The far-right megadonor pouring over $10m into the US election to defeat ‘the woke regime’

Jason Wilson
Tue, October 22, 2024 

THE GUARDIAN

Thomas Klingenstein has become one of the largest donors to the Republican party and has increasingly used his resources to pursue a hard-edged version of rightwing politics.Illustration: Tom Klingenstein YouTube/Guardian Design


Thomas Klingenstein, chair of the rightwing Claremont Institute, has cemented his place in the pantheon of Republican megadonors with a more than $10m spending spree so far in the 2024 election cycle, according to campaign contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Klingenstein has been one of Claremont’s largest donors for decades. As the institute has made its hard-right, pro-Trump drift in recent years, Klingenstein has continued to publicly describe US politics with extremist rhetoric, calling it a “cold civil war”, and has encouraged rightwingers to join the fight to defeat what he calls “the woke regime”.

His spending puts him at the forefront of a class of donors who are explicitly supporting more extreme and polarizing politics in Trump’s Republican party.


The largesse has already dwarfed his contributions in previous election seasons. The money has gone exclusively to Republicans, and has included seven-figure donations to at least four pro-Trump Pacs in recent months.

The Guardian emailed Klingenstein for comment on this reporting but received no reply.
Increased largesse

Federal Election Commission (FEC) data is a lagging indicator: currently available data only reflects contributions made before early July, so it is possible that Klingenstein’s spend has increased since the last available filings.

Nevertheless, Klingenstein’s almost $10.7m in contributions during this cycle is already more than his combined giving in the previous five cycles stretching back to 2013-2014.

The amount fits with a pattern of increasing giving to political causes in recent years.

Until 2017, Klingenstein was an intermittent and moderate donor: in the 2014 cycle Klingenstein made just 11 donations totaling $32,500, and in 2016 he scaled that back, contributing just $7,700 including $2,000 to Trump’s first campaign, according to records of his giving in previous cycles.

In the 2018 cycle there was a sudden uptick to almost $350,000 in contributions. The next two cycles saw six-figure spends: $4.23m in 2019-2020, and just over $4m in 2021-2022. It remains to be seen how much Klingenstein will add to his unprecedented spend this cycle.

Klingenstein’s contribution has also grown relative to other political donors.

The transparency organization Open Secrets maintains a ranked list of the top 100 political donors in each cycle.

Klingenstein first landed on the list at number 85 in 2020, according to Open Secrets. In 2022 he nudged up to 78. This year he is the 35th largest individual political donor in the country according to the rankings.

His contributions this year put him in a similar league as Republican donors such as the Walmart heiress Alice Walton – currently the world’s richest woman – who is the 32nd largest donor per Open Secrets, and Democratic donors such as James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn, the 28th largest political donors in the US.
Funding Super Pacs

Klingenstein has donated to individual congressional campaigns, but the recipients of his largest donations in this and other recent cycles have been Pacs, including several favored by the biggest Republican donors.

One favorite is Club for Growth Action (CFG Action), a Pac which is ostensibly committed to “small government”, and whose biggest funders are the billionaire megadonors including Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein and Virginia James.

Klingenstein has contributed almost $9m to CFG Action over several cycles, including $3m in 2020, $1.45m in 2022, and $4.45m this cycle. That figure included a single donation of $2.5m last December.

Other recipients of six-figure Klingenstein donations include the Sentinel Action Fund, a Pac launched in 2022 by Jessica Anderson, until then executive director of Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, which is the force behind Project 2025.

Related: Crypto Super Pac spends $10m on Katie Porter attack ads in California race

This cycle, Sentinel has positioned itself as the sole conservative pro-cryptocurrency Pac, and has spent in support of Republicans in crucial Senate races in states including Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to FEC records and Facebook and Google advertising libraries.

Sentinel president Anderson also served in the Trump administration. Klingenstein gave Sentinel $1m in May.

Klingenstein has also been a rainmaker for prominent Maga-verse organizations this cycle, giving $1m to pro-Trump Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc in July, and $495,000 to Charlie Kirk-linked Turning Point Pac in February.

Not all of Klingenstein’s bets pay off. Last September, he handed $1m to American Exceptionalism Pac, a Super Pac supportive of failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Rightwing ties

The Guardian has previously reported on Klingenstein’s role as a financier and influencer in far-right circles.

Last March, it was revealed that he had funded Action Idaho, a far-right political website set up by Boise State political science professor and the Claremont Institute fellow Scott Yenor.

In documents pitching the idea of the site during late 2021, Yenor wrote that the site’s goal was to “translate anti-critical-race-theory (anti-CRT) movement and anti-lockdown movements into a durable political movement to radicalize political opinion in Idaho and shape the primaries to the advantage of conservatives”.

Yenor used the now defunct website and an associated account on Twitter/X to make rightwing attacks on Idaho politicians and activists, including Republicans.

Last August, the Guardian reported on Klingenstein’s growing largesse including his donations to his own Pac, American Firebrand, whose funds were spent in part on producing a series of videos that showcased Klingenstein’s apocalyptic vision of US politics.

Those videos portrayed liberals and the left as implacable internal enemies, and as “woke communists”.

In one, Klingenstein said: “We find ourselves in a cold civil war,” and defined the warring sides as “those who want to preserve the American way of life, and those who want to destroy is”, and adding: “These differences are too large to bridge. This is what makes it a war. In a war you must play to win.”

Klingenstein’s recent rhetoric has continued in much the same vein.

On X, he has portrayed disparate political developments as elements of “cold civil war” such as Trump’s New York felony convictions, the Colorado supreme court’s judgement that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot due to the 14th amendment’s prohibition on elected officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”, and former Republicans’ public support of that reading of the amendment.

Related: Racism, misogyny, lies: how did X become so full of hatred? And is it ethical to keep using it?

He has also opened up his personal website to a rotating cast of rightwing writers, whose articles have claimed that the US is subject to “woke totalitarianism”, advocated for a total freeze on immigration, and claimed that Kamala Harris’s nomination is an outcome of “group quota regime – the paradigm of racial outcome-engineering”.

He has also been the leading financial supporter of the rightwing Claremont Institute, where he also serves as chair.

Available tax filings for his foundation, the Thomas D Klingenstein fund, indicate that he has directed at least $22m to Claremont since 2004.

That giving has stepped up significantly in the Trump era: in returns from 2004 to 2014, Klingenstein gifted an average of about $307,000 to Claremont, and even skipped a year in 2013. In returns from 2015 on he has given an average of $2.3m, and in 2021 his donation to Claremont was just shy of $3m.

His heightened giving has coincided with Claremont’s embrace of Trumpism, which writers including Laura Field have argued has transformed it from a respected conservative thinktank into a propaganda juggernaut that envisions a radical remaking of the US along far-right lines.

The Guardian has reported extensively on the Claremont Institute’s ties to radical far-right politics.

