Harris' Best Option? Throw Biden Under the Bus

posted by Tom Knighton at Townhall 

Vice President Kamala Harris didn't have a very good Thursday. I was waiting for Hurricane Helene to kick my kiester all over the state of Georgia and I still had a better day than she did.

One of the "highlights" for Harris was President Joe Biden's appearance on "The View," where he talked about how Harris had been knee-deep in decisions on both foreign and domestic policy.

There's just one problem with that. The Biden administration's domestic and foreign policy has been an absolute disaster.

As Harris campaigns, she's been saddled with one question that she simply ignores: What stopped you from doing all this in the last three and a half years?

Biden's comments on "The View" only made that question more salient. If she was so involved, what stopped her from addressing literally anything she says she can fix if elected?

What this means is that Kamala Harris has really one option to escape from, well... *gestures at everything*

She needs to throw Biden under the bus.

Vice presidents don't really have the authority to roll out their own agenda. Her best hope in shielding herself from criticism for what she hasn't done would be to say that Biden is a senile, old man who doesn't know what pants are most of the time so he's wrong to say she was involved in policy discussion. Harris needs to argue that she wasn't allowed to address any of the concerns of Americans with any of the things she's absolutely sure would fix the problems.

Would that win her the election?

Probably not. Not in and of itself, anyway. She'd also have to make a lot of sense in her own right, something she's shown she's pathologically incapable of doing, but at least then she might have a shot.

And really, what's the downside? Anyone who loves Biden enough to get furious is still going to vote for her because they're terrified of a Trump presidency all over again. The people on the right aren't going to buy it, but they're not going to vote for her anyway. The only people it might impact are the people Harris would need to win over.

Sure, that'll make it harder to try and leverage incumbency to any degree while also pretending to be a Washington outsider, but that's not working for her anyway.

I just don't think she'll do it.

See, Kamala Harris doesn't think about anyone but her fellow leftists. If she did, she wouldn't have picked someone like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as a running mate. She'd have gone for someone more appealing to the center, giving those folks someone to vote for. Instead, she went with Walz, a man she had to know had some baggage from his much-touted military time to say nothing of his time as governor.

Harris needs someone to talk her into it, but if the people surrounding her couldn't talk her out of Walz, I don't think they'd talk her into dumping Biden.

So, while I think Harris throwing Biden under the bus is the right play, I don't think she will ever consider it. It's not loyalty to Biden so much as she's incapable of thinking beyond her progressive bubble.

X22, And we Know, and more- Sept 27

 

Washington Post’s Incurious Philip Bump Says The Media Should Just Give Kamala The ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’

 Bump is ready to quickly move on from any issue that could be a problem for the political party he’s trying to help win this election.

Because the national news media can’t be bothered to actually scrutinize Kamala Harris’ campaign — they’re trying to help her win, after all — they instead choose to scrutinize anyone else who tries.

That’s why rather than sincerely look into Kamala’s relatively new biographical claim that she once slung Happy Meals working at a McDonald’s, The Washington Post’s most willfully obtuse writer, Philip Bump, decided that this week his energy was best spent belittling anyone who questions it — most notably, Kamala’s opponent, Donald Trump.

“Since Trump has been saying that the McDonald’s story isn’t true,” Bump wrote Thursday, “a lot of his supporters are saying it too, rushing to prove that Harris was being dishonest about her McDonald’s employment with the same intellectual rigor that they applied to uncovering voter fraud and pet eating.”

To the extent that Bump had any interest at all in the unsubstantiated “french fries and ice cream” tale Kamala relays to make herself seem humble and relatable, it was to prove that he couldn’t prove whether it’s true even if he wanted to. “Over the course of this week,” he wrote, “I spent some time looking into the story myself — not because I doubted Harris’s claim (since there’s no real reason to doubt it) but because I was curious if it was provable.”

This is what the national media do anytime a Republican or right-leaning news publication raises a legitimate issue that might be politically harmful to the Democrat Party. They dismiss the controversy as a partisan-driven affair of no consequence or otherwise run interference on behalf of Democrats by debating and disputing its merits.

It’s what the media did with the animal-snatching Haitian migrants story. Rather than investigate what Springfield, Ohio, residents had to say of the documented claims that relocated migrants were eating pets and wild animals there, the media busied themselves by asking local government officials if they could prove them. When the media got the answer they wanted — there was no proof — they wiped their hands clean and called anyone still interested liars.

It’s what the media did with the Hunter Biden foreign bribery scheme. Every development of that story, no matter how scandalous, has been brushed aside and regarded as a non-event by the media. Bump leaned into that particularly egregious round of media moral bankruptcy more than anyone. Congressional investigations, testimony under oath, and corroborated reports overwhelmingly indicate that President Biden’s degenerate middle-aged son has for years been financially benefiting from foreign entities to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — for providing no discernible product or service in return except direct access to the U.S. government, including his father. What’s more, there’s convincing evidence that Joe Biden was a key player in the dealings, an assertion made by one of Hunter Biden’s years-long business partners.

Asked last year to reconcile the irrefutable reality that there is at least an interesting possibility of obscene corruption implicating the sitting president of the United States, with the absolute lack of curiosity of the corporate media, Bump yawned.

A sample of Bump’s remarks during that interview with podcaster Noam Dworman:

“You have no evidence that Joe Biden acted on Hunter Biden’s behalf, or that Joe Biden took money!”

“Find me evidence! There is none!”

“You’ve offered no evidence beyond your parsing …”

“This conversation is silly!”

“This is why I keep saying it’s silly!”

To be fair to Bump, he did write in his column this week that he bothered to call up a couple McDonald’s locations in the city Kamala identified for the job. He tried to get the corporate office on the phone but failed in every attempt. That takes at least a few calories of effort, though rather than leave it as an open question as to whether Kamala is being honest about her early life experience, he argued that the exercise was predictably silly because — well, who cares?

