It’s been a moderately eventful week, as we are now only 2 days away from the (first? only?) Harris-Trump debate.
We’d heard little from excommunicated Republican Liz Cheney in recent months; whereas other Republicans, including her fellow Jan 6th Committee member Adam Kinzinger, had participated in the DNC, she did not but was apparently keeping her powder dry for later use. This week she gave a speech in North Carolina in which she stated she would be voting for Harris. Two days later her father, the now-83-year-old former Vice President, released a statement that he too would be voting for Harris. (I’d like to imagine 2008 Dick Cheney’s reaction to being told that, 16 years later, he would be endorsing for President a black woman Democrat who was currently serving as District Attorney of San Francisco.) Liz Cheney also endorsed Rep. Colin Allred in his Senate race in Texas against Ted Cruz.
Three judicial developments this week, which I’ll address in ascending order of importance.
First: Trump made an appearance in court at the 2nd Circuit oral arguments for his appeal of the Carroll II verdict from May 2023, the $5 million defamation judgment against Trump (as opposed to the more recent, and larger, Carroll I defamation judgment). The appellate ruling is not expected to occur before the election, and news reports suggest the hearing didn’t go particularly well for Trump.
Second: Judge Chutkan held a hearing to discuss next steps in U.S. vs. Trump (D.C. edition). She was unsympathetic to Trump’s lawyers’ arguments that the existence of the 2024 Presidential campaign was relevant to the timing of how things should proceed in this trial. At the same time, she observed that it would be futile to attempt to schedule a trial date, given that there will almost certainly be a second interlocutory appeal no matter how she were to rule regarding the impact of Trump vs. U.S. on this case. In the end she has set a deadline of September 26th for the filing of the government’s brief on the presidential immunity issue, with Trump’s reply brief due October 17th. However, some portions of those briefs may be filed under seal, so it is unclear whether the public portions of those briefs will contain anything newsworthy. Chutkan also noted that Judge Cannon’s ruling that Special Counsel Smith wasn’t properly appointed isn’t relevant to this case at this time, since there is binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that is contrary to Cannon’s ruling down in the 11th Circuit.
Third: Somewhat surprisingly, Judge Merchan decided to take the temperature down a notch during the election campaign. His ruling on Trump’s post-trial motion to vacate the guilty verdicts in New York vs. Trump in light of Trump v. U.S., previously scheduled for this week, has now been delayed until November 12th. If Trump still needs to be sentenced after Merchan issues that ruling, the sentencing has been rescheduled to November 26th.
Turning back to politics… This week there were two particularly interesting Senate polls, with mixed results. Bad news for the Democrats came from Montana, where a poll shows three-term Senator Tester trailing Tim Sheehy 45-51 (with the same poll showing Trump comfortably ahead of Harris 56-41). On the other hand there was a glimmer of hope for Democrats from a poll in Florida, where Debbie Mucarsel-Powell only trails Senator Scott 45-46 (with Trump ahead 50-45).
The latest Senate poll in Texas was less hopeful for the Democrats, showing Allred behind Cruz 44-48 (with Trump ahead 50-45), while one in Ohio showed Senator Brown holding on at 46-44 over Bernie Moreno (with Trump ahead 53-43). There was however an intriguing poll from Nebraska last week, which once again showed Harris ahead of Trump in the 2nd district, 47-42. This poll also showed 2nd district Representative Bacon significantly behind his Democratic challenger, Tony Vargas, 46-40. It also showed a surprisingly strong statewide performance by Independent candidate Dan Osborn in his race against incumbent Republican Senator Fischer (a race the Democrats are sitting out), with Fischer only ahead 39-38. Osborn, a veteran and union leader in his late 40s who was a registered Democrat until 2016, has no prior political experience.
Turning back to the campaign itself: Many observers have noted this week that Trump’s stump speeches are becoming increasingly unhinged, even by his standards. In addition to routinely talking about non-existent “post-birth abortions”, Trump has now started claiming inaccurately that schools are performing gender-affirming surgeries on trans youths. He also attracted a lot of ire this week for responding to a question about how he would address voters’ concerns about the high cost of child care with a rambling response that focused on his tariff plans. I don’t quite understand why this man is taken seriously as a candidate for President.
Finally, with Trump’s lock-up period for his DJT stock due to expire later this month, it is worth noting that DJT’s stock price has been steadily declining over the last several weeks. After briefly spiking over $40 in the immediate wake of the assassination attempt, the stock closed this week at a new post-merger low of around $17.