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  • Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race

    Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race

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    CHICAGO (AP) — Donald Trump falsely suggested Kamala Harris had misled voters about her race as the former president appeared Wednesday before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago in an interview that quickly turned hostile.

    The Republican former president wrongly claimed that Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, had in the past only promoted her Indian heritage.

    “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said while addressing the group’s annual convention.

    Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both immigrants to the U.S. As an undergraduate, Harris attended Howard University, one of the nation’s most prominent historically Black colleges and universities, where she also pledged the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. As a U.S. senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting legislation to strengthen voting rights and to reform policing.

    AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports Donald Trump has falsely suggested Kamala Harris misled voters about her race.

    Trump has leveled a wide range of criticism at Harris since she replaced President Joe Biden atop the likely Democratic ticket last week. Throughout his political career, the former president has repeatedly questioned the backgrounds of opponents who are racial minorities.

    Michael Tyler, the communications director for Harris’ campaign, said in a statement that “the hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president as he seeks to regain power.”

    “Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency — while he failed Black families and left the entire country digging out of the ditch he left us in,” Tyler said. “Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during her briefing with reporters on Wednesday about Trump’s remarks and responded with disbelief, initially murmuring, “Wow.”

    Jean-Pierre, who is Black, called what Trump said “repulsive” and said, “It’s insulting and no one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify.”

    Trump has repeatedly attacked his opponents and critics on the basis of race. He rose to prominence in Republican politics by propagating false theories that President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was not born in the United States. “Birtherism,” as it became known, was just the start of Trump’s history of questioning the credentials and qualifications of Black politicians.

    He has denied allegations of racism. And after Biden picked Harris as his running mate four years ago, a Trump campaign spokesperson then pointed to a previous Trump political donation to Harris as proof that he wasn’t racist.

    “The president, as a private businessman, donated to candidates across all aisles,” the spokesperson, Katrina Pierson, told reporters. “And I’ll note that Kamala Harris is a Black woman and he donated to her campaign, so I hope we can squash this racism argument now,” Pierson said.

    During this year’s Republican primary, he once referred to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, as “Nimbra.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Later Wednesday, Trump did not repeat his criticism of Harris’ race at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, although he called her “phony” and said she has been trying to change her image. He also repeatedly mispronounced her first name.

    “If she becomes your president, our country is finished,” Trump charged.

    Before he took the stage, Trump’s team displayed what appeared to be years-old news headlines describing Harris as the “first Indian-American senator” on the big screen in the arena.

    Trump’s appearance Wednesday at the annual gathering of Black journalists immediately became heated, with the former president sparring with interviewer Rachel Scott of ABC News and accusing her of giving him a “very rude introduction” with a tough first question about his past criticism of Black people and Black journalists, his attack on Black prosecutors who have pursued cases against him and the dinner he had at his Florida club with a white supremacist.

    “I think it’s disgraceful,” Trump said. “I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country. I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country.”

    Trump continued his attacks on Scott’s network, ABC News, which he has been arguing should not host the next presidential debate, despite his earlier agreement with the Biden campaign. He also several times described her tone and questions as “nasty,” a word he used in the past when describing women, including Hillary Clinton and Meghan the Duchess of Sussex.

    The Republican also repeated his false claim that immigrants in the country illegally are “taking Black jobs.” When pushed by Scott on what constituted a “Black job,” Trump responded by saying “a Black job is anybody that has a job,” drawing groans from the room.

    At one point, he said, “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”

    The audience responded with a mix of boos and some applause.

    Scott asked Trump about his pledge to pardon people convicted for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and specifically whether he would pardon those who assaulted police officers.

    Trump said, “Oh, absolutely I would,” and said, “If they’re innocent, I would pardon them.”

    Scott pointed out they have been convicted and therefore are not innocent.

    “Well, they were convicted by a very, very tough system,” he said.

    At one point, when he was defending his supporters who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, he said, “Nothing is perfect in life.”

    He compared the 2021 insurrection to the protests in Minneapolis and other cities in 2020 following the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and to more recent protests at the Capitol last week by demonstrators opposed to the war in Gaza. Trump falsely claimed that no one was arrested in those other demonstrations and that only his supporters were targeted.

    As Trump made the comparison, a man in the back of the room shouted out, “Sir, have you no shame?”

    The former president’s invitation to address the organization sparked an intense internal debate among NABJ that spilled online. Organizations for journalists of color typically invite presidential candidates to speak at their summer gatherings in election years.

    As he campaigns for the White House a third time, Trump has sought to appear outside his traditional strongholds of support and his campaign has touted his efforts to try to win over Black Americans, who have been Democrats’ most committed voting bloc.

    His campaign has emphasized his messages on the economy and immigration as part of his appeal, but some of his outreach has played on racial stereotypes, including the suggestion that African Americans would empathize with the criminal charges he has faced and his promotion of branded sneakers.

    Trump and NABJ also have a tense history over his treatment of Black women journalists. In 2018, NABJ condemned Trump for repeatedly using words such as “stupid,” “loser” and “nasty” to describe Black women journalists.

    The vice president is not scheduled to appear at the convention, but NABJ said in a statement posted on X that it was in conversation with her campaign to have her appear either virtually or in person for a conversation in September.

    Harris addressed Trump’s comments briefly Wednesday night while speaking at a gathering of Sigma Gamma Rho, a historically Black sorority, in Houston.

    “It was the same old show,” she said. “The divisiveness and the disrespect.”

    Harris added: “And let me just say, the American people deserve better.”

    ___

    Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison and Steve Peoples in New York, Gary Fields in Chicago and Will Weissert and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Chris Megerian in Houston contributed to this report.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Posts falsely claim video shows Harris promising to censor X and owner Elon Musk

    FACT FOCUS: Posts falsely claim video shows Harris promising to censor X and owner Elon Musk

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    After a nationwide suspension of billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform in Brazil, social media users — including former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — are misrepresenting a years-old video of Vice President Kamala Harris to falsely claim that the Democratic presidential nominee has threatened to censor both X and Musk.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: A video clip portrays Harris as saying that she will shut down X if she wins the 2024 presidential election and that Musk has “lost his privileges.”

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Harris was referring to Trump long before Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it as X.

    The clip is from 2019 and shows Harris speaking with CNN host Jake Tapper after a Democratic primary debate, discussing whether then-President Donald Trump’s profile should be removed from the platform, called Twitter at the time, and how there needs to be increased accountability for social media companies.

    Kennedy, who on Aug. 23 suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump, used the clip in an X post as alleged proof that Harris was talking about Musk, stating: “Can someone please explain to her that freedom of speech is a RIGHT, not a ‘privilege’?” He also provided his own interpretation of Harris’ comments on social media sites in general as follows: “If they don’t police content to conform to government-approved narratives, they will be shut down.”

    The post had been liked and shared approximately 200,300 times as of Tuesday.

    Another popular X post that shared the video simply reads: “Kamala will shut down X if she wins.” It has been liked and shared approximately 105,000 times. Other social media users claimed that Harris was speaking in support of a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who made the decision last week to block X.

    In extended footage of the interview, part of CNN’s post-debate analysis on Oct. 15, 2019, Tapper asked Harris: “So, one of the topics that you chose to talk a lot about, especially confronting Sen. Warren on, was your push, your call, for Twitter to suspend the account of President Trump. Why was that important?”

    Tapper was referring to the moment in the debate when Harris criticized then-fellow Democratic candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren for not urging such a suspension. Twitter did eventually ban Trump’s account in January 2021, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with multiple other social media platforms kicking him off around the same time. Musk restored Trump’s account in November 2022 after he bought the platform.

    Harris responded during the interview that Trump had “proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice” and that what he says on Twitter “impacts people’s perceptions about what they should and should not do.”

    She continued: “And as far as I’m concerned, and I think most people would say, including members of Congress who he has threatened, that he has lost his privileges and it should be taken down.”

    Harris did not call for the platform as a whole to be shut down. Rather, she advocated for increased accountability.

    “The bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter,” she stated. “The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation, and that has to stop.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    The exchange is reflected in CNN’s transcript of the coverage.

    The Harris campaign directed an Associated Press inquiry about the false claims to a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, who declined to comment. Representatives for Trump and Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.

    Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked last Friday for refusing to name a local legal representative, as required by law. His decision was unanimously upheld by a court panel on Monday. X had removed its legal representative from Brazil on the grounds that de Moraes had threatened her with arrest. The platform will stay suspended until it complies with de Moraes’ order and pays outstanding fines.

    ___

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

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  • With charges and sanctions, US takes aim at Russian disinformation ahead of November election

    With charges and sanctions, US takes aim at Russian disinformation ahead of November election

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in its most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.

