The national Border Patrol union made a major endorsement for President.
Paul Perez, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, announced the union endorsed former Republican President Donald Trump over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election.
The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) represents Border Patrol agents and support personnel assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol. The union announced its full support of former President Trump during a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
“If we allow border czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country is going to go to hell,” Perez announced. “The untold millions of people unvetted, who she has allowed into this country that are committing murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries and every other crime will continue to put our country in peril.
“Only one man can fix that. That is Donald J. Trump. He has always stood with the men and women who protect this border, who put their lives on the line for the country. A man who knows about putting his life on the line for what is right.”
Former President Trump called the Border Patrol union endorsement a “great honor,” as he has made illegal immigration and the border crisis a major plank in his campaign. President Trump said he will secure the border and stop catch-and-release, as well as implement a mass deportation program.
“On behalf of the 16,000 men and women represented by the National Border Patrol Council, we strongly support and endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States,” Perez concluded.
Republicans are also trying to capitalize on former President Bill Clinton seemingly blaming Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden’s administration – all Democrats – for Laken Riley’s murder by an illegal immigrant.
With just 23 days left until election day and voters already casting ballots, former President Trump rallied supporters in the California desert while railing against the state’s Democratic leadership, notably his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump blasted California as having “the highest inflation, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, the most homelessness, the most crime, the most decay and the most illegal aliens.”
“Other than that, you’re doing quite well, actually,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.”
Trump painted California as a lawless, dystopian state, and at times correctly touched on the economic struggles faced by many residents. But his comments also were peppered with distortions and falsehoods, including his claim that California has brownouts and blackouts “every day,” presumably because of power shortages.
The former president spoke shortly after 5 p.m. on a polo field at Calhoun Ranch, just outside the city of Coachella, but supporters lined up hours earlier in the scorching desert heat to attend.
Trump stands before supporters at the rally at Calhoun Ranch.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
As they spent hours in temperatures that reached 100 degrees, they sought shade in the few spots they could, and large tanks of ice quickly emptied as attendees grabbed fistfuls of cubes to put under their hats or fill water bottles. Multiple medical emergencies occurred during the rally.
“Welcome to Trumpchella!” said state GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson, one of the warm-up speakers for Trump.
Trump’s visit to the home state of Harris offers him another chance to bash the liberal policies of the Bay Area native as well as California itself — one of his favorite refrains on the campaign trail. Harris served as San Francisco’s district attorney before she was elected as California’s attorney general and to the U.S. Senate.
And the Coachella Valley, home to a thriving agricultural industry and a large population of Latino farmworkers, provides a backdrop for Trump to highlight the region’s water and agricultural needs, as well as immigration. Latinos constitute almost 98% of Coachella, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Deriding California as a “sanctuary state” for immigrants as he spoke to thousands of supporters, Trump said, “The people of California are not going to take it any longer.”
He repeatedly tied immigrants — many of whom, he said, come from “dungeons of the Third World” — to criminal activity, though studies show that immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than U.S.-born residents. He blasted Harris, whom President Biden tasked with addressing the root causes of immigration from three nations in Central America, as a failed “border czar.”
“Kamala Harris got you into this mess and only Trump will get you out of it,” he said.
Trump criticized California as being horribly mismanaged, primarily blaming Harris and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, especially when it comes to crime, the high cost of living and water policy. The former president also threatened to cut off federal disaster aid for the state’s devastating wildfires if California’s leaders don’t make more water available to farmers and homeowners.
“We’re going to take care of your water situation, force it down his throat, and we’ll say: Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have,” Trump said.
Donning his red “Make America Great Again” hat to guard against the beating desert sun, Trump encouraged the crowd to vote in large numbers, to make the election “too big to rig.” He has repeatedly denied losing the 2020 election. “They are good at one thing. Which one thing?” he asked the crowd. “Cheating!” the crowd roared back.
Trump also turned his ire against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the front-runner in California’s U.S. Senate race who led a successful House impeachment of Trump, before the Senate acquitted him. Trump called him “one of the least attractive human beings” and insulted the size of Schiff’s neck and head.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) said that the “Coachella Valley is known for being a presidential playground,” noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigned in the valley, former President Obama came to golf, and Presidents Ford and Eisenhower retired in the region. Still, he called Trump’s decision to visit Coachella — in one of the bluest states in the country — “baffling.”
Trump addresses the crowd Saturday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“We are familiar with having presidents come and leave a mark here, and we respect and love them. … But ex-President Trump is different,” Ruiz said on a call from Coachella Valley, where he was spending the day talking to reporters. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect for the demographics that live here — not just in his vile rhetoric but also in his policies.”
The rally venue is just outside the 41st Congressional District, where Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is challenging Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, who spoke at the rally. The race will be crucial in determining which party wins control of the House.
“Welcome Trump,” Calvert told the rally crowd. “Show him some sanity still exists in California, and it’s right here in Riverside County.”
Other speakers included Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, an ardent Trump ally, and Dennis Quaid, the actor who recently portrayed President Reagan in his namesake movie.
Mary and Pete Venegas drove more than an hour from their Hemet home to see Trump, for whom they both plan to vote for the first time in November.
Mary Venegas, a former Democrat who sat out the 2020 election because she was unenthusiastic about Biden, said Trump deserves “a second chance.” Wearing a red Trump T-shirt, she said she is now a registered Republican.
“He made me do it,” she said, laughing, as she poked her husband, who runs a construction and landscaping business and said he supports Trump because of his business acumen.
The visit marks Trump’s second trip to the Golden State in a month, after making a stop to talk to reporters at his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course in September sandwiched between two high-dollar fundraisers in Beverly Hills and the Bay Area.
California GOP strategists granted anonymity to discuss the former president’s motivation said it included the notion that he wanted to increase his share of the popular vote — and despite California’s Democratic tilt, it is home to more than 5 million registered Republicans.
Trump has announced that he will hold an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, another deeply Democratic state.
At Saturday’s rally, mentions of Harris and Newsom from Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who was a delegate at the Republican National Committee, drew boos from the audience.
“The downfall of public safety in California began over a decade ago with Gavin Newsom’s policies, and ideas under the watch of Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris,” Bianco said, mentioning Proposition 47, a state ballot initiative that reduced certain thefts and crimes to misdemeanors.
Though Proposition 47 was put in place under Harris’ watch, she declined to wade into the political debate as attorney general. California voters will decide whether to roll back some of the 2014 measure when voting on Proposition 36 next month.
Trump held a rally in Aurora, Colo., on Friday — a state he lost by more than 13 points in 2020. He has falsely claimed that Aurora had been taken over by Venezuelan gang members. He also paid a visit Friday night to Nevada.
Trump acknowledges supporters’ cheers.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
During Saturday’s rally, Trump mentioned a new immigration policy, dubbed “Operation Aurora,” that he announced during Friday’s visit to expedite deportation of immigrant gang members. He also called for the death penalty for any immigrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer, a proposal that drew chants of “USA!” from the audience.
On Thursday, while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, he insulted the city and warned that the situation in Detroit foreshadowed what would happen to the nation if Harris is elected president.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s elected president,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.”
Democrats in Michigan — one of the states likely to determine which party wins the White House — were apoplectic.
“Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities — something Donald Trump could never understand,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
Republicans from the state were stunned by Trump’s remarks as well.
“Michiganders haven’t been this proud of the city of Detroit since Henry Ford put the world on wheels. The Lions and Tigers are flying high, the city has come back to life, and in comes Donald Trump to crap all over that progress,” said an exasperated GOP strategist who reached out to a Times reporter after hearing the remarks, and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I think he shouldn’t be surprised when they reward his comments by giving Kamala Harris their votes. And it won’t just be Detroit residents. It will be hundreds of thousands of voters who are deeply proud of their city.”
Trump exits the stage after the rally.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Harris said Trump’s remarks about Detroit represent a trend.
“My opponent, Donald Trump, yet again, has trashed another great American city when he was in Detroit, which is just a further piece of evidence on a very long list of why he is unfit to be president of the United States,” Harris told reporters Thursday in Las Vegas.
