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Donald Trump's popularity cannot be denied, no matter how many hurdles they try to throw in his way. In the next election, Trump will emerge victorious.
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Contact the PP Team
Donald Trump to run for president in 2024? Can he succeed?
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Trump evokes more anger and fear from Democrats than Biden does from Republicans, AP-NORC poll shows
Many Americans are unenthusiastic about a November rematch of the 2020 presidential election. But presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump appears to stoke more anger and fear among Americans from his opposing party than President Joe Biden does from his.A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that Democrats are more likely to report feeling “fearful” or “angry” about the prospects of another Trump term than Republicans are about the idea of Biden remaining in the White House.
The emotional reaction Trump inspires may work in his favor too, though, since the poll also found that Republicans are more excited about the prospect of a Trump win than Democrats are about a Biden victory.
Seven in 10 Democrats say the words “angry” or “fearful” would describe their emotions “extremely well” or “very well” upon a Trump victory. A smaller majority of Republicans – 56% – say the same about a Biden triumph. About 6 in 10 Democrats cite both emotions when contemplating a Trump victory. Again, that exceeds the roughly 4 out of 10 Republicans who said they would feel both angry and scared about Biden prevailing.
The findings are notable in an unusual campaign pitting an incumbent president against his predecessor, with both men facing doubters within their own parties and among independents. Consolidating support from Republicans who backed Nikki Haley in the GOP primary could be a challenge for Trump. Biden faces disenchanted progressives to his left and concerns over whether his age, 81, is a liability in the job.
Source: AP News
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Trump's unique idea to win the upcoming elections
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Sneakers. Perfume. Trading cards. Bibles.Those are just some of the products Donald Trump is hawking while he runs to unseat President Joe Biden.
They join a sprawling catalog of Trump-branded merchandise, ranging from steaks to scented candles, that the businessman-turned-president has licensed over the years.
But as his campaign coffers dwindle and his fortune comes under threat, Trump — who has never completely severed his political career from his financial one — is now actively intertwining his business ventures with his White House bid.
“There is no precedent for this level” of business activity during a presidential campaign, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig told CNBC, though “the trend has been building for many years.”
Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of money-in-politics watchdog Documented, agreed.
“I can’t think of any other modern example of a presidential candidate hawking an array of goods for their private benefit,” Fischer said.
For an average candidate, that activity might trigger a campaign finance investigation — but it likely won’t for Trump, who has been selling branded goods long before he entered politics, according to Fischer.
“Trump is a unique case,” he said.
That uniqueness was on full display Tuesday, as Trump unveiled his latest promotion: a $60 Bible that includes copies of the nation’s founding documents, along with lyrics from country star Lee Greenwood’s hit song, “God Bless the U.S.A.”
The song by Greenwood, who is partnering with Trump to endorse the high-priced holy book, is a regular needle drop at the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign rallies.
Trump made the campaign connection even more explicit in a video announcing the promotion, warning that Americans’ rights are under threat and declaring, “we’re gonna get it turned around.” He also invoked his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” multiple times.
It is unclear how much money Trump is making off the Bible — he is receiving royalties from its sales, a person familiar with the arrangement told The New York Times — but whatever he gets will be effectively going into his pocket.
The website for the Bibles says it has no link to Trump’s campaign. It instead uses Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from a company called CIC Ventures LLC.
Trump’s 2023 financial disclosure calls him the “Manager, President, Secretary, & Treasurer” of CIC Ventures, and lists his revocable trust as the sole owner of the company. Trump has made more than $5 million in speaking engagements through the company, the disclosure shows. Florida business records show CIC’s address is the same as Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Lessig noted that Trump’s business moves do not appear to be violating campaign ethics or financial rules.
“I don’t think there’s any ethical problem with it at all — so long as the proper reporting requirements are complied with,” the professor said.
“There may well be a strategic or brand problem with it, but that’s the same as with any political speech,” he added.
A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Trump’s Biblical endorsement came during Holy Week, the run-up to Easter and a sacred time for Christians. It also came less than six weeks after Trump traveled to a sneaker convention in Philadelphia to launch his own line of tennis shoes.
Source: CNBC
=====
Sneakers. Perfume. Trading cards. Bibles.Those are just some of the products Donald Trump is hawking while he runs to unseat President Joe Biden.
They join a sprawling catalog of Trump-branded merchandise, ranging from steaks to scented candles, that the businessman-turned-president has licensed over the years.
But as his campaign coffers dwindle and his fortune comes under threat, Trump — who has never completely severed his political career from his financial one — is now actively intertwining his business ventures with his White House bid.
“There is no precedent for this level” of business activity during a presidential campaign, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig told CNBC, though “the trend has been building for many years.”
Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of money-in-politics watchdog Documented, agreed.
“I can’t think of any other modern example of a presidential candidate hawking an array of goods for their private benefit,” Fischer said.
For an average candidate, that activity might trigger a campaign finance investigation — but it likely won’t for Trump, who has been selling branded goods long before he entered politics, according to Fischer.
“Trump is a unique case,” he said.
That uniqueness was on full display Tuesday, as Trump unveiled his latest promotion: a $60 Bible that includes copies of the nation’s founding documents, along with lyrics from country star Lee Greenwood’s hit song, “God Bless the U.S.A.”
The song by Greenwood, who is partnering with Trump to endorse the high-priced holy book, is a regular needle drop at the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign rallies.
Trump made the campaign connection even more explicit in a video announcing the promotion, warning that Americans’ rights are under threat and declaring, “we’re gonna get it turned around.” He also invoked his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” multiple times.
It is unclear how much money Trump is making off the Bible — he is receiving royalties from its sales, a person familiar with the arrangement told The New York Times — but whatever he gets will be effectively going into his pocket.
The website for the Bibles says it has no link to Trump’s campaign. It instead uses Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from a company called CIC Ventures LLC.
Trump’s 2023 financial disclosure calls him the “Manager, President, Secretary, & Treasurer” of CIC Ventures, and lists his revocable trust as the sole owner of the company. Trump has made more than $5 million in speaking engagements through the company, the disclosure shows. Florida business records show CIC’s address is the same as Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Lessig noted that Trump’s business moves do not appear to be violating campaign ethics or financial rules.
“I don’t think there’s any ethical problem with it at all — so long as the proper reporting requirements are complied with,” the professor said.
“There may well be a strategic or brand problem with it, but that’s the same as with any political speech,” he added.
A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Trump’s Biblical endorsement came during Holy Week, the run-up to Easter and a sacred time for Christians. It also came less than six weeks after Trump traveled to a sneaker convention in Philadelphia to launch his own line of tennis shoes.
Source: CNBC
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Trump calls migrants 'animals,' intensifying focus on illegal immigration
Donald Trump called immigrants illegally in the United States "animals" and "not human" in a speech in Michigan on Tuesday, resorting to the degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again on the campaign trail.
The Republican presidential candidate, appearing with several law enforcement officers, described in detail several criminal cases involving suspects in the country illegally and warned that violence and chaos would consume America if he did not win the Nov. 5 election.
In a later speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he struck a similarly foreboding tone, describing the 2024 election as the nation's "final battle."
While speaking of Laken Riley - a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan immigrant in the country illegally - Trump said some immigrants were sub-human.
"The Democrats say, 'Please don't call them animals. They're humans.' I said, 'No, they're not humans, they're not humans, they're animals,'" said Trump, president from 2017 to 2021.
In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump described meeting the family of Ruby Garcia, a local 25-year-old murdered last month by a suspect in the country illegally, according to police. Garcia's sister denied the former president spoke with the family, according to local media reports.
In stump speeches, Trump frequently claims that immigrants crossing the border with Mexico illegally have escaped from prisons and asylums in their home countries and are fueling violent crime in the United States.
While available data on criminals' immigration status is sparse, researchers say people living in the U.S. illegally do not commit violent crimes at a higher rate than native-born citizens.
Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump's rival in the November presidential election, accuses Trump of encouraging Republicans in Congress not to pass legislation this year that would have beefed up security at the southern border and introduced measures aimed at reducing illegal immigration.
"Donald Trump is engaging in extreme rhetoric that promotes division, hate and violence in our country," Michael Tyler, Biden campaign communications director, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Trump's speeches.
Trump titled his Michigan speech "Biden's border bloodbath," and said he met family members of Garcia, who was allegedly murdered last month in her car by Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, whom she was dating.
"They said she had just this most contagious laughter, and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I've heard that from so many people. I spoke to some of her family," Trump said.
Mavi Garcia, Ruby Garcia's sister, disputed that account, according to local television stations.
"He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us," Mavi Garcia was quoted as saying by a local NBC affiliate.
Reuters was not able to immediately contact Garcia's family. A Trump campaign representative declined to comment on the record.
The murders of Garcia and Riley have allowed Trump's campaign to play simultaneously to some voters' fears about violent crime and immigration.
Some 38% of Republicans cited immigration as the country's top issue in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in late February, as did about one in five independents. Trump frequently claims without evidence that migrants have caused a spike in violent crime in U.S. cities. On Tuesday, he repeated an unfounded claim that Latin American nations are intentionally sending their criminals to the United States.
TUESDAY'S WISCONSIN PRIMARY
During his evening speech in Wisconsin, Trump pledged he would stop the "plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburbs, cities and towns."
He also warned that the coming election could be America's last.
"This country is finished if we don't win this election," he said. "And I heard somebody say ... two or three days ago, said, if we don't win, this may be the last election our country ever has. And there could be truth to it."
Michigan and Wisconsin are two swing states that could determine whether Biden or Trump occupies the White House next year.
In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by less than one percentage point and in Michigan by less than three. Both states are expected to be extremely close again this year.
Although both Trump and Biden have mathematically clinched their presidential nominations, they will be on their party's presidential primary ballots in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
The Biden team will be watching for protest votes by Democrats angry over the president's strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
In February's presidential primary in Michigan, a state with a large Muslim population, Biden easily won the primary but more than 100,000 Democrats voted "uncommitted," instead of for Biden, as a protest over his Gaza policy.
A similar option is available in Wisconsin on Tuesday. The protest campaign's goal is to get 20,682 voters to mark their ballots "uninstructed," Wisconsin's version of "uncommitted." The number is significant because it represents Biden's winning margin over Trump in the state in 2020.
Reuters
Donald Trump called immigrants illegally in the United States "animals" and "not human" in a speech in Michigan on Tuesday, resorting to the degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again on the campaign trail.
The Republican presidential candidate, appearing with several law enforcement officers, described in detail several criminal cases involving suspects in the country illegally and warned that violence and chaos would consume America if he did not win the Nov. 5 election.
In a later speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he struck a similarly foreboding tone, describing the 2024 election as the nation's "final battle."
While speaking of Laken Riley - a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan immigrant in the country illegally - Trump said some immigrants were sub-human.
"The Democrats say, 'Please don't call them animals. They're humans.' I said, 'No, they're not humans, they're not humans, they're animals,'" said Trump, president from 2017 to 2021.
In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump described meeting the family of Ruby Garcia, a local 25-year-old murdered last month by a suspect in the country illegally, according to police. Garcia's sister denied the former president spoke with the family, according to local media reports.
In stump speeches, Trump frequently claims that immigrants crossing the border with Mexico illegally have escaped from prisons and asylums in their home countries and are fueling violent crime in the United States.
While available data on criminals' immigration status is sparse, researchers say people living in the U.S. illegally do not commit violent crimes at a higher rate than native-born citizens.
Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump's rival in the November presidential election, accuses Trump of encouraging Republicans in Congress not to pass legislation this year that would have beefed up security at the southern border and introduced measures aimed at reducing illegal immigration.
"Donald Trump is engaging in extreme rhetoric that promotes division, hate and violence in our country," Michael Tyler, Biden campaign communications director, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Trump's speeches.
Trump titled his Michigan speech "Biden's border bloodbath," and said he met family members of Garcia, who was allegedly murdered last month in her car by Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, whom she was dating.
"They said she had just this most contagious laughter, and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I've heard that from so many people. I spoke to some of her family," Trump said.
Mavi Garcia, Ruby Garcia's sister, disputed that account, according to local television stations.
"He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us," Mavi Garcia was quoted as saying by a local NBC affiliate.
Reuters was not able to immediately contact Garcia's family. A Trump campaign representative declined to comment on the record.
The murders of Garcia and Riley have allowed Trump's campaign to play simultaneously to some voters' fears about violent crime and immigration.
Some 38% of Republicans cited immigration as the country's top issue in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in late February, as did about one in five independents. Trump frequently claims without evidence that migrants have caused a spike in violent crime in U.S. cities. On Tuesday, he repeated an unfounded claim that Latin American nations are intentionally sending their criminals to the United States.
TUESDAY'S WISCONSIN PRIMARY
During his evening speech in Wisconsin, Trump pledged he would stop the "plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburbs, cities and towns."
He also warned that the coming election could be America's last.
"This country is finished if we don't win this election," he said. "And I heard somebody say ... two or three days ago, said, if we don't win, this may be the last election our country ever has. And there could be truth to it."
Michigan and Wisconsin are two swing states that could determine whether Biden or Trump occupies the White House next year.
In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by less than one percentage point and in Michigan by less than three. Both states are expected to be extremely close again this year.
Although both Trump and Biden have mathematically clinched their presidential nominations, they will be on their party's presidential primary ballots in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
The Biden team will be watching for protest votes by Democrats angry over the president's strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
In February's presidential primary in Michigan, a state with a large Muslim population, Biden easily won the primary but more than 100,000 Democrats voted "uncommitted," instead of for Biden, as a protest over his Gaza policy.
A similar option is available in Wisconsin on Tuesday. The protest campaign's goal is to get 20,682 voters to mark their ballots "uninstructed," Wisconsin's version of "uncommitted." The number is significant because it represents Biden's winning margin over Trump in the state in 2020.
Reuters
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Let individual states decide abortion rights, Trump says’
Donald Trump has said decisions about abortion rights should be left to the states, releasing a statement on the contentious election issue on Monday.
Many in his Republican Party had wanted him to back a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
But Mr Trump said policies should be set by individual states - as they have been since the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade decision in 2022.
Since then, abortion has emerged as a galvanising issue for many voters.
With several states moving to tighten restrictions, voters have thrown their support behind abortion rights in swing states like Michigan and even in deep-red states like Kentucky.
The former president's comments on Monday morning drew criticism from both liberals and conservatives.
In his video, Mr Trump declared: "My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint; the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both."
Mr Trump also said he was "proudly the person responsible" for the change brought about by the US Supreme Court two years ago, when it overturned the longstanding Roe v Wade decision that a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy was protected by the US constitution.
In 2016, Mr Trump campaigned on appointing justices who would overturn Roe v Wade - and went on to put three conservatives on the court during his presidency.
In his statement, he acknowledged this would create a piecemeal situation: "Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others.
But he said it came down to "the will of the people", adding: "You must follow your heart or in many cases, your religion or your faith."
Mr Trump added that he was in favour of exceptions when rape or incest were involved, or the life of the mother was in danger.
He also reiterated that he was in favour of fertility treatments including in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), a reference to a recent Alabama court ruling that opened a new front in the battle over reproductive rights.
The former president also falsely claimed that national Democratic leaders have a "radical" abortion position that includes "execution after birth".
Mr Trump, who is all but certain to be the Republican presidential candidate, acknowledged that the abortion issue has caused major problems for his party in elections held since 2022.
Voters angry at the Supreme Court decision have showed up at the polls to support Democratic candidates, as well as ballot measures intended to preserve access to abortion.
Democrats have seized on the issue as a way to help re-elect Mr Biden in November, and the Biden campaign on Monday swiftly shared Mr Trump's admission he was proud to have ended Roe.
The president also sent out a lengthy response to the Trump video, saying his political rival was "scrambling".
"Having created the chaos of overturning Roe, he's trying to say, 'Oh, never mind. Don't punish me for that. I just want to win,'" Mr Biden wrote.
He also alleged that Mr Trump would sign off on a federal abortion ban proposed by congressional Republicans if he returned to the White House.
Mr Biden has made universal access to abortion a central campaign issue and pledged that he will work to create a federal law based on the Roe decision.
On Monday, his re-election campaign released a campaign advert featuring a Texas woman who almost died when she developed an infection after being denied an abortion for a pregnancy doctors said was unviable.
Other Democrats also seized on Mr Trump's statement, with Washington state's Senator Patty Murray saying it "changes nothing".
"This is a man who bragged about overturning Roe, supports draconian abortion bans & said women should be punished for seeking care," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"Don't be fooled: we know a second Trump admin would do everything they could to ban abortion nationwide."
Conservative reaction to Mr Trump's message has been largely negative, with his former Vice-President Mike Pence calling it "a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him".
Some argued abortion policy should be set by the federal government, while others objected to Mr Trump's failure to take a stand on the number of weeks at which he would support a ban.
Earlier, Mr Trump had reportedly signalled support for a 15-week limit in private conversations with allies.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally who has proposed a 15-week abortion ban, said he "respectfully [disagrees]" that abortion should be decided by individual states.
"The pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child - not geography," he wrote on X.
Kristan Hawkins, the head of the Students for Life of America, reaffirmed her support for the former president but added there was "some work to do to educate President Trump" on the issue.
While conservative states have moved to limit abortion access over the last two years, other states have passed laws to enshrine abortion rights into law.
Last week, Florida became the latest state to chart its own course - setting up perhaps the highest-stakes political showdown on the issue so far.
First, the state's supreme court upheld the state's right to prohibit abortion, giving the green light for a six-week ban to take effect on 1 May. This amounts to a near-total ban, given that many women do not realise they are pregnant at six weeks.
But the court is also allowing Floridians to vote in November on whether abortion rights should be protected in the state constitution.
Mr Trump, who resides in Florida, won the state in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections - but the Biden campaign says the abortion debate has made the state "winnable" in November.
BBC
Donald Trump has said decisions about abortion rights should be left to the states, releasing a statement on the contentious election issue on Monday.
Many in his Republican Party had wanted him to back a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
But Mr Trump said policies should be set by individual states - as they have been since the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade decision in 2022.
Since then, abortion has emerged as a galvanising issue for many voters.
With several states moving to tighten restrictions, voters have thrown their support behind abortion rights in swing states like Michigan and even in deep-red states like Kentucky.
The former president's comments on Monday morning drew criticism from both liberals and conservatives.
In his video, Mr Trump declared: "My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint; the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both."
Mr Trump also said he was "proudly the person responsible" for the change brought about by the US Supreme Court two years ago, when it overturned the longstanding Roe v Wade decision that a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy was protected by the US constitution.
In 2016, Mr Trump campaigned on appointing justices who would overturn Roe v Wade - and went on to put three conservatives on the court during his presidency.
In his statement, he acknowledged this would create a piecemeal situation: "Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others.
But he said it came down to "the will of the people", adding: "You must follow your heart or in many cases, your religion or your faith."
Mr Trump added that he was in favour of exceptions when rape or incest were involved, or the life of the mother was in danger.
He also reiterated that he was in favour of fertility treatments including in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), a reference to a recent Alabama court ruling that opened a new front in the battle over reproductive rights.
The former president also falsely claimed that national Democratic leaders have a "radical" abortion position that includes "execution after birth".
Mr Trump, who is all but certain to be the Republican presidential candidate, acknowledged that the abortion issue has caused major problems for his party in elections held since 2022.
Voters angry at the Supreme Court decision have showed up at the polls to support Democratic candidates, as well as ballot measures intended to preserve access to abortion.
Democrats have seized on the issue as a way to help re-elect Mr Biden in November, and the Biden campaign on Monday swiftly shared Mr Trump's admission he was proud to have ended Roe.
The president also sent out a lengthy response to the Trump video, saying his political rival was "scrambling".
"Having created the chaos of overturning Roe, he's trying to say, 'Oh, never mind. Don't punish me for that. I just want to win,'" Mr Biden wrote.
He also alleged that Mr Trump would sign off on a federal abortion ban proposed by congressional Republicans if he returned to the White House.
Mr Biden has made universal access to abortion a central campaign issue and pledged that he will work to create a federal law based on the Roe decision.
On Monday, his re-election campaign released a campaign advert featuring a Texas woman who almost died when she developed an infection after being denied an abortion for a pregnancy doctors said was unviable.
Other Democrats also seized on Mr Trump's statement, with Washington state's Senator Patty Murray saying it "changes nothing".
"This is a man who bragged about overturning Roe, supports draconian abortion bans & said women should be punished for seeking care," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"Don't be fooled: we know a second Trump admin would do everything they could to ban abortion nationwide."
Conservative reaction to Mr Trump's message has been largely negative, with his former Vice-President Mike Pence calling it "a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him".
Some argued abortion policy should be set by the federal government, while others objected to Mr Trump's failure to take a stand on the number of weeks at which he would support a ban.
Earlier, Mr Trump had reportedly signalled support for a 15-week limit in private conversations with allies.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally who has proposed a 15-week abortion ban, said he "respectfully [disagrees]" that abortion should be decided by individual states.
"The pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child - not geography," he wrote on X.
Kristan Hawkins, the head of the Students for Life of America, reaffirmed her support for the former president but added there was "some work to do to educate President Trump" on the issue.
While conservative states have moved to limit abortion access over the last two years, other states have passed laws to enshrine abortion rights into law.
Last week, Florida became the latest state to chart its own course - setting up perhaps the highest-stakes political showdown on the issue so far.
First, the state's supreme court upheld the state's right to prohibit abortion, giving the green light for a six-week ban to take effect on 1 May. This amounts to a near-total ban, given that many women do not realise they are pregnant at six weeks.
But the court is also allowing Floridians to vote in November on whether abortion rights should be protected in the state constitution.
Mr Trump, who resides in Florida, won the state in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections - but the Biden campaign says the abortion debate has made the state "winnable" in November.
BBC
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The competition to become Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate is heating up.
Mr Trump has teased crowds with a lengthy shortlist. However, if tradition holds we still have months before learning his selection.
Former VP Mike Pence will not be selected. The two fell out over the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot, and Mr Pence does not plan to vote for his old boss in November.
Here is a look at names rumoured to be in the mix.
Tim Scott
Once a rival of Donald Trump, senator Tim Scott has since thrown his support behind the former president
Senator Tim Scott, arguably the most prominent black Republican in the country, was among the competitors Mr Trump defeated in the party's primary contest.
Mr Scott, 58, pitched his brand of optimistic conservativism, in a play for the influential evangelical Christian vote in early voting states, but his campaign never caught fire.
After struggling to raise money, and three lacklustre debate performances, he exited and quickly endorsed Mr Trump.
It was his rousing remarks at a Trump campaign rally before the New Hampshire primary that elevated him as a top contender for vice-president.
"We need Donald Trump," he said, before appearing on stage during his fellow Republican's victory speech.
He told Mr Trump: he said to Mr Trump: "I just love you." With a smile, the former president responded: "That's why you're a great politician."
Since then, Mr Trump has often remarked that Mr Scott is "much better [at advocating] for me than he was for himself".
Doug Burgum
Another of Mr Trump's fallen primary opponents, Doug Burgum, 67, is in his second term as governor of North Dakota.
Mr Burgum made little impact as a presidential candidate but has returned to the campaign trail with his endorsement of Mr Trump.
A social conservative and fiscal hawk, he said in 2023 that he would never conduct business with Mr Trump because "you're judged by the company you keep".
Mr Burgum began his career with a small software start-up later acquired by Microsoft and his years of entrepreneurship have earned him a billionaire fortune.
He is reported to have impressed Mr Trump with his low-drama demeanour and political know-how - attributes that led to the selection of Mr Pence in 2016.
Elise Stefanik
Elise Stefanik, 39, is a New York congresswoman and the highest-ranking Republican woman in the US House of Representatives.
The once-moderate Trump-hesitant Republican has drifted to the right in recent years, and is now widely considered one of Mr Trump's most loyal defenders on Capitol Hill, even joining his defence at his first impeachment trial in 2020.
In recent months, she has also risen to modest fame in media circles, with her viral take-down of two Ivy League college presidents and elevation of the issue of antisemitism on US college campuses.
She has said that she would be "honoured" to serve in the Trump administration "in any capacity".
Marco Rubio
Mr Trump and Marco Rubio did not get on in the 2016 Republican primary race. Mr Trump called him "Little Marco" - a reference to his stature - while Mr Rubio commented about Mr Trump's small hands.
The Florida senator has since worked closely with his former rival, endorsing him early on in this primary season.
The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Mr Rubio was once floated as a potential running mate to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
At only 52 he is comparatively young and telegenic, and he could help Mr Trump gain a larger share of the Latino vote.
JD Vance
JD Vance, 39, the junior senator from Ohio, has rallied support for Mr Trump on several occasions in recent months.
The Yale-educated former venture capitalist wrote the best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir that followed his blue-collar upbringing in the "rust-belt" Midwest.
Once a self-identified "never-Trumper", Mr Vance refashioned himself when he ran for the Senate in 2022 with Mr Trump's crucial endorsement.
In office, he has championed many of the issues that animate Mr Trump's base.
Mr Vance believes he would be of better use to a future Trump administration in the Senate, but he has not ruled out being vice-president.
"I want to help him however I can," he recently said.
Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, once topped a poll taken by mostly Trump diehards on who he should pick as his vice-president.
Ms Noem, 52, rose to national prominence with appearances on Fox News, especially when she flouted mask mandates and other restrictions during the pandemic.
Her star was very much on the rise until the release of a memoir in 2024, in which she recounted the story of "hating" and then shooting her 14-month-old dog, because it wasn't a good hunting companion. Cricket was "untrainable" and "dangerous", she said.
She also shot a goat she thought was "nasty" and "mean".
The story brought almost universal condemnation, and her shot at being VP may be all but dead.
Byron Donalds
Byron Donalds, 45, has helped raise the profile of black conservatism.
Born in New York to a single mother, Mr Donalds worked in banking, insurance and finance before entering local politics in Florida in 2012.
After four years in the Florida House of Representatives, he has served since 2020 in the US House, representing the right-wing flank of his party in Washington.
Asked in November if he would accept the role of vice-president in a second Trump term, the congressman said: "I mean, who wouldn't?"
Tulsi Gabbard
As a Democrat she was the first Hindu member of the US Congress. Now Tulsi Gabbard may be the biggest dark horse on Mr Trump's shortlist.
A decade ago, the Iraq War veteran and US Army reservist served as vice-chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee - before resigning to endorse Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.
Her time in Congress, from 2013 to 2021, was marked by frequent criticisms of the Obama administration and US military interventionism.
She ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, with her most notable moment being a fierce critique of Kamala Harris - now the vice-president - over her past as a prosecutor in California.
Ms Gabbard, 42, then beefed up her contributions to Fox News and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the Democratic Party.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Mr Trump has spoken with Ms Gabbard - an outspoken critic of Ukraine aid - about foreign policy and managing the Pentagon.
Other names in the mix
Mr Trump has teased crowds with a lengthy shortlist. However, if tradition holds we still have months before learning his selection.
Former VP Mike Pence will not be selected. The two fell out over the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot, and Mr Pence does not plan to vote for his old boss in November.
Here is a look at names rumoured to be in the mix.
Tim Scott
Once a rival of Donald Trump, senator Tim Scott has since thrown his support behind the former president
Senator Tim Scott, arguably the most prominent black Republican in the country, was among the competitors Mr Trump defeated in the party's primary contest.
Mr Scott, 58, pitched his brand of optimistic conservativism, in a play for the influential evangelical Christian vote in early voting states, but his campaign never caught fire.
After struggling to raise money, and three lacklustre debate performances, he exited and quickly endorsed Mr Trump.
It was his rousing remarks at a Trump campaign rally before the New Hampshire primary that elevated him as a top contender for vice-president.
"We need Donald Trump," he said, before appearing on stage during his fellow Republican's victory speech.
He told Mr Trump: he said to Mr Trump: "I just love you." With a smile, the former president responded: "That's why you're a great politician."
Since then, Mr Trump has often remarked that Mr Scott is "much better [at advocating] for me than he was for himself".
Doug Burgum
Another of Mr Trump's fallen primary opponents, Doug Burgum, 67, is in his second term as governor of North Dakota.
Mr Burgum made little impact as a presidential candidate but has returned to the campaign trail with his endorsement of Mr Trump.
A social conservative and fiscal hawk, he said in 2023 that he would never conduct business with Mr Trump because "you're judged by the company you keep".
Mr Burgum began his career with a small software start-up later acquired by Microsoft and his years of entrepreneurship have earned him a billionaire fortune.
He is reported to have impressed Mr Trump with his low-drama demeanour and political know-how - attributes that led to the selection of Mr Pence in 2016.
Elise Stefanik
Elise Stefanik, 39, is a New York congresswoman and the highest-ranking Republican woman in the US House of Representatives.
