Liz Cheney says she’s voting for Kamala Harris against Trump
(WASHINGTON) — Former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, announced Wednesday that she will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, revealed her decision during a panel at Duke University and reiterated her warnings of the dangers of a second Trump term.
“As a conservative and as someone who cares and believes in the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” she said to a roaring crowd.
Harris is “proud” to get “patriot” Cheney’s endorsement, the Harris campaign said in a statement Wednesday night as it continues to court Republican voters ahead of the election.
“The Vice President is proud to have earned Congresswoman Cheney’s vote. She is a patriot who loves this country and puts our democracy and our Constitution first,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote. “As she noted in her powerful remarks, this election is a choice between the fundamental threat Donald Trump poses to our democracy and a leader who will stand up for our freedoms and the rule of law in Vice President Harris.”
Answering questions from the audience at a campaign event in Mesa, Arizona, Trump’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance blasted Cheney for backing Harris.
“A very good thing that I could say about the next Presidency of Donald J. Trump is that he’s going to make sure that people like Liz Cheney are laughed out of the Oval Office instead of rewarded,” Vance said.
Cheney voted to impeach Trump following what she has called the “insurrection” of Jan. 6, 2021, and was vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. She received backlash from Trump and other Republicans for her criticism of the former president and was censured by the Republican National Committee.
Trump said in March that Cheney and the entire Jan. 6 committee should be jailed.
Cheney lost her seat in the 2022 primary to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by more than 60,000 votes, according to election results.
Since leaving Congress, Cheney has continued to criticize MAGA Republicans and Trump.
“I think we have to take everything that Donald Trump says literally and seriously,” Cheney said in an interview with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl in December.
“And I think that we saw, frankly, what he was willing to do already after the 2020 election in the lead up to Jan. 6, after Jan 6,” she continued. “People need to remember that when Donald Trump woke up on the morning of Jan. 6, he thought he was going to remain as president. And we saw the extent to which he was willing to attempt to seize power when he lost an election.”
(CHICAGO) — Glenn Charles Jr. grew up on Chicago’s South Side. This week, his business is the first Black-owned company to be contracted for Exposition Services at the Democratic National Convention.
Speaking to ABC News outside the United Center, Charles reflected on the journey to get here and what it means for him and his team — which doubled in size in preparation for the convention.
“Our name is on most of the signage around the property, right?” he asked. “So just walking in the building and seeing the Show Strategies brand next to a DNC sign, that for me is kind of a moment.”
The four-day convention is bringing thousands of visitors to the city, and officials expect it to have a $150 to $200 million impact on the local economy.
Christy George, the executive director of the DNC’s Chicago 2024 Host Committee, called it “an incredible opportunity to showcase what Chicago is made of.”
“And the heart of Chicago is our people and all of our small businesses,” she said.
The committee sought to include as many local vendors as possible, she said, holding outreach summits across the city and working hand in hand with businesses through the application process.
“On the worker front, it’s in the hundreds. On the vendor front, it’s in the tens,” she said.
Eight of the 17 major contracts were given to minority and women-owned businesses, the committee announced previously.
“What we resulted with was a really diverse set of vendors for a number of our prime contracts,” she told ABC News. “It really, truly is going to be the most inclusive convention in history.”
Brook Jay, the CEO of All Terrain Collective, said being selected by the DNC was a boon to her business.
“I think having the DNC on our resume can do nothing but good things for this company,” she said. “We’ve been around since 1998 and we’ve done some of the most incredible projects you can imagine. But this definitely has been a highlight, and I think it really has piqued our interest about doing more things in politics.”
Jay said her company, which does experiential marketing, partnered with another woman-owned business and a Latino-owned business.
“We are really a true representation of what the Chicago landscape looks like,” she said.
Both Jay and Charles said putting together an event as large in scale as the DNC was a challenge, but that it was also an opportunity for their businesses to learn and grow.
“This industry is underrepresented from people that look like me, and also people from the South and West sides of Chicago who may not know that the hospitality and convention industry is a thriving industry that you can make a really good living off of,” Charles said. “So I wanted to be the representative for those individuals and give them direct insights to something that they probably have never witnessed before.”
