Donald Trump suggests police being ‘extraordinarily rough’ would end retail theft
(ERIE, Pa.) — At a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, former President Donald Trump suggested “one rough hour” of law enforcement would deter retail theft.
After falsely claiming crime is up in the U.S. under President Joe Biden, mostly due to migrant crime, Trump brought up seeing stores in New York City and San Francisco locking up their merchandise behind glass doors.
“See, we have to let the police do their job. And if they have to be extraordinarily rough –” Trump trailed off as his rally crowd cheered.
Trump went on to claim, without evidence, that people are walking out of stores with items like air conditioning units and refrigerators “on their back,” “And the police aren’t allowed to do their job,” he said.
“They’re told if you do anything, you’re going to lose your pension; you’re going to lose your family, your house, your car. The police want to do it. The Border Patrol wants to do it. … They’re not allowed to do it because the liberal left won’t let ’em do it,” he said on stage.
“You know, if you had one day, like, one real rough, nasty day with the drugstores as an example, where when they start walking out with–” Trump continued before pivoting to retail crime in San Francisco, falsely claiming his opponent in the presidential race — Vice President Kamala Harris — was responsible for reclassifying felony theft as misdemeanors if under $950, even though it was a proposition approved by California voters.
Trump, who said he recently had a tenant end a lease due to retail theft, said things are “so bad.”
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out, and it will end immediately, end immediately. You know, it will end immediately,” he said.
(CHICAGO) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was among the many politicians attendance at the Democratic National Convention Monday, as the political gathering kicked off in Chicago.
Whitmer has served as governor of the Great Lake State since 2019 and published her political memoir “True Gretch” in July.
She sat down with ABC News’ ABC News’ Linsey Davis to discuss the Harris-Walz ticket, her potential future presidential run and underscore the significance of women’s votes in the upcoming election.
ABC NEWS: Joining us now on set, Michigan governor, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Thank you so much, governor, for joining us. We really appreciate it. So, one month ago, you were still suggesting and supporting Joe Biden for another term. Are you surprised at how quickly things have changed?
WHITMER: Well, you know what, we always knew that if a change was going to happen, it was going to come from President Biden. And ultimately he did change his mind. And we pivoted really quickly to embrace his vice president. She’s been by his side. She has been a loyal part of his administration. She’s been a key part of why they’ve had so many victories and knows how to step into the role and take us to the next, the next chapter, and I’m really excited about it. I think Tim Walz is a fantastic running mate for her, too.
ABC NEWS: You were one of a number of governors, of party leaders who really stepped out and endorsed Kamala Harris right away, right on the heels of Joe Biden doing the same. Were you surprised at all about how quickly the party really coalesced around Kamala Harris? Because, of course, at first there was some concern about that.
WHITMER: Well, you know, it’s a big tent and there are lots of different vantage points and people that are part of this party. But I think we all recognize that Kamala Harris was in the best position to take the next step for us as a party. She’s a great leader. She has proven she knows how to get things done, and she’s a normal human being. You know, she wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She has worked her way through life. She’s attained and held a number of offices and shown how tough she is. And she is up to this moment, and I’m excited to be here. I brought my daughters with me because I think it is. We are on the cusp of a big new chapter in this country and and it’s exciting. You can feel it here.
ABC NEWS: And you mentioned Tim Walz and your support for him. We know that you took your name out of the running for that VP selection early on, but had you received a call how would you have responded?
WHITMER: You know, I got to tell you, I’ve made a commitment to serve out my term in Michigan, and never for a second have I, do I plan not to do exactly that. Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro — Kamala Harris had so many great people from whom she could choose her running mate. But at the end of the day, it’s got to be someone she wants to run with. And so I, I would have been happy with any of those choices, but I think, I think this is just a great ticket. These are regular everyday people. They get it. They understand us, they see our lives, and they’re going to focus every single day on how to make our lives better. And you contrast that with Donald Trump, who’s in it for himself. I think that this is going to resonate with a lot of Americans.
