Kamala Harris’s campaign has responded to Donald Trump’s statement yesterday that he would support requiring the government or private insurances to back IVF care:
It’s worth noting that Democrats in the Senate have proposed legislation that would protect access to IVF, in response to the Alabama supreme court’s decision earlier this year that essentially banned the care in the state.
However, Republican lawmakers have stopped that bill from passing:
On Friday, in comments to Fox News, Trump also clarified his position on a Florida amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution and overturn the six-week abortion ban, saying he would vote against it. The Republican candidate had previously told NBC News that the six-week window is “too short”, sparking confusion about his stance.
“I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks,” Trump said Friday, but added: “At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month … So I’ll be voting no for that reason.”
The amendment would ensure access to abortion care before fetal viability around the 24th week, and add exceptions when the mother’s health is in danger.
Trump addressed the recent controversy at Arlington cemetery, when members of his campaign staff were reported for their behavior during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican candidate. Trump was there participating in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US service personnel killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan, and he told supporters at his rally that he was asked by families there to take photos.
Blaming Biden and Harris (whose name mispronounces frequently) for the deaths of these soldiers, Trump said it was a “beautiful ceremony”:
“After the ceremony they said, could you come to the graves?” he said, insisting he didn’t want any publicity.
“I am the only guy who would hire a public relations agency to get less publicity,” he said, but added he wanted to do so for these families. “I am so happy they took pictures of me and them and the tombstone and their lovely son or daughter – there was a daughter too, an incredible daughter, frankly.”
But as Richard Luscombe reported:
In a statement, Arlington acknowledged one of its representatives became involved in the altercation with two Trump staffers, telling them that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in section 60, an area where recent US casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the statement said, adding that “a report was filed” over the incident.
“Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants,” the statement said.
The staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside” as the person attempted to prevent them from accompanying Trump into the section, according to NPR, which first published the allegation on Tuesday night.
Here are some of the latest pictures from the Trump rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania:
Trump has already hit many of his favorite talking points in this speech, opening by scolding journalists present at the event, using derogatory nicknames for his opponents, and talking about his patriotism. He claimed he would push for prison time for anyone who burns an American flag, even though the action is protected by the constitution, and that he agrees with death sentences for drug dealers. He also repeated claims about immigration.
From the Guardian’s Chris McGreal:
Donald Trump has attacked foreign governments for allegedly emptying their prisons and shipping criminals to the US illegally. But then said that if he was in charge of the same countries he would be more effective at the same thing.
‘If I was running one of those countries, I’d be doing better than them at getting them out,’ he told a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Trump was hitting a favoured theme even though he has yet to produce evidence for his claim. But he did make reference to the release of video of Venezuelan gangs operating in Aurora, Colorado including shootouts. Trump has previously alleged that the Venezuelan government is one of those sending known criminals across the Mexican border.
Donald Trump’s supporters have gathered and are waiting for him to speak in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The former president is expected to take the stage at about 4.45pm ET, before heading to a national summit in Washington of Moms for Liberty, a conservative organization pushing for the removal of LGBTQ+ mentions and structural racism from schools.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has responded to Donald Trump’s statement yesterday that he would support requiring the government or private insurances to back IVF care:
It’s worth noting that Democrats in the Senate have proposed legislation that would protect access to IVF, in response to the Alabama supreme court’s decision earlier this year that essentially banned the care in the state.
However, Republican lawmakers have stopped that bill from passing:
If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard much about Joe Biden these past few days …
It’s because the president has been on vacation ever since giving the keynote speech on the first night of last week’s Democratic convention. Photographers saw him on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday:
Here’s a look back at his speech to the Democratic convention, where he made good on his pledge to pass the torch to Kamala Harris:
The Harris campaign clearly wants to keep reproductive rights at the top of voters’ minds in the weeks that remain before the 5 November election.
Here’s Gwen Walz, the wife of vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, in Virginia:
Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would support requiring the government or private insurances to pay for IVF care.
Patrick T Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who opposes abortion, called Donald Trump’s statement of support for a Florida ballot measure that would expand abortion access “another middle finger towards pro-lifers.”
