All Signs Point to a Trump Debate Meltdown

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( [Abbreviated Pundit Roundup]( is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet. - [All Signs Point to a Trump Debate Meltdown]( Biden is eager for the chance to stand toe-to-toe with his predecessor because it will be incredibly hard to look worse in comparison. Of course, Biden actually isn’t behind Trump in the polls, with most showing the race essentially tied—and several including the most recent NYT Ipsos poll showing Biden up by 3. Further, the idea that “age” is an issue for two guys who are essentially the same age, is one that does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. But never mind all that. No, after talking to a number of Biden administration officials, it is clear that the primary reason Joe Biden chose to debate Donald Trump is… because he can win. - [Can you please support reader-funded news and grassroots activism with a monthly donation of $3 to Daily Kos?]( - ["Accusation as confession": Biden isn’t "weaponizing" the DOJ but Trump has and will again]( The briefest review of Trump's and Biden's records puts the lie to Republicans' "weaponization" claims. The deeper Trump-era Republicans fall into aberrant behavior, the more they lean on a single answer to Democrats: whatever we do, you do - and vice versa. Call it false equivalency, or whataboutism, or accusation-as-confession by an extremist party trying to pass as a normal one. Republicans’ attempt to justify their behavior to Washington reporters like me has become an all-season reflex. When President Joe Biden pressured Israel to dial back its assault on Gaza, former Vice President Mike Pence likened it to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. When Senate Democrats dismissed their meritless impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republicans declared it a permission slip for sidetracking future impeachments of Republicans. National security, government finance, social policy – Republicans apply false equivalence to any political jam. - [The Biden Campaign Is Worried]( The decision to propose two debates with Donald Trump is a clear sign the president’s reelection team knows it’s behind. It might be true that no course corrections are necessary. Simply staying on message for the next six months might be all the 81-year-old president and his campaign need to reach minimal news-consuming swing voters in time for Election Day. Think back to 2012, when Democrats were panicking about President Barack Obama’s prospects and questioning his ability to communicate economic improvement coming out of the Great Recession. In the CBS/New York Times poll, from 2010 through much of 2012, Obama’s handling of the economy was significantly underwater. To make matters worse for the Obama-Biden ticket, Mitt Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, had a solid bounce in late August following the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, and caught Obama in the poll average. - [Why Israel's Defense Minister Just Broke His Silence About Netanyahu's Gaza War Paralysis]( Israeli Defense Minister Gallant's press conference calling for a 'day after' plan in Gaza was his third time publicly putting Netanyahu on blast. While it won't take Netanyahu down, it portends more turmoil Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has made little secret of his contempt for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout this war. Long before his bombshell of a press conference on Wednesday night, in one of the very rare occasions over the past seven months in which the two were seen together in public (at a press conference on October 28), a reporter asked Gallant, "You've expressed confidence in the [Israel Defense Forces] chief of staff and in the directors of the Shin Bet and Mossad. Do you have confidence in the prime minister as well?" Gallant hesitated for a second and answered, "I spoke about what I'm responsible for – the security establishment." Israel was at war and its defense minister was refusing to say that he had confidence in the prime minister. Not that it came as much of a surprise to anyone. Seven months earlier, Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant over his open objections to the judicial overhaul and backed down only in the wake of a night of massive protests that rocked his government and forced him to suspend the legislation. Netanyahu may have rescinded the dismissal, but that hardly restored confidence. - [Pentagon says Gaza pier anchored, but U.N. casts doubt on distribution]( U.S. officials said aid deliveries could start “within days,” but it was unclear whether there was a firm deal with the U.N. to distribute the food once it arrives on land. About 90 trucks per day are expected to come over the pier via an attached floating causeway before ramping up to 150 trucks daily, officials have said. After the operation was announced by President Biden in early March, the Pentagon said up to 2 million meals per day could eventually be moved into Gaza via this “maritime corridor.” Yet even as the U.S. military has said delays in getting the deliveries underway were largely due to poor weather and sea swells, the United Nations continued to hedge Thursday on whether it has fully agreed to deliver the aid brought from the pier. In a news briefing later in the day, Farhan Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, characterized the negotiations as “still going on. - [Show your support for independent news with a Daily Kos t-shirt—union decorated and made in the USA! Click here to get yours]( - [Unpacking the Cuellar Indictment]( Husband and wife corruption On April 30 federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas indicted U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife Imelda on corruption charges. Cuellar is a Democrat who has represented Texas’s 29th Congressional District since 2005. The District is in Southern Texas, stretching from the Mexican border to the Houston suburbs. He and Imelda have been married since 1992. She worked for 25 years in Texas state government before retiring in 2012. Prosecutors charge that beginning in 2014, the Cuellars engaged in two separate years-long bribery schemes. One alleged scheme involved a state-owned oil and gas company in Azerbaijan, and the other involved a large retail bank chain based in Mexico. The Cuellars allegedly accepted nearly $600,000 from these companies in exchange for the Congressman’s agreement to perform official acts on their behalf and unlawfully act as their agent. The case looks compelling. Much of the evidence comes from the Congressman’s own emails and text messages, which appear to demonstrate his eagerness to work on behalf of these foreign interests. There’s a long paper trail of bank records and money transfers that appear to lack any innocent explanation. At least three other people involved in the schemes have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution. The defendants have pleaded not guilty and Cuellar has said he still intends to run for re-election in the fall. Want to write your own stories? [Log in]( or [sign up]( to post articles and comments on Daily Kos, the nation's largest progressive community. Follow Daily Kos on [Facebook](, [Threads](, and [Instagram](. Thanks for all you do, The Daily Kos team We're not asking for much Over the past 12 months, the average donation to Daily Kos has been just $9.44. These donations may seem small, but they're a big deal to us. In fact, they are our largest source of income. We literally couldn't do the work we do without them. Can you join thousands of other Daily Kos readers and help us with a donation of $9.44 right now? 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