Trump says he will ‘do everything’ at McDonald’s during Pennsylvania visit

FRY COOK TRAINEE

Filip Timotija
Sat, October 19, 2024 

Trump says he will ‘do everything’ at McDonald’s during Pennsylvania visit

Former President Trump quipped in a recent interview that he will “do everything” at a McDonald’s during his visit to battleground Pennsylvania over the weekend.

“A friend of mine owns a McDonald’s someplace,” Trump said Friday during his in-person interview with “Fox & Friends.”

“Oh, I’m going. I’m going to do everything,” he added.


Trump claimed during the interview, and on the campaign trail, that his Democratic rival, Vice President Harris, did not work at the popular food chain. The comments came after the Harris campaign issued an ad over the summer highlighting her upbringing and outlined her time working at McDonald’s.

“I’m going because she lied,” Trump said Friday.

“You don’t think she ever worked in McDonald’s?” he was pressed by “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade.

“I know she didn’t. We checked it out,” the former president said. “They said she never worked here. She even picked the store. We went to the manager. The manager’s been there forever. ‘You remember her. No, she never worked here.’”

Harris has repeatedly said that she has worked at the fast-food chain during her time as an undergraduate student.

“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family,” the vice president said last month during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. “I worked there as a student.”

“I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs,” she added at the time.

The former president will visit the McDonald’s on Street Road in Lower Southampton Township, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill.

Trump’s visit to the golden arches comes as the two party nominees make their way through the key battleground states. With less than three weeks left until the election, Trump will rally voters Saturday evening in Latrobe, Pa. — about an hour outside of Pittsburgh.

President Biden won the Keystone State by just more than 1 percentage point in 2020, raking in the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls shows Harris ahead in Pennsylvania by less than half a point — with 48.7 percent support to Trump’s 48.3 percent.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Trump cooks fries at McDonald's as he attempts to cast doubt on Harris' earlier employment at the chain

John L. Dorman,Lauren Edmonds
Sun, October 20, 2024


Donald Trump visited a McDonald's in a key Pennsylvania county on Sunday.


Kamala Harris said she once worked at a McDonald's, which is a key part of her biography.


Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Harris did not work at McDonald's.

Former President Donald Trump has long been known for his love of the Golden Arches.

After landing at the Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday, Trump and his team traveled to a McDonald's franchise in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, where he donned an official employee apron and began handing out orders to customers waiting in the drive-thru line. He also helped cook the restaurant's signature fries.

Trump's visit, however, had little to do with his fondness for the food.

For weeks, Trump has attempted to sow doubt — without providing evidence — that Vice President Kamala Harris ever worked at McDonald's, which has become a key part of her biography.

Harris said she worked the cash register and made fries during the summer of 1983. At the time, Harris was an undergraduate at Howard University, and her campaign says she worked at a McDonald's in Alameda, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The former president said in Detroit on Friday that Harris "lied about working at McDonald's."

Trump senior advisor Jason Miller also cast doubt on Harris' McDonald's employment on Saturday, telling reporters that Trump was going to the restaurant "so that one candidate in this race could have actually worked at McDonald's."

Trump needled Harris again on Sunday. While at the drive-thru window, he said he worked at McDonald's for "15 minutes more than Kamala" and once again accused her of never having worked at the chain.

Harris has firmly pushed back against Trump's accusation.

The Harris campaign has promoted the vice president's experience at McDonald's as a part of a middle-class upbringing that might resonate with millions of Americans — and that separates her from the affluent life led by Trump.

"When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie," Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams told The New York Times. "He can't understand what it's like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it."

Harris and Trump remain locked in a historically tight race. Trump has sought to promote his handling of the economy, an issue he used to his advantage when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee.

But when Biden exited the race in July, and Harris became the nominee, she quickly went to battle with Trump on the economy and succeeded in eroding his once huge advantage on the issue in key swing states.

McDonald's, which is headquartered in Chicago, is the world's largest fast-food chain, with more than 40,000 locations. The chain plans to have 50,000 locations around the globe by the end of 2027, according to its company website.

McDonald's is also a major employer. In Pennsylvania alone, the company says its franchises employ over 25,000 people. In a statement provided to Business Insider on Sunday, the owner of the McDonald's location that Trump visited said he was honored to "showcase" the restaurant chain.

"As a small, independent business owner, it is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community. That's why I accepted former President Trump's request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald's," Derek Giacomantonio said.

"As a former crew member, I can attest this job is more than burgers and fries, but a meaningful pathway to opportunity."

Trump's appetite for McDonald's — and other fast food chains — has been well documented.

After winning the requisite number of GOP delegates needed to secure the party's 2016 presidential nomination, Trump was photographed eating a McDonald's Big Mac on his private jet.

And in January 2019, Trump hosted the college championship-winning Clemson University football team at the White House, where he ordered an assortment of fast-food staples from McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and Domino's Pizza for the players.

Business Insider reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.

 Business Insider


Donald Trump visits Pennsylvania McDonald's, alleges without evidence Kamala Harris lied about college work

JD Mullane, Bucks County Courier Times
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Former President Donald Trump showed up for his quick shift at McDonald's in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, on Sunday − and doubled down on accusations he's made without evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris lied about working at the fast food chain.

“I’ve now worked at McDonald’s 15 minutes longer than Kamala Harris,” Trump said, as reporters shouted questions while he worked the window at the restaurant in his apron.

With just over two weeks to Election Day, and Pennsylvania still hotly contested as possibly the swing state needed to capture the White House, Trump came to the pivotal Bucks County to woo undecided voters in hopes of securing the state's critical 19 electoral votes.

Trump's visit was prompted by a claim by the vice president, who has said she had worked at a McDonald’s in the 1980s. Trump said he doesn’t believe it, and agreed to “work the fries” at a McDonald’s as a campaign stop. The fast food mainstay has not confirmed whether the vice president was employed by the chain.

Trump, the Republican, and Harris, the Democrat, are locked in a tight race in Pennsylvania. Both are barnstorming the state in the waning days of the campaign ahead of Nov. 5, and while Pennsylvania voters are already returning mail-in ballots.

The event, arguably the most unique campaign stop in Bucks County in decades, brought out crowds, tight security and had the national media watching.

Trump handed McDonald's McNuggets, burgers and fries in signature brand brown bags to customers, all pre-selected and pre-screened, in maybe a half-dozen cars. “What a beautiful family,” he said to the first car full.

Trump also wished Harris a happy birthday. The vice president turned 60 on Sunday.

Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville On Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024.

Trump could be seen on national news networks wearing an apron and learning how to make fries from an employee. He also talked about Sunday's Steelers game and asked about how to "shake" the grease off the fries, according to multiple reports. Trump is expected to attend the Steelers' game on Sunday against the Jets.


Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville
Supporters of Trump and Harris come out to McDonald's campaign stop

The unconventional campaign stop brought out thousands of supporters of the former president and a smaller group of Harris supporters, who carried signs and stood nearby the McDonald's.

As with other Trump events, it was a party atmosphere. The weather was sunny and warm, and signs and flags were everywhere, including “Cats for Trump.”

