First-time voters discuss political issues at gathering in Washington, DC
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of first-time voters from all over the United States gathered in Washington, D.C., in July for a political experiment: a rare opportunity to discuss the 2024 presidential election’s top issues with strangers for three days straight.
The gathering, called “America in One Room: The Youth Vote,” was a collaboration between Close Up Foundation, Stanford University, the Generation Lab, global problem solving organization Helena and the University of Southern California. ABC News’ Christiane Cordero was there, talking to some of the young voters for “GMA3.”
The group of roughly 500 young adults from a variety of backgrounds spent part of their time together in one room. Otherwise, they gathered in small groups for face-to-face talks about different policy issues. Those issues range from the deeply divisive, like the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, to those with a direct impact on their lives.
For Emilea Johnson from Goodridge, Minnesota, a town with a population of around 112, that issue is health care.
“My dad is a farmer. My mom works at the church, which offers no benefits,” Johnson told Cordero. “So navigating the world of health care is extremely challenging when you have to try and figure it out on your own.”
Despite how personal the issue of health care feels, Johnson said she doesn’t have a problem hearing from someone who disagrees with her. Chardon Black from Cleveland, Ohio, expressed concern that many people in the U.S. consider others disagreeing with them to be a form of insult.
“I’ve learned that disagreements are OK and disagreements are fine, as long as you’re expressing yourself in your opinion and the things you care about,” he said.
Before and after the event, participants were asked to share how they felt about a range of issues.
“This is what polling should be,” Henry Elkus, founder and CEO of Helena, said.
The Deliberative Poll found that the weekend experience increased the participants’ satisfaction with democracy from 29% to 58%.
Opposition to a nationwide ban on abortion medication increased from 78% to 80%, the survey said, including among those who identified as Republican.
However, support for increasing the federal minimum wage dropped from 62% to 48%, according to the survey.
And while many participants said they were committed to climate action, after the event support for the U.S. achieving energy independence increased from 62% to 76%, the survey said.
Elkus highlighted a distinct lack of interest in partisan politics among participants.
“They don’t care about the candidates, they care about the issues,” he told “GMA3.” “We see this over and over and over again. They have a very grounded and felt sense that we need to fix this country.”
The ultimate goal was to reach consensus on one thing: take the lessons learned at the gathering and share them.
“Democracy is collaborative, and I hope that everyone will have access to such safe environments for us to share our stories, conversations and to deliberate,” Elaine Gombos from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said in a video diary after the event.
These young voters will be polled again closer to Election Day, to see if their views have shifted. The event’s sponsors are considering doing another event in 2025 – one that focuses on views about artificial intelligence. “This will bring potential for isolated severe thunderstorms with damaging wind gusts and localized flash flooding this afternoon into evening,” according to the NWS.
(CHICAGO) — Glenn Charles Jr. grew up on Chicago’s South Side. This week, his business is the first Black-owned company to be contracted for Exposition Services at the Democratic National Convention.
Speaking to ABC News outside the United Center, Charles reflected on the journey to get here and what it means for him and his team — which doubled in size in preparation for the convention.
“Our name is on most of the signage around the property, right?” he asked. “So just walking in the building and seeing the Show Strategies brand next to a DNC sign, that for me is kind of a moment.”
The four-day convention is bringing thousands of visitors to the city, and officials expect it to have a $150 to $200 million impact on the local economy.
Christy George, the executive director of the DNC’s Chicago 2024 Host Committee, called it “an incredible opportunity to showcase what Chicago is made of.”
“And the heart of Chicago is our people and all of our small businesses,” she said.
The committee sought to include as many local vendors as possible, she said, holding outreach summits across the city and working hand in hand with businesses through the application process.
“On the worker front, it’s in the hundreds. On the vendor front, it’s in the tens,” she said.
Eight of the 17 major contracts were given to minority and women-owned businesses, the committee announced previously.
“What we resulted with was a really diverse set of vendors for a number of our prime contracts,” she told ABC News. “It really, truly is going to be the most inclusive convention in history.”
Brook Jay, the CEO of All Terrain Collective, said being selected by the DNC was a boon to her business.
“I think having the DNC on our resume can do nothing but good things for this company,” she said. “We’ve been around since 1998 and we’ve done some of the most incredible projects you can imagine. But this definitely has been a highlight, and I think it really has piqued our interest about doing more things in politics.”
Jay said her company, which does experiential marketing, partnered with another woman-owned business and a Latino-owned business.
“We are really a true representation of what the Chicago landscape looks like,” she said.
Both Jay and Charles said putting together an event as large in scale as the DNC was a challenge, but that it was also an opportunity for their businesses to learn and grow.
“This industry is underrepresented from people that look like me, and also people from the South and West sides of Chicago who may not know that the hospitality and convention industry is a thriving industry that you can make a really good living off of,” Charles said. “So I wanted to be the representative for those individuals and give them direct insights to something that they probably have never witnessed before.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris has officially gotten the vast majority of delegate votes in the virtual roll call that nominates her as the Democratic presidential nominee, the Democratic National Committee said in a statement released late Monday.
The roll call, which concluded on Monday evening, still needs to be certified by Convention Secretary Jason Rae, according to the statement, but the announcement makes Harris’s historic nomination effectively official.
“With the support of 99% of all participating delegates in the virtual roll call, Vice President Harris has historic momentum at her back as we embark on the final steps in officially certifying her as our Party’s nominee. We thank the thousands of delegates from all across the country who took seriously their responsibility throughout this process to make their voices – and the voices of their communities – heard,” party chair Jaime Harrison and Democratic National Convention Committee Chair Minyon Moore said in a statement.
