House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) blamed Democrats for "unstable" gunmen who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Johnson addressed Sunday's attempt on Trump's life.
"As fate would have it, my wife Kelly and I were at Mar-a-Lago to meet with President Trump," he explained. "And I don't think anyone can argue the case that there's been anyone, certainly in the modern political era, probably throughout our history, who's been so aggressively attacked."
Johnson said he called President Joe Biden with a "demand" that Trump receive the same level of protection as a sitting president.
The Speaker pointed to "the threats that have been made by leading Democrats in this country" to explain the assassination plots.
"It is leading people to be triggered," he opined. "When members of Congress or the nominee for president of the Democratic Party says that Trump must be eliminated or that he's a threat to democracy or they compare him to Hitler, there are people who are unstable, and it makes them do crazy things."
A Democratic lawmaker destroyed claims by Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida blaming Democrats for another apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
CNN's Kate Bolduan interviewed Donalds on Tuesday morning, when he claimed that "radical elements in the Democrat Party" were responsible for the two apparent attempts on Trump's life because they had characterized his right-wing agenda as extremist, and the following day she asked Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan to comment.
"First of all, I believe we need to tone down the rhetoric in American political dialogue," Kildee said. "I also think there's no place in this country for political violence. But let's just be clear, if anyone is engaging in you know caustic, incendiary rhetoric over the last eight years – my God, it's Donald Trump. For goodness sake, I mean, I'm a – all of us are victims of political violence. I was in the Capitol on Jan. 6 – that was political violence whipped up by Donald Trump and now since celebrated by Donald Trump."
The Michigan Democrat said the former president and current GOP nominee routinely directed threats against his perceived enemies, including journalists and other elected officials, so he didn't want to hear Trump or his surrogates accusing their opponents of actions they're guilty of themselves.
"Two deranged individuals motivated by whatever went after Donald Trump – that's horrific," Kildee said. "We can't accept that, but the idea that Donald Trump and his surrogates are saying that it's Democrats who are engaging in this dangerous political speech when we have seen Donald Trump call members of the media, your industry, the enemy of the people. I mean, my goodness, we really have to fact check this guy and all of his surrogates because typically what they do is accuse their opponents of the very actions that they continue to take to try to deflect from any criticism, and I assume that that's what Rep. Donalds was doing."
"I don't know where he gets his facts," Kildee added, "but it's a different set of facts than what most people have seen."
Melania Trump is outraged that the press shamed her for nude photos nearly a decade ago because her fashion photo shoots for Max Magazine and Sports Illustrated were just like Michelangelo's David, the former first lady explained Wednesday.
Art.
Melania Trump's newest ad for her eponymous memoir delivered Wednesday morning a defense against a media attack Raw Story was unable to locate.
"Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?" Melania Trump says via voiceover in a new X video. "The more pressing question is why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?"
Melania Trump's fashion model work received coverage between 2016 and 2020, when her husband Donald resided in the White House, a residence he hopes to reclaim in 2025.
Her nude shoot with another female model received media attention once again Wednesday morning — when Melania Trump decided it was a pressing subject.
The video defense includes sweeping music and a photo montage of historic works of art such as John Collier's 1897 painting of Lady Godiva, in which she appears naked on a horse, Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguière's sculpture of Eve, naked next to a tree, and The Bathers by Paul Cézanne — you guessed it, they are naked.
It does not include any images of Melania Trump.
"Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?" Melania Trump asks. "Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape."
Her post includes a link to the Melania Trump website where readers can pre-order the memoir slated to be released on Oct. 8.
It is one of several such promotional posts from the former first lady which have been described by critics as "cryptic," "nearly normal" and "weird."
"We should honor our bodies," Melania Trump contends. "And embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self expression."
J.D. Vance has portrayed a second apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump as an attempt to silence the Republican nominee, and CNN panelists debated whether that was accurate.
The U.S. Secret Service chased an armed man from a hiding place Sunday near the south Florida golf course where Trump had been playing a round, and both he and his running mate have blamed Democrats for inciting that incident and another apparent assassination attempt in July.
"Not just over the last campaign, but the last 10 years there is an explicit effort to try to shut him up, to silence him and, ultimately, now two people have tried to take that silencing to its logical endpoint," Vance told reporters.
