Politics
How Kamala Harris is preparing to meet the moment was the talk of BLN live event in Brooklyn
By Kara Schindler
There was one name that dominated nearly every conversation and every panel at the “BLN Live: Democracy 2024” event in Brooklyn on Saturday: Kamala Harris. The vice president’s unexpected entrance into the presidential race — and the renewed sense of unity it has inspired among Democrats — came up like a refrain, and it was the topic that instantly sparked the most enthusiasm in the 2,000-person auditorium.
On Saturday afternoon, BLN anchors, experts and 4,000 dedicated viewers took over the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a first-of-its-kind live experience that featured in-depth panels, conversation and analysis about the incredibly high stakes of the upcoming election. And Harris’ historic candidacy was the primary subject of those conversations over the course of two sessions.
“One of the things that’s happened in the last five, six weeks is America has figured out how much Harris was underestimated,” Claire McCaskill told the crowd to roaring applause.
“[Harris] really stepped into this moment in a way a lot of people failed to anticipate,” Joy Reid said during a discussion later with fellow anchor Alex Wagner.
But it wasn’t just the element of surprise that has helped Harris re-ignite the Democratic Party. “Harris’ candidacy represents an affirmation that the path Obama opened for the country might actually be its destiny,” Wagner argued. “It’s not just a Democrat might save the country from Donald Trump. It’s a Democrat who could meaningfully move the ball forward and finally shatter that last glass ceiling.”
The audience’s enthusiasm for Harris was heightened by a collective anticipation for the biggest test of the vice president’s abbreviated campaign to date: her first faceoff with former President Donald Trump at Tuesday’s presidential debate. “Is Kamala Harris freaking out?” Jen Psaki asked McCaskill and longtime debate moderator Andrea Mitchell in an onstage “editorial meeting” about how Harris ought to prepare. “She’s focused,” McCaskill suggested, “and then I think she’s also [most likely] giving a little thought to how she can bug him.”
But the question of how much the debate might affect the course of the race was more in dispute. “We just had the most consequential debate in American history. A debate the first five minutes of which not only ended [Joe Biden’s candidacy] but changed, just a month before the convention, the terms of the general election,” Rachel Maddow said before she asked Lawrence O’Donnell. “Is this next debate likely to also be very consequential?”
“It’s unbelievably difficult to reach these undecided voters with these kinds of activities,” O’Donnell said. “I don’t think it has the ability to shift much.”
The upcoming debate is only one of many unknown factors at play at this stage of the race. Despite poll numbers that Steve Kornacki agreed should make Democrats happy, the overall picture “is one of exceedingly close, narrow margins,” he explained.
Another unknown factor remains the future of the Republican Party after the election. Asked by an audience member whether Harris’ victory could finally dismantle the MAGA movement, McCaskill drew on her own experience. “I won an election by 15 points in 2012 and lost by 6 in 2018 to a guy who was hugging Trump,” recalled the former Democratic senator from Missouri. “What happened? Well, the mainlining of grievance … and I’m not sure if that goes away.”
“There’s a number of House and Senate members that think they’re going to be the next Donald Trump,” McCaskill continued, pointing to Sens. Josh Hawley and JD Vance as examples. “It remains to be seen whether this cult of personality is transferable.”
Kornacki also shared his view of the harmful costs of Trump’s enduring presence in national politics. “Do you see us as terminally polarized, terminally red and blue?” Katy Tur asked Kornacki.
He admitted it’s a question he’s been asked a lot. “Pessimistically, I think there’s a very tribal impulse in all of us,” he said. “But I have one optimistic note, that is maybe … maybe all of us, collectively, just get sick of it.”
Wrapping up the day, Maddow and O’Donnell took a moment to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities of covering such a historic election at BLN. “I value the editorial freedom that we’ve got,” Maddow said. “That is a blessing and something worth protecting and fighting for. It’s the art of what we do and not the science — and I love it.”
Kara Schindler
Kara Schindler is a digital platform producer at BLN.
‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing
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Politics
Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.
President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.
In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.
Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.
Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.
“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.
Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.
“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.
He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”
Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.
“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”
The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.
In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.
“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.
He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”
The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.
“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.
Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.
“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.
He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”
While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.
“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”
Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.
Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.
“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.
He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”
Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.
The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.
Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.
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