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  • US intel: Ukraine war caused ‘one of the most disruptive periods’ for global food security | CNN Politics

    US intel: Ukraine war caused ‘one of the most disruptive periods’ for global food security | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused deep disruptions in the global food supply, raising prices and increasing the risk of food insecurity in poorer nations in the Middle East and North Africa, America’s top spy agency said in an unclassified report released by Congress on Wednesday.

    The direct and indirect effects of the war “were major drivers of one of the most disruptive periods in decades for global food security,” the eight-page report found – in large part because Ukraine and Russia were among the world’s largest pre-war exporters of grain and other agricultural products.

    Although food security concerns have abated since the start of this year, according to the report, the future trajectory of global food prices likely will depend in part on what happens with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Russia ended in July. The deal, facilitated by the United Nations, had allowed Ukrainian agricultural shipments to safely exit Black Sea ports and reach the international market.

    How much acreage Ukraine is able to cultivate as the war continues to rage and the cost and availability of fertilizers will also have an impact on global food prices, the report found. Global fertilizer prices reached near-record levels in mid-2022 as global oil and natural gas prices rose.

    “The combination of high domestic food prices and historic levels of sovereign debt in many countries – largely caused by spending and recessionary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – has weakened countries’ capacity to respond to heightened food insecurity risks,” the report said. “These factors probably will undermine the capacity of many poor countries to provide sufficient and affordable food to their population through the end of the year.”

    Droughts last year in Canada, the Middle East, South America and the United States also compounded the war-related stress on global food supplies, according to the report.

    Intelligence officials have accused Russia in the past of weaponizing food supplies by blocking Ukrainian exports, destroying infrastructure and occupying Ukrainian agricultural land.

    Citing satellite imagery and open-source reporting, the report said that Russia stole nearly 6 million tons of Ukrainian wheat harvested from occupied territories in 2022. Cargo ships used to transport the stolen grain out of Russian-occupied territories in 2022 would steer along the coast of Turkey to deliver shipments to ports in Syria, Israel, Iran, Georgia and Lebanon, the report said.

    “We cannot confirm if the buyers of the Russian cargoes were aware of the grains’ Ukrainian origin,” the report said.

    The report was mandated by the annual intelligence authorization bill and released by the House Intelligence Committee.

    “This report casts light on the war’s broader disruption to global food security and reveals how (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has intentionally used food security and the threat of starvation as a negotiating chip,” committee leaders Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes said in a statement. “Russia’s recent refusal to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative will worsen this crisis, driving vulnerable nations into food shortages that could leave millions struggling to eat.”

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  • A federal hate crime investigation is underway after a racially motivated shooting left 3 people dead in Jacksonville, officials say. Here’s what we know | CNN

    A federal hate crime investigation is underway after a racially motivated shooting left 3 people dead in Jacksonville, officials say. Here’s what we know | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal hate crime investigation is underway after a White gunman with a swastika-emblazoned assault rifle killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday, authorities said.

    The shooting, described as being racially motivated, claimed the lives of Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19, and Jerrald Gallion, 29.

    The gunman, identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, left behind racist writings and used racial slurs, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said. He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun, both legally purchased, and targeted Black people as he opened fire inside the store, according to the sheriff.

    The Justice Department is now investigating the shooting as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Sunday.

    As a hurting community gathered Sunday to honor the victims, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan called to an end to division.

    “The division has to stop, the hate has to stop, the rhetoric has to stop,” She added, “We are all the same flesh, blood and bones and we should treat each other that way.”

    The attack in Florida is the latest in a number of shootings in recent years where a gunman has targeted Black people, including at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, last year and a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

    It also marked one of several shootings reported in the US over two days, including one near a parade in Massachusetts and another at a high school football game in Oklahoma.

    There have been at least 475 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.

    As investigators probe the Jacksonville gunman’s motives and history, Waters cautioned against trying to find reason in the attack.

    “Our community is grappling to understand why this atrocity occurred. I urge us all not to look for sense in a senseless act of violence,” the sheriff said. “There’s no reason or explanation that will ever account for the shooter’s decisions and actions.”

    While Jacksonville grieves those killed, here’s what we know about how the shooting unfolded Saturday, the guns used in the attack, the victims and the ongoing investigation:

    The shooter, who lived with his parents in Orange Park in Clay County, left his home around 11:39 a.m. and headed to Jacksonville in neighboring Duval County, Waters told CNN Saturday.

    At 12:48 p.m., the suspect stopped at Edward Waters University in New Town, a predominately Black area of Jacksonville, where the sheriff said the suspect put on a bulletproof vest. A TikTok video captured him getting dressed, Waters said.

    A student flagged down campus security when they saw the shooter because he “looked out of place,” President and CEO of Edward Waters University, Dr. A. Zachary Faison Jr. told CNN Sunday.

    The man immediately got in his vehicle and started to drive away after being confronted by a security officer, who followed him until he left campus, Faison said.

    “We don’t know obviously what his full intentions were, but we do know that he came here right before going to the Dollar General,” Faison said. “Members of our university security team reacted almost immediately. I think the reports are in less than 30 seconds after he made contact and drove onto our campus.”

    Faison said the campus security actions alone probably saved “dozens of lives.”

    “It’s not by happenstance, we believe, that he came to the first historically Black university in this state, first,” Faison said.

    University police followed him out of the lot around 12:58 p.m. and flagged down a sheriff’s officer, saying there was a suspicious person on campus, according to the sheriff.

    People walk past the Dollar General store Sunday in Jacksonville, Florida.

    At 1:08 p.m., the gunman shot into a black Kia at the nearby Dollar General parking lot and killed Carr, the sheriff said. He then entered the store and fatally shot Laguerre, the sheriff said.

    Others fled out the back exit of the store followed by the suspect seconds later, the sheriff said. He then came back inside and shot at security cameras.

    The first 911 call went out at 1:09 p.m., seconds before the third victim, Gallion, walked into the store with his girlfriend.

    The gunman then fatally shot Gallion and chased after another person, whom he shot at but didn’t hit, the sheriff said.

    At 1:18 p.m., the gunman texted his father and told him to go into his room, where the father found a will and a suicide note, the sheriff said.

    Officers entered the store a minute later – 11 minutes from the start of the shooting – and heard one gunshot, which is presumed to be when the gunman shot and killed himself, the sheriff said.

    The suspect’s family members called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office at 1:53 p.m., the sheriff said.

    Authorities on Sunday played two short video clips of the shooting.

    One clip shows the shooter, wearing a tactical vest and blue latex gloves, pointing his weapon at a black Kia car outside the store, and the other shows the shooter walking into the store and pointing his rifle to his right.

    “I wanted the people to be able to see exactly what happened in this situation and just how sickening it is,” Waters said.

    The shooter did not appear to know the victims and it is believed he acted alone, he said.

    “He targeted a certain group of people and that’s Black people,” Waters said at a Saturday news conference. That’s what he said he wanted to kill. And that’s very clear… Any member of that race at that time was in danger.”

    The suspect had left behind writings to his parents, the media and federal agents outlining his “disgusting ideology of hate,” the sheriff told reporters Saturday.

    The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office released a photo of a firearm used in the shooting, left, and a close-up, right, which shows several swastikas drawn on it.

    Photos of two weapons the gunman had were released by authorities, including one firearm with swastikas drawn on it.

    The shooter had no criminal arrest history, and it appears he legally purchased the two firearms earlier this year, the sheriff said.

    The shooter was the subject of a 2017 law enforcement call under the state’s Baker Act, which allows people to be involuntarily detained and subject to an examination for up to 72 hours during a mental health crisis.

    Waters did not provide details on what led to the Baker Act call in that case but said normally a person who has been detained under the act is not eligible to purchase firearms.

    “If there is a Baker Act situation, they’re prohibited from getting guns,” he told CNN Saturday. “We don’t know if that Baker Act was recorded properly, whether it was considered a full Baker Act.”

    On Sunday, the sheriff said investigators found the guns appeared to be obtained legally.

    “There was no flag that could have come up to stop him from purchasing those guns,” Waters said at a Sunday news conference. “As a matter of fact, it looks as if he purchased those guns completely legally.”

    “There was nothing indicating that he should not own guns,” he added.

    The sheriff did not provide further details on the Baker Act petition from 2017, but said Sunday it does appear that the shooter, who was 15 at the time, was held for 72 hours and then released.

    Sabrina Rozier, left, and Jerrald Gallion.

    A relative of the 29-year-old Gallion who was attending Sunday evening’s vigil in honor of the victims described him as a fun, loving young man.

    Sabrina Rozier told CNN that the family is holding up the best that they can and that they have yet to tell Gallion’s 4-year-old daughter that her father is gone.

    “It’s hurtful, I thought racism was behind us and evidently it’s not,” Gallion said

    Dollar General identified one of the victims, Laguerre, as an employee of the store in a statement to CNN Sunday evening.

    “The DG family mourns the loss of our colleague Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre, Jr., who, along with two of our customers, were the victims of senseless violence yesterday. We extend our deepest sympathies to their families and friends as we all try to comprehend this tragedy. There is no place for hate at Dollar General or in the communities we serve,” the company said.

    Residents of the Jacksonville community attend a prayer vigil for the victims Sunday.

    Jacksonville is processing the loss, said Florida State Sen. Tracie Davis, who represents the area of Jacksonville where the shooting happened.

    “I’m angry, I’m sad to realize we are in 2023 and as a Black person we are still hunted, because that’s what that was,” Davis told CNN. “That was someone planning and executing three people.”

    The attack coincided with the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, the iconic civil rights demonstration that called on the government to better protect the rights of Black people.

    “[T]his day of remembrance and commemoration ended with yet another American community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus and carried out with two firearms,” Biden said in a written statement.

    “Even as we continue searching for answers, we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America,” the president added. “We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.”

    Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday called on Congress to ban assault weapons and pass common sense gun safety legislation.

    “America is experiencing an epidemic of hate. Too many communities have been torn apart by hatred and violent extremism,” Harris said. “Too many families have lost children, parents, and grandparents. Too many Black Americans live every day with the fear that they will be victims of hate-fueled gun violence—at school, at work, at their place of worship, at the grocery store.”

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  • DeSantis leaves campaign trail and returns to Florida amid crises | CNN Politics

    DeSantis leaves campaign trail and returns to Florida amid crises | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    With a tropical storm intensifying in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida’s largest city reeling from a racially motivated attack that left three Black people dead, Gov. Ron DeSantis left the campaign trail Sunday and returned to his state to navigate the crises.

    DeSantis spoke Sunday afternoon from the state’s emergency operations center in Tallahassee to brace Florida’s gulf coast for Tropical Storm Idalia, which could make landfall as a hurricane as early as Wednesday.

    Before speaking on the storm, DeSantis read a statement addressing the attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. The White gunman, who DeSantis called “a deranged scumbag,” used racial slurs, left behind a racist screed and drew swastikas on his firearm, authorities said.

    “Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable,” DeSantis said. “And targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida.”

    Saturday’s tragedy and the looming potential for devastation from another storm will test how DeSantis balances his official duties with his political ambitions. The Republican has spent much of the past three months on the road as he seeks to win the GOP nomination over a large field of contenders, including former President Donald Trump, whose own response to disasters became fodder for Democrats at election time.

    DeSantis’ campaign did not immediately provide an update on his future political travel, but he told reporters Sunday that he was “locked in on this” storm and “we’re gonna get the job done.” DeSantis canceled a town hall scheduled for Monday morning in South Carolina, as well as his keynote address at South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan’s 12th annual Faith & Freedom BBQ. His wife, Casey, will attend in his place, campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin said in a statement on X.

    Asked where he planned to be this week, DeSantis responded: “I’m here. I am here.”

    DeSantis provided updates on Idalia’s trajectory as it gained strength between Cuba and Mexico. The storm has maximum sustained wind speeds of 40 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, and it could become a hurricane by Tuesday afternoon. DeSantis warned that the Gulf of Mexico, experiencing record warm sea surface temperatures, could quickly turn this storm more powerful.

    “Please just heed the warnings of your local officials (and) continue to watch the news,” he said.