Claremont’s president is one of the senior figures there who are members of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the US government with an authoritarian “aligned regime”. Claremont has also provided direct funding for SACR. In turn, one of SACR’s leading lights, shampoo tycoon and would be “warlord” Charles Haywood, has made five-figure donations to Claremont.

UAW members support Harris over Trump by 22 points in swing states – poll

Michael Sainato

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, October 23, 2024 



United Auto Workers (UAW) members in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada support the presidential candidate Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 22 points, according to a poll conducted by the union.

UAW members in Michigan – the center of the US auto industry – support Harris over Trump by 20 percentage points, with 54% supporting Harris over 34% supporting Trump, the poll found. The union claimed in 2020 that UAW members accounted for 84% of Joe Biden’s margin of victory in Michigan.

The poll also found that support among non-college-educated men – a key demographic where Harris has been lagging – gave Harris a 14-point margin over Trump.

Both Trump and Harris have courted the UAW’s members. The UAW president, Shawn Fain, has backed Harris and become a target of Trump’s ire. Biden supported the UAW in its strike against the US’s big three auto companies last year, becoming the first president to walk a picket line.

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The union is also running door-knocking operations in battleground states to turn out the vote for Harris. According to the union, the poll has engaged with 293,000 active and retired union members and their families in election battleground states.

The union also noted union members who reported being contacted by the UAW about the election had increased their support for Harris over Trump by 29 points.

“When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake and which candidate will have their backs, we’re able to break through,” said Fain. “By engaging our members and highlighting the issues that matter – their paychecks, their families, and their futures – the union makes a real difference.”

The poll comes as Fain is set to speak to members via live stream next week and is making voter turnout event appearances with other Harris supporters, including the senator Bernie Sanders in Michigan and the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in Pennsylvania.

Both Harris and Trump have been vying for working class and union member votes. Trump held a staged event at a closed McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania earlier this week.

Though most labor unions have supported Harris, the Teamsters International made waves after deciding in September 2024 to refrain from making an endorsement this election and claiming the majority of the union’s membership supported Trump.

Workers wait for Kamala Harris during a campaign event at the UAW Local 652 at an airport in Lansing, Michigan on 18 October 2024.Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Pennsylvania Democrats push to counter Trump’s growing rise with union workers

Sarah Ferris, CNN
Wed, October 23, 2024 

Bushy-bearded United Auto Workers leader Dan Vicente has watched first-hand as his fellow union workers have drifted away from the Democratic Party here in Pennsylvania.

He was almost one of them.

The plain-spoken UAW Region 9 director told a bustling hall on Sunday that he nearly voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Now, two elections later, Vicente said he’s still “not super into” either party but is backing Kamala Harris because she “at least comes from the working class.”


But he worries that Trump is still the one breaking through in many union shops like his.

“Let’s be real, a huge number of our unionized members are going to vote for Trump,” Vicente told CNN at the pro-Democrat rally. “The national Dems have a real problem with messaging to regular working people. You can give all the policy speeches you want. Nobody’s listening.”

The labor leader’s warning is yet another alarm bell for Democrats about their clout with labor nationally, which has been slipping for decades, according to interviews with more than a dozen union workers and local Democrats. Trump’s strength in places like eastern Pennsylvania have made it a far more urgent problem for Harris, whose ability to win the White House could come down to a few thousand votes here in the state.

It’s a challenge, too, for down-ballot Democrats in the Rust Belt. But in interviews, many labor leaders said the national party could learn from labor stalwarts here who are working hard to buck the trend, like Sen. Bob Casey and Reps. Susan Wild in the Lehigh Valley and Matt Cartwright in Scranton. For years, they’ve gone to the factory plants, gone to the picnics and gone to the picket lines.

That’s why Wild — who holds a critical toss-up seat in Democrats’ battle to flip the House — sat on stage Sunday morning alongside the UAW leaders. The room was filled with volunteer door-knockers and organized in support of Wild and Harris.

US Rep. Susan Wild poses for photos at UAW Local 677 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. Wild is seeking a fourth term in one of the nation’s most competitive districts. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

“Democratic candidates, at least on the presidential level, aren’t nearly as good at showing up for labor and getting to know them. And that’s what they want,” Wild told CNN. When asked how Harris and the Democratic Party can fix that, she said: “You gotta show up and you gotta get shit done.” But, she added, it’s much harder with only a 100-day campaign.

Harris, too, has been showing up at union events from Pittsburgh to Lansing, Michigan, in her 100-day sprint as Democratic nominee.

But while Scranton-born Joe Biden calls himself the most pro-union president ever, Harris’s support for labor has sometimes gotten lost in the broader messaging of her campaign. A September Fox News poll found Harris leading Trump among likely voters in union households, but by a smaller margin than Biden eventually won among that group in 2020.

The Democratic presidential nominee has also racked up endorsements from many of the biggest union groups, from the United Steelworkers to Pennsylvania’s own chapter of the Teamsters. But Harris failed to win an endorsement from the powerful national Teamsters group, as well as the International Association of Fire Fighters, when both declined to endorse in the presidential race.

And it’s tougher to reach those beyond the leadership table.

“The ones you really need to get to are the rank-and-file members,” Wild said.
‘They really need to trust you’

When Wild, the three-term House Democrat, showed up to a local firehouse last week to speak with members of the Carpenters Union Local #167, the mostly male crowd initially seemed skeptical.

She knew what issue was on their mind — immigration — and she decided to bring it up directly. She talked about how Capitol Hill Republicans, egged on by Trump, killed a bipartisan border security bill. And she talked about how Trump’s rhetoric, which she described as focusing on “rapists and murders and fentanyl” belied the truth of most migrants’ stories, who, she said, were more likely to join a union than to take a union worker’s job.

“A lot of these guys are not registered Democrats. So they really need to trust you,” Wild told CNN.

A pro-Harris union organizer walks into UAW Local 677 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

Yard signs for US Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania lean agains the wall in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

Harris is making a pro-labor pitch a big part of her closing message to voters. In speeches, ads and interviews, she’s calling out Trump for auto factory closures during his time in office and tax incentives for companies to move jobs overseas.

Gregg Potter, the president of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, said he’s seen the Democratic Party sometimes takes union votes for granted. But he is fully on board with Harris and said: “I believe that she’s learning what’s important to us.”

“I did not know of her record that much, so I delved into it. She is the real deal,” said Potter, who showed up at the Allentown canvassing rally in a Harris-Walz t-shirt. “It took a couple weeks, but I’m firmly there.”

Potter added, though, “People say, well unions are all Democrat. Well, hardly the case.”

“It’s split,” he said.

Democrats struggle to break through

Thirteen days before the election, the highways of eastern Pennsylvania were dotted with highlighter-yellow Harris billboards. Each massive sign touts a different economic policy, from raising the minimum wage to protecting Social Security.

Along those same roadways, Trump’s own signs offer a simpler message: “DONALD TRUMP, LOWER TAXES. KAMALA HARRIS, HIGHER TAXES.”

