Walz’s strong finish, Biden’s Iran quagmire & Harris’s new small biz coalition
It took a minute, but once he settled in, Tim Walz held his own against JD Vance on big issues like abortion, health care and democracy.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. The general election is in 34 days. Congress is out of session for the next 41 days. The next government funding deadline is in 79 days. Inauguration Day is in 111 days. And early voting in Georgia starts on Oct. 15, a date of deep import to former President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 years old on Tuesday and, according to his grandson, wants to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris.
Carter is the first president to live to 100 and is the oldest surviving and longest-living president. In honor of his birthday, a display was installed on Tuesday morning on the North Lawn of the White House, including the number ”100” with the message “Happy Birthday, President Carter.” It remained on the North Lawn through the end of the day.
The former president celebrated the milestone surrounded by family and friends in his backyard in Plains, Georgia. CBS News reports he was wheeled outside, beneath the shade of his trees, to witness a military flyover with four fighter jets.
There’s a lot of news to get to, so let’s meander. Below, you’ll find some news and notes from last night’s Midwest Nice vice presidential debate.
But first things first:
Crisis in the Middle East: Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday afternoon in response to the limited ground operation Israel began in southern Lebanon early Tuesday morning. Israel’s air defense system detected and intercepted the missiles as they were fired. At President Joe Biden’s direction, US Naval destroyers helped Israel shoot down missiles.
There were no reported deaths in Israel or known damage to aircraft or strategic military assets in Israel, outcomes which led the White House to declare the attack to have been defeated and ineffective. (The US was tracking the reported death of a Palestinian civilian in the West Bank.)
But what happens next will determine if the US can prevent an all-out war from engulfing the Middle East and further increasing the US military presence in the region.
“Obviously, this is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters hours after the attack. “And it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed in this attack in Israel.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was briefed by senior US and Israeli officials on the attack, which he condemned while applauding the effectiveness of the US’s military support and expressing concern Iran and its proxy groups further destabilizing the region.
“America’s commitment to the safety and security of Israel is ironclad and unbreakable, as President Joe Biden and our military has once again demonstrated,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a statement.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said Congress should return to Washington to pass additional funding for Israeli air defense systems and provide disaster relief to North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he was contacting Republican and Democratic colleagues to craft a legislative package as soon as possible. Graham added that the US response should include strikes on Iranian oil refineries to cut off the funding supply for their terrorist attacks.
President Biden told reporters this afternoon that he did not support an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran's nuclear sites and said sanctions would be imposed on Iran. Biden joined a call with the G7—made up of the US plus Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Canada—to discuss the new sanctions package.
“This administration has not lifted a single sanction on Iran. We cannot forget that. Rather, we continue to increase pressure. That’s what we have seen,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “Our extensive sanctions on Iran remain in place, and we certainly will continue to enforce them.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, agreed with the administration that Iran must face consequences.
“But I urge the American and Israeli responses to be strategic and impactful,” Meeks added. “I look forward to working with President Biden and Vice President Harris on a response that serves US interests, and that of Israel and our partners in the region.”
President Biden and Vice President Harris monitored the attack from the White House Situation Room and received regular updates from their national security team. The president said he had not spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yet, but his message when the two leaders talk would depend on the US’s conclusion of the consequences for Iran.
Vice President Harris called Iran a destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East.
“Today’s attack on Israel only further demonstrates that fact,” she said. “We will continue to work with our allies and partners to disrupt Iran’s aggressive behavior and hold them accountable.”
Ahead of the attack, Biden met with Harris and his national security team to discuss Iran’s plans and to review how the US prepared to help Israel defend itself against the attacks and protect US personnel in the region.
A White House official said a call Biden was scheduled to hold on Tuesday afternoon with rabbis ahead of the Jewish High Holidays was rescheduled for another day.
Hurricane Helene latest: President Biden traveled to South Carolina and North Carolina this afternoon. He took an aerial tour of the areas impacted by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, received operational briefings and greeted first responders and local officials. On his way to North Carolina, he engaged with first responders and state and local officials in South Carolina.
Ahead of his trip, he announced Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved the deployment of up to one thousand active-duty soldiers to reinforce the North Carolina National Guard to speed up the delivery of life-saving supplies of food, water, and medicine to isolated communities in the state.
