Young Democrats reinvigorated by Harris at DNC: ‘It has never felt this exciting’
(CHICAGO) — Several young Democrats said they are embracing the “vibe shift” in the party that they’ve experienced over the last few weeks, feeling newly enlivened at the Democratic National Convention with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
“I’ve been around a lot of political things for the past few years, and it has never felt this exciting,” Jonah Simon, 20, told ABC News at the DNC.
Simon said he feels that unlike merely a month ago when President Joe Biden was the nominee, younger voters now have a candidate in Harris they are “proud to get behind, somebody who we can be really excited to rally around.”
For decades, younger voters were a reliable part of the Democratic coalition, including in the 2020 election. But polls leading up to Biden’s departure from the race showed his wide advantage with Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 had diminished.
Liz Benecchi, 22, echoed a refrain heard from Democrats young and old — that while the party respected Biden’s record and decades of service, there was a necessity to turn the page.
“I have so much admiration and so much deep respect for him. I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t as excited about going out on Election Day to vote for President Joe Biden. But it was time for something new and it was time for a change. And I think everyone here is really fired up,” said Benecchi.
Benecchi pointed to the Harris campaign’s fresh embrace of social media, especially TikTok, leaning into memes like “brat summer” and Harris’ viral “coconut tree” moment, as a more earnest way to communicate with the party’s youngest flank.
“I have so many friends that want to get engaged. They want to volunteer, they want to canvass, they want to be a part of it,” Benecchi said.
That kind of enthusiasm can’t exist in a vacuum — and Lorenzo Ruiz, 20, said he feels like the energy transfer to get-out-the-vote mobilization is kicking off in earnest now.
“We’re moving on the right path. The trajectory feels like it’s toward victory, and we’re really seeing people lock in and engage. And that’s what we need. We need people excited. We need them happy and joyful. And this is a joyous campaign. And, that’s the campaign that we’ve been building and that we as a group, people on the campaign, people working grassroots, will continue to build. And, I think we’re going to win this thing,” Ruiz said.
This sort of enthusiasm is reflected in the newest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, with the data showing an 18-point swing from Biden (at +2) to Harris (at +20) with people under 40.
But her support from the younger generation is not guaranteed — especially as young progressives remain heavily critical of Biden’s (and Harris’) position on Israel.
Jasmine Wynn, 19, one of such progressives, still plans on voting for Harris regardless. And while she acknowledges that others on the left may not follow suit, Wynn supposes that there’s a practical argument to be made to persuade them.
“I think a lot of young left, especially my friends, initially they were reluctant to vote for Harris or any kind of like Democratic ticket because of kind of what they’ve done so far in Gaza. But I think there’s kind of a shift in terms of, I think, approaching electoral politics in a very pragmatic sense as opposed to an idealistic sense,” said Wynn.
(WASHINGTON) — Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate faced a grilling from lawmakers about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.
The two officials testified before a Senate panel on Tuesday about security arrangements at the site and the status of ongoing investigations into what occurred both on July 13 and in the days leading up to the shooting.
New details have emerged about the shooting, including a potential social media account owned by the shooter and questions about when the Secret Service first saw the gunman on the roof. Officials have also confirmed, after the FBI director’s ambiguous comments last week raised questions about what struck Trump, that the former president was hit by a bullet.
Rowe told lawmakers he was “ashamed” of the protection failures that day and said he visited the site of the shooting as one of his first acts as acting director.
“I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant fired shots and laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe said in his opening statement. “As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”
Here are some key moments from the hearing.
Questions over timeline emerge
Rowe, who took over as the head of the Secret Service after former director Kim Cheatle’s resignation earlier this month, testified that Trump’s security detail didn’t have “any knowledge” there was an attacker on the roof with a gun prior to shots ringing out.
“It is my understanding those personnel were not aware that the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots,” he said. “Prior to that, they were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working on issue of a suspicious individual prior to the shots being fired.”
In dramatic fashion, he also displayed pictures of where the local sniper team was supposed to be posted and showed images of his agents re-enacting the shooter’s position.
Rowe also said if they had “more information” about the 30 seconds between finding out the shooter had a gun on the roof and him opening fire, they would’ve been able to address it “more quickly.”
“It appears that that information was stuck or siloed in that state local channel,” Rowe said.
Rowe said that while it was great there was a texting chain, more needs to go “over the net,” meaning, there needs to be more radio communication, which apparently there was a lack of during July 13.
Rowe was pressed on reports that 20 minutes passed between the time Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and the time shots were fired at the former president. Rowe said it was the “first” he was hearing of that and to his knowledge it was “incorrect.”
Abbate also testified about the timeline, saying approximately 25 minutes prior to the shooting, the Secret Service command post was notified of a suspicious person.
