Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to cast his ballot for early voting in Florida’s primary election in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. August 14, 2024.
Marco Bello | Reuters
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump will paint a bleak picture of the U.S. economy in a speech Wednesday and blame it on the administration of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“It’s basically a speech on what’s going on with our economy. It’s gotten very bad under this group of people, with inflation, with the economy itself and so many other things,” Trump told reporters ahead of the speech, scheduled for 4 p.m. ET in Asheville, North Carolina.
The speech comes as Trump works to retool his campaign after President Joe Biden withdrew his reelection bid and endorsed Harris in late July.
As Harris has shot up in the polls, the solid lead Trump had over Biden has evaporated. But Trump still maintains his longstanding advantage over Democrats when it comes to which candidate voters believe would be best for the economy.
Earlier in the day, the Labor Department reported that the annual inflation rate had slowed in July to 2.9% year over year, its lowest level since 2021.
Trump’s political fortunes have benefited greatly over the past three years from the high inflation and high interest rates that have squeezed consumers. Polls show that a majority of voters believe the U.S. economy is in recession, for which they blame Biden.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks next to Vice President Kamala Harris as he delivers a statement a day after Republican challenger Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally, during brief remarks at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 14, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
While attacking first Biden, and now Harris, over inflation has worked well for Trump on the campaign trail so far, new economic data risks blunting Trump’s attacks.
Since Harris replaced Biden, North Carolina has reemerged as a key battleground state that could be in play for Democrats. Trump won the Tar Heel State in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, but his polling advantage has recently shrunk.
Harris, fueled by new enthusiasm and hundreds of millions in donations, will come to the state Friday to deliver her own speech on the economy.
But it’s unclear if Trump will stick to the script at Wednesday’s event. Trump recently veered far off topic during his more-than-two-hour interview on X with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and during an hourlong news conference at his Florida resort home Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s response to his new opponent has been in part to question her racial identity and crowd sizes, try to label her with an array of derisive nicknames and malign her intelligence.
Some of Trump’s allies have warned him to narrow his attacks to substantive policy differences or risk turning off more persuadable voters.
Donald Trump will hold a rally and speech in North Carolina on Wednesday that his campaign is billing as a significant economic address. Set in a Democratic city surrounded by staunchly Republican mountain counties, the event carries both national and local implications for the former president.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is launching a $90 million advertising effort over the next three weeks to introduce the Democrat to voters and sharpen the contrast with Trump. The media buy marks her campaign’s largest-yet investment in messaging to voters with just 2 1/2 months until Election Day in November.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the Latest:
The Democratic National Committee will offer a schedule of trainings, panels and other programming it’s calling “DemPalooza” during the party’s convention in Chicago next week. The name is a play on the Lollapalooza music festival Chicago plays hosts to every year.
The DNC said Wednesday that the “DemPalooza” events will be held daily at McCormick Place. The convention itself will take place at the United Center.
“DemPalooza” events will range from trainings on how to use organizing tools to polling briefings and skills workshops. The DNC says these programs are part of its and the Harris campaign’s efforts to organize and reach voters in an evolving media environment and provide opportunities for Democrats to take what they’ve learned back to the communities that will decide the November presidential election.
“DemPalooza” will also feature an expo with vendor booths and interactive spaces for participants to make friendship bracelets, get a “Kamala Harris” manicure, listen to podcasts or watch performances by local artists.
Vice President Kamala Harris has a perceived advantage over former President Donald Trump on several leadership qualities such as honesty, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, although Americans are slightly more likely to trust Trump on the economy and immigration.
Nearly half of Americans say that “committed to democracy” and “disciplined” are attributes that better describe Harris. About 3 in 10 say these qualities better describe Trump.
About 4 in 10 say Harris is someone who “cares about people like you” while about 3 in 10 say that about Trump. About 4 in 10 say “honest” better describes Harris and 24% say that quality better describes Trump.
Both parties are racing to define Harris as she prepares to accept the Democratic nomination at the party’s convention next week. The poll suggests she carries some of the same baggage that weighed down President Joe Biden before he ended his reelection bid but has advantages over Trump when they’re compared to each other. And Democrats continue to be much happier about her candidacy than they were about Biden’s.
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is launching a $90 million advertising effort over the next three weeks to introduce the Democrat to voters and sharpen the contrast with Republican Donald Trump.
The media buy marks her campaign’s largest-yet investment in messaging to voters with just 2 1/2 months until Election Day in November. It comes on the heels of a $50 million worth of ads booked last month shortly after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the party’s ticket.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Harris’ campaign is buoyed by a rush of fundraising since the switch, and is now moving to spend the money in an effort to counter what had been overwhelming spending by Trump and his allies in the days after Biden dropped out.
Harris’ team said the ad campaign will focus on the vice president’s personal narrative, her career as a prosecutor in California, her commitment to standing up to powerful interests, and a contrast with what it termed Trump’s “dangerous, extreme agenda.”
