9/15: Face the Nation

It Sure Sounds Like Trump Thinks JD Vance Is Going to Lose the Debate to Tim Walz

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Donald Trump has preemptively declared that Tuesday night’s VP debate will be “rigged” against JD Vance, a baseless claim that he has made before every debate during this election cycle. Which doesn’t say much about his confidence in his running mate!

In a Fox Nation interview that was, for some reason, conducted by former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, the ex-president said that he would personally “love to have two or three more debates” against Kamala Harris but “they’re so rigged and so stacked. You’ll see it tomorrow with JD. It’ll be stacked.”

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There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that any of the debates that Trump has participated in have been rigged against him, nor any evidence that tonight’s proceedings will be “stacked” against Vance. Rather, Trump has made these claims about previous debates because he’s incapable of admitting when he’s lost. Following his debate last month versus Harris, the former president whined about being fact-checked by the moderators and declared “everybody at ABC” should be fired. He also absurdly floated the idea that Harris received the debate questions ahead of time (which ABC News denied) and that her earrings were actually listening devices, saying, “I hear she got the questions, and I also heard she had something in the ear.”

At the same time, Trump also embarrassingly claimed he “won” the event, when he quite obviously did not. That probably had something to do with the fact that he spent the debate bragging about his relationship with right-wing authoritarians; refused to admit he lost the election; claimed—for not the first time—that Democrats think it’s okay to “execute” babies; rambled incoherently about “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison”; and now famously declared, of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio: “They’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats.”

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Bess Levin

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October 1, 2024

Vice-Presidential Debate Between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance: All the Details

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Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris may not debate again before Election Day, but their running mates certainly will. On Tuesday night, CBS News will host the one and only vice-presidential debate between Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz, and things are bound to get heated — if not weird — between the two Midwesterners. It might even be the first time in American history that two vice-presidential candidates debate the pros and cons of pet cats. Here’s what to know.

When is the debate?

The vice-presidential debate will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 1, live from the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan. It’s expected to last 90 minutes with two four-minute commercial breaks.

Where can I watch the debate on TV?

It will be broadcast on CBS, as well as simulcast on numerous other networks, including PBS, NBC, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, MSNBC, and more.

How can I stream the debate online?

The debate will be live-streamed on CBS News’ YouTube channel, CBS News 24/7, Paramount+, C-SPAN, and multiple other sites.

Who is moderating?

CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan will moderate.

Will the candidates’ mics be muted?

The candidates’ microphones will remain on by default — but CBS says it reserves the right to turn them off if needed.

Will the candidates’ statements be fact-checked?

CBS says the moderators won’t be focused on live fact-checking what the candidates say, but it is embedding a QR code, the New York Times points out:

A QR code — the checkerboard-like, black-and-white box that can be scanned by a smartphone — will appear onscreen for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Viewers who scan the code will be directed to the CBS News website, where a squad of about 20 CBS journalists will post fact-checks of the candidates’ remarks in real time. The code will appear only on CBS; viewers who tune in on a different channel will not see it.

Will there be a studio audience?

No. As at this year’s two presidential debates, there will be no live studio audience.

What are the other debate rules?

Per CBS News:

• The topics and questions will not be provided to the candidates in advance, and only the moderators are allowed to ask questions.

• There will be no opening statements, but each candidate will be able to give a two-minute closing statement. After winning a coin toss, Vance elected to deliver his closing statement last.

• The candidates will be given two minutes to answer each question, one minute for rebuttals, and, potentially, one minute each for follow-ups at the moderators’ discretion.

• The candidates will not be allowed to interact with their campaign staff during the two commercial breaks.

• Vance and Walz will be standing at identical lecterns with Walz on the left side of the stage and Vance on the right.

• Props and pre-written notes are forbidden. Each candidate will be given a blank notepad, a pen, and a bottle of water.

CBS just shared this pic of the VP debate stage: pic.twitter.com/Po31B0h4Wz

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 30, 2024

Do vice-presidential debates matter?

