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‘Is that all you’ve got?’ Trump mocked on MSNBC over his ‘Where’s Hunter?’ freakout
On Friday morning, the entire panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" reacted with hoots of laughter over reporting on Donald Trump's frenzy of posting on Truth Social during Vice President Kamala Harris' nomination acceptance speech late Thursday night.
In particular, a Trump post that asked, "WHERE’S HUNTER?" just before he complained, "[Tim] Walz was an ASSISTANT Coach, not a COACH," drew laughter.
As co-host Willie Geist explained, "Even last night, as Vice President Harris was giving her address, Donald Trump was live Truth Socialing with comments. His rejoinder to her comments were, all caps, 'Where's Hunter?' I mean, is that all you've got?"
"Oh, my God," MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski uttered as Joe Scarborough burst out laughing and Geist continued, "Come on now, come on, you have to do a little better than that. He's playing the hits."
ALSO READ: Trump is losing his audience
"At least try," Scarborough joked.
'Yeah, he's not even trying anymore," Geist replied. "He's just playing the old classics in his mind. Part of the message last night, too, was this has been an extraordinary week —."
"I mean, 'Where is Hunter?'" Scarborough interrupted. "That's like Elvis, like, wearing fringe in 1967 in the Summer of Love. I mean, come on! 'Where's Hunter? God, I'm sorry."
Morning Joe regular John Heilemann laughed and added, "I love, 'Is she talking about me?' Talk about projection and confession, my God."
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Trump ‘disoriented’ because ‘nothing seems to be working’ to slow Harris: analysis
Vice President Kamala Harris has put Donald Trump in a box, and the former president so far has been unable to escape, according to an analysis.
Trump has been pulling out one trick after another from his playbook that had previously knocked his opponents off balance and kept the spotlight on himself, but the Washington Post's Dan Balz said Harris has cruised past those snares and forced her GOP rival to play catchup.
"As Harris has glided through the past month, Trump has taken to social media or to friendly media interviews in hopes of setting the terms of the conversation, but that has backfired," wrote Balz, the newspaper's chief correspondent for national politics. "He has tried invective, exaggeration and lies, something that in the past he used to shift the focus, sometimes to distract from his own problems, at other times to draw attention away from a rival. It hasn’t done what he hoped."
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The past week belonged to Harris and her party, just as the GOP convention week belonged to Trump and the Republicans, but the former president's attempts at counterprogramming have flopped.
"Trump has learned, perhaps painfully, that at this moment, fewer are listening to him," Balz wrote. "In short, nothing seems to be working the way it once did."
Harris leaves Chicago with the wind at her back, but campaigns are unpredictable and a Sept. 10 debate looms on the schedule.
"Everyone now awaits the next round of national and battleground state polls to see whether Harris receives the traditional bounce that accompanies a successful convention and whether the enthusiasm that was on display this week inside the United Center and at massive rallies in the days before will settle a bit," Balz wrote.
"As many of the luminaries who spoke here this week reminded Democrats, this is a very tight race," Balz added, "close enough certainly that even a disoriented Trump could win — if he regains his legs as a candidate, which is one of the biggest questions at this moment."
‘There was a meltdown’: Ex-GOP insider says Trump panicking as Harris captures key group
Vice President Kamala Harris' acceptance speech of the Democratic Party's presidential nomination Thursday beat MAGA to the political punch and captured a key voting bloc in the process, according to a former Republican spokesperson.
Tara Setmayer, Seneca Project co-founder and former GOP communications director, argued during a CNN Friday morning that Harris positioned herself as a potential commander-in-chief before former President Donald Trump could define her as a threat.
"This was the opportunity for Kamala Harris to define herself to the American people ahead of what MAGA has been trying to do, what Donald Trump has been trying to do," Setmayer said.
"If you don't think it was effective, all you have to do is look at how Donald Trump and his surrogates were responding to her speech: there was a meltdown."
ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book
The former GOP representative did not clarify her frame of reference, but could have been pointing to Trump's live-posted complaints to Truth Social or a Fox News tirade interrupted repeatedly by Trump's mistaken bashings on his telephone buttons.
Setmayer argued Friday Harris appeared, in comparison to Trump, more competent to represent the nation in the Oval Office.
"She looked presidential, she sounded presidential," Setmayer said. "It almost felt like a State of the Union."
Harris' claim to a presidential identity landed with Setmayer and, the political commentator argued, with a key group of center politics voters that ushered Trump into the White House in 2016.
It's also a voting bloc with less access to abortion after three Trump-appointees voted to overturn Roe v. Wade with the historic Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling of 2022.
"It was white suburban women who elected Donald Trump," Setmayer said. Now, she said, "Women are going, 'Wait a minute, we won't go back.'"
Setmayer repeatedly described Harris' outreach to those women as brilliant.
"Harris has really brilliantly captured that spirit," she said. "Women, I think are coming together in solidarity, because it's still women in the battleground states that are going to make the difference."
Paul Begala, co-panelist and onetime campaign adviser to former President Bill Clinton, concurred that Harris had the upper hand when it came to unifying a political party ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.
Begala pointed to Harris' promise to be a president for all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, as a crucial moment in her speech when it came to unifying her base.
"You can unify a party at the extreme, you can, you know, if it's all just the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals, not naming names to any party," he quipped.
"But to take a big diverse coalition, like Kamala Harris has, and hold it all together, to welcome Tara Setmayer into the fold? ... That's how you win in this country."
Watch: J.D. Vance struggles to order at donut shop as employee refuses to be seen with him
Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance (R-OH) made an awkward trip to a donut shop in Georgia as an employee asked not to be pictured with him.
Before delivering a speech in Valdosta on Thursday, Vance's campaign visited a donut shop, where the candidate tried to place an order himself.
"The zoo has come to town," Vance told the woman at the counter. "Thank you for letting us come in here."
"She doesn't want to be on film, guys," the candidate instructed his camera crew. "So just cut her out of anything. I appreciate that, ma'am."
The Republican nominee then felt the need to introduce himself.
"I'm J.D. Vance and I'm running for vice president," he said before placing his order. "We're going to do two dozen. Just a random sort of stuff here."
"Yeah, it'll be a lot of glazed here, some sprinkled stuff," Vance continued. "Some of these cinnamon rolls. Just whatever makes sense."
At that point, a campaign staffer assured the donut shop employee that she would not be recorded.
"If you don't want to be on film, you're okay," the staffer said.
Vance pushed forward by struggling to make small talk while his order was filled.
"How long has this place been around?" he asked.
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"About four years," one employee replied.
"About four years? Okay," Vance remarked. "Well, we selected this place. I didn't know if it had been here for 20 years or four years."
Watch the video below from C-SPAN.
‘Mind your own damn business’: Vivek Ramaswamy repurposes Tim Walz quote for GOP
CHICAGO — Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Donald Trump administration Ambassador Carlos Trujillo came to Chicago on Thursday to rip on the city as what they consider an example of the ravages of illegal immigration.
Yet, amid the bashing of Chicago and Vice President Kamala Harris for not being tough enough on undocumented migrants, Ramaswamy — who reportedly has political ambitions in a future Trump administration or as an Ohio gubernatorial or U.S. Senate candidate — gave props to Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a press conference at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book
“I gotta admit I kind of like Tim Walz’s slogan. What does he say? ‘Mind your own damn business,’” Ramaswamy said at the press conference hosted by the Trump campaign.
Ramaswamy repurposed the slogan with an “anti-woke” sentiment he’s known to push, contrasting with Walz’s message about Republicans intruding on citizens' reproductive freedoms.
“It's a message that we espouse ourselves when it comes to entering your house and taking your gas stove, mind your own damn business,” Ramaswamy said. “When it comes to letting millions of illegals into this country to commit crimes and mind our business, we tell them mind your own damn business. When it comes to actually indoctrinating our children in this country, telling small businesses who they can and cannot hire … mind your own damn business.”
