While former President Donald Trump and his allies are exuding confidence at him winning the 2024 presidential election, Semafor's Benjy Sarlin is seeing the potential for significant hubris in the final days of the campaign.
Even though polling shows that the race for the White House is a dead heat, Sarlin notes that "maybe too confident" MAGA allies such as X CEO Elon Musk and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are making brash claims about their plans after a Trump win that could spook undecided voters.
"His top allies are increasingly boasting about sweeping new initiatives in politically perilous territory in the election’s final days, even as they have a knife’s-edge race to complete before they have a chance to enact any of them," writes Sarlin.
Musk in particular has given Democrats a potential gift by claiming that his plans for the federal budget will cause "temporary hardship," while the anti-vaccine Kennedy has been claiming that Trump will put him in charge of the Health and Human Services Administration.
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And House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently reopened the debate about the Affordable Care Act when he bragged that he had a big sweeping plan to dismantle the law that provides health insurance to tens of millions of Americans.
According to Sarlin, Democrats have been quick to pounce on such admissions.
"In each case, Democrats highlighted the remarks to feed existing attacks that a Trump campaign would slash social spending and empower unqualified or extreme loyalists," he writes. "A DNC spokeswoman warned Trump would hand critical offices to an 'anti-science conspiracy theorist' in Kennedy. The Harris campaign shared Musk’s 'temporary hardship' quotes on social media, which fit into recent ads allied groups have run highlighting the billionaire’s influence on Trump. The campaign, which has attacked Trump for promising only vague 'concepts of a plan' on health care, accused Johnson of revealing plans to take away health care benefits and protections for pre-existing conditions."
