‘Incident’ reported at Arlington National Cemetery during Trump visit
(WASHINGTON) — Arlington National Cemetery has confirmed to ABC News that during former President Donald Trump’s visit on Monday, an “incident” related to photos being taken at the site occurred, leading to a report being filed.
When contacted by ABC News on Tuesday night, a representative for the Arlington National Cemetery released a statement that confirmed an “incident” but didn’t provide specifics.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed,” the statement read.
Trump campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, posted on X what he said was proof of the team’s approval to have an official photographer and videographer outside the main press pool.
“Only former President Trump may have an official photographer and/or videographer outside of the main media pool,” a screengrab of what appears to be an access guideline posted by Cheung reads. However, it should be noted that campaign officials — not professionals — were also taking photos and videos of the day’s events.
Cheung also claimed on Tuesday night after the news broke that, “There was no physical altercation as described [by some reports], and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made” in a statement to ABC News.
Trump campaign staffers posted multiple pictures and videos of Trump visiting Arlington Cemetery, including from what appears to be Section 60, using the moment to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris’ absence. Trump was at the cemetery on the third anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate during the withdrawal from Afghanistan to pay tribute to the 13 U.S. Service members killed in the incident.
In one video posted by Trump campaign’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita, Trump can be seen laying flowers on the grave of Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, who died in the attack. LaCivita wrote in the post that Trump was speaking on the phone with Knauss’ family, who couldn’t make it to the ceremony on Monday.
Multiple other Trump campaign staffers posted photos from there, and some of the images were then shared by the Trump campaign on their official X account.
Prior to the event, the cemetery had been explicit in its rule that no Trump activity could be filmed during his visit to Section 60.
Monday’s press pool note read: “The family visit to Section 60 following the wreath laying is private and at their explicit request, there will be NO coverage at that location. Your POOL will wait inside the press van during this visit. POOL will then be taken to an unknown location for an OTR stop to round out the morning.”
In a statement to ABC News, LaCivita, a combat-wounded Marine, stressed that Trump “was there on the invitation of the Abbey Gate Gold Star Families to honor their loved ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” calling the individual who attempted to block Trump campaign officials “despicable.”
(WASHINGTON) — Against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol at dusk, freed American Paul Whelan, who just completed a government resettlement program in Texas following his return from wrongful detainment in Russia, thanked the lawmakers who worked to help secure his release.
Whelan praised a “bipartisan effort that brought me home” after spending the day meeting with lawmakers who took up his case from his home state of Michigan and elsewhere.
“The Michigan delegation brought me home here,” he said.
“You know, it was five years, seven months and five days,” he added of his time in Russian custody. “I counted each one of them.”
The former Marine revealed he spent the final five days in the Russian prison in solitary confinement.
“I couldn’t leave my cell,” he said, “but I made it home.”
Whelan wouldn’t preview what’s next for him — offering only that he needs a new car and that suddenly he’s in a place with electric and driverless vehicles — but said he’s involved in discussions over how to support other wrongfully detained Americans around the world.
“We’re coming for you,” Whelan said to those Americans. “The United States is not going to let people like me, Marc [Fogel], Trevor [Reed], Brittney [Griner, who was released in December 2022] languish in foreign prisons. It might take time, but we’re coming for them and everybody else.”
Whelan acknowledged the reporters he recognized by name or face, recalling the precise month he spoke with them via a smuggled phone from prison. He thanked them for reporting on his case.
He also thanked “all of the people that work for agencies that I will never meet, people that I will never know, their staff members, everyone that’s been involved at every level.”
Rep. Haley Stevens, who represents Whelan’s district in Congress, told ABC News she expects to lean on him for the complex policymaking to mitigate foreign detentions like his.
“Well, he might not know it, but I plan to be in touch with him for a very long time to come, as long as he’ll welcome it, because there’s a lot to learn from his experience,” she said.
She noted that Whelan’s case was “the first one” of a series of high-profile detentions in Russia, including Griner and Evan Gershkovich, and it “certainly changed the relationship that the United States had with Russia, even before the war in Ukraine began.”
“Our message to Russia is that when it comes to your shenanigans and your illegal and unjust and unlawful behavior, we, as the United States of America, are united. We will fight for our people,” she said. “We will bring them home, and we will win.”
Whelan returned to the United States on Aug. 2 after five-and-a-half years in a Russian penal colony.
Russian authorities released Whelan, as well as American journalists Gershkovic and Alsu Kurmasheva, in a multi-country deal that freed eight Russian prisoners abroad. The 26-person swap was the largest between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War.
Whelan was arrested in Moscow in 2019 on charges of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Whelan, who frequently visited the city, was deemed as wrongfully detained by the U.S. Department of State.