Donald Trump will have another opportunity Wednesday to recalibrate his presidential comeback bid, this time with a rally and speech in North Carolina that his campaign is billing as a significant economic address.
Set in a Democratic city surrounded by staunchly Republican mountain counties, the event carries both national and local implications for the former president.
Republicans are looking for Trump to focus the scattershot arguments and attacks he’s made on Vice President Kamala Harris since Democrats elevated her as their presidential nominee. Twice in the last week, Trump has fumbled such an opportunity, first in an hourlong news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, then in a 2 1/2-hour conversation on the social media platform X with CEO Elon Musk.
The latest attempt comes in the state that delivered Trump his closest statewide margin of victory four years ago and that is once again expected to be a battleground in 2024.
Aug. 13 (UPI) — Authorities in North Carolina are hunting for a convicted murderer who escaped police custody Tuesday morning as he was being transported to a Hillsborough medical center.
Ramon Alston, 30, escaped at around 7 a.m. by jumping from a transport van that had arrived at University of North Carolina Gastroenterology, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said in a statement.
He had managed to free himself from leg restraints and, with his hands still handcuffed, ran into adjacent woods.
Alston is described as a Black man with friends and family in the area.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office that serves the Hillsborough area said he was last seen wearing a gray T-shirt, brown pants and white New Balance tennis shoes. His handcuffs are connected to a belly chain.
A “massive” ground search operation has been launched in a 1-2 mile radius around the UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus, the sheriff’s office said, with residents being informed that they are likely to see a “heavy” law enforcement presence in the area.
Officers from multiple agencies have been checking outbuildings, ravines, unlocked vehicles and any area that may provide Alston with cover, it said.
“While the number one objective is to locate where Alston is, it is also imperative that we determine where he is not,” Emergency Services Director Kirby Saunders said in a statement. “Efforts will continue until Alston is in custody.”
Police are urging people in the area to keep cars, doors and windows locked.
A $25,000 has been offered for information that leads to his recapture.
Alston escaped as he was serving a life sentence at Bertie Correctional after being convicted of first-degree murder in 2018 for the Christmas Day killing of 1-year-old Maleah Williams three years prior.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign was forced to pay more than $82,000 in advance for this week’s rally in Asheville, North Carolina.
Trump is set to take the stage at Asheville’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on Wednesday after paying $82,247.60 to the city for a “last-minute” rally, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). The campaign, struggling to effectively blunt the momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris, reportedly first contacted the city about the rally on August 8.
City of Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller told BPR that $22,500 of the amount paid is a two-day rental fee for the auditorium, while “the remainder of the funds go to cover additional costs such as house support, production staff, production equipment rental, and exterior items like queue stanchions and port-a-loos.”
While the campaign paid in advance due to Asheville’s policy for short-notice bookings, Trump has a long history of failing to pay cities for billed rally fees, leaving the White House in January 2021 with at least $850,000 in unpaid rally debt. Most of the bills are still unpaid, including more than $500,000 owed to the city of El Paso, Texas.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump campaign via email on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign booked the smaller of two venues at the same complex in downtown Asheville for Wednesday’s rally. The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium has a capacity of just 2,431 people, while a larger arena next door that is not hosting Trump has a capacity of 7,200.
Trump has long been fixated on the size of his rally crowds, boasting about attendance numbers—which were artificially inflated—on more than on occasion. Well-attended rallies for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have seemingly prompted the former president to become particularly sensitive about the issue recently.
During a news conference at Mar-a-Lago last week, Trump falsely claimed to have held a rally with 100,000 spectators, while also complaining about the press going “crazy” for reporting on high attendance figures at Harris rallies.
In a recent Truth Social post, the former president also pushed a false conspiracy theory that claims images of a Harris rally used artificial intelligence to generate large crowds that “didn’t exist,” pointing to an event last week in Michigan that drew an estimated 15,000 Harris supporters.
Trump campaigning in North Carolina is likely part of an effort to secure victory in a state that has voted solidly Republican in presidential elections since the 1980s, with the lone exception being former President Barack Obama winning the state by a tiny margin in 2008.
But President Joe Biden lost to Trump in North Carolina by less than 100,000 votes in 2020 and a poll released this week shows that Harris is now tied with the former president in The Tar Heel State.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/KCSPFHEX4FGZBNDAGQUZBGRC7U.jpg "OPINION: The Alaska impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, two years later")
Twisters movie review: no winds of change blowing here – FlickFilosopher.com
The ‘Blue Walz’: How a low-key Midwestern governor shot to the top to be Harris’ VP pick | CNN Politics
Mark Kelly posts cryptic message amid Kamala Harris veepstakes speculation
Kamala Harris holding rally in Pennsylvania to introduce running mate after securing Democratic nomination
Venezuela launches probe against opposition leaders Gonzalez, Machado
Harris VP search comes down to the wire, with Dems divided over Shapiro, Walz, Kelly
At Israel’s ‘Guantanamo Bay’, protesters defend soldiers accused of abuse
EU Commissioner and RAI top management: A sticky August for Meloni
