Exclusive with GOP debate strategist Brett O’Donnell – 9/9/24 Edition

In our latest edition, we have an interview with GOP debate strategist Brett O’Donnell, as well as interviews with illegal immigrants about our open borders, an exclusive invitation to Kamala Harris,

September 9, 2024

In this edition

1. GOP debate strategist Brett O’Donnell on what to expect tomorrow night

2. House and Senate updates

3. Heard on the Hill

4. Exclusive: Illegal immigrants: “We know that the border is open”

5. Rep. Hudson on Kamala’s menthol ban

6. Kamala invited to Congressional Gold Medal ceremony, “not optimistic she’ll show”

7. Op-ed: Sen. Jordan Rasmusson on Walz’s failed record

8. Editorial: Kamala Harris’s big Big Tech conflict

9. What we’re reading

In our latest edition, we have an interview with GOP debate strategist Brett O’Donnell, as well as interviews with illegal immigrants about our open borders, an exclusive invitation to Kamala Harris, and more.

GOP debate strategist Brett O’Donnell on what to expect tomorrow night

by Matthew Foldi

Tuesday’s debate between President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris “could be one of the most consequential presidential political debates in American history,” Brett O’Donnell, one of the GOP’s top debate consultants, told the Washington Reporter.

O’Donnell is widely considered the top messaging and debate coach in either party. He’s coached over 100 candidates, including Mike Pompeo, President George W. Bush, Boris Johnson, Senators Tom Cotton (R, Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), and more. He previewed what to expect from this week’s debate, and what Trump and Harris need to accomplish, in an interview with the Reporter.

“While the last debate was probably the most consequential to this point because it ended Joe Biden’s candidacy, this one may surpass that because it is the only major event that the public will have access to learn about Kamala Harris between now and the election,” O’Donnell said.

Trump should be mindful of his body language during the showdown, he added. “Any little thing Trump does that sends a message that he’s attacking her for anything but policy will be magnified by the press to his disadvantage,” O’Donnell said.

House and Senate updates

House:

• On Tuesday, New Hampshire and Delaware will hold primaries for House, Senate, and governor. Rhode Island will also hold primaries for House and Senate.

• On Tuesday, the Veterans Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on whether the Department of Veterans Affairs leadership is “accountable or absent.” The department is in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal that the committee’s chairman, Rep. Mike Bost (R., Ill.) has been exposing for months.

• On Tuesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “evaluating FDA human foods and tobacco programs.”

• On Tuesday, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing examining victims’ perspectives on the Biden-Harris administration’s open borders policies. Later that day, it will hold a hearing on noncitizen voting. The committee held a field hearing in the San Diego region last week that focused on the damage done to Kamala Harris’s home state of California.

• On Tuesday, the Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on “the fall of ESG.”

• On Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on countering the Chinese Communist Party’s “malign…influence in Europe.”

• On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “the role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers.” It will also hold a hearing on the costs of soft on crime policies.

Senate:

• On Thursday, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the Department of Energy’s role in “conducting advanced computing research, application, and security.”

• The Senate will consider several more judicial nominees, including Adam Abelson to be United States District Judge for the District of Maryland and Jeannette Vargas to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) entered a motion to reconsider the failed cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R.7024, Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024.

Heard on the Hill

• Congressional Gold Medal awards: Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) will award the families of the 13 American servicemembers who were killed during the Biden-Harris administration’s failed withdrawal from Afghanistan the Congressional Gold Medal tomorrow. The news of this award was first reported by the Washington Reporter.

• Afghanistan accountability: Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released his report chronicling the Biden-Harris administration’s failures in Afghanistan.

• Decoding DeFi hearing preview: Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, with the possible exception of Rep. Ritchie Torres, are expected to use this week’s hearing on the future of decentralized finance to focus on illicit finance and the Trump family’s DeFi project, we’re told.

• SAVEty first: The House Rules Committee will take up Speaker Johnson’s stop gap-funding bill, and is attaching the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to vote.

• Empire state of mind: Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow for his long-awaited hearing about his COVID-era nursing home policies, which his detractors blame for thousands of unnecessary deaths. In advance of the hearing, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R., Iowa), who’s on the COVID Select Committee, told the Reporter that she’s wondering “which Cuomo will show up? Will he be a chameleon like Kamala Harris and pretend he never said or did what he did and try to hide his true self serving nature?”

• To BEAD or not to BEAD: On Tuesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing examining the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Brendan Carr, the top Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), told us last week in an interview that the program, which Vice President Kamala Harris is in charge of, is the “single slowest moving broadband initiative in history.”

• Team player: Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio) will be a special guest at a Washington, D.C. fundraiser next week for top Republican Senate candidates, including Jim Banks, Bernie Moreno, Sam Brown, Jim Justice, Hung Cao, Eric Hovde, Tim Sheehy, Mike Rogers, Dave McCormick, and Kari Lake. Tickets cost up to $50,000 for the joint fundraising committee.

Exclusive: Illegal immigrants: “We know that the border is open”

by Matthew Foldi

Illegal immigrants “know” that the southern border is open, some told the Washington Reporter last week, as House Republicans conducted a field hearing near the U.S.-Mexico border by San Diego. This group was looking for work, not seeking asylum, its members said; their destinations ranged from Milpitas, California to Phoenix, Arizona.