    The measures, which in addition to indictments also included sanctions and visa restrictions, represented a U.S. government effort just weeks before the November election to disrupt a persistent threat from Russia that American officials have long warned has the potential to sow discord and create confusion among voters.

    Washington has said that Moscow, which intelligence officials have said has a preference for Republican Donald Trump, remains the primary threat to elections even as the FBI continues to investigate a hack by Iran this year that targeted the presidential campaigns of both political parties.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “The Justice Department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

    One criminal case disclosed by the Justice Department accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of covertly funding a Tennessee-based content creation company with nearly $10 million to publish English-language videos on social media platforms including TikTok and YouTube with messages in favor of the Russia government’s interests and agenda, including about the war in Ukraine.

    The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have gotten more than 16 million views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said.

    The two defendants, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They are at large. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers.

    The Justice Department says the company did not disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered as required by law as an agent of a foreign principal.

    Though the indictment does not name the company, it describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and with a website identifying itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”

    That description exactly matches Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos made by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.

    Johnson and Pool both responded with posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, calling themselves “victims.” Calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “scumbag,” Pool wrote that “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived.”

    In his post, Johnson wrote that he had been asked a year ago to provide content to a “media startup.” He said his lawyers negotiated a “standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.”

    Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake.

    In the other action, officials announced the seizure of 32 internet domains that were used by the Kremlin to spread Russian propaganda and weaken international support for Ukraine. The websites were designed to look like authentic news sites but were actually fake, with bogus social media personas manufactured to appear as if they belonged to American users.

    The Justice Department did not identify which candidate in particular the propaganda campaign was meant to boost. But internal strategy notes from participants in the effort released Wednesday by the Justice Department make clear that Trump was the intended beneficiary, even though the names of the candidates were blacked out.

    The proposal for one propaganda project, for instance, states that one of its objectives was to secure a victory for a candidate who is currently out of power and to increase the percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. has been doing too much to support Ukraine. President Joe Biden has strongly supported Ukraine during the invasion by Russia.

    Intelligence agencies have previously charged that Russia, which during the 2016 election launched a massive campaign of foreign influence and interference on Trump’s behalf, was using disinformation to try to meddle in this year’s election. The new steps show the depth of those concerns.

    “Today’s announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions,” the State Department said. “But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate foreign malign actors intentionally interfering and undermining free and fair elections.”

    The State Department announced it was taking action against several employees of Russian state-owned media outlets, designating them as “foreign missions,” and offering a cash reward for information provided to the U.S. government about foreign election interference.

    It also said it was adding media company Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries RIA Novosti, RT, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik to its list of foreign missions. That will require them to register with the U.S. government and disclose their properties and personnel in the U.S.

    In a speech last month, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Russia remained the biggest threat to election integrity, accusing Putin and his proxies of “targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters to in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes.” Russia, she said was “intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests.”

    She struck a similar note Thursday, saying at an Aspen Institute event that the foreign influence threat is more diverse and aggressive than in past years.

    “More diverse and aggressive because they involve more actors from more countries than we have ever seen before, operating in a more polarized world than we have ever seen before, all fueled by more technology and accelerated by technology, like AI, and that is what we have exposed in the law enforcement actions we took today,” she said.

    Much of the concern around Russia centers on cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns designed to influence the November vote.

    The tactics include using state media like RT to advance anti-U.S. messages and content, as well as networks of fake websites and social media accounts that amplify the claims and inject them into Americans’ online conversations. Typically, these networks seize on polarizing political topics such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.

    In many cases, Americans may have no idea that the content they see online either originated or was amplified by the Kremlin.

    Groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms within Russia to outsource some of the work of creating digital propaganda while also covering their tracks, the officials said during the briefing with reporters.

    Two such firms were the subject of new U.S. sanctions announced in March. Authorities say the two Russian companies created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.

    The ultimate goal, however, is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origin. People are far more likely to trust and repost information that they believe is coming from a domestic source, officials said. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two methods.

    Messages left with the Russian Embassy were not immediately returned.

    _____

    Associated Press writers Dan Merica and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Ali Swenson in New York and Alan Suderman in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

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  • Prosecutor challenges Mark Meadows’s bid to move Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court

    Prosecutor challenges Mark Meadows’s bid to move Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court

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    PHOENIX (AP) — A prosecutor urged a judge on Thursday to reject former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, saying his actions in trying to overturn the 2020 election results weren’t part of his job at the White House.

    Meadows has asked a federal judge to move the case to U.S. District Court, arguing 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.

    The former chief of staff, who faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what state authorities alleged was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, had unsuccessfully tried to move state charges to federal court last year in an election subversion case in Georgia.

    Prosecutor Krista Wood said Meadows’ electioneering efforts weren’t part of his official duties at the White House. “He is not authorized to meddle in the state’s administration of elections,” Wood said.

    The prosecutor pointed to messages received and sent by Meadows in the weeks after the 2020 election, including a text Meadows sent to then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey two weeks after Election Day saying former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was trying to reach the governor to talk about the election results.

    Meadows attorney George Terwilliger maintained his client’s messages and actions were part of his official duties and suggested important context about the messages was missing. “I don’t think the court can rely on those text messages,” Terwilliger said.

    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.

    In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

    While Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office had said Meadows missed the deadline for asking a court to move the charges to federal court, Meadows’ attorneys say another federal law allows for cases to be moved to federal court at a later time for good cause.

    Terwilliger said he waited to try to move Meadows’ Arizona charges to federal court until after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a July ruling that gave former presidents broad immunity from prosecution. U.S. District Judge John Tuchi, who was nominated to the federal bench by then-President Barack Obama, didn’t say when he would issue his ruling on Meadows’ request.

    Last year, Meadows tried to get his Georgia charges moved to federal court, but his request was rejected by a judge, whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. The former chief of staff has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

    The Arizona indictment also 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 and other defendants are seeking a dismissal of the Arizona case.

    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 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.

    In early August, Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

    Meadows and the other 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.

    Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors had 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 in the 2020 election.

    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.

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  • Yellen says ending Biden tax incentives would be ‘historic mistake’ for states like North Carolina

    Yellen says ending Biden tax incentives would be ‘historic mistake’ for states like North Carolina

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned voters in the battleground state of North Carolina that they could lose jobs if Republicans weaken a signature Biden administration law that encourages investments in manufacturing and clean energy.

    Yellen said that Republican-dominated states like North Carolina are greatly benefiting from tax incentives under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and that eliminating them would be a “historic mistake,” in a Thursday speech a community college in Raleigh.

    North Carolina has emerged as a key battleground this election cycle between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, where Trump ultimately won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election.

    Yellen said Treasury data shows that 90,000 North Carolina households claimed more than $100 million in residential clean energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits.

    “Rolling them back could raise costs for working families at a moment when it’s imperative that we continue to take action to lower prices,” Yellen said. “It could jeopardize the significant investments in manufacturing we’re seeing here and across the country, along with the jobs that come with them, many of which don’t require a college degree. And it could give a leg-up to China and other countries that are also investing to compete in these critical industries.”

    “As we see clearly here in North Carolina, this would be a historic mistake,” she said.

    Some Republicans have called on their leaders to reconsider repealing IRA energy tax incentives.

    A group of 18 House Republicans in August called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconsider efforts to eliminate them.

    “Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the letter reads. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”

    But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on social media site X that the lawmakers who signed the letter want to “preserve so-called ‘green’ handouts to Democrats’ corporate cronies.”

    “The GOP must ignore K-Street lobbyists and refuse to fund the climate corporate cronies destroying our country,” he said.

    The Republican case against the Inflation Reduction Act hinges on the argument that the spending is wasteful and benefits China.

    IRS data released in August states that 3.4 million American families have claimed $8.4 billion in residential clean energy and home energy efficiency tax credits in 2023 — mostly towards solar panels and battery storage.

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  • Biden says rural electrification and internet improvements underscore ‘American comeback’

    Biden says rural electrification and internet improvements underscore ‘American comeback’

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    WESTBY, Wisconsin (AP) — President Joe Biden traveled to rural southwest Wisconsin on Thursday to champion new investments in electrification and expanded high-speed internet, proclaiming that “all these investments mean family farms can stay in the family.”

    In the town of Westby, Biden announced $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for millions of families in rural areas across 23 states, with the goal of lowering the cost of badly needed electricity connections in hard-to-reach areas.

    Funding for the project comes from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022 and passed in Congress along party lines. The law invests roughly $13 billion in rural electrification across multiple programs and will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, according to the White House, which called the effort the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s.

    Biden also championed 2021’s infrastructure law, which was approved with some support from congressional Republicans and which he said had provided 72,000 additional Wisconsin homes and small businesses with high-speed internet.

