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      Florida Health Agency Targets Abortion Rights Ballot Measure

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      The Florida agency charged with regulating health care providers, including abortion clinics, publicly opposed a proposed ballot amendment that would guarantee abortion rights, a move that critics say is unethical and also, perhaps, a violation of state law.“Florida Is Protecting Life,” reads the top of a website by the Agency for Health Care Administration. “Don’t let the fearmongers lie to you.”The declaration, which was promoted on the social media platform X on Thursday by Jason Weida, the agency secretary, claims that the proposed amendment, known as Amendment 4, “threatens women’s safety.” It lists several examples of what it says is the “truth” about the amendment’s effects, using language typically employed by campaigns in favor of or against a ballot question. The website also includes data on political donations to the pro-amendment campaign.The website seems to be an aggressive move by the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis against the ballot measure, which would allow abortions in Florida “before viability,” usually up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Polls suggest that a majority of Florida voters favor the measure, though it would need more than 60 percent support to pass in November.Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, has vowed to defeat the measure and has been raising money in a political committee against Amendment 4. But Governor DeSantis is an elected official. Mr. Weida, his appointed secretary, is not, nor are other agency employees.“You’re not supposed to use your position in state government for electioneering,” said State Representative Anna V. Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, adding that the agency “crossed a line.” “If you’re going to do electioneering, you’ve got to provide a financial disclosure. There’s all sorts of question marks here.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      JD Vance endorsed anti-IVF report that contradicts Trump’s new stance

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      A rightwing thinktank report proposing sweeping restrictions to abortions and fertility treatments was endorsed by JD Vance years before he became a fervent backer of Donald Trump and – eventually – his vice-presidential running mate known for his derisive views on childless women.In 2017, months into Trump’s presidency, Vance wrote the foreword to the Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays by conservative authors for the Heritage Foundation that included ideas for encouraging women to have children earlier and promoting a resurgence of “traditional” family structure.The essays lauded the increase in state laws restricting abortion rights and included arguments that the practice should become “unthinkable” in the US, a hardline posture the Democrats now say is the agenda of Trump and Vance, who they accuse of harbouring the intent to impose a national ban following a 2022 supreme court ruling overturning Roe V Wade and annulling the federal right to abort a pregnancy.The report also includes an essay lamenting the spread of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other fertility treatments, with the author attributing them as reasons for women delaying having children and prioritising higher education rather than starting families.IVF has emerged as an issue in November’s presidential race after Trump said last week that he favoured it being covered by government funding or private health insurance companies – a stance seeming at odds with many Republicans, including Vance, who was one of 47 GOP senators to vote against a bill in June intended to expand access to the treatment.The report’s contents provide fresh insights into the philosophy informing some of Vance’s inflammatory later public statements, which have included saying that America is run by “childless cat ladies” and that he is disturbed by the idea of teachers who do not have children.He has also suggested that people without children are likely to become “more sociopathic”.The 2017 report was released a year after the publication of Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and also after he had made a series of statements denouncing Trump, whom the US senator called “cultural heroin” and speculated could become “America’s Hitler”. He also described himself as “a never Trump guy”.However, its foreword contains hints that Vance’s thoughts on the then president were already evolving.“We all seem to be waking up to the fact that things are not quite what they used to be,” he wrote. “When president Trump has spoken of the country as trapped in a losing game of international trade or decried the carnage on so many American streets, he has earned criticism for painting an overly pessimistic view of his own country. Yet that pessimism struck a chord with many Americans.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The question for those concerned about the future of the country is not whether negativity is justified, but why negativity inspired so many at the polls.”Vance’s views ultimately went full circle, and Trump endorsed his successful election campaign for the US Senate in Ohio in 2022.The foreword to the 2017 report also seems to be one of Vance’s first known links to the Heritage Foundation, a thinktank responsible for producing Project 2025, a controversial and radical blueprint for remaking US government and society in a conservative image. Trump has disowned the 922-page document. But the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has depicted it as an assault on basic freedoms and typical of what lies in store under a second Trump presidency. More