It was also loud, with chants of “USA, USA” amid breaks for music Trump often plays at rallies, including “God Bless the USA” and the Village People’s “YMCA.” Supporters danced and bounced. Passing cars rigged with freight train horns blasted the crowd, which whooped and cheered.

Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville.

At least three dozen Kamala Harris supporters stages a protest against the appearance of former President Donald Trump at a Feasterville McDonald's restaurant on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024

John and Kate Devlin of Huntington Valley said they came to the campaign stop just to get a glimpse of Trump. “It’s really a chance for our kids to see history,” Kate Devlin said.

John Devlin said he moved his barber shop from Northeast Philadelphia to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, because of crime. “There was a shooting in front of my shop. This country needs better policing on crime,” he said.

Families were everywhere Sunday, along with small business owners. But the crowd was mostly filled working people who want the economy fixed. “I believe Donald Trump holds the future for us,” said Luba Kaun, of Holland. She was with her son, Donald Julian, 3.

“He has the same name — Donald J,” she said.

At the McDonald's, customers chosen to be served by Trump waited in line at the drive thru well before the former president arrived Sunday afternoon. The first car, a black Jeep Wrangler driven by a man who identified himself as Jim from Bucks County, said his order would be fries and McNuggets.

Security was tight, with sniper teams on top of the McDonald's and atop Guy’s Bicycles next door. Secret Service agents and K-9 dogs patrolled, and local police wore military green SWAT gear.

Former President Donald Trump dons an apron at the McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024.
Why was Donald Trump at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania today?

In interviews since at least 2019, Harris has said she worked at a McDonald's while in college in the 1980s.

"I did fries and then I did the cashier," she told an interviewer earlier this year. Asked what she'd order at McDonald's at a drive-through, she said, "Probably the Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries," she said.

Trump has for months claimed without evidence that Harris did not work at the fast food establishment.

Buh-bye birtherism Trump finally says Obama born in U.S., blames Clinton for controversy

McDonald's has stayed out of it.

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and owner of the Newtown Athletic Club, said he arranged the McDonald’s visit through franchise owner and friend Derek Giacomantonio, who declined to speak, and a spokesman said all communication had to be approved by corporate offices in Chicago.

However, a McDonald's executive on site declined to answer when a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, asked him if Harris had ever worked for the company. In a statement distributed to the press on Sunday, McDonald’s said, “As a brand, McDonald's does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next President. We are not red or blue — we are golden.”

Trump and Harris are in a battle for Pennsylvania in the presidential race, which could turn on white working-class voters, people who tend to be familiar with minimum or lower-paying wage jobs such as McDonald's.
A pivotal part of Pennsylvania

Trump's Sunday's appearance in Bucks County was the second in the Philadelphia area since last Monday.

In Oaks, in Montgomery County, Trump stopped taking questions at a town hall event after a pair of medical emergencies in the crowd, instead dancing and playing music for 39 minutes as supporters trickled out.

Harris held an event in Washington Crossing Historic Park in Bucks on Thursday urging "country over party," appearing with more than 100 Republicans.

Bucks County is the narrowest of the swing counties in southeastern Pennsylvania and, apart from Luzerne County, has the smallest divide between Republicans and Democrats as a percent of total voters. Pennsylvania is critical to the 2024 election with its 19 electoral votes.

Out of 486,740 voters in Bucks County, Republicans make up about 41.6% of voters while Democrats make up about 41% of voters. Democrats lost their voter advantage over the GOP for the first time in at least a decade in July. Luzerne County has Republicans leading by just 0.46%.

While Trump hasn’t managed to win Bucks County in either of the last two presidential elections – Clinton took the county 48.7% to 47.6% and Biden won with a four-point lead at 51% of the vote – he does have a strong following of supporters.

JD Mullane can be reached at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Trump visits PA McDonald's, alleges Harris lied about college work





Trump Makes Fries at McDonald’s in Bizarre Attempt to Troll Harris
Peter Wade
Sun, October 20, 2024 at 12:29 PM MDT·2 min read
105




Donald Trump is spending part of his Sunday afternoon behind the counter at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. The former president, who has frequently said he loves the chain’s food, donned an apron to work the fry machine and hand food to customers at the drive thru. It’s an attempt to bring attention to his unfounded allegations that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, did not work there during college.

When asked why he wanted to come to the fast food restaurant, Trump responded, “I like McDonalds. I like jobs. I like to see good jobs and I think it’s inappropriate when someone puts down that they worked at McDonalds… She [Harris] never worked at McDonalds.”

“Should I give them extra salt?” Trump asked a McDonald’s worker while salting fries.

Rolling Stone has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment. A campaign official told CNN that she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983 while a student at Howard University, working the register as well as the fry and ice cream machines.

“I did fries. And then I did the cashier,” Harris said on Drew Barrymore’s talk show in April.

Trump, who recently complained that he “used to hate to pay overtime” to his employees, has proposed a policies that would end taxes on overtime and tips. Harris has proposed a similar no tax on tips policy for hospitality and service industry workers.

“I know a lot about overtime. I hated to give overtime, I hated it. I’d get other people—I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay,” Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally last month, basically confessing to committing wage theft.

Reacting to Trump’s remarks at the time, the Harris campaign said in a statement to The Daily Beast, “Donald Trump is finally owning up to it: He’s built an entire career on screwing over workers. It’s exactly what he did in the White House — trying to rip away tips and overtime pay for millions of workers — and exactly what he plans to do in a second term.”

 Rolling Stone


Trump thrusts McDonald’s into the political arena in final days of campaign

Steve Contorno, CNN
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Trump thrusts McDonald’s into the political arena in final days of campaign


Donald Trump is pulling one of the most iconic American companies – McDonald’s – into the political arena in the final days of his third White House bid.

The former president stopped by one of the fast-food chain’s Pennsylvania franchises during his Sunday swing through the Keystone State, where he swapped his suit jacket for an apron to work as a fry attendant. He later handed customers food through the drive-thru window, telling them he had made it himself and that it was all on him.

Manning the fry machine is the same job Vice President Kamala Harris has said she held as a young woman, a biographical detail revealed during her first campaign for president. It has since become a centerpiece of the middle-class origin story she has made key to her pitch to voters as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

Trump, whose deep affection for the Golden Arches and its offerings is well documented, has meanwhile grown fixated on Harris’ employment there. In interviews and on the campaign trail, he regularly accuses Harris – without evidence – of making up the factoid. His visit to the restaurant is his latest attempt to sow doubt about the Democrat’s work history.

“I’m looking for a job,” Trump said to the owner of the McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose on Sunday. “And I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s, but I never did. I’m running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story.”

Harris has largely ignored Trump, as well as calls from his supporters and inquiries from conservative news outlets to provide proof of her time there. Her campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment about Trump’s accusation and his upcoming visit to McDonald’s.

A campaign official told CNN that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, during the summer of 1983 when she was still a student at Howard University in Washington. She worked the register and manned the fry and ice cream machines, according to the official.

On Drew Barrymore’s talk show earlier this year, Harris told the actor, “I did fries. And then I did the cashier.” And as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris mentioned her work at the fast-food chain while joining striking McDonald’s workers on the picket line.

