Arnold Palmer’s daughter calls Trump’s remarks about her father ‘disrespectful’
(WASHINGTON) — Arnold Palmer’s daughter, Peg Palmer Wears, reacted to former President Donald Trump’s vulgar comments about her late father, calling them “disrespectful,” “inappropriate,” and “unacceptable.”
“Being at the airport, which is named for my dad, where he flew out of to go to work every day or every week, you know, to come there and talk about … hackneyed anecdotes from the locker room … seemed disrespectful and inappropriate to me,” she told ABC News Monday afternoon.
Not only was Arnold Palmer a renowned American golfer with a popular beverage named in his honor, he also has a regional airport named after him in his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Campaigning at that airport on Saturday evening, Trump kicked off the rally with a long-winded story about Palmer, who dies in 2016, specifically referring to the golfer’s genitals.
“When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump joked.
According to Wears, Trump was “appropriating someone he admires to bolster his own image,” and that “people deserve better.”
“The people coming to these rallies deserve substance about plans Trump has as a candidate, if he could elucidate on some of the threats he’s made to people,” she continued. “I mean, these are important issues that should be discussed for people when they’re getting ready to vote, and using my dad to cover over the important things just seems unacceptable to me.”
Wears also confirmed to ABC News that she will be voting in the presidential election, though she did not disclose which candidate she plans to vote for.
An unaffiliated North Carolina voter, Wears plans to cast her ballot from one of the seven critical battleground states that could impact the election.
According to 538’s polling averages, Trump is leading in North Carolina by 0.8 points.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa, and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In honor of former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, the North Lawn of the White House will feature a display that includes the number “100” with the message “Happy Birthday President Carter,” according to the first lady’s office.
The display will be installed the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 1, and remain on the North Lawn through the end of the day.
Carter, who entered home hospice care in February 2023, became on Tuesday the first former U.S. president to live to be 100. The 39th president, who held office from 1977 to 1981, is the longest-lived former chief executive in U.S. history.
President Joe Biden wished Carter a happy birthday in a new video from the White House.
“On behalf of the entire Biden family and the American people, happy 100th birthday,” Biden said. “Mr. President, you’ve always been a moral force for a nation in the world.”
Biden said that he admires Carter “so darn much” and said that Carter has been “a good friend.”
“Your hopeful vision of our country, your commitment to a better world, and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us,” Biden said.
Biden praised Carter as one of “the most influential statesmen in our history” and praised the successes of the Carter Center.
“The moral clarity you showed throughout your career showed through again. And your commitment through the Carter Center and the Habitat for Humanity, you’re solving conflicts, advancing democracy, preventing disease, so much more. It’s transforming the lives of people, not only at home, but around the world,” Biden said.
Biden also talked about how this is a bittersweet birthday for Carter, as this is the first birthday he has since the death of his wife Rosalynn Carter. Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023 at the age of 96.
“We know this is the first birthday without Rosalynn. It’s bittersweet, but we also know she’s always with you. She’s in your heart. She’ll never go away, she may be gone, but she’s always going to be with you,” Biden said.
“Jill and I send to you and your incredible family our love and God continue to bless you, Mr. President,” Biden said. “You’ve been a good friend.”
(NEW YORK) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff blasted remarks made by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said Vice President Kamala Harris “doesn’t have anything to keep her humble” because she does not have biological children.
“We know that all parents, no matter how you become one, make the same sacrifices and revel in the same joys of raising children as any parent anywhere,” Emhoff defended his wife while speaking at a campaign event in Brooklyn, New York, Wednesday evening.
“As if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for. It is not,” the second gentleman said. “Women in this country will never humble themselves before Donald Trump.”
Emhoff referred to Sanders’ comment as “unbelievable,” and he expressed his appreciation for his wife, ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, and their “big, beautiful, blessed family.”
Harris is the stepmom to Cole and Ella Emhoff, her husband’s children from his first marriage.
Kerstin Emhoff jumped to Harris’ defense as well, responding to a video of Sanders on X.
“Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families. That keeps you pretty humble,” she wrote Tuesday.
Sanders had been speaking at a Michigan town hall with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday when she made the comments. “So my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” she said.