    The remarks came during one of DeSantis’ first public appearances in his home state since he entered the race for president in May. He returned to Florida from Iowa, where he spent the weekend following the first Republican presidential primary debate touring the Hawkeye State for the fifth time in the last seven weeks. On Saturday evening, the governor’s office shared a video of DeSantis from Iowa condemning the violence as “totally unacceptable” and called the shooter “cowardly” for taking his own life.

    Until now, DeSantis has not felt the need to come back to Florida to publicly address a handful of other emergencies his administration has faced this summer, including outbreaks of leprosy and malaria, a deadly spree of flesh-eating bacteria, record-breaking temperatures off Florida’s shore that have threatened delicate coastal ecosystems and a teetering property insurance market.

    DeSantis’ return to Florida to manage two high-profile crises comes as he has intensified his criticism of President Joe Biden’s response to the Maui wildfires. Republicans have seized upon a five-day period of silence from when Biden first commented on the deadly fires to when he next spoke publicly about the devastation there.

    “Biden was on the beach while those people were suffering. He was asked about it and he said no comment. Are you kidding me?” DeSantis said at Wednesday’s GOP debate in Milwaukee. “As somebody that’s handled disasters in Florida, you’ve got to be activated. You’ve got to be there. You’ve got to be present. You’ve got to be helping people who are doing this.”

    DeSantis, though, has also faced blowback at home for his own handling of events that preceded the challenges he is now confronting upon arrival in Florida.

    Democrats have accused DeSantis of not speaking out forcefully enough against pervasive demonstrations of neo-Nazism in Florida. A string of antisemitic demonstrations have rocked Florida in recent years, especially in Jacksonville, where hateful messages were displayed in public, including a stadium during a Florida-Georgia college football game DeSantis attended.

    In January 2022, DeSantis lashed out at those who called on him to condemn neo-Nazi demonstrations that had taken place near Orlando, accusing his political opponents of trying to “smear me as if I had something to do with it.” During a visit to Israel this year, DeSantis signed a bill into law that prohibited antisemitic displays onto buildings.

    “Ron DeSantis repeatedly refused to condemn numerous Nazis rallys (sic) across Florida. Some even flew DeSantis flags alongside swastikas,” former state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith wrote on social media after Saturday’s deadly shooting.

    The Florida governor was interrupted by crowd members Sunday evening when he began to speak at a vigil for the Jacksonville shooting victims. As DeSantis was interrupted, Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman took the microphone and addressed the crowd, telling everyone to put parties aside.

    As for Idalia, storms often put Florida executives in a leadership crucible that test their responsiveness and ability to console during periods of tremendous devastation.

    DeSantis was elected in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, a powerful, destructive storm that ripped through the Florida panhandle. DeSantis as governor has overseen the recovery of the region, which is still ongoing.

    Last year, DeSantis commanded the state’s response to Hurricane Ian by holding regular news conferences that offered detailed and matter-of-fact updates on the logistics going into the rescue and recovery missions. He put aside his political rivalry with Biden during a joint appearance where the two assured local residents that their administrations were working in harmony.

    Ian’s destruction killed dozens of people who failed to leave their gulf coast homes in time, forcing DeSantis to defend the timing of evacuation orders from local officials and the efforts by his department of emergency management to warn people about the storm’s potential surge.

    Asked Sunday if Ian altered how the state prepares for evacuations, DeSantis again stood by the county response and said evacuation orders would continue to come from local officials.

    “That’s the way it’s always been,” he said. “That’s the way it’s going to be.”

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  • Vivek Ramaswamy has Iowa voters curious, but not yet committed, after standout debate | CNN Politics

    Vivek Ramaswamy has Iowa voters curious, but not yet committed, after standout debate | CNN Politics

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    Urbandale, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    At the conclusion of Vivek Ramaswamy’s second campaign stop here on Saturday – his sixth event out of eight over two days in Iowa – his staff rushed him towards their campaign bus. The businessman-turned-politician was late for a flight across the state to his next event. But as reporters and camera crews crowded the bus to see him off, Ramaswamy stopped and took time for questions.

    It was hardly a new occurrence. He’d held impromptu press availabilities after nearly every event on this tour up to that point. More striking was that, nearly 72 hours after playing a starring role in Wednesday’s heated and highly combative Republican primary debate, he was still taking stock of the defining moment of his campaign thus far.

    “I think it’s a major accomplishment that many people are able to pronounce my name now. That’s the true mark of a real milestone on this campaign,” Ramaswamy joked. “If we got there, anything’s possible.”

    Ramaswamy’s ascent from political unknown to attention-grabbing insurgent has been one of the most unexpected developments of the Republican primary so far. The only candidate in the race with no previous role in public life, he became a central figure in the first primary debate, standing in the middle of the stage and receiving sharp attacks from several Republican rivals after pre-debate nationwide polls of Republican voters put him in third place behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, who did not attend the event.

    For many voters in Iowa, the debate was their introduction to the 38-year-old candidate. Some told CNN they came away intrigued, if not entirely convinced, by his message.

    “I’m really intrigued by this new candidate. He’s very young, very personable. There’s a spark there,” Mara Brown, a retired teacher from Des Moines, Iowa, said.

    Brown considered herself a “dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter” heading into Wednesday night’s debate. But after seeing Ramaswamy speak, she said she’s giving his candidacy further consideration. She felt she was able to connect with Ramaswamy personally when he spoke and commended him for how he handled the barrage of attacks.

    “When it was dished out, he was able to very calmly and compassionately turn it around on the other candidates,” she said. “He is absolutely the biggest standout out of all the candidates.”

    Those who tuned in saw Ramaswamy’s policies and perspective under intense scrutiny from the other candidates on stage. Former Vice President Mike Pence called Ramaswamy a “rookie” and frequently emphasized his lack of experience in public office. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie poked at his verbose rhetorical style, comparing him to the ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool. Arguably the most piercing blow came from former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who forcefully attacked Ramaswamy’s polarizing proposals to amend US foreign policy toward Russia, China and the Middle East at the expense of Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel respectively.

    “Under your watch, you will make America less safe,” Haley said to Ramaswamy. “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”

    Yet despite being the subject of a deluge of criticisms, early indications show voters thought Ramaswamy made a strong impression. A survey of potential Republican primary voters who watched the debate conducted by The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos showed 26% of voters thought Ramaswamy won the debate, second highest behind DeSantis. Ramaswamy’s favorability ratings rose among voters who watched the debate compared to their views beforehand, but his unfavorability ratings rose, too. Still, the Ramaswamy campaign said it raised $600,000 in the day after the debate, the largest single-day total since its launch.

    After the debate concluded, Ramaswamy told CNN in the spin room that he viewed the critiques against him as an indicator of the strength of his campaign.

    “I took it as a badge of honor,” he said in Milwaukee on Wednesday. “To be at center stage and see a lot of establishment politicians that threatened by my rise, I am thrilled that it actually gave me an opportunity to introduce myself to the people of this country.”

    In his first campaign stops after the debate, Iowans packed into restaurants and event halls, looking to hear more about his vision for the country. Melissa Berry, a nurse from Winterset, Iowa, came to see Ramaswamy speak in her hometown because she’d never heard his views prior to the debate but liked what she saw in his performance. She said economic issues and safety were her two biggest concerns and connected with how Ramaswamy talked about those issues.

    “I feel like all the principles that he brings forth is what I support and there wasn’t anything that I really disagreed with,” Berry said. “I like what he stands for and he’s been very successful, and I felt like that can bring a lot to our country and help our country flourish.”

    Jake Chapman, Ramaswamy’s Iowa co-chair, said the candidate’s impassioned delivery and highly-charged message are creating a unique atmosphere at his recent campaign stops.

    “There is an energy level in these rooms where people come out of the room inspired and wanting to do something,” Chapman said. “It’s one thing to go hear a boring political speech. That’s not what you get with Vivek Ramaswamy.”

    These Iowa voters thought Republican debate had a clear winner. Hear who

    Ramaswamy’s recent rise in the polls was among the biggest storylines heading into Wednesday night’s debate. A former biotechnology CEO, he first stepped into politics when he found an investment management firm that specialized in “anti-woke” asset management and refused to consider environmental, social and corporate governance factors when investing. His wife, Apoorva, told The Atlantic magazine recently that Ramaswamy hadn’t mentioned running for political office until December 2022, when he floated the idea of running for president.

    When his campaign launched in February, many Republicans didn’t seriously consider the Ohio-based entrepreneur amid a wide field of possible presidential hopefuls. A Quinnipiac poll from March showed Ramaswamy with less than 1% support from Republicans and Republican-leaning voters nationally.

    But since then, Ramaswamy has catapulted himself from unknown outsider to center stage, largely through a combination of non-stop interviews and cross-country campaign travel mixed with a willingness to embrace and engage with ideas that fall outside the mainstream principles of many of his Republican rivals.

    Ahead of the debate, national Republican primary polling showed Ramaswamy as high as third behind Trump and DeSantis, but still lagging behind in support among Republicans in Iowa.

    Milt Van Grundy, a retired physician from Marshalltown, Iowa, started to seriously consider Ramaswamy after seeing him at the debate. His wife had been intrigued by him before Wednesday, but he said he liked hearing Ramaswamy propose a forward-looking vision for the country.

    “He’s offering a new way of trying to do business in Washington, DC, that I think is good for the country,” he said.

    Van Grundy voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but said Ramaswamy’s youth and Trump’s age have turned his head away from the former president, self-effacingly referencing his own age in explaining his thinking.

    “I’m 77, and I don’t want to be president,” he joked. “These guys that are 80 and up, not interested.”

    Ramaswamy has closely tied himself to Trump’s ideology, and, at times, to Trump himself. He has referred to the former president as a “friend” and credited him with redefining conservative thinking on a number of issues, from immigration and foreign policy to the federal bureaucracy. He has also gone further than any other candidate in defending Trump amid the multiple state and federal indictments he currently faces. Ahead of Trump’s arraignment hearing in Florida following the former president’s indictment for retaining classified documents, Ramaswamy held a news conference outside the courthouse where he pledged as president to fully pardon Trump and called on other candidates to do the same. During Wednesday’s debate, Ramaswamy praised Trump as “the best president of the 21st century.”

    When he does distance himself from Trump, he does so primarily to pitch himself as the candidate who can advance Trump’s agenda more successfully than the former president. Ramaswamy told reporters after speaking to a crowded restaurant in Indianola on Friday he believes his background – and Trump’s baggage – make him more likely to bring their overlapping worldview to a broader group of voters.

    “President Trump, through no fault of his own in my view, in large part is – when he’s in office, about 30% of this country loses their mind. They become psychiatrically ill, disagreeing with things they once agreed with, agreeing with things they never agreed with,” Ramaswamy said. “I’m not having that effect on people. I think it’s because I’m a member of a different generation, because I’m somebody who’s lived the American dream, because I speak about the country for what is possible for where we can go even though I do recognize the downward slide we’ve long been in.”

    “I think that positions me to not only unite the country, but to go further than Trump did with the America first agenda,” he added.

    Haloti Tukuafu grew up in Maui but moved to Clarion, Iowa, after his wife got a job nearby. He said he sees Ramaswamy as a “mini-Trump,” and likes that he’s reaching out to younger voters. He supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but currently he’s split between Trump and Ramaswamy and concerned the multiple indictments against Trump could negatively affect his chances of beating President Joe Biden.

    “Trump didn’t have the younger voters. Vivek has that connection with the younger crowd to bring in more in the Republican party than anybody else,” Tukuafu said.

    Despite their different faiths, Pam McCumber – a Christian from Newton, Iowa, who came to see Ramaswamy, a practicing Hindu, speak at a Pizza Ranch restaurant in her hometown – said she feels she can connect with the Ohio-based entrepreneur, and recognizes some characteristics of the former president in him.

    “He’s got the energy that Trump does, but then he’s also got the personality that most, I say, hometown Christians want. You know, don’t have to be worried about what he’s going to say next,” McCumber said.

