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  • Cheney endorses another Democratic congresswoman, saying Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger is ‘dedicated to serving this country’ | CNN Politics

    Cheney endorses another Democratic congresswoman, saying Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger is ‘dedicated to serving this country’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger on Saturday, weighing in on another highly competitive House race in the final days of the midterm election campaign.

    Spanberger, a former CIA officer who was among the class of national security Democrats first elected in 2018, is locked in a tough contest with Republican challenger Yesli Vega to represent Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

    “I’m honored to endorse Abigail Spanberger. I have worked closely with her in Congress, and I know that she is dedicated to working across the aisle to find solutions. We don’t agree on every policy, but I am absolutely certain that Abigail is dedicated to serving this country and her constituents and defending our Constitution,” Cheney said in a statement.

    “Abigail’s opponent is promoting conspiracy theories, denying election outcomes she disagrees with, and defending the indefensible,” she continued.

    The move is Cheney’s latest endorsement of a member of her opposing party. The Wyoming Republican campaigned for Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin on Tuesday and endorsed her last week saying, “While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress.”

    Spanberger has campaigned on issues like infrastructure and lowering prescription drug costs, while her opponent, Vega, has said she will work to keep the Biden administration in check if elected.

    Virginia’s 7th District House race is rated as “tilt Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

    CNN has reached out to Spanberger’s campaign for comment on the endorsement.

    Cheney is leaving Congress at the end of her current term after losing the Republican primary for her at-large Wyoming seat in August. Her continued criticism of former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was seen as a key factor in her defeat.

    Cheney said last month that she would not remain a Republican if Trump is the GOP nominee for president in 2024.

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  • Oath Keepers leader testifies 2020 election was ‘unconstitutional,’ paints himself as anti-violence | CNN Politics

    Oath Keepers leader testifies 2020 election was ‘unconstitutional,’ paints himself as anti-violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers who prosecutors say called for a “bloody revolution” to keep then-President Donald Trump in power, painted himself as an anti-racist Libertarian who believed the 2020 election was unconstitutional as he testified in his own defense on Friday.

    Rhodes is the first of the five defendants charged with seditious conspiracy in federal court in Washington, DC, to testify.

    The courtroom was packed during his testimony, and Rhodes choked up several times discussing his family, suicide rates among veterans and other subjects highlighted by his lawyer, Phillip Linder. He spoke directly to the jury and appeared very comfortable on the stand.

    Rhodes explained to the jury that he didn’t believe either Trump or Joe Biden won in 2020 because the election itself was “unconstitutional.”

    “I believe the election was unconstitutional, and that made it invalid,” Rhodes testified. “You really can’t have a winner of an unconstitutional election.”

    Rhodes told the jury that, as he saw it, election laws in several states were changed by “executive fiat” and not through the state legislature.

    “In multiple states especially in the swing states … you had them putting in new rules in direct violation” of state laws, Rhodes said.

    “Everyone kept focusing on the computers” and other theories of voter fraud, Rhodes said, instead of the constitutional issues, which they needed to discuss before figuring out “whether there’s fraud on the ground.”

    Rhodes did not detail any specific laws that were changed. CNN has found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Prosecutors have alleged that Rhodes wanted Trump to remain in power and that the militia leader supported a “bloody revolution” to secure the presidency.

    Rhodes told the jury Friday how he was honorably discharged from the military and went on to study law at Yale, focusing his attention on the Bill of Rights – which Rhodes called “the crown jewel of our Constitution” – and protecting civilian rights in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

    Rhodes, a self-described Libertarian, testified that he founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 to “reach, change and inspire” people about what rights the Constitution afforded them.

    Pushing back on what he saw as narratives that the Oath Keepers were racist or white nationalists, Rhodes said the organization traveled to various cities for racial justice protests, claiming the group protected “minority business owners” in Ferguson, Missouri.

    “Frankly we kind of embarrassed the police, Rhodes testified, “because we showed them how to do it right, protecting the business owners while still respecting the rights of the protesters.”

    Oath Keepers rules, Rhodes claimed, specifically bar any member who “advocates for the overthrow of the United States.”

    During the first several weeks of the seditious conspiracy trial against the far-right organization, prosecutors presented evidence that the Oath Keepers stockpiled weapons at a hotel in Virginia on January 6 as part of a so-called quick reaction force. Prosecutors alleged that the five defendants intended to use those weapons in case called upon by Trump to stop the transfer of power to Biden.

    Rhodes told the jury that wasn’t the case and claimed that the QRF’s were set up at an event the Oath Keepers attended to “respond in case there is an emergency,” including if his men were ever injured.

    The Oath Keepers also used QRFs every time they provided security, Rhodes said, including several events in Washington, DC. After the election, Rhodes testified he was concerned Antifa would “attack the White House,” and claimed the leftist organization was threatening to “drag Trump out” if the president refused to concede.

    In November, “I was concerned that this might actually happen,” Rhodes told the jury, citing his rhetoric on a recorded meeting prosecutors showed the jury in which Rhodes allegedly said that “there’s going to be a fight.”

    If Antifa did try to attack the White House, Rhodes said that “President Trump could use the Insurrection Act, declare this an insurrection, and use myself and other veterans to protect the White House.”

    No such attack at the White House occurred.

    Rhodes is expected to continue his testimony on Monday.

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  • New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy | CNN Politics

    New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic officials and strategists in New York tell CNN they are bracing for what could be stunning losses in the governor’s race and in contests for as many as four US House seats largely in the suburbs.

    With crime dominating the headlines and the airwaves, multiple Democrats watching these races closely are pointing to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, accusing him of overhyping the issue and playing into right-wing narratives in ways that may have helped set the party up for disaster on Tuesday.

    “He was an essential validator in the city to make their attacks seem more legit and less partisan,” said one Democratic operative working on campaigns in New York, who asked not to be named so as not to compromise current clients.

    Other Democrats argue this has it backwards. While they accuse Republicans of political ploys they call cynical, racist and taking advantage of a situation fostered by the pandemic, they insist candidates would be in better shape if they had followed Adams’ lead in speaking to the fear and frustration voters feel.

    But going into Election Day, New York Democrats worry about a double whammy from how they’ve struggled to address crime: Swing voters turned off by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and suburban House Democrats go vote Republican, while base Democrats in the city, dejected by talk of how awful things are, don’t turn out at all.

    “Crime today has been compared to the ’80s and the ‘90s, and the fact of the matter is that crime is lower now than it was then,” said Crystal Hudson, a Democratic New York City councilwoman from Brooklyn. “That’s emboldened the right to use crime as their narrative and put Democrats in a bad spot for these midterm elections.”

    Rep. Lee Zeldin, Hochul’s GOP opponent, has taken to regularly invoking Adams on the campaign trail, to the point that some Democratic operatives have grimly joked that Zeldin could just run clips of Adams talking about crime as his closing ads.

    There are national ripples: Democratic groups like the Democratic Governors Association are moving in millions of dollars to prop up Hochul in a deep-blue state instead of spending that on tight races elsewhere, with Vice President Kamala Harris flying in on Thursday in one of her own last campaign stops and President Joe Biden heading to Westchester County, north of New York City, on Sunday to rally with the governor. Republicans, meanwhile, are seizing opportunities to pad a potential House majority by targeting seats that Democrats had been counting on as backstops.

    Adams was elected mayor last year on a tough-talking, tough-on-crime message, then embraced as such a hero among many Democratic leaders that rumors circulated he might be eyeing a 2024 presidential run himself. In office, he’s often talked about the bad shape the city is in, including citing statistics he says demonstrate connections between the rise in crime and a 2019 progressive-led state law change that barred judges from setting cash bail for all but the most serious offenses.

    Multiple top Democrats argue that Adams could have used his credibility to buttress Hochul – whom allies point out is in a tricky political spot talking about crime in New York City as a 64-year-old White woman from Western New York – instead of loudly pushing the governor to call a special session of the legislature to roll back more of the new bail laws. Hochul also seemed to be caught surprised by the attacks and unsure of how to defend her record, with several elected officials and operatives saying she appeared to be balancing between different factions of the party rather than setting a firm agenda of her own.

    That’s fed an increasingly tense relationship in the campaign’s final weeks, though Adams recently appeared with Hochul at both an official government event announcing she’d allocate state money to pay for overtime for police patrolling the subways and at a campaign stop in Queens as she seeks to prove to voters that she’s taking crime seriously. Adams has also shifted to blaming the media for sensationalizing the crime problem.

    Appearing on “CNN This Morning” on Friday, Hochul said there’s never been a governor and mayor in New York with as strong a relationship as the one she has with Adams. While she acknowledged that violent crime is up and that the issue was rooted in voters’ sincere fears, she said Republicans were “not having a conversation about real solutions.”

    She cited her record of getting more cops and cameras on the street and help for the mentally ill, and Zeldin’s opposition to gun control.

    “Crime has been a problem,” she said. “I understand that. Let’s talk about real answers and not just give everybody all these platitudes.”

    Rep. Kathleen Rice, a retiring moderate Democrat from just outside New York City and a former Nassau County district attorney, said at first she was encouraged by Adams. As a former police officer, he understands the problem, she said, but “the general consensus is that he hasn’t shown he has focused on the issue enough for it to have made a difference.”

    Rice said she’s heard from constituents from just outside the city who are turned off by reports of Adams spending late nights at pricey private restaurants juxtaposed with stories about murders on the subways and other horrific incidents.

    “People want to feel safe first before they go to a club,” Rice said.

    Rice’s seat is one of two Democratic-held seats on Long Island now seen at risk. Democrats are also in danger of losing two seats north of New York City – one held by Rep. Pat Ryan and the Lower Hudson Valley district of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

    “It is an issue for voters, but it is not because they have personally experienced crime in the Hudson Valley or their neighbors are talking about crimes committed in the Hudson Valley as much as it is the narrative pushed by the industrial fear machine at Fox and the New York Post describing New York City as a lawless hellscape,” Maloney said in an interview. “That, understandably, is raising concerns among suburbanites.”

    Months ago, Maloney warned other House Democrats, in conversations and in a March memo sent around by the DCCC and obtained by CNN, to be ready to respond and rebut attacks for being weak on crime. The guidance started with telling candidates to be firmly against calls to “defund the police” but also to talk about the more than $8 billion Democratic lawmakers had secured for law enforcement in bills such as the American Rescue Plan.

    Maloney pointed to his votes for legislation to fund programs for body cameras and plate reading technology for local police departments in his district, as well as for the gun control measures enacted over the summer.

    He also stood by a remark he made last July – catching several Democratic operatives’ attention at the time – when he stood with Adams on the steps of the Democratic National Committee headquarters and called him “a rock on which I can build a church.”

    “What I meant is that I like his combination of respecting good policing and understanding the need for public safety with a genuine passion for justice and fairness in our system,” Maloney said in an interview. “He may not get everything right, and it may not be everything I would do. But he recognizes that we’re not where we should be. And I support his efforts to clean it up.”

    Others have not been convinced.

    “The concern over crime is real. It is acute,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones, a progressive Democrat who lost a primary to represent parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn after Maloney opted to run for a redrawn suburban seat that also included parts of Jones’ district. “But once this election is over, I hope people have an honest conversation about how Democrats like Eric Adams have validated a hysteria over crime that is uninformed and that has been debunked.”

    Conversations about crime in New York are bound up in the debate over reforming the bail laws, and in well-worn internal political power struggles among officials. In phone calls and meetings at the beginning of the year, Adams urged top officials in Albany to change the laws, warning them that crime would likely be a major political liability in the fall, according to people familiar with the conversations.

    Legislative leaders have already passed two partial rollbacks, including one supported by Hochul earlier this year. But they have resisted doing more, despite warnings from suburban members.

    Adams has charged that the “insane broken system” of bail laws now puts criminals back on the street who then tend to get back to committing crimes. According to figures from the New York Police Department, in the first half of the year, 211 people were arrested at least three times for burglary and 899 people were arrested at least three times for shoplifting, increases of 142.5 percent and 88.9 percent, respectively, over the same period in 2017. The mayor’s office also pointed to statistics that show double-digit jumps in recidivism for felony, grand larceny and auto theft.

    Still, crime statistics don’t tell as simple a story as what shows up in political ads. Suburban counties are reporting safer streets and communities – a report in February by the Westchester County executive from just north of New York City, for example, showed a 26.5 percent drop in its crime index.

    Murders and shootings are down in the city from last year, but rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft are all up, by over 30 percent from 2021 in several categories, according to New York Police Department data.

    But those are the stories which play on the same local news – and campaign ads during the breaks – that reach into the homes of suburban voters who may not have been crime victims themselves, or even spent much time in the city for years. And that’s left Hochul and Democratic House and state legislative nominees leaching support in Long Island, Westchester and the northern New York City suburbs.

    “A lot of the story that’s being told is of New York City crime,” said Democrat Bridget Fleming, a former prosecutor who’s been endorsed by police unions in the House race for much of the area Zeldin currently represents on Long Island. “We’re making sure law enforcement is supported – and other than gun crime, we’re keeping crime down here.”

