JD Vance

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      Midwestern guys: Vance and Walz’s opposing views of being from the US heartland

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      For 30 years, Michael Bailey worked at the former Armco steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, eventually becoming president of a union that represented thousands of workers. Among them was James Vance, grandfather and sometimes stand-in father of the Republican party’s current vice-presidential candidate, JD, who worked as a skilled tradesperson at the plant.So Bailey, today a 71-year-old pastor at the Faith United church in downtown Middletown, says he’s confused by claims from Donald Trump’s running mate that he “grew up as a poor kid” in Middletown.“As a rigger, [James Vance] made good money. Where he lived, on McKinley Street, he didn’t live in poverty,” he says. “JD came up in a middle-income family. He didn’t come up on the rough side of town.”Politicians assuming working-class identities to attract votes is nothing new. But this year’s election pits vice-presidential candidates against each other – ostensibly picked for their “real American” chops – who hold contrasting views of what it means to be a boots-on-the-ground midwesterner.Endless corn fields, small towns and wide-open highways are characteristics of life in the midwest that most can agree on. Beyond that, experts say the region is far more complex.Cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati are home to millions of people that, for a time during the 20th century, were among the most innovative in the world.“Midwesterners have historically been on the frontlines of progressive politics and education. Midwesterners also have been innovators in both an economic and cultural sense,” says Diane Mutti Burke, the director of the Center for Midwestern Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.But many agree there are a few features that typically set midwesterners apart.“Midwesterners also are said to be ‘nice’,” says Mutti Burke. “The idea is that midwesterners are often friendly and gracious to a fault.”Perhaps that’s why Democratic party vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’s characterization of Vance and Trump as “weird” last month has struck such a chord with voters in the midwest, propelling the Harris-Walz ticket to a four-point lead in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in a recent poll.As governor of Minnesota, Walz’s brand of “nice” saw him introduce universal free breakfast and lunch for K-12 students in the state last year. The move was informed by his previous firsthand experience as a high school teacher who saw that lower-income kids using different colored food tickets to others could end up being stigmatized.What’s more, Walz has asked to appear on Millennial Farmer, a popular YouTube channel run by a Minnesota crop farmer that depicts everyday, midwestern farm life, despite its host’s anti-Democrat leanings. That request has yet to be fulfilled.At his first rally with Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on 6 August, Walz went straight after Vance’s midwestern chops, saying sarcastically: “Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires.”Vance has defended his upward mobility as illustrative of having succeeded in achieving the American dream.For his part, Vance has said he’d like to increase the child tax credit, currently at $2,000 per child, to $5,000, and eliminate the upper income threshold, which currently stands at $200,000 for single tax filers and $400,000 for couples.However, this month Vance failed to vote on a bill to increase the child tax credit program, claiming it would have failed regardless of whether he had taken part or not. The day of the vote, Vance was at the border in Arizona falsely claiming that the vice-president was the current administration’s “border czar”. (Harris aides have said that she was never given the responsibility of policing the border.)While Vance visited with picketing auto workers in Ohio last October, those who have closely watched his 18 months in office as a US senator say that, compared to Walz, he hasn’t achieved anything substantial for midwesterners.“Walz has been a teacher, a coach, a governor [and] a congressman,” said Charles “Rocky” Saxbe, a former senior member of Ohio’s Republican party who opposes the Maga movement. “I think when you look at vice-presidential contests – to the extent that they matter – you want someone who can step into the role of presidency, if it’s necessary and you want someone who has leadership experience, which JD Vance has never had.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnsurprisingly, Vance’s camp disagree, citing his working with Democrats to introduce rail safety and banking regulation bills as evidence of his political achievements.Politics aside, there’s an obvious financial gap dividing the two candidates. While in 2022 Walz earned $127,629 as governor of Minnesota, Vance raked in more than $1m the same year through a salary and company profits at a venture capital firm, a property rental, book royalties and from a host of investments. The Wall Street Journal suggests Vance’s net worth could be more than $10m.For some midwesterners, however, it’s the rhetoric that most keenly separates the two.Last year, Vance lobbied against, and failed to defeat, an amendment to the Ohio constitution to enshrine access to abortion. His “childless cat ladies” comments resurfaced last month were almost universally panned.But Bailey says his first opinions of Vance were formed several years ago, when the senator was in town publicizing his 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy.As a pastor and former president of a major workers’ union at Armco Steel, Bailey figured that someone of Vance’s emerging public persona meant that the senator might want to speak with him and other Middletown community leaders, so he gave Vance his business card.“I said: ‘I’d like to talk to you and if you’re thinking about running for office, we’d like to have your ear,’” says Bailey.“We’ve never had a response.”Despite Vance being elected nearly two years ago, his Middletown constituency office has no external signs or obvious indications highlighting the location for locals seeking to meet with him. A recent visit by the Guardian found the office door locked and the only communication made available by a staffer was through an intercom.Bailey says he thinks that rather than running for the benefit of Middletown and midwesterners at large, Vance is being used as a political stooge by the Silicon Valley billionaires who bankrolled his successful 2020 senate campaign.“I think they looked at someone with JD’s background,” he says, “and said: ‘We can use him to take away our democracy.’” More

