At DNC, parents of Israeli-American hostage make emotional plea for cease-fire deal
(CHICAGO) — The parents of one of an Israeli-American hostage brought many Democratic National Convention delegates to tears on Wednesday as they recounted 320 days of anguish and pushed for a cease-fire deal to bring their son home.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were greeted with huge cheers and chants of “Bring them home,” as they spoke on stage, fighting back tears. The 23-year-old was at a music festival in south Israel celebrating his birthday on Oct. 7.
“That was 320 days ago. Since then, we live on another planet,” a teary-eyed Goldberg said.
Many in the crowd, who wore “Bring them home” bracelets were in tears as she described her son’s situation and the struggle of not knowing his whereabouts or status. Family photos showing him smiling and happy with his family were displayed as his parents spoke.
Polin told the crowd that the return of the hostages was not a political issue but a “humanitarian issue.”
Polin said that he and his wife have met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris numerous times at the White House.
“They’re both working tirelessly for a hostage and cease-fire deal that will bring our precious children, mothers, fathers, spouses, grandparents and grandchildren home. And we’ll stop the despair in Gaza,” he said to cheers.
Polin went on to note that there “is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East and a competition of pain.”
“There are no winners,” he said.
Polin stressed that the cease-fire deal is “the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region.”
“The time is now,” he said to cheers.
Before they left the stage, Goldberg sent an emotional message to her son.
“Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you. Stay strong, survive,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Republicans and Democrats agree: Ohio Sen. JD Vance has had a rocky rollout as former President Donald Trump’s running mate. What’s less clear is how much it matters to voters.
Since Vance was picked to join Trump on Republicans’ ticket, he’s been hit with a cascade of stories about past comments regarding childless women, stringent abortion stances, dislike of police and more. The drip, drip, drip has given Democrats an opening to peg Vance and Republicans at large as “weird,” phrasing that has become a cornerstone of Vice President Kamala Harris’ messaging.
Yet while the remarks are driving a prolonged news cycle, Vance is running in a cycle when his running mate is a former president famous for sucking up political oxygen and his Democratic counterpart will be picked by a likely nominee who herself was chosen as her party’s candidate in an unprecedented series of events.
“It’s hard to say,” one source close to Trump’s campaign said when asked how much voters will care about Vance’s introduction. “I don’t know if a vice presidential candidate ever is the driver of why someone votes for the principal. And so, that is to be determined.”
The conventional wisdom is that running mates historically don’t move the needle with voters in presidential races despite the intense calculus equation done by each presidential candidate to pick the right person. The most recent time a pick threatened a ticket was in 2008, when then-Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin found herself in hot water as John McCain’s running mate, though the two also ran at a time of terrible poll numbers for outgoing President George W. Bush.
Vance was picked after a weekslong search among several contenders, keeping both the media and much of the GOP in suspense as to who will join Trump on Republicans’ ticket.
The Ohio senator was rolled out as the nominee the first day of the GOP convention to much fanfare, and after the confab ended, was immediately hit with headlines over his past comments, many of which focused on his remarks on women without kids, including saying in 2021 that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”
The controversy has pushed Vance to play defense, arguing that “the media wants to attack me” and that reporters are too focused on “sarcasm.”
But at the end of the day, it’s still the Trump show, Republicans argued, and support for the GOP ticket likely hinges on his appeal.
“Generally speaking, the vice presidential candidates don’t typically matter too much, especially when you have a candidate on the Republican side like Trump, who is the lightning rod, is the icon. A lot of voters are going to be voting for Trump. I just don’t buy much stock into somebody would have been a Trump voter and is now going to pull off of Trump because of the JD Vance pick,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard.
Republicans likened the headlines over Trump’s past comments as inside baseball rather than a campaign earthquake.
“They call him weird and all that stuff, this is rollout stuff. It’s just inside pollster, baseball stuff. When they find out that’s not working, the campaign will have moved on,” said a second source close to Trump’s campaign, arguing that Vance will maintain his appeal to voters in the Rust Belt given his roots in the region.
Trump himself said on Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists conference that “you have two or three days where there’s a lot of commotion … and then that dies down.”
The former president’s comments seemed particularly prescient Thursday, when the news cycle was dominated by his questioning during the NABJ interview of Harris’ race — rather than Vance’s comments about childless women.
Beyond that, headlines about Vance are competing with news stories about the Democratic ticket.
Democrats are locked in a whirlwind of their own, with Harris jolting to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden ended his own campaign. She will soon pick her own running mate, which will likely set off a whole new news cycle.
And that’s on top of other national discussions, including over the recent assassination attempt on Trump.
“It’s just been such a chaotic, turbulent time period that I’m not sure many voters have really homed in and focused on it,” Blizzard said.
In addition to the cavalcade of stories, Vance has still been able to raise money and sell out events on the campaign trail, and print copies of his novel “Hillbilly Elegy” and a movie based off of it have spiked in popularity, suggesting some voters are also digesting a more positive depiction of him.