The once-moderate Trump-hesitant Republican has drifted to the right in recent years, and is now widely considered one of Mr Trump's most loyal defenders on Capitol Hill, even joining his defence at his first impeachment trial in 2020.
In recent months, she has also risen to modest fame in media circles, with her viral take-down of two Ivy League college presidents and elevation of the issue of antisemitism on US college campuses.
She has said that she would be "honoured" to serve in the Trump administration "in any capacity".
Marco Rubio
Mr Trump and Marco Rubio did not get on in the 2016 Republican primary race. Mr Trump called him "Little Marco" - a reference to his stature - while Mr Rubio commented about Mr Trump's small hands.
The Florida senator has since worked closely with his former rival, endorsing him early on in this primary season.
The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Mr Rubio was once floated as a potential running mate to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
At only 52 he is comparatively young and telegenic, and he could help Mr Trump gain a larger share of the Latino vote.
JD Vance
JD Vance, 39, the junior senator from Ohio, has rallied support for Mr Trump on several occasions in recent months.
The Yale-educated former venture capitalist wrote the best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir that followed his blue-collar upbringing in the "rust-belt" Midwest.
Once a self-identified "never-Trumper", Mr Vance refashioned himself when he ran for the Senate in 2022 with Mr Trump's crucial endorsement.
In office, he has championed many of the issues that animate Mr Trump's base.
Mr Vance believes he would be of better use to a future Trump administration in the Senate, but he has not ruled out being vice-president.
"I want to help him however I can," he recently said.
Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, once topped a poll taken by mostly Trump diehards on who he should pick as his vice-president.
Ms Noem, 52, rose to national prominence with appearances on Fox News, especially when she flouted mask mandates and other restrictions during the pandemic.
Her star was very much on the rise until the release of a memoir in 2024, in which she recounted the story of "hating" and then shooting her 14-month-old dog, because it wasn't a good hunting companion. Cricket was "untrainable" and "dangerous", she said.
She also shot a goat she thought was "nasty" and "mean".
The story brought almost universal condemnation, and her shot at being VP may be all but dead.
Byron Donalds
Byron Donalds, 45, has helped raise the profile of black conservatism.
Born in New York to a single mother, Mr Donalds worked in banking, insurance and finance before entering local politics in Florida in 2012.
After four years in the Florida House of Representatives, he has served since 2020 in the US House, representing the right-wing flank of his party in Washington.
Asked in November if he would accept the role of vice-president in a second Trump term, the congressman said: "I mean, who wouldn't?"
Tulsi Gabbard
As a Democrat she was the first Hindu member of the US Congress. Now Tulsi Gabbard may be the biggest dark horse on Mr Trump's shortlist.
A decade ago, the Iraq War veteran and US Army reservist served as vice-chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee - before resigning to endorse Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.
Her time in Congress, from 2013 to 2021, was marked by frequent criticisms of the Obama administration and US military interventionism.
She ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, with her most notable moment being a fierce critique of Kamala Harris - now the vice-president - over her past as a prosecutor in California.
Ms Gabbard, 42, then beefed up her contributions to Fox News and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the Democratic Party.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Mr Trump has spoken with Ms Gabbard - an outspoken critic of Ukraine aid - about foreign policy and managing the Pentagon.
Other names in the mix
- Vivek Ramaswamy: A biotech entrepreneur with no previous political experience, Vivek Ramaswamy impressed Trump fans during his 2024 presidential bid with his sure-footed rhetoric, bold policy agenda and youthful vigour. Mr Ramaswamy dropped out and pledged his full support to Mr Trump, but the former president has recently indicated he has been scratched from the list of potential running mates.
- Ron DeSantis: After romping to re-election as Florida governor in the 2022 midterm elections, Mr DeSantis was pegged as the conservative leader who could carry Mr Trump's movement forward. But his lacklustre presidential campaign crashed and burned in January, though a cheerless endorsement of his chief rival and a recent meeting between the two has since mended fences.
- Nikki Haley: Several of Mr Trump's allies have suggested that a presidential ticket that includes his former UN ambassador could help him win over the suburban female voters uncomfortable with voting for him. But Ms Haley's endurance in the Republican primary and refusal to endorse Mr Trump when she dropped out has irked Mr Trump.
- Katie Britt: The first-term senator from Alabama was widely mocked when she delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech this year, but her temperate policy positions and moderate demeanour could make her a powerful ally in the race.
- Kari Lake: The former TV anchor tethered herself to Mr Trump's unfounded claims of 2020 election fraud and ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor in 2022, a defeat she still does not acknowledge. Ms Lake's charisma has won her many admirers in the Trump camp but she is currently the Republican nominee in this year's US Senate race in Arizona.
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Serving as Mr Trump's White House press secretary for two years boosted this second-generation politician to the governorship of Arkansas. Ms Sanders has not however endeared herself to her former boss, with a belated endorsement of his re-election and a declaration that being governor is is "one of the best jobs I could ever ask for... and I hope I get to do it for the next seven years".
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Donald Trump Loses Battleground State Poll for First Time in Six Months
Donald Trump is polling behind Joe Biden in Arizona for the first time in six months.
According to a poll by Data Orbital on Tuesday, Biden would garner 38.8 percent of the vote share, while Trump would get 38.1 percent if an election were held at the time of sampling. While this lead is incredibly small and within the poll's margin error, it represents the first time Biden has taken the lead in an Arizona state poll since November, according to analysis by polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
For instance, an April Echelon Insights survey of 2,401 registered voters, conducted for the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, showed that Trump was ahead of Biden in Arizona by 51 percent to 45 percent.
In March, the former president and the incumbent won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Republican and Democratic nominations in the 2024 presidential election. Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys or enjoying only marginal leads.
Arizona has historically leaned towards Republicans, but it backed Biden in 2020 and the Democratic party in several statewide races in 2022. It's expected to be a close race in November.
Battleground states like Arizona may determine the result of the election, so surveys from them are arguably more important than national polls.
However, many experts and academics have cautioned against relying on polls to try to predict the outcome of the election rematch. Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, previously told Newsweek that reading too much into polls was "a fool's errand."
"Polls are so variable at this point that the only consistent insight we can glean from them is that Biden and Trump are neck and neck—not only nationally but in key swing states," he said.
Donald Trump loses battleground state poll for first time in six months
A poll shows that Joe Biden is narrowly leading Donald Trump in Arizona, ahead of the presidential election.
www.newsweek.com
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Donald Trump's youngest child, Barron Trump, is to enter the political limelight with a role at July's Republican National Convention.
Delegates from across the US will formally select the party's nominee for president at the gathering in Wisconsin - set to be Barron's father.
The 18-year-old has been named on a list of delegates-at-large to attend the event for the state of Florida.
Previously, Barron's mother Melania has kept him largely out of the public eye.
The only child from their nearly two-decade marriage, Barron did not immediately move to Washington after his father's inauguration.
He remained with his mother at their Trump Tower home in New York to finish his school year before they relocated in the summer of 2017.
His move to the White House, at age 11, made him the first male child to live there since John F Kennedy Jr in 1963.
Attending a private school in Maryland, he rarely appeared in public, with his mother reported to be fiercely protective of his privacy.
Comments on his appearance and behaviour from his father's critics often drew fierce rebukes from the first lady's office, as well as from other former first children, most notably Chelsea Clinton.
Since the family's move to Florida post-presidency, Barron has attended a private school in Palm Beach and continued an impressive growth spurt - he now stands at 6ft 7in (201cm).
The high school senior, who graduates next week, appears on the Florida delegate list with a number of the ex-president's close allies, according to NBC News.
The list includes Barron's half-siblings Eric, Donald Jr and Tiffany - but not Ivanka, who has publicly said she will not be a part of her father's re-election campaign.
In a statement to US media, the Florida party chairman Evan Power said: "We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation."
A Trump campaign official told ABC News that Barron was "very interested in our nation's political process".
The party convention, to take place in the city of Milwaukee on 15-18 July, will see Mr Trump confirmed as the Republican candidate for November's presidential election.
He has won enough state-level primary contests - including one held in Florida - to clinch the nomination. Each of the nation's 50 states and several territories send delegates to the convention to officially vote for their presidential candidate, which is expected to be a simple process since there is no viable challenge to Mr Trump.
The ex-president has already won 2,037 delegates in the Republican primary election, far more than the 1,215 needed to clinch the nomination.
On the other side of the political divide, President Joe Biden is due to be confirmed as the Democratic nominee at his party's convention in Chicago this August, setting up America's first presidential rematch since 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, again defeated Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat.
This time, Mr Trump is juggling his campaigning with legal battles. He faces dozens of criminal charges across four separate cases.
His first criminal trial is under way in New York City, where he has been charged with falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.
He has been given special permission by the judge to take time out of court to attend Barron's high-school graduation next week.
Source: BBC
Delegates from across the US will formally select the party's nominee for president at the gathering in Wisconsin - set to be Barron's father.
The 18-year-old has been named on a list of delegates-at-large to attend the event for the state of Florida.
Previously, Barron's mother Melania has kept him largely out of the public eye.
The only child from their nearly two-decade marriage, Barron did not immediately move to Washington after his father's inauguration.
He remained with his mother at their Trump Tower home in New York to finish his school year before they relocated in the summer of 2017.
His move to the White House, at age 11, made him the first male child to live there since John F Kennedy Jr in 1963.
Attending a private school in Maryland, he rarely appeared in public, with his mother reported to be fiercely protective of his privacy.
Comments on his appearance and behaviour from his father's critics often drew fierce rebukes from the first lady's office, as well as from other former first children, most notably Chelsea Clinton.
Since the family's move to Florida post-presidency, Barron has attended a private school in Palm Beach and continued an impressive growth spurt - he now stands at 6ft 7in (201cm).
The high school senior, who graduates next week, appears on the Florida delegate list with a number of the ex-president's close allies, according to NBC News.
The list includes Barron's half-siblings Eric, Donald Jr and Tiffany - but not Ivanka, who has publicly said she will not be a part of her father's re-election campaign.
In a statement to US media, the Florida party chairman Evan Power said: "We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation."
A Trump campaign official told ABC News that Barron was "very interested in our nation's political process".
The party convention, to take place in the city of Milwaukee on 15-18 July, will see Mr Trump confirmed as the Republican candidate for November's presidential election.
He has won enough state-level primary contests - including one held in Florida - to clinch the nomination. Each of the nation's 50 states and several territories send delegates to the convention to officially vote for their presidential candidate, which is expected to be a simple process since there is no viable challenge to Mr Trump.
The ex-president has already won 2,037 delegates in the Republican primary election, far more than the 1,215 needed to clinch the nomination.
On the other side of the political divide, President Joe Biden is due to be confirmed as the Democratic nominee at his party's convention in Chicago this August, setting up America's first presidential rematch since 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, again defeated Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat.
This time, Mr Trump is juggling his campaigning with legal battles. He faces dozens of criminal charges across four separate cases.
His first criminal trial is under way in New York City, where he has been charged with falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.
He has been given special permission by the judge to take time out of court to attend Barron's high-school graduation next week.
Source: BBC
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- Nov 25, 2023
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Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are in a neck-and-neck contest headed into the November election, polls show, as voters concerns about the economy—and their dissatisfaction with Biden’s handling of the issue—are a driving force in this year’s election.
Trump would beat Biden in five of six battleground states (Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada), with Biden leading slightly in Wisconsin, according to a New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer poll conducted in April and released May 13 that found the economy, immigration, abortion and inflation are the top issues for voters, in that order, while a majority trust Trump over Biden to handle the economy, crime and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but trust Biden more than Trump on abortion.
Morning Consult’s weekly poll taken May 3-5 shows Trump leading Biden by one point, after the previous poll showed them tied at 43%.
In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released May 6, Trump and Biden are tied, but Trump has lost support among voters under 35 Hispanic voters and independents since January, while Biden has gained support among voters under 35, independents and Black voters (the share of Black voters who support Trump and Hispanic voters who support Biden hasn’t changed, according to the poll, which included third-party candidates as options).
An April Marist poll was among the latest to show Biden beating Trump 51% to 48% in a two-way race—a one-point swing in the head-to-head matchup since the last Marist/NPR/PBS NewsHour poll in early April—and widening his lead to five points when the three third-party candidates are in the mix—a three-point swing in Biden’s favor.
The poll follows a NBC survey released a day earlier that found Biden trailing Trump by two points in a head-to-head race, but beating him by two when independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, plus Green Party candidate Jill Stein, are on the ballot.
Trump’s polling lead over Biden has decreased more than three percentage points, to 1.2, since the end of January, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll tracker, while the Economist poll tracker shows Trump leading Biden by one point, after the two had been tied since April 5th for the first time since September.
SURPRISING FACT
In a race this close, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy has the potential to sway the election—though it’s unclear in whose favor. Earlier surveys suggested Kennedy Jr., a scion of the country’s most famous Democratic family, could draw more votes from Biden, but more recent polling suggests he’d hurt Trump. Since Kennedy Jr. is running as an independent without the backing of one of the major political parties, he is required to petition in each state for ballot access. His campaign has said he has qualified to appear on the ballots in Michigan, California and Utah, and that he has enough signatures to appear on the ballots in Nevada, Idaho, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Iowa and North Carolina.
CONTRA
Other polls have suggested Biden—and the Democratic party as a whole—have been losing support among key demographics, including Black, Latino and younger voters. A Harvard Youth poll released last month found Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among people ages 18 to 29, compared to a 23-point margin at this point in the lead-up to the 2020 election. An April Axios/Ipsos poll shows Biden has only a nine-point advantage with Latino voters, compared to 29 points after his first year in office. And a recent Wall Street Journal survey found more Black voters said they were leaning toward Trump than they did in 2020, including 30% of Black men (12% of Black men voted for Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast), and 11% of Black women (6% of Black women voted for Trump in 2020).
KEY BACKGROUND
Biden and Trump are poised for a historic rematch after clinching their respective parties’ nominations. Polls show historically low voter enthusiasm as both candidates have relatively low favorability ratings below 45%. The NBC poll found 64% voters said they were “very interested” in this year’s election, a 20-year low. Trump has centered his campaign around his legal woes, accusing prosecutors and judges in the cases of working at Biden’s behest to hurt his chances of winning the election, though there’s no evidence suggesting the notion is true. Biden, meanwhile, has cast Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riots, and has hammered Trump over his appointment of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Immigration has also taken center stage in the election as border crossings have reached an all-time high under Biden and Congress has failed to reach an agreement on new border controls.
Source: Forbes
Trump would beat Biden in five of six battleground states (Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada), with Biden leading slightly in Wisconsin, according to a New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer poll conducted in April and released May 13 that found the economy, immigration, abortion and inflation are the top issues for voters, in that order, while a majority trust Trump over Biden to handle the economy, crime and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but trust Biden more than Trump on abortion.
Morning Consult’s weekly poll taken May 3-5 shows Trump leading Biden by one point, after the previous poll showed them tied at 43%.
In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released May 6, Trump and Biden are tied, but Trump has lost support among voters under 35 Hispanic voters and independents since January, while Biden has gained support among voters under 35, independents and Black voters (the share of Black voters who support Trump and Hispanic voters who support Biden hasn’t changed, according to the poll, which included third-party candidates as options).
An April Marist poll was among the latest to show Biden beating Trump 51% to 48% in a two-way race—a one-point swing in the head-to-head matchup since the last Marist/NPR/PBS NewsHour poll in early April—and widening his lead to five points when the three third-party candidates are in the mix—a three-point swing in Biden’s favor.
The poll follows a NBC survey released a day earlier that found Biden trailing Trump by two points in a head-to-head race, but beating him by two when independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, plus Green Party candidate Jill Stein, are on the ballot.
Trump’s polling lead over Biden has decreased more than three percentage points, to 1.2, since the end of January, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll tracker, while the Economist poll tracker shows Trump leading Biden by one point, after the two had been tied since April 5th for the first time since September.
SURPRISING FACT
In a race this close, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy has the potential to sway the election—though it’s unclear in whose favor. Earlier surveys suggested Kennedy Jr., a scion of the country’s most famous Democratic family, could draw more votes from Biden, but more recent polling suggests he’d hurt Trump. Since Kennedy Jr. is running as an independent without the backing of one of the major political parties, he is required to petition in each state for ballot access. His campaign has said he has qualified to appear on the ballots in Michigan, California and Utah, and that he has enough signatures to appear on the ballots in Nevada, Idaho, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Iowa and North Carolina.
CONTRA
Other polls have suggested Biden—and the Democratic party as a whole—have been losing support among key demographics, including Black, Latino and younger voters. A Harvard Youth poll released last month found Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among people ages 18 to 29, compared to a 23-point margin at this point in the lead-up to the 2020 election. An April Axios/Ipsos poll shows Biden has only a nine-point advantage with Latino voters, compared to 29 points after his first year in office. And a recent Wall Street Journal survey found more Black voters said they were leaning toward Trump than they did in 2020, including 30% of Black men (12% of Black men voted for Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast), and 11% of Black women (6% of Black women voted for Trump in 2020).
KEY BACKGROUND
Biden and Trump are poised for a historic rematch after clinching their respective parties’ nominations. Polls show historically low voter enthusiasm as both candidates have relatively low favorability ratings below 45%. The NBC poll found 64% voters said they were “very interested” in this year’s election, a 20-year low. Trump has centered his campaign around his legal woes, accusing prosecutors and judges in the cases of working at Biden’s behest to hurt his chances of winning the election, though there’s no evidence suggesting the notion is true. Biden, meanwhile, has cast Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riots, and has hammered Trump over his appointment of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Immigration has also taken center stage in the election as border crossings have reached an all-time high under Biden and Congress has failed to reach an agreement on new border controls.
Source: Forbes
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- Aug 29, 2023
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Trump claims standard FBI warrant shows Biden wanted him dead
Donald Trump drew disbelief — and some support — Wednesday after suggesting that standard language from an FBI search warrant executed in 2022 on his Florida mansion showed that President Joe Biden wanted armed agents to shoot him.
Trump’s latest incendiary claim was in response to a court filing outlining plans for the FBI search at the Mar-a-Lago club, where he kept classified national security documents after leaving the White House.
The filing included standard FBI wording stating that agents are allowed to use deadly force if someone is in imminent danger.
But Trump, who is running to unseat Biden in November’s election, distorted the statement to say that it showed the Justice Department was ready to shoot him and harm his family.
“It’s just been revealed that Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable,” Trump said Tuesday in a fundraising email shared by US media.
“Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger. He thinks he can frighten me, intimidate me, and KNOCK ME DOWN!“
The wild remarks add to the pile of false claims made by Trump against Biden, whom he has repeatedly accused without evidence of weaponizing the justice system to target him.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for all lawmakers to condemn Trump’s “outlandish and dangerous” remarks in a speech in the upper chamber of Congress.
“We cannot let this man, Donald Trump, or anybody else, throw these kinds of matches to light flames that could burn our democracy,” he said.
David Axelrod, a White House aide under Barack Obama, called Trump’s comments “patently nuts...and dangerously provocative” in a post on X.
But several of Trump’s staunchest allies joined Trump in misrepresenting the court filing.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that the Justice Department and the FBI “gave the green light” to assassinate Trump.
On the day of the raid, Trump was not on Florida but at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
The FBI issued a rare statement, saying “there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
The bureau — which recovered more than 100 classified documents, including some marked top secret — got the go-ahead for the raid from a federal judge after the government tried for months to get the records back.
The billionaire is accused of willfully retaining national defense information and obstructing government efforts to recover it.
He denies 40 felony charges, but the trial has been indefinitely postponed.
In a statement to AFP, the Trump campaign said reporting of the fundraising email was “a sickening attempt to run cover for Joe Biden who is the most corrupt president in history and a threat to our democracy.”
SOURCE: ARAB NEWS
Donald Trump drew disbelief — and some support — Wednesday after suggesting that standard language from an FBI search warrant executed in 2022 on his Florida mansion showed that President Joe Biden wanted armed agents to shoot him.
Trump’s latest incendiary claim was in response to a court filing outlining plans for the FBI search at the Mar-a-Lago club, where he kept classified national security documents after leaving the White House.
The filing included standard FBI wording stating that agents are allowed to use deadly force if someone is in imminent danger.
But Trump, who is running to unseat Biden in November’s election, distorted the statement to say that it showed the Justice Department was ready to shoot him and harm his family.
“It’s just been revealed that Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable,” Trump said Tuesday in a fundraising email shared by US media.
“Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger. He thinks he can frighten me, intimidate me, and KNOCK ME DOWN!“
The wild remarks add to the pile of false claims made by Trump against Biden, whom he has repeatedly accused without evidence of weaponizing the justice system to target him.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for all lawmakers to condemn Trump’s “outlandish and dangerous” remarks in a speech in the upper chamber of Congress.
“We cannot let this man, Donald Trump, or anybody else, throw these kinds of matches to light flames that could burn our democracy,” he said.
David Axelrod, a White House aide under Barack Obama, called Trump’s comments “patently nuts...and dangerously provocative” in a post on X.
But several of Trump’s staunchest allies joined Trump in misrepresenting the court filing.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that the Justice Department and the FBI “gave the green light” to assassinate Trump.
On the day of the raid, Trump was not on Florida but at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
The FBI issued a rare statement, saying “there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
The bureau — which recovered more than 100 classified documents, including some marked top secret — got the go-ahead for the raid from a federal judge after the government tried for months to get the records back.
The billionaire is accused of willfully retaining national defense information and obstructing government efforts to recover it.
He denies 40 felony charges, but the trial has been indefinitely postponed.
In a statement to AFP, the Trump campaign said reporting of the fundraising email was “a sickening attempt to run cover for Joe Biden who is the most corrupt president in history and a threat to our democracy.”
SOURCE: ARAB NEWS
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- Aug 12, 2023
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- 17,004
Trump says he 'would have absolutely gotten' Libertarian nomination if he ran
Former President Donald Trump claimed he would have "absolutely" gotten the Libertarian Party convention nomination for president, if not for already being the presumptive GOP nominee.
In a statement on Sunday, following an appearance at the party's convention on Saturday, Trump noted the "enthusiasm" of the crowd, where he received a mixed response that included audible booing.
"The reason I didn't file paperwork for the Libertarian Nomination, which I would have absolutely gotten if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!), was the fact that, as the Republican Nominee, I am not allowed to have the Nomination of another Party," Trump wrote on his social media platform on Sunday,
"Regardless, I believe I will get a Majority of the Libertarian Votes," Trump continued.
In his message on Sunday, Trump also slammed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who received a nomination to be a candidate at the Libertarian Party convention, though ultimately was not chosen as its candidate.
"Junior' Kennedy is a Radical Left Democrat, who's destroyed everything he's touched, especially in New York and New England, and in particular, as it relates to the Cost and Practicality of Energy,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. "He’s not a Libertarian. Only a FOOL would vote for him!"
ABC News
Former President Donald Trump claimed he would have "absolutely" gotten the Libertarian Party convention nomination for president, if not for already being the presumptive GOP nominee.
In a statement on Sunday, following an appearance at the party's convention on Saturday, Trump noted the "enthusiasm" of the crowd, where he received a mixed response that included audible booing.
"The reason I didn't file paperwork for the Libertarian Nomination, which I would have absolutely gotten if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!), was the fact that, as the Republican Nominee, I am not allowed to have the Nomination of another Party," Trump wrote on his social media platform on Sunday,
"Regardless, I believe I will get a Majority of the Libertarian Votes," Trump continued.
In his message on Sunday, Trump also slammed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who received a nomination to be a candidate at the Libertarian Party convention, though ultimately was not chosen as its candidate.
"Junior' Kennedy is a Radical Left Democrat, who's destroyed everything he's touched, especially in New York and New England, and in particular, as it relates to the Cost and Practicality of Energy,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. "He’s not a Libertarian. Only a FOOL would vote for him!"
ABC News
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- Nov 25, 2023
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How Elon Musk came to endorse Donald Trump
The world’s richest man favored Biden in 2020, but he has since become a vocal Trump supporter.
Elon Musk began privately gathering support for Donald Trump’s second presidency long before he tweeted his public endorsement on July 13.
At least five months earlier, Musk made a pitch for Trump at the Palm Beach oceanfront mansion of Wendy’s co-founder Nelson Peltz, where some of the billionaires and top political strategists gathered to discuss 2024 campaign strategy were surprised to see him.
The Feb. 16 event included a number of Trump skeptics: Karl Rove, a former adviser to George W. Bush and a current adviser to hotelier Steve Wynn, argued that the assembled crew should give money to down-ballot candidates and state parties. Another donor urged the crowd to keep helping GOP contender Nikki Haley, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
But Musk, sitting by Peltz at the center of the table, offered an explicitly pro-Trump view, the attendees said. He started by saying he was not a big fan of Trump, but then segued into a lengthy discussion of illegal immigration. While President Biden would allow millions of additional undocumented immigrants to cross America’s southern border — to the detriment of the U.S. economy and American land, Musk asserted — Trump would stop the crossings, he said. He added that a surge of immigrants would fuel a demographic shift that could doom the Republican Party in future elections.
Musk asked people in the room to tell their friends to vote for Trump, saying he’d learned from his experience selling Teslas that word-of-mouth promotion was critical. Some people in the crowd shook their heads and winced.
Despite his support, Musk was concerned — along with other potential donors — that Trump might use their money to pay his rising legal bills, the attendees said. Others, he acknowledged, might not want to appear on campaign disclosure forms.
So he suggested giving to an outside group instead. In May, Musk helped launch America PAC, which in a little over a month reported raising $8.5 million, much of it from Silicon Valley. Musk has signaled that he will donate, too, but he denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that he would give the group $45 million a month.
Musk’s presence at the Palm Beach event marked the culmination of a political transformation for the world’s richest person, who has said he favored Biden in 2020. But in the four years since, Musk’s relationship with the Biden administration steadily soured.
Under Biden, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have advanced investigations into Tesla’s marketing of its driver-assistance technologies. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a recall of almost every Tesla over concerns about driver inattention. The SEC is pursuing a separate investigation into X, formerly Twitter, which Musk purchased in 2022. And Biden has personally ridiculed Musk’s business acumen, once quipping that the best way for NPR to disappear would be for him to buy it, while the White House snubbed Tesla at a high-profile electric vehicle summit in 2021.
A second Trump administration promises a very different environment for Musk, analysts and investors said. Trump could ease Tesla’s regulatory path to delivering a fully autonomous personal vehicle — a goal key to the company’s $700 billion valuation — they said, and dial back federal scrutiny of Tesla and X, as well as a National Labor Relations Board investigation into allegations of harassment at SpaceX.
Meanwhile, SpaceX and Starlink, Musk’s satellite business, stand to gain fresh federal contracts. Clare Hopper, chief of Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, said her office already is seeking an additional $12 billion over the next decade for “low-Earth orbit satellites” in anticipation of soaring military demand. That spending could increase further under a proposal outlined in Project 2025, an agenda for Trump’s second term drafted by prominent Republicans, to give Space Force attack capabilities.
“In the Biden administration, Musk has been an afterthought at best,” said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. “In the Trump administration, if he won a second term, Musk would be front and center.”
Trump, for his part, has expressed enthusiasm about his growing alliance with the billionaire. At a recent campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Trump said of Musk: “We have to make life good for our smart people and he’s as smart as you get.”
The Trump campaign declined to answer questions about Trump’s intentions regarding Musk. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The road to Trump
One person who has known Musk for years said he sees Trump as a change agent even as he sometimes disagrees with his approaches and policies. Musk also likes Trump’s pick for vice president, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a former venture capitalist who moved in the same Silicon Valley circles as Musk, who lobbied for Vance to join the ticket. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
In conversations with donors and Trump advisers after the February event, Musk repeatedly raised the border and his fears that the 2024 election will not be secure. “The border and election integrity seem to be the two things he cares about,” said one person who has spoken to him.
Neither Trump nor any of his advisers were present at the event, which was convened by the billionaires.
Musk’s money is expected to build a campaign apparatus in a number of swing states amid widespread Republican concerns that Trump’s team does not have a sufficient program to get out the vote, people familiar with the plans said.
It’s a stark shift from 2016, when Musk told CNBC days before the election that he felt Trump was “not the right guy” because he “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.”
After winning the White House, Trump tried to woo Musk and other CEOs, meeting with them at Trump Tower in New York City in December 2016 and again shortly after his inauguration. Trump praised Musk throughout his presidency as a “friend,” “somebody I have great respect for,” and “one of our great brains.”
In 2020, Trump showed up to celebrate as SpaceX became the first private company to launch humans into space. And he supported Musk’s decision to defiantly reopen Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., plant after county officials ordered it shut down during the covid-19 lockdowns.
But Musk found Trump’s first term disappointing, according to two people familiar with his thinking. In 2017, Musk stepped down from two of Trump’s presidential advisory councils to protest Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. “Climate change is real,” he tweeted. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
During the 2020 election, Musk favored Biden.