“We know that the border is open,” an illegal immigrant from Colombia told the Reporter. All interviews were conducted in Spanish. The group, which crossed midday in the sweltering heat, included people from India, Guatemala, and Colombia. Most said they paid cartels to facilitate their transfer. “We are looking for whatever work we can find,” one Guatemalan said. “Construction, whatever.”

“Some Colombians know the border is open, others don’t,” a woman who crossed with a young child told the Reporter. “We know this from the news, from what we see on television.” One Guatemalan pair walked for ten days on foot and spent five days in a truck, they told the Reporter. It was over 100 degrees during the interviews.

Rep. Hudson on Kamala’s menthol ban

by Matthew Foldi

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris would devastate North Carolina’s agriculture industry and put thousands of jobs at risk with her expected menthol cigarette ban, Rep. Richard Hudson (R., N.C.) told the Washington Reporter.

The Biden-Harris administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in 2022 its plan to criminalize menthol cigarettes, which comprise about 40 percent of the cigarette market and are particularly popular among black Americans. This decision was lauded by Michael Bloomberg, one of the Democratic campaign’s largest megadonors. However, the administration recently reversed course, and Hudson suspects politics are at play.

“Kamala Harris and Joe Biden only delayed this ban to try and save face because it’s an election year,” Hudson said. “If Harris becomes president, she will reimplement this bad policy and trample on our freedom of choice while hurting North Carolina’s ag industry — the largest in our state.”

Kamala invited to Congressional Gold Medal ceremony, “not optimistic she’ll show”

by Matthew Foldi

Vice President Kamala Harris has been invited to meet with all of the Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed during President Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, something she has not yet done before. The families will be in the Capitol to receive the Congressional Gold Medal from Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) on Tuesday morning.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) confirmed exclusively to the Washington Reporter that he invited Harris to the ceremony as his guest. “I’ve mapped it out: Vice President Harris can zip down from Philadelphia and make it back in time for Tuesday’s debate with no problem,” Issa said. “I welcome her to join us as my special guest, but I’m not optimistic she’ll show.”

Op-ed: Sen. Jordan Rasmusson on Walz’s failed record

by Sen. Jordan Rasmusson

Since 2022, Minnesota has experienced a stunning scale of fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars directly tied to failures of Gov. Tim Walz’s administration. Feeding Our Future, a non-profit that promised to feed hungry children, engaged in one of the nation’s largest cases of fraud under the guise of using COVID relief funds. More than $250 million was taken away from hungry children to line the pockets of dozens of fraudsters.

Pelican Rapids, a community that I represent in the Minnesota Senate, was victimized in this case. One fraudster claimed that she was feeding 2,560 daily meals to children in a city of 2,600 residents; a simple Google search should have raised some questions. The story was repeated across the state with fantastical numbers of children being fed and clearly fake names on sign-in registers from locations without kitchens.

State leaders failed to provide basic oversight of taxpayer dollars to ensure those who needed the help the most received it. The federal government has since begun prosecuting those who stole the money and who spent it on luxury items for themselves.

Editorial: Kamala Harris’s big Big Tech conflict

by Washington Reporter editors

Kamala Harris has a glaring conflict as she prepares for her high-stakes debate against Donald Trump this week. Her administration heads to court in its suit against Google on Monday; meanwhile, one of her top debate prep advisors, Karen Dunn, is also the lead defense attorney for Google against the Biden-Harris Department of Justice. In politics there are no coincidences, just conflicts — and Harris must answer how it’s possible for her to rely on Dunn’s advice for how to handle Trump, while ignoring any possible advice on how to handle Google.

What we’re reading

• Washington Free Beacon: Biden-Harris Admin Under Pressure To Formally Acknowledge EVs Aren’t ‘Zero-Emission,’ by Thomas Catenacci.

• The Spectator: Kamala’s history of backstabbing her bosses, by Amber Duke.

• Fox News: What kind of justices would President Kamala Harris appoint? by Mike Davis.

• Washington Examiner: Tim Walz promoted research facility that partners with China’s Wuhan lab, by Gabe Kaminsky.

• Town Hall: Deus Ex Machina: Biden-Harris Team’s Failed Fantasy in Gaza, by Bonnie Glick.

• Washington Free Beacon: Congresswoman Demands IRS Investigation Into ‘Non-Partisan’ Charity That Excluded NASCAR Fans From Voter Registration Efforts, by Andrew Kerr.

• Telegraph: BBC ‘breached guidelines 1,500 times’ over Israel-Hamas war, by Camilla Turner.

• Daily Caller: Tim Walz Went To War On Zyn While Pushing Free Needles, Legalizing Pot, by Robert McGreevy.

• Algemeiner: Palestinian Authority Summer Camps: A Place to Idolize Terrorists and Eliminate Israel, by Itamar Marcus.

• National Review: Foreign Automaker Lays Off Thousands of Michigan Workers after Pocketing Hundreds of Millions in Biden EV Subsidies, by James Lynch.