Conservative commentator Scott Jennings agreed there was a concerted effort to silence Trump's political viewpoints and that the latest apparent shooting attempt was part of that.
"First of all, I agree the rhetoric does need to be brought down," Jennings said. "I also agree with him that there are a great many people who have tried to and openly desired to silence Donald Trump. There are people who wanted to take away his social media accounts, people who wanted to take away his ability to speak, so that's absolutely true, and whether you could draw a line between rhetoric and what happened in Pennsylvania, I don't know that we know that yet because it's still very unclear what that shooter was doing. The guy in Florida, a little different story, but the truth is, Republicans today feel like that a lot of things are allowed to be said about Trump, and when something bad happens everybody wants to be hands off about it, and he has to be made to answer for his own rhetoric, which I think also at times needs to be dialed back, as well."
"So look, he's been nearly assassinated twice," Jennings added. "I do think it's a moment of reflection about the what is said about him and the impact it might have in a highly charged political environment."
Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, said that many people – including Trump's closest advisers – wish he would shut his mouth.
"I agree with Scott that, you know, lots of people would like to shut Donald Trump up, including his own campaign," Messina said. "They'd like him to stop talking some of these crazy stuff. J.D. Vance talking about this is a little rich after he admitted that Springfield, Ohio, thing is made up, and yet they had just canceled school three days in a row because of bomb threats. Rhetoric really does matter here, and we need to be very careful about it. It's a little gaslighting to say it's only one side, as J.D. Vance is trying to say. As you say, Trump has said lots of really [outrageous] things that I think his campaign would like him not to say. In 48 days from now, voters are going to make a decision on whose rhetoric they're comfortable with."
Republicans continue to attack childless women as part of Donald Trump's re-election campaign, despite widespread criticism and a notable gender gap in polling.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders became the latest to join the fray, saying that her own children kept her humble but noting that Kamala Harris, who's the stepmother to two adult children, “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble," and CNN panelists are puzzled over the GOP's messaging.
"A campaign about the economy is pretty good for Republicans," said GOP strategist Brad Todd, who's working with Dave McCormick’s Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. "A campaign about border security is going to be good for Republicans, personal shots are not going to work out."
J.D. Vance's remarks about "childless cat ladies" three years ago during a Fox News interview have permeated pop culture, not just politics, and helped drive down his support among women.
"The J.D. Vance comments on childless cat ladies and the various iterations, the whole of this conversation, has penetrated the culture in a way that a lot of the back-and-forth that we talk about here at this table doesn't punch through, right?" said host Kasie Hunt. "Like, this is something that a lot more people to talk about, like normal people are aware of, and that makes it a little different."
Pop superstar Taylor Swift posed for a photo with her cat for a social media post announcing her endorsement of Kamala Harris, which Wall Street Journal reporter Annie Linskey said was a good indicator of how deeply Vance's comments had become embedded in the discourse.
"Look, I think Democrats have done a very good job of embracing it, but I've been perplexed, as a political reporter, as to why Republicans continue to use this as an issue," Linskey said. "There are a lot of women who want to have children and, you know, access to things like IVF would help with that, and I think that, you know, it's been surprising that this conversation has continued to come up because there are a lot of, you know, a lot of Republican women who don't have kids. It is perplexing."
A conservative commentator got fact-checked on CNN for claiming that Democrats were to blame for a second apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
The U.S. Secret Service rousted an armed gunman from a hiding place Sunday near a West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course where the former president was playing, and panelists on "CNN This Morning" debated whether political rhetoric encouraged that incident or the wave of threats against schools and government offices in Springfield, Ohio, after Trump and running mate J.D. Vance have spread false claims about migrants there.
"I've been struck by in the wake of this attack, there's just been no reflection from Democrats," said GOP strategist Brad Todd. "After the first attempt [in Butler, Pennsylvania] Democrats immediately reacted and sort of checked the campaign. This time none at all."
Host Kasie Hunt stepped in to point out that both president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris had condemned political violence, and she said Trump himself had spoken graciously about calls from each of them to discuss this weekend's scare.
