ABC Moderators Fact Check Trump and Let Harris Skate

ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact checked former president Donald Trump in real time during Tuesday night’s debate. When Vice President Kamala Harris made false statements, they kept quiet.

Muir pushed back on Trump’s claim that crime is “up and through the roof,” saying the “FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.” Experts say the FBI’s stats are incomplete.

Davis, meanwhile, pushed back after Trump said vice presidential nominee Tim Walz supported “execution after birth.” While babies in Walz’s Minnesota have died shortly after delivery following failed abortion procedures, Davis jumped in to say there is “no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born.”

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Cheney Backs Harris: The War Hawk’s Blessing Reveals Continuity in Foreign Policy

If there is one eternal rule in Washington, it is that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.” If you were to presume twenty years ago, that former Vice President Dick Cheney would one day endorse a progressive Democrat from California for president, you would be sent to an insane asylum. The idea that a diehard neoconservative and perhaps the biggest war criminal in recent American history would one day endorse someone like Kamala Harris would have been laughable. But due to the prevalence of “Trump derangement syndrome” amongst many neoconservatives, this has become the political reality.

As someone who generally considers himself a member of the political left and who does not support Donald Trump, “Trump derangement syndrome” is not a term I use flippantly. Nevertheless, I cannot seem to find any other phrase to describe the type of voter who would view an endorsement from Dick Cheney for Kamala Harris as a positive. Former Vice President Cheney’s support of Harris is emblematic of a deeper, unsettling continuity in American foreign policy that transcends partisan boundaries.

Dick Cheney is not the only member of his family who has thrown their support behind Harris. His daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, has also endorsed Kamala Harris after voting for Trump in 2020. In a recent episode of System Update, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out that Liz Cheney – whose entire political career revolved around her defending her father’s depraved imperialism – has become a useful idiot for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. This shift is par for the course, as proponents of military adventurism have increasingly found a home in a Democratic Party committed to providing endless military aid to both Israel and Ukraine.

This is not surprising as the GOP has moved towards isolationism, ostensibly at least in Ukraine, with Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, stating that “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” But both Liz Cheney and her father “care” about Ukraine, as they have an ideological interest in spreading the tentacles of American imperialism across the world. But in the modern Republican Party under Donald Trump, the Cheney family likely believes they have no tenable political future. Dick Cheney is a decrepit reminder of a time long ago, and Liz Cheney lost in the Republican primary for her district by 32 points.

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Kamala Harris Pledges To Soak the Rich—But Her Policies Have Showered Them In Cash

As the presidential race enters its final weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris is positioning herself as the champion of middle-class America, vowing to finally make the wealthy pay their fair share. Yet a closer look at her record over the past four years reveals a stark contrast between her rhetoric and reality. Far from soaking the rich, Harris’ policies have funneled resources to the wealthy and corporations while burdening middle-class taxpayers.

Corporate subsidies have exploded under the Biden-Harris administration. In 2021, the 10-year budget allocation for corporate subsidies was $1.2 trillion. Three years later, it has now surpassed $2 trillion.

The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act included $54 billion in corporate subsidies—Intel alone received almost $20 billion in grants and loans through the CHIPS Act. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) uncapped a slew of energy subsidies, massively expanding energy production and investment tax credits, and according to the Brookings Institution, will cost an estimated $780 billion, just in corporate welfare, by 2031.

The beneficiaries of this largesse are extremely concentrated. Three-quarters of the benefits of the IRA are shared by just 15 large corporations, seven of which are foreign. Wind turbine manufacturers like General Electric, Vestas, and Siemens/Gamesa—who collectively produce 79 percent of all turbines—are among the biggest winners. These companies also have a presence on the board of the wind energy lobby, the American Clean Power Association.

But it isn’t just the corporate welfare. The IRA’s consumer subsidies also disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Roughly half of the tax subsidies for electric vehicles are largely captured by big corporations (Tesla, Ford Motor Co., General Motors), while almost four-fifths of taxpayers claiming these credits earn over $100,000 a year. 

