Harris to outline economic policies with speech in swing state Pennsylvania
We’re a few minutes away from Kamala Harris taking the stage in Pittsburgh, where she’ll make a speech billed as outlining her economic policies.
The vice-president has lately been campaigning on creating an “opportunity economy”. Under Joe Biden, she championed his wide-ranging economic proposals, which led to Congress passing legislation to improve the nation’s infrastructure, encourage the growth of the semiconductor industry, lower prescription drug prices and fight climate change.
But several other ideas Biden supported, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per-hour, strengthening protections for organized labor and providing more government assistance to children and families, were not enacted, leaving it up to Harris to decide whether to pursue them, if elected as president.
Harris is speaking in the second largest city of a swing state where polls show neither her nor Donald Trump has an advantage with voters. We’ll let you know what she has to say.
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Harris has not actually gotten into specifics yet, but continues to elaborate on her promise to lower costs for Americans.
“I want Americans and families to be able to not just get by, but be able to get ahead, to thrive, be able to thrive,” the vice-president said.
She went on:
I don’t want you to have to worry about making your monthly rent if your car breaks down. I want you to be able to save up for your child’s education, to take a nice vacation from time to time. I want you to be able to buy Christmas presents for your loved ones without feeling anxious when you’re looking at your bank statement. I want you to be able to build some wealth, not just for yourself, but also for your children and your grandchildren, intergenerational wealth.
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Harris, speaking a little more slowly and deliberately than she usually does, then went on to attack Donald Trump’s economic policies:
The American people face a choice between two fundamentally very different paths for our economy. I intend to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class. Donald Trump intends to take America backward to the failed policies of the past.
He has no intention to grow our middle class. He’s only interested in making life better for himself and people like himself, the wealthiest of Americans, you can see it spelled out in his economic agenda, an agenda that gives trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations, while raising taxes on the middle class by almost $4,000 a year, slashing overtime pay, throwing tens of millions of Americans off of health care and cutting Social Security and Medicare. In sum, his agenda would weaken the economy and hurt working people and the middle class.
In a speech in Georgia yesterday, Trump announced plans to slash taxes for corporations who make their products in the United States, and put steep tariffs on imports from countries where US firms move jobs:
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‘The cost of living in America is still just too high’ despite economy’s success, Harris says
Kamala Harris began by recounting how the economy grew and unemployment stayed low under Joe Biden’s presidency, then pivoted to acknowledging the toll inflation has taken on Americans.
“Over the past three-and-a-half years, we have taken major steps forward to recover from the public health and economic crisis we inherited. Inflation has dropped faster here than the rest of the developed world. Unemployment is near record low levels,” she said.
“But let’s be clear, for all these positive steps, the cost of living in America is still just too high. You know it, and I know it, and that was true long before the pandemic hit.”
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Kamala Harris is coming onstage now in Pittsburgh, where she’s set to elaborate on her proposals for the economy.
We’ll let you know what she has to say.
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Trump says he will hold rally on site of Pennsylvania assassination attempt
Donald Trump will return to the Butler, Pennsylvania venue where a gunman tried to assassinate him in July, the ex-president’s campaign just announced.
Trump will return on 5 October “to hold a rally on the very same ground where he came within a quarter of an inch of losing his life less than three months ago,” the campaign said.
“During his visit, President Trump will honor the memory of Corey Comperatore, who heroically sacrificed his life to shield his wife and daughters from the bullets on that terrible day. President Trump will also recognize the two other Americans who were wounded by the shooter, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. He will express his deep gratitude to law enforcement and first responders, and thank the entire community for their outpouring of love and support in the wake of the attack.”
His campaign went on to liken Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt to New York’s rebuilding of the World Trade Center after it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks:
President Trump’s return to Butler will stand as a tribute to the American spirit. In America, we do not let monsters like that evil assassin have the last word. Every time our nation is struck by attack or hardship, we rally, we persevere, and we prevail. When terrorists knocked down our towering skyscrapers, we rebuilt taller. When our communities are ravaged by fire, storm, or natural disaster, we pull together and come back stronger. And when a shooter attacked our democracy and tried to end this movement, President Trump will return to the site, joined by tens of thousands of proud citizens, and together, they will celebrate a unifying vision for America’s future in an event like the world has never seen before.
