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The Stakes: how JD Vance’s home town has won millions in climate investment that he calls a ‘green scam’
by Evelyn Reynolds 16 September 2024, 10:00
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This is the first part of the standfirst This is the second part of the standfirst Headline what’s at stake?
View image in fullscreenA hulking steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, is the city’s economic heartbeat as well as a keystone origin story of JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to be Donald Trump’s vice-president.Its future, however, may hinge upon $500m in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a “scam” and is a Trump target for demolition.In March, Joe Biden’s administration announced the US’s largest ever grant to produce greener steel, enabling the Cleveland-Cliffs facility in Middletown to build one of the largest hydrogen fuel furnaces in the world, cutting emissions by a million tons a year by ditching the coal that accelerates the climate crisis and befouls the air for nearby locals.View image in fullscreenIn a blue-collar urban area north of Cincinnati that has long pinned its fortunes upon the vicissitudes of the US steel industry, the investment’s promise of a revitalized plant with 170 new jobs and 1,200 temporary construction positions was met with jubilation among residents and unions.“It felt like a miracle, an answered prayer that we weren’t going to be left to die on the vine,” said Michael Bailey, who is now a pastor in Middletown but worked at the plant, then owned by Armco, for 30 years.“It hit the news and you could almost hear everybody screaming, ‘Yay yay yay!’,” said Heather Gibson, owner of the Triple Moon cafe in central Middletown. “It showed commitment for the long term. It was just so exciting.”This funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the $370bn bill to turbocharge clean energy signed by Biden after narrowly passing Congress via Democratic votes in 2022, has been far less thrilling to Vance, however, despite his deep personal ties to the Cleveland-Cliffs plant.View image in fullscreenThe steel mill, dating back to 1899 and now employing about 2,500 people, is foundational to Middletown, helping churn out the first generations of cars and then wartime tanks. Vance’s late grandfather, who he called Papaw, was a union worker at the plant, making it the family’s “economic savior – the engine that brought them from the hills of Kentucky into America’s middle class”, Vance wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.But although it grew into a prosperous All-American city built on steel and paper production, Middletown became a place “hemorrhaging jobs and hope” as industries decamped offshore in the 1980s, Vance wrote. He sees little salvation in the IRA even as, by one estimate, it has already spurred $10bn in investment and nearly 14,000 new jobs in Ohio.When campaigning for the Senate in 2022, Vance said Biden’s sweeping climate bill is “dumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer”, and more recently as vice-presidential candidate called the IRA a “green energy scam that’s actually shipped a lot more manufacturing jobs to China”.America needs “a leader who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s green new scam and fights to bring back our great American factories”, Vance said at the Republican convention in July. “We need President Donald J Trump.”Republicans in Congress have repeatedly attempted to gut the IRA, with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint authored by many former Trump officials, demanding its repeal should Republicans regain the White House.Such plans have major implications for Vance’s home town. The Middletown plant’s $500m grant from the Department of Energy, still not formally handed over, could be halted if Trump prevails in November. The former president recently vowed to “terminate Kamala Harris’s green new scam and rescind all of the unspent funds”.Some longtime Middletown residents are bemused by such opposition. “How can you think that saving the lives of people is the wrong thing to do?” said Adrienne Shearer, a small business adviser who spent several decades helping the reinvigoration of Middletown’s downtown area, which was hollowed out by economic malaise, offshored jobs and out-of-town malls.“People thought the plant was in danger of leaving or closing, which would totally destroy the town,” she said. “And now people think it’s not going anywhere.”Shearer, a political independent, said she didn’t like Vance’s book because it “trashed our community” and that he had shown no alternative vision for his home town. “Maybe people who serve with him in Washington know him, but we don’t here in Middletown,” she said.View image in fullscreenClimate campaigners are even more scathing of Vance. “It’s no surprise that he’s now threatening to gut a $500m investment in US manufacturing in his own home town,” said Pete Jones, rapid response director at Climate Power. “Vance wrote a book about economic hardship in his home town, and now he has 900 new pages from Trump’s dangerous Project 2025 agenda to make the problem worse so that big oil can profit.”Local Republicans are more complimentary, even if they differ somewhat on the IRA. Mark Messer, Republican mayor of the neighboring town of Lebanon, used the vast bill’s clean energy tax credits to offset the cost of an upcoming solar array that will help slash energy costs for residents. Still, Vance is a strong running mate for Trump and has “done good for Ohio”, according to Messer.“My focus is my constituents and doing what’s best for them – how else will this empty floodplain produce $1m for people in our town?” Messer said. “Nothing is going do that but solar. I’m happy to use the IRA, but if I had a national role my view might be different. I mean printing money and giving it away to people won’t solve inflation, it will make it worse.”Some Middletown voters are proud of Vance’s ascension, too. “You have to give him credit, he went to [Yale] Law School, he built his own business up in the financial industry – he’s self-made, he did it all on his own,” said Doug Pergram, a local business owner who blames Democrats for high inflation and is planning to vote for Trump and Vance, even though he thinks the steel plant investment is welcome.This illustrates a problem for Democrats, who have struggled to translate a surge of new clean energy projects and a glut of resulting jobs into voting strength, with polls showing most Americans don’t know much about the IRA or don’t credit Biden or Harris for its benefits.Ohio was once a swing state but voted for Trump – with his promises of Rust belt renewal that’s only now materializing under Biden – in the last two elections and is set to do the same again in November. Harris, meanwhile, has only fleetingly mentioned climate change and barely attempted to sell the IRA, a groundbreaking but deeply unsexy volume of rebates and tax credits, on the campaign trail.View image in fullscreen“Democrats have not done well in patting themselves on the back, they need to be out there screaming from the rooftops, ‘This is what we’ve done,’” said Gibson, a political independent who suffers directly from the status quo by living next to the Middletown facility that processes coke coal, a particularly dirty type of coal used in steel production that will become obsolete in the mill’s new era.