NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 9 pm ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here.
Editor’s note✏️: Welcome to an abbreviated version of “War Notes” — I am on the road today but will see you at 9 p.m. ET
- 🙌🏻Thanks to Amanda for organizing more than usual.
For your travels🎧: The audio version of “Born Lucky” is 51% off — if you prefer to listen to your books … I’ll read “Born Lucky” to you!
- Full disclosure😬: I hate the sound of my own voice, so I haven’t listened to it.
- People are saying👍🏻: I am told it’s an awesome listen for family roadtrips.
Pardon Playbook🤷🏼♂️: Getting a Trump pardon is easy if one can convince him they are the “victim” of a “Biden witch hunt.”
- Watch tonight📺: The latest pardon recipient, Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar, joins us — his daughters reportedly wrote Trump claiming that Biden targeted their father because of his outspoken stance on immigration.
- Look back🔙: Cuellar vocally criticized Biden’s open border — notably because it crushed his congressional district on the Texas border.
- ‼️He was indicted on bribery charges by the Biden DOJ — he denies the allegations.
- Look back🔙: Cuellar vocally criticized Biden’s open border — notably because it crushed his congressional district on the Texas border.
- UNITY🤝: From Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., House members are thrilled.
- Swamp alert🤦🏼♂️: The only thing Congress can agree on is pardoning one of their own on corruption charges.
Open Secret🤫: Tonight, the Minnesota House speaker will tell us the massive Somali welfare fraud has been going on for 10 years — and nobody did anything.
- 🤦🏼♂️The least surprising but most disappointing aspect of the billion-dollar (and growing) fraud is the complete lack of coverage by most media — the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC, CBS didn’t cover it.
- ‼️Amazing Walz got picked for vice president, and nobody said a word about a massive fraud scheme in his state run by an important political constituency.
- 🤦🏼♂️Today: Walz now seems more concerned about ICE raids, Trump’s name-calling and “innocent” Somalis than he does about protecting taxpayer money.
- 📰Jason Riley in The Wall Street Journal outlines the cultural rot and political interests that allowed it to go on unchecked.
- 🗞️Riley headlines: “Can Minnesota’s Somalis Rise Above the Fraud Scandal?”
“Boat Strike Blame Game”🚤: The Drudge Report and the anti-Trump crowd presuppose the second or maybe fourth strike on a drug-running boat is by definition “illegal.”
- 🤦🏼♂️Thus, somebody must be blamed.
- ‼️Thus, somebody will be the fall guy
- 🫵Thus, for Democrats who want to put Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on trial for war crimes and those on TV that have already convicted him — I have news for you.
- ‼️It’s nowhere near that cut and dry.
- During the global war on terror, there were “double taps,” “triple taps,” “quadruple taps.”
- 🎥There is ample video of gunships shooting terrorists.
- 🎥Just watch here.
- 🤷🏼♂️None of those are or were war crimes.
- ‼️The president has wide latitude to set the rules of engagement and designate groups as terrorists.
- 🤷🏼♂️So even if you assume the Washington Post reporting is true, it still doesn’t come close to proving a war crime took place, much less who committed it.
Watch tonight📺: Rep Adam Smith, D-Wash., and former Marine Raider Elliot Ackerman join us.
Cold Comfort 🥶
🤷🏼♂️In a certain scenario, the only people who can save Republicans from themselves are Democrats as we head into midterm elections next year.
- 📉The theory goes like this — polling right now for Republicans one year out from the midterms sucks — but it’s generic polling.
- 👀But the best thing Republicans have going for them is Democrats keep picking far-left candidates even in conservative races.
- ✏️Erick Erickson wrote about it this morning in his excellent show notes substack.
- 📝Erickson’s Midterm Take: GOP needs to go on offense
- ✏️“The GOP needs to amplify the craziest and nuttiest progressives in each Democrat primary and make it appear that person is the one the GOP fears the most. Help shape the Democratic primary and push it as far left as possible because, as much as voters do not like Donald Trump, they positively hate the far left,” writes Erickson.
- 📝Erickson’s Midterm Take: GOP needs to go on offense
- 🏆When the Democrat centrists won in New Jersey and Virginia by outsized margins, they talked about affordability and ran largely from the center of the Democratic Party.
- Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs🥣: In last night’s special election in Tennessee, Aftyn Behn ran as an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., progressive who once said she hated Nashville.
- 🤷🏼♂️Yes, she got within eight or nine points of the Trump-backed candidate, but couldn’t close the deal.
- 🗣️On last night’s show, Yemisi Egbewole described her as “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Look back🔙: Republicans gave up easily winnable races in the 2022 midterms because they picked similarly cuckoo candidates — think Herschel Walker in Georgia.
- 📝“Republicans Should Be Very Worried After Winning TN-07 by Single Digits,” writes our Mike Nellis.
- ✏️“If Democrats overperform in next year’s midterms by even close to that margin, states like Iowa, Alaska, and Texas come into play—if we run strong candidates. And a whole swath of Republican House seats will suddenly be vulnerable, especially in Texas, where their gerrymandered map may backfire,” writes Nellis.
- 🤦🏼♂️Yeah, Mike — strong candidates are not people who say they hate the city they want to represent.
Watch tonight📺: Our buddies Mike Nellis and Steve Cortes join us tonight.
Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 9/8 CT on NewsNation. Find your channel here.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.