    Evan Roth Smith, a pollster working on several local races, said Adams “may be a drag on Democratic trustworthiness on crime.”

    But Adams spokesman Maxwell Young said the mayor’s job isn’t to put a rosy spin on things in a way that could benefit Hochul’s or any of the other candidates’ campaigns.

    “We can’t, and won’t, ignore the reality,” Young said. “Those who claim we aren’t making progress or, conversely, that we’ve been crying wolf aren’t paying attention and have no idea what they’re talking about.”

    Evan Thies, a top Adams political adviser, said he wished other Democrats had taken lessons from the mayor’s win last year.

    “You have to convince people you’re worthy to lead by following their lead on issues and meeting their urgency, not by disagreeing with them,” Thies said. “The mayor became mayor by listening to and advocating for people in high-crime communities – he’s not going to abandon them now.”

    Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, whose district covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, points to how many systemic, as well as larger societal and economic issues, are involved in making a real impact on crime – and that Adams has only been on the job for 10 months.

    “He’s really trying hard. This is not easy,” Espaillat said. “It’s going to take some time.”

    Biden had his own bromance with Adams, from hosting him in the White House weeks after he won his mayoral primary to offering him half of his peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich as they rode together in the limo in February during a presidential visit to New York to talk about gun violence. White House chief of staff Ron Klain praised Adams for tapping into the same coalition of pragmatic, working-class and African American voters, which won Biden the 2020 Democratic nomination.

    Through an aide, Klain did not respond to questions about how he and the president view Adams these days.

    But what many Democrats are left with as they approach the end of campaigning in New York is a potentially devastating example of failing again to break a decades-long paradigm of Republicans capitalizing on calling them soft on crime.

    “The paradox here is: Crime is high in some of the reddest parts of the country where they have the weakest gun safety laws. We needed to tell that story and done so loudly to neutralize the issue. You can’t sit idly by and wish it away,” said Charlie Kelly, a political adviser to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s gun safety group Everytown and former executive director for the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC.

    In New York and beyond, some Democrats are already hoping for a post-election recognition and realignment that pushes their party both toward a tougher attack on Republicans and a more forceful deflection of their own left flank.

    “We can’t dismiss people’s concerns,” said Justin Brannan, a New York City councilman from a moderate district in Brooklyn. “It’s another thing to be a Republican, to say, ‘If you go outside, you’re going to die.’”

    “It’s both true that crime is down from the 1990s and that it has been increasing and that people feel uncomfortable,” said Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. “Democrats have to be able to talk about that and offer real solutions.”

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  • Trump aides eye third week of November for 2024 announcement | CNN Politics

    Trump aides eye third week of November for 2024 announcement | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Top aides to former President Donald Trump have been eyeing the third week of November as an ideal launch point for his 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    Two sources said Trump’s team has specifically discussed November 14 as one possible announcement date, which would come less than a week after the midterm elections and just days after the former president’s youngest daughter Tiffany is due to be married at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

    This person cautioned that no date has been locked in and Trump could move up his desired announcement date – or push it back – depending on how Republicans fare in the elections on Tuesday and the availability of venues.

    Trump has been advised by several of his key lieutenants to announce his third presidential campaign from one of the battleground states he narrowly lost to Joe Biden in 2020, according to a person familiar with the conversations, though others have encouraged him to remain in Florida, where he remains deeply popular among the state’s Republican voters.

    Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, declined to comment to CNN about the impending announcement.

    The former president has long been eyeing the post-midterm period before Thanksgiving as an ideal announcement timeline for his next political act, hoping to capitalize on what he and allies believe will be a red wave for the GOP next Tuesday. At a rally Thursday in Iowa, Trump told the audience to “get ready” for his return to the presidential campaign trail, noting that he “very, very, very probably do it again,” in reference to running for the White House.

    News of Trump’s potential November 14 announcement was first reported by Axios.

    This story is breaking and will be updated.

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  • Obama and Trump bring dueling visions for America in return to campaign trail | CNN Politics

    Obama and Trump bring dueling visions for America in return to campaign trail | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Midterm elections are almost always about incumbent presidents, especially when they are unpopular. But in a unique twist this year, two ex-presidents who lost control of the House while in office have turned into their parties’ closing messengers.

    Barack Obama and Donald Trump personify two rival visions of the meaning of America itself and are extending their bitter years-long duel as they find themselves on opposite sides of a profound confrontation over the future of US democracy.

    Obama remains an avatar of progressive change and an increasingly diverse nation, who’s far more popular than current Democratic President Joe Biden. He’s the most sought-after political fireman for Democrats struggling to survive tight swing state races and is being used to energize young, minority and suburban middle-class voters.

    Trump has mobilized his Make America Great Again movement, which first emerged as a backlash to the first Black presidency and is built around the notion that the cultural values of a largely White, working-class nation is under siege from political correctness, undocumented migration, experts and the establishment.

    Obama is lambasting politicians, celebrities and sports stars who peddle conspiracy theories, fear and social media “garbage” of which Trump is the most prominent exponent. And he’s delivering searing take-downs of the 45th president’s proteges who are running for election on the platform of his 2020 election falsehoods – like Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

    “Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important, I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care how poised they are or how well-lit they are,” Obama said of the former local TV news anchor, who has emerged as a rising MAGA star, in Arizona on Wednesday.

    “What happens when truth doesn’t matter anymore?” Obama added. “If you just repeat something over and over again, and it’s a lie, and yet because your side is saying it, it’s okay.”

    Trump adopted exactly that tactic in his return to the campaign trail in Iowa on Thursday night, in what was ostensibly an appearance for veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, but felt like a first-in-the-nation caucus warmup for 2024.

    He falsely claimed that he had won in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2020, two of the states that helped Biden win the White House.

    “Your favorite president got screwed,” Trump told his crowd on a frigid night in Sioux City, in which he repeated false conspiracies that Obama spied on his campaign in 2016.

    One interesting comparison of the styles of Trump and Obama on show in their rival rallies is in their use of humor. Trump has long used comedy – often dark and cruel – to bind himself to his audience, a feature that doesn’t always come across on TV. Often his crowds look like they are having a whale of a time, enthralled by a rule-breaking bull in a china shop trashing decorum with every word and lacerating his opponents with outrageous accusations and belittling nicknames.

    On Thursday, Trump had his crowd in stitches in a digression from an otherwise dystopian speech as a stiff wind blew around the teleprompters showing his prepared remarks.

    “I’ve got these teleprompters waving like a flag,” he said. “I’m going to get sea sick!”

    Obama’s humor is typically warmer, although no less cutting, but he uses it effectively to ridicule Republicans before delivering a devastating political hit. For instance, in Wisconsin last weekend, he branded Republicans as the party of the rich when he accused Sen. Ron Johnson of voting for a tax break for private plane owners.

    “He fought for this. And then, his adult children bought not one, not two, but three private planes because apparently, carpooling was not an option. Now, I mean, you need three?” Obama joked.

    People in Obama’s extended circle have remarked that their former boss has been on fire this campaign season. Lacking the burdens of presidential office, unlike his former vice president, Obama has shown the kind of freedom and relish for big political rallies that rocketed him to the Democratic nomination in 2008.

    It’s easy to tell when the 44th president doesn’t have his heart in his task. In the early rallies of his 2012 election race, for instance, he was lethargic and weary, and he didn’t approach top form in his events last year in an off-year election in Virginia.

    But his rallies this year have rocked with the pulsating energy and enthusiasm that is often lacking at appearances by the incumbent president, an older, more conventional politician. Obama has also come up with far more relatable and focused economic messages than Biden has managed – ironically performing the same role for the current president as another ex-president, Bill Clinton, performed for him in the 2012 campaign – a service that led Obama to dub the 42nd president “the explainer-in-chief.”

    Obama’s talent for oratory is undiminished and he looks like he’s having great fun showing it off. He’s like a basketball star who after years retired makes a comeback and suddenly starts draining three-pointers. And his popularity means he can drop into the most crucial states where candidates running away from Biden’s unpopularity wouldn’t welcome a visit from the president.

    Yet Obama’s prominence is a reminder of the kind of A-list political talent that the modern Democratic Party lacks. It’s an indictment that its best messenger first ran for president 14 years ago.

    But despite his rhetorical impact, the question is now how effective Obama will be in driving out the vote. The former president often struggled while he was in office to translate his stardust onto other Democratic candidates and lesser talents. And the question in this election is whether he’s simply preaching to the converted in addressing Democrats who already planned to vote, or whether he’s actually making the sale to independents and disaffected anti-Trump Republicans who Biden badly needs to show up to vote for his party.

    Former Obama political strategist David Axelrod, who is now a CNN commentator, said that this onetime boss is being used by his party on a specific electoral mission.

    “In the main, this is the time when you try and get your base out and for Democrats this is really important because the reason why incumbent parties generally lose in midterm elections is that their base is not as motivated as the out-of-office party which tends to come and vote its grievances,” Axelrod said. “There is an enthusiasm gap, at least in the polls, between Republicans and Democrats.”

    While Obama is rekindling memories of a past presidency, Trump is out on the trail seeking to build the foundation for a future one.

    The most recent ex-president has demonstrated the extraordinary hold he still has on the Republican Party by promoting and endorsing a roster of candidates in his election-denying image. There is a question, however, whether Trump’s role in orchestrating inexperienced or extreme nominees, like senatorial candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona, could cost his party the critical seats in swing states that will decide control of the Senate.

    Republican officials have worried all election cycle about the former president putting his own political ambitions ahead of his party. Many still blame his false claims of voter fraud for helping two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, win Senate seats in Georgia runoffs, which enabled their party to control the 50-50 chamber with the help of the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.

    While he’s heading out in to the country again, Trump has not been doing his normal routine of multiple rallies in the most closely contested states.The GOP has succeeded in the last few weeks in returning the focus of the election to Biden, high inflation and the economic anxieties that are spooking voters.

    But there are increasing signs that Trump may not wait much longer to announce a 2024 bid, not least because he has already signaled he would use a presidential campaign to brand legal investigations he faces related to his hoarding of classified documents in his home in Mar-a-Lago and his conduct leading up to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as proof of political persecution.

    “They are weaponizing the Justice Department,” Trump said at his rally Thursday, accusing Democrats of a transgression of which he himself was guilty when he was in the White House and treated attorneys general as his personal lawyers.

    Former Trump White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway praised the former president for not taking the focus off the GOP’s midterm message, a decision that may repay him with a radical Republican House majority that he could use to weaken Biden in the run-up to the 2024 election.

    “He’d like to have done it already. … I think you can expect him to announce it soon,” Conway said of Trump’s anticipated campaign launch. “He’s being urged by some people to still have a November surprise.”

    “Donald Trump is just getting started. I think you should keep your cellphone on,” Conway told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday.

    The former president used his rally in Iowa to tease a new campaign.

    “I will very, very, very probably do it again,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.

    If he follows through, this midterm is unlikely to be the last election when Trump and Obama cross swords on the campaign trail.

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  • Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    As Donald Trump inches closer to launching another presidential run after the midterm election, Justice Department officials have discussed whether a Trump candidacy would create the need for a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations related to the former president, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    The Justice Department is also staffing up its investigations with experienced prosecutors so it’s ready for any decisions after the midterms, including the potential unprecedented move of indicting a former president.

    In the weeks leading up to the election, the Justice Department has observed the traditional quiet period of not making any overt moves that may have political consequences. But behind the scenes, investigators have remained busy, using aggressive grand jury subpoenas and secret court battles to compel testimony from witnesses in both the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at his Palm Beach home.

    Now federal investigators are planning for a burst of post-election activity in Trump-related investigations. That includes the prospect of indictments of Trump’s associates – moves that could be made more complicated if Trump declares a run for the presidency.

    “They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on January 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged.

    “This is the scary thing,” the attorney said.

    Trump and his associates also face legal exposure in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State and expects to wrap her probe by the end of the year.

    Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely spark a political firestorm. And while no decision has been made about whether a special counsel might be needed in the future, DOJ officials have debated whether doing so could insulate the Justice Department from accusations that Joe Biden’s administration is targeting his chief political rival, people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    Special counsels, of course, are hardly immune from political attacks. Both former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe came under withering criticism from their opponents.

    The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

    The Justice Department has brought in a brain trust for high-level advice on the Trump investigations, according to people familiar with the moves.

    Top Justice officials have looked to an old guard of former Southern District of New York prosecutors, bringing into the investigations Kansas City-based federal prosecutor and national security expert David Raskin, as well as David Rody, a prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators.

    Rody, whose involvement has not been previously reported, left a lucrative partnership at the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks to become a senior counsel at DOJ in the criminal division in Washington, according to his LinkedIn profile and sources familiar with the move.

    The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the January 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.

    A handful of other prosecutors have joined the January 6 investigations team, including a high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who has moved out of a supervisor position and onto the team, and a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work now involved in some of the grand jury activity.

    Taken together, the reorganization of prosecutors indicates a serious and snowballing investigation into Trump and his closest circles.

