US seeks to ban Chinese software from cars, citing national security concerns
Alex Wong/Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is looking to ban Chinese-made software from cars because of national security concerns, the Commerce Department announced on Monday.
The Bureau of Industry and Security, part of the Commerce Department, is expected to publish a rule that “focuses on hardware and software” of the software connected in cars and developed in China.
“Cars today have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking, and other technologies connected to the internet. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to both our national security and the privacy of U.S. citizens,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. “To address these national security concerns, the Commerce Department is taking targeted, proactive steps to keep PRC and Russian-manufactured technologies off American roads.”
The software could be exploited by malicious Chinese actors, and in some cases “allow for external connectivity and autonomous driving capabilities in connected vehicles,” the Commerce Department said.
The proposed rule would apply to all wheeled on-road vehicles such as cars, trucks, and buses, but would exclude vehicles not used on public roads like agricultural or mining vehicles, and would start to take effect in 2027 models, and be fully integrated in 2030 models.
The rule also bans technology with a nexus to the PRC or Russia from selling connected vehicles that incorporate hardware or software in the United States, even if the vehicle was made in the United States.
This is the most recent step in the Biden administration’s economic actions against China.
Earlier this year, the Biden Administration increased tariff’s on steel and aluminum, semiconductors and electric vehicles.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening returned to a Hispanic-majority town in eastern Pennsylvania after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend sparked controversy by making racist jokes about Latinos, including calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
Trump did not address the comedian’s controversial remarks — but did seize on comments President Joe Biden made on Tuesday when, criticizing the remarks about Puerto Rico, Biden used wording that seemed to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage.”
Toward the end of the rally, Trump invited Sen. Marco Rubio to the stage, who broke the news of Biden’s comments to Trump and the crowd.
Trump recalled Hillary Clinton’s controversial “basket of deplorables” line in 2016.
“She said ‘deplorable.’ That didn’t work out,” Trump said. “‘Garbage,’ I think is worse.”
Trump’s rally took place in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a city of more than 125,000 people where the Hispanic population makes up 55% of the total, according to the U.S. Census data, with much of that number being Puerto Ricans.
His second campaign stop of the day in Pennsylvania — after a roundtable in Drexel Hill, where the population is overwhelmingly white — the Allentown visit was an opportunity for the former president to court Hispanics, and more specifically Puerto Ricans, after Hispanic groups on both sides of the aisle called the racist jokes made at the New York rally “derogatory,” “offensive,” and “disrespectful.”
Early on in his remarks, Trump made no mention of the controversy but did refer to his Madison Square Garden rally, calling it “the greatest evening anyone has seen politically,” adding, “The love was unbelievable.”
During his Pennsylvania event, Trump touted his support from Latinos, including an endorsement from Puerto Rico’s “Shadow Senator” Zoraida Buxo, who holds a position that advocates for statehood for the territory.
“Nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do,” Trump said.
Cheers for mass deportation plan
Trump’s rally in Allentown came at the same time Vice President Kamala Harris was giving a speech from the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., making what her campaign has characterized as her “closing argument” in the race.
Trump received his largest applause of the evening when he said, if elected, he would carry out mass deportations of people in the U.S. illegally beginning on the first day of his administration.
“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” he said. “We’re going to get them out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out of our country.”
As the crowd gave an overwhelming ovation, Trump said “I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
The crowd then chanted, “USA!”
Controversial ‘garbage’ remarks
The comments at the Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday were made by controversial comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during pre-programming earlier Sunday afternoon, including explicit comments about how Latinos “love making babies.”
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage to a crowd of nearly 20,000 Sunday night, after the former president himself the previous day called the United States a “garbage can for the world.”
Hinchcliffe, instead of apologizing for his comments, attacked his critics as lacking a sense of humor and accused them of taking the joke out of context to “make it seem racist.”
The former president denied knowing the comedian on Tuesday, telling ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.”
Trump also insisted he didn’t hear any of the comments, even as they’ve been played on television and written about extensively. When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments.
Trump’s campaign has also tried to distance itself from comedian Hinchcliffe’s comments, saying they don’t reflect their views.
Several Republicans have come out against the jokes, including the chair Republican Party of Puerto Rico, Angel Cintrón, who called Hinchcliffe’s comments “unfortunate, ignorant, and entirely reprehensible,” as well as “racist.”
Residents of Puerto Rico, as a U.S. territory, do not vote for president in the general election, but the Republican Party of Puerto Rico held a primary in April as part of the Republican presidential nominating process. Donald Trump won the primary and netted the territory’s delegates.
Puerto Ricans living in the United States, however, make up the largest Hispanic group in seven states across the country, including in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. Census data.
In Pennsylvania, where President Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 81,000 votes, 3.7% of the state’s total population, or roughly 486,000 people, were of Puerto Rican origin. Pennsylvania is again expected to be an extremely tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with Trump ahead of Harris by just 0.2% according to 538’s polling average as of Oct. 29.