Democrats insist it’s their agenda — not the GOP’s — that actually benefits the working class. But they also acknowledge they still struggle to pierce through Trump’s real-talking rhetoric.

Recently, though, Trump and his GOP allies have handed the Democrats a convenient new talking point: A video clip of Trump promising tax cuts for supporters, even as he jokes that they are already “rich as hell.”

In one ad that airs constantly here, an Allentown UAW member shakes his head as he watches Trump’s “rich as hell” remarks and says he plans to vote for Harris. (That member, Buddy Maxwell Jr., was among the canvassers on Sunday, and he told CNN that several people have approached him to tell him he helped sway their votes for Harris.)

Still, Democrats are clear-eyed that they won’t win the working class vote in Pennsylvania, especially among White voters. Instead, their strategy is this: Lose by less.

“Margins matter,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a southeastern Pennsylvania Democrat. He said Biden was able to win the state in 2020 because he improved “marginally” among these voters compared to Hillary Clinton.

“A Democratic nominee doesn’t need to win them. A Democratic nominee still needs to get a significant amount of the vote,” he told CNN.

Republicans, meanwhile, are working to make sure that doesn’t happen. Trump, for instance, won over a local steelworker’s union. And some Republican candidates here are taking pro-labor positions that would have been unusual to see from the GOP of previous decades.

“I’m the kind of candidate that can resonate on inflation and the economy and I can still be pro-collective bargaining,” said GOP candidate Rob Bresnahan, who is challenging long-time Rep. Matt Cartwright in Biden’s birthplace of Scranton.

But there’s another hugely important voting bloc among union workers that is giving Democrats hope in Pennsylvania and elsewhere: Women.

On a recent sunny Sunday morning, a pair of union leaders — Angela Ferritto, president of Pennsylvania’s AFL-CIO, and Jim Hutchinson, UAW Local 644 president — knocked on nearly a dozen doors before arriving at the home of Cindy and Cheyenne Lazarus.

Angela Ferritto, president of Pennsylvania’s AFL-CIO, and Jim Hutchinson, UAW Local 644 president, speak to Cheyenne and Cindy Lazarus as they knock doors for Democrats around Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

And those two women are exactly the kind of voters that makes them believe Harris and Democrats can win in November.

Cheyenne, who is in her twenties, answered the door in a pro-Harris “Childless Cat Ladies Social Club” t-shirt. Both she and her mom, Cindy, a SEIU union worker at an Allentown retirement community, had already voted early for Wild, Casey and Harris.

“I’ve been known to split my ticket, but not in the last 12 years though, because Republicans are — crazy. I won’t say the word that I was thinking,” Cindy quipped. “They’ve just gone crazy.”

“I couldn’t wait to put that dark circle in front of a woman’s name,” she said about filing in her early ballot. “I was waiting for it for a long time.”

Blue States Are Trying To Get Ahead Of The Conservative Supreme Court On Same-Sex Marriage

Lil Kalish
Tue, October 22, 2024 at 4:13 PM MDT·7 min read

LGBTQ+ advocates are hoping to enshrine marriage protections for same-sex couples in several state constitutions this fall — a preemptive effort to protect that right from a conservative U.S. Supreme Court and a possible second Donald Trump presidency.

Voters in California, Colorado and Hawaii will have the opportunity next month to repeal language in their state constitutions that defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman, and to further solidify protections for LGBTQ+ families.

Same-sex marriage has been federally protected since 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state bans barring same-sex couples from getting married violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

But when the Supreme Court ― stacked with three more conservative justices appointed by Trump ― ruled against federal abortion protections in its 2022 decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, advocates took note that other rights may also be on the chopping block.

Conservative justices argued in that decision that substantive due process — a principle in the Constitution that bars the government from interfering with certain rights — should be reexamined.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas specifically wrote in his concurring opinion that the court should “reconsider” the precedents created through this process in cases “including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” These are landmark civil rights statutes that protect the right to contraception, the right to privacy and sexual acts in one’s own home, and the right to same-sex marriage, respectively. Thomas later wrote that the justices have a “duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

Some states are trying to get ahead of a potential rollback of Obergefell with ballot measures that would add constitutional amendments to safeguard and reaffirm marriage equality.

California’s Proposition 3 would repeal and overwrite the state’s ban on same-sex marriage that’s still in California’s constitution. In 2008, the voters in the state approved Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman and banned the state from recognizing same-sex marriage. It was made void after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry and allowed the state to resume same-sex marriages.

Colorado’s Amendment J similarly seeks to remove this narrow definition of marriage from the state constitution. And in Hawaii, voters will answer Question 1, which asks if voters want to remove language from the state constitution that gives Hawaii lawmakers the authority to reserve marriage only for “opposite-sex couples.”

“As someone who fought to establish and protect marriage equality in Hawaii for more than a quarter of a century, I refuse to stand by and watch this Court take a hatchet to rights won that had previously been denied,” wrote Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii), in support of Hawaii’s amendment. “If this Court follows through on its threat to revisit Obergefell, we could easily see nationwide rights to same-sex marriage restricted again.”

Viktor Staroverov (left) and Iurii Sigarev fill out paperwork to marry on Feb. 14, 2023, at City Hall in San Francisco. On Nov. 5, California voters will decide on a state constitutional amendment to protect the right to same-sex marriage. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Thomas’ mention of Obergefell in his opinion sounded the alarm for many LGBTQ+ advocates. In the unlikely scenario in which Obergefell is reversed, states would individually be able to determine the legality of same-sex marriage — much like the current landscape for accessing abortion. Twenty-nine states have some kind of constitutional amendment or statutory ban on same-sex marriage on the books, which could be triggered if Obergefell is overturned.

“We actually already know what it’s like to live in that world,” Andy Izenson, the senior legal director of the LGBTQ+ legal nonprofit Chosen Family Law Center, told HuffPost. “We lived in that world until 2015 and people were traveling to other states where marriage was legal to get married. They were going back to their home states and not really having recognition of their marriage.”

Currently, 69% of Americans support same-sex couples’ right to legally marry, which is more than double the rates of support in the late 1990s, according to a poll from Gallup.

And in solid blue states like California, Colorado and Hawaii, these constitutional amendments are likely to pass — though some organizers worry that voters may not fill out that part of their ballots.

In other states, efforts to extend or strengthen protections for LGBTQ+ people are hitting a snag. Organizers in New York are trying to drum up support for a constitutional amendment to protect people seeking abortion and LGBTQ+ people. But a small and vocal group of opponents have started to sow doubts and confusion about what the amendment will do.

New York’s Proposition 1 is a state version of the Equal Rights Amendment, a more than 100-year-old feminist effort to guarantee equal rights for women in the U.S. Constitution, which has been stalled in Congress for decades. New York’s measure would strengthen protections in its state constitution, which currently bans discrimination only on the basis of race and religion. Proposition 1 would also prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, with an expansive definition to include “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

Similar to marriage equality and abortion amendments, New York’s effort would protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination during a time when transgender youth and adults face numerous barriers to health care, the ability to update their legal documents and to use bathrooms and facilities that align with their gender identity.