Her time there was repeatedly referenced onstage at this summer’s Democratic National Convention as her allies contrasted her upbringing with Trump’s upper-class roots. Former President Bill Clinton joked that Harris would “break my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s.” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett asserted that “one candidate worked at McDonald’s,” while “the other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s?” said Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “He couldn’t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.”

Trump over the years has repeatedly questioned the biographies of his rivals, often without merit. He was one of the loudest voices in the debunked “birther” movement that falsely questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship and eligibility for the White House, eventually leading the Hawaiian-born president to release his long-form birth certificate. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump pushed an unfounded conspiracy theory that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father aided in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This election cycle, Trump wrongly suggested his Republican primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, wasn’t a natural-born US citizen and falsely claimed that Harris has only lately embraced her Black heritage.

Yet, even as he lobbed these accusations, Trump littered his own personal story with exaggerations and fabrications. He coined the phrase “truthful hyperbole” in his best-selling autobiography “The Art of the Deal,” an oxymoronic term that nevertheless illustrates his relationship with facts about himself.

“It’s an innocent form of exaggeration,” he wrote, “and a very effective form of promotion.”

During a 2007 deposition, lawyers caught Trump lying at least 30 times over two days, mostly over mundane facts about his businesses such as the size of his workforce, a payment for speaking fees and the cost of his golf membership. He also once claimed that he stood on the rubble at ground zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that he paid his workers to clear away the debris, neither of which is backed by public record.

And there are multiple accounts of Trump calling reporters under the alias “John Barron,” a supposed executive at his company who once duped a Forbes reporter into inflating Trump’s fortune on the magazine’s list of wealthiest people.

It’s unclear why Trump has latched on to Harris’ McDonald’s employment or why a visit there was warranted during one of his few remaining weekends before Election Day. But in recent interviews, Trump has suggested that a small detail about his rival’s past shouldn’t be dismissed.

“We would say, well, that’s not a big lie. It’s a huge lie,” Trump said, “because McDonald’s was part of her whole thing.”

Trump also visited a McDonald’s early in his presidential campaign, this one in East Palestine, Ohio, after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed there, sparking an environmental and public health crisis. There, he joked to a woman working the register, “I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.”

The former president has long stated his affinity for fast food. During a 2016 CNN town hall, Trump, a self-described “very clean person,” attributed his preference for their offerings to the quality control, saying, “You’re better off going there than someplace you have no idea where the food is coming from.”

“I think the food is good. I think all of those places, Burger King, McDonald’s, I can live with it,” he added. “The other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.”

Trump brought that affection into the White House, where he once served Clemson’s national championship football team a smorgasbord of burgers and pizza. His son-in-law Jared Kushner quipped in his autobiography that he knew Trump had turned the corner in his battle with the coronavirus when he requested his favorite McDonald’s order.

“McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,” Kushner recounted.

In an appearance last week on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. bemoaned that the network in its interview with Harris didn’t ask her which McDonald’s she worked at. He also asserted that his father’s familiarity with the chain’s offerings would surpass the Democratic nominee’s.

“I think my father knows the McDonald’s menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did,” Trump Jr. said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Kate Sullivan and Ebony Davis contributed to this story.

Donald Trump Does Time Working at a McDonald’s to Troll Kamala Harris | Video
Stephanie Kaloi
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Donald Trump stopped by a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania Sunday to work the fryer, give orders at the drive-thru and neg Kamala Harris about her time working at the fast food chain years ago.

Trump appeared to swing by the french fry station first, where he pulled a basket of fries out of oil and positioned it so the fries could be salted.

The Republican presidential nominee also spent time at the drive-thru window, where he greeted customers, passed out their orders and spoke about his campaign to attending media.

“It’s a great franchise, it’s a great company, and they’ve been very, very nice,” Trump said.

“And, you know, if you look at really what’s happening, look right over there, look at how happy everybody is,” he continued. “They’re happy because they want hope. They need hope. And that’s what we’re doing.”

Watch highlights below:

Trump also alluded to his previous assertions that Harris never actually worked at McDonald’s when she was young. “Now I have worked at McDonald’s,” he added. “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala. She never worked here.”

In another clip from the visit, Trump is seen telling reporters, “I could do this all day.” He added, “I wouldn’t mind this job. I like this job, I think I might come back and do it again.”

Trump was then greeted by two customers who appeared happy to see him. “Thank you, Mr. President,” an unidentified man told him. “You made it possible for ordinary people like us to meet you. Thank you so much for everything you are doing. We pray for you.” A woman traveling with the man added, “Thank you for taking a bullet for us.”

Trump also told reporters he will accept the results of the election next month “if it’s a fair election … We’re leading in all the polls now, we’re leading in every swing state.”

After he was asked about raising minimum wage, Trump offered, “Well I think this. These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.”

You can watch a 13-minute video from Trump’s McDonald’s visit in the video below.

The post Donald Trump Does Time Working at a McDonald’s to Troll Kamala Harris | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Barack Obama knocks Donald Trump for phony masculinity, urges men to back Kamala Harris

Stephanie Murray, Raphael Romero Ruiz and Sarah Lapidus, 

USA TODAY NETWORK
Sat, October 19, 2024 

Former President Barack Obama campaigns for Harris/Walz at the Cole and Jeannie Davis Sports Center on Oct. 18, 2024, in Tucson. Standing next to him is U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for the Senate.

TUCSON – Barack Obama cast his White House successor as an out-of-touch elitist who promotes the wrong kind of masculinity, during a Friday stop in battleground Arizona, as he appealed directly to the young men whom Kamala Harris needs to win over to become the first woman elected president next month.

“I have to say, I've noticed this, especially with some men who think Trump's behavior, the bullying and the putting people down, acting all-pretend-tough guy, that somehow that’s a sign of strength,” Obama said. “I am here to tell you that is not what strength is. Never has been.”

Obama stumped for Harris in Tucson on Friday, boosting the Democratic nominee to some 7,000 people in the final stretch of the presidential race.

Obama encouraged Arizonans to cast their ballots early during a 45-minute speech at the Cole and Jeannie Davis Sports Center at the University of Arizona.

Former President Donald Trump has a narrow lead over Harris in swing-state Arizona, which the GOP nominee carried in 2016 but lost in 2020. President Joe Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes four years ago, and GOP gains in voter registration and a polling slump with young men of color could make winning here even more challenging for Harris now.

Obama sharply criticized Trump, painting him as a self-centered con man who doesn’t have concrete plans for the nation, using Trump’s debate stage blunder against him when the Republican nominee said he had “concepts of a plan” for health care.

“I understand why people are looking to shake things up. I get why sometimes folks are frustrated with politics. I am sometimes frustrated with politics, so I get it. What I cannot understand is why anyone would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you,” Obama said.

Young men of color are a significant part of who is driving Trump’s polling advantage in Arizona. Trump is ahead of Harris among Latino men under the age of 50, public polling shows. The vice president still leads with young Black men, but she is underperforming other Democrats among that demographic.

Obama is one of the best messengers to reach that group, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. Just over half of Hispanic voters say Obama’s endorsement matters to them, a survey found earlier this year.

