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MORNING REPORT

Wednesday, September 4

by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

Campaign cash and abortion loom large for Trump, Harris

With a little more than 60 days until Election Day, Vice President Harris and former President Trump are turning their attention to down-ballot races crucial to determining control of the House and the Senate.

Harris's campaign, flush with cash from a meteoric fundraising month, said Tuesday it will send nearly $25 million to Democratic committees supporting House and Senate candidates. Harris has been a fundraising juggernaut since she replaced President Biden atop the party's ticket. Campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a memo over the weekend that Harris had raised more than $540 million since she entered the race July 21, a historic amount for a candidate in that time frame.

"If we want a future where every American's rights are protected, not taken away; where the middle class is strengthened, not hollowed out; and a country where our democracy is preserved, not ripped apart, every race this November matters," O'Malley Dillon said in a statement.

Some of the campaign's funds will now go to candidates in tough reelection battles and crucial swing states — including vulnerable seats in Montana, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Senate majority runs through red states such as Ohio and Montana, while the race for the House goes through blue states such as California and New York, NBC News points out.

Harris is employing a different strategy than Democrats who came before her. Money was a source of tension between former President Obama's campaigns and congressional Democrats, and he has taken some responsibility for the Democrats' down-ballot failures during his campaigns.

IT'S NOT JUST CASH: Vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has become a hot commodity for Democrats on the campaign trail. Walz is scheduled for his first solo visit to battleground state Pennsylvania today and Thursday. Other districts — in Minnesota and beyond — are hoping they can benefit from an appearance by Walz, too.

"He can talk to anybody, anywhere, about anything," Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) told CBS News, adding that Walz is a political force in "so many swing states and battleground districts."

Despite Harris's momentum and Democrats' enthusiasm, Trump maintains the polling advantage on issues including the economy and immigration, though a new USA Today/Suffolk poll shows Harris has cut into the former president's lead compared with where it had been a few months ago against Biden. Nationally, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ's polling average puts Harris 4 percentage points ahead of Trump. The average of 155 polls includes surveys where the vice president's candidacy for the White House against Trump was a hypothetical question.

WOMEN VOTERS: Trump is battling weak support among female voters, and Republicans are concerned his efforts to stop the bleeding don't appear to be working. That situation may hurt candidates in states such as Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan, who need backing from women voters to beat Democratic incumbents.

College-educated and suburban women have gravitated to Democrats since Harris replaced Biden, writes The Hill's Alexander Bolton. In an attempt to reach female voters, Trump has tried to reframe his opposition to abortion, in turn angering parts of his own base. But those efforts are undermined by his personal attacks aimed at Harris's intellect, professional advancement and racial identity. Republican pollster Whit Ayres said "it's going to be a challenge" for Trump to chip away at Harris's big lead.

The real challenge right now for Republicans is whether they can perform sufficiently well among men to overcome the deficit among women," he warned. "Given the prominence of abortion in this year's race and Trump's past statements about women, the traditional gender gap could become a gender chasm."

Trump last week made a slew of statements about reproductive issues that were all over the map politically, arguing Florida's ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy was too strict and claimed on social media his administration would be "great for women and their reproductive rights." But the former president later said he would vote no on a referendum to overturn the Florida law and protect abortion access.

"The advice we've always given to clients on this issue is do not stand in the middle of the road, because you'll get hit by traffic going both ways," Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based GOP consultant, told The Hill.

Trump's changing messaging on abortion is raising hopes for Democrats. Harris's campaign has increased its presence in Florida ahead of the November ballot initiative.

The "Fighting for Reproductive Rights" bus tour launched Tuesday in Palm Beach, Trump's hometown, featuring Harris surrogates meeting with voters to discuss access to reproductive rights.

"Florida is undoubtedly more competitive now than it was a couple of months ago," one Democratic operative said.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

⚖️ The Justice Department charged Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and five others at the top of the militant group Tuesday with terrorism and other crimes in connection with the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
✝️ Pope Francis arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday to begin a four-nation Asia trip that is scheduled to take the 87-year-old to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
🎁 Can we ask the Pope about this rescheduling? Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro declared Monday that Christmas will be celebrated in October, to distract Venezuelans who are feeling "bah humbug" about their country's political plight.