    The decision of whether to charge Trump or his associates will ultimately fall to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden picked for the job because his tenure as a judge provided some distance from partisan politics, after Senate Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016.

    Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Several former prosecutors believe the facts exist for a potentially chargeable case. But Garland will have to navigate the politically perilous and historic decision of how to approach the potential indictment of a former President.

    In March, Garland avoided answering a CNN question about the prospect of a special counsel for Trump-related investigations, but said that the Justice Department does “not shy away from cases that are controversial or sensitive or political.”

    “What we will avoid and what we must avoid is any partisan element of our decision making about cases,” Garland said. “That is what I’m intent on ensuring that the Department decisions are made on the merits, and that they’re made on the facts and the law, and they’re not based on any kind of partisan considerations.”

    Garland’s tough decisions go beyond Trump. The long-running investigation of Hunter Biden, son of the president, is nearing conclusion, people briefed on the matter say. Also waiting in the wings: a final decision on the investigation of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, after prosecutors recommended against charges.

    It likely won’t take long after the midterms for focus to shift to the 2024 presidential race. That could incentivize top DOJ officials to make crucial charging decisions as quickly as possible, including whether to bring charges against Trump himself or other top political activists, other sources familiar with the Justice Department’s inner workings say.

    “They’re not going to charge before they’re ready to charge,” one former Justice Department official with some insight into the thinking around the investigations said. “But there will be added pressure to get through the review” of cases earlier than the typical five-year window DOJ has to bring charges.

    Matters could also be complicated by the situation in Georgia, where Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there. Willis has said she’s aiming for a special grand jury to wrap up its investigative work by the end of the year.

    Willis has observed her own version of a quiet period around the midterm election and is seeking to bring witnesses before the grand jury in the coming weeks. Sources previously told CNN indictments could come as soon as December.

    Key Trump allies, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows are among witnesses that have tried to fight off subpoenas in the state probe into efforts to interfere with the Georgia 2020 election.

    How those disputes resolve in Georgia – including whether courts force testimony – could improve DOJ’s ability to gather information, just as the House Select Committee’s January 6 investigation added to DOJ’s investigative leads from inside the Trump White House.

    The months leading up to the election have provided little respite from the political and legal activity around the investigations. The DC US Attorney’s Office–which is still shouldering the bulk of the January 6 investigations–has dealt with burnout in its ranks, as prosecutors are taking to trial or securing guilty pleas from more than 800 rioters who were on the grounds of the Capitol and still look to charge hundreds more.

    Trump has also foiled the DOJ’s efforts to keep things quiet in the weeks leading up to the election, leading to a steady barrage of headlines related to the investigation.

    Trump’s legal team successfully put in place a complicated court-directed process for sorting through thousands of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, to determine whether they’re privileged and off limits to investigators. But the Justice Department and intelligence community have had access for weeks to about 100 records marked as classified that Trump had kept in Florida.

    The outcome of the intelligence review of those documents may determine if criminal charges will be filed, according to one source familiar with the Justice Department’s approach.

    Yet in both investigations, under-seal court activity never subsided, with the Justice Department trying to force at least five witnesses around Trump to secretly provide more information in their grand jury investigations in Washington, DC, CNN has previously reported.

    On Tuesday a federal judge ordered Trump adviser Kash Patel to testify before a grand jury investigating the handling of federal records at Mar-a-Lago, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

    Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation— another significant step that moves the Justice Department closer to potentially charging the case.

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  • Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

    Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Joe Biden’s eloquent defense of democracy was a message Americans needed to hear. But it was not the one voters most want now from their president – that relief is at hand from the soaring cost of living.

    Biden’s speech Wednesday, delivered blocks from the US Capitol that was ransacked by ex-President Donald Trump’s mob on January 6, 2021, was a strong election-closing argument. But for an election other than the one taking place next week.

    That’s not to say that the warning was misplaced. The fact that Biden felt the need to say, “We can’t take democracy for granted any longer,” underscores the grave threat posed to America’s core values by political violence and election denialism. If a president does not safeguard this historic legacy, who will? The chaos and violence Trump incited after the 2020 election show what unfolds when a president chooses to try to destroy democracy for personal gain.

    Biden’s speech was deeply personal, reflecting his own view of the mission handed him by history. It was also highly political given that the midterm elections, which feature scores of pro-Trump candidates spouting his stolen election nonsense, are only five days away. And it came days after the latest shocking example of political violence – the attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And since Biden launched his 2020 campaign as a quest to save America’s soul from what he sees as the aspiring autocracy of Trump, it was a statement of a mission unaccomplished – as well as a potential opening volley of a possible 2024 showdown for the White House between the 45th and 46th presidents.

    “You have the power, it’s your choice, it’s your decision, the fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of America lies, as it always does, with the people,” Biden told voters.

    Elections should be about more than one thing. Voters can walk and chew gum at the same time. But the harsh truth is this: In Washington, where just a glimpse of the towering Capitol dome reminds politicians and their media chroniclers of the January 6 horror, the threat to democracy feels visceral.

    But in the heartlands of Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Arizona and cities everywhere, the gut check issue is less the somewhat abstract and age-old concept of self-government. It’s the more basic one of feeding a family. This is an election more about the cost of a cart full of groceries or the price of a gallon of gasoline than America’s founding truths.

    As Scottsdale, Arizona, retiree Patricia Strong told CNN’s Tami Luhby: “The price of everything was better during Trump,” adding, “We were looking forward to retirement because everything was good.”

    Declining stock markets have hurt retirement accounts and Americans with credit card debt took another blow Wednesday when the Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by another 0.75%. There are fears the Fed’s strategy could pitch the economy into recession and ruin one of the best aspects of the Biden economy – the low unemployment rate.

    Biden’s argument is implicitly that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be repaired, the current election – and its legions of anti-democratic Republican candidates – could cause political wreckage that is beyond mending.

    But it’s a tough case to make in such a doom-laden political environment for Democrats. The millions of Republicans who believe Trump’s falsehoods about the last election don’t listen to Biden and his call for national unity anyway. His low approval ratings don’t help. And in a new CNN/SSRS survey published on Wednesday, for instance, 51% of Americans said inflation and the economy was most driving their vote in the midterms. Abortion – the issue Democrats hoped would save them next Tuesday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer – was the only other concern in double figures, polling at 15% of likely voters. And voting rights and election integrity – the focus of the president’s speech on Wednesday night – polled at only 9%.

    But Biden effectively asked voters to make a concern well down the list of their priorities the decisive factor when they cast their ballots.

    “This year, I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote, and how you vote,” he said. “Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose?” he added, at the end of a campaign in which several GOP nominees have not guaranteed they would accept voters’ will.

    In places where Biden is unpopular, Democrats in tight races have made an explicit point about distancing themselves from the national party.

    “You know, the national Democratic Party has never been really good at strategic political decisions. So you know, it is not a surprise here, and thank God that I have enough experience that I’ve built this campaign not needing them and we really don’t want them at this point. We’re gonna do this thing with all the grassroots people we have here,” Rep. Tim Ryan, who is in a tight race for US Senate in Ohio against J.D. Vance, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.

    It’s not that Biden hasn’t been also talking about high prices. His pitch is that the billions of dollars of spending in his domestic agenda will lower the cost of health care, lift up working families and create millions of jobs. That may be the case, but things that could happen in the future can’t ease the pain being felt now.

    While Biden may be talking at cross purposes with the electorate on these issues, they are linked, in a fateful way, that he did not mention in his speech at Union Station on Wednesday evening. The president’s failure – whether it is all his fault or not – to quell inflation and the worries of a nation already demoralized by a once-in-a-century pandemic created the electoral conditions that look likely to restore Trumpism to power, in the form of a volatile, extreme GOP majority in the House of Representatives at least, with the Senate still on a knife’s edge.

    Throughout history, inflation has often been a pernicious political force that breeds desperation in an electorate and seeds extremism as a potential response. That’s why politicians fear it so acutely and why it is so curious that the Biden White House initially didn’t take the surge of prices that seriously, repeatedly insisting that this was a “transitory” problem caused by Covid-19.

    The president also renewed his call for national unity that he delivered in his inaugural address in front of a still violence-scarred Capitol in 2021. He explained that American democracy was primarily under attack because “the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election.”

    “He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he’s made the Big Lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party – a minority of that party,” Biden said, being careful not to insult every GOP voter as he did when referring to “semi-fascism” earlier this year.

    The president also argued that Trump’s threat was far broader now than it was in the 2020 election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.

    Biden also hinted at a lack of understanding of Trump’s MAGA supporters, who have embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters, which grew out of a backlash to the first Black presidency of Barack Obama. The 44th president has been making his own searing defenses of democracy and repudiation of Trump on the midterm election campaign trail in recent days.

    “You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said. The president is right – the essence of democracy depends on the loser in an election accepting the verdict of the people. This is why Trump’s behavior was so noxious in 2020 since his refusal to admit defeat did not just ruin one election. It tore at the fundamental principle of the political system that made America great two-and-a-half centuries before Trump’s political career and caused damage that will long outlast the shockwaves of one administration.

    But the essence of the Trump message exists in direct contradiction to Biden’s logic. Such voters can only love their country when their party wins because they see the Democrats that they lose to as the antipathy of their vision of America itself. These dueling understandings of what America actually means are at the core of the current, great political struggle that will not just play out next Tuesday, but in the 2024 election and beyond.

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  • Warnings about a fragile democracy hit home for some Arizona voters as election deniers compete for key offices | CNN Politics

    Warnings about a fragile democracy hit home for some Arizona voters as election deniers compete for key offices | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The voters who poured into a Phoenix high school to hear from former President Barack Obama were looking to send a message of defiance Wednesday night.

    They said they are determined to defeat former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked slate of election deniers – including gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, Senate nominee Blake Masters and Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem – and will not allow their state’s voters to be intimidated by activists who turned up to monitor ballot drop boxes late last month – some of them armed, masked and wearing camouflage.

    As President Joe Biden warned Americans from Washington, DC, on Wednesday night that democracy is at stake, it’s here in Arizona that democratic institutions look most fragile ahead of next week’s midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election, in which Arizona is likely to be a pivotal battleground.

    Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who successfully defeated Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, now finds herself locked in a tight race against Lake, who has said she will accept the results of a “fair, honest and transparent election,” after previously refusing in an interview with CNN to commit to accepting the results if she lost. And Finchem, who could become the state’s chief elections administrator, is still trying to overturn the results of the last election.

    “If you do need one more reason to vote, consider the fact that our democracy is on the ballot. And nowhere is that clearer than here in Arizona,” Obama told the crowd Wednesday, later adding that “democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona” if election deniers fill all the top state offices.

    Maricopa County was the site of repeated “audits” after the 2020 election – including the sham partisan review conducted by the now-defunct firm known as Cyber Ninjas. Both political parties are now girding for another potential battle over the election results in a state Biden won by less than 10,500 votes. And the GOP candidates at the top of the ticket are setting that tone.

    Joann Rodriguez, a registered Democrat from Maricopa County, said it was scary that “radical Republicans” in her state were able to elevate candidates like Lake and Masters, who won their primaries in part by echoing Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election.

    “What are they running on, aside from Trump’s talking points that the election was stolen?” Rodriguez said. She noted that “a lot of Trumpers” are still driving their trucks with Trump flags around her Glendale, Arizona, neighborhood. “And they’re walking around with guns on their hips, showing up at the ballot boxes or showing up at the election sites – for what reason? I mean, do they think that their intimidation tactics are going to work?”

    Hobbs touted her record as secretary of state Wednesday night. “I stood for democracy when I refused to give into the insurrectionists who surrounded my home after I certified the 2020 election and I’m still doing it today in this race for governor,” she said.

    A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week showed her in a dead heat race with Lake. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race a Toss-up.

    The state was on edge as Obama arrived in Arizona less than a week before the midterm election to campaign for fellow Democrats, including Sen. Mark Kelly, who is in a close race with Masters. The fact that those top statewide contests may be decided on a razor’s edge is what brought Obama to the Grand Canyon State as he seeks to fire up the Democratic base and make sure that young voters and Latino voters – who will be critical to victory in Arizona – turn out in a midterm election year.

    Both Biden and Obama have been arguing that the fate of democracy is at stake, but Biden, who has not been invited to campaign in top swing states, had to make his argument from the opposite side of the country.

    The political climate and concerns about the sanctity of the election results are what brought Keith Greenberg, a registered Republican from Maricopa County, to Obama’s rally. He said in an interview that he wasn’t voting for Democrats in this election, he is voting against the Trump ticket.

    “The Republican Party today is not the Republican Party I’m a part of,” said Greenberg, who described the 2020 election as fair and honest. “That’s more like the American Nazi Party and I can’t put up with that – the lie.”

    If the Trump ticket wins, Greenberg said, “It means that the state of Arizona has lost its mind. And this is no longer a safe place to live. If Mark Finchem wins and says, ‘Well, I don’t care what the people voted. I’m going to do this’ – then what’s the point? We’ve lost our democracy.”