Before they took the stage, Obama said he and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for the Senate, spoke with a “remarkable” group of Latino men. Obama said he encouraged them to “have those conversations” and talk to people who are thinking about voting for Trump. He specifically mentioned the economy and immigration, two issues that polls show are priorities for young men.

“If somebody says ‘Well, I’m thinking about voting for Donald Trump because I remember the economy being pretty good,’” Obama said. “Say, 'Well, what is exactly Donald Trump’s plan for high prices?' Just ask them. If they don’t, you tell them he’s got concepts of a plan and it don’t make sense.”

Obama, who mentioned Trump by name nearly three dozen times, according to a rough transcript, also questioned the 78-year-old’s mental competence. The comments came months after Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign over concerns about his age.

“You would be worried if your grandfather was acting like this,” Obama said.

He pointed to a recent town hall where Trump stopped taking questions from the crowd and turned the event into a makeshift DJ set, standing onstage and listening to tunes such as Sinéad O'Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People.

“Can you imagine if I did that? Can you imagine if Ruben did that?” Obama asked. “Our playlist would probably be better.”

At one point, he asked the crowd if they thought Trump had ever changed a diaper or a tire. He also knocked him for manufacturing Trump-branded Bibles in China.

Obama is one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, but he never carried Arizona as a presidential candidate. Obama lost the 2008 presidential race here to home state Sen. John McCain by 8 percentage points and lost again to Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 by 9 percentage points.
Obama: Trump \'didn\'t solve\' immigration

The 44th president took aim at the Trump campaign's plans for mass deportations and the use of immigrant communities as scapegoats for the problems facing the country.

“It doesn't matter what the issue is, housing, health care, education, paying the bills. He'll blame immigrants,” Obama said. “He wants you to believe that if you let him round up whoever he wants and ship them out, all your problems will be solved.”

Obama said there are “real problems” at the border but acknowledged that America has historically been a nation of immigrants.

“We were built on immigrants looking for a better life,” he said. “We also have to make sure that the system works the way it was supposed to.”

He criticized Trump’s attack on Harris’ time as VP and rebutted by reminding the crowd that Trump was also in the White House for four years.

“Why didn't he actually solve the problem when he was in power? Why was the number of undocumented immigrants basically the same when he left office as when he took office?” Obama said.

During the first full month of the Trump administration, February 2017, the number of migrants apprehended in between ports of entry at the Southwestern border was about 23,000, according to Customs and Border Protection data. The numbers from the administration’s last full month, December 2020, show that CBP arrested about 74,000 migrants.

A number of factors, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to an increase in people coming to the border. In an operational update from CBP in January 2021, the agency acknowledged the growing number of migrants attempting to cross the Southwest border, with an average of 3,000 arrests a day that same month.

Obama blamed Trump’s lack of a plan to tackle the issues faced at the border, poking fun at the “concept of a plan” comment the former president made earlier this year during the presidential debate in reference to the Affordable Care Act.

Obama also blamed Trump for killing the bipartisan border bill that he said would have helped fix the immigration system.

“Donald Trump deliberately lobbied against it and told Republicans don't vote for it because he figured that if you passed it, he would not be able to engage in the same kind of fearmongering that he's been doing,” Obama said.

\'It was my economy,\' Obama says

Obama acknowledged voter frustrations with the price of groceries and gas, saying that prices are too high and “it hurts.”

But he threw cold water on the idea that Trump had a better handle on the economy as president.

“It was good, because it was my economy that I gave him,” said Obama, who took office at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. “I spent the previous eight years cleaning up the mess that Republicans had left me.”

Obama criticized Trump for giving tax cuts to “to people who did not need one,” which he said drove up the national deficit.

He said Trump spent the next four years giving tax cuts to the wealthy and warned that Trump would do the same if elected again.
Abortion on the ballot in Arizona

Obama spoke about abortion, saying while he respects views on both sides of the debate, the decision to have an abortion should be made by the woman who is impacted by the choice.

“If we believe in freedom, then we should at least agree that such a deeply personal decision should be made by the woman whose body is involved,” he said.

He criticized Trump for adding three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. As Obama spoke, boos erupted from the audience.

Arizonans will have a chance to vote on the issue of abortion this fall, Obama noted. Proposition 139, the abortion measure, would preserve the right to abortion in the state constitution. Obama urged the public to vote yes on the ballot measure.

“Let’s be clear about what’s at stake here. If you send Ruben Gallego to the Senate, he will vote to restore the reproductive freedom of women to women,” Obama said, adding that if Congress passes such a bill, Harris would sign it.
Obama pays homage to 2008 White House opponent McCain

Obama differentiated Trump from Republicans like “my friend” John McCain, a beloved figure in Arizona.

McCain was a senator who served Arizona for more than 30 years before he died in 2018. He was well known for his service as a U.S. Navy pilot and his time as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.

Although McCain was conservative and ran for president against Obama in 2008, he believed in “honest arguments” and hearing other people’s views, Obama said, adding that McCain also avoided demonizing his political opponents.

Obama contended that values respected by people like John McCain have been set aside in Trump’s rise in politics.

He recalled when McCain came to his defense during a campaign rally in the 2008 presidential race when a woman in the audience said she didn't trust Obama and falsely said he was "an Arab."

“He said … 'I have a lot of disagreements with Senator Obama, but I served with him. He's a good man. He's an honorable man. He's a patriotic American,'” Obama recalled, noting that McCain was a man of character.

Obama boosts down-ballot Democrats

Obama went out of his way to praise Gallego, the Democrat running for Senate against Trump-endorsed Republican Kari Lake. Gallego introduced Obama onstage and sat beside him for the duration of his speech.

Before Obama came onstage, some of Harris’ most prominent Arizona supporters warmed up the rally crowd.

Supporters chanted “Gabby, Gabby, Gabby” when hometown former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Sen. Mark Kelly, whom Harris considered for her running mate, appeared.

Giffords reflected on the 2011 assassination attempt that nearly took her life and praised Biden for checking on her as she recovered. Then, she turned to the Democratic nominee.

“My friend Kamala will be a great president,” Giffords said.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero also spoke about the 2011 shooting and Obama’s memorial speech at the University of Arizona in the wake of the tragedy. Six people died and 13 people were injured.

“He offered comfort as we tried to heal from a mass shooting in our midst,” Romero said. “He understands what it means to be a leader.”

Others addressed Arizona’s status as one of a handful of states that could decide the 2024 election. Arizona has 11 votes in the Electoral College.

Arizona Democratic Party Chair Yolanda Bejarano said, “All eyes are on Arizona this election.”

“We are a battleground district in a battleground state. Votes from southern Arizona will be the key to holding the presidency, keeping the Senate and flipping the U.S. House. So no pressure, folks,” said Kirsten Engel, the Democrat challenging incumbent GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani in southern Arizona’s 6th Congressional District.

To narrow the gap between herself and Trump, Harris has come to Arizona twice in the past month and is sending plenty of high-profile surrogates to court voters here.

Former President Bill Clinton, who turned Arizona blue for the first time in more than a generation when he won in 1996, will be in the state on Wednesday.

On the other side of the aisle, Trump was in Arizona on Sunday for a rally. The former Republican president has also dispatched surrogates such as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., to the state in recent weeks.

