There are a lot of reasons to feel optimistic about the November election. First, the seamless transition from Biden to VP Harris as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party. Given all of the people in the government, the Democratic Party, and the press who wanted a 3 ring circus for their entertainment, I'm still marveling that the needle got threaded so easily.
I hope we learn more about what happened in the 24 hours after Biden's withdrawal and endorsement. It seems like it was a real balancing act and I don't think a lot of people realize the risk that was inherent in the top of the ticket switch.
The other reason I'm feeling optimistic is that earlier today the Biden administration announced the release of 4 Americans who had been illegally held as prisoners in Russia. You may remember that back in May TFG bragged:
And yet today we learned that Putin agreed to release some of his political prisoners while Joe Biden was in office. This is as clear a signal that you'll see that Putin has given up hope that TFG is going to be reelected. And Dark Brandon was ready for this question at his press conference:
You love to see it.
Another piece of news came out of this story was the role that VP Harris played in the release with high level meetings with the German Chancellor and others:
The Biden administration leaned on Vice President Harris at key moments to help secure the complex multicountry prisoner release, including two high-level meetings in Germany with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, said a senior administration official.
During the Munich Security Conference in February, Harris met with Scholz, and at the end of the meeting, asked him to stay behind while the American and German staff left in what's called a "restricted bilateral meeting," said the official. Harris used the opportunity to discuss the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian citizen serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing of a former Chechen rebel commander in Berlin.
And then there are also these small details:
--Alexi Navalny was part of the swap.
--Biden was negotiating final details just hours before he announced he would not stand for reelection:
Biden—about an hour before he notified the world he was dropping out of the presidential race on July 21—called the prime minister of Slovenia, whose country was contributing two convicted Russian spies to the swap, to secure the pardon necessary for the deal to proceed. CIA Director William Burns traveled to Turkey last week to meet his counterpart there and finalize the logistics for the swap.
And that's a non-paywalled link to the WSJ's story about this exchange.
The best part for me is that it proves Biden is indeed capable of doing the job of being president. Will any of the journalists and pundits who kept telling us that he is senile retract their statements? Yeah, I don't think so, either.
--There had been a lot of speculation about Russian planes sitting on tarmacs around the world. Now we know what it all meant.
Today was a great day for Dark Brandon and a terrible day for TFG. Imagine learning that your biggest supporter broke up with you this way? Putin knew his only option was to take a deal now, so he did and dumped TFG. Oof. You hate to see it.
This seems perfect for today:
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