“Harris, unlike Trump,” he wrote, “has earned the benefit of the doubt on assertions that may not be immediately provable.”

And just like that, Bump was done with his investment in questioning a story Kamala repeatedly tells as part of her pitch to voters. He’s ready to move on from such things because he knows it’s a problem for the political party he’s trying to help win this election.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/09/27/washington-posts-incurious-philip-bump-says-the-media-should-just-give-kamala-the-benefit-of-the-doubt/

Progressivism: An Arrogant and Deadly Worldview

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker 

Call me crazy, but I don’t trust government officials who believe that population growth (AKA “our carbon footprint”) is the most pressing problem on the planet.  If we had bureaucrats who were encouraging us to get married early and have lots of children, I might listen to what they have to say.  If we had politicians who spoke endlessly of cheap energy, rising wages, higher standards of living, and the potential for all hard workers to become wealthy, I’d probably throw an attaboy in their general direction.  But why would I follow anyone who wants to control what I eat, confiscate what I earn, regulate how I live, and leave me with nothing?  When “authorities” tell us that too many people are alive today, we should probably see their words as a threat worth taking seriously.

That’s why I don’t trust the experimental “vaccines” that the government’s favorite pharmaceutical companies managed to manufacture in record time (shortening a process that normally takes fifteen or more years into a miraculously innovative seven or eight months).  “Here, take this injection.  It will save your life.”  Uh, you first.  Why don’t we see how your health fares before we start playing Russian roulette with the global population?

It’s nothing personal.  Maybe there are some good, decent scientists out there who actually want to fight disease.  But there are a whole lot of other scientists who talk quite openly about why humanity must cull the herd.  “Sustainable growth” sounds hunky-dory until you realize that you are the unsustainable growth that the “experts” want to stem.  Once a person has that epiphany, the magic juice in those COVID syringes looks a little less magical.  So you’re saying you want to save my friends and me today, so that you can depopulate the planet tomorrow?  Never mind, I’m good.  I just remembered that I have to be somewhere...far away.

Last week I wrote about Ned Ryun’s excellent new book, American Leviathan, in which he recounts the rise of the unconstitutional administrative state.  In describing how “Progressive Statists” took over the U.S. government, Ryun examines not only how an unaccountable bureaucracy replaced the Founders’ designs for limited government, but also how cancerous ideologies animated powerful Americans to repudiate the Constitution’s constraints against government overreach.  

Woodrow Wilson and his ilk detested “popular sovereignty” — the idea that ordinary people should be the arbiters of how their nation runs — and demanded that “the best boys from the best colleges” be in charge.  In their arrogant and prejudicial minds, early-twentieth-century “progressives” believed that it was absurd for lowly, less educated Americans to be entrusted with any say over the operations of the federal government.  The experts are meant to rule, and the riffraff are meant to obey!  That un-American motto became the government’s guiding principle to this day.

As Ryun repeatedly points out in his book, Wilson saw the U.S. Constitution as an “outdated” and “defective” document that prevented the best people from doing what they knew to be best for the nation.  (Sound familiar?)  “Living political constitutions,” Wilson insisted, “must be Darwinian in structure and practice” — which is to say that the meaning of the Constitution must “evolve” according to the needs of the bureaucrats running things.

Wilson and his acolytes wanted to build a government that operated beyond the reach of politics (and, therefore, beyond the reach of the American people).  They wanted to fill this government with bureaucrats who had been scientifically trained to diagnose and address the nation’s “evolving” challenges.  And they wanted to provide these unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats with independent powers that allowed them to do what they thought best at any given time.  In this way, the original “progressives” claimed, the business of government would be conducted efficiently and scientifically.

No doubt today’s “progressives” would still cheer Woodrow Wilson’s words as their own, but after a century of unconstitutional bureaucracy run amok, ask yourself this simple question: would anyone call any part of the federal government “efficient” today?  On the contrary, government efficiency is a punch line to a common joke: if you want something done in twice the time and with ten times the cost, then let the government build it.  

After Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty,” the federal government spent trillions of dollars only to make Americans relatively poorer while greatly increasing wealth inequality.  Four decades after the creation of the Department of Education, American children have never performed so poorly on standardized tests.  Barack Obama and the Democrats insisted on “saving” Americans from high medical costs by nationalizing health care — only to give us a broken hospital system that is even more costly.  

Anything the government touches turns into an inefficient and poorly run enterprise, which is why so many Americans correctly feared that Obamacare would create the medical equivalent of the U.S. Postal Service or the local DMV.  In turn, “the best boys from the best colleges” have turned postal employees and Department of Motor Vehicle personnel into essential workers for registering voters and collecting ballots.  Nothing gives Americans confidence in the security of their elections like putting bureaucrats associated with incompetence in charge of processing votes.  Instead of building a government renowned for its “scientific efficiency,” the “Progressive Statists” have constructed a broken-down system synonymous with ineptitude and corruption.

By putting blind faith in the discriminatory idea that some Americans deserve to govern others, “progressives” have spent the last century dismantling the Constitution’s safeguards for limited government, individual rights, and economic freedom.  In their place, we have a bureaucratic “blob” that does what it wants without regard for the citizenry.  Because, after all, the blob knows best.

As Ryun articulates in American Leviathan, “Progressive Statists” have not only given us bad government but also an army of bureaucrats who place dogmatic faith in the inerrant promulgations of “Science.”  “Trust the Science” is not a modern mantra.  Wilson and his lot implored early-twentieth-century Americans to do the same.  