Seeing Obama on the stump was a draw for many attendees in Tucson on Friday. Supporters lined up hours before the event began. Several people in the crowd sought medical attention once they got inside.

William Coleman, 29, attended the event with Large Alexander, 18, and Denise Williams, 19, who only recently became interested in politics and wanted to see Obama in person.

Coleman wanted to see firsthand how many Harris supporters are in their community.

“Social media, Twitter makes me nervous. Going on there right now, and it's just so far-right. It's kind of scary, (they will) put up polls on Twitter of Kamala versus Trump and (how) quickly Trump will go up (in the poll). So I'm like, is that really how people really feel?” Coleman said.

Alexander recently turned 18 and will be a first-time voter this election cycle. They described feeling nervous to go and cast their vote but would be going in order to support the abortion ballot measure.

What polls, odds and historians say: Who is winning the 2024 presidential election?

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Barack Obama campaigns for Kamala Harris in Tucson: What to know

“You would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this": Obama pokes at Trump's "word salad"

Griffin Eckstein
Fri, October 18, 2024 a

Barack Obama Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Former President Barack Obama had a lot to say about his successor Donald Trump’s age during a Friday campaign stop for Kamala Harris in Arizona.

The Democratic ex-president lobbed an attack at the 78-year-old's physical and mental fitness for office.

“Along with his intentions, there is also a question of his competence,” Obama pointed out. “He’s giving two, two-and-a-half-hour speeches. Just word salads. You have no idea what he’s talking about. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter.” 

Concerns over the Trump’s physical and mental health have piled up over the last week. The Republican candidate cancelled several appearances and report claimed  his campaign admitted Trump was too “exhausted” to maintain a rigorous campaign schedule.

Obama pointed to Trump's apparent exhaustion and on-stage confusion during his speech in Arizona.

“You would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this!” Obama told the crowd.

The former president also tossed a barb at a Trump town hall on Monday, during which the candidate paused questions to bop along to his playlist for nearly 40 minutes.

“He just decided, you know what, I’m gonna stop taking questions and then he’s swaying to "Ave Maria" and "YMCA" for about half an hour,” Obama said. “Folks are standing there not sure what’s happening. Can you imagine if I did that?”

Obama's remarks are part of an all-out assault on Trump's health from the Harris campaign. The vice president openly wondered if Trump was up for four more years during a campaign stop on Friday.

“If you're exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world,” she said.

This possible Trump adviser says electric cars, walkable cities and even talking about climate change are harmful

Scott Waldman
Sat, October 19, 2024


Carla Sands is no stranger to far-fetched ideas.

In 2019, while serving as an ambassador under then-President Donald Trump, she played a role in his quixotic effort to buy Greenland from Denmark. More recently, Sands has said without evidence that children are committing suicide to save the planet from global warming and that the Biden administration's climate policies suggest the influence of Chinese corruption.

Now, with Election Day fast approaching, Sands is in position to sway an effort that isn't far-fetched at all — shaping the people and policies that would guide a second Trump administration.


Since 2022, Sands has worked as a top energy official at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that got a huge boost in August when Trump picked Linda McMahon — the group's board chair — to serve as co-chair of his presidential transition team.

That's where Sands, who serves as vice chair of the group's Center for Energy and Environment, has found a platform for her conspiratorial views on climate change.

Trump's choice of McMahon elevated the America First Policy Institute as a nexus of influence — especially since Trump has distanced himself from the Heritage Foundation, another conservative think tank. The two groups have similar goals, but the Heritage Foundation gave Democrats ammunition to attack Trump — thereby earning his ire — by publishing Project 2025, a detailed playbook of how a second Trump administration might work.

The institute, founded in 2021, boasts a number of former Trump officials including former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry. It's expected to have an outsize influence on both personnel and policy if Trump recaptures the White House.

Sands' ideas about climate and energy policy could make their way into a second Trump administration, no matter how outlandish they may seem.

“Kids are killing themselves to save the planet,” she said last year at an America First Policy Institute event in Texas. “Children are committing suicide because they don't want to put out CO2. That's how much they've brainwashed and hurt our children.”

At the same event, Sands took aim at an urban planning concept known as 15-minute cities. The general idea is to make cities more pedestrian-friendly, but the proposal has become a lightning rod for the far-right, who see it as a tool for government control.

“They're geo-fencing people to 15 minutes from their home, and you have to get special permission to leave,” she said. “This is happening right now ... because we know climate isn't about climate at all. It's Marxism to control humanity — and I mean the working people, the great masses of the people."

Not all of Sands' views are so far outside the mainstream.

In her work with the America First Policy Institute, Sands has taken a more reserved approach in blog posts or newspaper op-eds that hew more closely to broader Republican beliefs.

She wants to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. She said the administration's climate policies will benefit China more than the United States. She rails against regulations on the oil and gas industry as well as the Paris climate agreement. And she falsely claims electric vehicles are more harmful to the environment when compared to gasoline-powered vehicles over a 15-year span.

Stephen Moore, a Trump economic adviser and senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute, touted Sands as someone who understands energy policy.

“I know she's very much in favor of an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and that includes oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, all of the major sources of energy that make our economy work,” Moore said. “I think Carla completely understands that and is committed to that.”

But one expert who studies climate disinformation said there's a real danger in elevating officials such as Sands to positions of influence because it opens the door for their fringe ideas to become mainstream.

"They become amplified," said Arunima Krishna, a Boston University communications professor. “It is detrimental to our political system, to our democracy and the planet.”
From chiropractor to ambassador

Sands' pathway into politics hasn't followed the usual script.

Sands’ late husband, Fred Sands, died after suffering a stroke in 2015. He made his fortune with a real estate brokerage and investment firm, and the same year he passed away, he called Trump “a joke.”

But after his death, Carla Sands hosted a major fundraiser for Trump at the couple’s Bel Air mansion. Ultimately, she gave more than $200,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees during the 2016 cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a campaign spending tracker.

Sands' effort in the 2016 election helped land her a position overseas — as Trump's ambassador to Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Her work history prior to that post included a career as a chiropractor, as well as a few small acting roles.

It was during her time as ambassador that Sands repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using her government Twitter account to attack Democrats — including one message that questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris was eligible to run because she is the child of immigrants. She was hailed by far-right commentator and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon as a “MAGA Steel Magnolia.”

Sands' time as ambassador ended after Trump lost the 2020 election, but she has remained active in politics.

She ran in 2022 as a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, finishing a distant fourth in the GOP primary. During that campaign, she billed herself as the "energy senator," despite having little to no experience in the industry.

"I want to be Pennsylvania's energy senator," Sands told a local television station. "We need a champion for American and Pennsylvania energy independence and not just independence, but let's get back to American energy dominance."

She also has continued her role of big-time donor — raising more than $85,000 to advance Trump or GOP efforts this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets. And she's embraced the role of attack dog.

On the right-wing Real America’s Voice streaming network, Sands said in 2023 that Biden’s climate policy suggested that China was bribing government officials to “control our legislation.”

“There's a lot of corruption in the U.S. government because of the bribery and then also this sort of sweet payments from the Chinese Communist party to help control our legislation and our, I would say, leaders in our country,” she said.