    Arizona’s status as a tinderbox of election controversies is underscored by the fact that two lawsuits have already been filed in federal court on behalf of voters who felt intimidated by the aggressive patrols at ballot drop boxes late last month.

    Voters filed complaints to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office after some activists were taking pictures of voters and their license plates – apparently inspired by debunked conspiracy theories about so-called “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes in 2020. A federal judge issued a ruling in one of the cases on Tuesday barring members of a group known as Clean Elections USA – whose leader has falsely asserted the 2020 election was rigged – from openly carrying guns or wearing body armor within 250 feet of drop boxes.

    Because of the ruling, the group’s members are also now barred from speaking to or yelling at voters who drop off their ballots, and they may not photograph or film voters at the drop boxes. The Justice Department had weighed in on the case that was brought by the League of Women Voters. The DOJ did not formally take sides, but in a legal brief, federal prosecutors said the right-wing group’s “vigilante ballot security efforts” were likely illegal and “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation.”

    The depth of the belief among Republicans about Trump’s election lies was underscored by a CNN poll conducted by SSRS that was released on Wednesday: 66% of Republicans said they don’t believe Biden legitimately won the election.

    That dynamic is even more pronounced in a state like Arizona where Trump acolytes control the Republican Party and have censured figures like outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for what they said was insufficient loyalty to the former president.

    Michelle Gonzales, a registered Democrat from Maricopa County, said she believes that people came to see Obama Wednesday night “so they could feel hopeful” about the democratic process amid all the noise.

    “With everything, all the rhetoric going on, I think it’s important to really hear from someone – that we trust and we believe in – that we can be hopeful about this election,” she said. “You can see all these people out here. Thousands of people waiting. I just want to believe that people want to believe in something better – that they have morals and values that we all should have as human beings and not elect these liars and con people.”

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  • GOP Gov. Chris Sununu on backing election denier: ‘I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter’ | CNN Politics

    GOP Gov. Chris Sununu on backing election denier: ‘I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu believes that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election but is supporting Don Bolduc – a GOP Senate nominee who has consistently pushed election falsehoods – because he is considering a “variety of issues” in making his choice on Election Day.

    “It is not just a one-issue – you can’t say, ‘Well, based on that one issue, we vehemently disagree, so, therefore, we shouldn’t be casting our vote.’ I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter regardless of the issue,” Sununu told “CNN This Morning” hosts on Tuesday.

    Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, has shifted his answers related to false 2020 election claims, though he has still pushed some falsehoods after securing the Republican nomination to represent the Granite State in the US Senate.

    “We might disagree on what happened in 2020 or folks are focusing on the conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. At the end of the day, the vast majority of voters, especially those independent voters that still haven’t made up their mind, they’re voting on inflation, they’re voting on the cost of goods, they’re voting on not being able to make their mortgage or find housing,” said Sununu, who is seeking reelection.

    Recent CNN polls conducted by SSRS in battleground states have found that the economy is the foremost issue for voters this midterm season, well ahead of voting rights and election integrity.

    Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if he thinks congressional Republicans and Bolduc have a plan to combat the inflation that they have often cited on the campaign trail, Sununu said, “Well, one thing I’m really confident of is if you send the same people back to Washington, you ain’t going to get a different result. Not even close.”

    Sununu, who endorsed one of Bolduc’s opponents in the primary race, touted Bolduc as a war hero who has worked on mental health issues and said Bolduc wants “to mix things up.”

    “You can’t say that just by electing the same old Democrats you’re going to get a different result. We want different results across this country and the only way to do that is to bring a different system,” he said.

    Sununu also condemned a joke made on Monday by Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in regard to the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

    “There is just no place for it. This is serious,” he said before adding, “lines are moving on both sides. This isn’t just one party or the other.”

    Sununu then referred to the alleged plot to murder conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as well as the shootings of GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as evidence of escalating violence in American politics.

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  • Black men say they feel ignored by politicians. A historic Senate face-off between two Black men isn’t helping | CNN Politics

    Black men say they feel ignored by politicians. A historic Senate face-off between two Black men isn’t helping | CNN Politics

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    Atlanta
    CNN
     — 

    Aaron Bethea says he has voted election after election for US presidents, governors and senators – and yet those lawmakers have done little to nothing to improve life for him, his family or his community.

    Bethea said he believes the issues he cares about, financial freedom and equal investment in predominately Black schools, have largely been ignored.

    “Where we are from, nobody really cares about what Black men think,” said Bethea, an Atlanta father of six who owns a wholesale company that sells televisions. “They don’t do anything for us.”

    Bethea, 40, said he still plans to vote Democratic in Georgia’s hotly contested gubernatorial and US senate races. But he’s not voting with enthusiasm. He said he is hoping that one day someone will prioritize the needs of Black men.

    Bethea is not alone. Political analysts, researchers and Black male leaders say politicians are failing to reach some Black men with messaging that resonates with them and visibility in their communities. Those shortcomings could particularly hurt Democrats in the upcoming midterms given Black men are the second most loyal voting bloc for the party next to Black women, experts say.

    And while Black men have increasingly supported Republicans in recent years, some say the GOP is still missing the mark. Many Black men say they are concerned that Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker does not represent them in a positive light given his many public gaffes, history of domestic violence and being an absentee father.

    Political analysts worry that the lack of effective messaging could result in Black men sitting home on Nov. 8 and Democrats like Stacey Abrams – who has made a late attempt to reach Black men with a series of events – losing their races.

    “If some of them feel unmotivated because they don’t feel spoken to then you’ve really got a problem,” said Jason Nichols, a professor of African American studies at the University of Maryland College Park. “A lot of these campaigns don’t hire Black male advisers. They don’t hire Black men to actually tell them how to reach Black men.”

    So far, 39% of Black voters have been men, and 61% have been women, according to Catalist, a company that provides data and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and gives insights into who is voting before November. Those breakdowns were the same at this point in the early voting period in 2020.

    Some polls have suggested that Black men were gradually leaving the Democratic party to vote for Republicans. In 2020, 12% of Black men voted for former President Donald Trump.

    Ted Johnson, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, said some Black men find Republicans more attractive because they promote individualism and the idea that hard work, not government dependence, leads to financial success. In 2016, Johnson wrote in the Atlantic that a Black person who supported Trump was likely a “working-class or lower-middle-class Black man, over the age of 35, and interested in alternative approaches to addressing what ails Black America.”

    Still, Johnson said Black men are not naive and will vote against a Republican candidate who they feel is unfit. And for some Black men, that is the case with Walker who is running against incumbent US Sen. Raphael Warnock.

    The match-up between Walker and Warnock is one of the closest and most critical Senate races in the country, as Republicans seek to win back control of the body, which is currently split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote.

    Walker has been criticized by his opponents for being violent toward his ex-wife and the claim that he paid for the mother of one of his children to get an abortion. Walker told Axios last year that he was “accountable” for his past violent behavior, and that people shouldn’t be “ashamed” for confronting mental health issues.

    Walker speaks at a campaign event in Carrollton, Georgia, on October 11.

    In an interview with NBC News, Walker acknowledged that he sent a $700 check to a woman who alleges the money was provided to reimburse her for an abortion, but denied the check was for that purpose. Walker has been vocal about his anti-abortion views but has gone back and forth about whether he supports exceptions.

    Walker is currently polling at 11% with Black men compared to 74% for Warnock.

    “(Walker) is just not an attractive, viable candidate for most Black folks,” Johnson said. “I think there are Black men who won’t vote for Stacey Abrams but will vote for Raphael Warnock.”

    Recent polls show Republican Gov. Brian Kemp with support from 16% of Black men compared to 77% for Abrams. Johnson said he believes Kemp has more support from Black men because some men still refuse to vote a woman into office.

    “There is a strain of conservatism in Black men that comes with a strain of sexism,” Johnson said, noting that in 2016 some Black men sat home because they didn’t like Trump but also didn’t want to see Hillary Clinton as the first female president.

    In recent years, Republicans have faced criticism for being sexist, misogynistic and rejecting women’s rights.

    Walker’s candidacy was the topic of discussion for several Black men who gathered at Anytime Cutz barbershop in Atlanta on a recent Monday afternoon. The chat was part of a series hosted by the Urban League of Greater Atlanta’s Black Male Voter Project and Black Men Decide offering Black men a chance to discuss voting and the issues that matter to them.

    Some of the Black men present said they found it offensive that the GOP would pit Walker – a former NFL running back with no political experience and a troubled past – against Warnock, a beloved figure in Atlanta’s Black community who pastored the church once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

    Aaron Bethea, second from right, speaks during a discussion about voting with other Black men at Anytime Cutz barbershop.

    Barber Antwaun Hawkins poses for a portrait in his barber's office at Anytime Cutz.

    “The guy is looking like a fool,” said Antwaun Hawkins, a 46-year-old barber. “That’s who we want to put in place to speak for us? Because he’s a Black man? No. To me, he looks like an idiot.”

    Bethea said after the barbershop event that Walker’s candidacy feels like a “sick joke.”

    “I think he’s embarrassing himself,” Bethea said. “I don’t play the field in a position that I don’t know how to play. Someone talked him out of staying in his lane.”

    Bethea said he plans to vote for Warnock because he’s a more qualified candidate and pillar in the community.

    Moyo Akinade, a 29-year-old soccer coach from Atlanta, said he too will vote for Warnock because he’s a positive role model. Walker, meanwhile, perpetuates negative stereotypes about Black men, Akinade said.

    Those stereotypes are “that we are aggressive, we aren’t intelligent and we are abusive,” Akinade said. “It portrays Black men as being violent. And that’s still inaccurate.”

    But one barber said he doesn’t think voters should judge Walker by his past.

    “Everybody has a past, everybody has done something wrong, everybody has lied before, everybody has done something that they shouldn’t have done,” said Charles Scott who manages Anytime Cutz. “But at one point, people can change. Just like they are bashing Herschel Walker. How do you know he’s not a changed man?”

    Anytime Cutz manager and barber Charles Scott think that voters shouldn't judge Walker by his past.

    Black men interviewed by CNN said they look for more than just character and experience in politicians, but also the issues they address.

    A report released by the NAACP in September found that Black men believed racism/discrimination, inflation/cost of living and criminal justice reform/police brutality were the most important issues facing the Black community. The survey also concluded that 41% of Black men disapproved of the job President Joe Biden is doing to address the needs of the Black community.

    The group at Anytime Cutz named financial security, student loan forgiveness, police reform, healthcare reform and improving jail conditions as their top concerns.

    Most said they vote in elections but rarely see lawmakers making decisions that help them personally or their communities.

    “Do something about policing,” Hawkins said. “Do something for the people that can’t really help themselves. I don’t think people choose to be homeless and hungry.”

    Hawkins and Bethea said they have given up waiting for policies that will close the wealth gap and give Black Americans a fair shot at success. They are focused on providing for their families.

    “We can’t sit around and wait for legislation to change because the kids are at home hungry,” Hawkins said.

    Hawkins gestures while speaking about voting at Anytime Cutz.

    Some of those same sentiments are felt by Black men nearly 900 miles away in New York.

    Mysonne Linen, a popular activist and rapper from the Bronx, said he can’t remember the last time a political candidate spoke directly to Black men during their campaign and delivered on those promises after winning. Linen said Black men are tired of “pandering.” Linen wants politicians who genuinely care about Black men living in marginalized communities and will follow through on addressing police reform, livable wage jobs and investment in mental health resources.

    “They have to do a better job with having tangible results,” Linen said. “Tell us how you to plan to invest in the communities to change those realities. Get into office and actually fight to do those things.”

    In the last few months, Abrams has hosted a series of events that targeted Black men in Georgia and released a “Black Men’s Agenda” that details her plans to invest in Black-owned small businesses, expand Medicaid, increase funding to schools and opportunities for job training and hold police accountable.

    Stacey Abrams speaks during a campaign event and conversation with Charlamagne tha God, 21 Savage and Francys Johnson at The HBUC in Atlanta on September 9.

    But Linen and Nichols both agreed that Abrams’ efforts may have come too late. Nichols said he fears that some Black men are already planning to sit home on Election Day or vote for Kemp.

    “I think she didn’t necessarily get the right advice at the right time and now it feels like she’s pandering,” Nichols said. “I think she really is concerned but I think it comes across to some like ‘we’ve been ignored all this time.’”

    Nichols said he urges 2024 election candidates to do more outreach to Black men and Black families. The organization Black Men Vote has already launched a national campaign to register one million Black male voters by November 2024.

    NAACP President Derrick Johnson said those seeking public office must prioritize the needs of Black men if they want to win.

    “It is incumbent upon both political parties and all candidates to understand that the votes of African American men are not guaranteed,” Johnson said. “It’s an important voting bloc and candidates must speak to them so they can see how their vote really can support democracy and their quality of life.”

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  • Paul Pelosi attack unleashes partisan finger-pointing and sows fresh fears of political violence | CNN Politics

    Paul Pelosi attack unleashes partisan finger-pointing and sows fresh fears of political violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    America’s toxic politics quickly turned the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband into the latest vicious partisan fight – even before the full facts are known.

