White House condemns ‘irresponsible’ Elon Musk post on assassination attempt
by Marc Guitard/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Monday decried a now-deleted post by Elon Musk on X as “irresponsible.”
In the Sunday night post — which he made after the second apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump — Musk, who owns the platform, responded to a user who asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”
In his post, Musk wrote, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
Following intense backlash, Musk deleted the post and walked it back as a joke early Monday.
“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X,” Musk wrote.
“Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text,” he added shortly after.
Responding to the post on Monday, the White House condemned Musk for having “joked about” or even “encouraged” violence.
“As President Biden and Vice President Harris said after yesterday’s disturbing news, ‘there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country,’ and ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,’ the statement read.
“Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible,” the White House added.
Musk has endorsed Trump, and Trump has said he would tap Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if elected.
(PITTSBURGH) — At the midway point of former President Donald Trump’s speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Megyn Kelly took the stage as a headliner to explain why she’s backing Trump.
“He will be a protector of women. And it’s why I’m voting for him,” Kelly said, suggesting the former president previously got mocked for making a similar statement.
The conservative media personality, who was previously a Fox News host, has had an at-times contentious relationship with the former president over the language he’s used to describe women. During the first debate of the 2016 campaign, Kelly as moderator had asked Trump about statements he’d made about women, including calling some derogatory names.
Eight years later, Kelly was on the stage in Pennsylvania on Monday helping Trump deliver what would be his final message before Election Day. Kelly suggested on Monday that she supports Trump because he takes care of the common man.
“He will look out for our boys to our forgotten boys and our forgotten men. Guys like you,” she said, adding, “Who maybe have a beer after work and don’t want to be judged by people like Oprah and Beyonce, who will never have to face the consequences of her disastrous economic policies.”
At one point, Kelly pointed to disagreeing with the “left’s version of masculinity,” mentioning advertisements in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign that called for women to vote for Harris without their husbands’ knowledge.
“You see that ad they did about Trump voters trying to encourage women to lie to their husbands so that they could vote for her instead of Trump,” Kelly said. “That’s their version of what marriage looks like, an overbearing husband who bullies his wife into saying she voted one way as opposed to an honest, open relationship.”
She added, “Oh wait, I’m talking about Kamala and Doug,” referencing the vice president’s husband, Doug Emhoff. “I’m not into their version of toxic masculinity or new masculinity. I prefer the old version,” Kelly said, alluding to Trump.
“I prefer a president who understands how to be strong and how to fight. I hope all of you do what I did last week. Vote Trump and get ten friends to vote Trump to.”
(WASHINGTON) — An aide to Ohio Sen. JD Vance was informed by a top Springfield, Ohio, official earlier this month that claims about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs were false but the vice presidential nominee went ahead with spreading the rumor anyway, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by ABC News.
City manager Bryan Heck, in a Sept. 9 phone call, told a Vance staffer the “claims were baseless” when asked if they were true.
A city spokesperson confirmed to ABC News the accuracy of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting about the call.
Still, Vance did not delete a post on X he wrote that same morning asserting “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” One day later, former President Donald Trump amplified the claim on the ABC News presidential debate stage with millions of viewers tuned in.
The Vance campaign, in an effort to defend the vice presidential pick, provided the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday with a police report to try to substantiate his claims. But the woman in the report, Anna Kilgore, told the Journal she was mistaken.
ABC News spoke with Kilgore, who lives near downtown Springfield, on Wednesday afternoon. Kilgore said her cat Missy Sassy went missing and they believed their Haitian neighbors were to blame for the disappearance. After filing the police report, Kilgore’s cat returned home safely several days later.
She told ABC News that she apologized to her Haitian neighbors who have lived next door for the past year, and they were very gracious and there seemed to be no hard feelings.
ABC has requested the police report but has not independently obtained it.
When asked what led her to believe her neighbors were behind the cat’s disappearance, Kilgore said, “because of rumors I heard.” When pressed on where she heard those rumors she continued with, “on Facebook and TikTok.”
Kilgore is a Trump-Vance supporter with signs and flags outside of her home. She was also wearing a “Trump 2024” t-shirt while speaking to ABC News.
When asked what she would say to Vance and his campaign, she simply said, “I wish I could take it all back.”
ABC News also asked her if this situation would have any impact on her vote in November, to which she simply said, “No.”
ABC News has reached out to Vance’s campaign for a statement on the Wall Street Journal report but has not yet received a response.
Vance appeared on several talk shows on Sunday where he was pressed about the Springfield controversy, which has led to the community experiencing threats.
