President Biden on Tuesday will deliver what will be his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly — and it’s also likely to be one of his last speeches on the world stage as president, capping a decades-long political career that has focused heavily on foreign policy.
The 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, colloquially known as UNGA, is bringing leaders from across the globe to New York. A senior administration official told reporters the themes of the president’s speech will encompass many of his foreign policy themes throughout his administration — rallying the world around Ukraine, managing global competition and emphasizing the importance of sustaining the U.N. Charter.
“He came into office four years ago with a vision of America returning to the world stage, having a new way of interacting with other countries bringing countries together to solve some of those big challenges,” a senior administration official told reporters.
The official said the speech will be a chance for the president to “review” some of the foreign policy objectives Mr. Biden has achieved.
It’s a busy week in foreign policy for the president, who met with the leaders of the Indo-Pacific nations — Japan, Australia and India — over the weekend at his Wilmington, Delaware home. He’ll be meeting with world leaders on the sidelines of UNGA, as well as meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House Thursday.
The unyielding tension in the Middle East promises to dominate much of the conference, and a senior administration official said the president will address what’s happening there. The senior official called the situation between Israel and Lebanon “delicate and dangerous.”
Missiles slammed into southern Lebanon on Monday, killing nearly 500 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah weapons hidden in residential buildings. The explosions came as Israel heralded a new wave of attacks on the Iran-backed group in Lebanon, warning civilians to flee from any buildings or areas where the organization had weapons or fighters positioned.
Mr. Biden has said he believes a cease-fire and hostage negotiation agreement is close, but nearly one year after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel that incited the war, a deal remains elusive. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to secure a deal.
Last month, Hamas executed six of the people the group has been holding hostage, including an American citizen.
At UNGA last year, a major focus was Russia’s continued war on Ukraine was a focus for Mr. Biden, who has emphasized the necessity of protecting democracy throughout his presidency and campaigns for president.
Following former President Donald Trump’s presidency, which had more isolationist tendencies toward allies, Mr. Biden has emphasized that close relationships with allies is in America’s best interest.
“To deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world,” Mr. Biden said during his UNGA speech last year. “To ensure that our own future, we must work together with other partners — our partners — toward a shared future. Our security, our prosperity, and our very freedoms are interconnected, in my view, as never before. And so, I believe we must work together as never before.”
President Biden showed off a slice of his Delaware hometown of Wilmington to the leaders of Australia, Japan and India as he hosted what is likely the last gathering of the Indo-Pacific partnership that has grown in prominence under his White House tenure.
When Mr. Biden began his presidency he looked to elevate the so-called Quad, which until then had only met at the foreign minister level, to a leader-level partnership as he tried to pivot U.S. foreign policy away from conflicts in the Middle East and toward threats and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific. This weekend’s summit is the fourth in-person and sixth overall gathering of the leaders since 2021.
“It will survive way beyond November,” Mr. Biden declared as the leaders gathered at the Archmere Academy, his high school alma mater in nearby Claymont for joint talks.
President Biden (C) meets with (L-R, at table) Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the so-called Quad summit at the Archmere Academy in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sept. 21, 2024.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Biden hosts leaders at his Wilmington home and high school alma mater
The president, who has admitted to an uneven track record as a scholar, also seemed tickled to get to host a gathering with three world leaders at the school he attended more than 60 years ago. He welcomed each of the leaders individually for one-on-one talks at his nearby home before they gathered at the school for talks and a formal dinner.
“I don’t think the headmaster of this school thought I’d be presiding over a meeting like this,” Mr. Biden joked to fellow leaders.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came for the summit before their appearances at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week.
“This place could not be better suited for my final visit as prime minister,” said Kishida, who like Mr. Biden, is set to soon leave office.
Earlier, the president warmly greeted Kishida when he arrived at the residence on Saturday morning and gave the prime minister a tour of the property before they settled into talks. Kishida, according to the prime minister’s office, thanked Biden at the outset of their meeting for inviting him to meet at his home.
White House officials said holding the talks at the president’s house, which sits near a pond in a wooded area several miles west of downtown, was intended to give the meetings a more relaxed feel.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan described the vibe of Mr. Biden’s one-on-one meeting with Albanese, who stopped by the house on Friday, as “two guys — one at the other guy’s home — talking in broad strokes about where they see the state of the world.” He said Mr. Biden and Albanese also swapped stories about their political careers.
The Australian leader remarked that the visit had given him “insight into what in my view makes you such an extraordinary world leader.”
Modi also stopped by the house on Saturday to meet with Mr. Biden before the leaders gathered for their joint talks at Archmere.
“There cannot be a better place than President Biden’s hometown of Wilmington to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Quad,” Modi said.
Reporters and photographers were prohibited from covering Mr. Biden’s individual meetings with the leaders, and Biden does not plan to do a news conference — a question-and-answer appearance that is typical at such international summits.
What Biden hopes to accomplish with the summit
As part of the summit, the leaders were set to announce new initiatives to bolster maritime security in the region — with enhanced coast guard collaboration through the Pacific and Indian oceans — and improve cooperation on humanitarian response missions. The measures are meant to serve as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.
Mr. Biden and Modi had been expected to discuss Modi’s recent visits to Russia and Ukraine as well as economic and security concerns about China. Modi is the most prominent leader from a nation that maintains a neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sullivan said “that countries like India should step up and support the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “every country, everywhere, should refrain from supplying inputs to Russia’s war machine.”
The gathering was also an opportunity for Mr. Biden and Japan’s Kishida to bid each other farewell.
Mr. Biden and Kishida, who are both stepping away from office amid sliding public support, count the tightening of security and economic ties among the U.S., Japan and South Korea as one of their most significant accomplishments. The two leaders sat down for their wide-ranging, one-on-one conversation on Saturday morning.
The improved relations between Japan and South Korea, two nations with a deep and complicated history that have struggled to stay on speaking terms, have come amid worrying developments in the Pacific, including strides made by North Korea in its nuclear program and increasing Chinese assertiveness.
Mr. Biden commended Kishida for demonstrating “courage and conviction in strengthening ties” with South Korea, according to the White House. They also discussed China’s “coercive and destabilizing activities” in the Pacific, Russia’s war against Ukraine and emerging technology issues.
Tension surrounds Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel
The U.S. and Japan are negotiating through a rare moment of tension in the relationship. Mr. Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the two candidates in the 2024 presidential election, have opposed a $15 billion bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel to take over American-owned U.S. Steel.