    His willing alignment with Trump made Ramaswamy a focal point for many of his rivals even before the debate. A strategy and research memo released by a research firm aligned with the super PAC backing DeSantis urged the Florida governor to “hammer” Ramaswamy and outlined various contradictory statements he’s made on several issues. Haley tipped off her forthcoming attack on Ramaswamy’s foreign policy views with a statement ahead of the debate highlighting his proposal to withdraw aid from Israel. And Pence helped elevate a podcast interview Ramaswamy gave earlier this month where he suggested an openness to conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks, an issue that resurfaced just ahead of the debate when The Atlantic published an interview he gave questioning whether federal officials may have been involved in the attacks.

    The underlying criticisms made by his rivals have left lingering questions in the minds of some, including Gene Smith, a retiree from Des Moines. She and her husband, Terry, like Ramaswamy’s message, but she’s concerned his lack of government experience would make it difficult for him to execute his policy vision if he became president. She cited the pushback Trump received during his four years in office toward some of the policies he tried, but ultimately failed, to enact.

    “He’s never held political office, and it is truly a swamp in DC,” she said. “I think even Trump, who’s a very experienced person, was I think blindsided by it. I think when you get into politics you are blindsided by the corruption.”

    Gay Lee Wilson, a retiree from Pleasant Hill, Iowa, and a Christian, cares deeply about Israel, and was confused by Ramaswamy’s proposal to suspend aid to the US’ strongest ally in the Middle East, a proposal Ramaswamy has since backed away from.

    “That is a big deal for me. And I thought, well, maybe somebody’s misstating, misquoting him. But then he said it himself. But then he was saying, ‘no, that isn’t exactly –’ So, I don’t know where he stands,” Wilson said.

    To her, the questions about his policy toward Israel raise questions about his broader foreign policy judgment and his commitment to protecting Judeo-Christian values.

    “I think if his thought process is of backing away from our support of Israel, that I want to know why he’s thinking that. Because as a believer, I don’t think you would think that if you knew biblically, and if you knew world politics and everything, I think you would think differently about that,” she said.

    After Ramaswamy’s prepared remarks in Winterset, Iowa, Ramaswamy took a question from Cory Christensen, who had traveled a half hour from Waukee, Iowa, to hear him speak. He said he responded to almost everything Ramaswamy said at the event but had “one residual doubt” about his proposal to negotiate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that would see Russia take control of territory they currently occupy in Ukraine.

    “I’m hard pressed to believe that allowing Russia’s aggression to stand is in our American interests, so can you help me understand your policy?” Christensen asked.

    Ramaswamy proceeded to give a winding, intricate, nearly 10-minute long answer to Christensen’s question, touching on former President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy strategy, criticizing the US aid packages to Ukraine, warning of Chinese technology inside US critical infrastructure systems, and portraying the stark danger of a nuclear war with either Russia or China before ultimately laying out the details of his proposal to allow Russia to claim Ukrainian territory and receive assurance Ukraine would not join NATO in exchange for commitment from Russia to “exit its military alliance” with China.

    After the event, Christensen said he found Ramaswamy’s answer “persuasive.” He said he’s nearly ready to commit to caucusing for Ramaswamy and has already donated to his campaign but is holding out for now with the caucuses still over four months away.

    “I found it pretty persuasive,” Christensen said. “I’m not 100% of the way there yet, but well on the way.”

    Christensen said he much preferred to hear him speak in an unrestricted format like the event in Winterset, as opposed to hearing him at the debate, which left him with unanswered questions following his back-and-forth with Haley.

    “The tagline and attacking Nikki on you know, you’ve got your Raytheon board seat or whatever – that doesn’t help me. It didn’t help me at all. And I want to like him,” Christensen said.

    “I would have loved to see it in the debate, something, even if he condensed his argument here on Ukraine into like, five bullet points. I would rather see that than sort of just attacking her on ‘Hey, you’re just a part of the establishment,’ and those sort of superficial answers,’ he added.

    Ramaswamy acknowledged the downsides of being an inexperienced politician while speaking to reporters after an event in Clarion, Iowa, but also highlighted the benefits of approaching issues with a different perspective.

    “There’s always going to be tradeoffs, but with experience comes tiredness, defeat, status quo, biases, corruption. I don’t have any of that. And I think that that’s both an advantage and – and also, in some ways, you don’t know what you don’t know. So, I’ll admit that,” he said.

    The Ramaswamy campaign plans to continue visiting Iowa and answering voter questions like Christensen’s around the state, Chapman told CNN. He dismissed state polling that showed Ramaswamy lagging behind where he stands in the national polls and said Ramaswamy will continue to show up in towns around the state to carry his post-debate momentum forward.

    “We go from having 20 people in a room to now hitting max capacity of some of these rooms, and we’re going to continue to build that energy,” Chapman said.

    “I think here in Iowa, ultimately, we reward people who are willing to put in the hard work. And he’s willing to do that,” he added.

    Chapman says the campaign doesn’t plan on advancing Ramaswamy’s message in the state through television advertising any time soon, dismissing the traditional campaign strategy as a “short-lived tactic” that he believes only helps some candidates marginally.

    “You have career politicians that they believe they can buy elections. The more money they spend, they can get more votes, and sure, that has helped some of them here and there. But Iowans see right through that,” he said.

    Hillary Ferrer, a former teacher and writer from Pella, Iowa, said she really likes Ramaswamy’s ideas, but is concerned about his appeal to a mainstream audience and wants to support a candidate she sees as electable. She thinks more exposure to voters around the state could help him leapfrog DeSantis and Trump, but acknowledged one built-in disadvantage for Ramaswamy she encountered when spreading his message to her circle of friends.

    “I mean, he’s not lying. He’s got a hard name to say,” Ferrer said. “I couldn’t spell it out when I posted something today.”

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  • Why most of Trump’s Republican rivals won’t attack him | CNN Politics

    Why most of Trump’s Republican rivals won’t attack him | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Polls show Donald Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his nearest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, by about 40 points. You might think this would cause the former president’s GOP rivals to attack him in an attempt to eat into that support, which stands at north of 50% of the primary vote.

    Yet, most of his opponents seem hesitant, if not totally unwilling, to do so.

    A look at the numbers reveals why. Those who have gone after him have seen their popularity among Republican voters suffer, while those who have risen in primary polling are either mostly not mentioning Trump or are praising him.

    You needn’t look further than former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to understand what happens when a Republican candidate is highly critical of the former president. Christie is setting records for intraparty unpopularity.

    His net favorability rating in the latest Quinnipiac University poll stands at minus-44 points among Republicans. An astounding 61% of Republican voters hold an unfavorable view of him.

    Indeed, Christie has, if anything, become more unpopular as the presidential campaign has gone on.

    From what I can tell, he appears to have the lowest net favorability rating at this point in the cycle of any Republican running for president since at least 1980.

    This doesn’t mean that Christie does not have a base of support within the GOP. A New York Times/Siena College poll from July illustrates the point well.

    The former New Jersey governor led the Republican field (with 22%) among likely GOP primary voters who cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020. The problem is this group makes up less than 10% of the Republican primary electorate. Christie earned only about 1% support among the remaining 90-something percent.

    Christie’s not alone in his poor favorability ratings among Republican presidential candidates seen as anti-Trump.

    Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson – who has called on the GOP to move on from Trump – was the only presidential contender during the first GOP debate last week not to raise his hand when candidates onstage were asked if they would back the former president as the party nominee even if he were convicted in a court of law. (Christie raised his hand but later gestured with a pointed finger, saying that Trump’s conduct should not be normalized. The former president skipped the Milwaukee debate.)

    Prior to the debate, most Republicans (65%) hadn’t heard enough about Hutchinson to form an opinion, according to Quinnipiac. Those with an opinion viewed him unfavorably by more than a 3-to-1 ratio (26% unfavorable to 8% favorable, a net favorability rating of minus-18 points).

    Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, another Trump critic, didn’t make the debate stage, and the vast majority of Republicans (83%) haven’t heard enough of him to form an opinion. Among those who have, Hurd has a similar net favorability ratio to Hutchinson’s – 4% viewed him favorably and 11% unfavorably. This isn’t shocking given that Hurd has signaled he wouldn’t back Trump if the former president were the nominee.

    Other polling data confirms the dilemma facing Christie, Hutchinson and Hurd. Beyond the fact that Trump is consistently viewed favorably by about 80% of his party – and as “strongly favorable” by more than 50% – most Republicans simply don’t want Republicans making the case against Trump.

    A CBS News/YouGov poll taken prior to the GOP debate found that 91% of likely Republican primary voters wanted candidates to make their own case for the GOP nomination onstage. Just 9% wanted them to make the case against Trump.

    That 91% figure makes it clear why South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has been hesitant to attack other Republicans. He’s been seen as a happy warrior of sorts.

    As a result, Scott has gone up in the polls and is at a consistent third place in Iowa. His net favorability rating among Republicans in the latest Quinnipiac national poll was plus-41 points, with 49% holding a favorable view of him and 8% an unfavorable one.

    Scott has been a rare Republican to break through besides Trump and DeSantis.

    The other Republican to do so has been Vivek Ramaswamy. The Ohio businessman has been unrelenting in his praise of Trump, going so far as pledging to pardon the former president if elected to the White House should Trump be convicted of a crime in federal court.

    Ramaswamy was a top target at last week’s debate. That makes sense considering he is polling in third place on average nationally.

    His net favorability rating was at plus-30 points in the Quinnipiac poll. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans had a favorable view of him, eclipsed only by the 51% who couldn’t even form an opinion.

    Of course, the ultimate issue when it comes to going against Trump can perhaps best be seen in the CBS News poll. The former president’s supporters were asked about the truthfulness of what they hear from others. The vast majority of them (71%) felt that what Trump tells them is true – a higher percentage than those who said the same about friends and family (63%).

    Given that Trump is commanding a majority of the GOP vote, Republicans seen as too negative toward him aren’t likely to go anywhere in the primary.

    This leaves Trump’s GOP rivals with a conundrum that even Harry Houdini would find difficult to solve: how to eat away at Trump’s support without being seen as trying to bring him down.

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  • DeSantis said he would send Special Forces after the cartels in Mexico as president. Can he do that? | CNN Politics

    DeSantis said he would send Special Forces after the cartels in Mexico as president. Can he do that? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday reiterated his pledge to send US Special Forces into Mexico to confront drug cartels if he is elected president, saying, “We are going to act.”

    Speaking to reporters at Saturday’s first stop of the “Never Back Down” bus tour through Iowa, the Republican presidential hopeful said, “It’s humiliating to see the cartels have that type of control. They are effectively invading our country and killing our people.”

    The Florida governor first addressed the issue Wednesday night at the GOP presidential debate. When asked whether he would support sending Special Forces into Mexico, DeSantis answered clearly: “Yes, and I will do it on day one.”

    “The president of the United States has got to use all available powers as commander in chief to protect our country and to protect the people. So when they’re coming across, yes we’re going to use lethal force, yes we reserve the right to operate,” he said Wednesday. He later repeated that pledge in a tweet.

    DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin told CNN, “Ron DeSantis will declare a national emergency on day one, mobilize all military resources, declare the cartels to be narco-terrorists, and change the rules of engagement on the border. The full force of the federal government will be utilized to ensure that illegal drug flow is stopped, and he will bring to bear every tool he has to this end.”

    DeSantis is not the only Republican to call for military action against drug cartels. But while experts said frustration over the cartels in Mexico and their impact on Americans is valid, they warned that taking military action on the soil of the US’ southern neighbor could trigger a diplomatic crisis.

    Pressed about taking such action on another country’s soil, DeSantis on Saturday defended the idea, arguing that the cartels are bringing “death and destruction” to America.

    Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Brookings Institution’s Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors, explained that designating the cartels as a foreign terrorist organization would allow “for lethal action,” though that “doesn’t eliminate the diplomatic controversy and outrage in Mexico that any Mexican government would have.”

    Such a designation could have “major implications for trade,” Felbab-Brown said.

    “We can say what we want on our side – from the perspective of the Mexican government and Mexican military, that would be very much seen as a massive violation of sovereignty,” she said.

    Earl Anthony Wayne, a career diplomat who was the US ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015, echoed that sentiment, saying US military action in Mexico has been “an extremely sensitive issue” for years.