Trump similarly criticized Milwaukee in a meeting with House Republicans shortly before the Republican National Convention was held there, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, earlier this year. He has also disparaged Philadelphia and Atlanta, both of which are in states that will determine which party wins the White House.
Curtis Bashaw, the Republican candidate running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, appeared to nearly pass out during his debate Sunday night with Democratic opponent Andy Kim. The two are vying for the seat of former Sen. Robert Menendez, who was convicted of bribery in July and later resigned his seat.
Bashaw, 64, was in the middle of responding to an early question about affordability in the United States when his speech broke and he stared absently ahead. The debate was streamed online and broadcast on C-SPAN. Video showed Kim — a U.S. representative in New Jersey’s 3rd congressional district — walk over and place his hand on Bashaw’s to check if he was alright. Bashaw momentarily was unable to respond and appeared disoriented at his podium.
“I think maybe we need to take a commercial break and address issues here on the stage,” said Laura Jones, the debate’s moderator.
When the debate resumed about 10 minutes later, Bashaw acknowledged the unusual incident and the apparent signs that he may have been in medical distress.
“I got so worked up about this affordability issue that I realized I hadn’t eaten so much food today so I appreciate your indulgence,” he said.
Bashaw later posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying he had been out campaigning the whole day. In a follow-up post, he shared a picture from a pizza party with his campaign staff.
New Jersey’s U.S. Senate race is the state’s most high-profile contest in November’s election. Bashaw, a hotelier and developer in Cape May, is making his first run for political office. The last time a Republican won a race for U.S. Senate in New Jersey was 1972.
The candidates are scheduled to face each other in two more debates before the Nov. 5 election.
Bashaw has campaigned on lowering inflation, reducing small business regulations and advancing bills that would reform criminal justice and immigration. Kim drew national attention in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection when he assisted with cleanup efforts at the U.S. Capitol. In 2019, he became the first Democratic member of Congress of Korean descent. His district covers parts of Burlington, Mercer and Monmouth counties.
One of the most absurd lies promulgated by MAGA Republicans is the idea that Donald Trump does not regularly endorse violence. They did it during his time in office, they did it after January 6, and they did it, most recently, following two attempts on his life—while claiming it was actually Democratic rhetoric that led to two men allegedly trying to assassinate him. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and the latest example tearing their claims to shreds would be Trump’s call over the weekend for the police to violently assault Americans en masse in order to stop crime.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, the ex-president said the key to preventing crimes like shoplifting is state-sanctioned police beatings, which he lamented the “left” does not allow. “You see these guys walking out with air conditioners, with refrigerators on their back. The craziest thing,” Trump said. “And the police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told, if you do anything, you’re gonna lose your pension…. They’re not allowed to do it because the liberal left won’t let ’em do it. The liberal left wants to destroy them, and they want to destroy our country.” Then he unveiled his big idea: “If you had one really violent day…one rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately.”
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During his remarks, Trump also falsely claimed one can steal up to $950 worth of goods with no consequences in California, which appeared to be both a reference to Proposition 47—which downgraded some theft offenses to misdemeanors from felonies—and an attempt to tie the law to then California attorney general Kamala Harris. But as Politico notes, while Harris was in office when the ballot initiative was approved, “she remained neutral on the matter.” Meanwhile, “the dollar threshold Trump referenced actually became law four years earlier, signed by then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.”
Following Trump’s remarks in Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for his campaign absurdly claimed he was “clearly just floating [police beatings] in jest,” adding: “President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws. Otherwise, it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as attorney general when she emboldened criminals.”
Trump, of course, is the only person currently running for president who is a convicted felon. Meanwhile, the notion that he is all about “law and order” is fully laughable given that (1) he has called for defunding the DOJ and FBI and (2) prosecutors say January 6 was “the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history.” As for the idea that he was totally just joking about that “one really violent day,” well, that is not exactly believable given his long history of calling for violence, a rap sheet that includes:
Telling a crowd at one of his rallies, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay. Just knock the hell—I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise”
Whipping his supporters into a violent frenzy with months of lies concerning the 2020 election, which led to a violent attack on the Capitol that left numerous people dead, and which he tried to justify by saying: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Defending his supporters’ decision to chant, “hang Mike Pence”
In a Saturday speech that Donald Trumpcalled “dark,” the Republican presidential nominee again hurled personal attacks toward his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. This time, he called her “very dumb,” claimed only a “mentally disabled” person could have done her job the way she has, and said she was born “mentally impaired.”
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired, Kamala was born that way,” Trump said during a rally in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The crowd could be heard responding with laughs and cheers.
The backlash was swift, with some Republicans urging Trump to focus on the issues.
On CNN’s State of the Union, South Carolina senator and Trump ally Lindsey Grahamsaid that while he believes Harris to be “crazy liberal,” he thinks “the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country.” When pressed during an interview with ABC’s This Week, US Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, said, “I think we should stick to the issues. The issues are, Donald Trump fixed it once. They broke it. He’s going to fix it again. Those are the issues.”
Former governor and frequent Trump critic Larry Hogan of Maryland, also a Republican who is in a tight race for the Senate there, was more direct when addressing the nominee’s comments.
“I think that’s insulting not only to the vice president, but to people that actually do have mental disabilities,” Hogan said. “Trump’s divisive rhetoric is something we can do without.”
“Trump made a great deal of the cognitive abilities of Joe Biden,” Eric Holder, the former attorney general who served in the Obama administration, said on MSNBC. He added, referring to the former president’s cognitive state, “If this is where he is now, where is he going to be three and four years from now?”
Following Saturday’s speech, Sarafina Chitika, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that “Donald Trump is finally telling the truth to voters: He’s got nothing ‘inspiring’ to offer the American people, just darkness.”
Disability rights advocates were also quick to denounce Trump’s remarks.
“Trump holds the ableist, false belief that if a person has a disability, they are less human and less worthy of dignity,” Maria Town, CEO and president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said in a statement to The Washington Post. “These perceptions are incorrect, and are harmful to people with disabilities.”
Trump’s comments, Town noted, “say far more about him and his inaccurate, hateful biases against disabled people than it does about Vice President Harris, or any person with a disability.”
Since Trump had to pivot from running against President Joe Biden to combating an energized Harris bid, his advisors and some Republicans have urged the former president to veer away from personal attacks, like those about her gender and race. He, to put it briefly, hasn’t listened.
In an August speech, Trump went after Harris’s appearance, saying, “I’m much better looking than her. Much better. Much better. I’m a better looking person than Kamala,” and he’s taken a liking to calling Harris a “bitch,” per reporting from the New York Times based on two people who heard the remark on different occasions.
On Truth Social, the former president amplified a false claim that Harris used sexual acts to get ahead, reposting a photo of her and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which included the text, “Funny how blowjobs impacted both careers differently…”
Back in July, during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump lied about how Harris has portrayed her racial identity.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said of the vice president. “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.”
