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quarta-feira, 31 de julho de 2024
Trump questions Kamala Harris' race during NABJ convention
1h ago
20.09 BST
Summary
of Trump's NABJ interview
Donald
Trump’s NABJ interview shocked the audience and ended up being cut short,
apparently by his team. Here are some of the things the former president
claimed in the heated Q&A:
He claimed that he has been the “best
president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln”, adding that a “Black
job” is “anybody that has a job”.
He questioned Kamala Harris’s ethnicity,
saying: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian
heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she
happened to turn Black.”
He refused to condemn the white police officer
who shot and killed 36-year-old Sonya Massey, a Black woman, in her home in
Illinois, saying: “Sometimes very bad decisions are made. They’re not made from
an evil standpoint.”
He repeated the abortion lie that Democrats
are allowing abortions in the ninth month, saying: “They’re allowing the death
of the baby after the baby is born.”
In response to what he would do on his first
day in office, he said that he would “close the border” and “drill, baby,
drill”.
Throughout the interview, which appeared to
have been ended by his team after 40 minutes, Trump’s responses drew multiple
gasps and shouts from the crowd.
Israel has all but declared war in the Middle East – a conflict it cannot hope to win
Israel
has all but declared war in the Middle East – a conflict it cannot hope to win
Simon
Tisdall
The killing
of Hamas’s political leader has raised tensions yet again. Only a ceasefire in
Gaza offers any prospect of peace
Wed 31 Jul
2024 08.17 EDT
Failure to
halt the war in Gaza lies at the heart of the latest lethal savagery in the
Middle East. The assassination in Tehran of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail
Haniyeh, will be celebrated in Israel as just revenge for the 7 October
atrocities. But Islamist hardliners in Iran and militant groups across the Arab
world will see it as further proof of their belief that the state of Israel is
a menace that must be destroyed at all costs.
And so the
hatred, the violence and the misery will continue unchecked, and will in all
probability worsen and spread. Just because this homicidal cycle is familiar
does not mean it cannot accelerate. Few parts of the Middle East – Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan – have escaped the toxic fallout of the Gaza
conflict. In Washington DC and Britain, domestic politics are roiled by the
fury and the grief. The UN’s impotence is daily, humiliatingly exposed. No one
is immune to this poison.
It would
have been preferable if Haniyeh, in common with Hamas leaders based in Gaza,
had faced trial at the international criminal court (ICC) – and been made to
answer for his crimes. That now cannot happen. Instead, Israel has once again
sought “justice” through extrajudicial murder. Only in April, a covert Israeli
strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus killed a top Iran Revolutionary Guards
Corps general – and brought the region to the brink of all-out war. There have
been numerous similar killings.
The man
overseeing these assassinations, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister
and chief architect of the continuing genocidal campaign against Palestinian
civilians in Gaza, should be forced to answer for his crimes, too. The ICC’s
chief prosecutor is trying to ensure that happens, despite US opposition. But
there is little sign it will. More likely, given the example he sets, is that
Netanyahu will himself be targeted by assassins.
Tuesday’s
almost simultaneous, reported killing of a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad
Shukur, in an Israeli airstrike in south Beirut, will help ensure the Middle
East’s downward spiral into destruction continues to accelerate. Once again,
the Israel-Hamas war is the driving factor. The attack was in retaliation for
an alleged Hezbollah missile strike in the occupied Golan Heights last weekend
that killed 12 young people.
Yet the main
reason Hezbollah is firing missiles into Israeli-held territory now is Gaza.
The organisation’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been relatively restrained
since 7 October, given the huge military resources at his disposal. Nasrallah
says cross-border attacks will stop when there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Killing
Haniyeh, a senior Hamas decision-maker and negotiator, makes such a ceasefire
even less likely, at least in the short term. Killing Shukur is another
dangerous provocation.
It is also
worth pointing out, amid the frequently overwhelming welter of daily horrors,
that two children were killed and 74 people injured in the Beirut airstrike,
according to Lebanese officials. But then again, Israeli forces have been
killing Gaza’s children with impunity for months. The UN puts the total at
15,000 dead. Two more deaths barely register (except with parents and
families).
It’s not
that Israel is blind to the broader consequences of its role in this endless,
vicious cycle. But it says that everyone else is to blame. “Hezbollah’s ongoing
aggression and brutal attacks are dragging the people of Lebanon and the entire
Middle East into a wider escalation,” a military spokesperson said. “While we
prefer to resolve hostilities without a wider war, the IDF [Israel Defense
Forces] is fully prepared for any scenario.”