Not very much, typically, but it’s at least possible this VP debate could. Unless Harris and Trump both agree to another debate, this will be the last time the campaigns face off directly on prime-time television. It’s a very close race, so swaying even a small number of voters in a key battleground state could make a real difference. And these two particular vice-presidential candidates have each made a surprising amount of national news in recent months. If the past year in politics has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.

Will Walz or Vance wear a secret earpiece, use AI contact lenses, or be subject to hostile stage lighting?

It’s 2024, so there will undoubtedly be some wild conspiracy theories circulating online soon after the debate, suggesting that one of the candidates was given some unfair advantage via technical wizardry and/or partisan spycraft. It was rigged, someone always says, while pointing to some elaborate subterfuge. But please exercise healthy skepticism when encountering such theories, particularly if shared by a certain very online billionaire.

This post has been updated.

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Chas Danner

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September 30, 2024

What are Tim Walz’s economic policies? Here’s a look at what he’s done in Minnesota.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz may be best known for his Midwestern roots, having grown up in Nebraska and spent years as a public school teacher and football coach in Minnesota. But voters will get a chance during his debate Tuesday with vice presidential rival Sen. JD Vance on CBS to hear more about Walz’s views on taxes and the economy, a critical issue in the November election.

With polls pointing to a tight 2024 presidential race, the share of voters who describe the economy as good has inched up, helping lift support for the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz. Yet almost 6 in 10 voters describe the economy as “bad,” CBS News polling shows, with the economy ranking as the most important issue among likely voters.

Already, Walz’s approach toward economic issues is visible through his actions as governor of Minnesota, a job he’s held since 2019 and where he is now serving his second term. His policies have included enacting the largest state Child Tax Credit in the nation and enacting free school meals for the state’s K-12 students, while raising taxes on high earners in the state to help pay for those and other social programs.

Walz’s track record with taxes

Walz “has added to the progressivity of Minnesota’s tax code,” noted Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a left-leaning think tank. “Having a system like Minnesota’s, where you ask more of folks at the top, that type of progressive system makes it a whole lot easier to pay for spending on side initiatives like free school lunch.”

The taxes and social programs that Walz signed into law in Minnesota echo some of the plans that the Harris-Walz ticket have so far rolled out, including a more generous federal Child Tax Credit and plans to increase taxes on higher earners and corporations.

“The parallels are pretty obvious” between Walz’s track record in Minnesota and the Harris-Walz national campaign, Davis said.

Minnesota’s Child Tax Credit

A number of states enacted or expanded a Child Tax Credit following the pandemic, when the federal government boosted the national CTC to as much as $3,600 per child. That bigger benefit was credited with helping reduce child poverty to historic lows, but when that enhanced CTC expired in 2022, child poverty rates surged.

That prompted some states, including Minnesota, to explore enacting their own CTCs, ITEP’s Davis noted.

Minnesota’s CTC of $1,750 per child is the most generous state child tax credit in the U.S., according to the Tax Policy Center, a tax-focused think tank. Walz touted it as “the best child tax credit in the country” and encouraged Minnesota parents to file their taxes in order to claim the benefit.

Vance, meanwhile, has proposed expanding the federal CTC to $5,000, but Republican lawmakers earlier this year blocked a modest expansion in the tax benefit. Vance didn’t vote on the failed Senate bill to provide a bigger CTC to low-income families, as he wasn’t present for the vote. He told “Face the Nation” in August that the vote was for “show” and destined to fail, regardless of the direction of his vote.

The debate on Tuesday is likely to pit Walz’s ideas for how to help families afford the rising cost of living against Vance’s economic views, which aside from expanding the CTC have included criticizing Democrats as “anti-family.”

Lowering Social Security taxes

Walz has also sought to help Minnesota residents on the other end of the age spectrum — retirees. As part of the state’s 2023 tax bill, Walz eliminated Minnesota income taxes on Social Security benefits for three-quarters of beneficiaries.

Under the Minnesota law, couples with annual income of less than $100,000 and single filers earning less than $78,000 are now exempted from state taxes on their Social Security checks.

Scrapping taxes on Social Security benefits has also been proposed by former President Donald Trump, who earlier this year vowed to eliminate federal income tax on the monthly government payments. About 40% of the nation’s 67 million Social Security recipients earn enough from their benefits to owe taxes to the IRS.

