Politics
This may have been Kamala Harris’ most important debate answer
How Harris can use her debate momentum
Vice President Kamala Harris wiped the floor with former President Donald Trump at Tuesday night’s debate. It started with her aggressive pursuit of a handshake and continued with the trap she set by talking about his obsession with crowd sizes. He never regained control.
All that being said, debate performances alone don’t win elections. Just ask John Kerry or Hillary Clintonwho both won all of their debates and did not win their elections. But debates can help differentiate candidates and motivate voters.
On Tuesday night, the key exchange, at least in my opinion, centered around abortion rights.
After Trump boldly claimed he “did a great service” in overturning Roe v. Wade, Harris had this to say:
You want to talk about this is what people wanted, pregnant women who wanted a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term, they don’t want that.
She was direct, passionate and made the impact of abortion bans specific and personal.
Trump, meanwhile, failed to commit to vetoing an abortion ban.
There were a lot of spicy moments in this debate. But that exchange showed where Harris and Trump stand on an issue that could be a key motivator of turnout, if not voter behavior.
If I were Team Harris, I would make sure Trump doesn’t forget it.
A story you should be following: Taylor Swift’s 2024 choice
This summer, Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz warned Trump and JD Vance: “See what cat people do when you go after ’em.” And Tuesday night, they found out.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement was one of the most highly anticipated this election. Why? Swift’s social media call to action drove over 400,000 visits to the federal voter registration website Vote.gov within 24 hours of her post. And for context, this website typically only receives about 40,000 visits per day. So far, the pop star’s original Instagram post has been shared by over 1.5 million users on Instagram.
Trump claimed that Swift will “probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.” But Swift’s influence, to say nothing about her business, did just fine after she endorsed Joe Biden for president in October 2020. If anything, she’s only grown more powerful.
Vance, whose “childless cat lady” insults got a callout in Swift’s post, attempted to shrug off the development, saying he doesn’t think many Americans “are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.”
To quote Rep. Adam Schiff: “Has JD Vance met his own running mate?”
Someone you should know: Karen Dunn
Meet Karen Dunnthe powerhouse attorney leading Harris’ debate prep team. The New York Times reports she is described by people close to her as a “skilled handler of high-ego politicians.” And Dunn also knows how to give candidates “tough love” when they need it, according to Hillary Clinton.
Dunn got her start in politics on Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. She rose to become Clinton’s communications director and joined Clinton’s presidential campaign after attending Yale Law School. After clerking for then-Judge Merrick Garland and Justice Stephen BreyerDunn returned to politics to work on debate prep teams for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Clinton in 2016, and Harris (for her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence) in 2020.
In 2021, Dunn also won a landmark case holding the organizers of the Charlottesville rally accountable for injuries suffered by counterprotesters, securing over $25 million in damages.
After Obama won re-election in 2012, Dunn took a job in the White House counsel’s office. We don’t know where she’ll land next, but she’s absolutely a player to watch in a potential Harris administration.
Jen Psaki is the host of “Inside with Jen Psaki”airing Sundays at 12 p.m. ET and Mondays at 8 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.
Around a hundred Samurai Blue superfans crowded the Old Ambassador’s Residence at the Japanese embassy in Washington, on Sunday for a watch party marking its World Cup opener against the Netherlands.
The supporters — a motley group including erstwhile English teachers in Japan, state department workers and embassy staffers — lounged around a projector set in the building’s front room, plates piled high with nigiri. Drinking Kirin Ichiban lager and Asahi Super Dry, they winced when the Dutch team had the ball in the opposing third and burst into cheers and sang “Vamos Nippon” when Daichi Kamada’s header tied the game in the 89th minute.
“The World Cup itself is a competition,” said Masatsugu Odaira, the embassy’s minister of public affairs, at the watch party. “But from the perspective of policy and diplomacy, it’s a very good chance to connect people across borders.”
At the event, Blue Light News spoke to soccer fans who are already excited about Japan’s growing diplomatic footprint and soft power projection. And they hope the World Cup will buoy that cultural momentum, stimulating tourism — one of the nation’s most lucrative sectors — and drawing eyes to Japan.
The World Cup is “just a visceral way to connect people who have not yet had the opportunity to travel to Japan to be swept up in the enthusiasm of an international competition,” said Andrew Wylegala, president of the National Association of Japan-America Societies.
Japan is already “at the top of its game” in terms of soft power projection, Wylegala added — and “soccer now fits in with that.”
Embassy staff wore pink shirts with the American and Japanese flags on the back. “Together We Bloom,” they read.
The end result, a 2-2 draw against the Dutch, the world’s eighth ranked international side, only added to their enthusiasm.
The women’s team has a far more prolific record. Fans still hark back to their 2011 World Cup final victory over the U.S., months after a massive earthquake and tsunami slammed the country.
But the men’s team has won just seven World Cup games in its history. Japan’s best-ever finish: The round of 16, where they’ve fallen four separate times.
But there’s hope that, this year, the underdogs could pull off an upset. From Ajax’s Takehiro Tomiyasu to Kamada, a Crystal Palace midfielder, the Samurai Blue have more than enough talent to compete with the sport’s upper crust.
Odaira’s hope for this year? “Oh, becoming a champion,” he said.
No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.
Teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, Rodri and co. enter the tournament as joint favorites alongside France. With the U.S. president apparently intent on making this a World Cup that projects his personal influence and America’s soft power, victory would be sweet for Spanish soccer fans — but especially so for their prime minister.
Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.
Read the full story about the failing Washington-Madrid relationship here.
LOS ANGELES — In many World Cup host cities, competing teams also find themselves jostling for soft-power supremacy around their matches. But before its first match tomorrow in Los Angeles, New Zealand has had the diplomatic landscape all to itself.
New Zealand is scheduled to face Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1980. Even as President Donald Trump claims an end to the countries’ monthslong war is at hand, Iran will be competing in the World Cup under severe travel restrictions. The team has been forced from its original Tucson training camp to Tijuana, and is being forced to effectively commute to its matches in the U.S. without a full government delegation.
That has left New Zealand alone in pressing its off-field agenda in Los Angeles. On Sunday evening, New Zealand consul-general Katja Ackerley opened her Brentwood mansion to a “New Zealand on the World Stage” networking reception sponsored by the government agencies overseeing the country’s trade, sport and foreign-investment portfolios.
“It’s all about soft power, it’s all about person-to-person,” said Peter Miskimmin, the government’s head of sports diplomacy. “We are building relations through sport rather than bringing up arms against one another.”
The country’s Los Angeles diplomatic outpost typically focuses on promoting exports of wine and lamb, expediting visas for Hollywood personnel traveling for location shoots and addressing the perpetual crisis of “Kiwis losing their passports in Las Vegas,” as one previous inhabitant of the office put it.
A delegation of New Zealand officials was preparing for their first World Cup appearance since 2010 uncertain whether any of their opposite numbers from Iran would attend, and how that might affect the standard match-day pageantry.
“This is our first World Cup in 16 years so we can’t tell what’s different,” said James Wear, a general manager of the New Zealand Football Association. “We don’t have anything to compare.”
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