    Police have yet to ascribe a motive to the attack on Paul Pelosi, 82, after a man broke into the couple’s home in San Francisco. They have said the alleged assailant was intentional about going to the house, and he shouted out, “Where is Nancy?” CNN has reported.

    Eight days before critical midterm elections, the intense political reaction had already outraced the investigation even before the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of California on Monday filed charges of attempted kidnapping of a US official and assault against the suspect in the case, David DePape, 42.

    Republicans, while condemning the violence, are denying they have any culpability in fostering a poisoned political environment. Some even used it to pivot to new attempts to sow doubt on the integrity of US elections.

    In another sign of an ugly time, Pelosi’s misfortune is already the subject of outrageous conspiracies – amplified for a time by the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, in a possible sign of how the social network could develop under his leadership. Ex-President Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr., also pushed false claims about the attack that were in deeply poor taste.

    Reports confirmed by CNN that the suspect posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid-19 vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection renewed the debate about how much responsibility political leaders have to temper inflammatory rhetoric in order to avoid triggering violence.

    The suspect in the case has not been arraigned, but Democrats, including President Joe Biden, are warning that the attack on the Pelosi is just the latest inevitable consequence of a GOP overtaken by its extreme fringe.

    “What makes us think that one party can talk about ‘stolen elections,’ ‘Covid being a hoax,’ ‘this is all a bunch of lies,’ and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?” Biden said on Friday.

    “What makes us think that it’s not going to corrode the political climate?”

    This was a question even before the Paul Pelosi attack given that many Republican candidates have tried to energize their base by putting Trump’s false claims about a stolen election in 2020 at the center of their midterm election campaigns.

    Trump, who’s still the de facto leader of the GOP, has yet to fully condemn the attack on Paul Pelosi. In an interview on Spanish-language Americano Media on Monday, the ex-President called the attack “a terrible thing” and then quickly connected it to Republican criticisms of rising crime in US cities.

    But dozens of Republicans – from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Vice President Mike Pence and GOP House conference chair Elise Stefanik – have offered stronger condemnations.

    At the same time, top Republicans on Sunday dodged on whether their side especially had fostered a dangerous political climate after embracing election falsehoods and blamed both sides equally for political turmoil.

    The gulf between the two parties in the aftermath of the attack underscored the nation’s internal political estrangement ahead of next week’s election. It suggested Republicans are unwilling to get crosswise with their voters by being more critical of the extremism pulsating through the GOP base. And political shock waves of the incident also showed how Democrats are keen to link rising threats against lawmakers and their families with Trump’s political movement as raging inflation threatens to deal them a heavy defeat at the ballot box.

    Yet the aftermath of the assault represents more than just another fault line between Republicans and Democrats and points to something more than rote arguments of equivalence between rival politicians.

    It took place in a time scarred by the January 6 insurrection, which established that in a festering political atmosphere cultivated and incited by Trump, individuals can be inspired to carry out acts of violence. The overwhelming majority of the ex-President’s supporters have not acted on his false claims of a stolen election. But while leading Republicans are right to argue the political attacks have targeted prominent figures on both sides, only one party features members who are excusing, downplaying, or denying the violence of January 6 and amplifying false claims of a stolen election that have been proven to incite violence.

    It was a sign of a worsening political environment that Musk gave credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the Paul Pelosi attack. He tweeted and then deleted a link to an article on a website that purports to be a news outlet, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Donie O’Sullivan reported. The conspiracy theory was later amplified on Twitter by Trump Jr.

    And in another troubling development this weekend that wasn’t linked to the Pelosi case but underscored worrying extremism coming to the surface of American politics, a series of antisemitic messages appeared in public spaces – including a football stadium, a highway overpass and a downtown building in Jacksonville, Florida.

    Top Republicans on Sunday condemned the Pelosi attack as a despicable crime, but they tended to see it in isolation from current political tensions, even though the GOP has long demonized the speaker in hard-hitting ad campaigns. Instead, Republicans suggested it’s symptomatic of the rising violent crime they pin on Democrats.

    “It’s disgusting. This violence is horrible,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who runs the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that his heart went out to Paul Pelosi and wished him a full recovery. But Scott quickly pivoted to highlight a Republican canvasser whom his fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has said was attacked in Miami for political reasons. (After the incident, Rubio accused the media of not caring about violence when it targets Republicans.)

    Scott also tried to move on in the interview to tacitly raise fresh suspicions about the US electoral system in coded language. Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether Republicans should do more to condemn dangerous rhetoric and conspiracy theories, Scott replied: “We have to do everything we can to … make sure people feel comfortable about these elections. We have got to do everything we can to get people comfortable that this election in nine days is going to be free and fair, that people’s votes are all going to be counted fairly.”

    The reason why millions of Americans have lost confidence in elections – despite repeated court rulings rejecting Trump’s fraud claims and his own Justice Department’s statement that 2020 lacked major irregularities – is that the ex-President and many GOP allies are still falsely saying the election was stolen.

    Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, rejected the idea that the attack on Paul Pelosi was an inevitable consequence of rising Republican rhetorical attacks on Democratic politicians.

    “We don’t like this at all across the board. We don’t want to see attacks on any politician from any political background,” McDaniel said on “Fox News Sunday.”

    She also claimed that Biden had not condemned a suspect arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home who has been charged with attempting to murder the conservative Supreme Court justice. (After the arrest, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden believed any threats, violence or attempt to intimidate judges had no place in US society.)

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has yet to deliver a full-throated public condemnation of the assault on Paul Pelosi on camera or on his official social media accounts or to release a detailed statement. The California Republican did tell Fox on Sunday he had texted with the speaker to express concern and his hopes for her husband’s full recovery.

    “Let me be perfectly clear, violence or threat of violence has no place in our society. What happened to Paul Pelosi is wrong,” he told Fox.

    The lack of a more public reaction by McCarthy is notable since he could be speaker himself, if Republicans win the House next week, and would have the responsibility of fulfilling the institutional duties of a role that is sometimes supposed to supersede partisan politics. This will lead to questions of whether he is catering to his fervently pro-Trump conference.

    His comments also appear less direct than Speaker Pelosi’s reaction to the shooting of GOP Whip Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice in 2017, which she described as a “despicable and cowardly attack” on Congress itself and said at such times there were “no Democrats or Republicans.” After Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was informed that the deceased suspect in the shooting volunteered on his Democratic presidential campaign, he took to the Senate floor to condemn political violence “in the strongest possible terms.”

    The Pelosi attack is also highlighting concerns about the general tone of some Republican advertising, which sometimes features candidates wielding guns.

    Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the chair of the GOP’s House campaign arm, denied there was anything tonally off about a video he tweeted last week that showed him firing a rifle with the hashtag #FirePelosi.

    Emmer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the tweet was about “Exercising our Second Amendment rights, having fun.”

    Another Republican who could have a big role in a future majority is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The pro-Trump Republican said such attacks “shouldn’t happen to Paul Pelosi. It shouldn’t happen to innocent Americans. It shouldn’t happen to me,” claiming she received death threats every day.

    In 2021, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments on Greene’s Facebook page showed she repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019, including Pelosi, before being elected to Congress.

    Leading Democrats were quick to make a link between such extremist rhetoric and the rise of violence and intimidation that has seen threats rise against political candidates and even some groups show up to monitor drop boxes in states like Arizona in moves Democrats have criticized as attempts at voter intimidation.

    Some of them reacted to reports that the alleged assailant in the Paul Pelosi incident had asked where his wife was, and immediately drew conclusions not yet supported by details released by police. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, for instance, tweeted that a “far right white nationalist tried to assassinate the Speaker of the House and almost killed her husband a year after violent insurrectionists tried to find her and kill her in the Capitol, and the Republican Party’s response is to either ignore it or belittle it.”

    Biden was more temperate but also made the link to far-right wing rhetoric at a fundraising event in Pennsylvania on Friday, referring to the alleged assailants’ demands of “where is Nancy?”

    “Every person of good conscience needs to clearly and unambiguously stand up against the violence in our politics regardless what your politics are,” Biden said.

    Former President Barack Obama made a wider argument about how the coarsening of political dialogue risked new eruptions of violence – and squarely put the blame on Republicans.

    “This habit of saying the worst about other people, demonizing people, that creates a dangerous climate,” the former President said at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Saturday.

    “If elected officials don’t do more explicitly to reject this kind of over-the-top crazy rhetoric, if they keep on ignoring it or tacitly supporting it or in some cases encouraging it, if they’re telling supporters, ‘you’ve got to stand outside polling places armed with guns and dressed in tactical gear,’ that’s the kind of thing that ends up getting people hurt.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

    As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Election Day arrives in Florida, Donald Trump will vote for a Republican whose political demise he may soon find himself plotting.

    Months after Trump told The Wall Street Journal he would support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for reelection, the former President and his home-state governor appear increasingly likely to collide in a heated 2024 presidential primary. While neither has formally announced a presidential campaign, both have taken steps in the closing days of the 2022 cycle to cement themselves as team players and kingmakers – locking horns in those pursuits.

    “We have a rift with Trump. Big shocker,” said a source close to the DeSantis campaign, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s no secret that things are cool between [Trump and DeSantis] right now. They’re not punching each other, but we’re not helping them and they’re not helping us.”

    A rivalry that had mostly existed behind the scenes burst into public view this week after DeSantis recorded a robocall endorsing Republican businessman Joe O’Dea, an underdog in the Colorado Senate race who vowed earlier this month to “actively campaign” against Trump if he mounts a third presidential bid. While the Florida governor has supported other Republican midterm candidates, none of them have been as explicitly critical of Trump as O’Dea.

    The move did not go unnoticed by the former President, who has spent months griping to aides about DeSantis and amplifying claims that he would handily beat the governor in a Republican primary.

    “A BIG MISTAKE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of DeSantis endorsing O’Dea. Three days later, Trump announced plans for a rally in South Florida with the state’s senior senator, Marco Rubio. DeSantis was not invited, a source told CNN.

    The first signs of a strain in Trump’s relationship with DeSantis began last fall amid the Florida Republican’s soaring popularity and thinly veiled criticism of Trump’s Covid-19 policies as president.

    Despite efforts by allies of both men to defuse tensions, their strained relationship has persisted for months and now appears at a crescendo as Trump readies a post-midterm 2024 campaign announcement and DeSantis barrels toward reelection with potentially historic support from Florida Hispanics.

    “Trump has to be concerned because DeSantis has built an unprecedented base in the Hispanic community,” said one Florida-based Republican consultant.

    DeSantis has also spent the past year making inroads with deep-pocketed Republican donors and laying the groundwork for a potential 2024 campaign launch next year, according to allies, some of whom said he doesn’t want to rush his potential entry into what is likely to be a crowded primary. It’s those overt steps toward a White House bid that have most irritated the former President.

    Days after Trump slammed the Florida governor for endorsing in the Colorado Senate contest, DeSantis committed another cardinal sin in the eyes of the former President when he once again refused to rule out a presidential run if Trump is a candidate. During a Monday debate against his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, DeSantis declined to commit to serving a four-year term if reelected, standing in silence as his opponent repeatedly raised the subject. Privately, Trump allies gloated over the debate, questioning DeSantis’ ability to endure a debate against Trump.

    “DeSantis did fine for a race he’s crushing,” said one Republican operative who has worked with both men. “It’s a whole different ballgame when he’s on a stage next to Donald Trump. Trump has a way of very effectively getting under people’s skin, especially on the debate stage.”

    Other Republicans dismissed such takeaways as premature – even unfair – given DeSantis’ clear edge in his reelection race and Trump’s inimitable debate style.

    “I don’t think that debate mattered at all,” said Brian Ballard, a Florida-based Republican consultant who maintains close ties to both Trump and DeSantis.

    “Donald Trump on the debate stage is the most unique political animal in 100 years. Everybody got decimated by him [in 2016],” Ballard added. “I believe Ron DeSantis can hold his own against anybody, but Donald Trump is his own character.”

    For months, Trump has worked to cast himself as the automatic front-runner in a contested 2024 primary while asking his own pollsters to identify whether DeSantis or others pose a serious threat.

    In perhaps his most direct jab at DeSantis yet, the former President reposted a video to his Truth Social site this week in which former Fox News host Megyn Kelly confidently predicted that Trump would emerge on top in a contest against DeSantis. Kelly repeatedly sparred with Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, both as a debate moderator and prime-time commentator, but in the video shared by Trump she suggested the former President’s base remains firmly behind him.

    “You really think the hardcore MAGA is going to abandon Trump for DeSantis? They’re not. They like DeSantis, but they don’t think it’s his turn,” Kelly says in the clip, adding that “the hardcore Trump faithful is unshakable [and] if forced to choose, they will choose Trump.”

    While some Republicans agree with Kelly, others are looking for new blood, exhausted by Trump’s unending legal battles and the media spectacle surrounding him.