The wider
war Israel “prefers” to avoid is, in fact, already raging. Israel repeatedly
bombed Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah this month after a drone attack on Tel
Aviv by Tehran-backed Houthi Shia militants. Netanyahu, whose answer to almost
every problem is extreme violence, boasted the bombing “makes it clear to our
enemies that there is no place that the long arm of the state of Israel will
not reach”. That sounded very much like a declaration of war on the entire
region. Yet it’s a war Israel cannot ultimately win.
Once again,
the Houthis say the principal reason they are attacking Israel, and shipping in
the Red Sea – attacks that have sucked the US and Britain into risky military
action – is Gaza. If there’s a ceasefire, they claim, their attacks will halt.
This is hardly radical. This is the same Gaza notional ceasefire backed, in
theory, by the US, Britain, the EU and the UN security council. This is the
same ceasefire millions of people in the Arab world, Europe and the US have
been demanding for months. This is the same ceasefire that still – still –
doesn’t happen.
Will a
humiliated Iran hit back directly over the Haniyeh killing? Will Hezbollah
escalate? Will a divided Israel, its reputation further disfigured by the
torture and alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees, plunge deeper
towards national disintegration as far-right zealots, backed by Netanyahu’s
ministers, storm army bases to free the alleged abusers? Quite possibly. No
outcome is off the table in a region where the so-called rules of the game that
hitherto prevented an all-consuming conflagration are being burned page by
bloody page.
People say
the Middle East is complicated. It is. They say there are no answers. This may
be true. But despite the rockets, Gaza is not rocket science. It’s not that
complicated. Stop the war. Stop the killing. Save the children. Agree a
ceasefire and free the hostages. And then all the other problems, while not
going away, may become just a little easier to manage.
Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign
affairs commentator
Humiliation of Haniyeh’s killing creates early crisis for Iran’s new president
Analysis
Humiliation
of Haniyeh’s killing creates early crisis for Iran’s new president
Patrick
Wintour
Diplomatic
Editor
Masoud
Pezeshkian hoped to improve relations with the west, but calls for armed
response will be hard to ignore
Middle East
crisis live – latest updates
Wed 31 Jul
2024 10.45 EDT
Avenging the
assassination of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is now Tehran’s duty as his
killing occurred while he was a “dear guest” on Iranian soil, the country’s
Supreme leader has warned in his first reaction to the killing.
Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei described Haniyeh’s killing, which Tehran views as a provocation
designed to escalate the conflict in the Middle East, as a “bitter and
difficult incident that happened in the territory of the Islamic republic”.
The episode
has plunged Masoud Pezeshkhian, the newly inaugurated Iranian president, into a
major crisis in his first days in office as he faces internal demands to
respond to what amounts to a humiliating targeting of an ally while visiting
Tehran to attend his own inauguration – even as he seeks better ties with the
west. Pezeshkhian vowed his country would “defend its territory” and make the
attackers regret their cowardly action.
Mohammad
Reza Aref, the newly appointed vice-president, said the west was complicit in
this manifestation of “state terrorism” through its silence at the actions of
Israel, whom Tehran and Hamas have blamed for the assassination.
He said:
“This desperate act was based on sinister goals, including creating a new
crisis at the regional level and challenging the regional and international
relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran at this point in time, especially at
the beginning of the ‘government of national unity’.”
The powerful
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said: “This crime of the Zionist
regime will face a harsh and painful response from the powerful and huge
resistance front.”
The choice
of Tehran, as opposed to Qatar, where Haniyeh mainly resides, or Turkey which
he regularly visited, is likely to be about more than just opportunity. It is
also a chance to show to a global audience that the IRGC cannot defend its most
prized political assets even in its own capital.
Worse still,
is the fact that Haniyeh was in Tehran with 110 other foreign delegations,
including leaders of the supposed “axis of resistance”, to attend Pezeshkian’s
inauguration, underlining to others how little protection the IRGC can, in
practice, provide to its dearest diplomatic allies.
Pezeshkian,
who is in the midst of forming a reformist cabinet, was elected partly on a
strategy of building better relations with the west, as a way of boosting the
ailing Iranian economy and lifting economic sanctions, but that already
internally controversial strategy now looks harder to follow.
The
85-year-old Khamenei had displayed his scepticism about the strategy on Sunday
when he said he would only support better relations with Europe if the
continent first changed its attitude towards Tehran. Iran’s future, he
stressed, lay with China and Russia, the policy adopted by Pezeshkian’s
opponents in the election campaign.
The
non-attendance of any Europeans at the inauguration apart from Enrique Mora,
the deputy to the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, and the EU chief
nuclear negotiator showed how relations with Europe have fallen away. Reformist
newspapers noted the absence of European leaders, or even ambassadors, at the
ceremony.
