“The whole country is going to be like, you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” he said. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.”
Trump told his Detroit audience that “Your car industry is going out of business” but claimed that the “nightmare” for the industry would be over if he’s elected.
There were around 1,000 attendees at the MotorCity Casino Hotel event, during which Trump suggested that Detroit is more “developing” than “most places in China,” referring to it as a “once great city.”
Trump also claimed that he would create a “Michigan miracle” and a “stunning rebirth” of the city if he’s elected.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan slammed Trump for his recent comments about Detroit (AFP via Getty Images)
“Detroit just hosted the largest NFL Draft in history, the Tigers are back in the playoffs, the Lions are headed to the Super Bowl, crime is down and our population is growing. Lots of cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump’s help,” Duggan wrote. “Numbers and Facts don’t lie. Detroit is the beacon of light. The beacon of progress. The beacon of resurgence.”
Duggan added on Instagram: “We’ve got record low homicide rates and we’re growing our population for the first time since the 1950s.”
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote on X: “As a Detroiter, I am proud of our gritty city. As a board member of the @deteconomicclub, I attended Mr. Trump’s speech today. And I was shocked to witness him bash our city. It hurt me personally, and I’m sure hurt a lot of Michiganders.”
The speaker of the Michigan state House, Democrat Joe Tate, said Trump, “might not remember where he is right now, so here’s a quick reminder about what Detroit’s all about. This is the greatest city in the country, and we’ve bounced back after Trump killed our jobs, closed our businesses, and tried to throw out our votes.”
Donald Trump painted a bleak picture during his address to the Detroit Economic Club (AP)
“Detroit threw Trump out of the White House last time, and we’ll do it again,” he added on X.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has endorsed the ex-president. Trump commuted his 28-year sentence for public corruption shortly before leaving the White House in January 2021, the Detroit News noted.
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer also responded to Trump’s comments on social media, writing: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities—something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
State Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow said, “As a proud elected representative of tens of thousands of Detroiters: F*** this guy. Don’t come back.”
Trump Michigan Communications Director Victoria LaCivita said in a statement cited by WDIV that the former president “remembers when Detroit was lauded as the gold standard for auto manufacturing success and revolutionized the industry. Detroit has suffered from globalist policies championed by Kamala Harris that have shipped manufacturing overseas.”
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer told Trump to keep the city’s name out of his mouth (AP)
City of Detroit District 5 Council President Mary Sheffield criticized Trump for being “uninformed.”
“As a proud Detroiter and representative of this resilient city, I find it deeply disappointing to hear such uninformed remarks. Detroit is not a ‘mess.’ We are a city of strength, perseverance, and progress,” she said in a statement. “Our community has worked hard to overcome challenges, and we’ve seen incredible growth, investment, and revitalization.”
Jemele Hill, a contributing writer to The Atlantic who grew up in Detroit, shared her advice for Michigan Democrats on X: “If I’m @GovWhitmer and the Michigan Dem Party, I plaster this on everything — billboards, TV ads, etc.”
She added: “He insulted the entire city and it isn’t the first time. He’s invalidated Detroit voters countless times and instructed his people to riot in Detroit over the vote count in 2020. For the Detroit Economic Club to invite this absolute clown to speak there is a slap in the face to all Detroiters.”
Watch: Trump Completely Loses Train of Thought in Awkward Speech
Edith Olmsted – October 10, 2024
Donald Trump drifted in and out of coherency during an awkward, weaving speech Thursday at the Detroit Economics Club, where he ranted about tariffs and railed against government mandates on electric vehicles.
During a speech that stretched an hour and 55 minutes, Trump employed his typical “weave,” a catchall phrase the Republican nominee uses to explain scattered rambling so repetitive that it does occasionally reiterate the original point.
But while explaining his fears that Kamala Harris’s policies would cause domestic manufacturing to leave the United States, Trump seemingly got carried away by the tide of his own weave and swept out into a sea of complete nonsense.
“And, it’s so simple, I mean, you know. This isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land,” Trump said. “Or, he gets the … engines back—that was the first I realized, I said, ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing—and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace, with a circle, boom!”
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right?” Trump said, seemingly referring to President Joe Biden’s campaign events that took precautions for Covid-19, in an awkward non sequitur.
“He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill ’em up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. He couldn’t fill up the eight circles, I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful, so beautiful to look at,” Trump continued.
Trump claimed that Biden “used to have the press stand in those circles, cause they couldn’t get the people. And then I heard we lost, no we’re never gonna let that happen again.”
“But—” he continued. “We’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.”
Trump seemed to turn back to the subject at hand after being carried away by his gushing over billionaire technocrat Elon Musk and attacks against someone who is not running for president. As for his actual opponent, Trump quickly devolved into personal attacks that didn’t sound quite right either.
Trump then appeared to lose his train of thought as he complained about Democrats opposing the SAVE Act, a longshot Republican bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote in a presidential election—something that is already mandated by the federal government.
