmare.” 

Aside from the fact that Pence has no interest in taking part in the effort, the mechanics of attempting such a move for the first time in history cast doubt on the possibility. Impeachment procedures and rules, however, are still fresh from their exercise last year. 

Plus, there may not be enough of a cabinet left to remove Trump. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos became the second cabinet member to step down in protest of Trump’s actions – but only after she discovered that Pence would not step in to remove him. 

Trump loyalists including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Lindsey Graham, have urged House Democrats not to impeach Trump, a move they said would further inflame a nation already engulfed by partisan conflict. 

But they might want to direct their remarks to some in their own party who have already expressed interest in removing Trump. Speaking to CBS News today, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said he would “definitely consider whatever articles they might move, because I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office.” 

Sasse echoed Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr who said that the president’s incitement of a mob to pressure Congress was a “betrayal of his office.” 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has already spoken in favor of Trump’s removal, calling him “unfit” and “unwell.” 

But our conversations Thursday and today suggest the sentiments are much farther reaching among conservative Republicans in Congress. While the nationalists who backed Trump’s efforts to steal a second term are expected to do their best to duck the debate, conservatives may be warming to the cause. 

“We can’t spend the next two weeks with the world wondering who is in charge, confusion about the chain of command and a de-legitimized president,” said a top Senate GOP aide with long experience in leadership posts. “The bad guys are watching and they know this makes us vulnerable.” 

Trump, who is said to have surrogates negotiating his exit strategy with Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is now trying to avoid ouster. He explicitly acknowledged his defeat in a new video released by the White House and has promised not to attend the inauguration ceremony of his successor, Joe Biden. 

But 12 days is a relative eternity when it comes to the manic mood swings of the president. The Republicans with whom we spoke had little confidence that the president could keep the lid on for so long. 

One Senator suggested that Trump should leave immediately for his Florida home, remain there for the duration of his term and delegate key responsibilities to Pence in his absence. 

“And lock up his damned phone,” the lawmaker said. 

What concerns conservative and moderate Republicans in Congress is that without the possibility of removal dangling over his head, Trump might be inclined to abuse his office for revenge or his own advantage in the closing days. 

If the House does vote on articles of impeachment by the middle of next week, that would put McConnell and his fellow conservatives in the position of deciding Trump’s fate. 

Depending on when the results of the Georgia Senate runoffs are filed and a vote on removal might take place, Democrats will need either 16 or 18 Republicans to join them to oust the president. 

If that process played out, Trump would be under huge pressure to resign ahead of becoming the first president ever removed from office. Congress could also add the sanction of forbidding Trump from seeking the presidency or any office if he is convicted. 

“We can’t just throw up our hands and do nothing,” said one member who shared a stage with Trump during the 2020 campaign. “The administration is hollowed out. The president has gone to pieces. The Congress was physically attacked by his supporters. If he won’t step aside, we may need to give him a shove to put Mike Pence where he should be.” 

THE RULEBOOK: HINT, HINT — IT’S THE STATES

“It will not be alleged, that an election law could have been framed and inserted in the Constitution, which would have been always applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country; and it will therefore not be denied, that a discretionary power over elections ought to exist somewhere.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 59

TIME OUT: REST IN PEACE, SKIPPER

LAT: “Tom Lasorda, who in 20 years as the Dodgers manager won two World Series championships, four National League pennants and eight division titles and always insisted that he bled Dodger blue out of loyalty to the organization, has died at age 93. The vibrant and voluble Lasorda spent 71 seasons with the Dodgers and was among the few remaining links to the club’s Brooklyn roots. In and out of the hospital in recent years for heart, back and shoulder problems, Lasorda died of a heart attack Thursday night, according to the Dodgers. A friend to presidents and Little Leaguers, a devout Catholic with a talent for rapid-fire profanity, a self-promoter who tirelessly raised funds for convents and disaster victims through banquets and speeches, Lasorda spanned several eras in baseball and — along with Vin Scully and Sandy Koufax — achieved near-mythical status among loyal Dodger fans.”  

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions. 

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL? 

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

POLICE OFFICER’S DEATH RAISES STAKES ON RIOT PROBE 

AP: “A police officer has died from injuries suffered as President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, a violent siege that is forcing hard questions about the defeated president’s remaining days in office and the ability of the Capitol Police to secure the area. The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement that Officer Brian D. Sicknick was injured ‘while physically engaging with protesters’ during the Wednesday riot. He is the fifth person to die because of the Capitol protest and violence. During struggling at the Capitol, Sicknick, 42, was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, two law enforcement officials said. The officials could not discuss the ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. … The rampage that has shocked the world and left the country on edge forced the resignations of three top Capitol security officials over the failure to stop the breach.” 

Biden accuses Capitol Police of racism – USA Today: “President-elect Joe Biden, civil rights leaders and activists blasted law enforcement agencies for their slow response to rioters at the U.S. Capitol, noting the massive show of police force in place for Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year over police killings of unarmed Black men and women. Biden said his granddaughter pointed out the unfair difference in images that showed the violence wielded against Black Lives Matter protesters versus the seemingly muted response against those who attacked the U.S. government. ‘No one can tell me that if that had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,’ Biden said in remarks to the nation Thursday. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Thursday the actions of law enforcement Wednesday highlighted the ‘two systems of justice’ in the U.S.”

W.Va. delegate faces federal charges for role in riot – W. Va. Metro News: “Newly-sworn in West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans now faces federal charges after sweeping into the U.S. Capitol with a mob this week, federal law enforcement officials said during a press call today. ‘We’re in! We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!’ the new lawmaker said live on video. The initial announcement of the charges against Evans came partway into a press briefing today with acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. The federal officials participating in the call seemed to learn of the charges in that moment and said more detail would be released soon. … ‘He has been charged — and, I think, according to reports had recorded himself storming the Capitol — he is charged with entering restricted area and entering the United States Capitol.’ … [said Ken Kohl, a top deputy federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C.].” 

Top Hawley donor calls for his censure for role in inciting mob – Kansas City Star: “A Joplin businessman who helped bankroll Sen. Josh Hawley’s first campaign denounced him on Thursday as a ‘political opportunist’ who used ‘irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous tactics’ to incite the rioting that took over the U.S. Capitol Building. In a statement late Thursday, David Humphreys, president and CEO of Tamko Building Products, added his voice to a growing chorus of Republicans angry at Hawley for leading a challenge to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Humphreys called on the U.S. Senate to censure Hawley ‘for provoking yesterday’s riots in our nation’s capital.’ The statement to The Missouri Independent came a few hours after Hawley’s political mentor, former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth, said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that supporting Hawley was ‘the worst mistake I ever made in my life.’ It also came on the same day that the publisher Simon & Schuster canceled a contract with Hawley for a book it had expected to release in June.” 

Michael Lind: ‘The five crises of the American regime’ – Tablet: “What is the meaning of these dystopian scenes? Many Democrats claim that Republicans are destroying the republic. Many Republicans claim the reverse. They are both correct. The leaders of both parties have weaponized anarchic mobs against their rivals—the Democrats, by tacitly encouraging and bailing out foundation-funded NGO staffers with secret identities and superhero-style Antifa outfits during the tolerated anti-Trump riots of Summer 2020, and now the squalid, defeated demagogue Donald Trump, unleashing his own costumed followers on the U.S. Capitol itself. As a rule, comparisons between the United States and Weimar Germany or late republican Rome are misleading, but when rival elite political factions tolerate or encourage mob violence in the streets, the comparisons might be forgiven.”

HALEY TURNS ON TRUMP AT RNC MEETING  

Politico: “Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley sharply criticized President Donald Trump over the Capitol riot and his behavior since the election, telling Republican National Committee members in a closed-door speech Thursday evening that Trump’s actions ‘will be judged harshly by history.’ ‘President Trump has not always chosen the right words,’ Haley said during an appearance at the RNC’s winter meeting on Amelia Island, Fla., according to a person familiar with her remarks. ‘He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.’ Haley is one of several former senior Trump administration officials to scold the president in the wake of Wednesday’s mob uprising at the U.S. Capitol. … Haley, who is widely regarded as a likely 2024 presidential candidate, called out Democrats and technology and social media companies for ‘inflam[ing] the American people’s passions beyond constructive boundaries.’”

McDaniel reelected to steer GOP for another 2 years – Fox News: “Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Friday was unanimously reelected to steer the GOP’s national party committee for another two years. In a speech to the RNC committee members who reelected her and other top GOP officials, McDaniel vowed to help the Republican Party regain the House and Senate majorities in the 2022 midterms and had a warning, saying: ‘Democrats, get ready, buckle your seatbelts. We’re coming.’ McDaniel, the former leader of the Michigan GOP, was picked by President Trump to lead the national party soon after he was elected in 2016. She was reelected to a second two-year term in 2018.” 

TOP SPOKESWOMAN SAYS TRUMP MISLED SUPPORTERS

Fox News: “Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah criticized President Trump for his actions Wednesday amid the ‘heartbreaking’ Capitol Hill riots that ‘crossed a line.’ ‘In a time when the president could have called off the mob, he did not decide to do so, and to me, that’s just a breaking point,’ Farah, who resigned in December, told ‘America’s Newsroom’ Friday. … Farah said she decided to step down after the election when it was clear Trump had lost the race. … ‘It’s not fair … to viewers … to voters, and the 74 million people who supported the president, to give them a false hope, and that was ultimately what drove me to step aside,’ Farah said.” 

Explains election results ‘almost perfectly aligned’ with internal polling – Hot Air: “In an interview published last night by Politico, Farah says the only state that surprised Trump’s advisers and campaign was — or should have been — Georgia, where their internal polling showed Trump ahead. Otherwise, their polling ‘almost perfectly aligned’ with internal polling in the other contested states. … Does that mean Trump doesn’t truly believe he won, despite all the evidence? Not necessarily, but if one grants him that benefit of the doubt, it certainly would make his refusal to deal with reality all the more evident and worrisome. Farah is careful to remain specific and not make assumptions in this interview, but there aren’t many other options regarding Trump with this context in place.” 

BIDEN WILL PUSH OUT VACCINE IN SURGE

NYT: “President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. plans to release nearly all available coronavirus vaccine doses ‘to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,’ the Biden transition team said Friday, a move that represents a sharp break from the Trump administration’s practice of holding back some of the vaccine. ‘The president-elect believes we must accelerate distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,’ T.J. Ducklo, a spokesman for the transition team, said. ‘He supports releasing available doses immediately, and believes the government should stop holding back vaccine supply so we can get more shots in Americans’ arms now.’ … Because both of the vaccines that have emergency approval require two doses, the Trump administration has been holding back roughly half of its supply to ensure those already vaccinated receive the booster dose. But the vaccine rollout has been troubled from the start.”

Gloomy jobs report stokes economy fears – WSJ: “The U.S. shed 140,000 jobs in December as a resurgence of the virus hit restaurants, ending seven months of job growth and weakening the economy. The Labor Department report Friday showed the jobs market has deteriorated this winter as cold weather, rising covid infections, and new restrictions on businesses deal a setback to the recovery from the pandemic. In one positive sign, job growth in November was stronger than previously estimated. The agency said the economy added 336,000 jobs that month instead of the initially reported 245,000. Meanwhile, the department also said that the record surge in the unemployment rate last spring due to the pandemic was higher than it previously reported. The jobless rate hit 14.8% in April, the highest on record, instead of the previously reported 14.7%. The December decline was driven by a sharp decline in jobs in the leisure and hospitality industries, which lost 498,000 jobs.” 

Manchin ices Biden’s call for $2,000 checks – WaPo: “President-elect Joe Biden said Friday he is assembling a multi-trillion-dollar relief package that would boost stimulus payments for Americans to $2,000, extend unemployment insurance, and send billions of dollars in aid to city and state governments, moving swiftly to address the nation’s deteriorating economic condition and the rampaging pandemic. The package will also include billions of dollars to improve vaccine distribution and tens of millions of dollars for schools, as well as rent forbearance and assistance to small businesses, especially those in low-income communities, Biden said at a news conference in Wilmington, Del. … Biden said he would lay out the package in more detail next week. … But in an early sign of the challenges Biden may face in getting his agenda through Congress, even with both chambers controlled by Democrats, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) expressed skepticism Friday about the benefits of a new round of stimulus checks. ‘I don’t know where in the hell $2,000 came from. I swear to God I don’t. That’s another $400 billion dollars,’ Manchin said.”

Biden’s cabinet may be empty on day one – WaPo: “President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration is in danger of not having a single Cabinet official confirmed on Inauguration Day, upsetting a tradition going back to the Cold War of ensuring the president enters office with at least part of his national security team in place. Delays in Congress, caused primarily by runoff elections in Georgia for Senate seats that Democrats flipped this week and the arcane procedures needed to get the new chamber up and running, have sparked deep concern among Biden’s top advisers. They are now mapping out contingency plans to install acting secretaries in most, if not all, Cabinet posts, in case Biden’s nominees are unable to secure Senate backing by Jan. 20, according to those familiar with discussions.” 

PLAY-BY-PLAY

Illinois Republican under fire for invoking Hitler at Trump rally – CBS

Perdue, Loeffler concede defeat in Georgia Senate runoffs – WSJ 

Give this a read: ‘How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers’ – NYT 

AUDIBLE: WHEN DADS SWEAR  

“Senator Hawley was doing something that was really dumb-ass and I have been clear about that in public and in private since long before he announced he was going to do this. This was a stunt. It was a terrible, terrible idea and you don’t lie to the American people and that’s what’s been going on.” – Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., in an interview with NPR. 

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY 

Tune in this Sunday as Mr. Sunday himself sits down with former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. Watch “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Check local listings for broadcast times in your area. 

#mediabuzz – Host Howard Kurtz has the latest take on the week’s media coverage. Watch #mediabuzz Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. 

FROM THE BLEACHERS 

“After talking to some friends in Georgia, I believe that Mitch McConnell screwed the pooch with his blocking of the ‘Socialistic’ $2000 stimulus checks for voters & that was the key contributor to the Dems victories there — not any suppressed Republican turnout. I think a lot of voters simply voted for an additional $1400 to help themselves out during the pandemic. The irony of this result is that Mitch lost Senate control & the voters will now likely get the added $1400 anyway once the Dems take Senate control. I think Mitch misread the tea leaves on this issue. What Say You?” –Glenn Fuller, Laurel, Md.     

[Ed. note: What if Republicans actually thought it was a bad idea? Should they have supported it anyway in hopes of holding onto power? What is the purpose of holding power if you are not allowed to use it for the purposes you think right? What if President Trump hadn’t decided to drop the proposal in the laps of Republicans AFTER his administration had negotiated the deal that had passed Congress? I think you’re working pretty hard here to keep the blame away from Trump for the Georgia debacle. His post-election misconduct badly hurt both candidates. But you should also credit the hustle of Georgia Democrats who turned out in force. Occam’s razor cuts cleanly here.] 

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown. 

‘THE EAGLE WILL FULLY RECOVER’ 

Fox News: “A couple of concerned kids in Florida are being credited with helping to save the life of an injured bald eagle they found wrapped in a fishing line, with a fishing hook pierced through its beak. Pasco County Fire Rescue, in Land o’ Lakes, shared the story to Facebook on Thursday, after the two children brought the injured eagle to the station looking for help. … Realizing that the animal could not fly or eat in its current condition, firefighters contacted Owl’s Nest Sanctuary — a nearby wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organization in Odessa — for assistance. A volunteer named Dianne arrived soon after, and determined that the severely dehydrated eagle was likely tangled in the fishing line for days. … Once stable, the bald eagle was transferred to the animal care center at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay … according to officials with Pasco County Fire. ‘Thankfully the Eagle appears in good health, and veterinarians believe that the Eagle will fully recover,’ they wrote.”  

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES… 

“The two parties… speak about the politics in apocalyptic terms. If the other guy wins, it’s the end of the republic. If the other guy wins, it’s the end of the world. … That’s the language, the ideology, the rationale of terrorists, the fate of the world hangs on this, and it’s up to the leadership to say these are policies, this is not the fate of the republic.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) speaking on Fox News on June 20, 2017. 

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.  

Trump vetoes national defense bill

**Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here. **

On the roster: Trump vetoes national defense bill – I’ll Tell You What: The 3rd (Or 4th) Trivia Extravaganza – Biden formally introduces education secretary – Georgia Senate runoffs get Hollywood boost – Watch out for hangry octopuses

TRUMP VETOES NATIONAL DEFENSE BILL

Fox News: “President Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 Wednesday, calling it a ‘gift’ to U.S. adversaries China and Russia, making good on a promise to veto if it did not repeal a law that shields certain Big Tech companies from liabilities. ‘My Administration recognizes the importance of the Act to our national security,’ the president wrote to House members after vetoing the bill. ‘Unfortunately, the Act fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my Administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions.’ In his letter, he singled out Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act as a reason for the veto, arguing that failing to terminate it ‘will make our intelligence virtually impossible to conduct.’ He also took issue with language in the NDAA that would require ‘the renaming of certain military installations.’”

Pelosi pushes bigger stimulus checks after Trump intervention – Fox News: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday called on GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to join her in backing a boost to the coronavirus stimulus checks – which would bump them to $2,000 – because of a last-minute demand from President Trump. Trump in a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday night demanded that lawmakers amend the coronavirus stimulus package they passed Monday to include $2,000 checks for individuals instead of $600 checks, while also insisting that ‘wasteful and unnecessary’ items be cut from the year-end spending package that was attached to the pandemic aid. Pelosi and Democrats had wanted much higher stimulus checks, too, but settled on the $600 figure in bipartisan negotiations with their Republican counterparts. … Pelosi wants to bring a stand-alone piece of legislation to the House floor Thursday morning to increase the stimulus check amount in time for Christmas, daring Republicans to object.”

And how this ends you may ask? – Politico: “Some say President Donald Trump is in burn-it-down mode and is more than willing to veto the Covid relief/funding package, ending his presidency in a lengthy shutdown, with bluster and crisis. Others say he’s not explicitly threatening a veto, and everyone should calm down. … The government is funded through Monday at 11:59 p.m. The current legislation to extend that funding and renew Covid relief is the bipartisan bill that passed Congress early Tuesday morning… That bill is in the enrollment process, and will reach the White House by Thursday or Friday. … But the immediate concern is that the government shuts down Monday night — imagine a shutdown during a pandemic.”

Robert Verbruggen: ‘One More Round of Chaos for Trump’ – National Review: “Last week, Trump reportedly thought about demanding $1,200 or even $2,000 stimulus checks in the COVID-relief bill. But his aides advised him this would blow up the negotiations, so he didn’t. Instead, he waited until after the bill passed — with $600 checks — and released this video last night. … This is going to cause chaos, and I’m not sure where it will end up. Maybe Trump is bluffing and will end up signing the bill, perhaps in exchange for some face-saving promises from Congress. Maybe he’ll veto it, in which case Congress will have the votes to override him, unless too many politicians who supported the bill the first time around defect. Maybe Trump will execute a ‘pocket veto’ … Maybe Congress will cave, sending Trump another piece of legislation tacking on more money.”

[Ed. note: Soooooo…. I know it must feel a bit like we’re leaving you in the lurch, but it’s time for our Christmas break. The Congress has finished its work on the legislative equivalent of a double-decker bacon cheeseburger served on glazed donuts. It’s too big to eat without making a mess, impossible to fully digest and not nearly as appetizing together as it is in its constituent parts. Now, the president says he may send the order back for not having enough caloric content. There are multiple scenarios that may play out ranging from President Trump’s threat being an empty one to a government shutdown and no coronavirus relief package before the Biden administration takes the ball. But the federal government, like the Grinch, cannot keep Christmas from coming. Whatever happens, the blessings and afflictions of this great nation will be the same on Monday as they are this afternoon. We will return with enthusiasm next week to see what this Laurel & Hardy act passing itself off as a government has done and may do next. But we need a couple of days to focus on our families and loved ones and to celebrate what, in our faiths, is the greatest gift ever given to mankind. That’s not to say that what the government does in the next four days isn’t important or that its dysfunction doesn’t have real consequences for all Americans and our posterity. But it is to say that like a toddler who has flung herself to the ground in the cereal aisle, the outcome will not be improved by our fevered attention. Our prayer for you, gentle readers, is that you also can place your attention on the things that matter, not the histrionics of third-rate politicians. And based on what we have read from you in the many years of this note and its predecessors, our readers are wise enough to do just that. Have a merry Christmas, dear ones. You deserve it.]

