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      Under Trump, U.S. Prisons Offered Gender-Affirming Care

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      The Trump administration’s approach is notable in light of a campaign ad that slams Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners and migrants.A campaign ad released by former President Donald J. Trump in battleground states slams Vice President Harris for supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners and migrants, concluding: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”But the Trump administration’s record on providing services for transgender people in the sprawling federal prison system, which houses thousands of undocumented immigrants awaiting trial or deportation, is more nuanced than the 30-second spot suggests.Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Mr. Trump’s four years in office.In a February 2018 budget memo to Congress, bureau officials wrote that under federal law, they were obligated to pay for a prisoner’s “surgery” if it was deemed medically necessary. Still, legal wrangling delayed the first such operation until 2022, long after Mr. Trump left office.“Transgender offenders may require individual counseling and emotional support,” officials wrote. “Medical care may include pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., cross-gender hormone therapy), hair removal and surgery (if individualized assessment indicates surgical intervention is applicable).”The statement, in part, reflected guidelines that officials in the Obama administration released shortly before they left office in January 2017, which were geared at ensuring “transgender inmates can access programs and services that meet their needs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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

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

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      Trump Escalates Threats to Political Opponents He Deems the ‘Enemy’

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      Never before has a presidential nominee openly suggested turning the military on Americans simply because they oppose his candidacy. With voting underway, Donald Trump has turned to dark vows of retribution.With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him.In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle.A day later, he closed his remarks to a crowd at what was billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania with a stark message about his political opponents.“They are so bad and frankly, they’re evil,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”And on Tuesday, he once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power when pressed by an interviewer at an economic forum in Chicago.With early voting underway in key battlegrounds, the race for the White House is moving toward Election Day in an extraordinary and sobering fashion. Mr. Trump has long flirted with, if not openly endorsed, anti-democratic tendencies with his continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, embrace of conspiracy theories of large-scale voter fraud and accusations that the justice system is being weaponized against him. He has praised leaders including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary for being authoritarian strongmen.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Renews ‘Enemy Within’ Talk at Fox News Town Hall on Women’s Issues

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      Former President Donald J. Trump reiterated his belief that Democrats are “the enemy from within” during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday billed as a conversation about women’s issues.Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to highlight Mr. Trump’s recent inflammatory comments, arguing that he has grown “increasingly unstable and unhinged” in the final weeks of the campaign. During a stump speech on Monday in Erie, Pa., Ms. Harris played footage of an earlier interview he had conducted with Fox News in which he called the Democratic Party and individual lawmakers an “enemy from within” and said they were more dangerous than foreign adversaries.But if Mr. Trump was fazed by these attacks, he did not show it on Tuesday after the Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner replayed the footage of his Fox News interview. Ms. Faulkner noted Ms. Harris’s use of the video in her campaign and her descriptions of his language as authoritarian. Mr. Trump in response called her campaign rally video “a nice presentation,” before rebuffing Democrats as “a party of sound bites.”Still, he did not disavow his comments.“It is the enemy from within,” Mr. Trump told Ms. Faulkner during the event, which is set to be broadcast at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. And he repeated insults concerning his belief that Democrats are loyal to Marxists and communists. He added of the party, “They’re the threat to democracy.”Mr. Trump fielded questions from an audience of all women in Cumming, Ga., an Atlanta exurb an hour north of the city. Roughly 110 women from local churches and mothers’ groups attended, according to a spokeswoman for Fox News.The women who asked him questions introduced themselves as Georgia residents and posed questions about his plans for the economy, public safety and immigration. Mr. Trump responded with a range of promises about what he would do if sent back to the White House, including pledges to lower energy prices by 50 percent, expand the child tax credit and outlaw sanctuary cities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Takes On Campaign Duty in Pennsylvania, Celebrating Unions

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      As Jill Biden and JD Vance also made stops around Philadelphia, the president’s visit highlighted the intense struggle to persuade voters in what may be the most critical swing state.President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, joined the pitched electoral struggle over Pennsylvania on Tuesday, fanning out with three appearances across the Philadelphia area intended to aid Vice President Kamala Harris in what may be the most consequential swing state.While his wife helped staff a phone bank across town, Mr. Biden joined a dinner held by the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee at the local sheet metal workers’ union hall, where he revved up attendees with a punchy speech and unleashed a long list of attacks against former President Donald J. Trump.“He has the same ideas on race as the 1930s. Trump’s ideas on the economy are from the ’20s. Trump’s ideas on women are from the ’50s,” he said. “Folks, this is 2024. We can’t go back.”But as often as Mr. Biden sought to contrast his record with Mr. Trump’s, he carefully tacked back several times to express support for Ms. Harris. He compared her to himself in growing out of his role as former President Barack Obama’s running mate, seeking to support her without defining her in his own unpopular image.“I was loyal to Barack Obama, but I cut my own path as president,” he said. “That’s what Kamala is going to do. She’s been loyal so far, but she’s going to cut her own path.”Mr. Biden’s visit was a reminder that just three weeks before the election, even when the presidential candidates are not in Pennsylvania, they are well aware of the need to maintain a presence in the state. With 19 electoral votes, it is the largest of the battleground prizes, and both campaigns would face narrow paths to victory without it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Slams Trump in Interview With Charlamagne Tha God: 5 Takeaways

