Trump praises Secret Service response to apparent assassination attempt
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised the Secret Service for stopping an apparent assassination attempt Sunday, speaking in a phone interview with ABC News.
“I’m fine. The Secret Service did a good job, actually,” he said.
A Secret Service agent fired several shots at Ryan Wesley Routh, who was allegedly concealed in a tree line armed with a rifle at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, about 300 to 500 yards from the Republican presidential nominee, authorities said.
The suspect was able to get into a car and drive off, but was stopped by law enforcement.
He appeared in court on Monday and currently faces two felony gun charges. The investigation is ongoing.
Trump spoke about the heightened threat environment, telling ABC News, “Probably always been dangerous, but it’s more so now, I think.”
He reiterated satisfaction with how the Secret Service handled Sunday’s incident.
“On that on that event, I thought they were excellent,” he said.
Trump also discussed his phone call with President Joe Biden following the incident, calling the conversation “very, very nice.”
“He called me just to, you know, express his sort of horror that a thing like that could happen. But it was a very good conversation,” Trump said.
Trump said Biden told him he wants to be sure the Secret Service has all the resources it needs to do its job, adding, “I hope that is the case.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her newly announced presidential campaign running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, took the stage to a roaring crowd in Philadelphia Tuesday in their first joint public appearance where, together, they took aim at what they called Trump’s “backward agenda” for America.
Hundreds of supporters waited in lines outside the Liacouras Center at Temple University, which has a capacity of 10,000 people, for the event and packed the arena.
That crowd gave Walz and Harris a lengthy standing ovation as they took the stage to the song “Freedom” by Beyoncé.
Walz and Harris hit the stage touting an agenda of unifying the country, working for all Americans, and sharing their vision in comparison to the conservative policies being pushed by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.
“We need to level set; we are the underdogs in this race, but we have the momentum, and I know exactly what we are up against,” she said.
Harris said her campaign is not just a fight against Trump but a “fight for the future.”
Harris talked up Walz to the crowd and told them about her decision to choose the Minnesota governor as her running mate.
“Since the day that I announced my candidacy, I set out to find a partner who can help build this brighter future,” she said. “So, Pennsylvania, I’m here today because I found such a leader.”
The vice president focused on Walz’s time as a high school teacher and football coach as she introduced him to supporters, repeatedly referring to him as “Coach Walz,” which prompted the crowd to repeat that title.
“The nation will know Coach Walz by another name, vice president of the United States,” she said.
Harris spoke about how Walz, while working as a teacher and coach, became a faculty advisor for his school’s student LGTBQ group and how his care for others has been a hallmark of his time in office.
The vice president reiterated that she and Walz are committed to protecting women’s reproductive rights and restoring rights that were taken away after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“With Tim Walz by my side when I am president of the United States, [and] we win majorities in the United States Congress, we will pass a bill to restore reproductive freedom, and I will proudly sign it into law,” she said.
Harris noted that she and Walz “may hail from different corners of our great country, but our values are the same, and we both believe in lifting people up, not knocking them down.”
“When we look at folks, we see in our fellow Americans neighbors, not enemies,” she said.
Walz touted Harris’ experience as a prosecutor, senator and vice president during his speech. stating that she “fought on the side of the American people.”
“She took on predators and fraudsters, took down transnational gangs, stood up against powerful corporate interests, she’s never hesitated to reach across the aisle if it meant improving people’s lives. And — she brings joy to everything she does,” he said.
The governor spoke highly about his time as a teacher and how that pushed him to run for office.
“It was my students. They encouraged me to run for office. They saw in me what I was hoping to instill in them – a commitment of common good, a belief that one person can make a difference,” he said.
“These same values I learned on the family farm and tried to instill in my students, I took to Congress and the state capital, and now, Vice President Harris and I are running to take them to the White House,” he added.
Walz took several shots at Trump, contending the former president’s policies while in office hurt Americans.
“He drove our economy into the ground. And make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That’s not even counting the crimes he committed,” he said.
“He never sat at that kitchen table, like the one I grew up at, wondering how we were going to pay the bills. He sat at his country club in Mar-a-Lago wondering how he can cut taxes for his rich friends,” Walz said.
Walz also took a few jabs at his opponent JD Vance, noting that the senator shares Trump’s “dangerous and backward agenda for this country.”
The governor contended that despite Vance’s talk about his rural upbringing, his career was funded by “Silicon Valley billionaires.”
“I got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy, that is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was in the running for the vice presidential spot on the ticket before Walz was chosen, received a huge standing ovation from the crowd as he took the stage before Walz and Harris spoke.
“I want you to know I am going to continue to pour my heart and soul into serving you as your governor,” he told the crowd.
He also touted Harris’ record, contending she is “battle-tested and ready to go.”
Shapiro went on to criticize Trump for his role in dismantling reproductive rights and warned that if the former president is re-elected, more restrictions could come.
“Let me tell you something: I am not going back,” he said to the crowd.
Shapiro also lauded Walz, calling him a “great patriot” and “dear friend.”
“I think it is fitting and special for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to launch their campaign here in Philly, the city of brotherly love, and importantly, they chose to launch their campaign right here in the birthplace of real freedom,” he said.
Walz, during his speech, praised Shapiro as a “visionary leader” and a “guy who cares deeply about his family, a man with compassion [and] vision.”
“There is no one you would rather go to a Springsteen concert in Jersey with than him,” Walz said as the audience shouted, “Bruce.”
The rally ended with the candidates’ spouses, second gentleman Doug Emoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen, taking the stage and waving to the cheering crowd.
Tuesday’s Harris-Walz event kicks off a five-day campaign road trip that will visit seven crucial swing states.
The vice president and Walz are scheduled to visit Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Durham, North Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; and Las Vegas this week.