It is
striking by contrast that at the time of the election of the last reformist
president, Mohammad Khatami, in May 1997, the then Israeli foreign minister,
David Levy, suggested a momentous transition was taking place that needed to be
followed closely.
This time
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, spent an hour on the phone with
Pezeshkian on Monday, testing the waters to see if his surprise election might
mark an opening for better relations. But if there was any chance of a
diplomatic breakthrough – and there was no sign of one judging from the
read-outs of the call issued by both sides – the opportunity will have slipped
away for now. Macron had been probing to see if Iran would stop sending arms to
Moscow for use in Ukraine, an issue of muffled debate inside Tehran.
It is also
easy to exaggerate, partly based on the Khatami experience, both the
president’s powers in security issues and the extent to which Pezeshkian marked
a break with the past. After voting in the first round of the presidential
election, the reformist candidate himself told reporters he hoped his country
would try to have friendly relations “with all countries except for Israel”.
Pezeshkian
has also mocked the west’s support for human rights and its refusal to stop the
35,000 deaths in Gaza.
One of his
first acts on 8 July after his election was to send a personal letter of
reassurance to the Hezbollah secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. “The
Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people in
the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian wrote.
“Supporting the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic
Republic of Iran and will continue with strength.”
Hezbollah,
reeling from the killing of Fuad Shukr, a top military commander in the group’s
stronghold of southern Beirut, will now want to know how deep that support is
in practice.
A meeting of
the Iranian National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian
parliament will be held later on Wednesday, but already Iranian leaders are
describing Haniyeh’s death as the crossing of a red line, meaning some form of
military response is inevitable.
Inside Iran
there is no sense that Haniyeh was a legitimate target as the leader of a
movement that mounted the attack on Israel on 7 October.
The Iranian
foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, said the killing of Haniyeh
would strengthen the unbreakable bond between Iran and Palestine.
Indeed such
is the humiliation for the IRGC that voices inside Tehran are reopening
questions as to whether the former president Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a
helicopter accident, was truly the victim of engine failure or instead
something more sinister. The revival of the rumours also underlines how
official commentary on security events are disbelieved.
The last
time Israel and Iran took direct military action against one another it was
over the killing on 1 April of eight IRGC al-Quds force commanders in the
Iranian consulate in Damascus, including Brig Gen Mohammad Zahedi, the al-Quds
force’s commander for Syria and Lebanon. Iran responded with a barrage of more
than 300 missiles and drones on 13 April, the first direct attack ever launched
against Israel from Iranian soil. Then on 19 April, Israel destroyed part of an
Iranian S-300 long-range air defence system in Isfahan.
The two
sides walked across a choreographed tightrope warning one another through
intermediaries of the likely scale and limits of their reprisals. Israel said
it could have gone further such as hitting Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment
facility and its broader air defence system. Both sides signalled they were not
seeking war with one another.
But since
then other assassinations have taken place; Iran believes Israel’s right-wing
leadership is blocking a Gaza ceasefire agreement; and the conflict between
Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon has been steadily headed to the brink.
Iranian
diplomats say the crisis presents severe problems for the west in that, by
defending Israel’s security, it has muted itself in the face of an Israeli
prime minister who uses methods widely regarded as counter-productive.
Sheikh
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, who
has acted as a mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas,
vented his frustration on X, writing: “Political assassinations and continued
targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can
mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?
Peace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for
human life.”
Ironically,
both the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the defence secretary, John
Healey, are currently in Qatar. In parliament on Tuesday, Lammy said: “If we
get that immediate ceasefire, if the Biden plan is adopted, it will allow
de-escalation across the region. That is why we need to see that plan adopted
by both sides as soon as possible.”
Although he
blamed Iran for the overall escalation of tensions in the region, he will have
to ask himself if the killing of Haniyeh at this point in Tehran brings the
Biden plan or instead chaos closer.
Project 2025 director to step down after ‘pressure from Trump campaign’
Project
2025 director to step down after ‘pressure from Trump campaign’
Paul Dans
‘will be departing the team’ over potential government staffing if Trump wins
in November
Rachel
Leingang
Tue 30 Jul
2024 16.17 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/project-2025-director-trump
The leader
of Project 2025 is stepping down from his role amid a power struggle over
potential government staffing if Donald Trump wins in November.
Paul Dans,
the director of the project housed at the Heritage Foundation, “will be
departing the team”, according to a statement to the Guardian from Kevin
Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation.
The
departure could indicate the project’s work is ending or at least will not be
taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the
policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public.
“Project 2025” has become a shorthand term for its manifesto of conservative
policies, but the project includes multiple pillars designed to influence a
conservative president.