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      Trump Says He’ll Vote Against Florida’s Abortion Rights Measure After Conservative Backlash

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      Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he would vote against a ballot measure in Florida that would expand abortion access in the state, clarifying his stance after having suggested a day earlier that he might support the measure.“I’ll be voting no,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, even as he said he disagreed with his home state’s current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.Passage of the ballot measure, called Amendment 4, would allow patients to seek an abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy.In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Mr. Trump, who had long avoided taking a firm position on the measure, said he was “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.” His campaign promptly sought to clean up those remarks, saying in a statement that they were not indicative of how he would vote in November.His comments were also met with backlash from social conservatives and abortion opponents. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group, said Mr. Trump would be undermining a long-held opposition to abortions after five months of pregnancy if he voted for the measure.“We strongly support Florida’s current heartbeat law,” Ms. Dannenfelser said in a statement, adding that she had also spoken privately with the former president. “For anyone who believes in drawing a different line, they still must vote against Amendment 4, unless they don’t want a line at all.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris campaign accuses Trump of lying about IVF support after ex-president claims to back treatment – US elections live

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      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”: More

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      Anti-abortion groups warn Trump’s row back on position risks losing votes

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      Over the last two weeks, Donald Trump has publicly backed away from multiple anti-abortion positions – a move that Democrats see as hypocritical and that, anti-abortion activists warn, risks alienating voters who have long stood by him.On Thursday, Trump said that, if elected, he would make the government or insurance companies cover in vitro fertilization – a type of fertility assistancethat some in the anti-abortion movement want to see curtailed. Trump also seemed to indicate that he planned to vote in favor of a ballot measure to restore abortion access in Florida, which currently bans abortion past six weeks of pregnancy. “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump told NBC News in an interview.Trump’s campaign quickly rushed to walk back his remarks on the ballot measure, telling NPR that Trump simply meant that six weeks is too early in pregnancy to ban abortion. “President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida,” his press secretary said.Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, in a decision backed by three justices that Trump appointed, Trump has alternately bragged about toppling Roe and complained that outrage over its fall will cost Republicans elections. But Trump’s comments on Thursday mark his latest attempt to apparently clarify and soften his stance on the controversial procedure. Last week, Trump also suggested that he would not use a 19th-century anti-vice law to ban abortion nationwide, while his running mate, JD Vance, said Trump would not sign a national ban.