In a chapter entitled “When False Gods Ring Hollow,” Ryun quotes Michael Crichton: “Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.  This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians, and celebrities around the world.  Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities.  The crisis is reported frequently in the media.  The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.”  As Ryun makes clear, Crichton wasn’t writing about COVID or “global warming.”  He was describing “progressivism’s” love affair with the “science” of eugenics and the U.S. government’s dalliance with forced sterilization of “inferior” races.  Wilson and his “progressive” tribe were huge fans.

If the administrative state is filled with the “best boys from the best colleges,” and those “best boys” all decide that some kind of “science” is “true,” then objections from the people must be ignored.  After all, as Ryun states poignantly, if the State’s primary goal is scientific efficiency, then “there is no individualism, no individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, and no Creator that has endowed life in all forms.  There is the state and society, which ultimately deem who and what are necessary for the health of the whole if mankind is to reach the state of apotheosis.  And for the whole to be healthy, to progress to a higher plane, anyone or anything deemed parasitical must be ejected.  Any imperfection that might slow progress and lead to inefficiency must be dealt with.”

Last century’s so-called “experts” believed in eugenics.  Today’s so-called experts believe in mandatory injections with experimental “vaccines,” anthropogenic “climate change,” and the “virtues” of depopulation.  “Progressive” government is inefficient folly; “progressive” science, however, is just plain deadly.

The Kamala Cookbook

The Kamala Cookbook

Christine Rosen for Commentary Magazine October 2024

When Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in August, she said, “I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys.”

And yet voters know little about the last stage of that journey: the path that led to Harris seizing her party’s nomination after President Joe Biden had announced in July he would not run for reelection. How did an unpopular vice president catapult to the top of the list of replacement candidates? Were deals struck to protect the Biden family if Joe were to endorse Kamala? Was there any discussion of Biden stepping down as president before the end of his term? Was this, as some observers asked, both tongue-in-cheek and in earnest, a coup? In the competitive world of political journalism, the behind-the-scenes story of the machinations of Team Kamala would have been a major scoop.

It is the scoop that never was. In a lengthy interview in early August with Biden adviser Anita Dunn, Ryan Lizza of Politico asked about perceptions that Harris had effectively been installed without ever having had to win over a single Democratic-primary voter: “Do you agree with some of the people who were disappointed about this, that it was, essentially, a ‘coup’?” Dunn sought to shut down such talk immediately, saying Harris had been “terrifically loyal” throughout the upheavals of the summer. Later, when asked about the “decision to endorse Harris, and her quick consolidation of the party,” Dunn claimed there was “never a question” about Biden endorsing Harris. Lizza, like many other political journalists, simply let the matter drop.

The lack of curiosity about how Harris secured both Biden’s endorsement and the nomination so quickly is odd given what we know from media reports on Biden’s long-standing concerns about Harris’s performance as vice president. Just last year, the New York Times described it thus: “The painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around the nation … said [Harris] had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country.” Adding insult to injury, the story noted, “Even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her.”

In September, reporters Mike Allen and Alex Thompson of Axios revisited the question and wondered, “Why did President Biden’s top advisers routinely leak word they found her performance as vice president disappointing or episodically problematic” before she became the nominee? Why did Biden advisers worry Harris would “struggle under the glare of national pressure”? In addition, there was the matter of her long-standing reputation as an unpopular boss with a “high turnover rate” among staff: “Of the 47 Harris staffers publicly disclosed to the Senate in 2021, only five still worked for her as of this spring.” And yet, after raising these questions, Axios shrugged, noting only that the Harris campaign repeatedly answered, “No comment.”

It is notable that the only story the media want to tell in the “first draft of history” they often boast about writing is one that avoids any discussion of Kamala Harris. Instead, it focuses on who urged Biden to get out of the race. The heroine of that story, if you are a Democrat who didn’t want Biden to run, is canny octogenarian Nancy Pelosi, who supposedly put country above her “friendship” with Biden to save the Democratic Party from itself. As Jill Filipovic described it at Slate, Pelosi “looked at the polls, saw no path to victory, and understood that the best way to get through to Biden was to confront the president in private, while remaining respectfully assertive in public.” Politico quoted anonymous Democratic sources who made Pelosi sound less like a friend than a Mafia enforcer: “Nancy made it clear that they could do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

This narrative has the advantage of allowing reporters to ignore lingering questions about what happened and instead tie up loose ends with a tidy bow. As Slate put it, “Nancy Pelosi got the one thing she always wants: a way to win.” The article quoted her as saying that her support of Harris was “official, personal, and political.” What this narrative also does, inadvertently, is make Harris seem like a non-player character in the biggest game of her life.

What little we do know of the behind-the-scenes way Biden’s announcement unfolded is pablum. A recent Associated Press story helpfully informs voters, “It is known that Harris is a foodie and likes to cook. In fact, she had just made a pancakes-and-bacon breakfast for her niece’s 6- and 8-year-old daughters on the July morning when Biden called with the news that he was dropping out of the race.”

This approach is indicative. Throughout her tenure as vice president, and more intensely since she became the Democratic nominee, reporters describe world events and domestic political challenges such as war, the border crisis, or inflation as happening to her, not because of the administration’s policies. Although voters still don’t know in her own words Harris’s views on immigration, or gun rights, or fracking, the media have made sure that we know she used to wash collard greens in her bathtub before parties. In wartime, she might or might not support our allies like Israel, but “at snack time, Harris reaches for Doritos.”

Some of this incuriosity is no doubt the result of careful cultivation of the media by Harris in the last two years. As Semafor’s Max Tani reported in late July, Harris has “invited a parade of prominent television anchors and media executives to dine with her at the Naval Observatory, given personal tours of her garden to journalists from diverse backgrounds, and shaped trips to do media appearances with the outlets serving Democratic-leaning groups the White House refers to as ‘coalition media.’” Harris has fêted the hosts of Morning Joe over dinner, as well as Meet the Press’s Kristen Welker, and doesn’t discriminate between prestige and nontraditional media. As Semafor notes, “Staff from gossip site The Shade Room snagged an invite to her holiday party,” and off-the-record meetings included visits by the authors of “fairly niche abortion Substacks.” 