    “Just like we’re making the most significant investment in rural electrification since FDR, we’re also making the most significant investment ever in affordable, high-speed internet because affordable high-speed internet is just as essential today as electricity was a century ago,” Biden said, referring to New Deal architect and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

    Biden said “all of these investments mean family farms can stay in the family, rural entrepreneurs can build their dreams, your children and grandchildren won’t have to leave home to make a living.”

    “That’s stopping now because we’re spreading opportunities to benefit everyone,” he added.

    Before talking policy, Biden addressed Wednesday’s school shooting in Georgia, where a 14-year-old student fatally shot four people. The president lamented that, during a back-to-school season that should have been a “joyous and exciting,” another community in America was instead left “absolutely shattered” by gun violence.

    Biden endorsed calls for stricter requirements for owners to lock up and better secure their firearms — leaning into the fact that he himself is a gun owner.

    “There are too many people who are able to access guns that shouldn’t be able to,” he said. “So let’s require safe storage of firearms. I know I’ve mine locked up.”

    Biden also praised Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he endorsed after dropping his reelection bid in July. And he sharply criticized her opponent in November, former President Donald Trump, for failing to keep promises to spur public works and instead running up towering federal deficits by passing tax cuts that Biden argued primarily benefited the rich.

    “In thousands of cities and towns across the country and across Wisconsin, we’re seeing the great American comeback story,” Biden said, contrasting that with Trump and top Republicans who he said talk “about how bad off we are.”

    “Today’s announcement is about far more than just giving rural America the power to turn on the lights. It’s about giving the power to shape our own future,” Biden said.

    Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win states in November’s presidential election between Trump and Harris. Biden won the state in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, flipping Wisconsin to the Democratic column after Trump narrowly won it in 2016.

    Thursday was also personal for Biden, who returned to Wisconsin to revisit a promise he made early in his presidency to provide, among other infrastructure improvements, better internet to rural areas.

    “It isn’t a luxury; it’s now a necessity, like water and electricity,” Biden said at the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility in June 2021. White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian said the latest visit means Biden has “delivered on so many of those promises.”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to reflect that the goal is to bring down the cost of electricity connections, not internet connections, in hard-to-reach areas.

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  • GOP lawsuits set the stage for state challenges if Trump loses the election

    GOP lawsuits set the stage for state challenges if Trump loses the election

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    Before voters even begin casting ballots, Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a sprawling legal fight over the 2024 election through a series of court disputes that could even run past Nov. 5 if results are close.

    Republicans filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting after being chastised repeatedly by judges in 2020 for bringing complaints about how the election was run only after votes were tallied.

    After Donald Trump made ” election integrity ” a key part of his party’s platform following his false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020, the Republican National Committee says it has more than 165,000 volunteers ready to watch the polls.

    Democrats are countering with what they are calling “voter protection,” rushing to court to fight back against the GOP cases and building their own team with over 100 staffers, several hundred lawyers and what they say are thousands of volunteers.

    Despite the flurry of litigation, the cases have tended to be fairly small-bore, with few likely impacts for most voters.

    “When you have all this money to spend on litigation, you end up litigating less and less important stuff,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University.

    The stakes would increase dramatically should Trump lose and try to overturn the results. That’s what he attempted in 2020, but the court system rejected him across the board. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits trying to reverse President Joe Biden’s win.

    Whether they could be successful this year depends on the results, experts said. A gap of about 10,000 votes — roughly the number that separated Biden and Trump in Arizona and Georgia in 2020 — is almost impossible to reverse through litigation. A closer one of a few hundred votes, like the 547-vote margin that separated George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida in 2000, is much more likely to hinge on court rulings about which ballots are legitimate.

    “If he loses, he’s going to claim that he won. That goes without saying,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of Trump. “If it looks like what we had last time … I expect we’ll see the same kind of thing.”

    Trump has done nothing to discourage that expectation, saying he would accept the results of the election only if it’s “free and fair,” raising the possibility it would not be, something he continues to falsely contend was the case in 2020. He also continues to insist that he could only lose due to fraud.

    “The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in June.

    To be clear, there was no widespread fraud in 2020 or any election since then. Reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump disputed his loss reaffirmed that Biden won. And Trump’s attorney general said there was no evidence that fraud tipped the election.

    Trump installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which then named attorney Christina Bobb as the head of its election integrity division. Bobb is a former reporter for the conservative One America News Network who has been indicted by Arizona’s attorney general for being part of an effort to promote a slate of Trump electors in the state, even though Biden won it.

    Echoing Trump, the RNC said it’s trying to counter Democratic mischief.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “President Trump’s election integrity effort is dedicated to protecting every legal vote, mitigating threats to the voting process and securing the election,” RNC spokeswoman Claire Zunk said in a statement. “While Democrats continue their election interference against President Trump and the American people, our operation is confronting their schemes and preparing for November.”

    This time around, Democrats say they’re prepared for whatever Republicans might do.

    “For four years, Donald Trump and his MAGA allies have been scheming to sow distrust in our elections and undermine our democracy so they can cry foul when they lose,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign manager, said in a statement. “But also for four years, Democrats have been preparing for this moment, and we are ready for anything.”

    The highest-profile litigation so far has been in Georgia, over new rules from a Republican-appointed majority on the State Board of Elections, which has echoed Trump’s conspiracy theories. The rules could allow members of local election boards to try to refuse to certify results, a gambit Trump supporters have tried, unsuccessfully, to reverse losses in 2020 and 2022.

    A Trump-aligned group sued to have courts declare that election board members have that power while Democrats sued to overturn the new rules. GOP Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has questioned the wisdom of the board changing procedures so close to the election. Legal experts say the state board’s rules conflict with longstanding state law that certification is not optional.

    Whether local boards delay or refuse to certify the results from the upcoming election has been a growing concern, especially after a handful of local officials took that step during this year’s primaries. But experts say the fears of a certification crisis are overblown, in large part because most state laws are clear that state or local boards must certify the official results brought to them by election offices. The courtroom remains the most important venue for candidates who want to challenge results.

    “Trying to deny certification is a really poorly thought out theory,” Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer, said on a Thursday call with reporters. “It has never worked.”

    The litigation to date has often been about relatively esoteric matters, but some cases could have implications after November if Trump loses. The RNC has filed lawsuits in Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina alleging the states need to remove inactive or ineligible voters from their rolls. Late last month, Republicans sued North Carolina over a favorite issue — the risk of noncitizens voting, which is rare. They contend the state wasn’t doing enough to safeguard against it.

    So far none of the claims have succeeded. But if Trump loses in those states by a narrow margin, that sort of pre-election litigation could pave the way for him to claim in court that the vote was invalid.

    The other area that could have ramifications in November and beyond is whether mail ballots arriving after Election Day can be counted. Nineteen states allow that as long as the ballots are sent before polls close. The RNC sued to overturn this provision in Nevada and Mississippi, but both cases were dismissed by judges.

    The RNC appealed those cases, and the first is scheduled to be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this month. It’s the sort of issue that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Some Trump allies in 2020 hoped the court would declare him the winner, but the late-arriving mail ballot litigation at the time showed the limits of that tactic.

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state had to count mail ballots that arrived up to four days after Election Day. Republicans then appealed that ruling to the nation’s highest court, and late-arriving mail was counted separately in November 2020 while everyone waited for the Supreme Court to weigh in.

    In the end, the Supreme Court didn’t take up the case. Trump lost Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, so the 10,000 late-arriving mail ballots wouldn’t have even made a difference.

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  • Having a family is expensive. Here’s what Harris and Trump have said about easing costs

    Having a family is expensive. Here’s what Harris and Trump have said about easing costs

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The high cost of caring for children and the elderly has forced women out of the workforce, devastated family finances and left professional caretakers in low-wage jobs — all while slowing economic growth.

    That families are suffering is not up for debate. As the economy emerges as a theme in this presidential election, the Democratic and Republican candidates have sketched out ideas for easing costs that reveal their divergent views about family.

    On this topic, the two tickets have one main commonality: Both of the presidential candidates — and their running mates — have, at one point or another, backed an expanded child tax credit.

    Vice President Kamala Harris, who accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination last week, has signaled that she plans to build on the ambitions of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to pour billions in taxpayer dollars into making child care and home care for elderly and disabled adults more affordable. She has not etched any of those plans into a formal policy platform. But in a speech earlier this month, she said her vision included raising the child tax credit.

    Delaney Griffin, center, plays with toddlers at the child care center where she works, March 13, 2024, in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan, File)

    Former President Donald Trump, the Republican, has declined to answer questions about how he would make child care more affordable, even though it was an issue he tackled during his own administration. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has a long history of pushing policies that would encourage Americans to have families, floating ideas like giving parents votes for their children. Just this month, Vance said he wants to raise the child tax credit to $5,000. But Vance has opposed government spending on child care, arguing that many children benefit from having one parent at home as caretaker.