During a visit Wednesday to a Bitcoin bar in Greenwich Village, New York, Trump was asked about Sanders’ remarks and whether Harris should be attacked for not having biological children.
“Well, I just don’t know what I think about it, you know,” Trump said during the event.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance previously commented on Harris and other women for not having children with his well-known “childless cat ladies” comment.
In the 2021 clip, which only recently resurfaced, Vance accused Harris and the Democrats of being “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
There has been much backlash to Vance’s remark, and some have even made mocked the comment by making it their own. Most famously, Taylor Swift signed her endorsement for Harris as a “childless cat lady.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, and Chris Donovan contributed to this report.
(JACKSONVILLE, FL) — There’s a political storm brewing on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, just outside of Jacksonville.
A voter guide falsely purporting to show a slate of endorsements by the local Republican party hit mailboxes in St. John’s County, sowing confusion just as the primary was about to kick off this month.
The latest salvo in what many say is already an overheated election cycle, the incident has brought attention to an intra-party slugfest being waged inside the local GOP, amid a fight for the future of how — and how fast — development should proceed in the area around historic St. Augustine.
“I saw the card, and I’m like, this is a real issue,” St. John’s County GOP Chair Denver Cook told ABC News. “I was in shock. I’m dealing with one of probably the most flagrant frauds on voters — the day before early voting. It became an instant train wreck.”
On the eve of the first ballots being cast last Friday, as the mysterious mailers began spreading, Cook said his phone began blowing up with perplexed messages.
According to Cook, the glossy handout had a thickness, color scheme and font like the official voter guides put out by the local Republican party in June. And though it purported to be the “official 2024 membership-approved endorsements” of the county Republican party, it had a very different list of candidates from the ones the party had announced support for.
The new mailers also lacked any legal disclaimers explaining who paid for them, Cook said. And in pictures of the envelope that one of the fake mailers came in, which were reviewed by ABC News, the postmark was dated Aug. 7 — timed to arrive just in time for Aug. 10th’s early voting.
Cook, who is also running for St. John’s clerk of courts and comptroller, didn’t know how widely the phony cards were sent, but one thing was clear: In this predominantly Republican area, whoever won the primary would likely be the victor in November.
“That’s why there’s such a fight,” Diane Scherff, president of local political action committee “Trump Club of St. John’s County” said.
“It is the battle for the soul of St John’s County,” said Scherff, whose PAC endorsed a list of candidates in the spring that bucks the local GOP’s.
So, the urgent question: Where did this pamphlet come from?
‘I wish I knew’
“I never thought anyone would go that far in the dirty trick universe,” Cook told ABC News. “When we’re talking about tight races, any illegal mailer like this claiming to be from the county party could alter elections.”
Cook says he has asked law enforcement to investigate the fraudulent pamphlets — and that he would pursue legal action against those responsible.
“Whoever did this knows the rules,” Cook said. “There’s a level of sophistication to this that isn’t cheap.”
Florida’s Republican party chairman, Evan Power, said in a statement that they “are taking this matter very seriously and are investigating.”
“No Florida voter should be misled by anonymous, phony groups pretending to speak for the GOP,” Power said.
Long before the mailers appeared, the St. John’s primary had already stirred up bad blood over the question of who truly champions Republican policies and principles. At issue: the speed of local land development in one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most influential areas, awash in campaign cash and high-dollar real estate deals.
Some local party Republicans criticize others for being in developers’ pockets; the other Republicans say their opponents are faux-conservative and accuse them of being Democrats in GOP clothing.
“Our local party has been taken over by Democrats, and Republicans using Democrats help to take a shortcut,” said Jamie Parham, vice chair of the St. John’s GOP board of directors. “If they’re MAGA, they should be supporting the people that Trump supports.”
Cook pushes back against jabs like that.
“I am a Republican, I support President Trump’s campaign, I have supported his past campaigns, and as chair of the St. John’s County GOP I continue to fight for the platform of our party,” he said.
While local party officials had thrown their weight behind a slate of candidates that included several challengers to the current incumbents, the Trump Club of St. John’s mostly endorsed the incumbent candidates.