Though Trump played a major role in overturning Roe v Wade by appointing three of the conservative justices who approved the ruling, Brown’s piece underscore how uneasy his relationship is with advocates for limiting abortion. Here’s more, from Brown’s Substack:
Florida is faced with a ballot amendment that would wipe nearly all restrictions on abortion off the books this fall. It needs 60% of votes to pass, so pro-lifers had been modestly hopefully they could keep the “yes” vote under the threshold. But their cause will not be helped by Trump suggesting that he is “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks” (though his campaign later “clarified” that he “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative.”) This, of course, comes after Trump has repeatedly stressed how “everyone” should be happy that the Dobbs returns abortion regulation to the states. Apparently his version of federalism only goes one direction, as his sandbagging of the efforts of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other pro-life Florida Republicans could push the “yes” side over the finish line in November – a catastrophe for the pro-life cause in the Sunshine State and nationwide.
But wait – there’s more. At a rally that night, he outlined a proposal for covering IVF either through an Obamacare insurance mandate or paying for it with public money. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the cost per successful IVF outcome ranges somewhere around $61,000, and over 90,000 babies were born via IVF in 2022 (2.5% of all births nationwide.) That’s a static estimate of $50 billion over a ten-year budget window, putting aside what universally available free IVF would do to increase demand. For those who remember the contraceptive mandate fight of 2012, this would be that — on steroids.
Kamala Harris’s response to a question during her CNN interview last night about her views on Israel’s invasion of Gaza was not well received by the Uncommitted movement, which has called for the Democratic party to stop supporting the incursion.
“Israel has a right to defend itself – we would,” Harris said, while adding, “How it does so matters,” and “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
She reiterated her support for the Biden administration’s long-running efforts to secure a ceasefire in the enclave, saying, “We have got to get a deal done. This war must end.”
In response, the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founders, Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, said:
The Vice President’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted as the lack of American consequences for Netanyahu’s horrific assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has emboldened Israel to now invade the West Bank. Vice President Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time by aligning with the American majority that opposes sending weapons to Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The controversy over the Trump campaign’s visit to Arlington does not appear to be going away – and some Democrats are weighing in on what they see as the latest example of the former president’s lack of respect for fallen soldiers and active servicemen and women.
New Jersey congresswoman and former Navy pilot Mikie Sherill wrote on X earlier this week: “Arlington National Cemetery isn’t a place for campaign photo-ops. It’s a sacred resting place for American patriots.
“But for Donald Trump, disrespecting military veterans is just par for the course. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
And the Hill reports Virginia congressman Gerry Connolly and Maine representative Jared Golden – a former Marine – also criticized Trump’s use of the military cemetery for campaign purposes.
Connolly said it was “sad but all too expected that Donald Trump would desecrate this hallowed ground and put campaign politics ahead of honoring our heroes”.
Golden reportedly said “all visitors should take the time to learn the rules of decorum that ensure the proper respect is given to the fallen and their families”.
In her interview with CNN, Kamala Harris made herself out to be a centrist leader who was not interested in discussing how her election would break longstanding racial and gender barriers in US politics, the Guardian’s Gabrielle Canon reports:
In a primetime spot on CNN Thursday evening, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sat for their first interview together as the Democratic ticket, taking questions from the anchor Dana Bash on a range of important issues, including their plans for day one if they win the race, the approach to the war in Gaza, and how Joe Biden passed the baton.
With just over two months until voters will head to the polls on 5 November – and even less time before some will mail in their ballots – the Democratic candidates for president and vice-president made good on a promise to speak more candidly about how they will tackle the US’s most pressing problems.
But this interview was about more than just policies and priorities.
For weeks, Republicans and members of the media have called for the nominees to open themselves up to questions, especially the vice-president, who has for the most part sidestepped unscripted moments in the six weeks since the president ended his bid for re-election and endorsed her. Analysts and opponents were watching Thursday’s interview closely for new insights into how a Harris administration would approach the presidency, how the candidates interact with one another, and how she would respond in more candid moments.
