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Woodward's Trump revelations raise questions about Canada's response to COVID-19 – CBC.ca

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The revelations in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book about what U.S. President Donald Trump knew about the threat posed by COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic have prompted new questions about the Canadian government’s response to the virus, given how much intelligence is shared between the two countries.

Trump told Woodward on Feb. 7 that the U.S. knew that the virus was essentially airborne — “The air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” he said — and that COVID-19 was five times more deadly than even the most “strenuous” cases of the flu.

Trump has been widely criticized for saying such things in private while downplaying the risk in public and failing to adequately warn the American people about a virus that would, as of Friday, claim the lives of 192,616 U.S. citizens.

Trump has defended his public statements about the virus, saying he didn’t want to create “panic” and “cause serious problems for the country.”

Watch: Trump tries to downplay his pandemic comments

The White House has denied that U.S. President Donald Trump intentionally misled Americans about the coronavirus after Trump was heard — on recordings of interviews with journalist Bob Woodward for a new book — acknowledging he downplayed the deadly COVID-19 threat to avoid creating panic. 1:36

But Canadian officials also were reluctant to pronounce on the threat posed by the virus in the early days of the pandemic. Health Minister Patty Hajdu even suggested at one point that the news media was stoking fears about the novel coronavirus.

Hajdu and senior public health officials were saying publicly that the risk of transmission was low in Canada right up until early March. When the risk level suddenly jumped to “high” on March 15, the government scrambled to impose an economic lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

A week after Trump’s call with Woodward, Hajdu told the Thunder Bay Newswatch on Feb. 14 that Canada had seen “a stabilization of cases.”

“I’ve talked a lot about how we have the outbreak that is obviously related to a physical illness … but there’s also the outbreak of fear and the pandemic of fear is a very common partner to pandemics or outbreaks of other illnesses,” she told the local news outlet.

“We need to remind Canadians that the risk factor for contracting this virus in Canada is a close contact with someone who recently travelled to the region,” she added, referring to Asia.

Two months later, there’d be tens of thousands of new cases — many of them generated through community spread by returning travellers from Europe and the U.S.

Wesley Wark, a professor at the University of Ottawa and one of the country’s foremost experts on Canada’s intelligence agencies, said the U.S. likely had better reconnaissance on the virus than the Canadian government did in the early days.

But Wark said he believes it’s “very likely” that some information about the real threat posed by this virus flowed from the U.S. to Canada, especially at the “liaison” level between U.S. officials and Canadians embedded at the embassy in Washington.

He said that, like many U.S. officials, the federal government here downplayed some hard truths of the pandemic, such as the risk of asymptomatic transmission.

“It seems clear to me that Canadian officials — even though they didn’t have, I don’t think, access to the more alarming intelligence the U.S. had — were clearly concerned in ways similar to the Trump administration about creating panic, sowing confusion in the Canadian public, and they were certainly concerned about the resource implication of taking earlier measures against COVID-19,” he told CBC News, citing the government’s initial reluctance to close borders and impose quarantines on returning travellers.

Vehicles cross the Peace Bridge into Canada on March 18, 2020, in Buffalo N.Y. (Jeffrey T. Barnes/The Associated Press)

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, warned against border closures for weeks. “They are inappropriate and could actually cause more harm than good in terms of our global effort to contain,” she said on Feb. 3, before travel was brought to standstill seemingly overnight in mid-March.

Hajdu repeated those lines on Feb. 17, saying border closures were “not effective at all” at controlling the spread of disease.

Tam said at the end of January that she expected Canada would be spared the brunt of the virus.

“Canada’s risk is much, much lower than that of many countries. It’s going to be rare, but we are expecting cases,” she told the Commons health committee.

Asked on Jan. 28 if the federal government was preparing to help provinces and territories deal with a possible surge in cases and strained hospital capacity, Hajdu said that while Canada was ready to assist, she didn’t see an imminent risk.

“I think it’s very premature to say that there will be additional resources needed at the hospital level,” Hajdu told CBC’s Power & Politics. “Every indication is that we will not at this point in time.”

She said Canada was “phenomenally well-coordinated” and “well-prepared” for a possible onslaught of COVID-19.