Biden administration officials indicated this week that a U.S. government committee’s formal assessment of the proposed deal has yet to be submitted to the White House and may not come until after the Nov. 5 election.
Sullivan pushed back against speculation that the expected timing of the report could suggest Mr. Biden is having second thoughts about his opposition to the deal.
The Biden administration promised that the leaders would issue a joint statement containing the strongest-ever language on China and North Korea to be agreed upon by the four countries.
The White House said the leaders later Saturday will roll out a new collaboration aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific. The announcement is related to Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a long-running passion project of the president and his wife, Jill Biden, aimed at reducing cancer deaths. The Bidens’ son Beau died in 2015 at age 46 of brain cancer.
As Mr. Biden’s time in office draws down, the White House also was celebrating the bipartisan, bicameral formation of a “Quad Caucus” in Congress meant to ensure the longevity of the partnership regardless of the outcome of the November election.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, 2024.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris substantially outraised and outspent former President Donald Trump in August, ending the month with more cash to fund her final sprint to the November election, according to new filings from the Federal Election Commission.
The Harris campaign raised over $189 million in August, more than quadruple the $44 million sum that the Trump campaign brought in.
Those figures reflect fundraising specifically for the candidate’s main campaign accounts and do not include donations to the other branches of their political operations.
The Harris campaign announced earlier this month a total $361 million August haul from campaign donations joint with the Democratic National Committee and fundraising committees. That dwarfed the $130 million raised between the Trump campaign and its joint fundraising committees.
These figures do not factor in September donations, including the Harris campaign’s $47 million cash bump from nearly 600,000 donors in the 24 hours following the first and possibly only Harris-Trump debate.
The Harris campaign on Saturday accepted an invitation from CNN to hold a second debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has so far staunchly maintained that he will not do a rematch.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
The new FEC filings depict a steady surge of donor enthusiasm for Harris, even as the initial hype of Democrats’ July candidate swap tempered. The entire Harris political operation raised $310 million in July after President Joe Biden ended his candidacy and endorsed her to take over the Democratic ticket.
Harris has also flipped the donation gap to Democrats’ favor, erasing the fundraising lead Trump and Republicans had before Biden dropped out.
Since then, the Harris campaign has been outspending Trump with an advertising blitz across television and digital platforms, along with along with other campaign expenses.
Harris and the DNC jointly spent $258 million in August, well above the $121 million that Trump and the RNC disbursed, according to FEC filings.
“As we enter the final stretch of this election, we’re making sure every hard-earned dollar goes to winning over the voters who will decide this election,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a press release earlier this month.
Heading into the final sprint of the presidential race, the Harris team ended August with $404 million in cash on hand, outpacing the $295 million war chest reported by Trump’s operation.
The Trump campaign assured that its donations will carry it through the rest of the race.
“The Trump-Vance campaign has momentum for the final stretch of the race,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement. “These fundraising numbers from August are a reflection of that movement.”
Credit: David Lienemann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)
Retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said he was instructed by the Biden administration to not publicize arrests of illegal border crossers identified as “Significant Interest Aliens” with ties to terrorism.
Heitke testified before a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday about how Biden-Harris “open border policies have undermined our safety and security.”
“We had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens … with significant ties to terrorism,” illegally entering in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector, he said.
Prior to the Biden-Harris administration, the sector averaged 10 to 15 SIAs per year. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” he said.
“These are only the ones we caught,” meaning the number likely is higher because of the volume of gotaways, those who illegally cross the border and are not apprehended.
“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIA’s or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”
His testimony came as the greatest number of individuals on the U.S. federal terrorist watch list have been apprehended under the Biden-Harris administration of 1,856 since fiscal 2021 through August, The Center Square reported.
None of this would have happened if current federal laws enacted by Congress were enforced, he said.
“The only true consequence we have to slow down and discourage people from coming to the United States illegally is sending them back to their country of origin,” required under current law, he said.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, Border Patrol agents were instructed to do the opposite, he said. In three and half years, “I saw a steady decrease in countries we could send people back to.
“For the first time in my 25 years and under five different administrations, whether through neglect or on purpose, I saw a large-scale lapse in our ability to return people to their country of origin. The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released.”
Since January 2021, “on day one,” the Biden-Harris administration “made a point of decreasing the amount of detention space available nationwide,” noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s funding for detention space has steadily been cut and private detention eliminated.
The “open border policies” and “the fact that so many illegal aliens were being released into the United States spread worldwide very quickly,” he said, resulting in an unprecedented influx of illegal entry into the country.
“The impacts to me and my agents were significant. Sectors were ordered to take in and process all the illegal aliens encountered on the border. The Border Patrol saw groups of hundreds and thousands coming into the United States and turning themselves in.”
The result was “80% to 90%, sometimes 100% of the agents on duty [were taken] away from” the southwest border. There were miles of the border unmanned in Texas, Arizona and California, he said, where there was “no agent presence for weeks and months at a time.”
Foreign nationals “who did not want to be caught could simply walk in,” he said, referring to gotaways. They total at least more than 2 million since fiscal 2021, The Center Square first reported.
“We have no idea who and what entered our country over this time. Throughout 2022 and 2023, I sent agents to Texas and Arizona to count gotaways. Those sectors could not even put enough agents in the field to see what they had missed.”
U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-NY, then asked him, “What information do we have on the millions of known gotaways that have entered this country?”
“Zero information of millions of people – some of which have been found to be on the terror watchlist – we have zero information?” D’Esposito asked.
“Correct.”
Heitke was previously interviewed by the committee last year and described the level of national security threats that existed because they were forced to close checkpoints after an influx of illegal border crossers shifted to California. Agents were then required to shift manpower from the field to process and release into the country illegal border crossers, The Center Square reported. With their agents being pulled from the field, Heitke and others said Americans were unsafe and transnational criminal organizations were exploiting the open border to smuggle people and an unprecedented amount of fentanyl.
“Each time we asked for help in dealing with a new issue, it fell on deaf ears,” he said.
new video loaded: ‘Declaration of Progress’: Biden Hails Fed Rate Cuts
transcript
transcript
‘Declaration of Progress’: Biden Hails Fed Rate Cuts
President Biden hailed the Federal Reserve’s move to begin cutting interest rates during a speech at the Economic Club of Washington.