You’ve probably seen the word “deepfakes” in the news lately, but are you confident you would be able to spot the difference between real and artificial intelligence-generated content? During the summer, a video of Vice President Kamala Harris saying that she was “the ultimate diversity hire” and “knew nothing about running the country” circulated on social media. Elon Musk, the owner of X, retweeted it. This was, in fact, a deepfake video.By posting it, Musk seemingly ignored X’s own misinformation policies and shared it with his 193 million followers. Although the Federal Communication Commission announced in February that AI-generated audio clips in robocalls are illegal, deepfakes on social media and in campaign advertisements are yet to be subject to a federal ban. A growing number of state legislatures have begun submitting bills to regulate deepfakes as concerns about the spread of misinformation and explicit content heighten on both sides of the aisle. In September, with less than 50 days before the election, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed three bills that target deepfakes directly — one of which takes effect immediately. AB 2839 bans individuals and groups “from knowingly distributing an advertisement or other election material containing deceptive AI-generated or manipulated content.” This ban would take effect 120 days before an election and 60 days after it, an aim at reducing content that may spread misinformation as votes are being counted and certified. “Signing AB 2839 into law is a significant step in continuing to protect the integrity of our democratic process. With fewer than 50 days until the general election, there is an urgent need to protect against misleading, digitally altered content that can interfere with the election,” said Gail Pellerin, the chair of the Assembly Elections Committee.According to Public Citizen, 25 states have now either signed a bill into law that addresses political deepfakes or have a bill that is awaiting the governor’s signature. Do you know how to spot a deepfake?According to cyber news reporter and cybersecurity expert Kerry Tomlinson, “a deepfake is a computer-created image or voice or video of a person, either a person who doesn’t exist but seems real, or a person who does exist, making them do or say something they never actually did or said.”Tomlinson says there are several giveaways to identify a deepfake. Objects and parts of the face, such as earrings, teeth or glasses, may not be fully formed. Pay attention to the breathing. The speaker takes no breaths while speaking. Ask yourself: Is the message potentially harmful or manipulating?Can the information be verified?Ultimately, Tomlinson encourages people to “learn about how attackers are using deepfakes. Learn about how politicians and political parties are using deepfakes. Read about it. It’s as simple as that.”
You’ve probably seen the word “deepfakes” in the news lately, but are you confident you would be able to spot the difference between real and artificial intelligence-generated content?
During the summer, a video of Vice President Kamala Harris saying that she was “the ultimate diversity hire” and “knew nothing about running the country” circulated on social media. Elon Musk, the owner of X, retweeted it. This was, in fact, a deepfake video.
By posting it, Musk seemingly ignored X’s own misinformation policies and shared it with his 193 million followers.
A growing number of state legislatures have begun submitting bills to regulate deepfakes as concerns about the spread of misinformation and explicit content heighten on both sides of the aisle.
AB 2839 bans individuals and groups “from knowingly distributing an advertisement or other election material containing deceptive AI-generated or manipulated content.”
This ban would take effect 120 days before an election and 60 days after it, an aim at reducing content that may spread misinformation as votes are being counted and certified.
“Signing AB 2839 into law is a significant step in continuing to protect the integrity of our democratic process. With fewer than 50 days until the general election, there is an urgent need to protect against misleading, digitally altered content that can interfere with the election,” said Gail Pellerin, the chair of the Assembly Elections Committee.
According to Public Citizen, 25 states have now either signed a bill into law that addresses political deepfakes or have a bill that is awaiting the governor’s signature.
Do you know how to spot a deepfake?
According to cyber news reporter and cybersecurity expert Kerry Tomlinson, “a deepfake is a computer-created image or voice or video of a person, either a person who doesn’t exist but seems real, or a person who does exist, making them do or say something they never actually did or said.”
Tomlinson says there are several giveaways to identify a deepfake.
Objects and parts of the face, such as earrings, teeth or glasses, may not be fully formed.
Pay attention to the breathing. The speaker takes no breaths while speaking.
Ask yourself: Is the message potentially harmful or manipulating?
Can the information be verified?
Ultimately, Tomlinson encourages people to “learn about how attackers are using deepfakes. Learn about how politicians and political parties are using deepfakes. Read about it. It’s as simple as that.”
Donald Trump is campaigning in North Carolina on Saturday, just two days after CNN’s investigative reporting found that the former president’s chosen gubernatorial candidate in the state, Mark Robinson, made dozens of disturbing comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago.
Robinson, who denied the claims, will apparently not be in attendance, according to AP sources.
Among other alarming remarks made under the username “minisoldr,” Robinson said, unprovoked, “I’m a black NAZI!” He also admitted to “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a 14-year-old, claimed to like “tranny on girl porn!,” and referred to Muslims as “little rag-headed bastards.”
CNN, according to reporters Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, identified Robinson by his email account and “by matching a litany of biographical details” from the posts to the Republican gubernatorial nominee.
Robinson, who, if elected, would become North Carolina’s first Black governor, reportedly called Martin Luther King Jr. a “commie bastard,” “worse than a maggot,” a “ho f**king, phony,” and a “huckster.”
“I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” Robinson reportedly posted, writing in another instance that “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.”
These posts were made over a decade ago, between 2008 and 2012, on “Nude Africa,” a pornographic website.
In the years that followed, Robinson has repeatedly shared other hateful sentiments.
In a 2017 Facebook post, Robinson said he was “so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were” and warned against “The Communist” who “has been pushing this Nazi boogeyman narrative all these years.”
Then, in another Facebook status the next year, Robinson wrote, “So if a woman who ‘transitioned’ into a ‘man’ marries and abuses a man who ‘transitioned’ into a ‘woman’ is it still’ violence against a woman?’ Will the feminist raise hell over it?”
“I’m asking for a British Cigarette,” he continued.
In 2020, Robinson told attendees at a Republican Women of Pitt County event that, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.” (Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin compiled more receipts here.)
For over a year, Trump has lauded the current North Carolina lieutenant governor, enthusiastically endorsing him as the state’s head of government.
At the North Carolina Republican Party’s annual convention in June of 2023, Trump called Robinson “one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics.” That December, the former president held a fundraiser for him at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate.
“I think he has the chance to be one of the greatest leaders because, I’ve been with him a lot, I’ve gotten to know him, and he’s outstanding,” Trump said at that event. “He’s tough, and he’s smart, and he has tremendous heart.”
“This is Martin Luther King on steroids,” Trump said at a rally in Greensboro, NC, in March of this year. “I told that to Mark. I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.’”
It’s unclear if or how Trump will refer to Robinson in his rally remarks on Saturday. According to NBC News on Friday, Trump has been “facing calls both from his allies and from within his own campaign to pull his endorsement from scandal-plagued North Carolina gubernatorial candidate,” according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Following CNN’s investigation, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the network that, “President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country. North Carolina is a vital part of that plan.”
Senator JD Vancecontinued to peddle unfounded claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday and said he didn’t “like” far-right activistLaura Loomer’s racist social media post about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
When NBC’s Meet the PressKristen Welker asked Vance about Loomer’s comments, he alleged that he’d only read them this morning, because “I knew that you’d ask me about it.”
“Look, Kristen,” Vance began, “I make a mean chicken curry, I don’t think that it’s insulting for anybody to talk about their dietary preferences or what they want to do in the White House.”
“Do I agree with what Laura Loomer said about Kamala Harris? No, I don’t. I also don’t think that this is actually an issue of national import. Is Laura Loomer running for president? No,” he continued. “Kamala Harris is running for president, and whether you’re eating curry at your dinner table or fried chicken, things have gotten more expensive thanks to her policies.”
In addition to her comments about Harris, Loomer has been in the news this month for her increasing influence on Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Loomer was among those Trump took on his private plane en route to Philadelphia for ABC’s presidential debate last week. When asked about this, Trump responded that “a lot” of people fly with him because “it’s a very big plane.” Trump said Loomer is a “free spirit” and “supporter.”
Trump was also alongside Loomer at official September 11 memorials in New York and Pennsylvania this week. Loomer has promoted the conspiracy that 9/11 was an “inside job” and recently said in a CNN interview that, “I’ve never denied the fact that Islamic terrorists carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fact, the media calls me anti Muslim precisely for the reason that I spend so much time focusing on talking about the threats of Islamic terrorism in America.”
On Sunday, Welker pressed Vance on Loomer’s comments and how they relate to his Indian-American wife and potential second lady, Usha Vance.
“Senator, were you and your wife offended, and do you disavow those comments that even some Trump allies say are blatantly racist?” Welker asked. “Kristen, I just told you, I don’t like those comments,” Vance replied. “I also don’t look at the internet for every single thing to get offended by.”
Loomer saw Vance on Meet The Press—and lauded the VP hopeful’s responses.
“Vance,” Loomer wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “has done a fantastic job as an Ohio Senator, and he has given a voice to the forgotten men and women who want to talk about real issues.”
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are giving those people a voice to tell the TRUTH about how they are being replaced by Kamala Harris’s invaders,” she posted, adding, “PS: I hope I can try the Senator’s chicken curry one of these days.”