“Democrats don’t want voter ID, you know why because they want to cheat,” Trump said. “But they don’t wanna—I say, ohhh—they don’t wanna—when I first, I thought, I thought I was seeing things. I thought I was … like … I didn’t hear that when I first started this who—they’d say, ‘The Democrats will not approve voter ID.’ And it’s only gotten worse!”
Despite using a teleprompter, Trump often went off-script, and repeatedly seemed to get caught up in what he was saying. As the Republican nominee careened between subjects, he seemed to recall that he had talking points, but couldn’t quite nail down what they actually were.
“The word grocery—it’s a sort of simple word. It sort of means everything you eat. The stomach is speaking, it always does,” Trump said. “And I have more complaints about bacon, things going up. Double, triple, quadruple.”
Trump repeatedly got caught up over his choice of words. At another point, Trump continued to seem exceedingly insecure about his own incendiary rhetoric, as he attempted to deliver his fire-and-brimstone fearmongering about large foreign companies.*
“We allowed them to come in and raid and rape our country,” Trump said. “That’s what they did. ‘Oh, he used the word rape!’ That’s right, I used the word rape. They raped our country.”
Scattered in the drivel was plenty of misinformation. Trump falsely claimed that Harris hoped to “ban” gas-powered vehicles, even though her campaign has been a little less than clear on whether she plans to support Biden’s electric vehicle mandate (which is also not a ban by any means).
Trump did say one thing that rang true, though: “Our biggest threat to democracy is stupid people.”
Obama Roasts Trump for Everything From Selling Bibles to Needing a Diaper at Pittsburgh Rally | Video
Sharon Knolle – October 10, 2024
Barack Obama laid into fellow former President Donald Trump so thoroughly on Thursday that more than one X user quipped, “I’d like to report a murder.“
Obama, speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, ticked off a long list of reasons why voters should reject Trump and vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris next month.
He disparaged “the constant attempts to sell you stuff” including gold sneakers, a $100,000 watch and the Trump Bible. “Who does that?” asked Obama with an incredulous shrug.
“You know, he wants you to buy the word of God, Donald Trump edition. Got his name right there next to Matthew and Luke,” he said of Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bibles,” which, it was reported this week, were printed in China. They are priced at $59.99 each.
Obama: Constant attempts to sell you stuff. Who does that? Selling you gold sneakers and $100,000 watch and most recently, a trump bible. You know, he wants you to buy the word of god, Donald Trump edition. Got his name right there next to Matthew and Luke. pic.twitter.com/JUzkTQikU3
The 44th president continued to blast the 45th, recalling his shock at finding out how much diapers cost after his oldest daughter Malia was born. “Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?,” he asked about the father of five.
One attendee shouted, “His own!”
Obama admitted with a laugh, “I almost said that, but I decided I should not say it.”
Trump was dubbed “Diaper Don” by the media in 2020 over reports that he wore adult diapers while filming the reality competition “The Apprentice.”
Trump supporters not only shrugged at the suggestion when it resurfaced during Trump’s tax fraud trial earlier this year, but proudly began wearing the absorbent underwear themselves at campaign events and carrying signs that read “real men wear diapers.”
Obama also blasted Trump for taking credit for the state of the economy when he took office in 2017. “I remember that economy when he first came in being pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good, because it was my economy. It wasn’t something he did. I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me,” he said.
Watch a clip from the rally in the video above, and click through to @Acyn’s X account for more.
Fact check: Trump, on a lying spree, made at least 40 separate false claims in two Pennsylvania speeches
Daniel Dale, CNN – October 10, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is on a lying spree.
As Election Day draws nearer, the Republican presidential nominee has made false claim after false claim on a dizzying variety of subjects. He has both come up with new falsehoods on pressing issues, most notably the federal response to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, and repeated old favorites about subjects he has been railing about since his 2016 presidential campaign.
We went through the speeches Trump made at his two Wednesday campaign rallies in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, one in Scranton and one in Reading. In those two addresses alone, he uttered at least 40 separate false claims.
Here is a fact check.
FEMA and migrants: Trump falsely claimed of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “They have no money. You know where they gave the money? To illegal immigrants coming in.” He also said, “They spent all their funds; they have no funds to take care…”
This is false in two ways. FEMA does have money for the immediate responses to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, though a string of recent disasters has depleted its disaster relief fund; the fund had about $11 billion remaining as of Wednesday. And FEMA did not give all of its disaster relief money to undocumented people; rather, as mandated by Congress, FEMA also administers an entirely separate pool of money for sheltering migrants.
FEMA and employees: Trump added another false claim about FEMA, saying: “They have no workers, they have no nothing.” FEMA has more than 20,000 employees.
Harris and the response: Trump falsely claimed that as desperate people tried to survive Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Vice President Kamala Harris “didn’t send anything or anyone at all” to help them. There were extensive federal and state rescue and relief efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It’s true that some residents died and others were stranded for days, but the state was not ignored by Harris or the Biden administration; North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has repeatedly thanked President Joe Biden for his assistance.
Schools and transgender children: Trump told a slightly vaguer version of his usual false story about schools supposedly obtaining or performing gender-affirming surgeries for transgender children behind their parents’ backs, saying, “Your child go goes to school, and they take your child. It was a ‘he.’ And comes back a ‘she.’ And they do this…And often without parental consent.”