No one should confuse why I’m here. I’m not here to take a victory lap. I’m not here to say a job well done. I’m not here to say we don’t have a hell of a lot more work to do. We do have more work to do. But what I am here to speak about is how far we come, how we got here, and most importantly, the foundation that I believe built for a more prosperous and equitable future in America. So let’s be clear: The Fed lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory. It’s a declaration of progress. It’s a signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery. I believe it’d important for the country to recognize this progress because if we don’t, the progress we’ve made will remain locked in the fear of the negative mind-set that dominated our economic outlook since the pandemic began.
President Biden will speak on the significant milestones of inflation and interest falling rates while the economy remains strong.
Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told PoliticusUSA during a call with reporters:
President Biden is going to speak to a new milestone. Inflation and interest rates are falling at the same time, employment, wages and GDP are rising. I want to be really clear, this is not meant to be a declaration of victory. It’s meant to be a declaration of progress, significant progress.
The President believes it’s important to mark this moment, but the country by laying out how far we’ve come, while also outlining the work we still have to do from day one of this administration, there have been three pillars to the President’s economic playbook. First, the President delivered a historic response to a historic crisis.
When we came into office, we faced a once in a generation pandemic and an unprecedented shutdown of the economy, and there really was no plan or path forward in less than two months, the president devised and led a strategy and negotiated the most significant recovery package in decades, the American Rescue Plan, which delivered shots in arms, provided direct payments to families and businesses, prevented a wave of evictions and revved up job growth.
Second, the President acted quickly to address global inflation. As inflation increased around the world, caused by the pandemic, primarily broken supply chains and Russia’s war against Ukraine, President Biden took on the roots of the challenge. He worked with the private sector to untangle snarled supply chains, getting goods back on shelves again.
The President coordinated with all supplies and partners to address food and energy prices as a result of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, including historic releases of oil reserves to stabilize global energy markets. The President has always respected the Federal Reserve’s independence to bring down inflation. That’s a stark contrast to his predecessor. And you know, bottom line, this was a time that many economists predicted a recession was necessary to bring down inflation, and I think that the approach has proved them wrong. With a record 16 million jobs created historic job creation for black and brown workers and workers receiving higher paychecks now than they did in pandemic
Third, the President has really led and written a new economic playbook for the country that invests in all of America, all parts of America, red and blue, and all Americans. And that’s going to have an impact for decades to come.
The central piece here is to export American products, not American jobs, and to create good paying jobs right here at home. So he, the President, threw out the old economic playbook of exporting American jobs, importing foreign products, and in less than four years, the President has led, working with Congress, legislation to be passed that results in the biggest bipartisan investment infrastructure ever, invested in our roads, bridges, ports, trains and so much else, the largest climate investment in history, creating American jobs, driving clean energy, really our clean energy revolution across the country, with America leading the world in clean energy, tens of billions of dollars to build new chip factories, reversing America’s decades-long reliance on foreign countries for chips manufacturing, and after a half century of failed attempts negotiating with Medicare to lower prescription drug bills and capping insulin at $35 per month and prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for seniors.
Biden Has Not Gotten Enough Credit For The Economy
One of the plausible reasons why Donald Trump is losing the election is that his gloom and doom about the economy is way over the top and not close to what Americans are feeling. The Biden administration understands that they are not taking a victory lap, but they are marking an important moment as it looks like the President has successfully navigated the nation through a pandemic and an economic recovery.
Biden’s job would not have been so difficult without Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic. Trump left Biden a literal mess. The White House was a COVID hotbed because Trump refused to have a mask mandate in the building.
Joe Biden brought the country back, and he deserves much more credit than he has received for his accomplishments.
Biden saved the economy and the country, and someday he will be appreciated.
General Motors is now offering adapters to help its electric vehicle owners access Tesla chargers.
The Detroit automaker said Wednesday that it is opening up access to more than 17,800 Tesla Superchargers for its customers, with the use of a GM approved NACS DC adapter. Customers in the United States will be able to buy the adapter for $225 through GM vehicle brand mobile apps.
By using the Tesla Supercharger network, GM EV vehicle owners will have access to more than 231,800 public Level 2 and DC fast chargers in North America.
“Enabling access to even more publicly available fast chargers represents yet another way GM is focused on further improving the customer experience and making the transition to electric more seamless,” Wade Sheffer, vice president of GM Energy, said in a statement.
Last year the White House announced that Tesla would make some of its charging stations available to all U.S. electric vehicles by the end of 2024. The plan was to make at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla EVs by this year, the White House said.
The plan to open the nation’s largest and most reliable charging network to all drivers is a potential game-changer in promoting EV use, a key component of President Joe Biden’s pledge to fight climate change. Biden has set a goal that 50% of new U.S. car sales be electric by 2030, and he has promised to install 500,000 chargers across America and build a network of fast-charging stations across 53,000 miles of freeways from coast to coast.
GM said that approved NACS DC adapters will be made available to U.S. customers first, followed by Canadian customers later this year.
The company is not the only automaker to start using Tesla’s network. In February Ford announced that its EV owners could use much of Tesla’s network, as long as they used an adapter that the company provided for free and began shipping in March. Rivian said in 2023 that it would be joining Tesla’s network this year, with existing vehicles needing an adapter. The company said at the time that vehicles made in 2025 and beyond would come standard with a Tesla charging port.
PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has rejected a bid by Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges out of state court.
In a decision Monday, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court, didn’t offer a good reason for doing so and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president.
Meadows faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what authorities allege was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor. He had unsuccessfully tried to move charges in the Georgia case last year. It’s unknown whether Meadows will appeal the decision. The Associated Press left phone and email messages for two of Meadows’ attorneys.
While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Arizona and Georgia.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.
The decision sends Meadows’ case back down to Maricopa County Superior Court.
In both Arizona and Georgia, Meadows argued his charges should be moved to federal court because his actions were taken when he was a federal official working as Trump’s chief of staff and that he has immunity under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps state law.
Arizona prosecutors said Meadows’ electioneering efforts weren’t part of his official duties at the White House.
Meadows last year tried to get his Georgia charges moved but his request was rejected by a judge whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. Meadows has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.
The Arizona indictment says Meadows confided to a White House staff member in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also had arranged meetings and calls with state officials to discuss the fake elector conspiracy.
Meadows’ attorneys said nothing their client is alleged to have done in Arizona was criminal. They said the indictment consists of allegations that he received messages from people trying to get ideas in front of Trump — or “seeking to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts by the president’s campaign.”
In denying the former chief of staff’s request, Tuchi said Meadows wasn’t indicted for facilitating communications to and from the president or staying updated on what was going on in Trump’s campaign.