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      in US Politics

      Keep talking, JD! Vance’s creepy views on ‘females’ are repelling women voters

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      JD Vance puts his futon in his mouth againConsider, if you will, the mysterious role of the postmenopausal female. Her ovaries have shrunk and she is no longer able to fulfil a woman’s biological destiny of bringing children into the world. What’s the point of her?One Mr Eric Weinstein, a mathematician and host of The Portal podcast, has helpfully provided some intellectual light on this most vexing of questions. Drumroll please, per Weinstein the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female”, is to help take care of her grandchildren.A little more context: in 2020 Weinstein had Senator JD Vance on his podcast and the pair chatted about the importance of grandparents. Vance explained that his extremely accomplished mother-in-law, a biology professor, had taken a year-long sabbatical and lived with them for a year after the birth of the Vances’ first child. Weinstein heartily approved of this, noting that nurturing was, after all, the purpose of the “postmenopausal female”. Vance appeared to agree. He also seemed to agree when Weinstein proclaimed that having your grandparents help out with your kids is a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman”. (Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.)These recently resurfaced comments are attracting a lot of attention for obvious reasons. Ever since he was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance has been in the headlines for his history of weird comments about gender and marriage. During a 2021 event, for example, he seemed to suggest that it was far too easy for people to get divorced and it was best for people to stay married, for the sake of their kids, even if the marriages were violent. Vance has said these remarks were taken out of context. Around the same time he also memorably said that the US was being led by a “bunch of childless cat ladies”. Then, when recently pressed on the comment, he claimed it was sarcastic and added: “I’ve got nothing against cats.”Was Vance’s apparent agreement with Weinstein’s assessment of the role of “the postmenopausal female” sarcasm as well? No, this time the excuse is that it’s all fake news. A spokesperson for the aspiring vice-president has accused “the media” of “dishonestly putting words in JD’s mouth”. The spokesperson also claimed: “JD reacted to the first part of the host’s sentence, assuming he was going to say: ‘That’s the whole purpose of spending time with grandparents.’”You can listen to the excerpt yourself, if you can bear it, and come to your own conclusions. I think it’s fair to say, however, that Vance certainly doesn’t vocally disagree with Weinstein’s statement. He also doesn’t say anything along the lines of, “Eric, my friend, please don’t refer to women as females like that, it’s creepy and gives off major incel vibes.”Ultimately, it’s difficult to give Vance the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these comments considering his past statements on gender and the sort of people that he surrounds himself with. Donald Trump, the man’s running mate, has been legally branded a sexual predator and is one of the most famous misogynists in the world, for God’s sake!Then there’s Peter Thiel, who hired Vance at his investment firm in 2017 then groomed him for political stardom – donating $15m to Vance’s 2022 Ohio Senate campaign and helping to secure Trump’s endorsement. Vance has said that Thiel has been a major influence on him, which is worrying because the billionaire has a lot of incredibly archaic views. He’s called diversity initiatives “very evil and very silly” and has mused that women having the right to vote has been a setback for libertarianism. Weinstein, by the way, is also in the Thiel fold: at the time those “postmenopausal female” comments were recorded, the podcast host was the managing director of Thiel’s hedge fund. Males of a feather seem to flock together.Anyway, even if one were to be very generous and say this postmenopausal controversy has been overblown, Vance seems determined to keep insulting as many women as he can. On Wednesday, for example, he suggested to Fox News that it’s not “normal” to care about abortion. “What do you say to suburban women out there who are marinating in this propaganda [that abortion has been banned nationwide]?” the Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked. Vance replied: “I don’t buy that … I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about.”Here’s the thing: suburban women do care about abortion. An April Wall Street Journal poll found that 39% of suburban women cite abortion as a “make-or-break issue for their vote” and Trump risks losing this important voting bloc because of it.All of which to say: please keep talking, JD, you’re doing a great job of alienating half of the electorate! Kamala Harris already has a massive lead with likely women voters in the polls and Vance seems to be doing his damnedest to make the gender gap grow.Katy Perry’s annus horribilis continues to get worseThis year was supposed to be Perry’s big comeback. Alas Woman’s World, the first single from her new album, was widely panned and there was a general sense that the singer is struggling to adjust her 2010s vibe to the present moment. Now the 39-year-old is being investigated by the government of Spain’s Balearic islands for filming on protected dunes without the necessary permissions. In the Guardian, Laura Snapes asks if Perry’s career can recover from these setbacks.British woman wins rare payout after ‘sexsomnia’ rape case droppedDays before the man charged with raping Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercot was due to stand trial the case was dropped because two experts said it was possible she had a disorder which could cause her to engage in sexual acts while asleep. While sexsomnia is a real condition, it’s not exactly common. What is becoming more common, however, is it being used as part of a defence in criminal trials.Indian women march to ‘reclaim the night’ after doctor’s rape and murderThere have been several days of protests across the state of West Bengal after an unnamed 31-year-old doctor was attacked while taking a break from a shift at a government hospital. “If the government cannot ensure the safety of women at a government-run institution, what hope is there?” one protester asked.Hundreds of cases of femicide recorded in Afghanistan since Taliban takeoverIt has been three years since the Taliban seized power again in Afghanistan, creating “the world’s most serious women’s rights crisis”. Since then there have been 332 reported cases of Afghan women being killed by men, with Taliban officials implicated in more than half of reported incidents. Sadly these numbers are probably just the “the tip of the iceberg”.Draft Iraqi law would allow nine-year-olds to marryIn 1959, Iraq passed a progressive Personal Status Law that transferred jurisdiction over family affairs from religious courts to the state. It set the legal age of marriage at 18 and restricted polygamy. However, while technically illegal, there’s been an increase in child marriage in Iraq over the last 20 years; one survey by Unicef found 28% of girls in Iraq had married by 18. Instead of trying to reverse this, religious groups are trying to roll back the Personal Status Law and essentially legalize child rape. A bloc of female lawmakers have been trying to stop the draft law being passed but they have an uphill battle on their hands.The week in pawtriarchyThe universe works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, for example, it gives you a cat. The Guardian has an explainer about the cat distribution system (CDS) meme and what you should actually do if a stray cat suddenly appears in your life. Mews you can use. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump reportedly considers endorsing expanded child tax credit after Harris unveils economic plan – live

