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When does Katie Ledecky swim? Wednesday’s 1,500 free final up next

Katie Ledecky could earn her first gold medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics as the overwhelming favorite in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

The 27-year-old American is undefeated in the 1,500 as a professional. She dominated the U.S. Olympic Trials by 20 seconds. Ledecky, who holds the 19 fastest times in the event’s history, is expected to claim the gold medal Wednesday.

The 1,500 final is the culmination of the two-day event, which is split over multiple days due to the length of the race and the endurance it requires. Ledecky swept the prelims Tuesday.

When will Katie Ledecky compete today?

Katie Ledecky will compete in the 1,500-meter freestyle final Wednesday at Paris La Défense Arena. The event will begin at 3:04 p.m. ET.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

How many Olympic medals does Katie Ledecky have?

A win Wednesday would give Ledecky 12 medals in her Olympic career. Fellow Americans Dara Torres, Jenny Thompson and Natalie Coughlin also amassed 12 Olympic medals. No American female swimmer has won 13 medals.

Ledecky will have two chances to do just that — first at the 4×200-meter relay and later in the 800-meter freestyle — before the conclusion of the Paris games.

Katie Ledecky 2024 Paris Olympics schedule

Here is the rest of Ledecky’s schedule for the 2024 Paris Olympics:

Women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay: Thursday, Aug. 1 (heats at 5 a.m. ET; finals at 3:48 p.m. ET)
Women’s 800-meter freestyle: Friday, Aug. 2 (heats at 5 a.m. ET); Saturday, Aug. 3 (finals at 3:09 p.m. ET)

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This hoops star brings Lady Vols back to Olympic Games

PARIS — Something was missing from the Tokyo Olympics, and Cierra Burdick noticed immediately. 

The 2015 Tennessee graduate, an All-American forward for the storied basketball program, couldn’t believe it. For the first time in Olympic history, there were no Lady Vols on the USA Basketball rosters at the Tokyo Games, either in traditional 5×5 or 3×3, the newest hoops event. 

Burdick has remedied that at the 2024 Paris Olympics as a member of the four-player women’s 3×3 team, which plays its second game, against Azerbaijan, on Wednesday. The Americans lost their opener against Germany.

“I’m super grateful to be able to bring the Lady Vol sisterhood back to the Olympic Games, it’s not something I take lightly,” Burdick said. “I know Pat (Summitt) is smiling down on me for sure. The Lady Vol sisterhood, and just the support system we have in Knoxville — and honestly worldwide, the Tennessee community is everywhere — to be able to represent them in the Games is incredible. Orange runs through me, and I’m gonna do my best to represent Rocky Top.” 

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2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

It’s not a destination Burdick expected, and she’s the first to admit it. 

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be here at the Olympics,” she said. “I was very realistic with my skills. I knew I wasn’t one of the best 12 in the U.S. in five-on-five. I played on U16, U17 and U19 teams but I knew my chances for making the Olympic team were slim to none. 

“Then 3×3 came on the circuit and I was like, ‘OK this I might be able to go to the Olympics in.’ ”

She’s thrived in the newer event, helping the U.S. to 3×3 gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Games, the 2023 FIBA World Cup and the 2014 FIBA World Cup. 

When the Charlotte, North Carolina, native was picking a college, she had three criteria: be within four hours of home; play for a staff that would make her better; go somewhere that developed pros. 

She got that in Tennessee and Summitt, a famously demanding coaching legend who many believe built the foundation for what women’s college basketball is today. Summitt won eight national championships in her illustrious 38-year career, sending dozens of players to the pros and Olympics. For decades, the Lady Vols set the standard in college hoops. 

But when the iconic coach announced in 2011 that she’d been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 59, everything slowly unraveled. Summitt stepped down after the 2011-12 season, Burdick’s freshman year, and longtime assistant Holly Warlick took over. 