    The candidates’ care agendas could figure prominently into their appeal to suburban women in swing states, a coveted demographic seen as key to victory in November. Women provide two-thirds of unpaid care work — valued at $1 trillion annually — and are disproportionately impacted when families can’t find affordable care for their children or aging parents. And the cost of care is an urgent problem: Child care prices are rising faster than inflation.

    Kamala Harris: Increase the child tax credit

    When Harris addressed the Democratic National Convention, she talked first about her own experience with child care. She was raised mostly by a single mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who worked long hours as a breast cancer researcher. Among the people who formed her family’s support network was “Mrs. Shelton, who ran the day care below us and became a second mother.”

    As vice president, Harris worked behind the scenes in Congress on Biden’s proposals to establish national paid family leave, make prekindergarten universal and invest billions in child care so families wouldn’t pay more than 7% of their income. She announced, too, the administration’s actions to lower copays for families using federal child care vouchers, and to raise wages for Medicaid-funded home health aides. Before that, her track record as a senator included pressing for greater labor rights for domestic workers, including nannies and home health aides who may be vulnerable to exploitation.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    This month at a community college in North Carolina, Harris outlined her campaign’s economic agenda, which includes raising the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 and giving families of newborns even more — $6,000 for the child’s first year.

    Image

    This combination photo shows Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at an event, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J., left, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo)

    “That is a vital — vital year of critical development of a child, and the costs can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else,” she told the audience. Her running mate selection of Tim Walz, who established paid leave and a child tax credit as governor of Minnesota, has also buoyed optimism among supporters.

    Donald Trump: Few specifics, but some past support

    For voters grappling with the high cost of child care, Trump has offered little in the way of solutions. During the June presidential debate, CNN moderator Jake Tapper twice asked Trump what he would do to lower child care costs. Both times, he failed to answer, instead pivoting to other topics. His campaign platform is similarly silent. It does tackle the cost of long-term care for the elderly, writing that Republicans would “support unpaid Family Caregivers through Tax Credits and reduced red tape.”

    The silence marks a shift from his first campaign, when he pitched paid parental leave, though it was panned by critics because his proposal excluded fathers. When he reached the White House, the former president sought $1 billion for child care, plus a parental leave policy at the urging of his daughter and policy adviser, Ivanka Trump. Congress rejected both proposals, but Trump succeeded in doubling the child tax credit and establishing paid leave for federal employees.

    In his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump said he was “proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave, so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child.”

    This year, there are signs that his administration might not pursue the same agenda, including his selection of Vance as a running mate. In 2021, before he joined the Senate, Vance co-authored an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal opposing a proposal to invest billions in child care to make it more affordable for families. He and his co-author said expanding child care subsidies would lead to “unhappier, unhealthier children” and that having fewer mothers contributing to the economy might be a worthwhile trade-off.

    Vance has floated policies that would make it easier for a family to live off of a single income, making it possible for some parents to stay home while their partners work. Along with his embrace of policies he calls pro-family, he has tagged people who do not have or want children as “sociopaths.” He once derided Harris and other rising Democratic stars as “childless cat ladies,” even though Harris has two stepchildren — they call her “Momala” — and no cats.

    Even without details about new care policies, Trump believes that families would ultimately get a better deal under his administration.

    The Trump-Vance campaign has attacked Harris’ record on the economy and said the Biden administration’s policies have only made things tougher for families, pointing to recent inflation.

    “Harris … has proudly and repeatedly celebrated her role as Joe Biden’s co-pilot on Bidenomics,” said Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman. “The basic necessities of food, gas and housing are less affordable, unemployment is rising, and Kamala doesn’t seem to care.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • First rioter to enter Capitol during Jan. 6 attack is sentenced to over 4 years in prison

    First rioter to enter Capitol during Jan. 6 attack is sentenced to over 4 years in prison

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky man who was the first rioter to enter the U.S. Capitol during a mob’s attack on the building was sentenced on Tuesday to more than four years in prison.

    A police officer who tried to subdue Michael Sparks with pepper spray described him as a catalyst for the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Senate that day recessed less than one minute after Sparks jumped into the building through a broken window. Sparks then joined other rioters in chasing a police officer up flights of stairs.

    Before learning his sentencing, Sparks told the judge that he still believes the 2020 presidential election was marred by fraud and “completely taken from the American public.”

    “I am remorseful that what transpired that day didn’t help anybody,” Sparks said. “I am remorseful that our country is in the state it’s in.”

    U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who sentenced Sparks to four years and five months, told him that there was nothing patriotic about his prominent role in what was a “national disgrace.”

    “I don’t really think you appreciate the full gravity of what happened that day and, quite frankly, the full seriousness of what you did,” the judge said.

    Federal prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of four years and nine months for Sparks, a 47-year-old former factory worker from Cecilia, Kentucky.

    Defense attorney Scott Wendelsdorf asked the judge to sentence Sparks to one year of home detention instead of prison.

    A jury convicted Sparks of all six charges that he faced, including a felony count of interfering with police during a civil disorder. Sparks didn’t testify at his trial in Washington, D.C.

    In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, Sparks used social media to promote conspiracy theories about election fraud and advocate for a civil war.

    “It’s time to drag them out of Congress. It’s tyranny,” he posted on Facebook three days before the riot.

    Sparks traveled to Washington, D.C, with co-workers from an electronics and components plant in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. They attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6.

    After the rally, Sparks and a friend, Joseph Howe, joined a crowd in marching to the Capitol. Both of them wore tactical vests. Howe was captured on video repeatedly saying, “we’re getting in that building.”

    Off camera, Sparks added: “All it’s going to take is one person to go. The rest is following,” according to prosecutors. Sparks’ attorney argued that the evidence doesn’t prove that Sparks made that statement.

    “Of course, both Sparks and Howe were more right than perhaps anyone else knew at the time — it was just a short time later that Sparks made history as the very first person to go inside, and the rest indeed followed,” prosecutors wrote.

    Dominic Pezzola, a member of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group, used a police shield to break a window next to the Senate Wing Door. Capitol Police Sgt. Victor Nichols sprayed Sparks in the face as he hopped through the shattered glass.

    Nichols testified that Sparks acted “like a green light for everybody behind him, and everyone followed right behind him because it was like it was okay to go into the building.” Nichols also said Sparks’ actions were “the catalyst for the building being completely breached.”

    Undeterred by pepper spray, Sparks joined other rioters in chasing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman as he retreated up the stairs and found backup from other officers near the Senate chamber.

    “This is our America!” Sparks screamed at police. He left the building about 10 minutes later.

    Sparks’ attorney downplayed his client’s distinction as the first rioter to enter the building.

    “While technically true in a time-line sense, he did not lead the crowd into the building or cause the breach through which he and others entered,” Wendelsdorf wrote. “Actually, there were eight different points of access that day separately and independently exploited by the protestors.”

    But the judge said when and where Sparks entered the Capitol was an important factor in his sentencing.

    “I think it’s undeniable that the first person” to enter the Capitol “would have an emboldening and encouraging effect on everyone who was at least in your vicinity,” Kelly told Sparks. “To say it wasn’t a material, key point in the mob’s taking of the Capitol, I think, is just ignoring the obvious.”

    Sparks was arrested in Kentucky less than a month after the riot. Sparks and Howe were charged together in a November 2022 indictment. Howe pleaded guilty to assault and obstruction charges and was sentenced last year to four years and two months in prison.

    More than 1,400 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Approximately 950 riot defendants have been convicted and sentenced. More than 600 of them have received terms of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

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  • US Postal Service is abandoning a plan to reroute Reno-area mail processing to Sacramento

    US Postal Service is abandoning a plan to reroute Reno-area mail processing to Sacramento

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    RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday it is abandoning a plan to reroute Reno-area mail processing to Sacramento that had created an uproar among northern Nevadans concerned it could delay local deliveries and jeopardize on-time arrival of mail-in election ballots.

    USPS said in a statement it has identified “enhanced efficiencies” that will allow processing of single-piece mail to continue at the existing Reno postal facility. It said it does not anticipate the revised strategy will have any impacts on postal workers in Reno.

    The latest change in plans is subject to formal regulatory filings it intends to initiate next month with the Postal Regulatory Commission, the service said.

    Sen. Jacky Rosen said it should mean an end to “this misguided Washington plan.”

    “The announcement that this widely opposed transfer of local mail processing operations will no longer happen is a huge win for our seniors, veterans, and every person in Northern Nevada who depends on timely mail delivery,” Rosen said.

    Rosen, a Democrat running for reelection against Republican Sam Brown in one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the nation, took the lead earlier this year in bipartisan efforts to fight the original plan. She was joined by fellow Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Republican Rep. Mark Amodei and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.

