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      The US is ‘absolutely’ ready for a female president, Harris says in NBC interview

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      Kamala Harris said that she has no doubt that the US was ready for a female president, insisting that Americans care more about what candidates can do to help them, rather than presidential contenders’ gender.The vice-president’s statement came during an interview with NBC News’s Hallie Jackson, who asked whether she thought the country was ready for a woman, and a woman of color, to be in the Oval Office. “Absolutely,” Harris said. “Absolutely.”“In terms of every walk of life of our country,” Harris said, “part of what is important in this election is really, not really turning the page – closing a chapter, on an era that suggests that Americans are divided.“The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us and what the American people want in their president is a president for all Americans,” she said.Harris was asked why she hasn’t leaned into the historic nature of her candidacy – that she is a woman of color running for the presidency.“I’m clearly a woman. I don’t need to point that out to anyone,” Harris said with a laugh. “The point that most people really care about is: can you do the job and, do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”“That is why I spend the majority of my time listening and then addressing the concerns, the challenges, the dreams, the ambitions and the aspirations of the American people,” Harris continued, saying that Americans deserve a president focused on them, “as opposed to a Donald Trump, who is constantly focused on himself”.Harris also said she was aware that Trump might potentially try thwarting the presidential election results, noting that her team “will deal with election night and the days after as they come”.Harris said that she is focused on campaigning over the next two weeks while noting “we have the resources and the expertise and the focus” on any potential threats to election results. Jackson noted that Trump declared victory before all the votes were tallied in 2020.Trump, who has refused to accept the 2020 election results and claimed the race was stolen, has been stoking fears with unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in the 2024 cycle. “This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo the free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol, and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked, some who were killed. This is a serious matter,” Harris told Jackson.Trump supporters on 6 January 2021 stormed the US Capitol in an effort to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s victory. That day, four people died at the Capitol and a police officer working during the insurrection died several days later; four other police officers posted at the building on 6 January 2021 committed suicide, according to CBS News.“The American people are, at this point, two weeks out, being presented with a very, very serious decision about what will be the future of our country,” Harris also said.Jackson also asked about voters’ concerns about the economy, noting that many blame the US president for rising prices.Harris said her policies “will not be a continuation of the Biden administration” and with inflation, “I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJackson noted that if Harris won, her victory might coincide with Republican control of Congress, which would thwart protecting abortion at the national level.“What concessions would be on the table?” Jackson asked.“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said.Harris said she would not “get into those hypotheticals” when asked if a pardon might be on the table for Trump.“I’m focused on the next 14 days.”Harris was pressed on the pardon topic, asked if she thought it could help the country move forward together and be less divisive.“Let me tell you what’s going to help us move on: I get elected to president of the United States.” More

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      Harris Will Campaign in Texas to Call Attention to Abortion Rights

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      Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Texas on Friday to campaign on abortion rights, an issue that has energized Democrats and that she hopes she can use to peel moderate voters away from former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Harris plans to hold a rally in Houston and also sit for an interview with the popular podcaster Brené Brown, a researcher who studies vulnerability. The interview will give the vice president access to a broad, nonpolitical audience that most likely includes many undecided voters.Mr. Trump is almost certain to win Texas, which bans abortion in almost all circumstances, making the state among the most restrictive in the nation. In Houston, Ms. Harris will have a ready-made platform to castigate Mr. Trump — who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade — and to warn that a second Trump administration could threaten abortion access nationwide. She also has the chance to amplify the campaign of Representative Colin Allred, a Democrat challenging Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, in a race that has shown signs of being competitive.“We think this will obviously be a setting and a message that will reach a national audience,” said David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign. Her goal, he said, would be to “paint the picture of what could happen in this country — in the rest of the states — if Donald Trump is elected president.”Ms. Harris’s decision to spend a day outside one of the top battleground states this close to Election Day reflects just how important reproductive rights have become in the race, which is breaking down along gender lines. Ms. Harris is receiving substantial support from women, while men favor Mr. Trump. She has campaigned hard on the issue in an effort to win over moderate Republican and independent women, especially in the suburbs. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has tied himself in knots trying to avoid taking a firm position on the degree to which abortion should be restricted.The Harris campaign has shared the stories of several Texas women who were denied medical care because of their state’s abortion ban, including Amanda Zurawski and Kate Cox.On Friday, Ms. Harris will be joined by Mr. Allred. The race represents perhaps the Democrats’ best opportunity to pick up a Senate seat on a challenging map. But Mr. Allred is four points behind Mr. Cruz in the reliably Republican state, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, and he is being outspent, both worrying signs for his prospects. More