By its standards Tennessee has struggled since then. The Lady Vols haven’t been to a Final Four since 2008, their last national championship, and haven’t gotten past the Sweet 16 since 2016, the year Summitt died. In April, the school surprised many in women’s basketball when it fired alum Kellie Harper, who won three national championships as a player and had a 108-52 record over five seasons as head coach.

“Obviously we’re all hungry for the Lady Vol program to get back to where it was,” Burdick said. “Our program has definitely gone through some transitions but you know, there’s not a book written on how to handle what happened. We tried to manage as best we could. 

“I think everything cycles, sports cycle. UConn won four national championships in a row with Stewie (Breanna Stewart) and they haven’t won one since. They’re trying to get back to that as well.”

As Tennessee’s program dipped, its production of All-Americans — and Olympians — slowed, too. Summitt’s influence isn’t as obvious either. With the retirement of seven-time All-Star Candace Parker before the 2024 WNBA season, there’s now just one former UT player left in the league who played for Summitt, Isabelle Harrison of the Chicago Sky. Burdick has not played in the WNBA since 2021.

While Lady Vol alums still populate WNBA rosters, they’re not as common as they once were, and certainly not as prevalent as players from their longtime rival, UConn. There are just six former Lady Vols in the league this summer compared to 16 from UConn; there are also three former Huskies on the women’s 5×5 team at these Olympics in Stewart, Napheesa Collier and Diana Taurasi. 

Before Burdick, the last Lady Vol to be an Olympian was Tamika Catchings, who won four gold medals with Team USA (2004, ’08, ’12 and ’16) and is widely considered one of the best two-way players in the history of the game.

Burdick’s role on the 3×3 roster is unique. She’s the only veteran player who’s not in the WNBA (guard Hailey Van Lith is still in college). This roster hasn’t played together before Paris, and its other two players, Rhyne Howard and Dearica Hamby, have limited 3×3 experience. Howard, the 2022 WNBA Rookie of the Year, has never played a 3×3 tournament outside, which happens at the Olympics. 

‘That’s the OG,’ Howard said of Burdick. ‘She knows a lot beyond her years. Just having her makes our jobs a lot easier. She’s always saying what she wants from us and what she needs us to do to continue to be better.” 

Burdick is happy to shoulder the leadership responsibility. She’s leaning on what she learned under Summitt and her famous “Definite Dozen” to help the U.S. defend gold over the next couple weeks. 

“I’m gonna take the backseat to my teammates at all times,” Burdick said. “My role (is) just to make sure I can lead them, to make their job as easy as possible, to try to keep the team together and be the glue. Making sure I’m putting the team first at all times, I definitely learned that from Pat. It was never about the individual (player) with her. Her humility was on another level.” 

Burdick also thinks she won’t be the last Lady Vol in the USA Basketball pipeline. 

“I think (WNBA rookie) Rickea Jackson will be an Olympian at some point,” she said. “Hopefully I got us back, and it’ll just keep rolling from that.” 

She’s positive it’s exactly what Summitt would demand.

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Hispanic House Republicans compare Biden to Venezuelan leader Maduro over ‘outrageous’ SCOTUS plan

A trio of Cuban American House Republicans is comparing President Biden to some of Latin America’s most notorious autocrats over his proposal to transform the Supreme Court.

Florida GOP Reps. Maria Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez recorded a video earlier this week arguing that Biden’s plan falls in line with methods used by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and current President Nicolás Maduro, whose recent re-election was widely denounced by the international community as illegitimate. 

Salazar said Biden’s plan ‘is outrageous’ and ‘goes against the system, the American exceptionality, that we all enjoy.’

‘I mean, look, we’ve seen this happen in history time and time again. When somebody, for political reasons, tries to change the institutions – the Supreme Court, by the way, has been instrumental in maintaining the rule of law and democracy in this country,’ Diaz-Balart said.

‘It is highly dangerous, unacceptable, and that is real threat to democracy and to all of the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States.’