But there’s one major difference between the dueling proposals: Walz paid for his cuts to Social Security taxes — as well as the CTC — by raising taxes on higher-income households, according to the Tax Policy Center. Trump and Vance, meanwhile, have indicated they want to lower taxes on corporations and renew the tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, which gave the most generous tax cuts to higher earners.

Walz accomplished his tax cuts for families and seniors by limiting the amount of standard or itemized deductions that high-income filers could claim, as well as reducing a deduction for dividend income and creating a surtax on capital gains income, the Tax Policy Center notes.

How does Minnesota’s economy compare?

Minnesota’s gross domestic product has expanded about 5% since 2018, when Walz was elected governor, according to the Minnesota Compass, a data site created by Wilder Research, a Minnesota-focused research group that focuses on topics such as homelessness and public health.

Since the height of the pandemic, when employers cut workers across the nation, Minnesota has regained its lost jobs and is now back to where it was before the health emergency, its data shows.

How Tim Walz, JD Vance are preparing to debate

02:56

Minnesotans also earn more than the typical American worker, with median income in the state of $85,000 in 2023, compared with about $78,000 nationally, Minnesota Compass found. To be sure, Minnesota residents’ incomes have paced ahead of the U.S. median for at least three decades, long predating Walz’s election, the data shows.

The state ranks highly for doing business, with one recent study from business news site CNBC ranking it No. 6 among the 50 U.S. states based on a number of criteria, including competitiveness, workforce, infrastructure, economy, quality of life and business friendliness.

A number of businesses have recently planned expansions or investments in Minnesota, including a $5 billion expansion from the Mayo Clinic and a historic $525 million investment from Polar Semiconductor.

The state’s relatively strong economy also helped generate enough tax revenues to provide surpluses at the start of the 2019 and 2021 budget cycles, as well as an enormous $17.6 billion budget surplus for 2023. The latter helped the state fund the ambitious social programs signed into law by Walz, which include free school meals for children.

—With reporting by the Associated Press.

Aimee Picchi

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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September 30, 2024

CBS News says it will be up to Vance and Walz to fact-check each other in veep debate

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NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News, hosting vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz for the general election campaign’s third debate next week, says it will be up to the politicians — not the moderators — to check the facts of their opponents.

The 90-minute debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan studio that once hosted the children’s program “Captain Kangaroo,” will be moderated by the outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.

Tim Walz and JD Vance meet for their first vice presidential debate:

During ABC’s debate between presidential contenders Kamala Harris and Donald Trump earlier this month, network moderators on four occasions pointed out inaccurate statements by Trump, and none by Harris. That infuriated the former president and his supporters, who complained it was unfair.

Last spring, CNN moderators did not question any facts presented by Trump and President Joe Biden in the debate where Biden’s poor performance eventually led to him dropping out of the race.

On Friday, CBS said the onus will be on Vance and Walz to point out misstatements by the other, and that “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. The network said its own misinformation unit, CBS News Confirmed, will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on its live blog and on social media, and on the air during post-debate analysis.

With its plans, CBS News is clearly indicating it wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to misleading statements by candidates. Some argue that offstage fact-checking is too little, too late and not seen by many people who watch the event.

It’s not the first time

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said she has seen examples of moderators who have successfully encouraged candidates to keep their opponents honest.

“I’ll be interested in seeing how this works in practice,” she said. “Having said that, you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”

During the ABC debate, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis corrected Trump statements on abortion, the 2020 election, crime statistics and reports that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.

Unlike the two presidential debates, the two sides agreed that the vice presidential candidates’ microphones will not be turned off while their opponent is speaking, increasing the chance for genuine back-and-forth exchanges and the risk that the two men will talk over each other. CBS says it reserves the right to shut off a “hot mic” when necessary. Each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement, with Vance winning a virtual coin toss and choosing to get the last word.

The stakes are high for CBS News

It’s a big moment for CBS News, long mired in third place in the evening news ratings. O’Donnell just announced she was stepping down from the role. Brennan is considered a rising star.

Like with the presidential debates, CBS is making its feed available for other networks to televise, and many are expected to take advantage of the opportunity.

