About Trump’s Age

Today’s notice: Time. Can Democrats get a message about Trump’s age to stick by Election Day? Kamala Harris spends hours at church. Al Gore’s nonprofit is still reeling from a Dec. 15 internal memo on Gaza.

Talking About Trump’s Age

When Kamala Harris appears with Liz Cheney in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin today, it’s likely the Democrats’ new line of attack on Donald Trump will come up: his fitness for office.

Doug Emhoff offered one version in Grand Rapids Sunday: “You look at him now, he’s falling apart physically and falling apart mentally,” he said at a town hall alongside Mark Cuban. Tim Walz offered another in Nebraska Saturday, saying Trump didn’t have the “stamina” to be president.

In the days after Trump’s town hall dance party, Arnold Palmer moment and surprise cancellation of several appearances (reportedly because of “exhaustion”), Democrats have been all over the Tired Trump narrative. The question frustrating some stumping for Harris: Why was this not a message earlier?

“We should have been saying it a long time ago,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow told NOTUS. “The fact that we watched media pundits, nonstop, 24 hours a day, talking about President Biden and his age but letting Trump off the hook as though he’s not almost exactly the same age, it was really frustrating,” McMorrow said.

There are slightly different takes in the Democratic coalition over how to go about this. Some Republicans on Team Harris say the conversation should be less about stamina and more about what an aging Trump would do with the power of the presidency.

“He’s just going to continue to get older like we saw with Biden. Do we really want to risk that with Trump?” Sarah Matthews, a former Trump aide who quit after Jan. 6, told NOTUS.

Ultimately, the bigger challenge is Trump’s age has never really dogged him like Biden’s did him (though there are plenty of voters who think it’s a problem). And while Democrats are trying to make the point now, the message is coming late and a little muddled as some on Team Harris are warning that the real danger of Trump is that he’s exactly the same as he was.

—Evan McMorris-Santoro, reporting from Michigan | Read more here.

Harris’ Spiritual Sunday

While some Democrats fear that Black churches may not have the same pull with voters as they once did, Harris is prioritizing them in her final campaign swing. She spent about four hours at two Black churches on Sunday.

As far as Sen. Raphael Warnock is concerned, “It would be political malpractice not to engage the church. She knows this personally,” the senator told NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright Sunday. Warnock spoke ahead of Harris at Divine Faith Ministries in Jonesboro, Georgia, where he warned against voter apathy.

Harris had her own message on that to congregants: “For sure, if you don’t vote, nothing will happen. I mean, recently, I was reminded Jimmy Carter voted,” Harris said. “Seems to me everybody can vote.”

Read more here.

Front Page

• Florida’s Largest Property Insurer Denied Most Hurricane Debby Claims: The company may need a federal bailout when the next storm hits.
• HBCU Homecomings Give Trump and Harris One Last Shot at Young Black Voters: “In other years, a little Republican table would be there but nobody would really stop.”
• How Misinformation Has Complicated Hurricane Relief: Aid is getting through.

Strife at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Over Gaza

Over the last year, about a quarter of staff at Al Gore’s nonprofit, The Climate Reality Project, have turned over, with several citing internal conflict over the war in Gaza, Noah Kirsch reports for NOTUS.

The issues date back to a Dec. 15 email directing employees not to discuss the war in Gaza at work, on email or via Slack. At the time, 15 staffers had already pushed leadership to call for a cease-fire.

“There was this general sentiment where we weren’t to speak about it, [that] there would be consequences or it was, like, against the rules,” said Morgan King, who left Climate Reality Project in July.

Read more here.

Number You Should Know

1

Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar is the one Democrat in Congress who doesn’t support abortion rights. How big of an evolution is this? Forty-nine congressional Democrats held anti-abortion views in 2010.

Now, lawmakers like Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, who once called himself a “pro-life Democrat,” has the support of Reproductive Freedom for All, the group formerly known as NARAL. This is the first time the group has endorsed him.

Read the story here..

The Week Ahead

• Trump will visit Asheville, North Carolina, today and hold a roundtable with Latino leaders in Florida on Tuesday.
• Sen. Ted Cruz is set to debate Democratic challenger Colin Allred Tuesday.
• Also on Tuesday: JD Vance is scheduled to hold rallies in Tucson and Peoria, Arizona, and Barack Obama is hitting the trail in Wisconsin with Tim Walz on Tuesday.
• There’s a lot more Obama this week. He’s holding a rally with Harris in Georgia on Thursday.
• Michelle Obama will rally with Harris in Michigan on Saturday, in her first post-DNC campaign event.

Not Us

We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.

• A Mystery $30 Million Wave of Pro-Trump Bets Has Moved a Popular Prediction Market, by Alexander Osipovich at The Wall Street Journal
• This Is Exactly How an Elon Musk-Funded PAC Is Microtargeting Muslims and Jews With Opposing Messages, by Jason Koebler at 404 Media
• Can the Women of the Philadelphia Suburbs Save the Democrats Again? by Eliza Griswold at The New Yorker
• A Pennsylvania road trip finds voters full of doubt, anger and unease, by Dan Balz at The Washington Post

Be Social

Trump serves up Mickey D’s.

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