Gimenez chimed in, adding, ‘We had a great example of a threat to democracy yesterday, when the Maduro regime invalidated an election and tried, or is trying to, stay in power.’

‘What’s the first thing that Hugo Chávez did when he became president 24 years ago? He actually reformed the Supreme Court of Venezuela, so he made things legal for himself,’ Gimenez continued. ‘Touching the judicial system is one way to maintain power, and so this is really, really dangerous for the national security, for our security, and the security of democracy here in the United States.’

Salazar then jabbed Democrats’ warnings that former President Trump represents a threat to democracy, adding, ‘The president of the United States is saying that he wants to change the democracy. Not President Trump, but President Biden. So be very careful, because touching the Supreme Court is touching the core of the American system.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

Biden detailed his plan for a binding code of ethics as well as a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity and mandated term limits for Supreme Court justices in an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Monday.

The plan was near-universally heckled by Republicans, but Biden’s Democratic allies, who have been pushing for similar or more radical Supreme Court changes, praised the initiative.

‘Clear ethics violations and increasing politicization have made clear that SCOTUS is broken – and that reform is urgently needed to restore Americans’ faith in the integrity of the Court,’ Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who has proposed legislation on the issue, wrote on X.

However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled that any such changes would not be taken up by a GOP-controlled House.

‘This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume,’ Johnson said Monday. ‘This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.’ 

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Stocks

Semiconductors Are Down: Is Now the Time to Buy SMH?

Nvidia (NVDA) was perhaps the most outstanding semiconductor trade of 2024. While some people might have missed out, there are still plenty of chances to get in. 

But it’s also wise to look for a diversified alternative. And to that end, the trade that’s flashing a potential opportunity is the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH).

Why Consider Investing in SMH?

SMH has outperformed the S&P 500 ($SPX) over the last 10 years. It’s deeply diversified within the cyclical semiconductor space, and it carries exposure not only to top-quality chip stocks but also to those on the cutting edge of the AI industry.

SMH: Four Ways to Look At It

SMH has broken below the measured move of a double-top reversal. Does this present a threat of further downside or an opportunity to buy the bounce? 

The fundamental bias is bullish on long-term tech and AI demand. The technical bias, also bullish, is toward finding areas of support for a potential buy. 

Here are four ways to look at it:

1—SMH: Analyst Price Targets for 2025

Based on several rating sites, analyst price targets for SMH in 2025 are as follows (you can follow this ACP chart by clicking here).

High Estimates

$451.50 $380.60 

Average Estimates

$357.32 $300.68 

Low Estimates

$263.14 $227.98 

2—SMH: Simple Moving Averages and Support

Looking at the chart below, SMH blasted through both the 50-day and 100-day simple moving averages (SMAs). Reading the price action from a swing trader’s perspective, those who went short at the bottom of the double-top formation likely covered their positions upon reaching 100% of the measured move near the 100-day SMA. That probably accounted for the bounce.

CHART 1. DAILY CHART OF SMH. The 50, 100, and 200-day simple moving averages are still in “full sail.”

But if you look at the last four candles, you can see that the July 30, 2024, candle took out the bottom of the last swing low (three sessions prior). This tells you that neither the near-term swing low nor the 100-day SMA will likely serve as reliable support levels.

While the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) tells you that selling pressure prevails, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) also hints at the possibility that the current move may dip into “oversold” territory. Might this indicate a potential bounce? If so, might you have to wait until SMH approaches the 200-day SMA before seeing a strong reversal candle and a change in momentum?

3—SMH: Ichimoku Cloud and Volume-by-Price

Looking at the chart below, the Ichimoku Cloud projected a thickening bullish range of support but now looks to be turning red. Plus, price pierced the bottom of the cloud, which suggests bearish.

CHART 2. DAILY CHART OF SMH WITH ICHIMOKU CLOUD AND VOLUME-BY-PRICE. This gives a better indication of a potential range of support. 