Leading the Day

© The Associated Press / Mariam Zuhaib | Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pictured in June, and House Democrats have launched a probe into former President Trump's alleged acceptance of $10 million from the Egyptian government during his 2016 bid for the White House.

POLITICS & INVESTIGATIONS

House Democrats on the GOP-led Oversight and Accountability Committee pounced on a detailed August investigative report in The Washington Post to ask Tuesday whether Trump accepted "a $10 million cash bribe from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi" while running for president in 2016.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the panel who also delivered the 2021 closing argument during the House impeachment of Trump, sent a letter that asked whether Trump's Justice Department under then-Attorney General William Barr "subsequently blocked efforts by career prosecutors and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the political and financial corruption," as suggested by details included in the Post's reporting.

In the meantime, the House impeachment effort aimed at Biden and led by Republicans on the Oversight panel and the House Judiciary Committee is dying a slow and painful death (Business Insider).

Republicans on the House select subcommittee probing the COVID-19 crisis will hear public testimony Sept. 10 from former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) about his administration's handling of nursing home residents during the pandemic. Cuomo gave a seven-hour, closed-door, transcribed interview to the subcommittee earlier this year. An Oversight subcommittee announced a separate hearing Sept. 10 to question Biden administration officials about alleged improper payments and fraud in federally funded pandemic assistance programs.

The New York Times: The Trump family's land deals in Albania stir up lingering resentments.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE: Trump has been trying to reach young independent voters through independent podcasters and internet personalities, writes The Hill's Evening Report writer Jonathan Easley. Podcaster Lex Fridman, a computer scientist whose YouTube page has more than 4 million followers, is the latest independent media personality to land an interview with the 78-year-old former president. Trump and Fridman discussed Joe Rogan, medical marijuana, aliens and Jeffrey Epstein over the course of their hour-long talk released Monday.

Many of the podcasters and influencers with whom Trump has chatted are popular with young men, who have swung to the right in recent elections. The interviews have garnered tens of millions of views on YouTube, but also play across other platforms, such as Twitch, Kick, X, TikTok and Instagram.

The Hill: Media commentator Brian Stelter is returning to CNN as a "chief media analyst" more than two years after the cable network canceled its Sunday "Reliable Sources" program, which he anchored.

🎧 Stay tuned: The Hill's "The Switch Up" will be live this afternoon with a special guest from the Harris-Walz campaign. Want to hear more? Follow the podcast on Spotify.

2024 ROUNDUP

With entrepreneurs in mind, Harris today will propose that Congress expand the small business tax deduction for startup expenses from $5,000 to $50,000, with the goal of 25 million new small business applications, if she is elected president. Facts: More than 1 in 5 Black adults in the United States say owning a business is essential to financial success, according to the Pew Research Center. Some swing states are on a federal Top 10 ranking of states with small businesses. Georgia has 1.2 million, Pennsylvania has 1.1 million and North Carolina has 1 million.
Trump's campaign dispatched surrogates for its "Agenda 47 Policy Tour," which features GOP supporters in swing states. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) will be in Milwaukee Thursday for the former president.
The anti-Trump group Republican Voters Against Trump launched an $11.5 million ad buy Tuesday to try to defeat the GOP nominee in battleground states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, plus in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District.
Trump will plead not guilty through his lawyers in response to a superseding indictment recently filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. That revised indictment addressed the Supreme Court's recent presidential immunity ruling.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, appointed by former President Clinton, rejected Trump's effort Tuesday to move to federal court a New York state hush money case in which he was found guilty on 34 criminal counts.
Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo during an interview broadcast Tuesday that he suspended his presidential campaign because "I had no way to grow, and our polling was showing that if I stayed in the race, Vice President Harris would win, and I did not want that outcome. I don't think that Vice President Harris is a worthy president of this country." NewsNation and The Hill are owned by Nexstar.

Where and When

The House and Senate return to Washington on Monday.

The president will receive the President's Daily Brief at 11:45 a.m.

The vice president will travel to Portsmouth, N.H., for a campaign event at 2:50 p.m. Harris will return to Washington this evening.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:30 p.m.