THE RULEBOOK: AGREE TO DISAGREE

“When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are so to be called, will be the same.” – Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, Federalist No. 50

TIME OUT: A WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS

People: “The White House at Christmas is something to behold… But it wasn’t always quite such a spectacle and, in fact, first families have decked the halls in a variety of different ways. ‘The first White House Christmas party occurred less than two months after the first occupants moved in,’ Stewart D. McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, explains. That was in November 1800, when John Adams and his wife, Abigail, became the first president and first lady to move in to the White House. The next month, they hosted a Christmas gathering at their new home. … In 1894, then-President Grover Cleveland displayed the first electric-lit tree in the White House, placing it in the oval room in the residence… But it wasn’t until First Lady Mamie Eisenhower festooned the halls of the ‘people’s house’ in the 1950s that the property became such a holiday highlight, McLaurin tells PEOPLE.”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL?

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: THE 3RD (OR 4TH) TRIVIA EXTRAVAGANZA

As has become an I’ll Tell You What holiday tradition, Peter McMahon joins his wife Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt for a trivia episode. At the top of the show, the three discuss their favorite dessert items and current European Union trade conflicts between Britain and France. Then, Chris & Peter face off in their annual trivia challenge. Plus, they share their predictions for 2021. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE

BIDEN FORMALLY INTRODUCES EDUCATION SECRETARY

Bloomberg: “President-elect Joe Biden introduced Connecticut schools commissioner Miguel Cardona as his pick for education secretary, saying he was a ‘brilliant’ educator with a tested record. ‘Like the rest of the team, Dr. Cardona is qualified on Day One,’ Biden said at an event in Wilmington, Delaware, calling Cardona’s nomination an easy choice. ‘He’s a education secretary who truly understands’ the difficulties facing families and schools struggling to teach children during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden said Cardona would be charged with implementing the new administration’s ambitious plans for education, including forgiving student debt. ‘Our legislative plan means if you choose to go to into public service our country will wipe out your debt over time,’ Biden said. Cardona, a Latino, adds to the diversity of Biden’s cabinet, which he pledged would ‘look like America.’”

Team Biden weighs school testing plan – Politico: “President-elect Joe Biden is weighing a multibillion-dollar plan for fully reopening schools that would hinge on testing all students, teachers and staff for Covid-19 at least once a week, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. The proposal under consideration calls for the federal government to cover the cost of providing tests to K-12 schools throughout the country. These could then be administered regularly by staff at each school, providing results in minutes. The developing plan closely tracks with recent recommendations from The Rockefeller Foundation to invest billions into the creation of a K-12 testing system that would reassure teachers and students it is safe to resume in-person schooling. Biden has vowed to reopen the majority of schools within his first 100 days in office…”

In news conference Biden hits Trump on Russia blamed hack – AP: “President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday assailed the Trump administration for failing to fortify the nation’s cyber defenses, and called on President Donald Trump to publicly identify the perpetrator of a massive breach of U.S. government agencies — a hack some of Trump’s top allies have blamed on Russia. Biden, who is being briefed on high-level intelligence in preparation for taking office next month, said planning for the hack began as early as 2019. Several federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, have said they were targeted. ‘There’s still so much we don’t know,’ Biden said during a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware. ‘But we know this much: This attack constitutes a grave risk to our national security. It was carefully planned and carefully orchestrated.’ The U.S. government has not made a formal assessment of who was behind the attack, but both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr have said all signs point to Russia.”

Walks back ‘Day 1’ promise to reverse Trump immigration policies – WaPo: “President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday he will keep his pledge to roll back the Trump administration’s restrictive asylum policies but at a slower pace than he initially promised, to avoid winding up with ‘2 million people on our border.’ Biden said immigration is one of the urgent matters he will tackle starting next month as the nation emerges from ‘one of the toughest years we’ve ever faced,’ ticking off a list that included the coronavirus, the economy, racial-justice issues and ‘historic and punishing wildfires and storms.’ Biden had promised to end on ‘Day 1’ a program that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers, mainly from Central America, to await their U.S. immigration hearings in Mexico. But the president-elect said creating a system to process thousands of asylum seekers will take months, because the government needs funding to put staffers such as ‘asylum judges’ in place.”

Mocks questions about Hunter – Fox News: “President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday laughed off a question about the federal investigation of his son Hunter, in what’s become part of a pattern for him to mock or belittle reporters who broach the topic. As Biden ended his press conference Tuesday, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy shouted a question on whether he still believed the stories by the New York Post and other outlets about his son’s business affairs were a ‘Russian disinformation campaign and a smear campaign.’ Biden chuckled, then said, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! God love you, man. You’re a one horse-pony,’ meaning to say ‘one-trick pony’ for the repeated questions on the subject. Biden, who has not named his pick for attorney general, added he would allow his Justice Department to be ‘totally on its own’ about any judgments on the matter.”

Dems to choose new party chair the day after inauguration – Fox News: “The Democratic National Committee (DNC) will formally choose its new chair the day after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated. The national party will hold its Winter Meeting on Jan. 21, Fox News confirmed. And the annual gathering will be held virtually this time amid the coronavirus pandemic. At the top of the agenda at the confab will be electing the national party’s new leadership. Outgoing DNC Chair Tom Perez long ago said he would not bid to serve another four-year term. While DNC committee members will vote for the chair, the real decision maker in the process is Biden, who now as president-elect is leader of the Democratic Party. ‘It’s ultimately President Biden’s choice,’ longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair and former DNC vice chair Ray Buckley told Fox News. Biden – at least publicly – has yet to make his views known on whom he’d like to see steering the national party.”

GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFFS GET A HOLLYWOOD BOOST

AJC: “The crowds began to gather outside Santa Fe Mall in Duluth hours before the rally started, with dozens of Latino voters parked in neat rows in front of an outdoor stage, partly to hear from U.S. Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — and partly to hear from their high-wattage supporters. … Celebrities aren’t just promoting campaigns. They’re staging entire shows on their behalf and personally stumping for them on the campaign trail ahead of Jan. 5 runoffs for control of the U.S. Senate. And while most of the star power is helping Democrats, U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are getting in on the act, too. … Republicans love to hate Hollywood, and Vice President Mike Pence made time this month during stump speeches in Augusta and Columbus to talk about Republicans sending a message about Christian values to ‘Democrats in Washington and liberals in Hollywood.’ But the GOP has leaned on its own celebrities to help out ahead of the runoffs, too. The Lee Greenwood Band belted out fan favorites after a Republican rally in Canton a few weekends ago, and Loeffler joined Travis Tritt for a concert in Smyrna earlier in the month.”

Georgia Sec. of State seeks to end no-excuse absentee voting – AJC: “Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday asked Georgia state representatives to end no-excuse absentee voting, a proposal that would limit the voting method used by over 1.3 million people in the presidential election. Raffensperger wants to reduce absentee voting after promoting it during the coronavirus pandemic, when he mailed ballot applications to registered voters before the primary election. In last month’s election, about a quarter of Georgia’s 5 million voters ballots cast absentee ballots as Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump. ‘It makes no sense when we have three weeks of in-person early voting available. It opens the door to potential illegal voting,’ Raffensperger told the House Governmental Affairs Committee. ‘From a logistical challenge, it’s a tremendous burden on our counties’ that run elections.”

LAYOFF NUMBERS REMAIN ELEVATED

AP: “The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell by 89,000 last week to a still-elevated 803,000, evidence that the job market remains under stress nine months after the coronavirus outbreak sent the U.S. economy into recession and caused millions of layoffs. The latest figure, released Wednesday by the Labor Department, shows that many employers are still cutting jobs as the pandemic tightens business restrictions and leads many consumers to stay home. Before the virus struck, jobless claims typically numbered around 225,000 a week before shooting up to 6.9 million in early spring when the virus — and efforts to contain it — flattened the economy. The pace of layoffs has since declined but remains historically high in the face of the resurgence of COVID-19 cases.”

Trump admin close to a deal with Pfizer for more vaccine doses – NYT: “The Trump administration and Pfizer are close to a deal under which the pharmaceutical company would bolster supply of its coronavirus vaccine for the United States by at least tens of millions of doses next year in exchange for a government directive giving it better access to manufacturing supplies, people familiar with the discussions said. An agreement, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would help the United States at least partly offset a looming vaccine shortage that could leave as many as 110 million adult Americans uncovered in the first half of 2021. … In the negotiations, the government is asking for 100 million additional doses from Pfizer from April through June. The company has signaled that it should be able to produce at least 70 million, and perhaps more, if it can get more access to supplies and raw materials.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY

In final days Trump pardons 15 and commutes 5 sentences – AP

AUDIBLE: PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

“It’s a good flux. It’s better than the status quo.” – Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., talking to Politico about the uncertainty of the Senate majority until after Jan. 5, specifically when it comes to knowing the makeup of individual committees.

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

WATCH OUT FOR HANGRY OCTOPUSES

Metro: “If you had to pick which creature is the schoolyard bully under the waves you probably wouldn’t have gone with the octopus. But it turns out the cephalopods will lash out and punch fish for seemingly no reason other than spitefulness. This has been captured on film and analysed by scientists in a new paper for the scientific journal Ecology. They say that this thuggish behaviour – which they call the ‘active displacement’ happens while octopuses team up with fish to hunt together. When things are getting a bit hectic, the octopuses will lash out at the fish to keep them away from the grub. It’s a bit like shoving someone else out of line at the queue for the buffet. ‘Octopuses and fishes are known to hunt together, taking advantage of the other’s morphology and hunting strategy,’ explained marine biologist Eduardo Sampaio from the University of Lisbon in Portugal.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“I personally like Christmas because, since it is a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Washington Post on Dec. 17, 2004.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up

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The Electoral College graduates with honors

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On the roster: The Electoral College graduates with honors – It’s V-day – Bipartisan stimulus breaks out liability, state aid – Left wingers, Dem Senate grumble on Biden process – Double-cross hot buns

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE GRADUATES WITH HONORS



One would think that of all days, this would be the one when the many foes of the Electoral College would ease up. The much-maligned remnant of the Framers’ republican system is, on this very day, saving our collective bacon.

After a 40-day flood of demagoguery, wildly misleading claims and intense political pressure by a defeated chief executive seeking to cling to power, the states are efficiently fulfilling their constitutional duty to affirm the results of their elections.

President Trump tried by legal legerdemain, bullying and all manner of wheedling to get officials in four states to reverse the results of this years’ election and leave him in power. But he failed. And one of the key reasons he failed was the Electoral College.

Let’s imagine for a moment a future election in which we don’t have the Electoral College but do have an incumbent who refuses to acknowledge the results.

Then, like now, assume that the air is thick with threats of violence and civil strife spills into the streets. Let’s further assume that the overwhelming majority of the incumbent’s supporters back him in his effort to hold power.

It doesn’t matter if this future president is a Republican, a Democrat or Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, only that he or she is determined to undo the legitimate result and, the most important part of our thought experiment, there is no Electoral College.

What would be different for President Camacho than it is for Trump is that Camacho would only need to defeat one election result, not a half dozen.

Forget the fickle, situational, partisan interpretations about which side would do better under a national popular vote system. It’s irrelevant because if you change the rules of the game, you change the behavior of the participants. Anybody who observed Trump’s improved numbers with non-white males, including in urban areas, would know better than to assume fixity in popular vote attitudes.

We know that there are those who sincerely believe that electing a president of the United States without a popular vote majority is undemocratic and, therefore, bad. We have thoughts on this, too. Mostly it relates to federalism and the necessity of maintaining the state as the principal political unit of the nation as well as the importance of forcing candidates to seek diverse geographical coalitions.

But let’s leave that aside for now. Let’s assume, even, that there was something morally superior about counting votes nationally instead of by state. That’s not how we see it, but even if it were so, that consideration would not overcome the practical concerns.

Who would administer this national election? Presumably the national government. We don’t want to put words in the mouths of national popular vote supporters, but we can’t imagine any other way to do it.

So that assumes a constitutional amendment or some other mechanism that allows the federal government to take that power away from the states. Now imagine election night for President Camacho. Rather than bothering with officials in 10 or 12 swing states, he can focus in on these new federal elections officials.

Did he appoint them? Are they appointed on a partisan basis for longer terms? To whom do they report? In what ways are they subject to pressure? We know Congress is the ultimate arbiter of presidential elections, but the members of the House and Senate sit as judges, not finders of fact.

It took political courage for Republican elected officials in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona to refuse the demands of a president of their own party — and the irate supporters he has been goading daily. But other elected officials in positions of responsibility have shown an enthusiastic willingness to help Trump in his attempted caper.

What if a future president finds a way to stack the federal elections agency with toadys and lickspittles who will gladly help him or her along? What if a future president simply fires everyone who won’t do what he or she says?

Keeping elections out of the hands of the federal government was a top priority for Framers who were looking for ways to divide power and preclude corruption. If these past 40 days have taught us anything it should be that there is a great deal of wiggle room for self-interested actors inside the administration of elections. Putting all that power in one place looked like a bad idea in the 1780s just as it does today.

What about letting the states each count the votes and then certify their totals to some federal elections proctor? Unlike the Electoral College which limits the number of votes over which a state has control, that system would create terrible incentives for misconduct.

The Texas lawsuit the Supreme Court just struck down on Friday basically argued that because Texas’ voters didn’t get what they wanted from the election, the Supreme Court should throw out the results in other states.

How far would the leap from that bit of nationalistic claptrap be to a state official deciding that because some other state had obviously rigged its voting, he or she would award a bajillion extra votes for President Camacho to even things out. At the very least, the value of localized election fraud would increase dramatically.

There are complaints in many corners today about how absolutely antediluvian it is to have 538 individuals gathering to submit their ballots. How absurd to wait weeks for results! How outdated to have so many steps in a simple process.

We get it. In a culture habituated to easy answers and instant results, this seems like a grind. But that’s not it at all.

In fact, Americans are today enjoying the benefits of our inheritance from wise founders. Our complex, siloed structure not only provides a check on the election of tyrants, it makes stealing elections a heckuva lot harder too.

THE RULEBOOK: IF IT DIDN’T WORK THEN…

“To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.” – Alexander Hamilton, discussing the potential dangers of disagreements between states, Federalist No. 6

TIME OUT: A STARK DRAWING

The Writer’s Almanac: “It’s the birthday of Shirley Jackson [1916 -1965], born in San Francisco. Her short story ‘The Lottery’ begins innocently… As the story progresses, the reader finds that this ‘lottery’ is a yearly ritual in which townspeople select one of their number and stone him or her to death, believing that the sacrifice ensures a bountiful harvest. The story appeared in The New Yorker in June 1948, and many readers were horrified. They canceled their subscriptions and sent in angry letters, which the magazine forwarded on to Jackson. … Her best-known novel is The Haunting of Hill House (1959), a quintessential haunted house tale, but she also wrote light, humorous tales of her family life in books like Life Among the Savages (1953)… She raised four children and only wrote after her household work was done. She said: ‘I can’t persuade myself that writing is honest work. It’s great fun and I love it. For one thing, it’s the only way I can get to sit down.’”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL?

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

IT’S V-DAY

AP: “The largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history got underway Monday as health workers in select hospitals rolled up their sleeves for shots to protect them from COVID-19 and start beating back the pandemic — a day of optimism even as the nation’s death toll neared 300,000. … Shipments of precious frozen vials of vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech began arriving at hospitals around the country Monday. … For health care workers who, along with nursing home residents, will be first in line for vaccination, hope is tempered by grief and the sheer exhaustion of months spent battling a coronavirus that still is surging in the U.S. and around the world. … Packed in dry ice to stay at ultra-frozen temperatures, the first of nearly 3 million doses being shipped in staggered batches this week made their way by truck and by plane around the country Sunday from Pfizer’s Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory.”

Trump delays plan for White House staff to be vaccinated – NYT: “President Trump said on Sunday night that he would delay a plan for senior White House staff members to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the coming days, hours after The New York Times reported that the administration was planning to rapidly distribute the vaccine to its staff at a time when the first doses are generally being reserved for high-risk health care workers. Mr. Trump, who tested positive for the coronavirus in October and recovered after being hospitalized, also implied that he would get the vaccine himself at some point in the future, but said he had no immediate plans to do so. ‘People working in the White House should receive the vaccine somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary,’ Mr. Trump tweeted, hours after a National Security Council spokesman had defended the plan.”

BIPARTISAN STIMULUS BREAKS OUT LIABILITY, STATE AID

Roll Call: “The group of Senate and House lawmakers negotiating a $908 billion COVID-19 relief package has reached agreement on business liability waivers and state and local government aid provisions, but those will be broken into a separate bill, according to a source familiar with the plan. The larger $748 billion piece, which includes unemployment insurance, small-business relief, money for education, vaccine distribution and more, plus the separate bill with $160 billion for state and local governments and the liability protections, will be introduced Monday.”

Federal funding bill expected Tuesday – Politico: “Congressional negotiators are closing in on a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending deal to ward off a government shutdown on Friday at midnight, crossing one major priority off the legislative agenda and adding further urgency around the inclusion of coronavirus aid in a year-end package. Lawmakers could announce an omnibus compromise as soon as Monday, with legislative text expected Tuesday, three sources confirmed to POLITICO. Top appropriators and staff worked through the weekend to resolve outstanding issues. Just a ‘few small items’ with the fiscal 2021 funding package remain open, according to one GOP aide.”

LEFT WINGERS, DEM SENATE GRUMBLE ON BIDEN PROCESS

WaPo: “President-elect Joe Biden‘s decision to fill his White House and Cabinet with longtime colleagues has led to frustration from liberals, civil rights leaders and younger activists, who worry he’s relegating racial minorities to lower-status jobs while leaning on Obama-era appointees for key positions. Biden’s Cabinet process has also discomforted some allies on the Hill, who say senators from his own party have not been sufficiently consulted about picks, even though Biden will need influential Senate Democrats to help steer nominees through the confirmation gauntlet. Senior Democratic senators have gotten little or no advance warning about the president-elect’s selections, according to a half-dozen senior congressional officials and others familiar with the process. … Dissatisfaction from the party’s grass roots, and lawmakers not made aware of the president-elect’s decisions, could hobble Biden’s ability to quickly move his nominees into position so he can execute on pressing priorities like the coronavirus pandemic response.”

Biden said to weigh Samantha Power for international aid agency – Axios: “Joe Biden is considering Samantha Power to head the United States Agency for International Development, which would place a high-profile figure atop foreign aid and coronavirus relief efforts, people familiar with the matter tell Axios. Installing Power — a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about genocide — would signal the Biden administration plans to revitalize foreign assistance and use it as an instrument of soft power and to achieve humanitarian goals. Power was a prominent member of President Obama‘s cabinet and recently wrote a Foreign Affairs article about the president-elect headlined: ‘The Can-Do Power: America’s Advantage and Biden’s Chance.’”

Atlanta Mayor refused Biden cabinet post – AJC: “President-elect Joe Biden offered Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms a position in his Cabinet, but she did not accept it, according to a statement from Rashad Taylor, Bottoms’ senior adviser. ‘Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was honored to have been offered a role in the Cabinet, which she respectfully declined,’ Taylor said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Taylor declined to say what position was offered. ‘The Mayor’s focus remains on the people of Atlanta and the great state of Georgia,’ Taylor said. ‘Out of respect for the process, and the other candidates under consideration, no additional comment will be forthcoming on this matter at this time.’”

EARLY VOTING UNDERWAY IN GEORGIA

AJC: “The campaign schedule for the dueling U.S. Senate candidates is about to get more hectic with the start of the three-week early voting period on Monday. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock launched separate bus tours over the weekend, while U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue readied for a round of new events to capitalize on the early-voting period ahead of the Jan. 5 runoffs for control of the U.S. Senate. With the election coinciding with holiday season, both parties have put an extra emphasis on voting early. Warnock’s campaign punctuated that effort by releasing a 30-second ad Monday that urges Georgians to add ‘vote’ to their busy to-do lists. … Democrats built an edge in early-voting this year, dominating the GOP with mail-in votes. Republicans are trying to erase that advantage ahead of the runoffs, aggressively urging supporters to cast absentee ballots, though that will be no easy sell for many.”