“The air pollution is horrendous, so the idea of eliminating the need for coke, well, I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,” said Gibson. The site, called SunCoke, heats half a million short tons of coal a year to make coke that’s funneled to the steel plant, a process that causes a strong odor and spews debris across the neighborhood. Gibson rarely opens her windows because of this pollution.“Last year it snowed in July, all this white stuff was falling from the sky,” Gibson said. “The soot covers everything, covers the car, I have to Clorox my windows. The smell is so bad I’ve had to end get-togethers early from my house because people get so sick. It gives you an instant headache. It burns your throat, it burns your nose. It’s just awful.”The prospect of a cleaner, more secure future for Middletown is something the Biden administration tried to stress in March, when Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, appeared at the steel mill with the Cleveland-Cliffs chief executive, union leaders and workers to extol the new hydrogen furnace. The grant helps solve a knotty problem where industry is reluctant to invest in cleaner-burning hydrogen because there aren’t enough extant examples of such technology.View image in fullscreen“Mills like this aren’t just employers, they are anchors embedded deeply in the community. We want your kids and grandkids to produce steel here in America too,” Granholm said. “Consumers are demanding cleaner, greener products all over the world. We don’t want to just make the best products in the world, we want to make sure we make the best and cleanest products in the world.”Lourenco Goncalves, chief executive of Cleveland-Cliffs, the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America, followed Granholm to boast that a low-emissions furnace of this size was a world first, with the technology set to be expanded to 15 other company plants in the US.Republicans elsewhere in the US have jumped onboard similar ribbon-cutting events, despite voting against the funding that enables them, but notably absent among the dignitaries seated in front of two enormous American flags hanging in the Middletown warehouse that day was Vance, the Ohio senator who went to high school just 4 miles from this place. His office did not respond to questions about the plant or his plans for the future of the IRA.Bailey, a 71-year-old who retired from the steel plant in 2002, said that as a pastor he did speak several times to Vance about ways to aid Middletown but then became alarmed by the senator’s rightwards shift in comments about women, as well as his lack of support for the new steel mill funding.“JD Vance has never mentioned anything about helping Middletown rebound,” said Bailey, who witnessed a “brutal” 2006 management lockout of workers during a union dispute after which drug addiction and homelessness soared in Middletown. “He’s used Middletown for, in my view, his own personal gain.“Somewhere in there, JD changed,” he added. “He’s allowed outsiders to pimp him. This guy is embarrassing us. That’s not who we are.” More
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JD Vance admits he is willing to ‘create stories’ to get media attention
by Evelyn Reynolds 15 September 2024, 16:07
In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.Asked by the CNN host Dana Bash whether the false rumors centering on Springfield, Ohio, were “a story that you created”, Vance replied, “Yes!” He then said the claims were rooted in “accounts from … constituents” and that he as well as the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, had spoken publicly about them to draw attention to Springfield’s relatively large Haitian population.Vance’s remarks drew a quick rebuke from the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who supports his party’s White House nominee in November’s election, Kamala Harris.“Remarkable confession by JD Vance when he said he will ‘create stories’ (that is, lie) to redirect the media,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “All this to change the subject away from abortion rights, manufacturing jobs, taxation of the rich, and the other things clearly at stake in this election.”Vance further insulted people in Springfield who are Haitian as “illegal”, though the vast majority of them are in the US legally through a temporary protected status (TPS) that has been allocated to them due to the violence and unrest in their home country in the Caribbean. The status must be renewed after 18 months.The rumors proliferating out of Springfield have led to bomb threats aimed at local hospitals and government offices. Vance on Sunday told Bash it was “disgusting” for the media to suggest any of his remarks had led to those threats. He also used the same term to refer to the people issuing those threats, though – in a separate appearance on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press – he made it a point to blame the media for accurately reporting on them, saying it was “amplifying the worst people in the world”.Vance ultimately defended his endorsement of the lies about Springfield as calling attention to the immigration policies at the White House while Harris has served as vice-president to Joe Biden.“I’m not mad at Haitian migrants for wanting to have a better life,” Vance said. “We’re angry at Kamala Harris for letting this happen.”Haitians in Springfield have been thrust under the US’s divisive political spotlight after Trump alleged that some of them were responsible for the abduction and consumption of pets during the former president’s debate with Harris on Tuesday.Town officials have vociferously rejected the lies, and a woman who helped start the rumors on a widely circulated Facebook post acknowledged they were unfounded hearsay.Nonetheless, Springfield has been subjected to far-right conspiracy theories.About 15,000 immigrants began trickling into Springfield – a city of about 60,000 – in 2017 to work in local produce packaging and machining factories. They have been particularly in demand at a vegetable manufacturer and at automotive machining plants whose owners were experiencing a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.The Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, said on Sunday on ABC’s This Week that Haitians in Springfield “are here legally”.“What the employers tell you is, you know, we don’t know what we would do without them,” DeWine said. “They are working. And they are working very hard. And they’re fitting in.”Nonetheless, while vulnerable with voters over their handling of reproductive rights, Republicans have helped spread the xenophobic rumors in Springfield in an attempt to capitalize on voters’ dissatisfaction with Democrats’ handling of immigration.Vance on Sunday also sought to distance himself from a second controversy, telling the Meet the Press host Kristen Welker that he doesn’t like remarks by the far-right Trump campaign ally Laura Loomer that the White House “will smell like curry” if Harris wins the election.Harris is of Indian and Jamaican heritage. Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, is of Indian heritage, too.“I make a mean chicken curry,” he said, but “I don’t think that it’s insulting for anybody to talk about their dietary preferences or what they want to do in the White House.“What Laura said about Kamala Harris is not what we should be focused on. We should be focused on the policy and on the issues.”Vance has spent much of his vice-presidential run on the defensive, including over his stated belief that women who choose to pursue professional careers rather than roles as family matriarchs are miserable. More