As CBC reported last month, the public servants who manage the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile (NESS) warned in early February that there was a shortage of the personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to weather a pandemic. It still took weeks for the federal government to sign contracts for goods like N95 respirators, the masks used by health-care professionals to protect themselves from COVID-19.

Hajdu said in an interview Thursday that she took the virus “deadly seriously” at the outset and that she “absolutely” knew the virus had the potential to “kill many more people than the flu.”

A man wearing a mask and full face shield talks on the phone at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport June 23, 2020. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

“We were doing things very early. All along the way, we were taking appropriate measures based on the risk it was presenting to Canada,” she said, adding there was “extensive screening at the airports.” But the government didn’t begin collecting personal contact information from travellers inbound from Hubei province in China — site of the initial outbreak — until Feb. 19.

Wark said Hajdu’s message wasn’t clearly communicated in those early days — and there was a clear push by the government to minimize threats.

“What was the evidence that the Canadian public was prone to panic about the government being bold about the truth? Where’s the evidence?” Wark said.

“That wasn’t the public’s response to SARS in 2003. It wasn’t the response to other outbreaks, like H1N1. It’s a politician’s mindset that is frequently rolled out and it has no basis in evidence or in history and it was certainly misapplied to COVID-19.”

While senior U.S. officials were sounding the alarm in late January to Trump about the imminent risk the pandemic posed to the American people and the world, Canadian public health officials continued to rely on what we now know was often questionable advice from the World Health Organization.

In a Jan. 28 intelligence briefing, U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien gave Trump a “jarring” warning about the virus, according to Woodward’s reporting.

A ‘national security threat’ unlike any other

He told the president that COVID-19 would be the “biggest national security threat” of his presidency. He urged swift border closures to stop Chinese nationals from transmitting the virus on U.S. soil, according to Woodward’s book.

“This is going to be the toughest thing you face,” O’Brien told Trump.

Three days later, during a January 31 interview on Power & Politics, Hajdu said Canada would take its cues from Tam — who also had a senior role at the WHO, where officials were said to have a strong working relationship with China, then the global hotspot.

“You’ve heard Dr. Tam speak about China’s efforts to contain the virus. They indeed have been extraordinary,” Hajdu said.

“That is part of what gives the World Health Organization confidence that the risk of further exposure and spread globally is low … I along with Dr. Tam am very confident that China is working very closely with its partner countries to contain the spread.”

The Associated Press would later reveal that the Chinese regime suppressed evidence of the virus’s transmissibility for six days in early January before going to the WHO to brief the agency on the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak.

O’Brien’s intelligence warnings, along with recommendations from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, would prompt Trump to declare a national health emergency on Jan. 31.

Canada — deferring again to the WHO instead of tracking the path of its closest ally — would not follow suit.

On Jan. 31, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, publicly warned the American people that new, troubling research about COVID-19 had emerged.

Fauci said there was no longer any doubt that people displaying no symptoms of COVID-19 could still pass the virus along to someone else.

Canada slow to react to asymptomatic transmission

“In the beginning we were not sure if there was asymptomatic infection, which would make it a much broader outbreak then what we’re seeing. Now we know for sure that there is,” he said.

“It was not clear whether … [a] person could transmit it to someone while they were asymptomatic. Now we know, from a recent report from Germany, that that is absolutely the case.”

Canada ignored Fauci’s about-face. Later on Jan. 31, Hajdu downplayed the German report on asymptomatic transmission Fauci cited — which would later prove to be accurate — saying it was out of step with what the WHO had told Canada.

Anthony Fauci testifies before a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on July 31, 2020. (Kevin Dietsch/AFP/Getty Images)

“The science is still quite weak,” she said in another interview with Power & Politics. “There are some reports but the World Health Organization does not believe, at this point, that the virus is contagious when people are asymptomatic.

“I’m extremely comfortable with the leadership of Dr. Tam and her level of expertise. Our position is completely in line with the WHO’s position. There is no sufficient evidence to say the virus can be spread when people are not exhibiting symptoms.”

Other senior public health officials in Canada also deferred to Tam and the WHO, while dismissing recent U.S. conclusions and the German report.