Then Trump himself, in an early morning Truth Social post last week, endorsed three incumbent county commission members from the Trump Club’s list.
It was recognition that Scherff said she’d been seeking for years.
“I was so happy, after all the work I’ve done,” said Scherff. “I thought that would be all we needed.”
But the fake voter guides, printed with the official GOP banner, threw the race into turmoil: The guide’s endorsements were nearly identical to the slate of candidates endorsed by groups like the Trump Club.
Scherff said the resulting controversy enveloped the race — and that she had no idea where the bogus guides came from.
“I wish I knew, because then I could say to people, stop blaming me,” she said, worrying that the controversy has cast doubt on Trump’s support and undermined any momentum her group had.
“It’s been taken away,” she said. “As quick as I got it, it’s gone.”
On Saturday, the last day of early voting, Trump reiterated his support for the same candidates in another Truth Social post.
‘Freedom to speak out’
The back-and-forth has grown so contentious that at one point a sitting county commissioner faced criminal prosecution for raising the upcoming election at a meeting.
Krista Joseph, the county commissioner for St. John’s District 4, describes herself as an often-lone dissenting voice on the five-person governing body.
“I’m definitely a thorn in their side. I’ve voted with them when I think it’s right, but I don’t look at this as winning and losing. I’m representing,” Joseph said. “It’s not that I’m anti-development; I’m anti what they’re doing to develop.”
Joseph is not up for reelection this year — but last November, at a commissioners’ board meeting, she wanted to remind everyone who was.
Joseph told members of the public that if they’re “sick of the traffic” and “overcrowding in schools” and if they’re concerned that that “developers are controlling the boards,” they had a choice coming up.
“There’s hope,” Joseph said from the dais. “Less than nine months, we have an election.”
Several commissioners whose seats would be up were sitting with Joseph as she spoke.
In a 4-1 vote less than a month later, the board censured Joseph, led by two of the incumbents who would go on to seek reelection — both of whom would be endorsed by the Trump Club, and Trump.
Outside counsel decided Joseph had violated election law by speaking out during a meeting, and noted the matter could be referred to local prosecutors for possible criminal charges, according to court documents.
After a monthslong legal battle, U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger ruled in Joseph’s favor, finding her First Amendment right to free speech was protected, even at a county meeting.
“Simply because a person is an elected official, such as a County Commissioner, this rightful freedom to speak out so as to inform the electorate cannot be restricted,” Judge Schlesinger wrote in his July 10 decision granting a preliminary injunction. “The threatened prosecution is chilling Commissioner Joseph’s political speech in the last months of the primary election when this speech is most meaningful.”
‘Different factions’
“The local Republican party has been splitting off into different factions,” explains incumbent commissioner Christian Whitehurst.
Whitehurst, who has been endorsed for reelection by the Trump Club and the former president, said he wants to make sure local government can keep up with all the development.
“It’s virtually impossible to stop all the growth,” Whitehurst said. “We have a lot of people moving into not just St. John’s County but the state of Florida. Of course with the sharp increase in growth comes the challenge to keep up in terms of infrastructure and services.”
His primary challenger, Ann-Marie Evans — who was endorsed by the local GOP — criticizes Whitehurst on her campaign website as overseeing “the most overdeveloped area” and “STILL approving new homes by the thousands.”
“I am not opposed to all growth; I am opposed to exponential growth that does not keep pace with the need for infrastructure,” Evans’ site says.
Whitehurst says characterizing him as in cahoots with developers is unfair. “We have voted to deny many projects,” he said.
Whitehurst said he does not know who was behind the fake voter guides, and condemned “any attempt to mislead anybody.”
Parham, of the St. John’s GOP board, said it wouldn’t make sense for the current officeholders to be involved.
“It doesn’t benefit the incumbents if they sent it, because then they’re the bad guy for committing election fraud,” he said.
But Parham also decries the official endorsements made by his own local party.
“The Republican Party should not endorse candidates in the primary,” Parham said. “As a voter, you should figure out which group you most identify with, and that should be your voter guide.”
ABC News’ Will Steakin and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.