Dans is
leaving “after pressure from Trump campaign leadership” and an “ongoing power
rift over staffing control” for a second Trump administration, Roger
Sollenberger, a reporter for the Daily Beast, wrote on Twitter/X.
Dans, a
Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump
administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel
management.
In an
internal email obtained by Semafor, Dans said the work of the project “was due
to wrap” after the political parties’ nominating conventions, which for
Republicans was earlier this month.
“Our work is
presently winding down, and I plan later in August to leave Heritage,” he
wrote. “Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to
winning, bigly!”
Roberts
claims the change was always intended and followed a set timeline.
“When we
began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude
its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are
sticking to that timeline,” Roberts said in the statement. “Paul, who built the
project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years,
will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains.
We are extremely grateful for his and everyone’s work on Project 2025 and
dedication to saving America. Our collective efforts to build a personnel
apparatus for policymakers of all levels – federal, state, and local – will
continue.”
It is not
immediately clear what “winding down” its work entails, given that the policy
playbook is already written and a personnel database already compiled.
The
departure underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for
weeks attempted to distance himself from it.
Earlier this
month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who
is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said: “We are in the
process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the
left allows it to be.”
At a recent
rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project, “I don’t know what the hell
it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former
Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy
ideas, albeit with far more detail.
Democrats
have seized on the project as a stand-in for what Trump could do if he wins a
second term, bringing it up at events, in interviews and in billboard ads
around the country. They have called out some of the project’s provisions, like
further restrictions to abortion and an end to policies that protect LGBTQ+
rights and diversity.
Kamala
Harris’s campaign said in a statement: “Project 2025 is on the ballot because
Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for
Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the
American people doesn’t make it less real – in fact, it should make voters more
concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”
Susie Wiles
and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign leaders, have dinged the project publicly
and noted how it doesn’t speak for Trump. LaCivita called the project “a pain
in the ass”.
“President
Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had
nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not
be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” Wiles and
LaCivita said in a statement on Tuesday. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise
would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group
trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign –
it will not end well for you.”
Project
2025’s four pillars started with a lengthy roadmap. Alongside the document, the
group is creating a database of potential personnel for an incoming Trump
administration, as well as training them on how the government should work as
part of a “Presidential Administration Academy”. The final step will be a
presidential transition playbook that seeks to help the next president hit the
ground running once he takes office.
The
personnel piece, in particular, has led to some infighting among Republicans,
though so have policy ideas that are unpopular in a general election, like
restricting abortions. Trump doesn’t want to be seen as outsourcing any element
of his administration to an outside group. And the foundation’s bold, public
move to do so may not have endeared the thinktank to Trumpworld.
Hiring staff
after winning the presidency is always a huge undertaking, but if Trump and
Project 2025 get their way, it would be herculean. Both Trump and the project
want to drastically expand the number of political appointees in the federal
government, firing civil servants whose roles typically have remained
nonpartisan regardless of who is in office. Doing so would require thousands,
if not tens of thousands, more political hires who are beholden to the
president. Despite the clash, it’s likely there’s some overlap between
candidates the project has vetted and would recommend, and the Trump
administration’s picks. Many of Trump’s allies, like Steve Bannon, have praised
or supported the project.
While the
project skews Trumpian, its goals represent generational changes in policy and
how the government works that would last far beyond the next presidency.
Roberts said on Bannon’s show that the project was building “not just for 2025,
but for the next century in the United States”. The project has the left so
upset, he added, because “they’ve never seen the political right be this
organized, this focused, this rational about taking power and actually using it
appropriately, as the constitution says.”
In a
Guardian profile on Roberts earlier this month, sources noted his ability to
grab attention for conservative causes – a skill that could lead to backlash.
One critic of Heritage’s Trumpian turn warned: “It’s not at all clear to me
that the bet that Kevin is making is going to pay off.”
Dans has
appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room show to boost the project and encourage War
Room listeners to get involved as potential appointees in a second Trump
administration. He called himself a “true-blooded deplorable” and explained how
the project’s goal was about “infusing America First” in the conservative
movement.
“We need a
new culture, we need this War Room audience to come to work in Washington,” he
said in an appearance on the show last year.
This week,
he was back on the show, seeking to debunk the left’s narratives about the
project and again imploring conservatives to help staff the government.
“The swamp
isn’t going to drain itself, we need outsiders coming in to do this,” he said,
emphasizing that the project was not Trump’s, but had built a way to vet
candidates for federal roles.
In another
video that resurfaced in recent weeks, Dans said that the project had a great
relationship with Trump and that “Trump is very bought into this,” though
emphasized that the project is intended to be “candidate-neutral”.