ABC NEWS: There are many people will associate your state of Michigan with the uncommitted movement. Of course, we’ve seen a number of protesters here. How concerned are you, with regard to not only the physical presence of the protesters here in Chicago, but also the ballot box, in Michigan in particular, come November?
WHITMER: Well, number one, you know, there’s always protests at conventions, and certainly it’s robust. And we recognize it’s important that people have their ability to speak out. And that’s what people are doing. I also know that we are seeing a tremendous outpouring of energy and excitement about a Harris-Walz administration. We had a 15,000 person rally in Michigan two days after she announced her running mate. The other guy called it AI, but I was there. It was actually real people who are very excited about this. And so we have to earn the votes of every person. That means getting into the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the Arab community, the Palestinian community, all of whom call home in robust numbers, but all of whom are important. And, there’s there’s good work to do here, but I’m optimistic.
ABC NEWS: As you know, president — well former president — Donald Trump is expected to go campaign in Howell, Michigan, tomorrow. Many people are aware that a month ago, in Howell, KKK protesters marched in the streets with the white robes on and, and suggested that they support Donald Trump. I’m curious if you make anything about that connection and his going in particular to Howell tomorrow.
WHITMER: Well, you know, anyone who’s doing a little bit of research might have said that’s really a bad idea. Look at the optics. You’re showing up where the KKK was just at the same time you’re in Michigan. I mean, this is, I think a troubling, a troubling strategy that we see from the other side to divide us and to scare us and to stoke fear and anger and contrast to what we’re going to see here all week. This is a gathering of joyful, happy warriors. We are rolling up our sleeves. We’re doing the work. We take no one and no vote for granted. But by the same token, we’re not going to feed into the hatred and the otherism that we see routinely coming out of the Trump campaign.
ABC NEWS: In your book, “True Gretch,” and I want to quote, you say “You put on a leather jacket when you need true armor,” and “Don’t mess with the American women, we will fight back and we will win.” You talked about bringing your daughters here. Do you think that women are key in Michigan for Kamala Harris winning?
WHITMER: No question. No question at all. We saw, with our reproductive rights on the ballot two years ago, women would come to our events and say “I’m a Republican. I didn’t vote for you, but I’m out knocking doors for you because you’re the only one fighting for my rights.” People who have been expecting these 50-year rights would always be there, are now gone for our daughters across this country, are engaged. And so I do think that, the women’s votes are going to be very important in every election, but especially this one, especially in this historic moment too.
ABC NEWS: So each night we’re going to be talking to a governor from a battleground state like Michigan. And I’m curious for your state in particular, what do you think it’s going to need? What do you think your voters need, in order to get Kamala Harris and Tim Walz over the victory line?
WHITMER: Well, I think we get we show up, we do the work, we get into all 83 counties. We actually talk to voters, talk about the, you know, opportunity economy that Kamala Harris is, you know, addressing, saying every person deserves a path to prosperity, affordable housing and affordable way to get skills so we can get to a good paying job. The growth and manufacturing, we are seeing that in Michigan, it would not have happened but for the Biden-Harris administration. The cars that used to sit on lots waiting for chips are now moving, moving along the line, because we’re on on-shoring the supply chains. So I think that there are a lot of compelling things that Michiganders, are going to resonate with us. But I’m not going to assume everyone knows this. We got to make sure that they, that they appreciate what what really is at stake here.
ABC NEWS: And lastly before I let you go, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask. I know this is all about Harris and Walz now, but down the future, have you ruled out ever running for president yourself?
WHITMER: You know what? I’m voting for Harris-Walz this year. I plan to vote for them again in four years. So we’ll talk about what happens in eight years a while from now.
ABC NEWS: Alright Gov. Whitmer thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate you joining us.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of more than 30 current and former Republican officials filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday condemning a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.
“States have no business overruling the decisions of fit parents who make an informed medical choice for their children that is supported by their doctors,” the filing reads.
The Supreme Court is preparing to take up a constitutional challenge to the law, which restricts access to puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries specifically for the purpose of gender transitioning for people under the age of 18. The law does not restrict this care for non-transgender patients.