(CHICAGO) — Former director of communications for Trump’s transition team, Bryan Lanza, and former Senator Heidi Heitkamp spoke with ABC News about their opinions regarding Vice President Kamala Harris and her presidential campaign.
Lanza said that Harris has not had to answer for the various policy changes she’s made over the last 4 to 6 years, which he says leaves her answers ambiguous while making her solutions seem suitable for everyone. He also stated that Harris has significantly benefited from what he calls a “sugar high” of the media pumping her up and that the Democrats have just been so relieved that it’s no longer Joe Biden on the ticket.
Heitkamp disagreed with Lanza and rebutted by saying that when Harris talks about day care, paid family leave, affordable education and affordable housing — they are each her own ideas. The former North Dakota senator also accused the Republican Party of whining when they talk about the Harris campaign as being borne of canceling a taxpayer-funded primary.
Heitkamp and Lanza debated on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
ABC NEWS: Joining us now is former senator and ABC News contributor Heidi Heitkamp and former Trump communications adviser Bryan Lanza. Thank you both so much for joining us.
Let’s start with you, Heidi. We’re talking about the momentum, really, Kamala Harris has going into the convention. What do you feel that she’s on solid ground about? And what do you think she still has work to do on?
HEITKAMP: Well, she’s going to have a lot of work to do because you can’t just build on kind of this change in the hey, I wouldn’t say sugar high, but the kind of momentum that you had. I think you already see it plateauing somewhat.
And so she’s got to come out. She’s got to energize young people, which I think she can do because young people have been pretty discouraged. They look at a ticket between Joe Biden and President Trump and they go, ‘you know, they don’t look like me. They don’t know my problems.’ They see her and they really see someone I think that they’re interested in learning more about. And if she can energize young people, suburban women, I think she’s on the way to victory. But that’s, that’s not a given.
ABC NEWS: And Bryan, same question to you. What do you think is working and where do you think that she has work to do still when it comes to convincing maybe some of those Nikki Haley supporters or independents who might still be on the fence?
LANZA: Well, thank you for having me. And, you know, clearly where it’s working is not answering any questions. She doesn’t have to answer the various policy changes that she’s made over the last 4 to 6 years and not have an answer that sort of makes her ambiguous and makes her solution for everybody. But you saw on Friday when she rolled out, you know, some of her economic policies and she talked about, you know, price controls.
You know, that sort of drew some criticism from some very liberal newspapers and even drew some criticism from Nancy Pelosi, who said she’d like Kamala Harris to govern from the center.
So I think she’s benefited a lot from, I’ll call it, a sugar high of the media sort of pumping up Kamala Harris. And the Democrats just been so relieved that it’s not Joe Biden on the ticket anymore. But as with all sugar highs, they all crash. And we’re starting to see the crash now as she talks more and more about policy, which she can’t defend because she’s been a part of this administration that has been, has stood by during record inflation, record illegal immigration, two wars and possibly a third.
I mean, the world is on fire and it was under their watch.
ABC NEWS: Heidi, I just want to put his response right to you. Heard him there. He says sugar high comes first and then, and then you crash.
HEITKAMP: Yeah, I don’t believe that. I think that when you look at what she’s been able to accomplish so far, I think they thought the steam was going to go out of this momentum a lot earlier. And it hasn’t. And I think, you know, I’m going to just take issue with this idea that she’s been speaking to concerns of the American people.
When she’s talking about day care, when she’s talking about paid family leave, she’s talking about making education affordable, housing affordable. Those are all ideas that she has, you know, she has poll tested — they are true. And they have someone who isn’t talking about this at all.
ABC NEWS: And Bryan, Republicans have been very critical of this passing of the torch from Biden to Harris. How do you think that this will play out for voters who think that President Biden was forced out by members of his own party?
LANZA: Clearly he was, and from my perspective, I love the fact that the primaries don’t have to exist at the presidential level anymore. It’s a political operative I’ve found rather annoying, hard to predict, and a tremendous waste of resources.
