Who thought this sentence was a good idea? It’s a passage with problematic phrasing; you’ll find out more later. First, Politico is too intelligent to claim ignorance on how this read out about Kamala Harris and the Republican attacks against her, which apparently aren’t making Democratic strategists nervous, except this Arlington Cemetery business has legs, and it could play a role in fostering her defeat in a close election. Harris decided to wade into a blunder by attacking Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington on the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan. It was an all-around Biden-Harris debacle. Yet, this part of Politico’s Playbook featured a rather pornographic passage about this story [emphasis mine]:
This wording is criminal and the writer should be arrested, WHAT IS THIS pic.twitter.com/1tckpzHNge
— Maggie Howell (@Mar__G_3) September 2, 2024
Headlines about two overseas tragedies — one old and one new — have cast a shadow over the Democratic ticket and given DONALD TRUMP a new opportunity to dig into Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ after flailing for weeks trying to figure out an effective line of attack.
THE NEW: The death of 23-year-old American HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN at the hands of Hamas, one of six young hostages brutally murdered this weekend, has fueled a flurry of new GOP attacks on Harris and President JOE BIDEN.
[…]
Take, for example, Breitbart’s headline on this: “Hostages found murdered in Rafah — where Kamala Harris told Israel not to go.” Or the myriad tweets of pictures of Biden at the beach — or hitting Harris for taking to the trail on Labor Day.
“Hamas killed an American citizen with a bullet to the back of the kid’s head and Joe Biden has been sitting on the beach and Kamala Harris is on the campaign trail talking about joy,” conservative commentator (and off-again-on-again Trump critic) ERICK ERICKSON wrote on X.
[…]
Harris issued a statement condemning Hamas for the deaths of Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages and spoke yesterday to his family. She has otherwise kept quiet about Netanyahu’s role. But speaking to reporters earlier today, Biden responded, “No,” when asked if the PM was doing enough to secure a deal.
This morning, before heading out on the campaign trail in Detroit and Pittsburgh, Harris joined Biden and his national security team as they met with hostage deal negotiators to discuss a path forward — which could include, as Axios’ Barak Ravid first reported, making a best-and-final offer to Israel and Hamas later this week.
THE OLD: Meanwhile, the fallout from the Arlington National Cemetery controversy — and, specifically, criticism of Harris by the Gold Star families who lost loved ones during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan — has renewed a focus on the bungled pullout effort.
Democrats don’t seem particularly concerned. They argue that Republicans have spent so much time blaming Biden for the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate and other failures that to pivot to fingering Harris doesn’t pass the smell test. While the White House has gone to some lengths to cast Harris as a key player in foreign policy decisions (as our colleague Eric Bazail-Eimil writes today), there is scant evidence that Harris was a major player in Afghan policy, as WaPo’s Dan Lamothe noted in a worthwhile X thread yesterday.
Yet the issue seems to have legs now that the Gold Star families have gotten involved. They’ve argued in videos that they’ve tried to meet and speak with Harris over the past three years and have been denied, and her team is not answering questions about whether she intends to rectify that situation, except to note that she was not invited to the memorial event Trump attended at Arlington last week.
To be sure, it’s unclear — perhaps even unlikely — that this will be a matter that moves voters. In a recent Fox News poll, only 4 percent of voters identified foreign policy as their top issue in selecting a candidate.
Recommended
Let’s end all talk of ‘fingers being in Harris’ for all coming time. If something doesn’t pass the “smell test,” it's Harris 'being in the dark' about the withdrawal plan. She was in the room, the last person out, and someone Biden always wanted to be kept in the loop. The vice president said so on CNN—we have the video on her for everything, folks. You people provided it, so don’t run away; sit there and be wrong.
Harris confirmed she was the last person in the room when the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal plan was decided upon AND she approved it. No one has been held accountable, perhaps she should start answering some questions about what happened and why. pic.twitter.com/d9e2MSNOp7
— @amuse (@amuse) July 26, 2024
It also seems clear that no one in the Harris camp thought that these Gold Star parents would respond as the media ramped up their smears against Trump over this event. Harris and Biden were invited but didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Biden went to the beach; Harris remained in DC. The way you know it’s a bad look is how the media is manufacturing nonsensical narratives, like how the Trump campaign is using Gold Star parents to attack Harris. Trump showed up, he looked presidential, and Harris stayed home. The optics couldn’t be worse for Democrats. There’s no excuse for the absence, and you’ll never win attacking the families of America’s war dead. The arrogance that no one would care or that we would take Harris and the media’s reporting at face value remains a laughable element post-2016.
Also, while foreign policy issues often aren’t rewarded, as George H.W. Bush found out, it’s not a cut-and-dry aspect of elections. It’s arguably one of the most critical duties as president. On a smaller scale, the late Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) might have cost herself re-election by skipping a closed-door classified briefing on ISIS during the 2014 elections to attend a swanky New York fundraiser instead. It was not a smart move when ISIS was on the move, terror alerts were heightened, and you hail from a state with a lot of military families.
Keep hammering that Harris was invited but never showed despite being a few miles away.
The New York Times is now campaigning for Kamala and attacking the Gold Star families.
— Rep. Darrell Issa (@repdarrellissa) September 2, 2024
Disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/OvFgXSpQdR
Join the conversation as a VIP Member