‘The Donald dumpster fire.’ CNN’s Oliver Darcy on Trump’s appearance yesterday before the National Association of Black Journalists’ Chicago convention: “Despite the sharp questions … Trump was able to overwhelm them with his trademark bluster.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones perceived no “unified strategy among the three moderators.”
■ The first question: “You’ve used ‘animal ‘and ‘rabid’ to describe Black district attorneys. You’ve attacked Black journalists … saying the questions they asked are, ‘stupid and racist.’ You had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. … Why should Black voters trust you?”
■ Mother Jones: “White man tells Black journalists his Black opponent is not Black.”
■ PolitiFact: He Pants-on-Fire lied when he said Vice President Harris had in the past only promoted her Indian heritage.
■ The Bulwark: “Trump claimed repeatedly that the mics weren’t working. Unfortunately for him, they were.”
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “The only thing worse than the overt racism that came out of his mouth was his apparent belief that he could get away with it.”
■ Columnist Robert Reich: “Cornered by his naked bigotry, Trump shifted to naked pander.”
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: The interview shows Trump’s afraid of Harris.
■ He said he’d “absolutely” pardon Jan. 6, 2021, rioters.
■ Public Notice’s Aaron Rupar’s assembled “an 11-minute supercut of all the lowlights” …
■ … or see the full session—which lasted just 37 minutes, instead of a full hour.
■ Wonkette: “He did so great that his own people made it stop halfway through.”
■ Mayor Johnson, speaking to the convention later in the day: Trump “ran into Blackness and he felt it.”
■ Yet, Washington Post columnist Colbert King cautions, Trump was courting not the Black journalists in the room but “a MAGA audience … that loves mocking people of color.”
■ Still, Politico reports, Capitol Hill Republicans “are privately freaking out.”
‘If Trump isn’t having buyer’s remorse, he certainly should be.’ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “You picked the worst VP candidate ever!”
■ In Chicago, Trump didn’t exactly sing Vance’s praises—instead celebrating himself: “You’re voting for me.”
■ Vance tells NOTUS he still has Trump’s confidence.
Choice words. Axios notes a change in Democratic campaign strategy with the shift from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris: Less democracy, more freedom and the future.
■ Believe it or not, all of this happened in July.
‘The aim is to create a high energy for four days and snare a massive viewing audience.’ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet: To capture the jolt Harris has brought the campaign, Chicago convention organizers are shifting from prerecorded presentations to more live stuff.
■ Coming next week: Community meetings at which neighbors to the United Center and McCormick Place can learn more about how the convention will crimp their lives.
■ Harris’ vice-presidential campaign chief of staff lived—and still owns a home—in Oak Park.
‘Democrats have finally learned the value of shitposting.’ Wired’s Makena Kelly: The party’s strategists have figured out how to go viral.
■ Teen Vogue columnist Rebecca Fishbein: “Screw maturity. Send couch jokes.”
■ Ex-Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath: “An outbreak of happiness threatens to end Trumpism in America.”
■ Saturday Night Live’s bringing Maya Rudolph back to play Harris.
■ Personal note from Chicago Public Square to the presidential candidates: Holler if you need our one of these.
‘Please don't send no combative policemen that are prejudiced.’ 911 recordings reveal that the mother of Sonya Massey, a Black woman shot and killed in her Springfield-area home by a sheriff’s deputy, believed Massey was having a “mental breakdown” and feared that cops could “make the situation worse.”
■ The shootout that left a Cook County sheriff’s deputy dead involved more than 65 shots.
■ Doctors call a 3-month-old shot in the chest Saturday in Little Village a “miracle baby.”
‘Walking through soup.’ If this summer feels worse than usual, Illinois’ state climatologist tells the Tribune you’re not alone—and climate change is the culprit.
■ This weekend’s Lollapalooza might be a slog.
Stuff it, management. Gov. Pritzker’s signed a bill forbidding employers from forcing workers to sit through anti-union meetings …
■ … but not until Jan. 1.
■ A Bloomberg expose: Companies that farm out IT workers are exploiting flaws in the visa lottery system—at the expense of businesses and talented immigrants playing it straight.
9/11 resolution. Eleven years after his capture, the man accused of being the main plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America has agreed to plead guilty.
■ The U.S. and Russia were today reportedly at the threshold of a major prisoner swap.
CBS Evening News overhaul. The show’s backing away from, in Variety’s words, “trying to run down dozens of items … in the space of less than 30 minutes,” instead—as the network news chief says—“to curate what’s important.”
■ Journalism prof Jeff Jarvis rounds up a sampling of liberal disgust with The New York Times.
Thanks. Joel Meyerson and Mike Braden made this edition better.