“The WHO and Dr. Tam … their assessment of the situation is the information supporting that is still very weak,” said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, on Jan. 31.

“The Public Health Agency of Canada and the WHO are saying that, at this point, we don’t have hard evidence of infectious infectivity of an asymptomatic person,” added Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health responsible for communicable and infectious diseases.

A gap in intelligence-gathering

It wasn’t until April 7 — 66 days after Fauci’s initial alert — that Tam would publicly concede that “the virus causing COVID-19 can be spread from an infected person in the period just before their symptoms appear.”

“Evidence suggests that this is happening more often than previously thought … some infected people who never develop symptoms are also able to transmit the virus,” Tam said in a tweet.

Wark said the early failures of public health officials can be traced to a gap in Canada’s intelligence apparatus. The country just doesn’t collect enough health-related intelligence, he said. “We didn’t have a lot of independent sources of our own,” he said — which explains the reliance on the WHO.

Wark said much of Canada’s intelligence-gathering on disease is carried out by the Public Health Agency of Canada. But recent reporting has suggested that the agency’s Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) was sidelined in the early days of the pandemic.

The GPHIN raised the alarm about a strange, pneumonia-like virus circulating in China at the end of December.

Security intelligence expert Wesley Wark in 2013. “We weren’t connected,” he said. “The Canadian security intelligence system doesn’t do global health.” (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

But GPHIN scientists have since come forward to say they felt muzzled and ignored by Health Canada officials when they tried to warn them about the pandemic threat. Hajdu conceded in an interview with CTV on Thursday that, when she became minister of health in November 2019, she had never heard of the GPHIN.

“I think it’s clearer and clearer that the U.S. had its own sources that painted a much darker picture of COVID than anything Canada had from its own sources,” Wark said.

“We weren’t connected. The Canadian security intelligence system doesn’t do global health. We don’t have a system to make good use of that U.S. intelligence.”

In 2018, the Trump administration released its National Biodefense Strategy. The first goal of the strategy is “surveillance and detection activities to detect and identify biological threats and anticipate biological incidents.”

“There’s no comparable Canadian intelligence community mandate,” Wark said.

Wark said that by late January, it was clear that there was considerable human-to-human transmission of the virus, based on reporting out of China and Thailand — but Canadian officials continued to question the science of asymptomatic transmission for weeks.

Turning a ‘blind eye’

“There was absolutely no reason to assume a rosier picture. At the end of the day, there was no reason not to assume that human-to-human transmission was going to occur. The evidence was mounting by the last week of January that this was the reality,” he said.

“Why they turned a blind eye to that … why the health authorities continued to think that basically COVID was going to be contained in China, that just represents a profound failure of intelligence or assessment and of imagination.”

Speaking to reporters in northern Ontario Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked when it became clear to his government that COVID-19 posed a major threat to Canada.

Watch: Trudeau on Canada’s early indications of COVID-19’s threat

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question about when he knew how serious a disease COVID-19 was. 1:46

Trudeau said Tam convened a meeting with public health experts on Jan. 2 to address “concerns we had and talk about our preparation.”

He said his government was well-briefed throughout and responded to challenges as they arose.

“Every step of the way, we were informed by our experts as to how to keep Canadians safe, what needed to be done, what measures would be helpful in continuing to support Canadians as we were aware of this potential,” he said.

“But, as people know, we were very much learning on the way as we responded.”

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Shohei Ohtani surpasses 50-50 milestone in spectacular fashion with a 3-homer, 2-steal game

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September 19, 2024

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MIAMI (AP) — Shohei Ohtani looked up at a visiting crowd that turned out to cheer him and the Los Angeles Dodgers — and ended up getting to witness one of the greatest individual performances, and seasons, in major league history.

Fans lifted their phones to capture the moment and chanted “M-V-P!” as Ohtani rounded the bases after he cleared the fence for the 50th time, becoming the first major league player with at least 50 home runs and and 50 stolen bases in a season.

“I almost cried, to be honest,” shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “It was a lot of emotions because of everything that happens behind the scenes that we got to witness every single day.”

The most amazing thing about it? Ohtani’s day wasn’t even finished.