And through it all, Vance is expected to have the full support of the Trump campaign.
“President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance to be his running mate, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Vance’s introduction on the national ticket has been smooth.
Even those close to the Trump campaign admitted Vance’s rollout hasn’t been ideal, and a 538 average of polls gauging Vance’s popularity found the Ohio Republican’s disapproval rating at almost 38%, while his approval rating sat 6 points under that, at 32%.
“This has been, statistically speaking, the single worst rollout of the last 100 years,” the first source close to the Trump campaign said. “It makes Sarah Palin look like a f—— Mensa candidate.”
That has Democrats sensing an opening.
The universe of undecided voters is small but critical, and it’s unclear what factors could persuade someone still on the fence — particularly if the two people at the top of each ticket remain unpopular.
“Political people who work in politics, I think, are much too dismissive of the impact of a vice presidential pick. Swing voters are extremely low-information, they have often very contradictory views. The notion that they would not decide on who they’re going to vote for based on the second-most important person in the world is, frankly, absurd,” said one source familiar with the Harris campaign’s strategy.
“Political professionals and pundits who dismiss the impact of a vice presidential pick as not possibly factoring into a swing voter’s calculations for who they’re gonna vote for need to watch some focus groups of swing voters.”
Harris’ campaign and its allies are already seizing on the “weird” attack lines. The language is dominating surrogate interviews on cable news, and Vance’s comments are the frequent focus of press releases.
Democrats also said the line of attack layers onto existing messaging over “freedom,” including on abortion and families’ rights to make decisions for themselves.
And if upcoming polling showing the attack sticking, the rhetoric is expected to become a mainstay of the race.
“The Democrats just need to continue bottling up and holding up a mirror to them,” one Democratic pollster said. “Harris and her running mate are going to be speaking about what the polling says is critical to get them to 270” Electoral College votes.
“Keep paying the opposition researchers, is what I would suggest,” the person added. “Because it’s not like he’s only said three controversial things in the last 10 years.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is attempting to clean up his vice presidential pick’s resurfaced comments disparaging Democratic officials who don’t have children as “childless cat ladies” with a simple message: Sen. JD Vance “loves family.”
“He’s not against anything, but he loves family. It’s very important to him,” said Trump during an appearance on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle” on Monday night.
“He feels family is good, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong in saying that,” Trump said.
In an unearthed 2021 Fox News interview, Vance suggested that Democratic failures are due to a lack of biological children, specifically pointing out vice president, and current presidential candidate, Kamala Harris; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
His comments immediately sparked a backlash from the politicians he named, as well as women who have struggled with fertility — nothing that Vance himself voted against establishing federal protections for IVF.
Harris’ family, including second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife and her stepdaughter, all came to her defense, rejecting the idea that family is only biological. Buttigieg told anchor Kaitlin Collins that Vance shouldn’t comment on other people’s children.
The former president attacked Democrats on Monday, accusing them of taking Vance’s words out of context.
“I think they understand it. No, I think they understand it,” said Trump when asked what his message would be to concerned voters, specifically those without children.
“The Democrats are good at spinning things differently from what they were. All he said is, he does like I mean, for him, he likes family. I think a lot of people like family, and sometimes it doesn’t work out.”
Trump then went a step further, saying Vance’s strong family values are actually an asset to the Trump campaign’s coalition of voters when asked to reassure voters that Vance was “an excellent pick.”
“Well, first of all, he has got tremendous support, and he really does among a certain group of people. People that like families,” Trump said.
The former president, attempting to walk a fine line between supporting his newly minted vice presidential pick while also trying not to alienate voters, went on to say that “in many cases” people without a family are better off than those with one.
“You don’t meet the right person, or you don’t meet any person, but you’re just as good, in many cases, a lot better than a person that’s in a family situation,” Trump said.
Vance has spent his time on the trail cleaning up his comments himself, calling them “sarcastic” while at the same time doubling down on his argument.
“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment,” Vance said on the “Megyn Kelly Show” podcast last week. “People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry. It’s true. It is true that we become anti-family.”
Vance’s original comments form 2021 mentioned the “choices” those Democrats had made that led them to be “miserable” and “childless cat ladies.”
While Vance claims Democrats are “anti-family and anti-child,” President Joe Biden and Harris have advocated for the child tax credit. The expanded child tax credit put in place during COVID expired in 2021 after pressure from Republicans and independent Joe Manchin. Democrats continue to fight to bring it back — with Biden calling for it to be put back in place in his FY2025 budget.
Trump also had to defend his own comments, which sparked criticism. Over the weekend while speaking to Christian conservatives, Trump told the crowd they won’t have to vote anymore after four years.
The Harris campaign quickly latched on to those comments, accusing Trump of vowing to end democracy, which the former president swiftly rebuked.
