Monday, July 29, 2024

Haberman and Swan being suckered by the Trump campaign's failed bluff is the schadenfreude cherry on top

While the New York Times is not as influential as it used to be, it still has a big direct impact and an even bigger indirect impact on the discourse. Along with a handful of other major players such as Politico, it largely sets the narratives that drive the majority of mainstream media coverage. If for no other reason, that makes it important to keep an eye on the paper, particularly when it starts getting just a bit revisionist.

 

One of the most notable and talked about aspects of the aftermath of Biden stepping down was how completely unprepared the Republicans seem to be for what was a widely anticipated turn of events.
From TPM:

It was a cacophony of a reaction from one man, but it’s reflective of the broader response on the far right to Harris becoming the likely Democratic nominee. In the hours after Biden announced that he would withdraw, Republicans from Trump on down flailed for a response. Some Republicans expressed anger, while others were visibly baffled by how to react to the shift. Many reacted by suggesting that the shift from Biden to Harris itself was illegitimate, calling the President’s withdrawal from the race a “coup” and proclaiming that they’re actually running against a system, not a candidate.

Trump’s own communications staff seemed caught off guard. Jason Miller, who has helped helm Trump’s PR apparatus since 2016, announced on NBC on Sunday that he had identified a core Harris vulnerability: “She wants to ban plastic straws.”

Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and longtime friend of Trump, appeared to take the cue. In his Sunday evening broadcast, Hannity reminded his audience that Harris had committed to banning the straws, before proclaiming: “I love my plastic straws. I hate paper straws.”

He used that as part of a broader effort during his hour to depict Harris as a far-left radical, as hell-bent on banning the plastic straws cherished by all freedom-loving Americans as she is on joining with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to enslave Americans in “socialized” health care. Harris, Hannity said, co-sponsored Sanders’ Medicare-for-All bill.

On the non-straw front, Stephen Miller sputtered to Laura Ingraham Sunday night about the unfairness of it all.

“They held a primary!” Miller nearly shouted. “People – they had ballots! They filled out circles that went to the voting booths! They spent money on advertisements, and as President Trump said, the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars running against Joe Biden.”


The messaging was so bad that the Fox news personality Stephen Colbert used to refer to as "not Steve Doocey" actually tried to use a substantial jump in San Francisco conviction rates as part of an attack piece on Harris.

(This, of course, is coming from the same people who argued that Trump's criminal convictions would help him win the black vote.) 

The head-shaking over the lack of GOP preparation wasn't limited to political junkie sites like TPM. It was a topic of conversation across the mainstream media including this segment on CNN from the Monday after. [If you're in a hurry, just watch from the 90 second to two minutes marks.]


"Jonathan Swan and I did a story over the weekend about how the preparations that have been going on, and they've been going on for a while, but they seem unsettled on exactly what message they want to run against her." Listening to Haberman you would get the impression that the New York Times was on top of this from the very beginning. That is not, however, the impression you get reading the actual article.

Trump Campaign Prepares Attack Plan for Harris in Case Biden Withdraws
by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Donald J. Trump’s campaign is preparing a major effort to attack Vice President Kamala Harris if President Biden steps aside as the Democratic nominee, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The Trump team has already prepared opposition research books on Ms. Harris, and has similar dossiers on other Democrats who could become the nominee if Mr. Biden were to drop out of the race.

But the bulk of the preparations so far have been focused on Ms. Harris, including a recently concluded poll testing her vulnerabilities in a general election contest, according to the two people. The Trump team’s attention on Ms. Harris is based on its assumption that if Democrats were to bypass the first Black woman to serve as vice president, it would drive even deeper divisions in the party and risk alienating their base of Black voters. 


To be brief and blunt, the Trump campaign knew that they had nothing so they lied to Haberman and Swan everything was good to go in order to buy a little time and keep supporters and donors from panicking. It was a dubious story but the cream of the NYT's political reporting bench swallowed it without an apparent moment of hesitation. Not surprisingly, Josh Marshall had the best takes on this.

 

 

 

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