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Biden, Harris address Congressional Black Caucus: ‘The baton is in our hands’
by Evelyn Reynolds 15 September 2024, 03:36
President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris spoke on Saturday at the Congressional Black Caucus’s Phoenix Awards dinner, bringing a message that its members were in a “battle for the soul of the nation”.Biden highlighted his relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Black voters.“In 2020, I ran for president to redeem the soul of America, to restore decency and dignity to the office of the president,” he said. “I ran to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. And I ran to unite the country and remind ourselves when we’re together there’s not a damn thing we can’t do.”The spectre of Trump, Maga Republicans and the threat Democrats say they pose to the country loomed over Biden’s remarks, and his call to action for those CBC members gathered.“The old ghosts in new garments [are] trying to seize your power and extremists coming for your freedom making it harder for you to vote and have your vote counted, closing doors of opportunity, attacking affirmative action,” he said. “My predecessor calls the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 ‘patriots’, but when peaceful protesters marched for justice for George Floyd, Trump wanted to send in the military, but they wouldn’t go.”Biden continued by pointing to the juxtaposition between his and Harris’s tenure in the White House and that of their predecessor’s. On the theme of unity, Biden once again condemned Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who, in recent weeks, has led a rallying cry of baseless, racist accusations toward Haitian-American immigrants in Ohio.“It’s wrong. It’s got to stop,” he said. “Any president should reject hate in America and not incite it. Folks, to win this battle for the soul of the nation, we have to preserve our democracy and speak out against lies and hate.”Towards the end of his remarks, Biden spoke about his time in Congress, during which he served with Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president.CBC attenders were jubilant when Harris, also the Democratic candidate for president, walked on to the stage to Beyoncé’s Freedom after the president introduced her as “Kamala Harris, for the people”.Members of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha gleefully greeted her with their trademarked “Skee-Wee” call.Harris began by highlighting the importance of the caucus. For a November win, she said, the support of the CBC was necessary.“The Congressional Black Caucus has served as the conscience of the Congress and of our nation, and as a proud former CBC member, I know first-hand America relies on the leaders in this room, not only for a conscience, but for a vision,” Harris said.Harris said the CBC’s vision for the future was under “profound threat” and went on to point out the differences between her and Trump while also reiterating her platform, including reproductive rights, building an “opportunity economy”, healthcare and “not going back”.“We actually have a plan for healthcare, not just ‘concepts of a plan,’” she said, referencing Trump’s comments during Tuesday night’s debate.Towards the end of her speech, Harris returned to “joy” and hard work, two of her campaign themes.“Now the baton is in our hands,” she said. “I truly believe that America is ready to turn the page on the politics of division and hate, and to do it, our nation is counting on the leadership in this room.”Harris called on and thanked members of the CBC for their work registering voters and mobilising people to vote. She and Biden spoke during the 53rd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) or, “CBC week” in Washington, during which Black political and social leaders convene on public policy. The Harris campaign has been working to increase the enthusiasm of Black voters, particularly in key battleground states.“We know what we stand for, and that’s why we know what we fight for,” Harris said. “And when the CBC fights, we win.” More
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Trump repeats false claims about Ohio cities after Biden says ‘no place in America’ for attacks on Haitian immigrants – as it happened
by Evelyn Reynolds 13 September 2024, 21:05
Donald Trump went on to threaten “large deportations” in Springfield, Ohio, which is home to a large Haitian community that he and his allies have vilified in recent days.“I can say this: we will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We’re going to get these people out,” Trump said.Haitians are currently shielded from deportation under the homeland security department’s Temporary Protected Status through 3 February 2026, due to their home country’s troubles.
Joe Biden said the hostile attacks on Haitian immigrants in the US “[have] to stop” after Donald Trump repeated a false and derogatory claim about a Haitian community in Ohio.
Donald Trump repeated racist claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Friday, doubling down on anti-immigrant rhetoric as residents in the town have faced bomb threats and have detailed their fears amid harassment.
Some schools in Springfield were reportedly closed by administrators for a second day in a row as Trump and his allies spread unproven stories of pet-eating by Haitian migrants.
Haitians have reportedly been intimidated and had their cars vandalized in Springfield since the campaign against them began. People chanted “we’re not eating cats” at a rally held by Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, in Michigan yesterday.
Trump also defended his association with Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist whose penchant for public displays of racism has unnerved even some of his most extreme allies.
Kamala Harris is participating in a taped interview with a local station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to air later on Friday. Harris will also host a virtual livestream rally together with Oprah Winfrey next week.
Pope Francis criticized Donald Trump over his plan to deport millions of immigrants and Kamala Harris over her stance supporting abortion rights.
Kamala Harris’s campaign stepped up its mockery of “chicken” Donald Trump for ducking out of another presidential debate, with the Democratic nominee telling her Republican rival he owes it to voters to face her again.
Joe Biden and Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, are meeting at the White House where they are expected to discuss a loosening of restrictions on Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russia.
Joe Biden is planning a trip to Angola in the coming weeks. This would make Biden the first US head of state to visit sub-Saharan Africa since then president Barack Obama in 2015, according to Reuters.