There will be no audience when Vance and Walz meet at a West Side studio that, in its past, has hosted editions of “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “Inside the NFL,” “Geraldo” and “Captain Kangaroo.”

It’s not known whether there will be other opportunities to see Trump and Harris together on the same stage before the Nov. 5 election. Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for another debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has rejected it. In a poll taken by Quinnipiac University and released earlier this week, likely voters said by roughly a two-to-one margin that they’d like them face off again.

CBS’ “60 Minutes” is looking to land both Harris and Trump for back-to-back interviews that will air on Oct. 7, but neither candidate has committed to it yet.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

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September 28, 2024

FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made during the second night of the Democratic National Convention

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The second night of the Democratic National Convention was filled with excitement as a celebratory roll call marked Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination to be the party’s candidate for president. As speaker after speaker addressed the convention extolling her qualities to lead the country, they also spelled out differences with her opponents, former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, at times misrepresenting the Republicans’ stances.

Here’s a look at the facts.

Missing context on Vance and the child tax credit

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: “Senate Republicans pretend to care about middle-class families, but they voted no on expanding the child tax credit. And JD Vance didn’t even show up to vote.”

THE FACTS: Vance did indeed skip an August vote on a bill to expand the child tax credit and restore some tax breaks for businesses.

The bill failed to advance in the Senate as Republicans largely opposed the measure, arguing that they would be in position to get a better deal next year, The Associated Press reported at the time.

But there’s more to the story.

Vance has also said he would support expanding the child tax credit, currently at $2,000, to $5,000. He said the Senate vote was a “show vote,” when bills are designed to fail but allow parties to highlight issues before voters.

The cost of Trump’s economic plan

Schumer on Trump’s plan to create tariffs: “He wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”

THE FACTS: Trump has proposed imposing a tariff of anywhere from 10% to 20% on all imports and up to 60% on imports from China.

It’s Day 3 of the DNC, and there are 75 days until Election Day. Here’s what to know:

Economists do expect it would raise prices on many goods. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates it would reduce average incomes in the top 60% of earners by 1.8%. And the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, has calculated that the higher tariffs would cost households an extra $3,900 a year.

However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.

Trump’s changing views on the Affordable Care Act

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham: “Donald Trump and JD Vance want to dismantle our healthcare system, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and limit protections for preexisting conditions.”

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham speaking during the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

THE FACTS: Trump has repeatedly promised to replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own. For example, three years after a Congress fully controlled by Republicans failed to repeal “Obamacare” in 2017, Trump urged the Supreme Court to overturn it.

More recently, the Republican presidential nominee threatened to reopen the contentious fight.

“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” he wrote in a November 2023 post on his Truth Social site. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”

But Trump backed off a potential repeal in April. He said in a video posted to Truth Social that he is “not running to replace the ACA” and that he intends to make it “much better, stronger and far less expensive.”

Another misrepresentation of Trump’s bleach comment

What to know about the 2024 Election

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, on Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic: “And Donald, well, Donald told us to inject bleach.”

THE FACTS: This claim was also made on the first day of the Democratic National Convention by Rep. Robert Garcia of California.

It’s an overstatement. Trump actually asked whether it would be impossible to inject disinfectant into the lungs.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute,” he said at an April 2020 press conference. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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September 25, 2024

FACT FOCUS: A look back at some of the questionable claims made during the Democratic convention

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The Democrats’ star-studded, four-day convention drew to a close as Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination for president. The festivities were high on entertainment and praise for Harris and running mate Tim Walz. But while most speakers stuck to the script — and the facts — the convention was not without false information or statements that begged for additional context.

Here’s a look at the facts around some of those claims.

Trump’s views on an abortion ban

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS said Trump would “ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.”

THE FACTS: While Trump has said in the past that he would support a national ban on abortion, he said Thursday morning on Fox & Friends: “I would never. There will not be a federal ban. This is now back in the states where it belongs.”

In April, he said he would leave the issue up to the states in a video on his Truth Social platform.

Days later, asked by a reporter upon arriving in Atlanta whether he would sign a national abortion ban, Trump shook his head and said “no.”