GOP experiments with spam fundraising to try to catch Dems – Politico: “Top Republicans are using the expensive Georgia Senate runoffs to sell their party on a deeper investment in digital fundraising, pointing to the surge in donations for next month’s races in Georgia as an example of what GOP candidates could reap in 2022 and beyond — if they put the right infrastructure in place early. … The effort is introducing some senators to online fundraising tactics that have been popular among Democrats for years but are not nearly as prevalent among Republicans. Thirty-one Republicans, including 17 who are up for reelection in 2022, are tapping into their donor lists in ‘tandem’ email efforts benefiting themselves and the Georgia candidates, raising nearly $10 million online, according to Republicans briefed on the program. The NRSC is encouraging candidates to send asks for money up to three times a week, according to one Republican consultant — a familiar rate on high-metabolism Democratic email lists…”

Runoff tests key premise of Dems’ Southern strategy – FiveThirtyEight: “For most of the past four years, the Midwest occupied the leading spot on the marquee of U.S. electoral politics. … But now a new star has elbowed out the Midwest for top billing: the South. … Georgia, though, is a much different place than the Midwest. That’s obvious, of course, but those differences lead to important distinctions in what we can expect from campaigns there. What makes Georgia electorally unlike most swing states is its large Black population. About 33 percent of Georgians are Black, a much higher share than the nation overall (13 percent) and higher than all but two other states (Mississippi and Louisiana). To be more precise, what’s really different about Georgia’s electoral politics is that Democrats there are disproportionately Black. Like in most states, Republican voters in Georgia are overwhelmingly white.”

Behind the costly Trump/Kemp feud – WaPo: “The first major fissure in the relationship between President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp came a year ago, when Kemp paid Trump a clandestine visit in the White House residence. … The strain between the two Republicans has now boiled over into a full-blown feud in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, as the president has fixated on his loss in Georgia as a humiliation that he blames in large part on Kemp. Trump lost the solidly Republican state by approximately 12,000 votes and is furious with Kemp for not heeding his calls to question the integrity of the state’s election results. … This portrait of Trump’s combustible relationship with Kemp … is the result of interviews with 15 allies and advisers to both men, as well as Republican political operatives, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid details.”

Loeffler campaign denounces white supremacist after photo-op – AP: “The campaign of Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is disavowing a photo circulating on social media of her posing with a longtime white supremacist at a recent campaign event, with less than a month to go until the runoff elections that will determine the balance of the U.S. Senate. Loeffler did not know who Chester Doles was when she took a picture with him, her campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said in a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday. The picture was taken Friday at a campaign event in Dawsonville, Georgia. ‘Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,’ Lawson said.”

FIRST APPEAL OF TRUMP 2024 TALK IS ATTENTION

Politico: “The president’s recent discussions with those around him reveal that he sees his White House comeback deliberations as a way to earn the commodity he needs most after leaving office: attention. The president has spent days calling a dozen or more allies to ask what they think he needs to do over the next two years to ‘stay part of the conversation,’ according to two people, including one who spoke to the president. And while Trump has told allies he plans to run for president again, he has also indicated he could back out in two years if he determines he’ll have a tough time winning, said three people familiar with the discussions. Essentially, at this point, Trump appears just as interested in people talking about a Trump 2024 campaign as he is in actually launching a real campaign, even if he may ultimately turn his flirtation into a serious bid…”

Fox Poll: 37 percent back Trump 2024 run – Fox News: “Nearly four in 10 voters, 37 percent, would like Trump to run for president again in 2024. That includes 79 percent of Trump voters and 71 percent of Republicans, as well as 27 percent of independents and 10 percent of Democrats.”

Andy McCarthy: Stipulated – National Review: “After all that’s been said over the last six weeks, this fleeting passage near the start of [a Wisconsin federal district court’s] workmanlike, 23-page [rejection of another Trump campaign lawsuit] should take our breath away: ‘…On the morning of the hearing, the parties reached agreement on a stipulated set of facts and then presented arguments to the Court.’ …innumerable times the president and his surrogates have asserted that they were being systematically prevented from proving massive fraud and illegality. The courts and state officials, we’ve been told, have invoked legal technicalities, such as the supposed lack of standing to sue, in order to stop the campaign from calling witnesses and introducing voluminous documentary evidence. … Despite telling the country for weeks that this was the most rigged election in history, the campaign didn’t think it was worth calling a single witness. Despite having the opportunity of a hearing before a Trump appointee who was willing to give the campaign ample opportunity to prove its case, the campaign said, ‘Never mind.’”

HUNTER BIDEN EMAIL SHOWS UNREPORTED INCOME

Fox News: “Hunter Biden did not report ‘approximately $400,000’ in income he collected from his position on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings when he joined in 2014, according to an attorney for his firm who noted that his tax returns needed to be amended, a new email obtained by Fox News shows. The memo dated Jan. 16, 2017, one of multiple new emails obtained by Fox News, detailed Hunter Biden’s income for the years 2013 through 2015, for tax purposes. Biden, last week, confirmed that he was under federal investigation for his ‘tax affairs.’ The email, which was first reported by NBC News, was sent to Hunter from Eric Scherwin, who, at the time, served as president of Rosemont Seneca. Fox News could not verify its authenticity; neither Scherwin nor Biden attorney George Mesires immediately responded to Fox News’ requests for comment.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY

Russians score hack attack against government email accounts – Reuters

Cuomo denies claim of sexual harassment from former staffer – NYT

Only a third of Americans believe they are better off than four years ago – Fox News

Kraushaar: Educational extremism shapes Virginia governor race – National Journal

AUDIBLE: PLURIBUS → UNUM

“You’re right, there are very red districts, there are very blue districts. But if you just want to play the game of throwing red meat to your respective base, I have to ask, are you really thinking about the country? Our constituents send us here, but at the same time, what we do affects the whole country.” – Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., talking to the Washington Post.

FROM THE BLEACHERS

“As my Irish ancestors tell it [King Edward VIII] was sterile and therefore couldn’t produce and heir to the throne, so they trumped up the story [about his love for Wallis Warfield Simpson], just thought I would let you in on a little gossip. – Dick Cronin, Brookfield, Conn.

[Ed. note: As one with Irish ancestors, I know better than to lightly dismiss their tellings. However, by the time of his abdication, he had already shown a total incapacity for leadership and public service. His efforts to strongarm parliament into accepting Simpson triggered the crisis — the result of which served both the man and nation far better. Now, he certainly could have been both unfit and sterile. The couple never had any children, so there may be something to it. Would it be too mean of me to be glad for it?]

“While I agree with the basic premise of your disemboweling Republicans for taking every possible action to keep President Trump in office another 4 years, I feel you were a bit too harsh with many unnecessary potshots. It’s not just about the votes and how they were solicited in those key battleground states, it’s about President Elect Biden and how the media never vetted him. Instead, they kept their guns aimed at President Trump as they have now for 4+ years and left Biden alone in his basement. After hearing ‘Russia collusion’ at every turn since the candidacy of Trump was announced, leading to the 2 year Mueller investigation coming up empty, it still rings loud in the ears of many Trump fans. The demonstrations and violence that was the response by so many of the Hillary Clinton supporters shouting ‘not my president’ is still burned into their memories. The unchecked anarchy in many democrat-run cities in response to the criminal conduct of a few police officers rails against those that liked the ‘law and order’ Trump. The lack of prosecution of those in President Obama’s administration who spied and lied in their attempt to undermine Trump’s presidency remains a sore point. The ‘scandals’ of Hunter Biden and others of the Biden family were newsworthy but those stories were buried so deep they never got a breath of air. Did VP Joe Biden participate or benefit from that influence peddling? That is another question that will likely not be answered to the satisfaction of many in the GOP. I think that the phrase ‘plausible deniability’ will be frequently used both by the Biden and Trump camps. Would it have made a difference in the results? That we will never know but many Trump loyalists will forever believe it should have.” – Jim Burrow, North Richland Hills, Texas

[Ed. note: Mr. Burrow, if you’re using media bias as a rationale for trying to steal an election it may be time to take a few deep breaths. I understand that you’re not advocating stealing elections, but you do seem to be saying that the conduct is somehow understandable because of what the other side did to yours. What do you think rioters and looters say? They say their behavior is merited by the corruption of the system. You then borrow that excuse and blame the rioters behavior for others’ misdeeds. It’s time for Republicans who know the difference between campaigns and elections to be honest with these voters.]

“I wonder if you’re missing some large-scale misdirection here.  I believe Sen. Lindsey Graham spoke plainly when he said (paraphrasing) that ‘Republicans will never win another election, if we don’t get states to roll back mail-in voting.’ (Trump himself repeated that sentiment, recently.) As Jared Kushner famously explained his father-in-law: ‘Controversy elevates message.’ I suspect the real goal of all the normally level-headed Republicans you listed — including Sen. Graham and others — is to fan the flames of controversy as much as possible, and thus exert some lasting pressure on state legislatures to curb or roll-back their adoption of no-excuse-absentee or universal-mail-in voting.” – Shawn A. Van Ness, Browns Point, Wash.

[Ed. note: But it’s… just not true. Assuming that reckless conduct like this was somehow permissible to “elevate message,” and that Trump & Co. are really just pushing future reform against alleged Democratic chicanery, your claim still wouldn’t hold up. There’s no correlation between access to mail-in votes and Trump’s 2020 performance. Swing states Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina all had permissive rules for vote-by-mail this year, but Trump won all four decisively. And given the closeness of the race in other states, one wonders how much better Trump would have done if he would have encouraged his voters to use the mail instead of spending months trying to build the rationale for his doomed effort to overturn the results. I’m no fan personally of either early voting or vote-by-mail. I believe we need a federal Election Day holiday to encourage people to exercise their franchise together. But that doesn’t mean one party or another is advantaged or disadvantaged under vote-by-mail. You could argue that Democrats always have a better shot at fraud because their voters tend to be clustered in denser areas and the criminal enterprise could produce more fraud per precinct. But then again, the most recent incident of absentee-ballot fraud affecting the outcome of an election was by Republicans in a North Carolina congressional race.  As the GOP’s down-ballot performance this year proves, this was an eminently winnable race for Trump. He just couldn’t get it done.]

“Who is the only president that won both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor?” – Thomas Staffa, Falcon Heights, Minn.

[Ed. note: But which came first? It is true that Teddy Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor, but a little context is valuable here. The honor came 103 years after his much ballyhooed ride up San Juan Hill. Just before leaving office in 2001, Bill Clinton made the presentation to the Roosevelt family. But that was only after years of politicians fighting the Army, which had opposed the award at the time of the Spanish-American War and after the law was changed in 1996 to lift the time limits on decorations. I won’t belabor TR’s relentless self-promotion and glory hogging, but the century of solicitation for the honor most certainly began with him. And as for his Nobel Peace Prize, I would be remiss not to point out that he won the prize for negotiating the end of a war he himself helped start by encouraging Japan to expand, particularly onto the Korean Peninsula. When he felt Japan had achieved its goals, he presented himself as an impartial peacemaker. Here’s his letter to his son at the time: “I have of course concealed from everyone — literally everyone — the fact that I acted in the first place on Japan’s suggestion … Remember that you are to let no one know that in this matter of the peace negotiations I have acted at the request of Japan and that each step has been taken with Japan’s foreknowledge, and not merely with her approval but with her expressed desire.” Roosevelt’s efforts to turn Japan, which he considered racially and culturally superior to the other nations of the region, into a regional hegemon no doubt helped pave the way for the tragedy that was an expansionist Japanese empire. Like most things with TR, high on the list of nation’s most overrated chief executives, it gets hard to separate the hype from the reality.]

“Love the Halftime Report. Thank you for the great job putting this together everyday. Last year you recommended an Advent Album in the From the Bleachers section. I listened to it but didn’t buy it but liked it. Could you run that by me again? If I missed it again, I apologize.” – Kris Thompson, Westerville, Ohio

[Ed. note: Don’t credit me! You can credit Brianna for taking the time to build this awesome Spotify playlist, but it was your fellow reader, Laura Whitney of Paradise, Utah, who got the ball rolling. I’d encourage anyone who enjoys the list to offer up their own picks for Advent music so we can come back with an even better version next year.]

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

DOUBLE-CROSS HOT BUNS 

Lancaster [England] Live: “A baker who ‘tricked customers’ into buying freshly baked bread which was actually being warmed on radiators, has been jailed for defrauding friends out of thousands of pounds. Francesca Barker-Mills owner The Barker Baker in Littleborough, Rochdale, launched her business in 2015. On the pretence that she was turning her life around having ‘fallen in love with baking on a probation course’, Barker-Mills set up her new business after avoiding jail in 2013 due to fraud convictions. Barker-Mills, branded a ‘thoroughly dishonest woman’, told friends and even advertised in local newspapers that her bakery was a social enterprise – showing people that ex-offenders could contribute to their community in earnest… But in fact, Barker-Mills used the bakery to convince potential investors, her landlord, and even her ‘friends’, into sinking thousands of their hard-earned cash into a government scheme – which she had invented.” 

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in democracy or aversion to polyester.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in Time magazine on June 17, 1991.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up 

here. 

A word about stimulus willy-nillyness

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On the roster: A word about stimulus willy-nillyness – I’ll Tell You What: Something’s happening – It’s O for Sheriff Joe in Philly – Biden denies son profited from his name – Mr. Misty

A WORD ABOUT STIMULUS WILLY-NILLYNESS

In Albert Brooks’ lovely, funny “Defending Your Life” – a movie that imagines eternal judgment as something like a bureaucratic administrative law court – Brooks’ character’s lawyer, played perfectly by Rip Torn, has the unfortunate duty of having to explain to his client how the universe works.

At one point, the lawyer blows off his client’s question with “you wouldn’t understand” and his client is incensed. “Don’t treat me like a moron!” he says. “Try me.” So, the lawyer gives it a shot.

And what does the defendant say? That’s right: “I don’t understand.”

Which, of course, brings us to the latest installment of trying to explain to Wall Street what Washington is doing.

Readers of financial news have awoken each day for weeks to the latest details on the negotiations between the Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Because of the latest squiggles emanating from Pelosi’s talks with Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin we are told that futures are up, yields are down, forecasts are sideways, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Like the throngs outside the Vatican awaiting white smoke from the chimney, the financial world hangs on the talks. It’s no surprise that Wall Street, which has weathered the coronavirus quite nicely on a combination of stimulus cash and a long tech boom, very much wants another $2 trillion pump from Uncle Sam.

How happy they have been to see President Trump and Pelosi get into a bidding war in which they seem poised to blow past Pelosi’s original $2.2 trillion offer and into the further reaches of the fiscal stratosphere.

Just two weeks ago Trump shut down negotiations and blamed Pelosi for asking too much. But by Monday of this week, Trump had broken completely and said Pelosi wasn’t asking for enough.

“I want to do it even bigger than the Democrats,” he said in a phone call to “Fox & Friends.” “Not every Republican agrees, but they will. I want to do it even bigger, because this is money going to people who did not deserve what happened to them.”

If you’re a finance bro, this is like Christmas came early. The top Democrat and the top Republican want to send out another round of stimulus checks, provide more bailouts for more businesses and keep subsidizing expanded unemployment benefits.

A poll this week says 72 percent of voters want such a deal, so it’s time to celebrate the next big market run, right?

You wouldn’t understand…

Mitch McConnell, the sensei of the Senate GOP, has been warning in private and in public for weeks that he does not believe that the Senate should try to juggle the first-ever Supreme Court confirmation during an election and the largest-ever federal stimulus package in the 13 days before voting ends.

He paints a convincing picture that the Republicans could end up losing control of one or both of those heavy-laden freight trains if they run them at the same time.

Then there’s the substance of the matter. It’s one thing to get Republicans to take a chance on a Supreme Court pick they believe in, but quite a different thing when it comes to federal cash pumping about which conservatives are dubious, to say the least.

With the just-completed federal fiscal year coming to a crashing end with a mind-bending $3.1 trillion deficit and oceans of red ink as far as the eye can see in the quarters ahead. Many are also concerned about they believe are the long-term distortions continued aid at these kinds of levels will cause in discouraging work etc.

There is not an attitude of stimulus willy-nillyness among conservatives these days. They would far rather wait for the lame duck session than pass something with Trump breathing down their necks right now.

McConnell this week will drive back around his $500 billion “skinny” stimulus again this week. Democrats blocked it last time, but the leader remains keen on key provisions, like curbs on coronavirus lawsuits. And it provides political cover. The Senate GOP can honestly say it is at work on the issue.

As has often been his approach in the Trump era, McConnell says that if Pelosi and Trump do reach a deal that he will bring to the floor for a vote.

If, in fact, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows can get enough of his former mates in the Trump nationalist Freedom Caucus to back the Pelosi plan, it would certainly up the pressure on the Senate GOP. But those cats know exactly what they would do to an incumbent who voted for Pelosi-backed pork: Primary the bejeebers out of him or her. Does their Trump devotion go that far?

Or does Pelosi pass another package on a party-line vote and leave it like a bag of flaming doggie doo doo on the Senate’s front door?

Whatever happens, now, though, she can’t really lose.

In one scenario, she crushes the GOP’s resistance and gets more than she even asked for. Even better for her, the payload would come too late to provide a real economic boost before the election that might help Trump. Conservatives will fume over the betrayal.

In the other scenario, she has forced Trump and the GOP Senate into an ugly fight at the worst possible motive and left them with the blame for killing a popular package.

We’re not saying that it makes sense as a practical way to run a government, especially to the bottom-liners on Wall Street, but like we said, you wouldn’t understand.

THE RULEBOOK: GIVE TO 233 YEARS…

“The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.” – Alexander Hamilton, in a larger essay about provisions regarding executive authority, Federalist No. 73

TIME OUT: CURBSIDE SERVICE FROM 186 MILLION MILES

Cosmos: “In a brief moment that its principal scientist Dante Lauretta described as ‘transcendental,’ NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully played tag with an asteroid. The [maneuver], officially called TAG (touch-and-go), saw the intrepid spacecraft touch town perfectly in one of the few safe landing zones on an asteroid [186 million miles] away. It then activated its sample collection mechanism, and safely backed away, all without hitting any of the dangerous boulders flanking the tiny collection site, whose safe zone was a mere [26 feet] in diameter. ‘I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,’ Lauretta said as the control [center] exploded in cheers and pantomimed high-fives. … The landing, which occurred right on schedule at [6:12 pm EDT Tuesday], is the culmination of the spacecraft’s four-year, multi-billion-[mile] journey to asteroid 101955 Bennu, from which it hopes to return a sample for study on Earth in 2023.”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE

Trump: 40 percent      

Biden:
51.4 percent      

Size of lead:
Biden by 11.4 points      

Change from one week ago:
Biden ↓ 2.2 points, Trump ↓ 2.2 points

[Average includes: NYT/Siena: Trump 41% – Biden 50%; AP/NORC: Trump 36% – Biden 51%; KFF: Trump 38% – Biden 49%; NPR/PBS News/Marist: Trump 43% – Biden 54%; NBC News/WSJ: Trump 42% – Biden 53%.]

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS

(270 electoral votes needed to win)

Toss-up: (109 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6)

Lean R/Likely R: (180 electoral votes)

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes)

[Full rankings here.]

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE

Average approval: 42.4 percent

Average disapproval: 55 percent

Net Score: -12.6 points

Change from one week ago: ↓ 3 points

[Average includes: Gallup: 43% approve – 55% disapprove; NYT/Siena: 43% approve – 51% disapprove; AP/NORC: 39% approve – 61% disapprove; KFF: 44% approve – 54% disapprove; NPR/PBS News/Marist: 43% approve – 54% disapprove.]

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL?

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: SOMETHING’S HAPPENING

With just two weeks until “the end of the election,” Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt discuss all-things 2020. They cover some potential election outcomes, how current polling might differ from the actual election results, the continued conversation around COVID stimulus, and what to expect from a few key Senate races. Plus, mailbag questions, Dana shares her caffeine troubles, and Chris is scolded for loving water. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE

IT’S O FOR SHERIFF JOE IN PHILLY

AFP: “Former US president Barack Obama hits the campaign trail for Joe Biden on Wednesday in a bid to drum up support for his former vice president among young Americans and Black voters in the final stretch of the White House race. As the 59-year-old Obama makes his first in-person campaign appearance — at a drive-in car rally at a sports stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — President Donald Trump is to visit North Carolina, one of the battleground states key to victory on November 3. Biden, 77, who is leading in the national polls, had no public events on his schedule for the third day in a row, leading the 74-year-old Trump to accuse his Democratic opponent of going ‘into hiding.’ The Biden campaign said the former vice president was preparing for the second and final debate against Trump, which is to take place in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday.”

Biden holds edge in the Keystone State – The [Beaver County, Pa.] Times: “President Donald Trump has sliced into former Vice President Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania, but Biden still holds an 8-point advantage less than two weeks before the election, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. The poll released Wednesday shows Biden leading 51% to 43% in Pennsylvania, compared to a 54% to 41% lead he had two weeks ago. The latest results put Biden’s advantage back to where it was in early September, when he led 52% to 44% in a Quinnipiac poll. Quinnipiac surveyed 1,241 likely Pennsylvania voters from Oct. 16 to 19. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll also released Wednesday has Biden leading Trump 49% to 42% in Pennsylvania.”