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      Abortion as an Issue in the Election

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      More from our inbox:Veterans as Poll WorkersAn Immigrant’s StoryPolitical Messages: Time to Turn Up the Sound Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “November’s Second-Most-Important Election,” by David French (column, Oct. 14):I find it difficult to understand why the heart has become a determiner of fetal life in abortion discussions and law when it’s the brain that makes us truly human.According to much neurological research, the brain doesn’t reach its major development until the end of the second trimester, about 24 weeks into a pregnancy, also known as viability. The brain then continues to develop through the ninth month of pregnancy, and certain parts, such as the frontal cortex, are not fully developed until adults reach their mid-20s.All of us, even lawmakers, should pay attention to the neurological science instead of emotional reactions to sounds.Ellen CreaneGuilford, Conn.To the Editor:I personally am deeply conflicted on the issue of abortion, but the problem I have with many pro-life supporters is that they never talk about support after the baby is born.Live babies and children need diapers and food and child care and good schools and support for college or learning a trade and safe schools and streets. If you have no concrete plans to eliminate child poverty, improve public education and put gun controls in place, can you really say that you support children?Ending the conversation (and legislation) at birth is not pro-life, but pro-childbirth.Margaret DowlingPhiladelphiaWe 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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      in US Politics

      Harris stresses abortion rights and early voting in packed Atlanta rally

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      Kamala Harris highlighted the threat to women’s reproductive rights and Donald Trump’s apparent exhaustion at a rally Saturday in south Atlanta, continuing a full-court press for votes in Georgia as early voting breaks records here.The race continues to appear close in Georgia, with polls suggesting the Republican nominee holds a one-point lead in the state. Trump has made multiple appearances in Georgia and has a rally with Turning Point Action planned in Gwinnett county, outside Atlanta, next week.However, the National Rifle Association canceled a planned Saturday rally with Trump in Savannah, citing a “scheduling conflict”. Trump has also canceled several news interviews over the last week.The Trump campaign has angrily pushed back against a suggestion raised by a staffer that Trump had been exhausted by the appearances. But Harris has seized the idea as a rallying cry.“And now, he’s ducking debates, and canceling interviews because of exhaustion,” Harris said. “And when he does answer a question or speak at a rally, have you noticed that he tends to go off script and ramble, and generally for the life of him can’t finish a thought? … Folks are exhausted with someone trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other. We’re exhausted. That’s why I say it’s time to turn the page on that.”View image in fullscreenHarris returned to familiar themes on a day of perfect Atlanta weather, describing the “opportunity economy” as one that brings down the cost of living for prescription medication, groceries and housing through anti-price-gouging initiatives, while providing financial support for new parents and entrepreneurs.Extending Medicare coverage for home healthcare services would prevent working adults from having to quit a productive job or spend down savings to take care of aging parents. “It’s about dignity,” she said in the city’s Lakewood Amphitheater.Harris will attend services Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a majority-Black megachurch in the heart of Atlanta’s Black suburbs in south DeKalb county. New Birth and other large Black churches in Georgia traditionally organize a “souls to the polls” push on Sunday early voting days.As of 5pm Saturday, about 1.3 million Georgians had cast ballots early in person, more than double the 2020 pace on the fifth day of early voting in Georgia. In 2020, about 2.7 million out of 5 million voters cast ballots early in person, with more than two-thirds of votes cast before election day. Absentee ballots are down sharply, however, a reflection of the end of the pandemic and changes to absentee ballot rules.Early voting provides real-time feedback for campaign strategists hoping to target voters who have not yet cast a ballot. Democrats pressed their supporters in Georgia to vote early in 2020 and 2022, a strategy that helped lead the party to victory in the 2020 presidential race and Georgia’s two vital wins in the US Senate.“Georgia, out of nowhere, we made a way,” said the US Senator Jon Ossoff. “This is an election that will determine the character of our republic. This is much deeper than Democrats versus Republicans. Former president Trump is unfit for the presidency.”But so far this year, early voting in rural and ex-urban areas of Georgia, rich in Republican votes, have outpaced core Atlanta turnout rates. Donald Trump has pointedly encouraged his supporters to vote early this year, a tacit acknowledgement of the strategic error of 2020.Early voting also began on Saturday in Nevada, where Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Las Vegas. The former president also poked fun at Trump, telling the audience “we don’t need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump with no guard rails looks like.”In Georgia, early voters among Democrats have been vocal about abortion policy driving their votes. The deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two Georgia women who couldn’t access timely maternal health service or legal abortions, have resonated in the rhetoric of the election.“Let us agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: the government should not be telling her what to do,” Harris said. The rally rolled clips of Thurman’s family describing their grief, and then of Trump mocking their loss in a town hall interview hosted by Fox News.“He belittles their sorrow, making it about himself and his television ratings,” Harris said. “It’s cruel.”But the Lakewood rally was plainly about driving turnout and enthusiasm among Black voters. Usher, an iconic Atlanta-based R&B musician and dancer, spoke early to the crowd, calling on people to vote early for Harris, and to reach out to friends and family.“How we vote – I mean, everything that we do in the next 17 days – will affect our children, our grandchildren, of the people we love the most,” Usher said.Ryan Wilson, the co-founder of private networking hub the Gathering Spot and a notable Atlanta entrepreneur, discussed the Harris proposal to offer up to $50,000 in grants to Black entrepreneurs. “That would have been a game changer for me,” he said. “Vice-President Harris’s opportunity agenda for Black men who provide folks like me the tools to achieve generational wealth, lower costs and protect their rights. And what would Donald Trump do? I think it’s fair to say: nothing.” More