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      Trump is considering endorsing an expanded $5,000 child tax credit for parents of all income levels, an official at his campaign told Semafor.“President Trump will consider a significant expansion of the child tax credit that applies to American families,” a Trump campaign official told Semafor. “President Trump respects and listens to his running mate Senator Vance.”The news comes just hours after Harris announced her own plan for a $6,000 child tax credit, and days after Vance proposed a $5,000 child tax credit during a CBS News interview.Cornel West will not appear on Michigan’s presidential ballot this fall, election officials told the Washington Post today. The independent presidential candidate’s ballot access was denied over notary issues, the state’s director of elections said in a letter.“The charges regarding procedural errors in our filings, such as notarization specifics, are trivial technicalities being weaponized to distract from substantive policy debates,” West’s adviser Edwin DeJesus said in a statement to the Post. “We are confident that these accusations will be seen for what they are – frivolous and unfounded attempts to stifle opposition and debate.”West’s campaign says it will appeal the decision, but must do so in five days as it did not previously respond to a notification from election officials in July.Engaging with young voters. Very mindful. Very demure. Very cutesy. Just hours after VP hopeful Tim Walz joined TikTok, the White House is joining in on attempts to connect with gen-Z voters by playing along with the latest meme sweeping social platforms.For more on the origins of the meme, read Alaina Demopoulos’s postmortem of brat summer:The White House has released a new statement from Joe Biden on the Middle East.In it, Biden states: “Earlier today, I received an update from my negotiating team on the ground in Doha and directed them to put forward the comprehensive bridging proposal presented today, which offers the basis for coming to a final agreement on a ceasefire and hostage release deal. I spoke separately with Amir Sheikh Tamim and President Sisi to review the significant progress made in Doha over the past two days of talks, and they expressed the strong support of Qatar and Egypt for the US proposal as co-mediators in this process. Our teams will remain on the ground to continue technical work over the coming days, and senior officials will convene again in Cairo before the end of the week. They will report to me regularly. I am sending Secretary Blinken to Israel to reaffirm my iron-clad support for Israel’s security, continue our intensive efforts to conclude this agreement and to underscore that with the comprehensive ceasefire and hostage release deal now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.”For more on the status of ceasefire negotiations, read Jason Burke’s and Bethan McKernan’s reporting:For those following along, JD Vance has landed in Cincinnati after an earlier midair emergency forced his plane to return to the Milwaukee airport.According to the New York Times, which had a reporter onboard the flight, the plane sat on the Milwaukee tarmac for about an hour before continuing on its way to Cincinnati.In an apparent response to Kamala Harris’s speech in North Carolina today, Trump has taken to Truth Social.The former president writes: “Kamala Harris wants to raise your taxes and make you pay for free healthcare and free housing in luxury hotels for her millions of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, our Veterans are sleeping on the streets and Kamala’s running mate, Weirdo Tim Walz, voted against my VA Mission Act that made healthcare more affordable and accessible for our Nation’s Heroes! Kamala and Walz will put Criminals, Terrorists, and Illegal Aliens FIRST. I will always put law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic AMERICANS First!”For more on the steps Harris proposed to fight child poverty, housing instability and inflation, check out George Chidi’s report:In lighter news, you may have seen the author Malcolm Harris’s tweet earlier this week that he accidentally acquired a Project 2025 swag bag.The Washington Post caught up with the Marxist journalist, who apparently was visited by police after posting on X:After seeing Harris’s tweets, a woman who describes herself on LinkedIn as a Project 2025 staffer called the police and filed a complaint for theft, according to a police report obtained by the Post.The cliff notes? Harris ultimately returned the duffle bag to the Heritage Foundation himself.Tim Walz has joined TikTok, or as he prefers to say, “TimTok”. The Minnesota governor’s first post features his dog Scout at a dog park along the banks of the Mississippi.In under a month, the Harris-Walz campagin has reignited gen-Z enthusiasm for the 2024 election, largely through memes and videos shared on TikTok, Instagram and other social platforms. Scout featured prominently in one post that began circulating in gen Z and millennial circles as Harris considered VP candidates earlier this month:Although Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok, or force its Chinese owners to sell it, Democrats have flocked to the app in recent months to drum up support from younger voters.Trump is considering endorsing an expanded $5,000 child tax credit for parents of all income levels, an official at his campaign told Semafor.