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Harris to outline economic policies with speech in swing state Pennsylvania
We’re a few minutes away from Kamala Harris taking the stage in Pittsburgh, where she’ll make a speech billed as outlining her economic policies.
The vice-president has lately been campaigning on creating an “opportunity economy”. Under Joe Biden, she championed his wide-ranging economic proposals, which led to Congress passing legislation to improve the nation’s infrastructure, encourage the growth of the semiconductor industry, lower prescription drug prices and fight climate change.
But several other ideas Biden supported, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per-hour, strengthening protections for organized labor and providing more government assistance to children and families, were not enacted, leaving it up to Harris to decide whether to pursue them, if elected as president.
Harris is speaking in the second largest city of a swing state where polls show neither her nor Donald Trump has an advantage with voters. We’ll let you know what she has to say.
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The Secret Service is investigating an agent who is alleged to have sexually assaulted a Kamala Harris campaign staffer, CNBC reports.
The assault reportedly took place in Green Bay, Wisconsin, when the agent traveled with Harris campaign staff who were scouting places for the vice-president to hold public events.
Here’s more on the incident, from CNBC:
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating allegations that one of its agents sexually assaulted a female staff member of the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the agency confirmed Wednesday.
The agent allegedly forced himself onto the woman and groped her in her hotel room after eating a meal and drinking alcohol with her and several other Harris campaign staffers in a restaurant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, during a visit in the past week to scout out possible campaign stops for the vice president, Real Clear Politics reported.
When asked about that report, a Secret Service spokesman told CNBC, “The U.S. Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating a misconduct allegation involving an employee.”
“The Secret Service holds its personnel to the highest standards,” the spokesman said in an email. “The employee has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”
Harris’ office, in a statement on the report, told NBC News, “The Office of the Vice President take the safety of staff seriously.”
“We have zero tolerance for sexual misconduct. Senior OVP officials were alerted by the USSS about an incident involving an agent and informed that USSS initiated an investigation,” Harris’ office said. “The Office of the Vice President will not be releasing further information.”
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Kamala Harris will speak in Pittsburgh at 3.15pm about her plans for the economy, and the Washington Post reports that the event has proved popular.
So popular that the fire marshal has turned people away:
The fire marshal has restricted entry into Kamala Harris’ economic speech, which is taking place at the Philip Chosky Theatre on Carnegie Mellon’s campus. There are about 200 people inside the auditorium, with scores more outside being told they won’t be allowed in. pic.twitter.com/zS3qkTetDn
— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 25, 2024
Polls indicate that Pennsylvania remains sharply divided between Harris and supporters of Donald Trump.
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Updated at 14.58 EDT
Harris leads Trump among young voters by 12 points – CNN poll
A new CNN poll published on Wednesday, has Democratic nominee Kamala Harris leading former president Donald Trump by 12 points among likely voters under the age of 35.
The survey also found that “female likely voters younger than 35 prefer Harris over Trump” 53% to 39%, but male likely voters are more closely divided.
Though Harris is leading among young people, CNN reports that the vice-president’s lead among under 35 year olds is smaller than the lead president Joe Biden had in 2020, when he was up 21 points among that same age group.
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Updated at 14.09 EDT
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat representing Connecticut, said on Wednesday that what happened on July 13, at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler Pennsylvania, where an assassin opened fire, killing an attendee and wounding the former president, was an “accumulation of errors that produced a perfect storm of stunning failure.”
“It was a tragedy & completely preventable from the outset” he added.
Blumenthal was responding to the new bipartisan Senate report released earlier today that found that the Secret Service made “preventable” errors in securing the rally.
In a series of posts on X, Blumenthal added that there “was both a failure to provide resources—like a working radio, drone detection system, or counter surveillance team—& lack of an effective chain of command” and that Wednesday’s report was “only an interim step”.
“I look forward to our continuing pursuit of evidence to help understand what went so catastrophically wrong & how we can prevent an event like this from ever happening again” he said.
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Updated at 14.25 EDT
One of largest Muslim voter-mobilization groups in US endorses Harris
One of the country’s largest Muslim voter-mobilization groups, Emgage Action, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
In an announcement posted to their website on Wednesday, the Muslim advocacy group said that the upcoming election “represents an especially difficult moment for Muslim Americans.”