“Instead, the State has indicted Mr. Meadows for allegedly orchestrating and participating in an illegal electioneering scheme,” the judge wrote. “Few, if any, of the State’s factual allegations even resemble the secretarial duties that Mr. Meadows maintains are the subject of the indictment.”
In all, 18 Republicans were charged in late April in Arizona’s fake electors case. The defendants include 11 Republicans who had submitted a document falsely claiming Trump had won Arizona, another Trump aide and five lawyers connected to the former president.
The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the forgery, fraud and conspiracy charges in Arizona.
Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.
The 11 people who were nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state.
A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world and the world’s biggest internet troll, posted and then deleted a comment over the weekend in which he seemingly wondered about the lack of assassination attempts on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, following what authorities said was a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Then he claimed he was merely joking, and insisted that the joke would have been extremely funny in context.
Musk was responding to a user on X who wrote, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” The X owner, who has endorsed the ex-president, replied: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” His post included a thinking-face emoji.
Not surprisingly, the social media musing drew intense backlash. In a not-very-helpful pair of follow-ups on Monday, Musk wrote: “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.” In another, he said: “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
In reality, the “lesson” Musk should have learned is that it’s beyond the pale to seemingly suggest it’s strange that no one has attempted to assassinate specific individuals, particularly given the reach of his account, which is followed by more than 197 million people. Aside from that, one wonders who made up the collection of people originally on the receiving end of Musk’s “hilarious” joke, and what context he thinks would have improved the reaction of your average X user.
In a statement, the White House called Musk’s post “irresponsible” and echoed remarks in which Biden and Harris said there is no room for political violence in the United States. “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Musk is, of course, no stranger to creepy, outrageous social media posts. Last week, after Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and signed her post “Childless Cat Lady,” the Tesla CEO wrote: “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.”
“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔,” Musk, X’s owner, wrote in a now deleted post, in response to another person asking, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
After deleting the post—which could be interpreted as a call to murder President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the US presidential election—Musk indicated that it was merely a joke that fell flat given the context. “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏,” he wrote, adding, “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”
The incident was the latest in a long line of increasingly incendiary political posts from Musk, whose substantial defense contracts with the US government may give him access to highly sensitive information even while he makes potential threats against the sitting commander in chief. And they point to the more pressing risk that Musk’s recent rhetoric has posed: the potential to inspire further political violence.
While Sunday night’s post is gone, it appears likely that Musk could receive some attention from federal law enforcement, if he hasn’t already.
The United States Secret Service declined WIRED’s request to comment on Musk’s post. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees,” USSS spokesperson Nate Herring tells WIRED.
“In my experience, the Secret Service would take such a comment very seriously,” says Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a liberty and national security fellow at NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Typically, agents would go out and interview the subject to ensure that there wasn’t an existing threat, and to make the subject aware that the agency takes such statements seriously.”
German notes that it’s possible the FBI could also launch an investigation. However, it’s unlikely that Musk would face any charges for his post. “On its face, the tweet would not meet the ‘true threat’ test, in that it wasn’t a direct threat to do harm to the vice president, so it wouldn’t likely proceed to prosecution,” German says. Still, “it would create a record of the investigations.”
The FBI declined WIRED’s request to comment on Musk’s post. X did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Both Biden and Harris have released statements condemning the apparent attempt on Trump’s life and political violence more broadly. In a statement to ABC News, the White House condemned Musk’s post. “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” the statement says. “This rhetoric is irresponsible.”
Where things get dicier for Musk is his role as a major contractor for the US Department of Defense and NASA. According to Reuters, SpaceX signed a $1.8 billion contract in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees US spy satellites. The US Space Force also signed a $70 million contract late last year with SpaceX to build out military-grade low-earth-orbit satellite capabilities. Starlink, SpaceX’s commercial satellite internet wing, is providing connectivity to the US Navy.
In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.
Here’s a look at some of those claims.
CROWD SIZES
FILE – Crowds are shown in front of the Washington Monument during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)
CLAIM: “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken — I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.”
THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.
But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.
Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.
Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at the Ellipse, a grassy area just south of the White House.
___
JAN. 6
CLAIM: “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. Five people died in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress’ effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. Four additional officers who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.
___
DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
CLAIM: “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.”
THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. That process is determined by the Democratic National Committee.
Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for “present,” the only other option on the ballot.
The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party’s deadline following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on July 21.
What to know about the 2024 Election
___
THE ECONOMY
CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: “You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they’ve gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.”
THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president’s control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn’t get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine’s wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.
Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level earlier this year.
Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn’t cause inflation all by itself. And Trump supported $2,000 stimulus checks in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.
Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden’s, such as France, Germany and the U.K., though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia’s invasion.
___
IMMIGRATION
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
CLAIM: “Twenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration — 20 million people — and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn’t provide sources.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.
U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.
All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.
There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as “got-aways” in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn’t publish that number.
___
CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she’s not the border czar anymore.”
THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address “root causes” of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.
___
NEW YORK CASES
CLAIM: “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.”
THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases brought against him in New York — one civil and the other criminal.
Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The civil case was initiated by a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, brought the criminal case. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___
An earlier version of this story mixed up “latter” and “former” in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday gave his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket ahead of next week’s Democratic National Convention.
At his New Jersey golf club, the Republican nominee blended falsehoods about the economy with misleading statements and deeply personal attacks about his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden
TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”
THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.
Separately, the U.S. economy was growing quickly as it reopened from COVID in 2020, as Trump’s term ended, and it continued to do so after Biden took office. Growth reached 5.8% in 2021, Biden’s first year in the White House, as the rebound continued, faster than any year that Trump was in office. Mortgage rates were low when Trump left because of the pandemic, which caused the Federal Reserve to cut its key rate to nearly zero. Gas prices fell as the economy largely shut down and Americans cut back sharply on their driving.
‘Foreign born’ is not the same as ‘migrants’
TRUMP: “Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.”
THE FACTS: This is a misinterpretation of government jobs data. The figures do show that the number of foreign-born people with jobs has increased in the past year, while the number of native-born Americans with jobs has declined. But foreign-born is not the same as “migrants” — it would include people who arrived in the U.S. years ago and are now naturalized citizens.
