Pelosi blames Harris’ loss on Biden’s late exit and no open Democratic primary
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(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in portions of a New York Times podcast interview published Friday, blamed Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss on President Joe Biden’s late exit from the presidential race and the lack of Democratic primary.
Pelosi told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview,” that “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” the paper said in a story about the Thursday interview. The exchange won’t be posted in full until Saturday.
“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” Pelosi said.
“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” she added.
As ABC News has reported, Pelosi worked behind the scenes to urge Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his performance at CNN’s debate.
The Times reported Pelosi also took issue with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders saying, after Harris’ loss, that “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
“Bernie Sanders has not won,” she said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”
The paper reported she suggested that cultural issues were more to blame for Democrats’ losses among working-class voters.
“Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it,” she reportedly said. “Guns, that’s an issue; gays, that’s an issue, and now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign kicked off a weekslong 50-stop “reproductive freedom bus tour” across battleground states in West Palm Beach, Florida — former President Donald Trump’s backyard — on Tuesday.
The campaign said “reproductive rights storytellers” will join campaign surrogates along the route to help emphasize the split screen on the issue between the Harris-Walz campaign and Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.
Women’s reproductive rights are a key voter issue driving suburban women to the polls, and has been a spotlight since the Supreme Court overruled the constitutional right to abortion that had been the law nationwide for almost 50 years.
“Our campaign is hitting the road to meet voters in their communities, underscore the stakes of this election for reproductive freedom, and present them with the Harris-Walz ticket’s vision to move our country forward, which stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to drag us back,” Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a statement.
The bus tour began just days after Trump announced a sweeping new policy proposal on in vitro fertilization, promising to make the costly treatments free. The former president has not yet provided any specific details about how he would fund the initiative.
Trump’s initiative is seen as a way to court those suburban women as November approaches.
On a phone call with reporters on Friday, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been campaigning for Harris, said “American women are not stupid” and that they understand the promise is coming from Trump, who has consistently bragged about being responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.
“It was Donald Trump who opened the door for any extremist judge or extremist state legislature to ban IVF without legal protection for abortion and IVF,” Warren said.
Tuesday’s bus tour kicked off in West Palm Beach — not far from Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago.
“Now my friends, I ask you, what better place to kick off the Harris/Walz reproductive freedom bus tour than in Donald Trump’s backyard?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke at the event and called on women to have their voices heard.
“Americans have shown us time and time again that they will not tolerate a country where our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers, and they believe that women have the right to make their own health care decisions and not politicians,” Klobuchar said.
Chavez Rodriguez said the campaign is mobilizing around women’s reproductive rights.
“Today, by launching this bus tour, we are reminding Trump of the fact that by pulling our reproductive freedom and putting it on the ballot, he is going to have an incredible amount of energy and organizing that he is going to have to contend with.”
Later in the bus tour, there will be appearances from reproductive rights advocates Amanda Zurawski, Hadley Duvall and Kaitlyn Joshua throughout the tour as well, according to the campaign.
So far, the Harris-Walz campaign already has events scheduled in Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Georgia for the bus tour — with more stops scheduled throughout the fall.
This election cycle, seven states, including the critical battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, will vote on abortion-related ballot initiatives in November.
According to a New York Times/Siena Poll released in August, abortion was a top-three issue among all registered voters in swing states with 14% of registered voters saying it was the most important issue in deciding their vote this November.
Trump, whose stance on abortion has wavered at times over the past year, recently criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he said to NBC News last month.
His campaign attempted to walk back that comment before Trump clarified that he’ll be voting “no” on Florida’s Amendment 4 — also known as the “Right to Abortion Initiative” — come November, despite continuing to claim that a ban at six weeks is “too short.”
This isn’t Harris’ first time hitting the campaign trail to focus on reproductive rights. She had already been tapped to lead reproductive rights discussions under President Joe Biden’s former campaign. In January, she embarked on a “reproductive freedom tour” on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making stops in Florida and Arizona.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom dealt a blow to legislation linked to the state’s groundbreaking reparations efforts on Wednesday.