    Image

    Lombardo said it was “a huge bipartisan victory for Nevada.” He said in a statement posted on social media that he was “grateful to have worked alongside” Rosen, Cortez Masto and Amodei to protect Nevadans ”from misguided D.C. bureaucracy.”

    Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, the state’s top election official, had warned moving operations could slow the processing of mail ballots and “has the potential to disenfranchise thousands of Nevada voters and would unquestionably impact the results of Nevada’s elections.”

    Most Nevadans voted by mail in the 2022 general election and this year’s statewide primary in June — 51% in November 2022 and 65% in the primary two months ago.

    Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had pitched the original downsizing plan — which was expected to be put in place next year — as a necessary cost-saving move. It drew intense opposition in Nevada because it would have meant that all mail sent from the Reno area would pass through Sacramento before reaching its final destination — even from one side of the city to the other.

    Lawmakers warned that even in the best weather, mail service could be caught in traffic delays during the 260-mile (418-kilometer) roundtrip drive on U.S. Interstate 80 over the top of the Sierra Nevada between Reno and Sacramento.

    And heavy snowfall typically closes the highway multiple times a year in the mountains during harsh winter weather, which can begin as early as fall and stretch into late spring.

    Rosen and Amodei introduced companion legislation in Congress in March to block the processing transfer after a blizzard dumped up to 10 feet (3 meters) of snow on the mountains earlier that month.

    The service said in a statement Tuesday more details will be released after a Sept. 5 pre-filing conference with the Postal Regulatory Commission “to discuss the proposal and gain stakeholder feedback in anticipation of a subsequent filing” seeking a formal advisory opinion from the commission.

    “If the regulatory process is successful, there will be no change to the location for cancelling certain originating mail in Reno,” it said. “In simpler terms, outgoing single piece mail will continue to be processed at its current location.”

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  • Gun control initiatives to be left off Memphis ballot after GOP threat to withhold funds

    Gun control initiatives to be left off Memphis ballot after GOP threat to withhold funds

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Election officials in Memphis decided Tuesday to leave three gun control questions off the November ballot after top Republican state leaders threatened to withhold tens of millions of dollars in state funding.

    On Monday, Tennessee’s election coordinator, Mark Goins, sent a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission warning that the gun control measures violated several of Tennessee’s laws, making them void and ineligible to be placed on the ballot. The letter was sent hours after House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Senate Speaker Randy McNally issued their state funding ultimatum.

    Goins added that “unequivocable declarations by the General Assembly” left “no authority” for Memphis officials to propose such amendments to the city’s charter. Goins also raised concerns that the city had not properly followed the public notice procedures required to put a referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot.

    In a statement, the Shelby County Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips said the state elections coordinator guides the commission in running elections, “and we will follow his direction.”

    “If the City of Memphis decides to challenge this interpretation, we will respect the final decision made by the courts,” Phillips said.

    Earlier this year, the Memphis City Council approved a proposal to ask voters if they wanted to tweak the city charter to require permits to carry a handgun, ban the possession of AR-15 style rifles and implement a so-called red flag ordinance, which allows law enforcement officials to remove firearms from those found to be an imminent danger to themselves or others.

    The council had acknowledged at times that they were potentially risking the ire of the Republican-dominant Legislature since the measures likely conflict with Tennessee’s lax gun laws.

    Regardless, council members representing the large Black-majority, left-leaning city said they were willing to take the risk.

    “If the General Assembly wants to punish us and punish our citizens for asking for their help, we will deal with that accordingly, but that would be absolutely heartbreaking,” Councilman Chase Carlisle said during a council meeting in 2023.

    In 2021, Republican lawmakers and GOP Gov. Bill Lee signed off on permitless carry for handguns. In May of this year, they banned local cities and counties from implementing their own red flag laws. Meanwhile, many inside that same Republican supermajority have rebuffed calls to place limits on firearms, an effort that has only increased after a gunman shot and killed three adults and three 9-year-olds in a Nashville private school last year.

    The continued push to put the gun control questions before Memphis voters prompted not only the state’s top Republican lawmakers to threaten to withhold funding, but also led Secretary of State Tre Hargett to warn that his office would not approve Memphis’ ballot if it included the gun initiatives.

    Last year, Memphis received nearly $78 million from the state’s sales tax revenue. The city currently operates an $858 million budget.

    “Guns pose a different risk for residents of Memphis than they do for some other municipalities, but we understand that we need to work with our state to determine a set of tools to restore peace in our community,” said Mayor Paul Young in a statement responding to the Legislature’s ultimatum. “What happens next is up to the voters and the legislative branches.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    McNally praised the election commission’s decision, saying that he appreciated the panel “recognizing the county cannot make state law.”

    Members inside Tennessee’s white-majority Legislature have long criticized Memphis leaders, especially for how they have managed the city’s crime rates, and expressed doubt over how Black leaders were handling the issue. In 2023, the city saw a record-breaking 398 homicides, while burglaries jumped to more than 14,000.

    The rate of reported crime in Memphis for the first half of 2024 remained below the first half of 2023 in almost all major categories, however, including the violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, according to preliminary figures from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

    Trust only further broke down this year when Republican lawmakers and the governor signed off on legislation designed to undo police traffic stop reforms set in place after officers fatally beat Tyre Nichols last year.

    State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who represents a Memphis district and was one of two Black Democratic state lawmakers who were briefly expelled from the Legislature for protesting the lack of action after the Nashville school shootings, said the election commission’s decision was “dangerous for democracy” and he hoped the city council would take legal action.

    “I am furious and disappointed that the Shelby County Election Commission felt that it needed to yield to the tyrannical and authoritarian actions of the Republican leadership of this state,” Pearson said. “They are abusing their positions and authority to intentionally circumvent the will of the people in our city.”

    ——-

    Kruesi reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims around Kamala Harris and her campaign for the White House

    FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims around Kamala Harris and her campaign for the White House

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    The announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris will seek the Democratic nomination for president is inspiring a wave of false claims about her eligibility and her background. Some first emerged years ago, while others only surfaced after President Joe Biden’s decision to end his bid for a second term.

    Here’s a look at the facts.

    ___

    CLAIM: Harris is not an American citizen and therefore cannot serve as commander in chief.

    THE FACTS: Completely false. Harris is a natural born U.S. citizen. She was born on Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, according to a copy of her birth certificate, obtained by The Associated Press.

    Her mother, a cancer researcher from India, and her father, an economist from Jamaica, met as graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, anyone born on U.S. soil is considered a natural born U.S. citizen and eligible to serve as either the vice president or president.

    “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” reads the amendment.

    There is no question or legitimate debate about whether a citizen like Harris is eligible to serve as president or vice president, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School.

    “So many legal questions are really nuanced — this isn’t one of those situations,” Levinson told the AP on Monday.

    Still, social media posts making the debunked assertion that Harris cannot serve as president went viral soon after Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race and would back Harris for president.

    “Kamala Harris is not eligible to run for President,” read one post on X that was liked more than 34,000 times. “Neither of her parents were natural born American citizens when she was born.”

    False assertions about Harris’ eligibility began circulating in 2019 when she launched her bid for the presidency. They got a boost, thanks in part to then-President Donald Trump, when Biden selected her as his running mate.

    “I heard today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” the Republican said of Harris in 2019.

    ___

    CLAIM: Harris is not Black.

    THE FACTS: This is false. Harris is Black and Indian. Her father, Donald Harris, is a Black man who was born in Jamaica. Shyamala Gopalan, her mother, was born in southern India. Harris has spoken publicly for many years, including in her 2019 autobiography, about how she identifies with the heritage of both her parents.

    Despite ample evidence to the contrary, social media users are making erroneous claims about Harris’ race.

    “Just a reminder that Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris isn’t black,” reads one X post that had received approximately 42,000 likes and 20,400 shares as of Monday. “She Indian American. She pretends to be black as part of the delusional, Democrat DEI quota.”

    But Harris is both Black and Indian. Indeed, she is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. This fact is highlighted in her biography on WhiteHouse.gov and she has spoken about her ethnicity on many occasions.

    Harris wrote in her autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” that she identifies with the heritage of both her mother and father.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “My mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncle instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots,” she wrote. “Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage, and we were raised with a strong awareness and appreciation for Indian culture.”

    In the next paragraph, she adds, “My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters.” Harris again refers to herself as a “black woman” in the book’s next chapter.

    ___

    CLAIM: Harris got her start by having an affair with a married man, California politician Willie Brown.

    THE FACTS: This is missing some important context. Brown was separated from his wife during the relationship, which was not a secret.