Instead of running down the story themselves, media outlets have scolded Republicans who posited their own theories about Biden’s departure and its resemblance to a bloodless coup. In a piece that included charts and an extended note on its “methodology,” the New York Times decried the use of words such as “coup” and “cover-up” and claimed, “A vast majority of prominent Republicans have treated the development [Biden’s exit] with suspicion or scorn.” New York magazine declared such speculation “lurid,” stating, “This line of argument is as feeble as it is loud and insistent. If Biden could be brushed aside against his will, why did it take so long, and why did the alleged orchestrators of the ‘coup’ insist that Biden himself make the decision?”

A willing media have continued to serve as the Harris campaign’s boosters by avoiding asking difficult questions about her policy positions. As New York’s Gabriel Debenedetti wrote recently, a “popular media narrative” suggests that Harris should take clear policy positions on important issues, but “people close to Harris” say “her primary job now is to win an election and that most voters need to understand her values and priorities, not her white papers.”

In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris said, “My entire career, I’ve only had once client: the people.” Is it a good idea to keep your client in the dark about not only how you got your job but also what your plans are for leading them, given that they ultimately decide whether you get that job and pay your salary? Harris is betting that it is. And given the media’s incuriosity about her résumé and rise to power, it’s a clever gamble. For the ever-more distrusted and increasingly unpopular and unprofitable mainstream press, however, it’s just another path of indignity leading to the industry’s grave.

Photo: AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson

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You Are Not Safe From Your Own Government

posted by Brandon Morse at RedState 

I remember decades ago that the person saying you shouldn't trust the government while listing conspiracies to you was considered the nut job in the room. Now... well, everyone owes him an apology. 

Those conspiracy theorists got too much right, at least lately, and it's really shown us a side of the government that many of us truly hoped did not exist. Many people looked at the government as something of a necessary evil that had checks and balances. We sent our own people there to represent us and help control it. We thought that this was enough for protection from it, and we went to sleep. 

Yet, while we were asleep, elements began to creep in that saw this thing we created as a delivery system for their own whims, wishes, and ambitions. One thing led to another, and now we have a government that detests us, even to the point where it's willing and ready to put us in harm's way, opening up avenues that allow it to harm us itself if it can.  

This might sound like crazy talk, but let's look at the facts, starting with the most recent. 

You, reading this now, are probably pro-life. You respect the value of life and believe that everyone should be given a shot at it, even if the beginnings aren't the most ideal. Many of you are believers in God, and think that He created life, and as He doesn't make mistakes, believe that He has a plan for every life that comes into this world. 

Did you know that your government was training your army with your taxpayer dollars to see you as a terrorist threat? 

Here is Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) at a hearing, grilling General Patrick Matlock on the training program that trained soldiers to see the National Right to Life as a terrorist threat. Matlock admits it was a mistake to do such a thing but also admits that these soldiers haven't been told it was a mistake. 

Whose idea was this in the first place? Who honestly thinks that the National Right to Life is a terrorist threat? It's an organization that values life and wants to keep it sacred... what kind of terrorism are the people in our government afraid they're going to commit? 

The answer is none of them. The only danger the National Right to Life imposes is a threat to the leftist agenda, which is something the left sees as a solid excuse to become violent. 

Then, just a few days ago, the DOJ released a full image of a page of the letter penned by Trump's second would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, who offered a bounty of $150,000 to whoever could assassinate Trump: 

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

(Bill Barr 'Dumbfounded' by DOJ's Release of Trump Would-Be Assassin's Letter, Suggests Ominous Purpose)

As Mike Miller wrote on Bill Barr's comments: 

I don't think Barr meant to suggest that the DOJ's release of the disturbing letter was an intentional attempt to incite further violence, and neither do I, but to the former AG's point, what other purpose could it serve? To further divide the country, perhaps? 

What other point could it serve is the question everyone should be asking right now. Why would the DOJ do this? 

Keep in mind that this is the same DOJ that was so concerned about inflaming violence against people that it attempted to hide away the manifesto of the transgender Nashville school shooter. It only came to light after it was leaked to various sources. 

Your government has gone after parents, Christians, conservatives, and more, and in various ways meant to intimidate, threaten, and silence them. Our government has attempted to create entire departments whose sole purpose is to quell free speech. They recently attempted to infuse the IRS with billions and billions of dollars, most of which was meant to boost its "enforcement" capabilities. 

This is the government that attempted to coerce and intimidate you into injecting yourself with an unproven vaccine that did, in fact, harm a lot of people. This is the same government that, even now, makes stripping you of your Second Amendment rights one of its priorities. This is the same government that, as I write this, is importing dangerous illegals from south of the border and dropping them off in American neighborhoods. 

None of this that I'm saying now is hyperbolic. It's actually happening. 

Your government does not care about you. It is not concerned about your safety and well-being. It is not your friend. It is not your protector. You and the government are enemies. Do not give it the power to grow more powerful. Vote accordingly, and make sure you vote in people who will strip it of power, shrink it, and create more boundaries that stop it from becoming something it was never intended to be. 

Do not allow this government to rule you. Remember, you rule it. You are in charge. It is here to serve you. It's forgotten that. Remind it. 

Why Are Iran’s Thugs Free to Walk the Streets of New York?

 ‘The fact U.S. taxpayer dollars provided personal security for Iranian leaders trying to kill senior Americans is simply lunacy.’