He vetoed Senate Bill 1050, which would have restored property taken under racially-motivated uses of eminent domain to its original owners or provide another remedy, such as restitution or compensation.
“I thank the author for his commitment to redressing past racial injustices,” Newsom said in a statement, referring to state Sen. Steven Bradford. “However, this bill tasks a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement.”
The agency that would have carried out the policy would have been created if Senate Bill 1403 passed the legislature. The bill, also introduced by Bradford, was intended to create an agency to carry out the recommendations of the state’s groundbreaking first-in-the-nation Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
It failed following last-minute changes from the Newsom administration that instead aimed to to support further research on reparations in the state instead of creating the agency to carry out reparations recommendations from the state task force, according to local news outlet CalMatters.
Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3131, which requires the state department of education to prioritize funding for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, on Sept. 22.
This bill would require the department, in consultation with the executive director of the State Board of Education, when determining grant recipients for the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, to first give priority consideration to applicants in historically redlined communities, as determined by the department. The same would apply to the K–12 Selection Committees, when determining grant recipients under the K–12 component of the Strong Workforce Program.
Several other bills from a legislative reparations package from the California Legislative Black Caucus are awaiting a response from Newsom. The package aimed to capture the many forms that reparations can take, according to Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus.
“While many only associate direct cash payments with reparations, the true meaning of the word, to repair, involves much more,” said Wilson in the introduction of the legislative package.
She noted that the package addressed the need for “a comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of slavery and systemic racism.”
This legislative package was born out of California’s first-in-the-nation state-backed task force that found the state and various arms of its government played an active role in perpetuating systemic racism against Black Californians through discrimination in housing, education and employment.
The bills that await a response from Newsom include Assembly Bill 3089, which would issue a formal apology from the state of California for “all of the harms and atrocities committed by the state” for perpetuating racial discrimination through chattel slavery, segregation, unequal disbursal of government funding and more.
This bill “declares that such actions shall not be repeated” and “commits to restore and repair affected peoples with actions beyond this apology.”
Senate Bill 1089 would address food and health inequities by requiring advance notification if a grocery store or pharmacy is closing in an underserved or at-risk community.
The other 10 bills from the California Legislative Black Caucus’ 14-bill reparations package failed to make it through the legislature.
The bills that failed to make it through the legislature included bans on involuntary servitude and solitary confinement in state detention facilities, funding for violence reduction programs, and funding “for the purpose of increasing the life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will need to navigate the pitfall-filled debate of their political lives on Tuesday as each tries to persuade millions of voters and viewers that they’re the one best suited to be president.
Harris, whose wave of momentum has brought Democrats back to a neck-and-neck presidential race, will have to prosecute the case against Trump while also laying out how her agenda could help the country — particularly beleaguered middle- and working-class Americans.
Trump, meanwhile, has the task of casting his record on the economy and immigration as superior to Harris’ while avoiding distracting personal attacks on Harris.
The ABC News presidential debate will take place on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET and air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
The showdown in Philadelphia is taking place months after the last debate ended President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, sending Harris rushing to stand up an eleventh-hour campaign and Trump scrambling to figure out how to negatively define a new opponent voters are less familiar with.
“I think there’s an outsized expectation of ‘gosh, the last guy dropped out, let’s watch it.’ So, I think that there’s a lot more at stake than normally I would ever say is at stake,” said Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary.
“I’m not a huge believer that debates move the needle that much,” he added, “but I do think that because of the nontraditional nature of what’s happening right now, there’s going to be an outsized degree of attention.”
Democrats who spoke to ABC News said that Harris has two main goals: affirm to voters that she is ready to lead the country and the free world and to describe in more detail what policies she’d pursue as president.
Some Democratic sources said that voters could be concerned by Harris’ rapid ascension as the Democrats’ nominee and — unjustly, they said — her gender when thinking of the kind of president they’d feel comfortable with.
A strong debate performance could allay worries and cement the momentum she’s enjoyed to date.
“I think she has to answer the overarching question, which is, can she lead the country, and what type of president will President Harris be? People just want to be comfortable in that decision,” said Bakari Sellers, a prominent Harris ally. “I don’t want her to be timid at all. Just be yourself, be comfortable, answer questions and turn around and hammer him.”
