Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance told supporters Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris was putting the country on a "path to slavery."
During a rally in Sparta, Michigan, Vance claimed Harris was "trying to make us buy more and more Chinese-made electric vehicles."
The candidate argued that his presidential running mate, Donald Trump, wanted Americans to "buy more cars in Michigan, not in some foreign country."
"Kamala Harris wants to ship everybody's job off to China and then turn them into welfare dependents," he insisted. "That is not a path to prosperity, that is a path to slavery, and it's what Kamala Harris has been doing for three and a half years."
According to Reuters, fact checks determined that Harris was "a descendant of both slaves and slave owners."
The Atlantic noted that "the overwhelming majority of African Americans have white male ancestors, largely because of white male slave owners who raped Black female slaves."
News that podcaster Joe Rogan recently heaped praise on Vice President Kamala Harris and publicly mocked former President Donald Trump shocked political pundits who say it foretells problems for the Republican presidential nominee.
Rogan Monday dropped the latest episode of his eponymous interview show in which he talks at length about Harris' and Trump's campaigning prowess.
"Amazing job," Rogan said of Harris. "She's nailing it."
Rogan specifically praised Harris for baiting Trump into talking about his crowd sizes at the presidential debate on ABC News last Tuesday.
"Oh my God, this is Jiu-jitsu, where she's like 'If you go to his rallies, his crowds are boring," Rogan said. He then transitioned into an imitation of Trump.
"My crowds are the best crowds — I have the number one crowds," Rogan's mock-Trump said. Then Rogan added, "He couldn't help himself!"
Former NBC Universal executive Mike Sington shared on X the clip from "The Joe Rogan Experience" and started a social media uproar.
Tim Fullerton, Democratic strategist for former President Barack Obama, said the podcast's praise for Harris spelled bad news for Trump.
"This is a huge problem for Donald Trump," Fullerton wrote. "If Joe Rogan turns on him and starts praising Kamala Harris like he is here - Trump is toast."
Victor Shi, a youth organizer for Harris' presidential campaign, argued the comment would give his candidate's campaign a boost by reaching a key voting bloc.
"This is really good & big," Shi wrote. "Joe Rogan, who reaches a lot of young Republican men, just said Kamala Harris is 'nailing it.'"
The Lincoln Project, the outspoken political group of never-Trump Republicans, mocked the former president with a reference to his recent Truth Social post condemning Taylor Swift, the singer-songwriter who has thrown her support behind Harris.
"I HATE JOE ROGAN Trump tweet incoming any minute," they wrote.
“She’s nailing it.” Joe Rogan raves about Kamala Harris’ campaign and debate performance, and he mocks Donald Trump. (Video: The Joe Rogan Experience) pic.twitter.com/tnAWPnZlFM — Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 17, 2024
A supporter of former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that children were "terrified" because schools were putting "litter boxes in the bathrooms."
Ahead of a rally in Flint, Michigan, RSBN host Titus Smith spoke to a woman who said she supported Trump to be "the voice for our children."
"You can't even protect them at school," the woman asserted. "These kids are terrified."
"They have more put into litter boxes in the bathrooms and everything else, instead of teaching our kids," she continued. "It's scary what's happening."
The Trump supporter revealed that her children did not want to vote "because they're so afraid of what people are going to think of them."
"They are afraid of politics, completely afraid, because they don't want to upset anybody," she said. "They want to vilify you and make you feel if you say something, what you believe to be true, what you know to be true, that you are the problem."
In 2022, at least 20 Republican politicians falsely claimed that schools were accommodating students who identify as cats by installing litter boxes.
"What's most provocative about this hoax is how it turns on two key wedge issues for conservatives: educational accommodations and gender nonconformity," Harvard University research director Joan Donovan told NBC News.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) blamed former President Donald Trump for undermining families' access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).
At a press conference on Tuesday, Duckworth promoted a bill that would establish a nationwide right to IVF and lower costs for the procedure.
Duckworth noted that she used IVF treatments to start a family after being injured in combat.
"It's a miracle, because after ten years of struggling with infertility, after being wounded in combat, I was only able to have my girls through the miracle of IVF," she explained. "But now, thanks to Donald Trump, that right to get reproductive care is at risk for millions of women across this great nation."
"Look, I doubt that Donald Trump even knows what the acronym IVF stands for," she continued. "Heck, I'm not even sure half the time that he can spell IVF."
"But, you know, despite the incoherent, delusional, and frankly embarrassing ramblings that came out of his mouth last week, he is the reason that IVF is at risk in the first place."
