Raw Story

Just hours after the Guardian's Hugo Lowell reported that the "sharks are circling" for Donald Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Politico broke the news that Trump 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been added to the 2024 campaign staff.

With the ground beneath the former president's campaign having undergone a seismic shift since Vice President Kamala Harris was elevated as his 2024 presidential opponent, the former president has seen his poll numbers spiral downward and there have been rumors a change was coming.

As Lowell explained on MSNBC on Thursday morning, "It has been a bad enough month, the previous month for the Trump campaign that there are enemies, real and perceived, that are starting to look at Trump campaign leadership team and really start to tell Trump, you know, you've got to get rid of these guys, you've got to reset it."

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That reset seems to have been initiated with the hiring of controversial Lewandowski, which was announced by Wiles and LaCivita in a statement that read in part, "As we head into the home stretch of this election, we are continuing to add to our impressive campaign team," before concluding that the new hires, all Trump campaign veterans' "unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical ticket in American history.”

According to Tara Palmieri of Puck News, "Lewandowski told allies over the weekend that he was coming back as a campaign chairman, essentially a layer above Wiles and LaCivita. This comes as Trump, superstitious and nostalgic, wants the team that helped him win in 2016 back."

That news has critics both amused and stunned at how quickly Trump's campaign has collapsed and is widely regarded as a sign of "desperation."

As longtime campaign consultant Matthew Dowd put it on X, "Corey Lewandowski coming back to Trump campaign world is great news for Harris/Walz. Next best thing for Harris/Walz would be if Trump brought back serial liar Kellyanne Conway."

"Donald Trump is so desperate he’s bringing Corey Lewandowski back after he got fired for sexual harassment allegations. Same guy also attacked a reporter during the 2016 campaign. They’re not sending their best, folks," former senior Harris adviser Mike Nellis chipped in.

"This means things are going super good in Trump World," journalist Megan McCarthy quipped.

Referencing an unsubstantiated report that Lewandowski had an affair with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), Restore Sanity2024, suggested: "Oh I didn’t realize the problem with the Trump campaign was a lack of staffers that can have an affair with Kristi Noem."

"What could possibly go wrong?" political journalist Carla Marinucci dryly asked.

Legal analyst Marcy Wheeler suggested, "The logic is that by bringing Lewandowski back you distract from JD's general misogyny and Trump's own sexual assault and affairs?"

Malex responded to the Politico report with, "Of course they are. Corey Lewandowski was fired from Trump PAC after sexual harassment allegations. Politico reported that the wife of a construction executive, accused Lewandowski of repeatedly touching her and speaking to her in graphic terms at the event. There were four first-hand witnesses who described the alleged incident."

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Reacting to Donald Trump adding more rallies to his campaign schedule as he falls behind in the polls in swing states, MSNBC's Vaughn Hillyard suggested it is up in the air whether local GOP candidates will want to be seen with him.

After host Ana Cabrera shared new polling showing Trump in a downward spiral since May in seven key states both he and Vice President Kamala Harris will need to win in November, Hillyard suggested down-ticket Democrats ought be happy about the turnaround and Republicans less so.

"He added a campaign event in Montana last Friday night," Hillyard began before adding, "That is where today it is notable he is going to Asheboro, North Carolina, for a campaign rally and on Saturday, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania."

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

"You look at those seven states," he continued. "The Trump campaign had been talking about New Hampshire being in play, Virginia being in play, and this is the difficult part for a campaign less than three months out. Suddenly you're working with upwards of nine potentially battleground states, and you have to pick not only where you spend your time but also spend your resources."

"And when you compare it to the Democratic side with their ticket appearing with down-ballot candidates, there are the Senate candidates," he elaborated. "Within North Carolina, there's gubernatorial candidate who right now who has lower polling numbers than Donald Trump. There's a lot that is taking place within the Republican party about Donald Trump's use of time and where he's appearing but also the extent to which he appears or does not appear with some of these down ballot candidates in the extent like Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick."