“I don’t think it tells us necessarily what Trump is or isn’t going to do, because he’s still been leaving himself wiggle room on a lot of critical questions,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Law who studies the legal history of reproduction. But, she continued: “What had been a strategy of ‘be ambiguous and then hopefully be everything to everyone’ has tilted more in the direction of Trump trying to assure voters that he doesn’t agree with the anti-abortion movement.”Trump’s new strategy comes as Kamala Harris, a far more effective champion of abortion rights than Joe Biden, has taken over as the Democratic nominee for president, and as polls show the two candidates are neck and neck. But this strategy may leave anti-abortion voters feeling less energized to vote for him, warned Kristan Hawkins, president of the prominent anti-abortion group Students for Life of America.“The pro-life movement didn’t always have a firm place in the Republican party. For many years, we were at the little kids’ table,” Hawkins said. “The young people that we work with, they don’t remember that. And so they’re absolutely shocked and saddened to see someone who they thought was pro-life, or who had always reaffirmed pro-life values, walking back on that.”Although the anti-abortion movement was a critical component of Trump’s success in the 2016 presidential election, Republicans have tried to back away from it in the years since Roe’s demise as abortion rights supporters have repeatedly won ballot measures even in red states. Sixty per cent of American adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 70% say access to IVF is a “good thing”.Tresa Undem, who has polled people on abortion for more than 20 years, does not think that Trump’s comments will necessarily win him the support of uncertain or independent voters who support abortion rights. Instead, he may be trying to reassure the segment of his base that also supports access to the procedure.“A third of his voters are pro-choice,” Undem said. “In a recent survey we did, 16% of 2020 Trump voters say abortion rights are a top five issue. So when you have an election that is probably going to be determined based on 1% of people, 16% of Trump voters saying their abortion rights is top in their mind – that’s a problem for him.”Democrats have cast Trump’s new strategy, particularly his comments on IVF, as a sham. In a Friday press call organized by the Harris campaign, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, repeatedly pointed out that Vance had voted against a Senate bill to create federal protections for IVF.“Trump that thinks women are stupid and that we can be gaslighted,” Warren said. “He seems to believe he can do one thing when he talks to his extremist base and then turn around and smile at the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see access to abortion and IVF protected.”On Friday, the DNC is rolling out billboards in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, that slam Trump over IVF, according to a strategy shared exclusively with the Guardian. “Trump overturned Roe, threatening the future of IVF,” one billboard reads. Another says: “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 Undermines Reproductive Care and Threatens IVF.”Project 2025, a playbook of conservative policies drawn up by the influential Heritage Foundation, contains a long list of anti-abortion proposals. Trump has tried to distance himself from it over the last several weeks.At least one prominent anti-abortion activist, Lila Rose, has publicly declared she currently does not plan to vote for Trump, given his recent turn away from anti-abortion positions. But Hawkins is still committed to getting people to vote for Trump – not because of Trump himself, but because she fears how a Harris presidency would strengthen abortion access.“I don’t like it. It’s not where I think we should be as a nation, but I think that we’ve had to do this at times within the pro-life movement,” she said. “Folks are asked: if you can’t vote for a candidate, vote against the worst one.”What Hawkins is less sure of is whether Trump’s comments will affect Students for Life’s get-out-the-vote program for the 2024 election. “I think it remains to be seen whether or not we’re also talking about Donald Trump at the doors,” she said. More