An opposition group called the Coalition to Protect Kids, funded by an anti-abortion activist, has leveraged transphobic rhetoric to stoke fears about the presence of trans people in girls’ sports and women’s bathrooms — and that the amendment would somehow lead to dangerous outcomes. One campaign mailer sent by the New York Republican State Committee said that Prop. 1 would lead to children undergoing gender-affirming care “without the benefit of parental guidance.”

Trump and other Republicans have used similar rhetoric throughout the campaign cycle, hoping to drum up support among conservative voters by pushing baseless information about the risk that the existence of transgender people poses to the greater society. Republicans have shelled out more than $65 million in television advertisements that stoke fears about Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on LGBTQ+ rights and play to conservative fears about transgender athletes in school sports.

On same-sex marriage, however, the official Republican Party platform has softened its position. The current party platform removes language from the 2016 platform that defined marriage as “between one man and one woman, and is the foundation for a free society.” This year the GOP approved a platform that says it promotes a “culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the blessing of childhood, the foundational role of family, and support working parents.”

Though the party has on paper seemed to remove mention of the definition of marriage, Izenson said that Project 2025 — the more than 900-page policy handbook for a second Trump presidency written by the right-wing Heritage Foundation — lays out in greater detail what the legal landscape could look like for LGBTQ+ families in the coming years.

Among other policies aimed at LGBTQ+ people, Project 2025 proposes to protect religious organizations that maintain “a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family” and argues that same-sex marriages have “higher levels of instability” because the average length of those marriages is half that of heterosexual ones — even though same-sex marriage wasn’t the law of the land until 2015.

The outcome of the November presidential election will play a major role in whether policies like these and increasingly religious carve-outs come into fruition. But in the meantime, LGBTQ+ people are hoping that ballot amendments in progressive states offer a stopgap and affirmation of LGBTQ+ equality.

“Just with the upcoming election, who knows how things are going to work out federally,” John Wolfe, the owner of the Colorado LGBTQ+ bar Icons said to KKTV in Colorado Springs, “so this can protect our queer community and make sure that everybody is on the same playing field.”

Following fall of Roe v. Wade, organizers get same-sex marriage on the ballot in three states

Maura Barrett and Halle Lukasiewicz
Tue, October 22, 2024 

Freedom to Marry Colorado, a bipartisan organization dedicated to preserving equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, holds a rally outside the State Capitol in Denver.


Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, doing away with a half-century of precedent, activists worried that other high court decisions could be in jeopardy are taking their concerns to the polls. California, Colorado and Hawaii will soon allow their residents to vote on ballot measures that would remove language from their state constitutions prohibiting same-sex marriage.

The landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, guaranteeing same-sex couples across the country the right to marry, makes these state bans unenforceable. However, these ballot measures seek to proactively protect these marriage rights should Obergefell ever be overturned.

Paul Smith, a Georgetown law professor who argued the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the country’s remaining anti-sodomy laws, said the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, should serve as a cautionary tale.

“We’ve had the example of how Dobbs can take down a long-standing precedent. Suddenly there are these state laws that were sitting there dormant, that came springing back to life,” he said, referring to the dozens of states that now have abortion bans following the Dobbs decision. “These states don’t want their same-sex marriage bans to come springing back to life, so they’re going to do something about it, if just in case.”

Smith validated the potential concern, pointing to Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the 2022 Dobbs decision.

Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in Washington in 2021.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.” Thomas wrote. (Griswold v. Connecticut is a 1965 high court ruling that established the right of married couples to use contraception.)

Earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito renewed his criticism of the Obergefell ruling in declining to weigh in on a lower court case involving a dispute over dismissed jurors who had expressed religious concerns over same-sex relationships. Alito wrote that the case “exemplifies the danger” he sees in the 2015 decision.

“Namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” he wrote.

The nine-member Supreme Court is the most conservative in a century, with six justices having been nominated by Republican presidents and three by Democrats. Ahead of the 2024 election, GOP senators are hopeful about the prospect of confirming even more conservative justices, as well as lower-court judges, if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Mary Bonauto, one of the lawyers who argued Obergefell before the Supreme Court, said the high court is “a very unpredictable court at this point” and added that ballot measures like the ones in California, Colorado and Hawaii are a way for states to use their power.

“They have been aggressive about reversing precedents,” Bonauto said of the Supreme Court. “They have completely remade how they deal with the powers of the government.”

Bonauto, now the senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, said that under the current circumstances, she doesn’t understand why anyone who has a chance to remove currently unenforceable language banning same-sex marriage from their state constitution “wouldn’t jump on it.”

Currently, 30 states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, with five also having statutes that prohibit such marriages, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. An additional five states have bans through statutes, though no constitutional amendments. In most of these cases, Smith said, the currently dormant provisions would become law again should Obergefell be overturned, just as long-dormant state abortion bans took effect after Roe v. Wade was struck down (constitutional amendments to protect or expand abortion rights will be on the ballot in 10 states next month).

Without Obergefell, there is federal legislation that would keep same-sex marriage rights mostly, but not entirely, intact: the Respect for Marriage Act. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, the bipartisan measure ensures federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. The law requires the federal government to recognize these marriages and guarantee them the full federal benefits of marriage, but it stops short of requiring states to issue marriage licenses contrary to state laws.

Bonauto and Smith agree it’s an important piece of legislation, but Bonauto noted there’s always a chance it could be repealed, should the balance of power shift in Congress, and Smith said the measure would leave those in conservative states vulnerable.

“Even if you can travel to New York to get married, to have suddenly in the law a provision that says you, out of all the people in our state, don’t get to pick your spouse… that would be a terrible thing to have on the books,” Smith said. “I don’t think states want to have that kind of thing — that second-class citizenship — restored, even if there is a workaround through the Respect for Marriage Act.”

Susy Bates, the campaign director of Freedom to Marry Colorado, a bipartisan organization dedicated to preserving equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, said if Obergefell were overturned and states had to rely on the Respect for Marriage Act, it would be “really murky.”

“Unless we take proactive measures, we can’t guarantee that marriage equality will be protected in the state,” she said.

It’s a personal issue for LGBTQ couples who had to navigate a time when same-sex marriage wasn’t legal or straightforward.

Anna and Fran Simon, the first gay couple to marry in Denver in 2014, had a large media presence at their civil union in 2013.

Before Anna and Fran Simon became the first same-sex couple in Denver to be legally married, in 2014, Anna was fingerprinted and had to undergo an FBI background check to change her last name. To have both of their names on their son’s birth certificate, the threshold was even higher: They hired a lawyer and petitioned a judge. It’s a process they want to ensure same-sex couples never have to go through.