Joe Biden is meeting with the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House.The pair are expected to discuss – though not necessarily announce – a loosening of restrictions on Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russia.Biden and Starmer took photos inside the Oval Office before sitting down for talks in the Blue Room alongside UK and US officials, per pool report.Before talks began, Biden said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will not prevail in the war with Ukraine. He said he and Starmer would talk about Ukraine, the Middle East and the need for a hostage and ceasefire deal, as well as the Indo-Pacific region.The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said political leaders should not be “attacking vulnerable communities” as she criticized Donald Trump for spreading false and racist theories targeting Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.The Washington Post reported Jean-Pierre, whose parents immigrated from Haiti to New York, telling reporters today:
Political leaders should not be attacking vulnerable communities. That’s not who we should be. And if they’re going to fall for conspiracy theories online, maybe they shouldn’t be our leaders.
Pope Francis has criticized both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for their policies on abortion and immigration, claiming both candidates are “against life”.The pope was speaking to journalists on Friday when he was asked about the US presidential election. He replied:
Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies.
He went on to say that not welcoming migrants is a “grave” sin and compared undergoing an abortion to an assassination, Reuters reported.Catholics would have to “choose the lesser evil” when they vote in November, he said, without elaborating.
Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know. Everyone, in conscience, (has to) think and do this.
“Not voting is ugly,” he added. “It is not good. You must vote.”Kamala Harris is participating in a taped interview with Brian Taff for Action News 6 ABC, a local station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The interview will air on the station’s 6pm broadcast.Oprah Winfrey and Kamala Harris will host a virtual livestream rally together next week.The event, titled Unite for America, will take place on Thursday 19 September, at 8pm ET.This comes as Winfrey, who said she was a registered independent, made a surprise appearance at the Democratic national convention last month and endorsed Harris for president.President Joe Biden is planning a trip to Angola in the coming weeks, Reuters is reporting, citing several sources familiar with the plans.The trip, Reuters reports, is likely to occur after the UN general assembly meeting in September and before the presidential election in November, according to a source.This would make Biden the first US head of state to visit sub-Saharan Africa since then president Barack Obama in 2015, according to Reuters.Biden had previously said he would visit Africa during his presidency.MoveOn, a progressive public policy advocacy group, is partnering with ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s to create a special limited edition Kamala Harris-inspired ice-cream flavor, titled Kamala’s Coconut Jubilee, as part of a get-out-the-vote initiative.MoveOn announced on Friday that it will also be traveling to battleground states with an ice-cream truck, where it will hand out free ice-cream, and raffle off free, limited-edition, autographed pints of Kamala’s Coconut Jubilee – which is described as a coconut ice-cream with a caramel ripple and confetti stars.The Scoop the Vote tour begins on 16 September in Philadelphia with the founders of Ben & Jerry’s, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the organization said.In addition to free ice-cream and other goodies, the tour will feature elected officials, activists and other special guests, MoveOn said.And on top of the coconut ice-cream, MoveOn will also serve a variety of electorally themed ice-cream flavors, they said, that include: Unburdened by What Has Vanilla Bean, Inauguration Celebration Birthday Cake, Fight for Our Rights Sorbet and MoveOn Mobilizer Milk Chocolate.Despite the efforts of local leaders, Donald Trump has continued to demonize the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio, vowing at a press conference to carry out “large deportations” in the town if returned to the White House. He also defended his association with Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist whose penchant for public displays of racism has unnerved even some of his most extreme allies. At a White House event celebrating Black excellence, Joe Biden said the attacks on Haitians have “no place in America”, and Kamala Harris was on her way to Pennsylvania for more campaign events this evening.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
Some schools in Springfield were reportedly closed by administrators for a second day in a row as Trump and his allies spread unproven stories of pet-eating by Haitian migrants.
People chanted “we’re not eating cats” at a rally held by Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, in Michigan yesterday.
Haitians have reportedly been intimidated and had their cars vandalized in Springfield since the campaign against them began.
Donald Trump’s press conference has concluded, but before he wrapped up, the former president was prompted to talk about what he might do for California if he wins the election.Trump turned it into a campaign pitch to Golden State voters, who haven’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since George HW Bush was on the ballot in 1988:
Vote for me, California. I’m going to give you safety. I’m going to give you a great border, and I’m going to give you more water than almost anybody has.
Notice the reference to water, an all-important issue in the western state, which is also the nation’s most populous:Trump was asked again about his association with Laura Loomer, and what he thinks she brings to his campaign.Loomer has pedaled conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks, and made racist posts on social media. Nonetheless, Trump said:
She brings a spirit to us that a lot of people have. We have very spirited people. And, in all fairness to her, she hates seeing what’s happened to the country. More
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‘They’ve destroyed the place’: Trump repeats racist, anti-immigrant lies
by Evelyn Reynolds 13 September 2024, 19:36
Donald Trump repeated racist claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Friday, doubling down on anti-immigrant rhetoric as residents in the town have faced bomb threats and have detailed their fears amid harassment.“In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal migrant Haitians have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life. They’ve destroyed the place,” Trump said during a rambling press conference at his golf course in Los Angeles. “People don’t like to talk about it. Even the town doesn’t like to talk about it, because it sounds so bad for the town. They live there … for years it was a great place. Safe. Nice. Now they have 20,000 and I actually heard today it’s 32,000.”He later added: “We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We’re gonna get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela,” stating the incorrect country where most of the immigrants are from.Haiti is one of 16 countries the US government has granted temporary protective status (TPS) to because of ongoing conflict, making it easier for immigrants to get authorization to work in the United States. As president, Trump tried to end TPS for Haiti and referred to the country as a “shithole”.Trump’s comments come after Tuesday’s presidential debate in which he first repeated the false claim that migrants in Springfield are stealing and eating people’s dogs and cats. The claim has been repeatedly debunked.Springfield has received several bomb threats this week, prompting it to close its government buildings and evacuate its schools. Haitian residents in the town have reported receiving severe threats and harassment, according to the Haitian Times.JD Vance, who represents the residents of Springfield as Ohio’s US senator, continued to attack the town on Friday, leaning into racist tropes that immigrants were responsible for bringing disease and crime to the community.Just before Trump spoke in California, Joe Biden condemned his attacks on Haitians in Springfield.“A community that’s under attack in our country right now. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America. This has to stop – what he’s doing. It has to stop,” Biden said at the White House. More
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US election live: Trump called ‘evil’ over debate watch party at gun store near Georgia school shooting site
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 September 2024, 21:29
Young voter groups have criticized the RNC’s gun store debate watch party, calling Trump ‘evil’ and ‘out-of-touch’ for hosting the event so close to the shooting site.The groups, which include Voters of Tomorrow, College Democrats of America, Leaders We Deserve, College Democrats of Georgia, Georgia High School Democrats, Young Democrats of Georgia, Path to Progress and Blue Future issued a joint statement condemning the RNC decision:
Just days after students and teachers were murdered in Apalachee High School, Republicans are hosting a debate watch party an hour away at the world’s largest gun store. The Trump team is evil for disrespecting the victims like this — and by continually refusing to support life-saving gun violence prevention policies.