“President Trump will consider a significant expansion of the child tax credit that applies to American families,” a Trump campaign official told Semafor. “President Trump respects and listens to his running mate Senator Vance.”The news comes just hours after Harris announced her own plan for a $6,000 child tax credit, and days after Vance proposed a $5,000 child tax credit during a CBS News interview.Another plank of Kamala Harris’s economic platform was a promise to lower housing costs by expanding the housing supply.Here’s the moment where she announced it, in her just-concluded speech in Raleigh, North Carolina:Joe Biden had sought to increase the supply of affordable housing with his ill-fated Build Back Better plan, but that did not make it through Congress.Last month, shortly before he dropped out of the presidential race, the president proposed capping annual rent increases for some landlords at 5%. But, as is the case with much of his agenda, Congress would need to pass a new law to make that happen, and the Republicans controlling the House have shown no interest in doing so.A charter plane carrying JD Vance, dubbed Trump Force Two, made an emergency landing in Milwaukee after a malfunction with its door, CNN reports. Then plane then took back off and continued its flight:Vance earlier in the day held a campaign event at a police union office in the city.The GOP is teeing up their counterattack to Kamala Harris’s economic proposals.Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump’s campaign announced that JD Vance will deliver remarks on the economy on Monday in Philadelphia, where he’ll undoubtedly criticize the vice-president. And on X this afternoon, Republican congressman Mike Collins accused Harris of, essentially, trying to “buy votes”:As she wrapped up her speech, Kamala Harris debuted a proposal to bring back a tax credit that was credited with dramatically reducing child poverty in the single year it was in effect, and expanding it further.The expanded child tax credit cut poverty for children by about half in 2021, but expired the following year, when negotiations over renewing it broke down. Harris told voters that she would bring back the credit, and make it even more generous:
      As President, I’ll not only restore that tax cut, but expand it. We will provide $6,000 in tax relief to families during the first year of a child’s life. Now, think what that means. Think what that means. That is a vital, vital year of critical development of a child, and the cost can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else.
      She argued that she could reduce the federal budget deficit while implementing this plan, though did not quite say how, instead hitting Donald Trump over his policies towards lowering taxes:
      And we will do this while reducing the deficit. Compare my plan with what Donald Trump intends to do, he plans to give billionaires massive tax cuts year after year, and he plans to cut corporate taxes by over a trillion dollars, even as they pull in record profits. And that’s on top of the $2tn tax cut he already signed into law when he was president, which, by the way, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans and corporations and exploded the national deficit.
      You know, I think that if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.
      And then Harris came at Donald Trump with a tried-and-true attack used by Democrats everywhere, by warning that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act.There’s lots to say about the law, which polling from health policy research firm KFF indicates is generally popular, but which most Republicans continue to oppose. But here’s one thing to keep in mind: it was first passed in 2010, which means there are lots of voters out there who never experienced what the American health insurance system was like before its changes took effect.Harris warned the crowd that repealing the law “would take us back to a time when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions”, she said, adding that 45 million Americans rely on the law for health coverage.At that point, the crowd began chanting, “We’re not going back!”Donald Trump has made levying new tariffs on foreign imports a key part of his platform, but Kamala Harris is warning the crowd in North Carolina that the idea amounts to “a national sales tax” on everyday goods.“He wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. That will devastate Americans. It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs. A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication. And, you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year,” the vice-president said.“At this moment when everyday prices are too high, he will make them even higher.” More