    “Doing this in the way that he sounded like he was going to do it would create a massive crisis with Mexico,” Wayne said of DeSantis’ comments. “Whoever’s in charge” of Mexico, even if it were someone with a good relationship with the US, “would be forced to take drastic action and close the borders or do other things.”

    As for the authority to deploy US forces in that way, Wayne said it would fall “under the same rubric of launching a military operation in any other country around the world.” And while presidents don’t always get approval from Congress before taking military action, they do have to contend with Congress afterward.

    “There would have to be a justification,” he said. “And Congress would raise questions – why didn’t you seek authority for this, what’s the emergency that set this off? I mean, if you wanted to do it without telling anybody and without working anything out with the government of Mexico, it would create a lot of uproar in the United States, as well as with Mexico.”

    Ezra Cohen, a fellow with the Hudson Institute who was an acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict in the Trump administration, said a president would “almost certainly” need to notify Congress after taking such an action.

    “Congress could pass a law prohibiting funding for such operations, but it would be hard for Congress to prevent this sort of activity,” he said.

    Cohen added, however, that the US is “out of options” in how to deal with the cartels because the Mexican government has proven to be “too corrupt and not strong enough to deal with this.”

    Both Wayne and Felbab-Brown agreed that the situation is dire but said the best path forward would be to find a way to work with the Mexican government. They acknowledged, however, that it has become increasingly difficult to do so.

    Felbab-Brown said that right now, “there is no cooperation” with the government, but there “are still officers, law enforcement officials, government officials who understand the narcos are taking over Mexico.” Taking military action, she said, would narrow options for future cooperation “tremendously.”

    “It’s not just that they are not cooperating with us; they are letting Mexico be eaten alive by the cartels,” Felbab-Brown said. “But, you know, lethal military action, certainly involving US soldiers … would be enormously challenging in terms of the optics and the bilateral relationship, and it would just sour even people who want to cooperate with the US. It would make it very difficult for them.”

    And military action, Wayne said, is not a serious idea to deal with what has become a “massive problem.”

    “These groups have grown and become powerful; they’re all mixed with the civilian population,” he said. “Give me a serious solution here. Don’t just make us all feel happy because you say you’re going to send the Special Forces in. … The point is to cut the flows off, it’s not just to kill a couple of cartel members in a small place where they put fentanyl together in a warehouse.”

    This story has been updated with new reporting.

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  • ‘Unprecedented’ wildfires across Louisiana force multiple evacuations amid extreme drought | CNN

    ‘Unprecedented’ wildfires across Louisiana force multiple evacuations amid extreme drought | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Louisiana has recorded an unprecedented 441 wildfires in August, forcing multiple southwestern towns to evacuate Thursday and the state to implement a burn ban.

    The state is experiencing severe heat and drought conditions. In an email to CNN, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry spokesperson Jennifer Finely said 441 fires have burned from August 1 to August 24.

    Finley said 8,385.73 acres have burned from August 1 to August 25, adding the number of acreage does not include the still-burning fire on Tiger Island, estimated to be more than 20,000 acres. “Tiger Island will not be known until it is out,” she said.

    As of Friday evening, there were at least six fires burning in Livingston, Sabine, Vernon and Beauregard Parishes.

    Gov. John Bel Edwards met with state and local officials Friday to assess the numerous wildfires burning throughout the state. At a Friday news conference in Beauregard Parish, where numerous communities are under mandatory evacuation, Edwards said officials are not dealing with one fire but fires all over the state “in a way that is very alarming.”

    According to CNN Weather, drought conditions have erupted quickly in southwest Louisiana, leaving 6% of the state in exceptional drought conditions. Nearly 50% of the state is in extreme conditions or worse. Around 77% of the state is in a severe drought or worse. In mid-July, there was no extreme drought in Louisiana.

    “Nobody alive in Louisiana has ever seen these conditions,” Edwards said. “It’s never been this hot, this dry, for this long.”

    “To have these fires burning the way they are and jumping fire lines, and when the wind picks up to have the fires burning in the crowns of trees rather than on the ground and low where they can be more easily contained, makes for a very difficult and dangerous situation,” the governor said.

    Edwards urged citizens to adhere to the statewide burn ban.

    “You should not be lighting a barbecue grill anywhere in the state of Louisiana today,” Edwards said.

    He added the National Guard is assisting in the efforts and the state has requested federal assistance and has looked to other states to help combat the flames.

    Speaking in Beauregard Parish, he governor said, “Louisiana National Guard has right at 100 soldiers active in this area in the firefight. They’re authorized to go up to 300 as they need to do that.”

    According to Edwards, as of Friday morning, helicopters have moved 348 loads of water, and close to 161,000 gallons have been dropped on the affected areas. No fatalities have been reported, the governor said.

    The Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order for the town of Merryville Thursday evening, saying the fire could reach the town limits within hours, according to Louisiana State Police. On Friday, the sheriff’s office issued further evacuation orders for Bancroft, the Ragle Road area, and the Junction community.

    “It is of the utmost importance to get out now,” the Beauregard Sheriff’s office urged in an order sent to Bancroft residents.

    Earlier Friday, the sheriff’s office said utilities had turned off services to the residents of Merryville. “All water should be conserved at all cost we need water to fight fires,” the agency said in a Facebook post.

    During a time of year when Louisiana is typically preparing for hurricanes and tropical storms, the state is instead dealing with a growing wildfire threat.

    Earlier this week there were almost 350 wildfires burning in the state, according to Mike Steele, communications director at the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Every parish in the state is under a red flag warning, according to the National Weather Service.

    State emergency operations centers were activated Wednesday morning to help battle the blazes.

    “This time, this year obviously we’re dealing with a different type of weather situation that requires everybody to be aware of the burn ban and to do their part to reduce the likelihood that we would have anything that could potentially start a fire,” the office’s director, Casey Tingle, said in a news conference Wednesday.

    Tingle says they’re stretching their resources thin as Louisiana has been under a burn ban since August 7.

    “When it comes to this time of year, typically, we’re talking about hurricanes, tropical storms, rain, flooding that sort of thing,” Tingle said, “Our public is very attuned to those type of messages and always does a great job of helping us as a state respond and recover from those events when they happen.”

    “We desperately need everyone’s help in adhering to this (burn ban) order,” he said.

    And there’s no relief in sight: The upcoming forecast for the area and the state is expected to be dry and hot, Tingle added.

    State Fire Marshal Deputy Chief Felicia Cooper also said: “This situation is dangerous for every single one of us.”

    The area of Beauregard Parish experiencing the wildfires is in severe to extreme drought. Around 77% of the state is experiencing some level of drought, which is up from 7% of the state just three months ago, according to CNN Weather.

    Lake Charles, around 40 miles southeast of Merryville, has seen temperatures over 100 degrees every day since August 18 and temperatures over 95 degrees since June 29.

    “Our state has never been this hot and dry and we have never had this many fires,” Edwards posted on social media Thursday. “We need you and your neighbors to help keep our communities and first responders safe. Adhere to the statewide burn ban. Don’t burn anything.”

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  • Savannah renames historic square after Black woman who taught emancipated slaves to read and write | CNN

    Savannah renames historic square after Black woman who taught emancipated slaves to read and write | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The city council of Savannah, Georgia, voted Thursday to rename a downtown square after Susie King Taylor, a Black woman who once taught slaves to read and write.

    The change marks the first time a Savannah square has been specifically named after a woman and a person of color.

    “It’s one thing to make history, it’s another thing to make sense, and in this case, we’re making both,” Savannah Mayor Van R. Johnson II said during Thursday’s city council meeting.

    Susie King Taylor was born to enslaved parents in 1848. She moved to Savannah when she was seven to live with her grandmother, who arranged for her to receive clandestine schooling due to Georgia’s severe restrictions on education, according to the Library of Congress.

    During the Civil War, she became an Army nurse and organized a school to teach emancipated slaves to read and write. She later opened more schools for Black students and wrote a memoir about her experience during the war as an African American woman.

    The town square that will now bear her name is a popular tourist attraction in Georgia’s oldest city in the state. The square was originally named after John C. Calhoun, a former vice president of the United States who owned slaves and defended the institution of slavery.

    “What he stood for is not what Savannah stands for,” Johnson said.

    The effort to change the square’s name began in 2021, according to the Coalition to Rename Calhoun Square. The council voted to rename the square last year and considered 300 name submissions before choosing Taylor.

    In 2020, a statue of Calhoun was removed from a square in Charleston, South Carolina. Clemson University also removed his name from its honors college, CNN previously reported. The university was built on Calhoun’s plantation.

    Johnson said the city will be installing signage not only about Taylor’s accomplishments but Calhoun’s history and the reason why his name was replaced.

    “It’s important that we don’t erase history, it’s important that people who come long after us understand the time that we are in today,” Johnson said.

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  • Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Additional interest rate hikes are still on the table and rates could remain elevated for longer than expected, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.

    Delivering a highly anticipated speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell again stressed that the Fed will pay close attention to economic growth and the state of the labor market when making policy decisions.

    “Although inflation has moved down from its peak — a welcome development — it remains too high,” Powell said. “We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.”

    The Fed chief’s annual presentation at the symposium, which has become a major event in the world of central banking, typically hints at what to expect from monetary policy in the coming months.

    Powell’s speech wasn’t a full-throated call for more rate hikes, but rather a balanced assessment of inflation’s evolution over the past year and the possible risks to the progress the Fed wants to see. He made it clear the central bank is retaining the option of more hikes, if necessary, and that what Fed officials ultimately decide will depend on data.

    US stocks opened higher before Powell’s speech, tumbled in late morning trading and then rose again.

    The Fed raised its benchmark lending rate by a quarter point in July to a range of 5.25-5.5%, the highest level in 22 years, following a pause in June. Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting showed that officials were concerned about the economy’s surprising strength keeping upward pressure on prices, suggesting more rate hikes if necessary. Some officials have said in recent speeches that the Fed can afford to keep rates steady, underscoring the intense debate among officials on what the Fed should do next.

    Financial markets still see an overwhelming chance the the Fed will decide to hold rates steady at its September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool, given that inflationary pressures have continued to wane.

    Here are some key takeaways from Powell’s speech.

    Chair Powell said there is still a risk that inflation won’t come down to the Fed’s 2% target as the central bank faces the proverbial last mile in its battle with higher prices.

    “Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy,” Powell said.

    Concerns over the economy running too hot for the Fed’s comfort only recently emerged.

    Economic growth in the second quarter picked up from the prior three-month period and the Atlanta Fed is currently estimating growth will accelerate even more in the third quarter.

    That could be a problem for the Fed, since the central bank’s primary mechanism for fighting inflation is by cooling the economy through tweaking the benchmark lending rate.

    Generally, if demand is red hot, employers will want to hire to meet that demand. But many firms continue to have difficulty hiring, according to business surveys from groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business. In theory, that could prompt wage increases in order to secure talent — and those higher costs could then be passed on to consumers.

    “if you’re a policymaker, you’re looking at the level of output relative to your estimate of what’s sustainable for maximum employment and 2% inflation,” William English, finance professor at Yale University who worked at the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2010 to 2015, told CNN. “So what does that mean for monetary policy? That may mean that they need rates to be higher for longer than they thought to get the economy on to that desirable trajectory, but there are a lot of questions around that force, and a lot of uncertainty.”

    Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester is one of the Fed officials backing a more aggressive stance on fighting inflation.

    “We’ve come come a long way, but we don’t want to be satisfied, because inflation remains too high — and we need to see more evidence to be assured that it’s coming down in a sustainable way and in a timely way,” Mester said in an interview with CNBC after Powell’s remarks.

    Meanwhile, some other officials think there will eventually be enough restraint on the economy and that more hikes could cause unnecessary economic damage. The lagged effects of rate hikes on the broader economy are a key uncertainty for officials, since it’s not clear when exactly those effects will fully take hold. Research suggests it takes at least a year.

    “We are in a restrictive stance in my view, and we’re putting pressure on the economy to slow inflation,” Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Bloomberg in an interview Friday after Powell’s speech. “What I’m hearing — and I’ve been around my district all summer talking to people — is ‘you’ve done a lot very quickly.’”