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      Vice President Kamala Harris agreed on Tuesday with the radio host Charlamagne Tha God that former President Donald J. Trump was a fascist, going a step further than she had before in casting her Republican rival as a dangerous authoritarian leader.During a free-flowing interview that often spoke to the concerns of Black Americans, Ms. Harris was contrasting her vision for the nation with Mr. Trump’s when Charlamagne jumped in to say: “The other is about fascism. Why can’t we just say it?”“Yes, we can say that,” Ms. Harris replied.Her comments came days after it was revealed that Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Mr. Trump, had called the former president “a fascist to the core,” according to a new book from the journalist Bob Woodward.Ms. Harris’s hourlong appearance on Tuesday in Detroit with Charlamagne — a co-host of the popular hip-hop morning radio show “The Breakfast Club,” which has many Black listeners — was part of a major push to counteract weakening support from Black voters. And during the conversation, she predicted that the election would come down to the wire.“This is a margin-of-error race,” she said. “I’m going to win, but it’s tight.”Here are five takeaways from the interview.Harris sharpened her attack on Trump as ‘weak’ yet dangerous.For much of her vice presidency, some of Ms. Harris’s aides have thought she is too cautious in her public remarks. But when it came to Mr. Trump on Tuesday, she did not hold back.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Trump Facing Threats, Security and Politics Intersect as Never Before

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      He has been the target of two would-be assassins in a matter of months. The intelligence agencies have told him that Iran is still threatening to kill him, and Iranian hackers got into the email accounts of his aides.Those developments have left former President Donald J. Trump and his staff fearful, frustrated and dependent for the candidate’s safety on federal agencies at the heart of what Mr. Trump has long portrayed as a hostile “deep state.”But Mr. Trump and his team have also seized on his predicament for political ends, suggesting without evidence that the situation is at least partly the fault of the Biden-Harris administration for being unwilling to provide him the protection he needs to travel the country freely and meet voters on his terms.Mr. Trump approaches Election Day as simultaneously a subject of federal prosecution, a candidate who has threatened to fire much of the federal bureaucracy and a target dependent for information and protection on the same agencies likely to endure his retribution should he take office again.Interviews with people close to Mr. Trump and officials across the federal government reveal how deeply unnerved the Trump campaign has been by the assassination attempts and the Iranian threats and hacking — and how the American security apparatus has responded.At the same time, as Mr. Trump attacks and politicizes the agencies charged with both investigating the threats and protecting him, officials in the Biden White House and at the Secret Service worry that he is laying the groundwork to blame them should he lose the election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Uses Trump’s Own Words to Attack Him as ‘Unhinged’: ‘Roll the Clip’

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      Former President Donald J. Trump’s words thundered from screens at a packed campaign rally on Monday night in Erie, Pa. But the event was for Vice President Kamala Harris, who was using Mr. Trump’s own words as her campaign amplified warnings of the dangers she says he poses should he win a second term in the White House.Ms. Harris pulled few punches as she portrayed her Republican opponent as an authoritarian obsessed with his own power, pointing to Mr. Trump’s recent rallies and media appearances where he has asserted that his Democratic detractors were the “enemy from within,” more dangerous than foreign adversaries like Russia and China, and that they “should be put in jail.”“After all these years, we know who Donald Trump is,” Ms. Harris said. “He is someone who will stop at nothing to claim power for himself.”In a striking moment, Ms. Harris told the crowd of 6,000 that they didn’t have to take her word for it, that she had an example of his “worldview and intentions.”“Please — roll the clip,” she said as the crowd groaned and gasped as Mr. Trump’s face flashed on screens.“He’s talking about the enemy within our country, Pennsylvania,” Ms. Harris said to a jeering crowd. “He’s talking about that he considers anyone who doesn’t support him, or who will not bend to his will, an enemy of our country.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More