The Kamala Harris coconut tree meme, explained as best we can : NPR

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“We only have one chance to beat Donald Trump, and we need a nominee who can get the job done. And that would be me,” Kennedy said during a presentation on campaign polling in Brooklyn. Elsewhere, the X-rated star was asked by the audience how his family reacted to news of his porn pursuits. Fox told the show that while he does some eye-popping positions on camera, he prefers much more vanilla lovemaking in his personal life. Kody appeared alongside ’80s adult actress Nikki Stern, who left porn to become a librarian.

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It needs an inspirational candidate, but it also relies on a unified staff. People close to the campaign say that lines of authority were blurred between Harris’ sister and campaign chairwoman, Maya Harris, and other advisers who’d worked on her state races but weren’t blood relatives. The sudden collapse of Biden’s control over the party he brought to power, just four months before a presidential election, is without obvious historical precedent. Behind the scenes, people working inside the bowels of Democratic politics and government described the first three weeks of July as a kind of nightmare — too extraordinary to be real, too unexpected to be believed.

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She would have a plethora of promising choices to balance the ticket, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, all of whom won in places where Trump performed well. From the coconut trees to the Venn diagrams, the Harris memes embrace what detractors might consider a gaffe. Trump, for instance, has dubbed Harris “laughing Kamala,” saying the laugh makes her seem “crazy.” Angela White — the infamous “Meryl Streep of porn” — almost died after filming a brutal hourlong sex scene with a well-endowed co-star. James Carville, the Bill Clinton strategist who had long called for Biden to get out, worked the phone from a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska, trying to divine what happens next and get his party to a better place.

Advance teams set up the big moment Tuesday at the NAACP National Convention in Las Vegas, where Biden would show he could paint the contrast with Republicans and debut his 5 percent rent cap. The White House circulated a list of about 20 other elected leaders or union officials the president had spoken with on the plane or while traveling. About 75 members of Congress have reiterated their support for him.

• But polling matters little when your party infrastructure is not behind you.
• The campaign has been comforted by internal data showing that most of the people Biden has lost since the debate are unlikely to vote for Trump, suggesting they may come back.
• He echoed others when he said he was not sure how Biden finds a way out of the spiral in which he is caught — a constant questioning about the path to victory that only makes the path to victory harder.
• While Kennedy denies playing a spoiler role that would hand the election over to Trump, Kennedy has told reporters that he believes Mr. Biden’s odds of beating Trump in November are slim.

Biden is testing how far a president can lead when his followers go astray. The mantra of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — “Diversity is our strength. But two days after that July 11 NATO news conference, the president found himself hunched in front of a stone fireplace in his Rehoboth Beach, Del., home, losing his temper. A war hero had just questioned the toll that age took on his ability to lead.

However, the medical episode didn’t deter White from getting frisky with Lee again, as the pair have gone on to star in several more scenes together. However, the porn star has previously opened up about having her appendix removed. The Aussie adult star, 37, was hospitalized with a burst appendix following the frisky shoot, which was said to have taken place in 2013. The fate of the Democratic Party now hinged on the gut sense of a man who has spent the last 52 years working in national politics. It is not a vigorous data-driven exercise,” said one Democratic strategist, describing the decision Biden had already made and would have to make again.

• Behind the scenes, people working inside the bowels of Democratic politics and government described the first three weeks of July as a kind of nightmare — too extraordinary to be real, too unexpected to be believed.
• But after the debate, she struggled to offer a consistent answer to whether she believed federally mandated busing should be used to integrate schools.
• Every Democratic leader knew Joe Biden would continue his campaign.
• “Keep the faith,” senior deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates posted on social media Thursday.

A long interview with Complex magazine, another with BET, a third with Lester Holt of NBC News. He needed to get out more, to prove his mettle, to replace the images of the doddering debate night in everyone’s mind. History will record that as things got worse, Biden fought harder. Many Democrats described the first three weeks of July as a kind of nightmare — too extraordinary to be real, too unexpected to be believed. While Kennedy denies playing a spoiler role that would hand the election over to Trump, Kennedy has told reporters that he believes Mr. Biden’s odds of beating Trump in November are slim. “For me personally I just like really boring bed sex because I’ve done everything really wild and crazy,” he said.

Trump advisers and operatives in key states began discussing how they could help keep Biden in the race, believing he is a weaker candidate than other options for Democrats. “If Democrats want to win Georgia, they’d be better off with a potted plant at the top of their ticket,” said Cody Hall, a top adviser to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), describing the current environment there. “Lots of rumors going around about my meeting this morning with President Trump. Our main topic was national unity, and I hope to meet with Democratic leaders about that as well. No, I am not dropping out of the race,” Kennedy wrote. After meeting with Trump the morning of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, Kennedy tried to dispel rumors on X suggesting that the pair met to discuss a unity ticket. In May, Kennedy told reporters during a presentation that he believed he had a path to victory if Mr. Biden dropped out of the race, leaving him in a head-to-head race against Mr. Trump. This time, instead of facing off against fellow Democrats, Harris would be able to elevate one to serve as her running mate.

A Harris sequel would look nothing like the original, former advisers said. She’d be buoyed by a Democratic Party that would coalesce behind her, desperate to defeat Trump. Donors who’ve bailed on Biden might take a fresh look at the race with a younger candidate atop the ticket. When Harris gave that announcement speech before a hometown crowd five years ago, her prospects seemed dazzling.

“The polling isn’t good, and it feels like things are just getting worse every day,” the campaign adviser said. One campaign aide said that junior and even some senior staff were in the dark about how Biden wanted to forge ahead. Text messages flew between Capitol Hill, administration officials and others, trying to figure out what was going on. Hungry journalists began reporting the impressions of their sources, who offered guesses about what might happen on the assumption that something different had to happen.