“We had to cobble together all of the rights and protections we could, so we first paid lawyers thousands of dollars.” Fran said.

Anna added: “Having the legal recognition was extremely powerful for feeling like a full citizen. Those very real protections were extremely important psychologically, not just for us, but also for our son.”

Recent Gallup polling indicates 69 percent of Americans believe marriage between same-sex couples should be legal, and nearly as many say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable, at 64 percent. Support for same-sex relationships has drastically increased over the past few decades: When Gallup first polled the issue, in 1996, just 27% of Americans thought these unions should be legal.

Advocates of the proposition in Colorado say they’re pleasantly surprised they haven’t faced significant organized opposition against the ballot measure.

“Our largest party registration is No Party, or Independent,” Bates said. “I think Coloradans are really used to taking issues specifically as it relates to individual freedoms, individual rights, and really analyzing what that means for the day-to-day of people’s lives.”

When Colorado’s ballot measure was being considered in the state Legislature, Republican state Rep. Scott Bottoms, an opponent of the proposal, invoked religion in his nearly 8-minute speech, saying same-sex marriage, “goes directly against God’s laws.”

Bottoms then posted a video of his remarks on X, telling his followers: “The Democrats want to remove the idea of marriage between a man and a woman. You will have an opportunity to vote against this initiative in November.”

Bottoms did not respond to NBC News’ request for additional comment about his opposition to the proposal.

Even with every indication that the ballot measures will pass in all three states, Anna and Fran Simon say the fight for equal rights is long from over.


Fran Simon, left, with Anna and their son.

“We’ve seen how our lives as LGBTQ individuals have been used as a political football,” Anna said.

Fran added, “We feel like we always have to constantly fight to keep the protections and rights that we’ve worked so hard to to win.”

The Supreme Court does not currently have any cases on its docket that could threaten Obergefell’s precedent, but Smith pointed to the case of a former Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, that has been caught up in appeals for nine years. It first made national headlines in 2015, when Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to several same-sex couples based on her religious beliefs.

The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel recently filed a brief with the 6th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The group, which has a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights in the court system, is headed by Mat Staver, who spelled out the suit’s intention in a release: “This case has the potential to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and extend the same religious freedom protections beyond Kentucky to the entire nation.”

“It would not be at all surprising that in the next several months, we might see a petition for review ... to the Supreme Court,” Smith said. “I’m not predicting that the court would be all that excited about taking it right now — they have other things to think about but — but it’s certainly not impossible, and so there’s every reason for states that disagree with these same-sex marriage bans to get them off the books while they can.”

CORRECTION (Oct. 22, 2024, 5:20 p.m.): A previous version of this article misstated the historical significance of Anna and Fran Simon’s marriage. They were the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Denver and to get a civil union in the state; they were not the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Colorado.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Opinion: Trump's latest campaign ads attack trans people. Why is Harris still silent?

Sara Pequeño, USA TODAY
Tue, October 22, 2024 

Donald Trump is using the final days of the campaign to exploit fears about yet another group of people.

The Republican presidential nominee's campaign has spent at least $17 million on ads about Vice President Kamala Harris for a 2019 stance on providing trans-affirming health care to people in prison. The issue has not been part of her 2024 campaign, although she was questioned about it in a recent Fox News interview. These anti-trans ads have aired more than 30,000 times.

“Kamala is for they/them,” one ad reads. “Trump is for you.”

The Republicans are no strangers to using a marginalized group of people to stoke fear. We’ve seen how they talk about immigrants in dehumanizing ways. The trans panic talking points are just more hate.

The GOP will continue spreading hatred of transgender people on the road to Election Day. The left can’t keep pretending the issue doesn't exist. It's a good opportunity for Democrats to win voters, like the 38% who told Gallup that transgender rights are "extremely important" or "very important" when making their decision in this election. It might win over a few voters, but that's what it will take to win this election.
Will Democrats find the right messaging to combat GOP hate?

I asked Imara Jones, CEO of the news site TransLash, whether she thought these attacks resonated with voters. The award-winning media outlet shares stories about transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Jones explained that the anti-trans ads could be used to win over suburban white women who were initially fans of Republican former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“They understand this as a way to eke out close elections, right?” Jones told me. “It’s designed to get one or two votes per precinct in key states.”

Opinion: Melania Trump says she supports abortion rights. Don't forget what her husband did.

In an election this close, less than a handful of votes could make a difference. Jones noted that while Democrats have not found the right messaging for trans issues, not having an answer at all creates a vulnerability that the Republicans can exploit.

“Campaigns don’t normally let attacks go unanswered,” she said. “And so far, there hasn’t been one.”
Harris campaign has touched on the issue through Walz

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz campaigns on Oct. 17, 2024, in Durham, N.C.

Democrats have – briefly – talked about transgender issues on the campaign trail. When asked about her 2019 stance on trans health care by Fox News’ Bret Baier, Harris said she would follow the law and called the issue “really quite remote.”

Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently delivered a stronger stance on the issue.

Opinion: Trump said so many stupid things this week, I decided to just round them up

“The closing arguments for Donald Trump is to demonize a group of people for being who they are,” Walz said on the podcast "We Can Do Hard Things" last week. “We’re out there trying to make the case that access to health care, and a clean environment and manufacturing jobs, and keeping your local hospital open ‒ those are things that people are really concerned about.”

Truth be told, that’s the message Democrats should run with. It is the simplest message that appeases most people while still taking a stand for someone’s humanity.
Democrats still have time to turn this into a win before Election Day

Anti-trans ads are only grabbing a marginal number of voters, but this is a presidential race that will be decided on razor-thin margins. Some campaigns have already had to respond to anti-trans attack ads from Republicans.

Rep. Colin Allred, a Texas Democrat running to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, responded to this line of attack by releasing an ad claiming, “I don’t want boys playing girls sports.” It’s unclear whether this means he supports trans girls playing on girls’ sports teams.

It makes sense that Democrats have some anxiety about this issue. According to Gallup, 69% of Americans believe trans athletes should only be allowed to play on teams that correspond with the gender they were assigned at birth. Democrats always run the risk of isolating more moderate members of the party if they take a clear stance against these transphobic attacks.

We’re also incredibly close to the election, and Harris’ team probably thinks there are other communities worth targeting with such little time left.

Even so, the Democratic Party could win over reluctant voters who don’t see themselves or the ones they love protected by either party. Even just a point on its campaign platform page would be a step in the right direction. More important, it would show Republicans that they can’t just attack a group of people without repercussions.

Republicans are using fear and bigotry to drive voters to the polls. Democrats may not win on the issue, but an official stance is important.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Trump ramps up anti-trans ads. Harris should stand against it

Country’s Most-Powerful Banker Is Quietly Backing Kamala Harris

Josh Fiallo
Tue, October 22, 2024 a

Jamie Dimon waves his hand and smirks outdoors.