In addition, the data is based on Census research that many economists argue is undercounting both foreign- and native-born workers. According to a report by Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson at the Brookings Institution released this week, native-born employment rose by 740,000 in 2023, while foreign-born rose by 1.7 million. Much of the disparity reflects the fact that the native-born population is older than the foreign-born, and are more likely to be retired. In addition, the unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 4.5%, lower than the 4.7% for foreign-born.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump talks after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
A thief is not allowed to steal up to $950
TRUMP: “You’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950. … If it’s less than $950 they can rob it and not get charged.”
THE FACTS: Trump was referring to regulations in California that allegedly allow for theft under $950. But his claim is not correct — a 2014 proposition modified, but did not eliminate, sentencing for many nonviolent property and drug crimes.
Proposition 47 raised the minimum dollar amount necessary for theft to be prosecuted as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, from $400 to $950.
Alex Bastian, then-special adviser to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Prop 47, told The Associated Press in 2021 that the minimum was raised “to adjust for inflation and cost of living,” but that most shoplifting cases were already prosecuted as misdemeanors any since they didn’t exceed $400.
Prop 47 was enacted to comply with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court order, which upheld that the state’s overcrowded prisons violated incarcerated individuals’ Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. It instructed California to reduce its state prison population by 33,000 individuals within two years.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Harris has not said in this campaign she wants to defund police
TRUMP, on Harris: “You know, she wants to defund the police.”
THE FACTS: Harris expressed praise for the “defund the police” movement after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, questioning whether money was being effectively spent on public safety. However, she has not said during her current campaign that she is in favor of defunding law enforcement.
The Biden administration tried to overhaul policing, but the legislation stalled on Capitol Hill, and Biden ultimately settled for issuing an executive order. It also pumped more money into local departments.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens to a question after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
Trump did not win Pennsylvania in 2020
TRUMP: “I won Pennsylvania and I did much better the second time. I won it in 2016, did much better the second time. I know Pennsylvania very well.”
THE FACTS: False. Trump did win the state in 2016, when he beat Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. But he lost the state in 2020 to President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native. According to the official certified results, Biden and Harris received 3.46 million votes, compared to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million votes, a margin of about 80,000 votes.
Oil production in U.S. hit record under Biden
Trump says he will bring energy prices down by reversing President Joe Biden’s policy of encouraging renewable energy at the expense of fossil fuels.
TRUMP: “We’re going to drill baby drill, we’re going to get the energy prices down, almost immediately.”
The U.S. Department of Energy reported in October that U.S. oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, passing a previous record set in 2020 by 100,000 barrels. Department statistics also show that the U.S. has produced more crude oil per year than any other nation — for the past six years.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
Economy has shown recent signs of strength, not evidence of collapse
TRUMP: “We’re going to have a crash like the 1929 crash if she gets in.”
THE FACTS: The economy has shown recent signs of strength — not evidence that America is on the edge of economic collapse.
On Thursday the S&P 500 jumped 1.6%, its sixth gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also increased Thursday, as did the Nasdaq composite.
Recent economic reports show that shoppers increased their retail spending last month and fewer workers sought unemployment benefits.
Fears the economy was slowing emerged last month following a sharp drop in hiring and higher unemployment rates. But those worries were assuaged earlier this month when better-than-expected jobless numbers led to Wall Street’s best rally since 2022.
Harris was not named border ‘czar’
TRUMP: “She was the border czar but she didn’t do anything. She’s the worst border czar in history. … She was the person responsible for the border and she never went there.”
THE FACTS: Biden tapped Harris in 2021 to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration and the challenges it creates. Illegal crossings are one aspect of those challenges, but Harris was never assigned to the border or put in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees law enforcement at the border.
Black unemployment is lower under Biden
TRUMP: “The Black population had the best numbers they’ve ever had on jobs, on income, on everything. The Hispanic population had the best numbers.”
THE FACTS: It’s true that Black and Hispanic unemployment fell to then-record lows under Trump, but that was upended by COVID. When Trump left office, Black unemployment had soared to 9.3% and Hispanic unemployment to 8.5%. Under Biden, Black unemployment fell to a new record low of 4.8% in April 2023, while Hispanic unemployment in September 2022 matched the all-time low of 3.9% it had reached under Trump.
Top US Republican politicians continue to repeat debunked rumours about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio town.
Former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the US election, Republican Senator JD Vance, has defended amplifying false stories about migrants stealing and eating pets in the United States, saying in an interview that the political ends justify the means.
During several television appearances on Sunday, Vance was questioned about the unfounded claims he and Trump have made about Haitian migrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio, as part of a wider attack on the immigration policies of the Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump had touted the false story during his first – and likely only debate – with Harris last week, with 67 million viewers tuning in. Local officials have repeatedly said they have received no evidence to support the rumours.
But Vance remained defiant on Sunday, saying in an interview with CBS News that he had received “verifiable and confirmable” accounts from residents of the Ohio community, without providing further evidence of the alleged incidents.
“Everybody who has dealt with a large influx of migration knows that sometimes there are cultural practices that seem very far out there to a lot of Americans,” he said. “Are we not allowed to talk about this in the United States of America?”
In another exchange on CNN, Vance was asked to “affirmatively say” that there is no evidence to support the stories about Haitian migrants eating pets.
Vance again replied he was only responding to constituents’ concerns.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do … because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast,” Vance replied, before backpedaling.
“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” Vance said.
For his part, Trump on Saturday again referenced Springfield, Ohio, during a speech near Los Angeles, vowing to deport Haitian immigrants from the community if elected in the November 5 vote.
Trump and his Republican allies have also been sharing cat-themed memes to push the anti-immigrant narrative.
Trump posts ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT’
For years, political violence experts have warned that the Trump campaign’s bellicose rhetoric and flippant approach to misinformation stoke social tensions and raise the spectre of violence.
Just two days after the debate, hospitals, schools and government buildings in Springfield, Ohio were forced to close amid a series of bomb threats that referenced the influx of migrants in the community.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden called the attacks “simply wrong”.
“This has to stop, what [Trump’s] doing. It has to stop,” Biden said.
Critics have also pointed to the Trump campaign’s approach as further evidence of US election seasons becoming increasingly dominated by ephemeral cultural spectacle meant to stoke partisan outrage, while sidelining meaningful policy discussion.
In the latest example, Trump on Sunday responded to pop star Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Harris. The nod is considered a major political boon for the Democratic candidate, with Swift boasting hundreds of millions of ardent fans across the world.
