Latino political strategist responds to Puerto Rico jokes at Trump MSG rally

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is taking maybe his final lap on the world stage this week with a trip to South America.

He’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, making a historic visit to the Amazon rainforest and attending two major summits.

His travel comes just about a week after the U.S. election threw into question what America’s role in the world will be during the next four years under President-elect Donald Trump.

Biden will kick off his trip to South America by traveling to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. While there, he will meet with Peru’s President Dina Boluarte and other world leaders.

Biden’s time at APEC will likely come under heightened scrutiny because Trump has vowed to enact major tariffs that could vastly affect global trade.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden would “reinforce America’s leading role in the Indo-Pacific,” and touted his success in enhancing America’s “strategic position” in the region during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday. Sullivan touted Biden’s relationship with Indo-Pacific partners as at “a literal all-time high,” and said that is “what he’s going to hand off to President Trump.”

On Saturday, Biden’s planned sit-down with China’s President Xi will be the first with his Chinese counterpart since the two men met in Woodside, California, last November. It is also expected to be their last meeting as presidents.

“This meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military to military channels of communication,” Sullivan said.

Given that, the a senior administration official said that Biden will use the meeting as a point of reflection about how the U.S.-China relationship has evolved. The official declined to talk about what Biden’s message to Xi would be about policies to expect from a Trump administration.

“I think the way I come at this question is this is a tough, complicated relationship between the U.S. and China. And so whatever the next administration decides, they’re going to need to find ways to manage that tough, complicated relationship,” the official said on a call with reporters.

President Biden will then head to Manaus, Brazil – in the Amazon region – to engage with “local, indigenous, and other leaders working to preserve and protect this critical ecosystem,” according to the White House.

This will be a historic visit, the first time a sitting president has visited the Amazon rainforest, according to the White House. Sullivan said that the trip will “underscore his personal commitment” to combating climate change in the U.S. and around the world.

Biden’s historic visit comes as the next administration will likely enact major changes when it comes to climate policy. Trump has called climate change a hoax and has promised to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

After that, Biden will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to participate in the G20 summit. Sullivan said Biden’s aims in Rio will be to reassure allies despite pending differences in foreign policy as Trump prepares to take office.

“[Biden’s] going to have the same message that he’s had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America’s allies are vital to America’s national security,” Sullivan said. “They contribute to our common causes, including the cause of standing up for freedom and territorial integrity in Ukraine.”

Sullivan also said that there will be a major focus on structuring debt for low-and middle-income countries and helping finance for physical, digital and energy infrastructure. He added that geopolitical issues, including “Ukraine to the Middle East,” will also be crucial.

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(NEW YORK) — Republicans in North Carolina and nationally are assessing the potential fallout for former President Donald Trump from a bombshell report alleging that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the party’s gubernatorial nominee, posted disturbing and inflammatory statements on a forum of a pornographic website.

CNN reported Thursday that Robinson, behind an anonymous username he allegedly used elsewhere, made the comments more than a decade ago, including supporting slavery, calling himself a “black NAZI” and recalling memories of him “peeping” on women in the shower as a 14-year-old.

ABC News has not independently verified the comments were made by Robinson, and he insisted in a video posted to X prior to the story’s publication that “those are not the words of Mark Robinson.”

But Robinson, a Donald Trump ally, already has a history of incendiary remarks about Jews, gay people and others, and elections in North Carolina, one of the nation’s marquee swing states, rest on a knife’s edge, raising questions of how much the latest news will impact his race and other Republicans on the ballot with him — including the former president.

“I think this only heightens the level of toxicity that the Robinson campaign has, and the real question becomes, what’s the radioactive fallout at the top of the ticket along with down the ballot for Republicans here in North Carolina” asked Michael Bitzer, the Politics Department chair at Catawba College.

“This cannot be something that the voters aren’t going to recognize and probably play more into softening the Republican support. Is it isolated only to Robinson’s campaign, or does it start to impact Trump? Does it impact other statewide executive Republicans as well? We’ll just have to wait and see, but this feels like a pretty significant event in North Carolina politics.”

Robinson, who casts himself as a conservative family man and is running for North Carolina’s open governorship against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein, is already behind in the polls.

While he holds statewide office and has broad name recognition, Robinson boasts a highly controversial record, including calling the Holocaust “hogwash” and homosexuality “filth,” and he drew claims of hypocrisy when he admitted this year that he had paid for his wife to get an abortion, seemingly in contrast with his stated opposition to the procedure, which he’d previously likened to “murder” and “genocide.”

