Vice-president

Welcome to Thunderdome. Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim “MSNBC Dad” Walz as her running mate came as a surprise to many in the Acela-corridor set who had expected her to pick the rising talent, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a far more centrist choice in a critical swing state viewed by many members of the Democratic elite as the future of the party.

Support for President Joe Biden continuing his reelection campaign is polarizing his own party. The Hill reported yesterday that discontent was growing among Democrats, and the publication offered live updates all day from the Democratic National Committee headquarters, where Dem leadership gathered to discuss Biden’s future as their nominee. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer have both expressed their continued support for Biden. They were joined yesterday by Representatives Ami Bera, Jim Clyburn, Lou Correa, Veronica Escobar, Adriano Espaillat, Steny Hoyer, Stephen Lynch, Jerry Nadler, Jan Schakowsky and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Welcome to Thunderdome. Donald Trump took to Washington today in a series of meetings with business leaders, House members and senators in what was clearly meant to be a rousing “yes I’m still in charge” play. But it was also a Trump who seemed nervous about his prospects, particularly as it relates to how the abortion issue will be a drag on him in November: Abortion has emerged as Democrats’ most potent political weapon in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, a reality the former president acknowledged during a closed-door Capitol Hill meeting.

Welcome to Thunderdome. Well, we finally have it! A list of contestants for Donald Trump’s long-anticipated veepstakes, designed to play out live and on camera in the coming month before the Republican convention — you just know he’s going to make us all wait for the reveal. There are a few surprises in omissions and additions, but not many. Now, this being Trump, he could always swerve at the last minute and have a surprise entry... so Tulsi Gabbard fans, all hope is not lost. But here are the candidates we know for now: Governor Doug Burgum (ND) Ben Carson, former HUD secretary Senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) Representative Byron Donalds (Fla.) Senator Marco Rubio (Fla.) Senator Tim Scott (S.C.) Representative Elise Stefanik (N.Y.

Welcome to Thunderdome. One of the Biden White House’s biggest problems at the moment is that while they can point to all manner of aspects of the economy that are doing just fine — above all, the stock market — the lived experience of many key segments of the electorate is totally at odds with this analysis. Hammered by higher food, energy, healthcare and education costs, American households feel constrained by rates that keep them trapped in homes they no longer want to live in, with cars they no longer want to drive. Are people in gas lines and starving? No, of course not. But a line in a recent Wall Street Journal piece encapsulates the situation: “We used to take three vacations a year. Now we take one.

Welcome to Thunderdome. It’s been clear since day one that Joe Biden was more scared of the progressive left than anyone else. His White House was incredibly fearful of a challenge from Bernie Sanders or a Squad member within the 2024 primary and the damage it would do to the Democratic coalition and his own re-election hopes. So the White House swung left — not just on economic policy, where he threw everything behind massive expenditures that pleased leftist politicians, pundits and people who have shrines to FDR in their houses, but on social policy as well, where he embraced the culture war issues of abortion and the trans agenda and hung on tight.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where this week we have the first named vice presidential candidate from a 2024 challenger — Nicole Shanahan, whom I know little about outside of this glossy profile in People magazine. Forget the child of immigrants rags to riches story or any of that stuff. On paper she seems like an extremely wealthy progressive California attorney with all the various interests of such a type — yoga, natural living, meeting your third spouse at Burning Man and so on. But none of that matters, and none of it will matter — which is why this choice strikes me as potentially ingenious on the part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Understand this: no one, absolutely no one, votes for a president based on his or her vice presidential candidate.

Former president Donald Trump helped out the GOP establishment with his latest round of congressional endorsements — including one particularly notable one where he passed over a guy he endorsed in the last election cycle.Just two years ago, Trump endorsed Darren Bailey for governor of Illinois, snubbing the state’s GOP establishment, which had been firmly behind Aurora mayor Richard Irvin. Bailey blew Irvin out of the water in the primary — thanks to additional support from Democrats who successfully meddled in the primary —and was dismantled by J.B. Pritzker in November.This time around, Trump is backing Congressman Mike Bost, who’s been fending off a primary bid from Bailey.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is considering taking Donald Trump’s advice that she run for the Senate (he said he’d “fight like hell” for her), but she’s also thinking about whether she’d be asked to join Trump’s cabinet — and maybe even be his vice president — should he win the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked her if she’d be running for Senate, MTG said she has “a lot of things to think about,” including a potential cabinet position. If Trump asked her to be his running mate, MTG said she’d consider it “very, very heavily.

Here's an idea that won't happen but should: if Kamala Harris really wants to reset her political future — and strike back hard against the naysayers in Washington who have undermined her for the past two years — she should consider replacing Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. Hear me out, and feel free to play the theme from The West Wing or House of Cards in the background. Democrats are transparently paranoid about Kamala Harris's failure to launch. She's viewed as a major liability, and should she be the nominee in 2024 through happenstance or an unexpected Joe Biden retirement, most Democrats in Washington feel she would lose to any Republican, even Donald Trump.

No assessment of Vice President Kamala Harris's first two years in office would be complete without her word salads and pedantic lectures. Here are just a few of my favorites: Kamala Harris on geography So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for. Harris on community banks We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community.