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      in Elections

      Fake electors from 2020 giving thousands to Trump-Vance campaign

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      The people who served as fake electors in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election have continued to donate to Donald Trump, JD Vance and other Republicans since then, campaign finance records show, underscoring the role they continue to play in US politics.Some fake electors face criminal charges for their actions. Some continue to hold key government roles.Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican party, has given more than $1,800 to Trump and allied fundraising groups this campaign cycle, according to federal campaign finance records. Maddock is one of the 16 fake electors in Michigan who were criminally charged by Dana Nessel, the Democratic Michigan attorney general, last summer and has pleaded not guilty. Tyler Bowyer, who has also pleaded not guilty for his role as a fake elector in Arizona, donated $645 this year to Trump.“It is incredibly rare for politicians to accept campaign contributions from people under indictment,” said Michael Beckel, the research director at Issue One, an election watchdog group. “It’s generally not good optics for politicians to accept money from people accused of serious wrongdoing. Political candidates generally don’t want to be tied to convicted or accused felons. Yet in certain circles, association with the people who served as fake electors for Donald Trump in 2020 may be a badge of honor.”“Former President Trump likely has fewer qualms about accepting campaign cash from people under indictment for serving as fake electors in 2020 than the typical politician,” he added. David Hanna, a fake elector from Georgia who was not criminally charged, has given at least $25,000 to Trump this year.In 2021 and 2023, Hanna also donated more than $6,000 combined to JD Vance’s senate campaign. Daryl Moody, another fake elector in Georgia who was not charged, donated $2,900 in 2022 to Vance. Vance, Trump’s running mate, has been supportive of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and has said that if he had been vice-president in 2020, he would have used his power overseeing the joint session of Congress to recognize fake slates of electors.“It doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out that Donald Trump and JD Vance are keeping extremist election-deniers in the fold as reliable henchmen and women to challenge the results of the fall election,” said Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st Century, a Super Pac that supports Democrats and initially flagged the donations to the Guardian.“They’ve taken thousands of dollars in donations from fake electors and welcomed them with open arms to the Republican national convention last month. Trump and Vance are actively selling out our democracy in exchange for the power to enact their Project 2025 agenda the day they step into the White House.”The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Several Republicans running for the US House have also received donations from fake electors. Eli Crane, a Republican representative from Arizona, in 2023 received $2,900 from Jim Lamon, a fake elector who faces criminal charges there. Yvette Herrell, a New Mexico representative, has accepted more than $3,000 from Rosie Tripp, who served as a fake elector in the state. In 2022, Herrell also received $2,900 from Deborah Maestas, a former New Mexico Republican party chair who served as a fake elector in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe campaigns of Crane and Herrell did not respond to requests for comment.In addition to continuing to donate to candidates, fake electors continue to play key roles in the Republican party. Michael McDonald, a fake elector criminally charged in Nevada, is the chair of that state’s Republican party (a Nevada judge threw out the case against the Nevada electors last month, and the attorney general is appealing). At least 18 fake electors also served as party delegates at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee last month, according to CNN, NPR and a local news report.In Wisconsin, Robert Spindell, a fake elector, continues to serve as one of three Republicans on the bipartisan Wisconsin elections commission, the body that oversees voting in the state. In Georgia, Burt Jones and Shawn Still, both of whom were fake electors, respectively serve as lieutenant governor and a state senator.Full slates of fake electors in Nevada, Michigan and Arizona face criminal charges for their activities. A handful of fake electors were charged in Georgia, while those in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin have not faced charges. In Wisconsin, the fake electors reached a civil settlement agreeing that they would not serve as electors again in 2024. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump repeats attacks and falsehoods in free-wheeling press conference at his golf club – live