    Those close to DeSantis say he is content, for now, to let his election performance do the talking for him. Through mid-October, two political committees behind his reelection effort had spent more than $80 million trying to engineer a lopsided victory that would further bolster his resume and deliver an overwhelming mandate for his agenda.

    But in conversations with donors, DeSantis allies say he is far less dismissive these days when questioned about a White House bid than he was six months ago – something Trump allies have brought to his attention, further irritating him.

    “People are always talking about, wondering about presidential elections in the future and all this stuff,” DeSantis said at a rally Wednesday. “People are concerned about who’s running the country next because no one knows who the hell is running the government now.”

    On the campaign trail, the Florida governor has been beta-testing messages that could set him apart in a presidential primary either with or without Trump as a competitor. He has touted his record on the economy, his management of the pandemic and his battles with businesses, Big Tech and school districts over “woke ideology.” Some say the more he can lean into his accomplishments as governor, the less likely he is to draw comparisons with Trump even as he mimics elements of the former President’s political style – from his hand gestures to his public war on the media.

    “If I were advising him, I would tell him to ignore that stuff. You’re Ron DeSantis 1.0, not anything 2.0,” said Adam Geller, a former Trump campaign pollster and Republican strategist.

    But Trump rallying voters in DeSantis’ state on November 6, two nights before the election, serves as a reminder of how easily he still commands GOP voters. Among Florida Republican operatives, the timing and location of Trump’s event has raised eyebrows. There are Senate battlegrounds considerably more competitive than Florida, where Rubio is favored to defeat Democratic Rep. Val Demings, and neither party has committed significant resources to the state in the closing weeks of the race.

    In announcing the visit, Trump once again claimed credit for DeSantis winning the governor’s mansion through “a historic red wave for Florida in the 2018 midterms” with the former President’s “slate of endorsed candidates up and down the ballot.” But Trump also preemptively took ownership of DeSantis’ reelection, saying he had “molded the Sunshine State into the MAGA stronghold it is today.”

    A person briefed on the matter said the prospect of a Florida rally was first raised during a phone call between Trump and Rubio following the Florida Senate debate earlier this month. Since the rally is being organized by Trump’s political operation, any effort to involve DeSantis would have likely come from the former President’s orbit. But that did not happen, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

    “The Senator and President Trump discussed holding a rally in Florida, like he’s doing for Senate races across the country,” said Elizabeth Gregory, a Rubio campaign spokesperson.

    Miami is also home to several vibrant Latino communities that shifted to the right under Trump and have continued to trend red in the two years since he left office. Trump will land in the city just before Republicans are poised to have their best electoral showing in Miami-Dade County since Jeb Bush won a second term in 2002.

    One Florida-based Republican consultant said he doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.

    “We’re potentially going to see Florida Republicans win Miami-Dade County, and it’s pretty clear Trump’s trying to get down there to take credit,” the consultant said.

    DeSantis’ campaign didn’t ask to join the program for the Trump rally once it was announced, a source told CNN.

    Like Trump, DeSantis has also tried to ascribe greater meaning to Florida’s transformational shift from a purple battleground into a reliably red state. On Wednesday, he told supporters that a big win on Election Day “will send a loud message, I think, across the country to governors in our own party” to follow his example in their states.

    But any tension over who deserves credit for engineering that success is unlikely to matter until after November 8, said Tim Williams, a former Florida GOP campaign strategist.

    “As far as the midterms go, that’s a train that’s approaching so quickly that this Trump-DeSantis feud isn’t going to get in the way of it,” Williams said.

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  • Obama endorses Karen Bass in Los Angeles mayoral race | CNN Politics

    Obama endorses Karen Bass in Los Angeles mayoral race | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Former President Barack Obama on Saturday endorsed Karen Bass in her bid for mayor of Los Angeles on Saturday, saying that the Democratic congresswoman “has always been on the right side of the issues we care so deeply about.”

    “I am asking Los Angeles to vote for Karen Bass for mayor. I know Karen, she was with me in supporting my campaign from the beginning, and Karen Bass will deliver results,” Obama said in a statement. “Make no mistake, there is only one proven pro-choice Democrat in this race.”

    The endorsement was also depicted in a video Bass shared on Twitter account that captured her and the former President on a FaceTime call.

    “I’m confident you’re going to be an outstanding mayor of LA,” Obama told Bass, while also recalling her campaigning for him in 2007 when he was running for president.

    Obama’s endorsement comes just days ahead of the election in which Bass could make history as the first woman and the first Black woman to lead America’s second-largest city. She faces real estate developer Rick Caruso on November 8 after neither candidate took a majority of the vote in the June primary.

    Bass, who was on President Joe Biden’s short list for a running mate during the 2020 campaign, said she was “humbled and honored” to have Obama’s support.

    “It is impossible to overstate the impact of his work leading this country for eight scandal-free years advancing social and economic justice had on the nation and the world,” she said of the former President in a statement Saturday.

    “President Obama’s support underscores the contrast in this race and inspires our campaign as we share our plans to solve homelessness and make LA safer and more affordable for everyone during the home stretch,” she added.

    Obama has recently been wielding his political weight in an effort to help Democratic prospects across the nation.

    The former President hit the campaign trail in Georgia on Friday night to begin a five-state tour that includes visits Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin. He has recorded nearly two dozen television commercials for Democrats and the party’s campaign committees, with new ads popping up nearly every day this week.

    Bass currently represents California’s 37th Congressional District. She previously served in the California State Assembly, where in 2008 she became the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature, according to her congressional biography.

    Bass has centered her campaign on tackling the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles and increasing public safety.

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  • Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

    Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Kristen Soltis Anderson, a CNN Political commentator, is a Republican strategist and pollster and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up.)” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    Democrats have sensed that younger voters might stay home in November and have turned to “Dark Brandon” for help in times of trouble.

    For those who do not know – and my own polling suggests that is most everyone reading this – “Dark Brandon” is a meme of President Joe Biden, rendered as an all-powerful hero (or villain, depending on your perspective). It started as a right-wing catchphrase before Democrats appropriated it to praise the President.

    The meme reached the height of its powers, whatever those may be, when the Democratic group Building Back Together released a hallucinogenic 30-second ad earlier this month featuring the meme of President Biden, lasers coming out of his eyes and all. The message? Biden is an exciting and successful hero on issues like student loan debt. Or rather, “if you’re unenthused about Biden and the Democratic Party, please don’t be.”

    I’ve sounded the alarm for years that Republicans are in trouble with younger voters and are in danger of losing them for good. This remains the case, as many polls show younger voters still have quite negative views of the GOP.

    But even though Millennials and Gen Z Americans tend to lean leftward on a host of economic and cultural issues such as LGBTQ rights and the size of government, it is clear that in this midterm election, Democrats have not energized the youth vote and may not be able to count on young people as a key part of their coalition.

    Voters under 30 are not exactly enamored with how things are going in America these days. Two-thirds of them say that the economy is bad, according to CBS News/YouGov polling. And accordingly, less than a quarter “strongly approve” of the job Biden is doing. Only 31% say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting in the midterms, compared to two-thirds of voters 65 and older. And only one in six say they are paying a “great deal” of attention to the midterms.

    This isn’t terribly unusual. Younger voters usually drop off in larger numbers than older voters when you go from a big presidential election to a lower-key midterm. According to CNN’s exit polls, voters under 30 only made up 13% of all voters in the 2018 midterms, compared to 17% in the 2020 general election.

    However, my own firm’s analysis suggests that voters under the age of 30 could fall to only 10% of the electorate in 2022 –a year where we expect overall turnout to be historic for a midterm at over 125 million votes.

    While young voters aren’t likely to turn out in huge numbers to power a “red wave,” it isn’t hard to imagine them costing Democrats their majorities by staying home.

    Democrats didn’t always need younger voters to win. In fact, younger voters were a relatively evenly split voter group for much of the 1990s and 2000s. But in the 2006 midterm, before then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) had even announced his bid for the presidency, young voters began bleeding away from the GOP in big numbers. Exit polls showed voters under the age of 30 breaking for Democrats by a 22-point margin in House races in that election, which swept Nancy Pelosi into the speakership for the first time.

    Young voters continued to oppose the GOP even in “red wave” years. The 2010 election, by all accounts a great year for Republicans, saw voters under age 30 still break for Democrats by a 16-point margin. By the time the “blue wave” of 2018 came along, we were seeing blockbuster turnout among young voters in elections that they previously sat out. Additionally, those voters broke for Democrats by an absolutely enormous 35-point margin.

    But then Donald Trump lost the presidency and Biden – not necessarily a favorite among younger voters – became the leader of the nation and the Democratic Party. Even before he was the Democratic presidential nominee, his polling among young voters always left something to be desired; only one third of voters under 30 held a favorable view of him before the 2020 election.

    Issues of importance to many young voters have taken a backseat and our political class continues to age. As a result, in the last few years, there has been a fascinating depolarization along generational lines. Previously, if I knew your age, I could somewhat easily make an educated guess about how you’d vote. That is less likely to be the case today, largely because young voters have become more disillusioned with Democrats.

    What is especially troublesome for Democrats is that this is all happening against a backdrop of young Americans being increasingly vocal about their politics. Companies are grappling with Gen Z and Millennial employees who seem keener than ever to work for employers that align with their political and cultural worldview. I regularly hear from business leaders who know that younger consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for products and services that match their values.

    If younger Americans are increasingly focused on issues and wanting change, but they aren’t turning out to vote in midterms, that represents a huge missed opportunity for those who want to see greater youth participation in politics. And in this election, it could cost Democrats their majorities.

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  • Time to treat North Korea’s nuclear program like Israel’s? | CNN

    Time to treat North Korea’s nuclear program like Israel’s? | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    As a statement of intent, it was about as blunt as they get.

    North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and will never give them up, its leader, Kim Jong Un, told the world last month.

    The move was “irreversible,” he said; the weapons represent the “dignity, body, and absolute power of the state” and Pyongyang will continue to develop them “as long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth.”

    Kim may be no stranger to colorful language, but it is worth taking his vow – which he signed into law – seriously. Bear in mind that this is a dictator who cannot be voted out of power and who generally does what he says he will do.

    Bear in mind too that North Korea has staged a record number of missile launches this year – more than 20; claims it is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to field units, something CNN cannot independently confirm; and is also believed to be ready for a seventh underground nuclear test.

    All this has prompted a growing number of experts to question whether now is the time to call a spade a spade and accept that North Korea is in fact a nuclear state. Doing so would entail giving up once and for all the optimistic – some might say delusional – hopes that Pyongyang’s program is somehow incomplete or that it might yet be persuaded to give it up voluntarily.

    As Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it: “We simply have to treat North Korea as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.”

    From a purely factual point of view, North Korea has nuclear weapons, and few who follow events there closely dispute that.

    A recent Nuclear Notebook column from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to build between 45 and 55 nuclear weapons. What’s more, the recent missile tests suggest it has a number of methods of delivering those weapons.

    Publicly acknowledging this reality is, however, fraught with peril for countries such as the United States.

    One of the most compelling reasons for Washington not to do so is its fears of sparking a nuclear arms race in Asia.

    South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are just a few of the neighbors that would likely want to match Pyongyang’s status.

    But some experts say that refusing to acknowledge North Korea’s nuclear prowess – in the face of increasingly obvious evidence to the contrary – does little to reassure these countries. Rather, the impression that allies have their heads in the sand may make them more nervous.

    “Let’s accept (it), North Korea is a nuclear arms state, and North Korea has all necessary delivery systems including pretty efficient ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles),” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a preeminent academic authority on North Korea.

    A better approach, some suggest, might be to treat North Korea’s nuclear program in a similar way to Israel’s – with tacit acceptance.

    That’s the solution favored by Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.

    “I think that the crucial step that (US President Joe) Biden needs to take is to make clear both to himself and to the US government that we are not going to get North Korea to disarm and that is fundamentally accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. You don’t necessarily need to legally recognize it,” Lewis said.

    Both Israel and India offer examples of what the US could aspire to in dealing with North Korea, he added.

    North Korea held what it called

    Israel, widely believed to have started its nuclear program in the 1960s, has always claimed nuclear ambiguity while refusing to be a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while India embraced nuclear ambiguity for decades before abandoning that policy with its 1998 nuclear test.

    “In both of those cases, the US knew those countries had the bomb, but the deal was, if you don’t talk about it, if you don’t make an issue out of it, if you don’t cause political problems, then we’re not going to respond. I think that’s the same place we want to get to with North Korea,” Lewis said.

    At present though, Washington shows no signs of abandoning its approach of hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nukes.

    Indeed, US Vice President Kamala Harris underlined it during a recent visit to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

    “Our shared goal – the United States and the Republic of Korea – is a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Harris said.

    That may be a worthy goal, but many experts see it as increasingly unrealistic.

    “Nobody disagrees that denuclearization would be a very desirable outcome on the Korean Peninsula, it’s simply not a tractable one,” Panda said.

    One problem standing in the way of denuclearization is that Kim’s likely biggest priority is ensuring the survival of his regime.