Donald Trump is out-of-touch with the vast majority of Americans on gun violence prevention. He continues to suck up to the gun lobby and insult victims, as shown by today’s event. As young organizers in Georgia and across the country, and members of a generation that has been defined by mass shootings, we know Donald Trump’s flagrant disregard for young Americans’ lives will cost him this election.”
More on today’s comments from Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House National Security Official, from the Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Lauren Gambino:Troye warned that Trump would be dangerous for American alliances. She said as president, his foreign policy “go-tos were always, like, why don’t we just bomb them?”“He would reach out to dictators and sometimes look at them for strength. So Donald Trump would be looking to Putin for advice,” she said.Of how he would treat the US’s Nato and European allies, she said: “He would totally betray them, because those are the discussions that were actually had in this room with someone like Donald Trump.”Troye said the recent endorsements of former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter, former congresswoman Liz Cheny, was representative of a “sea change” happening among independents and moderate Republicans willing to set aside their partisan leaning to stop Trump from returning to the White House.“Dick Cheney, no one can claim that he’s a Democrat, right?” Troye said. “So when you look at someone like him and he’s saying, ‘No, this is unacceptable. I don’t stand for this.’ I think that speaks volumes about where the Republican Party is today and where it’s headed under Donald Trump.”Troye, who was a Homeland Security Advisor to former vice president Mike Pence, urged Harris to confront voter concerns on immigration. But she noted that it was Trump, not Harris, who stood in the way of a conservative border bill. Trump blocked the bill, she said “because he just has his own personal vendetta, and it’s all about him like and that, to me, is like counterintuitive.” She also assailed Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, for promoting a baseless rumor about Haitian immigrants in Ohio.“The way to solve the immigration system is not going out and talking about Haitian immigrants … eating their pets,” she said. “I mean the extremism that these people propose in their agenda, the anti-immigrant and the hatred that they have just for America in general, that’s not the way that fix it. We need to come together in a bipartisan way.”Live from the spin room, Anthony Scaramucci, a former communication director in Trump’s White House, predicted Harris would defeat his former boss in tonight’s debate.Scaramucci, now a surrogate for Harris, warned that Trump was a “clear and present danger” to the American people.Asked if Trump, having participated in seven presidential debates in eight years, had the advantage of experience, the Republican disagreed.“I’m not worried about him having seven debates under his belt, because in a lot of those debates, he acts a little absurd. Frankly. What I’m confident in is [that] she’s going to compare and contrast herself, and she’s going to come out of this at 10:30 tonight as the one choice that the American people need to be president.Scaramucci also joked about his brief tenure in the White House, telling reporters he had “lasted one Scaramucci in the White House, which is 11 days”.Speaking to reporters in the debate spin room, Olivia Troye, a former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to then vice-president Mike Pence, urged voters to set aside doubts they might have about Kamala Harris’s approach to the war in Gaza.“She has been strong against Hamas and what’s happening there,” Troye said. “I do think that we need to be compassionate for the people that are going through the situation. She’s also been strong on Israel. I think she’s navigating this in the correct way.“What I would say is when I contrast that to what Donald Trump would do in this situation, let me remind you that I was actually there in the Trump administration when Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and his inner circle enacted the travel ban.“When I think about what they’re going to do with Gaza and when I think of Muslim countries and when I think about the international populations, I think about how much they detested those populations and I look at the extremism that will come with a Donald Trump administration. That’s what crosses my mind.”Troye, a member of Republicans for Harris-Walz, added:“What I would say to Michigan voters is: think very carefully in this situation on what really matters to you right now because you’ve got to think more on the greater strategic picture of what someone like Donald Trump would do because he does not have your best interests at heart.”Young voter groups have criticized the RNC’s gun store debate watch party, calling Trump ‘evil’ and ‘out-of-touch’ for hosting the event so close to the shooting site.The groups, which include Voters of Tomorrow, College Democrats of America, Leaders We Deserve, College Democrats of Georgia, Georgia High School Democrats, Young Democrats of Georgia, Path to Progress and Blue Future issued a joint statement condemning the RNC decision:
Just days after students and teachers were murdered in Apalachee High School, Republicans are hosting a debate watch party an hour away at the world’s largest gun store. The Trump team is evil for disrespecting the victims like this — and by continually refusing to support life-saving gun violence prevention policies.
Donald Trump is out-of-touch with the vast majority of Americans on gun violence prevention. He continues to suck up to the gun lobby and insult victims, as shown by today’s event. As young organizers in Georgia and across the country, and members of a generation that has been defined by mass shootings, we know Donald Trump’s flagrant disregard for young Americans’ lives will cost him this election.”
