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Joe Biden Warns Trump Not To ‘Screw Up’ Relationships With Allies Over Tariff Threats

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US President Joe Biden on Thursday expressed hope that President-elect Donald Trump will reconsider his pledge to apply tariffs on Mexico and Canada, saying the move would be “counterproductive.”

Earlier this week, Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada as soon as he takes office.

During a visit to the Nantucket Fire Department on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, Biden suggested taking such action against US neighbours and allies would be a mistake.

“I hope he rethinks it. I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do,” Biden said of Trump. “We have an unusual situation in America. We’re surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and two allies, Mexico and Canada. The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships. I think we’ve got them in a good place.”

Trump has previously suggested tariffs would motivate Mexico and Canada to address some of the issues he repeatedly complained about during his White House bid — undocumented immigrants crossing into the US through the southern border and the fentanyl crisis. Trump said the two countries could “easily solve” those issues.

“We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” Trump said Monday.

Biden, for his part, noted that border crossings have decreased significantly since Trump’s last term in office.

Trump has also said he will levy an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods in January.

As Biden wraps up his final months in office, he spoke to reporters about what he is grateful for this Thanksgiving season.

“I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for the peaceful transition of the presidency,” he said.

He added that he is thankful for the US-backed ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The deal does not cover the war in Gaza.

In a statement released by the White House addressing another major foreign policy concern for his administration, Biden slammed Russia for its Thursday attacks on several Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, targeting the country’s energy infrastructure as the winter months approach.

“This attack is outrageous and serves as yet another reminder of the urgency and importance of supporting the Ukrainian people in their defense against Russian aggression,” Biden said.

Trump’s impending return to the White House has prompted concern among Ukraine allies about the future of US support for Kyiv given the president-elect has previously refused to say whether it would be in the United States’ interest for Ukraine to win the war.

But during his remarks to reporters, Biden said he will work to ensure the transition to the Trump administration “goes smoothly,” while seeming to express hope that Trump may walk back some of his controversial campaign pledges.

“I want to make sure it goes smoothly. All the talk about what he’s going to do or not do — I think there may be a little bit of an internal reckoning on his part,” he said of Trump. “So it remains to be seen.”

Biden added that the makeup of the incoming Congress with Republicans having a thin majority in both the House and the Senate will require “some real compromise.”

“But we’ll see,” Biden said. “On Thanksgiving, I am hopeful.”

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You Can Already See Signs Of Trump’s Crony Capitalism In Action

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A hallmark of Donald Trump’s first presidency was the way major policy developments would sometimes get almost no attention, because they were competing with the flurry of higher-profile, mind-blowing controversies swirling around him and his team.

Evidently Trump’s second presidency is going to unfold in the same way.

For the past week, the political world has focused mostly on the controversies over Trump’s planned appointments for top positions in his administration. And that’s understandable, given his plan to put the nation’s health in the hands of a noted vaccine skeptic and to hand the national intelligence apparatus over to someone who likes to repeat talking points from Russian propaganda.

But that conversation has left virtually no space for discussion about policy changes — including one that should raise a lot of questions about exactly whose interests Trump will represent in government and exactly who has influence over him.

The policy in question is a federal tax credit for buyers of new electric vehicles. It exists thanks to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature legislative accomplishment, and is part of that law’s effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels by promoting EV use.

Last week Reuters reported that Trump’s transition team was recommending he ask Congress to kill the tax credit. And while Trump has not said anything publicly, auto industry leaders and investors saw the report as a trial balloon and indicator of what the president-elect is likely to do.

It was not exactly a shocking development. Trump has been speaking out against Democratic support of EVs ― or what he has called, deceptively, an “electric vehicle mandate” ― for years. Especially when speaking in states like Michigan, cradle of America’s auto industry, he has portrayed the EV effort as elite Democrats imposing a tree-hugging agenda that will ruin the U.S. auto industry and, in the process, wipe out jobs for U.S. workers.

Still, Trump never said explicitly whether he’d actually seek to eliminate the tax credit. And there were reasons to think he might not pursue the idea after the election.

One is that a number of House Republicans support the EV incentives. Many come from places like Georgia, Ohio, Indiana and Nevada ― states that Trump won and where the EV effort has led to a boom in factory construction. The recent EV push has “created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference,” the House members wrote in a summer letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)

Then there are the feelings of the auto industry itself. Both Ford and General Motors, the two legacy car companies still based in Detroit, have supported the tax credit because they think a global shift towards EVs is inevitable. The real question now, they argue, is not whether there will be many more EVs in the future, but who will produce and sell them.