Minutes before in the interview, Vance again doubled down on the unfounded claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are harming and eating household pets and geese.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” Vance posted on X earlier this week.
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
So far, the xenophobic rumors have been spouted by Vance, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, and Trump himself—to name a few.
On the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Trump said without any proof, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
X appears to be working with a well-known Republican consulting group, seemingly to handle the messaging around the social media platform’s suspension in Brazil.
When WIRED emailed X for comment about the rapidly evolving situation in Brazil, a reply came from Michael Abboud, the managing director of the conservative consulting and public relations firm, Targeted Victory. According to his LinkedIn, Abboud worked for the State Department in the last year of the Trump administration and as press secretary for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s campaign.
Targeted Victory has had contracts with several Republican campaigns and political action committees (PACs) this election season to the tune of over $75 million, according to OpenSecrets. The group’s largest client is the Republican National Committee, which spent $11,128,739 on the firm between January 2023 and May 2024.
In his emailed reply, Abboud referred WIRED to a company statement from X about the suspension of the platform in Brazil, and said to reach out with further questions.
WIRED reached out to Targeted Victory and Abboud directly, and neither immediately responded to a request for comment.
X would not be the first tech company to work with the group. In 2022, reporting from the Washington Post found that Meta had hired Targeted Victory to run a campaign to sour public opinion on TikTok. The messaging campaign focused on framing TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as a threat to Americans’ privacy and to the mental health of teens and children.
An emailed response from Targeted Victory on behalf of X is particularly notable; when journalists contact the press team at X, they rarely receive a reply. When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, one of his first moves as CEO was to lay off a substantial number of the company’s 6,000 employees. That move not only included the vast majority of the platform’s trust and safety team, the people who keep hate speech and disinformation off the platform, but also the company’s communications team.
For nearly a year, the auto response to the press email returned the poop emoji. More recently, the auto-response says “Busy now, please check back later.”
But X and Musk have been having an unusually rough time in the public eye over the past few weeks. After X violated an April court order from the Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) requiring the company to remove certain accounts and content that the court said spread disinformation about the integrity of the country’s elections, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered access to the platform blocked in Brazil. The country is X’s third largest market, and for months, Musk has railed against Moraes online, calling him a dictator, accusing the court of censorship, and even comparing him to the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.
Meanwhile, Nick Pickles, the company’s head of global affairs, announced on Thursday that he was resigning, and investors are saying that their investments in the company are performing substantially worse than any had predicted.
If you’re familiar with Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, it’s probably for his hard-line stance on abortion and his outlandish claims on everything from Black Panther (made by “an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxists”) to the Holocaust (“hogwash”). But get ready for a new and slightly more fun reason: In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Evangelical Christian used to go to the pornography store a lot. Like, a lot.
That’s according to a former employee at 24-hour porn-video shops in Greensboro, who spoke with the North Carolina investigative website TheAssembly. He says Robinson was coming in to watch videos in a private booth as many as five nights a week. The man, Louis Money, said that at one of the stores he worked at, Gents, patrons could buy videos for $50 each or “preview” them in private booths for $8. “Every night that I worked, which would have been five nights a week, I saw Mark,” Money said. “He was spending a good amount of money.” Robinson previewed at least two tapes a night, per Money. Five other customers and employees confirmed Robinson’s frequent presence; one said Robinson would even bring in pizza for the fellas.
A campaign spokesperson described The Assembly’s report as “bullshit.”
In his memoir, Robinson wrote that he was “guilty of bad money management” and that “when I had money and should have been putting it in the bank or spending it on essential things … I was just throwing money away.” Between 1998 and 2003, Robinson’s family filed for bankruptcy three times.
While everyone interviewed by The Assemblysaid they liked Robinson, his porn era was dragged back to the surface after Money made a rap-rock music video in August called “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.” According to Money, Robinson purchased “hundreds” of bootleg porn compilations that Money made — though he forgot to pay him the $25 for the last one.
Republicans have longbeenobsessed with pornography as part of their moral crusade in America. At least Robinson, according to his former friend, put his money where his mouth is. In this decade, this exposé will instead likely help the candidate with the Barstool bro-vote.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vow to promote in vitro fertilization by forcing health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments is at odds with the actions of much of his own party.Related video above: Former President Donald Trump holds town hall in battleground state of WisconsinYet his surprising announcement Thursday reveals the former president’s realization that GOP stances on abortion and reproductive rights could be huge liabilities for his chances of returning to the White House. Trump has quickly tried to reframe the narrative around those issues after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race.Even before he made his coverage proposal, Trump had been promoting the idea that the Republican Party is a “leader” on IVF. That characterization is rejected by Democrats, who have seized on the common but expensive fertility treatment as another dimension of reproductive rights threatened by Republicans and a second Trump presidency.It’s not just political partisans.”Republicans are not leaders on IVF,” said Katie Watson, a medical ethics professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Some of them have posed a threat to IVF, and they’re currently trying to figure out how to be anti-abortion and pro-IVF, and there are internal inconsistencies and struggles there. It appears that the Republicans are careening to remedy the political damage that resulted from their own choices.”Trump’s proposal, which he announced without providing details, illustrates how reproductive rights have become central in this year’s presidential race. It’s also the latest example of the former president attempting to appear moderate on the issue, despite repeatedly boasting about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.Even as the Republican Party has attempted to create a national narrative that it’s receptive of in vitro fertilization, many Republicans have been left grappling with the innate tension between support for the procedure and for laws passed by their own party that grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process.The messaging efforts also have been undercut by state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.Ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so while also encouraging fetal personhood laws that would render the treatment illegal.In May, the Texas Republican Party’s platform committee narrowly rejected a proposal to classify embryos created through IVF as “human beings” and designate their destruction as “homicide.” A bill aimed at expanding IVF access, meanwhile, sailed through in California on Thursday, despite opposition from nearly all Republican lawmakers.Video below: A conversation with Elizabeth Carr, the first person born via IVF in the USSen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who shared her own IVF journey on the Senate floor and co-sponsored a bill to protect the treatment, slammed Republicans for saying they support IVF in campaigning but not backing that up with their votes.She added that Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump “paved the way” for the fall of Roe v. Wade and the impact on reproductive rights, including access to IVF.”Republicans publicly claiming to be in support of IVF is absurd,” she told the AP.The issue burst onto the national political landscape in February after the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children. That decision forced clinics in Alabama to pause their IVF treatments, devastating patients struggling to be parents. Soon after, and facing a national backlash, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so IVF procedures could continue.In the weeks after the Alabama ruling, congressional Republicans scrambled to address IVF. Many rushed to create a unified message of support despite histories of voting in favor of fetal personhood laws and arguing that life begins at conception, the same concept that upheld the Alabama decision.”The reality is you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood — they are fundamentally incompatible — and the American people won’t be fooled by another one of Donald Trump’s lies,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the Right to IVF bill, told The Associated Press.Republican Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz introduced a bill this year to prohibit states from receiving Medicaid funding if they ban the procedure. But that came after Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made IVF a federal right. All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against the measure.”It’s not easy for a Republican lawmaker to say they’re for IVF and actually mean it in a straightforward, tangible way without angering a lot of constituents,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that more than 6 in 10 U.S. adults support protecting access to IVF, including more than half of Republicans, and only about 1 in 10 are opposed. But many anti-abortion groups and some lawmakers oppose the treatment, including several members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus who have objected to expanding IVF access for veterans.At least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. This type of legislation, all proposed by Republican lawmakers, is based on the idea that life begins at fertilization and could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.Still, many GOP lawmakers have been vocal in their support for IVF. The issue is personal for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who shared his daughter’s IVF experience. But even though Johnson said he fully supports IVF, he was not completely sold on Trump’s proposal due to its possible price tag. Other Republican lawmakers who responded publicly after Trump’s announcement expressed similar concerns. “I would need to see cost estimates, impacts on insurance rates, etc., before making any decisions or commitments to support any proposal,” Johnson said.Republican lawmakers have historically opposed federal funding to cover health care, including by repeatedly attempting to undo the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and may be unlikely to support similar plans, including for IVF.Lack of health insurance coverage for fertility treatments has been a major barrier for those wanting to start or continue treatments. While coverage has been expanding in recent years, less than half of employers with 500 or more workers in the U.S. offered IVF coverage in 2023, according to the benefits consultant Mercer.Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California faced criticism for supporting a GOP bill aiming to grant constitutional protection to embryos at “the moment of fertilization” after she publicly shared her own experience with IVF. Steel rescinded her co-sponsorship of the measure in March, two days after winning her primary, declaring she does not support federal restrictions on IVF.In a statement to the AP, she said Congress “must pass policies to support and expand access to IVF treatments.”Such flip-flopping from Republicans only provides fodder for Democrats, who say Trump and his party can’t be trusted to protect reproductive rights.Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, warned voters to “watch what they do, not what they say.” ___Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
CHICAGO —
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vow to promote in vitro fertilization by forcing health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments is at odds with the actions of much of his own party.