But since the cloud is plotted to indicate range, this scenario is somewhat tempered by the Volume-by-Price indicator, which, too, offers a way to view a potential zone of support (and resistance) by way of strong areas of concentrated market activity. According to it, SMH has just entered a strong zone of prior market action. Whether there will be a reversal within this range or a more contentious and congestive back-and-forth as bulls and bears aim to seize direction—this is something to watch. Dropping below this range may render it a resistance level, suggesting further downside. 

Lastly, you might want to examine the price action from another angle, one that might give you a more specific reading of levels.

4—SMH: Short Term vs Long-Term Fibonacci Retracements

The chart shows two sets of Fibonacci retracements: A long-term Fib from the November 2023 low to the July 2024 high, and a short-term Fib from the April 2024 to the July high of the same year.

CHART 3. DAILY CHART OF SMH: Compare the short-term and long-term Fib retracements; both highlight a single actionable zone that aligns with the chart above.

Taking an educated guess on the action based on these levels:

Short-term bulls attempted to enter at $230 as it coincided with the short-term 61.8% retracement level (which is arguably a favorable low entry point). The $230 price level also coincides with the longer-term Fib 38.2%, which, for longer-term traders, is an early buy point for those looking to get in on the long side.If the price can’t hold above $230, then short-term traders may liquidate their positions, as this would invalidate the case for a short-term trade.Those with a longer-term perspective, however, would probably begin piling in at $210 which is where the longer-term 50% Fib level is located. $200 is a crucial support level, matching the April swing low. A drop below this would challenge any bullish outlook despite the 61.8% Fib level traditionally being a valid entry point below this price.

At the Close

The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) offers a compelling opportunity on the long side. Despite recent technical challenges, the fundamental picture remains bullish due to strong long-term demand for tech and AI. Plus, analyst price targets for 2025 are optimistic. However, there are specific price levels below which can invalidate such a bullish thesis. The bullish opportunity SMH presents presents itself at a vulnerable juncture, so keep an eye on those levels. 

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.

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Texas AG wins $1.4B settlement from Facebook-parent Meta over facial-capture charges

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has won a $1.4 billion settlement from Facebook parent Meta over charges that it captured users’ facial and biometric data without properly informing them it was doing so.

Paxton said that starting in 2011, Meta, then known as Facebook, rolled out a “tag” feature that involved software that learned how to recognize and sort faces in photos.

In doing so, it automatically turned on the feature without explaining how it worked, Paxton said — something that violated a 2009 state statute governing the use of biometric data, as well as running afoul of the state’s deceptive trade practices act.

‘Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted,’ he said in a statement.

As part of the settlement, Meta did not admit to wrongdoing. Facebook discontinued how it had previously used face-recognition technology in 2021, in the process deleting the face-scan data of more than one billion users. 

The settlement amount, which Paxton said is the largest ever obtained by a single state against a business, will be paid out over five years.

“This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights,’ Paxton said. ‘Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.”

A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that the company was ‘pleased to resolve this matter’ and that it looks forward to ‘exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.”

Paxton, an outspoken conservative who was nearly forced out as attorney general last year after he was impeached by the state’s House on abuse-of-power charges, has long railed against large tech companies while closely aligning himself with right-leaning figures in Silicon Valley like Elon Musk.

As a result, he has been floated as a potential U.S. attorney general in a second Trump administration, even as he still faces a federal investigation.

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Look: Snoop Dogg enters pool with Michael Phelps at Paris Olympics

Snoop Dogg has been one of the brightest stars of the 2024 Paris Olympics for his outward support of the United States, and he teamed up with the most decorated Olympian ever to try his hand at one of the events.

Snoop Dogg, who’s providing content and serving as a commentator for NBC during the Games, entered the pool with Michael Phelps in a segment on Tuesday. Phelps, regarded as perhaps the best swimmer ever, is a 28-time Olympic medalist, 23 of them being golds.

‘Now, MP, how does one get so fast in the pool?’ Snoop Dogg asks Phelps in the video.