The group voiced their concerns over the escalating crisis in the Middle East and mentioned the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians who have been killed in the last 11 months, as well as all those in Gaza who have been displaced. The group criticized the Biden Administration for providing ongoing military support and supplying weapons to Israel.
“In November, we have the opportunity to change course and turn our outrage into action” the statement reads.
The group’s endorsement of Harris on Wednesday, “is not an agreement with Vice President Harris on all issues,” the statement reads, “but rather, an honest guidance to our voters regarding the difficult choice they confront at the ballot box.”
The group also said:
We are pledging to do all that we can to ensure that the next administration listens to our communities and takes our calls for peace, justice and safety seriously. We know that will not be Donald Trump. We have always been clear-eyed about the danger Trump’s brand of authoritarianism represents for Muslim Americans, America, and the world. This is why in 2020 we embarked on a historic campaign to make sure that Muslim Americans played a decisive role in ensuring that Donald Trump was a one-term president.
The group added that recognized “the responsibility to defeat Trump” and urged people not to vote for third-party candidates, arguing that while some third-party candidates had “aligned themselves with our community, we are clear-eyed that none of them have a realistic pathway to victory in November.”
“As it stands today, the most effective way to change policy and advance peace, justice and ensure Palestinian self-determination is to push the Democratic Party” the statement added.
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Updated at 14.26 EDT
Robert Tait
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer – who testified as a hostile witness at this year’s hush money trial that resulted in his former boss being convicted of 34 felony charges – has told MSNBC that he is working on obtaining a foreign passport with a new identity if Trump is elected in November.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, says he’ll leave the country if his former boss wins in November:
“I’m already working on a foreign passport with a completely different name…I have no choice.” pic.twitter.com/HtdhB4Itc0
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 25, 2024
“I’m out of here,” he said in response to being asked what he thought would happen to him in the event of a Trump victory. “ I’m already working on a foreign passport with a completely different name. I don’t know how it’s going to work. As far as dealing with my wife and my children, I certainly don’t want them moving to where I’m looking to go.”
He said other Trump adversaries were also in the line of fire if he returned to the White House with a mission of vengeance against his perceived enemies – specifying the former chairman of the armed forces’ joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, and the ex-Republican Congress member, Liz Cheney, as potential fellow targets.
“How many people has he turned around and said (about)….that these are people that I intend to go after if I have the ability to?
“And the worst is the supreme court’s recent decision that gave him immunity, presidential immunity. Now he thinks not only is it I can do whatever I want, but I can’t even be prosecuted (and have a) get out of jail free card solely for the president.”
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Updated at 14.25 EDT
The day so far
A bipartisan Senate report found the Secret Service made “preventable” errors in securing Donald Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where an assassin opened fire, killing an attendee and wounding the former president. The agency came in for criticism from lawmakers of both parties, after the homeland security committee’s investigation found agents’ communications struggles hampered their ability to respond when it became clear a gunman was at the rally. Meanwhile, new polling of Pennsylvania and North Carolina confirms Trump and Kamala Harris remain locked in a close race to win the swing states’ electoral votes.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Congress is on track to pass legislation to fund the government until 20 December, with the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer saying he hopes to send Joe Biden the bill by the end of the day.
Harris will give a speech in Pittsburgh on her plans for the economy at 3.15pm today, and sit for an interview with MSNBC that will be broadcast at 7pm.
The AARP found that Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, was trailing his Democratic challenger in a survey taken before news broke of his history of making lewd statements on pornography websites.
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Meanwhile, Joe Biden is in New York City, where he dropped by the set of ABC’s The View for an interview.
The departing president restated that he never stopped thinking he could beat Donald Trump, and also played down reports of tension in his relationship with Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who was a major force in pressuring him to end his bid for a second term.
Here’s what Biden had to say:
President Joe Biden says his relationship with Rep. Nancy Pelosi is “fine” after her pressure campaign for him to drop out:
“Look, I never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance of my running again.” pic.twitter.com/xLQuYx5V6C
— The Recount (@therecount) September 25, 2024
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