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After a poor showing in Tuesday night’s ABC News presidential debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump said Thursday in a post to his social media platform he will not participate in any more debates with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris before the Nov. 5 election.
Former President Trump and Harris had differing proposals for a future debate. Trump pushed for an NBC News-hosted meeting on Sept. 25 and Harris’ campaign team said immediately after the Tuesday event that she wanted another debate sometime in October. Fox News had offered to host an October debate.
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But Trump put in definitive terms Thursday that he would not take part in another debate with Harris. He claimed victory in Tuesday’s meeting – which initial polls show Harris got the better of – and compared Harris’ call for a rematch with that of a boxer who’d lost.
Harris’ time would be better spent working to solve the country’s myriad problems, he said.
“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’ Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post.
“KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he added.
In her own tweet roughly an hour after Trump’s, Harris renewed her call for another debate.
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” she wrote. “We owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
In an average of three national polls compiled by 538, the polling news and data division of ABC News, 57% of respondents said Harris won the debate and 34% said Trump won. That included a Republican-sponsored survey.
Trump and conservative allies spent the post-debate period Tuesday night and Wednesday morning arguing that ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were biased in favor of Harris.
Trump and several others complained that the moderators fact-checked Trump, including on false claims about infanticide and migrants eating pets in Ohio, while not doing the same to Harris.
There will be one more debate, though — between vice presidential nominees U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a Republican, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, who are scheduled to meet Oct. 1 in New York City.
Trump debated President Joe Biden in June when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. The president’s poor performance in that debate spurred his exit from the race — and Harris’ arrival — weeks later.
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WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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