Trump boasts Harris easier than Biden to beat, steps up personal attacks

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, on Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. (AP)
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Updated 18 August 2024
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Trump boasts Harris easier than Biden to beat, steps up personal attacks

  • In a bid to counter Harris' surge in polls, Trump has sought to portray her as far left on a number of policies
  • Rejecting calls against personal attacks, Trump went on to call Harris a “radical” and a “lunatic”

WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania: Republican Donald Trump said on Saturday he believed Democrat Kamala Harris will be easier to beat than President Joe Biden even as some polls showed her edging ahead in the race for the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Trump, the former president, made the remarks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, a state looming large in the campaign. Vice President Harris will conduct a bus tour of western Pennsylvania starting in Pittsburgh on Sunday, ahead of the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention on Monday in Chicago.
“I believe she will be easier to beat than him,” said Trump, referring to her as “radical” and a “lunatic.”
Trump has sought to portray Harris as far left on a number of policies. At the rally he highlighted her previous call for a ban on fracking, an industry important to the state. Harris’ campaign has recently indicated she would not support a ban.
He also continued to attack Harris on personal terms, even as some political analysts say such comments could hurt Trump with moderate voters.
“Have you heard her laugh? That is the laugh of a crazy person,” Trump said.
Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that helped power Trump’s upset victory in 2016. Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the trio back to the Democrats in 2020.
With 19 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to secure the White House, compared with 15 in Michigan and 10 in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania may be the biggest prize in this year’s election and potentially tip the balance for both candidates.
Harris’ entry into the race after Biden ended his reelection bid last month has upended the contest, erasing the lead Trump built during the final weeks of Biden’s shaky campaign. Harris is leading Trump by more than two percentage points in Pennsylvania, according to the poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight.

Trump has hammered Harris on the economy, associating her with the Biden administration’s inflation woes and likening her latest proposal against price gouging to measures in communist nations. Trump says a federal ban on price gouging for groceries would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger and on Saturday asked why she hadn't worked to solve prices when she and Biden were sworn into office in 2021.
“Day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. So why didn’t she do it then? So this is day 1,305," Trump said.
He predicted financial ruin for the country and Pennsylvania in particular, citing Harris’ past opposition to fracking, an oil and gas extraction process.
“Your state’s going to be ruined anyway. She’s totally anti-fracking,” Trump said.

Blanketing airwaces with ads
Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by about 44,000 votes, a margin of less than one percentage point, while Biden prevailed by just over 80,000 votes in 2020, a 1.2 percent margin.
Both campaigns have made the state a top priority, blanketing the airwaves with advertisements. Of the more than $110 million spent on advertising in seven battleground states since Biden dropped out in late July, roughly $42 million was spent in Pennsylvania, more than twice any other state, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing data from the tracking site AdImpact.
Democratic and Republican groups have already reserved $114 million in ad time in Pennsylvania from late August through the election, more than twice as much as the $55 million reserved in Arizona, the next highest total, according to AdImpact.
The Harris campaign said on Saturday it planned to spend at least $370 million on digital and television ads nationwide between the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 2 and Election Day.
The battleground states — seen as critical for winning the election — also include Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.
New polls published on Saturday by the New York Times found Harris leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50 percent to 45 percent, and in North Carolina, 49 percent to 47 percent, and narrowing the former president’s leads in Nevada, 47 percent to 49 percent, and in Georgia, 46 percent to 50 percent. A pollster from the Trump campaign said the poll results underestimated the Republican candidate’s support.
Trump and Harris have visited Pennsylvania more than half a dozen times each this year. Trump was wounded during an assassination attempt at his rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Trump will give remarks on the economy at a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday. His running mate, US Senator JD Vance, will hold an event in Philadelphia that day as well.
Trump’s trip on Saturday to Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County is aimed at solidifying support among the white, non-college-educated voters who lifted him to victory in 2016. The blue-collar county voted Democratic for decades before swinging heavily toward Trump in 2016, mirroring other similar regions around the country.
Trump won Luzerne in 2020 by 14.4 percentage points, a smaller margin than his 19.4 point win in 2016. With Biden out of the picture, Trump likely sees room for gains in this area of the state, said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College.
“This is the type of place where Trump has lots of strengths,” Borick said, referring to the state’s northeast region. “Marginal gains in a region like this certainly could have some impact on his ability to take back Pennsylvania.”