He largely defended bringing national attention to the issue of immigration in Springfield. The Ohio town did experience an influx of 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants who are legally authorized to live and work there, and as a result some city resources have been strained. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced measures to expand primary care access, allocate funds for translation services and more.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast,” Vance said on CNN.
CNN anchor Dana Bash followed up with Vance about what he said about having to “create stories,” and Vance responded: “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
“I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that,” Vance added.
Harris on Tuesday said it was a “crying shame” what was happening to the Springfield community and criticized Trump and Vance for engaging in “that hateful rhetoric.”
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Climate change remains on the backburner of the 2024 election following little mention of environmental policy during the first — and possibly only — debate between the two presidential candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off for the first time on Tuesday night from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where neither candidate dedicated ample time to addressing what they would do to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and bolster the clean energy industry.
“I think what we learned last night is that climate really is not on the ballot this fall,” Leah Aronowsky, a science historian at the Columbia Climate School, whose research has focused on the history of climate science and climate denialism, told ABC News.
Climate change has not taken center stage this election cycle due to other topics — such as the economy, immigration and abortion — but that doesn’t mean that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is any less important, John Abraham, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told ABC News.
The first mention of greenhouse gas emissions came amid Trump’s claims that he “built one of the strongest economies in the history of the world.” The former president accused the Biden administration of enacting policies that would destroy the domestic oil industry and cause inflation to worsen.
But, the Biden administration produced 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, breaking the record set in 2019 at 12.3 million barrels, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows.
During the debate, Harris touted the Biden administration bringing domestic gas production to “historic levels.” Lena Moffitt, executive director of the environmental organization Evergreen Action, an environmental nonprofit, told ABC News the reference was likely an effort to entice a broad array of voters by promising to extend commitment to fossil fuel extraction while also building out a renewable energy industry and focusing more on electric vehicles.
Harris was also questioned during the debate on whether she has changed her “values” on whether to ban fracking.
Reliance on domestic stores of oil necessitates continued fracking, Harris said, making clear that she will not ban the technique used to extract oil and gas from underground rock formations, despite Trump’s insistence that she had been against it for “12 years.”
ABC News could not identify why Trump claimed Harris had been claiming for 12 years that she would ban fracking.
In 2016, while attorney general of California, Harris sued the U.S. Interior Department over its environmental assessment on the California coastline, which would have allowed fracking on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf. Since 2020, Harris has made it “very clear” that she will not ban fracking, she said during the debate.
“I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases on fracking,” she said. “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
The only question explicitly about climate change came at the very end, just before the candidates’ closing arguments.
When asked what she would do to fight climate change, Harris first reminded voters that Trump has described the climate crisis as a “hoax” before talking about where Americans are being hit hardest by extreme weather events: their homes.
Homeowners in states that experience extreme weather events are increasingly being denied home insurance, or premiums are “being jacked up,” Harris said.
“You ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means — in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go,” Harris said.
Appealing to homeowners was a smart move on Harris’ part, Aronowsky said, adding that homeowners will take the brunt of the economic hardships of the extreme weather that is predicted to increase as global temperatures continue to rise.
“We’re going to see more and more insurance companies dropping the homeowners from policies, Americans getting hit with exorbitant insurance premiums,” she said. “So, it’s really a looming political crisis.”
Harris said that young Americans “care deeply” about climate change. It’s because they’ve seen first-hand how climate change can affect their lives, Moffitt said.
“It is an issue that a lot of Americans really care about, especially young voters,” Moffitt told ABC News.
Trump did not answer the question on climate change, instead focusing on jobs that he said are no longer in existence due to Chinese-owned auto plants being built in Mexico.
“They lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs this last month,” Trump said. “It’s going — they’re all leaving.”
Investing in the clean energy industry will actually create more jobs, Abraham said. The U.S. now has an opportunity to participate in the green energy economy to power the country, which will create high-tech, high-paid jobs, he said.
“I think it’s a real missed opportunity for Republicans,” Abraham said. “If you’re a fiscal conservative, you want to be part of this new energy economy and make money off it.”
Clean energy employment increased by 142,000 jobs in 2023, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report released last month.
With the passing of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has made more progress than any previous administration on environmental policy, the experts said.
But environmental advocates and policymakers will have to find a way going forward to help the public understand how climate change will affect Americans in their everyday lives, Aronowsky said.
“It’s becoming clear that talking about climate as a … standalone issue is a political dead end,” she said.
