Reading Trump's mind: Hold deep. Win.

Two months before the race, unpleasant closely. Politico has the Level after Labor Day:

In three of the seven states that both campaign teams have identified as key campaign locations in the Electoral College, Harris is ahead of Trump according to several poll averages – in the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But this lead is small: Only in Wisconsin is Harris on average more than three percentage points ahead of Trump.

In three other states – Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – the polls are so close that different poll averages produced different front-runners on Sunday night.

Only in the remaining swing state – North Carolina, which Trump won in both 2016 and 2020 – does the former president lead on average across all three polls.

Will Harris and Trump’s meeting on the debate stage change the dynamics of this race even further? We’ll find out next week. Happy Tuesday.

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.)

—William Kristol

August is the cruelest month.

Didn’t some poet say that? (Man, all those poems we had to read in high school. So boring.) Anyway, that poet, Eliot something, was famous for saying that. Must have had a good PR man.

Well, this year he was right. August was my first really bad month of 2024. Totally unfair. But I survived, and now it’s September, and I’m going to win.

At the end of July, Sleepy Joe was replaced. I never thought the Democrats would be able to pull that off. Pelosi – I would never say it publicly, but she is tough. Much tougher than all our tough guys who just talk about being tough.

And we weren’t ready. I warned Chris and Susie that they might do that. And they told me, “Oh yes, sir, we have a plan B. Yes, sir, we’re going to go after Harris right now. We’re going to define her and take her down.” That was bullshit. They had no plan and she got a free ride for a couple of weeks. Then they had their convention and now Kamala is maybe three to four points ahead.

But she’s peaked. And it won’t be enough. Kamala’s lead is about the same as Hillary’s in early September. I beat her by a significant margin. It’s much smaller than Sleepy Joe’s lead in 2020. I almost beat him. I’m going to beat Comrade Kamala. Or Kommiela. Or Crazy Kamabla. Look, I’m still working on it. They’re going to laugh at me. But one of them will hold out.

You know, people are going to look back on my visit to Arlington last week as a turning point. LaCivita knows how to do this kind of thing. And having Corey there helped. Chris and Susie got fat and happy. Now with Corey lurking around, they’re getting tough again.

Kamala was stupid to get involved in this. Now it’s her versus the Gold Star Families. She says we broke the rules at Arlington. The families say they invited me, Kamala never met with them, and her government had these people killed. Who wins this argument?

So I’m going to bring a few family members to the debate. They’re going to show up with me, I’m going to ask them to sit down and watch, we’re going to create a commotion about it that’s going to dominate the news just before the debate. Maybe it’s going to go to Kamala’s head. And the ABC clowns are going to have to ask about it.

The media really doesn’t understand anything. Let’s take Vance. Sure, he Is a nutcase and people don’t like him very much. And you know what? Neither do I. But he’s an attack machine and some of his punches will land. It’s Nixon in 1952 – I remember Roy Cohn telling me about it. The media called him Tricky Dick and Dirty Dick – and they almost got Ike to throw him off the ballot. But Ike and Nixon won.

And you know what cheered me up yesterday? Seeing Sleepy Joe campaigning for Kamala in Pennsylvania. He’ll be back on the campaign trail later this week. Can you believe it? Kamala’s whole thing is breaking up with Joe – “we’re not going back” and “we’re turning over a new leaf” and all that nonsense. And here’s Joe reminding everyone that she’s his vice president. A few days before the debate. Where I’ll be saying the words “the Biden-Harris administration” and “you and Sleepy Joe” a million times. So thank you, Joe.

This abortion thing was a mess too – but we got through it. We got it done before Labor Day. The idiot pro-lifers are happy. And I showed ordinary Americans that I’m not going to go crazy and force this on them in states where they don’t want it. I think if I stick to states’ rights on this, the issue will fade into the background. It will be a question in the debate. I bet we spend more time on Afghanistan than we do on abortion.

This debate really Is will be important. But hey, so far this campaign I’ve won the debates one-on-one! In fact, I’ve been TOO good.

I can’t believe all the media hype, how Trump must be careful when dealing with a black woman And he must not look too evil and all that crap. Are you kidding? What country do they think we are in? I hope Kamala believes all that stuff about getting high when we get low. Or not responding to attacks.

So when Dana asked her about my line “She’s not really black,” what did she say? It’s the same old hackneyed playbook. Next question please. Are you kidding me? You have to reverse the attack. Because you know what? Otherwise, the old playbook factories.

You know who taught me a lot about this playbook? Roy. He was great. I have to say, I don’t miss many dead people – I like people who are not dead – but I miss the late, great Roy Cohn.

Well, Roy, your spirit is going to be alive for the rest of this campaign. And if you’re looking down from somewhere — I know you’re not, but it’s a kind of poetic phrase that people use, that Eliot guy probably used it — I’m telling you, I’m going to make you proud next Tuesday night. I’m going to sink low. And I’m going to win.

—Andrew Egger

Remember the University of North Carolina fraternity that went viral earlier this year when they stopped a group of protesters from tearing down an American flag? They became a Cause Fame Right: Some of them appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention, and an online fundraiser launched by a Republican activist with the goal of “throwing them a wild party” as a reward raised more than half a million dollars.

Well, this “tantrum” took place yesterday. The mood was weird!

The event, called “Flagstock,” took place in a parking lot a few miles from UNC-Chapel Hill and was more like a small music festival than a college party: The stage featured a number of high-profile musical groups, including Lee Greenwood, Aaron Lewis and Big & Rich. (Unfortunately, oddly but fortunately, no Kid Rock.) There was even a flyover by fighter jets.

In the VIP tent, the New York Times duly reportedFraternity brothers poured beer from an ice slide (a faux pas, they are intended for Jägermeister) in the shape of the state of North Carolina.

“Nearby”, the Just continued: “There were smiling Hooters waitresses, cornhole boards with American flag prints and red solo cups for beer pong.”

What a scene, right? But it was not clear who it was for. Organizers originally expected a few thousand students to attend the invitation-only event, but only a few hundred showed up.

“The crowd appears to consist of 200 to 300 people,” Daily tar sales Editor-in-Chief Laney Crawley tweeted from the event. “The majority of those in attendance do not appear to be students, as some UNC fraternities have been discouraging people from attending in advance of the event.”

As Just As noted yesterday, not all fraternity members involved in holding up the flag were enthusiastic about the whole thing:

In interviews before the event, several members of the UNC chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity, said they were disappointed that money raised in their name was used for a party. They said they would have preferred that a significant portion of the money go to a charity supporting Jewish organizations or relief efforts in Gaza.

They said the “anger” seemed callous considering it came from a painful moment for Jews and Palestinians – and while the war in the Middle East was still ongoing.

Far be it from us Morning shots to look down on a good student party! But a quick note on all this.

The fraternity’s protest struck such a chord because it struck at the core of the Republican Party: in the face of an angry mob trying to tear down the flag, a few young people quietly showed themselves to be decent and patriotic.

But this boastful self-image—we’re the ones who love America!—can be in uncomfortable conflict with the lived reality of today’s cultural Republicanism, which is pretty disgusting in this regard. It’s “We love America” versus “We love America, and screw you if you have a problem with that!” Often, it’s the “screw you” part that ends up carrying more weight. And that can make for a decidedly uncool party. No wonder so many of the fraternity brothers stayed away.