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The press conference — part of a week's worth of daily Trump campaign counter-programming outside the Democratic National Convention — started with new Trump campaign ads featuring a video compilation of Harris’ comments saying that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.”
Trujillo, who served as U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States from March 2018 to January 2021, bashed "sanctuary cities" such as Chicago, which won’t deny someone city services strictly because of their immigration status.
“The United States is not a sanctuary for all. It’s a sanctuary for Americans who come here to work for our county and to defend our Constitution,” Trujillo said.
Carlos Trujillo, former ambassador, speaks to press at the Trump Tower in Chicago in Thursday. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story).
Ramaswamy called Chicago “a city ravaged and devastated by the effects of not only rampant crime, but rampant crime worsened by the effects of illegal mass migration to this country.”
The estimated illegal immigrant population in the United States was 11 million in 2022, according to a July 2024 article from the Pew Research Center. The number peaked at 12.2 million in 2007.
The latest homicide statistics from the City of Chicago show that there have been 364 killings in Chicago this year through Aug. 17 — 34 less than the same time last year. Chicago began to see a decline in homicides in 2022 after a spike in 2020 and 2021, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Tyrone Muhammad, founder of Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change and Ex-Cons for Trump, attended the press conference in support of Ramaswamy and Trump. As a native Chicagoan who said he served 21 years in prison for murder, Muhammad agreed with Ramswamy’s characterization of Chicago a crime-ridden city saying he understands “what gang drugs and violence does.”
“They're saying the right messages, talking about the right points in our communities. The only question I would have is, why don't Republicans reach out more to communities that feel more disinvested by the Democratic Party?” Muhammad said. “For 60 years, my grandmama, uncles and family members have traditionally voted Democrat, and so here's the opportunity for us to do something different and give another party a chance to see how they can help fix some of the issues.”
J.R. Majewski, a controversial former congressional candidate from Ohio, sat in the audience at the Trump press conference and posted on X his support of Ramaswamy’s speech.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
Harris is scheduled to deliver her presidential nomination acceptance speech tonight at Chicago's United Center, where prime-time Democratic National Committee festivities have taken place since Monday.
Far-right MAGA candidate losing in a ‘blowout’ and dragging Trump down with him: poll
Far-right North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's bid for governor appears to be in trouble — and furthermore, it seems to be jeopardizing former President Donald Trump's own chances of carrying a state he narrowly won twice.
A new poll from SurveyUSA found Robinson trailing Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein by a whopping 48-34. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is up on Trump by a hair in a near-tie, at 46-45.
Robinson, a gun-rights activist who shocked the political world with his under-the-radar win for lieutenant governor four years ago even as Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won re-election, has come repeatedly under fire for controversial past statements, including that he is skeptical of the Holocaust, that America was better before women had the right to vote, that school shooting survivors are "prosti-tots," that Beyoncé is "Satanic," that former NFL star Ray Rice's girlfriend had her domestic abuse coming to her, and that America might be controlled by lizard people.
He has also faced scrutiny over his personal career, with accusations he failed to file income taxes for five years and that he and his wife falsified paperwork on the qualifications of employees they hired for a day care facility they once owned.
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In recent weeks, Robinson has tried to soften his image, going from calling abortion "genocide" to admitting his wife had one.
Robinson is not the only statewide candidate complicating the election for the North Carolina GOP. Homeschooling activist Michele Morrow unexpectedly unseated the Republican incumbent in the primary for Superintendent of Public Instruction, where she has come under controversy for past social media posts urging Trump to declare a military coup in 2020 and proclaiming her belief that the Chinese Communist Party stationed troops in Canada to rig the U.S. election.
Nor are the GOP's problems isolated to North Carolina. In several battlegrounds, Trump loyalists have won the nomination for competitive races; another such candidate is Kari Lake, who after refusing to accept her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election secured the nomination for Senate this year. Even Trump himself has reportedly soured on her amid fears she can't win.
