The Best-Kept Secret of the 2024 Campaign
The Best-Kept Secret of the 2024 Campaign
Plus: We’ve come a long way.
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: A Stopped Clock Is Sometimes Right
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GABRIEL SCHOENFELD: The Best-Kept Secret of the 2024 Campaign
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both keep a deathly silence about it. President Biden is loath to discuss it. Seemingly, no one wants to speak about or hear a frightening truth. But a terrible surprise is on the way. It may not come this year. It may not come next. But the train is roaring down the tracks. To say that America’s position in the world has become more precarious is a grave understatement. We are spending far less on defense, and spending what we do spend far less reasonably, than is necessary to meet the gathering dangers of the moment.
MARC CAPUTO: The Old Man and the Tweet: Trump World Holds Its Breath as He Returns to X
Trump’s return to X and the mini-rally plan are part of a larger effort to try and reset the campaign as Harris continues to gain steam, troubling the Trump campaign and its supporters. In Trump’s broad circle of longtime advisers, confidants, and former campaign and White House staffers, the ex-president is seen not just as the cause of his current problems but also the antidote to them. . . .
But the posts, along with a highly publicized interview with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, also reignited one of the fundamental debates undergirding the campaign: Just how much Trump is, politically speaking, too much?
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Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Bill Kristol and Christopher Cadelago: Increasingly Unhinged [YouTube]
Bulwark Goes to Hollywood: Brad Thor's World of Intrigue
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JIM SWIFT: We’ve Come a Long Way
Greetings from Ohio. Overtime readers will know that I just spent a week moving my family from Virginia to my home state. Amazingly, it turns out some of my new neighbors are Bulwark readers. Imagine that—I moved 475 miles away from Washington, D.C. and still found our people.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Monday! Fine weather is upon the Queen City, and as you read this, I’m enjoying some baseball at the Great American Ballpark. It’s my first trip. As a kid, my Reds-fan dad took me to a game at Riverfront, back when you could smoke in the seats. Excited to take our girls there as they play the Cardinals, a family favorite on our Missouri side.
We’ve come a long way… I am the latest of the Bulwarkers to write a message asking our free readers to consider subscribing. It’s linked above, but I want to share it again here since many readers of this newsletter are already Bulwark+ members, Founders, and Navigators (thank you!), and so you might have missed it. I’m able to have a great job—and now able to work from Ohio—thanks to our subscribers. You guys make it all possible. I look forward to meeting more of you in the days ahead, whether here in Cincinnati or at our upcoming events in Texas.
Ohio economic developer JobsOhio… loans $2 million to company headed by insider, which as the kids say, is highly “sus” (Ohio Capital Journal). At the Rooster, one of my favorite Ohio publications, D.J. Byrnes has a great look at JobsOhio, which seems pretty scammy to me!
Also in Ohio news… The Savannah Bananas came through Cleveland! Sad to have missed it.
Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts (Independent Florida Alligator).
Thank you, Mayor Giles… I wish more GOP officeholders had your courage to speak out.
Speaking of speaking out… There’s a Republicans for Harris rally tomorrow. And the special guest is Mark Hamill.
Jordan Klepper Asks MAGA About the Shooting… Harris, and Both Parties’ VP Noms.
Bernie Moreno… Unhinged (Plain Dealer).
George Conway has some new billboards… Right outside of the former guy’s clubs.
The CIA Sent Him Deep Undercover to Spy on Islamic Radicals... It Cost Him Everything (Rolling Stone).
Why Trump flew to campaign events… on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane last weekend (Miami Herald).
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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.