Ohtani raced past the 50-50 milestone in the most spectacular game of his history-making career, becoming the first big league player to hit three homers and steal two bases in a game during a 20-4 rout of the Miami Marlins on Thursday that also secured a playoff spot for the Dodgers.

Los Angeles’ $700 million Japanese superstar hit his 49th homer in the sixth inning, his 50th in the seventh and his 51st in the ninth. He finished 6 for 6 with 10 RBIs while becoming the first big league player to hit three homers and steal two bases in a game.

“It was something I wanted to get over as quickly as possible. And, you know, it’s something that I’m going to cherish for a very long time,” Ohtani said through an interpreter in a televised interview.

Ohtani reached the second deck in right-center on two of his three homers at LoanDepot Park. In the sixth inning, he launched a 1-1 slider from George Soriano 438 feet for his 49th.

Ohtani hit his 50th homer in the seventh, an opposite-field, two-run shot to left against Marlins reliever Mike Baumann. Then, in the ninth, his 51st traveled 440 feet to right-center, a three-run shot against Marlins second baseman Vidal Brujan, who came in to pitch with the game out of hand.

“To be honest, I’m the one probably most surprised,” Ohtani said. “I have no idea where this came from, but I’m glad that it was going well today.”

Ohtani came into the game with 48 homers and 49 steals. He took care of the stolen bases early, swiping his 50th in the first and his 51st in the second. He has been successful on his last 28 stolen base attempts.

He broke the Dodgers’ franchise record of 49 homers set by Shawn Green in 2001. And he became the third player in major league history with at least six hits, three homers and 10 RBIs in a game, joining Cincinnati’s Walker Cooper in 1949 and Washington’s Anthony Rendon in 2017.

Ohtani has 120 RBIs, trailing only Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees (53 homers, 136 RBIs) in both categories.

Ohtani reached the 50-50 milestone in his 150th game. He was already the sixth player in major league history and the fastest ever to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a season, needing just 126 games.

His previous career high in homers was 46 for the Los Angeles Angels in 2021, when he also made 23 starts on the mound and won his first of two American League MVP awards.

It was another memorable night for Ohtani at LoanDepot Park, where he struck out then-Angels teammate Mike Trout of the United States for the final out of the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship while playing for Japan.

“I’ve had perhaps the most memorable moments here in my career,” Ohtani said, “and this stadium has become one of my favorite stadiums.”

Already the consensus best player in baseball whose accomplishments as a pitcher and batter outpaced even Babe Ruth, Ohtani reached new heights as an offensive player while taking the year off from pitching.

Ohtani signed a $700 million, 10-year deal with the Dodgers last December. The two-way star, who previously spent six years with the Los Angeles Angels, has played exclusively at designated hitter this season as he rehabilitates after surgery a year ago for an injured elbow ligament.

He finished a triple shy of the cycle on Thursday, adding a run-scoring single and two doubles. He was thrown out at third base while trying to stretch his second double into a triple.

“There’s nothing you really can say because there’s nothing anybody can do about it,” teammate and former MVP Mookie Betts said. “He’s just too good.”

First base was open when Ohtani came up to bat in the seventh, but Marlins manager Skip Schumaker decided against intentionally walking him with the Marlins trailing 11-3.

“If it was a tight game, one-run lead or we’re down one, I probably put him on,” Schumaker said. “Down that many runs, that’s a bad move baseball-wise, karma-wise, baseball god-wise. … I think out of respect for the game, we were going to go after him. He hit the home run. That’s just part of the deal. He’s hit (51) of them. He’s the most talented player I’ve ever seen.”

Preparation was a key to Ohtani becoming the first member of the 50-50 club. He regularly huddled with the team’s hitting coaches and studied video of opposing pitchers to understand their tendencies with hitters and baserunners.

“I see all the work he puts in,” catcher Will Smith said recently. “It’s not like he goes out there and it’s too easy for him. He works harder than anybody. He scouts really hard. He’s playing a different game so it’s fun to see.”

Ohtani appeared to make the 50-50 mark his mission. He increased the frequency of his base-stealing attempts, and in turn his success rate went up.

But that may not be the case next year when he returns to the mound.