NEW YORK—In many ways, Manhattan during the UN General Assembly is a choreographed show: awards dinners, media events, and grandiloquent speeches by the world’s autocrats in the land of the free. Fidel Castro once lambasted the U.S. for four hours during a speech; the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez accused George W. Bush of being “the devil”; and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, after erecting his tribal tent in New Jersey, pinned the JFK assassination on Israel. 

In keeping with tradition, on Tuesday, Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, took to the rostrum at the General Assembly and heralded himself as a symbol of moderation and as the diplomatic partner through which to solve the Middle East’s woes. “We are confident that through this mechanism we can achieve a lasting peace with Muslims, Christians, and Jews living alongside one another,” the cardiac surgeon-turned-politician told assembled world leaders in Turtle Bay.

Across the city, the 69-year-old Iranian leader’s message of coexistence wasn’t resonating. As he was speaking, Masih Alinejad, who is among Tehran’s most outspoken political opponents in the U.S., got the news that she had been rejected by a Brooklyn co-op board.

“The co-op rejected me and my husband. Why? Because, when they Google us, they realize that they don’t want to share their building with someone being followed around by people with AK-47s,” said the 48-year-old dissident. 

 

The board didn’t overtly say that its decision was driven by fear, but Alinejad told The Free Press she’s certain that Tehran’s repeated, and highly publicized, attempts to assassinate her on American soil—including at her home—drove the board’s decision. 

Alinejad, who has lived in 21 different safe houses under FBI protection over the past three years, is constantly shifting her locations. “Because the U.S. government can’t protect us, the Iranian regime’s fear is working. They’re isolating us.”

The contrast between the Iranian president’s charm offensive, and Alinejad’s misery, offers a unique window into the geopolitical struggle playing out across Manhattan this week—both in the spotlight and the backrooms—as the global elite attend the annual UN General Assembly and Iranian officials take to American airwaves and dine at New York restaurants.

 

Pezeshkian and his delegation are being feted by UN, European, and Middle East delegations as a potential ally in stopping the regional spread of Israel’s war against Hamas, Tehran’s military proxy in the Gaza Strip. According to Iranian state media, Tehran’s president met the leaders of Kuwait, Lebanon, Sudan, and Pakistan, as well as French president Emmanuel Macron and UK foreign minister David Lammy.

Iran’s Islamist government has spent decades arming and funding a network of militias, terrorist organizations, and allied governments that allows Tehran to essentially turn on and off a spigot of violence at a whim to threaten the region’s strategic waterways and, in turn, the global economy. European and Middle East officials at the UN Assembly are panicked by the prospect of Israel invading southern Lebanon in pursuit of Tehran’s most important military proxy, Hezbollah, and potentially expanding the regional war.

That’s why, as some told me in recent days, they believe the U.S. has little choice but to test Pezeshkian’s rhetoric and see if his new government can really take steps to de-escalate tensions. “We want to grab this line,” one senior Arab official said of Pezeshkian’s overture. “I think we need to discuss it.”

Alinejad and a wider group of Iranian political activists, émigré journalists, and former U.S. officials—who all talked to The Free Press this week—said they’ve been stunned by what they see as the almost purposeful naiveté of the world’s leaders meeting with Pezeshkian for the first time. (He only took office in July, following the death of his predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash.)

They say the Islamic Republic’s statesmen and diplomats have mastered an ability to tailor their messaging of moderation for global audiences, even as Tehran’s security forces continue to support the very groups stoking the Middle East’s conflicts. 

The fact that American intelligence agencies in recent days have said that Iran’s spy agencies continue to pursue terrorist plots inside the U.S., including against former president Donald Trump, only underscores the hollowness of Pezeshkian’s calls for diplomacy and coexistence in these dissidents’ eyes.

But the UN’s annual gathering is also providing these Iranian dissidents a unique opportunity to confront their tormentors—a small army of Davids staring down a Goliath. And they are using the occasion of the UN gathering to highlight the regime’s perfidy and its continued assault on them, their families, and the Iranian people. 

One of the frontline actors in this week’s drama is Iran International, the 24-hour Persian language television channel that’s officially banned inside Iran. Started only seven years ago, with funding from a politically connected Saudi-British investor and media company, the network has become Iran’s most-watched independent news organization, in part, because of its confrontational approach toward the Islamic Republic.

Iran International’s coverage of the 2022 women-led uprising against Tehran’s rulers—called the Women, Life, Freedom movement—garnered it particular notoriety. It told the story of the protests, and the government’s harsh crackdown, through videos, audio recordings, and interviews smuggled out of the country, as the network’s journalists couldn’t be on the ground. (Last year, I collaborated with Iran International for a story on Iranian influence operations inside the US that originally ran on the media site Semafor.)

But Iran International’s journalism has earned it the regime’s ire, and Tehran has hunted down its journalists on foreign soil, just as it has Masih Alinejad.

In 2023, the network decided to temporarily shut its London headquarters after British security services notified management that Iranian agents were plotting to attack its Chiswick offices and assassinate senior editors and journalists. Last December, the British media outlet, ITV, disclosed that Tehran had offered $200,000 to a Syrian hitman to attack two of Iran International’s most high-profile on-air personalities. And this March, Eastern European thugs, apparently at the behest of Tehran, stabbed the Iran International anchor, Pouria Zeraati, outside his London home. (He survived.)

British officials told Iran International they couldn’t ensure its staff’s security. As a result, the network’s headquarters were briefly shifted to Washington, D.C., last year. And at last year’s UN General Assembly, a regime security agent pummeled one of the network’s journalists. 

But in New York this week, Iran International deployed nearly a dozen staffers to cover every move of Pezeshkian and his delegation. That includes the large number of the president’s family members who accompanied him to New York and their shopping sprees at places like Costco.

“We can’t travel to Iran. If we do, it’s a one-way ticket to Evin Prison,” Fardad Farahzad, one of the Iran International journalists named as being on Tehran’s assassination list, told The Free Press. “So, this is a unique opportunity for us to try and hold them accountable on foreign soil.”