There is no evidence that US schools have sent children into gender-affirming surgeries without their parents knowing or performed gender-affirming surgeries on site; Trump’s own presidential campaign could not provide a single example of any of this ever happening. Even in states where gender-affirming surgery is legal for people under age 18, parental consent is required before a minor can undergo such a procedure.
Trump’s opponents and the election: In Reading, Trump falsely claimed of his election opponents: “They are cheatin’ dogs, I will tell you that.” In Scranton, he falsely claimed, “Their first meeting is: ‘How do we cheat?’” This is all nonsense. There is no basis for the claim that Trump’s opponents are election cheaters.
Harris’ previous presidential campaign: Trump repeated his false claim that, when Harris ran for president in 2020, “she was the first one to drop out, of like 22 people” in the Democratic primary. In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of that primary before Harris exited in December 2019 – including the sitting or former governors of Washington, Montana and Colorado; the sitting mayor of New York City; andsitting or former members of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Harris and the press: Trump falsely claimed of Harris: “She doesn’t do any interviews.” Trump is entitled to argue that Harris has not done a sufficient number of interviews as the Democratic presidential nominee, but the assertion she doesn’t do “any” is wrong; Harris has done multiple interviews in recent weeks. Notably, Harris did an interview with the CBS News show “60 Minutes,” which aired Monday, while Trump backed out of his own interview with the show.
Harris-Walz and the Supreme Court: After correctly noting that Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently expressed support for getting rid of the Electoral College, Trump falsely claimed, “They want to add… they’re thinking about – first time I heard this number – 25: they want to have 25 Supreme Court justices.” There is no basis for the claim that Harris or Walz is pushing for a 25-justice Supreme Court.
Walz and menstrual products in schools: Trump disparaged Walz as “Tampon Tim,” then said, “You know why they call him that? ’Cause they sell tampons, with special legislation, in boys’ locker rooms.” Trump’s claim is false. The law Walz signed in 2023 requires schools to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms, not the sale of menstrual products in locker rooms – and all 18 public school districts that responded to CNN’s questions about the law say they do not provide the products in boys’ bathrooms. You can read more here.
Wind power: Trump repeated a familiar nonsensical story about how the use of wind power means people “can’t watch” television if “there’s no wind tonight.” Using wind power as part of a mix of power sources does not cause power outages when the wind isn’t blowing, as the federal Department of Energy explained on its website even during the Trump administration.
The Biden administration and electric vehicles: Trump falsely claimed that under a Biden administration electric vehicle mandate, “everybody’s got to have an electric car almost immediately.” There is no Biden administration requirement that consumers must buy an electric car or give up their existing gas-powered cars, “almost immediately” or otherwise. The Biden administration has made a push to get automakers to reduce emissions and adopt electric vehicles, but there is not a mandate for consumers; the tailpipe rules for automakers that were unveiled by the administration earlier this year aim to have electric vehicles make up 35% to 56% new vehicles sold in 2032.
The Paris climate accord and emissions: Trump repeated his false claim that under the Paris climate accord, the US “had to pay a trillion dollars” while some other countries didn’t have to pay.
Trump’s “trillion” figure is a wild exaggeration. Under the Obama administration, the US paid $1 billion of a $3 billion commitment it originally made in 2014. After Trump pulled the country out of the Paris accord, the US paid nothing to the global finance goal. And while Biden pledged $11.4 billion annually from the US, this level of funding hasn’t materialized. That’s because Congress, responsible for appropriating the nation’s budget, has allocated only a fraction of that – roughly $1 billion in 2022.
Harris’ comments on fracking: Trump said, “Listen to Kamala in her own words very recently,” then played two video clips in which Harris said she was in favor of banning fracking. But those clips are from 2019, beyond any reasonable definition of “very recently.” Harris has said during the 2024 campaign that she no longer favors banning fracking.
Venezuela, prisons and migration: Trump falsely claimed, “In Venezuela, many countries, they’re emptying their prisons into our country.” This is false. Trump has never corroborated this claim about Venezuela, let alone “many countries,” and experts have told CNN, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org that they know of no evidence for it.
“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the U.S. or any other country,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, an independent organization that tracks violence in the country, said in an email to CNN in June, after Trump made similar claims.
Venezuela, criminals and migration: Adding another colorful story about Venezuela, Trump falsely claimed that “they take the criminal gangs from Caracas off the streets and they bus them into the United States and drop them.” This is false. There is no evidence of Venezuelan authorities somehow busing gang members into the US.
The world prison population: Trump repeated his false claim that “the prison population all over the world is down, because they put them in our country.” The recorded global prison population increased from October 2021 to April 2024, from at least about 10.77 million people to at least about 10.99 million people, according to the World Prison Population List compiled by experts in the United Kingdom.
“I do a daily news search to see what’s going on in prisons around the world and have seen absolutely no evidence that any country is emptying its prisons and sending them all to the US,” Helen Fair, co-author of the prison population list and research fellow at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London, said in June, when Trump made a similar claim.