Duckworth discounted Trump's recent claim that he would require insurance companies to cover IVF treatments if reelected.
"What women don't need is a man who is found liable for sexual abuse controlling what we can or cannot do with our bodies," she said. "What we don't need are politicians who have sworn fealty to a convicted felon treating us like we are the criminals."
"All I'm asking of them is to simply support this bill that could represent millions of women's only chance of starting a family," the lawmaker added.
"The View's" co-host Whoopi Goldberg called out Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) for trying to blame Democrats' rhetoric for the latest attempted attack on Donald Trump.
According to the two Republican running mates, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are responsible for the latest alleged attempt on Trump's life, even though the would-be shooter has shown no discernable political ideology, as he voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and was supportive of Republicans Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy in 2024.
"J.D., clearly you have not been to one of your boss' rallies," Goldberg said. "I mean, he has been inciting violence since 2016, telling them to beat up hecklers, threaten to shoot looters and migrants."
She then noted that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama never blamed Republicans when gunman opened fire on the White House during their tenures.
"You have to really take a look in a mirror to see the reflection," Goldberg demanded of Vance. "So, quit blaming folks until you decide to take a look at what's coming out of your mouth."
Sunny Hostin complained that they should reframe the conversation and distinguish between rhetoric and fact.
"It is fine for you to say Donald Trump's plan is not a conceptual plan, it's 'Project 2025,'" she said. "That is not rhetoric. If you say something like Donald Trump started the insurrection, that is not rhetoric. That is just a fact. If you say Donald Trump is an election denier, Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Donald Trump is a twice-impeached loser. That is not rhetoric."
Sara Haines agreed, calling the difference "fake news versus truth you're uncomfortable with."
"Let's stop this both-sides stuff because it's not correct," Goldberg insisted. "It is not both sides. It is one clear side, and you can point to many, many reports, you can point to all kinds of stuff that's been reported, you guys have to — you have to pull it back. This is not us or them. This is you got to stop doing what you're doing, J.D. and what you're doing Mr. T., because you're not helping the situation."
Fox Business host Stuart Varney ended an interview with former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam after he floated the conspiracy theory that Democrats wanted to kill former President Donald Trump.
During a segment on Tuesday, Varney asked Gilliam if Trump should change his campaign strategy after a second assassination attempt was made on his life on Sunday.
"Well, so far, the way he campaigns has not been the problem, Stuart," Gilliam replied. "It's been the Secret Service."
"So I have to sit back and ask, is this a nefarious thing that's going on within the side of the Secret Service that they're just leaving these areas open?" he continued. "Because if that's the case, then I think Trump needs to take a serious step back and hire individuals like myself and other people that I can bring in to simply do perimeter checks, and then he can campaign as normal."
The former special agent then repeated a conspiracy theory that he said he had been promoting in radio interviews.
"The Democrat Party, regardless of the rhetoric that they want, they want Trump dead," Gilliam opined.
"I'm sorry, Jonathan," Varney interrupted. "I don't think you can say that legitimately."
"I think we can say that legitimately based on the verbiage that they use, and then they cover up," Gilliam asserted. "To say that they want him eliminated, to say that they want him gone, these are words that push people forward, and then you have directors of agencies like this that come on, and they do not do the job, the simple job of perimeter security over and over and over again."
With that, the Fox Business host quickly ended the interview.
A one-time official in former President Donald Trump's administration was shut down on live television Tuesday morning by a CNN host fed-up with political "gaslighting."
Former senior White House advisor Matt Mowers faced off against anchor Kate Bolduan and Obama administration speech writer Terry Szuplat in a heated discussion about unacceptable rhetoric — and who was guilty of it.
"You still have Vice President [Kamala] Harris's campaign saying that [Project 2025] is a danger and threat to democracy and Donald Trump's subscribes to every word in it," Mowers argued. "It's the type of lies and gaslighting that does drive people's to start saying, 'Maybe I have to take my own hands' and that is the problem we have—"
"But Matt," Bolduan interrupted Mowers to speak over him, "Talking about gaslighting is exactly what I feel has been happening on our air."
Moments earlier, Bolduan had interviewed Trump campaign surrogate Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and grilled him on his belief that Trump's false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio did not constitute dangerous rhetoric.
"Donald Trump does not have a rhetoric problem," Donalds asserted.
"Even Republicans who support him and are voting for him this election have basically begged him to tone it down," Bolduan replied.