Harris received 4,567 votes from delegates, according to the Democratic National Committee.
Harris is the first Black and South Asian woman to lead a major party ticket.
Harris had effectively been the party’s nominee since Friday, when Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison announced on a livestream call that Harris had earned enough Democratic Party delegate votes in a virtual roll call to secure the party’s nomination.
Harris was the only competitive candidate that launched a campaign to succeed President Joe Biden after his withdrawal from the race, and the only candidate that received enough delegate signatures to progress to the virtual roll call.
Convention delegates have been virtually voting by email or phone since 9 a.m. ET on Thursday in a virtual roll call set up by the Democratic National Committee. Delegates had until Monday at 6 p.m. ET to vote in the nomination process.
The DNC initially decided in May to hold a virtual roll call because of uncertainty over deadlines to get on the ballot in Ohio. The state legislature eventually rectified the issue, but the DNC has argued that Republican lawmakers in Ohio are acting in bad faith and that the Democratic candidate needs to be nominated earlier than the convention to avoid legal issues. Ohio leaders have denied this allegation.
(WASHINGTON) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before Congress on Wednesday, delivering a joint address to U.S. lawmakers on the ongoing war with Hamas and renewing his call for bipartisan support in the Middle East.
The address to Congress comes over nine months into the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
In a defiant speech that appeared to go off script at times, Netanyahu made several statements that were either false or missing context.
Fact check: Iran is funding anti-Israel protests
As Netanyahu delivered his address to Congress, parts of the U.S. Capitol were occupied by protesters against the war in Gaza who had been there since Tuesday.
The demonstrations come after large-scale protests were held at college campuses across the U.S. in the spring.
“Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building — not that many, but they’re here, and throughout this city,” Netanyahu claimed to lawmakers.
“Well, I have a message for these protestors. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots,” Netanyahu said.
Dismissing U.S. protesters as mostly puppets of Iran is not accurate, but there is evidence to support some of his claims.
The U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran is trying to stoke division among Americans and has even gone so far as to provide financial support to some protests. On July 9, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned Americans to remain vigilant and know if they are accepting financial support from a foreign source.
“We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters,” she wrote in a statement.
But Israel has plenty of American critics without Iran’s meddling — a fact omitted by Netanyahu and acknowledged by the intelligence chief.
“I want to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza — this intelligence does not indicate otherwise,” Haines wrote.
Polling has found that American support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza has declined since October, according to Gallup, as college campuses erupted in protests this spring over the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
Fact check: Israel is not blocking humanitarian aid, including food, to Gaza
During his address to Congress, Netanyahu claimed that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid to Gaza and that Israel has not blocked the flow of aid, including food, into the region.
“If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it. It’s because Hamas is stealing it,” Netanyahu claimed.
This is not accurate, according to U.S. and international officials, who have reported one major reason food and other humanitarian supplies are scarce in Gaza is because of rules enforced by the Israel Defense Force at checkpoints.
Aid groups in Gaza say there aren’t consistent rules about what supplies are allowed while ground crossings have been frequently closed for security reasons throughout the war.
At one point this spring, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimated that only about a sixth of the trucks needed for residents to survive were getting into Gaza on a daily basis, with international organizations warning the area was on the brink of famine.
Another major reason aid is scarce in Gaza is that aid workers don’t feel safe distributing the aid.
It’s true that many of the aid trucks are getting looted by both Palestinians and criminal enterprises, however, U.S. and international officials say there are other issues too, including rules that prohibit aid workers from carrying protective gear or radio equipment.
According to the United Nations, more than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza as of this spring. U.S. officials have argued that if Israel allows more aid inside Gaza and guarantees security for those drivers, the looting will decrease.
Fact check: Ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza is quite low
Speaking to lawmakers Wednesday, Netanyahu claimed that the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Hamas combatants killed by the Israeli Defence Forces throughout the war is lower than publicly perceived.
“Despite all the lies you’ve heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to noncombatants, casualties in the history of urban warfare,” Netanyahu said, adding, “And you want to know where it’s lowest in Gaza Its lowest is in Rafah.”
This statement lacks important context and is impossible to verify because of the lack of objective data on the war and past conflicts.
According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 39,000 people have been killed in Israeli operations. The ministry does not, however, distinguish between civilians and combatants. At the same time, in an interview last May, Netanyahu said Hamas started with about 35,000 combatants and that about 14,000 were killed.
Neither estimate has been verified by independent sources and it’s not clear how either side arrived at its estimates. International journalists have not been allowed inside Gaza by Israel with the exception of tightly controlled tours by the IDF.
But assuming these estimates are accurate, at least one expert said Israel should be commended.
“Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in its wars in Iraq & Afghanistan — setting a standard that will be both hard & potentially problematic to repeat,” wrote John Spencer, the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
However, not everyone agrees. Critics of Israel’s military operations point to many operations that have disproportionally killed civilians, including the recent rescue operation of four Israeli hostages that the Gaza Health Ministry says killed 274 Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others.
A U.N. spokesman has previously called publicizing these calculations “tasteless.”
“We’re not in the business of establishing those kinds of ratios,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General, said in December 2023.
As for Rafah, it is accurate that Israel pulled back on operations that could have killed many more civilians than it did, however, what Netanyahu didn’t mention is that the Rafah operation played out under significant pressure by the U.S. Concerned that Israel would use 2,000-lb bombs in highly populated areas, President Joe Biden withheld a shipment the bombs to Israel, which eventually led to an evacuation plan for refugees.