On Wednesday night, the network tracked the Iranian Americans who attended a gala dinner Pezeshkian and his entourage hosted near the UN. Many of the attendees wore Covid masks, Iran International reported, apparently to hide their identities.

Two days earlier, network reporter Arash Aalaei, tracked Trita Parsi, a prominent U.S. think-tank leader and advocate for engaging Iran, for blocks after he left the Millennium hotel, where Iran’s delegation is staying. Peppered with questions about his meetings, Parsi simply stared blankly down the street and refused to engage in any discussions with the journalist.  

Another recent target of the Iranian regime, computer scientist Siamak Aram, also sought to confront his nemesis this week. On Tuesday, just as Pezeshkian was taking the stage at the General Assembly, the 43-year-old gathered a small collection of Iranian dissidents across the street at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. Members of his National Solidarity Group for Iran mixed between calling for the overthrow of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to mirroring the slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement by chanting, “No Justice! No Peace!”

Aram was menaced last May by an Iranian official, named Ramezan Soltan-Mohammadi, who threatened to slice the dissident’s throat after his group staged a protest outside a pro-Islamic Republic mosque in Maryland. Aram successfully filed a restraining order against Soltan-Mohammadi and is now pursuing legal action against him. But the ability of regime agents and officials to so openly operate in the U.S. stunned the political activist. “They will do whatever they can to stop the protests and activities [taking place] outside Iran,” Aram told me. “One of them is by threatening the dissidents and protesters outside.”

According to U.S. intelligence and Department of Justice officials, the regime’s operations are hardly just targeting dissidents. In recent days, they’ve described uncovering active plots against former president Donald Trump that are allegedly aimed at disrupting November’s presidential election. And the man who is accused of stalking Trump this month at a golf course with a high-powered rifle, Ryan Wesley Routh, said his animus towards the Republican politician was driven, in part, by his treatment of Tehran.

Many of these plots, U.S. officials tell The Free Press, are Iranian attempts to avenge the Trump administration’s 2020 assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani, head of the country’s elite overseas military unit, the Quds Force.  A range of Trump advisers who took part in the operation, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and ex-national security adviser John Bolton, travel today with round-the-clock U.S. government-provided security details in response to threats that are still assessed as “high.” In 2022, the Department of Justice indicted a member of Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for allegedly plotting remotely with an American citizen to kill Bolton at or near his home in Washington, D.C.

This March, the FBI’s Miami field office issued a nationwide alert seeking information on an Iranian intelligence official—based at times in Latin America—who also was suspected of trying to assassinate Trump-era officials, including Pompeo.

The July arrest of a Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, shows the elaborate nature of Iran’s plots inside the U.S. According to his indictment, Merchant traveled to Tehran to meet Iranian handlers who advised him on a scheme to kill Trump at a political rally this year. The Pakistani then flew to New York to recruit would-be hitmen at restaurants and bars to take part in the conspiracy—which allegedly involved creating a distraction at a campaign event to give an assassin an opening to fire.

Unbeknownst to Merchant, one of his contacts was a U.S. government informant whom he paid $5,000 to advance the plot. “Now we’re bonded,” the Iranian agent said to his recruit, according to the indictment. Merchant was arrested two months ago, shortly before he was scheduled to depart New York.

Pompeo told The Free Press that he traveled to Manhattan this week, in part, to warn foreign officials about the continuing Iranian threat, despite Pezeshkian’s recent rhetoric. A successful assassination of Trump or his former aides could potentially spark a war between the U.S. and Iran.  

“We restricted Iranian diplomat travels even BEFORE they threatened Americans in the U.S. with assassinations,” Pompeo said in a text message. “The streets of NYC are not the place for plotters and murderers to be given freedoms here in the USA.”

He added: “The fact U.S. taxpayer dollars provided personal security for Iranian leaders trying to kill senior Americans is simply lunacy.”

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the UN on September 24, 2024. Iran’s terrorist plots inside the U.S. underscore the hollowness of Pezeshkian’s calls for diplomacy, writes Jay Solomon for The Free Press. (Charly Triballeau via Getty Images)

Pezeshkian departed New York early Thursday following what Iranian state media described as a highly successful final meeting with the Iranian diaspora, including scientists, investors, and manufacturers. Tehran’s most-skilled diplomat and messaging man, meanwhile—former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif—engaged in a round of media interviews with U.S. outlets and flatly denied U.S. accusations that Tehran was pursuing terrorist plots on American soil.

The U.S. Treasury Department formally sanctioned Zarif in 2019 for serving as an agent of Supreme Leader Khamenei. But the Biden administration said this week it was diplomatically bound as host nation of the UN to allow the U.S.-educated official to come to New York.

“We don’t send people to assassinate people,” Zarif told Ian Bremmer of GZERO Media. “I think that’s a campaign ploy in order to get former president Trump out of the not-so-favorable situation he’s in in the elections.”

The Iranian dissidents fumed at the freedom Zarif and other Iranian officials were continuing to be given to roam Manhattan, even while the terrorist threats against them remain active. “The only way to help Iran is that you support the people of Iran, rather than providing visas to its leaders or buying this narrative of reform,” Alinejad said. “What kind of reform is this ‘reformist’ Pezeshkian? 

This reformist is just good PR for Khamenei.”

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24 things Donald Trump is promising to do

Former President Donald Trump is known for his off-script moments. But his signature freewheeling banter also masks important consistency. 

He is, actually, predictable.

Listening to his recent on-the-campaign-trail speeches reveals some patterns:

• He speaks close to 90 minutes. Despite switching on and off prompter, Trump’s style has a timing precision. His rally speeches in the last week of July were about 92, 93 and 88 minutes in length, respectively.
• The last 20 minutes at his rallies focus on his platform. A list of pledges and promises that are the core substance of his speeches and campaign.