(WASHINGTON) — Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., unveiled a bipartisan package of bills Wednesday morning aimed at making child care more available and affordable for low- and middle-income families.
Their proposal would modify existing tax credits to help working parents afford child care. And it would implement a new program to keep child care workers in their jobs, the senators told ABC News.
“Every community that I go to in Virginia, from the most rural to the most urban, I hear the same thing: Why am I paying more than I would pay for college?” Kaine said of talking to parents about the cost of child care.
A recent report from the tax firm KPMG found that the cost of child care in the U.S. is rising at nearly double the pace of overall inflation. Between 1990 and April 2024, the cost of day care and preschool rose 263%, according to KPMG.
The rising costs have brought Britt and Kaine, who come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, together on this new package of bills.
“If you have that opportunity to stay home, I think it is remarkable. But if accessibility and affordability of child care is an impediment to you reentering, we felt like it was important for us to come together to have a common sense, bipartisan solution, something that actually had the opportunity to get some legs and get done so that we could achieve real results for American people and for parents all across the country,” Britt, a mom of two high schoolers, said.
The package that the senators are proposing looks to retool existing proposals that are meant to help employers and parents.
One of the bills they’re proposing increases the size of the child and dependent care tax credit to $2,500 for families with one child and $4,000 for families with multiple children. It would also make the credit refundable, a benefit the senators said will put more money into the pockets of low-income families.
“It was about how do we help middle-class families, how do we help those lower-income individuals and parents? You know, the refundable portion is a game changer for that,” Britt said.
Their bill also includes a proposal that would allow families to put more money into pre-tax savings accounts for child care.
The package also focuses on child care providers by launching a new grant program that Britt and Kaine said they hope will grow and keep workers from leaving the child care workforce for higher-paying jobs.
The median pay for child care workers in the U.S. in 2023 was $30,370 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics.
The senators said they are hopeful their proposal will get the support it needs to clear the Senate, especially as lawmakers turn their attention toward tax policy in 2025, when many of the tax cuts implemented in 2025 are set to expire.
In early conversations with colleagues, the senators said they are confident their bills will attract additional co-sponsors.
“I think the time is right. I think people are hearing this when they go back home,” Britt said.
Child tax credit debate heats up on the Hill
While Britt and Kaine remain optimistic about a path forward for their package and bipartisanship around some issues concerning child tax policy, it has been somewhat hard to come by on Capitol Hill in recent years. It’s become even more polarizing in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
The proposal from Britt and Kaine is separate from the much-discussed child tax credit modifications, which will face a critical vote in the Senate later this week.
The Senate is expected to vote on Thursday on a separate tax reform proposal that, among other things, would expand the accessible refund of the child tax credit, as well as new tax policies for businesses. That legislation is almost certain to fail at the hands of the majority of Republicans, who say it makes too many concessions to Democrats.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has all but conceded that the bill will go down on Thursday, but he said he’s bringing it up to put Republicans on the record, in part because of recent comments from former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
Vance has garnered plenty of media attention lately for previous public comments about childless people in America. But it was his comments during a Fox News interview on Sunday, during which Vance suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris opposed the child tax credit, that Schumer seemed to be referencing on the Senate floor Tuesday.
“This is plain old nonsense. Democrats do not oppose the child tax credit whatsoever. On the contrary, we strongly support it. We authored it and put it together back in 2021. The child tax credit expansion is one of the most significant achievements Democrats have done under the Biden-Harris Administration,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Here is the truth: Democrats want to pass the tax package, because it will help lift more kids out of poverty with another expansion of the child tax credit.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is set to hold a news conference Thursday afternoon at his Bedminster golf club — his second in a week — as the campaign continues to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to do interviews and answer reporter questions.
“She refuses to do any interviews or press conferences, almost 30 days now, she has not done an interview,” Trump said Wednesday in North Carolina. “You know why she hasn’t done an interview? Because she’s not smart. She’s not intelligent,” he said.
His campaign says she’s trying to “duck and hide” from the news media.
The 4:30 p.m. news conference follows one that Trump held at his Mar-a-Lago estate last Thursday, fielding questions for more than an hour on a range of topics including his recent attacks on Harris, immigration and reproductive rights.
During the long and, at times, rambling exchange with reporters, Trump often pushed false claims on several topics, including the outcome of the 2020 election and size of the crowd at his Jan. 6, 2021, rally before the attacks on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Trump’s recent news conferences appear to be part of the campaign’s attempt to draw a contrast between the two candidates.
“She hasn’t done an interview — she can’t do an interview,” Trump claimed during his Mar-a-Lago press conference last week.
He added that he “look[s] forward to the debates” as a way to “set the record straight.”
The Harris campaign has been using Trump’s news conferences to highlight flubs he has made and criticize policies he advocates.
“Trump did the only thing he knows how to do — he went out and lied, made up stories, mixed up dates, attacked the media, and, overall, reminded Americans that he is a deeply unwell man,” the Harris campaign said in a statement reacting to Trump’s news conference.
During her time out on the campaign trail since announcing her White House bid, Harris has held a few exchanges with reporters aboard Air Force Two and answered a few shouted questions; however, her campaign says she will participate in a sit-down interview before the end of the month.
“We will commit to directly engage with the voters that are actually gonna decide this election and that is gonna be complete with rallies, with sit-down interviews, with press conferences, with all the digital assets we have at our disposal,” Michael Tyler, communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign, said on CNN Wednesday when pressed multiple times to commit to press conferences and media interviews.
Though she hasn’t made herself as available to the media as the former president, Harris did spend the week with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, crisscrossing the country visiting battleground states.
Trump just visited the solidly conservative state of Montana to stump for GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy last week, and is holding a rally in battleground Pennsylvania over the weekend.