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      Judge slaps down Florida effort to ban abortion ad: ‘It’s the first amendment, stupid’

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      Florida’s health department can’t block a TV advertisement in support of a ballot measure that would protect abortion rights, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, after the department sent letters to local TV stations commanding them to stop airing the ad or risk criminal consequences.“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false’,” US district judge Mark E Walker wrote in his ruling. “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”Florida is one of 10 states set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures in November. If enacted, Florida’s measure would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and roll back the state’s six-week ban on the procedure, which took effect in May.Earlier this month, Florida’s health department sent cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running an ad by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign behind the measure. In the ad, a woman named Caroline speaks about being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant.“The doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mom,” Caroline says in the ad. “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine.”The letters said the claim that women can’t get life-saving abortions in Florida was “categorically false”, since Florida’s ban permits abortions in medical emergencies. “The fact is these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” Jae Williams, the Florida department of health communications director, said in an email late on Thursday.However, doctors across the country have said abortion bans are worded so vaguely as to force them to deny people medically necessary abortions. A New York doctor recently said that she had treated a woman with an ectopic pregnancy – which is nonviable and potentially life-threatening if left untreated – who had been turned away from a Florida hospital.In response to the letters, Floridians Protecting Freedom sued the Florida surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, and John Wilson, the former general counsel for the state health department. At least one TV station stopped airing the ad, the coalition’s lawsuit alleged.On Thursday, Walker granted a temporary restraining order blocking Ladapo from taking any further action against broadcasters or other media outlets that might air ads by Floridians Protecting Freedom.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Of course, the surgeon general of Florida has the right to advocate for his own position on a ballot measure,” Walker wrote. “But it would subvert the rule of law to permit the state to transform its own advocacy into the direct suppression of protected political speech.”Over the last several weeks, Florida’s government, run by Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has sent law enforcement officials to investigate people who signed a petition to get the measure on the ballot, set up a webpage urging people not to vote for it, and issued a report suggesting the measure got on the ballot due to “a large number of forged signatures or fraudulent petitions”. Floridians Protecting Freedom has denied wrongdoing.Anti-abortion activists have since filed a lawsuit to remove the measure from the ballot or nullify votes cast for it. More

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      Judge Orders DeSantis Administration to Stop Threats Over Abortion-Rights Ad