‘Wingspan, lung power,’ Phelps said.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

‘You just described me,’ Snoop Dogg replied. ‘You said wingspan, lung power. I definitely have great lung power.’

The ‘lung power’ statement doesn’t need to be explained for Snoop Dogg, one of the most famous rappers in the world who originates from Long Beach, California.

Snoop Dogg was then shown swimming the length of the small pool the duo was in, with Phelps obviously looking much smoother in the water.

‘Mike, you make this look too easy,’ Snoop Dogg said. ‘As you see, I’m in gold medal condition. And he’s still in gold medal condition, as we speak.’

The hilarious segment aired during NBC’s ‘Primetime in Paris’ part of the TV schedule, where lead anchor Mike Tirico recapped some of the top Olympics from the day.

Here’s the full video of Snoop Dogg and Phelps’ TV segment on Tuesday:

Michael Phelps, Snoop Dogg swim together at Olympics

Here’s the full video of Phelps and Snoop Dogg swimming together in an NBC segment at the Paris Olympics:

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Two US boats qualify for finals in rowing as one event falls off

VAIRES-SUR-MARNE, France – Team USA rowers Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford finished third in their Olympic semifinal heat of the lightweight women’s doubles sculls Wednesday to advance to Friday’s finals at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.

Sechser and Reckford qualified in a time of 7:05.03, behind rowing power Great Britain (6:59.79) and New Zealand (7:02.86).

Sechser and Reckford finished fifth, a second behind the gold-medal winning Italian team, at the 2020 Olympic Games.

‘I’m obviously biased I think it’s the best race that’s ever happened in the sport of rowing,’ Reckford said of the 2020 Olympic final. ‘But like many of the same crews who have again qualified for the final, that was a wild experience and like I said I’ve dreamt about having another chance at that race since then.’

Ireland, Greece and Romania will join the U.S., Great Britain and New Zealand in the final.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

This is the last year for lightweight pairs at the Olympics as the event will be replaced by coastal rowing at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 as part of a push by the International Olympic Committee to do away with weight-class division in non-combat sports.

Jess Thoennes and Azja Czajkowski, the U.S. women’s rowing pair also qualified for the finals in their event Friday with a second-place finish behind Australia. Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania and Greece also reached the finals.

‘Full transparency, I was a little surprised to look over and see that we were up after 500, but it was good,’ Czajkowski said. ‘I think we just did our thing and it was epic that the heat, we shook some of the sillies out and now we’re in a good spot, I think.’

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Is Simone Biles competing today? Olympics all-around final schedule

Simone Biles and Team USA have already made their impact on the 2024 Paris Games, but the eight-time Olympic medalist has a chance to pick up more hardware on Thursday during the all-around final.

Biles made her highly anticipated return to the Olympic stage on Sunday and helped the United States win gold in the team final Tuesday, despite appearing to tweak her calf during warm-ups on the floor exercise during qualifiers. Biles has more Olympic medals than any American gymnast in history.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Is Simone Biles competing today?

Simone Biles and Team USA are idle on Wednesday. The next women’s gymnastics event scheduled at the 2024 Paris Games is the all-around final Thursday.

Will Simone Biles compete in the all-around final?

Simone Biles will compete in the all-around final and the finals for vault, balance beam and floor exercise. Suni Lee joins Biles in the all-around competition. Jordan Chiles missed the all-around final due to the two-per-country rule.

Who has more Olympic medals than Biles?

Full Olympic gymnastics schedule for Wednesday, July 31

Men’s All-Around Final: 11:30 a.m. ET

Watch the 2024 Olympics FREE on Fubo

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Simone Biles’ redemption and Paris Olympic gold medal was for herself

PARIS — Simone Biles never needed to prove anything to anyone.

Not when she returned in 2023 and became the most-decorated gymnast of all time. Not when she made a third Olympic team. Not when she began the women’s gymnastics team final at the 2024 Paris Olympics by nailing the event where everything went sideways three years ago.