But just a month earlier Trump suggested he’d support a national ban on abortion around 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also often brags about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

Trump has previously supported a federal ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. In a letter to anti-abortion leaders during his 2016 campaign, Trump expressed his commitment to this view by vowing to sign the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

The Republican presidential nominee advocated for the bill again in 2018, at that year’s annual March for Life festival in Washington. The bill, which included exceptions for saving the life of a pregnant woman, as well as rape or incest, was passed by the House in 2017, but failed to move forward in the Senate.

Trump told CBS News on Monday that he would not enforce the Comstock Act to restrict the sale of abortion medication by mail. The act, originally passed in 1873, was revived in an effort to block the mailing of mifepristone, the pill used in more than half of U.S. abortions.

Trump and Project 2025

COLORADO REP. JASON CROW: “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would abandon our troops, abandon our veterans, our allies and our principles.”

THE FACTS: Many speakers at the convention have linked Trump to Project 2025. Trump has repeatedly disavowed the conservative initiative, saying on social media he hasn’t read it and doesn’t know anything about it. At a rally in Michigan, he said Project 2025 was written by people on the “severe right” and some of the things in it are “seriously extreme.” He has also denied knowing who is behind the plan.

Project 2025 has also said it is not tied to a specific candidate or campaign. And yet, it is connected in many ways to Trump’s orbit. Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior officials from the Trump administration. The project’s former director is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was featured in one of Project 2025’s videos. John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, is a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire earlier this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.

What to know about the 2024 Election

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, penned the forward of a yet unreleased book written by Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025.

__ CROW again: “Trump plans to do Putin’s bidding by abandoning Ukraine and walking away from our NATO allies. In chapters two and three, he plans to fire our national security and military professionals and then replace them with MAGA loyalists.”

THE FACTS: In regards to the Russia-Ukraine war, Project 2025 lays out three schools of thought about U.S. involvement, one of them being that it should not continue. However, it does not advocate for any one over the other.

Crow’s claim that national security and military professionals will be replaced with Trump supporters does ring true. Among its recommendations are that senior CIA leaders “must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.” It also states that the National Security Council should be made up of “personnel with technical expertise and experience as well as an alignment to the President’s declared national security policy priorities.”

Trump’s alleged comments about those captured or killed in military service

ARIZONA SEN. MARK KELLY: “Trump thinks that Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice are suckers and losers.”

THE FACTS: Kelly was among many DNC speakers who brought up similar claims. He was referencing allegations first reported in The Atlantic on Sept. 3, 2020, that Trump made disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including referring to the American war dead at a World War I cemetery outside Paris in 2018 as “suckers” and “losers.”

But the truth is that it hasn’t been proven definitively, one way or the other, whether Trump actually made these comments.

The Republican presidential nominee said the day the Atlantic story came out that it is “totally false,” calling it “a disgraceful situation” by a “terrible magazine.”

Speaking to reporters after he returned to Washington from a campaign rally in Pennsylvania soon after, Trump said: “I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. No animal — nobody — what animal would say such a thing?”

And yet, a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of the events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of his remarks to The Associated Press after the Atlantic story was published, including the ones about “suckers” and “losers.”

Walz’s accomplishments as governor

MINNESOTA SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, touting Tim Walz’s accomplishments as governor of the state: “Tim has delivered — paid leave, school lunches and the biggest tax cut in Minnesota history.”

THE FACTS: Over the last two years, Walz has indeed signed legislation to create a paid family and medical leave program in Minnesota, and for free school breakfasts and lunches for all students regardless of income.

Walz also signed what his administration and Democratic legislative leaders have touted as the largest tax cut in state history, about $3 billion worth as part of the two-year budget approved last year. It included a one-time refundable tax credit of $260 for single filers and up to $1,300 for a family with three children. It also established a child tax credit of up to $1,750 per child for lower-income families, subject to income limits. In addition, it exempted more people from state taxes on Social Security income, but left the tax in place for higher-income seniors.

But critics take issue with his characterization of it as the biggest tax cut in state history. The Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank, points out that low-income Minnesotans don’t pay the state income tax, so in its view giving them tax credits amounts to income redistribution and welfare — not tax cuts.