BIDEN DENIES SON PROFITED FROM HIS NAME

Fox News: “Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden denied that his son Hunter Biden profited because of his ties to the former vice president and said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., should be ‘ashamed of himself’ for saying Hunter Biden used his last name ‘to make millions of dollars’ in shady overseas deals. ‘This is the same garbage [from] Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s henchman,’ Biden told local Wisconsin outlet WISN. ‘It’s the last-ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family. Even the man who served with him on that committee, the former nominee for the Republican Party, said there’s no basis to this.’ ‘The vast majority of the intelligence people have come out and said there’s no basis at all,’ Biden continued. ‘Ron should be ashamed of himself.’ The Democratic presidential nominee was referring to comments Johnson made Monday during an interview on ‘Hannity.’”

Giuliani turns over alleged laptop – Delaware News Journal: “Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to tarnish Joe Biden’s presidential campaign continued in Delaware when he visited a police station Monday to share files from what he said was Hunter Biden’s laptop. ‘They’ve got a hard drive or a laptop or something to that effect. They try to turn it over to New Castle County PD. New Castle County PD calls us,’ said Mat Marshall, a spokesman for Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings. Jennings’ office gave the device to the FBI, which reportedly is investigating the veracity of claims about the origin of the laptop and how its contents were shared with Giuliani’s team, Marshall said. ‘As we’ve seen in multiple reports, (the FBI) is looking into whether these claims are credible,’ he said. ‘In light of their investigation, we’re referring it over to them now.’”

New film shows Rudy in compromising position – AP: “Rudy Giuliani is shown with his hand down his pants after flirting with an actress playing a young woman pretending to be a television journalist in a scene in Sacha Baron Cohen‘s latest mockumentary, a sequel to his hit ‘Borat’ film. The scene shot in a New York hotel room in July — which resulted in Giuliani calling police — includes a moment when Giuliani is seen lying on a bed with his shirt untucked and his hand down his pants with the young woman nearby. Giuliani went to the hotel room thinking he was being interviewed about the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response. The young woman is flirtatious with him and invites him to the bedroom, which is rigged with hidden cameras. Giuliani then asks for her phone number and address. He lies back on the bed and has his hands in his pants.”

TRUMP MAKES HIS CASE IN THE TAR HEEL STATE

Fox News: “With the November election less than two weeks away, President Trump is continuing his campaign swing through the pivotal battleground states with a planned rally in North Carolina, where he’s currently neck-and-neck with Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump’s rally in Gastonia, N.C., comes just one day before the candidates will face off for the second and final presidential debate on Thursday night, which will be moderated by Kristen Welker of NBC News. Like the first debate, each candidate will be allotted two minutes of speaking time to answer the moderator’s questions; but under a new plan announced Monday by the Commission on Presidential Debates, during that portion of the debate, the opposing candidate’s microphone will be muted. ‘I’ll participate. I just think it’s very unfair,’ Trump said Monday when asked by reporters about the change.”

Appeals court allows NC absentee deadline extension – AP: “A federal appeals court has ruled that North Carolina can accept absentee ballots for more than a week after Election Day as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 3. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday night declining to block the deadline extension that was announced in late September. At the time, the State Board of Elections increased the deadline from three days to nine, as long as ballots were postmarked by Election Day. The change was part of a settlement with voting rights advocates. State and national Republican leaders went to court to fight the deadline extension.”

Bloomberg’s Florida spending forces Trump on defense – Politico: “Billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s $100 million investment in Florida to defeat Donald Trump is recasting the presidential contest in the president’s must-win state, forcing his campaign to spend big to shore up his position and freeing up Democratic cash to expand the electoral map elsewhere. Bloomberg’s massive advertising and ground-game spending, which began roughly a month ago, has thrown Trump into a defensive crouch across the arc of Sunbelt states. As a result, the president‘s campaign has scaled back its TV ad buys in crucial Northern swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — a vacuum being filled by a constellation of outside political groups backing Joe Biden. ‘It’s forced the Trump campaign to retrench in Florida. You can see it in the spending habits, in television and digital. They’re investing more at the expense of places they need to win,’ said Steve Schale, who leads the pro-Biden Unite the Country super PAC.”

Report: Trump records show business history with China – NYT: “President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China… But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company. And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.”

SENATE CONTEST KNOTTED UP IN IOWA

Monmouth University: “Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield and Republican incumbent Joni Ernst remain locked in a tight U.S. Senate battle that has not really shifted in the past month. Among registered voters, the race stands at 47% Greenfield and 47% Ernst, with 2% supporting another candidate and 2% undecided. The Democrat has a nominal 49% to 47% lead among likely voters in Monmouth’s high turnout model, which is similar to her 49% to 46% lead least month. Greenfield has a larger lead in a low turnout scenario (51%, to 45% for Ernst) if low-propensity Republican voters waiting until Election Day do not show up. … Slightly more voters say Ernst has been too supportive of President Trump (45%) than say she has given him the right amount of support (42%). Even more voters say Greenfield will be beholden to the left wing of her party if she is elected (50%) than say she will be more of an independent voice (37%).”

Biden moves ahead of Trump in Hawkeye State – Monmouth University: “Joe Biden has taken a small likely voter lead in the presidential race in Iowa, after Donald Trump had the edge in prior polls. … Biden’s lead is driven largely by a gain in support among seniors and voters in swing counties. Trump is supported by 48% of registered voters in Iowa and Biden is supported by 47%. Just 2% say they will vote for another candidate and 2% are still undecided. Trump led Biden among registered voters in prior Monmouth polls – by 50% to 44% in September and by 48% to 45% in August. Biden pulls ahead, though, when different likely voter models+ are applied. A model based on a relatively high level of turnout puts the race at 50% Biden and 47% Trump, while a model reflecting lower turnout produces an even wider 51% to 46% result. Trump led by 3 points among likely voters in Monmouth’s poll last month.”

Cornyn holds lead in Texas – Quinnipiac University: “In the U.S. Senate race in Texas, incumbent Republican John Cornyn leads Democrat M.J. Hegar among likely voters, 49 – 43 percent. Seven percent are undecided. On September 24th, Cornyn had 50 percent support and Hegar had 42 percent, also with 7 percent undecided. Likely voters give Hegar a positive 33 – 26 percent favorability rating, while 39 percent say they haven’t heard enough about her to form an opinion. In September, voters gave her a positive 29 – 19 percent favorability rating while 50 percent hadn’t heard enough about her. Likely voters give Cornyn a positive 42 – 30 percent favorability rating, while 26 percent say they haven’t heard enough about him. In September, they gave him a 39 – 30 percent favorability rating, while 30 percent hadn’t heard enough about him. ‘While Cornyn maintains a lead, there are still two weeks to go, and you can’t count Hegar out,’ added [Tim] Malloy.”

Presidential contest tight in Texas – Quinnipiac University: “In the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election campaign, former Vice President Joe Biden is in a tied race with President Donald Trump in the reliably red state of Texas, and he holds a single digit lead in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University polls conducted in both states. … Today, Trump and Biden are tied 47 – 47 percent among likely voters. This compares to a September 24th poll of likely voters in Texas when Trump had 50 percent and Biden had 45 percent. Among those who will vote in person on Election Day, 62 percent support Trump and 32 percent support Biden.”

DEMS EYE STATE HOUSE GAINS AHEAD OF REDISTRICTING

National Journal: “In 2010, Democrats ended up losing control of 21 chambers, limiting their influence in drawing legislative maps that would determine political power for the next decade. Ten years later, Democrats control 39 legislative chambers out of 98 total (excluding Nebraska, which is unicameral). Republicans are on defense, and Democratic groups are stressing the importance of having a seat at the table during redistricting, not to mention the importance of policy goals like expanding Medicaid and increasing voter access. But the task won’t be easy. Despite Democrats’ expanded initiatives, the Republican State Leadership Committee entered the cycle with a gargantuan financial war chest, boosted by maps that Republicans drew themselves after the 2010 GOP wave. And after Democrats’ success in 2018, the remaining targets are often heavier lifts. But some Democrats say that even if they don’t flip every chamber on this list, increasing their representation as a minority party could force their colleagues to the table.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY

Barrett meets with senators ahead of committee vote – Fox News

Yanna Krupnikov, John Barry Ryan: ‘The Real Divide in America Is Between Political Junkies and Everyone Else’ – NYT

The 6 topics Biden and Trump will debate at Thursday’s final faceoff – Fox News

AUDIBLE: AGE IS JUST A NUMBER?

“[Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s] only three months older than I am. And I haven’t announced that I’m not running for reelection.” – Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, defending Feinstein after the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee received backlash for calling Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s “one of the best set of hearings” she had ever participated in. Members of her party are questioning the 87-year-old’s fitness to take over the Judiciary Committee as chairwoman if Democrats win the Senate.

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

MR. MISTY

Die Welt: “German police said Monday that a 71-year-old man took social distancing to a new extreme over the weekend, by pepper-spraying people who he felt got too close. Police in the western city of Aachen tweeted that there was an ‘unusual use’ of the police force, as the man ‘first sprayed a group of joggers and then two cyclists.’ According to a statement from the local police, the cyclists were a couple who were able to get off of their bikes and call police without causing an accident. A patrolman soon approached the suspected perpetrator, who said he knew no other way to protect himself to keep others at a ‘corona distance.’ Criminal proceedings were launched against the 71-year-old for causing dangerous bodily harm and interference with road traffic. Police were still looking for the joggers to report what they saw to police.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“I am not exactly sure how Daniel Krauthammer, age 4, acquired the boxing gloves. But then again, I am not sure how he acquired the plastic gun, the F-15 fighter-bomber with sound effects or, for that matter, the dog.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing about his son, Daniel, in the Washington Post on Feb. 23, 1990.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Toomey’s departure and a changing GOP

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On the roster: Toomey’s departure and a changing GOP – I’ll Tell You What: More turns of the worm to turn – Trump to return to White House tonight – Biden gets big post-debate boost – Otterly in love

TOOMEY’S DEPARTURE AND A CHANGING GOP


Lost amid the cacophony of recent political news – something like a mash-up of “Veep” and “House of Cards” played at 2x speed – was the surprise announcement from Pat Toomey that he will not seek a third term as senator from Pennsylvania in 2022.

In an era of performative politics, the thoughtful, sobersided Toomey might be easily overlooked. But in his going, Toomey speaks volumes about the current political situation and what may be ahead.

Toomey’s decision should perhaps not have been that surprising given that he term-limited himself after winning his Allentown-based House district three times. Like other conservatives, two terms in the Senate seems to have been enough. But he took the extra step of declaring he would not seek the commonwealth’s governorship either.

This is a blow to Republicans who, even if Toomey had agreed to stay, are facing a brutal Senate map in two years. The Red Team will be defending at least 20 seats compared to a minimum of 12 for Democrats. Among those contested races, Republicans will be trying to save seats in battlegrounds of Florida, Iowa, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and probably Georgia.

This is the hangover year from the GOP’s Senate successes of 2010 and 2016. If this year’s presidential polls hold and former Vice President Joe Biden does win it gets a little easier for Republicans with the midterm trend of losses for the incumbent president’s party, but that’s a lot of real estate. 

With Toomey leaving, eyes will now fall to Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, Richard Burr in North Carolina and other potential retirees. But make no mistake, the loss of an incumbent who had so deathly maintained his bonafides as a conservative while representing blue-hued Pennsylvania is a big one for the GOP.

Toomey’s story mirrors that of Republicans in the Rust Belt. A Harvard-educated finance dude with blue-collar roots, Toomey flipped a Democratic legacy seat in the Lehigh Valley in 1998, served his terms and then in 2004 challenged his own party’s longtime senator, Arlen Specter.

The Republican establishment came down hard on Toomey, with even then-Sen. Rick Santorum siding with pro-choice, ultra-moderate Specter. In those days, the split in the Republican party was between conservatives and moderates as opposed to the more recent divisions between nationalists and conservatives.

The initial shift was due in substantial part to Toomey’s success – a success that began with a painful defeat.

Specter held on and beat Toomey by about a point and a half in the Republican primary. Toomey stepped out to become the head of the Club for Growth, which was then a swashbuckling, small-government conservative outside group and bided his time.

In 2010, rather than face an obvious defeat in a rematch with Toomey, Specter bolted the party and became a Democrat where he and his vote for ObamaCare were welcomed with open arms. But rank-and-file Democrats saw it differently and picked then-Rep. Joe Sestak over Specter in their primary.

But Toomey beat Sestak anyway and six years later would outperform then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for a second term.

Toomey’s success at winning with the small-government conservatism that had been out of fashion in mainstream politics for years was seen prior to 2016 as a harbinger of things to come. Reform-minded conservatives won across the country, including in places like Wisconsin and Michigan that had long been Democratic strongholds.

As the 2016 Republican primaries took shape it was assumed that a candidate from the Toomey kind would be the top contender, e.g. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker etc. But that’s not what happened, and the party quickly pivoted to embrace its new populist, nationalist leader. In many cases, the individuals themselves overhauled their own ideological stances to get with the program.

If you wonder what might be next for the Republicans after 2020 – other than a grueling Senate map – don’t forget how conservatives like Toomey were once in ascension and considered heroes in their party for taking on centrist GOPers. 

If Trump does get bounced out of office, you can bet that the old insurgency will be made new again.

THE RULEBOOK: ALL BARK, NO BITE

“The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation, is the total want of a SANCTION to its laws.” – Alexander Hamilton, writing about the flaws of the Articles of Confederation, Federalist No. 21

TIME OUT: TO THE THAMES

Ohio History Center: “On October 5, 1813, General William Henry Harrison, who also was the governor of the Indiana Territory and a future president of the United States of America, led an army of 3,500 American troops against a combined force of eight hundred British soldiers and five hundred American Indian warriors at Moraviantown, along the Thames River in Ontario, Canada. The British troops were under the command of Colonel Henry Procter. Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, commanded many of the American Indian warriors. The British army was retreating from Fort Malden, Ontario after Oliver Hazard Perry‘s victory in the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813. Tecumseh convinced Colonel Procter to make a stand at Moraviantown. The American army won a total victory. As soon as the American troops advanced, the British soldiers fled or surrendered. The American Indians fought fiercely, but lost heart and scattered after Tecumseh died on the battlefield. The identity of the person who killed Tecumseh is still vigorously debated.”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE

Trump: 42.2 percent         

Biden: 51.6 percent         

Size of lead: Biden by 9.4 points         

Change from one week ago: Biden ↑ 0.4 points, Trump ↓ 0.8 points

[Average includes: NBC News/WSJ: Trump 39% – Biden 53%; Monmouth University: Trump 45% – Biden 50%; NYT/Siena College: Trump 41% – Biden 49%; ABC News/WaPo: Trump 44% – Biden 54%; Quinnipiac University: Trump 42% – Biden 52%.]

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS

(270 electoral votes needed to win)

Toss-up: (109 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6)

Lean R/Likely R: (180 electoral votes)

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes)

[Full rankings here.]

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE

Average approval: 44.4 percent

Average disapproval: 53 percent

Net Score: -8.6 points

Change from one week ago: no change in points

[Average includes: NBC News/WSJ: 43% approve – 55% disapprove; NYT/Siena College: 46% approve – 50% disapprove; Gallup: 46% approve – 52% disapprove; ABC News/WaPo: 44% approve – 55% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 43% approve – 53% disapprove.]

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL?

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: MORE TURNS OF THE WORM TO TURN

Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt quickly catch up about the busy news weekend after President Trump was flown to Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday evening, after contracting coronavirus. They discuss the latest from the President’s doctors, what the diagnosis means for his re-election bid and the upcoming Vice-Presidential debate. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE

TRUMP TO RETURN TO WHITE HOUSE TONIGHT

AP: “President Donald Trump said Monday he’s leaving the military hospital where he has been treated for COVID-19 and will continue his recovery at the White House. He said he’s feeling good and the nation should not be afraid of the virus that has killed more than 209,000 Americans. Trump’s expected return comes as the scale of the outbreak within the White House itself is still being uncovered. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced she had tested positive for the virus Monday morning and was entering quarantine. ‘I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M.,’ Trump tweeted. ‘Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. … I feel better than I did 20 years ago!’ He is expected to make the journey aboard the presidential helicopter, Marine One. It was unclear how long Trump would remain in isolation at the White House. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those with mild to moderate symptoms can be contagious for as many — and should isolate for at least — 10 days.”

Experts suggest inappropriate use of rapid tests could have caused spread – WSJ: “At least eight people who attended the White House’s recent Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett have tested positive for the coronavirus, and public health experts say they expect more attendees to be diagnosed in coming days. The White House says it has relied on rapid testing to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 among officials and guests. Officials don’t wear masks or socially distance because they are tested daily. The president is also tested for the coronavirus every day, as is anyone who comes in close contact with him. The administration relied on Abbott Laboratories’ ID Now rapid test at the Sept. 26 event for Judge Barrett. After guests tested negative, they were ushered to the Rose Garden, where few people were wearing masks. The White House didn’t comment on whether anyone screened at the event tested positive. Public-health experts say the White House isn’t using the test appropriately, and that such tests aren’t meant to be used as one-time screeners.”

Trump didn’t share first positive test on Thursday – WSJ: “President Trump didn’t disclose a positive result from a rapid test for Covid-19 on Thursday while awaiting the findings from a more thorough coronavirus screening, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump received a positive result on Thursday evening before making an appearance on Fox News in which he didn’t reveal those results. Instead, he confirmed earlier reports that one of his top aides had tested positive for coronavirus and mentioned the second test he had taken that night for which he was awaiting results. … As the virus spread among the people closest to him, Mr. Trump also asked one adviser not to disclose results of their own positive test. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Mr. Trump said, according to a person familiar with the conversation.”

Trump’s visit to supporters outside of hospital triggers backlash – USA Today: “Doctors, critics, and other Twitter users reacted after President Donald Trump ventured outside Walter Reed Hospital Sunday night to wave at supporters,  calling the move ‘reckless’ and saying he endangered the Secret Service members riding in the vehicle with him. Dr. James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted that everybody in the vehicle with Trump should be quarantined for 14 days. ‘They might get sick. They may die,’ he tweeted. ‘For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.’ … White House spokesman Judd Deere told USA TODAY that ‘appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the President and all those supporting it, including PPE. The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.’”

Pergram: How Friday was an inflection point for the country and fight against coronavirus – Fox News: “We had ‘Black Wednesday’ in March. Wednesday, March 11, was the day everything melted down with coronavirus. You know the rest. Cases started surging. Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive. The NBA suspended its season. Tom Hanks announced he was positive. Hospitals were bursting. … We don’t know what we’ll call Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, in the future. But history was made on Friday. It may not be Black Wednesday or Black Friday or anything else. But Friday was an inflection point for the country and the fight against coronavirus. … Friday was ‘one of those days.’ It upended the presidential campaign. It raised questions about the breakneck pace to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. It further nudged congressional leaders and administration officials to secure a big coronavirus agreement. And, it raised the question of whether there should be a COVID-19 testing regime at the U.S. Capitol.”

BIDEN GETS BIG POST-DEBATE BOOST

WSJ: “President Trump is drawing his weakest voter support of the year in his re-election race following Tuesday’s contentious debate with former Vice President Joe Biden, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee, leads the president, 53% to 39%, among registered voters in the new poll, which was conducted in the two days following the debate but before news emerged that Mr. Trump had tested positive for Covid-19. Mr. Biden’s 14-point lead compares with an 8-point advantage last month and 11 points in July, which was his largest of the campaign at that time. The survey finds something rare in Journal/NBC News polling: evidence that an individual news event—the debate—is having a material effect on Mr. Trump’s political standing, at least for now. Significant events in the past, such as Mr. Trump’s impeachment by the House and acquittal by the Senate, had only hardened views of the president, not shifted them.”

Pennsylvania, Florida voters don’t respond well to Trump’s performance – NYT: “By overwhelming margins, voters in Pennsylvania and Florida were repelled by President Trump’s conduct in the first general election debate, according to New York Times/Siena College surveys, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. maintained a lead in the two largest battleground states. Over all, Mr. Biden led by seven percentage points, 49 percent to 42 percent, among likely voters in Pennsylvania. He led by a similar margin, 47-42, among likely voters in Florida. The surveys began Wednesday, before the early Friday announcement that President Trump had contracted the coronavirus. There was modest evidence of a shift in favor of Mr. Biden in interviews on Friday, including in Arizona where a Times/Siena survey is in progress, after controlling for the demographic and political characteristics of the respondents. One day of interviews is not enough to evaluate the consequences of a major political development, and it may be several days or longer before even the initial effects of Mr. Trump’s diagnosis can be ascertained by pollsters.”

