ELECTION WIRE 09/04/2020

In politics, the dog days of August are known as the "silly season." And right on schedule, it's gotten silly. Super silly. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hair became virtually the only thing anyone was talking about during the past week. Oh, and there was talk, too, of Pelosi becoming president — seriously. Wait, there's more: President Trump was forced to declare that, no, he did not have a series of "mini-strokes" that sent him to the hospital. But there were other (less silly) things going on as well. The commission that oversees the presidential debates set the moderators for the three contests, and one network was notably missing. Democrat Joe Biden came out of the basement, and after a bloviating answer to a reporter's question and a rowdy heckler who zinged him, he might want to seek refuge there again.

1. BlowOutGate: Pelosi Goes to the Salon Tom Brenner/Getty Images Suddenly, we all know what a "blow-out" is. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has supported full lockdowns over COVID-19 and advocates a national mask policy, was caught this week dropping into a hair salon in California — ordered closed by the governor — and walking around without a mask. In security footage obtained by Fox News, timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. PT, Pelosi can be seen walking through the eSalon in San Francisco without a mask. Ironically, during an appearance on MSNBC that same night, Pelosi blasted President Trump for delivering his Republican National Convention acceptance speech before a live audience on the White House South Lawn, where many people were not wearing masks. The 81-year-old California Democrat, who got a wash and a "blow-out" at the salon, took a few days to come up with a defense: It was all a “setup.” “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I’ve been to over the years many times, and when they said, ‘We’re able to accommodate people one person at a time.’ I trusted that,” the speaker said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. But the Speaker's not sorry. “I take responsibility for falling for a setup. And that’s all I’m going to say on that,” Pelosi said. “I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”

2. No “Mini-Strokes” For Trump Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The president this week denied that he had suffered “a series of mini-strokes” last year that forced him to make an emergency hospital visit. “It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate — FAKE NEWS,” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president then suggested that “perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!” A new book by New York Times correspondent Michael Schmidt claims Vice President Pence was put on standby just in case Trump was incapacitated. Said Pence: “I don’t recall being told to be on standby. I was informed that the president had a doctor’s appointment." "I’ve got to tell you, part of this job is you are always on standby if you’re Vice President of the United States. But the American people can be confident that this president is in remarkable good health, and every single day I see that energy," the vice president said.

3. CNN Snubbed: Commission Sets Debate Moderators Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images You won't have to listen to loaded and biased questions to the Republican candidate and friendly and warm questions to the Democratic candidate this time around. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has announced the moderators for the three upcoming presidential debates, as well as one vice presidential debate — and CNN is nowhere in the mix (which also means the liberal network can't give the Democrat the questions beforehand, as one current network contributor did with Hillary Clinton in 2016 (thanks for that, Donna Brazile). Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace will moderate the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Sept. 29. The second, a town hall debate, will be moderated by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully in Miami on Oct. 15. And the final debate will be moderated by Kristen Welker of NBC and will take place in Nashville on Oct. 22. For the one vice presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), USA Today’s Susan Page will moderate the event, which will take place in Salt Lake City on Oct. 7. It’s worth mentioning that Scully, long considered a fair and balanced journalist among his peers, once worked as an intern for Biden.

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4. President Pelosi? MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images What happens if the presidential election isn't decided on Election Day — or the next day, or week, or month? What if we don't even know by Jan. 20, 2021 — Inauguration Day for the next president — who actually won? Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has laid out a possible scenario, and you might not like the news — it’d be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “President Trump’s term ends at precisely noon on Jan. 20, 2021. If the Electoral College has not yet named a successor, presumably either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, then whoever is the speaker of the House would become the acting president of the United States,” the judge said on Fox News. “Stated simply, whoever is the sitting speaker of the United States, would become president at noon on Jan. 20, 2021, if the Electoral College has failed to elect someone,” he said. The House speaker is second in the line of succession, after the vice president. But Pelosi's tenure might be short-lived. Under a process laid out in the Constitution, if the Electoral College is unable to name a winner, the matter is decided in the House of Representatives. Each state would cast a unified ballot — one state, one vote. Twenty-seven states have a majority of Republican representatives, 22 have a majority of Democrats, with one state tied. So Trump would likely prevail under that scenario.

5. Biden Comes Out Of His Basement, Part 1 Alex Wong/Getty Images Biden doesn't like taking questions from the press — he often waves them off and strolls away, sometimes promising to take questions later. The Democratic presidential nominee tried the same escape attempt this week, but Fox News reporter Peter Doocy cornered him, forcing the fleeing candidate back to his podium. "I know you always ask a hostile question, but go ahead," the 77-year-old Biden said. “You said that you warned President Trump in January that there was going to be a pandemic and what needed to be done,” Doocy said. “If you knew that, then why were you still hosting crowded campaign rallies in March?” Biden delivered a rambling and stammering answer — for nearly five minutes, which you can watch here. His answer included this gem: "Was the pandemic coming and how did it most, how, what's the most, the way it did the most damage?"

6. Biden Comes Out Of His Basement, Part 2 SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Biden has been in lockdown from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, holing up in the basement of his house in Wilmington, Delaware. While the mainstream media has virtually applauded Biden’s mostly virtual life, the Democratic presidential candidate took a boatload of grief from a heckler in Pittsburgh this week. “Hey Joe, you finally got out of the basement!” the man shouted as Biden climbed out of a black SUV, awkwardly holding three pizzas he brought to a fire station. The heckler, who was standing atop a pickup truck holding a Trump flag, was relentless. “Hey Joe, who paid for those pizzas? … Trump would have gave us steak!” he yelled. Biden’s only response to his gadfly: "Don’t jump."

7. Pick 'Em: Look To The Bookies Chavalit Likitratcharoen/EyeEm/Getty Images Political prognosticators pontificate about presidential politics, but bookies pony up. It's one thing to speculate about the outcome of the outcome, but professional oddsmakers literally put their money where their mouths are. According to the website Vegas Election Odds, Trump is holding his own — despite the endless national polls that show otherwise. The website showed Bovada displaying the two candidates nearly tied at -110. BetOnline shows Trump at -120 and Biden at +100; and My Bookie with Trump at -140 and Biden at +110. (All the odds are based on a $100 bet.) “The general election odds have been teetering back-and-forth all week, settling Thursday with both candidates dead even at the betting shops. Trump’s odds went down to -110 while Biden’s went up to -110 as the race is now a pick ‘em with oddsmakers," Bookies.com said.

8. Trump vs. Biden: The Latest Polls The national polls held pretty steady this week, with Biden still leading by a healthy margin by average. RealClearPolitics (RCP) currently gives Biden just a little better than a 7-point lead by average in the national polls. But, of course, on Election Day, the popular vote across America doesn't matter. Here's the RCP’s average of polls in the battleground states (with the numbers from last week in parentheses): Arizona — Biden +5.0 (+2.2) Florida — Biden +1.8 (+ 3.7) Michigan — Biden +2.6 (+7) North Carolina — Biden +0.6 (TIED) Pennsylvania — Biden +4.2 (+5.8) Wisconsin — Biden +4.0 (+3.5)

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