At least 25 states have passed similar bans on gender-affirming medical care.
The Republican signatories include representatives from state legislatures, the George W. Bush administration, as well as the John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. It also includes Jordan Willow Evans, the nation’s first openly transgender elected Republican.
The signatories argue that the law is “nothing less than ‘a vast government overreach,’” quoting former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who vetoed a gender-confirming medical care ban for transgender youths in his state.
Hutchinson’s veto was followed by a veto from Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine against his state’s own proposed gender-affirming care ban. Both Hutchinson’s and DeWine’s vetoes were overridden by their respective state legislature.
Republicans and political conservatives in opposition to the Tennessee law say they are against the law because of their values of limited government and respect for families – “in particular, the rights of parents to make weighty decisions about the upbringing and medical care of their own children.”
“Parents want their children to be safe, happy and healthy. Parents of transgender children are no different,” the filing reads. “Reasonable people can disagree about what is best for kids, but the question presented here is who makes that decision: their parents or government bureaucrats?”
The filing also quotes Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – whose former staff is also represented among the amicus brief signatories.
On the presidential campaign trail in 2023, Christie said that “parents are the people who are best positioned to make these judgments” and “the government should [n]ever be stepping into the place of the parents.”
Tennessee Republican lawmakers in favor of trans care bans have defended the law in light of the impending Supreme Court case, often arguing that children should wait to receive care until they are adults.
“Tennessee is committed to protecting children from permanent, life-altering decisions,” Gov. Bill Lee said in an April 2023 post on the social media platform X after the Justice Department argued the law violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
In a statement on the Supreme Court case, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also defended the law: “We fought hard to defend Tennessee’s law protecting kids from irreversible gender treatments and secured a thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion from the 6th Circuit.”
He continued, “I look forward to finishing the fight in the United States Supreme Court. This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity.”
The filing notes people and medical professionals believe that it endangers children with gender dysphoria not to provide them with gender-affirming care.
Major national medical associations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and more than 20 others — agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial and medically necessary.
Research has found that hormone therapy can improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance defended his past comments on women and families without children, the Trump campaign’s proposals to deport undocumented immigrants and more in a wide-ranging interview with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, which airs in full on Sunday morning.
Despite the race tightening in recent weeks as Vice President Kamala Harris has taken over the Democratic ticket, the Ohio senator emphasized that he and Trump are “extremely confident” in their chances of winning the election.
“I think we’re going to win. I also think that we have to work as hard as possible for the remainder of the election to try to persuade Americans to vote for us,” Vance told Karl. “That’s the name of the game.”
Vance elaborates on ‘pro-family’ views
The senator has come under fire for repeated comments made about childless Americans, including one during an interview in July 2021 with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson where Vance described leading Democrats including Harris as “childless cat ladies.”
In a speech before a conservative group, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which preceded that interview, Vance also suggested that people with children should have extra votes.
“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds, but let’s do this instead,” Vance said in the speech. “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.”
Vance told Karl his notion was a “thought experiment” in response to Democratic proposals to allow younger voters, and not a policy stance.
“Do I regret saying it? I regret that the media and the Kamala Harris campaign has, frankly, distorted what I said,” he said. “They turn this into a policy proposal that I never made. … I said, I want us to be more pro-family, and I do want us to be more pro-family.”
Vance added there are “policy positions behind my view that the country should become more pro-family.” He went on to talk about the economic struggles that families are facing, citing the increased cost of goods, rising medical bills and other costs.
The senator said that he and Trump have a plan to lower the cost of housing and food but didn’t provide details during the interview.
Trump said in an interview with Fox News last week that his solution to bringing down costs was, “We’re gonna drill, baby, drill.”
Trump has also advocated for more tariffs and tax cuts as part of his economic policies.
Vance responds to mass deportation plan: ‘Let’s start with 1 million’
The senator brought up the ongoing migrant crisis and again blamed Harris and the Biden administration’s policies, such as ending “Remain in Mexico.”
