Trump doesn’t mention embattled GOP candidate Mark Robinson at North Carolina rally
In this April 9, 2022, file photo, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson joins the stage with former President Donald Trump during a rally in Selma, North Carolina. — Allison Joyce/Getty Images, FILE
(WILMINGTON, N.C.) — Former President Donald Trump returned to the key battleground state of North Carolina for a rally Saturday, but declined to mention Mark Robinson — his party’s nominee for governor in the state.
The rally went on amid the allegations surrounding the Republican lieutenant governor, who the former president had previously supported and called “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Robinson, who did not appear at the rally, was accused of posting inflammatory comments on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago, according to a report published Thursday from CNN.
The embattled gubernatorial candidate had not been expected to attend Saturday’s rally. Trump has not given any indication that he intends to pull his endorsement of Robinson.
In a statement Sunday, Robinson’s campaign said four key staffers had “stepped down” from the campaign: general consultant and senior advisor Conrad Pogorzelski, III; campaign manager Chris Rodriguez; finance director Heather Whillier; and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk.
“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors. I look forward to announcing new staff roles in the coming days,” Robinson said in a statement.
Trump has campaigned for Robinson multiple times during this election cycle, including inviting him to speak at his rallies in North Carolina this year and hosting him at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a fundraiser last year.
People close to the former president told ABC News that they were bracing for the Robinson story on Thursday. The campaign was planning to put more distance between Trump and Robinson, but initially did not have plans to push him to drop out, sources said.
Robinson’s beleaguered campaign, however, did come up at a rally headlined by vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Walz insinuated that Trump was no “different” from Robinson.
“We got folks running as Republicans for governor that are proud to refer to themselves as Nazis. Let’s not pretend that there’s a gradual difference between the folks that are running here– that they’re running together,” Walz said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Wednesday continued to do clean up from President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comment, even as former President Donald Trump seized on it and the controversy dominated the news cycle, distracting from Harris’ “closing argument.”
On Tuesday night, Biden seemed to call Trump supporters as “garbage” during a campaign call hosted by the nonprofit Voto Latino.
“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,'” Biden said, according to a video clip from the fundraiser that aired on CNN.
“I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr- — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” Biden said.
His comments quickly drew fire from Republicans and came just as Harris was delivering her closing argument speech nearby on the Ellipse, calling for Americans to turn the page on hateful rhetoric and division in American politics.
At a campaign rally in Mount Rock, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump tied Harris to Biden’s comments.
“Now speaking on a call for her campaign last night, Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them garbage. And they mean it,” Trump said.
“Even though without question my supporters are far higher quality than Crooked Joe or Lyin’ Kamala,” Trump said. “My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: you can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans.”
Biden himself posted a clarification on Tuesday night, saying that his comment was about the comedian who made the joke and “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it.”
“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden said in the post on X.
At her daily briefing, reporters pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about Biden’s comments.
“No, he does not view Trump supporters or anybody who supports Trump as garbage,” Jean-Pierre insisted.
“The president has said this for more than three years now, he has said multiple times that he is a president for all. It doesn’t matter if you live in a red state, it doesn’t matter if you live in a blue state.”
When asked whether Biden misspoke or regrets his remarks, Jean-Pierre answered the president “clarified what he said” to ensure it was not “taken out of context.”
“He took the extra step to clarify. And, you know, you don’t see that from many elected officials, you certainly didn’t see that from the former president. And this president wanted to make sure it was not taken out of context,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre said the president spoke to Harris Tuesday night after her speech to congratulate her. She wouldn’t say, though, if Biden had apologized or made any reference to his comment when they spoke.
For her part, Harris tried to distance herself from the comments. In an interview with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, Harris was asked how she felt when she heard his “garbage” remark.
“Well, first of all, I think that the president has explained what he meant,” Harris told Bruce. “But I said it earlier, I strongly disagree with any criticism of the people based on who they vote for and I’ve made that clear throughout my career, including my speech last night before I think this all happened, which is I intend to be president for all Americans, and including those who may not vote for me in this election.”
But this incident isn’t the first time the White House and Harris’ campaign has had to play clean up after a Biden gaffe raised eyebrows. Just last week Biden was talking about Trump and said, “We gotta lock him up. Politically lock him up.”
The comments also come as Biden is planning to travel to battleground Pennsylvania twice later this week – for campaign and official events. Jean-Pierre said that for now there are now plans to adjust his schedule.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Will McDuffie and Alexandra Hurtzler contributed to this report.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Tucson Music Hall in Tucson, Arizona, September 12, 2024. (Photo by REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images)
(TUCSON, Ariz.) — Former President Donald Trump unveiled a new economic policy on Thursday before a crowd in Tucson, Arizona, saying he would end taxing overtime pay.