    Powell pointed to the steady progress on inflation in the past year: The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — rose 3% in June from a year earlier, down from the 3.8% rise in May. The Commerce Department officially releases July PCE figures next week, though Powell already previewed that report in his speech. He said the Fed’s favorite inflation measure rose 3.3% in the 12 months ended in July.

    The Consumer Price Index, another closely watched inflation measure, rose 3.2% in July, a faster pace than the 3% in June, though underlying price pressures continued to decelerate that month.

    In his speech Friday, Powell stood firmly by the Fed’s current 2% inflation target, which was formalized in 2012 — at least for now. The Fed is set to review its policy framework around 2025, which could be an opportunity to establish a new inflation target.

    Harvard economist Jason Furman said in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal this week that the central bank should aim for a different inflation goal, which could be something slightly higher than 2% or even a range of between 2% and 3%.

    For now, Powell has made it clear he is sticking with the stated inflation target.

    Still, inflation’s progress has hyped up not only American consumers and businesses, but also some Fed officials.

    Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee reiterated to CNBC Friday that he still sees “a path to a soft landing,” a scenario in which inflation falls down to target without a spike in unemployment or a recession.

    Powell also weighed in on an ongoing debate among economists about whether the “neutral rate of interest,” also known as r*, is higher since the economy is still on strong footing despite the Fed’s aggressive pace of rate hikes.

    In theory, the neutral rate is when real interest rates neither restrict nor stimulate growth. The Fed chair said higher interest rates are likely pulling on the economy’s reins, implying that r* might not be structurally higher, though he said it’s an unobservable concept.

    “We see the current stance of policy as restrictive, putting downward pressure on economic activity, hiring, and inflation. But we cannot identify with certainty the neutral rate of interest, and thus there is always uncertainty about the precise level of monetary policy restraint,” Powell said.

    Either way, while the Fed chief hinted that more rate hikes might be coming down the pike, there’s no guarantee either way.

    The Fed paused its historic inflation fight for the first time in June, mostly based on uncertainty over how the spring’s bank stresses would affect lending. The central bank could decide to pause again in September over uncertainty as it waits for more data.

    “We think that the Fed is more likely to take a wait-and-see approach with the data and try to understand a little bit more about why the labor market is remaining so strong, even despite the inflationary experience that we’ve had and the higher interest rates in the economy,” Sinead Colton Grant, head of investor solutions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, told CNN in an interview.

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  • Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics

    Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential candidates delivered a smattering of false and misleading claims at the first debate of the 2024 election – though none of the eight candidates on stage in Milwaukee delivered anything close to the bombardment of false statements that typically characterized the debate performances of former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner who skipped the Wednesday event.

    Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina inaccurately described the state of the economy in early 2021 and repeated a long-ago-debunked false claim about the Biden-era Justice Department. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie misstated the sentence attached to a gun law relevant to the investigation into the president’s son Hunter Biden. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis misled about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, omitting mention of his early pandemic restrictions.

    Below is a fact check of those claims and various others from the debate, some of which left out key context. In addition, below is a brief fact check of some of Trump’s claims from a pre-taped interview he did with Tucker Carlson, which was posted online shortly before the debate aired. Trump made a variety of statements that were not true.

    DeSantis and the pandemic

    DeSantis criticized the federal government for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming it had locked down the economy, and then said: “In Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, and we kept our state free and open.”

    Facts First: DeSantis’s claim is misleading at best. Before he became a vocal opponent of pandemic restrictions, DeSantis imposed significant restrictions on individuals, businesses and other entities in Florida in March 2020 and April 2020; some of them extended months later into 2020. He did then open up the state, with a gradual phased approach, but he did not keep it open from the start.

    DeSantis received criticism in March 2020 for what some critics perceived as a lax approach to the pandemic, which intensified as Florida beaches were packed during Spring Break. But that month and the month following, DeSantis issued a series of major restrictions. For example, DeSantis:

    • Closed Florida’s schools, first with a short-term closure in March 2020 and then, in April 2020, with a shutdown through the end of the school year. (In June 2020, he announced a plan for schools to reopen for the next school year that began in August. By October 2020, he was publicly denouncing school closures, calling them a major mistake and saying all the information hadn’t been available that March.)
    • On March 14, 2020, announced a ban on most visits to nursing homes. (He lifted the ban in September 2020.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered bars and nightclubs to close for 30 days and restaurants to operate at half-capacity. (He later approved a phased reopening plan that took effect in May 2020, then issued an order in September 2020 allowing these establishments to operate at full capacity.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered gatherings on public beaches to be limited to a maximum of 10 people staying at least six feet apart, then, three days later, ordered a shutdown of public beaches in two populous counties, Broward and Palm Beach. (He permitted those counties’ beaches to reopen by the last half of May.)
    • On March 20, 2020, prohibited “any medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency” medical procedures. (The prohibition was lifted in early May 2020.)
    • On March 23, 2020, ordered that anyone flying to Florida from an area with “substantial community spread” of the virus, “to include the New York Tri-State Area (Connecticut, New Jersey and New York),” isolate or quarantine for 14 days or the duration of their stay in Florida, whichever was shorter, or face possible jail time or a fine. Later that week, he added Louisiana to the list. (He lifted the Louisiana restriction in June 2020 and the rest in August 2020.)
    • On April 3, 2020, imposed a statewide stay-home order that temporarily required people in Florida to “limit their movements and personal interactions outside of their home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities.” (Beginning in May 2020, the state switched to a phased reopening plan that, for months, included major restrictions on the operations of businesses and other entities; DeSantis described it at the time as a “very slow and methodical approach” to reopening.)

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

    Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for this.”

    Facts First: Haley’s figure is accurate. The total public debt stood at about $19.9 trillion on the day Trump took office in 2017 and then increased by about $7.8 trillion over Trump’s four years, to about $27.8 trillion on the day he left office in 2021.

    It’s worth noting, however, that the increase in the debt during any president’s tenure is not the fault of that president alone. A significant amount of spending under any president is the result of decisions made by their predecessors – such as the creation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid decades ago – and by circumstances out of a president’s control, notably including the global Covid-19 pandemic under Trump; the debt spiked in 2020 after Trump approved trillions in emergency pandemic relief spending that Congress had passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

    Still, Trump did choose to approve that spending. And his 2017 tax cuts, unanimously opposed by congressional Democrats, were another major contributor to the debt spike.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Katie Lobosco

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum claimed that Biden’s signature climate bill costs $1.2 trillion dollars and is “just subsidizing China.”

    Facts First: This claim needs context. The clean energy pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act – Democrats’ climate bill – passed with an initial price tag of nearly $370 billion. However, since that bill is made up of tax incentives, that price tag could go up depending on how many consumers take advantage of tax credits to buy electric vehicles and put solar panels on their homes, and how many businesses use the subsidies to install new utility scale wind and solar in the United States.

    Burgum’s figure comes from a Goldman Sachs report, which estimated the IRA could provide $1.2 trillion in clean energy tax incentives by 2032 – about a decade from now.

    On Burgum’s claim that Biden’s clean energy agenda will be a boon to China, the IRA was specifically written to move the manufacturing supply chain for clean energy technology like solar panels and EV batteries away from China and to the United States.

    In the year since it was passed, the IRA has spurred 83 new or expanded manufacturing facilities in the US, and close to 30,000 new clean energy manufacturing jobs, according to a tally from trade group American Clean Power.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    With the economy as one of the main topics on the forefront of voters’ minds, Scott aimed to make a case for Republican policies, misleadingly suggesting they left the US economy in record shape before Biden took office.

    “There is no doubt that during the Trump administration, when we were dealing with the COVID virus, we spent more money,” Scott said. “But here’s what happened at the end of our time in the majority: we had low unemployment, record low unemployment, 3.5% for the majority of the population, and a 70-year low for women. African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians had an all-time low.”

    Facts First: This is false. Scott’s claims don’t accurately reflect the state of the US economy at the end of the Republican majority in the Senate. And in some cases, his exaggerations echo what Trump himself frequently touted about the economy under his leadership.

    By the time Trump left office and the Republicans lost the Senate majority in January 2021, US unemployment was not at a record low. The US unemployment rate dropped to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.5% in September 2019, the country’s lowest in 50 years. While it hovered around that level for five months, Scott’s assertion ignores the coronavirus pandemic-induced economic destruction that followed. In April 2020, the unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% — the highest level since monthly records began in 1948. As of December 2020, the unemployment rate was at 6.7%.

    Nor was the unemployment rate for women at a 70-year low by the end of Trump’s time in office. It reached a 66-year low during certain months of 2019, at 3.4% in April and 3.6% in August, but by December 2020, unemployment for women was at 6.7%.

    The unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were also not at all-time lows at the end of 2020, but they did reach record lows during Trump’s tenure as president.

    -From CNN’s Tara Subramaniam

    Scott said that the Justice Department under President Joe Biden is targeting “parents that show up at school board meetings. They are called, under this DOJ, they’re called domestic terrorists.”

    Facts First: It is false that the Justice Department referred to parents as domestic terrorists. The claim has been debunked several times – during the uproar at school boards over Covid-19 restrictions and anti-racism curriculums; after Kevin McCarthy claimed Republicans would investigate Merrick Garland with a majority in the House; and even by a federal judge. The Justice Department never called parents terrorists for attending or wanting to attend school board meetings.

    The claim stems from a 2021 letter from The National School Boards Associations asking the Justice Department to “deal with” the uptick in threats against education officials and saying that “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials” could be classified as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” In response, Garland released a memo encouraging federal and local authorities to work together against the harassment campaigns levied at schools, but never endorsed the “domestic terrorism” notion.

    A federal judge even threw out a lawsuit over the accusation, ruling that Garland’s memo did little more than announce a “series of measures” that directed federal authorities to address increasing threats targeting school board members, teachers and other school employees.

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, said the US is spending “less than three and a half percent of our defense budget” on Ukraine aid, and that in terms of financial aid relative to GDP, “11 of the European countries have given more than the US.”

    Facts First: This is partly true. Haley’s claim regarding the US aid to Ukraine compared to the total defense budget is slightly under the actual percentage, but it is accurate that 11 European countries have given more aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their total GDP than the US.

    As of August 14, the US has committed more than $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to the Defense Department. In comparison, the Fiscal Year 2023 defense budget was $858 billion – making aid to Ukraine just over 5% of the total US defense budget.

    As of May 2023, according to a Council of Foreign Relations tracker, 11 countries were providing a higher share in aid to Ukraine relative to their GDP than the US – led by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the Trump administration “spent funding to backfill on the military cuts of the Obama administration.”

    Facts First: This is misleading. While military spending decreased under the Obama administration, it was largely due to the 2011 Budget Control Act, which received Republican support and resulted in automatic spending cuts to the defense budget.

    Mike Pence, a senator at the time, voted in favor of the Budget Control Act.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Christie said President Biden’s son Hunter Biden was “facing a 10-year mandatory minimum” for lying on a federal form when he purchased a gun in 2018.

    Facts First: Christie, a former federal prosecutor, clearly misstated the law. This crime can lead to a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but it doesn’t have a 10-year mandatory minimum.

    These comments are related to the highly scrutinized Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden, which is currently ongoing after a plea deal fell apart earlier this summer.

    As part of the now-defunct deal, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter into a “diversion agreement” with prosecutors, who would drop the gun possession charge in two years if he consistently stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.

    The law in question makes it a crime to purchase a firearm while using or addicted to illegal drugs. Hunter Biden has acknowledged struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time, and admitted at a court hearing and in court papers that he violated this law by signing the form.

    The US Sentencing Commission says, “The statutory maximum penalty for the offense is ten years of imprisonment.” There isn’t a mandatory 10-year punishment, as Christie claimed.

    During his answer, Christie also criticized the Justice Department for agreeing to a deal in June where Hunter Biden could avoid prosecution on the felony gun offense. That deal was negotiated by special counsel David Weiss, who was first appointed to the Justice Department by former President Donald Trump.

    -From CNN’s Marshall Cohen

    Burgum and Scott got into a back and forth over IRS staffing with Burgum saying that the “Biden administration wanted to put 87,000 people in the IRS,” and Scott suggesting they “fire the 87,000 IRS agents.”