Biden visits Miami’s Little Havana, Little Haiti ahead of national town hall – Fox News: “Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is expected to visit Miami’s Little Havana and Little Haiti ahead of a televised town hall Monday, as the former vice president returns to the critical swing state of Florida in the final homestretch of his election campaign. … Monday will be Biden’s second trip to Florida this year… Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, will visit the Little Haiti Cultural Center around 2:45 p.m. Monday before speaking in Little Havana later in the afternoon on ‘building back the economy better for the Hispanic community and working families,’ his campaign told WTVJ. … Biden will answer questions from undecided Florida voters in a socially distanced town hall outside the Pérez Art Museum in Miami at 8 p.m. moderated by NBC’s ‘Nightly News’ anchor Lester Holt.”

Trump trails in Arizona – NYT: “Joseph R. Biden Jr. has established a steady lead over President Trump in Arizona, a traditionally Republican but fast-changing state that is tilting increasingly Democratic, according to a new New York Times-Siena College poll. Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump 49 percent to 41 percent in Arizona, with just 6 percent of likely voters saying they were undecided, according to the survey, which was taken before and after the president announced that he had tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 but after his caustic debate performance last week. The poll has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. The results are essentially unchanged from a Times-Siena poll of the state last month, which found Mr. Biden leading 49 percent to 40 percent. The poll illustrates the depth of Mr. Trump’s difficulties in Arizona — an incumbent Republican president trailing by a significant margin a month before an election in which most voters have made up their minds.”

ALL EYES ON THE VEEP DEBATE

NYT: “President Trump’s hospitalization with the coronavirus has catapulted this week’s vice-presidential debate into the spotlight to an extraordinary degree, putting pressure on Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris to use this forum to reassure an anxious public they are prepared and qualified to step in as president. Mr. Trump’s diagnosis with a potentially lethal virus — and the fact that he is 74 and his Democratic rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is 77 — was a stark reminder that either Mr. Pence or Ms. Harris could end up being president themselves, as opposed to just leading contenders for the nomination in 2024 and beyond. For Mr. Pence, Wednesday’s debate will most likely compel him to account for the administration’s record on a virus that has now infected 7.4 million Americans — including the most protected man in the country, Mr. Trump — and answer for his own stewardship as chairman of the federal coronavirus task force. For Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, the debate is a chance to show that she is capable of being president in a national emergency, as well as to demonstrate that she can challenge the Trump record on Covid-19 without seeming overly aggressive against an ailing president.”

SEXT SCANDAL ENDANGERS SENATE DEMS’ PATH TO MAJORITY

WaPo: “It’s tough to predict what political impact the news that North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham had been sending intimate texts to a woman who isn’t his wife will have on the competitive Senate race there. It’s undeniably bad for him, although partisanship can be a strong motivator to keep voters with their respective candidates. The broader impact on the battle for the Senate is more clear: It’s one of the worst possible races for this to happen in for Democrats. North Carolina had been shaping up as one of their best chances to clinch the Senate majority next year. And they will need the Senate to accomplish much of anything if they win the White House next year. Now that could be in jeopardy with recently revealed texts like this from Cunningham, who is married with two children, to a public relations specialist who is also married: ‘Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now.’”

PLAY-BY-PLAY

Senior officials seek investigation in to accusations against Texas AG Ken Paxton – Fort Worth Star-Telegram

AUDIBLE: CORONA COLORED GLASSES


“He has experience now fighting the coronavirus… those first-hand experiences, Joe Biden doesn’t have those.” – Trump 2020 campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine.

FROM THE BLEACHERS


“I’m not expecting Lincoln-Douglas, but there is a Grand Canyon sized chasm between Lincoln-Douglas and what we saw last week. With that being said: What are your suggestions for changes in the debates? My initial suggestions: Each candidate gets a 5 minute response (I’d prefer 10 minutes, but I’m a realist) to a question, followed by a 2 minute rebuttal and possibly a 1-2 minute rejoinder. Then the other candidate responds to the same question with the same format. Following that rule, each topic would get 16-18 minutes total (still not enough, but better than we have now). And second suggestion, fewer topics. There are 3 debates, so there is no need to address Coronavirus, Supreme Court, riots, race relations, economy, etc. all in 1 debate. Fewer topics would allow for the longer responses I am proposing. What say you? What are your suggestions for improving the debates (outside of the moderator holding a mute button!)?” – Adam Day, San Jose, Calif.

[Ed. note: Why not, Mr. Day? You pretty much just described a Lincoln-Douglas style debate format. It gives participants each a total of 18 minutes broken into alternating chunks of time of between 3 minutes and 7 minutes. Would that really be so bad? You’d have a moderator who basically just kept time and directed the candidates to take their turns. I’m all for it!]

“I’m throwing a flag on the play — in your Wednesday podcast, you said “same thing” when Dana mentioned both absentee voting and mail-in voting. Do you really see them as the same thing? I realize I may have missed sarcasm; if that’s not the case, then could you kindly explain? Absentee voting (presumably) involves individual verification of valid voter status before sending the ballot to the voter. No problems there. But full ‘vote-by-mail’ seems to simply involve sending a ballot to everyone currently on each county’s rolls. Even granting the assumption of honesty and good faith, how accurate are those rolls? People die, move, and go to jail every day. The fear is that there will be vast numbers of ballots arriving in mailboxes that shouldn’t be receiving them.  In 2000, if only one in 10,000 votes were changed, Gore would have won. Also, one could argue that a voter requesting an absentee ballot is more likely to complete it and return it correctly, whereas a voter who simply receives an unsolicited ballot in the mail might be more likely to fail to submit it correctly. In Pennsylvania, they will reject ballots that don’t include the inner privacy sleeve. Thanks for hearing me out. Love the podcast!” – Mike Whalen, Wheeling, W. Va.

[Ed. note: First off, greetings to you and all my fellow Wheeligites! I’m not sure what the exact context was, but yes, there isn’t an obvious distinction between “mail in” and ‘absentee’ voting. All mail-in voting is absentee voting in the sense that the voter will be absent from the polling place. There are many states that allow “in-person” absentee voting, an oxymoron that refers to voters who come early and cast their votes because they will be absent on Election Day. The trend toward early and absentee voting has been rising for years, and this year will no doubt intensify that trajectory. But what you’re talking about are states that are mailing all registered voters a ballot this year. That doesn’t have anything to do with being by mail, per se, but rather the fact that the mail ballots are unsolicited. Perhaps it would help Republicans to call these “unsolicited ballots” rather than “mail-in ballots,” to avoid confusion. Nine states and the District of Columbia are in fact mailing ballots out to all registered voters. Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Colorado have done so for multiple cycles without difficulty. California, Nevada, New Jersey, Vermont and D.C. are introducing the change this time. While it’s certainly true that this could make it easier for criminals to obtain ballots with which to rig elections, you can at least be glad that only one of these states, Nevada, is being contested to any degree on the presidential level. While we can have a high degree of confidence in the states experienced with all-mail voting, there is reason for concern in the states new to the system. Elections officials will have to keep a weather eye, indeed.]

“Mr. Christopher Stirewalt, West Virginian Bon Vivant, So clearly I listened to your recent spot on The Commentary podcast, credit to John Podhoretz for giving you the best title ever! Additionally, on that podcast, you suggested the release of the Access Hollywood tape gave Trump the win in 2016 because… and now I’ll Stirewalt this… it caused him to listen to Moses, melt down the golden calf, stop tweeting about how much he loves the golden calf, and become a more humble candidate (I mean Israelite) for a little while. And at the exact time the Comey / Hillary stuff hit the fan. Could this positive Corona test also be a calf melting moment? Force Trump to go radio silent for a couple weeks while (hopefully) recovering. Leave the media with nothing left to report on but Biden (à la Comey / Hillary), so that they press him to answer some of the fundamental questions he hasn’t yet:  end filibuster, court packing, state creation. There are a lot of differences between ‘16 and ‘20, but Trump has an amazing way of threading impossible needles. What do you think?” – Brent Pickle, Pottsboro, Texas

[Ed. note: That was certainly the thinking behind Friday’s note, but so far that doesn’t seem to be how things are shaping up. While it’s not exactly clear what the president’s condition is, it is clear that he and his administration are still struggling with how to deal with the issue. Part of the problem may be that the Israelites actually have to believe they’re in trouble to be chastened and start melting the idols. Trump may himself see this as an opportunity, one that he is too eager on which to capitalize.] 

“Good morning from Mississippi! I’m not seeing HTR as often and hope you and Brianna are doing ok. Just wanted to share this article from ‘Mississippi Today’ and gently suggest that you keep your eye on this [Senate race of Mike Espy against incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith]. It is WAY tighter than anyone expected it to be and will be one to watch. These are crazy days we are living and I continue to be grateful for the clarity and sanity you and Dana bring to us. Please don’t throw your hands up and quit, we need you!” – Mary Carol Miller, Greenwood, Miss.

[Ed. note: From Brianna: Hello Ms. Miller! We’ve had other readers write in saying they aren’t receiving the Halftime Report as well. It seems that some email providers have been sending the Halftime Report to readers’ spam folders. We recommend you check there, report it as “not spam” and that should hopefully fix your problem. If that’s not the case, I unfortunately don’t have further guidance yet. Due to this ongoing issue we have launched an inquiry with our outside vendor – who provides the platform we send the Halftime Report from – to find the underlying cause of this. We appreciate your patience as we actively try to fix this problem! In the meantime, you can always access the Halftime Report at FoxNews.com.]

“I finally got around to making the roquefort dressing from the recipe in your July 13 column. I suspect there is an error since mine turned out sort of yellow rather than pink. Should ‘1 tbsp curry powder’ be ‘1 tsp curry powder’ instead? It still tastes pretty good but I think the problem lies with too much curry powder. I look forward to your wit and wisdom and unabashed optimism every week day.” – Ken Lowther, Rhinelander, Wis.

[Ed. note: Oh, no — the curry is the thing! It may depend on what kind you are using. If it’s a reddish vindaloo curry, you should have a very pleasing result. And like with a lot of things, a little more ketchup will cover a lot of sins.]

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

OTTERLY IN LOVE

Metro: “Poor otter Harris had been feeling lonely after his partner of four years, Apricot, passed away. His owners at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary were keen to find the Asian short clawed otter a new mate sharpish, so set him up on a dating website made just for him. On the site, called Fishing For Love, ten-year-old Harris was given his own dating profile highlighting all he has to offer. His profile read: ‘Looking to find my significant otter.’ … When the team sent around the otter’s dating profile, they were delighted to receive photos back from a female otter called Pumpkin, who was looking for love at Scarborough Sea Life after her elderly partner Eric passed away. Of course, as with most first dates, there’s a lot of pressure on the big meet-up. Introducing Asian short-clawed otters is a tricky process, as it’s essential that the male submits to the female on first meeting. For this reason, Harris will be moving up to Pumpkin’s enclosure to make sure the introduction goes as smoothly as possible. Yes, we do think they might be moving a bit fast, but when you know, you know.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…


“Every democracy needs an opposition press. We damn well have one now.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing about American Democracy in the Washington Post on March 23, 2017.


Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

How the corona bailout fell apart

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On the roster: How the corona bailout fell apart – I’ll Tell You What: Party on the rug – Trump retreats to happy talk on coronavirus – Dramatic reversal in ad wars – It does lack basic civil rights and an economy…

HOW THE CORONA BAILOUT FELL APART

From the moment that Congress passed its $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill in March, the battle was on over the next tranche of spending.

The scope of the economic and social disruption from the pandemic was so huge that the expectation that more money would inevitably follow spending already beyond 10 percent of our whole economy was as obvious as the mask on your face.

But that didn’t happen, and for several reasons.

The first was political. Congressional Republicans resented money going to big blue states where they believed the funds were being siphoned off to Democratic machine politics or subsidizing a shutdown they believe was intended to hurt the economy and President Trump’s chances for reelection. Prior to the deadly summer wave that swept through the South and Midwest, it was common to hear about this geo-political divide.

Democrats, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to force Republicans to admit defeat in their effort to talk down the threat while simultaneously funding what amounted to a letter to Santa of Democratic policy priorities. The message: If you don’t vote for a $3 trillion package that includes lots of special interest goodies you’re a monster who wants people to die.

The second was practical. The original stimulus worked far better in some ways that its creators had imagined while much vaunted programs proved to be a fizzle. But whatever the reasons, the economy stabilized. You can get away with almost anything during the opening stages of a crisis, and they did. Now we face the grueling work of climbing out of the hole. Cutting seven points off the real unemployment rate since April was good, but we’re only halfway home. And as in most things, the last part is the hardest part. Mailing out free money to individuals and giving subsidies to businesses can ease short-term pain but can’t produce long-term economic growth.

The third was chronological. The closer we got to the November elections the less willing either side was to give the others a victory.

But the number one reason why there hadn’t been another bill dropping sacks of cash like Arthur Carlson pushing turkeys out of a helicopter was that Republicans couldn’t agree on what they wanted.

Until last week.

Despite what you saw being said publicly, the real division wasn’t between Republicans and Democrats, but rather between the Trump administration and the Senate GOP. Trump, who is currently throwing everything he can lay his hands on to try to turn the election around, has very much wanted money to be spent before the fall. Senate Republicans, for the reasons mentioned above, were not interested in drawing themselves primary challengers with what would be called a multi-billion blue-state bailout.


 


That wasn’t good for the blue and swing-state senators on the GOP side. Though a minority in their conference, those members are the ones on whose fates this fall the Senate majority will depend. Susan Collins can’t run as a bipartisan dealmaker without making a bipartisan deal.

After much anguish, Senate Republicans got together and backed the Healthcare, Economic Assistance, Liability, and Schools Act – a $1 trillion boost to the original bill. They knew Democrats would filibuster it but getting all their members, other than Rand Paul, behind the plan was a key step in shifting pressure from Republicans back on the other side. To have Democrats blocking instead of Republicans ducking was the first good news on this front for the GOP in some time.

Collins’ counterparts on the House side, the moderates who made the Democratic majority in the lower chamber, tore into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team in a conference call this week.

Media mainstay Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., was quoted as saying: “My conviction is to actually do my go***mn job and come up with a solution for the American people. We have to bring something to the floor.”

Holding out for $3 trillion when there’s no real offer on the table is one thing. But it’s another when there’s an alternative. And with the adorably named Problem Solvers Caucus pushing a split-the-difference package, holding out gets even harder.

Which, of course, brings us President Trump today telling Senate Republicans to “go for the much higher numbers … it all comes back to the USA anyway.” No doubt frustrated by the slow pace on something he believes to be crucial to his re-election, Trump today told his fellow GOPers to feel the stimulus love – including checks for taxpayers just before they vote.

But the only way the Senate could pass a bill like the ones Trump and Pelosi are imagining would be to let the Democrats drive and try to get enough Republicans to back a blue-team bill. And that is not going to happen in a Senate run by Mitch McConnell. It’s just not in his members’ interest to break down now. The dude who froze out Merrick Garland in 2016 is not going to suddenly go wobbly in 2020.

Our guess is that some additional relief money will be spent as part of the coming deal on avoiding a government shutdown in two weeks, but the prospects of some large-scale deal before members flee in mid-October look about as good as the chances of apple bobbing while wearing a corona mask.

THE RULEBOOK: NAH


“Would it be wonderful if, under the pressure of all these difficulties, the convention should have been forced into some deviations from that artificial structure and regular symmetry which an abstract view of the subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution planned in his closet or in his imagination?” – James Madison, writing about the difficulties of creating a proper form of government, Federalist No. 37

TIME OUT: LETTERED LITERARY THEMES

Smithsonian: “In Jane Austen‘s Emma, the title character’s rival Jane Fairfax marvels at the efficiency of the mail: ‘The post-office is a wonderful establishment!’ she declares. … The regularity of the mail in Austen’s novels is often the heart of the story. Indeed, it is generally agreed that Austen’s most famous work, Pride and Prejudice, began as an epistolary novel called First Impressions, consisting exclusively of letters between the characters. The epistolary novel was one of the main traditions from which Austen’s remarkable realism emerged, and in each of her six full-length novels, letters serve (quite naturally) as crucial points in developing plot and character. To imagine an Austen novel without letters would be, to borrow a word from Jane Fairfax, astonishing. Now, Barbara Heller, a set decorator for film and television, has curated a special edition of Pride and Prejudice that offers readers handwritten reproductions of the 19 letters that appear in the novel, artfully rendered by calligraphers at the New York Society of Scribes.” 

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions. 

SCOREBOARD 

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE 

Trump: 43.6 percent       

Biden: 50.6 percent       

Size of lead: Biden by 7 points       

Change from one week ago: Biden ↓ 0.6, Trump ↑ 1 point       

[Average includes: Fox News: Trump 46% – Biden 51%; Kaiser Family Foundation: Trump 43% – Biden 48%; Monmouth University: Trump 44% – Biden 51%; CNN: Trump 43% – Biden 51%; Quinnipiac University: Trump 42% – Biden 52%.]   

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS 

(270 electoral votes needed to win) 

Toss-up: (109 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6) 

Lean R/Likely R: (180 electoral votes) 

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes) 

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE 

Average approval: 43.6 percent       

Average disapproval: 53.6 percent       

Net Score: -10 points    

Change from one week ago: ↑ 0.4 points     

[Average includes: Gallup: 42% approve – 56% disapprove; Fox News: 48% approve – 51% disapprove; Kaiser Family Foundation: 45% approve – 52% disapprove; Monmouth University: 42% approve – 55% disapprove; CNN: 41% approve – 54% disapprove.]     

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL? 

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM

.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: PARTY ON THE RUG 

After getting through the all-important topics of chips and cats, Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt get into politics. They discuss what a series of recent polling reveals about the Trump campaign’s messaging, the nation’s hypothetical response to a Trump victory on election day, and what a generic congressional ballot can tell us about the current state of play for the Senate. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE 

TRUMP RETREATS TO HAPPY TALK ON CORONAVIRUS 

NYT: “President Trump denied on Tuesday that he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus that has taken more than 195,000 lives in the United States, directly contradicting his own recorded words in which he admitted doing exactly that. And then he proceeded to downplay the pandemic even further. Appearing at a [ABC News] town-hall-style event in Philadelphia, Mr. Trump presented a view of the pandemic radically at odds with the view of public health officials, insisting again that the virus would disappear on its own and contending that ‘we’re rounding the corner’ of the crisis. He cast doubt on the value of wearing masks, citing the wisdom of restaurant waiters over the counsel of his own medical advisers. … ‘It is going to disappear — it’s going to disappear, I still say it,’ he said. ‘You’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen.’” 

Feds announce vaccine plan, but not on Trump’s timetable – AP: “The government outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, assuming a safe and effective shot is developed, even as top health officials faced questions about political interference with virus information reaching the public. … The whole enterprise faces remaining skepticism. Only about half of Americans said they’d get vaccinated in an Associated Press-NORC poll taken in May. Since then, questions have only mounted about whether the government is trying to rush treatments and vaccines to help President Donald Trump’s reelection chances. Although Trump asserted Tuesday that a vaccine could be three to four weeks away, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, made clear to Congress on Wednesday that any version available this year would be in ‘very limited supply.’ The shot wouldn’t be broadly available to most of the U.S. population until the summer or fall of 2021, he estimated.” 

Gates warns of politicizing vaccine – CBS News: “Bill Gates is alarmed by what he views as the Trump administration’s bungled response to the coronavirus, and fears that politics will erode public confidence in the eventual vaccine. … Gates also criticized Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who critics say exaggerated the findings of a Mayo Clinic study on the benefits of using convalescent blood plasma as a treatment for COVID-19, only to backtrack the next day. ‘We saw with the completely bungled plasma statements that when you start pressuring people to say optimistic things, they go completely off the rails. The FDA lost a lot of credibility there,’ Gates said in an interview Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. … President Donald Trump on Labor Day asserted that a coronavirus vaccine could be ready ‘during the month of October’ — just weeks before the November 3 presidential election.” 

DRAMATIC REVERSAL IN AD WARS

FiveThirtyEight: “For months, President Trump’s campaign boasted that its campaign operation was a ‘juggernaut’ and compared it to the powerful Death Star. Nowhere was that more evident to the general public than on the television airwaves. According to data from Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group, from early May through July 28, 2020, the Trump campaign and Republican outside groups spent an estimated $80.1 million to air 161,744 ads on local broadcast, national network and national cable TV for the presidential general election. By contrast, Joe Biden’s campaign and Democratic outside groups spent an estimated $44.2 million and aired only 66,875 ads for the presidential general election during that period. …Republican Death Star stopped being fully armed and operational in late July — while Democrats began to step up their game. From July 29 through Sept. 14, Republican forces aired just 107,816 ads at an estimated cost of $71.5 million, while Democratic forces aired 183,341 ads for an estimated $107.1 million.” 