Eden Alem, a spokesperson for the Democratic-aligned group Climate Power, said Sands' comments are in line with those of Republicans who deny the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, even as it has created clean energy jobs throughout the country. She compared AFPI's work to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 effort to tear down climate policy and energy regulation to benefit the fossil fuel industry.

"Carla Sands spouting climate conspiracy theories shouldn’t come as a surprise," she said.

"America First Policy Institute and Project 2025 are cut from the same cloth," she added. "They are Trump’s Big-Oil-backed projects that will kill our climate and clean energy progress so their Big Oil funders can continue to make record profits and pollute our communities.”

The Trump campaign did not response to a request for comment.

Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement that “Donald Trump will sell out the middle class and our children’s future to appease the Project 2025 conspiracy theorists and enrich the billionaire oil barons who will dictate his extremist agenda.”

In recent weeks — as AFPI has become more closely entrenched with the Trump campaign — Sands has been encouraging Republican voters to cast their ballots early.

She opened for Trump with that message at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, last month, telling the crowd that the "reason our air is cleaner was because of clean Pennsylvania natural gas."

‘I’m With Elon’: Gavin Newsom Sides With Musk’s SpaceX in California Lawsuit

Sean Burch
Fri, October 18, 2024 


California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’s siding with Elon Musk and SpaceX after the rocket company sued a state commission this week, claiming its political bias against Musk blocked SpaceX from launching more rockets.

“I’m with Elon,” Newsom said on Thursday night, according to Politico. “I didn’t like that.”

Newsom made the comment while he was campaigning for fellow Democrat Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, SpaceX’s lawsuit claimed the California Coastal Commission “engaged in naked political discrimination” during a recent debate on whether to allow SpaceX to increase rocket launches from 36 to 50 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The lawsuit, as obtained by TheWrap, said commissioners overstepped their limits by considering Musk’s political leanings — violating his First Amendment right to free speech in the process.

“The concern is with SpaceX increasing its launches, not with the other companies increasing their launches,” commissioner Caryl Hart said, according to the lawsuit. “We’re dealing with a company … the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the president race and made it clear what his point of view is.”

Others on the committee agreed with Hart’s sentiment, SpaceX’s lawsuit noted. The lawsuit quoted commissioner Gretchen Newsom, saying Musk hops around the U.S. “spewing and tweeting political falsehoods.”

Gov. Newsom on Thursday said he wasn’t a fan of Musk’s politics being mentioned when considering rocket launches.

“Look, I’m not helping the legal case,” Newsom said. “You can’t bring up that explicit level of politics.”

Newsom — who appointed some of the commission’s members — “broadly agreed” with SpaceX’s lawsuit, according to Politico.

“These are friends of mine that said that,” Newsom said. “These are good commissioners. But you got to call balls and strikes. And trust me, I’m not big on the Elon Musk bandwagon right now. So that’s me calling balls and strikes.”

Musk, for his part, has made it clear he isn’t on the Newsom Bandwagon. The Tesla head honcho, in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show last week, reiterated that he isn’t a fan of Newsom’s progressive views, calling the governor the “goddamn Joker.”

Earlier this year, Musk said he was moving X and SpaceX’s headquarters from California to Texas. Musk said the “final straw” was when Gov. Newsom signed a bill barring teachers from notifying parents that their kids identified as transgender.

At the same time, Musk has been perhaps Donald Trump’s biggest supporter in recent months. He publicly endorsed the former president after the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, Musk’s posted on X — the app he owns — in favor of Trump, hosted a live conversation with him on X Spaces in August and joined the candidate on stage when he returned to Butler earlier this month.

Beyond that, Musk has also put a lot of money into helping Trump get back into the White House. On Tuesday, Musk reported $75 million in contributions to America PAC, his pro-Trump political action committee. America PAC’s website, which includes a picture of Musk in his “dark MAGA” hat, lists a handful of top priorities, including free speech, safe cities and secure borders.

SpaceX’s lawsuit, on top of saying the commission has violated Musk’s free speech rights, said the commission had interfered with national security operations.

“Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,” the lawsuit said.

The post ‘I’m With Elon’: Gavin Newsom Sides With Musk’s SpaceX in California Lawsuit appeared first on TheWrap.

Once thought a haven from Israeli strikes, a Christian town in Lebanon is now a scene of carnage

LEBANON HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF

Matt Bradley and Ziad Jaber and Alexander Smith
Sat, October 19, 2024 

AITOU, Lebanon — The scene of carnage in northern Lebanon showed heartbreaking snippets of everyday family life.

A dead baby inside a destroyed pickup truck; a child’s severed arm buried in nearby rubble; toddler clothing and books shredded; flies swarming as officials collected body parts, some too small for body bags ending up in clear ziplock bags.

Pervading everything, the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh mixed with concrete dust at the scene where 23 people including two children were killed, according to local officials.

This was the aftermath of an airstrike Monday on the Lebanese Christian village of Aitou that Israel said had targeted a position held by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

Until then, this region of hilly olive groves and winding, sea-view roads had been a relative haven, one that felt far away from the war dominating Beirut and the country’s south.

Just last week, the area “was calm; everything was quiet,” Illy Edwan told NBC News as he surveyed the wreckage of his villa, which was reduced to rubble in the blast, its insulation and inner structure ripped to pieces, an adjacent vehicle twisted open like a burnt pretzel.

“My house used to be three-story, but look at it today,” he added.

Illy Edwan, whose villa in Aitou, Lebanon, was destroyed in the blast.

Surrounding homes had glass and twisted metal strewn across their patios. Some nearby olive trees, laden with fruit ahead of the upcoming harvest, were also destroyed, their green leaves covered in gray soot from the explosion.

Hezbollah doesn’t usually have a presence here. But Edwan, who was not at home at the time of the bombing, said an official from the group had been visiting houses donating money to displaced people, some of whom had fled from southern Lebanon to escape the Israeli invasion, and asking about their concerns.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had struck “a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in northern Lebanon,” and that the reports of civilian casualties were “under review” and “being examined.”

Calling for “a prompt, independent and thorough investigation,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said Tuesday that his organization had “real concerns” about the strike with respect to the “laws of war and principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality.”

Since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas launched its terror attacks on Israel, in which officials say 1,200 people were killed and around 240 were taken hostage, Hezbollah has been firing rockets and other projectiles into northern Israel, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group. Israel’s offensive in Gaza since then has killed more than 42,000 people, according to health officials in the enclave.

Pages from a children’s book are strewn across the wreckage following an Israeli strike in Aitou, northern Lebanon, on Tuesday.

And for months, as the pair traded tit-for-tat attacks, more than 60,000 people were displaced from their homes in northern Israel, according to government tallies — and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers cited this as the reason for launching a military campaign into southern Lebanon last month.

More than 2,300 people, including 127 children, have been killed in Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack and an estimated 1.2 million have been displaced, according to Lebanese officials. A large number of these left their homes after Israel began its widespread bombing on Sept. 17, when pagers belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded across the country.

Since then, the Lebanese have suffered “the worst humanitarian crisis in decades,” the U.N.’s humanitarian office said in a statement Tuesday.