“He’s not pitching this year so I think he is emptying the tank offensively,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I do think the power, the on-base (percentage), the average, I think he can do that as a pitcher. He’s done something pretty similar like that with his OPS. But as far as the stolen bases go, I’m not sure about that.”

Ohtani’s teammates have enjoyed watching him crush home runs and scamper around the bases.

“I’m honestly kind of trying to learn from him just seeing the way he goes about his day-to-day business. He’s very consistent, the same demeanor throughout,” outfielder Tommy Edman said recently. “I think that’s why he’s such a good player.”

Third baseman Max Muncy added, “Every night I feel like he does something that we haven’t seen.”

What’s next for Ohtani?

The Dodgers are headed to the postseason in October, which will be another first for Ohtani. He never made it there with the Angels, who never had a winning record during his tenure in Anaheim.

Another potential first could be earning National League MVP honors as a designated hitter. No player who got most of his playing time as a DH — without pitching — has ever won MVP, although Don Baylor, Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz placed high in the vote.

It would be Ohtani’s third career MVP award.

___

AP Sports Writer Beth Harris in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

___

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Harris looks for boost from Oprah as part of digital-first media strategy

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September 19, 2024

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FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris looked for a boost with persuadable and less-motivated voters as she participated in a livestream Thursday evening with former talk show host Oprah Winfrey to focus on her plans to cut costs for the middle class, restore a national right to abortion and address gun violence.

The event, billed as “Unite for America,” and hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, sought to tap into the same energy as long-running Winfrey’s talk show, which drove bestseller lists and allowed celebrities to share their softer side and everyday people to share stories of struggle and inspiration.

It leaned on celebrities like Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Lopez and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’ message over the course of 90 minutes and to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee. More than 300,000 people were watching the Harris campaign livestream on YouTube alone and the event was also being streamed on other major social media platforms.

“We each have those moments in our lives when it’s time to step up,” Harris said when Winfrey asked about her overnight transformation as she went from President Joe Biden’s running mate to being the Democratic nominee in her own right after he suddenly dropped out in July. “I felt a sense of responsibility, to be honest with you, and with that comes a sense of purpose.”

Winfrey told Harris it looked as if a “veil dropped” and she “stepped into your power.”

At one point Harris reminded viewers that she owns a gun — which surprised Winfrey — saying, “If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin’ shot.” She added, “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

Harris was given the chance to talk about her plans to reduce the cost of housing and lower taxes for the middle class, as she took questions from voters in Michigan and Virginia.

Oprah recognized Hadley Duvall in the audience, a 22-year-old woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child.

“You can’t wait until it’s too late to care about reproductive healthcare, because then it’s too late,” said Duvall, who is featured in a new Harris campaign ad. “Thank you for hearing us and seeing us when the Supreme Court won’t,” Duvall added in praise of Harris.

Harris and Winfrey also welcomed the mother and sister of a young Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill. Amber Thurman’s death, first reported Monday by ProPublica, occurred just two weeks after Georgia’s strict abortion ban was enacted in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide abortion rights. Harris has blamed her death on Trump.

“Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family and we would have done whatever to get my baby, our baby, the help that she needed,” said Thurman’s mother, Shanette Williams.

Harris praised their courage in speaking out and called out a “healthcare crisis” caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. “They have no right to be in your womb,” added Winfrey.

Natalie Griffith, a student who was shot twice last month at Apalachee High School in Georgia, joined with her parents. Her mother described the fear she felt after learning about the gunfire at her child’s school.

“No parent should go through this,” Marilda Griffith said through tears, describing rushing out of work, then running to the school to learn if her daughter was OK. She appealed for federal action to curb gun violence.

Harris, after pointing out that she herself owns a gun, said assault-style rifles were designed to kill as many people as possible on a battlefield, and “don’t belong on the streets of a civil society.”

The event comes as Harris is working to continue to share her biography and governing philosophy with voters during her abbreviated presidential campaign, with early voting already underway in some states.

Harris has limited her interactions with the traditional media, instead prioritizing digital engagement and casual — and often more controlled — moments that her campaign hopes will reach voters who increasingly get their news from digital sources.

“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” comedian Chris Rock said.