We may finally know where the country’s most-powerful banker really stands politically this election season.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, 68, is quietly backing a Kamala Harris win on Election Day despite his public praise of Donald Trump earlier this year, according to a report from The New York Times Tuesday.

That’s quite the coup for Harris’ campaign, as Dimon is overwhelmingly viewed as one of the most influential players in the banking world and on Wall Street—areas that tend to back Republicans more often than Democrats.


Word of that support is likely to be largely muffled to the masses, however, as Dimon has stopped short of outright endorsing Harris publicly. Instead, the Times reports he’s merely been “supportive” of the vice president in “private conversations with Wall Street executives.”

Dimon has also reportedly told those close to him that he’d be open to serving in a Walz-Harris administration, perhaps as its Treasury secretary. Harris has said repeatedly that she plans to appoint a Republican to a cabinet position, though its unclear what party—if any—Dimon is a registered member of. He’s been CEO of JPMorgan Chase since 2006.

“I’ve always been an American patriot,” Dimon said on a call earlier this month, hinting at his willingness to work in the federal government, the Times reported. “And my country is more important to me than my company.”

The Times reports that Harris’ campaign approached Dimon about endorsing. Trump’s camp has reportedly done the same, going as far as claiming they’d won over Dimon’s endorsement even when they didn’t have it.


Jamie Dimon was quick to say that he never endorsed Donald Trump, but the former president’s post remained online more than two weeks later.

Trump posted to Truth Social on Oct. 4 that Dimon had endorsed him—a claim that was quickly shot down by Dimon’s camp. Trump denied making the post but, perhaps bizarrely, never took down the false graphic he shared to his personal account.

That endorsement, before it was revealed to be a farce, didn’t appear to come totally out of left field. He said on CNBC’s morning show Squawk Box in January that Trump was “kind of right about NATO, kind of right about immigration,” and that “he grew the economy quite well.”

In that same appearance, Dimon said many Americans recognized Trump was spot-on on certain “critical issues.”



“I don’t like how Trump said things, but he wasn’t wrong about those critical issues,” Dimon said. “That’s why they’re voting for him. People should be more respectful of our fellow citizens. I think this negative talk about MAGA will hurt Biden’s campaign.”

Despite those comments, Trump and Dimon have also bickered with each other over the years.

Among the recent rifts between the two New York-born billionaires—Dimon is worth $2.2 billion, according to Forbes, while Trump is worth $4 billion—came when Dimon urged corporate leaders to support Nikki Haley’s primary bid over Trump.

Trump responded in typical fashion, raging in a post to Truth Social that he was “never a big fan” of Dimon, whom he called a “highly overrated Globalist.”

“I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a really good thing,” Trump said.

Donald Trump and Jamie Dimon shake hands in 2017.

Trump, perhaps realizing the influence Dimon holds, changed his tone when speaking about Dimon in July. That’s when he told Bloomberg Businessweek that he has “a lot of respect” for Dimon and that he’d consider him for Treasury Secretary should he win re-election.

In a statement to the Times on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Dimon said his usually-outspoken boss hasn’t been talking about the election much because his “comments are often weaponized by the left or right when he weighs in on politics or politicians.”

This, the spokesperson added, “is not constructive to helping solve our country’s biggest problems.”

 The Daily Beast.


JPMorgan chief Dimon would consider a role in Harris administration, NYT reports

Reuters
Updated Tue, October 22, 2024 at 5:46 PM MDT·2 min read

(Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would consider a government role, perhaps that of the Treasury Secretary, if Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris wins the U.S. presidential election, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Dimon is not making his stance known publicly for fear of retribution should Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, win, according to the report.

The CEO of the largest U.S. bank has long been floated for senior positions on U.S. economic policy.

But at JPMorgan's post-earnings call earlier this month, Dimon said the chance of him being asked to take up a government role was "almost nil."

"And I probably am not going to do it. But I always reserve the right" to reconsider, he said.

Dimon's thinking has not changed since then, a source close to him told Reuters.

However, down the road if there is a position where he can have significant impact in the role then he may consider it, irrespective of the political party, the source added.

The source declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.

Dimon took the reins at JPMorgan in 2006. He has emphasized that he and the rest of the board will "do the right thing" on succession when he eventually leaves, without specifying details.

He has been outspoken on economic and policy matters and has often celebrated American exceptionalism, including in his widely read annual letter in April.

"I've always been an American patriot and my country is more important to me than my company," he told analysts on a call this month.

The bank declined to comment on the report. Spokespeople for the Harris and Trump campaigns did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Nupur Anand in Washington; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Stephen Coates)

Bill Gates Makes Unprecedented $50 Million Pledge to Back Kamala Harris: ‘This Election Is Different’

Sharon Knolle
Tue, October 22, 2024 



Bill Gates has donated $50 million to Kamala Harris’ campaign, a political backing that was originally intended to be private.

The Microsoft founder confirmed the donation to The New York Times on Tuesday, saying “this election is different,” although he is still not endorsing Harris publicly.

“I support candidates who demonstrate a clear commitment to improving health care, reducing poverty and fighting climate change in the U.S. and around the world,” he said in a statement. “I have a long history of working with leaders across the political spectrum, but this election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world.”


Two people close to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as the Times phrased it, “expressed concern about what a second Donald Trump presidency would look like.” Among the issues where the philanthropic organization tallies with Harris is on preventing cuts to family planning and global health programs.


Gates made his donation to Future Forward, a fundraising group supporting Harris, according to the Times’ report. Sources told the outlet that the tech giant had discussed his donation with former New York City mayor and one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg, who “has considered a similarly sized gift.”

Conservative politicians Gates has previously backed include Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Denali Leadership PAC and Arizona’s Charles Horne, according to OpenSecrets. But in the last two years, he has primarily donated to Democrats, including Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

An OpenSecrets graph shows that in 2018, he donated more than twice as much to Republican candidates ($4.72 million) as he did to their Democratic opponents ($2.18 million).

On the other side of the political spectrum, X owner and fellow billionaire Elon Musk has pledged to spend $140 million to get GOP rival Donald Trump re-elected.

The post Bill Gates Makes Unprecedented $50 Million Pledge to Back Kamala Harris: ‘This Election Is Different’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Bill Gates privately said he donated $50 million to a pro-Harris super PAC, report says

Thibault Spirlet
Wed, October 23, 2024 


Bill Gates said he donated millions to a pro-Harris super-PAC, three sources told The New York Times.


He reportedly donated $50 million to Future Forward's nonprofit arm, which doesn't disclose donors.


The billionaire didn't confirm or deny this, but told the Times this election was "different."

Bill Gates has privately said he donated about $50 million to a pro-Harris super-PAC, The New York Times reported, citing multiple sources.

The billionaire Microsoft founder, who has not publicly endorsed either candidate for president, made the donation to Future Forward's nonprofit arm, Future Forward USA Action, three people briefed on the matter told the newspaper.

Future Forward USA Action does not disclose its donors, meaning any contributions would not be made public.