"That's not my point!" Todd said. "My point is that, yes, since Donald Trump came on the scene, Democrats have basically said that democracy will end if he's elected, which eventually some people with a screw loose, you're going to hear that and go, 'Wow, maybe it's justified if I do anything.' [House minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries' favorite phrase on him is 'clear and present danger,' which, that's the Supreme Court's code for when it can, government can suppress speech, and so I think we have to pull way back."
Todd argued that Democrats should focus more on Trump's policy proposals instead of highlighting the things he does and says to suggest he will not accept an election loss.
"This election is going to happen and someone's going to be sworn in and government will be go on, and it would be a little bit better if Democrats, I think, pulled way back with their apocalyptic rhetoric about Donald Trump being the absolute end of the republic," Todd said. "Criticize him on his policies, but don't act like the country ends."
Meghan Hays, a former director of message planning for Biden's White House, pushed back, saying that Trump himself had targeted individuals who had criticized him in the immediate wake of Sunday's arrest of the would-be assassin.
"Trump didn't reflect either here, instantly blamed the Democrats for their rhetoric, and he is putting out a press release with people's names saying what they have said about him," Hays said. "You don't think that people that targets people who – we don't know everyone's mental state. Those names being out there, that also makes people a target. What's going on in Springfield? I disagree that it's only Democrats. I think everyone needs to take a look at this and everyone needs to be reflective because something is going to happen. It's going to get worse if we don't control the narrative."
Todd concedes that Trump can be undisciplined, but he urged Democrats to campaign against him like a normal candidate instead of one who has been indicted in federal court and Georgia for attempting to subvert the 2020 election and had called for the "termination" of the Constitution because he lost.
"I've said on this network plenty of times, Donald Trump needs to rein it is his rhetoric, but I think we have to back off," Todd said. "Democrats have to back off the whole consequences and let everybody know, 'Look, guess what happens – we'll lower tax rates if he wins, we disagree with that.' Let's run the campaign on that."
Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams pushed back, saying that simply reminding voters of Trump's statements and actions should not be considered as an incitement to violence.
"What I'm struck by on the defensive, or I guess on the attack on Democrats on this threat to democracy stuff, is that, for instance, Trump has not committed to accepting the results of the election, right?" Williams said. "That sounds to me like a threat to democracy, and I don't think it's that unfair to question and someone's commitment to democracy if they're saying that they can't commit to the results of election. Another one is, a lot of defenders of the former president have latched on this dictator concept, that Kamala Harris said that Trump might be a dictator – he said those words himself. He might have been joking, but he said, 'I will be a dictator on Day One,' and I guess I'm struggling with this idea that echoing those points is somehow putting chum in the water to drive up violence against the former president."
Hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe burst into laughter early Wednesday morning after replaying a video of Donald Trump "confusing Alaska and Afghanistan."
Trump made the apparent gaffe at a town hall in Flint, Michigan, Tuesday.
"We were energy independent, we were soon going to be energy dominant, and we would've been now having so much money coming out of the energy," Trump said. "We have Bagram in Alaska. They say it might be as big, might be bigger than, all of Saudi Arabia. I got it approved. Ronald Reagan couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. I got it done."
Trump was mocked online for confusing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, for the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. MSNBC hosts doubled down the following day.
"Check it," Joe Scarborough said to laughter. "Go to your Google machine: Bagram, Alaska. I hear there is some of the best moose hunting in all of the world in Bagram."
Mika Brzezinski said, "Imagine if Joe Biden" had made that mistake.
"I think he may have confused Alaska and Afghanistan," Scarborough added.
"Morning Joe" co-host Willie Geist added, "Not a slip of the tongue either. He said it five or six times and then closed it with check it, Google it, find it, look it up, take it to the bank."
"One thing he is right about, though. Ronald Reagan did nothing about Bagram so that part of it is true."
A CNN panel got heated Tuesday night during a discussion over political rhetoric, as guests shouted over one another, accused each other of misstating the facts and repeatedly talked over one another.
Republican Bryan Lanza, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, asserted on "NewsNight" that a "steady stream" of attacks meant to "dehumanize" former President Donald Trump has contributed to triggering susceptible people.
When he tried to assert that Democrats aren't asked nearly as often as Republicans on the network to denounce "inappropriate" statements, journalist Kara Swisher forcefully pushed back.
