With the nation's economy - and much of the president's legacy - hanging in the balance just weeks before the election, White House chief economist Lael Brainard told management that they needed to come up with a new offer to the striking longshoremen. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stressed that Hurricane Helene magnified the importance of a deal. Labor Secretary Julie Su expressed optimism that the union would agree to a temporary extension if raises were included.

And then, in a surprising move, as the call was wrapping up, Zients told the board members of the United States Maritime Alliance that he was going to tell Biden in about an hour that they had agreed to propose a new offer to the union. By that point, the shipping executives had agreed to do no such thing. Zients was saying they would.

"I need the offer today - not tomorrow. Today," Zients said on the call. "I'm going to brief the president in an hour that you believe you can get this done today."

Less than 12 hours later, White House officials were celebrating a deal to reopen the ports until January - postponing the issue until after this November's election. The agreement provides collective if temporary relief to skittish Democrats from the White House to Capitol Hill, while buoying Vice President Kamala Harris along with Friday's strong jobs report.

This is what happens when you have a wizened leader - not an ego-driven braggart show-off - in charge of the nation's economic well being. Diamond Joe understands the true art of the deal in ways Trump can't even contemplate simply because Joe was acting primarily in this nation's best interests, not just his own and his legacy's.

But I have little doubt that Trump would have stopped the strike quickly as well, the difference being he would have ordered strikers back to work by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act because he could care less about the workers' desires, only caring about the owners' and his own.

What is it the Dems were right to insert an unelected candidate because Joe is senile or Joe is still a master statesmen and the DNC inserted their will with a non primaried candidate?

You people are far too desperate to be wrong. Kamala Harris IS the elected Vice President of the United States from 2020. Joe Biden cannot fire her, only voters can do that. Her constitutional job is to replace the President if he can no longer perform his duties. That is all she did. She was on the ticket in 2024 as VP and got the very same votes as Biden - again with every single voter in full knowledge that she'd replace Biden if he could not serve.

Primary elections aren't in the constitution. They exist as a mechanism for political parties to determine their ultimate representative, and that only comes after a vote by the party's version of the Electoral College, called their party convention, with selected delegates taking the place of its state's voters. Harris was overwhelmingly elected by the delegates and is as valid a nominee as every other one elected the same way before her. Party delegates and members had the option of stepping forward and running against Harris at the convention, and none did because everyone agreed that she was the best person to lead the ticket and so they voted that way.