A few months later, the White House invited every major American automaker except Tesla to a splashy event on the South Lawn. The electric vehicle summit included Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, along with the United Auto Workers. Tesla, the only nonunion American auto giant, petitioned to be included, but the Biden administration left the company out — a decision Musk later described as “the White House giving Tesla the cold shoulder.”
A former Biden administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said the White House kept the gathering small because covid-prevention measures were still in place. But the official said it’s also true that Biden, with the UAW in attendance, wanted to burnish his pro-labor reputation.
Musk took it as “the Biden administration was mean to me,” said the official, who attended the event. “Is this just because you guys don’t like Elon?” the official recalls a Tesla executive asking.
The snub was a miscalculation that later overtures to Tesla failed to overcome, the official said. In a Christmas Eve post on X, Musk listed the event and Biden’s comments crediting GM’s leadership with the EV revolution as among his complaints with the Biden administration.
Since the event, Biden has occasionally criticized Musk directly. He said Musk’s relationships abroad were “worthy of being looked at” after a reporter asked if Musk’s ownership of Twitter was a threat to national security.
And when Musk expressed pessimism about the economy, Biden shot back: “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon” — an apparent non sequitur. “Thanks, Mr. President!” Musk responded on X, reposting the press release that SpaceX was under contract with NASA to build a spacecraft to bring American astronauts back to the moon.
Last November, the Biden White House condemned Musk for what it called the “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” in his social media feed, contributing to an exodus of advertisers from X. Musk apologized.
Political differences
If Musk was disappointed by Trump’s White House, he soon grew frustrated by Biden’s, according to a person who has known Musk for years. Musk has been infuriated by Democrats on social issues, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations, but was especially frustrated by the Biden administration’s approach to innovation and regulation.
During the covid-19 lockdowns, Musk frequently lashed out against prevention measures and expert opinions. He also found himself weighing in increasingly on social issues, embracing politics in a way he hadn’t during much of the Trump administration.
One executive who worked with Musk, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss his former boss, said Musk’s forays into the culture wars appeared to be driven by ideological conviction: “The battle wasn’t motivated by trying to make money.” Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account in 2022 — soon after he purchased the company — reversing a decision by previous management that Trump had glorified violence after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
This month, Musk announced that SpaceX would relocate its headquarters to Texas from California to protest a new California law that bars school districts from requiring that parents be notified if their child changes their gender identification.
Musk has a transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who disavowed her father in 2022. In an interview last week with conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson, Musk said Wilson had been “killed” by what he called the “woke mind virus.” (Wilson soon took to Threads to decry Musk’s descriptions of her childhood as “entirely fake.”)
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During the interview, Musk also praised Trump, saying he had shown “instinctual courage” when he jumped up after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
“Now you have to admire that Trump, after getting shot, with blood streaming down his face … nonetheless was fist-bumping,” Musk said, and telling the crowd to “fight, fight.”
Musk tweeted his endorsement of Trump less than an hour after the shooting, touching off a wave of other Silicon Valley endorsements.
Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Musk’s endorsement is a sign of something bigger. “Many of the nation’s most important leaders in technology and innovation are concerned with the damage done to their industry by the Biden-Harris Administration’s failure to handle our economy and moves to overburden innovators with government bureaucracy and unrelenting regulation,” Hughes said in an email.
Last week, Vice President Harris’s campaign signaled that it would not bend over backward to try to win Musk back. “Arrogant billionaires only out for themselves are not what America wants or what America needs,” Harris campaign spokesman James Singer told The Washington Post when asked about Musk’s endorsement of Trump, echoing earlier comments.
So far, Musk has been dismissive of Harris. On Friday, he praised a video on X that was manipulated to make Harris appear to say she was a “deep-state puppet” who didn’t know anything about running the country. “This is amazing,” Musk commented.
After the election
While analysts and investors predicted a second Trump administration would be good for Musk, there are no guarantees with the former president.
In a move to court traditional manufacturers, Trump vowed at the Republican National Convention to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” which he said would save the U.S. auto industry “from complete obliteration” and save consumers thousands of dollars.
Trump also has promised a fresh trade war with China, which would bring supply chain uncertainty for almost all major manufacturers, Tesla included.
And Trump has not always praised Musk: In a post on Truth Social in 2022, Trump bragged that Musk had sought his help on “subsidized projects,” including “driverless cars that crash, or rocket ships to nowhere,” adding that he could have required Musk to “drop to your knees and beg” and Musk would have done it.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said Musk’s alliance with Trump is also likely to alienate many Tesla buyers. On Tesla’s earnings call last week, Musk seemed to acknowledge the risks of Trump 2.0, saying the potential loss of the Inflation Reduction Act “would hurt Tesla slightly.”
But Musk’s support for Trump is a “trade-off,” Munster said, that involves accepting short-term negatives for a bonanza of potential positives in the long term.
“Near-term, it’s going to be some form of a headwind. Trump can be polarizing,” Munster said. But “I think that Musk knows this. And ultimately he doesn’t care.”
Trisha Thadani, Cat Zakrzewski and Christian Davenport contributed to this report
Source: The Washington Post
The world’s richest man favored Biden in 2020, but he has since become a vocal Trump supporter.
Elon Musk began privately gathering support for Donald Trump’s second presidency long before he tweeted his public endorsement on July 13.
At least five months earlier, Musk made a pitch for Trump at the Palm Beach oceanfront mansion of Wendy’s co-founder Nelson Peltz, where some of the billionaires and top political strategists gathered to discuss 2024 campaign strategy were surprised to see him.
The Feb. 16 event included a number of Trump skeptics: Karl Rove, a former adviser to George W. Bush and a current adviser to hotelier Steve Wynn, argued that the assembled crew should give money to down-ballot candidates and state parties. Another donor urged the crowd to keep helping GOP contender Nikki Haley, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
But Musk, sitting by Peltz at the center of the table, offered an explicitly pro-Trump view, the attendees said. He started by saying he was not a big fan of Trump, but then segued into a lengthy discussion of illegal immigration. While President Biden would allow millions of additional undocumented immigrants to cross America’s southern border — to the detriment of the U.S. economy and American land, Musk asserted — Trump would stop the crossings, he said. He added that a surge of immigrants would fuel a demographic shift that could doom the Republican Party in future elections.
Musk asked people in the room to tell their friends to vote for Trump, saying he’d learned from his experience selling Teslas that word-of-mouth promotion was critical. Some people in the crowd shook their heads and winced.
Despite his support, Musk was concerned — along with other potential donors — that Trump might use their money to pay his rising legal bills, the attendees said. Others, he acknowledged, might not want to appear on campaign disclosure forms.
So he suggested giving to an outside group instead. In May, Musk helped launch America PAC, which in a little over a month reported raising $8.5 million, much of it from Silicon Valley. Musk has signaled that he will donate, too, but he denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that he would give the group $45 million a month.
Musk’s presence at the Palm Beach event marked the culmination of a political transformation for the world’s richest person, who has said he favored Biden in 2020. But in the four years since, Musk’s relationship with the Biden administration steadily soured.
Under Biden, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have advanced investigations into Tesla’s marketing of its driver-assistance technologies. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a recall of almost every Tesla over concerns about driver inattention. The SEC is pursuing a separate investigation into X, formerly Twitter, which Musk purchased in 2022. And Biden has personally ridiculed Musk’s business acumen, once quipping that the best way for NPR to disappear would be for him to buy it, while the White House snubbed Tesla at a high-profile electric vehicle summit in 2021.
A second Trump administration promises a very different environment for Musk, analysts and investors said. Trump could ease Tesla’s regulatory path to delivering a fully autonomous personal vehicle — a goal key to the company’s $700 billion valuation — they said, and dial back federal scrutiny of Tesla and X, as well as a National Labor Relations Board investigation into allegations of harassment at SpaceX.
Meanwhile, SpaceX and Starlink, Musk’s satellite business, stand to gain fresh federal contracts. Clare Hopper, chief of Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, said her office already is seeking an additional $12 billion over the next decade for “low-Earth orbit satellites” in anticipation of soaring military demand. That spending could increase further under a proposal outlined in Project 2025, an agenda for Trump’s second term drafted by prominent Republicans, to give Space Force attack capabilities.
“In the Biden administration, Musk has been an afterthought at best,” said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. “In the Trump administration, if he won a second term, Musk would be front and center.”
Trump, for his part, has expressed enthusiasm about his growing alliance with the billionaire. At a recent campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Trump said of Musk: “We have to make life good for our smart people and he’s as smart as you get.”
The Trump campaign declined to answer questions about Trump’s intentions regarding Musk. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The road to Trump
One person who has known Musk for years said he sees Trump as a change agent even as he sometimes disagrees with his approaches and policies. Musk also likes Trump’s pick for vice president, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a former venture capitalist who moved in the same Silicon Valley circles as Musk, who lobbied for Vance to join the ticket. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
In conversations with donors and Trump advisers after the February event, Musk repeatedly raised the border and his fears that the 2024 election will not be secure. “The border and election integrity seem to be the two things he cares about,” said one person who has spoken to him.
Neither Trump nor any of his advisers were present at the event, which was convened by the billionaires.
Musk’s money is expected to build a campaign apparatus in a number of swing states amid widespread Republican concerns that Trump’s team does not have a sufficient program to get out the vote, people familiar with the plans said.
It’s a stark shift from 2016, when Musk told CNBC days before the election that he felt Trump was “not the right guy” because he “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.”
After winning the White House, Trump tried to woo Musk and other CEOs, meeting with them at Trump Tower in New York City in December 2016 and again shortly after his inauguration. Trump praised Musk throughout his presidency as a “friend,” “somebody I have great respect for,” and “one of our great brains.”
In 2020, Trump showed up to celebrate as SpaceX became the first private company to launch humans into space. And he supported Musk’s decision to defiantly reopen Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., plant after county officials ordered it shut down during the covid-19 lockdowns.
But Musk found Trump’s first term disappointing, according to two people familiar with his thinking. In 2017, Musk stepped down from two of Trump’s presidential advisory councils to protest Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. “Climate change is real,” he tweeted. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
During the 2020 election, Musk favored Biden.
A few months later, the White House invited every major American automaker except Tesla to a splashy event on the South Lawn. The electric vehicle summit included Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, along with the United Auto Workers. Tesla, the only nonunion American auto giant, petitioned to be included, but the Biden administration left the company out — a decision Musk later described as “the White House giving Tesla the cold shoulder.”
A former Biden administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said the White House kept the gathering small because covid-prevention measures were still in place. But the official said it’s also true that Biden, with the UAW in attendance, wanted to burnish his pro-labor reputation.
Musk took it as “the Biden administration was mean to me,” said the official, who attended the event. “Is this just because you guys don’t like Elon?” the official recalls a Tesla executive asking.
The snub was a miscalculation that later overtures to Tesla failed to overcome, the official said. In a Christmas Eve post on X, Musk listed the event and Biden’s comments crediting GM’s leadership with the EV revolution as among his complaints with the Biden administration.
Since the event, Biden has occasionally criticized Musk directly. He said Musk’s relationships abroad were “worthy of being looked at” after a reporter asked if Musk’s ownership of Twitter was a threat to national security.
And when Musk expressed pessimism about the economy, Biden shot back: “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon” — an apparent non sequitur. “Thanks, Mr. President!” Musk responded on X, reposting the press release that SpaceX was under contract with NASA to build a spacecraft to bring American astronauts back to the moon.
Last November, the Biden White House condemned Musk for what it called the “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” in his social media feed, contributing to an exodus of advertisers from X. Musk apologized.
Political differences
If Musk was disappointed by Trump’s White House, he soon grew frustrated by Biden’s, according to a person who has known Musk for years. Musk has been infuriated by Democrats on social issues, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations, but was especially frustrated by the Biden administration’s approach to innovation and regulation.
During the covid-19 lockdowns, Musk frequently lashed out against prevention measures and expert opinions. He also found himself weighing in increasingly on social issues, embracing politics in a way he hadn’t during much of the Trump administration.
One executive who worked with Musk, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss his former boss, said Musk’s forays into the culture wars appeared to be driven by ideological conviction: “The battle wasn’t motivated by trying to make money.” Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account in 2022 — soon after he purchased the company — reversing a decision by previous management that Trump had glorified violence after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
This month, Musk announced that SpaceX would relocate its headquarters to Texas from California to protest a new California law that bars school districts from requiring that parents be notified if their child changes their gender identification.
Musk has a transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who disavowed her father in 2022. In an interview last week with conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson, Musk said Wilson had been “killed” by what he called the “woke mind virus.” (Wilson soon took to Threads to decry Musk’s descriptions of her childhood as “entirely fake.”)
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During the interview, Musk also praised Trump, saying he had shown “instinctual courage” when he jumped up after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
“Now you have to admire that Trump, after getting shot, with blood streaming down his face … nonetheless was fist-bumping,” Musk said, and telling the crowd to “fight, fight.”
Musk tweeted his endorsement of Trump less than an hour after the shooting, touching off a wave of other Silicon Valley endorsements.
Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Musk’s endorsement is a sign of something bigger. “Many of the nation’s most important leaders in technology and innovation are concerned with the damage done to their industry by the Biden-Harris Administration’s failure to handle our economy and moves to overburden innovators with government bureaucracy and unrelenting regulation,” Hughes said in an email.
Last week, Vice President Harris’s campaign signaled that it would not bend over backward to try to win Musk back. “Arrogant billionaires only out for themselves are not what America wants or what America needs,” Harris campaign spokesman James Singer told The Washington Post when asked about Musk’s endorsement of Trump, echoing earlier comments.
So far, Musk has been dismissive of Harris. On Friday, he praised a video on X that was manipulated to make Harris appear to say she was a “deep-state puppet” who didn’t know anything about running the country. “This is amazing,” Musk commented.
After the election
While analysts and investors predicted a second Trump administration would be good for Musk, there are no guarantees with the former president.
In a move to court traditional manufacturers, Trump vowed at the Republican National Convention to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” which he said would save the U.S. auto industry “from complete obliteration” and save consumers thousands of dollars.
Trump also has promised a fresh trade war with China, which would bring supply chain uncertainty for almost all major manufacturers, Tesla included.
And Trump has not always praised Musk: In a post on Truth Social in 2022, Trump bragged that Musk had sought his help on “subsidized projects,” including “driverless cars that crash, or rocket ships to nowhere,” adding that he could have required Musk to “drop to your knees and beg” and Musk would have done it.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said Musk’s alliance with Trump is also likely to alienate many Tesla buyers. On Tesla’s earnings call last week, Musk seemed to acknowledge the risks of Trump 2.0, saying the potential loss of the Inflation Reduction Act “would hurt Tesla slightly.”
But Musk’s support for Trump is a “trade-off,” Munster said, that involves accepting short-term negatives for a bonanza of potential positives in the long term.
“Near-term, it’s going to be some form of a headwind. Trump can be polarizing,” Munster said. But “I think that Musk knows this. And ultimately he doesn’t care.”
Trisha Thadani, Cat Zakrzewski and Christian Davenport contributed to this report
Source: The Washington Post
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'Is she black or Indian?': Trump questions Harris' racial identity
Donald Trump has questioned Kamala Harris' racial identity during a heated exchange at a convention for black journalists.
Trump falsely claimed the vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee had only emphasised her Asian-American heritage until recently when, he claimed, "she became a black person".
"I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black," he said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
"So I don't know - Is she Indian? Or is she black?"
Ms Harris said Trump's remarks were "the same old show" of "divisiveness... and disrespect".
"The American people deserve better," she told a meeting of the historically black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho in Houston. "We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us - they are an essential source of our strength."
Ms Harris is the first black and Asian-American vice-president, with Indian and Jamaican-born parents. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the predominantly black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
She became a member of Congressional Black Caucus after entering the Senate in 2017.
Trump's claims prompted a heated exchange with ABC News' correspondent Rachel Scott, one of the moderators of the Chicago event.
"I respect either one," the Republican said in reference to Harris' racial identity. "But she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a black person."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said no-one "has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify. That is no-one's right."
"Who appointed Donald Trump the arbiter of Blackness?" asked Representative Ritchie Torres of New York. He described Trump as a “relic of a racist past".
The Republican nominee and former president has a history of attacking his opponents on the basis of race.
He falsely accused Barack Obama, the country's first black president, of not being born in the US.
Trump attacked the former UN ambassador and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley by falsely claiming she could not be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.
Ms Harris has faced a series of attacks since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. Republicans have criticised the decision, saying she was chosen only because of her race.
Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, called her a "DEI vice-president" - a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
On Wednesday, Scott pushed Trump to clarify whether he believed Ms Harris was a "DEI hire". He replied: "I really don't know, could be."
Ms Harris has described growing up engaged with her Indian heritage and often visited the country. Her mother also immersed her two daughters in the black culture of Oakland, California - where she was raised, she said.
Trump also attacked Ms Harris' credentials during the discussion, saying she had failed her bar exam early in her legal career. His comments were met with murmurs from the crowd.
"I'm just giving you the facts. She didn't pass her bar exam and she didn't think she would pass it and she didn't think she was going to ever pass it and I don't know what happened. Maybe she passed it," he said.
Ms Harris graduated from the University of California Hastings College of Law in 1989. The New York Times reported that she failed her first attempt and passed at the second. The state bar of California says fewer than half of those who sit the test pass on the first attempt.
The Chicago discussion began with a contentious back and forth between Scott and the former president. Trump accused the journalist of giving a "very rude introduction" when she began the conversation asking about his past criticism of black people.
She cited Trump calling black journalists' questions ''stupid and racist'' and that he had ''dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar a Lago resort''.
"I love the black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the black population of this country,” he responded.
The former president criticised the conversation hours later on his social media platform. "The questions were rude and nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!" he said.
BBC
Donald Trump has questioned Kamala Harris' racial identity during a heated exchange at a convention for black journalists.
Trump falsely claimed the vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee had only emphasised her Asian-American heritage until recently when, he claimed, "she became a black person".
"I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black," he said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
"So I don't know - Is she Indian? Or is she black?"
Ms Harris said Trump's remarks were "the same old show" of "divisiveness... and disrespect".
"The American people deserve better," she told a meeting of the historically black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho in Houston. "We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us - they are an essential source of our strength."
Ms Harris is the first black and Asian-American vice-president, with Indian and Jamaican-born parents. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the predominantly black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
She became a member of Congressional Black Caucus after entering the Senate in 2017.
Trump's claims prompted a heated exchange with ABC News' correspondent Rachel Scott, one of the moderators of the Chicago event.
"I respect either one," the Republican said in reference to Harris' racial identity. "But she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a black person."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said no-one "has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify. That is no-one's right."
"Who appointed Donald Trump the arbiter of Blackness?" asked Representative Ritchie Torres of New York. He described Trump as a “relic of a racist past".
The Republican nominee and former president has a history of attacking his opponents on the basis of race.
He falsely accused Barack Obama, the country's first black president, of not being born in the US.
Trump attacked the former UN ambassador and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley by falsely claiming she could not be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.
Ms Harris has faced a series of attacks since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. Republicans have criticised the decision, saying she was chosen only because of her race.
Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, called her a "DEI vice-president" - a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
On Wednesday, Scott pushed Trump to clarify whether he believed Ms Harris was a "DEI hire". He replied: "I really don't know, could be."
Ms Harris has described growing up engaged with her Indian heritage and often visited the country. Her mother also immersed her two daughters in the black culture of Oakland, California - where she was raised, she said.
Trump also attacked Ms Harris' credentials during the discussion, saying she had failed her bar exam early in her legal career. His comments were met with murmurs from the crowd.
"I'm just giving you the facts. She didn't pass her bar exam and she didn't think she would pass it and she didn't think she was going to ever pass it and I don't know what happened. Maybe she passed it," he said.
Ms Harris graduated from the University of California Hastings College of Law in 1989. The New York Times reported that she failed her first attempt and passed at the second. The state bar of California says fewer than half of those who sit the test pass on the first attempt.
The Chicago discussion began with a contentious back and forth between Scott and the former president. Trump accused the journalist of giving a "very rude introduction" when she began the conversation asking about his past criticism of black people.
She cited Trump calling black journalists' questions ''stupid and racist'' and that he had ''dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar a Lago resort''.
"I love the black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the black population of this country,” he responded.
The former president criticised the conversation hours later on his social media platform. "The questions were rude and nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!" he said.
BBC
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Name-calling and hyperbole: Trump continues fear-mongering fest at Georgia rally
Donald Trump addressed a fully-packed venue in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, with thousands of people waiting in the Georgia heat outside to enter, or to protest his appearance in a city he has condemned repeatedly.
His remarks were consistent with the tenor and comportment of restraint and probity Atlantans are used to hearing at this point.
“She happens to be a really low IQ individual. We don’t need a low IQ individual,” Trump said of the vice-president Kamala Harris. “They love dealing with low IQ individuals … She’s Bernie Sanders but not as smart.”
Trump highlighted a handful of recent murders in the city, saying “Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.”
Trump rattled off a set of crime statistics in Atlanta that bear no resemblance to the actual change in crime over the last two years. Crime spiked in Atlanta in the last year of Trump’s term and peaked in 2022. It has subsequently fallen back to 2019 levels.
But crime – and particularly crime involving immigrants – has been central to his appeal to Republican voters. Trump invoked the murder of Laken Riley, a college student murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia. Police have charged an undocumented immigrant with her murder.
“Laken’s blood is on Kamala Harris’s hands,” Trump said, “as though she was standing there watching it herself.” Trump is trying to tie this to Harris’s role as “border czar” early in the Biden administration. “Harris should not be asking for your votes. She should be begging Laken Riley’s family for forgiveness.”
Trump made a point of highlighting the work of three Republican appointees to Georgia’s board of elections, who have been entertaining changes to election rules that critics say are setting the stage for a legal contest in case of a Trump loss in November.
Of President Joe Biden and the debate that led to his withdrawal from the race, Trump said “He was choking like a dog! He was choking. And that was the end of him … they did a coup, but he doesn’t know it.”
Trump said, without any evidence, that “40 or 50 million illegal aliens” will enter the United States if Harris wins, he said, claiming that suburbs will be overrun with “savage foreign gangs”. He also claimed, falsely, that Harris wants to replace all gas cars with electric cars, to ban meat, to increase taxes by 70 to 80% and more claims that can only be taken as hyperbole because they are so far divorced from fact. He also reiterated claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump repeatedly called Harris a “lunatic”.
Trump’s appearance in Atlanta is at the same venue Harris filled on Tuesday in her first Georgia rally since Biden’s dramatic withdrawal from the race and her ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The contrast between Trump and Harris in the space was stark. Harris’s multiracial crowd Tuesday was peppered with the pink and green of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters. Red Maga hats and Trump mug shots – or the now-iconic shot of his fist in the air after the assassination attempt – dominated the mostly white sea of support for Trump.
Trump opened up his appearance in Atlanta lying about the Harris event in the same place, falsely claiming that people left the event early and that there were empty seats. Both events packed the room.
Notably, the upper stands began to empty out about an hour into Trump’s comments.
The refrain, repeated by speaker after speaker at the rally, was that Trump took a bullet for Republican voters, and they should return the favor with powerful turnout in Georgia.
“He took a bullet for you, and in that moment, we found out who Donald Trump is,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative, in a speech before 10,000 Trump supporters at the Georgia State Convocation Center. “He stood up, put his fist in the air and said ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ And that’s what we will do.”
JD Vance, Republican vice-presidential nominee, took note of the emerging Democratic labeling of Republicans as “weird” as he warmed up the crowd.
Weird is how “Kamala Harris comes to Atlanta and speaks with a fake southern accent even though she grew up in Canada”, Vance said. “Go watch the clips; she sounds like a southern belle.”
Vance also linked the people who tried to “bankrupt” and “impeach” Trump to the attempted assassination.
“America is never going to elect a San Francisco liberal who is so far out of the mainstream,” Vance said.
Despite this assertion, polls increasingly suggest that Harris may be ahead of Trump today, with the Democratic national convention coming in two weeks. Before Biden’s withdrawal, Trump had been consistently ahead of Biden, so much so that political discussion here had been about whether the Biden campaign would capitulate in Georgia in order to focus its resources on Rust Belt races.
Too few polls measuring Harris and Trump in Georgia have been conducted to read the race here, but both campaigns have begun treating Georgia as a battleground state once again.
“The road to the White House runs through Georgia,” Greene said, almost word for word what Rev Raphael Warnock, a Georgia senator, told Harris supporters five days earlier.
In long, rambling comments, Trump lambasted Brian Kemp, the governor, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, for disloyalty: “In my opinion, they want us to lose. If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell.”
THE GUARDIAN
Donald Trump addressed a fully-packed venue in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, with thousands of people waiting in the Georgia heat outside to enter, or to protest his appearance in a city he has condemned repeatedly.
His remarks were consistent with the tenor and comportment of restraint and probity Atlantans are used to hearing at this point.
“She happens to be a really low IQ individual. We don’t need a low IQ individual,” Trump said of the vice-president Kamala Harris. “They love dealing with low IQ individuals … She’s Bernie Sanders but not as smart.”
Trump highlighted a handful of recent murders in the city, saying “Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.”
Trump rattled off a set of crime statistics in Atlanta that bear no resemblance to the actual change in crime over the last two years. Crime spiked in Atlanta in the last year of Trump’s term and peaked in 2022. It has subsequently fallen back to 2019 levels.
But crime – and particularly crime involving immigrants – has been central to his appeal to Republican voters. Trump invoked the murder of Laken Riley, a college student murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia. Police have charged an undocumented immigrant with her murder.
“Laken’s blood is on Kamala Harris’s hands,” Trump said, “as though she was standing there watching it herself.” Trump is trying to tie this to Harris’s role as “border czar” early in the Biden administration. “Harris should not be asking for your votes. She should be begging Laken Riley’s family for forgiveness.”
Trump made a point of highlighting the work of three Republican appointees to Georgia’s board of elections, who have been entertaining changes to election rules that critics say are setting the stage for a legal contest in case of a Trump loss in November.
Of President Joe Biden and the debate that led to his withdrawal from the race, Trump said “He was choking like a dog! He was choking. And that was the end of him … they did a coup, but he doesn’t know it.”
Trump said, without any evidence, that “40 or 50 million illegal aliens” will enter the United States if Harris wins, he said, claiming that suburbs will be overrun with “savage foreign gangs”. He also claimed, falsely, that Harris wants to replace all gas cars with electric cars, to ban meat, to increase taxes by 70 to 80% and more claims that can only be taken as hyperbole because they are so far divorced from fact. He also reiterated claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump repeatedly called Harris a “lunatic”.
Trump’s appearance in Atlanta is at the same venue Harris filled on Tuesday in her first Georgia rally since Biden’s dramatic withdrawal from the race and her ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The contrast between Trump and Harris in the space was stark. Harris’s multiracial crowd Tuesday was peppered with the pink and green of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters. Red Maga hats and Trump mug shots – or the now-iconic shot of his fist in the air after the assassination attempt – dominated the mostly white sea of support for Trump.
Trump opened up his appearance in Atlanta lying about the Harris event in the same place, falsely claiming that people left the event early and that there were empty seats. Both events packed the room.
Notably, the upper stands began to empty out about an hour into Trump’s comments.
The refrain, repeated by speaker after speaker at the rally, was that Trump took a bullet for Republican voters, and they should return the favor with powerful turnout in Georgia.
“He took a bullet for you, and in that moment, we found out who Donald Trump is,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative, in a speech before 10,000 Trump supporters at the Georgia State Convocation Center. “He stood up, put his fist in the air and said ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ And that’s what we will do.”
JD Vance, Republican vice-presidential nominee, took note of the emerging Democratic labeling of Republicans as “weird” as he warmed up the crowd.
Weird is how “Kamala Harris comes to Atlanta and speaks with a fake southern accent even though she grew up in Canada”, Vance said. “Go watch the clips; she sounds like a southern belle.”
Vance also linked the people who tried to “bankrupt” and “impeach” Trump to the attempted assassination.
“America is never going to elect a San Francisco liberal who is so far out of the mainstream,” Vance said.
Despite this assertion, polls increasingly suggest that Harris may be ahead of Trump today, with the Democratic national convention coming in two weeks. Before Biden’s withdrawal, Trump had been consistently ahead of Biden, so much so that political discussion here had been about whether the Biden campaign would capitulate in Georgia in order to focus its resources on Rust Belt races.
Too few polls measuring Harris and Trump in Georgia have been conducted to read the race here, but both campaigns have begun treating Georgia as a battleground state once again.
“The road to the White House runs through Georgia,” Greene said, almost word for word what Rev Raphael Warnock, a Georgia senator, told Harris supporters five days earlier.