The number of migrants: Trump, speaking about migration, falsely claimed that “21 million people – plus – came into our nation” under the Biden-Harris administration. Through August, the country had recorded about 10.3 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during the Biden-Harris administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”
Harris, migrants and criminals: Trump, criticizing Harris on immigration, again wrongly described a set of statistics that was released in September. He falsely claimed in Scranton, “You saw that last week: 13,099 murderers allowed to come in, through them.” He falsely claimed in Reading that “as we speak she has – and this was just announced last week – 13,099, so over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers, roaming free in our country.”
This 13,099 figure includes people who are incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails – and it includes people who entered the country over decades, including during Trump’s administration, not just under Biden and Harris. You can read more here.
Harris’ record as attorney general: Trump falsely claimed that when Harris was attorney general of California, “she said under no circumstances” will people be prosecuted for the crimes of child sex trafficking, assault with a deadly weapon or the rape of an unconscious person. Harris did not say anything like that; Trump was grossly mischaracterizing a debate over the language Harris’ office used to summarize California ballot initiatives.
Trump’s border wall: Trump repeated his false claim that “I built over 500 miles of wall” on the southern border. Official government data shows 458 miles were built under Trump – including both wall built where no barriers had existed before and wall built to replace previous barriers.
Trump’s crowds: Trump falsely claimed of his rallies: “We never have an empty seat.” There have been empty seats at numerous Trump rallies over the years – including hundreds at this very rally in Reading. And at many Trump rallies, some once-filled seats empty out during his speeches when supporters leave.
Trump’s crowd in Butler: Trump falsely claimed there were “over 100,000 people” at the rally he held Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the same site where a gunman had attempted to assassinate him in July. CNN affiliate KDKA in Pittsburgh reported that the Secret Service put the crowd at 24,000 people, while the Trump-supporting sheriff of Blair County, Pennsylvania, James Ott, said in his speech at the rally itself (more than three hours before Trump took the stage) that he was looking out at “21,000-plus people.”
Trump’s response to the assassination attempt: Trump, speaking of his response to the attempted assassination in July, falsely claimed, “I said as I was getting up – before I even got up – I said, ‘How many people were killed?’ Because, you know, it was wall to wall people, and I said, ‘How many people were killed?’ They said, ‘We think three, sir,’ and I said, ‘That’s not good.’”
Trump’s rally microphone picked up what was said by Trump and Secret Service agents while he was on the ground and just after, and he did not ask, before or after he got up, how many people were killed. It’s possible he did so after he was whisked off stage (and, of course, possible he was genuinely misremembering what happened in such a traumatic moment).
Trump and firefighters: Trump falsely claimed, “We got the firefighters endorse us, you probably heard.” But the actual recent national news was that the International Association of Firefighters had decided not to endorse any candidate in the race; while Trump is free to argue that this was a victory for him, given that the union endorsed Biden in 2020, it was not an actual endorsement. And while there were some people in the Scranton crowd holding “Scranton Firefighters for Trump” signs, the Scranton chapter of the union also has not issued an endorsement. The president of the chapter told the Scranton Times-Tribune that none of the people he saw holding the signs were active or retired local firefighters.
Trump and classified documents: Speaking of the criminal case against him over his post-presidency retention of classified documents, Trump repeated his false claim that “I had the Presidential Records Act; I was totally allowed to do it.” The Presidential Records Act says that, the moment a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration gets custody and control of all presidential records from their administration. (Trump’s case was dismissed by a federal judge in July on other grounds, that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional; Smith has appealed.)
The New York Times and the Russia investigation: Trump, calling claims about his 2016 campaign’s connections to Russia a “scam,” repeated his false claim that The New York Times “admitted they were wrong” about the coverage that won its journalists a Pulitzer Prize along with journalists from The Washington Post.
“The claim is completely false,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said in an email to CNN in 2023, when Trump made a similar claim; Stadtlander noted that “the award was upheld by the Pulitzer Prize Board after an independent review” and said the Times’ reporting “was also substantiated by the Mueller investigation and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the matter.”
The New York Times and the 2016 election: Trump repeated a false claim he made during his presidency, saying of The New York Times’ coverage of the 2016 election: “Remember in 2016 they had to do an editorial apologizing to their readers because they said, ‘He’s going to lose’…and then I won?”
As the Times noted in 2017 in response to such Trump claims, it did not apologize for its 2016 election coverage. It did publish a post-election letter, from then-executive editor Dean Baquet and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., that said the election had raised several questions, including this: “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?” But the letter did not include an apology, to Trump or anyone else.
Trump and the defeat of ISIS: Trump repeated his false claim that “we defeated ISIS in four weeks; it was supposed to take four or five years.” The ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency.
Military equipment surrendered to the Taliban: Trump repeated his false claim that “we gave $85 billion worth” of US military equipment to the Taliban. Trump’s figure is a massive exaggeration; the Pentagon has estimated that the equipment abandoned to the Taliban by Afghan forces upon their 2021 collapse was worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of the roughly $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021.