In a brief, all-caps post on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Biden administration officials on Thursday discussed the future of artificial intelligence at a meeting with a group of executives from OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft and other companies. The focus was on building data centers in the United States and the infrastructure needed to develop the technology.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at the daily press briefing that the meeting focused on increasing public-private collaboration and the workforce and permitting needs of the industry. The computer power for the sector will likely depend on reliable access to electricity, so the utility companies Exelon and AES were also part of the meeting to discuss power grid needs.
The emergence of AI holds a mix of promise and peril: The automatically generated text, images, audio and video could help to increase economic productivity but it also has the potential to displace some workers. It also could serve as both a national security tool and a threat to guard against.
President Joe Biden last October signed an executive order to address the develop of the technology, seeking to establish protections through steps such as the watermarking of AI content and addressing consumer rights issues.
Attending the meeting for the administration were White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, among others.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat, Meta Chief Operating Officer Javier Olivan, and Microsoft President and Vice Chairman Brad Smith were among the corporate attendees.
Matt Garman, the CEO of AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon, also attended. The company said in a statement that attendees discussed modernizing the nation’s utility grid, expediting permits for new projects and ensuring that carbon-free energy projects are integrated into the grid.
“Let’s get to the big news this week,” Maher prefaced. “Taylor Swift finally told people who to vote for. Of course, immediately the response from the other side was, ‘Celebrity endorsements don’t matter.’ People are always so behind on these things. That’s the conventional wisdom for a long time, many celebrity endorsements don’t work… not in this case — I mean, just the number of people who were immediately registered from that Tweet.”
He continued, “And I’m sorry, but we live in Starf—er, America. George Clooney is the one who got Biden to step down. I wrote the exact same editorial he did, and so many other people did too. Nobody cared. As soon as George Clooney said it, he’s gotta go.”
Maher then attempted to unpack a “surprising” statistic about Swift’s fanbase following her post-debate endorsement of Harris.
“This was the most surprising part of it, was who she influenced,” he said. “Swift, it says, would have more influence over male voters — 27% of male voters said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift. I must have this phenomenon gauged all wrong. I thought it would be women.”
Perhaps Maher should invest in a gay friend? They probably would have advised him against making the next joke he did about Swift.
“Now that Taylor Swift has saved democracy by endorsing Kamala Harris, she has one more mission: stop making Travis Kelce dress like a douche,” said Maher in his ‘New Rules’ segment. “I don’t own a cat but I know what it smells like when they mark their turf.”
Swift previously shared her endorsement of Harris and running mate Tim Walz on Instagram. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she wrote.
“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” added Swift. “I think she is a steady-headed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
President Joe Biden has denounced election-season attacks on the Haitian American community in the United States, calling out Republican leaders for fear-mongering.
Speaking on Friday at a White House brunch billed as a “celebration of Black excellence”, Biden warned that Haitian Americans were a “community that’s under attack in our country right now”.
His remarks were a rebuke to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick JD Vance, both of whom have spread unfounded rumours about Haitian migrants and asylum seekers in the US.
“It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America” for that kind of rhetoric, Biden said, without naming Trump directly.
“This has to stop, what he’s doing. This has to stop.”
Trump — a former Republican president — and Vance, a senator from Ohio, have campaigned on a largely anti-immigrant platform, stirring fears of mass migration and crime at rallies across the US.
In recent weeks, both men have zeroed in on the blossoming Haitian American community in Springfield, Ohio, where racial and ethnic tensions have simmered.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on September 13 [David Swanson/Reuters]
Springfield, part of the country’s industrial Rust Belt, has sought to bolster its local economy in recent years by welcoming newcomers to the city.
But as the Haitian American community grew, so too did the backlash. An estimated 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to the area — though officials on the city commission last year cited a lower estimate, between 4,000 and 7,000.
Some longtime residents called on the city commission to “stop them from coming”.
Tensions further escalated in August 2023, when a Haitian national was involved in a car crash that overturned a school bus and killed an 11-year-old child on the first day of school.
While the boy’s family has called on residents to stop the “hate”, attacks on the Haitian American community have continued to spread, attracting national attention.
In recent weeks, unfounded rumours have ricocheted across the internet that Haitian Americans are eating pets, echoing an anti-immigrant trope with a long history in the US.
The rumour appears to have originated from a screenshot, supposedly taken from a private Facebook group. And city officials have publicly denied there was any basis for it.
Even Vance acknowledged the murky nature of the allegations. “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” he wrote in a social media post on September 10.
A counter-protester in Palo Alto, California, references Trump’s fear-mongering about pets being eaten in Springfield, Ohio, on September 13 [Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters]
But Trump and Vance have since repeated the rumour multiple times, including at high-profile events like the September 10 presidential debate.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in,” he said at the televised debate, viewed by 67 million people. “They’re eating the cats.”
The increased scrutiny on Springfield has led to multiple threats, reportedly linked to anti-immigrant sentiment. On Thursday, city hall was evacuated after a bomb threat. On Friday, other city buildings were likewise emptied after emails warned of an explosive device — including several schools.
Nevertheless, that same day, Trump revisited his attacks on the Haitian American community in a news conference at his golf club outside of Los Angeles, California.
“In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life,” he said. “Even the town doesn’t like to talk about it because it sounds so bad for the town.”
He said the city — as well as Aurora, Colorado — would be a centrepiece for his immigration crackdown, should he be re-elected in November’s election.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” he said. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.”
Earlier in the week, Vance spread the claim on X, writing, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” In an interview following the debate, CNN’s Kaitlan Collinspressed the Ohio senator about the false claims, asking him, “why push something that’s not true?” Vance doubled down, responding, “First of all, city officials have not said it’s not true, they’ve said they don’t have all the evidence.… We’ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground, Kaitlan, who—both firsthand and secondhand reports—saying this stuff is happening, so they very clearly…think that it is happening. And I think that it’s important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this for themselves when you have a lot of people saying, ‘my pets are being abducted’ or ‘geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us.’”
As The Washington Postnotes, “Members of the Haitian community in Springfield were granted temporary protected status in the United States after fleeing profound unrest and violence in their home country.” Since Trump, Vance, and others have spread the pets story, the rhetoric has escalated, and numerous buildings in Springfield—including its City Hall and an elementary school—were evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat that included “hateful language” about the city’s immigrant population.
California is so awful that he…owns property there
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
The wheels are absolutely not falling off the operation
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Elsewhere!
Harris campaign turns to former Obama advisers to help in White House bid
Today, Merrick Garland held a pep rally at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for his employees. Why now? Well, two nights ago, we heard President Donald Trump take aim at the weaponization of DOJ, and we heard Kamala Harris’s non-response. Trump clearly won that exchange, and the Swamp now has to play clean-up for her mess.