Lanza said he appeared on the network following the first assassination attempt against Trump and brought up a statement from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who said he wished "Trump was an actual 'martyr.'"
"They very quickly pivoted away. Like it's no big deal. He's ok to say it if it's Trump," said Lanza, prompting Swisher to but in.
"No one ever said he was ok to say it," she shot back. "That's ridiculous. It's untrue. You're being willfully inaccurate. That is not what happened," she said.
"It's maybe inconvenient to you to hear what's going on but that's what's happening," Lanza tries to reply, as Swisher talks over him again.
"It's not inconvenient. I criticized him. A lot of people did," she said. "That is absolutely not true."
As the discussion continued, Swisher noted that foreign governments are bombarding Americans with propaganda — and it's "working perfectly on people like you," she said to Lanza.
"We should really start to focus on where this is actually coming from and how we — every one of us — is being manipulated by especially Russia, but China and others," she said, pointing to a recent Justice Department probe into Russia's effort to use right-wing influencers to create "discord and anger within our country."
The discussion became heated a minute later between Republican strategist Scott Jennings and Democratic insider Ashley Allison, after Allison told the group she never called Trump a dictator until "Donald Trump said he would be a dictator on day one."
"That's not what happened, though," interjected Jennings. "That's not what happened. You know that's not what happened!"
A couple of minutes later, the panel devolved again after Lanza argued that Democratic rhetoric is prompting "mentally ill people to take action."
"What is the evidence? What is the evidence that either of these people —" host Abby Phillips tries to ask, as Jennings interrupts, "The guy in Florida?"
Phillips continues, this time posing her question to Jennings.
"What is the evidence that either of these people was motivated by specific speech from Democrats?" she asks referring to the two Trump assassination plots.
Jennings acknowledged that while not much is known about the Pennsylvania shooter, the evidence against the Florida would-be assassin is "pretty evident."
"It's not," shoots back Swisher. "But it's pretty not evident."
Phillips also asked Jennings to provide evidence.
"I mean, do you not read the same things about him that the rest of us do?" asks Jennings. He scoffed when Phillips asked again for evidence that the Florida suspect was motivated by Democratic rhetoric.
"If you want to give them a pass on it, that's fine," he said, prompting Allison to jump in.
"It's not giving them a pass! I just want some consistency, right?!"
The discussion became heated again minutes later after Swisher asked Lanza how many laws he thought exist that restrict the speech of social media tech companies.
When he responds, "hundreds," Swisher fires back: "Zero."
"You literally just said a lot of words, all of which were untrue. There are no laws restricting speech online," said Swisher.
As Lanza tried to respond, Swisher continued on the offensive.
"Literally what you just said was willfully inaccurate," she said.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins sparred with Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas during a heated discussion Tuesday night over a GOP-led block of a bill that would protect in vitro fertilization.
Republicans in the Senate on Tuesday blocked Democrats from advancing legislation that would provide federal protections and insurance coverage for IVF treatments. Republicans characterized the legislation as a politically motivated stunt.
The discussion between the CNN anchor and the lawmaker immediately became contentious when Cotton attempted to "correct" Collins over her lead-in to the segment.
Collins noted that Republicans blocked the bill that would guarantee access to the "very thing that a lot of them say they support."
"It's also the very thing that we have heard from Donald Trump say that he supports," she added, noting Democrats "tried and failed again" to pass the measure to guarantee access to IVF nationwide.
"Tonight they are using this vote to hammer Republicans who said, 'No,'" said Collins.
When asked if Cotton would've voted for the legislation if Trump was in the White House, Cotton immediately attacked Collins' characterization of the bill.
"Well Kaitlan first off I have to correct almost everything you said in the lead-in there, almost none of which was accurate about this bill," he said.
Cotton asserted there is "no risk in this country" to IVF and emphasized every Republican senator as well as Trump supports IVF. He additionally asserted that no state restricts IVF.
Collins attempted to interject that she didn't say as such in the intro, but Cotton pushed back again.
"You said it had to guarantee access. Access is guaranteed in all 50 states right now," he said.
Cotton also pushed back that the bill was about IVF.
"It was about a lot more than IVF," he said, adding that it would've mandated coverage for "experimental, controversial procedures" such as cloning, gene editing or "providing fertility treatments for men who think they're women, whatever that means."