The former Marine wasn’t the only former Russian captive on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British national whose release was secured by the U.S., met with lawmakers. Kara-Murza was imprisoned in Russia for two years for his opposition to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a sweeping economic agenda on Friday, vowing to ease inflation, fix the housing market and slash taxes for middle-income families.
The plans include eye-catching proposals such as a ban on grocery price gouging and a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers.
Economists who spoke to ABC News offered up a mixed assessment of the newly released agenda. Some experts lauded the effort to slow rising costs and restrain corporate power in key sectors, while others criticized what they consider a misguided attempt to override market forces that risks worsening the nation’s debt.
Less than three months before the presidential election, the economy tops lists of voter concerns. Growth is slowing but remains solid. Price increases have cooled dramatically but remain higher than the Federal Reserve’s target level.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Here’s what to know about how economists assess three key pillars of Harris’ economic plan: fighting inflation, recalibrating the housing market and cutting taxes for families.
Fighting inflation
The campaign aims to rein in price increases for everything from groceries to prescription drugs to homes.
Harris points to the market power of large corporations as a key cause of rapid price increases for essential goods, saying companies use their outsized role in a given market to raise prices without fear of a competitor offering a comparable product at a more affordable price. Consumers, the Harris campaign says, are left with nowhere to turn.
The grocery industry exemplifies the damage caused by mega corporations, according to the campaign. “Extreme consolidation in the food industry has led to higher prices that account for a large part of higher grocery bills,” the campaign said in a statement on Friday.
Grocery store profit margins surged in 2021 and rose even higher two years later, even after price increases had begun to cool, a Federal Trade Commission study in March showed.
To control the price hikes, Harris proposed a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries. While details remain limited, the plan could resemble price-gouging bans in place in 37 states, which prohibit a sudden spike in prices for scarce goods.
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collective, in a statement on Friday echoed the Harris campaign’s criticism of the broken market for groceries.
“Price gouging, price fixing, and just plain profiteering are rampant in the food and grocery sector,” Owens said. “There is still more the government can do to reduce food and grocery concentration and stop the cheating that is costing families dearly.”
Some economists, however, rejected the notion of corporate power as an important cause of inflation, saying a limit on price hikes could result in shortages of goods.
“Most of the inflation over the past few years has been caused by increases in costs,” Steven Hamilton, a professor of economics at George Washington University, told ABC News. Hamilton acknowledged that price increases for some groceries may owe to corporate concentration, but said it doesn’t stand as a primary cause of overall inflation.
“You have to be careful not to cherry pick,” Hamilton said.
Michael Jones, an economics professor at the University of Cincinnati, said a government-imposed ceiling on prices could cause stores to run out of goods in times of scarcity.
“If there’s a restriction on the prices that companies can charge for products, they simply won’t supply them,” Jones told ABC News.
Fixing the housing market
In recent years, the housing market has suffered from a convergence of high mortgage rates and elevated home prices, shutting out prospective buyers with high costs.
The Harris campaign proposed restoring affordability through a combination of boosting home supply and easing the price pressures for some homebuyers.
Plans to grow the supply of homes include a tax incentive for companies that build starter homes and affordable rental homes, the Harris campaign said. The campaign’s plans to aid buyers feature a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers.
Economists who spoke to ABC News lauded the Harris campaign’s effort to boost housing supply, but offered differing opinions about the support for homebuyers.
“The reason that housing prices have gone up in most places in America is that supply is limited,” Hamilton, of George Washington University, told ABC News. “That commitment to increase supply is rare among politicians but it’s something that economists should praise.
Some economists said the subsidies for homebuyers threaten to undermine the price cuts achieved through additional supply. If prospective buyers know they’ll receive a subsidy of $25,000 from the government, they’ll boost their asking price by that amount, said Jones, of the University of Cincinnati. As a result, he added, home prices will rise.
“If they have $25,000 more to spend on a house, they’ll submit bids up to $25,000 higher for the home,” Jones said. “That policy in particular is a bad idea because it won’t bring the price of housing down.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the combination of supply growth and homebuyer support could work effectively as long as Harris focuses on boosting supply before she bolsters consumers.
“You’ve got to put the horse before the cart,” Zandi said. “It’s a matter of timing.”
Cutting taxes for middle-class families
The Harris campaign said it aims to keep some money in middle-class consumers’ pockets by reducing their tax burden.
The plans include a restoration of the expanded child tax credit of $3,600 per child that expired in 2022. Harris also proposed an additional, new $6,000 child tax credit for families with a child in the first year of life.
The tax cuts for families drew wide support from economists who spoke to ABC News, though some emphasized the importance of accompanying those proposals with revenue-raising measures that will offset the tax reductions.