In long, rambling comments, Trump lambasted Brian Kemp, the governor, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, for disloyalty: “In my opinion, they want us to lose. If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell.”
THE GUARDIAN
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Trump says he will do interview with Elon Musk on Monday night
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will do "a major interview with Elon Musk" on the night of Monday, Aug. 12.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post. He did not provide details.
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Katty Kay: Trump fights for spotlight as Democrats dominate coverage
On Thursday, Donald Trump walked into a room of journalists gathered at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a news conference. He didn’t look particularly happy.
His remarks came after a week in which Kamala Harris and her new running mate Tim Walz have dominated media attention, raked in millions of dollars and enjoyed a bump in polling. Trump’s media event seemed more an attempt to win back the spotlight than announce anything new.
Just before Trump stepped up to the podium, one of his advisors texted me the wry assessment that Donald Trump is “never boring!!” (the exclamation marks were his).
The event included a couple of news items. Mr Trump announced that he’d agreed to join a TV debate with Vice-President Harris on 10 September. ABC News, the debate host, confirmed that Ms Harris had agreed to participate as well. Trump also said he’d like to do two more debates. There’s no word from the Harris team yet on whether they’ve accepted those additional matchups.
Over the course of the hour-long event, Trump took dozens of questions and he chastised Ms Harris for failing to take questions from reporters since ascending to the top of the ticket.
Much of the event, though, was spent on Trump’s old favourites, as if he was reaching for his rally hits. He talked about poll numbers, the unfair media, the dire state of the country and, yes, crowd sizes (even comparing his crowds to those of the civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King, Jr)
Historically, one way Trump gets attention is by saying things that are controversial. And there was some of that today, too. He suggested America is on the brink of a world war and said Jewish Americans who support Vice-President Harris need “to have your head examined".
This attention deficit is an unusual position for Trump.
The former president is not used to having to fight for the limelight, particularly in this election cycle. The Biden campaign was happy to let Trump dominate the news, in the belief that the more the race was about the former president, the better it would be for the current one. The Biden team wanted Trump front and centre.
But the shake up on the Democratic side has been dramatic and newsworthy and has pushed Trump off the front pages. To make things harder for the Republican candidate, much of the coverage of Ms Harris’s unexpected roll out as Democratic candidate has been positive. So, the strategy by Democrats has flipped.
Right now, Democrats are enjoying the media attention. Ms Harris wants this race to be about her. And with all the Democratic political drama, the press has been happy to oblige.
Hence the Mar-a-Lago news conference that didn’t really have much news.
Trump may do better following the advice of Marc Lotter, the Republican strategist who ran communication strategy for his 2020 campaign, who texted me to say the way the former president should win back attention was to stay focused. “Define Harris and Walz on policy. He wins on policy and results.”
To be fair, there was some of that in this press event. Trump repeatedly described Ms Harris as “extreme” and “liberal". He did tout his own record on the economy and the border. But the attacks got rather lost in his grievance about crowd sizes and how they are reported, even suggesting that there may be something unconstitutional about the Harris campaign.
And, then it was over. And, as if to prove a point, within minutes of Trump walking off stage, the fickle cable news cameras had shifted their lenses from Florida to Michigan where Ms Harris and Mr Walz were holding a meeting with union workers. It was the Democrats time for some press coverage. Once again.
BBC
On Thursday, Donald Trump walked into a room of journalists gathered at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a news conference. He didn’t look particularly happy.
His remarks came after a week in which Kamala Harris and her new running mate Tim Walz have dominated media attention, raked in millions of dollars and enjoyed a bump in polling. Trump’s media event seemed more an attempt to win back the spotlight than announce anything new.
Just before Trump stepped up to the podium, one of his advisors texted me the wry assessment that Donald Trump is “never boring!!” (the exclamation marks were his).
The event included a couple of news items. Mr Trump announced that he’d agreed to join a TV debate with Vice-President Harris on 10 September. ABC News, the debate host, confirmed that Ms Harris had agreed to participate as well. Trump also said he’d like to do two more debates. There’s no word from the Harris team yet on whether they’ve accepted those additional matchups.
Over the course of the hour-long event, Trump took dozens of questions and he chastised Ms Harris for failing to take questions from reporters since ascending to the top of the ticket.
Much of the event, though, was spent on Trump’s old favourites, as if he was reaching for his rally hits. He talked about poll numbers, the unfair media, the dire state of the country and, yes, crowd sizes (even comparing his crowds to those of the civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King, Jr)
Historically, one way Trump gets attention is by saying things that are controversial. And there was some of that today, too. He suggested America is on the brink of a world war and said Jewish Americans who support Vice-President Harris need “to have your head examined".
This attention deficit is an unusual position for Trump.
The former president is not used to having to fight for the limelight, particularly in this election cycle. The Biden campaign was happy to let Trump dominate the news, in the belief that the more the race was about the former president, the better it would be for the current one. The Biden team wanted Trump front and centre.
But the shake up on the Democratic side has been dramatic and newsworthy and has pushed Trump off the front pages. To make things harder for the Republican candidate, much of the coverage of Ms Harris’s unexpected roll out as Democratic candidate has been positive. So, the strategy by Democrats has flipped.
Right now, Democrats are enjoying the media attention. Ms Harris wants this race to be about her. And with all the Democratic political drama, the press has been happy to oblige.
Hence the Mar-a-Lago news conference that didn’t really have much news.
Trump may do better following the advice of Marc Lotter, the Republican strategist who ran communication strategy for his 2020 campaign, who texted me to say the way the former president should win back attention was to stay focused. “Define Harris and Walz on policy. He wins on policy and results.”
To be fair, there was some of that in this press event. Trump repeatedly described Ms Harris as “extreme” and “liberal". He did tout his own record on the economy and the border. But the attacks got rather lost in his grievance about crowd sizes and how they are reported, even suggesting that there may be something unconstitutional about the Harris campaign.
And, then it was over. And, as if to prove a point, within minutes of Trump walking off stage, the fickle cable news cameras had shifted their lenses from Florida to Michigan where Ms Harris and Mr Walz were holding a meeting with union workers. It was the Democrats time for some press coverage. Once again.
BBC
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Former Trump adviser says ex-president can’t even tell when he’s lying
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s response to Donald Trump’s rambling press conference on Thursday could be summarized in one sentence: “Trump can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false.”
Bolton, who served in the Trump administration, said the former president consistently told falsehoods throughout the nearly hour-long “general news conference” but said it was not deliberate lying, rather that Trump espoused what he believes in his mind.
“In his mind, the truth is whatever he wants it to be and that’s what you heard today,” Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins on Thursday evening.
Hours early, Trump held a televised press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in which he confirmed he would debate Vice President Kamala Harris on September 4th, and suggested two other debate days.
But the former president spent most of the speech complaining about Harris and the Democrats as a whole.
He falsely stated Harris may have violated the Constitution by replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.
Trump complained that the media was purposefully diminishing the size of his rally crowds and falsely claimed the same, if not more, people attended his January 6, 2021 rally than Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech.
The former president likely grossly inflated the number of migrants crossing the border and blamed Harris for it, claiming she was made the “border czar” – Harris was only tasked with determining the root causes of migration in Central American countries.
“He makes up what he wants to say at any given time,” Bolton said.
“It’s another demonstration of how little of American history he knows. Whatever he did know he has disregarded,” he said.
Bolton worked in the White House between April 2018 and September 2019. He left on acrimonious terms after several disagreements with the president on foreign policy matters regarding North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan.
Since then, he has denounced the former president, claiming he is “not fit” to be president. Bolton publicly stated he would not vote for Trump in 2024.
The former National Security Advisor also raised concerns on Thursday evening that Trump’s rhetoric about election integrity is setting up another scenario for the former president to decry election results should he lose come November.
“Trump never loses,” Bolton said. “If he’s not declared the winner of 2024, as in 2020, it must be because he was treated unfairly, yet again, it was stolen, yet again.”
Former Trump adviser says ex-president can’t even tell when he’s lying
National Security Advisor under Trump claimed the former president no longer knows what the truth is
www.independent.co.uk
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Trump's scary helicopter trip did not happen, says ex-mayor
San Francisco's former mayor Willie Brown has dismissed as "fiction" Donald Trump's story that they once endured a scary helicopter trip together.
The former president said on Thursday that he and Mr Brown had gone "down" in a helicopter together and Mr Brown had been "a little concerned".
"We thought maybe this was the end," Trump said. "We were in a helicopter... and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing."
Trump later insisted the story was true in a call to the New York Times, saying he was “probably going to sue” without elaborating.
Mr Brown, 90, told US media he had never shared a helicopter with Trump, adding: "I don't think I'd want to ride on the same helicopter with him."
Trump, 78, appeared to be confusing Mr Brown with Jerry Brown, California's former governor, with whom he shared a helicopter ride in 2018 to visit the aftermath of the Paradise wildfires. Gavin Newsom, the current state governor, was also on the flight.
Both men told US media there had been no emergency landing or danger. "I call complete BS," Mr Newsom told The New York Times.
Trump told his story in response to a question about Willie Brown's relationship with Kamala Harris, 59, in the mid-1990s while she was a California prosecutor.
Trump was asked whether he thought the relationship had played a role in Ms Harris's career journey.
"Well, I know Willie Brown very well," Trump said, before speaking of the flight and claiming the former mayor had told him "terrible things" about Ms Harris.
"He had a big part in what happened with Kamala," Trump said.
The former mayor also denied this.
"That's so far-fetched, it's unbelievable," he told local TV station KRON. "I could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way.
"She's a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking.
"He was doing what Donald does best, his creative fiction."
A spokesperson for Jerry Brown also told US media that the former governor had not discussed Ms Harris on the helicopter flight in 2018.
Trump's remarks at an hour-long news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate come as a recent national poll shows Ms Harris is beating him among likely voters.
The two have visited a number of battleground states this week alongside their vice-presidential candidates to speak to voters.
BBC
San Francisco's former mayor Willie Brown has dismissed as "fiction" Donald Trump's story that they once endured a scary helicopter trip together.
The former president said on Thursday that he and Mr Brown had gone "down" in a helicopter together and Mr Brown had been "a little concerned".
"We thought maybe this was the end," Trump said. "We were in a helicopter... and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing."
Trump later insisted the story was true in a call to the New York Times, saying he was “probably going to sue” without elaborating.
Mr Brown, 90, told US media he had never shared a helicopter with Trump, adding: "I don't think I'd want to ride on the same helicopter with him."
Trump, 78, appeared to be confusing Mr Brown with Jerry Brown, California's former governor, with whom he shared a helicopter ride in 2018 to visit the aftermath of the Paradise wildfires. Gavin Newsom, the current state governor, was also on the flight.
Both men told US media there had been no emergency landing or danger. "I call complete BS," Mr Newsom told The New York Times.
Trump told his story in response to a question about Willie Brown's relationship with Kamala Harris, 59, in the mid-1990s while she was a California prosecutor.
Trump was asked whether he thought the relationship had played a role in Ms Harris's career journey.
"Well, I know Willie Brown very well," Trump said, before speaking of the flight and claiming the former mayor had told him "terrible things" about Ms Harris.
"He had a big part in what happened with Kamala," Trump said.
The former mayor also denied this.
"That's so far-fetched, it's unbelievable," he told local TV station KRON. "I could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way.
"She's a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking.
"He was doing what Donald does best, his creative fiction."
A spokesperson for Jerry Brown also told US media that the former governor had not discussed Ms Harris on the helicopter flight in 2018.
Trump's remarks at an hour-long news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate come as a recent national poll shows Ms Harris is beating him among likely voters.
The two have visited a number of battleground states this week alongside their vice-presidential candidates to speak to voters.
BBC
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New campaign tactics by Trump Vance duo
Bhaijaan
Hall of Famer
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Hindus for Trump.
The man has proven himself to be a friend of ours and we will welcome Mr Trump.
The man has proven himself to be a friend of ours and we will welcome Mr Trump.
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Trump campaign says its internal messages hacked by Iran
Donald Trump’s campaign has said some of its internal communications have been hacked and suggested it was targeted by Iranian operatives.
US news website Politico reported on Saturday that it had been emailed campaign documents including internal research carried out on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election,” a campaign spokesman told the BBC.
Politico said it had confirmed the authenticity of the documents. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.
The campaign did not give any further details or any evidence linking the document leak to Iranian hackers or the Iranian government.
Its statement came one day after Microsoft released a report indicating that Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed US presidential candidate in June.
Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said that the campaign was sent a spear phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.
“Over the past several months, we have seen the emergence of significant influence activity by Iranian actors,” the MTAC report said.
Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung said the June hacking attempt mentioned in the MTAC report “coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee".
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr Cheung said.
Politico said that in late July it began receiving emails from a person who identified themselves only as “Robert” using an AOL email account.
The news outlet said the Vance file was 271 pages long and based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements. The email account also sent part of a research document about Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was also a vice presidential contender, it said.
Presidential campaigns routinely research potential vice-presidential nominees in order to ferret out any potentially embarrassing revelations. Politico reported that some of Mr Vance's previous - and well-known - criticisms of Trump were labelled in the document as "potential vulnerabilities".
The Microsoft report noted: "Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles."
Microsoft had released a similar report during the 2020 election saying Iranian hackers had targeted presidential campaigns.
US security sources have also warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, unconnected to last month’s attempted shooting in Pennsylvania. And on Tuesday, the US justice department charged a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate US officials, potentially including the former president.
The BBC has contacted Iranian officials for comment.
BBC
Donald Trump’s campaign has said some of its internal communications have been hacked and suggested it was targeted by Iranian operatives.
US news website Politico reported on Saturday that it had been emailed campaign documents including internal research carried out on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election,” a campaign spokesman told the BBC.
Politico said it had confirmed the authenticity of the documents. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.
The campaign did not give any further details or any evidence linking the document leak to Iranian hackers or the Iranian government.
Its statement came one day after Microsoft released a report indicating that Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed US presidential candidate in June.
Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said that the campaign was sent a spear phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.
“Over the past several months, we have seen the emergence of significant influence activity by Iranian actors,” the MTAC report said.
Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung said the June hacking attempt mentioned in the MTAC report “coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee".
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr Cheung said.
Politico said that in late July it began receiving emails from a person who identified themselves only as “Robert” using an AOL email account.
The news outlet said the Vance file was 271 pages long and based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements. The email account also sent part of a research document about Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was also a vice presidential contender, it said.
Presidential campaigns routinely research potential vice-presidential nominees in order to ferret out any potentially embarrassing revelations. Politico reported that some of Mr Vance's previous - and well-known - criticisms of Trump were labelled in the document as "potential vulnerabilities".
The Microsoft report noted: "Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles."
Microsoft had released a similar report during the 2020 election saying Iranian hackers had targeted presidential campaigns.
US security sources have also warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, unconnected to last month’s attempted shooting in Pennsylvania. And on Tuesday, the US justice department charged a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate US officials, potentially including the former president.
The BBC has contacted Iranian officials for comment.
BBC
Savak
Test Captain
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There is no doubt that the main stream media is heavily biased against Trump and Vance especially CNN, ABC, NBC. Fox News is the only channel which reports the Truth regarding the democrats.
Pretty clear that the US establishment is not in favour of a second Trump term
Pretty clear that the US establishment is not in favour of a second Trump term
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Musk claims Trump interview targeted by cyber attack
Elon Musk's interview of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was marred by technical issues that the tech billionaire blamed on a cyber attack.
The lengthy conversation, which Mr Musk said was aimed at “open-minded independent voters”, began more than 40 minutes late as many users struggled to gain access.
Mr Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, said a distributed denial of services (DDoS) attack "saturated all of our data lines".
Near the end of the two-hour conversation, he doubled down on his endorsement of Trump and called on moderate voters to back the Republican's campaign.
“Here’s to an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next," Mr Musk said.
The conversation got off to a less auspicious start.
More than 20 minutes into when the conversation was actually due to begin, as many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed "a massive DDoS attack on X" for the problems in a post.
Distributed denial of services attacks - or DDoS attacks - are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.
Once the conversation between the two men began, Mr Musk said the alleged cyber attack showed there is opposition in the US to hearing what Trump had to say.
It is not clear what caused the technical problems with the X audio conversation or who may have been behind any alleged attack.
“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.
“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”
Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.
However, Andrew Hay from IT firm Damovo said the problems could have been caused by a cyberattack: “I believe the DDoS attack was targeting the broadcast portion of X’s service, without significantly impacting core functionality for everyone else on the website.”
“Conducting a large-scale DDoS attack is relatively easy, needing either a large number of compromised systems or an identified technological flaw in the target to exhaust it's resources," he added.
Mr Musk said in a subsequent post that the system was tested with “8 million concurrent listeners” before his live chat.
During the conversation, X Spaces showed about one million people listening in
The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.
The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.
Opinion polls suggest that the Democratic nomination of Ms Harris has tightened the close race for the White House.
The Harris campaign is riding a wave of momentum after she became the Democratic standard-bearer when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.
Next week, Ms Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, could get a further bump from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
The Trump campaign has been needling Ms Harris for not doing interviews and for taking few questions from reporters since accepting the nomination last month.
During Monday's interview, Trump said "it's nice to have a forum like this" on X, where he could speak at length.
Mr Musk, whose platform hosted the event, has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.
He has more than 190 million followers on X, where he regularly engages in political controversies.
He has also recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump's campaign.
But after his conversation with Trump, Mr Musk posted on X "Happy to host Kamala on an X Spaces too", in an apparent invitation to Vice-President Kamala Harris to take part in a similar event.
The relationship between Mr Musk and Trump has shifted over the years and they have traded online barbs in the past.
But Monday's conversation between the two was chummy and never adversarial.
Trump, who has been sceptical of electric vehicles and previously vowed to roll back federal subsidies, praised car-maker Tesla, which Mr Musk also owns.
He recently said he had “no choice” but to support EVs because of Mr Musk's endorsement and called the Tesla product "great" on Monday.
Mr Musk said he would be willing to offer a Trump administration help on a proposed "government efficiency commission".
Ahead of the high-profile conversation on the social media site, which could be accessed by European users, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Mr Musk in a letter that he must comply with EU digital content law.
The EU suspects X of breaching its rules in areas including countering illegal content and disinformation.
In response, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino called it “an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US".
"It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions.”
Monday marked something of a return to X/Twitter for Trump, who was removed from the platform shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.
Besides a flurry of campaign advertisements on Trump's account on Monday, he had only posted once - his mug shot and a link to his campaign site - a year ago after Mr Musk reactivated his X account in 2022.
It's not clear whether Trump, who frequently posts on his Truth Social site, would continue to post more frequently on X.
Monday's interview touched on a range of issues, from the assassination attempt on Trump last month at a Pennsylvania rally, to his wanting the US to get an "Iron Dome" missile defence system like the one in Israel, and a key plank of his campaign - immigration.
Trump also mused about closing the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the states as one of his first acts if he wins the election in November.
The Republican candidate also spoke of Mr Biden's decision to exit the race after a disastrous debate performance and pressure from vulnerable Democrats lawmakers, characterising it as “a coup".
Mr Biden, in a weekend interview with CBS, said he left because feared that the intraparty battle over his candidacy would be a "real distraction" ahead of the election.
In a statement after the event, the Harris campaign described Mr Musk and Trump as two "self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024”.
BBC
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FBI probes claims Iran hacked Trump campaign
The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations from the Trump campaign that it was targeted by hackers working for the Iranian government.
“We can confirm the FBI is investigating the matter,” the agency said in a short statement on Monday without specifically naming the former president or Iran.
A Trump campaign spokesman told the BBC the documents were illegally obtained by "foreign sources hostile to the United States".
Iranian officials have denied any connection to the hack and the US government has not formally accused Iran.
The FBI is also looking into whether Iranian hackers targeted the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign, according to CBS News, the BBC's news partner, citing people familiar with the investigation.
The Trump campaign statement came one day after Microsoft released a report indicating that Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed US presidential candidate in June.
Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said that the campaign was sent a spear- phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.
On Saturday, Trump said the hackers were "only able to get publicly available information".
The FBI began the investigations in early summer after both campaigns experienced attempted phishing schemes, CBS News reported.
According to the Washington Post, three staff members of the Biden-Harris campaign were also targeted by phishing emails in the days before President Joe Biden announced that he was quitting the race.
A Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement to the media that the campaign "vigilantly monitors and protects against cyberthreats, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems".
The BBC has asked the Harris campaign for comment.
According to the Washington Post, the FBI probe into the hacking attempts was first opened in June.
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was among several lawmakers calling for the FBI to reveal what it knows about the hacking attempts.
He said that the US intelligence community “moved much too slow to properly identity the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia” in 2016 and “should act quickly here”.
It comes after Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell said he was requesting a briefing from the Department of Homeland Security on the "alleged hack of Trump's presidential campaign".
"Yes, Trump is the most despicable person ever to seek office. He also sought foreign hacking in a past election... But that doesn’t mean America ever tolerates foreign interference," he posted on X/Twitter on Saturday.
At campaign rallies in 2016, he asked Russia to hack his opponent in the race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
US security sources had previously warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, unconnected to last month’s attempted shooting in Pennsylvania.
And on Tuesday, the US justice department charged a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate US officials, potentially including the former president.
BBC
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Top Trump advisers in turmoil after campaign’s worst month of 2024
Donald Trump has privately expressed faith in his campaign leadership and no firings are currently expected, but senior advisers find themselves in the most vulnerable moment as they struggle to frame effective attacks against Kamala Harris, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The past month, starting with Joe Biden’s withdrawal and his endorsement of Harris to succeed him, which propelled her to draw roughly even in key swing state polls, has easily been the most unstable moment for the Trump campaign since its formal launch in late 2022.
In that period, Trump has often committed one unforced error after another as he tries to frame arguments against Harris, struggled to break through the news cycle hyping Democrats’ enthusiasm, and suddenly found himself on the defensive with a narrow window left until November.
The sudden difficulty for the Trump campaign to lay a glove on Harris has led to Trump’s allies seeing an opening for the first time to openly challenge decision-making by senior aides and privately challenge whether some advisers should remain in their positions or be sidelined.
And the past month has been bad enough for the Trump campaign that advisers have taken those challenges – whether from enemies real or perceived – as serious threats or slights that necessitate devoting time and effort to slap down.
In a statement referring to the campaign chiefs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, a Trump spokesperson said: “As President Trump said, he thinks Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita are doing a phenomenal job and any rumors to the contrary are false and not rooted in reality.
“This campaign is focused on winning, and anyone not focused on electing President Trump and defeating Kamala Harris is doing nothing but hurting every American. Detractors and lobbyists are waging a destructive battle of rumor and innuendo, and they are well known and will be remembered.”
Source: The Guardian
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A different kind of Trump goes on display
The pork sausage was a sign that this was going to be different. Or at least, that it was meant to be.
Like a grocery store employee in front of a concession stand, Donald Trump stood framed by the everyday items of an American shopping basket.
Breakfast oats. Bread. Butter. The sausage.
In a 45-minute-long pre-prepared speech at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, his remarks appeared designed to signal a shift away from the usual personal attacks on his opponent.
Reading off a piece of paper - itself something of departure from his normally freewheeling style - this was instead an attempt to focus on policy and, somewhat like the ground coffee beans that remained in shot throughout, in granular detail too.
The former president listed a barrage of what he said were price increases under the current administration. Flour up 38%, he said. Eggs, 46%.
Sure, he questioned whether Kamala Harris loves her country, impugned her intelligence and accused her of being a "communist" multiple times.
But, compared to what has come before, this was far less heavy on the insults and it will have been music to the ears of at least some senior Republican figures.
The concerns in Republican circles about Trump's struggle to adjust to the challenge presented by Ms Harris have been mounting ever since she took over as the presumptive Democrat nominee.
“The winning formula for President Trump is very plain to see,” Kellyanne Conway, once his campaign manager and close advisor, recently told Fox News.
“It’s fewer insults, more insights.”
Others too have cringed as Trump has attacked Ms Harris over her racial identity or made bizarre claims that she was engaged in deep-fake fraud over the size of the crowds at her rallies.
“So stupid,” Megyn Kelly, the conservative commentator and former Fox News host, said in response to the latter tactic on her radio show.
“Just focus on the damn border!”
That’s a piece of advice, it has to be said, he doesn’t have too much trouble following.
Although his remarks began with a promise to focus on some “big facts and very substantial truths”, as so often they more than strained the definition of both.
He claimed, once again, that some countries are emptying out their prisons and “insane asylums” to flood the US with illegal migrants, despite there being no data on the prison history of migrants crossing the border or their mental health status.
And he repeated – without any evidence and contrary to government data - that 100% of new jobs have gone to migrants, while regurgitating false claims about having won the 2020 election.
But for those Republicans who wanted to see a new approach to counter troubling polling data, meticulous accuracy was likely not high on their list of demands from their candidate.
Even that headline list of increasing grocery costs – what Trump called “Kamala’s price hikes” – appeared to raise a number of questions.
The Reuters news agency, for example, pointed out that bread and coffee prices have actually fallen over the last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Consumer Price Index.
But that’s not really the point. Factual or not, this was Trump connecting to voters on the issues that matter, and many do still feel the effects of the high levels of inflation under President Biden.
And with Harris yet to sit down for a formal media interview, he worked hard to land some blows against her on her record, in particular remarks she made in 2020 during widespread protests over police reform where she appeared sympathetic to calls to reduce spending on the police.
He also claimed – with some merit – that she’d stolen his pledge to end tax on tips in the US service industry, complaining that it “would’ve been nice” if she’d seen fit to give him credit.
The big question, of course, is whether Trump himself can stay on message and stick to these kinds of talking points.
In large parts of the press conference he was very much his usual self, giving long-winded diatribes about the mechanics of electric trucks, a “drill baby drill” promise to increase oil extraction, and at one point declaring that “I’m a big fan of electricity.”
But something was missing, somewhat akin to a man from the meat marketing board being forced to give a lecture about the health benefits of carrots.
You couldn’t help feeling that none of this sat very naturally for a politician whose whole political strategy has so often been fuelled by invective.
Opening the floor to questions from reporters he was asked whether he was indeed stepping back from the vitriolic character assassinations of his opponents.
“They’re not nice to me,” he said.
“I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”
BBC
The pork sausage was a sign that this was going to be different. Or at least, that it was meant to be.
Like a grocery store employee in front of a concession stand, Donald Trump stood framed by the everyday items of an American shopping basket.
Breakfast oats. Bread. Butter. The sausage.
In a 45-minute-long pre-prepared speech at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, his remarks appeared designed to signal a shift away from the usual personal attacks on his opponent.
Reading off a piece of paper - itself something of departure from his normally freewheeling style - this was instead an attempt to focus on policy and, somewhat like the ground coffee beans that remained in shot throughout, in granular detail too.
The former president listed a barrage of what he said were price increases under the current administration. Flour up 38%, he said. Eggs, 46%.
Sure, he questioned whether Kamala Harris loves her country, impugned her intelligence and accused her of being a "communist" multiple times.
But, compared to what has come before, this was far less heavy on the insults and it will have been music to the ears of at least some senior Republican figures.
The concerns in Republican circles about Trump's struggle to adjust to the challenge presented by Ms Harris have been mounting ever since she took over as the presumptive Democrat nominee.
“The winning formula for President Trump is very plain to see,” Kellyanne Conway, once his campaign manager and close advisor, recently told Fox News.
“It’s fewer insults, more insights.”
Others too have cringed as Trump has attacked Ms Harris over her racial identity or made bizarre claims that she was engaged in deep-fake fraud over the size of the crowds at her rallies.
“So stupid,” Megyn Kelly, the conservative commentator and former Fox News host, said in response to the latter tactic on her radio show.
“Just focus on the damn border!”
That’s a piece of advice, it has to be said, he doesn’t have too much trouble following.
Although his remarks began with a promise to focus on some “big facts and very substantial truths”, as so often they more than strained the definition of both.
He claimed, once again, that some countries are emptying out their prisons and “insane asylums” to flood the US with illegal migrants, despite there being no data on the prison history of migrants crossing the border or their mental health status.
And he repeated – without any evidence and contrary to government data - that 100% of new jobs have gone to migrants, while regurgitating false claims about having won the 2020 election.
But for those Republicans who wanted to see a new approach to counter troubling polling data, meticulous accuracy was likely not high on their list of demands from their candidate.
Even that headline list of increasing grocery costs – what Trump called “Kamala’s price hikes” – appeared to raise a number of questions.
The Reuters news agency, for example, pointed out that bread and coffee prices have actually fallen over the last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Consumer Price Index.
But that’s not really the point. Factual or not, this was Trump connecting to voters on the issues that matter, and many do still feel the effects of the high levels of inflation under President Biden.
