A political newsletter for normal people
WTF Just Happened Today? is a sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news. Curated daily by Matt Kiser and delivered to 200,000+ people every afternoon around 3 pm Pacific.
Day 1301: "Thought experiment."
Today in one sentence: Trump’s presidential campaign was hacked; U.S. intelligence warned that it’s increasingly likely that Iran will attack Israel this week; JD Vance defended his past comments that women without children are "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable," dismissed his prior comments that people with children should get extra votes as just a "thought experiment," claimed "our country has become anti-family," and suggested mass deportation plans that "start with one million" people; Trump is reportedly mad; Trump suggested that he’s open to banning access to abortion pills through federal regulations; 42% of voters say they trust Harris more with the economy than Trump (41%); and Harris leads Trump 50% to 46% among likely voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
1/ Trump’s presidential campaign was hacked. The scope of the information obtained is unclear. On July 22, Politico started receiving emails from an anonymous sender, who called himself Robert and used an AOL email account, offering internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official, including a copy of the 271-page vetting document related to JD Vance. Two people familiar with the document confirmed it was authentic. The campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing last week’s Microsoft report that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.” Microsoft, however, didn’t publicly identify the campaign or confirm whether it believed the hack had been successful. Separately, reports emerged last month that the U.S. intelligence community had obtained evidence suggesting Iran was planning to assassinate Trump in retaliation for his decision to order the airstrike that killed Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani in 2020. There’s no indication that Thomas Matthew Crooks was connected to the plot. (Politico / Washington Post / Axios / CNN / Associated Press / NPR / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNBC)
2/ U.S. intelligence warned that it’s increasingly likely that Iran will attack Israel this week in response to the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, which killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, and Tehran, which killed a senior Hamas leader. The Pentagon ordered additional missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the region, as well as more land-based missile-defense units and another fighter squadron, to join a carrier strike group and other warships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. said the deployment was to “deter aggression” by Iran and Hezbollah. (Axios / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)
3/ JD Vance defended his past comments that women without children are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable,” dismissed his prior comments that people with children should get extra votes as just a “thought experiment,” claimed “our country has become anti-family,” and suggested mass deportation plans that “start with one million” people. Vance also claimed that Trump – despite dining with noted white supremacist Nick Fuentes – couldn’t be racist because he’s spent “quality time” with his Indian-American wife, Usha, and called her “beautiful.” Fuentes, for what it’s worth, questioned Vance’s marriage in a podcast last month, wondering “what kind of a man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity, his heritage.” Meanwhile, Vance skipped the vote on a bipartisan bill earlier this month to expand the child tax credit. It was blocked by Senate Republicans. (ABC News / Mother Jones / Daily Beast / Rolling Stone / Axios / NBC News)
4/ Trump is reportedly mad that Kamala Harris has surpassed him in multiple polls and he’s “unhappy” with the number of people who have been attending Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign events since replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee for president. Trump has repeatedly referred to Harris in private as a “bitch” due to her campaign’s control of the news cycle in the three weeks since Biden dropped out. Trump also falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to fabricate images of the crowd size at a Michigan rally, claiming that the 15,000 people at the airport hangar “DIDN’T EXIST” and that “nobody was there.” Despite baselessly sharing a far-right conspiracy theory, Trump claimed that Harris “CHEATED” and should be “disqualified.” The Harris campaign denied the photo was manipulated, and both press photos and videos from the event disproves Trump’s claim. In a separate news conference, Trump claimed the crowd during his Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” Rally” was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech at the National Mall, which drew about 260,000 people. Meanwhile, Celine Dion denounced Trump and Vance for using her song, “My Heart Will Go On,” at their rally in Montana – the iconic song was made famous by a movie about a sinking ship where most passengers died. The singer’s management team said Dion did not authorize or endorse the song’s usage, adding: “… And really, THAT song?” Further, Trump had an aide text one of his wealthiest patrons – and the funder of super PAC Preserve America – to complain that the people in charge of the group were “RINOs” (Republican in name only). Aides are reportedly worried that Miriam Adelson will scale back her donations. One top Republican said Trump “is struggling to get past his anger.” (Axios / New York Times / Daily Beast / HuffPost / New York Times / Washington Post / CNBC / CNN / Business Insider / Washington Post / USA Today)
5/ Trump suggested that he’s open to banning access to abortion pills through federal regulations. When asked whether he’d direct his FDA to “revoke access” to mifepristone, Trump replied: “Sure, you could, you could do things that will be, would, would supplement. Absolutely. […] But you have to be able to have a vote, and all I want to do is give everybody a vote.” And when asked how he’ll vote on a proposed Florida state constitutional amendment that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban, Trump replied: “I’m going to announce that. I’m gonna actually have a press conference on that at some point in the near future, so I don’t want to tell you now.” Meanwhile, JD Vance attempted to walk back Trump’s comments, saying: “Well, no. What the president has said very clearly is that abortion policy should be made by the states, right? You of course want to make sure that any medicine is safe and it’s prescribed in the right way, and so forth.” Separately, Trump argued that abortion is no longer a “big factor” in elections, saying he believes it will end up being “a very small issue” in this year’s vote. A recent poll, however, found that 61% of Americans believe their state should allow a person to obtain an abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason – up from 49% in June 2021, a year before the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. In other news, a new report shows that the number of women getting abortions in the U.S. went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. The number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states that have a near-total ban on abortion and declined by about half in places that ban it after six weeks of pregnancy. (Washington Post / The Hill / Politico / NBC News)
poll/ 42% of voters say they trust Harris more with the economy than Trump (41%) – the first time this election cycle that voters trust the Democratic candidate more than Trump on the economy. (Axios)
poll/ Harris leads Trump 50% to 46% among likely voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. For nearly a year, surveys showed Trump either tied or slightly ahead of Biden in the three battleground states. (New York Times)
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📅 The WTFJHT Calendar: Now until then.
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🅧 Aug. 12.: Trump x Elon “live conversation.”
🫏 Aug. 19-22: Democratic National Convention.
⛔️ Sept. 2: Labor Day – No WTFJHT.
📺 Sept. 4: Fox News debate (maybe?)
📺 Sept. 10: ABC News debate (possibly?)
⚖️ Sept. 18: Trump is sentenced.
📺 Sept. 25: NBC News debate (perhaps?)
📆 Oct. 6: Last day to register to vote in some states.
⛔️ Oct. 14: Indigenous Peoples’ Day – No WTFJHT.
🗳️ Nov. 5: Presidential Election. -
✅ Get election ready: Register to vote, update your address, or request an absentee ballot at Vote.org, TurboVote, RocktheVote, or Votes From Abroad.org.
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📈 The WTFJHT Election Poll Tracking Tracker ™️
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Harris 48% – Trump 47% (New York Times)
Harris 46% – Trump 43% (538)
Harris 46% – Trump 43% (Nate Silver)
Harris 47% – Trump 45% (The Economist)
Harris 47% – Trump 47% (RealClearPolitics)
Harris 52% – Trump 44% (Election Betting Odds)
A political newsletter for normal people
WTF Just Happened Today? is a sane, once-a-day newsletter helping normal people make sense of the news. Curated daily by Matt Kiser and delivered to 200,000+ people every afternoon around 3 pm Pacific.
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