Biden ups ante, spending $65M on ad blitz this week – Fox News: “Flush with fundraising dollars, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign announced Wednesday morning that it’s dishing out an eye-popping $65 million this week for an ad blitz on TV, digital, radio and print. Biden’s campaign described the buy as ‘the single largest paid media investment the campaign has made to date,’ and deputy press secretary Matt Hill tweeted that the former vice president’s team is ‘going big on paid media and reaching voters across the map.’ The campaign spotlighted that the ads will run in 10 key general election battleground states: Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Nebraska and Minnesota.” 

WISCONSIN REMAINS COMPETITIVE, MINNESOTA A BLOWOUT

ABC News: “It’s a close contest in Wisconsin heading into the final seven weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, while women, suburban residents and independents are among the groups lifting Joe Biden to a substantial lead in Minnesota, according to a pair of new ABC News/Washington Post polls. Views on the economy and the coronavirus pandemic define the race, and the course of both may prove decisive. And turnout is a wildcard: As is the case nationally, President Donald Trump benefits from much greater enthusiasm among his supporters, who are far more apt to plan to vote on Election Day. That makes Biden’s ability to mobilize early and absentee voting central to the outcome. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes out of 3 million cast. Today Biden has 52% support among likely voters there, with 46% for Trump — not a statistically significant difference given the survey’s margin of sampling error. In Minnesota, by contrast, Biden holds a clear advantage, 57%-41%, in what’s been a hoped-for Trump pickup after his narrow 45,000-vote loss four years ago.” 

Poll: Collins trials, Graham in tight race, McConnell in a walk – Quinnipiac University: “In three high-profile United States Senate races in Maine, South Carolina, and Kentucky where longtime Republican incumbents are seeking re-election, only one of those incumbents has a clear lead, one is now an underdog, and one is locked in a dead heat, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters in each of the states released today. These are the first surveys of likely voters in the 2020 election cycle in Maine, South Carolina, and Kentucky by the Quinnipiac University… Democrat Sara Gideon leads the race among likely voters for the U.S. Senate in Maine 54 – 42 percent over Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is seeking her fifth term. … Senator Lindsey Graham, who is seeking his fourth term in the U.S. Senate, is tied with his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison. Forty-eight percent of likely voters support Graham, while 48 percent support Harrison. … Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is seeking a seventh term, leads the race for U.S. Senate in Kentucky 53 – 41 percent over Democratic challenger Amy McGrath. … In Maine, former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump in the race for the White House 59 – 38 percent.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY

GOPers on Homeland Security committee give green light to go after Obama officials before election – Politico  

Government funding negotiations hit roadblock from Census deadlines dispute – Roll Call

Big Ten decision to play this fall creates unpredictable playoff race – USA Today

AUDIBLE: WE’LL PUT YOU DOWN AS A ‘MAYBE’

“All this bullsh** about how the president is going to stay in office and seize power? I’ve never heard of any of that crap. I mean, I’m the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it.” – Attorney General Bill Barr describing how ‘liberals project’ with the Chicago Tribune. 

FROM THE BLEACHERS 

“I enjoy reading the Halftime Report regularly, not because I agree with your analysis and opinion with the same regularity, but because I generally find that analysis and opinion to be thoughtful and informed. I often disagree, but the Report is thought provoking and, therefore, a welcome departure from obviously agenda driven media like the NYT and Washington Post. It was disappointing to read what borders on a sophist response to the reader from Wheat Ridge! I found myself shaking my head in disbelief as you built the mental image of your deep blue reporter heroically building her education and career through sacrifice and hard work and subsequently excusing her abject failure to ask meaningful, information eliciting question as a function of her background! Gosh! What right do we have to expect any more than her intractable, deeply partisan mindset would present! We should understand and excuse seemed to be the argument that you were offering! With respect, that is ridiculous on its face!  There is no suggestion that the reporter is ‘crooked!’ But it would seem that it would be as obvious to you as it is to any casual observer that those silly questions prostitute the profession and are unworthy! Anyone, man or woman, who doesn’t respect the special obligations of a journalist and yields to his or her base biases really ought to find another line of work!  They certainly are not serving the public! And, to pretend that they do not precisely understand what they are doing is to dismiss the obvious! If it walks like a duck……..! All the love and patience in the world will not elicit useful information when the issue is time perishable which the election certainly is! Having said all of that, I do appreciate and look forward to reading the Halftime Report daily!” – Carl C. Watson, Niceville, Fla. 

[Ed. note: I guess I’m missing the point. What would be more crooked than knowingly asking the wrong questions to advantage one side or another in an election? What else could it be but corruption? If the idea is to improve media coverage and make it more fair, how will it help to accuse people of corruption who do not believe themselves to be corrupt? We can certainly find lots of instances of journalistic corruption — fake quotes, fabricated stories, featherbedding etc. Like in any profession, malfeasance is sometimes part of the problem. What I’m telling you, though, is that the salient complaints here are about misfeasance. The reporters questioning Biden did not think of great, probing questions and then chuck them because they wanted to help the Democrat. They were asking what they thought were the best questions. It just so happens that they were wrong. But when you accuse them of prostiution and knowing misconduct what’s left to say? They’re sure not listening to you and you’re sure not getting more out of your news consumption. Ignorance does not excuse us from our duties, but understanding the difference between problems that arise from ignorance and those that arise from malign intent is an important first step in solving a problem. You have every right to lambaste, insult and degenerate these people, just as some progressives have every right to say that Trump supporters are racist, greedy and corrupt. It may feel nice for them to warm their hands over the coals of self righteousness, but it won’t do anything to solve the problems we all face.] 

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown. 

IT DOES LACK BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS AND AN ECONOMY… 

Moscow Times: “Venus is a ‘Russian planet,’ the head of Russia’s state space agency said Tuesday following new research that suggests there could be life on the second planet from the sun. The research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Monday, details British and American scientists’ discovery of phosphine gas in Venus’ clouds and puts forward possible theories for its origin, including that of extraterrestrial life. …Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said prior research by Russian scientists indicated that the planet is inhospitable to life. ‘Our country was the first and only one to successfully land on Venus,’ Rogozin said. ‘The [Russian] spacecraft gathered information about the planet — it is like hell over there.’ Roscosmos also announced plans Tuesday to launch an independent Russian expedition to Venus ‘without involving wide international cooperation.’ The expedition will take place in addition to the previously planned Venera-D mission, which is being carried out in cooperation with the United States.” 

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES… 

“We simply cannot concede to Kim Jong Un the capacity to annihilate American cities.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) discussing the crisis with North Korea in the Washington Post on April 20, 2017. 

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Believe in America

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BELIEVE IN AMERICA

Every year on Sept. 11, Americans share a dual remembrance.

First we mourn the 2,997 Americans killed in the bloodiest day on American soil since the Civil War. We remember the feelings of helplessness and grief. Our hearts well up for the families of the victims. We marvel at the courage of those who ran into to the buildings or who called their loved ones to say a last goodbye. We still can’t believe it was real.

The second mourning of this day, though, is for the loss of the unity we felt in that moment and the months that followed. Out of a cynical, divided nation emerged a new motto, “united we stand.”

“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy,” Sandy Dahl, wife of one of the pilots of Flight 93, said, “we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.”

But if we learned that at all, it didn’t take until even the second anniversary of the attacks before new hatreds, even sharper than the ones before, had begun to emerge.

If you could describe the political and cultural conditions present at this years’ anniversary to Americans in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, imagine the disappointment they would feel. But certainly by 2004, Americans would easily recognize the shape of things to come.

The breakdown of our political system revealed in the populist revolts and curdled partisanship of the 1990s had been paused, not reversed, by America’s response to 9/11.

That’s not to say that a people can every truly keep the lessons of a calamity indefinitely. You can remember the Alamo or the Maine or Pearl Harbor for a time, but when the war is over, life goes on. The blessing of mellowing of memories with time takes with it some of what we learned.

But this time, we didn’t forget the right parts.

American politics and public life kept the intensity and apocalyptic tones of the early days after the attack and the start of what we once called the Global War on Terror.

But without the unifying purpose of defending the homeland, that powerful energy was turned inward and against each other.

After the successive shocks of a financial panic, deep recession and now a crippling pandemic, America sounds like a country that doesn’t believe in itself anymore. With each successive challenge we seemed to find ourselves less able – less willing – to respond.

Historians will study the incapacity of such a great nation to deal with the coronavirus long after the last of us is gone. How does a country so rich, scientifically advanced and secure get bowled over by a pandemic and struggle for so long to get a handle on the problem? What went wrong?

One answer comes to us from a Pew Research survey of the residents of economically advanced nations. The U.S. had the lowest share of citizens who felt that the epidemic had made their county more united. Just 19 percent compared to an average score of 46 percent. 

It’s not that the virus made us more divided, but that our divisions made us less able to defeat the virus. Our failures were not ones of policy as much as they were of inability to cooperate.

We have not stood united. And even when we are being so acutely reminded of how short life is, we have still made time for hate.

The paranoid, dystopian rhetoric that crept in on the heels of 9/11 has stayed with us. We question each other’s patriotism. We warn that the next election might be our last. We say that the other guy wasn’t really American. We eagerly believe the worst about each other. We warn of shadowy forces destroying the nation just beyond our field of view.

That lack of confidence turned into a kind of political nihilism. If America’s best days really were behind us, then why should we deny ourselves the satisfaction of our petty resentments and tribal antipathies? If this is the end, why not tear down the monuments to this failed endeavor? If the system is broken, why not take advantage of it for yourself?

How strange to see the freest, wealthiest and most powerful people in human history wrecking themselves in what amounts to a collective nervous breakdown.

But please remember, we have been here before.

Less than 50 years ago America was in worse shambles. After years of race riots, our country’s first military defeat, egregious political corruption, economic malaise, energy crises and being held in contempt by third-rate powers around the world, it was easy to believe that after 200 years, we had shot our bolt.

But something changed in us. We became exhausted of defeatism and division. We grew tired of dwelling on what was wrong with America. It didn’t happen all at once, but starting about the time of the bicentennial, America staged an audacious comeback that surprised the world and ourselves. The 20 or so years that followed were nothing short of earthshaking.

Ronald Reagan, one of the key figures in that turnaround once observed: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

He was echoing the sentiments of another indispensable American, Benjamin Franklin, who long ago told us: “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”

The hard truth is that human beings are destined to learn again and again the facts of life as individuals and as a nation. As every parent knows, instruction can only carry someone so far before they have to learn from the consequences of their mistakes.

Well, the consequences have been piling up this century for America. And as much as we had hoped that the trauma of those attacks 19 years ago would have taught us those lessons so well that we could preserve the old verities about duty, honor and country, we have needed more instruction.

But when we do get to the place that we are ready to act like ourselves again, rest assured that the sacrifices, heroism and devotion of Sept. 11, 2001 will indeed be part of a new birth of our national confidence.

We will again believe in America.

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Washington Post on Sept. 8, 2011.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Biden needs a veep who can do the talking

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On the roster: Biden needs a veep who can do the talking – Trump tries to shore up Ohio amid corona woes – DNC lineup touts unity, nods to bipartisanship – Dems, Team Trump scramble to revive stimulus talks – ‘The boars calmly ate a pizza from his backpack’

BIDEN NEEDS A VEEP WHO CAN DO THE TALKING

Is there a sub-basement, root cellar or some other space farther below ground in Joe Biden’s Delaware home? Because if so, that’s exactly where Democrats would like to put him today. 

In just one session this week with members of the national associations for Black and Hispanic journalists Biden managed two major blunders. First, like a sketchy dude who shows up at your party, he unexpectedly introduced cocaine into the conversation. Then he managed to yet again to sound dismissive of Black voters’ concerns as he was discussing the political diversity among Hispanics. 

The first one was just, well, peak Biden. Challenged on his mental acuity, Biden got angry and said, basically, how would you like it if I asked you whether you were high on drugs. That it was to a reporter of Jamaican ancestry made it even cringier. This is another in Biden’s long history of being thin-skinned to personal attacks. It was that way in his first presidential run and it’s been that way this time or else we’re lying, dog-faced pony soldiers. 

The second one was also just the most recent instance in Biden’s long history of terrible awkwardness in talking about race also going back decades. What he said was not only true but also uncontroversial, just not coming from him. 

Here’s Biden talking to the journalist groups: “What you all know but most people don’t know, unlike the African American community with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things.” 

This is common knowledge among political professionals, analysts and academics. While something like 9 out of 10 Black voters typically have backed Democrats since the Civil Rights era, Hispanic support has varied more widely on a national level – George W. Bush scored something like 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 – but differs dramatically state to state. 

Hispanic voters in California are different in partisanship from those in Texas are different from those in Illinois are different from those in Florida in ways we just don’t tend to see with African American voters. 

But Biden had recently put himself in trouble on his expectations of Black voters with an outburst of the first kind where he took offense to the questioning of a Black radio host about Biden’s commitment to Black causes. “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump,” Biden scoffed, “then you ain’t Black.” 

We believe Biden that his cocaine riff and questioning blackness were meant in jocular ways. But as Mitt Romney learned with his joking $10,000 bet in a 2012 debate, jests can reveal larger truths to voters. In this case, the truth is that Biden feels support from Black voters is his due. 

So when he was explaining the political characteristics of America’s largest minority groups it didn’t matter that he was right. It mattered that he was saying out loud something he has already shown insensitivity about. 

There are lots of things that may be true that politicians (or anyone) shouldn’t say out loud in every setting. And you can always add to that list topics on which you have already muffed it. 

Biden here benefits from some of the same low expectations as his opponent, President Trump. When they say things that sound like a garbled Google translation or offer up some ripely offensive term or just get the facts all wrong, it sort of rolls off. When the clickbait headlines scream, “You’ll never believe what so-and-so said,” we think “that’s where you’re wrong” and save ourselves the annoyance. 

But sometimes a gaffe is so pungent that it breaks through. Trump finds out from time to time that he still has the capacity to shock, even if the shocks don’t vibrate to his benefit the way they once did. And Biden knows that he’s just a couple of wrath garbles away from his capacity to lead being a serious question in this election. 

Biden is currently doing about the minimum he can do in terms of active campaigning. And it’s working. There’s no sign of any real tightening in the race nationally and Biden continues to far outperform 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. 

But more will be asked of him in the next several weeks. He has a major convention speech to give, interviews to do alongside his running mate and the three debates with Trump. It’s pretty clear that will be more than enough for Biden. 

Which raises this question: Will Biden’s running mate be up to what will likely be her role as primary spokesperson for the campaign? 

Front-runner Kamala Harris was weak under pressure in her own presidential run and often struggled to explain herself in her many flip-flops. Karen Bass essentially disqualified herself in her mishandling of questions about her soft touch on the Castro regime. “I am not a communist.” Sheesh. That leaves Tammy Duckworth as the best communicator in the bunch. She knows her brief and knows how to handle high-pressure situations. 

Biden surely knows he can’t keep playing Frogger and scrambling through these interview sessions without getting splattered too often. He needs a running mate who can. 

THE RULEBOOK: GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO 

“No well-informed man will suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy can be properly regulated by a government less comprehensive in its organs or institutions than that which has been proposed by the convention.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 13 

TIME OUT: OH MY GOURD 

Garden&Gun: “On a pre-pandemic trip to the Atlanta History Center, [Garden&Gun’s Haskell Harris] learned several things: that their library houses the largest collection of Southern cookbooks; that real-life, period actors greet you like friendly ghosts inside the historic Swan House on the property (always nice to have a heads up if you plan on going); and where loofahs come from. Yes, loofahs, those lovely sponges for scrubbing skin to perfection. It turns out real loofahs do not come from the ocean, like sponges, and not always manmade from a factory, as [Harris] mistakenly thought, but from a gourd. Technically, a plant commonly known as a dishrag gourd (genus Luffa!), which produces prolific fruit that looks very similar to Southern squash or zucchini or cucumber; the loofahs hide inside the fruit. [Harris] spotted one while walking through the kitchen garden of the Smith Farm on the AHC’s property, a home and garden literally moved from North Carolina and restored as a house museum.” 

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with  your tips, comments or questions. 

SCOREBOARD 

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE 

Trump: 40.6 percent 

Biden: 51.8 percent 

Size of lead: Biden by 11.2 points 

Change from one week ago: Biden no change in points, Trump no change in points 

[Average includes: Fox News: Trump 41% – Biden 49%; ABC/WaPo: Trump 44% – Biden 54; Quinnipiac University: Trump 37% – Biden 52%; NBC News/WSJ: Trump 40% – Biden 51%; Monmouth University: Trump 41% – Biden 53%.] 

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS

(270 electoral votes needed to win) 

Toss-up: (109 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6) 

Lean R/Likely R: (180 electoral votes) 

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes) 

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE 

Average approval: 40.8 percent 

Average disapproval: 56.8 percent 

Net Score: -16 points 

Change from one week ago: no change in points 

[Average includes: Fox News: 45% approve – 54% disapprove; ABC News/WaPo: 40% approve – 58% disapprove; Gallup: 41% approve – 56% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 36% approve – 60% disapprove; NBC News/WSJ: 42% approve – 56% disapprove.] 

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL? 

We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

TRUMP TRIES TO SHORE UP OHIO AMID CORONA WOES  

NYT: “President Trump traveled Thursday to the crucial battleground of Ohio, hoping to highlight efforts to bolster the economy… But he could not escape the reality of the landscape he is facing: Before Mr. Trump arrived, the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, tested positive for the coronavirus… The sudden change in plans … mirrored the president’s shifting fortunes in a state that coming into 2020 had seemed unassailable on Mr. Trump’s electoral map. After a second, different type of test on Thursday, Mr. DeWine came up negative. But the failures in his response to the pandemic have changed the forecast for November in Ohio, where cases remain high. Several polls in the state have shown [Biden] running close to Mr. Trump. … But the cost in ‘resources, attention and manpower is likely to cost him another needed state,’ said Nicholas Everhart, the president of Content Creative Media, a Republican national ad-buying firm based in Ohio. Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign has laid out tens of millions of dollars for a fall advertising blitz there.” 

Trump cuts Michigan deficit to 11 points – Detroit Free Press: “Former Vice President Joe Biden continued to hold a clear lead over President Donald Trump in a new poll of likely voters in Michigan released Friday, though it’s not as large as it was a month ago. A survey done by EPIC-MRA of Lansing showed Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, up 11 percentage points, with a 51%-40% lead over Trump, with 3% for Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen and 6% undecided. … ‘It has tightened up a tad,’ EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn said, referencing a late-May/early-June poll that showed Biden with a 16-point lead over Trump and taken at a time when Trump was more actively encouraging the use of military force in confronting civil unrest and protests against  police brutality in American cities. ‘But the base of Democrats are still more supportive of him than the Trump voters are and independents … are more supportive of Biden.’”

Commission won’t give Trump another debate, might if both sides agree – USA Today: “The Commission on Presidential Debates on Thursday rejected a Trump campaign request to add a fourth debate to the calendar or move up an existing one to the first week of September in order to address an expected surge in early voting. In a letter to the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who made the request on behalf of the campaign, the nonpartisan commission said it was committed to the schedule and while some states begin early voting before the first debate, voters are under no obligation to cast their ballot before hearing from Trump or his challenger Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. ‘There is a difference between ballots having been issued by a state and those ballots having been cast by voters, who are under no compulsion to return their ballots before the debates,’ the commission wrote in a letter obtained by USA TODAY.”

DNC LINEUP TOUTS UNITY, NODS TO BIPARTISANSHIP

Politico: “Bernie Sanders and John Kasich will share a night in the spotlight, and both Clintons are slated to have prominent speaking roles at the all-virtual Democratic National Convention in less than two weeks, multiple people familiar with the plans told POLITICO. Others who’ve been tapped for coveted speaking slots during an event that’s been shrunk down to eight prime-time hours over four nights are Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Jill Biden. And it goes without saying that the party’s two most popular figures, Barack and Michelle Obama, will be featured prominently. One source said Kasich — the former Republican governor of Ohio and a major critic of President Donald Trump — would appear on the same night as Sanders early in the week in a demonstration of unity. The duo would be designed to showcase a broad anti-Trump coalition that is backing Biden. Democrats are also reaching out to well-known military veterans and Republicans known for their national security expertise for a portion of the convention devoted to foreign policy.”