And with Harris yet to sit down for a formal media interview, he worked hard to land some blows against her on her record, in particular remarks she made in 2020 during widespread protests over police reform where she appeared sympathetic to calls to reduce spending on the police.
He also claimed – with some merit – that she’d stolen his pledge to end tax on tips in the US service industry, complaining that it “would’ve been nice” if she’d seen fit to give him credit.
The big question, of course, is whether Trump himself can stay on message and stick to these kinds of talking points.
In large parts of the press conference he was very much his usual self, giving long-winded diatribes about the mechanics of electric trucks, a “drill baby drill” promise to increase oil extraction, and at one point declaring that “I’m a big fan of electricity.”
But something was missing, somewhat akin to a man from the meat marketing board being forced to give a lecture about the health benefits of carrots.
You couldn’t help feeling that none of this sat very naturally for a politician whose whole political strategy has so often been fuelled by invective.
Opening the floor to questions from reporters he was asked whether he was indeed stepping back from the vitriolic character assassinations of his opponents.
“They’re not nice to me,” he said.
“I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”
BBC
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- Aug 29, 2023
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Iran hacked Trump campaign, US intelligence confirms
Iran was behind the recent hack of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, US intelligence officials have confirmed.
The FBI and other federal agencies said in a joint statement that Iran had chosen to interfere in the US election "to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions".
The Trump campaign pointed the finger at Iran on 10 August for hacking its internal messages. Iranian officials denied it.
Sources familiar with the investigation told the BBC's US partner, CBS News, that they suspect Iranian hackers also targeted the campaign of Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris.
“The [intelligence community] is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties,” US intelligence officials said in the statement.
"Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the US election process."
The Trump campaign was reportedly sent a spear-phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.
The Harris campaign said last week it had also been the target of a spear-phishing attack, though it was unsuccessful.
The agencies that released Monday's statement, including the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the tactics were "not new" and noted that Russia and Iran had employed such methods during previous US elections.
It remains unclear what information, if any, was stolen during the hack. Trump said the hackers were only able to obtain publicly available information.
The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including on its vetting of his running mate, JD Vance. The outlets have so far declined to offer specifics.
US officials said it was clear Iran wanted to shape the outcome of elections it believes are "particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests".
The American intelligence agencies added that they had "observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle".
There has been growing concern about potential Iranian hackers.
Recently, Microsoft said it had seen "the emergence of significant influence activity" by groups linked to Iran.
Before he dropped out of the White House race last month, President Joe Biden's campaign was targeted by Iranian hackers, as was Trump's, according to Google.
BBC
Iran was behind the recent hack of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, US intelligence officials have confirmed.
The FBI and other federal agencies said in a joint statement that Iran had chosen to interfere in the US election "to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions".
The Trump campaign pointed the finger at Iran on 10 August for hacking its internal messages. Iranian officials denied it.
Sources familiar with the investigation told the BBC's US partner, CBS News, that they suspect Iranian hackers also targeted the campaign of Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris.
“The [intelligence community] is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties,” US intelligence officials said in the statement.
"Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the US election process."
The Trump campaign was reportedly sent a spear-phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.
The Harris campaign said last week it had also been the target of a spear-phishing attack, though it was unsuccessful.
The agencies that released Monday's statement, including the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the tactics were "not new" and noted that Russia and Iran had employed such methods during previous US elections.
It remains unclear what information, if any, was stolen during the hack. Trump said the hackers were only able to obtain publicly available information.
The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including on its vetting of his running mate, JD Vance. The outlets have so far declined to offer specifics.
US officials said it was clear Iran wanted to shape the outcome of elections it believes are "particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests".
The American intelligence agencies added that they had "observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle".
There has been growing concern about potential Iranian hackers.
Recently, Microsoft said it had seen "the emergence of significant influence activity" by groups linked to Iran.
Before he dropped out of the White House race last month, President Joe Biden's campaign was targeted by Iranian hackers, as was Trump's, according to Google.
BBC
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Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump?
Kamala Harris makes second surprise appearance at DNC virtually from Milwaukee rally
I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy
Vice President Kamala Harris is making a bid for the White House with running mate Tim Walz after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket just a few months before Election Day.
But with the Democratic National Convention underway in Chicago this week, a new poll suggests that voters are not convinced on Democratic policy approaches; even as independent voters creep towards the left.
So how will Harris actually fare against Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, this November?
Harris now has a 2.8-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls, though the race remains tight.
A new Morning Consult megapoll of 11,501 registered voters even has Harris +4 points ahead, at 48 percent of the vote to Trump’s 44 percent.
This poll shows that independent voters are also leaning more towards Harris, though there has been significant variation between different surveys of the elusive voter group.
Capturing the independent vote will be crucial for either Harris or Trump to take the lead in this election. This is the most likely group to vote for Robert F Kennedy Jr., with 1 in 10 independents currently saying they will vote for a third-party candidate.
It remains to be seen what would happen if RFK Jr. drops out of the race, but as it stands, Harris may be slowly carving out a small lead among independents.
Meanwhile, exclusive polling from Savanta showed that voters still trust the Republican Party more to handle major policy issues like the economy, inflation, jobs, and crime.
Of the top five issues on the ballot, the Democrats only lead on healthcare, despite the fact that Harris appears to be striding ahead in the polls.
Interestingly, though, registered Republicans are not sold on some of the party’s most controversial issues; around 1 in 4 Republicans would rather place their trust in Democrats to handle climate change and culture war issues like LGBTQ+ rights.
Demographics
A fresh CBS/YouGov poll (up to August 16) has Harris at a 3-point lead and shows a substantial gender divide is emerging between the two candidates, with more men supporting Trump and more women voting for Harris.
Trump’s key supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters with no college education. But in the last group, Trump appears to have lost some of his leverage over Harris when compared to Biden.
Harris polls best with young voters, female voters, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +65 point lead.
While Harris and Biden both typically led among white college-educated voters, the recent CBS poll suggests that Harris has only a +5 point lead over Trump in this group — a far cry from the 20+ point lead she showed in other polls a few weeks ago.
In the seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the war is still being waged between Democrat and Republican campaigns.
Research from the Cook Political Report show that Harris has a lead in six out of seven states, with Trump holding strong in Nevada.
The poll shows Harris’s strongest lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4 percent in 2020.
This is a substantial swing from the same polls in May, with a Trump-Biden matchup, where Trump led in six states and tied in Wisconsin.
Yet polling in swing states continues to show variation from pollster to pollster, with a YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggesting that neither candidate had a significant lead in any of the battlegrounds.
Overall, battleground polls have consistently shown that Harris has picked up momentum from her predecessor’s trailing support, and is on-track to lead Trump in some states
What do voters think?
A poll from Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris is the only candidate of whom voters have an overall favorable opinion, at +2 percent.
This is significantly more positive than both Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net -10 unfavorable rating, according to the poll of 1,000 US likely voters.
Meanwhile, VP pick Walz has an overall neutral favorability rating, with 39 percent of voters holding a favorable view and 39 percent holding an unfavorable view.
Interestingly, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz, a week after his selection. For JD Vance the number was lower, at 12 percent.
Source: The Independent
Kamala Harris makes second surprise appearance at DNC virtually from Milwaukee rally
I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy
Vice President Kamala Harris is making a bid for the White House with running mate Tim Walz after replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket just a few months before Election Day.
But with the Democratic National Convention underway in Chicago this week, a new poll suggests that voters are not convinced on Democratic policy approaches; even as independent voters creep towards the left.
So how will Harris actually fare against Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, this November?
Harris now has a 2.8-point lead over Trump in the latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump in national polls, though the race remains tight.
A new Morning Consult megapoll of 11,501 registered voters even has Harris +4 points ahead, at 48 percent of the vote to Trump’s 44 percent.
This poll shows that independent voters are also leaning more towards Harris, though there has been significant variation between different surveys of the elusive voter group.
Capturing the independent vote will be crucial for either Harris or Trump to take the lead in this election. This is the most likely group to vote for Robert F Kennedy Jr., with 1 in 10 independents currently saying they will vote for a third-party candidate.
It remains to be seen what would happen if RFK Jr. drops out of the race, but as it stands, Harris may be slowly carving out a small lead among independents.
Meanwhile, exclusive polling from Savanta showed that voters still trust the Republican Party more to handle major policy issues like the economy, inflation, jobs, and crime.
Of the top five issues on the ballot, the Democrats only lead on healthcare, despite the fact that Harris appears to be striding ahead in the polls.
Interestingly, though, registered Republicans are not sold on some of the party’s most controversial issues; around 1 in 4 Republicans would rather place their trust in Democrats to handle climate change and culture war issues like LGBTQ+ rights.
Demographics
A fresh CBS/YouGov poll (up to August 16) has Harris at a 3-point lead and shows a substantial gender divide is emerging between the two candidates, with more men supporting Trump and more women voting for Harris.
Trump’s key supporters remain male voters, the 45-64 age group, and white voters with no college education. But in the last group, Trump appears to have lost some of his leverage over Harris when compared to Biden.
Harris polls best with young voters, female voters, and Black voters, among whom Harris has a +65 point lead.
While Harris and Biden both typically led among white college-educated voters, the recent CBS poll suggests that Harris has only a +5 point lead over Trump in this group — a far cry from the 20+ point lead she showed in other polls a few weeks ago.
In the seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the war is still being waged between Democrat and Republican campaigns.
Research from the Cook Political Report show that Harris has a lead in six out of seven states, with Trump holding strong in Nevada.
The poll shows Harris’s strongest lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just 0.4 percent in 2020.
This is a substantial swing from the same polls in May, with a Trump-Biden matchup, where Trump led in six states and tied in Wisconsin.
Yet polling in swing states continues to show variation from pollster to pollster, with a YouGov/CBS poll conducted up to the same date (August 2) suggesting that neither candidate had a significant lead in any of the battlegrounds.
Overall, battleground polls have consistently shown that Harris has picked up momentum from her predecessor’s trailing support, and is on-track to lead Trump in some states
What do voters think?
A poll from Emerson College (August 12-14) shows that Kamala Harris is the only candidate of whom voters have an overall favorable opinion, at +2 percent.
This is significantly more positive than both Trump and his running mate Vance, who have a net -10 unfavorable rating, according to the poll of 1,000 US likely voters.
Meanwhile, VP pick Walz has an overall neutral favorability rating, with 39 percent of voters holding a favorable view and 39 percent holding an unfavorable view.
Interestingly, one in five voters (22 percent) said they had never heard of Walz, a week after his selection. For JD Vance the number was lower, at 12 percent.
Source: The Independent
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Rattled Trump lashes out as DNC attacks throw him off message
Donald Trump isn't in Chicago but his presence hangs over everything and he is clearly following events here.A couple of aides told me, a little implausibly, that the former president is not tuning into the Democratic National Convention because he has no interest in watching a Democratic Party "infomercial".
But one senior campaign official confirms, anonymously, that Trump is watching and is irritated by the attacks against him.
In the view of one ally who speaks to the former president every week, Trump wins in November if he sticks to talking about the economy, the border and crime.
At the start of this week, that looked possible. Trump scheduled a string of rallies, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona - each was themed to focus on exactly those political and economic topics.
But with night after night of anti-Trump speeches here in Chicago, staying on message has gone out the window. And it's not what his supporters tell him they want anyway.
The North Carolina event on Wednesday was vintage Trump - and it became a referendum on his own team's strategy. "They always say, 'Sir, please stick to policy, don't get personal'... and yet [the Democrats are] getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?" Trump asked.
Then he polled the crowd: more policy or go personal? His fans roared, they wanted the Trump show, not a list of boring economic proposals. "My advisers are fired!" he joked. Then he said he'd stick to policy but couldn't let the attacks go unanswered
Source: BBC
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Robert F Kennedy Jr suspends campaign and backs Trump
Independent White House candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has joined the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, on stage at a rally in Arizona after dropping out of the race and endorsing the former US president.
Mr Kennedy, 70, a Democrat for most of his life and the scion of the Kennedy dynasty, said the principles that had led him to leave the party had now compelled him "to throw my support to President Trump".
He said in a press conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday that he would seek to remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states.
Trump praised Mr Kennedy as "phenomenal" and "brilliant" as he welcomed him on stage at the rally later in Glendale. Democratic rival Kamala Harris said she would try to "earn" the support of Kennedy voters.
With November's election looming, Mr Kennedy's polling has slumped from a high of double figures as funds and national coverage dried up.
The son of US Senator Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F Kennedy, he is from the most famed family in Democratic politics.
Before welcoming RFK Jr to the stage on Friday, Trump promised, if elected, to release all remaining documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy's decision to back a Republican for the White House has outraged his relatives, who previously condemned his invocation of the family name in a Super Bowl ad back in February.
Kerry Kennedy, his sister, said his support for Trump was a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story."
“This decision is agonising for me because of the difficulties it causes my wife and my children and my friends,” Mr Kennedy said on Friday.
“But I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. And that certainty gives me internal peace, even in storms.”
He is married to Cheryl Hines, the star of HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. She posted on X, formerly Twitter, that she deeply respected her husband’s decision to suspend his campaign. She did not comment on his endorsement of Trump.
Mr Kennedy told reporters on Friday that Trump's insistence he could end the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia "alone would justify my support for his campaign".
"There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned on other key issues."
He said he would remove his name from 10 states where his presence would be a "spoiler" to Trump's effort. He has already withdrawn from the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.
But it is too late for him to pull out from the swing states of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officials told AP news agency.
Mr Kennedy said he had launched his campaign in April 2023 "as a Democrat, the party of my father, my uncle... the champions of the Constitution".
But he left because "it had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money".
He blamed his decision to suspend his campaign on "media control" and his former party's efforts to thwart his run, adding: "In my heart I no longer believe I have a realistic path to victory in the face of relentless and systematic censorship."
Mr Kennedy hovered around 14% - 16% in polls at his most popular. However, his ratings have slumped to single digits since Ms Harris became the Democratic nominee.
He said in his press conference that he had offered to work with Ms Harris and her bid for the White House.
Democrats sounded unfazed by his announcement.
"Donald Trump isn't earning an endorsement that's going to help build support, he's inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance," Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.
Mr Kennedy's campaign became synonymous with the anti-vaccine movement as he frequently touted his leadership of the Children's Health Defense organisation, formerly known as the World Mercury Project.
In recent weeks, Mr Kennedy recounted how he dumped a dead bear cub that had been hit by a car in New York's Central Park in 2014 as a joke.
Earlier in his campaign, it was revealed that he had suffered from a brain parasite over a decade ago which caused severe memory loss and brain fog.
His announcement capped days of rumour that Mr Kennedy offered to endorse Trump to secure a role in his next administration.
Trump told CNN earlier this week he would "certainly be open" to Mr Kennedy playing a role, while Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, said he would be suited to "blow up" a federal department.
Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, told the BBC that Mr Kennedy's decision highlighted the two-party system in the US and "how difficult it is to get new ideas and fresh people into the process".
BBC
Independent White House candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has joined the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, on stage at a rally in Arizona after dropping out of the race and endorsing the former US president.
Mr Kennedy, 70, a Democrat for most of his life and the scion of the Kennedy dynasty, said the principles that had led him to leave the party had now compelled him "to throw my support to President Trump".
He said in a press conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday that he would seek to remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states.
Trump praised Mr Kennedy as "phenomenal" and "brilliant" as he welcomed him on stage at the rally later in Glendale. Democratic rival Kamala Harris said she would try to "earn" the support of Kennedy voters.
With November's election looming, Mr Kennedy's polling has slumped from a high of double figures as funds and national coverage dried up.
The son of US Senator Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F Kennedy, he is from the most famed family in Democratic politics.
Before welcoming RFK Jr to the stage on Friday, Trump promised, if elected, to release all remaining documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy's decision to back a Republican for the White House has outraged his relatives, who previously condemned his invocation of the family name in a Super Bowl ad back in February.
Kerry Kennedy, his sister, said his support for Trump was a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story."
“This decision is agonising for me because of the difficulties it causes my wife and my children and my friends,” Mr Kennedy said on Friday.
“But I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. And that certainty gives me internal peace, even in storms.”
He is married to Cheryl Hines, the star of HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. She posted on X, formerly Twitter, that she deeply respected her husband’s decision to suspend his campaign. She did not comment on his endorsement of Trump.
Mr Kennedy told reporters on Friday that Trump's insistence he could end the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia "alone would justify my support for his campaign".
"There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned on other key issues."
He said he would remove his name from 10 states where his presence would be a "spoiler" to Trump's effort. He has already withdrawn from the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.
But it is too late for him to pull out from the swing states of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officials told AP news agency.
Mr Kennedy said he had launched his campaign in April 2023 "as a Democrat, the party of my father, my uncle... the champions of the Constitution".
But he left because "it had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money".
He blamed his decision to suspend his campaign on "media control" and his former party's efforts to thwart his run, adding: "In my heart I no longer believe I have a realistic path to victory in the face of relentless and systematic censorship."
Mr Kennedy hovered around 14% - 16% in polls at his most popular. However, his ratings have slumped to single digits since Ms Harris became the Democratic nominee.
He said in his press conference that he had offered to work with Ms Harris and her bid for the White House.
Democrats sounded unfazed by his announcement.
"Donald Trump isn't earning an endorsement that's going to help build support, he's inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance," Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.
Mr Kennedy's campaign became synonymous with the anti-vaccine movement as he frequently touted his leadership of the Children's Health Defense organisation, formerly known as the World Mercury Project.
In recent weeks, Mr Kennedy recounted how he dumped a dead bear cub that had been hit by a car in New York's Central Park in 2014 as a joke.
Earlier in his campaign, it was revealed that he had suffered from a brain parasite over a decade ago which caused severe memory loss and brain fog.
His announcement capped days of rumour that Mr Kennedy offered to endorse Trump to secure a role in his next administration.
Trump told CNN earlier this week he would "certainly be open" to Mr Kennedy playing a role, while Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, said he would be suited to "blow up" a federal department.
Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, told the BBC that Mr Kennedy's decision highlighted the two-party system in the US and "how difficult it is to get new ideas and fresh people into the process".
BBC
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Donald Trump faces revised US indictment in election subversion case
Donald Trump faced a revised federal indictment on Tuesday accusing him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, with prosecutors narrowing their approach after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith's team obtained the superseding indictment in the Washington case, though it was highly unlikely to proceed to trial ahead of the Nov. 5 election when the Republican Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The revised indictment lays out the same four charges prosecutors brought against the former president last year, but this one focuses on Trump's role as a political candidate seeking reelection, rather than as the president at the time.
The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington has been expected to decide in coming weeks which aspects of the case must be tossed out based on the Supreme Court's immunity decision.
Attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump in a statement on his Truth Social media platform said the Supreme Court's immunity ruling should lead to the entire case being thrown out, saying, "Smith rewrote the exact same case in an effort to circumvent the Supreme Court Decision."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the initial charges, denouncing this case and the others he faces as politically motivated attempts to prevent him from returning to power.
Opinion polls have shown Harris opening up a narrow national lead over Trump since Democratic President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid last month.
This indictment, like the initial one, accuses Trump of a multi-part conspiracy to block the certification of his election defeat to Biden.
Donald Trump faced a revised federal indictment on Tuesday accusing him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, with prosecutors narrowing their approach after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith's team obtained the superseding indictment in the Washington case, though it was highly unlikely to proceed to trial ahead of the Nov. 5 election when the Republican Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The revised indictment lays out the same four charges prosecutors brought against the former president last year, but this one focuses on Trump's role as a political candidate seeking reelection, rather than as the president at the time.
The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington has been expected to decide in coming weeks which aspects of the case must be tossed out based on the Supreme Court's immunity decision.
Attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump in a statement on his Truth Social media platform said the Supreme Court's immunity ruling should lead to the entire case being thrown out, saying, "Smith rewrote the exact same case in an effort to circumvent the Supreme Court Decision."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the initial charges, denouncing this case and the others he faces as politically motivated attempts to prevent him from returning to power.
Opinion polls have shown Harris opening up a narrow national lead over Trump since Democratic President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid last month.
This indictment, like the initial one, accuses Trump of a multi-part conspiracy to block the certification of his election defeat to Biden.
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Trump says insurance or government should pay for IVF
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments will be paid for by insurance companies or the government if he returns to the White House.
“I was always for IVF. Right from the beginning, as soon as we heard about it," he told NBC News on Thursday.
The new campaign pledge comes after his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and other members of her party have alleged that Republican-led abortion restrictions in some states could further threaten access to fertility treatments.
Trump's announcement could put him at odds with some conservative anti-abortion activists who want to ban IVF for discarding unused human embryos.
But he committed to the new position on Thursday in the interview with NBC.
"Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump told the news outlet. "Or we're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
IVF treatments can be very expensive - often around $20,000 (£15,000) per round - and are rarely covered by insurance in the US. Trump did not explain how this new policy would work or be put into effect.
The Harris-Walz campaign was quick to respond to the former president's new policy position, blaming him for the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn the landmark 1973 abortion case - Roe v Wade - which eliminated the national right to abortion.
State governments can now decide Americans' access to abortion, and at least 14 have banned or put severe restrictions on the procedure.
"Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country," said Harris campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika in response to Trump's comments on Thursday.
Trump has previously bragged about appointing three of the six conservatives on the Supreme Court who backed overturning the abortion access law.
"I was able to kill Roe v Wade," the former president posted online in May 2023.
But Trump has attempted to distance himself from his record on abortion, as Harris capitalises on voter concerns about how Republicans could affect reproductive rights.
In his interview, Trump - a Florida resident - also said he planned to vote against a Florida state ballot measure that would prohibit abortion after six weeks, with some exceptions.
"I think the six-week [ban] is too short. There has to be more time," he said. "I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks."
IVF became a new political lightning rod in America's debate over abortion access in February.
That's when the Republican-controlled Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children under state law.
At the time, Trump called on Alabama lawmakers to "quickly find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama". They passed a law protecting IVF in March.
The ruling was a political headache for Republicans, forcing several leaders to put out statements objecting to the Alabama ruling that had the possibility of damaging their prospects in an election year.
Forty-two percent of Americans have either used IVF treatments or known someone who did, according to a Pew Survey last year. That percentage rises with increased earnings - 45% among middle-income Americans and 59% for those with high-incomes.
Those individuals are more likely to be white Americans who vote Republican, and many are ones whom Trump hopes to bring back into the political fold after losing their support in 2020.
Trump told supporter about his new position at a rally in Michigan on Thursday.
"Your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment," he said.
But Democrats continued to reject that a Trump administration would adopt such a policy on Thursday night.
"Americans have seen with their own eyes how Donald Trump overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way for extreme Maga Republicans to restrict IVF and pass cruel abortion bans across the country, hurting women and families," Democratic National Committee Spokesperson Aida Ross said in a statement.
"When voters head to the ballot box this November, they will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket to protect our freedoms - not Trump and Vance’s all-out assault on our basic rights.”
BBC
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments will be paid for by insurance companies or the government if he returns to the White House.
“I was always for IVF. Right from the beginning, as soon as we heard about it," he told NBC News on Thursday.
The new campaign pledge comes after his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and other members of her party have alleged that Republican-led abortion restrictions in some states could further threaten access to fertility treatments.
Trump's announcement could put him at odds with some conservative anti-abortion activists who want to ban IVF for discarding unused human embryos.
But he committed to the new position on Thursday in the interview with NBC.
"Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump told the news outlet. "Or we're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
IVF treatments can be very expensive - often around $20,000 (£15,000) per round - and are rarely covered by insurance in the US. Trump did not explain how this new policy would work or be put into effect.
The Harris-Walz campaign was quick to respond to the former president's new policy position, blaming him for the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn the landmark 1973 abortion case - Roe v Wade - which eliminated the national right to abortion.
State governments can now decide Americans' access to abortion, and at least 14 have banned or put severe restrictions on the procedure.
"Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country," said Harris campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika in response to Trump's comments on Thursday.
Trump has previously bragged about appointing three of the six conservatives on the Supreme Court who backed overturning the abortion access law.
"I was able to kill Roe v Wade," the former president posted online in May 2023.
But Trump has attempted to distance himself from his record on abortion, as Harris capitalises on voter concerns about how Republicans could affect reproductive rights.
In his interview, Trump - a Florida resident - also said he planned to vote against a Florida state ballot measure that would prohibit abortion after six weeks, with some exceptions.
"I think the six-week [ban] is too short. There has to be more time," he said. "I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks."
IVF became a new political lightning rod in America's debate over abortion access in February.
That's when the Republican-controlled Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children under state law.
At the time, Trump called on Alabama lawmakers to "quickly find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of IVF in Alabama". They passed a law protecting IVF in March.
The ruling was a political headache for Republicans, forcing several leaders to put out statements objecting to the Alabama ruling that had the possibility of damaging their prospects in an election year.
Forty-two percent of Americans have either used IVF treatments or known someone who did, according to a Pew Survey last year. That percentage rises with increased earnings - 45% among middle-income Americans and 59% for those with high-incomes.
Those individuals are more likely to be white Americans who vote Republican, and many are ones whom Trump hopes to bring back into the political fold after losing their support in 2020.
Trump told supporter about his new position at a rally in Michigan on Thursday.
"Your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment," he said.
But Democrats continued to reject that a Trump administration would adopt such a policy on Thursday night.
"Americans have seen with their own eyes how Donald Trump overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way for extreme Maga Republicans to restrict IVF and pass cruel abortion bans across the country, hurting women and families," Democratic National Committee Spokesperson Aida Ross said in a statement.
"When voters head to the ballot box this November, they will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket to protect our freedoms - not Trump and Vance’s all-out assault on our basic rights.”
BBC
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Trump angers abortion opponents with comments on six-week ban
Donald Trump is facing blowback both from anti-abortion activists and from within his own party after he implied he might support easing restrictions on the procedure in his home state of Florida.
The Republican presidential nominee was asked in an interview with NBC News on Thursday how he would vote this November on the state’s ballot measure to protect abortion.
Florida banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy after the US Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion nationwide – a law reproductive rights activists are now campaigning to end.
“I think the six week is too short,” Trump said. “It has to be more time. I told them that I want more weeks.”
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump said when pressed.
Trump has criticised Florida's six-week abortion ban before.
Last September he said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made a "terrible mistake" signing the ban into law.
Mr DeSantis was challenging the former president in the Republican primary at the time.
Thursday's comments further open a rift between Trump and the anti-abortion movement, which plays a critical role in shaping conservative politics in the US.
“If Donald Trump loses, today is the day he lost,” conservative pundit Erick Erickson wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The committed pro-life community could turn a blind eye, in part, to national abortion issues. But for Trump to weigh in on Florida as he did will be a bridge too far for too many.”
The November ballot initiative would amend the Florida state constitution to protect abortion access in the state until the point of foetal viability, which is about 23-25 weeks of pregnancy.
As it stands, the state has a near-total ban on abortion, as many women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks.
The proposed amendment states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Voters cannot choose a number of weeks into a pregnancy that abortion should be permitted. They can only choose “Yes” to support the amendment or “No” to reject it.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request to clarify his stance and whether he would vote yes or no to the measure.
Campaign spokeswoman Karoline Levitt told the New York Times that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida”.
“He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” she said.
Opinion polling indicates that a majority of Americans support abortion access.
A July poll from the University of North Florida suggested that 69% of likely voters supported the ballot measure, and 23% opposed it.
The political backlash after the Supreme Court brought an end to Roe v Wade - the landmark precedent that protected abortion access nationwide - in 2022 has presented Trump with a political conundrum he has yet to fully solve.
Trump rose to power with the help of the religious right, which broadly supports restrictions on the procedure.
In his first run for president, he pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the constitutional right to abortion in the US.
He kept the promise by appointing three conservative jurists who ultimately voted to overturn Roe v Wade.
Abortion has now become a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign - one that Democrats have used to rally voters.
His opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, has made reproductive rights central to her campaign.
Trump has taken the position that abortion policy should be left to individual states.
At the Republican National Convention in July, rank-and-file party members fell in line behind the former president, even though his position can seem at odds with their personal opposition to abortion.
But some abortion opponents still seek to restrict the procedure nationwide or believe Trump is alienating their base.
“Former President Trump now appears determined to undermine his prolife supporters,” Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote on X.
“Pro-life Christian voters are going to have to think clearly, honestly, and soberly about our challenge in this election - starting at the top of the ticket.”
Trump angers abortion opponents with remarks on Florida ban
Donald Trump criticised Florida's six-week ban when he was asked about a state referendum on expanding abortion rights.
www.bbc.com
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Donald Trump at Moms for Liberty says Ivanka ‘hired millions of people’
Donald Trump has claimed that when he was president he wanted to appoint his daughter, Ivanka, as America’s ambassador to the UN but she opted to instead to work on job creation and hired “millions of people”.
