Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will try to show swing voters that his likely new rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, has her fingerprints all over two issues he is counting on for victory in November: immigration and the cost of living.
Sources within the Trump campaign said it will cast Harris, the likely Democratic candidate after President Joe Biden quit the race on Sunday, as the “co-pilot” of administration polices it says are behind both sources of voter discontent.
Biden’s sudden exit and endorsement of Harris has upended the race, just eight days after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.
Sources told Reuters that Trump’s campaign had for weeks been preparing for Harris should Biden drop out and she win her party’s nomination.
“Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” Trump told CNN shortly after Biden’s announcement on Sunday.
Trump’s campaign has signaled it will tie her as tightly as possible to Biden’s immigration policy, which Republicans say is to blame for a sharp increase in the numbers of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally.
The second line of attack will revolve around the economy. Public opinion polls consistently show Americans are unhappy with high food and fuel costs as well as interest rates that have made buying a home less affordable.
“She’s the co-pilot of the Biden vision,” said one Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity during last week’s Republican National Convention, where a unified party anointed Trump as its nominee in the White House race.
“If they want to switch to Biden 2.0 and have ‘Cackling’ Kamala at the top of the ticket, we’re good either way,” the adviser said, repeating an insult the campaign has been trying out for weeks focused on how the vice president laughs.
Make America Great Again Inc, a super PAC backing Trump, said on Sunday it was pulling anti-Biden television ads that had been set to run in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania and replacing them with an ad attacking Harris.
The 30-second ad accuses Harris of hiding Biden’s infirmity from the public, and it seeks to pin the administration’s record solely on her. “Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it. Look what she got done: a border invasion, runaway inflation, the American Dream dead,” the narrator says.
Trump, known for using insulting and sometimes offensive language to attack his opponents, gave supporters at a rally in Michigan on Saturday a taste of the insults he is likely to fling at Harris in the coming days.
“I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch a laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts,” he said.
ALTERED RACE
The Democratic Party has yet to determine how to move forward, and there is as yet no guarantee that Harris will emerge as the party’s nominee despite Biden’s endorsement.
Harris as the Democratic nominee would alter the race in perhaps unforeseen ways, political strategists said.
A 59-year-old woman who is Black and Asian-American would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural split-screen. The United States has yet to elect a woman president in its 248-year history.
Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and longtime congressional aide, said Harris would be able to mount “a more energetic campaign with excitement from younger voters and people of color” after Biden struggled to energize these important Democratic Party voting blocs.
A former prosecutor and California attorney general as well as a former US senator, Harris would be able to use “her years of litigation experience to effectively prosecute Trump in the court of public opinion,” Mollineau said.
Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist, cautioned that it would be a mistake for the Trump campaign to assume Harris could serve as a simple stand-in for Biden, because of her potential appeal to different parts of the electorate.
Recent polls have shown Harris to be competitive with Trump. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Harris and Trump were tied with 44 percent support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Before Sunday, the Trump campaign had already begun discussions about how they would redeploy campaign resources should Biden drop out of the race, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Jeanette Hoffman, a Republican political consultant, said despite the contrasts Harris would bring to the ticket, her close ties to Biden would be a drag on her candidacy.
Harris “doesn’t represent the change America is looking for,” Hoffman said.
MAGA Inc. CEO Taylor Budowich said his group has commissioned opposition research on several possible Democratic candidates. “MAGA Inc. is prepared for all outcomes of a Democrat Party who has only brought chaos and failure,” he said.
Trump campaign switches gears to confront a Harris challenge
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Trump campaign switches gears to confront a Harris challenge
- Trump campaign to cast Harris as ‘co-pilot’ of administration polices it says are sources of voter discontent
- Donald Trump: ‘Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been’
Zelensky appeals for weapons as Russia advances
- “We need more weapons to drive Russian forces off our land,” said Zelensky
- The Ukrainian leader again called for restrictions to be lifted on the use of long-range Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany: President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed on Friday to Ukraine’s backers for additional weapons as Kyiv faces advancing Russian forces in the east and devastating strikes by Moscow.
The Ukrainian leader pressed his nation’s case to allies meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Washington unveiled a new $250 million in military aid.
“We need more weapons to drive Russian forces off our land,” said Zelensky, who also met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and was to head to Italy for talks.
The gathering comes as Moscow’s forces advance in the Donbas region, with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declaring that capturing the eastern area was his “primary objective” in the conflict.
Zelensky urged Kyiv’s supporters to follow through on previous commitments, saying: “The number of air defense systems that have not been delivered is significant.”
The Ukrainian leader again called for restrictions to be lifted on the use of long-range Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia.
“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory,” Zelensky said.
In Italy, Zelensky is due to hold talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and attend The European House-Ambrosetti forum in Cernobbio, on Lake Como.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — who upset his EU counterparts and Zelensky by meeting Putin in Moscow in July — is also attending the three-day economic forum.
Italy has strongly supported Ukraine and has sent weapons to help it defend itself against Russian forces, while insisting these must only be used on Ukrainian soil.