    Brown, 90, is a former mayor of San Francisco who was serving as speaker of the California State Assembly in the 1990s when he and Harris were in a relationship. Brown had separated from his wife in 1982.

    “Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago,” Brown wrote in 2020 in the San Francisco Chronicle under the article title, “Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?”

    He wrote that he supported Harris’ first race to be San Francisco district attorney — just as he has supported a long list of other California politicians, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Harris, 59, was state attorney general from 2011-2017 and served in the Senate from 2017 until 2021, when she became vice president. She has been married to Doug Emhoff since 2014.

    Harris’ critics have used the past relationship to question her qualifications, as Fox News personality Tomi Lahren did when she wrote on social media in 2019: “Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown.” Lahren later apologized for the comment.

    Trump and some of his supporters have also highlighted the nearly three-decade old relationship in recent attacks on Harris.

    ___

    CLAIM: An Inside Edition clip of television host Montel Williams holding hands with Harris and another woman is proof that Harris was his “side piece.”

    THE FACTS: The clip shows Montel with Harris and his daughter, Ashley Williams. Harris and Williams, a former marine who hosted “The Montel Williams Show” for more than a decade, dated briefly in the early 2000s.

    In the clip, taken from a 2019 Inside Edition segment, Williams can be seen posing for photographs and holding hands with both women as they arrive at the 2001 Eighth Annual Race to Erase MS in Los Angeles.

    But social media users are misrepresenting the clip, using it as alleged evidence that Harris was Montel’s “side piece” — a term used to describe a person, typically a woman, who has a sexual relationship with a man in a monogamous relationship.

    Williams addressed the false claims in an X post on Monday, writing in reference to the Inside Edition clip, “as most of you know, that is my daughter to my right.” Getty Images photos from the Los Angeles gala identify the women as Harris and Ashley Williams.

    In 2019, Williams described his relationship with Harris in a post on X, then known as Twitter.

    “@KamalaHarris and I briefly dated about 20 years ago when we were both single,” he wrote in an X post at the time. “So what? I have great respect for Sen. Harris. I have to wonder if the same stories about her dating history would have been written if she were a male candidate?”

    ___

    CLAIM: Harris promised to inflict the “vengeance of a nation” on Trump supporters.

    THE FACTS: A fabricated quote attributed to Harris is spreading online five years after it first surfaced.

    In the quote, Harris supposedly promises that if Trump is defeated in 2020, Trump supporters will be targeted by the federal government: “Once Trump’s gone and we have regained our rightful place in the White House, look out if you supported him and endorsed his actions, because we’ll be coming for you next. You will feel the vengeance of a nation.”

    The quote was shared again on social media this week. One post on X containing an image of the quote was shared more than 22,000 times as of Monday afternoon.

    The remarks didn’t come from Harris, but from a satirical article published online in August 2019. Shortly after, Trump supporters like musician Ted Nugent reposted the comments without noting they were fake.

    ___

    CLAIM: A video shows Harris saying in a speech: “Today is today. And yesterday was today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. So live today, so the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow.”

    THE FACTS: Harris never said this. Footage from a 2023 rally on reproductive rights at Howard University, her alma mater, was altered to make it seem as though she did.

    In the days after Harris headlined the Washington rally, Republicans mocked a real clip of her speech, with one critic dubbing her remarks a “word salad,” the AP reported at the time.

    Harris says in the clip: “So I think it’s very important — as you have heard from so many incredible leaders — for us, at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.”

    NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights nonprofit whose president also spoke at the rally, livestreamed the original footage. It shows Harris making the “moment in time” remark, but not the “today is today” comment.

    The White House’s transcript of Harris’ remarks also does not include the statement from the altered video. Harris’ appearance at the event came the same day that Biden announced their reelection bid.

    ___

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

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  • Trump rebukes Harris and Biden on anniversary of Afghanistan bombing that killed 13 service members

    Trump rebukes Harris and Biden on anniversary of Afghanistan bombing that killed 13 service members

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    DETROIT (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday tied Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members, calling the attack a “humiliation.”

    Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of Sgt. Nicole Gee, Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover and Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, who were killed alongside more than 100 Afghans in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He then traveled to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.

    “Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump told an audience of about 4,000, including National Guard members and their families in Detroit.

    Taliban fighters carry rocket launchers as they celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, southwestern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaliq)

    President Joe Biden’s administration was following a withdrawal commitment and timeline that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban in 2020. A 2022 review by a government-appointed special investigator concluded decisions made by both Trump and Biden were the key factors leading to the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s military and the Taliban takeover.

    In his speech to the National Guard in Detroit, Trump said that leaving Afghanistan was the right thing to do but that the execution was poor. “We were going to do it with dignity and strength,” he said. He called the attack “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”

    Since Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump has been zeroing in on Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and her roles in foreign policy decisions. He has specifically highlighted the vice president’s statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan.

    “The voters are going to fire Kamala and Joe on Nov. 5, we hope, and when I take office we will ask for the resignations of every single official,” Trump said in Detroit. “We’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity, to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day. You know, you have to fire people. You have to fire people when they do a bad job.”

    In her own statement marking the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack, Harris said she mourns the 13 U.S. service members who were killed. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for their pain and their loss,” she said.

    Harris said she honors and remembers all Americans who served in Afghanistan.

    Donald Trump campaigns in Michigan today, on the third anniversary of a deadly bombing during the US evacuation from Afghanistan. AP correspondent Jennifer King reports.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    “As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war. Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones,” she said. “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people.”

    Biden said in a statement Monday that the 13 Americans who died were “patriots in the highest sense” who “embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “Ever since I became Vice President, I carried a card with me every day that listed the exact number of American service members who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—including Taylor, Johanny, Nicole, Hunter, Daegan, Humberto, David, Jared, Rylee, Dylan, Kareem, Maxton, and Ryan,” Biden said.

    The relatives of some of the American service members who were killed appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention last month and spoke on Monday in a media call along with Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. They said they are still trying to get answers on how their loved ones died.

    “For them to think that is OK and treat it as another page in a book that they’re just flipping over for the next chapter it saddens me and frightens me all at the same time,” said Alicia Lopez, the mother of Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, who added she has another son serving in the military. “I pray that I don’t get another knock on my door because of the lack of responsibilities this administration has for our military.”

    Asked Monday why Biden and Harris weren’t marking the anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack as Trump did at Arlington National Cemetery, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Trump had been personally invited by the family members and he called it one way to honor the fallen.

    “Another way is to continue to work,” Kirby said. “Maybe not with a lot of fanfare, maybe not with a lot of public attention, maybe not with TV cameras, but to work with might and main every single day to make sure that the families of the fallen and of those who were injured and wounded, not just at Abbey Gate, but over the course of the 20-some odd years that we were in Afghanistan, have the support that they need.”

    Also Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that Congress will posthumously honor the 13 service members by presenting their families with the Congressional Gold Medal next month. It’s the highest civilian award that Congress can bestow.

    Under Trump, the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that was aimed at ending America’s longest war and bringing U.S. troops home. Biden later pointed to that agreement as he sought to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan, saying it bound him to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that engulfed the country.

    A Biden administration review of the withdrawal acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but attributed the delays to the Afghan government and military, and to U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.

    The top two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation said the administration inadequately planned for the withdrawal. The nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, told lawmakers earlier this year he had urged Biden to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces to give backup. Instead, Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the U.S. embassy.

    ___

    Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

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  • Rudy Giuliani did nothing illegal in Arizona’s fake elector case, his lawyer says

    Rudy Giuliani did nothing illegal in Arizona’s fake elector case, his lawyer says

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    PHOENIX (AP) — A lawyer for Rudy Giuliani said Monday that the charges against his client in Arizona’s fake elector case should be thrown out because Giuliani did nothing criminal in contesting Joe Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in the state over Donald Trump.

    An indictment said Giuliani spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona after the 2020 election and presided over a downtown Phoenix gathering where he claimed officials made no effort to determine the accuracy of presidential election results.

    Attorney Mark Williams said Giuliani was exercising his rights to free speech and petition the government. “How is Mr. Giuliani to know that, oh my gosh, he presided over a meeting in downtown Phoenix,” Williams asked sarcastically. “How is he to know that that’s a crime?”

    Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen is hearing arguments over whether to dismiss charges against Republicans who signed a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona and others who are accused of scheming to overturn the presidential race’s outcome.

    Cohen hasn’t yet issued decisions on the dismissal requests. Arguments over whether to throw out the case will continue Tuesday.

    While not a fake elector in Arizona, the indictment alleged Giuliani pressured Maricopa County officials and state legislators to change the outcome of Arizona’s results and encouraged Republican electors in the state to vote for Trump in mid-December 2020.

    At least a dozen defendants are seeking a dismissal under an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics. The law had long offered protections in civil cases but was amended in 2022 by the Republican-led Legislature to cover people facing most criminal charges.