“I said, typically Christians do not vote … Don’t worry about the future, vote on — you have to vote on Nov. 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care because we’re going to fix it, and the country will be fixed,” Trump told Ingraham, arguing he hadn’t even heard of the criticism. “If you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK. And I think everybody understood it.”
(WASHINGTON) — With Tim Walz joining Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the campaign trail as her newly selected running mate, critics are blasting the Minnesota governor for what they claim was his failure to prevent a massive COVID-19 fraud scheme that has ensnared the state government.
According to federal charges filed over the past couple of years, at least 70 people were part of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that exploited two federally-funded nutrition programs to fraudulently obtain more than $250 million in one of the largest COVID-era fraud schemes anywhere in the nation.
The defendants allegedly used a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization called Feeding Our Future to avoid tough scrutiny from the Minnesota Department of Education, which was supposed to be conducting oversight of the programs.
On Tuesday, shortly after Walz was announced as Harris’ running mate, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper published a story saying the case was one of the leading “vulnerabilities for Walz.” By then, the pro-Trump group MAGA Inc. had already blasted out an email calling Walz “an incompetent liberal” for, among other things, “allow[ing] one of the largest fraud schemes to happen under his watch.”
“Governor Walz and the people he directly hired and oversaw lost half a billion dollars to fraud in a few short years as governor,” Joe Teirab, a pro-Trump Republican and former federal prosecutor running for Congress in the Minneapolis suburbs, posted to X on Monday night, just hours before Harris picked Walz. “Imagine fraud at that scale nationwide.”
So far, more than 20 people have pleaded guilty or been convicted for their roles in the fraud scheme. None have been sentenced yet. Two of those charged were found not guilty, and most are still awaiting trial.
“Defendants falsified documents, they lied, and they fraudulently claimed to be feeding millions of meals to children in Minnesota during COVID,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said at a press conference in June, after the first trial in the case concluded. “This conduct was not just criminal. It was depraved, and brazen.”
But it may have also been preventable, according to a state audit released in June.
“[T]he failures we highlight in this report are symptoms of a department that was ill-prepared to respond to the issues it encountered with Feeding Our Future,” said the 103-page report, detailing the findings of a limited “special review” by Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor.
The state agency not only “failed to act on warnings signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud,” but its “actions and inactions created opportunities for fraud,” the auditor said.
The report said that while officials inside the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) had at times expressed concerns about the nonprofit, they felt hamstrung in acting on their concerns due to “operational challenges” during the pandemic, including limited ability to visit sites in person, and due to a “litigation and public relations campaign” from Feeding Our Future that included allegations of discrimination.
“While we acknowledge these factors created challenges for the department, we also believe MDE could have taken more decisive action sooner in its relationship with Feeding Our Future,” the audit report said.
According to the report, after laundering tens of millions of dollars, the fraudsters allegedly used shell companies to buy luxury cars, boats and jewelry, to travel and pay off debts, and to purchase properties in Minnesota and around the world.
After the report’s release, Walz said his administration can always “do better,” and said, “We certainly take responsibility” for any failures that took place.
The report, which hardly mentions the governor at all, does not find any specific fault with Walz or his immediate office. But Teirab and other critics say Walz still deserves at least some of the blame for the massive fraud.
“He owns what happens within his administration,” said Jim Schultz, a Minnesota business advocate and outspoken Republican who two years ago narrowly lost a race to become the state’s next attorney general.
“There was this massive fraud under his watch,” Schultz told ABC News on Tuesday. “To this day, he has never fired anybody, nobody’s been rebuked.”
Walz has said there have been leadership changes within state government, including at MDE, since the fraud occurred.
Teirab, who says he “helped investigate and prosecute the Feed Our Future fraudsters” when he was still a prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota several years ago, wrote on X last week, “Tim Walz was asleep at the wheel, allowing a quarter-BILLION in fraud.”
A few weeks after five of the defendants were convicted of federal fraud charges in June, the Justice Department indicted five individuals for allegedly trying to bribe a member of the jury in the midst of deliberations, saying they offered the jury member $120,000 in exchange for a not guilty verdict.
One of those who allegedly took part in the bribery scheme was one of the defendants acquitted during the trial.
The Feeding Our Future case is not the only fraud scheme that has impacted Walz’s administration.
In June, another audit found that a second state agency failed to adequately oversee a program to pay frontline workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Auditors reportedly estimated that more than $200 million may have been paid to people committing fraud or otherwise ineligible to receive payments from the program.
“This wasn’t malfeasance,” Walz said in response to both audits in June, according to Minneapolis-St. Paul ABC News affiliate KSTP-TV. “Both of these cases, there’s not a single state employee that was implicated doing anything that was illegal. They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should have.”
According to Teirab’s campaign, a number of Medicaid-related programs have also suffered from fraud and waste under Walz.
A spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.