Not even when she stood atop the podium, listening to the Star-Spangled Banner for the umpteenth time.

This Olympic gold medal? It’s for Biles and her three veteran teammates, each of whom bears her own scars from the Tokyo Games. The haters and the miscreants who criticized Biles three years ago can go pound sand for all she cares. They were wrong about her then, ignorant or obtuse to the fact her physical safety was at stake, and they’re no longer entitled to space in her head or on her bandwagon.

Biles simply wanted it for herself. And if anyone deserves it, she does.

‘I don’t keep count (of medals). I don’t keep stats. I just go out there, do what I’m supposed to do,’ Biles said. ‘I’m doing what I love and enjoying it. That’s really all that matters to me.’

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Since Biles returned, and this year in particular, there is a lightness to her that is both heart-warming and inspiring. She is doing gymnastics because she wants to, not because anyone else does or the world expects her to. She has her own standards, and no longer worries about meeting anyone else’s.

She’ll never say she’s cured of the anxiety that brought on “the twisties” in Tokyo, causing her to lose her sense of where she was in the air. But she has done the work needed to move beyond it, even having a therapy session Tuesday morning.

The difference was evident almost from the start Tuesday night.

Just like three years ago, the Americans began on vault. And just like three years ago, Biles did a vault with a twisting element. A Cheng instead of an Amanar, but that’s beside the point. When Biles stood at the end of the runway, she looked serious but not fearful, ready rather than uncertain.

“I am not going to lie, it did cross my mind,” said Cecile Landi, who is both the U.S. coach and one of Biles’ personal coaches along with her husband, Laurent.

But Biles soared high into the air, twisting 1.5 times and landing on her feet. She had to take a small hop back to steady herself — the Cheng is one of the most difficult vaults, after all — but she’d done what she planned to.

What she wanted her body to do.

“I was relieved. I was like, ‘Whoo!’ Because no flashbacks or anything,” Biles said. “But I did feel a lot of relief and as soon as I landed vault, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re gonna do this.’”

On the sidelines, Landi and Jordan Chiles jumped up and down as if they were on springs. They know better than anyone the weight of that moment, Chiles also training with Biles at World Champions Centre outside Houston.

The rest of the world saw a vault. They saw Biles reclaiming her Olympic story.

“Nobody knows truly what the past three years have been like for her,” Landi said. “Just to be able to compete well … it was just super relief. Today she just proved, to herself most importantly, that she is still on top of the world.”

Short of the U.S. bus getting lost on the way to the arena, there was never any doubt the Americans were going to win gold. They have won every world and Olympic title but one going back to 2011, and the only team to beat them isn’t even here. But what began as a competition quickly became a coronation. This was the biggest competition of their lives, and it looked more like four friends having fun with one another.

When Biles finished her uneven bars routine, her grin was so bright it rivaled the lights that twinkle on the Eiffel Tower at night. She and her teammates were so loose they were picking people out of the crowd, dancing and generally having the time of their lives.

‘We had fun,’ Biles said. ‘We enjoyed each other’s time out there and we just did our gymnastics.’

The Americans were so dominant that, even with a fall on beam by Chiles, Biles knew all she had to do on floor exercise was land her passes upright. She went out of bounds on two of them but, with her difficulty, it hardly mattered. She was beaming when she finished, waving her hands to acknowledge the thunderous cheers for her.

While her husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, twirled an American flag in the stands, she and the rest of the team stood at the edge of the floor podium to await her score. There were no signs of apprehension or concern. They knew they were champions, the final score simply confirmation.

When it did come, Biles smiled again. She had the courage to confront her demons and come back to her sport, and do it while the whole world was watching. That is her real prize.

The USA TODAY app brings you every Team USA medal — right when it happens. Download for full Olympics coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and much more.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

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In battle to define Harris, Trump hits Democratic coup, ad calls her ‘dangerously liberal’

Donald Trump and his allies keep talking about a coup.

I don’t quite see what that gets them.