Biden and foreign income: Trump repeated his false claim that “Biden got a lot of money from China.” After years of investigation by House Republicans, there is still no evidence Biden has received any Chinese money.
Chris Wallace and a question about the Biden family: Trump told his familiar false story about how he had asked Biden at a 2020 presidential debate why the wife of a mayor of Moscow had paid Biden $3.5 million – in fact, the money was sent to a firm connected to the president’s son Hunter Biden, not to the president – but moderator Chris Wallace, then of Fox News and now of CNN, had interjected to say, “Well, please don’t ask him that question.” Wallace never did that. As the transcript shows, Wallace interjected during this debate exchange to try to get Trump to allow Biden to answer Trump’s question about the payment, not to stop Trump from asking.
Inflation: Trump repeated his false claim that inflation under Biden and Harris is “the worst inflation in the history of our country.” Trump could fairly say that the US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920, and the rate has since plummeted; the most recent available inflation rate at the time Trump spoke here was 2.5% in August.
Mortgage rates: Trump falsely claimed that young people can’t buy a house because interest rates are higher than 10%: “It’s not 10%, it’s 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 percent.” This is false. The average rate on a standard 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.12% in the week ending October 3, according to mortgage financing provider Freddie Mac, and 6.32% in the week ending October 10.
Trump’s tax cut: Trump repeated his false claim that “I gave you, as you know, the largest tax cut in the history of our country.” Expert analyses have found that his 2017 tax cut law was not the largest in US history, either in percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Tariffs on China: Trump repeated two of his regular false claims about tariffs on imported Chinese products. He falsely claimed that China “paid hundreds of billions of dollars” in these tariffs during his presidency, then falsely claimed that before his presidency, “nobody ever brought in 10 cents, not one other – not 10 cents, you check those records.”
The 1890s and tariffs: Touting the supposed benefits of tariffs, Trump falsely claimed that in the 1890s, when the US had very high tariffs, “Our country was the richest it ever was.” The US is far richer today than in the 1890s; per capita gross domestic product is now many times higher than it was then.
The trade deficit with China: Trump repeated his frequent false claim that the US trade deficit with China has averaged “$500 billion” per year. The US has never had a $500 billion trade deficit with China even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade in which the US traditionally runs a surplus with China; the all-time record, about $418 billion, was set under Trump in 2018.
Harris and taxes: Trump played a deceptively edited video showing “The View” co-host Meghan McCain saying to Harris in 2019, “Everything from a 70 to 80% tax rate,” and Harris responding, “I think that’s fantastic.”
This video cuts out key words from the exchange; Harris was not specifically endorsing high tax rates when she made the “fantastic” comment.
Here’s the transcript of the 2019 exchange:
McCain: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the new darling of the party. She officially has more Twitter followers than Nancy Pelosi. She was on ‘60 Minutes’ this weekend proudly calling herself a radical. And she’s promoting policies like saying that every single carbon emission in the country, every car, should be eliminated within the next 11 years, everything from a 70 to 80 percent tax rate. Do you agree that she could possibly – and this ideology, of the socialist left – could splinter your party?”
Harris: “No. You know, I think that she is challenging the status quo. I think that’s fantastic. I think that – you know, I used to teach, before, especially before – in the last few years – and the thing that I always loved about teaching was when you teach, it requires you to defend the premise. And it requires you to re-examine the premise. And question, is it still relevant? Is it – does it have impact? Does it have meaning? And I think that she is introducing bold ideas that should be discussed. And I think it’s good for the party, I frankly think it’s good for the country. Let’s look at the bold ideas. And I’m eager that we have those discussions. And when we are able to defend status quo, then do it, and if there are – you know, if there’s not merit to that, then let’s explore new ideas.”
Biden’s documents case: Trump falsely claimed in Reading that, in an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, “Biden was essentially convicted” and in Scranton that “they ruled on him, they said he’s guilty.” Biden was not convicted, “essentially” or not, and was not found guilty; in fact, Biden was not even charged with a crime. The special counsel in the case, Robert Hur, wrote in his public report that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” adding that “several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges.”
A supposed Biden gaffe: Mocking Biden’s gaffes, Trump falsely claimed, “But the worst was when he was in New Hampshire and he said, ‘It’s great to be in Florida.’ That’s palm trees.” This never happened. Biden has certainly made various geographic gaffes, as hasTrump, but he never said he was in Florida when he was actually in New Hampshire.
After ’60 Minutes,’ Palm Beach County legislator calls for probe of Ian insurance payouts
Anne Geggis, Palm Beach Post – October 8, 2024
Reports that damage claims from Hurricane Ian were systemically downgraded has a Palm Beach County state lawmaker leading a call for a Florida grand jury and a select legislative committee to investigate.
Democratic state Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton said the report on the CBS network news magazine “60 Minutes” that aired Sept. 29 echoes testimony heard during a 2022 House Commerce Committee meeting. During that hearing homeowners and insurance adjusters testified that valid claims from the hurricane two years ago were rejected and underpaid once it came time to make insured Floridians whole from the damage suffered.