Republican legislators tried to hold out for permanent tax cuts for everyone, but Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and went for targeted relief instead.

Bill Clinton’s keeping score

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON on Wednesday: “Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans one.”

THE FACTS: The math shows Clinton is technically right, but the underlying story is more nuanced. There were four recessions since the end of the Cold War — each of them beginning during the Republican presidencies of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. That’s the simplest explanation for the trend outlined by Clinton.

Let’s get precise: The U.S. economy has added almost 51.6 million jobs since January 1989, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes a net 1.3 million jobs added under Republicans.

It’s worth noting that this simple scoreboard is incomplete. There can be reasons for a recession that have nothing to do necessarily with the president — as market economies can have minds of their own. There can be bad policy choices in previous administrations that led to downturns happening later. And job growth generally comes from the combination of rising populations, improvements in workers’ skills and the actions of private employers. The U.S. economy is big and diverse enough that areas in the industrial Midwest struggled even as parts of the Sunbelt boomed.

After George H.W. Bush endured a brief downturn, the economy recovered and 2.3 million jobs were added during his term. But Americans still felt the economy was poor and elected Clinton.

Growth jumped during Clinton’s eight years as more women entered the labor force and 22.9 million jobs were added. But shortly after he left office, the tech bubble in the stock market burst and the U.S. economy entered into a brief recession. The economy shed jobs for a little over two years, then mounted a comeback only to slam headfirst into the mortgage bust and the 2008 financial crisis that produced the Great Recession and mass layoffs. Still, over eight years, George W. Bush added a little over 2.1 million jobs because the U.S. population was still growing.

Democrat Barack Obama inherited the disastrous economy in early 2009 and endured a grindingly slow but successful recovery. The U.S. economy added 11.3 million jobs.

Trump took the presidency and promised an unprecedented economic boom. The job market continued to build on its health during Obama’s final four years, only to get crushed by the coronavirus pandemic as shutdowns for health reasons led to unemployment. As a result, the country had 3.1 million fewer jobs when his term ended.

President Joe Biden oversaw a recovery with additional pandemic aid and other investments that accelerated hiring, but it was accompanied by higher inflation that left much of the public feeling pessimistic about the economy. Still, his presidency — still ongoing — has added more than 15.8 million jobs.

Whether Trump said women should be punished for having abortions

ALEXIS MCGILL JOHNSON, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on Wednesday: “Do we want a president who said women should be punished for having abortions?”

THE FACTS: Asked whether he would be comfortable with states deciding to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned, Trump said in an April interview with Time magazine: “The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”

Trump said outright during his 2016 campaign that women who get illegal abortions should receive “some form of punishment.” The comment came during a heated exchange with MSNBC host Chris Matthews at a town hall taping in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

But Trump quickly did an about-face. His campaign sought within hours to take back his comment in two separate statements, ultimately saying he believes abortion providers — not their patients — should be the ones punished.

The first statement said he believed the issue should rest with state governments, while the second entirely rejected the idea that a woman should face repercussions for undergoing an illegal abortion.

“If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said in the second statement. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”

Trump faced backlash from both abortion-rights supporters and anti-abortion activists, The Associated Press reported at the time.

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Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin in New York, Josh Boak in Chicago and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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September 25, 2024

The Latest: Candidates try to counter criticisms in dueling speeches

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Derided by Donald Trump as a “communist,” Vice President Kamala Harris is playing up her street cred as a capitalist. Attacked by Harris as a rich kid who got $400 million from his father on a “silver platter,” Trump is leaning into his raw populism.

The two presidential candidates delivered dueling speeches Wednesday that reflect how they’re honing their economic messages for voters in battleground states. Both are trying to counter criticism of them while laying out their best case for a public that still worries about the economy’s health.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Speaker Johnson demands Zelenskyy remove Ukraine’s ambassador to US after Pennsylvania visit

House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fire his country’s ambassador to the U.S. as Republicans criticize the war-torn leader’s visit to a swing-state Pennsylvania site producing munitions for the Russia-Ukraine war as a political stunt.

The Republican Johnson’s demand Wednesday came as Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations in New York on the eve of his visit to Washington, D.C., where he has plans Thursday to brief senators on Capitol Hill about the war effort before meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelenskyy.