At the meeting at the US base in Germany, US defense chief Lloyd Austin announced that Washington will provide $250 million in new military aid for Ukraine.
The package “will surge in more capabilities to meet Ukraine’s evolving requirements,” Austin told the meeting.
The assistance is expected to include ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, artillery rounds, anti-tank and anti-air weapons, a US defense official said on condition of anonymity.
The talks in Germany, with representatives from some 50 nations, were to focus on areas including bolstering Ukraine’s air defenses and encouraging allies to boost their defense industries, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said ahead of the meeting.
Since the start of Russia’s offensive in February 2022 when it failed to seize the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Moscow has adapted its aims, concentrating instead on trying to conquer eastern Ukraine.
While Ukraine’s surprise push into Russia’s Kursk region last month caught Russian forces off-guard, Putin stressed that the move had failed to slow Moscow’s advance.
Ukraine on Friday claimed to have recaptured a part of the eastern Ukrainian town of New York, in the first success for Kyiv on this part of the front for months.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking in Oslo Friday, said Ukraine needs more military support and that the “quickest way to end this war is to provide weapons to Ukraine.”
“Putin must realize that he cannot win on the battlefield, but must accept a just and lasting peace where Ukraine prevails as a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.
The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest backer during the conflict, providing military aid worth more than $55 billion (50 billion euros) since February 2022.
But uncertainty looms over the future of that funding as a US election in November could see Ukraine-skeptic Donald Trump back in the White House.
Germany — Ukraine’s second-biggest backer — has also come under pressure domestically over its aid for Kyiv, which has been at the center of a protracted row over the 2025 budget.
German officials have repeatedly pushed back at criticism over a planned reduction in financial support next year.
After talks with Zelensky in Frankfurt Friday, Scholz posted on X that “Germany is and will remain the strongest supporter of Ukraine in Europe.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also announced on the sidelines of the meeting that his country would provide 12 artillery pieces valued at 150 million euros to Ukraine.
“I’m grateful to Germany, its government, and its people for all their support,” Zelensky said in a social media post after meeting with Pistorius.
Trump lawyers fight to overturn jury’s finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll
- “This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, attorney D. John Sauer said
- Trump did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there
NEW YORK: A lawyer for former President Donald Trump fought Friday to overturn a verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and slander, telling federal appeals judges that the civil trial in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll was muddied by improper evidence.
“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, attorney D. John Sauer said, noting that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.
The Republican presidential nominee’s motorcade arrived Friday morning at the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, where three judges were hearing arguments in his appeal of a jury’s finding that he sexually abused Carroll. She says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. Trump denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
Trump’s lawyers say the jury’s verdict should be tossed because evidence was allowed at trial that should have been excluded and other evidence was excluded that should have been permitted.
Trump did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there.
The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before November’s presidential election.
The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has jabbed at Trump over the jury’s verdict, noting repeatedly that he had been found liable for sexual abuse.
And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll. The second trial was largely held to determine how badly Carroll had been harmed by Trump’s comments and how severely he should be punished.
Trump, 77, testified less than three minutes at the trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury. Still, he was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial, and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.
The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Trump labeled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterward, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.
Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.
Lawyers for Trump said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, permitted two other women to testify about similar acts of sex abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.
They also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”
Trump has insisted that Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.
Trump’s lawyers also challenged repeated airing at trial of an “Access Hollywood” videotape from 2005 in which Trump is heard saying that he sometimes just starts kissing beautiful women and “when you’re a star they let you do it.” He also said that a star can grab women’s genitals because “You can do anything.”
In their written arguments, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a do-over” based on unfounded “sweeping complaints of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misstatements or misapplications of the law, and a steadfast disregard of the district court’s reasoning.”
“There was no error here, let alone a violation of Trump’s substantial rights. This Court should affirm,” Carroll’s lawyers said.
UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns
- He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant
- Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad
MOSCOW: UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi held more talks with Russian officials Friday over safety concerns at two nuclear power plants threatened by the fighting between Moscow and Kyiv.
He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant, near to where Kyiv has mounted its incursion into Russia.
Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad, after visiting the Zaporizhzhia plant in southeast Ukraine this week and the Kursk plant the week before.
He met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
“The times remain very difficult,” Grossi told Likhachev, Russian news agencies reported.
The situation at the Kursk power plant — some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kyiv’s forces — was “worrying,” he said.
But both officials said the plant’s functioning was stable, and Grossi again urged both sides to refrain from attacking power plants.
“I said this in Zaporizhzhia, I said this in Kyiv and now I say this in Kaliningrad: power plants can never be legitimate targets in an armed conflict,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to strike the Kursk plant, without providing evidence.
Likhachev said Russia “expects an adequate response” from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk is now a month long, with Kyiv laying claim to dozens of Russian border settlements.
Putin said this week that Moscow has “gradually” started to push out Kyiv’s forces from Kursk.
The Zaporizhzhia plant fell to Moscow in the first days of its offensive in 2022.