“Today, I’m also announcing that as part of our additional tax cuts, we will end all taxes on overtime,” Trump said to loud cheers, “That gives people more of an incentive to work; it gives the companies a lot. It’s a lot easier to get the people.”
“The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them. … It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Trump has previously proposed ending taxes on tips and on Social Security benefits.
Trump offered no specifics on his new proposal, spending much of the speech airing his grievances about this week’s ABC News-hosted debate and again declaring he would not participate in any more, as he had earlier in the day, and attacking his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.
“So, because we’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate,” said Trump to cheers in Tucson. “It’s too late anyway, the voting has already begun. You got to go out and vote. We got to vote.”
He continued to also launch personal attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, mimicking her speaking style and expressions and mocking her name by saying nobody knows what her last name is.
“Now, Kamala is a very different kind of a word, nice name, very nice name,” Trump said. “You don’t know her as Harris. When you say Harris, everyone says, ‘Who the hell is that?’ right?”
Before unveiling his new economic proposal, the former president attempted to link immigration to the high cost of housing, arguing that a surge in undocumented migrants were driving up costs and creating dangerous neighborhoods.
Despite the fact that there were bomb threats reported in the town earlier Thursday and city officials vehemently and repeatedly denying the assertions, Trump again claimed that Haitian migrants were abducting animals in Springfield, Ohio – though not going as far on Thursday as to claim that they were eating them as he did in the debate and on his Truth Social platform.
In an anti-immigrant rant, Trump declared that the United States was being conquered by “foreign elements.” He ticked through stories of different cities and towns that he argued were being hurt by an influx of people crossing the border. In some instances, the former president didn’t name specific places, instead opting for general fear mongering rhetoric.
“There are hundreds and hundreds or thousands of stories. They’re coming in from all over the world, from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums and many tourists at numbers that we have never seen before. You’ve never seen these numbers before,” he said.
Despite Trump’s claims, a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed U.S.-born citizens “are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes” than undocumented immigrants.
And overall, both murder and rape rates are down 26% compared to the same time frame last year, according to the latest FBI statistics, which are released quarterly.
As with many of Trump’s economic policy rollouts, he offered little specifics over how the proposal would work and be paid for — which would likely fall on taxpayers. However, he did claim that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was “unfair” to people who paid off their loans.
“You know, he kept saying to these students, no more loans, no more loans, which was very unfair to the millions of people that actually paid off their loans over the years. Some of them took 20 years to pay them off, but, but that’s a dead deal.”
When it came to his affordable housing proposal, in an attempt to court suburban women, Trump highlighted his promise to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued could lead to discriminatory practices.
He also promised to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued is a form of exclusionary zoning to push minorities out of suburban communities.
“The Radical Left wants to abolish the suburbs by forcing apartment complexes and low-income housing into the suburbs right next to your beautiful house,” said Trump, who then turned to make his appeal to suburban women.
“The suburbs were safe. That’s why, when they say suburban women maybe don’t like Trump. I think they’re wrong. I think they love me. I do. I never had problems with women. I never had any problems,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a House bill that would require an equal standard of U.S. Secret Service protection to be applied to presidents and all major party candidates.
The bill, which cleared the House last Friday, a week after the second apparent assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, will now head to President Joe Biden’s desk for final approval.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., brought the bill forward for unanimous approval on Tuesday afternoon.
“We all know why this legislation is needed. In a span of just 65 days … President Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts,” Scott said. “I’m proud to lead this effort in the Senate. I’m on the floor today to request the immediate passage of the Enhanced Presidential Security Act so we can send this good and necessary to President Biden’s desk so it may become law. Our action today goes beyond the simple language of this bill.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and a Democrat, said that he did not believe the legislation would have any meaningful impact on the security posture surrounding Trump but did not object to it moving forward.
As noted, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe has stated that Trump is already receiving the highest level of U.S. Secret Service protection.
Murphy said the upcoming supplemental funding for the Secret Service set to be included in the short-term funding measure is a more meaningful approach to upping Trump’s security.
“Let’s move ahead with this bill. I don’t think it actually solves the problem. Let’s pass the additional money so they have everything they need to get the job done. And then let’s sit down and have a broader conversation about why we have seen this spike in political violence, what other ways Republicans and Democrats can come together,” Murphy said.