The U.S. carmakers are particularly worried about losing ground to Chinese companies. Thanks to two decades of financial support from their own government, Chinese carmakers can now produce EVs more cheaply and, as a result, are poised to dominate the worldwide market. The new federal tax credit, worth up to $7,500 per vehicle but only valid for EVs produced here in the U.S., is giving Ford and GM a chance to compete on a more even playing field among U.S. consumers.

Good jobs in the districts of House Republicans, a chance to help American industry compete with China ― those sure sound like ideas that might resonate with Trump.

But those aren’t the only appeals Trump is hearing. He’s also hearing from some of his biggest, and richest, allies. And they have a very different view.

Hamm, Musk And EVs

One of the co-leaders of the transition team on EV policy, according to Reuters, is Harold Hamm, a billionaire oil tycoon who was a prodigious Trump fundraiser during the campaign (and donated plenty of his own money, too). Hamm opposes support for EVs, whose growth over the long term would reduce demand for gasoline ― i.e., the financial lifeblood of his enterprises.

Elon Musk, another Trump megadonor, also has the president-elect’s ear. And although Musk is the CEO of Tesla, the nation’s top electric carmaker, Musk has said his company doesn’t need the subsidies because it’s not trying to retool from making gas-powered cars and isn’t at the same disadvantage internationally as the legacy Detroit automakers.

“I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly,” Musk told investors over the summer. But he said that in the “long term, it probably helps” Tesla if Trump does away with the tax credit, since that could allow Tesla to more thoroughly dominate the U.S. market.

Corey Cantor, a senior auto industry analyst at BloombergNEF, told HuffPost he thinks Tesla sales benefit from the tax credits more than Musk lets on. But he agrees Tesla has “far more flexibility” and would suffer less.

One reason for that is that Musk has fought unionisation at his auto plants and, according to outside analysts, pays his workers less than competitors. A major goal of the Biden EV push was to support unionised companies in the U.S. and, in the process, guarantee better pay for manufacturing workers.

It’s impossible to know just how much Trump’s opposition to the EV tax credit reflects the influence of Hamm and Musk, given his own longstanding skepticism of measures to prevent climate change. But Trump has a lengthy, well-chronicled history of heeding or helping donors who want policy favors, or offering them positions in his administration.

And that’s to say of nothing of how Trump and his family profited personally when, for example, lobbyists and foreign dignitaries would stay at Trump’s Washington hotel. One watchdog group determined through public disclosures that his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, made as much as $640 million in outside income during Trump’s first term.

Now Trump is on his way back to the White House, with a transition team led by and stocked with billionaires. Musk, along with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, are leading a so-called Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) task force that, though not an official government entity, will identify targets for big cuts in government spending.

The Political Game

Lobbyists and analysts familiar with the transition told The New York Times they thought Ford and GM (and Stellantis, the other Detroit company, which is now part of a foreign conglomerate) still had a chance to save the tax credit, if they’re strategic enough.

As these sources explained it to the Times, part of Trump’s motivation for killing the tax credit was his grudge against the Detroit companies because of their past support for auto emissions policies he opposed. To get on Trump’s good side, the companies needed to make amends ― or, as the Times put it, “bow to Mr. Trump.”

Trump has always been unabashedly transactional. The variable is which kind of currency will get him to respond. Campaign contributions? Family enrichment? Personal abasement? Some combination of the above?

The future of EVs, like so many other issues in policy for the next four years, may depend on who figures out the answer.

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Ex-Obama Adviser Snidely Boils Down Harris Defeat To 1 Faction Of Democratic Party

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David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama during his presidency, on Thursday said Democrats have “become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party” ― and that led to Kamala Harris’ defeat in the White House race.

Many pundits have been upping their blame game in the aftermath of the 2024 election. But analysis from Axelrod, a strategist who successfully helped engineer both of Obama’s national campaigns, merits attention.

“I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country,” Axelrod told broadcaster Anderson Cooper on CNN. “The only group that Democrats gained with in the election on Tuesday was white college graduates. And among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”

He continued to hammer home a point about the more affluent income bracket that Harris appealed to.

“The only group … Democrats won among were people who make more than $100,000 a year,” Axelrod said. “You can’t win national elections that way, and it certainly shouldn’t be that way for a party that fashions itself as the party of working people.”

Axelrod suggested snobbery played a part in Democrats’ failed messaging after President Joe Biden had helped working people.