Two of the sources said that Gates has talked about his donation with Mike Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, among others, per the Times.

In a statement to the Times, Gates didn't confirm or deny the donations.

He said that "this election is different," adding that he supports candidates who show a "clear" commitment to improving healthcare, reducing poverty, and fighting climate change in the US and worldwide.

The Gates Foundation didn't immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment, made outside working hours.

Gates has previously said that he chooses not to make large political donations.

"There are times it might feel tempting to do so, and there are other people who choose to do so, but I just don't want to grab that gigantic megaphone," he said at a New York Times Dealbook conference in 2019.

After Harris announced her candidacy in July, Gates told France 24 it was "great" to have "somebody who's younger, who can think about things like AI."

The views of America's billionaires on the election have been the subject of intense speculation and reporting.

Former President Donald Trump claimed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called him to say, "There's no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election." A Meta spokesperson denied this and said that Zuckerberg would not be endorsing anyone, nor revealing how he would vote.

Earlier this month, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon also had to deny he was endorsing the former president after Trump posted a photo on Truth Social with a caption saying he had.

These billionaires' guarded stances are in stark contrast with Elon Musk, who has said he is "all in" supporting a Trump victory.

Elon Musk's super PAC, America PAC, has spent more than $100 million on the election, most of which went toward supporting former President Donald Trump and opposing Harris.

The latest available ad-revenue data from X, the social media company Musk bought in 2022, shows America PAC has spent $201,021 on advertising on X since July.

Last Sunday, Musk also said in an X post that he planned to give away $1 million a day to a different swing-state voter who has signed his petition to support free speech and the right to bear arms.

McDonald’s workers roast Trump over ‘insulting cosplay’ stunt at restaurant that failed health inspection

Kelly Rissman
Mon, October 21, 2024 at 10:52 PM MDT·4 min read

Donald Trump’s obsession with questioning Kamala Harris’ work experience at McDonald’s peaked over the weekend when he worked the fry cooker at a Pennsylvania branch — without a hairnet or gloves.

McDonald’s workers have now given their verdict on the former president’s performance - and came away less than impressed.

Trump has baselessly called his Democratic opponent’s summer stint at a McDonald’s “a lie,” so he decided to try his hand at the fast-food chain himself, shutting down a Bucks County restaurant to do so.

While serving food through the drive-thru window and working the fry cooker, some have pointed out that he wasn’t taking proper precautions — at a location that has previously been cited for health code violations.

NO PPE: HAIRNET, MASK, NITRILE GLOVES

Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonalds in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania (via REUTERS)

Earlier this year, this location didn’t meet the compliance requirements of the Bucks County Health Department. A health inspection in March at the Feasterville-Trevose location resulted in four violations, including citing employees not having their “hands clean & properly washed.”

“Food employees are not washing their hands as required before putting on gloves, after handling soiled tableware, after handling raw meat, before handling clean tableware, equipment, utensils. CFSM must review hand washing requirements with staff. Observed employees handling raw beef with gloves and then switching gloves without hand washing step in-between,” the health inspector wrote.

The report also noted a lack of hairnets: “Food workers are not wearing hair restraints as required, which includes management that assists in packaging and preparing food. Employees shall wear hair restraints such as hats, hair coverings or nets, that are effectively designed and worn to keep their hair from contacting exposed food; clean equipment, utensils and linens; and unwrapped single-service and single-use articles.”

Trump handed at food at the drive through window (REUTERS)

This Sunday’s photoshoot of the former president captured him in a white button-down shirt, ketchup-colored tie and a blue apron with yellow stripes — but without gloves or a hairnet while working at the McDonald’s stop in the swing state.

The Independent has reached out to the Bucks County Health Department and a representative for McDonald’s for comment.

Workers for the fast food chain shared their opinions in the Reddit thread r/McDonaldsEmployees and were quick to point out that Trump did not seem to meet the chain’s typical requirements.

DodgyRogue asked: “Where’s his approved uniform shirt? His hat?”

Adinnieken added: “As evidenced by other pictures, he’s not wearing non-slips shoes, and he wasn’t wearing a hairnet.”

And Rofflewafflelol wrote: “Great, so he passed out bags of food for 5 minutes for a photo op..... now let’s see him actually take on the responsibility of a full shift every day for a few years.

“This is cosplay and insulting to people who have actually worked any amount of time in their lives.”

Trump has baselessly accused Kamala Harris of lying about her own McDonald’s experience (AP)

The restaurant closed down for 30 minutes while Trump played dress up. It’s unclear if the branch’s workers were paid during that interim.

The average fast foodworker earns $13 to $15 per hour nationwide, federal data shows. While Harris has earned endorsements from several influential unions, including Service Employees International Union, which supported the nationwide Fight for $15 campaign, Trump dodged a question on Sunday about whether he supported increasing the minimum wage.

“Well, I think this. These people work hard,” Trump replied instead. “They’re great. And I just saw something - a process that’s beautiful.”

The unorthodox campaign stop was Trump’s latest attempt at a personal jab at Harris, who he has baselessly claimed never worked at the fast-food chain.

“I’ve now worked 15 minutes more than Kamala” at a McDonald’s, a blue apron-clad Trump told reporters out of a drive-thru window on Sunday.

Last week, the former president’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr also repeated this claim, saying he believed she was discussing her McDonald’s job “to seem relatable and likable.”

Don Jr then boasted: “I think my father knows the McDonald’s menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did.”



McDonald's distances itself from Donald Trump and his dubious claim about Kamala Harris

Marin Scotten
Tue, October 22, 2024 

The McDonald's logo is pictured in front of a store in Dearborn, Michigan on October 17, 2024. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images


Despite hosting former President Donald Trump for a shift, McDonald's does not support his claims that Vice President Kamala Harris is lying about her stint working at a California McDonald's in the summer of 1983, The Washington Post reported.

Throughout her campaign, Harris has mentioned her time as a McDonald's employee, an experience shared by one in eight Americans.

Trump hasn’t let go of the mention of Harris’ teenage summer job, repeatedly telling Americans that she never worked at McDonald's and is making the whole thing up. As Harris’ employment was 41 years ago, in the pre-digital era, there are no official records of her employment at the Bay Area McDonald's.

“We have checked with McDonald’s, and they say, definitively, that there is no record of Lyin’ Kamala Harris ever having worked there,” he wrote Sunday afternoon. “In other words, she never worked there, and has lied about this ‘job’ for years.”

On Sunday, the Republican nominee took the attack a step further and pretended to work a shift at a Pennsylvania McDonald's. He stood in the drive-thru window and handed food to “customers,” who were in fact supporters pre-screened by the Secret Service.

“I’m looking for a job,” Trump said to the owner of McDonalds location. “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.”

McDonalds has welcomed the attention, but its staying neutral in the debate about Harris’ employment, according to a statement obtained by The Washington Post.