When Bolduan replayed a clip from the Donalds interview and asked Mowers the same question, she received a similar answer.
"I'm not saying both parties shouldn't calm down," Mowers said. "But if you look at from the perspective of what Byron Donalds, what J.D. Vance are saying... the only candidate who has now successfully survived two assassination attempts is Donald Trump."
Trump indeed appears to have been targeted by two gunmen over the past two months — the first Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was shot dead after an attempt on July 13, and suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old arrested on federal gun charges after shots rang out on the former president's Palm Beach golf club on Sunday.
"Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again," Harris said in response to a ProPublica investigative report. "Now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump's actions."
This is the statement Mowers equated with Trump's recent commentary on Harris after the apparent assassination attack.
"Under Comrade Kamala Harris, the Border will be WIDE OPEN and there will always be more people coming in, many of them terrorists and criminals, than jobs available," Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. "KAMALA IS KILLING BLACK AND HISPANIC HERITAGE, SHE IS KILLING THEIR LEGACY AND THEIR RIGHTS."
Prompted by Bolduan, Szuplat joined the conversation to criticize Mowers, Vance, Donalds and Trump for, as he saw it, casting blame without considering the consequences of their own words.
"This is exactly what we just heard, it's exactly what I'm getting out," Szuplat said. "If all anyone does is get up and blame other people for this situation that we're never going to get out of this."
Szuplat didn't weigh in on political lines — but his advice on how to tone down political rhetoric targeted multiple tactics commonly deployed by Trump.
"We can stop...describing fellow human beings as animals," Szuplat said. "We can stop referring to fellow Americans who disagree with us as the enemy...who need to be crushed, who need to be destroyed."
CNN's Kate Bolduan confronted Trump campaign surrogate Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) on Tuesday as he demanded that the Kamala Harris campaign tone down its criticisms of former President Donald Trump — while accepting zero responsibility for Trump's own role in inflaming political tensions around the country.
"In terms of rhetoric, do you think Donald Trump, that the Trump campaign — do you think they have a problem with rhetoric as well?" asked Bolduan.
"No, I don't," said Donalds. "I think especially in light of the fact that there has now been a second assassination attempt on the life of President Trump, I do not believe so."
He went on to claim there are "radical elements in the Democrat Party" driving the violence — despite the fact that the shooter appears to have been a former Trump supporter — and said by contrast, "What Donald Trump has been talking about is we're going to fix our borders, we're going to have a great economy again, we're going to get out of these conflicts, we're going to make America great again, that is his rhetoric."
He added that there was "no moral equivalency" with the "nastiness" from Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign.
Bolduan was visibly incredulous as he spoke.
"I think any serious person would also say, Congressman, that Donald Trump is a source of heated and dangerous rhetoric over months and years," she said. "I mean, even Republicans who support him and are voting for him this election have basically begged him to tone it down."
She specifically referenced Trump and J.D. Vance's lies that Haitian migrants are eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio, adding, "You've got the mayor ... saying, you guys need to tone it down because we now have bomb threats on schools in our area."
"Nobody wants a bomb threat or anything like that," said Donalds, before immediately defending Trump and Vance's incitement of immigrant hatred, saying Vance is just "talking about things that his constituents have brought to him."
By contrast, he complained that Harris is going too far by mentioning that Trump said there would be a "bloodbath" if he isn't elected or that there were "very fine people on both sides" during the Charlottesville neo-Nazi demonstrations in 2017, asserting she "lied" about these things.
"You can talk about a long list of lies," shot back Bolduan. "We could walk through it. I don't think it is to the benefit of voters right now for me to walk through to remind them of the lies that Donald Trump has told in the past. Case in point, eating dogs and eating dog and pets, or lots of other things."
CNN political analyst Ana Navarro got into a spirited clash with Republican strategist Lee Carter on Tuesday about the role that political rhetoric is playing in the current climate of violence in the United States.
During the discussion, Carter echoed the Trump campaign's argument that labeling former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy directly inspired the two recent assassination attempts on him.
Navarro, however, was quick to reject this line of thinking and pointed out how Trump's rhetoric had led directly to violence over the past eight years.
In dissecting the rhetoric, Navarro compared Trump to a "Hurricane Category 5" whereas his Democratic opponents were just "Category 2."
"Right now because of [Trump's] rhetoric, because of what he said in that debate, there's been 33 bombing threats in Springfield, Ohio," she said. "That would not have happened but for this false conspiracy theory being spread... and those Haitians in Springfield, Ohio and those students who are the victims of these threats and everything that's going on there don't have 24-7 Secret Service!"