“A child tax credit expansion is fantastic and I would fully support it, as long as they find way to pay for it,” said Hamilton, of George Washington University. “This is a policy targeted toward people who really need it, and families who really need it.”
For its part, the Harris campaign said on Friday that it would safeguard the federal government’s financial health, in part by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals as a means of offsetting middle-class tax cuts.
Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, will “fulfill their commitment to fiscal responsibility, including by asking the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to pay their fair share,” the campaign said.
Zandi, of Moody’s Analytics, voiced support for the tax cut but also urged caution about the potential loss of tax revenue. If the tax credits end up adding to the national debt, it would undermine the savings for consumers by risking an increase in overall inflation.
“I don’t think you can do anything without it being paid for,” Zandi said. “That would be counterproductive.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s conversation with Elon Musk on X Monday night started almost an hour late as the social media platform was plagued with technical difficulties before the two were connected for a conversation that covered illegal border crossings, the pandemic, and Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
For about 40 minutes, listeners who could get into X Spaces were greeted with hold music, with Musk eventually claiming on X that the site appeared to be facing “a massive DDOS,” Distributed Denial of Service attack.
Eventually, at about a quarter to 9 p.m. ET, Musk kickstarted the conversation, praising the former president for how he handled the assassination attempt on his life at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month, mentioning Trump shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service took him off stage.
“When I stood up before the hand, before the, you know, the fist in the air, they didn’t know if I was alive. Nobody did. And when I put the fist up, they were, they were just relieved and happy and thrilled, and the place went crazy,” Trump told Musk as the two talked about the incident for over 20 minutes.
Throughout the conversation, Trump returned to familiar talking points, including praising authoritarian leaders, slamming and calling President Joe Biden names, and disparaging immigrants.
During their talk, one topic of contention came up between the two — climate change, though Musk called it “global warming.” Musk repeatedly advocated for sustainable energy during the chat, while Trump continuously stumped for fossil fuels, claiming instead he’s more concerned about “nuclear warming.”
“I’ve heard, in terms of the fossil fuel, because even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, you know, fossil fuel is what really creates that, at the generating plants,” Trump said after Musk talked about the possibility of air being uncomfortable to breathe in the future.
Musk pushed back, telling Trump he wasn’t claiming “the house is on fire immediately,” but that “it’s probably better to move there faster than slower … without vilifying the oil and gas industry and without causing hardship in the short term.”
Still, as he mentioned global threats, Trump joked there would be “more oceanfront property” due to rising sea levels and global warming.
“You know, the biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one 1/8 of an inch over the next 400 years, and you’ll have more, you’ll have more oceanfront property, right? The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power,” Trump claimed.
Both men railed against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, with Trump slamming her over the border, without mentioning he told the GOP members of the House to tank the recent comprehensive immigration bill that GOP Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford helped author.
“She’s saying she was strong on the border. ‘We’re going to be strong.’ Well, she doesn’t have to say [it]; she could close it up right now. … They could do things right now. It’s horrible,” Trump said.
During the X conversation, Trump once again claimed — without evidence — that President Biden leaving the race was a “coup.”
Trump continued to complain about Harris throughout the talk, bringing up her new TIME magazine cover, saying she looked like his wife, Melania Trump. He also argued that the vice president had gotten a makeover in the media.
“She is terrible. She’s terrible, but she’s getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on TIME magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing and actually looked very much like our great first lady, Melania … She didn’t look like Kamala,” Trump said, mispronouncing the vice president’s name.
Wrapping up just after Trump praised Musk for the audience size of their Spaces chat, which seemed to reach around 1.3 million at peak, Musk reaffirmed his support for Trump.
“I think we’re in massive trouble, frankly, with a Kamala administration, and that’s my honest opinion,” Musk said. “I think, really, it’s essential that, that you win for the good of the country this election.”
Reacting to the chat, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign slammed the pair as “self-obsessed rich guys.”
“Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com. Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024,” a statement from the Harris campaign rep said.
The campaign also poked fun at the more than 40-minute wait for the interview to begin by resharing on the Kamala HQ Truth Social account a previous Trump post on Truth Social which criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch event on X last year that was also delayed by glitches.
“Wow! the DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” the post read.
Last May, DeSantis had planned to begin his audio-only campaign launch with Musk, but repeated issues and crashes stalled the start of the Spaces event for almost 30 minutes, after alternating stretches of silence and crackling audio.
At one point, the Spaces was abruptly ended and then restarted — all as Musk and others could apparently be heard discussing the malfunctions behind the scenes.
Musk suggested during the DeSantis presidential campaign broadcast that the problems were due to strain on the platform’s servers and “scaling issues” because his own account was involved and has a following of 140 million users.