The RNC has scheduled a watch party for tonights debate at a gun store in Georgia just miles away from Apalachee high school where two teachers and two students were killed by a 14-year-old shooter last week.“While Georgians continue to mourn the students and educators who were shot and killed at Apalachee High School last week, the RNC is hosting a #Debate2024 watch party at the nation’s largest gun store tonight—less than 50 miles from Apalachee High School,” the gun-control advocacy group Moms Demand Action wrote in a post on X, adding in all caps: “INSENSITIVE. GROSS. REPREHENSIBLE.”Adventure Outdoors, which proudly proclaims itself as “The Greatest Store On Earth,” carries over 15,000 guns in stock and has a 17-lane shooting range. The store has hosted debate watch parties before, including last June when Trump debated Joe Biden.The event, which includes dinner and refreshments, is sponsored by a slew of conservative groups, including the Tea Party Patriots Action, Fulton County Republican party and the Pac Turning Point Action.Kamala Harris will be joined by her husband, Doug Emhoff, sister Maya Harris and her husband, Tony West, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia tonight, NBC News reported.Donald Trump will be joined by his eldest son, Eric Trump, and his wife and the Republican National Committee chair, Lara Trump, according to CNN. It’s unclear whether Melania Trump will attend.Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator from Alabama, is blocking the promotion of an army general and top aide to Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, citing concerns about the military leader’s alleged role in the lack of transparency surrounding Austin’s hospitalization earlier this year.The army general in question, Lt Gen Ronald P Clark, has been nominated to become the four-star commander of all US army forces in the Pacific. But the Alabama senator and retired college football coach is holding up the promotion, according to the Washington Post.“Senator Tuberville has concerns about Lt Gen Clark’s actions during secretary Austin’s hospitalization,” a spokesperson for the senator, Mallory Jaspers, told the Post.Jaspers went on to say that Clark knew Austin was “incapacitated” and did not tell Joe Biden, breaking his oath to president.The spokesperson said that Tuberville was waiting to review an inspector general’s report surrounding Austin’s handling of his hospitalization before Clark’s promotion.The Trump and Harris campaigns had been in dispute over the debate guidelines.The Harris campaign had previously pushed for live, or “hot”, microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”.Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign had been pressing for them to be turned off, as was the case in the first debate with Joe Biden.A statement from ABC made clear that microphones for both candidates will be muted during the debate when their opponent is speaking.The other rules ABC News said had been agreed upon with the two sides include:
No opening statements and closing statements will be 2 minutes per candidate
Candidates will stand behind podiums for the duration of the debate
Props and prewritten notes are not allowed on stage
No topics or questions will be shared in advance
Candidates will not be permitted to ask questions of each other
Candidates will have two minutes to answer questions, two minutes for rebuttals and one extra minute for follow-ups, clarifications or responses.After winning a virtual coin toss, Trump opted to give the second closing remarks; Harris selected the right podium position on the screen, meaning Trump will be on the left.Donald Trump has called on Republicans in Congress to shut down the government as the House speaker Mike Johnson vowed to stay the course and put his government funding package on the House floor on Wednesday.Trump, posting to his Truth Social platform, urged GOP lawmakers not to vote for a six-month continuing resolution to avert a shutdown in three weeks, unless the bill is linked to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act.The Save Act would overhaul voting laws to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. Trump wrote:
If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. … CLOSE IT DOWN!!!
Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the measure and the bill has very little prospect of passing the House.From Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman:Robert F Kennedy Jr will appear in the spin room in Philadelphia tonight as a surrogate for Donald Trump, after he dropped his independent presidential bid last month and endorsed the Republican nominee.Trump is “so desperate for support he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel and coming up with RFK Jr”, a statement from Matt Corridoni, the Democratic National Committee spokesperson said, and added:
Equally desperate, RFK Jr. is willing to sell his soul for attention — abandoning any integrity he had left. Both of these men are driven by their egos and desire for attention and that will be on full display after the debate tonight.
On 21 July, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris. This historic move changed the landscape of the election and how many felt about the race.As the election enters its final weeks, the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring.After two weeks of a roughly three-point Harris lead, Guardian US polling averages have Donald Trump and Harris tied for the first time since we started tracking the polls in August. Many of the high-Harris enthusiasm polls from late August are dropping off our 10-day rolling average, while several new high-quality polls have Trump in a narrow lead. Though the results are within the margins of error for the polls, Trump’s lead in those individual polls has led to a big increase in his national average.The first presidential debate between Harris and Trump is Tuesday night. The last presidential debate was arguably one of the most consequential in modern political history, so we will be closely following the impact that the candidates’ performances have on their national standings.A deputy manager for the Kamala Harris campaign debuted new billboards placed across Philadelphia, ahead of the debate there on Tuesday.One billboard appears to reference Wawa convenience stores and mocks Donald Trump and his fixation on crowd sizes.This comes as the Harris campaign also unveiled a new ad this week, titled Crowd Size, featuring former president Barack Obama’s speech from the Democratic national convention last month, during which Obama talked about Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes”.Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota governor, will be participating in a virtual national debate watch party tonight, he said in a post on X.The virtual watch party will be from 8:30pm ET to 11pm ET.With just hours to go until the much-anticipated debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a new poll published on Tuesday by PBS News/NPR/Marist shows Harris just one point ahead of Trump nationally among registered voters.The poll also states that among independent voters, Trump received 49% while Harris received 46%, and that Trump now has a lead among the Latino voters surveyed, with 51% now choosing the ex-president.A third of the registered voters said that the debate tonight will help them “a great deal or good amount” in making their selection. More
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Democrats unite to center reproductive rights as Republicans flail on abortion
by Evelyn Reynolds 8 September 2024, 16:00