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      The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida must stop threatening television stations with criminal prosecution for airing a political ad in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state’s Constitution, a federal judge ordered on Thursday.Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee ruled in a temporary restraining order that the threats by the Florida Department of Health to stations across the state likely amounted to “unconstitutional coercion” and “viewpoint discrimination.”“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false,’” Judge Walker, who has frequently ruled against the administration, wrote in his 17-page order. “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”The order followed an emergency hearing on Thursday after Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization behind a campaign for an abortion-rights ballot measure known as Amendment 4, sued on Wednesday.This month, the state’s health department sent several television stations a cease-and-desist letter urging them to stop airing an ad, titled “Caroline,” that is part of the “Yes on 4” campaign. It features a woman named Caroline Williams discussing how she had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant.“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” Ms. Williams says in the ad.The state called the ad “false.” At least one station stopped airing the ad after receiving the department’s letter, the suit said.“This critical initial victory is a triumph for every Floridian who believes in democracy and the sanctity of the First Amendment,” Lauren Brenzel, the director of the “Yes on 4” campaign, said in a statement on Thursday. “The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: The government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban.”Mr. DeSantis has vowed to defeat Amendment 4 and has leveraged the power of the state to oppose the measure, leading to several legal challenges. The courts had declined to intervene in prior cases.Julia Friedland, Mr. DeSantis’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Judge Walker had “issued another order that excites the press.”“The ads are unequivocally false and put the lives and health of pregnant women at risk,” she said. “Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”The campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29.A separate lawsuit, filed by opponents of Amendment 4 and seeking to toss the measure from the ballot, is pending in state court. More

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      Harris Will Air Ad Hitting Trump on Abortion During His Fox News Event

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      Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign will air a television advertisement slamming former President Donald J. Trump’s record on abortion during a Fox News town-hall event on Wednesday in which he will take questions from an all-female audience.The ad features Hadley Duvall, a woman from Kentucky, telling a harrowing story of being sexually assaulted and impregnated by her stepfather at the age of 12. She later miscarried.“I was a child. I didn’t know what it meant to be pregnant at all. But I had options,” Ms. Duvall says in the ad. “Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose, even for rape or incest.”She adds: “Donald Trump did this. He took away our freedom.”Abortion has been one of the most potent electoral issues for Democrats since Supreme Court justices appointed by Mr. Trump helped overturn Roe. Polling shows the issue is a strength for Ms. Harris, who has built a commanding lead with female voters: A recent New York Times/Siena College national poll of likely voters showed her ahead by 56 percent to 40 percent. Mr. Trump is doing better with men.Mr. Trump’s town hall airs at 11 a.m. and will be moderated by the Fox News host Harris Faulkner. More

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      November’s Second-Most-Important Election Is in Florida

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      I’ll never forget the first time I heard my oldest daughter’s heartbeat. My wife was experiencing trouble in the first three months of pregnancy, and we were worried she was miscarrying. We rode together to her doctor’s office, full of anxiety. And then, we heard the magical sound — the pulsing of our little girl’s tiny heart. We didn’t know if she would ultimately be OK, but there was one thing we knew: Our daughter was alive.I’ve long supported so-called heartbeat laws. A well-drafted heartbeat law bans abortion after a heartbeat is detected, which typically occurs roughly six weeks into pregnancy. Whether you refer to that sound we heard all the way back in 1998 as a heartbeat or simply as a form of early cardiac activity, it sends the same message, that a separate human life is growing and developing in the mother’s womb.The significance of that heartbeat is the reason I believe that the second-most-important election of 2024 is the Florida contest over Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would enshrine a right to abortion in the Florida Constitution.The text of the amendment is broad: “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 health care provider.” And it is aimed straight at what I believe to be one of the most reasonable pro-life laws in the nation.Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act bans abortions if the gestational age of the fetus is over six weeks, but it also contains exceptions for pregnancies that are a result of rape, incest or human trafficking; for fatal fetal abnormality; and to preserve the life of the mother or “avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”Properly interpreted (problems interpreting pro-life laws have tragically led to too many terrible incidents), this is not a law that leaves women vulnerable to dangerous pregnancy complications. It has elements that are necessary to assure doctors that they won’t be prosecuted if they provide life or health-saving care. In short, it represents a statutory effort to respect the lives and health of both mother and child.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