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      Was Kamala Harris’s big interview a success? Sort of | Moira Donegan

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      How much of an incentive does Kamala Harris really have to lay out a thorough policy agenda? With fewer than 70 days until the general election, the newly official Democratic presidential nominee has exited her party’s Chicago convention riding a a wave of tight but improving poll numbers and tremendous party goodwill.Her move to the top of the ticket has prompted waves of enthusiasm and barely concealed relief, as young voters and weary Democrats greeted the happy prospect of an election campaign that was, at last, not between Biden and Trump. The shift of candidates initiated a new shift in the campaign’s voice, with a more playful, irreverent and optimistic turn coming to characterize the Democrats’ public messaging. When the vibes are this good, few people ask about specifics.There are pitfalls, too, for a politician who is too precise about what they aim to do in office. After all, much of the Democrats’ 2024 campaigning has featured deep dives into Project 2025, the 900-plus-page policy prescription for a second Trump term that was compiled by conservative thinktanks under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation. Democrats, including Harris herself, have used the document as a near-depthless well of possible attacks, making each one of the plan’s copious number of proposals into an attack that they can make Republicans answer for. As Harris heads into the final weeks of the campaign, one can see a certain cynical logic to her imprecise policy positions: why would she bother painting a target on her own back?So maybe it’s not surprising that on Thursday night, in her first major interview since ascending to the presidential nomination, the vice-president did not seem interested in making any news. She was competent, personable and a forceful defender of the Biden administration; she was attentive to issues where her campaign believes her to be vulnerable, such as on immigration and energy policy; and she was deliberate in depicting herself as a hawkish advocate for stricter border controls.She did not talk much about her opponent, Donald Trump, brushing off a question from CNN’s Dana Bash about his recent slanderous claim that Harris had only recently “turned Black”. She did not endorse an arms embargo to Israel, whose genocidal war in Gaza has killed upwards of 40,000 Palestinians with the aid of American weapons. And with the exception of a few economic proposals – like for an expansion of the child tax credit, a $25,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and a repeat of her promise to punish price gauging – she was light on specifics.The interview seemed to be less about presenting a policy vision for the American people than about presenting them with a character. The character that emerged in the form of Vice-President Harris was one who is confident, intelligent and at ease with her authority; one who was unfazed by Bash’s sometimes pointed questioning, in part because she has mastered the art of the dodge.Among the interview’s surprising omissions was abortion, the issue that has redefined the status, health and civil rights of half of Americans as a result of the presidency of her opponent. The word was only mentioned once over the course of the interview, when the vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, mentioned the issue as something that voters were more interested in than his own previous verbal gaffes. He’s probably right that voters care more about it, but both he and Harris declined to address the issue further.Harris, historically a forceful advocate for abortion rights who was largely tasked with campaigning on the issue while Biden was still in the race, seemed to demur from the historical nature of her candidacy more broadly. When Bash asked her about a viral photo from the Democratic national convention – which pictured Harris at the podium, being gazed up at by her great-niece, a pigtailed young girl – she avoided the question’s implicit inquiry into how she feels about the prospect of becoming the nation’s first female president. Harris said only that she was running because she believed herself to be the best person for the job, and that she aimed to be a president for Americans of all races and genders.It was a nice sentiment, and probably even true. But her words avoided the gender issue that has come to shape the campaign, and left aside an opportunity to rally voters in the 10 states that will have abortion rights measures on the ballot in November. If anyone in the Harris campaign feels that electing a woman president now, in this post-Dobbs era, could be a righteous rebuke to the backward and bigoted misogyny that has come to define the Trump-Vance ticket, then that is not an argument they are interested in having their candidate make.Harris will be criticized on the left for her refusal to endorse an arms embargo to Israel, whose war has become a generational moral catastrophe that threatens to destabilize the region. When asked about the conflict, Harris spoke of the atrocities of 7 October in lurid terms; of the unfathomable human cost that has been imposed on Palestinians, she said only that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”. (An unfortunate phrase that implies that there is an acceptable number of innocents that Israel can murder.) Her unwillingness to speak with more empathy and commitment about this issue threatens to alienate young voters, a disorganized but growing left, and the large cohorts of Muslim and Arab voters she needs to win over in places like Minnesota and Michigan.That unwillingness also threatens to give more credence to other leftwing suspicions of Harris, such as the marginal but noticeable suspicion among activists over whether she will maintain Biden’s enthusiasm for antitrust enforcement.Maybe Harris is calculating that these voters have nowhere else to go; maybe she just doesn’t really share their values on these issues. But the central argument for her candidacy is about values: that she is a more moral, more principled, more trustworthy candidate than Donald Trump; that she will bring less bigotry, less selfishness, less recklessness and less tedious narcissism to the White House. It’s a low bar, but she still has to clear it. If Harris’s campaign is about values, but she is unwilling to more forcefully champion women’s rights and the value of Palestinian lives, she risks making some wonder just what those values are.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Ilona Maher, US rugby and social media star, endorses Kamala Harris