Lebanese people are “fleeing with almost nothing,” said Rema Jamous Imseis, Middle East director of the U.N.’s refugee office, adding that they were “being forced out into the open, they’re sleeping under the skies as they try to find their way towards safety and support.”

Some are choosing an unlikely route.

The port of Tripoli, 10 miles from Aitou, isn’t known for its beauty, much less its accommodations for civilian passengers. The grimy industrial hub is soundtracked by the banging of heavy machinery and creaking 40-foot containers being unloaded from ships docked here.

Still, hundreds of people are now turning to the city as one of the only ways to escape their homeland. Since Sept. 20, this previously passengerless terminal has launched seven ships to the southern Turkish port of Mersin, each vessel carrying up to 300 passengers paying $350 a head.

“People are scared, so they leave the airports and come to us, to the ships here,” said Mohamed Youssef, 57, the owner of a ship. “Everyone is exhausted, and the situation is very complicated,” he added. “So whoever can afford it travels. They travel however they can. If they can’t, they will remain in Lebanon.”

Emergency responders move a body bag following an Israeli strike in Aitou, Lebanon, on Tuesday.

It is a diverse exodus, evidenced by dusty vehicles from the 1990s alongside shiny Range Rovers and Porsches. While some wore smiles while completing their bureaucratic stamp work, for others the reality of their impending journey began to set in.

Nermin Khair, 28, said she had no plans to return with her daughter, Sandy, 3, and is temporarily leaving behind her husband, who said he will try to join her in a month’s time.

“It is my country but it makes us tired,” she said. “We left everything: We left our dreams, we left our stuff, we left everything here — my sisters, my brothers, everyone here.”

Her husband, Bashar Hanouf, 33, held his daughter’s hand as she and her mother walked the gangplank up to the waiting vessel. It’s up to him to figure out how, and when, he’ll get to see them again.

“I hate Lebanon. Every year we have a new situation,” he said. The family, he added, “is looking for a better life for my wife, my daughter. We have to.”

Matt Bradley and Ziad Jaber reported from Aitou and Alexander Smith from London.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Some Lebanese Americans endorse Harris, expect more Lebanon support

Andrea Shalal
Updated Fri, October 18, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris departs from Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids


By Andrea Shalal

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (Reuters) -Some prominent Lebanese Americans on Friday endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president, saying in a letter that the U.S. had been "unrelenting" in its support for Lebanon under the Biden administration and they expect additional backing if Harris wins in November.

The endorsement came amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with more than 1.2 million people displaced. Militant group Hezbollah has also fired on Israel and about 50 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed.

Signatories include former members of Congress Donna Shalala and Toby Moffett, former President Barack Obama's onetime transportation secretary Ray LaHood, academics, CEOs and investors.

A number of Arab Americans and Muslims are abandoning the Democratic Party over the Biden administration's support for Israel in its war with Hamas.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have died in Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, health officials in the enclave say. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others.

Some Arab Americans and Muslims have declined to endorse Harris, while others are backing her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, or third-party candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party.

The letter was organized by Ed Gabriel, president of the American Task Force on Lebanon, a Washington policy group, in his personal capacity. Gabriel is one of several Arab American and Muslim leaders who met with Harris when she visited Flint, Michigan, on Oct. 4.

The signers wrote they had been reassured that their concerns about the violence in Lebanon and the need for economic and political reforms would be supported if Harris wins the Nov. 5 election. Her views stood in "stark" contrast to Trump, they wrote, without elaboration.

Trump's campaign had no immediate comment, but a source close to the campaign said it planned more outreach events in Michigan next week. Trump also stopped by a campaign headquarters in Hamtramck, a suburb of Detroit, on Friday.

Trump has called Israel's attacks on Lebanon "unacceptable," but has not laid out any strategy. His affiliates are trying to win Arab American votes, with the help of Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos, whose son is married to Trump's daughter Tiffany.

"The Lebanese people have suffered terribly from the loss of innocent lives and massive displacement of families and one of the worst economic disasters in the world caused by wide-spread corruption. They cannot afford another long drawn out war that further destroys Lebanon," the letter said, as it called for a ceasefire.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Rod Nickel and Leslie Adler)

LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Catholic priest and Indigenous activist Pérez killed by 2 gunmen in southern Mexico

Associated Press
Sun, October 20, 2024 a




Mexico Violence
People gather around an altar where Catholic priest Marcelo Perez died in an armed attack after attending mass at a church in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Isabel Mateos)

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Catholic priest Marcelo Pérez, an activist for Indigenous peoples and farm laborers in southern Mexico, was killed on Sunday.

The prosecutors' office in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas, said the religious leader was shot dead by two gunmen when he was in his van.

Pérez was a member of the Tzotzil Indigenous people and had just finished serving a Mass when he was attacked. He served the community for two decades and was known as a negotiator in conflicts in a mountainous region of Chiapas where crime, violence and land disputes are rife.

Pérez also led several marches against violence, which has brought him several death threats.

Chipas Gov. Rutilio Escandón posted on X that he condemned "the cowardly assassination of father Marcelo Pérez.

“We will collaborate with all the authorities so his death doesn't go unpunished and those guilty face the courts,” Escandón said.
___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Even Ukraine’s fiercest soldiers want the war to stop

Roland Oliphant
Sun, October 20, 2024 

A proud and defiant Lt Mykytenko in national costume

 - ANASTASIA OLIJNYK/SPILNA MOVA

Any Western politician suffering from Ukraine fatigue could learn a lot from Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko.

“I know that I am tired. I’m really tired. I know that my people are also tired. A lot of them I took from assault units, so they are, like, extremely tired,” the 29-year-old philology graduate says.

“And we are also sort of ready for negotiations, but we are just asking that the West insists on our interests.”


Lt Mykytenko is composed, gently spoken and quietly humorous. But she’s clearly mentally elsewhere. As we speak in London, where a new book is due out this week describing her decade-long war, she is constantly checking her phone. Giving orders, doing admin, simply staying in touch with her men.

The commander of a 25-man strong drone reconnaissance platoon in Ukraine’s 54th mechanised brigade, she has spent the past two-and-a-half years on the Donbas front.


Lt Mykytenko, the drone commander

Her days are spent directing reconnaissance, thwarting enemy assaults and trying to win a deadly technological arms race with Russian drone commanders on the other side of no-man’s land.

This is her first break in nearly a year. And her rare stint of leave coincides with a new drive to end the war.

Sir Keir Starmer met US president Joe Biden, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron to discuss the West’s response to the war in a meeting in Germany on Friday.

Their summit comes after Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, lobbied them to support a five-point “victory plan” that he argues could bring peace next year.

The first three points – Nato membership; strengthening the Ukrainian military and continuing its operations inside Russia; and deployment of a non-nuclear deterrence package – are basically about persuading Russia to stop the invasion and deterring it from doing it again.

Point four is about rebuilding the Ukrainian economy, and includes a sales pitch around access to Ukraine’s natural resources. Point five appeals to Nato, and particularly American, self-interest: Ukraine’s large, battle-hardened army would contribute to European security and possibly take over some of America’s current European security commitments within Nato.

