Trump prepares to ramp up campaigning after attacking ABC News ahead of debate: Live (2024)

Trump easily susceptible to being manipulated, ex-national security adviser warns

HR McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, is warning that the ex-president is easily susceptible to manipulation and needs “a competent team around him to help him identify his own agenda.”

“He can make really sound decisions and disrupt things that need to be disrupted in terms of foreign policy, national security,” said retired US Army Lieutenant General HR McMaster on Sunday regarding the GOP presidential candidate.

“But [he] oftentimes struggles to hang on to those decisions and see them through.”

Appearing on CBS News’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, McMaster made the claim as part of the promotional activity concerning his new book, At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, which is set to go on sale on August 27.

Myriam Page has more.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 14:10

Trump deletes error-strewn early morning social media post about the ‘Powerfulnnz Border’

It seems it’s not just Miller talking gibberish.

Here’s Rhian Lubin on the Republican‘s latest social media wig-out.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 13:40

Trump adviser: ‘This isn’t powder puff football’

I don’t know what the above statement from Jason Miller means but here he is saying it anyway:

The Trump whisperer also claimed that RFK Jr’s endorsem*nt for his man had sent the Dow Jones rocketing on Friday, which is highly fanciful, to put it mildly.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 13:10

Lindsey Graham pressed by CNN over claim Trump abortion claim

The slippery South Carolina senator was asked about the same issue by Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday and baulked at the very idea of giving a straight answer.

John Bowden reports.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 12:40

Vance claims Trump would veto national abortion ban

The Republican vice presidential contender also assured Welker yesterday that Trump would not sign legislation establishing a national abortion ban into law, although that position is somewhat complicated by the Ohio Senator’s own past support for such a proposition.

Here’s more from John Bowden.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 12:10

Vance refuses to say if Trump will bring back family separations at southern border

Let’s get back to Trump’s running mate’s big interview with Meet the Press.

In addition to rowing back on his “childless cat ladies” slur, Vance declined to give specifics on one of the Trump administration’s greatest controversies when he was asked about immigration, border security and the former president’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of undocumented immigrants.

Trump’s own campaign has promised the “largest deportation operation in American history” if he returns to the White House but what that amounts to in reality is surely a massive operation requiring significant federal funding and state cooperation likely to yield serious consequences for communities around the country.

But when asked a question with a seemingly obvious answer by Kristen Welker — whether the concept of separating family units, including young children from their parents, would be revived under a second Trump term — Vance could not provide an answer.

Here’s more from John Bowden.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 11:40

Trump ‘not in command of himself’ amid Harris momentum, says observer

Here’s Gustaf Kilander with another perspective on Trump’s apparent malaise, this time from New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman – one of the most seasoned Trumpwatcher out there, attuned to the man’s every move.

She told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room and appears not to be “in command” of himself as he’s “jarred” by the rise and rise of Kamala Harris.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 11:10

Can Harris beat Trump? Latest poll updates

After Harris closed out the Democratic National Convention last week, a brand new poll showed that her address had actually had little immediate impact on voting intentions.

But with independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr since dropping out to endorse Trump, the presidential race could now be about to undergo a more significant shift.

So how will Harris actually fare against Trump and JD Vance this November?

Here’s Alicia Hagopian to look at the numbers.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 10:40

RFK Jr’s sister attacks him over ‘inexplicable effort’ to ‘set fire to my father’s memory’ with Trump endorsem*nt

Kerry Kennedy did not mince her words when she was asked by MSNBC’s Jen Psaki how she felt about her brother’s endorsem*nt of Trump in Arizona on Friday.

Lara Trump, inevitably, was out on Fox to offer the Trump campaign’s spin.

Meanwhile, JD Vance has already found himself challenged on RFK Jr’s controversial policy stances, which the Republican ticket have now effectively inherited and may come to regret being associated with.

Here’s Josh Marcus’s report on Kennedy’s announcement.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 10:20

JD Vance says people took his childless cat lady comment ‘wrong’

Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s running mate JD Vance said that he regrets the fact that “a lot of people” took his 2021 “childless cat ladies” comments “the wrong way”, claiming his remark to then-Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson had been a “joke” about America becoming “too anti-family”.

This is what he had to tell Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press:

John Bowden reports.

Joe Sommerlad26 August 2024 10:00