DEMS, TEAM TRUMP SCRAMBLE TO REVIVE STIMULUS TALKS 

AP: “Democratic leaders launched a last-ditch effort to revive collapsing Washington talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money, summoning Trump administration negotiators to the Capitol on Friday in hopes of generating progress. Both sides said the future of the negotiations was uncertain after a combative meeting on Thursday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Friday afternoon. President Donald Trump says he is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact. A breakdown in the talks would put at risk more than $100 billion to help reopen schools, a fresh round of $1,200 direct payments to most people and hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments to help them avoid furloughing workers and cutting services as tax revenues shrivel. Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., emerged from Thursday’s meeting to give a pessimistic update about the chances for an agreement.” 

Pelosi, Schumer say White House declined $2 trillion deal – The Hill: “Democratic leaders said Friday that the White House rejected an offer for a roughly $2 trillion coronavirus relief package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that as part of a closed-door Thursday meeting, Democrats offered to reduce their $3.4 trillion price tag by $1 trillion if Republicans would agree to raise their roughly $1 trillion package by the same amount. That strategy, effectively trying to split the difference between the two sides, would result in legislation costing between $2 trillion and $2.4 trillion. ‘‘We’ll take down a trillion, if you add a trillion in.’ They said absolutely not,’ Pelosi said during a joint press conference with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Friday.”

Trump faces challenges with stimulus by fiat threat – Politico: “President Donald Trump vowed again Thursday to unilaterally deliver pandemic aid to a struggling public if negotiations with Congress bottom out. But it might not be so easy. Any executive orders are sure to draw legal challenges — not to mention cause further turmoil for governors. Trump said he could issue executive orders in the coming days to cut payroll taxes, provide eviction protections, boost unemployment benefits and assist borrowers with student loans. Any of those moves would be controversial, but perhaps the most brazen is to tap billions of dollars in states’ unspent coronavirus relief funds to revive federally enhanced unemployment benefits that expired last week. Democrats are already angry with Trump’s repeated manipulation of congressionally appropriated cash to score policy wins he couldn’t secure otherwise. It could also exacerbate the deteriorating fiscal picture across the states, which are grappling with devastating revenue shortfalls.” 

Williamson: The more things change… – National Review: “For Republicans, the great political challenge is going to be that the entitlements that simply must be reformed are very popular with old white people, i.e., the Republican base. President Trump’s flat refusal to even consider entitlement reform only reconfirms the position of congressional Republicans going back to George W. Bush’s ill-fated and very lonely effort at achieving the mildest reform of Social Security. Republicans have no appetite for cutting the programs that actually represent the great majority of federal spending — popular middle-class entitlements and the military — and they remain fundamentally opposed to raising taxes, and, indeed, would if given the chance cut them still further in spite of the persistent deficit and the fiscal crisis it invites.” 

HAGERTY HOLDS OFF CRUZ-BACKED CHALLENGE  

Tennessean: “Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty secured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Thursday after a bitter primary battle that centered on support for President Donald Trump. The win came after a rancorous final stretch of the race that saw high-profile endorsements and attacks on the airwaves and in person. Hagerty took nearly 51% of the vote, while [Manny] Sethi pulled in just under 40%. Trump called Hagerty shortly before 9 p.m. to offer his congratulations. Minutes later, Hagerty addressed an uproarious audience gathered in his native Sumner County, thanking God, his family, Tennessee voters and the president for their support. ‘I cannot thank you enough,’ he said to the cheering crowd. ‘You believed in me, you believe in my vision for this state.’ Joined by U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Tom Cotton; departing state Rep. Andy Holt; state House Majority Leader William Lamberth; and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, he added, ‘I’m looking forward to serving you well.’” 

Rep. Ilhan Omar to face tough primary Tuesday – WCCO: “Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her leading opponent, Antone Melton-Meaux, held dueling news conferences Wednesday. There are signs the race is becoming more competitive. Because the 5th Congressional District is so overwhelmingly Democratic, next Tuesday’s primary is widely expected to pick the winner. The Minnesota DFL party filed a federal elections complaint Tuesday against Melton-Meaux, alleging he illegally concealed the identities of his campaign consultants and some of his contributions. He dismissed the complaint as frivolous, and full of ‘falsities.’ ‘What this really is … frankly a desperate attempt by the DFL to resurrect Congresswoman Omar’s campaign that is falling apart. That’s what this is,’ Melton-Meaux said. … Congresswoman Omar is not commenting on the FEC complaint.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY 

Trump signs executive order banning TikTok, WeChat Thursday – LAT

Judge dismisses McCarthy’s lawsuit to overturn proxy voting – Politico

Condoleezza Rice, Dana Perino join 100-year celebration of women’s suffrage – 

Fox News

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY 

Tune in this weekend as Mr. Sunday sits down with Speaker of the House  Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Watch “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Check local listings for broadcast times in your area.

#mediabuzz – Host Howard Kurtz has the latest take on the week’s media coverage. Watch #mediabuzz Sundays at 11 a.m. ET.   

FROM THE BLEACHERS 

“Your whole write-up [on what happens in the event of an inconclusive presidential election] was good, but only applies in that that is the way it should be.  Not if it goes awry.  Particularly if there is suspicion of widespread corruption and rigging, which we all know is quite likely. So let’s assume some State holds a recount, and suddenly boxes and boxes of uncounted ballots are found here, there, and everywhere, and there’s just not time, or a reliable method, to recount them all.  We all know that could happen, and likely will, if votes aren’t panning out the way one party hopes and expects. You can be sure all those boxes are already being put together and hidden in strategic places such as car trunks, post office inner rooms, abandoned transports, and so on, to be ‘found’ if need be.  That would be compounded with mail-in voting.  And remember the election when it just ‘happened’ that the absentee ballots from the military branches got ‘lost’ and were never counted?  What can be done to accommodate those ‘accidental’ errors in results?  We just have to accept it? That better not be the case. Oh, and don’t put all questions and answer on Fox Nation. I watch and read Fox News exclusively, but not Fox Nation as I cannot afford to pay for one more thing.” – Cheryl Jasso, Cheyenne, Wyo. 

[Ed. note: The short answer, Ms. Jasso, is yes, you have to accept it. Even if you believed that states had engaged in the kind of massive, unprecedented, premeditated fraud you describe, you would still have to accept their conclusions. The states are sovereign when it comes to the conduct of elections and the electors. They have the authority under the Constitution and our laws to conduct elections. If there were gross, obvious misconduct Congress might do as it did in 1876 and have to make some determinations about the validity of certificates. But even if Congress decided such matters in ways that you thought were wrong, yes, you would have to accept it. Even if the process resulted in the presidency of a candidate you thought unfairly chosen, accept it you must. Part of living in a republic means that we vest elected officials at various levels with the authority to act on our behalf. All of the individuals described in the process were elected to their posts, from the local officials who certify county results, to the state officials, to the electors, to the senators and representatives. When decisions have to be made, we have to abide by our leaders’ decisions in all but the most egregious cases. But then we will have another election in two years and people can vote for new leaders or keep the ones they’ve got. While America has an enviable record at holding free and fair elections, we have plenty of election fraud, vote rigging and dubious outcomes, too. It’s bad when it happens, but it’s not the end of the world. The republic is bigger and more important than one office or one election. We retreat to that old piece of wisdom from Republican politician and newspaperman Carl Schurz: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Our work as citizens does not end with an election.] 

“I have a question about the polls you use. Are there any that take into account the number of conservatives that don’t respond to a poll, or respond inaccurately for not wanting to get crap for their pro-Trump views? I believe there are a LOT more than many ‘pundits’ are estimating…” – Gregg Mehr, Barrington, Ill. 

[Ed. note: I’m not sure how a poll would take that into account if it was so, Mr. Mehr. Just goose Republican numbers a little bit? Sounds pretty dicey. The more important thing here is that we just don’t have any good evidence that such a phenomenon is taking place. Certainly there are voters who claim to be undecided who are probably really leaning one way or the other, but there’s not obvious proof that even that slants Republican. We know for example that in recent polls of registered voters conducted from voter registration files by Sienna College for the New York Times the response rate was higher among Republicans than it was among Democrats. What Republicans have to hope at this point is that the polls are understating Trump’s performance not because likely Republican voters are too ashamed or afraid to say so but rather that there are new voters coming into the pool. If lots of blue collar, low-propensity voters were suddenly becoming animated it could change the calculus. Like all downscale groups, poor Whites vote at a far lower frequency than more affluent citizens. There are plenty of those folks out there and one assumes that if they do show up, it will be for Trump, who dominates among White voters without post-secondary degrees, So if you’re looking for hope, place it with an as-yet undetected turnout surge with lower-income whites than goats in the polling machine.] 

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown. 

‘THE BOARS CALMLY ATE A PIZZA FROM HIS BACKPACK’ 

BBC: “A nudist in Berlin got too close to nature for comfort when a wild boar snatched his plastic bag – which had his laptop inside. The naked man gave chase to the boar and her two piglets – much to the amusement of fellow sunbathers. Adele Landauer, an actor and life coach, took photos of the chase at Teufelssee – a popular bathing spot – and put them on Facebook. ‘Nature strikes back!’ she wrote, adding that the man laughed it all off. … Ms. Landauer provided more details on her Instagram page, saying the incident was a good example of someone persevering to achieve their goal. She said there were many nude sunbathers at the spot when the wild boars appeared. While the man was bathing, she writes, the boars calmly ate a pizza from his backpack and then ‘they were looking for a dessert.’ ‘They found this yellow bag and decided to take it away. But the man who owned it realized it was the bag with his laptop.’” 

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES… 

“We live in a unipolar world. … Multipolarity will come in time. But it is decades away.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in The New Republic on July 29, 1991. 

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

SupCo pops Trump’s bubble

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On the roster: SupCo pops Trump’s bubble – I’ll Tell You What: Let yourself off the hook – Sanders: Biden to make ‘significant’ shift to left – CDC boss: Agency not caving to trump on schools – Do you get arraigned here often?

SUPCO POPS TRUMP’S BUBBLE

WSJ: “The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Trump’s bid to block a New York prosecutor from enforcing a subpoena seeking years of his financial and tax records from his accountants, potentially opening the president up to widespread scrutiny. The court sent the case back to lower courts for further proceedings. The case was one of two before the high court in which Mr. Trump challenged subpoenas that weren’t sent to him, but instead to his accountants and bankers. The House Oversight Committee, investigating ethics issues in the executive branch, issued a subpoena to Mazars for eight years of financial records related to Mr. Trump, his real-estate company, his foundation and other entities belonging to the president. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. also issued a subpoena to the accounting firm, seeking Trump financial documents and tax records as part of a criminal investigation into hush-money payments to women who claim to have had affairs with Mr. Trump.”

But sends House back to square one – Fox News: “[Chief Justice John] Roberts also authored the opinion in the House cases, which were consolidated. In one, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed accounting firm Mazars USA for access to a slew of Trump’s financial documents from 2011 to 2018, including personal records and records of various affiliated businesses and entities. These included the president’s long-sought-after tax returns. In a second case, the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, and the Financial Service Committee also subpoenaed Capital One. While both banks have various financial records related to Trump and his businesses, neither possesses his tax returns. ‘Without limits on its subpoena powers, Congress could ‘exert an imperious control’ over the Executive Branch and aggrandize itself at the President’s expense, just as the Framers feared,’ Roberts wrote. But Roberts also left open the possibility that House Democrats, after further proceedings in lower courts, could get ahold of the president’s documents.”

Only Alito and Thomas backed Trump – CNBC: “Both cases were decided 7-2, with Chief Justice John Roberts authoring the court’s opinion and joined in the majority by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented in both cases. The decisions mark the first time that the nation’s highest court has directly ruled on a matter involving Trump’s personal dealings. Trump has been more secretive with his finances than any president in decades, refusing to release his tax records to the public even as he mounts a bid for reelection. The president unleashed a four-tweet thread ripping the court’s decisions. ‘We have a totally corrupt previous Administration, including a President and Vice President who spied on my campaign, AND GOT CAIGHT [sic] and nothing happens to them,’ Trump raged in a series of tweets.”

THE RULEBOOK: AHOY!

“When a nation has become so powerful by sea that it can protect its dock-yards by its fleets, this supersedes the necessity of garrisons for that purpose.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 24

TIME OUT: ALL THE RIGHT ENEMIES 

The Writer’s Almanac: “It’s the birthday of journalist Dorothy Thompson, born in Lancaster, New York (1894). In 1935, a Time magazine poll ranked her the most important woman in the United States after Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a foreign correspondent for the New York Evening Post in the 1920s, eventually becoming its bureau chief in Berlin. She returned to America after marrying novelist Sinclair Lewis, but went back as a freelancer to Germany, where she so angered Adolf Hitler with her reporting on the Nazis, that he personally ordered her out of the country – the first American journalist to be expelled. Her syndicated column, On the Record, appeared three times a week in as many as 170 papers, and she also had a popular radio show.” You can get a more complete biography of the woman who warned the world about Hitler here.

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE

Trump: 41.4 percent

Biden: 51 percent

Size of lead: Biden by 9.6 points

Change from one week ago: Biden ↑ 0.4 points; Trump ↑ 2 points

[Average includes: IBD: Trump 40% – Biden 48%; Monmouth: Trump 41% – Biden 53%; CNBC: Trump 41% – Biden 49%; USA Today/Suffolk: Trump 41% – Biden 53%; NPR/PBS/Marist: Trump 44% – Biden 52%.]

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS

(270 electoral votes needed to win)

Toss-up: (109 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6)

Lean R/Likely R: (180 electoral votes)

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes)

[Full rankings here.]

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE

Average approval: 40.2 percent

Average disapproval: 56.4 percent

Net Score: -16.2 points

Change from one week ago: ↓ 2.6 points

[Average includes: Gallup: 38% approve – 57% disapprove; IBD: 39% approve – 56% disapprove; Monmouth: 41% approve – 54% disapprove; CNBC: 43% approve – 57% disapprove; USA Today/Suffolk: 40% approve – 58% disapprove.]

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: LET YOURSELF OFF THE HOOK

This week, Dana Perino and Chris Stirewalt discuss the SCOTUS’s opinion on the Electoral College, President Biden’s ability to debate President Trump and the potential for Republicans to hold on to the Senate. They also touch on the possibility of reopening schools this fall, the continued debate on mask-wearing and Dana’s small business shopping spree. Plus, Chris tries his hand at presidential facial hair trivia. LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE HERE 

SANDERS: BIDEN TO MAKE ‘SIGNIFICANT’ SHIFT TO LEFT

NPR: “A joint effort by former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to unify Democrats around Biden’s candidacy has produced a 110-page policy wish list to recommend to the party’s presumptive presidential nominee… ‘The goals of the task force were to move the Biden campaign into as progressive a direction as possible, and I think we did that,’ Sanders told NPR. ‘On issue after issue, whether it was education, the economy, health care, climate, immigration, criminal justice, I think there was significant movement on the part of the Biden campaign.’ The document recommends that Biden commit to eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 and to zeroing out net greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy by 2050. The task forces call for funding universal prekindergarten across the country, expanding Social Security, raising the national minimum wage and eliminating cash bail, among many other long-sought progressive stances.” 

Some Senate Dems moving for end of 60-vote threshold – Fox News: “[Some] Senate Democrats are floating a possible change in the body’s rules that could do away with the legislative filibuster, a guardrail that lets a minority of at least 40 senators prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. … The move also comes as Democrats … are concerned Republicans may use the rule to put up blanket resistance to a possible President Joe Biden’s agenda. ‘When the Senate doesn’t debate or vote on the major issues facing America, it doesn’t serve anyone,’ [a spokesperson for Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley] said in a statement. It continued: ‘…fixing the broken Senate must include more opportunities for the minority to influence floor debate and require votes on their amendments. He is fighting to break the gridlock and ensure that all senators, not just the Majority Leader, get a say in the floor process.’”

Biden vows to undo faith exemption for ObamaCare birth control rule – Fox News: “Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was one of many on the left to express dismay at the Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling that the Trump administration acted within its authority when it expanded exemptions to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirement that employers provide insurance that includes contraception, and promised he would return to an Obama-era policy should he be elected. ‘As disappointing as the Supreme Court’s ruling is, there is a clear path to fixing it: electing a new President who will end Donald Trump’s ceaseless attempts to gut every aspect of the Affordable Care Act,’ Biden said in a statement. “If I am elected, I will restore the Obama-Biden policy that existed before the Hobby Lobby ruling: providing an exemption for houses of worship and an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious missions.”

CDC BOSS: AGENCY NOT CAVING TO TRUMP ON SCHOOLS

Fox News: “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield clarified Thursday that the agency would not be revising their guidelines, but instead offering ‘different reference documents’ for local governments and school districts to review as they begin to determine whether they can safely reopen schools this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic. Redfield, on ABC…, said he wanted to ‘clarify’ the CDC’s guidelines. ‘Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid communities that are trying to open K-12 schools…’ Redfield said. He added: ‘It’s not a revision of the guidelines, but it is to provide additional information to help schools.’ Redfield’s comments came after President Trump on Wednesday said he disagreed with the CDC’s back-to-school guidance, calling it ‘impractical.’ Later Wednesday, at the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Vice President Mike Pence said the CDC would be ‘issuing new guidance next week’ to schools.”

DeVos floats plan to expand school choice where schools don’t reopen – Reuters: “The Trump administration will not cut federal education spending but could allow families to use funds elsewhere if their school does not open amid the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. education secretary said on Thursday, a day after Trump threatened to cut funding. ‘If schools aren’t going to reopen, we’re not suggesting pulling funding from education but instead allowing families … (to) take that money and figure out where their kids can get educated if their schools are going to refuse to open,’ Betsy DeVos told Fox News in an interview. It was unclear how the administration planned to redirect funding, which is directed by U.S. lawmakers. Any change in appropriations would face resistance in Congress, now split between Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, and President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans, who control the Senate.”

Layoffs top 1 million for 16th straight week – AP: “More than 1.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a historically high pace that shows that many employers are still laying people off in the face of a resurgent coronavirus. The persistently elevated level of layoffs are occurring as a spike in virus cases has forced six states to reverse their move to reopen businesses. Those six — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Texas — make up one-third of the U.S. economy. Fifteen other states have suspended their re-openings. Collectively, the pullback has stalled a tentative recovery in the job market and is likely triggering additional layoffs. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the number of applications for unemployment aid fell from 1.4 million in the previous week. The figure has now topped 1 million for 16 straight weeks. Before the pandemic, the record high for weekly unemployment applications was fewer than 700,000.”

Tulsa corona spike tied to Trump rally – Politico: “President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa in late June that drew thousands of participants and large protests ‘likely contributed’ to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday. Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday. By comparison, during the week before the June 20 Trump rally, there were 76 cases on Monday and 96 on Tuesday. Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings ‘more than likely’ contributed to the spike. ‘In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,’ Dart said.”

Houston mayor nixes GOP state convention – Politico: “The city of Houston on Wednesday canceled plans to host the 2020 Texas Republican Convention next week as coronavirus cases surge in one of the country’s biggest virus hot spots. Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Wednesday that he’d told the operator of the indoor convention center to opt out of its contract with Texas’ Republican Party, citing health risks to first responders, convention workers and those attending the convention event. The convention, scheduled for July 16-18, was expected to draw roughly 6,000 attendees to Houston’s indoor George R. Brown Convention Center. The chairman of the Texas Republican Party, James Dickey, blasted Turner’s plan to cancel the convention prior to the announcement on Wednesday, vowing ‘to take all necessary steps to proceed in the peaceable exercise of our constitutionally protected rights.’”

The Judge’s Ruling: America’s personal liberties – This week Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano explains his worries that personal liberties are being “squeezed in a vise”: “When the governor both writes a law and enforces it, he ceases to be a governor and becomes a prince. James Madison’s constitutional genius irretrievably separated these two functions, just as it separated the judicial function from the legislative and the executive. American civilization is being squeezed this summer by two factions — anarchists, enabled by politicians who want their support, and tyrannical mayors and governors. Often — in an irony that history will find to be bitter — by same folks. Their victim is personal liberty in a free society. The liberty to walk the streets of Seattle or New York City unmolested and the liberty to be oneself and take chances. The liberty to be free from thugs in the streets and the liberty to exercise our formerly guaranteed fundamental rights.” More here.

