Kamala rebrands as the ‘joy’ candidate

Vice President Kamala Harris is almost three weeks into her presidential campaign and not only has she failed to hold an unscripted press conference or sit for a media interview, she also has zero policy positions on her campaign website. Democratic strategists have repeatedly assured me that she will adopt whatever platform comes out of the Democratic National Convention, which certainly won’t help the perception that she is a manufactured candidate willing to do whatever it takes to seize power, but I digress. The clear indication we are getting from the early stages of the Harris-Walz campaign is that it is all about “vibes” and the idea that Harris is selling “joy.”

After all, what better way to rebrand a deeply unpopular vice president who, in focus groups put together by her own party, is said to have a laugh that sounds more like a cackle? Joy! “Kamala Harris used to worry about laughing,” the dutiful stenographers at the New York Times said. “Now joy is fueling her campaign.” The Washington Post similarly describes Harris-Walz as seizing “on a joyous message.” Walz even thanked his running mate for “bringing back the joy.”

Visible joy, however, can only take a candidate so far when she is wedded to an administration with very poor approval ratings — both generally and on the issues that matter most to voters — and a country that 65 percent of voters say is on the wrong track. As my colleague Ben Domenech wrote today, “The 2024 election has been one of the most stable elections of the modern era in terms of voter priorities, with the top three issues — the economy, immigration and security — locked in for more than a year. The vibes election concept exists in a context where these issues are not dominant in people’s minds.”  

Vibes are fun if you are a Democrat who no longer has to cast your ballot for a sundowning dementia patient. Vibes are fun if you are part of the political elite that successfully pulled off a coup against the aforementioned leader of your party. And vibes are certainly top of mind if you want — no, need — voters to forget about the invasion at the southern border, sky-high inflation and a stock market crash the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades, crime on our city streets and a massive housing shortage. If you’re the average American who actually has to confront these problems on a regular basis, you’re probably not too big on vibes.

The question is how long Harris can enjoy not taking policy positions and running away from the record of her administration while enjoying plenty of cover from a friendly media. A series of polls today suggest that the race is close nationally with Trump still leading in most of the key battleground states. The Kamala campaign might not be so joyous when the Harris honeymoon comes crashing down. 

-Amber Duke

On our radar

‘LIKELY UNLAWFUL’ A judge ordered the Centers for Disease Control to stop deleting emails from departing staff, saying the practice was likely a violation of federal law. The order came as part of a lawsuit from the America First Legal Foundation, which learned that the CDC was trashing communications when they filed a Freedom of Information Act request for some agency records. 

MOURNING JOE Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris appear to have both lost the coveted endorsement of podcaster and UFC commentator Joe Rogan, as the former Fear Factor host said he prefers Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

DON’T KNOW JACK Special Counsel Jack Smith acknowledged in a Thursday court filing that he needs more time to determine how to move forward with his case against former president Donald Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of classified documents after the Supreme Court ruled that he enjoys some level of presidential immunity for official acts.

Newsom clears the camps

California governor Gavin Newsom was seen Thursday in a video donning jeans, a T-shirt and work gloves as he tossed trash into plastic bags under an overpass in Los Angeles. Newsom’s public clean-up was part of an effort to clear out homeless encampments that have been crowding Californian cities.

The clean-up took place under a section of the Interstate 5 Freeway in Mission Hills alongside the California Department of Transportation crews, also known as Caltrans. The effort comes two weeks after Newsom issued an executive order saying he would take away funding from cities and counties that are not doing enough to move people out of encampments and into shelters.

The order, signed on July 25, followed a recent Supreme Court ruling giving local governments the authority to remove encampments and ticket people for camping in public. The order urged officials to “address unsanitary and dangerous encampments within their communities and provide people experiencing homelessness in the encampments with the care and supportive services they need.”

California has seen a surge in homelessness in the years since Covid and is home to 180,000 homeless people, roughly one third of the nation’s total homeless population. Newsom called on California officials to “act with urgency to address dangerous encampments,” in a post on X. “No more excuses. We’ve provided the time. We’ve provided the funds. Now it’s time for locals to do their job,” he wrote. Newsom’s administration has made homelessness a key issue on its agenda. Earlier this year, he pushed for a ballot measure to allow the state to borrow $6.4 billion to build 4,350 housing units.

Some were quick to mock Newsom on social media, dubbing his move a political stunt.

–Elisenne Stoller

Axed-ios

Axios announced in an email to staff this week that they are laying off 10 percent of their workforce — and to add insult to injury, the announcement was stylized like one of their editorial products.

“Why it matters: We’re eliminating about 50 positions to get ahead of tectonic shifts in the media, technology, and reader needs/habits,” the email read. The canned staffers were also informed via email rather than in an in-person meeting, which Axios claimed was for logistical reasons.

It gets worse. A spy tells Cockburn that the laid-off workers were summarily frog-marched out of the media company’s northern Virginia building Thursday by security. Remaining Axios employees chattered on their way up the building elevator post-lunch that they ought to hurry back to their desks “before we get in trouble.”

The big picture:Axios isn’t the first media outlet to lay employees off this year, but they certainly didn’t learn anything from their bedfellows about how to respectfully treat departing staff.

–Cockburn