As Cotton attacked the bill for, he said, infringing on religious liberties — asserting he supports allowing Christian hospitals to operate "as they see fit" — Collins tried to cut him off.
"Ok senator, but can we — let's just stop you there," she said, trying to politely nudge her guest to pause.
But Cotton fired back, "No Kaitlan, you're not going to stop me there! Because you're misrepresenting what the bill's about."
"Let's have a conversation — let's have a conversation about this bill and this legislation itself," she insists. "You're saying that what I said was inaccurate, that this would guarantee access to IVF, which is what it would do. You're saying that no state restricts it, but no state guarantees it."
She noted that at issue is what happened in Alabama, where a court ruled that embryos count as children, prompting many IVF clinics to close out of fear of lawsuits or potential repercussions from the state attorney general.
Not to be deterred, Cotton insisted that the Alabama example proved his point, framing the court's ruling as one updating an "old law" because the state felt it was "constrained by a law." The state legislature then passed a new law guaranteeing access to IVF in the state.
Cotton later repeated an earlier assertion that Democrats are the party that seeks to infringe on religious liberty — even accusing the party of wanting to "harass and persecute nuns" and "investigate Catholics for going to traditional masses."
Collins pushed back again against Cotton, saying that while he can dislike the bill, she is "not misrepresenting" it.
"This is something that was put up there and would've guaranteed access to IVF," she said.
A few minutes later into the discussion, Cotton repeated his claim that IVF wasn't in danger, prompting another interjection from Collins.
"The legislature acted promptly to change what was an old law to ensure access to I[VF] —," he tries to say, only for Collins to butt in and demand to know, "Why did they have to act if it wasn't in peril, senator?"
"Because of the Supreme Court decision," he responds.
Collins cut him off again, adding with a smile: "That imperiled access to IVF."
As Cotton tried to suggest Kamala Harris supports "radical" "partial-birth abortions, Collins tried to end the discussion and cut to commercial. But Cotton refused to let her cut him off, talking over Collins as he attacked Harris' stance on late-term abortions.
A pair of Republican and Democratic political insiders agreed Tuesday night that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' latest dig at Vice President Kamala Harris — in which Sanders echoed Sen J.D. Vance's "childless cat lady" attacks — was "unnecessary."
"Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble," said Sanders, an apparent jab that Harris does not have biological children.
Harris is, however, the stepmother to two children, Cole and Ella Emhoff, through her marriage to Doug Emhoff.
CNN anchor Kairlan Collins asked Republican Kristen Soltis Anderson her reaction, noting, "We just got over 'childless cat ladies' gate. And the concerns you've heard, even from Republicans, who said it wasn't helpful at appealing to women."
"You're right," replied Anderson, adding that Sanders' statement was a "touching statement — up until that very last part where she tried to get a dig in on the vice president and it seems unnecessary to me."
Anderson lamented that Sanders was potentially a "really great messenger" to women and young moms, particularly after Sanders spoke at the Republican National Convention and showed a "different side" of Trump.
"To the extent that this was the job tonight, it's unfortunate that it's undercut by that need to kind of twist the knife in a little bit to Vice President Harris.
Karen Finney, former communications director of the Democratic National Committee, agreed with her Republican counterpart.
"I also just think it's unwise to continue to attack those of us who don't have children," she said, noting "plenty" of young women who don't have kids who plan to vote, as well as women who are "beyond" their child-bearing years who will as well.
That doesn't mean, she said, they don't have people, circumstances and other things in their lives that keep them humble.
"It just seems, it was unnecessary, but also it just seems like a very dumb strategy because there are so many women you turn off with that. And really the message is you don't get to be part of our America. You don't get to be part of the country that we see, that we envision."
That leads those women to look at Harris, said Finney.
A Republican state lawmaker in Pennsylvania smacked down a new racist conspiracy theory involving Haitian immigrants on Tuesday that was promoted by the far-right social media account "Libs of TikTok."
The X account, run by notorious far-right internet activist Chaya Raichik, posted a baseless theory about Haitian workers in Pennsylvania.
"Incredible footage revealing an operation in Charleroi, PA where Haitians are being bussed to and from food factories operated by Fourth Street Foods," the accountwrote on X. "It’s estimated that 90% of workers are now made up of Haitians. Kamala imported 2,000 Haitians into this town of 4,000 people and now they’re taking American jobs."