Related video above: Former President Donald Trump holds town hall in battleground state of Wisconsin
Yet his surprising announcement Thursday reveals the former president’s realization that GOP stances on abortion and reproductive rights could be huge liabilities for his chances of returning to the White House. Trump has quickly tried to reframe the narrative around those issues after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race.
Even before he made his coverage proposal, Trump had been promoting the idea that the Republican Party is a “leader” on IVF. That characterization is rejected by Democrats, who have seized on the common but expensive fertility treatment as another dimension of reproductive rights threatened by Republicans and a second Trump presidency.
It’s not just political partisans.
“Republicans are not leaders on IVF,” said Katie Watson, a medical ethics professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Some of them have posed a threat to IVF, and they’re currently trying to figure out how to be anti-abortion and pro-IVF, and there are internal inconsistencies and struggles there. It appears that the Republicans are careening to remedy the political damage that resulted from their own choices.”
Trump’s proposal, which he announced without providing details, illustrates how reproductive rights have become central in this year’s presidential race. It’s also the latest example of the former president attempting to appear moderate on the issue, despite repeatedly boasting about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
Even as the Republican Party has attempted to create a national narrative that it’s receptive of in vitro fertilization, many Republicans have been left grappling with the innate tension between support for the procedure and for laws passed by their own party that grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process.
The messaging efforts also have been undercut by state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.
Ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so while also encouraging fetal personhood laws that would render the treatment illegal.
In May, the Texas Republican Party’s platform committee narrowly rejected a proposal to classify embryos created through IVF as “human beings” and designate their destruction as “homicide.” A bill aimed at expanding IVF access, meanwhile, sailed through in California on Thursday, despite opposition from nearly all Republican lawmakers.
Video below: A conversation with Elizabeth Carr, the first person born via IVF in the US
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who shared her own IVF journey on the Senate floor and co-sponsored a bill to protect the treatment, slammed Republicans for saying they support IVF in campaigning but not backing that up with their votes.
She added that Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump “paved the way” for the fall of Roe v. Wade and the impact on reproductive rights, including access to IVF.
“Republicans publicly claiming to be in support of IVF is absurd,” she told the AP.
The issue burst onto the national political landscape in February after the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children. That decision forced clinics in Alabama to pause their IVF treatments, devastating patients struggling to be parents. Soon after, and facing a national backlash, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so IVF procedures could continue.
In the weeks after the Alabama ruling, congressional Republicans scrambled to address IVF. Many rushed to create a unified message of support despite histories of voting in favor of fetal personhood laws and arguing that life begins at conception, the same concept that upheld the Alabama decision.
“The reality is you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood — they are fundamentally incompatible — and the American people won’t be fooled by another one of Donald Trump’s lies,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the Right to IVF bill, told The Associated Press.
Republican Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz introduced a bill this year to prohibit states from receiving Medicaid funding if they ban the procedure. But that came after Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made IVF a federal right. All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against the measure.
“It’s not easy for a Republican lawmaker to say they’re for IVF and actually mean it in a straightforward, tangible way without angering a lot of constituents,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that more than 6 in 10 U.S. adults support protecting access to IVF, including more than half of Republicans, and only about 1 in 10 are opposed. But many anti-abortion groups and some lawmakers oppose the treatment, including several members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus who have objected to expanding IVF access for veterans.
At least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
This type of legislation, all proposed by Republican lawmakers, is based on the idea that life begins at fertilization and could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.
Still, many GOP lawmakers have been vocal in their support for IVF. The issue is personal for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who shared his daughter’s IVF experience. But even though Johnson said he fully supports IVF, he was not completely sold on Trump’s proposal due to its possible price tag. Other Republican lawmakers who responded publicly after Trump’s announcement expressed similar concerns.
“I would need to see cost estimates, impacts on insurance rates, etc., before making any decisions or commitments to support any proposal,” Johnson said.
Republican lawmakers have historically opposed federal funding to cover health care, including by repeatedly attempting to undo the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and may be unlikely to support similar plans, including for IVF.
Lack of health insurance coverage for fertility treatments has been a major barrier for those wanting to start or continue treatments. While coverage has been expanding in recent years, less than half of employers with 500 or more workers in the U.S. offered IVF coverage in 2023, according to the benefits consultant Mercer.
Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California faced criticism for supporting a GOP bill aiming to grant constitutional protection to embryos at “the moment of fertilization” after she publicly shared her own experience with IVF. Steel rescinded her co-sponsorship of the measure in March, two days after winning her primary, declaring she does not support federal restrictions on IVF.
In a statement to the AP, she said Congress “must pass policies to support and expand access to IVF treatments.”
Such flip-flopping from Republicans only provides fodder for Democrats, who say Trump and his party can’t be trusted to protect reproductive rights.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, warned voters to “watch what they do, not what they say.”
___
Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
Ironically, one of Donald Trump’s biggest political liabilities is also arguably his greatest achievement as president: the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine. A swath of the Republican base remains openly hostile to vaccines, which has left Trump exposed to rare criticism from his MAGA supporters. According to sources, Trump allies such as Tucker Carlson and Roger Stone were worried enough about the former president’s vulnerability on the vaccine issue that they wanted him to publicly disavow Operation Warp Speed, the public-private program that released a COVID vaccine in less than nine months. But Trump refused because, well, has Trump ever passed up a chance to claim credit for a success? (Carlson and Stone declined to comment.)
As a result, sources say Carlson, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., and others helped engineer an alternative: Robert Kennedy Jr.’s decision to drop out and endorse Trump. Stone told people that Kennedy, whose third-party campaign served as a vehicle for his anti-vaccine views, was peeling off enough voters to tip the election to Kamala Harris. “You have maybe 3% of voters where opposition to vaccines is their one issue,” says a Republican who participated in the courtship of Kennedy.
But getting Kennedy and Trump to forge an alliance almost didn’t happen. The two New York scions have famously big egos and a history of viciously attacking each other. Trump previously called Kennedy a “phony, radical-left fool,” a “Democratic ‘plant,’” and a “liberal lunatic.” Kennedy, meanwhile, wrote a 2018 Newsweek op-ed that said Trump’s “presidency has not just discredited our nation, but the entire American experiment in self government.”
A breakthrough came following the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump’s life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A few hours after the shooting, Carlson put Trump and Kennedy on a text thread together, according to a person briefed on the communications. Kennedy texted Trump that he was ready to drop out and endorse him but wasn’t sure of the timing, the source says. On a phone call the following day, Trump courted Kennedy by endorsing Kennedy’s unproven view that vaccines hurt children. “When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10-pound or 20-pound baby,” Trump said, “and then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times.” But the relationship hit a setback when Kennedy’s son, Robert Kennedy III,posted a video of the call with Trump to social media.
The damage control fell to Florida financier Omeed Malik, a Trump donor and close friend of Don Jr. and Robert Kennedy III. (Malik’s anti-woke private equity firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Tucker Carlson’s digital video venture.) Malik arranged an in-person meeting between Trump and Kennedy on the opening day of the Republican convention to discuss an endorsement. According to people briefed on the meeting, Kennedy came in with unrealistic expectations that he could be FDA chairman or Health and Human Services Secretary in a Trump administration. “There were asks,” a source briefed on the talks tells me. (Kennedy denied this.) “The meeting concluded without a deal,” the source says. The Trump campaign declined to comment.