The in-the-round stage has the appearance of a college campus, with faux brick pillars and a background of trees and green turf under the chairs of the several hundred guests in the audience. Dozens more supporters were featured on video screens in the hall.

“I look around at these screens, Oprah, and I look at who’s in the room, and this is America,” Harris said.

The event is meant as a unifying event of Harris supporter groups that spun off organically after a “Black Women for Harris” call drew tens of thousands of viewers — and raised $1.5 million — in the hours after Harris took over for Biden after he ended his campaign. They included “White Dudes for Harris,” “Comedians for Harris” and ‘Swifties for Harris.”

The event included a direct call to action to viewers to volunteer for Harris’ campaign and to make calls and knock on doors for the Democrat.

Winfrey ended with a call “for all decent people, for all caring people” to back Harris, saying of Trump, “We’re better than this.”

—

Miller reported from Washington.



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The Latest: Both presidential candidates making appearances to fire up core supporters

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September 19, 2024

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Both major presidential candidates are making appearances Thursday meant to fire up their core supporters. Vice President Kamala Harris is participating in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey, who has endorsed Harris and spoke at the Democratic convention in August. Donald Trump will be in Washington to address a “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” evening event with Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who founded the Las Vegas Sands casino and was one of the Republican Party’s largest donors.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Harris talks openly about her gun ownership

Vice President Kamala Harris has grown more open about her gun ownership in recent weeks, but on Thursday she for the first time said what she’d do with the handgun she owns.

Speaking during a campaign event hosted by the talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harris was addressing her efforts to cut down on violence and pass a new ban on assault-style weapons, when she referenced owning a handgun — surprising Winfrey.

“If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin shot,” Harris added. She continued: “I probably shouldn’t have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”

Oprah and Kamala Harris host town hall

A live stream with Vice President Kamala Harris and talk show host Oprah Winfrey billed as a “Unite for America” rally kicked off with more than 230,000 viewers on YouTube alone even before Harris joined, as the Democrat looks to digital-first events to reach voters.

The event is hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, and is leaning on celebrities like Brian Cranston, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’s message.

“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” said comedian Chris Rock.

Trump speaks to Jewish leaders in D.C.

Donald Trump is appearing before Jewish leaders in Washington D.C. to talk about antisemitism.

But as the former president is wont to do, he’s taken a large detour at the top of his speech, name-checking his Republican allies in the crowd, discussing the Green New Deal “scam” and pontificating about his polling numbers at length.

Trump was roughly an hour late to his speech, which was slated to begin around 6 p.m.

“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you, or protect your children, or even protect you with words… I’m here to tell you today that this ugly kind of antisemitic hate for all of us — bigotry and hate — will be turned back … starting at noon on Jan. 23rd,” he said.

“With your vote, I will be your protector and defender and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”

North Carolina representative reacts to Robinson media report

On Capitol Hill in Washington, Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chairman of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.”

Republicans are trying a new approach to abortion in the race for Congress

In the most contested races for control of the U.S. House, many Republican candidates are speaking up about women’s rights to abortion access and reproductive care in new and surprising ways, a deliberate shift for a GOP blindsided by some political ramifications of the post-Roe v. Wade era.

Looking directly into the camera for ads, or penning personal op-eds in local newspapers, the Republicans are trying to distance themselves from some of the more aggressive anti-abortion ideas coming from their party and its allies. Instead, the Republican candidates are working quickly to spell out their own views separate from a GOP that for decades has worked to put restrictions on reproductive care.

It’s a remarkable about-face as the Republican Party works to prevent losses this November that could wipe out its majority control of the House. It comes in a fast-moving election season with high-profile and gripping stories of women’s lives being upended and endangered by abortion restrictions.

Read more here.

These evangelicals are voting their values — by backing Kamala Harris

Former President Donald Trump has heavily courted conservative evangelicals since his arrival on the political scene almost a decade ago. Now he is selling Trump-themed Bibles, touting the overturning of Roe v. Wade and imploring Christians to get out the vote for him.

Trump has maintained strong support among white evangelical voters. According to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical voters cast a ballot for him in 2020. But a small and diverse coalition of evangelicals is looking to pull their fellow believers away from the former president’s fold, offering not only an alternate candidate to support but an alternate vision for their faith altogether.