    The defendants argue Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes tried to use the charges to silence them for their constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to the race’s outcome. They say Mayes campaigned on investigating the fake elector case and had shown a bias against Trump and his supporters.

    Prosecutors say the defendants don’t have evidence to back up their retaliation claim and they crossed the line from protected speech to fraud. Mayes’ office also has said the grand jury that brought the indictment wanted to consider charging the former president, but prosecutors urged them not to.

    Dennis Wilenchik, an attorney for defendant James Lamon, who had signed a statement claiming Trump had won Arizona, argued his client signed the document only as a contingency in case a lawsuit would eventually turn the outcome of the presidential race in Trump’s favor in Arizona.

    “My client, Jim Lamon, never did anything to overthrow the government,” Wilenchik said.

    Prosecutor Nicholas Klingerman said the defendants’ actions don’t back up their claims that they signed the document as a contingency.

    One defendant, attorney Christina Bobb, was working with Giuliani to get Congress to accept the fake electors, while another defendant, Anthony Kern, gave a media interview in which he said then-Vice President Mike Pence would decide which of the two slates of electors to choose from, Klingerman said.

    “That doesn’t sound like a contingency,” Klingerman said. “That sounds like a plan to cause turmoil to change the outcome of the election.”

    In all, 18 Republicans were charged with forgery, fraud and conspiracy. The defendants consist of 11 Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to the former president, including Rudy Giuliani.

    So far, two defendants have resolved their cases.

    Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

    The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their trial is scheduled to start Jan. 5, 2026.

    Former Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows is trying to move his charges to federal court, where his lawyers say they will seek a dismissal of the charges.

    Trump was not charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.

    In a filing, Mayes’ office said as grand jurors were considering possible charges, a prosecutor asked them not to indict Trump, citing a U.S. Justice Department policy that limits the prosecution of someone for the same crime twice. The prosecutor also didn’t know whether authorities had all the evidence they would need to charge Trump at that time.

    It also accused him of pressuring Maricopa County officials and state legislators to change the outcome of Arizona’s results and encouraging Republican electors in the state to vote for Trump in mid-December 2020.

    Eleven people who had been 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 in the 2020 election.

    President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document later was 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. Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April.

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  • Trump zigzags between economic remarks and personal insults at rally in critical Pennsylvania

    Trump zigzags between economic remarks and personal insults at rally in critical Pennsylvania

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    WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday repeatedly swerved from a message focused on the economy into non sequiturs and personal attacks, including thrice declaring that he was better looking than Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Trump wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and delivering a smattering of insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron as he held a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania.

    The former president has seemed to struggle to adjust to his new opponent after Democrats replaced their nominee. Over the past week, he has diverged during campaign appearances away from the policies he was billed to speak about and instead diverted to a rotation of familiar attack lines and insults.

    As he attacked Democrats for inflation at the top of his speech, Trump asked his crowd of supporters, “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates her.”

    Joseph Costello, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, responded to Trump in a statement by saying, “Another rally, same old show” and that Trump “ resorts to lies, name-calling, and confused rants,” because he can’t sell his agenda.

    “The more Americans hear Trump speak, the clearer the choice this November: Vice President Harris is unifying voters with her positive vision to protect our freedoms, build up the middle class, and move America forward — and Donald Trump is trying to take us backwards,” Costello said.

    Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre was in a swath of a pivotal battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown of Scranton will boost the Republican’s chances of winning back the White House.

    His remarks Saturday came as Democrats prepare for their four-day national convention that kicks off Monday in Chicago and will mark the party’s welcoming of Harris as their nominee. Her replacement of Biden less than four months before the November election has reinvigorated Democrats and their coalition. It has also presented a new challenge for Trump.

    Trump hammered Harris on the economy, associating her with the Biden administration’s inflation woes and likening her latest proposal against price gouging to measures in communist nations. Trump has said a federal ban on price gouging for groceries would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger. On Saturday asked why she hadn’t worked to solve prices when she and Biden were sworn into office in 2021.

    “Day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. So why didn’t she do it then? So this is day 1,305,” Trump said.

    To address high prices, Trump said he would sign an executive order on his first day sworn in as president “directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every power we have to drive prices down, but we’re going to drive them down in a capitalist way, not in a communist way,” he said.

    He predicted financial ruin for the country, and Pennsylvania in particular, if Harris wins, citing her past opposition to fracking, an oil and gas extraction process commonly used in the state. Her campaign has tried to soften her stance on fracking, saying she would not ban it, even though that was her position when she was seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.

    “Your state’s going to be ruined anyway. She’s totally anti-fracking,” Trump said.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    But he also meandered, going from ripping the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to doing impressions of Macron’s French accent.

    Trump laced in attacks on Harris’ laugh and said she was “not a very good wordsmith” and mocked the names of the CNN anchors who moderated the debate he had with Biden in June.

    When he began musing on Harris’ recent image on the cover of Time magazine, he commented on the picture’s resemblance to classic Hollywood icons Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor and then took issue with a Wall Street Journal columnist remarking earlier this month on Harris’ beauty.

    “I am much better looking than her,” Trump said, drawing laughs from the crowd. “I’m a better looking person than Kamala.”

    He also took issue with the way his style is typically portrayed in news reports.

    “They will say he’s rambling. I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy,” he said.

    Trump’s Saturday rally was his fifth at the arena in Wilkes-Barre, the largest city in Luzerne County, where he has had victories in the past two elections. Biden bested Trump in neighboring Lackawanna County, where the Democrat has long promoted his working-class roots in Scranton.

    On Sunday, Harris plans a bus tour starting in Pittsburgh, with a stop in Rochester, a small town to the north. Trump has scheduled a visit Monday to a plant that manufactures nuclear fuel containers in York. Trump’s running mate JD Vance is expected to be in Philadelphia that day.

    Some of Biden’s loyal supporters in Scranton, a former industrial city of 76,000, were upset to see party leaders put pressure on the president to step aside.

    Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to vouch for Biden. Munley eventually came to terms with Biden’s decision and is now very supportive of Harris.

    “I can’t deny the enthusiasm that’s been going on with this ticket right now. I am so into it,” Munley said. “It just wasn’t happening with Joe, and I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so connected to him.”

    Robert A. Bridy, 64, a laborer from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, traveled on Saturday to the rally to show support for Trump. He said the election feels tight in this state and added that his union and a close friend are trying to convince him to vote for Harris and other Democrats, but he has voted for Trump since 2016.

    Bridy called Trump a “working class guy like us.” Trump is a billionaire who built his fortune in real estate.

    “He’s a fighter,” Bridy said. “I’d like to see the closed borders. He doesn’t mess around. He goes at it right away and takes care of business the way it should be.” ___

    Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Arlington, Virginia contributed to this report.

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  • Harris campaign reserves $370M in ads after Labor Day, including battleground state push

    Harris campaign reserves $370M in ads after Labor Day, including battleground state push

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ campaign says it is reserving $370 million in advertising to run between Labor Day and Election Day.

    In a memo Saturday, the Harris-Walz campaign said the fall advertising push will include $170 million in television reservations running for nine weeks, starting Sept. 3, in battleground states. It also includes more than $200 million in digital reservations on platforms such as Hulu, Roku and YouTube.

    That does not include spending on ads on social media or search services.

    Former President Donald Trump ‘s campaign has only reserved advertising time after Labor Day in two states, the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Georgia, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact.

    Quentin Fulks and Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for the Democratic candidates, said in their memo that the television ads they were reserving included spots around high-viewership moments such as major sporting events and season premieres.

    It also included daytime reservations on Fox News Channel, where the campaign believes they can reach an audience of conservative-leaning independents who had supported former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley over Trump in the Republican presidential primary.

    Ad reservations can allow candidates and campaigns to lock in rates before they go up as dates come closer.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

    FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

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    Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her economic agenda in a speech Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    The Democratic presidential nominee laid out plans including a proposal for a federal ban on what she called price gouging on groceries, as well as $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes. She also spoke at length about lowering drug costs and criticized the platform of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

    Here’s a closer look at some of her promises and claims.

    The impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs

    HARRIS: Trump “wants to impose what is in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. … And you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was referring to Trump’s proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports — he has mentioned both figures — and up to 60% on imports from China.

    Most 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.

    Lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs

    HARRIS: “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.”

    THE FACTS: Harris made this promise while referencing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate medication costs directly with drug companies. While it is difficult to predict whether she will be able to keep it, especially without more details, recent policy can provide some clues.

    For example, the White House announced Thursday that it had inked deals with manufacturers that could save taxpayers billions of dollars by knocking down the list prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. However, there are a number of factors — from discounts to the coinsurance or copays for the person’s Medicare drug plan — that determine the final price a person pays when they pick up the drugs at their pharmacy.