Abbate recently discovered video footage from a local business that shows the shooter getting onto the roof of the building at 6:06 p.m., and he was spotted by local law enforcement at 6:08 p.m. At approximately 6:11 p.m., Abbate said, a local police officer who was “lifted to the roof by another officer, saw the shooter and radioed that he was armed with a ‘long gun.’ Within approximately the next 30 second, the shots were fired.”
Drone system was down, Rowe says it could’ve prevented shooting
The acting Secret Service director said that if cellular capability was better on July 13, they could’ve launched a counter drone system sooner and potentially stopped the attack.
It is “something that has cost me a lot of sleep because of the eventual outcome of the assailant,” Rowe said.
Rowe said he grappled with circumstances that could have allowed drones to spot the gunman before he opened fire.
“That what if we … geo-located him because that counter UAS platform had been up? It is something that I have struggled with to understand,” he continued. “I have no explanation for, it is something that I feel as though we could have perhaps found him. We could have maybe stopped him. Maybe on that particular day, he would have decided this isn’t the day to do it, because law enforcement just found me flying my drone.”
The countering drone system was down for about two hours and went back online at 5 p.m., Rowe testified.
The gunman flew his own drone near the site hours before the shooting.
Shooter’s motive still unknown, social media account discovered
The FBI deputy director said in his opening statement that the investigation remains focused on motive, identifying any potential co-conspirators and building out the timeline of the shooter’s actions.
“Thus far, though absolutely nothing has been ruled out, the investigation has not identified a motive nor any co-conspirators or others with advanced knowledge,” Abbate said.
Abbate also told Congress that they recently discovered a social media account from 2019 to 2020 that appeared to belong to the shooter, but Abbate couched it as preliminary.
“There were over 700 comments posted from this account,” Abbate said. “Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” he said.
Rowe pressed on accountability in heated exchange
Rowe told lawmakers he is taking “immediate steps” to avoid repeating failures at the Trump rally including expanding the use of unmanned aerial systems to check unprotected areas, improving site communications with local partners and increasing the number of security details to address a heightened security environment.
Rowe also said he heard the calls for “accountability” and noted the Secret Service is reviewing the actions and decision-making of personnel leading up to the rally.
“If this investigation reveals Secret Service employees violated agency protocols, those employees will be held accountable to our disciplinary process,” he said.
Senators on both sides of the aisle said there needs to be “individual accountability” for who was responsible for what during the shooting.
A particularly heated exchange ensued between Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Rowe over why certain individuals had not been relieved of duty, with both men raising their voices. In the exchange, Rowe said Hawley was focused on one person rather than a whole investigative failure.
“Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? The former president was shot,” Hawley pressed.
Rowe responded: “Sir, this could have been our Texas School Book Depository. I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days.” Rowe was referencing the building that Lee Harvey Oswald was in during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Then just fire somebody!” Hawley exclaimed.
“I will tell you, senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly prosecuted,” Rowe responded.
‘No doubt’ Trump was hit by bullet
Sen. John Kennedy pressed Abbate on what struck President Trump.
“Is there any doubt in your mind or in the collective mind of the FBI that President Trump was shot in the ear by a bullet fired by the assassin?” Kennedy asked.
“Senator, there is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former President Trump was hit with the with a bullet and wounded in the ear. No doubt. There never has been,” Abbate said.
Last week, the FBI released a statement also emphasizing that what struck Trump was a “bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
Abbate reiterated Tuesday that it was a bullet “100%.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The New York judge who oversaw former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial on Thursday denied an attempt to kick him off the case.
Trump had tried to get Judge Arthur Engoron kicked off the case, alleging violations of the rules governing how judges are supposed to behave.
Trump’s attorneys said Engoron “may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment.”
The defense alleged Engoron spoke to a New York real estate attorney about the substance of Trump’s case in violation of New York’s Code of Judicial Conduct. The filing cited a conversation between Engoron and Adam Leitman Bailey, who alleged he spoke with Engoron three weeks before he issued his final order in the case that required Trump to pay nearly half a billion dollars.
“I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why. … I really want him to get it right,” Bailey told NBC New York, which first reported the story.
Engoron said Thursday he has overseen the case for 3 1/2 years and he said he did not need, much less welcome, a “tirade” from Bailey, who he derided as a “landlord-tenant lawyer ranting.”
Bailey could not immediately be reached for comment. There was no immediate comment from the court.
Earlier this week, Trump and his co-defendants asked New York’s Appellate Division to overturn February’s ruling from Engoron that found the former president fraudulently inflated his net worth to secure better business deals.
“It violates centuries of New York case law holding that NYAG cannot sue to vindicate alleged violations that are purely private in nature — and, in this case, do not exist at all,” defense lawyers wrote in a 95-page filing.
Engoron fired back at defense lawyers’ claims.
“I am supremely confident in my ability to continue to serve, as I always have, impartially,” Engoron wrote Thursday.
Engoron in February ordered Trump to pay $464 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest after he found the former president and his adult sons liable for using “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate his net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has appealed the decision in the case.