It seems more an expression of frustration than anything else. The campaign spent two years preparing to run against Joe Biden, with frailty and mental acuity an overriding issue, and now they’ve got an energetic, 59-year-old vice president who has not been fully defined the way presidential nominees usually are by this point.

In his interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump said: ‘They staged a coup against the President of the United States. They went in and they told him, you’re leaving. You’re way down in the polls, 17 points, I think. It’s like you’re in a fight with somebody, and you’re really winning, and they take him out and they put somebody else in. Nobody ever heard of this before. This is a coup.’

Now I can understand the argument that 14 million people voted for Biden in the primaries and none for Harris though she was on the ticket with him and that they have been disenfranchised.

Then the mainstream media and Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi, through increasingly blatant leaks, pressured Biden into stepping aside.

But the reason it’s not a coup is that Harris, armed with the president’s endorsement, was the only candidate who emerged. Not one Democrat challenged her. Not Gretchen Whitmer, not Gavin Newsom, not Pete Buttigieg, not Josh Shapiro, not any of the other names that have been bandied about. 

Now that reflects in significant measure the worry about a backlash for passing over the first black woman and Asian-American woman to seek the presidency. Harris also deserves credit for assembling enough delegates to win in just 32 hours. So she ran unopposed. 

JD Vance, in a recording obtained by the Washington Post, told donors in Minnesota that the VP represented a unique challenge.  

‘All of us were hit with a little bit of a political sucker punch,’ Vance said. ‘The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden, because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger. And Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did…

‘Let’s be honest, 10 days ago, the two candidates who were running for president, everybody had an opinion about ’em. Love ’em or hate ’em, everybody has an opinion about Donald Trump and Joe Biden after the past eight years. But Kamala Harris, people don’t really know.’

Now that’s candor behind closed doors.

It also underscores that the battle to define the vice president’s image over the next few weeks will make or break her candidacy.

In his first ad since clinching the nomination, airing in battleground states, blames Harris for the mess at the border, with the tagline: ‘Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.’

Vance has also had a rough rollout. CNN reports that he said several years ago: 

‘We think babies are good because we’re not sociopaths…

‘And the fact that so many people, especially in America’s leadership class, just don’t have that in their lives.

‘You know, I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less, less mentally stable.’

As for Twitter, ‘almost always, the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don’t have kids at all.’

As I’ve argued, the mainstream press seems far more interested in Vance’s history of controversial statements than in Harris’ past ultra-liberal stances, including promoting a bail fund for BLM rioters in 2020. 

The New York Times described her old clips and comments as ‘weaponization’ by Republicans, as if the media don’t have an obligation to dig as well. 

In other news from the ‘Ingraham Angle’ interview:

–Trump made a false accusation against the president on classified documents. ‘Now, with Biden, he really was convicted of that case. He was let go of that case. And, by the way, you’re talking about many more [documents]. And he didn’t have the Presidential Records Act…They said he was incompetent and, therefore, he can’t stand trial, and yet he would have been allowed to be president.’

Biden wouldn’t have to stand trial because special counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges. He voluntarily contacted authorities upon realizing that he had many classified documents from his vice-presidential years and turned them over.

 

Trump, who was indicted for withholding documents, boasted that the case had been thrown out – by the Florida judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, who has made many rulings favoring him. That is being appealed.

–He sent mixed signals on the debates, saying he will ‘probably’ debate Harris, ‘but I can also make a case for not doing it.’

–Trump cleaned up a furor over telling a Christian audience that they won’t have to vote in four years because he will have fixed everything. He said he was telling them ‘you never vote. This time, vote. I will straighten out the country. You won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote. You can go back to not voting.’

–The former president said Harris ‘got rid of the laugh. I noticed I haven’t seen that crazy laugh that she’s got. She’s crazy. That laugh, that’s the laugh of a crazy person.’

With less than 100 days to go, there may not be many laughs in what promises to be an ugly campaign.

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