’Really fired up’

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will make multiple stops across Allegheny and Beaver counties on Sunday, the campaign said. The tour is the first time Harris, Walz and their spouses have campaigned together since their first rally as a presidential ticket in Philadelphia earlier this month.
Her campaign has tried to soften her stance on fracking, saying she would not ban it, even though that was her position when she was seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.
Some Democrats in Pennsylvania acknowledge the challenges but say the economy is what concerns most people in the area.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said in an interview that voters are “really fired up.” David Harris' rally in Philadelphia to introduce her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, along with 36 field offices, including several in more Republican-leaning parts of the state.
“The energy has clearly shifted in a dramatic way toward Vice President Harris,” Davis said. He argued that Trump “just goes on rambling rants and just makes personal attacks on Harris.”
On Sunday, Harris plans a bus tour starting in Pittsburgh, with a stop in Rochester, a small town to the north. Trump has scheduled a visit Monday to a plant that manufactures nuclear fuel containers in York. Trump's running mate JD Vance is expected to be in Philadelphia that day.
Trump's Saturday rally is his fifth at the arena in Wilkes-Barre, the largest city in Luzerne County, where he has had victories the past two elections. Biden bested Trump in neighboring Lackawanna County, where the Democrat has long promoted his working-class roots in Scranton.
Some of Biden's loyal supporters in this former industrial city of 76,000 were upset to see party leaders put pressure the president to step aside.
Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to vouch for Biden. Munley eventually came to terms with Biden's decision and is now very supportive of Harris.
“I can’t deny the enthusiasm that’s been going on with this ticket right now. I am so into it,” Munley said. “It just wasn’t happening with Joe, and I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so connected to him.”
She said she does not know a Democrat or even independent in her circle of a couple hundred people who is not fully committed to Harris and Walz.
“We are all-in on Kamala Harris,” Munley said. “All in 110%.”
Robert A. Bridy, 64, a laborer from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, traveled to the rally to show support for Trump. He said the election feels tight in this state and added that his union and a close friend are trying to convince him to vote for Harris and other Democrats, but he has voted for Trump since 2016.
“It’s close. You can’t change Democrats’ minds no matter what. They’ve got a one-track mind, and that’s it,” he said.
Bridy called Trump a “working class guy like us.” Trump is a billionaire who built his fortune in real estate.
“He’s a fighter,” Bridy said. “I’d like to see the closed borders. He doesn’t mess around. He goes at it right away and takes care of business the way it should be.”
With election day rapidly approaching, Harris is trying to distance herself from unpopular Biden policies, while getting ahead of Trump’s attempts to brand her a liberal extremist.
The past week has seen the two sides home in on voters’ worries about the economy.
Trump hammered Harris on Saturday, saying her push for a federal ban on price-gouging by companies that unfairly raise prices was the sort of policy favored by communist countries.
On Friday, Harris held an event in North Carolina to unveil a series of proposals to ease the burden of post-Covid pandemic inflation.
She noted that the US economy was booming while conceding that “many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives.”
“Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations,” she said. “I will fight to give money back to working- and middle-class Americans.”
 


Clashes in Mozambique after opposition leader calls for protest

Updated 10 sec ago
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Clashes in Mozambique after opposition leader calls for protest

MAPUTO: Police in Mozambique fired tear gas and deployed dogs to disperse protesters in the capital Maputo on Thursday, after the opposition called a demonstration against the contested election results.
The southern African nation has been rocked by violence since the Oct. 9 vote won by the Frelimo party, which has been in power for almost 50 years.
Leading opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who says the results were false and that he won, called for a mass protest on Thursday, saying in an interview that it was a “crucial moment” for the country.
“I feel that there is a revolutionary atmosphere ... that shows that we are on the verge of a unique historical and political transition in the country,” said Mondlane, speaking from an undisclosed location.
The 50-year-old former radio presenter said he could not reveal his whereabouts other than to say he was not in Africa.
Several thousand people took to the streets on Thursday to protest the election result, some throwing rocks and setting up barricades using burning tires and bins. “This is not so much about Venancio (as Mondlane is popularly known). It’s more about change,” said Richard, a protester who asked to be identified only by his first name.
The uprising was to reflect “the voice of the people,” he added.
“Either they change and think about the people, or the country doesn’t move forward.”
Heavily armed riot police and soldiers flanked by tanks dispersed the crowds with tear gas, according to reporters at the scene.
“It’s scary ... we’re all here shaking from time to time, we run away, but it’s going to be worth it,” said Vadi, a woman who also only gave her first name. “We want change, that’s all.”
Shops, banks, schools, and universities were closed in the coastal city, which had around 1 million people.
“Our first objective ... is certainly the restoration of electoral truth,” Mondlane said.
“We want the popular will expressed at the polls on Oct. 9 to be restored.”
He was “waging a struggle” with “national” and “historical purpose,” he added.
“People have realized that it wasn’t possible to bring profound change in Mozambique without taking risks,” he said.
“Now they have to free themselves.”
Mondlane has used social media to rally supporters onto the streets on several occasions for demonstrations that have led to clashes with police.
At least 18 people have been killed in the post-electoral violence, according to Human Rights Watch.
One local NGO, the Center for Democracy and Human Rights, has put the toll at 24.
A police officer was also killed in a protest at the weekend, Defense Minister Cristovao Chume said on Tuesday, warning the army could intervene “to protect the interests of the state.”
“There is an intention to change the democratically established power,” he added.
President Filipe Nyusi is expected to step down early next year at the end of his two-term limit, handing over to Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo, who won the presidential election with 71 percent of the vote, according to the electoral commission.
Mondlane, who has lodged a case at the Constitutional Council to request a ballot recount, said that he was “open to a government of national unity.”
The authorities have restricted access to the internet across the country, which HRW said was an apparent effort to “suppress peaceful protests and public criticism of the government.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has warned against “unnecessary or disproportionate force.”
Police should “ensure that they manage protests in line with Mozambique’s international human rights obligations,” he said.
The Southern African Development Community has called for an extraordinary summit between Nov. 16 and 20 in part to discuss developments in Mozambique.
Mondlane left the country last month following the unrest.
He initially said he would be at Thursday’s march but on Wednesday told AFP he wouldn’t return after all due to safety concerns.
“I wanted so much to be in Maputo with my people. But unfortunately, I received more than 5,000 messages ... Ninety-nine percent discouraged me from going to Maputo,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to be there.”

Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills four, wounds 40

Updated 3 min 27 sec ago
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Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills four, wounds 40

  • Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days
  • “The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said

KYIV: Russian aerial attacks on the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed at least four people and wounded another 40, including children, officials said.
Another two were killed in a separate attack on the eastern Donetsk region, strikes that followed a wave of overnight drone attacks, including on the capital Kyiv.
Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days and are making rapid advances in the industrial territory of Donetsk, both of which the Kremlin says are Russian territory.
“The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said in a statement on social media.
“Forty were wounded, including four children,” governor Ivan Fedorov said in a separate statement.
Officials said earlier that a hospital had been damaged in Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of more than 700,000 people and lies around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the nearest Russian positions.
A four-month old girl and boys aged one, five and 15 were wounded in the attacks, Fedorov said.
Officials posted images showing rescue workers pulling victims from the rubble and holding back distressed locals from getting to the destroyed buildings.
The strikes later in the Donetsk region killed two people and wounded five more in the village of Mykolaivka, the region’s governor Vadym Filashkin announced on social media.
“One of the shells hit a five-story building and four buildings nearby were damaged,” he wrote on social media.
He posted a photo of a Soviet-era residential building on fire, dozens of its windows blown out with debris littering the ground beneath it.


Grenade attack targeted Israeli embassy in Denmark: report

Copenhagen Police investigated two explosions near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen last month. (AP)
Updated 36 sec ago
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Grenade attack targeted Israeli embassy in Denmark: report

  • The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy
  • Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 have been detained

COPENHAGEN: Israel’s embassy in Denmark was likely the target of grenades thrown nearby last month, Danish media reported Thursday, citing the pre-indictment of two teenage suspects detained in the case.
Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 went before a judge in Copenhagen who remanded them for another 20 days.
Their pre-indictment, citing investigations, said they were suspected of violating terrorism laws by “throwing hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Denmark on October 2,” the Ritzau news agency reported.
The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy, where they exploded, causing no injuries.
The two suspects were arrested at a Copenhagen railway station hours later initially on suspicion of violating gun laws.
They have since been accused of a terror offense and police, who have arrested a man in his fifties in connection with the incident, are also looking for other accomplices.
“It makes no sense to imagine this is an act they committed alone. There must be accomplices,” Ritzau quoted prosecutor Soren Harbo as saying at the start of the hearing.
The teens deny the accusations.
The case comes against a backdrop of severe tensions in the Middle East, with conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as increasing gang violence with Danish criminal gangs suspected of recruiting underage Swedes to settle scores.


Renowned Indian scholar, philanthropist Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini dies aged 80

Updated 23 min ago
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Renowned Indian scholar, philanthropist Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini dies aged 80

KALABURAGI, India: Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini, a prominent scholar, educationalist, philanthropist and chancellor of Khaja Banda Nawaz University in India’s Karnataka state, died on Wednesday evening aged 80.

Funeral prayers were held on Thursday evening at the Sharif Mosque. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.

He completed a Master of Arts in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada and was awarded a Ph.D. from Belford University, US, for his research work.

Since 2007 he brought significant changes to the Khaja Education Society on the organizational, administrative and functional levels. He also expanded existing institutions and was instrumental in establishing Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences at Kalaburagi in 2000.

Through perseverance, he established Khaja Bandanawaz University in August 2018. As vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and chancellor of Khaja Banda Nawaz University, he played a vital role in promoting modern and Islamic education in India.

In addition to his administrative skills, Hussaini was known for his deep and scholarly understanding of Sufism. He was awarded the prestigious Karnataka Rajyotsava Award for excellence in education by the government of Karnataka in 2017.

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and other political leaders expressed their condolences over his death.

Putin congratulates Donald Trump on his election victory in first public comments on US vote

Updated 53 min 12 sec ago
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Putin congratulates Donald Trump on his election victory in first public comments on US vote

  • The Kremlin earlier welcomed Trump’s claim that he could negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine
  • ″I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election as president,” Putin said

SOCHI, Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on winning this week’s US presidential election and said on Thursday he was ready to speak to Trump, as any ideas on facilitating an end to the Ukraine crisis merited attention.
Putin said he was impressed with how Trump, who decisively defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to secure his return to the White House, handled himself in the moments after an assassination attempt in July, describing Trump as a brave man.