So I think with the Democrats breaking the seal and canceling out 14 million votes, you’re canceling a taxpayer-funded primary. I think that sets a precedent for less primaries going forward, not more. And so I think they, you know, passing the torch sort of thing. They’ve been successful at it, you know, not having to address the 14 million people who voted millions of dollars of taxpayers that instituted the election and come out to 1,800 phone calls to get it, to get the nomination.
But I think that the, the sort of the end of their argument about threat to democracy. So it cost them a very valuable talking point that they had, but they ultimately got here and, you know, good for her. She unified her party. But by that, I mean, it wasn’t because 14 million people voted. They vacated 14 million people’s votes to get her here.
ABC NEWS: Heidi, I really do have questions for you. But it’s more interesting to get your reaction to Bryan because I see you reacting, shaking your head as he’s talking.
HEITKAMP: I hope Bryan encourages the entire Republican Party to only talk about this switcheroo as some kind of threat to democracy, as opposed to something that needed to happen in order to present the candidate that the public wanted to see. And so the more they complain about this, it’s just whining.
They now have a race between Kamala Harris, who their principal at once upon a time said would be easier to defeat than Joe Biden. So why not be happy about it? As Republicans, they know better. They know that Kamala Harris is is, has already surged in the polls. This race, which was in a very dire condition for the Democratic Party, now is dead even. And she has momentum behind her. And so keep complaining. Keep talking about it because it’s not going to win any votes.
ABC NEWS: Bryan, I’ll give you 15 seconds; Final word here.
LANZA: You know I’m not complaining. You asked the question, but, listen, from our standpoint, once this question, once the election gets back to the issues that matter, inflation, immigration, the wars, it’s clearly, it’s clear that President Trump has the advantage.
There’s a reason Joe Biden is not on the ballot today because he wasn’t able to sell success on those particular issues. And Kamala has less ability to sell that success. Sell that, especially with her sort of liberal San Francisco values and these dangerous liberal policies that she helped introduce on Friday.
ABC NEWS: Bryan Lanza, Heidi Heitkamp, thank you both so much. Good conversation. We appreciate the back and forth. All right. Give both perspectives and opinions on here. We appreciate it.
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — Homeland Security Investigations has seen a 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion, according to the head of the center that investigates cybercrimes at the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have seen an 86% drop in domestic victims of financial sextortion since that time, unfortunately, what we’ve seen is almost 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion,” Mike Prado the head of HSI’s Cyber Crime Center told ABC News.
Sextortion is when a victim sends explicit material to a scammer and then is threatened with public posting unless they pay the scammer money.
The HSI Cyber Crimes Center focuses on all things cyber – but they primarily focus on online child sexual exploitation, according to Prado.
“The threat that we talk about has evolved so rapidly from even a few years ago that we’re deploying new tools, new techniques, new proactive measures and new preemptive strategies to try to combat the continued prevalence of online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” Prado said.
The two most prevalent areas that sextortion scams take place is in the Ivory Coast and in Nigeria, according to Prado. Homeland Security Investigations has an agent detailed to the Ivory Coast to work with local authorities due to the non-extradition rules they have.
Prado added the scams are not sexual in nature, but just look to get money from victims.
Working to end child sexual abuse
Criminals who want to abuse children are attempting to get children off social media platforms and onto encrypted apps, outside the eyes of law enforcement, according to Prado.
“Everywhere children are congregating online, predators are aware of that and then taking them off platform into other more encrypted chat rooms and areas where they can have encrypted conversations outside the eyes of law enforcement and outside the lot, outside the eyes of the tech industry and abusing these abusing these children,” he said.
Predators, he said, “stop at nothing” to abuse a child.
There has also been an unpick in the use of artificial intelligence to create images using children who haven’t been the victim of abuse.
“It is probably the most concerning emergent threat that is now a reality that our agents are dealing with on a daily basis out in the field, and that our agents at the cyber-crime center are dealing with on a daily basis,” he said. “This generative AI problem is going to exponentially grow the number of images that our agents are having to sift through to determine if a child has actually been directly abused or indirectly abused through the use of generative AI.”
To stop online predators, HSI deploys agents in 200 field offices around the country, and 93 foreign offices in 73 counties.
“These cases are tremendously important to us,” he said.” I want to continue to make it a priority that these cases be worked as expeditiously as possible.”