Overall, Pennsylvania’s eligible Latino voter population has more than doubled since 2000, from 206,000 to 620,000 in 2023, according to WNTM’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., on Wednesday introduced a privileged resolution on the House floor to censure Rep. Clay Higgins. R-La., over his now-deleted post on X in which he called Haitians “thugs” and called Haiti the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere.”
Higgins was apparently reacting to reports that the leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, invoked a citizen’s right to file charges against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, over threats and disruptions the city has experienced since Trump and Vance spread unsubstantiated claims about legal immigrants there.
“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins wrote. “All these thugs better get their mind right and their a– out of our country before January 20th.”
Trump claimed in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian migrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pets and animals from city parks. The city’s 15,000 Haitian immigrants — most of them who are in the country legally — have filled manufacturing, distribution and warehouse jobs but have put a strain on the city’s resources.
In the wake of Trump’s comments, the city has received more than two dozen bomb threats that have caused evacuations of schools and government buildings. The state has sent in additional state troopers and installed surveillance cameras to deal with the threats.
By its rules, the House must take up a privileged resolution within two legislative days, but that won’t happen until after the November election when the House returns from a long recess.
Horsford spoke on the House floor on Wednesday and said Higgins’ post was inciting “hate and fear.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about the post after votes on Wednesday and called Higgins a friend “and a very frank and outspoken person. He’s also a very principled man.”
“He was approached on the floor by colleagues who said that was offensive,” Johnson continued. “He went to the back. I just talked to him about it. He said he went to the back and he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. That’s what you want the gentleman to do. I’m sure he probably regrets some of the language he used. But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.”
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a statement, wrote: “The disgusting statement by Clay Higgins about the Haitian community is vile, racist and beneath the dignity of the United States House of Representatives. He must be held accountable for dishonorable conduct that is unbecoming of a Member of Congress.”
“Clay Higgins is an election-denying, conspiracy-peddling racial arsonist who is a disgrace to the People’s House. This is who they have become. Republicans are the party of Donald Trump, Mark Robinson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Clay Higgins and Project 2025. The extreme MAGA Republicans are unfit to govern,” Jeffries said.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said he spoke to Higgins and urged him to take the post down.
“Clay and I had a conversation about it, and I said I think it’s a bad statement – you should take it down,” Donalds said. “He came back a minute or two later and said he was going to remove it.”
Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost said he believes the post breaks the House code because it came from Higgins’ House social media account.
“It’s completely disgusting,” Frost said. “And a racist and bigoted tweet and I think it shows a lot about the Republican Party – the Republican conference – that they can’t just step up say, ‘You know what? That is wrong that he shouldn’t have posted it,” but yet their best defense is that he deleted the tweet.”
Donalds and congressional sources said a group of Democratic CBC members, including Reps. Frederica Wilson and Sheila Cherfilus McCormick, discussed the tweet with Higgins on the floor.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said she was frustrated that Republicans initially blocked Horsford’s motion to censure Higgins.
“It’s despicable. It’s outrageous, and to see Republicans go along with it means that you’re known by the company you keep — they’re complicit in this,” Lee said.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said she wants Higgins to be punished.
“It was hateful and he meant it,” she said, adding, “He needs to be censured.”
When reached by CNN about the post, Higgins told the news outlet it was “free speech.”
“It’s all true,” Higgins said. “I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want.”
He added: “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said on Thursday that it did not use any materials that the FBI said Iranian hackers gathered from email accounts associated with former President Donald Trump’s campaign and sent to President Joe Biden’s campaign before he left the race.
Trump’s campaign on Wednesday demanded more information from Harris’ campaign including that it disclose the materials it received and whether it was used.
A Harris campaign official told ABC News that “the materials were not used.” The campaign declined to comment on whether or not they would comply with the Trump campaign’s request to disclose what they received.
Over the summer, Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails to individuals associated with then-candidate Biden that “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” according to information released by the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies on Wednesday.
The contents of those excerpts are not yet clear.
The FBI said there was no information indicating that the recipients of the information replied to the hackers’ messages.
The White House said Biden only learned Wednesday about the Iranian hackers sending what the FBI called “stolen” information from the Trump campaign to individuals associated with his campaign.
“We learned about the statement yesterday, and the president has been made aware of it now,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “You’ve seen us take actions to hold accountable those who week to undermine confidence in our democracy, and we will continue to do so.”
Harris’ campaign said Wednesday that it has cooperated with law enforcement and the investigation into the messages and said it was “not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign.”
“A few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump’s campaign said hackers are interfering to help Harris and Biden “because they know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror.”
Iran’s Mission to the United Nations called the intelligence agencies’ findings “fundamentally unfounded, and wholly inadmissible.”
ABC News’ Selina Wang, Jack Date and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