This administration has consistently pushed policies that favor higher-income Americans over lower- and middle-income Americans. The extended pause on student loan payments, which lasted until late 2022, primarily aided graduates who are lawyers and physicians—who make an average salary of $176,000 and $264,000, respectively—while being paid for by taxpayers, many of whom chose not to go to college.

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CNN Journalist Suggests It’s Unfair to Ask Kamala About “Policy Detail”

Ahead of tonight’s debate, a CNN journalist suggested it was unfair for people to ask too much “policy detail” of Kamala Harris and that it was the media’s “job” to point that out.

The comments were made by Natasha S. Alford during a discussion of what to expect during this evening’s head to head between Harris and Trump.

“How does she have an opportunity on the one hand to do what needs to get done and also straddle that?” Alford was asked.

“Well I think this is where the fourth estate comes in, this is our job, right, as journalists tomorrow?” she responded.

“To actually push on the policy questions because what I do feel is that people are pushing for a higher standard of policy detail that they’ve actually pushed Donald Trump for,” she added.

In other words, don’t give Kamala too many hard questions about policy, despite that literally being the entire point of the debate.

Also, don’t grill her too much on things that matter, despite that being the entire point of journalism.

Harris has notoriously avoided talking about her what her actual policies will be and has only agreed to one major interview so far, during which she had to have her running mate Tim Walz sat next to her.

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Kamala Surrogate Lectured By CNBC Anchor Over “Master Class In Avoiding Any Questions” 

Commerce Secretary and Kamala Harris surrogate Gina Raimondo found herself on the end of a rare moment where a CNBC anchor called out Harris’ complete lack of engagement with the press and the American people since being installed as the Democratic nominee.

“Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen was having none of it when Raimondo claimed Harris is “reaching out” to people, that “she’s spending her time talking to Americans,” and “She has a punishing schedule.”

“She hasn’t talked to the press, Gina. I know you’re a surrogate, but the American people are frustrated,” Kernan countered.

He continued, “The media is frustrated with the amount of access anyone’s gotten to her for the past 41 days.”

“We’re finally going to have a debate tomorrow night because she sat down for one interview that was taped and then cut down,” the anchor added.

“Certain little things came out from it, but it has been a masterclass in avoiding any questions and nothing has been made clear by her,” Kernan urged.

He added, “Maybe it’s been made clear in drubs and drabs from her policymakers when it comes out in print or off a teleprompter at one of her scripted speeches.”

“She’s been impossible to pin down on anything because she hasn’t given any access. The American people deserve it,” Kernan concluded, then asking Raimondo “Wouldn’t you agree?”

She despondently responded, “yes.”

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Media Deliberately Lowers Expectations For Kamala’s Debate Performance

The media appears to be deliberately lowering expectations for Kamala Harris’ performance during tonight’s debate so they can declare her the winner.

According to MSNBC, her campaign is preparing Kamala on how to respond to Trump should he insult her or make any kind of derogatory comments on stage.

“Part of the plan is for the vice president to remain calm in those situations, to appear presidential in those situations, but also be prepared to stand her ground, to call out any lies she may hear on the debate stage and to take Donald Trump to task on things that did or didn’t happen during his time in the White House,” reports the network.

Kamala is also reportedly planning to raise the issue of ‘Project 25’, something which was not created by Trump and which he has already disavowed.

Essentially, the media is already on board with Kamala’s tactic of not allowing Trump to get under her skin, and will report her performance as “presidential” if she merely stands there and doesn’t raise her voice.

Talk about low expectations.

“Notice how they’re trying to set the narrative,” comments Charlie Kirk. “They’re trying to frame it so that Kamala is the “winner” if she simply doesn’t have a meltdown in front of 50 million people.”

“They know the most common attitude about Kamala is that she is unprepared, unready, and unpresidential — so they’re lowering expectations as much as they can.”

Harris is reportedly practicing for the debate by having one of her campaign members play the part of Trump.