(WASHINGTON) — A highly-anticipated economic agenda to be unveiled by Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will include a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries, the Harris campaign announced.
The proposal will be presented to voters alongside other plans to address elevated inflation, such as bolstered antitrust enforcement in the grocery sector and greater latitude to investigate corporate practices, the campaign said in a press release.
A ban on price gouging would in theory disallow food and grocery companies from hiking prices an excessive amount over a set period of time, economists told ABC News. They disagreed, however, on whether the measure could control the rise of food prices or if such an outcome is desirable.
Inflation remains a top issue for voters and a potential vulnerability for Harris, since rapid price increases emerged during the Biden administration. While inflation has fallen dramatically from its peak, consumers still face prices roughly 20% higher than where they stood before Biden took office.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Harris campaign provided a statement outlining its economic proposals.
“Vice President Harris knows that rising food prices remain a top concern for American families. Many big grocery chains that have seen production costs level off have nevertheless kept prices high and have seen their highest profits in two decades. While some food companies have passed along these savings, others still have not,” the statement said.
Here’s what to know about how this federal ban on price gouging would operate and whether it would be effective:
How would a federal price-gouging ban work?
The Harris campaign said the measure would set “clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”
Details on the policy remain limited, however. Economists told ABC News that the Harris proposal may end up resembling similar bans currently on the books in 37 states. Those bans prohibit companies from exploiting a sudden imbalance between supply and demand by significantly hiking prices.
“The typical example is a natural disaster. If a water company comes and sells water at double, triple or five times the price of what people can get it at five miles away, just to be able to take advantage of the situation – that’s price gouging,” Niko Lusiani, director of the corporate power program at progressive advocacy group Roosevelt Forward, told ABC News.
State bans define “price gouging” in various ways. Some measures establish a subjective set of criteria, such as a sudden and significant spike in prices; while others detail a specific numerical amount of price growth necessary to violate the law, Luis Cabral, a professor of economics at New York University who studies price gouging, told ABC News.
“It’s not easy to measure,” Cabral said, noting that qualitative definitions risk being overly vague while quantitative ones struggle to set the boundaries around what constitutes price gouging.
Many of the state-level bans on this practice set a condition that an emergency is necessary to trigger application of the law. The Harris proposal would likely omit such a stipulation, Lusiani said, since we are years removed from the outbreak of COVID-19.
“It’ll clearly be different because now we’re on the other side of the pandemic,” Lusiani added, but he noted that current price hikes could be viewed as a result of that disruption.
The Harris campaign said it would enforce a ban by slapping offenders with financial penalties.
Most state price-gouging bans punish violators with civil penalties enforced by the state attorney general, while other measures impose criminal penalties, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a group that tracks state laws.
“Enforcement will be critical,” Lusiani said. “A ban by itself won’t stand on its own legs.”
Would this type of ban help control inflation?
Economists disagreed sharply about whether a federal price-gouging ban would help control price increases and, if so, to what extent that outcome would benefit the economy.
The stark divide owed in part to a difference of opinion about the role of corporate profiteering in the pandemic-era bout of inflation, as well as a clash over the effectiveness of government intervention in addressing it.
Experts who faulted corporate price gouging for a portion of the price increases said it arose from market concentration that allowed a handful of dominant companies in a given industry, including the food and grocery sector, to raise prices without fear of competitors undercutting them with lower-priced alternatives.
Grocery retailer profit margins surged in 2021 and rose even higher two years later, even after price increases had begun to cool, a Federal Trade Commission study in March showed.
A price-gouging ban would help police corporations that otherwise would be tempted to leverage their market power by excessively raising prices, the experts said.
“Large, incumbent corporations that control a large share of a sector, including grocery companies, have way too much power to control prices,” Lusiani said. “That’s an underlying cause of the inflation.”
Some economists who spoke to ABC News attributed the acceleration of price increases over recent years to a textbook example of imbalance between supply and demand. The pandemic snarled global supply chains and triggered lockdowns, causing shortages of goods and workers. Meanwhile, government stimulus boosted demand, sending too many dollars after too few products.
“It’s economics 101 that if you stimulate demand while simultaneously deterring supply, your equilibrium will be significantly higher prices,” Michael Faulkender, a professor of finance at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, told ABC News.
In turn, Faulkender dismissed any potential benefit from a federal price-gouging ban. “It just sounds to me that we’re creating even more burdensome regulations that will actually raise prices for consumers,” Faulkender said.
Joe Brusuelas, chief economist for the accounting firm RSM US, said he opposes an outright ban but supports moderate measures that could deter price hikes, such as expanded government oversight of corporate practices.
Bruseulas pointed to data released this week showing food prices had risen 2.2% in July compared to a year ago. That level of inflation essentially stands at normal levels, Brusuelas said, suggesting that price increases had been reined in without a federal price-gouging ban in place.
“I’m concerned when I hear the federal government use the word ‘ban,’ but I’m not concerned about an exercise in oversight,” Brusuelas said.