PLAY-BY-PLAY

SupCo says Oklahoma police must treat eastern half of state as reservation land – Reuters

FROM THE BLEACHERS

“Your Monday Half-Time Report: ‘Many Southern electorates are getting younger, less white and more urban, and thus less likely to embrace President Donald Trump’s white identity politics’)? Can you please clarify what you mean by ‘President Trump’s white identity politics?’ President Trump is white but I don’t hear anything that REMOTELY sounds like ‘white identity politics.’ I hear him being wrongly accused of such things by people with a Dem/far-left agenda and a habit of accusing everyone with whom they disagree as being ‘racist.’ Perhaps you could enlighten us about his message aimed squarely at ‘white people’ and not ALL Americans.” – Eric Hutchins, Santa Barbara, Calif.

[Ed. note: I know you’re a longtime reader and frequent correspondent, Mr. Hutchins, so I feel pretty certain you understand how the note works, but at the risk of repetition: The works of other journalists we highlight here in quotation marks, like that article from the Associated Press, are not our own. Now, in this case, I would courage you to arise from your fainting couch and to retire your all-caps shock that Trump might be seen as ‘REMOTELY’ exploiting racial disunity. The president plays racial politics for keeps. That doesn’t mean he’s a racist, just that he’s not afraid to play the game. Whether it’s a “white power” tweet, bashing NASCAR for banning the Confederate Flag or defense of Confederate honorifics, Trump is utterly unafraid to dive into the explicit identity politics that white politicians had shunned for decades. Racial identity has long been a huge component of America’s culture wars. Trump differs from most white politicians in that he does not mind getting in on the fight. His supporters believe this is a sign of strength because he will not be bullied by accusations of racism. His foes, of course, see him as racist. The danger for Trump and his party is that persuadable voters may not agree with the accusers but still grow tired of the constant conflict.]

“As always the daily chime of HR hitting my invokes a haste to finish what I am doing so I can ‘get to it.’ Just out of curiosity, using your term from yesterday’s HR Bleacher Report, what is on your Fret List?” – Rick Randell, Bradenton, Fla.

[Ed. note: After Wednesday, mostly hitting deadline! Thanks for reading and taking the time to write.]

“Is there any way that we (the voters) could require Biden to ‘run on his record’?” – Dave Johnson, Bend, Ore.

[Ed. note: It depends on which “we.” The voters who wouldn’t vote for Biden no matter what don’t count in this equation. Neither do the voters who wouldn’t vote for Trump no matter what. But if the, let’s say, 20 percent or so of voters who swing relatively freely became demanding, Biden would have to listen. The frustration Republicans are experiencing these days is a lot like what the party went through in 1996. They see a flawed Democratic candidate who gets very little scrutiny as the political press increasingly writes off the Republican. But I would say that the media landscape and voter attitudes are very different now. And Trump certainly is unlike Bob Dole in every meaningful way imaginable. I suspect Biden has a couple more appointments in the dunking booth before this is all over.]

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

DO YOU GET ARRAIGNED HERE OFTEN?

Fox News: “A car crash Sunday resulted in both drivers being arrested after police in Oregon discovered they were both driving stolen vehicles. Newberg-Dundee police chased Randy Lee Cooper, 27, in a stolen Land Cruiser before he careened into a Buick Regal as he was attempting to elude officers. Cooper was arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including assault and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. In the process, police discovered that the driver of the Buick, 25-year-old Kristin Nicole Begue, was under the influence of intoxicants and her vehicle had also been reported stolen three weeks prior, according to a police press release. She was also arrested and charged with driving under the influence and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“Conservatism’s choice, among all the great modern revolutions, has always been the American Revolution. It sought not to remake the world — and man — anew by some utopian ideal, but rather to elevate and safeguard the liberty of man in our own, imperfect world.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in his book “The Point of It All.”

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Bree Tracey contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Trump looks for his way back machine in Tulsa

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On the roster: Trump looks for his way back machine in Tulsa – Trump losing with key groups that backed him in 2016 – Momentum grows for Juneteenth national holiday – Lawmakers look to create long-term bailout program – The history of Juneteenth 

TRUMP LOOKS FOR HIS WAYBACK MACHINE IN TULSA 

By this point four years ago, the Trump rally was fully formed as a political institution. Confrontations with protesters outside, dustups inside, the chants, the soundtrack, the crowd-favorite lines, it was all there.

And through the summer of 2016, the rallies were seemingly constant, with 13 in June of that year alone. The big shows provided a feeling of momentum for the campaign and irresistible fodder for coverage. It seemed like you never knew what might happen or what Trump might say.

Back in those days, Trump was something of a mystery. He talked like no other major party nominee in history and he ran a campaign that truly seemed more like a movement than a traditional quest for office. Admirers, detractors and bewildered observers could all reasonably wonder what on earth a Trump victory might look like — to imagine the presidency of a man who was part Don Rickles, part Pat Buchanan live on stage two or three nights a week.

But now we do not need to wonder.

Trump has had nearly three-dozen rallies in support of his own re-election since his prodigious touring schedule trying to stave off his 2018 shellacking. The rallies of the early re-election cycle were not “happenings” the way they were in 2016 — fraught with danger and uncertainty and starring an unpredictable impresario — and more like a Jimmy Buffett tour, but for MAGAheads instead of Parrotheads.

And that makes sense, because we have an answer to the question that terrified some and thrilled others four years ago: What would happen if the United States of America picked this total outsider — the first person to serve as president without any prior public service, a trash-talking reality show host, a bare-knuckled media brawler — as its leader?

The answer turned out to be neither as bad as his critics warned nor as good as his supporters had hoped. Going into the spring of this election year, Trump had managed to put together a mostly successful term in office despite the implacable resistance he faced and his own often dizzying errors.

It wasn’t Reagan ‘84, but neither was it the Armageddon of which Democrats had warned. Trump had a good argument to make to voters on the economy and, whatever his errors on foreign policy, the world remained substantially at peace.

Rallies for a campaign like that aren’t must-see TV. But they are fun for the fans and a good way to keep the candidate busy and cheerful through a long election year. As Robert Earl Keen said, “the road goes on forever and the party never ends.”

But then, Trump’s luck did not hold.

Trump struggled terribly in his response to the coronavirus, veering and switchbacking from the start. Once he found his footing, he could not keep it, thanks in substantial part for his combative personality and desire for the spotlight. And then he said maybe we could inject disinfectants into victims’ lungs… and they decided to turn the spotlight out and move on to the next act.

But just as Trump was leaning so hard on his preferred narrative of declaring the crisis over and touting the “rocket ship” economic recovery, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on an African American suspect’s neck for almost 9 minutes, killing the man, George Floyd. And yet again, the same traits that made Trump formidably unpredictable in 2016 failed him.

Given a moment any of his predecessors would have eaten up on a cracker — national soul searching, public grief, simmering resentments, sweeping societal change — Trump couldn’t find his appetite. Rather than taking advantage of his office’s unique assets, he got right down on the ground, stripping himself of the massive advantages of incumbency. After an often unsteady response to a bewildering virus, Trump seemed overwhelmed by the moment yet again.

Accordingly, Trump went from the November favorite to June underdog.

It was easy to see in February how the same voters who had taken a chance on Trump in 2016 might be persuaded to stick it out for another round. It would certainly be close, but the odds favored the incumbent.

But now, Trump is way down, trailing Democrat Joe Biden far worse than he ever did Hillary Clinton. The frustration from Trump and his campaign is palpable. They were thinking about poaching Minnesota and New Hampshire, now they’re trying to catch up in Arizona and fretting over Georgia.

More than a quarter of the year has passed since Trump’s Oval Office address in March, and by no estimate could anyone say it has been good for him or the country.

This helps us to understand why Trump is so willing to take a big risk on a big indoor rally in Oklahoma on Saturday. The mayor is imposing a curfew because of expected unrest between MAGA enthusiasts and Black Lives Matter boosters and the city’s health director all but begged Trump to not do an indoor, maximum capacity event as coronavirus deaths are climbing.

While these would seem like good reasons not to have a rally, for Trump this are potential upsides. After three years of ho-hum rallies — fun for fans but not “happenings” — he gets the chance again to be outrageous, controversial and, most of all, watched.

After months on defense, this must feel to the president like he’s getting back on offense. Of course, that’s must have been how he felt as he readied to march across Lafayette Park.

Re-elections are not like open-seat campaigns. Trump is asking voters to give him four more years, years voters must assume will be a lot like the first four. A high-stakes, high-controversy rally must feel like a chance to recapture the energy and excitement of four years ago. But there is no rewind button on political movements.

Trump may get out of Tulsa having avoided serious consequences if he is lucky and his team is very skillful in its execution. But if there is chaos, Trump will not be the beneficiary as he would have been four years ago.

THE RULEBOOK: UNION LABEL 

“WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against foreign danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the guardian of our commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for those military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the Old World, and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming symptoms have been betrayed by our own.” – James Madison, Federalist No. 14

TIME OUT: DEAR OLD DAD

Business Today: “The history of Father’s day goes back to 1908 when a church in West Virginia held a sermon to honor 362 men who were killed the previous year in a coal mining explosion. This was the country’s first-ever event to strictly honor fathers. In the same year, a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd started her quest to establish Father’s Day as a national holiday. Dodd was one of six raised by her single father and thought fathers should be honored the same way as mothers. After a year of petitioning her local community and government, Dodd’s home state of Washington celebrated its first official Father’s Day on June 19, 1910. Later, the celebration of Father’s Day spread from state to state, and after a long fight, it was finally declared a national holiday in 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD

NATIONAL HEAD-TO-HEAD AVERAGE 

Trump: 41 percent 

Biden: 50.6 percent 

Size of lead: Biden by 9.6 points

Change from one week ago: Biden ↑ 0.4 points; Trump ↓ 0.8 points

[Average includes: Fox News: Trump 38% – Biden 50%; Quinnipiac University: Trump 41% – Biden 49%; CNN: Trump 41% – Biden 55%; NBC News/WSJ: Trump 42% – Biden 49%; NPR/PBS/Marist: Trump 43% – Biden 50%.]

BATTLEGROUND POWER RANKINGS

(270 electoral votes needed to win)

Toss-up: (103 electoral votes): Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), Florida (29), Arizona (11), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15)

Lean R/Likely R: (186 electoral votes) 

Lean D/Likely D: (249 electoral votes)

[Full rankings here.]

TRUMP JOB PERFORMANCE

Average approval: 42 percent

Average disapproval: 54.8 percent

Net Score: -12.8 points

Change from one week ago: ↑ 1.6 points

[Average includes: Fox News: 44% approve – 55% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 42% approve – 55% disapprove; CNN: 40% approve – 57% disapprove; NPR/PBS/Marist: 42% approve – 55% disapprove; IBD: 42% approve – 52% disapprove.]

WANT MORE HALFTIME REPORT?


You can join Chris and Brianna every day on Fox Nation. It’ll be the same behind-the-scenes look at your favorite political note, only from their remote locations during this unprecedented time. Click here to sign up and watch!

TRUMP LOSING WITH KEY GROUPS THAT BACKED HIM IN 2016

Fox News: “Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden continues to lead President Donald Trump in the race for the White House… In the head-to-head matchup, the poll finds Biden leads Trump by a 50-38 percent margin. That 12-point advantage is statistically significant, and up from Biden’s 8-point lead last month (48-40 percent). … Independents prefer Biden over Trump by 39-17 percent, but another 43 percent are undecided or supporting someone else. Biden’s lead comes from the backing of black voters (+79 points over Trump), those under age 30 (+37), suburban areas (+22), women (+19), and voters ages 65+ (+10). Trump, on the other hand, is underperforming his vote share among key groups, such as white evangelical Christians (+41 points) and rural voters (+9). In 2016, he won white evangelicals by 64 points and rural areas by 27. … Over half of seniors (52 percent) and a plurality of women (46 percent) think ‘cares’ describes Biden. Larger numbers of both groups say it does not apply to Trump (57 percent seniors and 60 percent women).”

Dems complains about Biden’s lack of swing-state infrastructure – Bloomberg: “Joe Biden’s campaign has only begun to hire top officials in key states, leaving him without senior staff in battlegrounds like Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida, alarming some Democrats who say the leadership vacuum could hinder the party’s efforts to defeat President Donald Trump in November. The campaign said Friday that Jessica Mejia, Biden’s California state director during the Democratic primaries, will be the Arizona state director while Andrew Piatt, the manager of Kyrsten Sinema’s successful 2018 Senate campaign, will be a senior adviser. Those roles in other states have not been filled. The Arizona hires are an exception to a process that has moved more slowly than campaign officials had initially indicated, according to four Democratic officials briefed on the campaign’s operations who requested anonymity to disclose private conversations. The officials said campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and senior adviser Greg Schultz have acknowledged that the campaign missed its self-imposed deadline for leaders in the battleground states to be in place by the start of June and has moved it to July 1.

Giuliani runs point for Trump in debate about debates – Politico: “President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has tapped former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to spearhead a campaign to press for more debates this fall… Giuliani held a Thursday afternoon conference call with Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. During the call, Giuliani and Parscale pushed for the debates to begin before early voting starts. They also requested a fourth debate. The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has scheduled three presidential debates: Sept. 29 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Oct. 15 at the University of Michigan, and Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville. … More debates, Trump advisers contend, mean more chances for Biden to embarrass himself. Biden’s campaign dismissed Trump’s request.”

Trump stokes fears about mail-in voting – Politico: “President Donald Trump called mail-in voting the biggest threat to his reelection and said his campaign’s multimillion-dollar legal effort to block expanded ballot access could determine whether he wins a second term. In an Oval Office interview Thursday focusing on the 2020 election, the president also warned his party in blunt terms not to abandon him and cast Hillary Clinton as a more formidable opponent than Joe Biden, despite Biden’s commanding lead in polls. The president’s assertion that mail-in voting will endanger his reelection comes as states across the country are rushing to accommodate remote voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of voters could be disenfranchised if they decide to stay home on Election Day rather than risk contracting the virus at crowded polling stations. But Trump and his campaign argue, despite a lack of evidence, that widespread mail-in voting will benefit Democrats and invite fraud. The Republican Party is spending tens of millions of dollars on a multifront legal battle.”

Trump faces more limits on social media – Politico: “Facebook and Twitter on Thursday clamped down on social media posts by President Donald Trump and his reelection campaign, including content and ads that featured a Nazi symbol used in World War II to identify certain prisoners in concentration camps. Trump’s reelection campaign posted content and ads that featured the red inverted triangle, which once marked political dissidents like Communists and Social Democrats, and a variation of which was used to label Jewish political prisoners. The posts and ads were removed for violating Facebook’s policy against organized hate, a company spokesperson confirmed Thursday afternoon, which ‘prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol,’ he said.”

MOMENTUM GROWS FOR JUNETEENTH NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Texas Tribune: “U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on Thursday afternoon announced that he will introduce bipartisan legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. ‘As we do every year, tomorrow Texans will celebrate Juneteenth and the 155th anniversary of the end of slavery in our state,’ the state’s senior senator said in a floor speech Thursday. Cornyn is not the first Texas lawmaker to take similar steps toward celebrating Juneteenth — a day commemorating the emancipation of slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, introduced a resolution aiming to recognize the historical significance of the holiday. Her measure has more than 200 cosponsors.”

Top State Department official quits over Trump’s response to racial unrest – Axios: “Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the first black woman to serve as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, resigned from the State Department on Thursday in apparent protest of President Trump’s response to weeks of nationwide unrest over the killing of George Floyd, the Washington Post reports. ‘Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character. The President’s comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions,’ Taylor wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Post. ‘I must follow the dictates of my conscience and resign as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs,’ Taylor said in her letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”

Pelosi takes down portraits of speakers tied to Confederacy – NYT: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy to be removed from the Capitol on Thursday, the latest in a wave of efforts across the country to purge public spaces of historic symbols associated with racism and oppression. On the eve of Juneteenth, the day that honors the end of slavery in the United States, Ms. Pelosi, of California, banished the paintings from the speaker’s lobby, the grand corridor outside the House chamber where the portraits of her predecessors are displayed. As Cheryl L. Johnson, the House clerk, and six reporters looked on, workers for the architect of the Capitol mounted ladders and carefully removed the paintings, wheeling them off and leaving empty hooks and blank patches of wall where they had hung in gilded frames.”

LAWMAKERS LOOK TO CREATE LONG-TERM BAILOUT  PROGRAM 

Politico: “Washington’s massive small business rescue is ending after delivering more than half a trillion dollars to millions of employers. Now, everyone from key lawmakers to the Federal Reserve says it may not be enough. That’s spurring a debate in Washington over how to provide a new lifeline to the beleaguered businesses. While there is still $130 billion left unspent in the so-called Paycheck Protection Program, lobbyists say that’s because there were onerous restrictions — chiefly that businesses are prohibited from borrowing a second time, so if they’re out of money, they’re out of luck. Others say that many potential borrowers were largely left out of the process, including minority employers, who often don’t have relationships with bankers. Still others are looking for a longer-term solution: There is emerging bipartisan support for new government-backed lending that would last much longer than lawmakers first envisioned with the Paycheck Protection Program, which was designed to delay mass layoffs in the early days of the pandemic.”

Dems raise the stakes on infrastructure plan to $1.5 trillion – The Hill: “House Democrats unveiled a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan Thursday that calls for a huge increase in funding to repair roads and bridges while expanding broadband access in rural areas. Democrats described the bill as the biggest legislative effort to fight climate change, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saying the package would ‘make real the promise of building infrastructure in a green and resilient way.’ ‘It’s job-creating in its essence, but it’s also commerce-promoting. So it grows the economy of our country,’ she said. The legislation is the latest attempt to advance an infrastructure package that has been discussed since the early days of the Trump administration but continuously fails to gain traction. Though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he does not want to include infrastructure with coronavirus relief, passage of the House measure could put added pressure on the upper chamber to take action next month. House Democrats have passed their $3 trillion HEROES Act and Senate Republicans have yet to draft their next COVID-19 relief package.”

AUDIBLE: A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOB SECURITY

“I feel confident about reelection, if only because I don’t think anyone else will want the job.” – Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said in a tweet about conducting his first election under a pandemic.

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

Tune in this Sunday as Chris Wallace sits down with Dr. Tom Inglesby from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, senior adviser to the Biden campaign Symone Sanders and senior adviser to the Trump campaign Mercedes Schlapp. Watch “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Check local listings for broadcast times in your area.

#mediabuzz – Host Howard Kurtz has the latest take on the week’s media coverage. Watch #mediabuzz Sundays at 11 a.m. ET.

FROM THE BLEACHERS

“For those wondering why Bolton chose not to testify in Congress when it would have helped impeachment and instead saved his story for the book the answer is very simple. Yes, he could make money this way. But in Congress he would have been under oath and have to tell the truth! Think about that while you read the book.” – S. Willis, Toronto, Canada

[Ed. note: Wouldn’t you suppose that a person who is as rotten as you say Bolton is — a person who would invent a massive, intricate parcel of lies in order to further damage the credibility of the commander in chief he served for a year and a half — would have very little compunction about lying to Congress. If he were willing to undertake the monstrosity you allege, contempt of Congress would be chicken feed.]

“If Trump is saying that Bolton’s book is all lies, how can he then say that there is classified information in it? He can’t have it both ways, right?” – Jackson Sperry, Chaska, Minn.

[Ed. note: Both things could be true. If Bolton came out with a book of cookie recipes (“The Cookie Duster” presumably) and included one state secret on page 335 between the SALT-ed caramel snaps and the NATO-range squares, the book would still divulge classified information. But the Justice Department isn’t really even arguing that anymore. The administration’s case now seems to be that the falsity of the book is itself the national security risk, undermining vital international arrangements. It doesn’t really matter though since the book is most certainly coming out. One supposes the extraordinary efforts by the Justice Department had in mind an audience of one.]

“I just wanted to thank you for great reporting. This world is so crazy right now I’m only reading about the news and listening to I’ll Tell You What podcast each week.” – Tiffany Rose, Crestwood, Ky.

[Ed. note: We are grateful to be of service! We wish you and yours a lovely Ohio Valley summer.]

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

THE HISTORY OF JUNETEENTH 

NatGeo: “At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect and declared enslaved people in the Confederacy free—on the condition that the Union won the war. The proclamation turned the war into a fight for freedom and by the end of the war 200,000 black soldiers had joined the fight, spreading news of freedom as they fought their way through the South. Since Texas was one of the last strongholds of the South, emancipation would be a long-time coming for enslaved people in the state. Even after the last battle of the Civil War was fought in 1865—a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed—many enslaved people still did not know they were free. Some 250,000 enslaved people only learned of their freedom after Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 and announced that the President had issued a proclamation freeing them.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…

“The headless clone solves the facsimile problem. It is a gateway to the ultimate vanity: immortality.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in Time magazine on June 24, 2001.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

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