Ohio GOP Gov. DeWine slams Trump and Vance for baseless claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield
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(NEW YORK) — Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine delivered his strongest condemnation yet of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, for their continued false claims regarding Haitian migrants in Springfield.
“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there,” DeWine wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times published Friday morning.
DeWine said Trump and Vance’s rhetoric was a distraction, diminishing immigration policy conversations that “dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument about the border.”
DeWine has previously shot down the false claims from Trump and Vance that the Haitian migrants were eating neighborhood pets.
On ABC’s “This Week,” DeWine said the stories were baseless and “a piece of garbage.”
“This idea that we have hate groups coming in, this discussion just has to stop. We need to focus on moving forward and not dogs and cats being eaten. It’s just ridiculous,” he said on the program.
Earlier this week, DeWine revealed the city of Springfield has received at least 33 separate bomb threats in the last few days.
Asked for comment on the op-ed, the Trump campaign referred ABC News to a statement from vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s spokesperson.
“Senator Vance is glad that Governor DeWine supports the Trump-Vance ticket for president,” said Vance spokesperson Will Martin. “They’re not always going to agree on every issue. When Kamala Harris abuses our immigration system to bring thousands of illegal immigrants into this country, small Ohio towns like Springfield bear the brunt of the burden. President Trump and Senator Vance will secure our border and put a stop to this chaos.”
Vance chose to continue to share the claim about pets after an aide was told by a city official that it was categorically untrue.
The aide to Vance was informed by a top Springfield official earlier this month that claims about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs were false, but the vice presidential nominee went ahead with spreading the rumor anyway the day before the presidential debate in which Trump repeated the claim, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by ABC News.
City manager Bryan Heck, in a Sept. 9 phone call, told a Vance staffer the “claims were baseless” when asked if they were true. A city spokesperson confirmed to ABC News the accuracy of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting about the call.
Even still, Ohio is not quite a swing state — Trump beat Biden by 8 points in 2020 and Clinton by 9 points in 2016. It’s ultimately unclear if his and Vance’s continued push of this narrative moves the needle electorally.
ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Hannah Demissie, Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa, Armando Garcia, and Jeremy Edwards contributed to this report.
Kristin Gambardella speaks to ABC News. (ABC News)
(PHOENIX) — Kristin and Dave Gambardella never expected the journey of growing their family to include an abortion procedure, but in summer 2023, the married couple nevertheless found themselves in a Planned Parenthood parking lot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a seven-hour drive from their home in Tucson, Arizona.
A week beforehand, a routine blood test at 17 weeks into Kristin’s pregnancy had come back with devastating results. A follow-up ultrasound confirmed her doctors’ fears. The fetus had a severe genetic abnormality.
“They told us it was really a guaranteed short life, full of pain and surgeries and constant medical care,” Gambardella said. “Dave is a stoic person,” she said of her husband, “and I remember he just broke down and lost it. And that’s when I really felt that feeling in my gut that was like, wow, this is pretty catastrophic.”
In deciding to end the pregnancy, the Gambardellas realized they weren’t only tasked with an agonizing decision for their family — they also had an Arizona law to contend with, which would prevent them from seeing any of their own doctors for the procedure.
“The doctor, I remember, she looked at me and her eyes just looked really sad. And she said, ‘No, you can’t come here. We can’t do that procedure for you. You’d have to leave the state’,” Gambardella said.
Arizona’s abortion ban
In Arizona — one of 21 states that has enacted abortion restrictions since the end of Roe v Wade — abortion is banned after 15 weeks, except for medical emergencies endangering the life of the mother. Gambardella didn’t qualify for that exception.
“As someone who has always believed in a woman’s right to make decisions about her own bodies, it was such a turning point in my understanding on just how much abortion care is interconnected with fertility care and the act of wanting to have a baby,” Gambardella said.
The experience inspired her to join the campaign to pass Proposition 139, a ballot measure that would enshrine in Arizona’s state constitution the right to an abortion until fetal viability.
Arizona is one of 10 states in the country that have such measures on the ballot this November, including Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nebraska.
This large push nationwide comes as abortion access remains one of the most important issues to voters this election — and the top issue for women under 30, according to an October survey by KFF, the nonpartisan health policy organization.
Where the candidates stand
Democrats hope that the issue could drive enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has centered her campaign on restoring reproductive rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for nominating the conservative Supreme Court justices that voted to overrule Roe v. Wade.