Here’s what we learned:
Kamala Harris finally sat down for an interview yesterday, alongside her running mate Tim Walz. The encounter with CNN quelled weeks of growing pressure for her to interact with the press, though expect it to amp back up again if she doesn’t keep the outreach going. Here’s more on what the vice-president had to say, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:
Democrats lauded it as the perfect pitch; Donald Trump dismissed it as “boring”, while fellow Republicans invoked derogatory terms like “gobbledygook”.
Between the two extremes, Kamala Harris appeared to have achieved what she wanted from Thursday’s groundbreaking CNN interview, given along with her running mate, Tim Walz – her first since become the Democratic presidential nominee.
Under fierce scrutiny after nearly six weeks of interview radio silence, the vice-president earned lavish praise from the Democratic base while denying Republicans a clear line of attack simply by avoiding major missteps of the type that undid Joe Biden’s candidacy in June’s climactic debate.
The performance is also unlikely to shake up a race that has reversed itself since Harris entered it and replaced Biden, flipping a narrow but solid Trump lead into a contest in which she is now firmly ahead.
A commentator with AZCentral.com – a news site in the key swing state of Arizona – called the performance “too sane to be great TV”, an implicit comparison with Trump’s frequently ostentatious media appearances.
Commenting on her championing of Biden’s record in office, the New York Times noted that “it turns out, Ms Harris is a better salesperson for Mr Biden’s accomplishments and defender of his record than he ever was”.
But the highest praise came from Harris’s party supporters.
“This interview with Dana Bash is a moment to recognize that it is absolutely under-appreciated that Vice President Harris is running a perfect campaign,” Bill Burton, a former deputy press secretary in Barack Obama’s presidency, posted on X.
For Donald Trump’s niece, his political ascension has been so devastating that it pushed her to seek ketamine treatment, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
In a new memoir, Mary L Trump, niece of Donald Trump, writes of being pushed to despair, and ketamine therapy, by her uncle’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, his chaotic, far-right administration and his refusal to leave national politics despite his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020.
“I’m here because five years ago, I lost control of my life,” Mary Trump writes, describing ketamine treatment undertaken in December 2021. “I’m here because the world has fallen away and I don’t know how to find my way back.
“I’m here because Donald Trump is my uncle.”
Her doctor, she says, answered: “I’m sorry. That must be very difficult for you.”
Now 59, Mary Trump is a trained psychologist and bestselling author. Her new book, Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir, will be published in the US on 10 September. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Kamala Harris is looking to keep her momentum with voters going, after yesterday conducting the first interview of her presidential bid with CNN, alongside her running mate Tim Walz. Her campaign has announced plans for an abortion-focused bus tour that will crisscross swing states, while Georgia is reportedly seeing a surge in registrations by new voters, particularly among the groups most likely to vote for Democrats. Speaking of abortion, Donald Trump yesterday said he supported a ballot initiative to overturn Florida’s six-week ban on the procedure, but both his campaign and running mate JD Vance are trying to walk back the comment, underscoring the perils of the GOP’s position on the issue.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump also broke with years of Republican orthodoxy by saying he wouldn’t move to block abortion access in Washington DC, and told supporters he wanted the government or private insurance to pay for IVF care.
Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, apologized after his campaign used images of Trump’s visit to Arlington national cemetery this week – which the former president has refused to do.
House Republicans will travel to southern California for a judiciary committee hearing that will likely be aimed at Harris and her stance on undocumented migration.
House Republicans, who have spent much of their nearly two years in control of Congress’s lower chamber investigating the Biden administration with mixed results, will next week hold a judiciary committee hearing on the effects of undocumented migrants in California.
That is, of course, Kamala Harris’s home state, which she represented in the Senate from 2017 to 2021. The hearing, titled “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: California Perspectives” will take place next Friday in Santee, California, a San Diego suburb in a Republican-leaning House district.
Donald Trump and his allies have campaigned on cracking down on undocumented migrants, and have accused Harris of changing her answers over whether or not she supports building a wall along the border with Mexico.
The vice-president’s stated policy on the matter is a little more complicated than they make it out to be:
NBC News asked Donald Trump about his campaign’s decision to use images of his visit to Arlington national cemetery in communications to supporters, including on TikTok.
He downplayed the controversial decision, saying, essentially, that they were just pictures and that he did not know “what the rules and regulations are”:
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
