Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Dad Power

JD Vance and his family go to Walgreens before the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Source: Leland Vittert)

Leland Vittert, chief anchor of NewsNation in Washington and host of On Balance, was a foreign correspondent in Jerusalem for four years. He gives you a first look at tonight’s 7 p.m. ET broadcast. Subscribe to War Notes here.

On the first morning as Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD Vance and his wife Usha went to Walgreens – as did I, to buy a charging cable for my headphones. For anyone wondering, Walgreens was out of charging cables – maybe they were all stolen. But I was down the aisle from Vance and could hear him with his kids and wife. The kids were pulling things off the shelves – Vance and his wife were trying to distract them… it was a remarkably NORMAL situation and interaction.

Vance’s challenge will be to bring that humanity to the stage on Wednesday night.

Chris Cillizza wrote a great thread on X about why Trump chose Vance – it’s hard to disagree with his arguments.

big picture: With the election of Vance, Trump completely transformed the Republican Party from Reagan’s “Morning in America” ​​into the populist Trump Party of “Make America Great Again.”

• Fair question: Where are the country club Republicans going? Nikki Haley’s speech tonight will give us a good idea — she’ll be speaking later tonight.
  • “The Trump-Vance ticket is a departure from free-market conservatism,” writes Victoria Guida in Politico.
  • Watch tonight: George Will on the new Republican Party and where old-fashioned conservatives are going.
• Thought bubble: Our senior producer Bob Morrissey writes: “Unity, smile – the RNC punishes DeSantis and Haley by putting them in an hour that the networks won’t broadcast.”
  • Tune in tonight 📺: We will cover Haley’s speech in detail.

The hottest shot yet: Someone told me, “Vance is the opposite of Harris. They’re both an insurance policy. The Democrats can’t get rid of Biden because then they’ll have to deal with Harris. The Democrats can’t get rid of Trump because then they’ll have to deal with Vance.”

Watch tonight: Trump defender Jim Jordan discusses Trump’s plans to expand voting districts.

On the floor: The RNC’s carefully planned theme nights no longer matter, and that’s perhaps a good thing – Trump’s star status and his enthusiasm for JD Vance now overshadow the themes of “Make America (Wealthy, Safe, Strong, Great) Again.”

• Trump’s arrival in the arena last night proved to be one of the most electrifying moments in convention history – surpassed only by Obama and his Greek columns in 2008. For all of Trump’s talk of this being a political election, the convention and campaign are all about Trump.

Soon: After the convention, watch as Republicans launch a scathing attack on the Secret Service and its director, who they say is more interested in diversity and happiness than in protecting America’s leaders.

Here are some quick thoughts on the Secret Service. You can see them above next to Vance.

• In Milwaukee, you deal with hundreds of secret service agents every day.
• They are separated from their families for months and work 12-hour shifts in protective suits in 35-degree heat, which makes them increasingly thin as the temperatures rise during the election campaign.
• After Saturday, a new nervousness is understandably noticeable.
• But they stand there on guard or go for walks with their charges and risk their lives.
• Despite all the justified criticism of the organization and the director’s ridiculous explanations for Saturday’s failures, one must separate the criticism of the organization and its leadership from the criticism of the agents themselves.

Watch tonight: Representative Nancy Mace will be joining us tonight to talk about the briefing that members of Congress just received from the Director of the Secret Service and, more importantly, whether it is time for the Director to go.

What you don’t see:

• The broadcasters set aside an hour each evening for the convention, so Trump appeared last night promptly at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
• The cable networks allow speeches to be broadcast throughout the night.
• Much of the conference is actually a conference, as the National Association of Widget Manufacturers
  • Lunch and dinner for donors
  • Briefings for political advisors
  • The business of politics is BIG business.

The Billionaire Conspiracy

The tech bro crew around Elon Musk (who sends $45 million a month to Trump’s Super PAC) just created their own class of billionaire donors to support Trump – which certainly has nothing to do with the expiration of Trump’s tax breaks next year.

• But wait, I thought Republicans were populists? Yes, but they are populists who support tax cuts for billionaires – imagine that.
• Biden also sounds strangely populist despite his billionaire donors.
• Fundamental truth: The cultural divide in America is much deeper than the political one.

The Mooch warns! And it’s worth reading.

Stay tuned:

• The Biden story is not over yet
• His interview with Lester Holt did not help
• Now Adam Schiff warns of a “defeat” for the Democrats if he remains on the ballot

Extinguish:

• Alex Thompson of Axios reports that Democrats in Congress are trying to prevent Biden’s early “virtual” nomination.

Tune in to “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weekdays at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of NewsNation.