Johnson said no Republicans were invited to the plant tour arranged by Ambassador Oksana Markarova to Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is Biden’s hometown.

Johnson called the visit an “intentionally political move” and said it “has caused Republicans to lose trust in Ambassador Markarova’s ability to fairly and effectively serve as a diplomat in this country. She should be removed from her post immediately.”

Majority of Chinese Americans plan to vote this November

More than three-fourths of Chinese Americans say they plan to vote in the upcoming general election, according to a survey conducted by the Committee of 100 and the NORC Center for Public Affairs at the University of Chicago.

Potential voter turnout is one of several findings released Wednesday from the survey of 504 Chinese American adults. Other questions examine the threats and discrimination members of the community face, along with concerns over the impact of China-U.S. relations on the community.

Chinese Americans make up more than a quarter of the Asian American population, the fastest growing segment in the U.S., the survey said. In an election expected to be decided by just thousands of votes in a small number of states, voter turnout will be critical.

Vivien Leung, an assistant professor of Political Science, Santa Clara University, who worked on the report estimated that the Chinese American turnout was 55 percent in 2020. She said the turnout was lower than for other Asian American Pacific Islander groups. “Understanding the mental health, discrimination and political perspectives of Chinese Americans is essential to create inclusive and informed policies,” said Cindy Tsai, Interim President, Committee of 100. The Committee of 100 is a New York-based advocacy group for Chinese Americans.

A Democratic group is setting aside money to give to states for post-election litigation

The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State says it’s setting aside $5 million to give to states’ top elections officers for post-election litigation.

What to know about the 2024 Election

The group is launching a legal defense fund to help the Democratic Secretaries of State in Maine, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina with expected litigation over the results of the 2024 election. The step comes as former President Donald Trump has signaled that he’ll challenge a possible loss in court.

“This effort will help ensure that Secretaries of State can do their jobs of administering free and fair elections, and ensure that voters have their voices heard at the ballot box,” Travis Brimm, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

Trump’s campaign says he’ll hold a rally in town that was site of July assassination attempt

Trump next month plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was struck by a bullet in an assassination attempt.

The former president’s campaign said Wednesday that Trump will hold a rally Oct. 5 at the same place he did during the July 13 attack.

The Republican presidential candidate plans to honor Corey Comperatore, the ex-fire chief who was shot and killed at the July rally, along with two other attendees who were injured by the shooter.

“After not one, but two attempts on his life in the past nine weeks, President Trump is more determined than ever to see his mission through to the end,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement.

Biden’s advice for Harris to win the election is for her to ‘be herself’

President Joe Biden said his advice to Vice President Kamala Harris for winning the November election was to “be herself.”

Biden was in New York on Wednesday and sat down with the co-hosts of ABC’s “The View.” He fielded a range of questions about the presidential race, ending his reelection campaign and tensions in the Middle East.

Biden endorsed Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination and said she is “smart as hell.”

“She has the energy. She has the intelligence. She has the grit. She has the stamina, and she has the guts to do the right thing,” he said.

Biden, 81, also said he was “at peace” with his decision to end his campaign but remained confident he could have defeated Republican Donald Trump.

Harris will visit the US-Mexico border on Friday

Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday as her campaign increasingly tries to make the issue of immigration more of a strength.

That push could counter a line of attack from Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump.

Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the trip but insisted on anonymity Wednesday to confirm details that had not been announced publicly.

Trump has built his campaign partly around calling for cracking down on immigration and the southern border, even endorsing using police and the military to carry out mass deportations should he be elected in November.

Since taking over for President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has leaned into her experience as a former attorney general of California, saying she frequently visited the border and prosecuted drug and people smuggling gangs in that post.

As she campaigns around the country, the vice president has also frequently criticized top Republicans for voting down a sweeping, bipartisan immigration package in Congress earlier this year after Trump opposed it.

— By Zeke Miller and Colleen Long

Wisconsin mayor says he did nothing wrong when he removed an absentee ballot drop box

The mayor of a central Wisconsin city who ran for office on his opposition to absentee ballot drop boxes said Wednesday he did nothing wrong when he put on work gloves, donned a hard hat and used a dolly to cart away a drop box outside City Hall.