When asked how he and Trump would accomplish their stated goal of mass deporting as many as 20 million immigrants – a proposal experts previously told ABC News would be a “nightmare” — Vance said they would take a “sequential approach.”
“I mean do you go knock on doors and ask people for their papers? What do you do,” Karl asked.
“You start with what’s achievable,” Vance said. “I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.”
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with 1 million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” Vance said.
Vance agrees with Trump that VP picks don’t matter to most voters During an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago last month, and just a short time after Trump announced Vance as his running mate, the former president raised some eyebrows when asked whether Vance would be ready to be president “on Day 1” if needed.
“You can have a vice president who’s outstanding in every way, and I think JD is, I think that all of them would’ve been, but you’re not voting that way. You’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me,” Trump said, without addressing whether Vance would be ready on “Day 1.”
In the interview with ABC News, Vance said he agreed with Trump’s view.
“They’re voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris, not for JD or Tim Walz,” he said. “I also think that he’s right that the politics of this really don’t matter that much.”
However, Vance stressed he’s “absolutely” sure Trump is confident he could step up as a commander in chief if needed.
“What I think that he does believe because he made it the main focus of his vetting process, is, ‘Do I think this person can be president on day one if, God forbid, something happens? Yes,'” Vance said.
Vance repeats false claims about Tim Walz’s policies
During a rally in Montana on Friday night, Trump pushed falsehoods about Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz’s policies concerning transgender youth, accusing the Minnesota governor of signing “a law letting the state kidnap children to change their gender.”
Walz has signed legislation aimed at protecting the rights of transgender individuals to access gender-affirming care, which can include gender-affirming surgeries but also services like counseling and non-surgical medical procedures like hormone therapy and puberty suppressants. The law does not allow what Trump claimed.
Vance said he didn’t fully watch the late-night rally but repeated some of those false claims in the interview with Karl, saying Walz “supported taking children away from their parents if the parents don’t consent to gender reassignment.”
He referenced Walz’s recent statement at a rally accusing Republicans of not “minding their own damn business.”
“One way of minding your own damn business, Jon, is to not try to take my children away from me … if I have different world views than you.”
Karl pushed back, calling the “kidnapping” characterization “crazy.”
The April 2023 law that Walz signed in the wake of other states curtailing or banning access to gender-affirming care has been mischaracterized by Republicans.
The Minnesota law protects patients who come to the state to receive gender-affirming health care, even if the patients live in a state where such care is illegal. The law also specifically allows the state’s courts to assume “temporary emergency jurisdiction” in cross-state child custody disputes where a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming care and is in Minnesota to do so.
The executive director of LGBTQ+ advocacy group OutFront told The Washington Post that under the law, courts can settle parental disputes over whether their child should get this care, but it doesn’t result in the parent against such care losing custody of their child.
Vance pushes back on white supremacist Trump once dined with who recently insulted his wife’s race
Karl also asked Vance about a racist attack targeting his wife, Usha, from white nationalist live-streamer, Nick Fuentes, who Trump dined with in November 2022.
In a recent livestream, Fuentes said, “What kind of man marries somebody named Usha Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity.”
“My attitude to these people attacking my wife is, she’s beautiful, she’s smart. What kind of man marries Usha A very smart man and very lucky man,” Vance said of his wife during the ABC News interview. “If these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, [or] my personality, come after me. But don’t attack my wife. She’s out of your league.”
Trump faced significant blowback for dining with Fuentes, along with rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) back in November 2022 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At the time, Trump said he did not know who Fuentes was and that he was brought to the dinner by Ye. In a statement given exclusively to Fox News Digital, Trump said, “I had no idea what his views were, and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn’t have been accepted.”
But the former president has not denounced Fuentes’ white nationalist views beyond that, or the recent comments about Usha Vance.
In the interview, Vance contended Trump had “issued plenty of condemnations,” and did not question the former president’s dinner with Fuentes.
“The one thing I like about Donald Trump, Jon, is that he actually will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views,” Vance said, adding that Trump has been close and friendly with his family.
ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan contributed to this report.