As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.At the party’s convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “reproductive freedom” bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump’s “back yard”, miles from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida.And this weekend, days before the first – and perhaps only – primetime presidential debate, where the issue is likely to be raised, the Harris campaign debuted three new TV ads reminding voters that Trump has repeatedly taking credit for his role in ending the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion. The message is blunt: because of Trump, one in three women of reproductive age now live in states where abortion is banned or significantly restricted. And it could get worse, they warn, if Trump is given a second term.“Donald Trump is a fundamental threat to reproductive freedom – and you don’t have to take our word for it – Trump said it himself,” Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, said in a statement. “Vice-President Harris and Governor Walz are fighting to restore reproductive freedom in all 50 states because they trust women to make the right decisions for their families.”In the bitterly contested race for the White House, abortion remains a glaring vulnerability for the Republican nominee.“You know it’s an important issue because Trump is trying to change his position,” said Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster.As a candidate, Trump has held conflicting positions on abortion, alternately boasting that he appointed three of the nine supreme court justices whose votes were decisive in overturning Roe, while complaining that Republican extremism on the issue has cost his party at the ballot box.He recently appeared to endorse a ballot measure to expand abortion rights in his adopted home state of Florida, only to announce one day later – after sparking backlash among prominent conservative groups – that he would vote against it. He has also previously hinted at support for a 15-week federal ban only to insist that the issue should be left to the states. His campaign has said Trump would not sign a national abortion ban as president.While the economy remains the top election issue for voters this November, a New York Times/Siena College poll released in August showed that a growing share of battleground state voters, particularly women, say abortion will be central to their decision. Among women younger than 45, abortion has eclipsed the economy as their single most important issue.In the final months of the campaign, Democrats are aiming to harness the unabated anger over the loss of federal abortion protections, especially among women and young people, and unifying around a platform that seeks to protect what remains of abortion access and the availability of reproductive healthcare, including contraception and fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).In polling and focus groups, Lake said abortion rights remains an especially salient issue for women and the issue was helping to fuel a widening gender gap between Harris and Trump. Harris’s vocal support for abortion rights has not only energized young voters, a core Democratic constituency, but is also helping to persuade independent women and, as Lake put it, “older women who remember when abortion was illegal, and don’t think the idea of jailing doctors, investigating miscarriages, [and] eliminating birth control and IVF is a good idea”.View image in fullscreenIn recent weeks, Trump, who has long worried that Republican-led efforts to outlaw abortion and restrict access to reproductive care could imperil his White House bid, has sought recast his approach to the issue. During a town hall even in battleground Wisconsin, he endorsed a plan to make the government or insurance companies cover the cost of IVF – a type of fertility assistance that can cost tens of thousands of dollars and that some in the anti-abortion movement want to see limited.“We wanna produce babies in this country, right?” Trump said.Democrats assailed the proposal as insincere, pointing to the Republican’s record and the positions of his running mate, JD Vance.Trump has had “more positions on reproductive rights than he has had wives”, Ana Navarro, a TV personality and anti-Trump Republican, said last week, at the Florida launch of the Harris campaign’s bus tour.Democrats have leveraged the abortion issue to secure key victories in the 2022 midterms, when mobilization efforts around abortion rights drove strong turnout and enthusiasm, helping the party keep control of the Senate and limiting Republican gains in the House. In Michigan, Democrats secured a governing trifecta as voters in the state overwhelmingly turned out to back a ballot initiative enshrining abortion rights in the state’s constitution.“Bringing the message to the people, talking with women and healthcare providers and our families, that’s how we had such a historic outcome in our ’22 election here in Michigan,” the state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a co-chair of Harris’s campaign, said in an MSNBC interview this week. “But it’s important, even for Michiganders and New Yorkers and Floridians, to know what’s at stake if we have a second Trump presidency.”Some Republicans have argued that the potency of abortion rights would wane in a noisy presidential election. But Lake believes the opposite could be true.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAbortion rights are a priority for young voters who are more likely to turn out in a presidential election year. Constitutional amendments seeking to guarantee abortion rights are on the ballot in 10 states this fall, including battleground states like Arizona and Nevada as well as Florida, once a presidential bellwether that has trended Republican in recent cycles.“We are the belly of the beast here in the state of Florida,” said Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party. “We are the state that has drastically moved on abortion from two years ago having full access to now being one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country.”Florida Democrats are hopeful the ballot initiative will help boost the former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s underdog campaign against the Republican incumbent senator Rick Scott. Elsewhere in the battle for control of the Senate, vulnerable Democratic incumbents Jon Tester of Montana and Jacky Rosen of Nevada will appear on the ballot alongside measures to protect abortion rights.Fried, who joined the Harris campaign kick-off in Palm Beach county last week, said the referendum had helped draw attention to the state – and was mobilizing voters of all political stripes.“If they can take away access to reproductive healthcare, what else is next?” she said. “What other types of rights have we moved the needle on that would be going backwards if Trump is re-elected?”The state’s referendum would overturn the state’s unpopular six-week ban, guaranteeing the right to abortion “before viability”, usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. A poll released in mid-August found that 56% of Sunshine state voters support the proposed amendment, just shy of the 60% threshold needed to become law. Yet it drew more support than Trump, who led Harris 51% to 47% in the state, according to the survey.Abortion remains Harris’s strongest issue. She holds a 15-percentage-point advantage over Trump in a national poll of likely voters by The New York Times and Siena College. Yet there were also signs that Trump’s mixed signals have muddied the waters on the issue. According to the survey, released Sunday, nearly half of independent voters say they did not think the former president would sign into law a national abortion ban.Still, the Republican nominee must contend with his base, particularly evangelicals and other conservative Christians, who expect Trump to further restrict access to abortion as president.Kristan Hawkins, president of the prominent anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, recently told the Guardian that young conservatives were “shocked and saddened to see someone who they thought was pro-life, or who had always reaffirmed pro-life values, walking back on that”.Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia offers one of the highest-profile opportunities for Harris to draw a sharp contrast with Trump on abortion. Reproductive rights supporters anticipate Harris will challenge the former president over his attempts to shift positions on the issue.“I hope that Vice-President Harris makes it crystal clear for the tens of millions of people who are watching that leaving it to the states is not a moderate position – that it is extreme,” said Rob Davidson, a Michigan-based emergency physician and executive director of the Committee to Protect Health Care, a left-leaning coalition of physicians and medical professionals that recently endorsed Harris.Davidson said voters will also want to hear Harris articulate her vision for expanding access to reproductive healthcare.“We know what Trump did,” he said. “What are we going to do going forward?” More
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Joy derision: Democrats turn Trump’s deadliest weapon against him
by Evelyn Reynolds 8 September 2024, 13:00
In Trump in Exile, her recent book on the former president’s life after losing power, the reporter Meridith McGraw describes how aides to Donald Trump set about destroying Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who threatened to lure Republican voters away.“One Trump adviser referred to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals,” McGraw writes. “Rule number five: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”Alinsky was a Chicago community organizer who died in 1972 but is still influential on the left and demonized on the right. Trumpworld put his fifth rule – which also says: “It infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage” – into concerted action.DeSantis was ridiculed for his lack of height and his heightened sanctimoniousness but most effectively for his simple weirdness: a discomfiting public manner the Trump camp indelibly linked to an alleged incident on a donor’s jet in which, lacking a spoon, the governor chose to eat a cup of chocolate pudding using his fingers.DeSantis disintegrated. Trump swept to the nomination.With Joe Biden as his opponent, it seemed Trump would once again dominate with nicknames and ridicule, based on “Sleepy Joe’s” (even more) advanced age. But then Biden dropped out, and something unexpected happened. Kamala Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, turned fierce ridicule back on Trump and his VP pick, the Ohio senator JD Vance, deriding both for their simple weirdness: personal, social and of course political.If polling is any guide, the tactic has worked like a dream.To Molly Jong-Fast, a podcaster and MSNBC commentator now touring Politics as Unusual, a live show with the Republican operative turned anti-Trump organizer and ridicule merchant Rick Wilson, Trump, Vance and the rest of the GOP are simply easy targets.“They’ve just gone so far afield, this Republican party, that you can mock it all because it’s just so weird,” Jong-Fast said. “All this stuff about women’s reproductive cycles” – support for abortion bans, Vance attacking women who do not have children, endless tangles over IVF – “that stuff is quite weird from an adult man, and so it does lend itself to mockery.“I also think they got so high on their own supply that they didn’t pause and think, ‘Well, perhaps people won’t like this,’ you know?”Ridicule certainly worked for Trump in the past. In 2016, the Texas senator Ted Cruz was “Lyin’ Ted”, the Florida senator Marco Rubio was “Liddle Marco”, and, most infamously, Hillary Clinton was “Crooked Hillary”. Fair or not, the labels stuck.Eight years later, though, Trump “just can’t do it”, Jong-Fast said. “Maybe because he’s almost 80. Maybe because he just doesn’t have it any more.”Trump has road-tested nicknames for Harris but nothing has stuck. He tried “Kamabla”, arguably racist, and “Comrade Kamala”, alleging communist leanings. He tried more.Jong-Fast said: “‘Laffin’ Kamala?’ It just doesn’t do it because their whole plan of attack was that she laughs and somehow that makes her unserious, and being unserious is somehow bad for being president. But the problem with Trump is that his whole thing was that he was unserious, right? Like, you were supposed to vote for him because he was a reality television host, not because he was some genius.“I think Trump is just tired. He’s been running for president for a decade, and he’s just scared [of defeat and potentially jail in four criminal cases] and sick of it. One of the things that Trump was able to do really well was ridicule. He would pick these nicknames and you would always be a little bit horrified by them but a lot of times they actually were right … he was very good at summing people up.”Now, not so much.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCompounding Republican problems, under Harris and Walz – whose decision to call Trump and Vance weird on TV did much to put him on the ticket – Democrats have abandoned the political squeamishness, or just good manners, that long deterred them from firing back in kind.“I think Biden was in a different generation of politics and he just couldn’t meet the moment in the same way,” Jong-Fast said. “He wouldn’t let his people do that aggressive stuff. I think of Democrats now as trying to push back aggressively, which they have to, right? I mean, it’s completely asymmetrical otherwise.”As Walz led in ridiculing Trump and Vance, so party grandees followed. At the Democratic convention in Chicago last month, Barack and Michelle Obama mocked Trump from the podium. The former president even appeared to question the size of Trump’s penis. It was all a long way from “When they go low, we go high”, Michelle Obama’s 2016 appeal to purity of political action and thought.“They know it gets him mad,” Jong-Fast said. “Part of what’s happening here is this ‘audience of one’ idea, which is they know it gets Trump kind of upset when you make fun of him, so they’re doubling down. They know the way to beat him is to get him so agitated that he acts out and alienates voters.”Trump has certainly been acting out – and Jong-Fast’s colleague Wilson, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, is well-practiced in making him do so, attracting threats to sue. Asked about Wilson’s insult-comic style, ridiculing Trump onstage and on the Fast Politics podcast and his own platforms, Jong-Fast laughed and said: “It makes for good podcasting. I think it would make for scary live television.”Probably true. Nonetheless, live television will host the next huge campaign set piece, the debate between Trump and Harris on ABC on Tuesday. Ridicule seems sure to be on the menu. Saul Alinsky’s ghost will watch with interest.Recently, David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, pondered Harris’s likely tactics.“I would offer the same advice to Harris as I did to Biden,” Corn wrote. “Deride, deride, deride. But it looks as if she got the memo.” More

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