As we previously highlighted, pollster Frank Luntz said the winner of the debate will very likely end up being the winner of the presidency.

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Kamala Harris vows to grant amnesty to migrants who illegally cross border: ‘Earned pathway to citizenship’

Vice President Kamala Harris vows on her long-awaited new campaign website to establish an “earned pathway to citizenship” for migrants who cross the border illegally.

“She knows that our immigration system is broken and needs comprehensive reform that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” says the website — which only went online Sunday, a month and a half into her campaign, and has already been criticized as too vague.

Former President Donald Trump, who Harris is going up against for the White House, has claimed he will enact a large deportation initiative to expel illegal migrants from the US.

Harris’ website policies on the border, which voters rank as a high-priority issue, don’t add anything beyond harking back to a related bipartisan Senate bill.

“As President, she will bring back the bipartisan border security bill and sign it into law,” her website states without offering any other proposals on the crisis.

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Harris Campaign Omits Marijuana From New Issues Page As Trump Earns Praise For Backing Legalization

As the cannabis world reacts to former President Donald Trump’s newly announced support for federal rescheduling, advocates are taking notice that a new, long-awaited issues page launched by the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris omits any mention of marijuana policy reform despite her record promoting comprehensive legalization.

The issues page is fairly exhaustive, with details about her platform on taxes, affordable housing, health care, education, child care and more.

The new website section touches briefly on broader drug policy, noting that Harris is “committed to ending the opioid epidemic and tackling the scourge of fentanyl”—noting her record of going after “drug traffickers” as a prosecutor but also pointing out that when it comes to harm reduction, the Biden-Harris administration “made the overdose-reversal drug naloxone available over-the-counter.”

Notably absent, however, is any mention of her position on cannabis policy.

While Harris privately reaffirmed her support for legalization during a roundtable event at the White House event with marijuana pardon recipients—and she sponsored a bill to end federal prohibition during her time in the Senate—she’s been silent on the issue since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and she became the nominee.

That seems to have created an opening for Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, to seize the issue in recent weeks, culminating in a post he made on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday, where he embraced the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana and also backed freeing up banks to work with state-legal cannabis businesses.

Trump also confirmed he would be voting in favor of a Florida ballot initiative to legalize marijuana as a resident of the state—another development that seems to run counter to the extreme anti-drug rhetoric he’s previously promoted during the campaign.

The prior Biden-Harris campaign had made several attempts to contrast the administration’s marijuana reform actions with those of the Trump administration, pointing out for example that his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had rescinded Obama era guidance that generally encouraged prosecutorial discretion in federal marijuana enforcement.

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Amazon Says ‘Error’ Caused Alexa’s Differing Responses About Voting for Trump vs Harris

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa has been thrust into the political spotlight after users discovered inconsistencies in its responses to questions about presidential candidates. 

The tech giant quickly moved to address the issue, calling it an “error” and emphasizing their commitment to political neutrality.

Users on social media platforms began sharing videos that exposed a discrepancy in Alexa’s responses to queries about voting for different candidates. 

When asked, “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” Alexa maintained a neutral stance, stating, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.”

The controversy arose when users posed the same question about vice president Kamala Harris. 

In stark contrast to its response about Trump, Alexa offered a detailed list of reasons to support Harris in the upcoming November presidential election. 

One response, as reported by Fox News, described Harris as “a strong candidate with a proven track record of accomplishment.”

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Harris Blames Trump for Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal in Blistering Statement

In a new twist to the 2024 presidential race, vice president Kamala Harris’s campaign has blamed President Donald Trump for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan

The one that took place seven months after Trump left office. 

Breitbart News reported that the withdrawal, which resulted in the rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, remains a point of contention for both parties.

The outlet further noted that on Friday, the Harris-Walz campaign issued a statement claiming, “Trump left the Biden-Harris Administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal — only a dangerous, costly mess.” 

The statement comes in response to Trump’s recent public appearances honoring the 13 U.S. service members killed during the chaotic evacuation at Kabul International Airport.

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