Wausau Mayor Doug Diny posed for a picture Sunday to memorialize his removal of the city’s lone drop box that had been put outside City Hall around the same time late last week that absentee ballots were sent to voters.

“This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,” Diny said Wednesday. “I’m a member of staff. There’s nothing nefarious going on here. I’m hoping for a good result.”

The move, which prompted a protest in the city Tuesday night and anger among drop box advocates, is the latest example in swing state Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes. Several Republican-run municipalities, including six in Milwaukee County, two in Waukesha County and three in Dodge County, have opted against using drop boxes for the presidential election in November, while they’re being embraced in heavily Democratic cities including Milwaukee and Madison.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, banned the use of drop boxes in 2022. But in July, the now-liberal controlled court reversed that decision and said drop boxes could be used. However, the court left it up to each community to decide whether to install them.

Vance says the war in Ukraine has taken resources ‘at a time when Americans are suffering’

Vance says the “biggest problem” with the Russia-Ukraine war is that it “has distracted and consumed a lot of resources at a time when Americans are suffering.”

During a call Wednesday with reporters about union support for the Trump-Vance campaign, the GOP vice presidential nominee echoed Trump’s claims that “Russia would have never invaded Ukraine” if Trump, not Biden, had been in office.

And if Trump is returned to the White House, Vance said “everything is going to be on the table, but I think that nothing is going to definitively be on the table” in terms of Trump’s approach to negotiating an end to the war.

Vance did not respond directly when asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent criticism of him as “too radical” in an interview with The New Yorker. The Ohio senator has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine in the war, saying in his speech at the Republican National Convention this summer that there should be “no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”

Vance says he doesn’t think he needs to prepare as much as Walz is for the debate

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance says he’s not planning to have a debate camp because “we have well developed views on public policy.”

Speaking to reporters on a call with union supporters Wednesday, the Ohio senator said he feels no pressure to do “anything similar” to the debate preparation being done by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

“I don’t think we have to prepare that much” because “we don’t have to hide our record from the American people,” Vance said.

Vance also said former President Donald Trump supports the rights of workers to unionize and collectively bargain, but he demurred from full-throated support by also saying states should choose their own labor laws that can support or reduce unionization efforts.

Trump’s supporters gather at a manufacturing plant ahead of speech

Trump was set to address a relatively small crowd inside a massive Charlotte-area manufacturing plant.

The Republican former president’s supporters gathered among metal machines and and palettes of red, white and blue tubing. Trump’s podium was flanked by rows of work stations, metal beams and a large campaign sign that proclaimed, “JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!”

Harris will do a sit down interview with MSNBC

Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down with Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

The Democratic candidate is visiting the city to give a speech on the economy and manufacturing.

Harris has faced criticism for avoiding media interviews during her abbreviated campaign for the presidency. The conversation with Ruhle will be her first one-on-one interview with a national network since becoming her party’s nominee. Harris previously sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate.

Top Muslim-voter organization endorses Harris as Middle East conflict escalates

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the endorsement of one of the nation’s largest Muslim American voter mobilization groups, marking a significant boost to her campaign since many Muslim and Arab American organizations have opted to support third-party candidates or not endorse.

Emgage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, endorsed Harris’ presidential campaign Wednesday, saying in a statement provided first to The Associated Press that the group “recognizes the responsibility to defeat” former President Donald Trump in November.

The group, based in Washington D.C., operates in eight states, with a significant presence in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The organization will now focus its ongoing voter-outreach efforts on supporting Harris, in addition to down-ballot candidates.

A tale of crushing security lapses and missed chances to stop the man who shot Trump

The acting director of the Secret Service was incensed at what had happened that July evening. “What I saw made me ashamed,” Ronald Rowe Jr. said. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”

The unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally stage, is just one of the myriad questions behind the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. The more that investigators unpack from that day, the more missed opportunities that could have prevented the attack are revealed.

As the United States grapples with a second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, in Florida, there remains a reckoning to be done from the Pennsylvania shooting on July 13 that killed one man and wounded three — the ex-president among them.

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September 25, 2024