New bus to help Jewish Londoners feel safer
- London mayor Sadiq Khan said he had been struck by the fear felt by Jews who told him they had received abuse when changing buses to travel between the two areas
- The new service was welcomed by Jewish groups
LONDON: Transport authorities in London have introduced a new public bus service linking two areas of the capital with large Jewish populations, as anti-Semitic incidents hit record levels.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said he had been struck by the fear felt by Jews who told him they had received abuse when changing buses to travel between the two areas.
The new service, which began this week, provides a direct link between Golders Green and Stamford Hill, removing the need for passengers to change buses.
The new service was welcomed by Jewish groups.
“In a period where our community is encountering unprecedented anti-Semitism, any measure that bolsters the confidence of Jewish individuals in using public transport is immensely valued,” said co-chairs of the London Jewish Forum Andrew Gilbert and Adrian Cohen.
Khan said the Jewish community has been campaigning for a direct transport link for 16 years.
The Jewish community was “frightened because of a mass increase in anti-Semitism since October 7 last year” when Hamas attacked southern Israel, he told BBC radio.
“I was told stories by families who, where they changed buses from Stamford Hill to Golders Green at Finsbury Park, were frightened about the abuse they had received,” he said.
Passengers using the service on Friday told AFP they were happy it was now available.
“I feel safer and its very convenient,” said one woman with her four-year-old son wearing a kippa.
She said she had “never had a problem myself. But antisemitism is rising for sure.”
“I avoid going out in the evening,” she added.
Another passenger, Jochanan, 70, said he usually took a taxi to visit family in Golders Green because the area where you had to change buses was “known to be violent.”
He said he was very concerned about the current situation in London.
“The old generation say the situation now reminds them of Germany before the war in the 1930s,” he said.
Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK hit record levels in the first half of this year, according to one Jewish charity.
The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, recorded 1,978 such incidents from January to June, its highest six-month tally since it began its count in 1984.
It said it was the continuation of a surge seen after the October 7 attack.
The number represented a 105-percent increase on the 964 incidents recorded in the same period in 2023, the trust added.
In Ukraine, a city grieves for a family killed in a deadly Russia missile attack
- The pre-dawn blasts earlier this week in the historic center of the city also injured dozens of civilians
- As hundreds of mourners looked on, Yaroslav Bazylevych, who lost his wife and three daughters, attended the funeral at the Garrison Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
LVIV: Thousands of mourners gathered Friday for funeral services in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv for victims of a Russian missile attack that killed seven people, including a mother and her three daughters.
The pre-dawn blasts earlier this week in the historic center of the city also injured dozens of civilians and shocked Ukrainians as the country endures a renewed round of Russian bombardment.
The city came to a virtual standstill as the mourners, many wiping away tears and some holding single sunflowers or bouquets, gathered outside a church in central Lviv where the funeral services were held in succession.
The deaths have left a profound impact on the city, which had largely been spared the worst of the attacks that typically target infrastructure and are focused with greater intensity in the east of the country.
As hundreds of mourners looked on, Yaroslav Bazylevych, who lost his wife and three daughters, attended the funeral at the Garrison Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
Dressed in black, his face still marked by blast injuries, he was supported by another man as he walked to the church and stood over the open white caskets of his wife, Yevgenia, 43, and daughters Emilia, 7, Daryna, 18, and Yaryna, 21, who were clothed in traditional dress with wreaths of flowers on their heads. Mourners filed past the caskets, some leaving flowers and others stopping to hug the father. Residents lined the streets of Lviv as hearses and other vehicles carried the victims to a nearby cemetery, followed by more than a dozen black-clad priests and students carrying white wooden crosses.
At a nearby roadside memorial, candles flickered next to a teddy bear and personal mementos beneath a banner with black-and-white photographs of the blast victims.
The blasts damaged scores of buildings, including several classified as national heritage sites. Survivors described receiving little warning from air raid sirens before the missiles hit.
“The scariest part was that the explosions were happening both behind and in front of our house. I didn’t know what to do,” local resident Tamara Ponomarenko told The Associated Press. “I thought about running to the bomb shelter, but it wasn’t nearby. The school was close, should I run there instead?”
Another survivor, Yelyzaveta Harapko, added: “I went to close the window, to lower the blinds. And as I was doing that, there was an explosion. Sparks flew everywhere, and the window was gone. After that, I heard someone scream, and later I heard cries: ‘Help, people are trapped under the rubble!’”
The deaths of children in the missile attack were seen by many as an attack on an emerging generation that has known nothing but war.
“In the center of Europe, Russia is exterminating whole families of Ukrainians. The Russians are killing our children, our future,” Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote in an online post.
Marta Kuzii, an associate professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University, where 18-year-old Daryna Bazylevych was a student, shared the sentiment.
“Daryna represents the generation that has been given the mission to rebuild Ukraine. She was a child who grew up with the war; it has been part of her entire conscious life,” Kuzii said.
“She was raised in a family with deep values and a clear understanding of what Ukraine stands for. It was an intelligent, highly educated, artistic, and cultured family.”