"Will we see him on Saturday, alongside Donald Trump on stage?" he asked. "There's a lot that the Trump campaign is going through."

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A central stone of the famous Stonehenge monument in southwest England came from 750 kilometers away in northeast Scotland, surprised scientists said Wednesday, solving one mystery but raising another: how did its prehistoric builders move the huge slab so far?

The Neolithic circle of giant stones has been a source of wonder and mystery for nearly 5,000 years -- in the Middle Ages, the wizard Merlin of Arthurian legend was said to have stolen the monument from Ireland.

More recently, scientists have determined that the site's upright sandstones came from relatively nearby Marlborough, while the bluestones arrayed near its centre came from Wales.

But the origin of the Altar Stone, a unique six-tonne slab laying on its side at the heart of the circle, remained elusive.

It was long thought to have also come from Wales, but tests along those lines always "drew a blank," said Richard Bevins, a professor from Aberystwyth University, mid-Wales, and co-author of a new study.

This prompted a team of British and Australian researchers to broaden their horizons -- and in turn discover something "quite sensational", he told AFP.

Using chemical analysis, they determined that the Altar Stone came from Scotland's Orcadian Basin, which is at least 750 kilometres (460 miles) from Stonehenge, according to the study in the journal Nature.

- 'Genuinely shocking' -

The researchers were stunned.

"This is a genuinely shocking result," study co-author Robert Ixer of University College London said in a statement.

The "astonishing" distance was the longest recorded journey for any stone at the time, said fellow co-author Nick Pearce of Aberystwyth University.

Whether people around 2,500 BC were capable of transporting such huge stones from Wales had already been a matter of heated debate among archaeologists and historians.

That a five-by-one-metre (16-by-three-feet) stone made the trip across much of the length of the UK suggests that the British isles were home to a highly organised and well-connected society at the time, the researchers said.

They called for further research to find out exactly where in Scotland the stone came from -- and how it made its way to Stonehenge.

One theory is that the stone was brought to southern England not by humans but by naturally moving ice flows.

However research has shown that ice would actually have carried such stones "northwards, away from Stonehenge", lead study author Anthony Clarke from Australia's Curtin University told a news conference.

Another option was that the Neolithic builders moved the stones over land -- though this would have been extraordinarily difficult.

Dense forest, marshy bogs and mountains all formed "formidable barriers" for prehistoric movers, Clarke said.

- 'Incredibly important' -

Another option is that the stone was transported by sea.

There is evidence of an "extensive network of Neolithic shipping," which moved pottery and gems around the region, Clarke said.

To work out where it came from, the researchers fired laser beams into the crystals of a thin slice of the Altar Stone.

The ratio of uranium and lead in these crystals act as "miniature clocks" for rocks, providing their age, said study co-author Chris Kirkland of Curtin University.

The team then compared the stone's age to other rocks across the UK and found "with a high degree of certainty" that it came from the Orcadian Basin, Kirkland said.

Susan Greaney, an archaeologist at the UK's University of Exeter not involved in the study, said it established the first "direct link" between southern England and northern Scotland during this time.

"The placement of this stone at the heart of the monument, on the solstice axis, shows that they thought this stone, and by implication, the connection with the area to the north, was incredibly important," she told AFP.

Without President Biden in the race, more attention is being paid to Donald Trump's age and how tired he appears.

MSNBC political analyst and Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa made the observation Wednesday when speaking to MSNBC's Ana Cabrera. The host observed Trump keeps mispronouncing Kamala Harris' name, and Hinojosa thinks it's all about "trying to get attention."

"I think, Ana, people are beginning to see the desperation in Donald Trump," said Hinojosa. "It's a little bit strange. It's like you can feel around him that he's in some quicksand. The pick of J.D. Vance (R-OH) is not working out for him."

Read Also: Trump’s smear job climaxed prematurely — and now he’s stuck

Further, she thinks the 78-year-old ex-president is showing his advanced age and low energy.

