Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos…. Kanye West announced in a VMA award acceptance speech Sunday night that he has decided to run for president in 2020, although he acknowledged that he did take action to “knock the edge off” before his announcement. He did not add “So what’s YOUR excuse, Jim Gilmore?”
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’16 AT 30 THOUSAND
Our big sib First Read wrote this morning that Ben Carson has got a lot of juice when it comes to early-state polls, despite running a campaign that isn’t exactly, er, conventional. (According to NBC’s Alex Stambaugh, he hasn’t actually set foot in Iowa since August 16 when he stopped at the state fair, for example.) And now a brand NEW poll shows that Carson is surging even more than the Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll appeared to show over the weekend; Monmouth University finds that Carson is tied with Donald Trump at 23 percent in Iowa, leading the rest of the pack by double digits. While Trump has a slight edge with Tea Party supporters and men, Carson has the advantage with evangelicals and women. The numbers beg the question of whether the old idea of “Iowa Nice” might be catching up with Trump just a tad, with the more genteel former neurosurgeon benefiting. As one voter put it to NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard: “I think Trump has done a good thing by stirring everybody up and making the average American believe that there are other people who have the ability to be in power, thinking the same way we are. But he doesn't necessarily have the finesse… I like [Carson’s] demeanor. I think Trump is acting like a spoiled child, and he needs to stop that."
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
- Per NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: Approximately 150 emails in a release of Hillary Clinton's correspondence Monday night will have information redacted because it has now been deemed to require classification, the State Department said Monday.
- NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard spent a few days on the trail in Iowa with Carly Fiorina. Here’s what he learned about her pitch to Iowa voters -- and why she’s gotten a boost in the Hawkeye State.
- Bernie Sanders said Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state was "not a good practice" and rejected any comparison between his campaign's success and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump's rise.
- Bobby Jindal is not happy with Clinton surrogate Joaquin Castro, who has blasted Jindal for saying that “immigration without assimilation is invasion.” NBC’s Danny Freeman reports.
- In First Read, it’s been a long August, with some unexpected winners and losers. And/but: An August winner does not a nominee make.
CAMPAIGN QUICK READS
PERRY: He’s down to just one paid staffer in Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports.
CLINTON: She penned an op-ed with Sen. Tammy Baldwin pushing to “slow Wall Street’s revolving door.”
The AP: “ Experts in government secrecy law see almost no possibility of criminal action against Hillary Clinton or her top aides in connection with now-classified information sent over unsecure email while she was secretary of state, based on the public evidence thus far.”
TRUMP: In an Instagram video, Trump links Jeb Bush’s “act of love” quote with mugshots of undocumented immigrants accused of murder.
FOR THE RECORD…
“They’re short candidates on their side, so, you know, Joe, have a shot at it.”
-- Dick Cheney on the prospects of Joe Biden entering the 2016 race.
TOMORROW’S SKED
Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal campaign in Iowa. Santorum will become the first 2016 candidate to complete the “Full Grassley,” visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties.
Jeb Bush participates in a back to school town hall with high schoolers in Miami.
John Kasich jumps from Michigan to New Hampshire while Marco Rubio campaigns in Nevada.