    Facts First: This figure needs context.

    The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year without any Republican votes, authorized $80 billion in new funding for the IRS to be delivered over the course of a decade.

    The 87,000 figure comes from a 2021 Treasury report that estimated the IRS could hire 86,852 full-time employees with a nearly $80 billion investment over 10 years.

    While the funding may well allow for the hiring of tens of thousands of IRS employees over time, far from all of these employees will be IRS agents conducting audits and investigations.

    Many other employees will be hired for the non-agent roles, from customer service to information technology, that make up most of the IRS workforce. And a significant number of the hires are expected to fill the vacant posts left by retirements and other attrition, not take newly created positions.

    The IRS has not said precisely how many new “agents” will be hired with the funding. But it is already clear that the total won’t approach 87,000. And it’s worth noting that the IRS may not receive all of the $80 billion after Republicans were able to claw back $20 billion of the new funding as part of a deal to address the debt ceiling made earlier this year.

    -From CNN’s Katie Lobosco

    Trump repeated a frequent claim during his interview with Carlson that streamed during the GOP debate that his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House was “covered” under the Presidential Records Act and that he is “allowed to do exactly that.”

    Facts First: This is false. The Presidential Records Act says the exact opposite – that the moment presidents leave office, all presidential records are to be turned over to the federal government. Keeping documents at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency concluded was in clear contravention of that law.

    According to the Presidential Records Act, “upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.”

    The sentence makes clear that a president has no authority to keep documents after leaving the White House.

    The National Archives even released a statement refuting the notion that Trump’s retention of documents was covered by the Presidential Records Act, writing in a June news release that “the PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations.”

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    While discussing electric vehicles, Trump claimed that California “is in a big brownout because their grid is a disaster,” adding that the state’s ambitious electric vehicle goals won’t work with the grid in such shape.

    Facts First: Trump’s claim that California’s grid is currently in a “big brownout” and is a “disaster” isn’t true. California’s grid suffered rolling blackouts in 2020, but it has performed quite well in the face of extreme heat this summer, owing in large part to a massive influx of renewable energy including battery storage. These big batteries keep energy from wind and solar running when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining. (Batteries are also being deployed at a rapid rate in Texas, a red state.)

    Another reason California’s grid has stayed stable this year even during extreme temperature spikes is the fact that a deluge of snow and rain this winter and spring has refilled reservoirs that generate electricity using hydropower.

    As Trump insinuated, there are real questions about how well the state’s grid will hold up as California’s drivers shift to electric vehicles by the millions by 2035 – the same year it will phase out selling new gas-powered cars. California state officials say they are preparing by adding new capacity to the grid and urging more people to charge their vehicles overnight and during times of the day when fewer people are using energy. But independent experts say the state needs to exponentially increase its clean energy while also building out huge amounts of new EV chargers to achieve its goals.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    Trump and the border wall

    Trump claimed to Carlson, “I had the strongest border in the history of our country, and I built almost 500 miles of wall. You know, they’d like to say, ‘Oh, was it less?’ No, I built 500 miles. In fact, if you check with the authorities on the border, we built almost 500 miles of wall.”

    Facts First: This needs context. Trump and his critics are talking about different things when they use different figures for how much border wall was built during his presidency. Trump is referring to all of the wall built on the southern border during his administration, even in areas that already had some sort of barrier before. His critics are only counting the Trump-era wall that was built in parts of the border that did not have any previous barrier.

    A total of 458 miles of southern border wall was built under Trump, according to a federal report written two days after Trump left office and obtained by CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. That is 52 miles of “primary” wall built where no barriers previously existed, plus 33 miles of “secondary” wall that was built in spots where no barriers previously existed, plus another 373 miles of primary and secondary wall that was built to replace previous barriers the federal government says had become “dilapidated and/or outdated.”

    Some of Trump’s rival candidates, such DeSantis and Christie, have used figures around 50 miles while criticizing Trump for failing to finish the wall – counting only the primary wall built where no barriers previously existed.

    While some Trump critics have scoffed at the replacement wall, the Trump-era construction was generally much more formidable than the older barriers it replaced, which were often designed to deter vehicles rather than people on foot. Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff tweeted in 2020: “As someone who has spent a lot of time lately in the shadow of the border wall, I need to puncture this notion that ‘replacement’ sections are ‘not new.’ There is really no comparison between vehicle barriers made from old rail ties and 30-foot bollards.”

    Ideally, both Trump and his opponents would be clearer about what they are talking about: Trump that he is including replacement barriers, his opponents that they are excluding those barriers.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

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  • First on CNN: Burgum suffered high-grade Achilles tear playing basketball, throwing debate participation into question | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Burgum suffered high-grade Achilles tear playing basketball, throwing debate participation into question | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    North Dakota governor and Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum suffered a high-grade tear of his Achilles tendon while playing a game of pick-up basketball with his staff Tuesday, requiring him to be on crutches, according to a source familiar with the situation.

    Burgum, 67, will attend the candidates’ walk-through of the debate event site Wednesday afternoon and then decide whether he’s physically able to participate in the debate itself, the source said.

    Burgum is focused on the debate, the Republican Party’s first of this primary season, and understands that as much as he’d like to participate, he would have to walk on stage and stand behind a podium for two hours, the source said.

    “He is a total cowboy and isn’t phased by injuries and pain. His disposition is focused and tough. We’re going to see what happens at the walk-through and throughout the day,” the source told CNN. The governor is a lifelong athlete and is familiar with sports injuries, the source added.

    Other candidates have privately reached out to ask how he’s doing, according to the source. Republican Sen. Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy posted on social media wishing the governor well.

    Burgum is one of the eight candidates in the debate lineup. The event will air on Fox News at 9 p.m. ET.

    The GOP governor, a wealthy former software executive, has described himself as the least-known contender on Wednesday night’s stage. He said Sunday on NBC that he’ll have succeeded in the debate “if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we’re about and why we’re running.”

    He reached the Republican National Committee’s 40,000-unique-donors threshold to qualify for the debate stage in July – he attracted donors by giving away gift cards worth $20 in exchange for $1 donations. He later met the polling requirements and signed the pledge to back the eventual GOP presidential nominee, both also required by the RNC to participate in Wednesday night’s debate.

    Burgum, who is currently serving his second term as North Dakota governor, announced in June his run for president in 2024 with considerably less name recognition than others vying for the GOP nomination. His campaign is primarily focused on the economy, energy and national security.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • 8 candidates qualify for first 2024 Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

    8 candidates qualify for first 2024 Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Eight Republicans have qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate Wednesday night, the Republican National Committee announced Monday evening.

    The list includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

    Former President Donald Trump – the clear front-runner in national and early state polls – has said he would skip the debate in Milwaukee and called on his rivals to drop out.

    To make the first debate stage, the RNC required candidates to draw at least 40,000 individual donors and register at least 1% support in three national polls or in two national and two early state polls that met the RNC’s criteria. The candidates were also required to sign a pledge to back the eventual winner of the GOP primary, no matter who it is. It’s not clear whether Trump, like those who will be onstage Wednesday, has signed that pledge.

    “The RNC is excited to showcase our diverse candidate field and the conservative vision to beat Joe Biden on the debate stage Wednesday night,” RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in Monday night’s statement.

    Here’s a look at who’s in and who’s out of the first GOP debate of the 2024 presidential primary.

    Ron DeSantis

    The Florida governor could wear the biggest target Wednesday night, as the top-polling candidate onstage in Trump’s absence. DeSantis has downsized and reshuffled his campaign in recent weeks after failing to make progress toward unseating Trump as the GOP’s standard-bearer in the primary’s early months. His turn in the national spotlight Wednesday could become a turning point in the party’s primary – either launching DeSantis forward or displacing him as the top Trump alternative.

    Vivek Ramaswamy

    The tech entrepreneur posted a video of himself shirtless, practicing tennis, on Monday in a tweet he described as his debate prep. He has also made appearances on the sorts of liberal media programs that many Republican contenders skip, such as a podcast with HBO host Bill Maher. A memo by a pro-DeSantis super PAC made public last week advised the Florida governor to attack Ramaswamy, an indication of the 38-year-old’s rise in the race.

    Mike Pence

    The former vice president faced more difficulties than some of his rivals in reaching the 40,000 donor threshold but did so with two weeks to spare. He suggested he had looked forward to a showdown with his former ticket mate. Criticizing Trump’s decision to skip the debate, Pence said Sunday on ABC News that every candidate who qualified “ought to be on the stage willing to square off and answer those tough questions.”

    Nikki Haley

    The former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump offered a glimpse of how Republicans onstage could be more focused on chipping away at their lower-polling rivals’ support than on taking on Trump directly. On Monday, she criticized Ramaswamy, saying on social media that “his foreign policies have a common theme: they make America less safe.”

    Tim Scott

    The South Carolina senator has sought to offer a more positive contrast to rivals such as Trump and DeSantis – and he could be on a collision course with the Florida governor as they vie to become the top choice of those seeking to move on from the former president.

    Chris Christie

    The former New Jersey governor is perhaps the biggest wild card on Wednesday night’s stage. As a presidential contender in 2016, he all but ended Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes in a debate when he relentlessly mocked the Florida senator for delivering a “memorized 25-second speech.” Christie has positioned himself as a fierce Trump critic, but he won’t get a head-to-head showdown with Trump skipping the debate.

    Doug Burgum

    The North Dakota governor, who attracted donors with a gift-card scheme – $20 in exchange for $1 donations – has described himself as the least-known contender on Wednesday night’s stage. He said Sunday on NBC that he’ll have succeeded in the debate “if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we’re about and why we’re running.”

    Asa Hutchinson

    The former Arkansas governor has also positioned himself as a Trump critic. He previously complained about the RNC’s loyalty pledge requirement but told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Sunday that he was signing the pledge because he was “confident that Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee.”

    Donald Trump

    The former president made official Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social what he’d hinted at for months: He is skipping the first debate. Trump pointed to his sizable leads in Republican primary polls and said Americans are already familiar with his record after four years in the White House.

    Still, Trump’s campaign is attempting to seize some of the spotlight in Milwaukee. The former president has taped an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that is expected to be used as counterprogramming during the debate.

    Perry Johnson

    The Michigan businessman fell short of the RNC’s polling requirements despite a series of unusual schemes his campaign employed to rack up the minimum 40,000 donors necessary to qualify. It sold “I Stand with Tucker” T-shirts defending the former Fox News host after his firing. It also offered tickets to a concert by country duo Big & Rich to anyone who donated. And it handed out $10 gas cards to anyone willing to make a $1 contribution.

    Perry insisted after the RNC announced the debate participants that he had met the committee’s qualification requirements. “The debate process has been corrupted, plain and simple,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Francis Suarez

    The Miami mayor, who had told Fox News it was “critical” for his 2024 chances to qualify for the debate, said he had exceeded the donor threshold, but he did not meet the RNC’s polling requirements. Suarez said in a statement Tuesday that he was “sorry” the event would not include his “perspectives,” but that he respects “the rules and process set forth by the RNC.”

    His absence could be a break for DeSantis, who has faced sharp criticism from his fellow Florida Republican.

    Will Hurd

    The former Texas congressman is one of the most outspoken Trump critics in the race – and has faced backlash for it, such as when he was booed at the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner in July after telling the Des Moines crowd that the former president was “running to stay out of prison.”

    Hurd on Tuesday criticized the RNC for its “unacceptable process” for determining the debate participants. He accused the committee of disregarding polls that included independents and Democrats who would have backed a Republican candidate. He previously said he wouldn’t sign the RNC pledge, but he appeared to have shifted his position last week when he said he was “confident” he would be onstage in Milwaukee.

    Larry Elder

    The conservative California talk radio host, who was the leading GOP candidate in the state’s 2021 gubernatorial recall, has sharply criticized the RNC’s debate qualification requirements. He said Tuesday on X that he intended sue the RNC to “halt” Wednesday’s proceedings, asserting that officials were “afraid of having my voice on the debate stage.”

    Elder had attempted to meet the 40,000 donor threshold with a radio blitz Monday, but, according to CNN’s count, was also short of the polling requirements.