Talks between Kennedy and Trump went dark. Over the next several weeks, Malik worked behind the scenes to bring Trump and Kennedy back together. According to the source, Kennedy and Trump agreed on four broad policy areas: treating chronic disease, opposing censorship, adopting an isolationist foreign policy, and exposing the deep state. The source said the deal-breaker was that Kennedy needed to be on Trump’s transition team. “That was nonnegotiable,” the source says.
“There was no quid pro quo of any kind,” Kennedy tells Vanity Fair.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign announced Kennedy would serve as an honorary co-chair of the transition alongside former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. “This is going to give Bobby the ability to decide who gets into government,” the source says.
Former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg says Kennedy’s presence on the transition is a signal to anti-vax voters that Trump will be an ally in office. “This is Trump’s way of winking to Kennedy’s supporters,” Nunberg says.
One open question is what role Kennedy’s vice presidential pick, Nicole Shanahan, might play in Trumpworld. On Tuesday, Shanahan declined to say if she would campaign for Trump. And she disputed that Kennedy dropped out of the race. “We are technically still running and on the ballot! Just suspended,” she texted.
Kamala Harris promised to chart a “new way forward” for the nation as she accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday, the final night of a star-studded and amped-up convention in Chicago. “With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past,” the vice president told an arena crowd packed with enthusiastic supporters. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens. Who is realistic, practical, and has common sense. And always fights for the American people.”
The standing-room-only crowd erupted when Harris took the United Center stage. Even those who spilled out into the concourse cheered wildly, with supporters waving KAMALA signs as they squeezed together around small televisions to watch the vice president deliver the biggest, most consequential speech of her career. “The future is always worth fighting for,” she said. “We are not going back.”
Harris—who became the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major party ticket—touted her record as a prosecutor, U.S. senator, and vice president to Joe Biden, who dropped his candidacy only a month ago. She laid out a policy agenda centered around “freedom” and “common sense.” And she laced into Donald Trump, the former president who is running to return to power on an even more extreme policy program. “They are out of their minds,” she said of her Republican challengers.
It was a commanding, sweeping speech, ranging from domestic issues like abortion protections to the Israel-Hamas war that has weighed on her party. Harris notably drew a roar of applause when she vowed to ensure the “suffering in Gaza ends,” even as she emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself.
The DNC was, in part, a celebration of its past, with rousing speeches by the Obamas, the Clintons, and of course Biden, whose address on the convention’s opening night was something of a swan song for a presidency and a decades-long career in public office. But it also marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Democratic party: “I see a nation ready to move forward,” Harris said in her speech, “ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.”
Of course, the baton was not only being passed to Harris—it was, in many ways, being handed off to a new generation of Democratic talent, from rising stars like Representative Jasmine Crockett to those whose moment seemed to arrive this week in primetime speeches, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. “I think for too long, you’ve seen the same people talking about the same issues,” Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski told me Thursday afternoon, before the vice president’s speech. “What we are seeing today is a diverse group of Democratic leaders who are actually talking about American values.”
“I have to explain to my colleagues what ‘coconut pilling’ is, and that ‘brat’ is a good thing,” California Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, the youngest member of Democratic leadership in the House, joked over coffee one morning here. “But I think that people are really excited to focus on the future and to think about the future,” she told me, “and to really turn the page on this dark chapter of American history where Donald Trump has been so ever-present.”
Indeed, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month showcased a GOP unified behind Trump, but one still preoccupied with the “American carnage” of his 2016 run and the petty grievances he’s been grousing about since 2020. Democrats—after Biden stepped down—turned their focus on the future, putting the spotlight on young figures: “We have to remember that we are powerful,” State Representative Justin Pearson, one of the “Tennessee Three,” told a crowd at a youth voter engagement event at the Epiphany Center for the Arts on Chicago’s west side. “You don’t have to have fancy suits and fancy titles. All you have to do is use your voice, use your vote, use your time,” he added, noting that younger voters are now poised to exert extraordinary influence this cycle. “Our issues matter, what we say matters, and what we want to see happen in this country matters.” (To say the students in attendance gave the 29-year-old a standing ovation is an understatement; they jumped up to applaud as if they were ejected out of their seats.)
You could feel the generational shift beyond the official programming. At a “Hotties for Harris” party Tuesday night, young Democrats gabbed in front of a HALL OF HOTTIES (Harris, Biden, Walz, Stacey Abrams, Steve Kerr) and a HALL OF WEIRDOS (Trump, JD Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy) and danced in front of strobing coconut trees. It was like a being inside of a meme. “Politics should be accessible,” Jack Lobel, the 20-year-old national press secretary of Voters for Tomorrow, a youth advocacy organization, told me as the party dispersed. The work they’re doing is “serious,” the Columbia University undergrad told me, but it should also be “uplifting.”
“This is about love and unity,” Lobel told me.
Unity had been hard to come by for Democrats just a month ago, as Biden resisted calls from within his party to drop his nomination. His decision to ultimately do so—just days after the RNC—upended the race in Democrats’ favor, and has, for now, got the party suddenly pulling in the same direction. But can they keep it going?
It certainly looked like it inside the convention hall. But one of the biggest issues dividing Democrats—and alienating younger voters in particular—was looming right outside. Not far from the United Center, thousands of protesters demanded a ceasefire in Gaza—and, as Ta-Nehisi Coatesreported here, uncommitted delegates pressed Harris and the Democrats to allow a Palestinian American to speak on stage at the convention. Ultimately, they wouldn’t get one.
One thing is certain: The November election, as Arizona Senator Mark Kelly warned on the convention stage Thursday, will be close. And the stakes—for the rights that will be threatened by Project 2025 to the democratic system Trump has sought to erode—are extraordinarily high.
“Donald Trump is an unserious man,” Harris said in her keynote Thursday. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”
Democrats may only have 70-odd days to keep that from happening, but they wrapped their convention with all the momentum behind them. “We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of our world,” Harris said. “It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done: Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country that we love.”
Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak in Howell at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Michigan Democrats are slamming former President Donald Trump for choosing Howell as the location for his rally on Tuesday, a month after white supremacists rallied there, chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump.”
Trump plans to talk about “crime and safety” at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in the town of about 10,000 residents that has been called the “KKK Capital of Michigan.”
Democrats say Trump is fueling racial divisions for political gain.
“It’s no accident that Donald Trump chose to campaign in Howell less than a month after failing to condemn the Neo-Nazis who marched through town shouting their support for Hitler and Trump in the same breath,” Michigan Democratic Party Chairperson Lavora Barnes said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “His visit here to talk about safety is laughable — violent crime spiked under his watch, and he’s running on an extreme Project 2025 agenda that would defund law enforcement, abolish common-sense gun safety measures, and give Trump unchecked power.”
Barnes added, “Michiganders don’t want a convicted criminal in the White House who will make our communities less safe and stoke hatred and division at every turn — that’s why they will reject Trump and his racist agenda come November.”
And Howell isn’t the only town with links to white supremacists that Trump is visiting. On Monday, Trump visited York, Pennsylvania, which has a long history with the KKK.
“This does not seem like a coincidence,” TikTok user and attorney Cheyenne Hunt, who has 99,400 followers, said. “We should all be talking about it. They are making an explicit play for the white supremacist vote.”
On July 20 in Howell, masked white supremacists rallied and chanted, “We love Hitler. We love Trump.” One group chanted “Heil Hitler” during a march. During a second demonstration, participants waved flags with a swastika, the term “KKK,” and other antisemitic messages.
Howell has been linked to the KKK for years, largely because of the rallies Michigan-based Grand Dragon Robert Miles held on a nearby farm in the 1970s and 1980s.
During an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago on July 30, Trump came under fire for falsely suggesting his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, had misled voters about her race.