“This exposé was, unfortunately, not news to us in Florida,” Skidmore said. “For nearly 30 years, Republicans have had full oversight and control over the insurance industry. The result? A downward spiral for property owners with no real solutions to the problem.”
The Florida House Democratic Caucus has sent a letter to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis asking for the special statewide grand jury to investigate whether illegal activity resulted in insurers giving Hurricane Ian victims short shrift. And another letter was sent asking for the select legislative committee to Speaker of the House-Designate Daniel Perez, a Miami area Republican, Skidmore said.
Governor DeSantis: Concern already addressed on Hurricane Ian insurance payouts
Asked about the Democrats’ request, a spokesman for the governor provided a clip of DeSantis reacting to the 60 Minutes’ report but not the call for the statewide grand jury. DeSantis said that safeguards against downgraded claims were already baked into reforms that were passed post-Hurricane Ian.
“We now have protections in Florida law that you can’t just disregard what the adjuster does,” DeSantis said, after noting he is “not much of a fan” of the CBS news magazine. “You actually have to have a clear, valid reason to be able to depart downward. That may not have been in place when Ian happened.”
DeSantis also noted that the company the news magazine focused on, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, was fined $1 million last May for violating claims-handling requirements after Ian. Most of the findings in that March report, however, focused on handling claims in a timely manner and following procedures, rather than the actual amounts paid, although it did note Heritage’s failure to pay interest.
Kelly Skidmore
Heritage, for its part, issued a public statement after the 60 Minutes segment aired noting the program’s reporting omitted information the 12-year-old company had provided about improvements that were made in its claims-handling procedures in Ian’s wake. And also there was no deliberate effort to deceive customers about the value of their claims, Heritage said.
“It is important to point out that when we did our own review of Hurricane Ian claims following 60 Minutes’ outreach — using a random sample of 10,000 claims — we found that 4,162 of those were revised downward, 2,583 of them were revised upward and about 3,311 of them had no change from what the adjuster reviewed. This is further evidence that we work to pay every eligible claim,” the company statement reads.
Perez could not be reached by email, text or phone to respond to the Democrats’ call.
Florida property insurance a political hot potato
The same year that Hurricane Ian’s winds made landfall at nearly Category 5 strength, five property insurance companies became insolvent or stopped doing business in the state. Special legislative sessions were called to shore up the situation.
But Democrats were unhappy with many of the reforms that the Republican-dominated Legislature put in place. Those measures largely focused on stemming the tide of litigation from contested damage claims. But critics said the Legislature’s actions left consumers with little recourse to contest an insurance companies’ valuation of a claim.
More than a year out from those reforms, Floridians typically pay two to three times more for their property insurance premiums than the national average. The state’s potential for catastrophic hurricanes, the number of lawsuits and the financial industry’s reluctance to help insurers’ with the risk of those factors have been largely blamed for the state of affairs in providing ample and affordable property insurance.
Florida should lead the way in seeking solutions to the problem, Skidmore said, noting that Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz has proposed spreading the risk of these storms around a much wider area with a National Catastrophic Risk Pool. Moskowitz of Parkland has proposed that natural catastrophes like the one hurricanes Ian, Helene and, now possibly Milton present — with widespread, devastating damage — would be backed by the nation’s credit, instead of relying on private insurers and money markets to shoulder the worst sort of risks that have wiped out some insurers faced with a crush of damage claims.
“I am renewing my call to act and support Congressman Moskowitz’s efforts to, at the very least, have a conversation about creating a National Catastrophe Risk Pool,” Skidmore said in a prepared statement.
The risk pool idea is similar to a bill former Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist proposed when he represented Pinellas County. Moskowitz’s bill, introduced in March 2023, has not gotten a committee hearing or a cosponsor.
How to prepare: Hurricane Guide 2024
Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network.
Donald Trump says there are ‘a lot of bad genes’ among migrants in the US
Gram Slattery and Kristina Cooke – October 7, 2024
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump holds a rally in Juneau
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By Gram Slattery and Kristina Cooke
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday there are “a lot of bad genes” in the United States, while discussing murders allegedly committed by immigrants living illegally in the United States.
“How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers,” Trump said in an interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, while discussing the immigration policies of his Democratic opponent in the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
The former president has frequently attacked migrants on the campaign trail, particularly those who have been implicated in crimes. At times, he has used dehumanizing language, and he has increasingly turned to extremely graphic depictions of the crimes even though a range of studies show immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
Trump appeared to be referring to a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Republican Representative Tony Gonzales, released last month, which showed that 13,099 people have been convicted of homicide who are on ICE’s “non-detained docket.” That docket includes various types of immigrants who entered the country legally and illegally.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security called those statistics misleading.
“The data in this letter is being misinterpreted,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration. It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.”
In a statement, the Trump campaign defended his comments, saying he was speaking only about murderers, not immigrants.
“President Trump was clearly referring to murderers, not migrants,” said Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “It’s pretty disgusting the media is always so quick to defend murderers, rapists, and illegal criminals if it means writing a bad headline about President Trump.”