    Powerful drug companies unsuccessfully tried to file lawsuits to stop these negotiations. They ended up engaging in talks and executives hinted in recent weeks during earnings calls that they don’t expect the new Medicare drug prices to impact their bottom line. However, the manufacturers have warned that the Inflation Reduction Act could drive up prices for consumers in other areas.

    Both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved $35 insulin copay caps for certain Medicare recipients. Biden’s caps have a wider reach, as they apply to all insulin products covered by any Medicare Part D or Part B plan, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF. Trump’s applied only to some insulin products covered by a voluntary subset of Part D plans.

    A federal ban on grocery ‘price gouging’

    HARRIS: “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans. … And I will work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    THE FACTS: While grocery prices are 25% higher than they were before the pandemic four-and-a-half years ago, they have settled down recently and it’s not clear that much price gouging is now going on.

    In the past 12 months, grocery prices on average are up just 1.1%, comparable to pre-pandemic increases. Also, prices for most goods and services, in general, don’t fall significantly except in steep, painful recessions. Instead, most economists expect that wages will rise enough so that Americans can adjust to higher costs. Still, prices remain higher overall than they were just a couple of years ago.

    Addressing housing shortages and helping home buyers

    HARRIS: “And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals. … While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”

    THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million.

    Harris’ proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws, higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.

    Harris is also promising to cut red tape that restricts new building, but that is mostly a state and local concern, and many localities are already moving to make it easier build homes.

    ___

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

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  • What is ‘price gouging’ and why is VP Harris proposing to ban it?

    What is ‘price gouging’ and why is VP Harris proposing to ban it?

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    With inflation and high grocery prices still frustrating many voters, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday proposed a ban on “price gouging” by food suppliers and grocery stores, as part of a broader agenda aimed at lowering the cost of housing, medicine, and food.

    It’s an attempt to tackle a clear vulnerability of Harris’ head-on: Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs by about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs.

    “We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed,” Harris said Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. “But our supply chains have now improved and prices are still too high.”

    Will her proposals do much to lower prices? And what even is “price gouging”? The answers to those and other questions are below:

    What is price gouging?

    There is no strict definition that economists would agree on, but it generally refers to spikes in prices that typically follow a disruption in supply, such as after a hurricane or other natural disaster. Consumer advocates charge that gouging occurs when retailers sharply increase prices, particularly for necessities, under such circumstances.

    Is it already illegal?

    Several states already restrict price gouging, but there is no federal-level ban.

    There are federal restrictions on related but different practices, such as price-fixing laws that bar companies from agreeing to not compete against each other and set higher prices.

    Will Harris’ proposal lower grocery prices?

    Most economists would say no, though her plan could have an impact on future crises. For one thing, it’s unclear how much price gouging is going on right now.

    Grocery prices are still painfully high compared to four years ago, but they increased just 1.1% in July compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent inflation report. That is in line with pre-pandemic increases.

    President Joe Biden said Wednesday that inflation has been defeated after Wednesday’s inflation report showed that it fell to 2.9% in July, the smallest increase in three years.

    “There’s some dissonance between claiming victory on the inflation front in one breath and then arguing that there’s all this price gouging happening that is leading consumers to face really high prices in another breath,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

    In general, after an inflationary spike, it’s very hard to return prices to where they were. Sustained price declines typically only happen in steep, protracted recessions. Instead, economists generally argue that the better approach is for wages to keep rising enough so that Americans can handle the higher costs.

    So why is Harris talking about this now?

    Probably because inflation remains a highly salient issue politically. And plenty of voters do blame grocery stores, fast food chains, and food and packaged goods makers for the surge of inflation in the past three years. Corporate profits soared in 2021 and 2022.

    “It could be that they’re looking at opinion polls that show that the number one concern facing voters is inflation and that a large number of voters blame corporations for inflation,” Strain said.

    At the same time, even if prices aren’t going up as much, as Harris noted, they remain high, even as supply chain kinks have been resolved.

    Elizabeth Pancotti, a policy analyst at Roosevelt Forward, a progressive advocacy group, points to the wood pulp used in diapers. The price of wood pulp has fallen by half from its post-pandemic peak, yet diaper prices haven’t.

    “So that just increases the (profit) margins for both the manufacturers and the retailers,” she said.

    Did price gouging cause inflation?

    Most economists would say no, that it was a more straightforward case of supply and demand. When the pandemic hit, meat processing plants were occasionally closed after COVID-19 outbreaks, among other disruptions to supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lifted the cost of wheat and other grains on global markets. Auto prices rose as carmakers were unable to get all the semiconductors they needed from Taiwan to manufacture cars, and many car plants shut down temporarily.

    At the same time, several rounds of stimulus checks fattened Americans’ bank accounts, and after hunkering down during the early phase of the pandemic, so-called “revenge spending” took over. The combination of stronger demand and reduced supply was a recipe for rising prices.

    Still, some economists have argued that large food and consumer goods companies took advantage of pandemic-era disruptions. Consumers saw empty store shelves and heard numerous stories about disrupted supply chains, and at least temporarily felt they had little choice but to accept the higher prices.

    Economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, called it “seller’s inflation.” Others referred to it as “greedflation.”

    “What a lot of corporations did was exploit consumers’ willingness” to accept the disruptions from the pandemic, Pancotti said.

    Is banning price gouging like instituting price controls?

    During the last spike of inflation in the 1970s, both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations at times imposed price controls, which specifically limited what companies could charge for goods and services. They were widely blamed for creating shortages and long lines for gas.

    Some economists say Harris’ proposal would have a similar impact.

    “It’s a heavy-handed socialist policy that I don’t think any economist would support,” said Kevin Hassett, a former top economic adviser in the Trump White House.

    But Pancotti disagreed. She argued that it was closer to a consumer protection measure. Under Harris’ proposal, the government wouldn’t specify prices, but the Federal Trade Commission could investigate price spikes.

    “The proposal is really about protecting consumers from unscrupulous corporate actors that are trying to just rip the consumer off because they know they can,” she said.

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  • Election officials keep Green Party presidential candidate on Wisconsin ballot

    Election officials keep Green Party presidential candidate on Wisconsin ballot

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin elections officials dismissed a Democratic National Committee employee’s demands Friday to remove the Green Party’s presidential candidate from the ballot in the key swing state.

    DNC employee David Strange filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Wednesday asking the commission to remove Jill Stein from the presidential ballot. The election commission’s attorney, Angela O’Brien Sharpe, wrote to Strange on Friday saying she had dismissed the complaint because it names commissioners as respondents and they can’t ethically decide a matter brought against them.

    DNC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said late Friday afternoon that the committee plans to file a lawsuit seeking a court ruling that Stein’s name can’t appear on the ballot. The Stein campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message sent to their media email inbox.

    The bipartisan elections commission unanimously approved ballot access for Stein in February because the Green Party won more than 1% of the vote in a statewide race in 2022. Sheryl McFarland got nearly 1.6% of the vote while finishing last in a four-way race for secretary of state.

    Strange argued in his complaint that the Green Party can’t nominate presidential electors in Wisconsin because no one in the party is a state officer, defined as legislators, judges and others. Without any presidential electors, the party can’t have a presidential candidate on the ballot, Strange contended.

    Stein’s appearance on the ballot could make a difference in battleground Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by between 5,700 votes and about 23,000 votes.

    Stein last appeared on the Wisconsin ballot 2016, when she won just over 31,000 votes — more than Donald Trump’s winning margin in the state. Some Democrats have blamed her for helping Trump win the state and the presidency that year.

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court kept Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins off the ballot in 2020 after the elections commission deadlocked on whether he filed proper nominating signatures.

    The latest Marquette University Law School poll conducted July 24 through Aug. 1 showed the presidential contest in Wisconsin between Democrat Kamala Harris and Trump to be about even among likely voters. Democrats fear third-party candidates could siphon votes from Harris and tilt the race toward Trump.

    The elections commission plans to meet Aug. 27 to determine whether four independent presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, have met the prerequisites to appear on the ballot.

    Strange filed a separate complaint last week with the commission seeking to keep West off the ballot, alleging his declaration of candidacy wasn’t properly notarized. Cornel’s campaign manager countered in a written response any notarization shortcomings shouldn’t be enough to keep him off the ballot. That complaint is still pending.

    Michigan election officials tossed West off that state’s ballot Friday over similar notary issues.

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  • Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

    Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — ABC’s “This Week” — Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

    ___

    NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich.

    ___

    CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio; Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky.; Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration; Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee.

    ___

    CNN’s “State of the Union” — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; Govs. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., and Chris Sununu, R-N.H.

    ___

    “Fox News Sunday” — Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee; Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

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