The Republican nominee for president in 2024 made the bizarre comments during a “fireside chat” on Friday night in Washington at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has led efforts to get mentions of LGBTQ identity and structural racism out of classrooms.
In a long, zigzagging and at times incoherent conversation, Trump ricocheted between topics including his parents’ marriage, Scotland, his reality TV show The Apprentice, Elon Musk (“a super genius guy”), his debates against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and his upcoming contest with rival Kamala Harris, whom he described as a “Marxist” and “defective person”.
At one point the 78-year-old reflected on the career of his daughter Ivanka, who was a senior adviser in the first Trump administration but has been largely absent from the campaign trail this time. She was “making so much money” from her fashion brand, he claimed, but then gave it up to join him in politics.
Trump recalled: “I said, you would be a great ambassador to the United Nations, United Nations secretary – there’d be nobody to compete with her. She may be my daughter but nobody could have competed with her, with her rat-rat-rat you know she’s got.
“She said, daddy, I don’t want to do that, I just want to help people get jobs. She would go around – not a glamorous job – but would go around to see Wal-Mart, to see Exxon, to see all these big companies to hire people and she had hired, like, millions of people during the course of her stay.”
The co-founder of Moms for Liberty, Tiffany Justice, sitting on stage with Trump, did not challenge his extraordinary suggestions that Ivanka had the requisite experience to serve at the UN or that she was responsible for hiring millions of people.
Justice did repeatedly press an anti-trans agenda. Trump argued that transgender women should not be allowed to play in women’s sports and said access to gender-affirming health care should be restricted. He repeated a false rightwing talking point that Olympic women’s boxing champion Imane Khelif is trans; Khelif was in fact assigned female at birth.
Trump went to make another wildly misleading claim: “But the transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. You kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child and you know many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say, what the hell happened? Who did this to me? They say, who did this to me? It’s incredible.”
He added that school boards have become “like dictatorships” hostile to the desires of parents, echoing conservative frustration that bubbled over in public meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m for parental rights all the way. I don’t even understand the concept of not being.”
Trump added: “The parents truly love the kids … You have to give the rights back to the parents.”
Often unprompted, Trump also kept circling back to his favourite topic: immigration. He said of migrants crossing the southern border illegally: “It’s crazy. Our country is being poisoned. And your schools and your children are suffering greatly because they’re going into the classrooms and taking disease, and they don’t even speak English.”
The Republican nominee went on to offer a lengthy and discursive defence of his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, which he has been criticised for turning into a campaign photo opportunity. Trump insisted that he was there at the invitation of the families of 13 US service members killed in Afghanistan and they asked to take pictures with him. A member of the audience shouted: “Thank you for respecting our veterans, Mr President!”
Trump repeatedly and bitterly criticised Biden and Harris for the Afghanistan withdrawal. “These people were killed by Biden, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, while also railing against “wokeness” in the military.
The conversation also gave Trump a rare platform to reminisce about his life and career. He told the audience that his mother Mary Anne MacLeod came from Scotland. “Do you know that some of the biggest, smartest, most brilliant leaders come from Scotland? Or at least, you know, their parents came from Scotland. Scotland did very well in this country.”
She came to the US, he continued, and met his father, Fred. “They fell in love. They got married and they were married for six and half decades. A long time. I said, Pop, I’m not going to be able to beat you.” Trump is now in his third marriage.
The former president had entered the hotel ballroom as he does at his signature rallies, standing and soaking up applause and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” as Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA boomed from loudspeakers.
Trump was seeking to shore up support and enthusiasm among a major part of his base. The bulk of Moms for Liberty’s 130,000-plus members are conservatives who agree with him that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations do not belong in schools.
Yet Trump also runs the risk of alienating some moderate voters, many of whom see Moms for Liberty as extreme. In recent months a series of embarrassing scandals and disappointing performances during local elections have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.
The group also has voiced support for Project 2025, a radical blueprint for a Republican presidency from which Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself. Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025, and the author of the document’s education chapter taught a “strategy session” at the group’s gathering.
Paula Steiner, a Republican activist from Vienna, Virginia, said in an interview that Trump is the one “standing in the way” of further attacks on parents’ rights. “Tim Walz and Kamala Harris will do everything they can to make America the most liberal country we’ve seen,” she added. “They will go beyond England [and] the other European countries.”
THE GUARDIAN
Donald Trump has claimed that when he was president he wanted to appoint his daughter, Ivanka, as America’s ambassador to the UN but she opted to instead to work on job creation and hired “millions of people”.
The Republican nominee for president in 2024 made the bizarre comments during a “fireside chat” on Friday night in Washington at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has led efforts to get mentions of LGBTQ identity and structural racism out of classrooms.
In a long, zigzagging and at times incoherent conversation, Trump ricocheted between topics including his parents’ marriage, Scotland, his reality TV show The Apprentice, Elon Musk (“a super genius guy”), his debates against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and his upcoming contest with rival Kamala Harris, whom he described as a “Marxist” and “defective person”.
At one point the 78-year-old reflected on the career of his daughter Ivanka, who was a senior adviser in the first Trump administration but has been largely absent from the campaign trail this time. She was “making so much money” from her fashion brand, he claimed, but then gave it up to join him in politics.
Trump recalled: “I said, you would be a great ambassador to the United Nations, United Nations secretary – there’d be nobody to compete with her. She may be my daughter but nobody could have competed with her, with her rat-rat-rat you know she’s got.
“She said, daddy, I don’t want to do that, I just want to help people get jobs. She would go around – not a glamorous job – but would go around to see Wal-Mart, to see Exxon, to see all these big companies to hire people and she had hired, like, millions of people during the course of her stay.”
The co-founder of Moms for Liberty, Tiffany Justice, sitting on stage with Trump, did not challenge his extraordinary suggestions that Ivanka had the requisite experience to serve at the UN or that she was responsible for hiring millions of people.
Justice did repeatedly press an anti-trans agenda. Trump argued that transgender women should not be allowed to play in women’s sports and said access to gender-affirming health care should be restricted. He repeated a false rightwing talking point that Olympic women’s boxing champion Imane Khelif is trans; Khelif was in fact assigned female at birth.
Trump went to make another wildly misleading claim: “But the transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. You kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child and you know many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say, what the hell happened? Who did this to me? They say, who did this to me? It’s incredible.”
He added that school boards have become “like dictatorships” hostile to the desires of parents, echoing conservative frustration that bubbled over in public meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m for parental rights all the way. I don’t even understand the concept of not being.”
Trump added: “The parents truly love the kids … You have to give the rights back to the parents.”
Often unprompted, Trump also kept circling back to his favourite topic: immigration. He said of migrants crossing the southern border illegally: “It’s crazy. Our country is being poisoned. And your schools and your children are suffering greatly because they’re going into the classrooms and taking disease, and they don’t even speak English.”
The Republican nominee went on to offer a lengthy and discursive defence of his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, which he has been criticised for turning into a campaign photo opportunity. Trump insisted that he was there at the invitation of the families of 13 US service members killed in Afghanistan and they asked to take pictures with him. A member of the audience shouted: “Thank you for respecting our veterans, Mr President!”
Trump repeatedly and bitterly criticised Biden and Harris for the Afghanistan withdrawal. “These people were killed by Biden, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, while also railing against “wokeness” in the military.
The conversation also gave Trump a rare platform to reminisce about his life and career. He told the audience that his mother Mary Anne MacLeod came from Scotland. “Do you know that some of the biggest, smartest, most brilliant leaders come from Scotland? Or at least, you know, their parents came from Scotland. Scotland did very well in this country.”
She came to the US, he continued, and met his father, Fred. “They fell in love. They got married and they were married for six and half decades. A long time. I said, Pop, I’m not going to be able to beat you.” Trump is now in his third marriage.
The former president had entered the hotel ballroom as he does at his signature rallies, standing and soaking up applause and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” as Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA boomed from loudspeakers.
Trump was seeking to shore up support and enthusiasm among a major part of his base. The bulk of Moms for Liberty’s 130,000-plus members are conservatives who agree with him that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations do not belong in schools.
Yet Trump also runs the risk of alienating some moderate voters, many of whom see Moms for Liberty as extreme. In recent months a series of embarrassing scandals and disappointing performances during local elections have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.
The group also has voiced support for Project 2025, a radical blueprint for a Republican presidency from which Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself. Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025, and the author of the document’s education chapter taught a “strategy session” at the group’s gathering.
Paula Steiner, a Republican activist from Vienna, Virginia, said in an interview that Trump is the one “standing in the way” of further attacks on parents’ rights. “Tim Walz and Kamala Harris will do everything they can to make America the most liberal country we’ve seen,” she added. “They will go beyond England [and] the other European countries.”
THE GUARDIAN
The 7 swing states will decide the election period. Here's a good article that details those 7 states .
time.com
This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter.
If you want to know where both sides think the 2024 election is going to be won or lost, look at where they’re aiming their campaign planes and, perhaps more importantly, their checkbooks.
Every four years we resketch our U.S. electoral maps of the most competitive states. Some states fall out of favor. (Sometimes wrongly. Hi, Ohio and Florida.) Others come online. (Hello, Georgia.) Yet others rekindle their battleground flames. (You up, North Carolina, Virginia, or even New Hampshire?)
Put in the simplest terms: the national election of a President is a series of state-by-state contests. The result is a handful of states have an outsized say in picking the team in the White House, and they often can be grouped into clusters like the so-called Blue Wall or Sun Belt.
At the moment, strategists in both parties identify seven commonly-agreed-upon battleground states, with four more on the margins. Despite an advertising blitz that gives Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign a two-to-one advantage on the air in the seven swingiest states through Election Day, former President Donald Trump has a narrow polling advantage in five of those states and holds an average lead of a narrow 1.4 points in those must-win states, according to RealClearPolitics’ (RCP) tracking system.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown of the seven states that insiders think will decide the results—and four others that might be worth keeping in mind. First, a crucial caveat: we still have not fully assessed what the swap from President Joe Biden to Harris and the addition of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will mean as fresh and better polling lands on strategists’ desks.
Pennsylvania
The biggest prize on the board right now and the most important piece of Democrats’ firewall against Trump. A combined $211 million of White House-focused messages is set to air in Pennsylvania alone, according to Axios’ analysis of ad spending, and it’s the one state where there’s relative parity in spending. Democrats’ campaign and super PACs are set to cover $109 million of it while Republicans’ efforts will power $102 million in the window between the end of the GOP primary and Election Day, both sides hoping to snag the state’s 19 electoral votes. Put plainly: it’s a rare fair fight where Republicans are matching Democrats’ ad spending, and it’s the most expensive sandbox for either party.
Polling, too, shows a fierce fight. Trump is ever-so-slightly ahead there by about 2 points, but well within the margins of error in the surveys. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by about 4 points, but independents still claim about 11% of voters. Essentially, the state remains a jump ball, and one that is tough to catch and even tougher to hold. To wit: at this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 8 points over Trump and four years later Biden was up by 5 points. Come Election Day, Clinton lost the state to Trump by less than 1 point, and Biden carried it by about the same margin. No one from either party should feel cocky about Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin
The biggest regret for the Democrats in 2016. The last Republican to win Wisconsin before then was Ronald Reagan—twice—before Trump upended Clinton’s assumptions and carried its 10 electoral votes. Clinton never visited the state as the 2016 nominee. Her team was convinced history would hold and that corner of the Upper Midwest would stay blue. They were wrong, with Trump winning narrowly with just 47% of the vote.
Democrats are not making the mistake again. With $49 million in presidential advertising scheduled this general election cycle, the airwaves in Wisconsin are almost entirely the purview of what is now Team Harris. Trump’s media circle has just $15 million tied to the state, and has not matched Democrats’ aggressive efforts to court Black voters in Milwaukee the way Biden successfully did in 2020. The investments were made even before Harris became the first Black and Asian-American woman to lead a major party’s ticket, and Harris could be a changemaker on the political landscape in a locale with one of the better state party organizations in the nation.
Still, it’s lost on no one that Republicans convened in Milwaukee to officially nominate Trump. The earned-media circus there bombarded local voters, perhaps offsetting the Democrats’ packaged ads that strategists in both parties concede are mattering less and less (even as the old-school consultants continue to push them).
Michigan
The biggest unknown for either side. Michigan was a reliably Democratic state until 2016. Michigan—along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—effectively crushed Clinton’s path to 270 votes and Democrats are determined not to have a repeat of that hiccup. That’s why Harris and Walz parked Air Force Two there on Wednesday night for an airport rally that trolled Trump’s favorite tableau. Republicans are trying to make Harris’ and Walz’s support for Israel into a disqualifying factor in the state’s large Arab-American, Muslim, and young voter populations, but it may end up being more a phenomenon on social media than at the ballot box.
Even so, polling suggests a tight race for the state’s 15 electoral college votes. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll taken after Biden dropped out of the race gave Harris an 11-point advantage, although most polling this cycle has shown Democrats up by a scant two points. At this point four years ago, Biden was up more than 7 points but would win by less than 3 points. Similarly, Clinton at this point in her run was also up almost 7 points and would lose by about one-third of a point. This is a case where more polling needs to be conducted about the Harris/Walz ticket to carry any real weight with donors.
Down the ballot, it’s a roughly even split in the state’s $70 million in Senate ad spending. At the presidential level, it’s less balanced, with about 80 cents of every dollar on ads backing Harris, and the whole White House kitty is about $100 million in Michigan. Democrats brag that they’re miles ahead of Trump when it comes to organizing offices and communities, but that has been the case before to disappointing results.
North Carolina
The Democrats’ white whale, or the Republicans’ safety state. Trump enjoys his second-largest lead in polling averages there, but Democrats insist there is still a viable chance for them to make inroads. Only once since 1980 have the state’s 16 electoral votes gone for Democrats, but that is not stopping Democrats from laying down a $28 million marker to Republicans’ $4 million ad spending placeholder. It’s a similar optimism to 2012, when Democrats nominated then-President Barack Obama for a second term in Charlotte only to see a 2-point defeat.
Still, there’s a rational reason for Democrats to focus on this Southern Wall Street: voters who affiliate with neither party are the largest bloc in the state, with almost 37% saying they don’t match a Republican or Democratic label. Democrats have a slight, 2 point advantage there, but that’s not sufficient to carry the state. This means Democrats are smart to use North Carolina as a proving ground for their efforts to reach persuadable, non-partisan votes. If Democrats can nail North Carolina, that’s a solid test kitchen for them to replicate the political cake elsewhere.
Georgia
The newest member of the swingers’ club. Before Biden’s 2020 bid prevailed there—much to Trump’s allegedly criminal objections—the last Democrat to carry the state’s electoral votes was Bill Clinton back when Sony was introducing MiniDiscs in 1992. The rising power of the Black vote and the migration of the film and TV industry to Atlanta shifted Georgia in a major way. Coordinated efforts to empower Black voters yielded an all-blue Senate delegation in 2021 for the first time since 2003, and Democrats remain bullish that they could still throw its 16 electoral votes to Harris.
On the air, Democrats have a clear two-to-one margin in the $87 million general election bookings. On the phones, Democrats have quickly erased what had been a Trump advantage in polling since Harris emerged as the new top of the blue ticket. A week before Biden’s calamitous June debate that put in motion the drumbeat that marched him aside, Trump was polling 10 points ahead. That advantage is now less than 1 point.
Without a Senate race and boasting zero competitive House races, the White House race is the whole game in Georgia. That means Harris’ ability to fire up Black and women voters is where that race hinges there. And, for Trump’s campaign, the anecdata does not give reason for much hope. Perhaps that explains why Trump visited Georgia over the weekend and spent much of his time on the ground attacking fellow Republicans and laying the predicate to again claim the state is rigged against him. “Trump may have just lost Georgia,” a former lawmaker there told my former colleague Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the rally.
Arizona
The New Colorado. Long a bastion for conservative orthodoxy, the state that sent Barry Goldwater and John McCain to Washington was a consistent gimme for Republicans. Absent the blips of 2020 and 1996, you’d have to go back to Harry Truman’s 1948 re-election bid to find evidence that its 11 electoral votes were in play. (For the record, Trump still hasn’t accepted the results of his narrow loss there in 2020.)
The Democrats’ ad agencies have logged about $44 million for the general election, lapping the Republicans’ $17 million. It might be sage restraint from the GOP bookers, though. Trump has consistently polled better in Arizona than his Democratic opponent in all but one public poll dating back to October. Bloomberg/Morning Consult is the lone voice saying Harris is up by 2 points, but that’s inside the 3-point margin of error, meaning it’s another jump ball. On average, Trump is up by about 3 points in the RCP averages. Yet again: more information is needed here.
Down the ballot, the Senate race is tilted heavily in Democrats’ favor, with about 84 cents of every ad dollar on their side of the ledger. The roughly $65 million-to-$12 million mismatch will certainly help Democrats across the party in a state where two Republican-held House seats are in play. And, no, you didn’t read those numbers wrong; spending on Senate ads is outpacing presidential spending in that state so far.
Nevada
Trump’s surprising stronghold. Despite his hostile rhetoric toward migrants and immigrants, and a xenophobic patina that has been present since the creation of his political ambitions, Trump is maintaining his most durable lead there. In the RCP poll average, Trump is ahead by about 4 points while incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is up by the same margin, perhaps setting herself to be the first incumbent member of the Upper Chamber to split a statewide ticket since Susan Collins did in Maine in 2016. On top of that, there are three House districts that lean Democratic but are far from certain.
On the air, Nevada and its six electoral college votes is the puny pal for the other six main swing states. Democrats have booked a relatively paltry $24 million on the screens, still dominating the $27 million in play. Rosen’s side has placed about $72 million of the $102 million on the table for the Senate.
The major unknown is what the labor movement will do. Unions were hardcore Biden allies, but the transfer of their loyalty to Harris is expected but not guaranteed. It’s why she is heading there on Thursday to start to make sure labor is still with her.
The four fringe states
These are not the big-ticket targets for the campaigns, but some strategists in the states—and some home-state loyalists—think they were prematurely cast aside.
Ohio has fallen from its once-time legendary status as bellwether bigwig. Trump won its 17 electoral college votes twice with only minimal effort and the state Democratic Party is a far cry from its last heyday during Obama’s campaigns. But with a competitive Senate race there drawing $310 million in a roughly even split and on track to be the most expensive airwar in the Senate this cycle, there will be a whole lot of interest in turning out voters in a state that leans red but still gave incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown his last term by an almost 7 point margin in 2018.
Republicans are desperately trying to pitch Virginia as a potential pick-up place for Trump and are trying to build a bare-bones campaign machine there to force Harris to invest. But popular Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine seems coasting toward a third term. The airwaves for that Senate race are largely empty, although three of the state’s 11 congressional districts will lack an incumbent seeking another term, meaning there could be some spending in the northern Virginia suburbs around D.C.
Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to make a similar play in Florida. Trump won the state twice, but only by about 3 points in 2020. Yes, it’s his home state these days, but there is also a Senate race that has some Democrats optimistic that former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could knock off Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who has never won any of his races with a majority of the vote. Harris is hustling for Florida’s 30 electoral votes, especially in South Florida.
Finally, there’s always Texas. Democrats for years have said the state’s changing demographics would decide its destiny. Yes, the population is softening its conservative shell, but it’s still Texas. Democratic Rep. Colin Allred is posting fine polling but he remains a longshot to bump Sen. Ted Cruz out of Washington. Democrats have parked about $25 million down there for the Senate race, almost entirely unopposed by Cruz and his allies. Most polls have Cruz’s advantage in single digits, meaning a late wave of blue energy could shift this long-promised and never-realized realignment of Texas. Texas has a huge load of 40 electoral votes and a massive media landscape, but taking the Lone Star State off the GOP gimme list would be a coup unseen in a generation.
The 7 States That Will Decide the Election
A guide to the battleground states in the 2024 election fight between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The 7 States That Will Decide the Election
This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter.
If you want to know where both sides think the 2024 election is going to be won or lost, look at where they’re aiming their campaign planes and, perhaps more importantly, their checkbooks.
Every four years we resketch our U.S. electoral maps of the most competitive states. Some states fall out of favor. (Sometimes wrongly. Hi, Ohio and Florida.) Others come online. (Hello, Georgia.) Yet others rekindle their battleground flames. (You up, North Carolina, Virginia, or even New Hampshire?)
Put in the simplest terms: the national election of a President is a series of state-by-state contests. The result is a handful of states have an outsized say in picking the team in the White House, and they often can be grouped into clusters like the so-called Blue Wall or Sun Belt.
At the moment, strategists in both parties identify seven commonly-agreed-upon battleground states, with four more on the margins. Despite an advertising blitz that gives Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign a two-to-one advantage on the air in the seven swingiest states through Election Day, former President Donald Trump has a narrow polling advantage in five of those states and holds an average lead of a narrow 1.4 points in those must-win states, according to RealClearPolitics’ (RCP) tracking system.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown of the seven states that insiders think will decide the results—and four others that might be worth keeping in mind. First, a crucial caveat: we still have not fully assessed what the swap from President Joe Biden to Harris and the addition of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will mean as fresh and better polling lands on strategists’ desks.
Pennsylvania
The biggest prize on the board right now and the most important piece of Democrats’ firewall against Trump. A combined $211 million of White House-focused messages is set to air in Pennsylvania alone, according to Axios’ analysis of ad spending, and it’s the one state where there’s relative parity in spending. Democrats’ campaign and super PACs are set to cover $109 million of it while Republicans’ efforts will power $102 million in the window between the end of the GOP primary and Election Day, both sides hoping to snag the state’s 19 electoral votes. Put plainly: it’s a rare fair fight where Republicans are matching Democrats’ ad spending, and it’s the most expensive sandbox for either party.
Polling, too, shows a fierce fight. Trump is ever-so-slightly ahead there by about 2 points, but well within the margins of error in the surveys. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by about 4 points, but independents still claim about 11% of voters. Essentially, the state remains a jump ball, and one that is tough to catch and even tougher to hold. To wit: at this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 8 points over Trump and four years later Biden was up by 5 points. Come Election Day, Clinton lost the state to Trump by less than 1 point, and Biden carried it by about the same margin. No one from either party should feel cocky about Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin
The biggest regret for the Democrats in 2016. The last Republican to win Wisconsin before then was Ronald Reagan—twice—before Trump upended Clinton’s assumptions and carried its 10 electoral votes. Clinton never visited the state as the 2016 nominee. Her team was convinced history would hold and that corner of the Upper Midwest would stay blue. They were wrong, with Trump winning narrowly with just 47% of the vote.
Democrats are not making the mistake again. With $49 million in presidential advertising scheduled this general election cycle, the airwaves in Wisconsin are almost entirely the purview of what is now Team Harris. Trump’s media circle has just $15 million tied to the state, and has not matched Democrats’ aggressive efforts to court Black voters in Milwaukee the way Biden successfully did in 2020. The investments were made even before Harris became the first Black and Asian-American woman to lead a major party’s ticket, and Harris could be a changemaker on the political landscape in a locale with one of the better state party organizations in the nation.
Still, it’s lost on no one that Republicans convened in Milwaukee to officially nominate Trump. The earned-media circus there bombarded local voters, perhaps offsetting the Democrats’ packaged ads that strategists in both parties concede are mattering less and less (even as the old-school consultants continue to push them).
Michigan
The biggest unknown for either side. Michigan was a reliably Democratic state until 2016. Michigan—along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—effectively crushed Clinton’s path to 270 votes and Democrats are determined not to have a repeat of that hiccup. That’s why Harris and Walz parked Air Force Two there on Wednesday night for an airport rally that trolled Trump’s favorite tableau. Republicans are trying to make Harris’ and Walz’s support for Israel into a disqualifying factor in the state’s large Arab-American, Muslim, and young voter populations, but it may end up being more a phenomenon on social media than at the ballot box.
Even so, polling suggests a tight race for the state’s 15 electoral college votes. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll taken after Biden dropped out of the race gave Harris an 11-point advantage, although most polling this cycle has shown Democrats up by a scant two points. At this point four years ago, Biden was up more than 7 points but would win by less than 3 points. Similarly, Clinton at this point in her run was also up almost 7 points and would lose by about one-third of a point. This is a case where more polling needs to be conducted about the Harris/Walz ticket to carry any real weight with donors.
Down the ballot, it’s a roughly even split in the state’s $70 million in Senate ad spending. At the presidential level, it’s less balanced, with about 80 cents of every dollar on ads backing Harris, and the whole White House kitty is about $100 million in Michigan. Democrats brag that they’re miles ahead of Trump when it comes to organizing offices and communities, but that has been the case before to disappointing results.
North Carolina
The Democrats’ white whale, or the Republicans’ safety state. Trump enjoys his second-largest lead in polling averages there, but Democrats insist there is still a viable chance for them to make inroads. Only once since 1980 have the state’s 16 electoral votes gone for Democrats, but that is not stopping Democrats from laying down a $28 million marker to Republicans’ $4 million ad spending placeholder. It’s a similar optimism to 2012, when Democrats nominated then-President Barack Obama for a second term in Charlotte only to see a 2-point defeat.
Still, there’s a rational reason for Democrats to focus on this Southern Wall Street: voters who affiliate with neither party are the largest bloc in the state, with almost 37% saying they don’t match a Republican or Democratic label. Democrats have a slight, 2 point advantage there, but that’s not sufficient to carry the state. This means Democrats are smart to use North Carolina as a proving ground for their efforts to reach persuadable, non-partisan votes. If Democrats can nail North Carolina, that’s a solid test kitchen for them to replicate the political cake elsewhere.
Georgia
The newest member of the swingers’ club. Before Biden’s 2020 bid prevailed there—much to Trump’s allegedly criminal objections—the last Democrat to carry the state’s electoral votes was Bill Clinton back when Sony was introducing MiniDiscs in 1992. The rising power of the Black vote and the migration of the film and TV industry to Atlanta shifted Georgia in a major way. Coordinated efforts to empower Black voters yielded an all-blue Senate delegation in 2021 for the first time since 2003, and Democrats remain bullish that they could still throw its 16 electoral votes to Harris.
On the air, Democrats have a clear two-to-one margin in the $87 million general election bookings. On the phones, Democrats have quickly erased what had been a Trump advantage in polling since Harris emerged as the new top of the blue ticket. A week before Biden’s calamitous June debate that put in motion the drumbeat that marched him aside, Trump was polling 10 points ahead. That advantage is now less than 1 point.
Without a Senate race and boasting zero competitive House races, the White House race is the whole game in Georgia. That means Harris’ ability to fire up Black and women voters is where that race hinges there. And, for Trump’s campaign, the anecdata does not give reason for much hope. Perhaps that explains why Trump visited Georgia over the weekend and spent much of his time on the ground attacking fellow Republicans and laying the predicate to again claim the state is rigged against him. “Trump may have just lost Georgia,” a former lawmaker there told my former colleague Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the rally.
Arizona
The New Colorado. Long a bastion for conservative orthodoxy, the state that sent Barry Goldwater and John McCain to Washington was a consistent gimme for Republicans. Absent the blips of 2020 and 1996, you’d have to go back to Harry Truman’s 1948 re-election bid to find evidence that its 11 electoral votes were in play. (For the record, Trump still hasn’t accepted the results of his narrow loss there in 2020.)
The Democrats’ ad agencies have logged about $44 million for the general election, lapping the Republicans’ $17 million. It might be sage restraint from the GOP bookers, though. Trump has consistently polled better in Arizona than his Democratic opponent in all but one public poll dating back to October. Bloomberg/Morning Consult is the lone voice saying Harris is up by 2 points, but that’s inside the 3-point margin of error, meaning it’s another jump ball. On average, Trump is up by about 3 points in the RCP averages. Yet again: more information is needed here.
Down the ballot, the Senate race is tilted heavily in Democrats’ favor, with about 84 cents of every ad dollar on their side of the ledger. The roughly $65 million-to-$12 million mismatch will certainly help Democrats across the party in a state where two Republican-held House seats are in play. And, no, you didn’t read those numbers wrong; spending on Senate ads is outpacing presidential spending in that state so far.
Nevada
Trump’s surprising stronghold. Despite his hostile rhetoric toward migrants and immigrants, and a xenophobic patina that has been present since the creation of his political ambitions, Trump is maintaining his most durable lead there. In the RCP poll average, Trump is ahead by about 4 points while incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is up by the same margin, perhaps setting herself to be the first incumbent member of the Upper Chamber to split a statewide ticket since Susan Collins did in Maine in 2016. On top of that, there are three House districts that lean Democratic but are far from certain.
On the air, Nevada and its six electoral college votes is the puny pal for the other six main swing states. Democrats have booked a relatively paltry $24 million on the screens, still dominating the $27 million in play. Rosen’s side has placed about $72 million of the $102 million on the table for the Senate.