Trump, who has repeatedly shifted his position on abortion from supporting a federal ban to declaring that he would not pass one, while remaining open to other reproductive health care restrictions, maintains that he will “protect women,” but is sparse on details.
It’s not clear, however, if abortion-access ballot measures will alter the outcome of the presidential race in a swing state like Arizona. Voters could split the ticket — voting to enshrine abortion access, but prioritizing other issues in their presidential choice.
Trump is leading Harris in Arizona by two points, according to 538’s latest polling average, even as polling so far has shown the abortion access amendment in Arizona to be widely popular, with about 60% of likely voters saying they’ll support it.
That level of support is in line with the success of abortion rights ballot measures in other states over the last two years since Roe v. Wade was overruled. Reproductive rights ballot measures have passed every time they’ve been on the ballot, whether the state leans Republican, Democrat or is closely divided like Arizona.
Susan Ashley, a retiree and a volunteer for the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign, says her “fury” over Roe vs. Wade being overturned drove her to make the initiative her “full-time job right now.”
“I’ve been an active voter, but I’ve never been involved in an event where there were so many passionate volunteers. And so this struck a nerve,” Ashley said.
Efforts on the ground
Athena Salman, a former Arizona state representative and director of Arizona campaigns for Reproductive Freedom for All, was at Ashley’s side for door-knocking in mid-October, in the 90-degree heat.
The two women spoke to nearly a dozen registered Independents in a neighborhood of Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Each voter they spoke to said they were supporting the ballot measure.
“I think it really shows that Arizonans are just fed up with their reproductive freedom being up in the air and they’re ready to take action and get the government interference out of our personal decisions,” Salman said.
Though Arizona currently bans abortion at 15 weeks, the state saw all abortions halted for four months in the summer of 2022 when a ban from 1864 was revived. It nearly took effect again in the spring of 2024, but the Arizona state legislature repealed it after massive outcry from residents and a push from the Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes.
To Cindy Dahlgren, spokesperson for the campaign against the abortion access ballot measure, the legislature’s decision to repeal the near-total abortion ban and keep a 15-week ban should put people at ease.
“Proponents play on those fears and that confusion by saying there’s a ban when there’s not a ban,” she said, arguing that the current law only curtails the procedure but doesn’t fully ban it. “I would also point out that it was the legislature that repealed that law. And there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to put that law back in.”
Her campaign, called “It Goes Too Far,” argues that enshrining abortion access until fetal viability would remove too many restrictions around abortion, leaving it too unregulated.
“The choice really in November is not between abortion or no abortion. It’s between limited abortion and safety precautions and a doctor and parents involved or unlimited and unregulated abortion,” Dahlgren said.
Asked about cases like Gambardella’s, where pregnancy complications arise in the second trimester, or women who experience rape or incest and do not qualify for an exception, Dahlgren said, “we do not have to enshrine a very extreme abortion amendment to care for those victims.”
But Dr. Misha Pangasa, an OB-GYN with Planned Parenthood, one of only nine clinics in Arizona providing abortion care, said she doesn’t want to leave reproductive rights up to the political makeup of the state legislature anymore.
“The idea that Arizonans health care is at the whims of whichever legislature is holding the majority is never going to be the best way for people to get the best care,” Pangasa said.
There are currently around 40 laws that restrict abortions in the state of Arizona, which Pangasa said have already significantly impacted her ability to provide care to pregnant patients.
“Pregnancy is complicated and decisions at various stages are hard. And I am the one there helping support them. And what I wish that our government would do is just let me,” Pangasa said.
Pangasa said she sees patients like the Gambardellas on a regular basis.
“To be honest, it’s a really heartbreaking moment to be in when I talk to my patients and say, if you were in a different state with me right now, I would tell you that these are your options. But because we’re in Arizona, an abortion is just not an option,” she said.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in North Hampton, New Hampshire, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. (Kacey Chapman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Wednesday unveiled a vastly expanded $50,000 tax benefit for new small businesses and a lower long-term capital gains tax than that was proposed by President Joe Biden in his budget blueprint, one of her clearest breaks yet with Biden.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Harris said, “And while we ensure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, we will tax capital gains at a rate that rewards investment in America’s innovators, founders, and small businesses,” before proposing a 28% long-term capital gains tax on people making $1 million a year or more.
Biden previously called for a 39.6% tax rate on capital gains. It is unclear where Harris stands on the additional 5% tax. While Harris’ presidential rival former President Donald Trump has not explicitly outlined a position this cycle, in 2016 he supported capping capital gains taxes at 20%, and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 calls for a 15% capital gains tax.