Trump has sought to cast Harris as “dangerous” by painting her as a “California liberal” who was soft on crime and generally out of step, referencing her time as state attorney general and senator and relying on voters’ perceptions of the progressive bastion to fill in the blanks.
That’s something Harris could use the debate stage to push back on, possibly repeating parts of her stump speech in which she details her efforts as California attorney general combating transnational gangs operating across the southern border.
One source familiar with the Harris campaign’s thinking said the vice president should “clearly [stake] out where she stands on issues like the border and crime and [talk] about her record on those issues as a prosecutor and attorney general to demonstrate that the portrayals are misrepresenting her actual views on those issues.”
That defense will likely be complemented by an effort to highlight Harris’ economic policies, which she’s recently begun to roll out, to also address voter worries about inflation.
Harris has introduced plans to make it easier to buy a house and start a small business, while, in a nod to the business community, saying she’d also increase the capital gains tax by less than Biden has proposed.
“It’s an important opportunity for her to continue to lay out her economic vision, to demonstrate both through talking about her experience and her vision, that she will be a strong leader, as she has said, for all Americans,” one source close to Harris’ team said.
However, Harris is facing off against maybe the most unpredictable non-traditional figures in modern politics, and Trump is likely to throw in curveballs that could take the vice president off her talking points.
Trump has already launched a fusillade of personal attacks, including questioning Harris’ race and intelligence and highlighting vulgar suggestions about sexual acts.
So far, Harris has barely responded, casting the barbs as the “same old, tired playbook.”
Now, some allies would like to see her fight back.
“I think there is a mechanism whereby you stand up to bullies and you call it out for what it is and simply say that, ‘while the former president is using racism as political currency, I represent a new future, one where we don’t divide people and use such degrading terms to anyone,’ Sellers said. “I would look him dead in the eye and say, ‘former President Trump, we are better than you right now.'”
Others weren’t so sure.
“I would ignore what are likely to be rude, disrespectful behaviors from Trump, and stay focused on the substance, because by doing so, it will further highlight for people just how disgusting his behavior can be,” said the source close to Harris’ team.
Republicans, for their part, hope to avoid that scenario altogether.
GOP operatives who spoke to ABC News said Trump should focus on policy contrasts, boasting that he has the edge on issues like inflation and immigration and can try to pin her down on her policy reversals on things like fracking – while he himself searches for consistent stances on issues like abortion.
“He’s not going to have many other windows where Kamala Harris is going to be asked tough questions and tough follow up questions, and so he needs to keep his responses and very focused on her issue positions that have come out of her mouth and make her reconcile what she’s saying now with what she said in 2020,” said GOP strategist Brad Todd.
“When she says, ‘I’m not for banning fracking,’ then he needs to say, “so, you wrong before? What caused you to believe that your previous position was wrong? Or are you just worried about Pennsylvania'” Todd said, referencing the swing state’s economic reliance on the practice.
Trump has at times knocked leaned into that message, knocking her promises for “day one” by noting she’s already been in office for almost four years serving a president facing severe disapproval ratings when he dropped out of the race.
It’s unclear precisely how effective that tie could be — an ABC News/Washington Post poll last month showed that only 11% of voters said Harris had a great deal of influence over economic policy, and just 15% said the same of immigration policy. But Republicans urged Trump to hammer the connection.
“For him to be viewed as having a successful debate, he has to continue that assault,” said one former campaign aide in touch with Trump’s current team. “She’s the vice president United States seeking the second term of Joe Biden. We can make that case.”
Still, Trump has a proven penchant for veering off into unrelated attacks, whether it be against opponents or moderators — a strategy that has helped him on the stump but one that could backfire on Tuesday.
“If he takes the bait and makes some kind of one-off comment about her and calls her names, I think that’s going to be the story the next day,” Spicer said.
“He’s a field player and he’s an improviser, and that’s what’s made him effective as a communicator,” Todd added. “But this is a time for discipline.”
