The Josh Hammer Report

Josh Hammer

Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large And Host,
"The Josh Hammer Show"

Into the home stretch we go! There are now officially less than three weeks remaining until the presidential election. Hard to believe, right? It's anybody's race, but all signs right now point toward a veritable Harris-Walz implosion—and a resounding Trump-Vance victory. At the eleventh hour, Kamala Harris has finally chosen to take a stand—and that stand is to double down on tying herself to the Biden-Harris administration's catastrophically unpopular record. To quote the great 2004 Hollywood comedy, Dodgeball, "It's a bold move Cotton, let's see if it pays off."

The Harris-Walz campaign is flailing around right now, desperate to latch onto something tangible and to recover the Democratic ticket's standing from a month or two ago. Kamala has been engaging in what psychologists call "projection," ludicrously claiming that it is Donald Trump—and not her—who has been avoiding the media. Meanwhile, she is sitting down with Fox News' Bret Baier tonight, and is openly musing about the possibility of going on Joe Rogan's popular podcast. Could you imagine Kamala trying to hold a conversation with Rogan for three hours? Grab your popcorn!

These are not the signs of a healthy and confident presidential campaign. One can only imagine how terrible the Democrats' internal polling in the nation's seven battleground states (Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) must be. Out on the campaign trail, Kamala was in Erie, Pennsylvania the other day—and Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who is locked in a tight Keystone State re-election race, refused to appear alongside her. Clearly, Casey views Harris as an electoral hindrance. Not good.

Meanwhile, Kamala is pandering to black voters in obsequious and outright offensive fashion, desperate to try to put the Humpty Dumpty of the intersectional 2008 Barack Obama Democratic coalition back together again. (I discussed this and much more, incidentally, on yesterday's "Megyn Kelly Show.") Fact is, Kamala Harris is running out of time. Anything can still happen, but there has been a noticeable vibe shift in recent weeks. Everyone can sense it. And as of now, I predict Donald Trump will win the presidency with more than 300 Electoral College votes.

To keep up with all my media hits and other writings, make sure to follow me on Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can listen to all episodes of "The Josh Hammer Show" at the Newsweek website or on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. (The show is also on the radio in multiple markets, and we are looking to expand!) I also have a second show, "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," with The First; you can subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to also check out my new Subtext chat, which you can read all about and sign up for here.

Our highlighted Newsweek op-eds from the past week include selections from Sohrab Ahmari, Mark A. DiPlacido, Lila Rose, Helen M. Alvaré, and Joseph Epstein.

We will be back in your inbox next week. To my fellow Jews, I wish you a chag Sukkot sameach!

Spotlight

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

One Year After Oct. 7, American Voters Face Stark Foreign Policy Choice

Within minutes of Hamas jihadists breaching the Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, and commencing the largest slaughter of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Western leftists and other defenders of the genocidal Palestinian-Arab cause rallied around a talking point: "This did not occur in a vacuum." The claim, blithely offered by armchair revolutionaries without even acknowledging the many hundreds of butchered babies, sadistically tortured families, raped women, and young music festivalgoers taken hostage, was that Israel had somehow impelled the horrific rampage on its own civilians. Those with a functioning moral compass recognize this as obvious terror apologia.

Reflecting back one year later on the Hamas massacre and the current Middle East imbroglio in which Israel is now fighting a seven-front war, however, I wonder whether the terrorist apologists may have had a point. That is not to suggest that these moral monsters were in any way whatsoever correct to justify, defend, or praise a pogrom so barbaric that it would have made Heinrich Himmler blush. But the mini-jihadists were correct to suggest there was a broader geopolitical context to the massacre—just a totally different one than what they had in mind. The actually relevant context was the weak, failed, and Iran-emboldening foreign policy of former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris.

As Americans get ready to select our next commander-in-chief, the stark contrast between the failed foreign policy of successive Democratic administrations and the successful foreign policy of the interregnum Republican administration, that of former and perhaps future President Donald Trump, is instructive.

Read The Full Column