The White House condemned Trump’s remarks.
“That type of language is hateful, it’s disgusting, it’s inappropriate and it has no place in our country,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington, additional reporting by Kristina Cooke and Jarrett Renshaw, editing by Ross Colvin and Rod Nickel)
Trump attacks Harris’ economic plans, says she ‘wants to feed people governmentally’
Bryan Metzger – October 7, 2024
Trump gave a rambling response when discussing Kamala Harris’ economic proposals.
He said that she “wants to feed people governmentally.”
Trump also said that some immigrants have “bad genes” and are predisposed to murder.
In a Monday morning interview, former President Donald Trump made a series of outlandish and false claims about Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic proposals.
“She wants to go into government housing,” Trump said on The Hugh Hewitt Show. “She wants to go into government feeding. She wants to feed people. She wants to feed people governmentally. She wants to go into a communist party type of a system.”
It’s unclear what Trump meant by “government feeding,” and a Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The comment came after Hewitt, a conservative radio host, noted that Harris has proposed giving $25,000 in down-payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, a policy that some economists have warned would spike demand and raise prices.
“That’s going to drive the prices up, yeah,” Trump said. “Your price is going to be $100,000 dollars more now.”
More broadly, Harris has proposed working with the private sector via tax incentives to build three million more homes, despite the former president’s suggestion that she “wants to go into government housing.”
‘We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country’
Moments later, Trump pivoted toward immigration, arguing that some immigrants have “bad genes” and are predisposed to murder.
“You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes,” Trump said. “And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
It’s the latest example of Trump using inflammatory rhetoric to describe some immigrants. Last year, he said that some immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country, which was seen by many as a reference to racial purity.
Trump also claimed on Monday that Harris has allowed “people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers.” He was apparently referring to recently released data from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indicating that more than 13,000 noncitizens in the US who have been convicted of homicide, either in the US or other countries.
The Department of Homeland Security has said that data is being misinterpreted, and that “the data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more.”
Donald Trump — pictured at the US-Mexico border on August 22, 2024 south of Sierra Vista, Arizona — has a history of divisive racial rhetoric (Rebecca Noble)Rebecca Noble/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/Getty Images via AFPMore
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Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Monday that illegal immigrants were bringing “bad genes” into the United States, doubling down on previous inflammatory rhetoric about migrants poisoning the blood of the country.
Trump was criticizing his Democratic presidential rival Vice President Kamala Harris in a radio interview when he brought up government figures showing there were thousands of immigrants in the United States who were not in federal immigration detention, despite homicide convictions.
“You know now, a murderer — I believe this — it’s in their genes. We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” former president Trump told conservative host Hugh Hewitt.
The White House swiftly condemned Trump’s comments as “vile.”
“That type of language is hateful, it’s disgusting, it’s inappropriate, and has no place in our country,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
“This comes from the same vile statements that we’ve heard about (how) migrants poison the blood, that’s disgusting.”
Jean-Pierre added: “We’re going to continue to forcefully reject this kind of vile, disturbing, hateful, hateful speech.”
Trump was misconstruing data released in September by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
The figures cover a period spanning decades, including when Trump was president, and also don’t include people incarcerated in places other than ICE facilities — in state, local or other federal facilities, for example.
– Election issue –
Illegal immigration into the United States, especially over the southern border with Mexico, is a major issue in the November 5 US presidential election.
Polls show it remains a major vulnerability for Harris, with border crossings having risen to record highs at the end of 2023 under President Joe Biden, whom she replaced as the Democratic standard-bearer in July.
But US media reported Monday that migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border fell 75 percent year-on-year in September — to the lowest level since the Trump administration — citing Department of Homeland Security statistics.
Trump, who is neck-and-neck with Harris in nationwide and swing-state polling ahead, has spent much of his campaign demonizing both undocumented immigrants and those in the United States legally.
During a rally last month, the 78-year-old former reality TV star said Harris should be prosecuted over Biden’s border policies and called illegal immigrants “animals,” out to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill.”
“They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat,” he said.
And he repeatedly threatened legal Haitian residents in Ohio with deportation, falsely accusing them of eating locals’ pets.
Trump — the oldest major-party White House candidate in history and the first convicted felon to run — accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” in December in a phrase that earned him comparisons to Adolf Hitler.
Your left-leaning ‘protest vote’ is much worse than useless. It will reelect Trump | Opinion
Jeremy Fryberger – October 4, 2024
Imagn Images file photos
In recent months, the 2024 presidential election campaign has included more twists than a Chubby Checker tribute tour. Yet, at least one thing remains constant: When it comes to third-party candidates, older voters — and plenty of younger ones — have seen this story play out before.
In 2016, for example, an extraordinary number of centrists and left-leaners who normally would have supported the Democratic Party‘s presidential nominee — but who had been influenced by decades of disinformation against Hillary Clinton — instead chose Jill Stein or Gary Johnson (or simply didn’t vote). Some even championed the Republican candidate. Thus, many such third-party supporters, “protest votes” and no-shows not only wasted their ballots, but very much assisted putting Donald Trump and his cohort into the White House.