Carter responded by saying she's "not here to debate whether Trump's rhetoric is causing its own set of problems" but was only focused on rhetoric that purportedly led to the attempts on Trump's life.
" Joe Biden said that it was not just Donald Trump but also his supporters who were a threat to democracy!" she complained.
In fact, Trump has repeatedly called rival Kamala Harris a "Marxist," a "communist," and a "fascist," and has also accused immigrants of "poisoning the blood" of the United States in a line that directly echoes writings Adolf Hitler made about Jews.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough predicted that Donald Trump would cash out his Truth Social stock and wreck the company to pay off his staggering debts.
New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig appeared Tuesday on "Morning Joe" to discuss their new book, “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” and they concluded with a look at the Republican presidential nominee's current financial situation.
"He stands to make, even with his Truth Social stock plummeting, doesn't he stand to make a billion or two dollars if he decides to sell in the next few weeks?" Scarborough said.
Trump has vowed not to sell off his shares in Trump Media, Truth Social's parent company, when a lockup provision expires as soon as this week, but Craig said his debt situation puts him under great pressure to divest.
"First of all, the stock has been falling, so that's a real question mark," Craig said. "If he sells, it could crush the company. But these are a lot of unknowns. You know, the other thing we've seen him doing, he's hawking sneakers, he's hawking Bibles. These are licensing deals, they're not going to bring in a lot of money.
"We have to remember, Donald Trump lost a lot of the licensing deals that he struck when he decided to run for president back in 2016. Now he's facing potentially crushing fines, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. Just think of the New York attorney general's case. We don't know how it'll play out, that case is on appeal. That bill could be coming due."
Scarborough said there were too many reasons for Trump to dump his shares.
"I do think he'll most likely sell the stock," Scarborough said. "It might crush the company, but with the expenses, if he could get a billion, $2 billion out of that, that'll certainly – that will – you have to sell a lot of sneakers to get a billion or two dollars."
A conservative columnist has just two words for Donald Trump's and Sen. J.D. Vance's attacks on liberal rhetoric they blame for two recent attempts on the former president's life.
"This whole thing has gotten," Jonah Goldberg said on CNN Tuesday morning, "really dumb."
Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, made this assessment just hours after Vance and Trump tried to thread the needle of condemning Democrats' political rhetoric even as they face blame for spreading discord with fake stories about immigrants eating pets.
Vance Monday night effectively argued the proof was in the pudding, that liberals must be at fault because "no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris."
When anchor Kasie Hunt asked Goldberg what he thought of this argument, the columnist burst out laughing.
"Vance has a gift for phrasing things in such a way as to enrage the very people he's claiming to try and calm," Goldberg said. "I don't find this a difficult conversation to have, I find it a difficult conversation to listen to. I think this whole thing has gotten really dumb."
Goldberg lambasted Vance and Trump for an argument, which the former president made on Fox News Monday night. "It's being aimed at the wrong person," the columnist opined.
"Trump thinks it would be better placed at his enemies because they're the ones that will destroy the country," Goldberg said. "That's really a stupid position to take."
Ultimately Goldberg said he did not believe politicians engaging in political rhetoric should face blame for "the actions of madmen," arguing the reasons behind Thomas Matthew Crooks' attempt on Trump's life in Pennsylvania on July 13 remain unknown.
Crooks, 20, was shot dead by Secret Service and only a few scant clues to his political beliefs have since surfaced.
In contrast, suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old arrested in Florida on Sunday and charged with breaking federal gun laws, has been vocal about his support for Ukraine and his disappointment with Trump, the candidate for whom he voted in 2016.
"The one from Butler, it's kind of a black box still," Goldberg said. "In a country of 337 million people, I could talk right now about how vests have no sleeves and make someone violently angry. We cannot order on our entire political system around that."
An MSNBC host and two guests shredded former Donald Trump and his new business partner late Monday following the former president's announcement earlier in the night that he was launching his own cryptocurrency exchange platform.
Trump announced during a livestream on X that he, along with a family friend, some of his sons and crypto enthusiasts were launching World Liberty Financial. Trump said his sons got him interested in crypto.
“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Trump said. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”
The news caught the attention of MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, who noted on her show, "The 11th Hour," that Trump has "changed his tune" since calling cryptocurrency a "scam."
Zeke Faux, an investigative reporter at Bloomberg, told Ruhle that while the "details are pretty scant at this point" — "shocking," Ruhle deadpanned — Faux said he has looked into Trump's new business partner.