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      The Democratic nominee for US president, Kamala Harris, picked up an endorsement from a key social media influencer: the Olympic rugby star Ilona Maher.“I think it’s going to be cool because there is an opportunity to have female representation and to change this country in a way that I think will benefit us,” Maher told Sports Illustrated, in an interview accompanying a swimwear shoot which saw the 28-year-old center praised as “a feminist trailblazer”.“That’s a Kamala Harris endorsement,” Maher told the magazine, which said she cited abortion rights and access to contraception as key concerns as the presidential election looms.Harris, the current vice-president, has made protecting such rights a central part of her campaign against Donald Trump. As president, the Republican nominee appointed three hardline rightwingers to the US supreme court, which then removed the federal right to abortion and suggested contraception access could also be brought into question.“I have enough money that if I didn’t need an abortion, I could raise a baby myself,” Maher said. “If I wanted to get abortion, I could do that. So I have that privilege [but] it scares me about the other girls. I have options and I want to remember that my followers don’t all have that. And so it’s like, for me, but also mostly for them.”Maher took up rugby in high school in Vermont then won three national collegiate titles with Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. She built a significant social media following in the first phase of her international career, which began in sevens in 2018 and has also brought her two 15-a-side caps. The recent Paris Games saw her rocket to global fame.Maher is now the most-followed rugby player in the world, eclipsing giants such as Siya Kolisi, the South Africa captain and double World Cup winner, and the former New Zealand fly-half Dan Carter.Speaking to SI, Maher said men “get to play rugby and they get paid millions of dollars while we make minimum wage and this won’t be a career for us. I have teammates going into the workforce now, whereas these guys are down there and rugby’s it” for them.Nonetheless, Maher has achieved fame (and endorsement deals) with a message based on body positivity and irreverent humor but also the sort of dynamic and aggressive play that helped the US win bronze in Paris. This week, Maher told followers she wanted to win a place on the US squad for the 15-a-side World Cup, to be held in England next summer.Such has been Maher’s impact since Paris, her Sports Illustrated shoot followed an appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers in which she called rugby “a sport that just really encourages you to be physical and show what your body’s capable of”.“I know what it’s done for me,” Maher said, “and how it’s changed my body confidence by making me feel so good about myself, and I know it can do it for so many other girls.”Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Maher said she “was a big girl growing up so I didn’t love being in pictures” and “was always … called masculine or whatever. But I never felt that way. But I don’t think you’re going to bully the girl who could probably beat you up in a rage. I love that [rugby] showed me what I can do. It showed me how capable my body is and it’s not just like a tool to be looked at and objectified.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe also said: “If my cellulite was lower in that perfect range, I wouldn’t be doing what I could do. I wouldn’t be that powerful for it [so] I just really think sports have been so helpful.”MJ Day, editor in chief of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, called Maher a “revolutionary athlete and feminist trailblazer… a modern-day role model of strength, conviction and authenticity”.Maher expressed unease with being seen as a role model, saying: “I just try to really stress like I am human. But I think I do really care a lot. And I do want people to like me.”Harris, 59, has no known ties to rugby. But her current boss, Joe Biden, has often spoken of his love for the game, having played at college in New York and through following the Irish national team, two recent members of which, Rob and Dave Kearney, are the president’s distant cousins.The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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      in Elections

      Montana Certifies Signatures for November Abortion Question

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      Also on Tuesday, Arizona’s Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a similar ballot measure. That means at least nine states will vote on whether to establish a constitutional right to abortion.Voters in Montana will decide in November whether to enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution, joining eight other states with similar citizen-sponsored questions on their ballots.Montana’s secretary of state sent an email late Tuesday to the coalition of abortion rights groups sponsoring the measure, certifying that they had collected enough valid signatures to place it on the ballot. The coalition had submitted more than 117,000 signatures, nearly double the 60,039 required and the most submitted for a ballot measure in Montana history.And in Arizona — which, like Montana, was facing a Thursday deadline to certify its ballots — the state’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal late Tuesday from anti-abortion groups trying to strike a similar measure that the secretary of state there had approved last week. The justices, all appointed by Republicans, said that their decision did not signal support for the measure, only that they did not agree with the technical objection raised by the anti-abortion groups about the language used on ballot petitions.National Democrats and abortion rights groups are pouring money into ballot measures in both states in the hopes that they can drive turnout to help the Democrats running for the Senate, where the party holds a razor-thin majority. In Montana, Senator Jon Tester is perhaps the party’s most endangered incumbent.Abortion remains legal in Montana until viability — the point when a fetus can survive outside the uterus, generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy — because of a 1999 state Supreme Court decision that said the right to privacy in the state Constitution included a right to “procreative autonomy.”Advocates say the measure is necessary to prevent future members of the court, who are elected, from reversing that decision. And the state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, and the Republican-controlled Legislature have repeatedly tried to ban or restrict abortion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More