“You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ There’s a kind of unspoken disdain, unintended disdain in that,” he said.

“I think Biden has done programmatically some good things for working people. But the party itself has increasingly become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party, and it lends itself to the kind of backlash that we’ve seen.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a Harris campaign co-chair, somewhat echoed Axelrod’s point in a separate conversation on CNN.

“There’s a lot of work to do to ensure that we communicate to folks that the Democratic Party is the party of working people, is the party that supports immigrants, is the party that supports the social safety net,” Garcia said.

H/T Mediaite

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Obama On Trump’s Recent Odd Behaviour: ‘Can You Imagine If I Did That?’

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Barack Obama spent a while Friday night poking fun of Donald Trump’s odd behaviour as of late, warning that America would be getting “an older, loonier” version of him “with no guardrails” if he wins back the presidency next month.

“You would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this,” Obama joked to the crowd in Tucson as he stumped for Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Ruben Gallego, who’s vying for an open Senate seat there.

The former president laid in on Trump’s widely mocked town hall earlier this week, in which the GOP presidential nominee spent nearly 40 minutes swaying on stage to music instead of answering questions.

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

Then, addressing Trump’s recent head-scratching claim that he’s “the father of IVF,” Obama quipped: “I do not know what that means. You do not either.”

And Obama said his successor, who recently claimed the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington, D.C. was a “day of love,” made the deadly riot “sound like it was Woodstock.”

Then his tone darkened. “Tucson, we do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails,” the former president warned.

Obama also regaled the crowd with commentary about Trump’s various business ventures, from his $400 gold high-tops to his six-figure watches.

“When he’s not complaining, he’s trying to sell you stuff,” Obama joked. “He’s got his gold sneakers, he’s got the $100,000 watch — says it’s a Swiss watch, but nobody can actually figure out where in Switzerland was this thing made.”

But Obama’s “favourite” Trump product, he said, is a $60 Trump-branded Bible.

“He’s got the Trump Bible ― wants you to buy the word of God, Donald Trump edition,” he continued. “His name’s gonna be on there, embossed, right next Luke and Mark and Matthew,” he said, referencing three of the gospels from the New Testament.

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More Jan. 6 Evidence That Trump Tried To Keep Hidden Is Out

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A four-part appendix detailing more about former President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election hit the public record on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan approved the public release on the federal criminal docket in Washington, D.C., late Thursday, following weeks of Trump requesting to keep the appendix out of the public eye.

Trump told the judge on Oct. 10 he needed more time to weigh his “litigation options” if she decided to admit the source materials publicly, arguing they could be damaging to jurors and the integrity of the case. Chutkan agreed to give him one week to respond and make his arguments at blocking the release. He filed a last-ditch motion early Thursday asking for more time, but was denied.

The appendix is split into four parts with sensitive information redacted. The four volumes total more than 1,800 pages.

Volume I is mostly transcripts of interviews with witnesses who testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

There is a new detail in this first volume that stands out, however: testimony before the Jan. 6 committee from a White House valet to Trump.

The valet told the committee that on Jan. 6, when Trump was preparing to watch playback of his speech as violence erupted, Trump asked him if his “speech was cut off.” The valet told the committee that he tried to explain to Trump that it had been.

The record shows the valet appears to be reviewing photos with investigative counsel for the Jan. 6 committee when he is testifying about Trump’s reaction.

“And that’s pretty much the face I got the whole time, and it was kind of like he told me, Really? And I was like, yes sir,” the valet said.

This transcript with the valet has been released before — by House Republicans. But Smith’s version unmasks what they redacted.

The version published in March by Georgia Congressman Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the chair of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, redacted the section where the valet tells investigators that after Trump said “let’s go see” when he was told that his speech was cut off, the valet took off Trump’s outer coat, got a television ready for him and handed him a remote.

“And he starts watching it. And I stepped out to get him a Diet Coke, come back in, and that’s pretty much it for me as he’s watching it and like, seeing it for himself,” the valet testified, according to Smith’s version.

The Republican version of the transcript also redacted when congressional investigators next asked the valet: “So, you set up the TV. Did you set it up for him to watch his speech or live coverage of what was happening at the Capitol?”

“Typically, that’s — a lot of times he’s in that back dining room a lot,” the valet said.

The contents of the transcript with the valet cut off here in Smith’s appendix once investigators asked the valet if he knew, in fact, whether Trump was watching the events at the Capitol.