“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 immigrant parents — her father from Jamaica and her mother from India. As an undergraduate, she studied at Howard University, a leading historically Black college, where she joined the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. During her time as a U.S. senator, Harris was part of the Congressional Black Caucus, advocating for voting rights and police reform legislation.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has once again come out in defense of controversial remarks made by his running mate, former president Donald Trump.
When speaking to the Milwaukee Police Association on Friday, Vance—who spent four years in the Marines and served a tour in Iraq in 2005 as a combat correspondent—attempted to soften Trump’s recent remarks diminishing the importance of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The medal, which has been around for more than 150 years, is the country’s highest award for military valor in action. Trump equated that award with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
During a campaign event Thursday at his golf club in New Jersey, Trump called out to Miriam Adelson in the crowd.
Adelson, a prominent Republican donor and casino magnate who has an estimated net worth of $32.3 billion, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 by Trump. During his failed 2020 bid for office, Adelson and her husband donated $90 million to Preserve America, a super PAC dedicated to electing Trump.
This time around, she’s slated to give even more.
“We gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Trump began. “It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version.” He then goes on to say that freedom award is “actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, that’s soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets—or they’re dead.”
“She gets it and she’s a healthy beautiful woman,” Trump continued, noting that the two awards are “rated equal.”
The former president may have been using the moment to make nice with Adelson after he reportedly had an aide send her a slew of angry text messages last month, according to The New York Times.
“This is a guy who loves our veterans and who honors our veterans,” JD Vance said of Trump on Friday, claiming that he hadn’t seen the full remarks. “I don’t think him complimenting and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those who received military honors,” Vance continued. “They are two different awards. And I think the president was saying some nice things about a person that he liked and that is a totally reasonable thing to do.”
“The veteran community is very, very much behind Donald Trump,” Vance said after mentioning a meeting he had with veterans in Pennsylvania.
Veterans across the nation have denounced Trump’s recent remarks and critiqued Vance for endorsing his running mate’s actions as a veteran himself.
Veterans of Foreign Wars—a nonprofit serving active, guard, and reserve forces that has previously denounced language that Trump has used when discussing veterans—called the former president’s comments “asinine.”
“When a candidate to serve as our military’s commander-in-chief so brazenly dismisses the valor and reverence symbolized by the Medal of Honor and those who have earned it, I must question whether they would discharge their responsibilities to our men and women in uniform with the seriousness and discernment necessary for such a powerful position,” the organization said in a statement, adding that Trump “should frankly already know better.”
In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Iraq war veteran and co-founder of the veterans advocacy group VoteVets.org Jon Soltz said of Vance: “Totally respect his service, but he’s a fraud.”
One of former President Donald Trump’s most outspoken and controversial supporters in Congress is slated to headline a pair of Pennsylvania GOP events in the coming weeks.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) will be the special guest for the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity virtual training” on Sunday.
“The PA RNC Poll Watcher Training provides a comprehensive overview of Pennsylvania’s electoral process, as well as guidance on how Poll Watchers can play an important role in upholding election integrity. You will learn how to observe and report any potential problems that may arise during the voting and tabulation process,” according to a Zoom link promoting the event. That same link indicates the event is closed to the press.
This screen capture shows the flyer for the Pennsylvania RNC event featuring U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Punchbowl News first reported Friday that the training session is with the Lehigh County Republican Committee. The Pennsylvania GOP and Pennsylvania Democratic parties did not immediately reply to requests for comment Friday.
Following Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Greene falsely claimed that the loss was due to the election being stolen. She also objected to certifying the election results, and has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s reelection campaign, and frequent critic of Democrats, particularly those in the progressive wing of the party.
Sunday is not the first event that Republicans have held in Pennsylvania aimed at recruiting poll watchers. In June, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R-9th District) held the second stop of a “protect the vote tour” in Bucks County. The training portion of the program for that event was also closed to the press.
The RNC’s nationwide campaign seeks to recruit 100,000 poll watchers, poll workers, and legal experts for the 2024 election, with a goal of getting at least 5,000 volunteers in Pennsylvania alone.
On Sept. 3, Greene is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for the Washington County Republican Party’s Fall dinner.
“We will be asking her to speak her mind, totally unfiltered,” the Washington County Republican Party wrote on Facebook promoting the fundraiser.
While Greene has become one of the most outspoken conservative voices in Congress since being elected, she’s also caused divisions within the Republican Party, and was removed from the conservative House Freedom Caucus in 2023. In a previous session of Congress, she lost her committee assignments with Democrats and a few Republicans voting to remove her from various committees.
Both Pennsylvania events are taking place on opposite sides of the commonwealth that feature different parts of the electorate in the Keystone State.
Lehigh County, located in the Lehigh Valley north of Philadelphia, voted for Biden by just under 8 points over Trump in 2020. Washington County, situated in the southwestern region of the state, voted for Trump by 22 points over Biden in 2020.
More of Donald Trump‘s “flip-flopping” went viral after he bashed Kamala Harris‘ running mate, Tim Walz, for the same thing he previously supported on tape and claimed credit for. The current “hateration” in question: Trump backtracking about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s handling of the unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Trump’s 2020 Praise Of Walz: A Conveniently Forgotten History
Trump and his campaign have recently claimed that Walz “let Minneapolis burn.” Let’s rewind to June 1, 2020, when protests erupted across the country following the harrowing death of George Floyd, a Black man whose life was brutally taken by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Amidst the nationwide uproar, Minneapolis became ground zero for protests, some of which turned violent as the city grappled with deep-seated anger and grief.
Listen to the audio here where Trump praises Walz:
During this time, Donald Trump was quick to praise Governor Walz for his handling of the protests. According to AP News, a phone call that included top officials like Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William Barr, Trump told Walz, “What they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately.”
Fast forward to the 2024 presidential campaign, and Trump, along with his running mate JD Vance, is suddenly criticizing Walz for supposedly allowing Minneapolis to burn during the protests. But here’s the kicker: that same audio recording, which Trump and the GOP are conveniently ignoring, directly contradicts these claims.
“Governor Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn for days, despite President Trump’s offer to deploy soldiers and cries for help from the liberal Mayor of Minneapolis,” said Leavitt.
However, according to the phone call, Trump was praising Walz for deploying the National Guard. Trump himself claimed credit for in a 2024 fundraiser, despite the fact that it was Walz who gave the official order.
This attempt to rewrite history isn’t just disingenuous; it’s a blatant attempt to mislead voters as Trump and his team scramble to discredit Walz, who has been tapped as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 election.
The GOP’s current claims are nothing more than desperate attempts at damage control. What a PR mess.
Republicans like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik have also jumped on the bandwagon.
Newsone reports that Trump’s VP, JD Vance, ever eager to play the race card, questioned whether Black business leaders in Minneapolis were grateful that Walz supposedly allowed their businesses to burn.
But again, the receipts—aka that 2020 audio—tell a different story.
Truth Is Out, But Will It Matter?
So, what’s the takeaway from all this? Simply put, Trump’s attempt to backtrack on his OWN recorded words is just another case of political opportunism. But thanks to modern technology and a few vigilant social media users, the truth is out there for anyone willing to see it.
As the 2024 election heats up, it’s CONTINUOSLY proven that clearly the GOP is willing to bend, twist, and outright break the truth to suit their narrative. But the truth has a way of coming to light—whether they like it or not.
For Trump and his team, the message is clear: You can’t rewrite history when the receipts are only a click away.
Even Republican cheerleader senator Mitch McConnell despairs over his party’s increasing weirdness.
In 2022, explaining away the GOP’s midterm election performance (read: not good!) he basically said, yikes, what can you do? “My view was do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt,” he said of his fellow Republicans. “Now, hopefully, in the next cycle we’ll have quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome.”
McConnell is the guy at the rager who’s telling people that he “came in with those guys, but not, like, with those guys” and hissing through his teeth at his colleagues to “try to act normal.”