In 2000, Americans similar to those noted above backed not Democratic Party nominee Al Gore, but third-party option Ralph Nader — or just stayed home. And, in light of that election’s incredibly narrow outcome, these specific voters undeniably helped kick-start the eight-year George W. Bush administration — which included the 9/11 terror attacks, the commencement of two foreign wars and the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.
Were Bush or Trump even the second choices of these particular third-party or no-show voters? For almost all, it seems the answer is a resounding no — another reminder that elections are not games.
Meanwhile, aside from the relatively rare occurrence of a third-party presidential candidate joining a major party president’s Cabinet, it remains true in our country that the sole period during which third-party candidates (and their supporters) can influence Democratic or Republican policy positions is only before the general election. Yet, once November arrives — or whenever one casts a general election ballot — a third-party vote does nothing but distort the general election race.
As such, citizens who don’t live in one of the few places with ranked-choice voting and choose a third-party presidential option in November (or who don’t participate) will once again not only squander the moment — many of these voters will also inadvertently help their least-preferred candidate become president. And this time, that winning candidate could be a pathological lying, nonstop grifting, constantly crime-ing, twice impeached, quadruple indicted (so far), justice obstructing, society defrauding, court corrupting, national security compromising, alliance crushing, U.S. military disparaging, authoritarian loving, democracy dismantling, fascism-adjacent, anti-woman, sexual abusing, serial philandering, rabidly racist, white supremacist and nationalist, religiously bigoted and intolerant (but nonreligious), anti-science, environment destroying, always whining, vengeance seeking malignant narcissist and convicted felon (which, by the way, says nothing — or perhaps everything — about his 40-year-old running mate who would take charge if a certain 78-year-old couldn’t finish his term).
While none but men have led our nation throughout the U.S. presidency’s 235-year history — 45 of them white, and one African-American — citizens this year have the opportunity to elect not just our first woman president. And Kamala Harris would not be just our first Asian-African-American president, but a spectacularly qualified and prepared Asian-African-American woman president. Don’t miss this chance to be part of it.
Regardless, while tens of millions of Americans recognize the third party trap for what it is, every voter should trust history and avoid wasting their vote on any candidate who won’t possibly win — or even influence policy — yet could clear a path for another candidate and presidency that these very same voters want least of all.
Jeremy Fryberger is an architect living in Ketchum, Idaho, with his wife, their two children and dog.
Trump claims Hurricane Helene response ‘going even worse’ than Katrina
Brett Samuels – October 3, 2024
Former President Trump on Thursday repeatedly attacked Vice President Harris and the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene by claiming that the federal response so far has been worse than Hurricane Katrina in the latest instance of him turning a natural disaster into a political advantage.
Trump held a rally with supporters in Saginaw, Mich., where he repeatedly claimed the federal government did not have enough funds to respond to the devastation in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had spent its money on migrants, a notion the White House pushed back heavily on.
“There’s nobody that’s handled a hurricane or storm worse than what they’re doing right now,” Trump said. “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants. Many of whom should not be in our country.”
The White House spent the last 24 hours pushing back on Republicans who echoed similar, unsubstantiated claims.
“This is FALSE. The Disaster Relief Fund is specifically appropriated by Congress to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate impacts of natural disasters,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement. “It is completely separate from other grant programs administered by FEMA for DHS.”
Biden has also called on Congress to return from recess to pass additional funding to assist with the recovery efforts. The House and Senate are not due to return to Washington until after the election.
Despite that, Trump went on to call the federal response to Helene “the worst response in the history of hurricanes.”
“A certain president, I will not name him, destroyed his reputation with Katrina,” Trump said, referring to former President George W. Bush. “And this is going even worse. She’s doing even worse than he did.”
The Biden administration has deployed more than 4,800 federal officials to support response efforts, and the president directed the deployment of up to 1,000 troops to assist in North Carolina’s recovery.
President Biden traveled Wednesday to North Carolina to tour storm damage, and he visited Florida and Georgia on Thursday to do the same. He was notably not joined by either Republican governor of either state. Harris traveled to Georgia on Wednesday and is expected to visit North Carolina in the coming days.
The federal government has also been working with states to provide housing assistance for those who need it and to restore power amid widespread outages. Biden has approved major disaster declarations for Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia to free up additional resources.
It’s only fed Trump’s history of politicizing responses to natural disasters.
He repeatedly feuded with officials in Puerto Rico as multiple hurricanes hit the island in 2017, the first year he was in office when he claimed without evidence that Democrats had inflated the death toll from Hurricane Maria to make him look bad.
Trump in 2019 insisted Alabama could bear the brunt of Hurricane Dorian, which ultimately landed on the East Coast. In making his claim, Trump used a marked-up projection map produced by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration that conflicted with information given by weather forecasters.
During devastating wildfires in California in 2018, E&E News reported Thursday that White House officials had to show then-President Trump voter data to convince him to release funding for California wildfire victims, hesitating to give money to a blue state.
“You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you,” Biden posted on the social platform X in response to the report. “It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it.”