Zoom In

ADMINISTRATION

Good read: "The Canary," written by author Michael Lewis for a series about standout (and sometimes too hidden) federal workers, published by Washington Post Opinions, profiles Christopher Mark, coal miner-turned-mining expert with the Department of Labor in West Virginia. Mark led the development of industry-wide standards and practices to prevent roof falls in underground mines, leading to the first year (2016) of no roof fall fatalities in the United States.

The Washington Post: Seven Republican-led states sued Tuesday to end the administration's student debt forgiveness policy crafted as a regulation under the Higher Education Act. The Supreme Court last year ended a previous administration initiative to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans per borrower.
The Hill: White House environmental adviser John Podesta flew to China for climate talks beginning today.

© The Associated Press / Kristopher Radder, The Brattleboro Reformer | Multiple states are imposing new rules on students to bar smartphones during school hours with a goal of enhancing learning and instruction. Does it work?

TECH

🎙️ The New York Times podcast "The Daily" takes a deep dive into "the push to ban cell phones in schools" (with reporter Natasha Singer). Here's one takeaway about the broadening tech debate in education: Confidence that separating students from smartphones while in school will improve learning and bolster mental health is largely subjective. What's missing are quality studies that support the goal, the rules and the enforcement mechanisms.

🏦 PRANK = CRIME: Using social media platform TikTok, some people were pranked into depositing checks for immediate cash withdrawals videotaped while at bank ATMs for viral consumption. The checks were fake. The recorded acts are considered evidence of bank fraud, otherwise known as check-kiting. Those who took part may have lost deposits, face fines and possible criminal charges, damaged their credit scores and could be blocked from doing business with some banks. "I would encourage the social media platforms to ban these types of videos, and I would encourage people to take a financial literacy education course," said Harrine Freeman, who heads the financial consulting firm H.E. Freeman Enterprises in Washington, D.C. "It's a very unfortunate situation" (WTOP).

Elsewhere

INTERNATIONAL

THE CAMPAIGN TO VACCINATE 640,000 children in Gaza against polio has so far been more successful than expected, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. Teams of health workers delivered the two-drop oral vaccine to 161,030 children in the first two days of the roughly 10-day operation, made possible by intermittent pauses in fighting. Gazans are experiencing an explosion of infectious diseases in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions created by the war and the destruction of the local health care infrastructure (The New York Times).

Meanwhile, a showdown between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over Gaza is testing government unity — and the future of a cease-fire. Netanyahu has dismissed calls by Gallant and others to accept a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the southern border area of Gaza as the price of a deal with Hamas, while Gallant has dismissed the prime minister's aim of "total victory" as "nonsense" (Reuters).

NBC News: What is the "Philadelphi corridor" and why is it a sticking point in the truce talks?
The Washington Post: Netanyahu's insistence on keeping troops on a narrow strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border has become the main obstacle to a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement with Hamas.

UKRAINE IS PLANNING to indefinitely hold Russian territories it seized in a surprise attack last month as it tries to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News.

"We don't need their land. We don't want to bring our Ukrainian way of life there," he said Tuesday. But Ukraine will "hold" the territory as it is integral to his "victory plan" to end the war, and Zelensky said he will present the proposal to international partners like the U.S. "For now, we need it," he said of the territory.

The New York Times: Zelensky is poised to undertake the biggest shake-up of his government since Russia's full-scale invasion today. Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister, has offered to resign, as have at least six others.
CNN: A Russian strike against a military educational facility in central Ukraine killed 51 people and injured more than 200.
Reuters: Washington is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months for the shipment.

Opinion

Biden, Harris, Trump, Vance and the dumbest economic idea, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Harris's best strategy to defeat Trump, by James Carville, guest essayist, The New York Times.

The Closer

© The Associated Press / Ferd Kaufman | On Sept. 4, 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus (D) deployed the Arkansas National Guard to block the Little Rock Nine from integrating Little Rock Central High School.

And finally … On this day in 1957, then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus (D) enlisted the state's National Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering — and integrating — Central High School in Little Rock. In violation of a federal order mandating school integration, the armed Arkansas militia troops surrounded the school while an angry crowd of some 400 white onlookers jeered, booed and threatened the teenagers.

Known as the Little Rock Nine, the students were able to enter the school under heavily armed guard at the end of September, after President Eisenhower sent 1,000 U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. The episode served as a catalyst for the integration of other segregated schools across the country.

Learn more about the Little Rock Nine HERE.