The major unknown is what the labor movement will do. Unions were hardcore Biden allies, but the transfer of their loyalty to Harris is expected but not guaranteed. It’s why she is heading there on Thursday to start to make sure labor is still with her.
The four fringe states
These are not the big-ticket targets for the campaigns, but some strategists in the states—and some home-state loyalists—think they were prematurely cast aside.
Ohio has fallen from its once-time legendary status as bellwether bigwig. Trump won its 17 electoral college votes twice with only minimal effort and the state Democratic Party is a far cry from its last heyday during Obama’s campaigns. But with a competitive Senate race there drawing $310 million in a roughly even split and on track to be the most expensive airwar in the Senate this cycle, there will be a whole lot of interest in turning out voters in a state that leans red but still gave incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown his last term by an almost 7 point margin in 2018.
Republicans are desperately trying to pitch Virginia as a potential pick-up place for Trump and are trying to build a bare-bones campaign machine there to force Harris to invest. But popular Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine seems coasting toward a third term. The airwaves for that Senate race are largely empty, although three of the state’s 11 congressional districts will lack an incumbent seeking another term, meaning there could be some spending in the northern Virginia suburbs around D.C.
Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to make a similar play in Florida. Trump won the state twice, but only by about 3 points in 2020. Yes, it’s his home state these days, but there is also a Senate race that has some Democrats optimistic that former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could knock off Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who has never won any of his races with a majority of the vote. Harris is hustling for Florida’s 30 electoral votes, especially in South Florida.
Finally, there’s always Texas. Democrats for years have said the state’s changing demographics would decide its destiny. Yes, the population is softening its conservative shell, but it’s still Texas. Democratic Rep. Colin Allred is posting fine polling but he remains a longshot to bump Sen. Ted Cruz out of Washington. Democrats have parked about $25 million down there for the Senate race, almost entirely unopposed by Cruz and his allies. Most polls have Cruz’s advantage in single digits, meaning a late wave of blue energy could shift this long-promised and never-realized realignment of Texas. Texas has a huge load of 40 electoral votes and a massive media landscape, but taking the Lone Star State off the GOP gimme list would be a coup unseen in a generation.
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Trump lobs same insults at Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania town hall
Ex-president repeats false claims to Sean Hannity of asylum seekers and crime and says: ‘We’re going to heal our world’
Donald Trump lobbed his usual insults and accusations at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz during a town hall aired on Fox News and then falsely claimed that migrants from around the world are pouring into the US.
The pre-taped interview aired Wednesday evening. The former president walked onto the stage in a Pennsylvania arena to cheers, applause and chants of “USA” from his supporters.
The town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, comes less than a week before Trump and Kamala Harris meet on the debate stage and as both presidential candidates’ campaigns have drilled down on the US’s six so-called battleground states: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Election forecaster Nate Silver predicted that Pennsylvania is likely to be the “tipping point” for the election.
It also aired hours after two students and two teachers were shot and killed at Apalachee high school in Georgia. When asked about the shooting, Trump said: “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better. We’re going to heal our world. We’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetence … We’re going to make it better.”
As he often does, Trump spent time lambasting the Biden-Harris administration over crime, immigration and the intersection of the two issues. Calling the vice-president the “border czar”, he falsely claimed that 20 million people – many of whom he claims have come straight out of prisons and “insane asylums” – have “poured into our country”. He also made mention of reports about an apartment in Aurora, Colorado, being taken over by gang members. Harris was never given the title of border czar.
Trump also made reference to family members of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz posting a photo with “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump” T-shirts and thanked them for endorsing him. The photo is reportedly of distant cousins of Walz’s who are related to the Minnesota governor on his father’s side, the Associated Press reports.
After incorrectly thanking Walz’s father for his endorsement, he called Walz “weird” in an ongoing attempt to turn the tables on Walz, who began calling Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, weird during stops and interviews for Harris’s campaign.
Fox News also played out-of-context, seconds-long news clips of Harris in an effort to support Trump’s claims that policies from the Biden-Harris administration have caused inflation and to call out her alleged flip-flopping on implementing a fracking ban.
SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/donald-trump-sean-hannity-townhall-fox
Ex-president repeats false claims to Sean Hannity of asylum seekers and crime and says: ‘We’re going to heal our world’
Donald Trump lobbed his usual insults and accusations at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz during a town hall aired on Fox News and then falsely claimed that migrants from around the world are pouring into the US.
The pre-taped interview aired Wednesday evening. The former president walked onto the stage in a Pennsylvania arena to cheers, applause and chants of “USA” from his supporters.
The town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, comes less than a week before Trump and Kamala Harris meet on the debate stage and as both presidential candidates’ campaigns have drilled down on the US’s six so-called battleground states: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Election forecaster Nate Silver predicted that Pennsylvania is likely to be the “tipping point” for the election.
It also aired hours after two students and two teachers were shot and killed at Apalachee high school in Georgia. When asked about the shooting, Trump said: “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better. We’re going to heal our world. We’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetence … We’re going to make it better.”
As he often does, Trump spent time lambasting the Biden-Harris administration over crime, immigration and the intersection of the two issues. Calling the vice-president the “border czar”, he falsely claimed that 20 million people – many of whom he claims have come straight out of prisons and “insane asylums” – have “poured into our country”. He also made mention of reports about an apartment in Aurora, Colorado, being taken over by gang members. Harris was never given the title of border czar.
Trump also made reference to family members of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz posting a photo with “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump” T-shirts and thanked them for endorsing him. The photo is reportedly of distant cousins of Walz’s who are related to the Minnesota governor on his father’s side, the Associated Press reports.
After incorrectly thanking Walz’s father for his endorsement, he called Walz “weird” in an ongoing attempt to turn the tables on Walz, who began calling Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, weird during stops and interviews for Harris’s campaign.
Fox News also played out-of-context, seconds-long news clips of Harris in an effort to support Trump’s claims that policies from the Biden-Harris administration have caused inflation and to call out her alleged flip-flopping on implementing a fracking ban.
SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/donald-trump-sean-hannity-townhall-fox
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Neo-Nazi and far right groups seize on Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric
Neo-Nazi groups and the online far right are latching on to the anti-immigration rhetoric coming from Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House in an effort to recruit new supporters and spread their extremism to broader audiences.
After the Republican national convention in July, where supporters waved “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” placards, it became clear that Trump’s xenophobia has become part of the Republican establishment. Upon his return to X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump released a stream of images targeting Vice-President Kamala Harris’s stance on the border and immigration.
Among them were memes inferring the Democrats will bring rapists into the country and a 2012 photo of men in Karachi, Pakistan, burning an American flag with the caption: “Meet your neighbors [...] IF KAMALA WINS.”
In tandem with the Trump campaign’s sloganeering, known figures on the far right and their online denizens are seizing on the open hatred of immigrants from the top Republican and going even more public with their brand of activism.
“At this point, demonizing and lying about immigrants is part and parcel of the far-right scene and a major part of its anti-immigrant messaging,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), an extremism watchdog organization. “Non-white immigrants and refugees are enemy number one for the far-right.”
Beirich warned the current climate is even more dangerous as she’s seeing ideologies, once the sole domain of fringe neo-Nazis, being “mainstreamed by political figures”.
For example, two separate hate groups recently descended on Springfield, Ohio, rallying with masks and uniforms and threatening the approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants that have arrived in the town since the pandemic. In 2023, tensions among local residents flared up after a bus crash involving a Haitian driver helped make the Rust-belt town a flashpoint in anti-immigration debates.
In August, Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group led by ex-US marine Christopher Pohlhaus, marched in Springfield waving swastika flags (with at least two members carrying rifles) and yelling anti-Black and racist epithets at a jazz festival.
Then, in early September, one of its leaders was granted time to speak at a town forum with local politicians.
“I’ve come to bring a word of warning,” said the leader, speaking under a racist pseudonym. He is believed to be the second-in-command of Blood Tribe, after Pohlhaus, and also a former marine. “Stop what you’re doing before it’s too late. Crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.”
The leader then continued, directly threatening local Haitian residents. He was booted from the meeting.
Though he doesn’t seem to have appeared in Springfield this summer, Pohlhaus was part of a 2022 protest in Maine harassing Somali refugees and used his Telegram account to call on “ALL GROUPS AND ORGS” to “HIT SPRINGFIELD, OHIO.”
Pohlhaus refused to answer the Guardian’s questions about his group. Late last week, the “Hammer” as Pohlhaus is known to his thousands of followers, promoted a story from a white supremacist propagandist about a Haitian migrant accused of a sexual assault in Massachusetts.
Patriot Front, another adjacent neo-fascist group, heeded those words and held a rally of its own with a speech in Springfield over Labor Day weekend, denouncing what it called the “mass influx of unassimilable Haitian migrants”.
An Ohio-based, neo-Nazi Active Club (a sort of racist, mixed-martial arts collective), used the summer tensions in Springfield to recruit new members, too.
“The thousands of Haitian and West African invaders currently being housed in Ohio all have a tribe,” said one of its Telegram posts from August and then providing an encrypted email address with the simple message: “Here’s ours.”
The group followed up on Thursday, posting an image on X of the same report that Pohlhaus promoted, with the caption, “If you are in Ohio, we are forming an organization for activism [...] Do not wait.”
Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst at the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), has kept tabs on Blood Tribe and Patriot Front and says they are both, “seeking to capitalize on local tension to hold rallies, recruit, generate propaganda footage, and solicit money”.
Fisher-Birch believes there’s no doubt the current presidential election season factors into their calculus.
“These groups will continue to hold anti-immigration rallies before the November election because they see an opportunity to recruit and gain publicity within the broader anti-immigrant space,” he said. “These extremist groups are not popular but frequently try to gain momentum from culture-war issues in an attempt to stay relevant and recruit.”
While Trump made it clear in a 2018 Oval Office meeting with senators that he considered Haiti to be among a list of “shithole” countries with undesirable immigrants, when it comes to far-right propagandists on the internet – they haven’t been getting cues from the former president, but instead providing them.
After a video, amplified on major far-right Telegram channels and elsewhere, showing alleged Venezuelan gang members carrying weapons in an Aurora, Colorado, apartment complex went viral, Trump repeatedly used it to denounce immigrant criminals entering the country.
On Saturday, the interim chief of the Aurora police department was forced to put out a Facebook video, clarifying the situation at the building was a much “different picture” from the frenzy and rumors surrounding it.
Yet Trump continued referencing the incident, including in a podcast interview days after Aurora police issued their statement.
Other neo-Nazi activists, not wasting the moment for inflaming tensions, shared a video on Telegram allegedly driving through the streets of Aurora with a megaphone and claiming “to take the city back”.
Similarly, on Tuesday, Elon Musk, perhaps Trump’s most devoted fanboy, helped spread disinformation about “32 armed Venezuelans” taking over a Chicago building, which the police promptly disproved. The disinformation emanated from the infamous X account, Libs of TikTok, a known purveyor of dangerous, rightwing propaganda and once the subject of a Twitter suspension when the company wasn’t under the ownership of Musk.
“It’s not surprising to see the far right agitating over a fake story about Venezuelan immigrants taking over an apartment complex in Aurora,” said . “It falsely holds that there is an orchestrated plan, often blamed on Jews or globalists, to replace white people in their home countries.”
Mixed with Trump’s brand of politics, Beirich said, the “lie is seen as true and an existential threat for white supremacists, which is motivating this anti-immigrant activism”.
The Trump campaign inflaming hate crimes and far-right activism is not without precedent. A study out of the University of North Texas on the 2016 Trump campaign, one that held nativist racism at its core, statistically proved that in places where Trump held one of his over 300 rallies there was a “226% increase in hate-motivated incidents”.
THE GUARDIAN
Neo-Nazi groups and the online far right are latching on to the anti-immigration rhetoric coming from Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House in an effort to recruit new supporters and spread their extremism to broader audiences.
After the Republican national convention in July, where supporters waved “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” placards, it became clear that Trump’s xenophobia has become part of the Republican establishment. Upon his return to X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump released a stream of images targeting Vice-President Kamala Harris’s stance on the border and immigration.
Among them were memes inferring the Democrats will bring rapists into the country and a 2012 photo of men in Karachi, Pakistan, burning an American flag with the caption: “Meet your neighbors [...] IF KAMALA WINS.”
In tandem with the Trump campaign’s sloganeering, known figures on the far right and their online denizens are seizing on the open hatred of immigrants from the top Republican and going even more public with their brand of activism.
“At this point, demonizing and lying about immigrants is part and parcel of the far-right scene and a major part of its anti-immigrant messaging,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), an extremism watchdog organization. “Non-white immigrants and refugees are enemy number one for the far-right.”
Beirich warned the current climate is even more dangerous as she’s seeing ideologies, once the sole domain of fringe neo-Nazis, being “mainstreamed by political figures”.
For example, two separate hate groups recently descended on Springfield, Ohio, rallying with masks and uniforms and threatening the approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants that have arrived in the town since the pandemic. In 2023, tensions among local residents flared up after a bus crash involving a Haitian driver helped make the Rust-belt town a flashpoint in anti-immigration debates.
In August, Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group led by ex-US marine Christopher Pohlhaus, marched in Springfield waving swastika flags (with at least two members carrying rifles) and yelling anti-Black and racist epithets at a jazz festival.
Then, in early September, one of its leaders was granted time to speak at a town forum with local politicians.
“I’ve come to bring a word of warning,” said the leader, speaking under a racist pseudonym. He is believed to be the second-in-command of Blood Tribe, after Pohlhaus, and also a former marine. “Stop what you’re doing before it’s too late. Crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.”
The leader then continued, directly threatening local Haitian residents. He was booted from the meeting.
Though he doesn’t seem to have appeared in Springfield this summer, Pohlhaus was part of a 2022 protest in Maine harassing Somali refugees and used his Telegram account to call on “ALL GROUPS AND ORGS” to “HIT SPRINGFIELD, OHIO.”
Pohlhaus refused to answer the Guardian’s questions about his group. Late last week, the “Hammer” as Pohlhaus is known to his thousands of followers, promoted a story from a white supremacist propagandist about a Haitian migrant accused of a sexual assault in Massachusetts.
Patriot Front, another adjacent neo-fascist group, heeded those words and held a rally of its own with a speech in Springfield over Labor Day weekend, denouncing what it called the “mass influx of unassimilable Haitian migrants”.
An Ohio-based, neo-Nazi Active Club (a sort of racist, mixed-martial arts collective), used the summer tensions in Springfield to recruit new members, too.
“The thousands of Haitian and West African invaders currently being housed in Ohio all have a tribe,” said one of its Telegram posts from August and then providing an encrypted email address with the simple message: “Here’s ours.”
The group followed up on Thursday, posting an image on X of the same report that Pohlhaus promoted, with the caption, “If you are in Ohio, we are forming an organization for activism [...] Do not wait.”
Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst at the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), has kept tabs on Blood Tribe and Patriot Front and says they are both, “seeking to capitalize on local tension to hold rallies, recruit, generate propaganda footage, and solicit money”.
Fisher-Birch believes there’s no doubt the current presidential election season factors into their calculus.
“These groups will continue to hold anti-immigration rallies before the November election because they see an opportunity to recruit and gain publicity within the broader anti-immigrant space,” he said. “These extremist groups are not popular but frequently try to gain momentum from culture-war issues in an attempt to stay relevant and recruit.”
While Trump made it clear in a 2018 Oval Office meeting with senators that he considered Haiti to be among a list of “shithole” countries with undesirable immigrants, when it comes to far-right propagandists on the internet – they haven’t been getting cues from the former president, but instead providing them.
After a video, amplified on major far-right Telegram channels and elsewhere, showing alleged Venezuelan gang members carrying weapons in an Aurora, Colorado, apartment complex went viral, Trump repeatedly used it to denounce immigrant criminals entering the country.
On Saturday, the interim chief of the Aurora police department was forced to put out a Facebook video, clarifying the situation at the building was a much “different picture” from the frenzy and rumors surrounding it.
Yet Trump continued referencing the incident, including in a podcast interview days after Aurora police issued their statement.
Other neo-Nazi activists, not wasting the moment for inflaming tensions, shared a video on Telegram allegedly driving through the streets of Aurora with a megaphone and claiming “to take the city back”.
Similarly, on Tuesday, Elon Musk, perhaps Trump’s most devoted fanboy, helped spread disinformation about “32 armed Venezuelans” taking over a Chicago building, which the police promptly disproved. The disinformation emanated from the infamous X account, Libs of TikTok, a known purveyor of dangerous, rightwing propaganda and once the subject of a Twitter suspension when the company wasn’t under the ownership of Musk.
“It’s not surprising to see the far right agitating over a fake story about Venezuelan immigrants taking over an apartment complex in Aurora,” said . “It falsely holds that there is an orchestrated plan, often blamed on Jews or globalists, to replace white people in their home countries.”
Mixed with Trump’s brand of politics, Beirich said, the “lie is seen as true and an existential threat for white supremacists, which is motivating this anti-immigrant activism”.
The Trump campaign inflaming hate crimes and far-right activism is not without precedent. A study out of the University of North Texas on the 2016 Trump campaign, one that held nativist racism at its core, statistically proved that in places where Trump held one of his over 300 rallies there was a “226% increase in hate-motivated incidents”.
THE GUARDIAN
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Trump vows mass deportations from town rocked by 'pet-eating' lies
Donald Trump has said he will mass deport migrants in a small Ohio town that has been rocked by baseless claims that its Haitian influx are eating pets and park animals.
"We're going to start with Springfield," Trump said on Friday, adding the town had been "destroyed" by immigration. He mentioned a second city in Colorado, which right-wing commentators have falsely claimed is in the hands of a Venezuelan gang.
Springfield officials say that the debunked claim of pet-eating has sent shockwaves through its community, and has led to violent threats that have shut schools.
President Joe Biden appealed for calm on Friday, calling criticism of Haitians in Springfield "simply wrong".
"This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop," Mr Biden said of Trump's statements.
The Republican candidate's promise comes after nearly a week of false claims about migrants killing pets and children in Springfield.
The claims of animal eating, which Trump repeated in his debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday, has been debunked by Springfield's police chief and mayor, as well as Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.
On Friday, three schools in Springfield were evacuated due to bomb threats. At least one of the threats made disparaging comments about Haitians, according to Springfield Mayor Bob Rue.
It comes after city hall and several other buildings, as well as one school, were evacuated on Thursday due to threats.
Trump was asked whether he was considering a visit to the town during a press conference at his golf course in Los Angeles on Friday.
"I can say this, we will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio – large deportations. We're going to get these people out. We're bringing them back to Venezuela," he said.
The migrants in Springfield are mostly from Haiti, and have legal permission to be in the US under a federal programme for Haitians.
It was not immediately clear why Trump mentioned Venezuela. Although throughout his remarks he made references to an influx of Venezuelan migrants to Aurora, Colorado, and said deportations would also begin there if he won the presidential election in November.
On Friday, Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted posted a photo online of two migratory Canadian geese. "Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported," he said.
BBC
Donald Trump has said he will mass deport migrants in a small Ohio town that has been rocked by baseless claims that its Haitian influx are eating pets and park animals.
"We're going to start with Springfield," Trump said on Friday, adding the town had been "destroyed" by immigration. He mentioned a second city in Colorado, which right-wing commentators have falsely claimed is in the hands of a Venezuelan gang.
Springfield officials say that the debunked claim of pet-eating has sent shockwaves through its community, and has led to violent threats that have shut schools.
President Joe Biden appealed for calm on Friday, calling criticism of Haitians in Springfield "simply wrong".
"This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop," Mr Biden said of Trump's statements.
The Republican candidate's promise comes after nearly a week of false claims about migrants killing pets and children in Springfield.
The claims of animal eating, which Trump repeated in his debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday, has been debunked by Springfield's police chief and mayor, as well as Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.
On Friday, three schools in Springfield were evacuated due to bomb threats. At least one of the threats made disparaging comments about Haitians, according to Springfield Mayor Bob Rue.
It comes after city hall and several other buildings, as well as one school, were evacuated on Thursday due to threats.
Trump was asked whether he was considering a visit to the town during a press conference at his golf course in Los Angeles on Friday.
"I can say this, we will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio – large deportations. We're going to get these people out. We're bringing them back to Venezuela," he said.
The migrants in Springfield are mostly from Haiti, and have legal permission to be in the US under a federal programme for Haitians.
It was not immediately clear why Trump mentioned Venezuela. Although throughout his remarks he made references to an influx of Venezuelan migrants to Aurora, Colorado, and said deportations would also begin there if he won the presidential election in November.
On Friday, Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted posted a photo online of two migratory Canadian geese. "Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported," he said.
BBC
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Trump leading in three battleground Sun Belt states, according to New York Times poll
Former President Donald Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris in three critical battleground states: Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College.
The poll, released on Monday and conducted from Sept. 17 to 21, surveyed 713 voters in Arizona, 682 voters in Georgia and 682 voters in North Carolina. Each state has a margin of error between four and five percentage points.
Voters in all three states expressed concerns about the economy, abortion, immigration, and the direction of the country as a whole. Both candidates were viewed unfavorably by the majority of respondents, with 50% viewing Trump and 51% viewing Harris as somewhat or very unfavorable.
In North Carolina, a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, Trump’s lead is a narrow 49-47 margin. But in Arizona and Georgia — two states that narrowly went to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — Trump is now leading Harris by a slightly higher margin: 50-45 in Arizona and 49-45 in Georgia.
Both campaigns have aggressively targeted swing states following the Sept. 10 presidential debate.
Harris recently held two rallies in North Carolina and appeared in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday at an event highlighting reproductive rights in the state. She is scheduled to visit Arizona later this week, but the campaign has not yet announced which city she will visit.
Following the debate, Trump also held rallies in Tucson, Arizona, and Wilmington, North Carolina. He is set to campaign in Savannah, Georgia on Tuesday.
www.yahoo.com
Former President Donald Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris in three critical battleground states: Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College.
The poll, released on Monday and conducted from Sept. 17 to 21, surveyed 713 voters in Arizona, 682 voters in Georgia and 682 voters in North Carolina. Each state has a margin of error between four and five percentage points.
Voters in all three states expressed concerns about the economy, abortion, immigration, and the direction of the country as a whole. Both candidates were viewed unfavorably by the majority of respondents, with 50% viewing Trump and 51% viewing Harris as somewhat or very unfavorable.
In North Carolina, a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, Trump’s lead is a narrow 49-47 margin. But in Arizona and Georgia — two states that narrowly went to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — Trump is now leading Harris by a slightly higher margin: 50-45 in Arizona and 49-45 in Georgia.
Both campaigns have aggressively targeted swing states following the Sept. 10 presidential debate.
Harris recently held two rallies in North Carolina and appeared in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday at an event highlighting reproductive rights in the state. She is scheduled to visit Arizona later this week, but the campaign has not yet announced which city she will visit.
Following the debate, Trump also held rallies in Tucson, Arizona, and Wilmington, North Carolina. He is set to campaign in Savannah, Georgia on Tuesday.
Trump leading in three battleground Sun Belt states, according to New York Times poll
Voters in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia give Trump a bump across the Sun Belt over concerns about the economy, abortion and immigration.
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Trump warned by US intelligence of Iran assassination threats – campaign
Donald Trump has been briefed by US intelligence on threats from Iran to assassinate him, his campaign said.
The Republican presidential candidate was briefed "regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States", the campaign said in a statement.
It did not elaborate on the claims, and it was not immediately clear if the threats it referred to were new or had been previously reported.
The Iranian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Tehran has previously denied US claims of interfering in American affairs.
Trump posted on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, that there are "big threats on my life by Iran."
"Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again."
An attack on him was a "death wish by the attacker" he said, and he thanked Congress for approving more money for the Secret Service.
"Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months," Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in the statement.
"Law enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference," he added.
The BBC has approached the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the US for comment.
It comes after Mr Trump survived an assassination attempt on 13 July, when he was wounded and another person was killed in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania. No motive has been determined and it remains under investigation.
In the days after, US media reported that officials had received intelligence of an alleged Iranian plot against the former president. Iranian officials at the time rebuffed the allegations as "malicious", the BBC'S US partner CBS news reported.
"If they do 'assassinate President Trump,' which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth - If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered 'gutless' cowards!" Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at the time.
Then on 15 September, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking through a fence at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. The agent opened fire as Mr Trump was playing a round of golf.
US prosecutors have charged Ryan Wesley Routh, a man arrested near the golf course, with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate.
There has been no suggestion Iran was involved in either case.
Last month, the Trump campaign said some of its internal communications had been hacked and suggested it was targeted by Iranian operatives.
In 2022, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps was charged by the US with plotting to kill Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The US justice department said Shahram Poursafi attempted to pay individuals in the US $300,000 (£224,000) to carry out the murder, in revenge for the US strike that killed the Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.
BBC
Donald Trump has been briefed by US intelligence on threats from Iran to assassinate him, his campaign said.
The Republican presidential candidate was briefed "regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States", the campaign said in a statement.
It did not elaborate on the claims, and it was not immediately clear if the threats it referred to were new or had been previously reported.
The Iranian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Tehran has previously denied US claims of interfering in American affairs.
Trump posted on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, that there are "big threats on my life by Iran."
"Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again."
An attack on him was a "death wish by the attacker" he said, and he thanked Congress for approving more money for the Secret Service.
"Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months," Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in the statement.
"Law enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference," he added.
The BBC has approached the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the US for comment.
It comes after Mr Trump survived an assassination attempt on 13 July, when he was wounded and another person was killed in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania. No motive has been determined and it remains under investigation.
In the days after, US media reported that officials had received intelligence of an alleged Iranian plot against the former president. Iranian officials at the time rebuffed the allegations as "malicious", the BBC'S US partner CBS news reported.
"If they do 'assassinate President Trump,' which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth - If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered 'gutless' cowards!" Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at the time.
Then on 15 September, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking through a fence at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. The agent opened fire as Mr Trump was playing a round of golf.
US prosecutors have charged Ryan Wesley Routh, a man arrested near the golf course, with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate.
There has been no suggestion Iran was involved in either case.
Last month, the Trump campaign said some of its internal communications had been hacked and suggested it was targeted by Iranian operatives.
In 2022, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps was charged by the US with plotting to kill Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The US justice department said Shahram Poursafi attempted to pay individuals in the US $300,000 (£224,000) to carry out the murder, in revenge for the US strike that killed the Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.
BBC
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Trump vows to seek criminal charges against Google if re-elected president
Donald Trump threatened on Friday to direct the justice department to pursue criminal charges against Google if he is elected president, claiming the company was unfairly displaying negative news articles about him but not his 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris.The complaint – the latest threat on the campaign trail from Trump to wield the power of the presidency in response to enemies real or perceived – came in an abrupt post on Truth Social.
“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,” Trump said in the post.
“This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, when I win the Election and become President of the United States.”
Trump did not address the possibility that there have been more negative stories about his campaign than Harris’s in recent weeks, and what prompted him to lash out at Google was not immediately clear.
Google has said it does not manipulate search results to benefit a particular party. “Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries,” the company said in a statement.
Still, conservatives have long complained that Google’s search results unfairly favor Democrats. The rightwing Media Research Center, which bills itself as a media watchdog for conservatives, has previously issued reports claiming Google helped Democrats.
The Trump campaign has also bitterly complained about the Harris campaign using the “sponsored” feature on Google search results to promote positive news coverage from outlets, including the Guardian, but with headlines rewritten by the campaign to favor Harris.
Trump’s post about the Google search results was the latest instance of him vowing to prosecute supposed opponents.
This month, Trump threatened in another Truth Social post to pursue criminal charges against any lawyers, donors, political operatives and a range of other people who he believes engaged in supposed election fraud against him if he wins the presidential election in November.
At a news conference on Thursday, Trump said former House speaker Nancy Pelosi should face criminal prosecution for not preventing the January 6 Capitol attack, which was caused by his own supporters rioting to stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.
And at a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday, Trump called for an attorney general “in a Republican territory” to investigate Pelosi and her husband over reports that they had sold Visa stock before the justice department brought an antitrust lawsuit against the credit-card company.
Trump vows to seek criminal charges against Google if re-elected president
Ex-president complains search results unfairly favor Kamala Harris and display negative stories about him
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Melania Trump is latest Republican First Lady to back abortion
Melania Trump seems to have joined a long line of Republican former first ladies who have come out in support of abortion rights, putting them at odds with their husbands' public views.
In a short video clip promoting her forthcoming book, Mrs Trump expressed her support for women's "individual freedom", describing it as an "essential right that all women possess from birth".
It comes a day after an excerpt of her soon-to-be-released memoir, in which she reportedly takes an even clearer pro-choice stance, was published in a newspaper report.
Mrs Trump's apparent stance on the issue appears to contrast with the position of her husband, who has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v Wade, upending the constitutional right to abortion.