Biden will travel to Florida and Georgia on Thursday to tour areas impacted by Hurricane Helene and meet with affected communities.
Vice President Harris traveled to Augusta, Georgia, this afternoon to survey the hurricane's impacts and receive an on-the-ground briefing about the continued recovery efforts in communities statewide. During her visit, Harris provided updates on the federal government's actions to support Georgia's response and recovery efforts and the other southeastern states impacted by the storm. A White House official said Harris will also travel to North Carolina in the coming days.
Biden and Harris said they would travel to impacted communities earlier this week only when state and local officials determined her visit wouldn’t disrupt emergency response efforts.
Members of Congress have proposed several solutions to support the recovery, and some have called for lawmakers to return to Washington to pass emergency funding.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) introduced a bill on Tuesday to send $10 billion to FEMA and $5 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund disaster relief efforts.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) led a letter from 34 lawmakers from southeastern states on Tuesday to urge congressional leaders to work with them and the Biden administration to ensure disaster relief resources are made available to agricultural producers following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene for the sector. The day before, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) called for emergency assistance for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities who suffered devastating losses after the storm. Stabenow also encouraged farmers and ranchers to report their losses to their crop insurance agents and contact their local USDA offices for information on existing disaster assistance programs.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Tuesday that the search and rescue and the response to the storm will be a multi-billion dollar undertaking.
“The rebuilding is something that is not for today,” he said. “But that is going to be extraordinarily costly, and it's going to be a multi year enterprise.”
Port strike update: President Biden called on USMX, the alliance of container carriers, direct employers and port associations serving the US East and Gulf Coasts, to present a fair offer to the workers of the International Longshoremen’s Association that represents the ILA’s role in helping ocean carriers make up to 800 percent in additional profits during the pandemic.
He added his administration is monitoring the negotiations for any price gouging activities that benefit foreign ocean carries, including those on the USMX board.
In a statement released by her campaign this afternoon, Vice President Harris said the strike is about fairness and accused former President Trump of wanting to pull workers back to a time before they had the freedom to organize.
“Donald Trump makes empty promise after empty promise to American workers, but never delivers,” she said. “He thinks our economy should only work for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who actually build them.”
Harris also committed to passing the PRO Act if elected. The bill, which passed the House in 2020 and 2021 but stalled in the Senate, would ban union-busting and strengthen workers' legal right to join a union.
The strike began Tuesday at midnight and represents the first strike at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports in nearly 50 years.
“Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits,” Biden said in a statement.”
The White House said agency assessments have shown limited impacts on consumers so far but added that President Biden has directed the administration’s supply chain task force to continue dally meetings to prepare to address potential disruptions.
Editor’s note: I intended to write in Monday's edition, “A lengthy work stoppage could cause prices for everything from fruit and auto parts to clothes and spirits to spike—and delay imports of those goods.” Thanks to Mary for pointing out my typo. Apologies for any confusion my oversight caused.
Senate 2024: On Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a new radio ad in the Montana Senate race featuring veterans in the state. The ad slams Republican nominee Tim Sheehy for calling veterans’ benefits “handouts” and advocating for the privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The ad is part of a $79 million ad plan the DSCC announced earlier this spring.
Sheehy is looking to unseat Sen. Jon Tester, a two-term incumbent who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and serves on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership team.
Tester and Sheehy debated on Monday, the second of the cycle. They sparred over several issues, including abortion rights, housing costs, access to public lands and the future of Medicare.
Republicans are eyeing Montana, Ohio and Michigan as pickup opportunities to win back control of the Senate for the first time since 2020. Trump won the first two states in that trio four years ago; the GOP needs to flip just one to make a majority since the seat Sen. Joe Manchin is vacating in West Virginia with his retirement is almost sure to turn red. Michigan is an open seat, so Democrats lack the benefit of incumbency in a closely contested race at the top of the ticket that could have down-ballot effects.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated this race “Lean Republican.” The latest pre-debate poll from RMG Research had Sheehy up seven points over Tester.
ICYMI: In my COURIER column last month, I wrote about how Tester is working to defy the odds again and win in a ruby-red state.