    And if he wasn’t paranoid enough already, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (in which a nuclear power has attacked a non-nuclear power) will have served as a timely reinforcement of his belief that “nuclear weapons are the only reliable guarantee of security,” said Lankov, from Kookmin University.

    A TV screen at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, shows an image of a North Korean missile launch on October 10, 2022.

    Trying to convince Kim otherwise seems a non-starter, as Pyongyang has made clear it will not even consider engaging with a US administration that wants to talk about denuclearization.

    “If America wants to talk about denuclearization, (North Korea is) not going to talk and if the Americans are not talking, (North Korea) will launch more and more missiles and better and better missiles,” Lankov said. “It’s a simple choice.”

    There is also the problem that if North Korea’s increasingly concerned neighbors conclude Washington’s approach is going nowhere, this might itself bring about the arms race the US is so keen to avoid.

    Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a Korean think tank, is among the growing number of conservative voices calling for South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons program to counter Pyongyang’s.

    Efforts to prevent North Korea developing nuclear weapons have “ended in failure,” he said, “and even now, pursuing denuclearization is like chasing a miracle.”

    Still, however remote the denuclearization dream seems, there are those who say the alternative – of accepting North Korea’s nuclear status, however subtly – would be a mistake.

    “We (would be) basically (saying to) Kim Jong Un, after all of this tug of war and rustling, (that) you’re just going to get what you want. The bigger question (then) of course is: where does that leave the entire region?” said Soo Kim, a former CIA officer who is now a researcher at US think tank RAND Corporation.

    That leaves one other option open to the Biden administration and its allies, though it’s one that may seem unlikely in the current climate.

    They could pursue a deal in which Pyongyang offers to freeze its arms development in return for sanctions relief.

    In other words, not a million miles away from the deal Kim offered then US President Donald Trump at their summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019.

    This option has its backers. “A freeze is a really solid way to start things out. It’s very hard to get rid of weapons that exist, but what is possible … is to prevent things from getting worse. It takes some of the pressure off and it opens up space for other kinds of negotiations,” said Lewis of the James Martin Center.

    However, the Trump-era overtones might make this a non-starter. Asked if he thought President Biden might consider this tactic, Lewis smiled and said, “I’m a professor, so I specialize in giving advice that no one is ever going to take.”

    But even if the Biden administration was so inclined, that ship may have sailed; the Kim of 2019 was far more willing to engage than the Kim of 2022.

    And that, perhaps, is the biggest problem at the heart of all the options on the table: they rely on some form of engagement with North Korea – something entirely lacking at present.

    Kim is now focused on his five-year plan for military modernization announced in January 2021 and no offers of talks from the Biden administration or others have yet turned his head in the slightest.

    As Panda acknowledged, “There’s a set of cooperative options which would require the North Koreans being willing to sit down at the table and talk about some of those things with us. I don’t think that we are even close to sitting down with the North Koreans.”

    And, in fairness to Kim, the reticence is not all down to Pyongyang.

    “Big policy shifts in the US would require the President’s backing, and I really see no evidence that Joe Biden really sees the North Korean issue as deserving of tremendous political capital,” Panda said.

    He added what many experts believe – and what even some US and South Korean lawmakers admit behind closed doors: “We will be living with a nuclear armed North Korea probably for a few decades to come at least.”

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  • Biden and Harris set to make rare joint campaign appearance for Pennsylvania Democrats | CNN Politics

    Biden and Harris set to make rare joint campaign appearance for Pennsylvania Democrats | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will make a rare joint appearance on the campaign trail in Philadelphia Friday evening as they seek to boost Pennsylvania Democrats in the closing stretch of the election.

    Their visit comes at crucial time, with less than two weeks until Election Day, as Democrats are fighting to hold onto their narrow majority in the 50-50 Senate. Pennsylvania represents the party’s best opportunity to pick up a Senate seat, with incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Toomey retiring.

    Biden and Harris’ appearance at the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s annual Independence Dinner, a major state party fundraising event, will mark the first time the President attends an event with Democratic Senate hopeful Lt. Gov. John Fetterman since his high-stakes debate performance against Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz earlier this week.

    Two other Democratic candidates will also be an attendance, per a Democratic official – Democratic gubernational candidate Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Rep. Matt Cartwright, who is facing a tough contest in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, which includes the President’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

    The President and vice president are set to deliver keynote remarks “about the critically-important choice before voters,” the Democratic official said, when they speak at the fundraising reception that is expected to raise $1 million.

    Biden will once again lean into his economic messaging that has peppered speeches in recent weeks as he tries to draw a contrast with “the Republicans’ mega MAGA trickle down plan,” the official said, including differences on prescription drug costs, Social Security, Medicare and tax plans.

    This will mark the President’s 19th visit to Pennsylvania since taking office, frequenting the commonwealth in a mix of official and political events in the run-up to the election, a contrast to his approach to the majority of competitive Senate races across the country.

    Biden is set to return to the Keystone state in the closing days of the campaign with expected appearances with his former boss, President Barack Obama, in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Biden’s 2020 rival, former President Donald Trump, is expected to campaign in Pennsylvania next weekend as well.

    While the President has eschewed large campaign rallies this election cycle, he has been a frequent presence on the fundraising circuit, crisscrossing the country to raise money for Democrats, including at Friday night’s dinner. Other Democratic officials expected to be in attendance on Friday night include Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, US Sen. Bob Casey, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, and Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair and state Sen. Sharif Street.

    In the final week before the election, the President is set to campaign for Democrats in Florida, including Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist and Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Val Demings, as well as travel to New Mexico for events with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other local officials.

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  • Surprises rock the Senate races that will decide America’s future | CNN Politics

    Surprises rock the Senate races that will decide America’s future | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Late twists are rocking the tight Senate races that will decide the destiny of a chamber now narrowly run by Democrats – as well as the future direction of America itself – on Election Day in just 12 days.

    The Democrats’ best chance of snatching a Senate seat held by Republicans may have been further complicated by John Fetterman’s shaky debate performance in Pennsylvania Tuesday night, which raised more questions about the stroke survivor’s fitness to serve.

    That same question – albeit from different circumstances – is again swirling around Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker after an unnamed woman claimed at a press conference Wednesday that he pressured her to have an abortion in 1993. The college football icon branded the accusation “a lie,” but after facing similar accusations by a former girlfriend, it’s opened him up to more charges of hypocrisy since he has before called for a national ban on abortion with no exceptions.

    Meanwhile in Arizona, where the Republican Party’s march to its anti-democratic fringe is gathering steam, Senate nominee Blake Masters was shown on camera vowing to ex-President Donald Trump that he would not go “soft” on false voter fraud claims. Separately, Masters on Tuesday told supporters it was fine for them to film drop boxes to prevent “ballot harvesting” amid a controversy over “vigilante groups” allegedly conspiring to intimidate voters using the early balloting boxes.

    Listen to Trump pressure Blake Masters over election denialism

    The volatile state of all three races – each of which could be pivotal to determining Senate control – underscores the huge stakes going into the election. It explains the intensifying fight between the parties and an increasingly nasty tone that is rattling debate stages across the country. And it comes as Democrats desperately seek to stop Republican momentum in the campaign, which is rooted in voter frustration about raging inflation and high gas prices coming out of the pandemic.

    President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have been driven down to levels that could prove disastrous for Democratic candidates. GOP attack ads are also creating a dystopian vision of a nation stalked by violent crime, while Democrats are hitting Republicans over their anti-abortion positions, following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June.

    If Republicans win the Senate – in a year in which they are favorites to win back the House – they will be able to blitz the White House with investigations and crimp Biden’s presidency. They will also be able to halt the White House’s efforts to balance out Republican success in reshaping the judiciary on deeply conservative lines.

    Pennsylvania, which is critical to Democratic hopes of holding their majority in the 50-50 chamber, could end up being the most important Senate race in the country. Republicans only need a net gain of one seat to win the majority, so winning the Keystone State could help Democrats mitigate losses in other states where they’re on defense.

    Even after suffering a stroke in May, Fetterman had the momentum for much of the summer over celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz. But the race has tightened in recent days. The Democrat’s struggle to articulate his positions and deliver attacks on his rival in Tuesday night’s debate caused reverberations of concern in Washington.

    Fetterman had warned that he is still dealing with auditory and linguistic after-effects from his stroke but his struggle at times to find the right words on the debate stage was painful to watch. Several times, he seemed to lose his train of thought and repeated phrases. “To be honest, doing that debate wasn’t exactly easy,” Fetterman told supporters at a rally Wednesday night.

    The question now is whether undecided voters will wonder whether he is well enough to go to the Senate – even if his doctors say that he is getting better all the time. It’s possible partisan lines are so cemented by this point that his performance will not matter. Still, more than 600,000 Pennsylvanians have already cast votes in the race and Fetterman’s debate showing – effectively a job interview – came at a moment when voters are making up their minds all the time, more than a week from Election Day. If he loses, his campaign will face questions over whether he erred in agreeing to debate Oz.

    Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said Fetterman’s campaign had set the bar at a very low level, but not low enough for a debate that he called “disturbing on many levels.”

    “That was really an awful thing to watch. On a human level, I feel for John Fetterman,” Dent told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” on Wednesday. “It just struck me that he is not ready. … I think it’s going to have an enormous impact on the race.”

    Still, Fetterman may win points for courage in not allowing his health to interfere with his political fight for Pennsylvanians. At his campaign events, he asks supporters whether they or their relatives have suffered a health crisis, and promises to go to Washington to secure for them the health care that he says saved his life.

    In multiple conversations with voters, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny picked up anxiety among Fetterman’s supporters about how his stumbles could hurt his chances, even if they weren’t personally backing away from him.

    But one Fetterman backer, Craig Bischof, in the central town of Bedford, said his candidate “gets healthier every day” and had “come a long way.”

    One woman, however, in the Republican-leaning town, Jan Welsch, said the Democrat’s performance was “embarrassing” and that Pennsylvania would be in deep trouble if it voted for him.

    But such comments also raise the question of how much Fetterman’s ongoing recovery would really affect his job in the Senate – a chamber known to have its fair share of elderly and ailing lawmakers. Plus, it’s not as if a single senator has the power of a president, for example, who has to make and explain critical national security decisions. Then there is also the question of whether Fetterman is being unfairly treated for what is, in essence at this stage, a disability, in a discriminatory way that may not be tolerated in another workplace.

    But Fetterman badly needs to change the subject. Oz gave him some material to work with on Tuesday night, and the Fetterman campaign quickly released an attack ad based on the Republican’s comment that “local political leaders” should have a say, alongside women and doctors, on whether someone should get an abortion. The gaffe played directly into Democratic efforts to portray Oz and his fellow Republicans as too extreme for crucial suburban voters.

    Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks during a campaign event at the Steamfitters Technology Center in Harmony, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022.

    Hear what Fetterman has to say after rocky debate performance

    While Pennsylvanians were digesting the debate, voters in Georgia – thousands of whom have been flocking to polling places to cast early ballots – learned of a new alleged scandal hitting Walker, who was hand-picked by Trump and is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

    A unnamed woman who claimed she was in a yearslong romantic relationship with Walker said the Senate nominee pressured her into having an abortion in 1993. The woman, referred to as Jane Doe to protect her identity, attended the press conference virtually with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, and read her statement. Her voice was heard, but her face was not shown.

    “He has publicly taken the position that he is about life and against abortion under any circumstance when in fact he pressured me to have an abortion and personally ensured that it occurred by driving me to the clinic and paying for it,” Doe said, accusing Walker of hypocrisy.

    Allred on Wednesday provided evidence corroborating an alleged relationship between Doe and Walker, but she did not provide any details corroborating the abortion claim.

    The GOP nominee accused Democrats of orchestrating the attack.

    “I already told people this is a lie, and I’m not going to entertain, continue to carry a lie along. And I also want to let you know that I didn’t kill JFK either,” Walker said at a campaign event prior to the press conference. “I’m done with all this foolishness,” he added in a statement Wednesday evening.

    Walker has already been accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging her to have an abortion and then reimbursing her for the cost. He has denounced that claim as a “flat-out lie.” But presented with a copy of the check the first woman said was a payment for her procedure, he conceded it was his signature on the paper, although he said he did not know what the check was for. CNN has not independently confirmed the first woman’s allegations. She has remained anonymous in public reports.

    The political impact of the latest claim was not clear. It could damage Walker, who is running significantly behind popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who’s running for reelection in a rematch against Democrat Stacey Abrams. But national Republicans keep coming to rally around Walker, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hitting the trail with him on Thursday.

    The abortion issue is hardly likely to help Walker in key suburbs and might dampen support among religious conservatives. But polling in the wake of the initial allegations against him showed his position in the race little changed, narrowly trailing Warnock. And Walker’s political mentor, Trump, showed in his bargain with social conservatives that a scandal-plagued private life need not be politically disqualifying. The former President repaid their faith in him by going on to construct a conservative Supreme Court majority. Politics may have reached a point of such polarization in the US that ideology, rather than the personality of the candidate, could be the driving force in some elections.