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      Donald Trump spoke for more than 45 minutes – repeating many of the signature lies and falsehoods that draw cheers at his rallies – before taking any questions from the press.This is a well-worn tactic for Trump – a way to entice news networks to turn their cameras toward him for what is essentially free press. His press conference earlier this month – his first since Kamala Harris had entered the presidential race – ran on for about an hour and a half, during which Trump rambled about the crowd size at his January 6, 2021, rally and falsely claimed that no one died during the Capitol riot that day. When he finally took questions, he gave confusing and at times incoherent answers.Trump used the same approach to a press conference back when he was president as well. In an April 2020 news analysis by the Guardian’s David Smith – Briefing or rally? Trump shifts to campaign mode as he rails against the media – my colleague details the surreal experience of attending one of Trump’s coronavirus press briefings.
      I was among an unlucky 13 reporters sitting in that room on Saturday, along with one standing at the back from Trump’s beloved One America News Network which, having flouted reporters’ agreed physical distancing guidelines, is there at the invitation of the White House.
      Laptops on knees, with several seats between us to maintain physical distancing, we were hardly a typical Make America Great Again crowd. But tellingly, while there was no sign of Dr Anthony Fauci’s reassuring presence, the seats to Trump’s right included Mark Meadows, a vocal ally in Congress recently appointed White House chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump 2020 campaign national spokesperson turned White House press secretary.
      Both gazed up at their boss reverently and smiled at his jokes. Meanwhile Dr Deborah Birx, response coordinator on the coronavirus taskforce, stood on the podium and spent long periods staring expressionless into the middle distance as Trump reeled off some golden oldies.
      “We had the best economy in the history of the world, better than China, better than any country in the world, better than any country’s ever had,” he said, waving his hand at what was ostensibly a coronavirus taskforce briefing. “We had the highest stock market in history by far, and I’m honoured by the fact it’s started to go up very substantially.”
      Donald Trump is asked whether he agrees with the argument that his current strategy of personal attacks against Kamala Harris isn’t working. He is also asked about his hiring of five new operatives.Trump denies that this is a sign of a shifting strategy, and says Corey Lewandowski is coming in as a “personal envoy”.He says he believes he is “entitled to personal attacks” because he is “very angry” at “what [Harris] has done to the country”. He adds:
      I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I thinks she’ll be a terrible president.
      Donald Trump is asked whether he has put much thought into “why God saved your life” during the assassination attempt last month, and “for what purpose”.Trump, who once promised that he would only talk about the shooting once “because it’s actually too painful to tell”, says it was a “miracle”. He says:
      It’s a miracle, and God had something – maybe it’s [because] we want to save the world.
      Donald Trump is asked when he last spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, following reports that the pair spoke on Wednesday about ongoing Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks.Trump says the last time he saw Netanyahu was at Mar-a-Lago last month. He says that he has a “very good relationship” with Israel and claims that the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October “would have never happened” if he had been in the White House at the time.Trump says that his meeting with Netanyahu at the time was about two-and-a-half hours long, and that he hasn’t spoken to him since then.Donald Trump sold this as a news conference, but he has only just started taking questions from reporters – more than 45 minutes into his speech.Donald Trump claims that Kamala Harris wants to “defund the police”, despite the fact that the vice-president has distanced herself from previous remarks praising the movement following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.Harris has not advocated abolishing police forces, and her spokesperson has said that “she wants to fund the police, but she wants to do the other things as well”.Donald Trump says Kamala Harris is “far more radical than Bernie Sanders”, and says she has picked herself a running mate, Tim Walz, who is also “far more radical” than Sanders.Harris “wants to change a free-enterprise-type country into a communist-type country”, Trump says.He claims that as attorney general of California, Harris “destroyed” the state and that if elected, that she will do the same to the country.Trump claims that in California “you’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950”. This is not true.California’s Proposition 47 reclassified some felony crimes so that individuals who commit certain nonviolent drug and property crimes, including shoplifting merchandise under $950, would be sentenced on misdemeanor charges instead of felony charges.A misdemeanor sentence would still lead to a person serving up to a year in county jail, according to the Los Angeles Times.Donald Trump, speaking at a news conference from his New Jersey golf club, is sticking to a very similar script as when he addressed supporters at a rally yesterday in North Carolina.Wednesday’s rally was billed as a major address on the economy, an issue that is taking center stage in this presidential contest. Despite this, Trump said yesterday he was “not sure the economy is the most important topic” of the election.Trump claims Kamala Harris wants “communist price controls”, calling them “the Maduro plan” in reference to Venezuela’s authoritarian socialist leader. He quotes various inflation statistics for various staples of US household diets, as well as higher car insurance premiums and fuel costs.Donald Trump has begun speaking at his news conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he says he has “a lot of interesting” and “some very specific things” to talk about.Trump repeats his claim that the US is a “failing nation” with a “failing economy”, and says Kamala Harris has “broke the world” and that she “destroys everything she touches”.He goes on to accuse Harris of being Biden’s “border czar”, despite the fact that the vice-president was never made Biden’s “border czar”. The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, is the official in charge of border security.Trump claims that Harris is going to be easier to beat than Biden, and claims that he is leading in “most of the polls”. In reality, polls are showing that Harris is ahead of Trump or at least tied with him in most of the battleground states.The Ohio senator and the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he hoped that Robert F Kennedy Jr will drop out as an independent presidential candidate and endorse Donald Trump.Vance, speaking to reporters on his campaign plane today, said there were “a lot of people” in Trumpworld who think Kennedy is “fundamentally running a campaign that’s helping Kamala Harris”. He added:
      At this point, I certainly hope that he drops out and endorses, you know, endorses President Trump.
      Kennedy is “much closer on the issues” to Trump than to Harris,” Vance argued.From ABC News’s Hannah Demissie:Kamala Harris’s campaign has released a new video in which she and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, describe their ticket as joyful underdogs on the path to victory.“Our campaign is the underdog campaign,” Harris says to Walz in the 10-minute video.
      And with our joy, we also have to understand that we’re still up against some forces that are trying to divide our country.
      Walz compares the election to a football game, saying it’s “half-time in America”, to which Harris responds: “I’m looking at Coach Walz right now.”The video recalls a similar one between Joe Biden and Barack Obama during the 2020 campaign, AP reported.The Secret Service has approved a new security plan to better protect Donald Trump at outdoor events, the Washington Post is reporting.The security plan includes the use of bulletproof glass to shield him on stage, the Post writes, citing a Secret Service official.The effort comes after the Secret Service urged the Trump campaign to temporarily pause having him appear at outdoor rallies, after the assassination attempt on the former president at an open-air campaign rally last month. More