Texas Senate ratings change: The Cook Political Report shifted its rating for the Texas Senate race between Rep. Colin Allred and Sen. Ted Cruz from Likely Republican to Lean Republican, acknowledging Allred's momentum against an unpopular incumbent and with the support of millions of Democratic campaign dollars. The race is one of the Democrats’ few pickup opportunities on an otherwise challenging Senate map.
Trump attempted assassination fallout: President Biden signed a bill into law on Tuesday that requires the Secret Service to apply the same standards for determining the number of agents required to protect presidents, vice presidents, and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The bill passed the House last month by a unanimous 405–0 vote. Days later, the Senate passed it by unanimous consent.
The legislation was introduced in July in response to the attempted assassination of former President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Trump will hold another rally in Butler on Saturday.) A Secret Service agent thwarted what the FBI described as an apparent second attempted assassination at Trump’s Florida golf club last month.
CAPAC decries GOP push to reinstate the China Initiative: Top leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus led almost three dozen members of Congress in a letter to House and Senate leadership to prevent Republican members from reinstating the China Initiative, a Trump-era program created in 2018 to combat espionage. CAPAC said the program gave the government a license to target and profile people of Chinese descent. The Justice Department ended the program in 2022. Still, the House voted during its recent “China week” to reinstate the initiative and the House version of the Commerce, Justice and Science bill includes a provision to relaunch it.
New WH actions on medical debt: Vice President Harris announced three new actions the Biden administration took on Tuesday to reduce medical debt and address illegal medical debt collection practices.
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau clarified the responsibilities of debt collectors to confirm that debts are accurate, valid, and substantiated before engaging in collection actions. The agency also affirmed it will ensure fairness and increase transparency by cracking down on debt collectors that collect on debt that is not owed by patients and released new guidance that explains to consumers what actions they can take when they suspect that they have been improperly billed or if they have had improper or illegal collection actions taken against them.
The Defense Department proposed a rule to implement fee reductions through a sliding-scale discount program and catastrophic cap waivers, which would provide financial relief for civilians receiving medical care at military medical treatment facilities.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services added new questions on medical debt to its Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), an annual survey of Medicare beneficiaries to better understand their health care needs. CMS said the new questions will provide essential background on the levels of medical debt carried by seniors and those with disabilities and the impacts of these debts on their day-to-day lives.
Federal marijuana reclassification update: Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram in support of the DEA’s proposed rule to transfer marijuana from schedule I to schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act.
President Biden directed his administration in October 2022 to initiate the administrative process to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. The Food and Drug Administration conducted an analysis that found the “risks to the public health posed by marijuana are low compared to other drugs of abuse,” like heroin (Schedule I) and cocaine (Schedule II), and that “there is some credible scientific support for the use of marijuana in the treatment” of certain conditions.” The FDA then recommended that marijuana be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule III, which was reviewed and agreed upon by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Sign of the times: Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced the School Safety Notification System Act, a bill that would require school districts to develop emergency response and parental notification procedures for specific threats and emergencies.
Student loan repayment restart: The 12-month grace period for student loan borrowers who miss a payment ended on Tuesday. Over the past year, student loan servicers withheld reports of missed, late or partial payments from the three national credit bureaus.
Going forward, if a borrower’s loan hasn’t been paid for three months, loan services can notify the credit reporting agencies that the loan is delinquent, adversely impacting their credit history. The loan defaults once the borrower hasn’t paid the loan for nine months.
Karine Jean-Pierre said the Education Department has implemented an aggressive strategy to support borrowers still facing challenges returning to repayment. This includes an information campaign to engage borrowers at a high risk of delinquency and help borrowers enroll in income-driven repayment plans with the lowest monthly payments.
“So, there’s plans out there. There’s ways to support some of these borrowers who feel like they could be delinquent here,” she said. “We certainly want to help them get to a point where they can start repaying their loans. And so, the Department of Education has certainly made that a priority as well.”
The Supreme Court declined last month a request from the Biden administration to lift an order from a lower court preventing the Education Department from implementing elements of the SAVE plan, the student loan repayment program President Biden created last year after the Supreme Court overturned his initial debt relief program.
Despite the uncertainty, the Education Department has said it doesn’t plan to extend the grace period.
