Closing the tabs ...
Biden to The View: "I never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance of my running again...my polling was about...always within range of beating this guy I didn't sense that....I was confident. I would beat Trump." pic.twitter.com/zutdHVOM3M
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 25, 2024
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“When I ran this last time, I said that I saw myself as a transition president to a new generation of leadership,” Biden said. “What happened was, we were having so much success in getting things done that people thought we couldn’t get done, I found myself having to use more time than I would have ordinarily to pass that torch.”
Biden’s claim implied he was always planning to step down but became bogged down in the presidency’s work, though he went through a primary process in which he received 14 million votes and debated former President Donald Trump before dropping out.
It also contradicts comments he made in a televised address the week after his exit from the race, in which Biden said his record, leadership, and vision “merited a second term” but that “nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy … so I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.”
Ed: Yes, this was unaldulterated malarkey, to use one of Biden's terms. He got pushed out by his party after winning the cooked primaries. The clip above comes closer to the truth -- Biden thought he could win and that the polling showed he could still compete.
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Acceptance is the first step:
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) September 25, 2024
“We just need to move past the failed policies that we have proven don't work.” - Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/iB2SLe55Uh
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Kamala: "No-one can tell me we can't build quickly in our country."
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 25, 2024
Kamala's government spent $7.5B on electric vehicle charging stations and has so far built only 7 of them. pic.twitter.com/IBkqv7imjG
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In her inaugural address as San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris promised to “never charge the death penalty.” She kept that promise through her time as a prosecutor—all the way through 2019, during her first run for the White House, when she included the liberal policy as part of her core agenda, promising an end to capital punishment in her criminal reform plan.
“Kamala believes the death penalty is immoral, discriminatory, ineffective and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars,” her campaign website read at the time.
Harris’s sudden retreat from the historically liberal policy aligns with the Democratic Party’s latest stance on capital punishment—which is, apparently, that it is no longer a topic for discussion.
Ed: So laments the uber-progressive New Republic, which suddenly seems concerned over a lack of substance from the Democrat nominee. Now do mandatory buybacks, legalized prostitution, refusal to prosecute border violations, and so on.
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Yesterday’s polls were very bad for Harris. Trump is viewed as a more successful president than the current admin and they trust him more on the economy, even as Dems lie about his record. We discuss on @cnn. pic.twitter.com/NMfAUzIcjD
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 25, 2024
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During a "Unite for America" livestream event in the battleground state of Michigan with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday, Harris sought to persuade the audience that she had an economic policy that would deliver for businesses and for the American people, saying "and that is why Goldman Sachs . . . is why Moody's, which is why Wharton School of Business, which is why 16 Nobel laureates, have collectively determined after analyzing our plans . . . mine would strengthen the economy, his would weaken it."
When contacted by Newsweek for comment, one of the institutions Harris referenced directly refuted her claim.
"We did not find a positive impact on the economy from her plan in any future year. The Trump plan does increase GDP for a few years but lowers by the end of the 10-year budget window," a spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) said.
Ed: This is from the weekend, but it's still worth noting and bookmarking. Team Kamala made that Wharton claim repeatedly, including in the ABC debate. And if history is any guide, they'll keep making the claim even after it's been debunked.
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Today @SecBlinken reveals that it’s not only former Trump administration officials whom #Iran’s regime is trying to assassinate. Current Biden administration officials are also being targeted. What’s the U.S. doing to deter Tehran?
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) September 25, 2024
pic.twitter.com/yjDzHAXtih
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Rich Goldberg, a former member of then-President Trump’s National Security Council, told Fox News Digital, "This is a bipartisan American failure as much as it is a U.N. failure. The Bush administration signed off on 1701 with an obvious poison pill: that UNIFIL could only take action at the request of the Lebanese Armed Forces. No request ever came, no enforcement ever occurred, all while the U.S. pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into both UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces. We held all the cards and used none for 18 years, and Iran took full advantage."
"The lesson for today is that whatever comes after Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, it cannot rely on UNIFIL or the Lebanese Armed Forces for verification or enforcement," said Goldberg, a senior adviser for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "The only party capable and willing to disarm Hezbollah is the Israel Defense Forces."
Ed: Adam and I discuss that in Friday's Amiable Skeptics episode, but that's clearly the lesson. The UN has spent this week lecturing Israel on diplomacy, but Israel relied on it in 2006 and the UN stabbed them in the back by refusing to enforce Resolution 1701. Their demand for negotiations now is more than just a little rich with that history of betrayal.
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Donald Trump: "No threat will shake me. No enemy will intimidate me. I have never been more determined than I am today, and I will never back down in my fight to Make America Great Again!" pic.twitter.com/egdEZAn52O
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 25, 2024
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