A giddy Ruhle seized on Faux's comment, and noted the partner, Chase Herro, describes himself as a "dirtbag."
She then played a devastating clip of Herro and encouraged viewers at home to "turn up the volume."
In the YouTube video, Herro is driving as he says, "You can literally sell s--- in a can, wrapped in piss, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story is right. Because people will buy it. And that is what is going on in the crypto space."
Herro later adds, "All I'm saying is you have the ability to make a f---ton of money right now."
Ruhle turned back to her guests and jabbed the former president over his choice of new business partner, as Faux laid out what he called Herro's "very weird resume."
"He was a weed dealer. He went to prison. He started getting into online marketing. One thing I found he was selling was colon cleanses," laughed Faux and Ruhle.
"So he's not full of s---. Oh!" laughs Ruhle, apologizing. "Sorry, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Excuse me. Apologies."
Most recently, added Faux, Herro has been selling a $149-a-month "get-rich-quick club."
"And now he's Trump's crypto guru," said Faux.
Ruhle chimed in that Trump's son Barron learned some of his cryptocurrency knowledge from Martin Shkreli, a hedge fund co-founder who served five years in federal prison after being convicted of securities fraud.
"This is funny but it's not. Cryptocurrency is ... a very dark place. There are huge positives and huge unknown negatives," she said.
Tim O'Brien, senior executive editor at Bloomberg, told Ruhle that, "Like everything around Trump, it's tragiccomic."
"It is funny because it's absurd. And it is funny because it seems on its face to be such a transparent scam," he said. "But it's also tragic because Trump is using the public media and the platform he's on to perpetrate a carny act."
O'Brien said that, if Trump is re-elected, he'll then have great sway over the crypto market — and he and his children could profit "massively."
"He doesn't bat an eyelash at it because it's in keeping with who he's been for decades," said O'Brien.
Ruhle then laid out why she believes Trump's latest announcement is "so much more dangerous" than his other business ventures. Trump can become the next president and make a "fortune" off crypto — particularly as he would get to decide who gets to be the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A presidential historian accused a Republican strategist on CNN on Monday night of trying to lay a trap during a heated discussion over the role political rhetoric played in the second assassination plot against former President Donald Trump.
The tense discussion devolved into shouting multiple times on CNN's "NewsNight" with host Abby Phillip.
Tim Naftali joined the panel along with Republican strategist Scott Jennings, who served in George W. Bush's presidential campaigns.
Naftali kicked off the discussion by contrasting comparisons between 2024 and 1968, a year in which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June, and President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew from the presidential race in March.
"There's no parallel to 1968," said Naftali.
He noted the House passed the Fair Housing Act following MLK's assassination, a pillar of the Civil Rights Act, because of a bipartisan majority.
"The country came together," he said. "The elites of both parties recognized that we were on a knife edge and they did the right thing. What's unprecedented today is the inability of our elites to come together and realize that there's a red line that we're crossing. And that's the difference."
Naftali said that inability is what makes 2024 "dangerous." He also noted there's a "lack of seriousness in politics today that was not true back then." While many lawmakers of that era fought fascism together, he said he doesn't believe a sense of common purpose exists in 2024.
Naftali later said he decried "too much hate speech" in America — a statement Jennings honed in on.
"Give me an example," interjected Jennings. "What do you mean by hate speech? Because I want to specifically know. Because I think I know what it is. But I'm interested in what you think about this. Because I agree with you. I do think we have too much hate speech. Give me an example."
When Naftali pointed to the term "vermin" to describe political opponents, Jennings fired back, "So you think it's Trump's fault that he got shot."
"Scott, I won't step in that trap," said Naftali, trying to keep his cool. "That's not what I said. There's no place in this country for violence. But let's be honest about why we have so much tension in this country. When you dehumanize people you are using the rhetoric of the '30s. I'm not going to say which country in the 30s. But when you dehumanize people, you make it easier for disturbed minds to do the wrong thing."
Later in the clip, as Jennings tried to list out attacks from Democrats that Trump represents a threat to democracy, Naftali tried to interject and rebut the claim, leading to shouting.
"No, no, no! Why don't I get to finish?! Everybody gets to finish," yells Jennings.
"The constitution won't exist. There will be a bloodbath. He's going to be a dictator. When you effectively radicalize millions of people into believing that if an electoral outcome doesn't go our way, their no longer going to be living in the country they thought they were, what do you expect to happen?"