No one is immune, no matter their political affiliation. Former president George W. Bush was ahead of the curve in fingering Trump and his cohort as weirdos, a sense of cringe transcending any party loyalties he might have. Officially, he attended Trump’s presidential inauguration in January 2017 to witness the peaceful transfer of power. Unofficially, he reportedly turned to his companions as they left the dais and said, “That was some weird shit.”
TikTok and internet culture aren’t the only fields Harris’s campaign has pulled from. Modern dating parlance lends us the idea of “the ick,” a term so relatable it was recently added to the Cambridge Dictionary.
It’s defined as “a sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do.”
Once you get the ick, you can’t un-ick. Ever. In dating, that might mean losing someone’s number. In politics, the Democrats are hoping that voters’ ick will translate at the polls. Picture senior Democrats pulling voters aside like they’re their closest girlfriends and muttering, “Really? Him? But he’s so…weird.” Politicos can’t go all in, Walter Masterson style, but they can get away with a deftly wielded light trolling.
Of course, the Unified Theory of Ick (Politics Edition) is nonpartisan, as evidenced by a severe case of the ick being the straw that broke the Biden-reelection-campaign-shaped camel’s back just days ago.
As Lawrence points out, “If you’re making an attack, and then there’s something that happens that reinforces that, it’s really hard to get away from it. The Biden debate, going into it, [Republicans said], ‘he’s old, he’s old, he’s old,’ and then he looked old. There’s just no turning away from that. You can’t get that out of people’s heads.”
Again, it goes both ways: “And so you have Democrats saying, ‘they’re weird freaks, they’re weird freaks, they’re weird freaks,’ and then old clips of JD Vance come out talking about cat ladies and talking about how people without children shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Donald Trump talking about Hannibal Lecter like he’s a real person. All of that stuff just kind of builds on itself until it becomes a part of the zeitgeist.”
One person on X wondered why “anyone at all” would vote for a Republican. “Hateful, cruel, misogynistic and like, vibey in a weird unsettling way,” they wrote.
Only as little as 72% of the $20 billion housing bond will be spent to actually build affordable housing for extremely low-income, very low-income, and low-income households. Ten percent can be spent on grants for “transportation, schools, and parks.” Notably, only 80% of the proceeds of the bond issue need to be spent in the county funding the bonds. Thus, Contra Costa County residents could end up paying for parks in San Mateo County.
The decision to place the bond on the ballot was made by the MTC, which includes unelected, unaccountable officials and is therefore like taxation without representation. We can and must do better.
In his critique of Kamala Harris, Bret Stephens mentions high staff turnover during her time as vice president and the fact that she failed the bar exam on the first try.
Regarding turnover, he should have started by looking at the mile-long list of senior and mid-level Trump people who quit or were fired.
As for the bar exam, Harris is in good company. Others who took the exam more than once include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Michele Obama, John F, Kennedy Jr., and former California Governors Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson.
He also claims she has been a bad campaigner. He’s entitled to his opinion, but her first speech in Milwaukee looked pretty impressive to me, in contrast to Donald Trump’s 93-minute meandering speech at the Republican convention.
It is now obvious that the cost of this heat — both in dollars and in human lives — far outstrips the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. Are we going to follow Ben Franklin’s advice: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Or John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight”? We need to get serious, folks.
The scary truth is most Californians are only a few bad breaks away from homelessness. The unlucky blow may come from a wildfire or, worse, an unexpected medical bill. Insurers profit most off denying coverage, that is, if you were fortunate enough to have health insurance in the first place.
Capitalism turns housing into a scarce commodity and then blames people who lack it. Rather than treating the unhoused as untouchable, we should give them security and more chances. It is the Christian thing to do and a humane imperative.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to sweep away homeless encampments is cruel. It does nothing to solve the systemic problems that cause homelessness in the first place. And by treating other people like trash, the Ggovernor has proven he’s garbage.
Alan Marling Livermore
Harris win is best hope for multiracial society
I was one of 50,000 Black men on a call for Kamala Harris, a day after 44,000 Black women got together. I haven’t seen this level of excitement since Barack Obama in 2008. Black women and men being this energized is how we will win the fight for a multiracial democracy.
The California Donor Table has moved over $60 million to progressive community organizations and candidates. With skyrocketing support from voters of color, we will win the presidency, retain the Senate and win eight contested California House districts to take back the House
Kamala was born at the same Oakland hospital as my son. In 2020, hundreds of us danced in front of her former Berkeley apartment to celebrate her victory. And boy will we party if, natch, when she wins the presidency.
A letter writer complained that the Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimundo now prevents federal administrative agencies from “resolving statutory ambiguities.” But that is exactly how it should be. That’s what courts do.
While agencies may have certain “expertise,” they are not courts. Courts have the expertise to resolve ambiguities in the law; agencies don’t. I don’t want an agency expert to interpret a legal ambiguity; that is not the job of a federal bureaucrat. That expert might be a conservative or liberal who lets his or her worldviews influence a decision.
If an agency finds an ambiguity in the law, have them go to Congress to clarify the issue. That is the job of our representatives.
If you haven’t seen it, you might want to read the synopsis of Project 2025. Essentially it’s a manifesto for Donald Trump to take over every aspect of American lives, but only to benefit him and his loyalists.
They plan to remove government employees and agencies. They have no regard for non-Whites, LGBTQ, abortions, women, foreigners and non-Trumpists. There will be no need for Congress or the Supreme Court because all decisions will come from the demagogue himself and his self-designed army.
Was “1984” a primer for Trump? How much surveillance will there be? How many jails and holding camps will they build for all those in opposition? Will they restore a vigorous execution system?
They want to end American democracy as we know it. If you’re not concerned about this, then study Germany in 1939.
Stuart Shicoff Martinez
Back Harris to beat Trump at ballot box
Presidents Biden and Obama are the two best presidents I have experienced in my lifetime. I applaud, admire and respect President Biden so much for sacrificing for our good and not focusing on himself. He and his team, including Vice President Harris, pulled us out of an extremely dark time.
In November, we have two choices: democracy vs. dictatorship. It’s time to finally put aside gender and race and focus on the issues that matter to us all.
If you haven’t yet read Project 2025, please read it. There’s a summary on Wikipedia so you don’t have to read 900 pages. It’s Donald Trump’s blueprint for a dictatorship and police state and covers all of the issues that are important to Americans. Kamala Harris is the most qualified and experienced individual who can beat Trump at the ballot box. It’s a no-brainer.
Ramona Krausnick Dublin
Democrats’ whitewashing of the coercion of Biden
According to Martha Raddatz, ABC News, senior White House sources recently said that Joe Biden was lashing out at any suggestion of dropping out.
But with a political tidal wave of Democratic elites knocking over his determination to continue running on the basis that he could not win, and after the final assault by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Biden was finally forced to resign from the race. A New York Times opinion piece calls this “a noble patriotic move; a selfless American giving up power willingly for the good of the country.” Coercion is more like it.
This narrative is a Democratic Party line whitewashing reality which we will see repeated ad nauseum.
Shaun McCutcheon, chairman of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, advocates for the shooting of protesters: “Rioters don’t riot where they will be shot.” He says that leftist leaders who were soft on protesters were the causes of the Donald Trump assassination attempt.
This scary kind of thinking confirms the wisdom of voting for the best Democratic candidate in November.
Steve Turnwall Lafayette
Upcoming federal case pivots on free speech
The case against the Uhuru 3 — Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel — is a troubling challenge of our most important constitutional right.
Under the guise of bogus conspiracy charges and failing to register as “foreign agents” after criticizing the U.S. role in the war in Ukraine, these three have been indicted for using their right to free speech to openly criticize the U.S. government. The outcome of their upcoming trial will be an important moment in history, setting a precedent on whether or not our government can attack its own citizens for exercising their right to free speech.
Progress in this country has come from its citizens speaking their mind and advocating for change, knowing they are protected by their First Amendment right. The outcome in this trial will be extremely important in securing our right to keep speaking freely and pushing for progress.
The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) represents Border Patrol agents and support personnel assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol. The union announced its full support of former President Trump during a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