But it follows a decades-long American tradition of Republican first ladies who - since Roe v Wade was first decided in 1973 - have said legal abortion access should be protected.
In 1975, while still in the White House, First Lady Betty Ford called the Roe ruling a "great, great decision".
Nancy Reagan waited until her husband, President Ronald Reagan, left office before she said publicly that she "believed in a woman's choice", but her position on the issue was reportedly well known within the White House.
Barbara Bush, wife of President George HW Bush, and her daughter-in-law, Laura Bush, wife of President George W Bush, were similar, revealing their stance on the issue after their husbands left the White House.
"I think it's important that it remain legal, because I think it's important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons," Laura Bush said in a 2010 interview promoting her memoir.
Mrs Trump's approach was different.
In a black-and-white video posted on her X account on Thursday, Mrs Trump said "there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom".
"What does my body, my choice really mean?" Mrs Trump continued.
The video comes one day after The Guardian published an excerpt from her new book, Melania, set to be released on 8 October.
In the excerpt, quoted by the Guardian, she writes: “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government."
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes," she continues.
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.
"I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
Kate Andersen Brower, a journalist and author of the book First Women, said she was "shocked" by the comments.
"So shocked that I wanted to check it was real," she said. "She's very much been in line with her husband, so on this issue how did she spend all those years watching him derail something that she seems to care about?"
More than the other first ladies, Ms Brower said, Mrs Trump's comments appear "diametrically opposed" to her husband's approach on the issue.
And she is the only first lady so far to make her stance on abortion known while her husband is actively seeking re-election.
Indeed, the timing of Mrs Trump's comments suggest a possible political angle, Ms Brower said.
"It's not out of the realm of possibility that this was done intentionally to come out right before the election, because it could appeal to those swing state voters who are upset about the overturning of Roe v Wade," she said. "Maybe they could see this as a sign that he [Trump] perhaps is softening on abortion."
But Republican strategist Rina Shah offered a different view.
The notion of Mrs Trump trying to help out her husband "doesn’t track with the Melania we know", she said.
"At this point in the game it doesn’t change anything, and she knows that," Ms Shah said. "Early ballots have already gone out in certain places. It’s just too late."
Abortion access is a key issue in next month's 2024 election - and it is considered a weak point for the Republican Party, which has struggled to appeal to a conservative base that opposes the procedure and a wider electorate that supports abortion access.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump's position on the issue has fluctuated.
Earlier this week, the Republican presidential nominee said for the first time that he would veto any federal abortion ban in the unlikely event that such a measure ever passed Congress.
The BBC has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has sought to capitalise on Trump's position in an effort to galvanise voters.
She has regularly cast Trump as a threat to women's autonomy because of the overturning of Roe v Wade, which took place after he appointed a conservative majority to the Supreme Court.
“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives," Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign told the BBC.
BBC
Melania Trump seems to have joined a long line of Republican former first ladies who have come out in support of abortion rights, putting them at odds with their husbands' public views.
In a short video clip promoting her forthcoming book, Mrs Trump expressed her support for women's "individual freedom", describing it as an "essential right that all women possess from birth".
It comes a day after an excerpt of her soon-to-be-released memoir, in which she reportedly takes an even clearer pro-choice stance, was published in a newspaper report.
Mrs Trump's apparent stance on the issue appears to contrast with the position of her husband, who has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v Wade, upending the constitutional right to abortion.
But it follows a decades-long American tradition of Republican first ladies who - since Roe v Wade was first decided in 1973 - have said legal abortion access should be protected.
In 1975, while still in the White House, First Lady Betty Ford called the Roe ruling a "great, great decision".
Nancy Reagan waited until her husband, President Ronald Reagan, left office before she said publicly that she "believed in a woman's choice", but her position on the issue was reportedly well known within the White House.
Barbara Bush, wife of President George HW Bush, and her daughter-in-law, Laura Bush, wife of President George W Bush, were similar, revealing their stance on the issue after their husbands left the White House.
"I think it's important that it remain legal, because I think it's important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons," Laura Bush said in a 2010 interview promoting her memoir.
Mrs Trump's approach was different.
In a black-and-white video posted on her X account on Thursday, Mrs Trump said "there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom".
"What does my body, my choice really mean?" Mrs Trump continued.
The video comes one day after The Guardian published an excerpt from her new book, Melania, set to be released on 8 October.
In the excerpt, quoted by the Guardian, she writes: “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government."
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes," she continues.
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.
"I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
Kate Andersen Brower, a journalist and author of the book First Women, said she was "shocked" by the comments.
"So shocked that I wanted to check it was real," she said. "She's very much been in line with her husband, so on this issue how did she spend all those years watching him derail something that she seems to care about?"
More than the other first ladies, Ms Brower said, Mrs Trump's comments appear "diametrically opposed" to her husband's approach on the issue.
And she is the only first lady so far to make her stance on abortion known while her husband is actively seeking re-election.
Indeed, the timing of Mrs Trump's comments suggest a possible political angle, Ms Brower said.
"It's not out of the realm of possibility that this was done intentionally to come out right before the election, because it could appeal to those swing state voters who are upset about the overturning of Roe v Wade," she said. "Maybe they could see this as a sign that he [Trump] perhaps is softening on abortion."
But Republican strategist Rina Shah offered a different view.
The notion of Mrs Trump trying to help out her husband "doesn’t track with the Melania we know", she said.
"At this point in the game it doesn’t change anything, and she knows that," Ms Shah said. "Early ballots have already gone out in certain places. It’s just too late."
Abortion access is a key issue in next month's 2024 election - and it is considered a weak point for the Republican Party, which has struggled to appeal to a conservative base that opposes the procedure and a wider electorate that supports abortion access.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump's position on the issue has fluctuated.
Earlier this week, the Republican presidential nominee said for the first time that he would veto any federal abortion ban in the unlikely event that such a measure ever passed Congress.
The BBC has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has sought to capitalise on Trump's position in an effort to galvanise voters.
She has regularly cast Trump as a threat to women's autonomy because of the overturning of Roe v Wade, which took place after he appointed a conservative majority to the Supreme Court.
“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives," Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign told the BBC.
BBC
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Fight Breaks Out in Front of MAGA Trump Rally Attendees
Aviolent fight involving three men started suddenly outside a Donald Trump rally in Michigan yesterday.
Attendees were standing by a metal barricade in the parking lot outside of Saginaw Valley State University, where Trump was speaking that afternoon, when a brawl broke out in front of the barricade at about 10:20 a.m.
Anna Liz Nichols of Michigan Advance posted a video to her X account of the men exchanging blows. Michigan Advance said the fight was between vendors selling Trump merchandise prior to the rally.
The men in the 22-second video were filmed punching and kicking each other, before scattering across the parking lot as the scrap continued. They were eventually broken up by security guards.
The fight was particularly vicious between one young man in a Trump t-shirt who was filmed sitting on top of and punching another man on the ground, who was dressed in a Trump hoodie.
J.J. Boehm, the executive director of university communications at Saginaw Valley State University, told Newsweek: "To my knowledge, the individuals are not affiliated with SVSU. "I do not believe University Police were involved in the response to the altercation, as it is my understanding that they were inside the Ryder Center, [the] site of the campaign event, at the time of the incident."
In a statement via text reported by Michigan Advance, a Trump campaign official said: "The Trump campaign reports that all of the individuals involved in the altercation were vendors, none were attendees and all were ejected from the premises."
Fight breaks out in front of MAGA Trump rally attendees
Violence broke out before a Trump rally in Michigan, with footage showing people kicking and punching each other outside the venue.
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Fight Breaks Out in Front of MAGA Trump Rally Attendees
Aviolent fight involving three men started suddenly outside a Donald Trump rally in Michigan yesterday.
Attendees were standing by a metal barricade in the parking lot outside of Saginaw Valley State University, where Trump was speaking that afternoon, when a brawl broke out in front of the barricade at about 10:20 a.m.
Anna Liz Nichols of Michigan Advance posted a video to her X account of the men exchanging blows. Michigan Advance said the fight was between vendors selling Trump merchandise prior to the rally.
The men in the 22-second video were filmed punching and kicking each other, before scattering across the parking lot as the scrap continued. They were eventually broken up by security guards.
The fight was particularly vicious between one young man in a Trump t-shirt who was filmed sitting on top of and punching another man on the ground, who was dressed in a Trump hoodie.
J.J. Boehm, the executive director of university communications at Saginaw Valley State University, told Newsweek: "To my knowledge, the individuals are not affiliated with SVSU. "I do not believe University Police were involved in the response to the altercation, as it is my understanding that they were inside the Ryder Center, [the] site of the campaign event, at the time of the incident."
In a statement via text reported by Michigan Advance, a Trump campaign official said: "The Trump campaign reports that all of the individuals involved in the altercation were vendors, none were attendees and all were ejected from the premises."
Fight breaks out in front of MAGA Trump rally attendees
Violence broke out before a Trump rally in Michigan, with footage showing people kicking and punching each other outside the venue.
LOL. Funny fight.
Was it a fight between two Trump supporters?
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Trump electric vehicle attacks hit home for Michigan voters
A longtime resident of the north Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, Doug spends part of his days building electric vehicles for Ford as a machine repairman.
But he would never buy one.
A former Democrat and unionised auto worker, Doug - who declined to share his name for fear of pushback from his union - is exactly the type of Michigan voter Donald Trump is working to recruit and Kamala Harris is eager to win back.
With less than a month before election day, the former president has been stoking fears in the state that Harris wants to ban gas-powered vehicles and that auto workers could lose their jobs in the push to electrify cars. The message is resonating with Doug and some other Michigan voters who spoke to the BBC.
“It could definitely cost us our jobs, and it already has cost a lot of people their jobs,” Doug told the BBC on a sunny October day outside a Meijer supermarket in Warren.
Harris has pushed back on Trump’s rhetoric, telling voters at a rally in Flint, Michigan, last week that her administration would not put a stop to vehicles that use petrol. The vice-president endorsed phasing out petrol cars when she ran for president in 2019, but has since reversed her support for the policy.
“Michigan, let us be clear,” she said in Flint, “Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
Experts say Trump’s electric vehicle criticism is his Michigan spin on a broader economic message as he tries to appeal to voters in the key midwestern swing state.
Speaking to a crowd of hundreds at a Detroit Economic Club event on Thursday, the former president doubled down on the message, saying that United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain wanted “all electric cars”, a move Trump said was costing the auto industry their “whole business”.
“That has just become a front message of Republicans: that these plans or hopes to electrify the vehicles are going to destroy the auto industry and take away jobs,” said Jonathan Hanson, a lecturer at University of Michigan’s Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy.
And Harris’s challenges to that message haven’t broken through to some Michigan voters, who still believe Trump’s claim that Harris wants a country of entirely electric vehicles.
“I don’t trust them,” 82-year-old Warren resident Ruth Zimmer said of electric cars. “I want it to be the way it always was, with a good, old-fashioned car.”
On Friday in Michigan, Harris’s running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tried to appeal to those sceptical of electric vehicles and took aim at Trump’s comments about mandates.
“It should just be your choice. We need to make those choices affordable and available to people,” he said. “Nobody’s mandating anything to you. If you want to drive, like I do, a ‘79 International Harvester Scout that is sweet as hell … knock yourself out.”
Walz and Trump's visits to the state comes as recent polls suggest Harris’s support may be slipping slightly in the key battleground state. A September poll from Quinnipiac University found Trump ahead by three points in Michigan, after other polls suggested Harris had been leading by a slim margin for the past month.
Trump’s attacks on electric vehicles are also complicated by one of his biggest supporters, billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, an electric car company. Musk has endorsed Trump and appeared at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last week, cheering him on from behind the podium.
Appealing to the state’s automobile and union worker population - once a staunchly Democratic voting bloc - will prove key for Harris and Trump to close the gap in Michigan, experts say.
Trump picked up a number of these voters in the state in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, though President Joe Biden won some of their votes back in 2020. Nationally, Clinton ended up winning 51% of union households, compared to Trump’s 42%, in a race she lost in Michigan by some 10,000 votes. Biden won union households 56% to 40%, according to 2020 exit polls.
Some former Democratic union workers in Michigan have grown disillusioned with the party as the cost of living has risen. Doug, the Warren resident, said adding that pressure from his union leadership to stay in line with Democrats had turned him off.
“You must be a Democrat, or you're totally exiled,” Doug said.
Harris, he added, was just President Joe Biden “in a nutshell”.
The vice-president is struggling to win over the labour vote more than Biden, who had cast himself as the most pro-union president in history. Though Harris and Walz have key labour endorsements, they’ve struggled to earn support from rank-and-file union members.
For the first time in three decades, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters - the largest union in the country - declined to endorse a presidential candidate, finding a majority of its rank-and-file members supported Trump.
In Michigan, where the automotive and transportation industry employ 20% of the workforce, Democrats are not getting as much credit as they had hoped for their electric vehicle investments in the state, said Matt Grossmann, a politics professor at Michigan State University.
This year, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a $1.7b (£1.3b) investment to convert shuttered and struggling auto plants in Michigan and several other mid-western states to manufacture electric vehicles and parts of their supply chain.
“Many in the auto industry and surrounding it don't necessarily think that that would benefit Michigan,” Mr Grossmann said.
Automakers broadly seem to be on board with shifting their fleets over to more electric vehicles, Mr Hanson said, but the transition is expensive and requires complementary investments in factories for special materials such as batteries.
As a part of the nearly $2b federal investment, a General Motors factory in Lansing, Michigan, has received $500m to shift production from petrol to electric vehicles.
In Detroit just two days before Trump arrived, his Republican running mate JD Vance said the Lansing investment was “table scraps” compared to the job losses that would be on the horizon from the shift to electric vehicles.
Kevin Moore, the president of the Teamsters union in Michigan, called Trump and Vance’s electric vehicle claims a “bold-faced lie”.
“They’re not going to get rid of combustible, gas vehicles,” he told the BBC. “They can coincide together.”
His group - and several Teamsters unions in swing states - have endorsed Harris for president.
Moore said he believed Michigan workers would not buy into Trump’s statement that electrification would cost auto workers their jobs.
“They’re astute,” he said of auto workers. “Donald Trump was a gold spoon-fed billionaire. [Harris] lived her life in middle-class America.”
BBC
A longtime resident of the north Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, Doug spends part of his days building electric vehicles for Ford as a machine repairman.
But he would never buy one.
A former Democrat and unionised auto worker, Doug - who declined to share his name for fear of pushback from his union - is exactly the type of Michigan voter Donald Trump is working to recruit and Kamala Harris is eager to win back.
With less than a month before election day, the former president has been stoking fears in the state that Harris wants to ban gas-powered vehicles and that auto workers could lose their jobs in the push to electrify cars. The message is resonating with Doug and some other Michigan voters who spoke to the BBC.
“It could definitely cost us our jobs, and it already has cost a lot of people their jobs,” Doug told the BBC on a sunny October day outside a Meijer supermarket in Warren.
Harris has pushed back on Trump’s rhetoric, telling voters at a rally in Flint, Michigan, last week that her administration would not put a stop to vehicles that use petrol. The vice-president endorsed phasing out petrol cars when she ran for president in 2019, but has since reversed her support for the policy.
“Michigan, let us be clear,” she said in Flint, “Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
Experts say Trump’s electric vehicle criticism is his Michigan spin on a broader economic message as he tries to appeal to voters in the key midwestern swing state.
Speaking to a crowd of hundreds at a Detroit Economic Club event on Thursday, the former president doubled down on the message, saying that United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain wanted “all electric cars”, a move Trump said was costing the auto industry their “whole business”.
“That has just become a front message of Republicans: that these plans or hopes to electrify the vehicles are going to destroy the auto industry and take away jobs,” said Jonathan Hanson, a lecturer at University of Michigan’s Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy.
And Harris’s challenges to that message haven’t broken through to some Michigan voters, who still believe Trump’s claim that Harris wants a country of entirely electric vehicles.
“I don’t trust them,” 82-year-old Warren resident Ruth Zimmer said of electric cars. “I want it to be the way it always was, with a good, old-fashioned car.”
On Friday in Michigan, Harris’s running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tried to appeal to those sceptical of electric vehicles and took aim at Trump’s comments about mandates.
“It should just be your choice. We need to make those choices affordable and available to people,” he said. “Nobody’s mandating anything to you. If you want to drive, like I do, a ‘79 International Harvester Scout that is sweet as hell … knock yourself out.”
Walz and Trump's visits to the state comes as recent polls suggest Harris’s support may be slipping slightly in the key battleground state. A September poll from Quinnipiac University found Trump ahead by three points in Michigan, after other polls suggested Harris had been leading by a slim margin for the past month.
Trump’s attacks on electric vehicles are also complicated by one of his biggest supporters, billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, an electric car company. Musk has endorsed Trump and appeared at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last week, cheering him on from behind the podium.
Appealing to the state’s automobile and union worker population - once a staunchly Democratic voting bloc - will prove key for Harris and Trump to close the gap in Michigan, experts say.
Trump picked up a number of these voters in the state in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, though President Joe Biden won some of their votes back in 2020. Nationally, Clinton ended up winning 51% of union households, compared to Trump’s 42%, in a race she lost in Michigan by some 10,000 votes. Biden won union households 56% to 40%, according to 2020 exit polls.
Some former Democratic union workers in Michigan have grown disillusioned with the party as the cost of living has risen. Doug, the Warren resident, said adding that pressure from his union leadership to stay in line with Democrats had turned him off.
“You must be a Democrat, or you're totally exiled,” Doug said.
Harris, he added, was just President Joe Biden “in a nutshell”.
The vice-president is struggling to win over the labour vote more than Biden, who had cast himself as the most pro-union president in history. Though Harris and Walz have key labour endorsements, they’ve struggled to earn support from rank-and-file union members.
For the first time in three decades, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters - the largest union in the country - declined to endorse a presidential candidate, finding a majority of its rank-and-file members supported Trump.
In Michigan, where the automotive and transportation industry employ 20% of the workforce, Democrats are not getting as much credit as they had hoped for their electric vehicle investments in the state, said Matt Grossmann, a politics professor at Michigan State University.
This year, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a $1.7b (£1.3b) investment to convert shuttered and struggling auto plants in Michigan and several other mid-western states to manufacture electric vehicles and parts of their supply chain.
“Many in the auto industry and surrounding it don't necessarily think that that would benefit Michigan,” Mr Grossmann said.
Automakers broadly seem to be on board with shifting their fleets over to more electric vehicles, Mr Hanson said, but the transition is expensive and requires complementary investments in factories for special materials such as batteries.
As a part of the nearly $2b federal investment, a General Motors factory in Lansing, Michigan, has received $500m to shift production from petrol to electric vehicles.
In Detroit just two days before Trump arrived, his Republican running mate JD Vance said the Lansing investment was “table scraps” compared to the job losses that would be on the horizon from the shift to electric vehicles.
Kevin Moore, the president of the Teamsters union in Michigan, called Trump and Vance’s electric vehicle claims a “bold-faced lie”.
“They’re not going to get rid of combustible, gas vehicles,” he told the BBC. “They can coincide together.”
His group - and several Teamsters unions in swing states - have endorsed Harris for president.
Moore said he believed Michigan workers would not buy into Trump’s statement that electrification would cost auto workers their jobs.
“They’re astute,” he said of auto workers. “Donald Trump was a gold spoon-fed billionaire. [Harris] lived her life in middle-class America.”
BBC
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- Sep 11, 2023
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Trump says Apple boss called him to complain about EU
Donald Trump has claimed he received a phone call on Thursday from Apple's chief executive Tim Cook, in which the tech boss shared concerns about the European Union.
He says Mr Cook told him he was concerned about recent financial penalties issued by the EU, which ordered Apple to pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes in September.
Mr Trump, who is running as the Republican candidate for the upcoming US Presidential Election, made the claim in a podcast released on Thursday.
Mr Trump told presenter Patrick Bet-David in his appearance on the PBD Podcast that Mr Cook had called him a few hours prior to complain about fines the company was forced to pay after breaching EU rules.
He said Mr Cook had told him about a recent $15bn fine from the EU, to which Mr Trump said he responded "that's a lot".
"Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2bn," Mr Trump continued, "so it's a $17-18bn fine."
Apple and the Irish government lost a long-running legal dispute over unpaid taxes in September.
The EU's highest court upheld an accusation by the bloc's legislative arm, the European Commission, that Ireland gave Apple illegal tax advantages.
Mr Cook described the Commission's findings as "political" and said Ireland was being "picked on" in 2016.
The European Commission fined Apple €1.8bn several months earlier in March for allegedly breaking music streaming rules, in a win for rival service Spotify.
According to Mr Trump, the Apple chief executive went on to make a remark about the EU using the money received via antitrust fines to run an "enterprise".
Antitrust fines paid by firms which breach EU competition rules go towards the bloc's general budget and "help to finance the EU and reduce the burden for taxpayers," the Commission's website states.
A Commission spokesperson said antitrust fines are designed to sanction companies that have breached competition rules, as well as deter them and others from engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.
"When determining the amount of the fine, the Commission considers both the gravity and the duration of the infringement," they told BBC News.
"All companies are welcome in the EU, provided they respect our rules and legislation."
Mr Trump said he told Mr Cook he would not let the EU "take advantage of our companies", but he needed to "get elected first".
The former president has spent some of his campaign trying to woo prominent tech figures, with Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) boss Elon Musk among those backing Mr Trump.
He also said he spoke to Google boss Sundar Pichai earlier this week, and claims to have had multiple calls with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in August.
Mr Musk and the heads of several large tech firms have criticised the EU's approach to regulating their platforms.
The bloc has set of rules and requirements that firms must comply with in order to offer digital products and services in the region.
These include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and its Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act.
Its two digital laws aim to rein in powerful "gatekeeper" tech companies, provide more choice for consumers and protect users of online platforms or services from illegal or harmful content.
Apple has previously claimed that opening up services including its app store to third parties, as required by the DMA, could be bad for users.
The EU's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, passed earlier this year, also created concern for some tech firms in regulating products according to their risks.
It will also make producers of general purpose AI systems be more transparent about data used to train their models.
Meta executive Nick Clegg recently said that "regulatory uncertainty" in the EU was behind the delayed roll out of generative AI products there.
Apple has also said its own suite of generative AI features will not be coming to iPhones in the EU when they become immediately available elsewhere.
Donald Trump says Apple boss Tim Cook called him with EU concerns
The EU ordered Apple to pay Ireland billions in unpaid taxes in September.
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Trump hands out french fries, Harris visits Georgia churches
With the U.S. presidential election little more than two weeks away, Democrat Kamala Harris visited two churches on Sunday while her Republican rival, Donald Trump, visited another kind of American temple: a McDonald's.
Both candidates were scrambling for votes in the most competitive states, with Harris, the U.S. vice president, appealing to early voters in Georgia and Trump campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
At a McDonald's in suburban Philadelphia, Trump removed his suit jacket, put on a black and yellow apron and proceeded to cook batches of french fries, something he said he had wanted to do "all my life."
The former president dipped wire baskets of potatoes in sizzling oil before salting them and handing them out to customers through the restaurant's drive-through window. Thousands of people lined the street opposite the restaurant to watch.
With the U.S. presidential election little more than two weeks away, Democrat Kamala Harris visited two churches on Sunday while her Republican rival, Donald Trump, visited another kind of American temple: a McDonald's.
Both candidates were scrambling for votes in the most competitive states, with Harris, the U.S. vice president, appealing to early voters in Georgia and Trump campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
At a McDonald's in suburban Philadelphia, Trump removed his suit jacket, put on a black and yellow apron and proceeded to cook batches of french fries, something he said he had wanted to do "all my life."
The former president dipped wire baskets of potatoes in sizzling oil before salting them and handing them out to customers through the restaurant's drive-through window. Thousands of people lined the street opposite the restaurant to watch.
Man , this guy is all about publicity positive or negative as long as its free lol
News channels here have lapped it up.. Masala news sells more than policy news !
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Backlash after Trump rally speaker calls Puerto Rico 'island of garbage'
A comedian at a Donald Trump rally has called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage", sparking furious reactions from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.
The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, was among the stars who turned out for the event at Madison Square Garden in New York. He also made a series of jokes that leant on racist stereotypes.
A Trump adviser distanced the Republican from the Puerto Rico joke, which was also denounced by Trump's Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. Harris herself was the target of another Trump warm-up speaker who also sparked controversy.
The furore came as one of the world's top Latin celebrities, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, endorsed Harris for president.
In his joke, Mr Hinchcliffe, who goes by the name Kill Tony, said: "There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico."
Two Republicans in the state of Florida, which has a prominent Puerto Rican population, were among those who called out the joke - joining Democrats.
Writing on X, US congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar said she was "disgusted" by the "racist comment". She said it did not "reflect the GOP values", referring to the Republican Party, and noted the thousands of Puerto Ricans who served in the military.
In his own post on X, US Senator Rick Scott said: "The joke bombed for a reason. It's not funny and it's not true." He added that "Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans".
Puerto Rico is a US island territory in the Caribbean. Its residents are unable to vote in US presidential elections, but there is a large diaspora across the US who can.
Mr Hinchcliffe also suggested Latinos "loved making babies", and made a comment about black people and watermelons - drawing on a racist trope.
The night's other speakers courted controversy with their own remarks. David Rem, a childhood friend of Trump, called Harris "the devil" and "the antichrist".
And Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani falsely claimed the Democratic candidate was "on the side of the terrorists" in the war in the Gaza conflict.
Although much of the focus was on the comments by his guest speakers, Trump used the occasion to announce a plan for tax credits for those who take care of a parent or a loved one. "It's about time that they were recognised," he said.
He also reiterated plans for a mass deportation for illegal migrants, speaking of his wish to "rescue" places that had been "invaded and conquered" by "vicious and bloodthirsty criminals".
The Harris campaign said the language at the rally was "divisive and demeaning".
Earlier on Sunday, Harris unveiled policies aimed at helping those in Puerto Rico - garnering support from Jennifer Lopez, who has Puerto Rican parents, as well as Bad Bunny. Numerous other big-name celebrities have already backed her.
Bad Bunny posted multiple videos of Harris talking about the island, her ideas to help residents, and her attacks on how Trump handled Hurricane Maria as president when the deadly storm killed nearly 3,000 people there in 2017.
In the last seven years, there has been an exodus from the island, with Puerto Ricans moving to the mainland US including Florida and swing states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Puerto Ricans are now reportedly the second largest Latino subgroup in those states.
Bad Bunny's comments appeared to be pre-planned, and he did not address the remarks by Mr Hinchcliffe. But fellow Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin did so, telling his fans "this is what they think of us" and urging them to vote for Harris.
There are around 36 million Hispanic voters eligible to vote this year, according to the Pew Research centre. They have generally formed a key plank of the Democratic coalition but Republicans have been eating into that support.
Mr Hinchcliffe was one of a laundry-list of speakers at Trump's rally, including tech billionaire Elon Musk and former star wrestler Hulk Hogan - who ripped off a T-shirt while speaking. Trump was also joined by his wife Melania, who has made very few campaign appearances so far.
Mike Shapiro, a colourfully dressed Trump supporter visiting New York from New Jersey, said he arrived at 00:50 local time (04:50 GMT) on Sunday to secure his spot at the rally.
“I hear people say he's fascist, fascist, racist, racist, racist,” Shapiro said. “But I see a lot of diversity. I see everybody, all nationalities. And even here, I met a lot of blacks, a lot of Latino, a lot of Asians. The tide is changing a bit.”
Others who journeyed to the event in New York said they were less worried about rhetoric, and more interested in the policies and impacts to their lives.
“He’s having rallies where people don’t expect him to have rallies because I think more people - people who didn’t like him - are seeing that Donald Trump was a good president,” said Mike Boatman, who said it was his 18th Trump rally.
“They’ve had four years of Trump and four years of Biden, and Kamala is just an extension of Biden, and they can compare and they know when they were better off.”
Madison Square Garden, near the heart of the city, is one of the most famous venues in the world. Capable of seating about 20,000, depending on the event, it is the home of the New York Knicks NBA basketball team and the New York Rangers NHL hockey team.
It is also in Trump's hometown. But it was viewed by some as a curious choice for Trump's last full week of campaigning. New York is a solid blue state and will not be decisive in the race for the White House.
But the rally could provide an influx of campaign cash. The Trump campaign sold tickets for an “Ultra Maga Experience” at the venue for nearly $1m (£770,000) a pop. The rally also could help Republican candidates in several competitive US House races in the area.
Republicans had great success in a handful of key swing districts in New York during the 2022 midterm elections - which arguably helped them get control of the lower chamber in Congress.
Tony Hinchcliffe: Backlash after Trump rally speaker calls Puerto Rico 'island of garbage'
Republicans join Democrats to condemn comedian Tony Hinchliffe for his comments at a controversial event.
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