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      JD Vance agrees to October vice-presidential debate with Tim Walz

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      JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, has accepted an invitation by CBS to debate Tim Walz, his Democratic counterpart, on 1 October after initially appearing to hedge.Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, also said he was accepting another invitation from CNN to debate Walz on 18 September, although it was unclear whether the Democratic nominee had agreed to the challenge.“The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala [Harris] to three of them already,” Vance posted on X.“Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!”Vance’s sudden willingness was a belated response to Walz, the governor of Minnesota, who had posted “See you on October 1, JD” after CBS offered four possible debate dates on Wednesday.The Republican vice-presidential candidate had originally told Fox News that he wanted to avoid “a fake news garbage debate” and said he had questions over the moderators and format before accepting.There was no immediate sign that Walz – who has goaded Vance about his hardline anti-abortion stance – had accepted the CNN invite to a separate debate.A statement from the Harris-Walz campaign’s communication director, Michael Tyler, referred only to the confirmed scheduling of the 1 October debate and two separate encounters between Harris and Trump, one set for 10 September and the other for the following month.“Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on September 10 to debate Vice-President Harris, then Governor Walz will see JD Vance on October 1 and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice-president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October,” Tyler said.“Voters deserve to see the candidates for the highest office in the land share their competing visions for our future. The more they play games, the more insecure and unserious Trump and Vance reveal themselves to be to the American people. Those games end now.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris owes her elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket to a debate – or rather to Joe Biden’s inability to participate in it effectively. It was the president’s woeful performance in a debate against Trump on 27 June that led to intense pressure from Democrats for him to step aside as the party’s candidate, which he did on 21 July.Biden and Trump were due to debate again on 10 September, hosted by ABC. But since the president’s withdrawal from the race, Trump has sent mixed signals about his intention to turn up for the same rendezvous against Harris, before eventually agreeing to do so.Vance has affected disappointment that Harris’s promotion has denied him the opportunity to debate her.“I was told I was gonna get to debate Kamala Harris, and now President Trump’s gonna get to debate her? I’m kind of pissed off about that, if I’m being honest with you,” he said at a campaign rally in Middletown, Ohio, last month. More

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      Tim Walz agrees to vice-presidential debate against JD Vance on 1 October

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      Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate, said he would be willing to debate JD Vance, Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, on 1 October.Walz, in a post to Twitter/X, was responding to a CBS News statement that said it had invited both vice-presidential candidates to participate in a debate in New York City.CBS said it had presented both campaigns with four dates as options: 17 September, 24 September, 1 October and 8 October.“See you on October 1, JD,” Walz wrote.A statement from the Harris campaign said: “Harris for President has accepted CBS’ invitation to a Vice Presidential Candidate Debate on October 1. Governor Walz looks forward to debating JD Vance – if he shows up.” Vance has not said whether he would accept the date.Walz last week said he “can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”, in a reference to the baseless but much-shared claim that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir.In May, the Biden campaign said the vice-president – then Joe Biden’s running mate – would be willing to debate the eventual Republican vice-presidential nominee on either 23 July or 13 August.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the time, the president had not yet stepped aside from the race and endorsed Harris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate for president in this election, and JD Vance had not been announced as Trump’s running mate.Vance’s campaign then declined to commit to a vice-presidential debate before the Democratic national convention on 19 August.Harris and Trump have agreed to participate in their first debate on 10 September, hosted by ABC News.The network said the debate will be moderated by David Muir, the World News Tonight anchor and managing editor, and Linsey Davis, the ABC News Live Prime anchor. More