    Ryan Binkley

    The little-known Texas pastor and entrepreneur got a spot in the Iowa GOP Lincoln Dinner’s speaking lineup. He tweeted Sunday that he had more than 45,000 donors. But he has not made waves in primary polling.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Grandson of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, says ‘we’re in the final chapter’ in health update | CNN Politics

    Grandson of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, says ‘we’re in the final chapter’ in health update | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The grandson of former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter said “it’s clear we’re in the final chapter” in an interview with People published Saturday.

    Jimmy Carter, 98, entered hospice care in February. The former president beat brain cancer in 2015 but faced a series of health scares in 2019, and consequentially underwent surgery to remove pressure on his brain.

    Family and caregivers have been the only recent visitors to the Carters’ Georgia home, Josh Carter told People. But “there’s always somebody at the house” to keep the Carters company, he said.

    CNN reached out to The Carter Center for comment on Saturday but did not receive a response.

    “He’s still fully Jimmy Carter,” Josh Carter said of his grandfather. “I mean he’s almost 99 years old, but he fully understands (how many well wishes he’s received) and has felt the love.”

    Meanwhile, Josh Carter said his grandmother Rosalynn Carter, who has dementia, is cognizant of her diagnosis and even signed off on the May press release in which it was announced.

    “She still knows who we are, for the most part – that we are family,” Josh Carter said. “My grandmother is still able to form new memories.”

    Although the grandson of the former president told People it’s “gotta be hard” for Jimmy Carter to see his wife lose some of her memories, he noted that “they’ve experienced everything that you can together. I think the beautiful thing is that they are still together.”

    “They are still holding hands … it’s just amazing,” Josh Carter added.

    Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married for 77 years and are the longest-married presidential couple. Together, the Carters have redefined the role of former first family. In his post-presidency years, Carter founded The Carter Center along with his wife, Rosalynn, in hopes of advancing world peace and health. The center has worked to advance democracy by monitoring foreign elections and reducing diseases in developing countries over the years.

    Jimmy Carter has been a longtime volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. He also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to push for peace across the globe.

    A peanut farmer and US Navy lieutenant before going into politics, Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, eventually served one term as governor of Georgia and was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

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  • Thousands scramble to evacuate capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories as more than 200 ‘unprecedented’ wildfires blanket region | CNN

    Thousands scramble to evacuate capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories as more than 200 ‘unprecedented’ wildfires blanket region | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Thousands of residents are rushing to evacuate the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories as more than 200 fires burn, leaving many to face dangerous road conditions or stand in line for hours for desperately needed emergency flights. Evacuations were also under way in British Columbia.

    The Northwest Territories capital Yellowknife – home to about 20,000 – and several other Northwest Territories communities have been ordered to evacuate as crews battle 236 active wildfires, and a massive fire creeps toward the city and a major highway.

    The infernos in the Northwest Territories are among more than 1,000 fires burning across Canada as the country endures its worst fire season on record. Smoke from the fires has drifted into the US, bringing harmful pollution and worsening air quality.

    A little rain was possible but strong northwest and west-northwest winds could push the fire to the outskirts of Yellowknife by the weekend, according to a Facebook post from a government fire-monitoring account.

    At a Friday news briefing, Canadian leaders pledged no one would be left behind during the unprecedented evacuation from Yellowknife and getting residents out safely would continue through the weekend.

    “We’ll continue to focus on helping the most vulnerable and will be there for as long as it takes,” Defense Minister Bill Blair said.

    While most were encouraged to leave via the only road out of the community, as many as 5,000 residents had requested flights out of the city.

    Smoke continues to shroud Yellowknife, as it has for weeks, but an unpredictable wind and a raging fire, now about 10 miles from Yellowknife, forced officials to order a complete evacuation.

    However, federal officials said they were confident they could continue to protect the majority of the community from fire damage and are working on building fire breaks by clearing trees and applying fire retardant.

    In West Kelowna, officials confirmed several structures were lost in the fire, including many homes. However, officials said there were no reports of loss of life despite descriptions of harrowing rescues.

    The Canadian Armed Forces are assisting with firefighting and airlifting efforts in the Northwest Territories. The Royal Canadian Air Force has deployed several planes and helicopters to support regional emergency crews.

    The first CAF aircraft, a CC-130 J Hercules, conducted an evacuation flight Thursday and transported 79 passengers to Edmonton, the CAF said. Additional flights are scheduled for Friday.

    Incoming and outgoing commercial flights at airports in the Northwest Territories have been canceled because of the wildfires. Commercial flights in and out of Yellowknife Airport will stop after the last flight departs on Friday evening, according to an update on the government website.

    Evacuation flights will still be able to operate out of the airport as well as medical evacuations, firefighting and military-related flights, the government site said.

    More than 1,000 people were flown out of Yellowknife on emergency flights Thursday, and close to an additional 2,000 seats were available Friday, territory officials said in an online update. Many hoping to fly out Thursday stood for hours in a winding, slow-moving line only to be told they would need to try again on Friday, CNN partner CBC reports.

    People line up in Yellowknife to register for an evactuation flight on August 17.

    “We understand that this is deeply frustrating for those who have been in line for several hours and who will need to line up again tomorrow,” the territory update said. It added people who are immunocompromised, have mobility issues or have other high-risk conditions were moved up in the line.

    Officials are encouraging people to leave by car, if possible, and carpool to reduce traffic and assist those without vehicles.

    “Evacuation flights should be used as a last resort for those who do not have the option to evacuate by road,” territory officials said.

    But some driving out of the area have faced thick smoke and roadways flanked with flames. Yellowknife resident Ruoy Pineda told CNN he and his family struggled to navigate through the heavy haze after the evacuation order was announced Wednesday.

    “We were not actually fully prepared,” Pineda said. “On the road, we were all scared of what we saw ahead of us, but we keep reminding ourselves it is better to be out than stranded.”

    Pineda described the dangerous road conditions as he and others tried to flee the capital.

    “On the road you could see the fire and we were struggling because of the smoke,” he said. “The visibility on the road was very bad. We couldn’t even see if someone was ahead of us.”

    He and his family were still on the road Thursday morning and were headed to seek shelter in Edmonton, about 900 miles to the south.

    “We are very exhausted right now. We’ve barely slept and are very worried about our house in Yellowknife and if we’ll still have a home,” Pineda said.

    People line up outside a school to be evacuated in Yellowknife.

    Fires in Canada have burned more than six times more land this year when compared to the 10-year annual average, according to data from the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.

    There have been more fires in Canada this year than compared to the 10-year average, with a 128% difference. Yet the fires appear to be spreading much wider than before, and so far this year, more than 13 million hectares have been burned – an area larger than Pennsylvania.

    The data, current as of August 9, show the 10-year average of area burned to date sits at just over 2 million hectares.

    British Columbia evacuates thousands

    Approximately 4,500 people are under evacuation orders in British Columbia due to threats from wildfires, Canadian officials said in a press conference Friday.

    “People who choose to ignore evacuation orders put themselves and emergency personnel at risk,” said Bowinn Ma, the province’s Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness.

    Another 23,500 people in British Columbia are under evacuation alerts, which means they must be prepared to evacuate immediately if an order is issued, Ma said.

    Some fires have reached over 400 feet tall and are moving “faster than we can effectively put firefighting resources on them,” said Cliff Chapman, director of provincial operations for BC Wildfire Service.

    “There is very little that response tactics can do with these winds and that type of fire behavior,” Chapman said.

    The McDougall Creek fire near West Kelowna has experienced “significant growth” in the past 12 hours and currently spans more than 6,000 hectares, he said.

    Kelowna International Airport closed to commercial flights to allow space for fire fighting activity to take place, according to a news release from the airport.

    British Columbia has more than 360 active fires – more than any other Canadian province, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The forecast winds and lightning may cause fires to move and grow quickly, officials have warned. Chapman said that lightning has been the primary cause of new fires.

    Nearly 60 evacuation orders were in effect across the province Thursday, the British Columbia Wildfire Service said.

    Among the displaced are residents of at least 4,800 properties who were ordered to evacuate in the province’s West Kelowna area on Wednesday and Thursday as the McDougall Creek fire advanced, local emergency officials announced.

    A state of emergency has been declared in Kelowna, as crews are combating spot fires coming from across the Central Okanagan Lake, stemming from the McDougall Creek fire, according to a news release Friday.

    Video taken by resident Todd Ramsay shows a lake rimmed by large hills engulfed in a wall of fire.

    “Absolutely devastating,” Ramsay said of the devastation in a Facebook post. “The fire jumped the lake and was right behind our house.”

    Ramsay said he was eventually able to evacuate to safety.

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  • Trump reacts to Georgia indictment for first time on camera: ‘I have four of them now’ | CNN Politics

    Trump reacts to Georgia indictment for first time on camera: ‘I have four of them now’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump on Thursday reacted for the first time on camera to the Georgia indictment that accuses him of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election, dismissing the criminal charges as a “witch hunt” and a “horrible thing for the country.”

    “I have four of them now, if you look. I mean, this is not even possible,” Trump said on Fox Business. “Four, over the next, last couple of months. And frankly, it discredits everything. And they’re all very similar in the sense that they’re, there’s no basis for them.”

    The former president also called on members of his party “to be tough,” saying that “the Republicans are great in many ways, but they don’t fight as hard for this stuff. And they have to get a lot tougher. And if they don’t they’re not going to have much of a Republican Party.”

    After the 41-count Georgia indictment was unsealed Monday, Trump railed against the state charges on social media and announced plans to hold a “news conference” regarding his baseless claims of election fraud.

    Thursday evening, however, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the event was “no longer necessary” because his legal team would present the evidence to support his claims in court.

    In a post, Trump said, “Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment by a publicity & campaign finance seeking D.A., who sadly presides over a record breaking Murder & Violent Crime area, Atlanta. Therefore, the News Conference is no longer necessary!”

    Earlier Thursday, multiple sources familiar with the planning told CNN that the “news conference” was unlikely to go forward in any substantive capacity, if it were to happen at all.

    Trump had informed a few of his advisers about the press event he announced for Monday at 11 a.m. at his Bedminster golf club. In the days since that post, Trump has been advised against holding one and cautioned that it could complicate his ongoing legal issues, one person told CNN.

    Trump has made false claims about election fraud for nearly three years without proof. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have both reiterated the election there was not “stolen.”

    The former president’s comments about holding a “news conference” caught several members of his team off guard as his legal team focused on the details of his required surrender at a jailhouse in Georgia by next Friday. Liz Harrington, an aide to Trump, had prepared a report but it remains to be seen whether that document will still be released next week.

    Harrington has been a serial promoter of lies about the 2020 election, as CNN has reported.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Dual citizen of France and Canada who mailed ricin to Trump sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison | CNN Politics

    Dual citizen of France and Canada who mailed ricin to Trump sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A dual citizen of France and Canada who sent letters containing homemade ricin to then-President Donald Trump and eight Texas law enforcement officials was sentenced Thursday to nearly 22 years in prison.

    Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier sent threatening letters containing the poison in September 2020, according to the federal plea agreement filed earlier this year.

    According to the agreement, Ferrier made ricin at her home in Quebec, Canada, and put the poison in letters addressed to Trump at the White House and the Texas officials.

    US District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich sentenced Ferrier to 262 months in prison and imposed a lifetime sentence of supervised release. As part of the sentence, Ferrier will be permanently deported from the US after she completes her prison term.

    Ferrier, who appeared at the hearing in an orange prison jumpsuit and sporting a short haircut, at one point addressed the court, reading a winding statement in which she expressed no remorse for her actions and instead cast herself as a “peaceful person.”

    “I consider myself to be an activist, not a terrorist,” she said. “Activists are constructive, terrorists are destructive.”

    “The only regret I have is that it didn’t work and that I couldn’t stop Trump,” Ferrier said.

    In considering the sentencing guidelines for Ferrier’s offenses, Friedrich had to take into account prosecutors’ argument that the defendant’s conduct “involved, or was intended to promote, a federal crime of terrorism,” which would allow the judge to add additional time to the prison term.

    “There is absolutely no place for politically motivated violence in the United States of America,” assistant US attorney Michael Friedman told Friedrich.