    Lead Eva McKend LIVE_00012020.png

    A second woman claims GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion years ago. He denies it.


    03:41

    – Source:
    CNN

    Trump’s influence is weighing on Arizona, where Masters is locked in a close race with Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.

    In a phone call captured in a Fox documentary, the former President is shown rebuking Masters after he said in a debate that he hadn’t seen evidence of election fraud in Arizona.

    “If you want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing. That was the one thing, a lot of complaints about it,” Trump told Masters, using Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake as an example.

    “Look at Kari. Kari’s winning with very little money. And if they say, ‘How is your family?’ she says the election was rigged and stolen. You’ll lose if you go soft. You’re going to lose that base,” Trump said.

    Masters was shown telling Trump: “I’m not going soft.”

    Arizona has become a hotbed of election denialism in the wake of Trump’s 2020 loss in the state – which is reflected in the slate of Trump-backed candidates running up and down the ballot there. The elevation of such conspiracy theories has led to restrictive new voting laws across the country and fears about voter intimidation efforts.

    The Arizona chapter of the League of Women Voters, for example, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday targeting groups and individuals that they say are conspiring to intimidate voters through a coordinated effort known as “Operation Drop Box.”

    This is the second recent lawsuit filed in federal court targeting the conduct of individuals – some of whom are armed – who have been staking out and filming voters at ballot drop boxes in Arizona.

    Masters told KTAR News on Tuesday that it was alright for people to watch ballot boxes but that they should comply with the law.

    “If you are planning on watching the ballot boxes, stay whatever distance away, don’t intimidate voters, get your video camera out and record to make sure people aren’t ballot harvesting,” Masters said.

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  • Police arrest and name suspect in burglary of Arizona governor candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign HQ | CNN Politics

    Police arrest and name suspect in burglary of Arizona governor candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign HQ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Phoenix Police Department has arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with a break-in at Democratic Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign headquarters earlier this week.

    Daniel Mota Dos Reis was booked on one count of third-degree burglary, according to the department.

    On Wednesday night, a patrol officer saw a news story that included a surveillance image and recognized the man shown as a suspect who had been arrested earlier in the day in connection with a separate, unrelated commercial burglary, police said in a statement Thursday.

    “The officer researched the arrest and learned the suspect, 36-year-old Daniel Mota Dos Reis, was still in jail but would soon be released. The officer contacted the jail and was able to re-arrest Dos Reis,” according to the statement.

    CNN is working to identify an attorney for Dos Reis.

    Police earlier said in a statement that “items were taken from the property sometime during the night.”

    A source within the Hobbs campaign had told CNN that CCTV video showed the man they say broke into the campaign headquarters. The Hobbs campaign hasn’t been able to get a full inventory of what was taken, the source added.

    Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, faces Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake in next month’s midterms.

    Nicole DeMont, who manages Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign, told CNN in a statement Wednesday that “Secretary Hobbs and her staff have faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign. Throughout this race, we have been clear that the safety of our staff and of the Secretary is our number one priority.”

    “Let’s be clear: for nearly two years Kari Lake and her allies have been spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit,” DeMont continued. “The threats against Arizonans attempting to exercise their constitutional rights and their attacks on elected officials are the direct result of a concerted campaign of lies and intimidation.”

    DeMont said that intimidation “won’t work,” and expressed thanks to the Phoenix Police Department for keeping Hobbs and her team safe.

    Lake on Wednesday appeared to claim without evidence that Hobbs’ campaign was lying about the motivations behind the incident and said it “sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” in reference to the actor who was convicted of making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019.

    When asked by CNN if she had a response to DeMont’s claim that the incident was a “direct result of concerted campaign of lies and intimidation” by Lake and her allies, the Arizona GOP nominee shot back and said the statement was “absolutely absurd.”

    “And are you guys buying that? Are you really buying that? Because this sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” Lake said before launching into a lengthy attack on the media.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Why Pennsylvania’s race could determine who wins the Senate | CNN Politics

    Why Pennsylvania’s race could determine who wins the Senate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Tell me who wins the Pennsylvania Senate race, and I’ll probably be able to tell you who controls the Senate next year.

    Such a declarative statement may seem like hyperbole, but the stakes after Tuesday’s debate in Pennsylvania – which represents Democrats’ best chance of picking up a Republican seat – are sky high. And while we don’t know how voters will ultimately view what they saw (or heard in the aftermath) of the televised event, neither candidate has much room for error.

    Republican Mehmet Oz had been closing in on Democrat John Fetterman, according to an average of polls. Fetterman sported a seven point advantage on September 1. By debate eve, the lead was down to two points.

    The movement in the Pennsylvania polls is part of a trend we’ve seen in the swing states of 2022. Democrats have also lost ground over the last 60 days in Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire – which they’re defending – and Wisconsin, which, after Pennsylvania, is their next-best pickup opportunity. In Georgia, which Democrats are also defending, they’ve been steady.

    Democrats likely must win four of these six races – and right now, they hold an advantage in four. This includes Pennsylvania.

    One interesting way to see the importance of Pennsylvania in the Senate math is by looking at statistical modeling from a website like FiveThirtyEight. If you know that Fetterman wins, then Democrats have a three-in-four chance of holding onto the Senate. If you know that Oz wins, then Republicans have a three-in-four chance of wresting away control of the Senate. No other state has that type of swing associated with it.

    The big question is whether either candidate will be able to catapult from Tuesday’s debate to quell doubts voters had about them.

    Much has been made of Fetterman’s health following a stroke earlier this year. A CBS News/YouGov poll before the debate found that 45% of voters believed that Fetterman was not healthy enough to serve in the Senate. That was up from 41% in September.

    But Oz has his vulnerabilities too. Perhaps less spoken about in the press in the lead up to the debate was whether Oz could make himself more likable than he had been in the wake of a nasty May primary. Fetterman had a positive net favorability (favorable – unfavorable) rating in the last CNN/SSRS poll. Oz, however, had a -17 point net favorability rating.

    Oz’s problem, of course, has been part of a larger problem facing Republican Senate nominees nationwide. Republicans in most of the competitive swing states have net negative favorability ratings. They’ve slowly been improving their images in the polls, although their Democratic opponents remain better liked for the most part.

    Republicans, like Oz, have been helped significantly by the fact that President Joe Biden’s approval rating is beneath his disapproval rating. And recent generic ballot surveys such as the CNN/SSRS poll and Monmouth University poll show that Republican candidates are now winning a larger share of the voters who disapprove of Biden than they were during the summer.

    This marks, perhaps, the irony of the Pennsylvania Senate race – and the race for the Senate overall. Biden seems to be becoming a more important factor, even as the individual Senate candidates become better known.

    Biden may end up bringing the Democratic candidates down with him, despite voters liking them more than they like their GOP options.

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  • 4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

    4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul squared off with Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Tuesday in their first and only pre-election debate, offering a series of tense and testy exchanges over crime, abortion rights, the 2020 presidential election and campaign finance ethics.

    Their one-on-one came as recent polls show a tightening race, with the Democrat’s lead having dwindled to single digits in one survey. No Republican has won statewide office in New York since 2002.

    Zeldin, a conservative backed by former President Donald Trump, has campaigned furiously on his opposition to the state’s bail reform law and criticized Hochul’s handling of crime, which has ranked high up on the list of voters’ concerns in nearly every survey of the race.

    Both candidates sought to align themselves with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has pushed for new and substantial rollbacks to bail law, but they predictably diverged on Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden.

    Zeldin praised Trump’s policy agenda during the debate, but, in a nod to a state that voted overwhelmingly for his opponent, did not directly say whether the former President should run again in 2024.

    Hochul, breaking from some tepid statements from fellow Democrats, was clear and concise on Biden’s future. Asked if she thought he should run again, she said, “Yes, I do.”

    Here are the four big takeaways from Tuesday night’s debate.

    Crime has emerged as the central talking point of the election and that held for large portions of the debate on Tuesday, with Zeldin criticizing Hochul for not taking more aggressive steps to combat its rise and promising to fire a controversial Democratic prosecutor in Manhattan.

    Hochul responded by talking up various initiatives but also frequently tried to turn the tables on the Republican, pointing to his opposition to gun control measures, including a bipartisan deal recently passed in Congress.

    “I’m running to take back our streets,” Zeldin said in the first volley of the debate.

    Hochul dismissed her opponent’s attacks as vague and cynical.

    “You can work on keeping people scared or on keeping people safe,” she said, adding, “There is no crime fighting plan if it doesn’t include guns.”

    Zeldin sought to pivot off the gun argument by noting that firearms didn’t play a role in many recent hate crimes or when innocent bystanders have, in recent months, been pushed on to subway tracks.

    “They tell me these stories,” Zeldin said of voters he’s met, “about having to hug a pole or grab a guardrail because they’re afraid of being pushed in front of an oncoming subway car.”

    “All you have is rhetoric,” Hochul shot back. “I have a record of getting things done.”

    The state’s bail reform law, passed in 2019 but rolled back twice since, was also a flashpoint. Even after the moderators rolled out statistics showing it’s difficult to discern whether the law, which makes it more difficult to hold suspects in pre-trial detention, led to a rise in crime, both candidates – Zeldin to a much greater degree – spoke about their desire for further changes.

    Hochul has, before and during the campaign, sought new tweaks. Zeldin wants the legislation off the books entirely – a desire in step with even some liberal New Yorkers – calling it “the will of the people.”

    In a state Biden won by nearly 2 million votes, with more than 60% of ballots cast, Zeldin’s vote in Congress against certifying the election has become a reliable cudgel for Democrats.

    On Tuesday night, Hochul wielded it early and often.

    When Zeldin talked about trying to remove Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was elected to the job, Hochul connected it to the congressman’s actions after the 2020 presidential election.

    “In Lee Zeldin’s world,” she said, “you overturn elections you disagree with.”

    Zeldin said he had the “constitutional authority” and “constitutional duty” to try his best to unseat Bragg, who has been criticized for not more aggressively prosecuting low-level crime.

    Eventually, the moderators offered Zeldin an opportunity of sorts to disavow his past actions. Asked if he would, knowing what he does now, still vote against certifying the 2020 election, Zeldin demurred.

    “The issue still remains today,” the Republican said. “Election integrity should always matter.”

    Pressed then on whether he would accept defeat, should Hochul win in two weeks, Zeldin said he would – but his disdain for the question was obvious.

    “First off, losing is not an option,” Zeldin answered. “Secondly, playing along with your hypothetical question: Of course” he would accept the results, he said.

    The Republican also came under consistent attack over his anti-abortion policy views and celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

    Zeldin has argued the issue is moot: New York state has passed strict abortion rights protections and, even if he wanted to, he could not change them.

    Still, he did not directly answer a question from the moderators asking whether he would sign off on new restrictions if Republicans took hold of the state legislature – something Zeldin insisted was immaterial because “it’s not happening.”

    Hochul returned to the issue frequently, touting the state law and promising to protect it from conservative politicians like Zeldin.

    “What we have in New York state is simply a codification of Roe v. Wade,” Hochul said, when asked if she would put any restrictions on abortion. She then added, “You know why nothing changed the day after the Dobbs decision? It’s because I’m the governor of New York and he’s not.”

    Zeldin also sought to fend off questions about a recent remark, which he has since walked back, stating he wanted to appoint an anti-abortion rights state health commissioner.

    “My litmus test,” he insisted, “is that (the health commissioner) is going to do an exceptional job.”

    Again though, on the issue of whether he would support funding for Planned Parenthood, Zeldin swerved and suggested it would be a bargaining chip with Democratic leaders in Albany.

    “I’ve heard from New Yorkers who say that they don’t want their tax dollars, for example, for people who live 1,500 miles away from here,” Zeldin said.

    The Bills have one of the best records in pro football this year, but Zeldin hopes they might be a losing issue for Hochul, at least outside Buffalo.

    The state this year approved $600 million in funds to build the team, which is owned by a billionaire, a new stadium in Buffalo. The county is also chipping in an estimated $250 million.

    Hochul defended what critics call a corporate handout as a job-creating maneuver – an argument belied by other cities’ past experiences doing the same – and claimed the Bills were “looking elsewhere,” or considering moving to another city, and said she’d heard from people that they’d been in contact with officials in other states.

    “You think about the identity of the community – like Broadway is to New York City, the Buffalo Bills are to Western New York,” said Hochul, a Buffalo native.

    Zeldin became exasperated at the suggestion the Bills were seriously considering leaving the city – “They’re not,” he snapped – and said the eleventh hour deal to secure the money was “irresponsible on process and substance.”

    Throughout the debate, Zeldin also criticized what he described as Hochul’s “pay to play” governorship, accusing her of trading state contract cash for campaign donations.

    Hochul rejected the charge, which has been reported on inconclusively by a number of local media outlets.

    “There has never been a quid pro quo, a policy change, because of a contribution,” the governor said, before pivoting to an attack on Zeldin’s outside support, specifically the more than $8 million invested in pro-Zeldin super PACs by Ronald Lauder, heir to the cosmetics giant Estée Lauder.

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