Volume I also contains a previously public transcript in which Jan. 6 committee investigators ask a witness about whether Trump’s Jan. 6 speech draft was something his staffers categorised as “political” or “official.”

This is a key distinction for the special counsel’s team because it argues that Trump’s activities when he was in a campaign capacity are not official and therefore are prosecutable.

Notably, the witness first told committee investigators they didn’t recollect whether anybody told them that day if Trump’s speech at the Ellipse was a political one.

But “afterward,” the witness said, they knew that transcriptions of Trump’s speech went out via text and it was “styled ‘internal transcript.’”

“And my recollection is internal transcripts were political speeches,” the witness said.

Another transcript in the first volume features testimony from Greg Jacob, former Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel. The transcript in the Smith appendix redacts Jacob’s name, but a side-by-side comparison by HuffPost of the Jan. 6 committee transcript and the one Chutkan published Friday, confirms it is him.

Here the material Smith attaches to his immunity arguments zeroes in on testimony in which Jacob told the Jan. 6 committee about attempts by Trump darling and “coup memo” author John Eastman to convince Pence and Pence’s staff that a vice president had the constitutional authority to count slates and object to them.

This meant, according to Eastman, that anything in the existing legislation that governed the count, like the Electoral Count Act, was unconstitutional.

“But if we were to do what [Eastman] suggested, it would mean that none of those debates happened in Congress. None of those Senators would get to make their objections. We would be asserting we have the unilateral authority to do all of that,” Jacob testified.

Jacob expressed that Eastman appeared to understand the scheme wouldn’t work for Pence and it would be rejected if advanced.

“John, isn’t this just a terrible idea?” Jacob asked Eastman.

Eastman “didn’t quite get to saying yes,” Jacob said, but when he told Eastman that, if they took the fight all the way to the Supreme Court, they would lose 9-0, Eastman balked saying it would be 7-2 and he might have Justice Clarence Thomas on his side.

The men went over a few of Thomas’ opinions and Eastman backed off a bit, admitting he would lose 9-0.

Eastman told Jacob “they” would be “really disappointed.”

“They’re going to be really disappointed that I wasn’t able to persuade you,” Eastman allegedly told Jacob.

Eastman didn’t clarify who “they” referred to before he left the meeting with Jacob.

Volume II is heavily redacted and primarily features tweets from Trump in which he said there had been pervasive voter fraud in battleground states and called on state and election officials to address it. In tweets from November 2020, including on and around Election Day, Trump calls on the Supreme Court to decide the outcome or alleges that fraud in those battleground states is an “unsolvable problem.”

The records show how officials including Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt were forced to directly rebut Trump’s bunk claims online but often with demonstrably less effect on social media, given Trump’s reach on Twitter.

The tweets and retweets relate, in part, to Smith’s allegation that Trump was exacting a pressure campaign on election officials predicated on information he knew to be false and despite being told numerous times after Election Day that the election had been the most secure in history. Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, made that announcement on Nov. 13. Former Attorney General William Barr would declare publicly on Dec. 1 that there was no evidence of voter fraud. None of that deterred Trump from pursuing his conspiracy theories, according to prosecutors.

This volume also shows tweets in which Trump calls on people to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and not just the first time, Dec. 19, 2020, when he blasted out the invite to his “wild” rally.

Smith’s appendix shows Chutkan that Trump sent out the call multiple times in December, including on Dec. 30, when he wrote, “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!”

The appendix also shows that Dec. 30 post was retweeted by Trump’s official “Team Trump” campaign account. So were several others.

Volume III has sections from Pence’s book, “So Help Me God.” Prosecutors highlighted certain passages in which Pence’s describes trying to console a despondent Trump over his defeat and Pence’s own awareness at the time that if there had been any voter fraud, it wasn’t enough to cost Republicans the 2020 election.

Other sections feature Pence’s recollection of Trump’s repeated calls to him on the eve of the U.S. Capitol attack.

“You gotta be tough tomorrow,” Pence recalled Trump telling him.

There are transcripts from court hearings in the third appendix, including a portion of one that took place in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Trump and his cohorts peddled a fake elector scheme. Other transcripts come straight from political speeches Trump gave, including one on Jan. 4, 2021, when he endorsed Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue before a Georgia runoff election. Trump spent much of that rally talking about his own reelection campaign and claiming the presidential vote had been rigged.

“And I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,” Trump said in a stump speech in Georgia, adding that he liked Pence but that if he didn’t “come through for us,” he wouldn’t “like him quite as much.”

Trump would echo those remarks 48 hours later at his speech on the Ellipse.