Harris 2024: The Harris campaign launched a national organizing program to engage and mobilize America’s small business owners. Small Business for Harris-Walz launched with a large community event in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and the campaign will hold organizing events, volunteer trainings and house parties this week with small business owners in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
During the campaign, Harris has proposed expanding the startup expense deduction for small businesses tenfold from $5,000 to $50,000 and set a goal of 25 million new business applications in her first term, exceeding the record 19 million new business applications already seen under the Biden administration. Harris’s plan also includes proposals to provide low- and no-interest loans to small businesses, boost access to venture capital and support innovation hubs and business incubators.
Now, back to last night’s debate:
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is known for peppering his stump speech with sports cliches, so I’ve got one for him: It’s not how you start, but how you finish.
Vice President Harris’s running mate was shaky at the outset of his debate against Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who was on a dual assignment to perform a less pugnacious version of the guy we see on Capitol Hill and the trail while refining the edges of his and Donald Trump’s unpopular policy positions to sound less extreme than they are.
If you read Monday’s debate preview, you were unsurprised by Vance’s gift of persuasive oratory as Reaganisms like “peace through strength” rolled off his tongue as deftly as MAGA greatest hits like “open borders” and “drill, baby, drill.”
For his part, Walz delivered pedestrian affirmations of Harris’s “all-of-the-above” energy policies and attacks on Trump for killing a tough bipartisan border deal. He was fine promoting the ticket’s housing and health care proposals as well.
But he stammered through a nonsensical response when asked to clarify a claim that he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
I’m still puzzled by how unprepared he was, given that the issue was heavily reported in the hours before the debate, providing the campaign plenty of time to craft a sharper rebuttal.
“He still leaves himself open to attack on this,” I wrote in my notebook. “Not a good moment for him.”
But as has been the case for most Democrats since the 2022 Dobbs decision, Walz found his stride when the debate turned to abortion.
He spoke of the women who have been impacted by the abortion bans in two in every five states, including Amber Thurman, the 28-year-old Georgia woman who died due to septic shock after a hospital waited too long to perform a routine medical procedure that the state reclassified as a felony after Dobbs. (The Georgia Supreme Court overturned the state’s abortion ban this week.)
“There’s a very real chance had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today,” Walz said.
Then, Vance squandered any advantage he gained at the start of the debate.
“First of all, Governor, I agree with you, Amber Thurman should still be alive,” he said. “And there are a lot of people who should still be alive, and I certainly wish that she was.”
This may be true, but GOP abortion policy virtually guarantees there will be more stories like Thurman’s if Trump is re-elected with a Republican Congress.
The humanity Vance extended towards Thurman felt even hollower when he claimed he didn’t support a nationwide abortion ban, a position that’s easy to fact-check, as proven by the stream of emails from the Harris campaign, DNC and advocacy groups that hit my inbox to correct the record.
It didn’t get better for Vance on the issue of gun violence when he attributed the nationwide epidemic to the mental health crisis.
“We have an epidemic of children getting guns and shooting themselves, and so we have and we should look at all of the issues, making sure folks have health care and all that,” Walz said. “But I want to be very careful this idea of stigmatizing mental health. Just because you have a mental health issue doesn't mean you're violent. And I think what we end up doing is we start looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just the guns.” (As strong as this response was, Walz terribly misspoke when he said, “I’m friends with school shooters” when speaking about the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting he got to know while he served in Congress.)
It should be no surprise that Vance struggled to articulate how he and Trump would expand and improve health care better than the Affordable Care Act. After all, this topic that led to the former president’s “concepts of plan” gaffe at the first debate.
The nail in Vance’s coffin was the final topic of the night: Democracy.
The senator called censorship the greatest threat to the US system of government and said he was proud of his endorsements from Trump surrogates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, whom he called “lifelong leaders in the Democratic coalition.” Can we get a fact check on that assertion, stat?!
Then came the moment:
Walz: Did [Trump] lose the 2020 election?
Vance: “Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?
Walz: “That is a damning non-answer.”
“You have a really clear choice in this election of who will honor democracy and who will honor Donald Trump,” Walz concluded.
Ahead of the debate, the Harris campaign rolled out two ads to explain how Project 2025 proposals—including eliminating the Education Department, restricting abortion care, ending protections for pre-existing conditions and weakening enforcement of gun laws—would harm Asian Americans. The ads, the fourth wave of Asian American voters in battleground markets since Vice President Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, are running in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the Harris campaign feels Asian American voters will be the margin of victory in November.