A source familiar with the plan told ABC News that Harris believes a more moderated approach toward capital gains taxes will balance with other measures she supports to crack down on billionaires and big corporations. Harris said on Wednesday that she supported a minimum tax rate on billionaires. The source said she also supports raising the corporate tax rate and quadrupling taxes on stock buybacks.
However, the move comes as Harris and Trump seek to sharpen their economic messages to voters before facing off in their first debate on ABC News in Philadelphia next week. Trump is scheduled to give his own economic policy address on Thursday.
Harris’ announcement is part of a broader effort to generate a record-breaking 25 million new small business applications in her first term if elected, and her tax plan would represent a tenfold expansion of a $5,000 deduction already available to entrepreneurs to help cover startup costs.
An official familiar with Harris’ plans said the $50,000 benefit would help offset the $40,000 it costs on average to start a small business. The terms of the proposal would also allow eligible enterprises operating at a loss to delay utilizing the benefit until they turn a profit.
Some profitable businesses could also defer the full benefit, opting to instead use it across multiple years by deducting only earnings from the first year of business and utilizing the remainder of the total $50,000 in future years, according to literature circulated to reporters from the Harris campaign.
Harris said her administration would also seek to develop a standard deduction for small businesses to reduce the burden and cost of filing taxes, and remove barriers around occupational licensing, which inhibits workers from working across state lines.
While the literature circulated to reporters did not estimate the program’s cost, Harris told the crowd that the the plan would provide access to venture capital, support “innovation hubs and business incubators,” and increase the number of federal contracts with small businesses.
Many aspects of Harris’ proposed tax program would likely require congressional approval. The current 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law by Trump, is set to expire next year.
Harris also said that her administration would provide low- and no-interest loans to already existing small businesses. The campaign’s literature detailed a fund that would enable community banks and Community Development Financial Institutions to cover interest costs as small businesses expand in historically underinvested regions.
“We will have a particular focus on small businesses in rural communities, like right here in New Hampshire,” she said.
Both Trump and Harris have repeatedly sought to strike populist economic tones in their messaging, promising to provide relief to middle-class earners and even finding agreement on a proposed phase-out of federal income taxes on tipped wages.
Under pressure to define aspects of her policy agenda, Harris unveiled a slew of additional economic priorities last month that included, among other policies, restoring the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit, proposing $25,000 in down payment assistance to qualifying first-time home buyers, capping prescription drug prices and a federal ban on price gouging in the food sector.
Meanwhile, Trump has advocated for broader reforms to U.S. economic policy, which have included tax cuts for businesses and wealthy individuals alongside an across-the-board tariff hike on imports to the U.S., generally, with tax rates as high as 60% to 100% on Chinese goods.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tore into a handful of retired military generals and ex-Trump administration officials for their increasingly visceral criticism of former President Donald Trump.
Graham told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that accusations of Trump being a fascist and that he had praised Adolf Hitler are off-base, instead accusing former generals like John Kelly, Mark Milley and Jim Mattis of doing the bidding of the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, which has adopted a darker tone after launching on a platform of “joy.”
“[Trump] was a strong leader on the things that matter the most. Whether you like him or not, that’s up to you. He’s not a fascist. He’s not Hitler. And that shows you how desperate this campaign is. You got three retired generals who’ve been out of the game for a while three weeks before the election, trying to replace joy with fear,” Graham said.
“And let me say one thing to these generals: I admire you, I respect you, but for 20 years, you were given, and others, billions of dollars to train the Iraqi and the Afghan army, and they folded like a cheap suit. How about a little self-reflection about the job you did before you criticize others?”
Trump has been hit with a wave of critical headlines from some of his former top staffers, with the comments from the generals in particular raising eyebrows due to the history of former military leaders remaining apolitical, both during and after their service.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly, a former four-star Marine general and former chief of staff to Trump, told The New York Times in one example.
Trump has torn into his former aides, and Republicans have raised fears that such language could contribute to a combustible political environment that has already produced two attempts on Trump’s life.
“General Kelly’s criticisms are not based on facts. I think it’s emotional, it’s sad, and it’s not going to matter,” Graham said Sunday.
Karl pressed Graham on whether Trump’s rhetoric calling Harris a fascist is appropriate, playing a string of clips showing him using that word specifically.
“Do I think Kamala Harris is a fascist? No. Do I think she’s a communist? No, I think she’s the most liberal person ever to be nominated by a major party. I think she’s ineffective. I think she’s incompetent,” Graham responded.