Volume III also includes copies of electoral vote certificates that so-called Trump electors tried to pass off in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.

Other records released Friday show a budget and trip plan for Jan. 4 to Jan. 6, in which close to $3 million was allotted for events with right-wing groups including Turning Point Action, Tea Party Express and Save the U.S. Senate.

Volume IV contains information that is mostly already in the public record and was obtained through the House Jan. 6 committee. Much of this 384-page document is redacted and it doesn’t offer much new to pore over. There are letters and emails already on the record about the strategy to advance fake electors as well as Pence’s letter issued on Jan. 6, 2021, stating that he did not have unilateral authority to determine which electoral slates should be counted.

It also includes a transcript of a town hall from May 2023 in which Trump defended his remarks made at the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, and denied telling people to march to the Capitol that day.

The next big deadline Trump must meet in the election subversion case arrives Nov. 7, when he must reply to the 165-page immunity brief special counsel Jack Smith filed on Oct. 2. When he does, it is expected that Trump’s lawyers will emphasise that Trump genuinely believed there was widespread voter fraud and that he acted with the interest of the nation first to reverse his defeat.

Trump’s lawyers are also expected to push back on key distinctions Smith made around Trump as candidate for a new term in office versus Trump as commander-in-chief.

Smith’s immunity brief offered insight into Trump’s alleged conduct and frame of mind before and on Jan. 6, 2021, and included information on alleged efforts to advance fake electors in swing states that he lost to Joe Biden and pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results.

It pored over tweets, emails and testimony from dozens of Trump White House officials, insiders or allies to establish the contours of the sweeping conspiracy that culminated into a violent, armed and deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. Importantly, the brief also addressed which of Trump’s acts were and were not “official,” according to Smith, under the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity decision.

The Supreme Court’s ruling granted presidents absolute immunity for their core acts and “presumptive” immunity for all other official acts. But actions outside of core acts are not given this protection.

It will be up to Chutkan to decide whether Smith’s interpretations and attempts to rebut the “presumptive” immunity standards can survive the standards the nation’s highest court has now set.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges he faces in the Jan. 6 case.

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Trump Insists People Leaving His Rally Aren’t Really Leaving His Rally

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Well, he wasn’t trying to control the crowd as much as he was trying to control any messaging about people leaving the event early.

Rally size is something that is important to Trump — so important that he became agitated during a presidential debate on September 10 when Democratic rival Kamala Harris bluntly said that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”

In Walker, Trump attempted to explain why rallygoers seemed to be leaving his event.

“The people that you see leaving? Because nobody ever leaves,” the former president said. “And when they do, I finish up quick.”

Trump then suggested that his staffers were to blame for the apparent departures, and claimed that people were actually lining up in the back for photos since he couldn’t pose for pictures earlier.

“These stupid people that are with me sometimes, they say, ‘Come on back,’” Trump said. “Thirty people, they get up and they go back. And they’re all lined up in the back waiting for me to take a picture because I couldn’t do it before.”

But Trump’s explanation for people leaving his rally wasn’t helped by the Harris campaign sharing purported video of (checks notes) people leaving his rally.

Not surprisingly, social media users soon mocked the former president for his questionable claim.

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Kate Middleton Reveals She Is Now ‘Cancer Free’ In Intimate Family Video: ‘A Renewed Sense Of Hope’

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The Princess of Wales has just revealed she is “cancer free” in a heartfelt family video released on social media.

She did not specify the type of cancer, but explained in a video filmed with BBC Studios: “In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time, it was thought that my condition was noncancerous.

“The surgery was successful. However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present.”

“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” she said at the time, explaining that the news was a “huge shock” to her family.

Since announcing the health news, the Princess of Wales has appeared at public events just twice.

She attended the military parade, Trooping the Colour, in June and attended the 2024 Wimbledon men’s final in July.

The heartfelt video posted on Monday showed Kate and her family having fun together in nature, while gentle music plays in the background.

The clip, filed by Will Warr, seems to show a different side to the royals, as the family appear much more affectionate with one another than they usually allow themselves to show in public, and in a more casual setting.

The children are also seen messing around together, while William and Kate have several quiet moments of reflection together.

In a voiceover accompanying the clip, she said:

“As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment.

“The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family.

“Life as you know it can change in an instant and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown.

“The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you.

“With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.

“This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted.

Of simply loving and being loved.

“Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus.

“Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes.

“I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can.

“Despite all that has gone before I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.

“William and I are so grateful for the support we have received and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time.

“Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling.

“To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey – I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand. Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright.”

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Trump Backtracks, Says He’s Voting No On Florida Abortion Amendment

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A day after indicating some support for a referendum to protect abortion rights in Florida, Donald Trump said Friday he’s actually going to vote against it.

“Nine months is just a ridiculous situation, where you can do an abortion in the ninth month,” the Republican presidential nominee told Fox News Friday of the referendum.

If passed, Amendment 4 would amend Florida’s constitution to restore abortion access until fetal viability ― typically around the 6-month mark. Florida currently bans abortion beyond the sixth week of gestation, with limited exceptions.

Abortion late in pregnancy is extremely rare and often happens because the fetus would not survive after birth or because of serious threats to the mother’s health.

Trump, a Florida voter as of 2020, then claimed that blue-state abortion laws allow for the homicide of newborn babies ― a lie he often repeats.

“Some of the states like Minnesota and other states have it where you could actually execute the baby after birth, and all of that stuff is unacceptable,” he said. “So I’ll be voting no for that reason.”

Trump reiterated that he thinks that Florida’s current ban is too restrictive, even though he boasted as recently as last year that “without me there would be no six weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks” bans.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly tried to appear moderate on abortion ― a matter that’s proven to be a losing issue for Republicans since the fall of the Supreme Court precedent under Roe v. Wade in 2022. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has repeatedly told voters not to take his more relaxed stance on the issue seriously, pointing to his long record of opposing abortion access.

In response to Trump’s remarks Friday, Harris said he’s clearly aligned himself with the anti-abortion movement.

“Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear: He will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant,” she said.

“Of course he thinks it’s a ‘beautiful thing’ that women in Florida and across the country are being turned away from emergency rooms, face life-threatening situations and are forced to travel hundreds of miles for the care they need,” she continued.

When Trump suggested he’d vote in favor of the Florida amendment Thursday, saying he’ll be “voting that we need more than six weeks,” his campaign quickly backtracked.

“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a news release.

Measures like the one in Florida have passed in numerous other states since the fall of Roe. In all seven states that have put abortion questions before voters, including red states like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana and swing states Ohio and Michigan, voters have sided with abortion rights.

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Gwen Walz Uses Her ‘Teacher Voice’ For Spectacular JD Vance Takedown

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Gwen Walz, wife of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, lambasted the Republican running mate, JD Vance, at a rally Friday in Manassas, Virginia.

And to make sure the crowd knew she was serious, she did it in her “teacher glasses.”

The moment happened while Walz, the Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’ running mate, was talking about a recently resurfaced comment by Vance criticising Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, for trying to “brainwash” children while not having “a single child” of her own (she is a stepmother to two kids).

Considering the Walzes struggled with fertility issues before having two children, she didn’t take too kindly to the Ohio senator’s hint that people who haven’t given birth to children shouldn’t be teachers.

And she let him have it.

“JD Vance said he was ‘really disturbed’ by teachers who don’t have biological children,” Gwen Walz said before mentioning her own personal story.

“For a long time, Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility. We were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments. We do not take kindly to folks like JD Vance telling us when or how to start our families,” she emphasised.

She then paused to put on a pair of glasses.

“So let me use my teacher voice. Mr. Vance, how about you mind your own business?”

<div class="js-react-hydrator" data-component-name="Twitter" data-component-id="997" data-component-props="{"itemType":"rich","index":10,"contentIndexByType":1,"contentListType":"embed","code":"

.@GwenWalz: JD Vance said he was ‘really disturbed’ by teachers who don’t have biological children. For a long time, Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility. We were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments. We do not take kindly to folks like JD… pic.twitter.com/XrrepJRAOX

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 30, 2024

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.@GwenWalz: JD Vance said he was ‘really disturbed’ by teachers who don’t have biological children. For a long time, Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility. We were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments. We do not take kindly to folks like JD… pic.twitter.com/XrrepJRAOX

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 30, 2024

Many people were impressed by Walz’s takedown and the teacher glasses she put on before delivering it.

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English teacher here. So when she put on her glasses, I knew what she was about to do: read him succinctly and pointedly! 😏😂 #HarrisWalz2024

— LaChingonaProfesora, PhD🪷 (@beaumerrickstan) August 30, 2024

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English teacher here. So when she put on her glasses, I knew what she was about to do: read him succinctly and pointedly! 😏😂 #HarrisWalz2024

— LaChingonaProfesora, PhD🪷 (@beaumerrickstan) August 30, 2024