    The judge agreed. “This was potentially deadly,” Friedrich told Ferrier. “It’s harmful to you, harmful to society, harmful to the potential victims.”

    The letters included references to a “special gift” and said that, “If it doesn’t work, I will find a better recipe for another poison,” according to the plea agreement. In several letters, Ferrier wrote that she “might use my gun when I will be able to come.”

    In her letter to Trump, Ferrier wrote, “You ruin USA and lead them to disaster. I have US cousins, then I don’t want the next 4 years with you as President. Give up and remove your application for this election!”

    Ferrier had previously been detained in Texas for several weeks in 2019 and chose to send letters containing ricin to law enforcement officials she thought were involved in her detention, the agreement says.

    After sending the letters from Canada, Ferrier was arrested when trying to cross the border into the US with a loaded gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and several other weapons, according to the department.

    Ferrier told border officials that she was wanted by the FBI for the letters, the agreement says.

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  • Trump surrender in Georgia case expected next week, source says | CNN Politics

    Trump surrender in Georgia case expected next week, source says | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Negotiations between Donald Trump’s lawyers and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office over the details of his surrender are expected to continue into next week, a source with knowledge of the talks tells CNN.

    This means the former president’s surrender is expected next week – not Thursday or Friday – before the August 25 deadline.

    CNN previously reported on Wednesday that talks were underway between Trump’s team and Willis’ prosecutors.

    The Fulton County sheriff has said that all 19 defendants in the case, including Trump, are expected to surrender at the Fulton County jail, as is common procedure.

    The former president’s surrender and arraignment will look different in Georgia than in his previous three criminal cases.

    Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has previously suggested he wants to treat these defendants the same as any other defendant would be treated, which means they would have mugshots taken and be fingerprinted. However, the authorities in Fulton County will need to coordinate with the Secret Service and Trump’s attorneys about the logistics of the former president’s surrender.

    The initial court appearance for Trump and other defendants is expected to be set by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who has been assigned to the historic case.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Texas woman charged with threatening to kill judge overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case | CNN Politics

    Texas woman charged with threatening to kill judge overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A Texas woman has been charged with threatening in a voicemail to kill the federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

    Abigail Jo Shry called the chambers of Judge Tanya Chutkan on August 5, and left a voicemail message threatening to “kill anyone who went after former President Trump,” according to a criminal complaint.

    The death threats also allegedly included racist comment against Chutkan, who is Black. Prosecutors said in court filings that Shry called the judge a “stupid slave n***er” in the voicemail.

    Shry is charged with Transmission in Interstate or Foreign Commerce of any Communication Containing a Threat to Injure the Person of Another. She is being held in detention pending trial, according to court documents, and a bond hearing has been set for September 13.

    “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b*tch,” Shry said in the message, according to the complaint. “You are in our sights, we want to kill you.”

    Investigators said in the complaint that Shry continued her threats in the recording, saying: “You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”

    On August 8, Shry admitted to Department of Homeland Security special agents that she made the call to Chutkan’s chambers but that she “had no plans to travel to Washington, DC or Houston to carry out anything she stated,” the complaint said.

    CNN has reached out to the public defender’s office in Houston that is representing Shry.

    CNN has also reached out to a representative for Chutkan. As previously reported, security for the district judge had been increased in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.

    Shry, according to the complaint, also made “a direct threat to kill Congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee, all democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community.”

    CNN has reached out to the office of the Texas Democrat for comment.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Rudy Giuliani made desperate appeal to Trump to pay his legal bills in Mar-a-Lago meeting | CNN Politics

    Rudy Giuliani made desperate appeal to Trump to pay his legal bills in Mar-a-Lago meeting | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    With his attorney in tow, Rudy Giuliani traveled to Mar-a-Lago in recent months on a mission to make a personal and desperate appeal to former President Donald Trump to pay his legal bills. By going in person, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, Giuliani and his lawyer Robert Costello believed they could explain face-to-face why Trump needed to assist his former attorney with his ballooning legal bills.

    Giuliani and Costello traveled to Florida in late April where they had two meetings with Trump to discuss Giuliani’s seven-figure legal fees, making several pitches about how paying Giuliani’s bills was ultimately in Trump’s best interest.

    But the former president, who is notoriously strict about dipping into his own coffers, didn’t seem very interested. After Costello made his pitch, Trump verbally agreed to help with some of Giuliani’s legal bills without committing to any specific amount or timeline.

    Trump also agreed to stop by two fundraisers for Giuliani, a separate source said.

    Another source told CNN that Trump only agreed to cover a small fee from a data vendor hosting Giuliani’s records. And months later, Trump’s Save America PAC paid $340,000 to that vendor, Trustpoint, federal campaign filings show. CNN has now confirmed the payment was intended to settle Giuliani’s outstanding bill with the company.

    Another attorney for Giuliani referenced that payment in court Wednesday, telling a New York state judge at a hearing that the former New York mayor does not have the money to pay additional legal costs to produce the records in a defamation lawsuit brought by voting technology company Smartmatic, claiming financial hardship.

    The attorney also referenced the one-time payment from Trump’s Save America PAC, and a source confirmed Giuliani has not received any additional payments since then. (Smartmatic has sued Giuliani over the 2020 election lies he peddled on Fox News and other right-wing networks.)

    Giuliani’s trip to Mar-a-Lago, which has not been previously reported, indicates the level of financial stress that he has been facing for months, as his legal troubles have continued to pile up.

    But what has surprised those in Trump’s inner circle is the former president’s unwillingness to pay for Giuliani’s bills, given Giuliani could find himself under intense pressure to cooperate with the federal and state prosecutors who have charged Trump. Giuliani sat down voluntarily with special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators this summer, and he was indicted this week in Georgia by the Fulton County district attorney.

    “It’s not a smart idea” for Trump to refuse to pay Giuliani’s legal fees, one person close to the situation told CNN, referencing how Trump’s relationship with Michael Cohen famously deteriorated while he was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

    CNN reported on Tuesday that Giuliani is staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits tied to his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

    His attorneys have said in court that these legal quagmires have left him effectively out of cash and that he “cannot afford” a potentially $15,000 to $23,000 bill to pay for more discovery-related document searches. He even appears to have responded to some of the money crunch by listing for sale a three-bedroom Manhattan apartment he owns for $6.5 million.

    At the Wednesday court hearing in the Smartmatic case, Giuliani attorney Adam Katz said, “These are a lot of bills that he’s not paying. I think this is very humbling for Mr. Giuliani.”

    The Georgia charges against Giuliani – 13 in all – includes violations of the state anti-racketeering law, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiracy to commit forgery, and making false statements.

    He has said in post-indictment interviews that the charges are an “affront to American Democracy” that will create “irrevocable harm to our justice system.”

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  • Bernie Sanders Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Bernie Sanders Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of US Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and former 2020 presidential candidate.

    Birth date: September 8, 1941

    Birth place: Brooklyn, New York

    Birth name: Bernard Sanders

    Father: Eli Sanders, paint salesman

    Mother: Dorothy (Glassberg) Sanders

    Marriages: Jane (O’Meara) Sanders (1988-present); Deborah (Shiling) Messing (married and divorced in the 1960s)

    Children: With Susan Mott: Levi; stepchildren with Jane (O’Meara) Sanders: Heather, Carina, David

    Education: Attended Brooklyn College, 1959-1960; University of Chicago, B.A. in political science, 1964

    Religion: Jewish, though he has told the Washington Post he is “not actively involved with organized religion”

    Although independent in the US Senate, Sanders has run as a Democrat in his two bids for the presidential nomination, in 2016 and 2020.

    His father’s family died in the Holocaust.

    During the 1960s, he spent half a year on a kibbutz in Israel.

    Was a member of the Young People’s Socialist League while at the University of Chicago.

    The longest serving independent member of Congress in American history.

    Sanders applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.

    Nominated for a Grammy Award but did not win.

    August 28, 1963 – Attends the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

    1972, 1976, 1986 – Unsuccessful bids for governor of Vermont.

    1972, 1974 – Unsuccessful bids for the US Senate.

    1981 – Wins the race for mayor of Burlington, Vermont, by 10 votes, running as an independent.

    1981-1989 – Mayor of Burlington for four terms.

    1988 – Unsuccessful bid for the US House of Representatives.

    1990 – Wins a seat on the US House of Representatives by about 16% of the vote.

    1991-2007 – Serves eight terms in the US House of Representatives.

    1991 – Co-founds the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

    2006 – Wins a seat on the US Senate with 65% of the vote.

    January 4, 2007-present – Serves in the US Senate.

    December 10, 2010 – Holds a filibuster for more than eight hours against the reinstatement of tax cuts formulated during the administration of President George W. Bush. The speech is published in book form in 2011 as “The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class.”

    2012 – Wins reelection for a second term in the US Senate. Receives 71% of the vote.

    2013-2015 – Serves as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

    April 30, 2015 – Announces his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in an email to supporters and media.

    May 1, 2015 – Sanders’ campaign raises more than $1.5 million in its first 24 hours.

    January 17, 2016 – Sanders unveils his $1.38 trillion per year “Medicare-for-All” health care plan.

    February 9, 2016 – Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary, claiming victory with 60% of the vote. He’s the first Jewish politician to win a presidential nominating contest.

    July 12, 2016 – Endorses Hillary Clinton for president.

    August 21, 2017 – Sanders pens a commentary article in Fortune magazine outlining his health care proposal “Medicare-for-all.”

    November 28, 2017 – Is nominated, along with actor Mark Ruffalo, for a Grammy in the Spoken Word category for “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.”

    February 26, 2018 – Sanders’ son, Levi Sanders, announces he is running for Congress in New Hampshire. He later loses his bid in the Democratic primary.

    November 6, 2018 – Wins reelection to the US Senate for a third term with more than 67% of the vote.

    January 2, 2019 – The New York Times reports that several women who worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign had come forward alleging they had experienced sexual harassment, pay disparities and targeted disrespect by campaign members. Sanders immediately responds to the allegations, claiming that he was not aware of any of the claims and apologizes to “any woman who feels like she was not treated appropriately.”

    February 19, 2019 – Announces that he is running for president during an interview with Vermont Public Radio.

    February 20, 2019 – According to his campaign, Sanders raises nearly $6 million in the first 24 hours following the launch of his 2020 presidential bid.

    March 15, 2019 – Sanders’ presidential campaign staff unionizes, making it the first major party presidential campaign to employ a formally organized workforce.

    August 22, 2019 – Sanders unveils his $16.3 trillion Green New Deal plan.

    October 1, 2019 – After experiencing chest discomfort at a campaign rally, Sanders undergoes treatment to address blockage in an artery. He has two stents successfully inserted.

    October 4, 2019 – The Sanders campaign releases a statement that he has been discharged from the hospital after being treated for a heart attack. “After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work,” Sanders says in the statement.

    February 3, 2020 – The Iowa Democratic caucuses take place, but the process descends into chaos due to poor planning by the state party, a faulty app that was supposed to calculate results and an overwhelmed call center. That uncertainty leads to delayed results and a drawn-out process with both Sanders’ and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns raising concerns.

    February 27, 2020 – Sanders’ presidential campaign challenges the results of the Iowa caucuses partial recount just hours after the state’s Democratic Party releases its results. In a complaint sent to the Iowa Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee, the Sanders campaign claims the state party violated its own rules by allowing the Buttigieg campaign to partake in the process because they didn’t meet the proper requirements.

    February 29, 2020 – The Iowa Democratic Party certifies the results from the state’s caucuses, with Sanders coming in second behind Buttigieg and picking up 12 pledged delegates to Buttigieg’s 14. The certification by the party’s State Central Committee includes a 26-14, vote, saying the party violated its rules by complying with the Buttigieg campaign’s partial recanvass and recount requests.

    April 8, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    April 13, 2020 – Endorses former Vice President Joe Biden for president.

    January 28, 2021 – Sanders raises $1.8 million for charity through the sale of merchandise inspired by the viral photo of him and his mittens on Inauguration Day.

    June 20, 2023 – Launches a Senate investigation into working and safety conditions at Amazon warehouses.

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