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      Trump addresses North Carolina rally after Vance claims Harris has been ‘acting president’ under Biden – live

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      Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will sign an executive order on his first day back in the Oval Office to direct “every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down”.As the New York Times points out, Trump has so far not outlined a plan on how to tackle inflation and bring prices down, other than to boost oil and gas production in the US. It adds:
      The country is already currently producing significantly more crude oil today than it did under the Trump administration.
      Hours before his rally speech,, the latest inflation figures also showed the US annual inflation rate dipped below 3% in July for the first time since 2021.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have agreed to participate in one debate on 10 September, hosted by ABC News.ABC News confirmed in a statement last week it will “host qualifying presidential candidates to debate on September 10 on ABC. Vice-President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend the ABC debate.”The network said the debate will be moderated by World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis.In May, the Biden campaign said Kamala Harris – then Joe Biden’s running mate – would be willing to debate the eventual Republican vice-presidential nominee on either 23 July or 13 August.At the time, Biden had not yet stepped aside from the race and JD Vance had not been announced as Donald Trump’s running mate.After Vance was named as Trump’s running mate, his campaign declined to commit to a vice-presidential debate before the Democratic national convention on 19 August.The Trump Vance campaign has not yet agreed to the 1 October debate hosted by CBS News in New York.A Harris Walz campaign spokesperson said the Democratic vice presidential presumptive nominee “looks forward to debating JD Vance — if he shows up.”Walz last week said he “can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” in a reference to the baseless, but much-shared claim, that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir.Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate, said he would be willing to debate JD Vance, Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, on 1 October.Walz, in a post to X, was responding to a CBS News statement that said it had invited both vice-presidential candidates to participate in a debate in New York City.CBS said it had presented both campaigns with four dates as options: 17 September, 24 September, 1 October and 8 October.“See you on October 1, JD,” Walz wrote.A statement from the Harris campaign said:
      Harris for President has accepted CBS’ invitation to a Vice Presidential Candidate Debate on October 1. Governor Walz looks forward to debating JD Vance – if he shows up.
      Vance has not said whether he would accept the date.Trump says the US will “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels to “bring energy prices down”.Trump has vowed to accelerate oil and gas production, already at record levels, in the US, however, repeating the mantra “drill, baby, drill” at rallies.Trump aims to undo Joe Biden’s policies aimed at lowering carbon emissions, which he has called “insane”, and has directly sought $1bn in campaign donations from oil and gas executives in order to fulfill this agenda as president.But as NBC News’s Sahil Kapur notes, under Biden’s tenure, the US has continued to produce and export the most crude oil out of any country:Trump notes that Kamala Harris previously opposed fracking, and claims that she will ban fracking if she is elected in the November election.Harris “will absolutely ban fracking”, Trump says.Harris had previously, as a candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination, vowed to ban fracking, as well as back a Green New Deal, a progressive resolution to shift the US to 100% renewable energy, and new government dietary guidelines to encourage people to reduce their meat eating.But her campaign has said she will not seek to ban fracking if she becomes president. Since becoming vice-president, Harris has followed the Biden administration approach that allows fracking, although the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn up rules to limit the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that often escapes during fracking.Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will sign an executive order on his first day back in the Oval Office to direct “every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down”.As the New York Times points out, Trump has so far not outlined a plan on how to tackle inflation and bring prices down, other than to boost oil and gas production in the US. It adds:
      The country is already currently producing significantly more crude oil today than it did under the Trump administration.
      Hours before his rally speech,, the latest inflation figures also showed the US annual inflation rate dipped below 3% in July for the first time since 2021.Trump says his interview with Elon Musk “was one of the most successful shows ever done”.The interview on Twitter/X, which is owned by Musk and began more than 40 minutes late, was plagued by technical issues that initially prevented many users from watching the conversation.Here’s a review of that interview by our Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith:Trump says the US was respected before but that now “we’re disrespected all over the world.”He says the Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un all respected the US. Now “we’re being laughed at,” he says.Trump says that as president, he “passed the largest tax cuts in history, the largest regulation cuts in history”.In reality, Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was not the largest tax cut in US history and workers barely benefited from them. More