Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Who Is the Audience? 👀

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Alert🚨: President Trump will address the nation tonight at 9 p.m. ET from the White House.

📺Chris Cuomo hosts the pregame to Trump's speech 8 to 9 p.m ET
📺We have a special two-hour post-show till 11 p.m. ET.
- Our star guests include the great Erick Erickson, who included our interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., in his excellent ShowNotes substack — I subscribe. You should too.
  - Late this afternoon, Eric noted Republicans in congress are pushing back on Trump in important ways
    - Watch here

Which Trump🤷🏼‍♂️: Tonight, Trump exercises one of the presidency's greatest powers — an Oval Office address ahead of Christmas on every network.

👀So which Trump do we get?
- 🗣️Is it rally Trump?
- 🖥️Is it teleprompter Trump?
- 📉No doubt he has lots to trumpet — the stock market, lower gas prices, lower mortgage rates, "real" wage growth and the promise of massive corporate investment coming next year.
🤷🏼‍♂️Sometimes the president must be the comforter in chief
- 💰Rightly or wrongly, the American people are generally uneasy about the economy — he must speak to them and reassure them.
- ⏱️The MAGA world is willing to give Trump time.
- 🗣️He doesn't need to speak to them — he needs to speak to people who voted for him in 2024 because of the economy and are still hurting.

War with Venezuela? Part of Trump's speech will likely be an update on his plans for pressuring Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro.

‼️And hopefully make his case about why it's worth risking American lives to do it
Star reminder ⭐: Today in Dover, Trump watched the dignified transfer of two National Guardsmen killed by ISIS in Syria.
- Lesson ✏️: War — even against a weaker and disorganized foe — is not free of risk.

Brown University Update‼️: It's been five days since a gunman killed two people on the Ivy League campus, and no one has been arrested.

Zoom out 💻: This is how conspiracy theories start and grow on the internet —
- 👮Either the cops are totally incompetent or trying to hide things for one reason or another
🤦🏼If it weren't so serious, some of the press conference moments would be out of a "Saturday Night Live" skit.
- 🗣️The attorney general said he didn't have much to add but wanted to say everyone was doing a great job.
- 📷The lack of cameras across much of the Brown campus
- 🚓Arresting someone only to release them
- 🧑‍🏫The president of the university claiming not knowing why students were in the classroom at the time of the shooting
- 📹The police chief not knowing where the surveillance video came from.
  - 🎤Providence police chief: "The video that we showed you came from inside the building."
  - 🎤RI attorney general: "It's from the outside of the building."
  - 🎤Police chief: "Both inside and outside. I'm sorry! Just outside."
📷Today, police released new photos, but it's not of their person of interest. It's someone who they think came close to the shooter
- Remember‼️: There is a cold-blooded killer of two people wandering the streets tonight — who will they target next? We have no idea.
- Watch tonight📺: Former FBI agent and NewsNation contributor Tracy Walder joins us.

Last Night 📺

‼️Muslims have hated Jews long before modern-day Israel and long before America — the threat of jihad and Islamic terrorism isn't about antisemitism anymore.

⚠️It's about the incompatibility of the Islamic ideology with Western values
📺Last night, I asked Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., what was a bigger threat to America right now: Islamophobia or Jihad?
- 🎤Her response: Trump
- 🎤"I think we have to focus quite frankly on, if we're worried about the threat to American values, on the person who's in the White House. Because we have a president who has completely undermined our democracy," said Schultz.

Watch tonight📺: Allie Beth Stuckey, who pointed out in October that the No. 1 issue for her mostly young female conservative audience is and was the rise of Islamic ideology in America.

WATCH ON BALANCE WEEKNIGHTS AT 9P/8C

Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

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