North Carolina’s gubernatorial race is still considered competitive given the state’s tight partisan divide, but Republicans in the state told ABC News they had already viewed him as trailing, and that Thursday’s report won’t help.

“He’s already got a lengthy history of publishing comments like that on the internet. These are perhaps a little more graphic. In terms of does this by itself serve as a guillotine, I don’t know. But it feels like the cumulative weight is starting to add up now,” said one North Carolina GOP strategist. “It flies in the face of everything he presents of himself publicly. So, cumulatively plus the hypocrisy of this, it’s obviously hurtful to him.”

Republicans were more divided on what it means beyond Robinson’s own candidacy.

North Carolina is a must-win state for Trump, and losing it would impose significant pressure on him to perform in other swing states.

Trump is already running ahead of Robinson — while polls show Robinson trailing, they also show a neck-and-neck race in the state between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris. The main question now is whether the news depresses Republican turnout in a state where even a small nudge in turnout one way or the other can make decide the victor.

“[Robinson] was already toast. The question is if it hurts Trump, something the campaign is very worried about,” said Doug Heye, a veteran GOP strategist with experience working in North Carolina. “It doesn’t directly cost him voters, but his endorsed pick continues to be a big distraction and has no money to drive out the vote.”

“He’s a baby blue anchor around Trump’s chances in the Tar Heel State,” added Trump donor Dan Eberhart. “This is not good news for Trump’s campaign at all.”

Democrats are already seizing on the news to try to connect Robinson to Trump, who has repeatedly praised him, even calling him at one point “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Kamala HQ, an X page that serves as one of the Harris campaign’s rapid response tools, posted a slate of videos featuring Trump speaking positively about Robinson.

“His campaign was toast before this story, so the real impact is on all of the Republicans who have endorsed and campaigned alongside him,” said Bruce Thompson, a North Carolina Democratic fundraiser.

However, Trump has been able to navigate his own headwinds, including felony convictions in New York, questioning Harris’ race and more to remain the leader of his party and a viable presidential candidate, leading some Republicans to doubt that Robinson’s struggles will impact the presidential campaign.

“Doubt it impacts at all down-ballot,” said Dave Carney, a GOP strategist who chairs a pro-Trump super PAC.

“I don’t think it helps, but it won’t hurt,” added Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt sounded a confident note, saying in a statement that the former president’s team would “not take our eye off the ball.”

“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country. North Carolina is a vital part of that plan. We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failures of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again,” she said.”

Still, sources familiar with the matter said the Trump campaign was bracing for a story to come out about Robinson and is planning on putting more distance between the former president and the embattled nominee Robinson — but initially did not have plans to call on him to drop out.

“He seems to not be impacted by what’s going on down-ballot underneath him,” the North Carolina Republican strategist said of Trump. “There’s no way it helps him. But does it hurt him? I don’t know, I think that’s an open question.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Sept. 29, according to an invite obtained by ABC News — just a few days after former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton host fundraisers for her in the same area.

According to the Sept. 29 invite, tickets range from $500 to $1 million — with the $500 tickets already sold out. The pricier tickets include a reception with Harris, a “liberty luncheon” and a photo opportunity.

Obama and Clinton will also be holding separate Los Angeles fundraisers for the vice president on Sept. 20, according to an invite and a source familiar with the planning.

Clinton’s fundraiser will be a lunchtime appearance with guests such as actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Sally Field in attendance. Obama’s fundraiser will be a nighttime fundraiser on the same day.

Obama will begin to hold larger campaign events for Harris beginning next month as well as candidate-specific events for down-ballot races, the source said.

Harris’ fundraiser, first reported by Deadline, marks her first fundraising appearance in the Los Angeles area since she announced her campaign.

Obama, George Clooney and Julia Roberts hosted a fundraiser for then-candidate President Joe Biden in June in Los Angeles, which raised $30 million for Biden’s campaign.

Harris’ campaign said it raised $361 million in August — her first full month as a candidate — from nearly three million donors. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said it raised $130 million in August.

The campaign has been attempting to seize on to the momentum the debate garnered for the candidate by setting course on an intense campaign schedule they’re calling “A New Way Forward,” labeling themselves as “underdogs” despite poll numbers that suggest Harris fared better than Trump in the debate.

Americans by 58-36% say Harris won the debate — a reversal from the Biden-Trump match in June, which Trump was seen as winning by 66-28%, according to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Harris has several appearances scheduled for this week, including an event with the National Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday, a live-streamed event with Oprah Winfrey in Michigan on Thursday and campaign stops in Wisconsin on Friday.

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