“Though we are not a political brand, we've been proud to hear former President Trump’s love for McDonald’s and Vice President Harris’s fond memories working under the Arches,” the message to its employees reads. “While we and our franchisees don’t have records for all positions dating back to the early ’80s, what makes ‘1 in 8’ so powerful is the shared experience so many Americans have had.”

The multi-billion dollar franchise also told the Associated Press it is an apolitical company and does not support either candidate.

“Upon learning of the former president’s request, we approached it through the lens of one of our core values: we open our doors to everyone,” the company said. “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.”



Here's What We Know About Trump's 'Shift' at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania and Claims It Was 'Staged'

Aleksandra Wrona
Tue, October 22, 2024 

Reddit u/Lifegoesonforever, C-SPAN


Former U.S. President Donald Trump spent about 15 minutes scooping French fries into containers and handing them to drive-thru "customers" at a McDonald's restaurant in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 20, 2024, in a publicity stunt arranged by his presidential campaign.

"I worked 15 minutes longer than Kamala Harris ever did," Trump told reporters after the photo op, doubling down on his claims that the vice president lied when she said she worked at a McDonald's in her youth.

When video of Trump's 15-minute stint as a fast-food worker was released, social media platforms erupted with partisan posts claiming it was was "fake," "staged" and merely a "stunt."

It's crucial to note that photo ops and publicity stunts are always, by definition, staged. That said, here are examples of some of the online comments about Trump's McDonald's outing:

"You mean to tell me this was all staged, and that these 'customers' rehearsed in advance to make it seem like a genuine interaction and that the McDonald's was actually closed to the public!" one X post read. Another X post, with more than 1.7 million views, stated: "Who else was NOT surprised to learn that Trump's event at a closed McDonald's was totally staged and as fraudulent as he is?"
The News Media on Trump's 'Shift' At McDonald's

Multiple reliable news outlets, such as The Associated Press, Reuters and the BBC, reported on Trump's visit to the fast-food restaurant. The New York Times rightly called it a "campaign photo op," reporting that Trump handed food to preselected customers.

C-SPAN recorded the visit, stating Trump "worked a 30-minute shift. … He first met with the owner and received a uniform and name tag, and then learned how to make and package french fries before serving some drive-thru customers and answering questions from the press."

You can see the footage of Trump's visit below:

Trump's involvement was limited to a short interaction with staff and customers, learning how to make and package French fries, and serving a few drive-thru customers, rather than a normal employee's full workday involving numerous tasks.
Was the Location Closed?

The primary argument circulating on social media accusing the event of being staged was centered around a printed notice supposedly displayed at the restaurant, stating it was closed. A photograph of the notice was shared on platforms including X, Threads, Facebook and Reddit. "So the place wasn't even open. It was all staged and fake. He didn't work for real at a McDonalds. It was a staged fraud just like every other event," one X user captioned it.

The Washington Post and Philadelphia TV station WCAU also reported the restaurant was closed to the public during Trump's visit.

The text on the notice read:

Dear Feasterville Community,

We plan to be closed on Sunday, October 20 until 4 p.m., to accommodate a visit at the request of former President Trump and his campaign.

While we are not a political organization, we proudly open our doors to everyone and as a locally owned and operated location, this visit provides a unique opportunity to shine a light on the positive impact of small businesses here in Feasterville. We're equally honored to share the significance of what 1 in 8 Americans have experienced: that a job at McDonald's is more than just a job. It's a pathway to critical skills development and meaningful career opportunities. Having started my McDonald's joumey as a crew member in New York nearly 30 years ago. This path to economic opportunity is especially meaningful to me.

I apologize for the inconvenience of closing our restaurant and sincerely look forward to serving you very soon.

Derek Giacomantonio and my team at Feasterville McDonald's

Giacomantonio was shown in the C-SPAN video as an owner of the restaurant.

We have reached out to McDonald's and Giacomantonio to confirm the notice's authenticity.
Photos From the Event

Apart from the printed notice, social media users shared other photographs from the event along with their claims the event was fake. "It was all STAGED!! Trump did not work. McDonald's closed for the day & there was a car rehearsal," one Reddit user wrote. One X post claimed that customers were "handpicked," while another alleged the customers were "pre-selected supporters of his campaign who had practiced how to use the drive-through."

WCAU reported that "it was not immediately clear how the drive-through customers served by Trump were selected." According to The Washington Post, "the motorists whom Trump served were screened by the U.S. Secret Service and positioned before his arrival. No one ordered food. Instead, the attendees received whatever Trump gave them."

These photographs were initially shared by local journalist Tom Sofield, who captioned them with: "Cars rehearsing ahead of former Pres. Trump, who is expected to be serving supporters McDonald's food" and "The supporters who will be served food by Trump are in place and screened by USSS."



(X user @BuxMontNews)

"The fact that you present this like it's some big shock makes me wonder who ties your shoes for you. The USSS didn't let a bunch of random people in their personal vehicles drive up to a drive-thru window with a former President and Presidential candidate," one X user commented, pointing to the fact that screening people in high-security situations is a standard practice.

Sofield confirmed to Snopes that he took the pictures. He said the "rehearsals" involved staging the cars in line and brief conversations with campaign staff, adding that the people in the vehicles waited about an hour or an hour and a half before Trump arrived and handed out food.

We also reached out to Trump's campaign, which did not respond to questions about whether there were rehearsals, how customers were chosen and screened, or whether the notice about the store's closure was real, instead repeating the line that "President Trump has now worked at McDonald's longer than Kamala Harris ever did."

Additionally, we reached out to the Secret Service for comment about how the customers were selected and whether they were screened by the agency, and we will update this report if we receive a response.
Sources:

Contact. https://www.secretservice.gov/contact. Accessed 21 Oct. 2024.

Contact Information | McDonald's Corporation. https://www.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/contact.html. Accessed 21 Oct. 2024.

Former President Trump Works at McDonald's in Bucks County, PA | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?539376-1/president-trump-works-mcdonalds-bucks-county-pa. Accessed 21 Oct. 2024.

Gold, Michael. "Trump Slings McDonald's Fries as He Smears Harris in Pennsylvania." The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2024. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/trump-mcdonalds-fries.html.

Shalal, Andrea, and Steve Holland. "Trump Hands out French Fries, Harris Visits Georgia Churches." Reuters, 21 Oct. 2024. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-mark-60th-birthday-with-atlanta-church-visits-trump-hits-mcdonalds-2024-10-20/.

"Tom Sofield, Author at LevittownNow.Com." LevittownNow.Com, 21 Oct. 2024, https://levittownnow.com/author/tomsofield/.

Trump Serves up McDonald's Fries and Harris Celebrates Birthday. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cgryevjjlx2o. Accessed 21 Oct. 2024.

"Trump Works the Fry Station and Holds a Drive-Thru News Conference at a Pennsylvania McDonald's." AP News, 20 Oct. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-mcdonalds-2024-presidential-election-pennsylvania-73e55c8c1db4adc2a547b62bd5142be3.