Grassroots groups like Evangelicals for Harris have run advertisements and Zoom call to shore up evangelical votes for the vice president. Despite some policy differences with Harris, they argue she is the better choice this election.

“I certainly don’t agree with her on all matters of policy,” said Lee Scott, who identifies as evangelical and is ordained in the mainline Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). “I am pro-life. I am against abortion. But at the same time, she has a pro-family platform,” citing Harris’ education policies and promise to expand the child tax credit.

Read more here.

Trump begins to distance himself from Robinson

Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the CNN reporting, which AP has not independently verified.

In a statement to AP, which reached out for comment on the reporting, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.”

Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, but did not mention Robinson by name or answer questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington, or had been invited to do so.

Harris’ campaign reminds voters of Trump’s ties to North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson

As CNN published a report that Trump ally and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, Harris’ campaign reminded voters of the gubernatorial nominee’s linkages to Trump.

In one X post, Harris’ campaign played video clips of Trump praising Robinson – including calling him “better than Martin Luther King” – over headlines from CNN’s reporting.

Another showed Robinson and Trump standing side-by-side giving Trump’s signature thumbs up pose, with the campaign adding a corresponding emoji to the post.

CNN reported Thursday that Robinson, who would become North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

Robinson has stumped in North Carolina with Trump several times and spoke at this summer’s Republican National Convention. But he wasn’t with Vance as the GOP vice presidential nominee campaigned in Raleigh on Wednesday, and Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to a question seeking comment as to whether he would appear with the presidential nominee on Saturday in Wilmington.

Wisconsin election officials ask Supreme Court to determine Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ballot fate

Election officials in Wisconsin are asking the state’s liberal-controlled Supreme Court to decide whether independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name should stay on the presidential ballot without waiting for an appellate ruling.

Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Donald Trump. He’s been trying to get his name off ballots in key battleground states like Wisconsin. A Dane County judge ruled Monday that state law mandates candidates must remain on the ballot unless they die. Kennedy has filed an appeal with the 2nd District Court of Appeals.

Attorneys for the Wisconsin Election Commission asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to take the case directly. They argued that the case needs a fast, final resolution since clerks have started sending absentee ballots to voters.

Georgia election rule changes by Trump allies raise fear of chaos in November

The state that handed former President Donald Trump one of his narrowest losses four years ago is immersed in election controversies even before the first ballots of this year’s presidential race are cast.

The turmoil springs from a revamp of the state election board that gave Trump allies a majority. They have been making changes to election rules that have raised alarms among Democrats and others.

Georgia Republicans say they are just trying to ensure the accuracy of the vote this November. Democrats say the GOP’s tactics are laying the groundwork for another attempt to overturn the will of the voters should Trump once again lose a close election.

President Biden says Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates signals inflation has eased

President Joe Biden said Thursday the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates was “an important signal” that inflation has eased as he poked at Donald Trump’s economic policies as a failure in the past and sure to “fail again” if revived.

“Lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “It’s a declaration of progress, to signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”

The Democratic president emphasized that there was more work left to do, but he used his speech to burnish his economic legacy even as he criticized Trump, his Republican predecessor who is running for another term.

“Trickle down down economics failed,” Biden said. “He’s promising again trickle down economics. It will fail again.”

Hospitality union is knocking on millions of doors to support Harris’ presidential candidacy

The hospitality union UNITE HERE says it has knocked on more than 1 million doors on behalf of Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy, saying that it expects to reach 3.5 million voters in 10 states by Election Day.

Gwen Mills, the union’s president, said the ground game has been more aggressive than in 2016 and 2020 campaigns. She said the process started earlier than in previous elections and more of her members are taking longer leaves of absence from their jobs to contact potential voters. The union has roughly 300,000 members and 1,800 of them are active in canvassing for the vice president.

Harris is relying on aggressive union outreach to help drive turnout in a close race against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

The Teamsters union snubbed Harris on Wednesday by declining to endorse either major presidential candidate. But the United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers and the umbrella organization AFL-CIO are all working for Harris.