The latter is where we want to focus today: What Trump is saying he will do.

The Republican presidential nominee rarely commits to details or specifics. This is not unique to him as a politician, but Trump has a particularly pronounced form. His personal disregard for long policy briefs and policy intricacies is well known. Trump’s primary approach as a politician is operating by instinct.

Thus, the question of what Trump himself proposes is a critical one.

We analyzed three rally speeches following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race. He made nearly the same promises at each one, each time a cap to his stump speech.

Below is a full list of what Trump promised, alongside some context. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list of every promise Trump has made, rather, a focused look at what he is promising right now on the campaign trail.

A quick note: For some items, we have left the reader to interpret for themselves. Those are broad pledges that are straightforward, but not detailed such as, “I will keep you out of wars,” or, “I will prevent World War III.”

1. On Day 1, “we will begin the largest deportation operation in American history.”

Context: Trump is pledging to deploy a “massive dragnet” to arrest and deport millions of undocumented migrants. He has told crowds, and Time magazine in April, that he would use local law enforcement to do this as well as, potentially, the National Guard and active duty military. He has not offered more specifics about how any of those mechanisms would work. He has indicated in his speeches that he would first target “criminals,” mentioning violent crimes like murder and rape.

This is not a new pledge. Trump promised mass deportations as part of his 2016 campaign.

2. “My very first day back in the White House, I will terminate every single open border policy of the Biden-Harris administration, and we will seal the border.”

Context: Trump has promised to restore some of his hardline immigration policies that the Biden administration has reversed. He gave a run-down of this in Minnesota, saying, “I will restore the travel ban, suspend refugee admissions, stop the resettlement, and keep the terrorists the hell out of our country.”

Trump’s initial ban of people arriving from Muslim countries was ruled unconstitutional, but he revised it to focus on potential threats, though it still largely included Muslim countries.

In addition, Trump would bring back “Remain in Mexico,” which aimed to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico before they could cross into the United States to claim asylum. That policy has faced legal, human rights and political pushback on both sides of the border.

Trump has also indicated he may try to use Title 42 emergency powers for immigration purposes, especially in returning child migrants to families. And he has left open the idea of again separating migrant families, though a court has ruled that policy cannot restart during the next administration.

Supporters listen to former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, speak at a July rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

3. “We will drill, baby, drill.”
4. “We will end inflation and make America affordable again.”

A pledge to end inflation ranks high on the 2024 Republican Party platform, though inflation has been down. And as for the promise to “make America affordable again”? With Trump offering no specifics, that’s up for interpretation.

5. “I will terminate the Green New Scam,” and end the electric vehicle mandate.

Context: As readers may know, the Green New Deal is a set of progressive-left climate and workplace ideas, most concretely written into legislative proposals by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. The Green New Deal is not U.S. law, but Trump is using it in speeches to bash an unspecified range of ideas from the “radical left.”

Regarding EVs, Biden put in place a new federal regulation in March that required automakers to increase fuel efficiency of their cars substantially over a number of years. That requirement would force many car companies to convert vehicles to electric or partially electric to meet the standard. Biden’s policy has faced an avalanche of lawsuits already. Some believe it may be legally doomed, regardless of who becomes president, following a recent Supreme Court ruling.

6. “We will pass massive tax cuts for workers” that include no tax on tips.

Context: This is a complicated area. Trump wants to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax cuts that went in place during his administration, but they’re set to expire in 2025. This would affect millions of Americans. Some 80 percent of households saw a tax cut in 2018 because of the TCJA, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. This would not be a new tax cut, but rather a proposal to stop taxes from going up.

Trump does not mention this in his speeches, but Politico has reported that he has told business leaders he would like to lower corporate taxes, which will keep their 2017 tax cuts regardless. Those do not expire.

At the same time, CNBC has reported that Trump, in a meeting with House Republicans, raised the idea of replacing individual income taxes with an “all tariff policy.” That idea has met with sharp pushback from some economists who say it is mathematically impossible and that tariffs generally have a regressive effect — they hurt working classes the most. (See below for more on tariffs.)

His tips idea is more straightforward. Trump wants to end taxation on income earned by tips. (This would require congressional action to move forward.) The Washington Post found that more than 6 million workers reported tips to the IRS in 2018. At the same time, this idea could cost some $150 to $250 billion in federal revenue over 10 years, per the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

7. “I will revoke China’s most favored nation status.”

Context: China was granted permanent and “most favored” trade status in 2001 by Republican President George W. Bush, meaning the U.S. generally should offer China trade terms that are as good as any other trading partner with the U.S.

8. “I will pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, that means that if China or any other country makes us pay a 100 or 200 percent tariff or tax, we will make them pay a reciprocal tariff or tax of 100 or 200 percent immediately, right back.”

Context: Trump explains this concept succinctly here. He would lean into any tariff war, retaliating “eye-for-an-eye” for a tariff imposed by other countries. Trump argues that this will protect American jobs, especially in manufacturing and other competitive industries. But others, including the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, say it would end up being an economic mistake, raising prices for American consumers across the board and harming workers the most.

9. Shortly after regaining the Oval Office, “I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled … quickly.”
10. “I will prevent World War III.”
11. “I will restore peace through strength.”

Context: World War III has been mentioned a ton in Trump speeches. In drawing a contrast between Biden and himself in their first presidential debate, Trump warned viewers that the president would draw the country further into global conflict. Now facing off against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump has continued to invoke the specter of a third World War.

Here’s how he put it in his speech in Charlotte, North Carolina: “I will prevent World War III. We’re heading to World War III, we’re heading right into the teeth of it … I will restore peace through strength.”

