Vance derides Harris for inflation that prevents families from affording 'a nice meal'
In his remarks at a campaign event in Michigan, Vance repeatedly mentioned people's lack of ability to eat "a nice meal" because of inflation.
Vance mentioned a woman he met on the campaign trail who used to make steak with her family every Friday, but "now she told me it’s gone: 'We just do hamburgers.'"
Vance added, "There’s nothing wrong with hamburger, but it’s not a steak."
He also blasted Harris for detailing her plans for her first day as president, saying, "Day one was four years ago, Kamala Harris, and because of your policies, too many children can’t afford a nice meal. Too many children have been killed by fentanyl. Too many grandparents are raising kids they didn’t plan for, and too many families can’t afford a special meal on a Friday night."
Comer says he wants info from Google and Meta on potential censorship of Trump assassination attempt
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said today that his panel is launching an investigation into reports related to Meta's AI assistant and a Google search function and the assassination attempt on Trump.
In separate letters, Comer requested documents and information from Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In his letter to Google, Comer cited reports that said that when people searched Trump's assassination attempt on Google, the search function provided information only about assassination attempts on other presidents and leaders but omitted information about the Trump incident.
In his letter to Meta, Comer also referred to reports that said Meta's AI assistant claimed the assassination attempt on Trump was a "fictional" event.
"The Committee has long been concerned with how large technology companies leverage their businesses to influence public opinion, especially against the backdrop of an alarming pattern of speech suppression and censorship peddled through technology and social media companies," the committee said in its announcement of the probe.
Vance accuses Harris of crafting energy policy to benefit donors
During a campaign stop in Byron Center, Michigan, Vance accused Harris of "[raising] the price of American energy."
"Michigan suffered. You suffered. Good American jobs suffered," Vance added, asking the crowd, "But you know who made a lot of money? Kamala Harris’ donors."
Senate Intelligence Committee condemns efforts by foreign adversaries to influence the election
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., and Vice Chair Marco Rubio, R-Fla., condemned efforts by foreign adversaries to influence the election in the wake of attempts to hack the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns.
“With less than 100 days to go before the election, it is clear that our foreign adversaries are intently interested in disrupting our democratic process,” Warner and Rubio said in a statement. “While we await additional information from the Intelligence Community and law enforcement on the extent of recent foreign efforts against presidential campaigns, indications from Microsoft that foreign cyber actors may have penetrated a presidential campaign’s infrastructure are grounds for serious concern.”
Warner and Rubio called for additional measures to protect election integrity in the face of foreign meddling.
“Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign meddling requires constant attention,” they wrote. “This includes bolstering campaign cybersecurity, heightened vigilance from media outlets on the potential of spreading hacked or manipulated content from foreign intelligence services, and a commitment by both political parties to call out foreign election influence efforts.”
Warner and Rubio said they “condemn any type of potential influence effort” by foreign adversaries and urged the Intelligence Community and law enforcement agencies to “urgently examine” reports of suspicious activities that could influence elections. They also called for those affected by those efforts and the public to be notified of reports.
“Foreign adversaries must also be put on notice that there will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process, and the Administration and both political parties must make that clear,” they wrote.
The FBI on Monday said it is investigating attempted hacks of both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns. The probe includes efforts to hack three Biden-Harris campaign staffers, as well as Roger Stone, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, NBC News reported.
Biden jokes with influencers at White House that he’s ‘looking for a job’
Trump casts early vote in Florida primary election
Trump is at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office this afternoon, casting an early vote in the state's primary election.
He did not take questions from press assembled outside when he arrived.
Harris makes gains in Latino voter support, but many are still in play
Vice President Kamala Harris has quickly turned around lagging support from Latinos for the Democratic ticket, though the backing is currently a few points short of the level Joe Biden achieved in 2020, a poll released Wednesday by Equis Research shows.
With 80 days to go in the election, Harris “is on track to hold off a GOP surge” in support from Latino voters, according to a memo on the poll. Equis Research is a Democratic polling firm that focuses on Latinos.
But a significant portion of registered Latino voters, many of them new voters, are still an unknown on whether they will vote or whom they will support. Where these voters eventually land could determine the outcome in some battleground states, the polling firm said in the memo.
“Out the gate, the vice president has quickly amassed the support of a wide swath of discontented Hispanic voters, and she still has running room,” it stated. “What those last Latino voters do could determine the overall result in hotly contested states."
As Trump and Harris call to end tip taxes, a wider minimum wage war heats up
Vice President Kamala Harris’ call to scrap taxes on tips adds to the bipartisan support for a proposal her rival, former President Donald Trump, floated two months earlier. But the fate of the policy idea could hinge on broader disagreements on base pay regardless of who wins the election.
Unlike Trump, Harris proposed pairing the elimination of federal taxes on tip income with a bump in the national minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009.
Many tip earners, however, are paid a much lower “subminimum” wage that requires employers to make up the difference whenever gratuities don’t add up to the federal pay floor. The U.S. subminimum, which a handful of states have replaced with across-the-board hourly minimums, has been $2.13 an hour since 1991.
“It’s heartening that everybody’s talking about it,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of the labor advocacy group One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. But “it means nothing until we raise these workers’ wages and end the subminimum wage for tipped workers,” she said.
Survey shows broad opposition to abortion restrictions among women of reproductive age
The group most directly affected by restrictions on abortion — women of reproductive age — are broadly against them, new survey results have found.
According to findings released today by KFF, a nonprofit health think tank, 74% of women in the U.S. ages 18 to 49 think abortion should be legal. Around 70% support a federal right to abortion — the position held by Harris in a presidential election in which abortion rights are expected to be a motivating factor for many voters.
Nearly half of Republican women of reproductive age said abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
Hush money judge rejects 3rd Trump motion to recuse himself
Judge Juan Merchan has rejected for a third time Trump's demand that he step aside from the New York hush money case because of an alleged conflict of interest involving his daughter.
Trump made the new request earlier this month, contending Merchan should step aside before the former president is scheduled to be sentenced on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment. His attorneys contended the judge has a conflict because Harris used his daughter’s firm for digital fundraising during the 2020 presidential campaign, and she and her family could benefit from a Harris victory in November.
In a ruling yesterday, the judge called Trump's claims "stale and unsubstantiated."
"Defendant has provided nothing new for this Court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts," Merchan wrote, adding he "now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear - innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create."
Trump's recusal motion also cited the partial gag order Merchan slapped on the former president prior to trial, which the judge loosened in June. The order still bars Trump from making public attacks on the judge's daughter ahead of sentencing - something the presidential candidate had done repeatedly before the trial started.
Merchan brushed off Trump's arguments that the gag order is "unjust and unconstitutional." He noted the order has already been affirmed by state appeals courts, and "therefore difficult to rationalize how Defense Counsel can, in good faith, claim that the Order is unconstitutional."
Trump complained about that part of the order in a Truth Social post today, calling it "voter interference" and added that he "must get U.S. Supreme Court involved. New York is trying to steal the Election!”