But state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, who represents the Charleroi area, stepped in and corrected the claim.
"This is not true," wrote Bartolotta. "The business owner provides transportation for workers to get to & from his facility. These are not immigrants being bussed in by Kamala. I follow you & repost but you are playing into the hands of people who are jeopardizing the safety of innocent children in our local school. These Haitians are working hard, sending their children to school and opening businesses. They are here legally. They did not cross our border. Many are professionals who escaped horrific conditions in their home country."
Bartolotta continued, writing that Charleroi had "no workforce" just a few years ago when a business owner "desperately needed them." He took out advertisements and searched for workers for a long time. Facing a shutdown, she noted, the owner "hired an agency that connected immigrants who were vetted and LEGAL to work in his facility."
"Instead of closing, he now has three shifts working around the clock. He also renovated multiple dilapidated apartment buildings and put them back on the tax roll for the town. He’s been vilified wrongly. Please, check the facts before posting information the jeopardizes the safety of good, hard-working people. Thank you," wrote Bartolotta.
Raichik has become notorious for attacking any affirmation of racial diversity, sexual orientation, or gender identity online, even attacking the presence of a transgender character in a remake of a Mario game who had been in the original 20 years ago.
A prominent New York Times political reporter told CNN on Tuesday night that the Trump campaign would want to coordinate its messaging with Sen. J.D. Vance, saying she thinks the campaign is "perfectly happy" to keep Vance in an "attack dog" role.
Vance (R-OH) has recently called for “the left” to tone down its political rhetoric following a second plot to assassinate Trump, and said there needs to be a “reduction in the ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric.”
“We cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist, and if he’s elected, it is gonna be the end of American democracy,” he said.
Maggie Haberman joined Anderson Cooper to discuss what appear to be conflicting messages in the Trump orbit. Cooper played a supercut of Trump repeatedly calling Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats "fascists" and tried to make sense of Vance's comment calling for the left to avoid such rhetoric.
"The 'fascist' thing — that just seems such an obvious thing that Trump says. You would think, I mean, he knows that. You would think he would coordinate at least his statements with the Trump campaign a little bit."
But Haberman said the Trump campaign is probably A-okay with Vance's statement.
"I don't think the Trump campaign is unhappy at all with what J.D. Vance is saying," said Haberman. "I think that we have seen for a long time that when Trump is called something, he tends to say it back to whoever has said it to him. And I think the Trump campaign is perfectly happy with the role that J.D. Vance is playing as an attack dog."
If the campaign was unhappy, she said, Vance would not continue doing so. The campaign takes no issue with Vance''s promotion of a racist and baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
"That gets to a topic of immigration, which is what they want to be talking about," Haberman said.
And when it comes to the assassination attempt and incendiary rhetoric, she expects neither side will stop attacking the other.
"It has become useful for the Trump campaign to say it," she said.
While Trump is trying to "project strength" and as "somebody who can live through anything" following the second plot on his life, his campaign appears to be less confident.
"I don't think his campaign feels especially solid right now, security-wise," said Haberman, later adding that Trump met with the acting head of the Secret Service on Monday.
At that meeting, she said, Trump questioned whether he can continue to golf. The Secret Service head said it would require additional resources to keep him safe.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has repeatedly defended his promotion of a viral internet hoax that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating their neighbors' dogs and cats, by saying that he's just passing along what constituents have said.
But Vance swatted away a question from a CBS News reporter, who pointedly asked whether he should have done more due diligence about the veracity of constituent claims.
"A woman who was behind an early Facebook post about the Haitian migrants in Springfield has now apologized for spreading false rumors," said reporter Katrina Kaufman at a Wisconsin Trump rally. "You say you have a responsibility to share what your constituents tell you, but don't you also have a responsibility to fact-check them first?"
"Well, I think the media has a responsibility to fact-check the residents of Springfield, not lie about it," said Vance.
The rumors about Haitian migrants eating people's pets have also been promoted by former President Donald Trump. In the days since the conspiracy theory surfaced, schools and other community gathering places have been evacuated due to a series of bomb threats, some of which Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has said came from a single unspecified country.