U.S. Senator introduces bill to provide security protections to presidential and vice presidential candidates

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott announced Thursday morning that he’s leading a bill meant to provide protections to presidential and vice presidential candidates and spouses at the same level of protection provided to the sitting president.

Scott introduced this bill with 11 other Republican senators, and he said in an interview that he’s been texting back and forth with Trump. He said that from these conversations, he understands that Trump is “committed to winning the race and committed to fighting.”

In this interview, he said that his bill would push these protections for Trump as a major presidential candidate, but he clarified that his bill wouldn’t apply to former presidents, including former President Barack Obama or President Joe Biden after November.

Scott also said he supported the state investigation on the assassination attempt and believes that federal prosecutors needed to be more transparent about details to avoid misinformation.

“Here’s a guy that’s now twice, in what 64 days, somebody tried to kill him,” Scott said. “This is not normal, and we’ve got to figure this out.”

Trump no longer visiting a Polish-American shrine in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump is no longer planning to visit a Polish-American shrine in Pennsylvania Sunday where he would have crossed paths with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

That’s according to a person familiar with Trump’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the trip, which had not been formally announced. It’s unclear why the change was made, but Trump will be in Pennsylvania Monday for a pair of campaign events in the critical battleground state.

Duda’s office has said he will attend a Roman Catholic Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa followed by the unveiling of a monument to the anti-communist Solidarity movement.

He’ll be in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly happening in New York.

Trump’s campaign argues its case to Hispanic voters

Trump’s campaign is making its argument that Hispanic voters are better suited to pick the GOP nominee over Harris this November.

During a call held with reporters Thursday to mark National Hispanic Heritage Month, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Harris “has tried to undo” Trump’s achievements that benefit Hispanic Americans and that the “world was just a safer and more stable place” under the Republican president’s administration.

Rubio cited Harris’ co-sponsorship while in the U.S. Senate of a bill aimed at making it easier for the Cuban military to benefit and profit from American tourism and “making all kinds of concessions to Venezuela.”

Trump’s campaign held the call to mark National Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual tradition that showcases the diversity and culture of Hispanic people. The month is celebrated each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Rubio and former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado gave remarks on the call in both English and Spanish.

Immigration wasn’t a focus of Thursday’s call, but it has been a major line of contrast between Harris and Trump. Speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference on Wednesday, Harris criticized Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally, questioning whether he would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry it out.

Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if he’s elected in November but has offered no details on how such an operation would work.

Kamala Harris steps up outreach to Mormon voters in battleground Arizona

Vice President Kamala Harris is stepping up her efforts to win over voters who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, enlisting prominent members of the faith to make the case in pivotal Arizona that Donald Trump does not align with the church’s values.

Her state campaign announced on Thursday an advisory committee to formalize the outreach to current and former members of the church, widely known as the Mormon church.

With nearly 450,000 church members in Arizona, about 6% of the state’s population, Latter-day Saints and former church members could prove critical in what will likely be an extremely close race.

Latter-day Saints have traditionally voted Republican and are likely to remain part of the GOP coalition. Clustered in solidly Republican states, they have long been a major force in GOP primaries and local politics across the West, but they have not held much sway in national elections. In 2020, about 7 in 10 Mormon voters nationally supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast, while about one-quarter backed Democrat Joe Biden.

Leaders of Democratic protest of Israel-Hamas war won’t endorse Harris but warn against Trump

Leaders of a Democratic protest vote movement against the Israel-Hamas war said Thursday that they would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ’ presidential bid but strongly urged their supporters to vote against Donald Trump in November.

The “Uncommitted” movement drew hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries earlier this year in protest of President Joe Biden ’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The group’s leaders urged the administration to change its policy on the conflict, warning that some Democratic voters might otherwise abstain from voting in November, particularly in swing state Michigan.

Despite months of discussions with top Democratic officials, discontent within the protest-vote ranks only grew after the Democratic National Convention when they were denied a speaker on stage and other demands weren’t met.

Harris’ “unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” movement leaders said in a statement.

Group leaders also made clear in their statement that they strongly opposed supporters voting for Trump or a third-party candidate who “could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency.” Instead, they urged voters to register “anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot.”



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