Remember that in the debate, the ABC moderators interrupted Trump’s answer about illegal immigrant crime to push fake FBI statistics, which Trump swatted aside. In her response, rather than talk about immigration, Harris brought up that Trump has been prosecuted. Trump explained that each of the cases against him were fake, failing, and coordinated by Garland and the Biden-Harris administration. Of course, we know this is true. But the icing on the cake is that Harris’ final non-answer was that Donald Trump would weaponize the DOJ.
They are telling on themselves.
But the Harris campaign strategy, and the orders to Garland are clear: blame Trump for things Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are doing right now.
Frankly, it has to be tough to be an employee of Biden and Harris. You might be asked to violate Departmental Protocol and do a pre-dawn raid of a former President but turn a blind eye to a legally worse situation involving Joe and classified documents in his garage. You might be asked to surveil your neighbors at church, or at school board meetings. You might be asked not to prosecute real crimes involving immigration, opioids, or Black Lives Matter, but asked to prosecute grandma for praying on a sidewalk.
It must be demoralizing to go into work every day like this.
And if you complain? If you follow the rules, but go to the Inspector General, or to Congress, or to your boss? Forget that. In violation of law, you might find yourself without a job, suspended without pay, sidelined, or with your security clearance revoked. That happened under Garland and Harris to Marcus Allen, to Stephen Friend, and to so many others.
So while Harris and Garland use their platforms to gaslight America, saying that the Department is “proud” to remain “independent” and free from “political interference,” ask yourself: who is really politicizing the justice system?
Who is bussing in tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into our cities, merely for their votes? It’s Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. Harris and the current administration are responsible for the tragedies on the border every day.
Who refuses to say the names of Laken Riley, or Rachel Morin, or Jocelyn Nungaray, because it’s not politically expedient? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump.
Who has fundraised for violent criminals in Minnesota to keep them out of jail? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. It’s the California soft-on-crime policies that Harris brought to that state which are tearing our cities apart, even, perhaps especially in the deep red rural areas in swing states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin that she wants to target.
Whose DOJ is sending letters to county clerks across the country, and to Secretaries of State, warning them of prosecution if they get too aggressive in protecting our elections? Kamala Harris’s, not Donald Trump’s. Just this past week states acting under federal law to clean up their voter rolls were threatened by Garland. You can’t make this up.
Whose DOJ has failed to investigate election issues across the country, from the election technology being wide-open to foreign access and control, to ballots being mailed without proof of citizenship? Kamala Harris’s, not Donald Trump’s.
And whose DOJ has made head-fakes at consumer protection, while letting drug prices soar, and who was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which has led to Medicare Part D dropping 21 drugs and raising premiums by the double-digits, with far higher increases to come in 2025? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump.
America is at a crossroads, and Merrick Garland is right to be concerned about the politicization of DOJ and the federal government, but maybe he and Kamala Harris should look in the mirror.
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) represents the 1st Congressional District of Florida. He is a member of the 117th Congress currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Vice President Kamala Harris has never met Maria Rodriguez. She probably never will. But the Democratic presidential nominee should be worried about Rodriguez, and voters like her.
The single mother of three from Henderson, Nev., is a onetime Democratic voter who frets about the economy (meaning: the price of just about everything) and says she plans to vote for former President Trump.
Rodriguez cast her ballot for Joe Biden four years ago, hoping for better times. But, regardless of what government statisticians might say about the economy, the 36-year-old finds it’s harder to pay the bills today, even though she is working two or three jobs as a nurse and home healthcare worker.
“Going to the market is really hard right now,” Rodriguez said as she pushed a mostly empty cart up an aisle of a Dollar Tree discount store last week. “Sometimes, before, you would go in with 100 bucks and come out with a full cart. It was pretty OK. Now, with 100 bucks, you can get maybe 10 things. It’s living paycheck to paycheck.”
“I was potentially a Democrat,” she said. “But I have changed my way of thinking [because] this country is going downhill.”
Views like Rodriguez’s go a long way in explaining why Nevada, which Democrats have won in the last four presidential races, remains up for grabs in the 2024 election. Harris holds a narrow 0.6% advantage in recent polls, according to an aggregate by Real Clear Politics. That’s a marked improvement for the Democrats, given that Trump led in the high single digits in polls before President Biden left the race in July.
The Silver State is one of seven states thought to hold the key to victory in 2024. And it usually picks the candidate the rest of America favors.In the 28 presidential elections since 1912, the winner of Nevada has won the presidency all but two times. The exceptions occurred in 1976, when Nevada chose Republican Gerald Ford over Democrat Jimmy Carter, and in 2016, when Nevada and its six electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton over Trump.
Trump will count heavily on Nevadans’ discomfort with the economy to help him grind out a victory in a state that most experts expect to be closely contested through the Nov. 5 election.
The former president has a rally scheduled Friday night in Las Vegas. He has anad on Las Vegas television stations that features another former Republican president, Ronald Reagan.
“I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago,” Reagan says in video of his closing 1980 debate against President Carter. “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?”
That question might serve Trump well this year, as national and state polls continue to show that the economy remains the top issue for voters. The party in power usually pays the price for such sentiments. In an Emerson College poll in August, 37% of likely Nevada voters surveyed named the economy as the top issue, with the related topic of housing affordability second, named by 15% of those surveyed.
“That large bloc of independent voters makes the state unpredictable,” said Thom Reilly, a former public official in Nevada’s Clark County and now an academic. “They were supporting Trump by 10% in January, and now the polling is all over the map, and they might be in Harris’ camp. I think those voters make it more volatile.”
Frustrating to Democratic stalwarts is the fact that not all voters have been moved by improving economic indicators, with the buying power of “real wages” growing nationally over the last year.
The state’s unemployment rate of 5.5% in August put it higher than the national average of 3.7%, but the Las Vegas metropolitan region’s 4% jobless rate nearly matched the U.S. as a whole. Those figures pale in comparison to the 31% unemployment that devastated the state during the 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Annual inflation peaked in 2022 at about 9%, and haddeclined to 2.6% for the American West (including Nevada) by this summer, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Prices even dropped in some categories, including dairy, fruits and vegetables.
And although gasoline in Nevada is costing an average of $3.98 per gallon this month, above the national average of $3.27, that represents a substantial drop from the $4.62 one year ago,according to AAA.