12. “In my next term, we will build a great Iron Dome missile defense shield over our country, a dome the likes of which no one has ever seen before, and it will be entirely made in the USA.”

Note: In Minnesota, Trump said “it will be entirely made in Minnesota … Minnesota has got a big piece of it.

Context: Trump is referencing Israel’s project Iron Dome, a series of missile defense capabilities that aim to destroy short-range weapons launched against the country. It is not clear what threats Trump aims the dome to address, with some experts pointing out that the contiguous U.S. is surrounded by allied countries and oceans. Intelligence officials said China was responsible for a spy balloon that sailed over the country in 2023 before it was shot down by current military capabilities.

Minnesota is the nation’s leading producer of iron ore.

Republican Presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump attends a campaign rally in St Cloud, Minnesota, on July 27. Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

13. “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare, and I will not raise the retirement age.”

Context: Social Security’s trust funds will be depleted by 2035, according to this year’s trustees report. At that point, without any action by lawmakers in Washington, payments to seniors will be cut by 27 percent. Medicare’s hospital trust fund would go broke in 2036 under the current policy.

There are a few ways to provide solvency, but increasingly all involve some pain — increasing retirement age, cutting benefits or increasing what some or all Americans must contribute.

Trump’s promise misses the important context that without any action, there will be cuts to these benefits.

14. “I am going to keep you out of wars.”
15. “We have people at the top [of the military] that are woke, and they’re all gone. We are going to get rid of them so fast.”

Context: Trump said this in St. Cloud, Minnesota, only. Trump asserted that most military generals are not “woke,” but that some are. Trump is pledging to get rid of those who are “woke.”

16. “We are going to rebuild our cities into beacons of hope, safety and beauty better than they’ve ever been before.”

Context: Trump says he would work with Democratic mayors and governors to achieve this, but has not provided details.

Trump regularly raises concerns about crime in America, especially in cities. Politifact checked these statements and found Trump’s words about rising crime rates to be “mostly false,” because violent crime rates have fallen for most of the country. Property crime has risen, including car thefts.

In addition, the conservative American Enterprise Institute has written about data showing that urban Americans are slightly more likely to say they’re “pretty happy” with their lives than rural Americans.

17. “We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation … and clean it up, renovate it, rebuild it.”

Context: Trump’s vision for the nation’s capital is to require traditional and neoclassical architecture, based on Renaissance ideas of Greco-Roman aesthetics. As he was exiting his presidency in late 2020, he issued an executive order declaring that the federal government has “largely stopped building beautiful buildings” and that in D.C., “classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings.”

In these rally speeches, Trump has also said of D.C. that “we are going to take over the management, the leadership of it.” Residents of the nation’s capital do not have a vote in Congress, but for 50 years Congress has allowed them “home rule,” so that their city council can generally oversee how the city operates. Congress and the White House retain a kind of veto power. Trump allies and pushing to end D.C. home rule. This may be what he is implying here.

18. I will sign an executive order that cuts federal funding “for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the shoulders of our children.”

Context: There is a lot to unpack here. But Trump has largely not defined precisely which policies he would attempt to penalize. At the same time, there is a legal battle over interpretations of Biden administration rules that declare Title IX protections based on sex include safeguards for LGBTQ+ youth. Trump’s policies would need to follow federal court guidance, once established.

19. I will defund any school that has a vaccine or mask mandate.

Context: See this helpful segment from White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López. In short, medical experts say the implications of eliminating vaccine mandates would be enormous for schools and for public health.

20. “I will keep men out of women’s sports.”

Context: Trump is proposing a ban on transgender women from participating in women’s sports. When he speaks about this, he largely refers to youth sports. See above, regarding trans youth.

21. “I will fully uphold our Second Amendment.”

Context: Trump has indicated that he would oppose most, if not all, new restrictions on gun usage and ownership.

22. “We will protect innocent life.”

Context: On abortion, Trump supports the current status quo, that is to say that states have the right to restrict or nearly ban abortion as they choose. This stance on abortion has put him at odds with some of his base voters who would like a national ban. But Trump has indicated he would not support that.

A side note: Trump does not usually use the word “abortion” in his speeches. Instead he nods to the issue, as well as others, by using this broad phrasing.

23. “We will restore, very quickly, free speech.”

Context: This short phrase leads to an extensive plan for “free speech” reform that Trump announced in 2022. He would use presidential power to limit what rules federal agencies, universities and tech companies could employ to address speech, including controversial ideas.

Trump, alongside other right-wing figures and his supporters, have made continuous claims that a combination of news media, social media platforms and a “deep state” arm of the government have sought to suppress their speech.

Trump has been a major purveyor of “the Big Lie” — that the 2020 election was “stolen” and he was the real winner. Biden won the election. Despite Trump’s insistence that he was the actual victor, courts on the state and federal level confirmed the outcome of the election in Biden’s favor. In fact, Biden broke the record for the most total votes cast for a U.S. presidential candidate, a record previously set by Barack Obama in 2008.

24. “I will secure our elections.”

Context: This promise echoes the official Republican party platform of securing elections by calling for same-day voting, paper ballots, proof of citizenship and voter identification. At the same time, Republican leaders have urged voters to use all available options for casting their ballots, like absentee or mail-in voting. Trump has falsely claimed that voting by mail or using drop boxes is less secure and, thus, more open to mass voter fraud. (It’s not.)

Trump, since losing the 2020 election to Biden, has repeatedly cast doubt on the outcome and integrity of the last presidential contest. Trump delivered combative remarks and baseless claims of voter fraud to supporters, including moments before the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Part of his re-election message to his base has been to “guard the vote.” This has raised alarm bells over safeguarding democracy and elections and escalated concerns about voter intimidation and election workers during November’s election.

 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/24-things-donald-trump-is-promising-to-do