There are three secret annexes that have not been made public. But from what we know, the plan is obviously meant to address perceived Western, and especially American, fatigue with the war by signposting a way out of it.

But it depends on massive commitments from the West. And the West does not seem impressed.

President Biden has already vetoed a request for long-range strike capabilities that is central to Mr Zelensky’s defence concept. There has been no serious progress on Nato membership, despite support from Britain and Poland.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has made no sign that she will deviate from Joe Biden’s policy of providing enough kit to keep Ukraine in the fight, but not enough to antagonise Russia into “escalating” the conflict.

Republican rival Donald Trump has made no secret of his wish to end the war quickly, and most suspect that means quickly cutting a deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin that suspends US aid to the Ukrainians.

Mr Zelensky met all three of them on a recent trip to the United States, and none have embraced his plan wholeheartedly.

So where does that leave the war – and the men and women fighting it?

General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain and a former commander-in-chief of its armed forces, this week hinted that Ukraine could accept a peace deal that saw it give up some of its land to Russia.

Asked in London on Thursday if he could imagine a victory without getting all the lost territory back, he said: “I didn’t mention territories. I mentioned safety, security, and the feeling of being in one’s own home.

Western leaders Sir Keir Starmer, President Biden, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron - AFP

“For me personally, as Valery Zaluzhny, if I lived in my house and was aware my neighbour took a part of my garden, I’d say we need to resolve this. If not now, then your sons would have to resolve the issue.”

That is a subtle, but profound shift in official rhetoric which previously insisted on no peace until all of Ukraine was reclaimed.

Asked if her expectations have changed, Lt Mykytenko remarks that early chances to win and end the war were squandered.

“I knew that the war wouldn’t end in a few weeks, and we wouldn’t be in Crimea in a few months, as our government used to say. I completely understood that. But I was hoping for much more help from the Western world,” she said.

“I was hoping to get F16s at the end of 2022. I was hoping to get Patriots and Abrams at the end of 2022, when we really needed them, when we had a really motivated army, when we had a lot of warriors who were ready to fight.”

If only, she muses, the West had sent enough help on time, or if the massive 2023 offensive had been put into Kursk, instead of the heavily fortified Russian lines in occupied Zaporizhzhya.

“Now we are being given a small amount of those weapons, and we are expected to use them the same as in 2022 but unfortunately, we won’t, because a lot of warriors are dead, missing and injured.”

“Our motivation, let’s be honest, is much lower than it was even one year ago. So yeah, we had a great chance to end it up to 2023, if we had got everything that we asked for, and now it’s almost impossible. We won’t recover the strengths which we had in 2022 for at least 10 years.”

In short, the victory which once seemed so close has slipped below the horizon.

And Ukraine has already been at war for a decade.

Pictured with a captured Russian tank

Lt Mykytenko is a veteran of the eight-year Donbas war that preceded the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Her husband, a fellow soldier, was killed at the front in 2017. Her father, who also fought against the first Russian invasion, later killed himself in protest at the perceived betrayal of his son-in-law and other comrades’ sacrifice by Mr Zelensky’s early attempts to find a compromise with Russia to end the conflict.

A recent report by Chatham House identified three possible outcomes in the absence of a Ukrainian victory – a long, additional war that tests each side to its limit; a frozen conflict that allows either side to rebuild its forces; or all-out Ukrainian defeat with Russian dictating terms of surrender including a change of government, demilitarisation, and neutrality.

In some allied capitals, it is thought that the first option might play to Ukraine’s advantage.

“We are thinking about how we can support [Zelensky] in getting what he needs to hold Pokovsk and the land that’s there in Kursk,” said one Western official

“We are expecting Ukraine to be able to hold where it is over the next period. But what we see, as we look much further ahead, is strains starting to grow on Russia in 2025 and into 2026,” the official added.

But can Ukraine last that long on the current trajectory?

Lt Mykytenko’s part of the front has barely moved in two years, largely, she says, because the brigade has carefully invested in defences and mastered rapid coordination between infantry, drones and artillery to defeat Russian attacks. “And they have tried,” she said.

And while she and her men are tired, it is pretty obvious the Russians are too, she adds. Western sources say Russia was running a daily casualty rate of 1,271 in September.

But elsewhere, Russia has the initiative. Western officials reported “fairly consistent, slow, tactical losses by Ukraine” across the frontline including in the part of Kursk region that Mr Zelensky wants to use as leverage for his victory plan.

The number of attacks by one-way “kamikaze” drones has doubled monthly from 350 in July to about 750 in August to 1,500 in September.
‘I do not care what flag I live under’

Meanwhile, Russia is gathering allies. Mr Zelensky and Ukrainian intelligence officials now say they have intelligence about 12,000 North Korean troops about to enter the fight on the Russian side (Western officials said they could not confirm those reports).

Russia is already receiving drones and, the United States and Britain claim, ballistic missiles, from Iran. And The United States on Friday announced sanctions against Chinese firms who have reportedly begun supplying complete drones, rather than just parts, to Russia – a sign that Beijing, too, is increasing its support for Moscow.

“Can Ukraine alone prevail against this alliance? Maybe not,” Gen Zaluzhny said this week.

Some commentators, reaching for 20th-century analogies, argue a frozen conflict could be the least imperfect solution: the Cold War division of Germany; the ceasefire line in Cyprus; the 70-year ceasefire along the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, all more or less held.

The implication is clear. Some in the occupied territories already see little chance of anything else.

“I feel neutral about the situation with Russia. I would accept being part of Russia if it meant the fighting would end. I don’t care what flag I live under – my home is my home either way,” one 20-year-old resident of Mariupol told the Telegraph by text message when asked about the idea.

But all these ideas require Russia, too, to seek a settlement.

One Western official asked if there was any sign Putin is interested in talking peace, said: “None whatsoever.”

Instead, he is thought to be waiting for the outcome of the US presidential election in the hope that Western support begins to fade.

“We do see evidence of people around him being concerned at the cost of the war, and I imagine that Putin is aware of that. But at this point our quite strong assessment is that his war aims in Ukraine are unchanged,” the official said.

For Lt Mykytenko, used to looking at the war via drone screen in a frontline dugout, that is a statement of the painfully obvious.

“If the agreement is just to give Ukrainian territory to Russia with no consequences for Russia, then Russia will mobilise all the people who are on occupied territories and try to attack Ukraine again,” she said.

“It’s going to be like a pause to prepare for a new war, and Russia will do it more quickly than we do.”

If the West does not also use the time to re-arm, the next war will be lost, she warned.

A repeat of the Minsk agreements that congealed, but never entirely froze, the Donbas war for eight years is not an option, she said.

Nonetheless, if safeguards were in place to prevent that, she would consider negotiations.

I ask her what her father, so appalled at Mr Zelensky’s early attempts to compromise with Russia before the full-scale invasion, would make of such talk.

She pauses, then remarks that “he probably wouldn’t be alive to see it anyway. He was a risk taker on the frontline. He would probably be dead. Killed fighting.”

“Maybe,” she says with a soft laugh, “he’s the lucky one. I don’t know.”

How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying: Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko’s Fight for Ukraine, by Lara Marlowe, is published by the Head of Zeus imprint of Bloomsbury