The boom-bust cycles that Nevadans know too well — with particularly deep holes during the Great Recession and early in the pandemic — have been particularly painful in the housing market.
Apartment rents jumped dramatically in 2022, with the typical rental rate of $1,805 in the Vegas metro area marking a nearly one-third increase from just two years prior. Only three other metropolitan areas experienced bigger leaps. The median rent today stands at $2,070, so increases have slowed but still leave some people struggling to pay their rent.
::
An intake worker at a senior center in the working-class northwest section of Las Vegas said that her clients have been forced to rely on family members, while others have been evicted and forced to move into their cars. Or onto the streets.
“The rent has gone up since Biden’s been in office. It went up when Trump was in office,” said the worker, who asked to go only by her first name, Karen. “We don’t know where the blame lies.”
She said she hadn’t known much about Harris but liked what she saw at the Democratic National Convention.
“She has a lot of new ideas, things that would help,” including proposals for an expanded child-care tax credit, Karen said.
In interviews with 17 people in Henderson and Las Vegas last week, six said they intended to vote for Harris and five for Trump, while six others weren’t sure they would vote at all. Half of those who haven’t committed said they tended to favor the former president; the other half the current vice president.
Donald Trump was leading in state polls during this Las Vegas rally in June, before President Biden quit. An ad for him on Vegas TV stations shows Ronald Reagan telling voters in 1980 to ask whether they’re better off than they were four years ago.
(John Locher / Associated Press)
Trump backers tended to stress his background as a businessman and to focus on the bottom line. Prices for most things were lower when the Republican was in the White House, so it’s time to bring him back, they said.
Some also seconded Trump’s frequent complaint that immigrants crossing the border illegally from Mexico are harming the U.S. (Border crossings have decreased in recent months.)
Most Harris supporters said they trusted her to make the kind of changes she promised; such as imposing sanctions on retailers and others determined to be engaged in price gouging. Those who like the Democrat said they were sick of the demonizing of immigrants.
Rodriguez, a mother of three, said her parents came from Mexico legally. She complained about those who come without authorization and then get government benefits.
“You have people coming into this country, and basically everything is handed to them,” said Rodriguez, who grew up in Orange County. “To me, I don’t think that’s fair.”
One aisle over at the Henderson Dollar Tree, Monica Silva expressed a different view. She said Trump “is always talking about the Mexican issue.”
She added: “He is always criticizing them and blaming them. And that is not true. That is not the problem in our country.”
Silva, 77, who immigrated more than half a century ago from Chile, sees Harris as someone who will rein in price gouging.
“I think she’s just powerful, and she has the experience as the lawyer, you know?” Silva said. “I think she can get things done, more than most people can.”
Shara Rule, who works for an electric scooter business, doesn’t feel Harris or the Biden White House are to blame for higher prices. And she sees prices coming down.
“Trump is just greedy. He is helping himself,” said Rule, 61. “She’s smart and got a good head on her shoulders. I think she’s going to lead us in the right direction, economically.”
Susan Kendall, a director of medical records for a nursing facility, felt that Trump got more done, while the Democrats mostly talked.
She fondly recalled the “economic impact payment” of $1,200 in COVID-19 relief she got when Trump was still in office.
“That made a big difference for people, and Biden didn’t even try any of that,” said Kendall, 56. (Actually, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan shortly after taking office, sending payments of $1,400 per person to middle-class families.)
“I don’t know exactly what Trump did. But whatever he did, it worked,” Kendall said. “I feel like Trump focuses inside the country and helping people here inside the country and not helping people from the outside.”
The ad featuring Reagan really hit home with her. “I saw it and thought about how things were four years ago,” she said. “I think that will make it easy to make your decision.”
Mandy, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom, said prices have gotten so high that she no longer grabs all of the snacks and extras she would like in the supermarket.
“I can’t afford that right now,” she said.
“I just think that the country needs to be run like a business,” said Mandy, a two-time Trump voter who declined to give her last name. “Not so much like Biden is running it now. He’s not like a businessman. He’s a politician.”
Shopping for yarn to crochet hats for friends and family, Kathleen Clark said she sees both political camps as misguided in thinking any president can change economic conditions in the short term.
The 66-year-old Clark, a day trader on the stock market, said long-term micro- and macro-economic forces control the economy. She also doesn’t believe campaign promises, like Trump and Harris promising to eliminate taxes on tips. (“They can’t do it,” she said, “until they figure out how to replace that money.”)
Clark also questioned those who say how much they are suffering. She knows from her retail days, she said, that the kids who started back to school in recent weeks were wearing some pretty pricey outfits.
“Those kids are going out there with $600 tennis shoes and backpacks. They got $1,000 on their backs,” she said with a chuckle. “They’re not hurting.”
One of those ubiquitous Nevada independents, Clark said her vote will be guided by one factor that is beyond argument.
“I’m voting for Harris. Why? Strictly because she’s a woman,” she said. “I don’t believe in Biden. I don’t believe in Trump. I don’t believe in any of the rest of it. But it’s about time [for a female president]. There is nothing else.”
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walks away during a commercial break as US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris take notes during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024.
Investing in the Truth Social maker’s stock has come to be seen as a way to bet on the political fortunes of Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.
The company has acknowledged that its success at least partly depends on Trump’s popularity, and analysts say its value will rise or fall based on his electoral prospects.
The steep stock decline on the heels of the debate could signal that some of Trump’s supporters weren’t pleased with what they saw on Tuesday night.
Both liberal and conservative political commentators said Harris appeared more prepared, articulate and even-keeled on the Philadelphia stage than Trump, who repeatedly bit on bait she tossed to throw him off topic.
Harris’ team, projecting confidence, immediately challenged Trump to another debate after the first one ended.
Trump said he may not agree to another one.
Trump Media, which trades as DJT on the Nasdaq, had surged as much as 10% in intraday trading Tuesday, possibly indicating optimism about how Trump would fare in the debate.
The company’s gains on Monday and Tuesday offered a respite from a weekslong rout that has seen shares sink as much as 75% from their intraday high in late March, when Trump Media merged with a blank-check firm.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
The slump coincided with President Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket.
It also came in the run-up to the date when Trump and other company insiders can start selling their shares.
Trump owns nearly 59% of the company’s stock, a stake that at Wednesday’s pre-market price was worth nearly $2 billion.
It is unclear if Trump plans to start selling off his stake when a lock-up agreement lifts on Sept. 19.