"He's beginning to look a little desperate, and I have to say I did a double take when I was watching that strange news conference in Mar-a-Lago" last week, she said.

"I was like, wow, Donald Trump, you're looking a little haggard, and I think it's showing in just the way he's speaking and what he's trying to do. It's to try to get attention," she explained.

Trump's interview with a Univision reporter showed him struggling to say Harris' name and pretending her last name was unknown by most people.

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Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde has filed a lawsuit against several local television stations for running an ad from a Democratic political action committee. He's sued all of them except one, the Fox outlet.

Hovde is irate over an ad from WinSenate PAC, which he claims defamed him, WTAQ-WLUK reported Tuesday.

The two accusations he claims are malicious lies are: “Hovde’s family rigged the system to rake in thirty million in government subsidies and loans." And Hovde is currently “sheltering his wealth in shady tax havens around the world."

Politico's Newsletter reported in March that during an unsuccessful Senate run in 2012, Hovde disclosed that he had assets of at least $50 million in insurance companies based in Bermuda, "benefitting from not having to pay U.S. corporate taxes," said Politico at the time. Hovde hasn't disclosed his financials yet, the Politico report said at the time.

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

While the ads aired on WLUK-TV Fox 11, they are not named in the suit, only parent company Sinclair Broadcasting is mentioned "for allegations against WVTV-TV in Milwaukee," the WTAQ report said.

"The parent companies of other Green Bay stations are named: Gray Media for WBAY-TV, Nexstar for WFRV-TV, and Scripps Media for WGBA-TV and WACY-TV," the report said.

Hovde is taking on longtime U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). A poll by The Bullfinch Group that spoke to 500 registered voters taken between Aug 8-11 puts Baldwin at 50 percent and Hovde at 41 percent, FiveThirtyEight cites.

“The Stations had knowledge that the Advertisement contained defamatory statements which were made with actual malice, in that WinSenate either knew such statements were false, or acted with reckless disregard as to whether such statements were true or false,” Hovde’s lawsuit claims.

The PAC behind the ad, WinSenate told the network, “There is absolutely nothing false about the claims in this advertisement. The Campaign has no right to silence WinSenate. Your decision to accept the advertisement should remain undisturbed."

The liberal PAC American Bridge also sounded the alarm about "hedge funds that stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in the Cayman Islands."

Analysts at Goldman Sachs believe that "voters are shifting" as the final months of the campaign approach and Democrats prepare to host their presidential convention in Chicago — with the tide turning in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to Fortune, Harris "is up by about three percentage points nationally since she became the presumed Democratic nominee after President Biden ended his reelection bid last month. Her margins have also improved in key swing states, including Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, where Trump has just a 0.2 percentage point lead over Harris, according to the Goldman analysts. The vice president needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election."

This comes at a time when Democratic enthusiasm on the ground has translated into massive rallies for the vice president, which has reportedly panicked Trump and led him to push conspiracy theories about her crowds being A.I.-generated.

Further boosting Democrats, the analysis found that third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are bleeding their support — but disproportionately from left-leaning voters who are coming home to support Democrats, leaving more of the right-leaning voters whom Trump needs to win. Voters are also expressing more support for Democrats down the ballot, with the generic congressional preference favoring Democratic candidates, and a slim plurality of voters in a recent poll even trusting Harris more on the economy.

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It's that last point that could be the one final vulnerability for Harris, Goldman Sachs noted.

Surprise economic instability in the month of July "could hurt her chances of being elected in November, according to the analysts," said the report. "Last week, all major indices closed down for the week after the unraveling of the yen carry trade led to big moves by traders. Weaker-than-expected jobs numbers also yielded concern as the unemployment rate rose for the third straight month to 4.3%."

Notably, though, the S&P 500 has largely made up for the losses it saw since then, and a Federal Reserve decision to cut rates later this year could reassure markets further.