In a separate rollout, the campaign launched an ad blitz featuring Trump’s “concepts of a plan” blunder during a discussion on how he would replace the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law he wants to repeal. Another ad features an Allentown, Pennsylvania resident with diabetes who shared her experience making ends meet under the weight of the high cost of insulin, which the Inflation Reduction Act capped at $35 for older Americans. Harris has proposed extending the cap to all Americans.
The Democratic National Committee ran digital ads outside Madison Square Garden in New York City, calling Vance the “poster boy” for Project 2025. The ads included a QR code linking to a website where voters could learn about the plan. The DNC also papered NYC sidewalks with street decals contrasting the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance tickets.
Following Tuesday night’s debate, Walz kicked off a bus tour through central Pennsylvania with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). It’s Walz’s second time in the region and fifth visit to the commonwealth since joining the Democratic ticket. Walz was previously scheduled to join Vice President Harris on the tour before her trip to Georgia was planned.
Walz and Fetterman will stop in Harrisburg, Reading and York, the senator’s native city. President Biden won the county Harrisburg is in by nearly nine points in 2020. Trump won the Berks County by more than eight points and York County by almost 25 points in 2020.
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris participated in two taped interviews with local TV outlets in Pittsburgh and Atlanta that aired Tuesday evening.
She will return to the trail on Thursday with a stop in northeastern Wisconsin, her fifth visit to the crucial swing state since she launched her campaign in July. On Friday, the vice president will travel to Michigan for campaign events in Detroit and Flint, her fourth visit to the state and her first visit to Flint since she rose to the top of the ticket.
And finally, a few evening reads:
“Climate change does not care about your borders” by Kate Aronoff: “Already we can draw two big lessons from Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic fallout.”
“A year of fury and feuding: GOP lawmakers are still reeling from McCarthy’s removal” by Haley Byrd Witt: “‘In the history of politics, it was the single stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,’ New York Rep. Mike Lawler said.”
“Trump took my dad from me. Please don’t let him take our country too” by Caroline Rose Guiliani: “‘Nothing I have experienced prepared me for the very public and relentless implosion of my father’s life,’ writes [in] announcing her support for Kamala Harris.”
“How the entire GOP wants to trigger Mommy Mania” by Erin Vanderhoof; “JD Vance may be an inelegant messenger, but his tradwife-y pitch is not “weird” to a huge swath of conservatives who are pushing Americans to breed. Who’s buying it?”
“This startup wants YouTube creators to get paid for AI training data” by Kate Knibbs: “While big platforms like Reddit have signed deals with the AI giants, YouTube leaves licensing in the hands of individual creators. The “License to Scrape” program aims to give those streaming stars proper leverage.”
“The elite college students who can’t read books” by Rose Horowitch: “To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.”
“The Christian radicals are coming” by Stephanie McCrummen: “The movement that fueled Jan. 6 is revving up again.”
“Teeth-cleaning robots, red-light therapy: What’s ahead for dental health” by Kayla Yup: “These and other treatments in the works could change trips to the dentist.”
“Patients are turning to vibrators to relieve their migraines” by Helen Thompson: “
One billion people experience migraines, yet the perfect treatment is still out of reach. Can a vibrator offer a surprising solution?”
“Amtrak’s new marketing strategy: It’s not a train, it’s a hotel on wheels” by Katie Deighton: “A new multiyear campaign tells a similar story to train ads of yore, but Amtrak executives say their claims are better founded than ever.”
“How Disney stumbled” by EJ Dickson: “Disney built an empire on childhood nostalgia and intangible magic. But in its relentless quest for IP, did it leave its true fans behind?”
“The return of the TV channel” by John Hermann: “Disney+ and Peacock are the latest streamers to bring back good old-fashioned TV channels.”
“How chicken tenders conquered America” by Pete Wells: “The breaded, fried tenderloin turns 50 this year. Yes, there was a time before it was sold in every cafeteria and airport.”
“Everything is a kids menu now” by Alan Sytsma: “Haute nostalgia is here.”
That’s all I’ve got for now,
See you tomorrow,
Michael