Kari Lake wins Senate primary to face Ruben Gallego in November.
July 30,
2024, 11:47 p.m. ET4 hours ago
Kellen
BrowningReporting from Phoenix
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election
Kari Lake
wins Senate primary to face Ruben Gallego in November.
Kari Lake
has tried to mend fences with more mainstream Republicans after her abrasive
primary campaign for governor in 2022 roiled the party.
Kari Lake
won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Arizona on Tuesday, according to
The Associated Press, setting up a high-stakes contest in the fall for the seat
of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who is retiring.
Her victory
over Mark Lamb, the Pinal County sheriff, extends her three-year transformation
into a fierce pro-Trump firebrand. A former news anchor, she will now face
Representative Ruben Gallego, a Phoenix-area former Marine who had no
opposition in the Democratic primary.
Ms. Lake
celebrated her victory in front of supporters at a Phoenix hotel, telling them
she would be former President Donald J. Trump’s “backup” in Washington after
defeating Mr. Gallego. She brought out a thick binder, saying it was a tally of
Mr. Gallego’s “destructive voting record that is destroying Arizona.”
Though she
made overtures to building a broader coalition — calling for “disaffected
Democrats” and moderate Republicans to join her — she framed the election in
stark terms.
“This is a
battle between good and evil,” she said. “This is a battle between the people
who want to destroy this country and the people who want to save America.”
Ms. Lake led
Mr. Lamb 53.4 percent to 40.6 percent, with 67 percent of the vote reporting.
Ms. Lake and
Mr. Gallego have already spent months attacking each other. The race has been
essentially set — Mr. Lamb’s spoiler potential was the only question mark —
since March, when Ms. Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become
an independent, declared that she would not seek re-election.
Running in a
border state, Ms. Lake has accused Mr. Gallego of being a far-left radical and
favoring loose restrictions on immigration, while Mr. Gallego has blasted Ms.
Lake for her shifting stance on abortion rights and for continuing to make
baseless claims of election fraud. On Monday, he committed to debating Ms.
Lake, while she expressed doubt about the debate host — the state Clean
Elections Commission — but told reporters “our teams can discuss a fair place,
a fair platform to do that.”
After her
victory, Mr. Gallego assailed her again, saying in a statement that he welcomed
Arizonans “to join our team and help defeat Kari Lake and her dangerous plan to
ban abortion and hurt Arizonans.”
Both
candidates face questions about their ability to pull in independent voters and
moderates heading into November, though Mr. Gallego has maintained a
consistent, if narrow, lead in most surveys of the race and has a sizable
fund-raising advantage.
When Ms.
Lake ran for governor in 2022 as a political newcomer, she roiled the
Republican Party with an abrasive primary campaign. Her divisiveness and
fervent embrace of Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud helped Katie Hobbs, the
Democrat, claim victory. After she lost, Ms. Lake filed a series of fruitless
lawsuits, asserting without evidence that the election had been rigged against
her.
More
mainstream Republicans backed away from Ms. Lake as she continued her legal
fights, but they returned to her side as she began her Senate campaign — albeit
with encouragement for her to tone down the stolen-election rhetoric. She has
worked to mend fences with Republicans and keep her focus on issues like border
crossings and the economy, even as she continues her effort to overturn the
governor’s race. She is also facing a defamation suit from an official in
charge of overseeing elections in Maricopa County.
After Ms.
Lake won on Tuesday, her bitter primary rival in the 2022 governor’s race,
Karrin Taylor Robson, endorsed her in a statement.
Mr. Gallego
has sought to shed his longtime progressive label as he, too, courts Arizona’s
center. Democrats in the state have exploited Republican divisions to claim
most statewide offices in recent years, but political observers suggest that
Mr. Gallego, as an unabashed liberal, could have an uphill climb in attracting
enough of the state’s moderate Republicans to his side. He has made some
progress so far, securing endorsements from some local G.O.P. leaders and
members of the business community, and receiving contributions from longtime
Republican donors.
Republicans,
with a buffet of vulnerable Democratic senators to challenge, do not need the
Arizona seat to reclaim the U.S. Senate. Although the National Republican
Senatorial Committee has run advertisement in support of her campaign, it is
unclear to what degree the party will continue to aid Ms. Lake.
“Arizonans
must unite to defeat Ruben Gallego, one of the most radical Democrats in the
country,” Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the chair of the N.R.S.C., wrote in
a statement congratulating Ms. Lake on Tuesday.
Harris Issues a Debate Challenge in Battleground Georgia
Harris
Issues a Debate Challenge in Battleground Georgia
During a
boisterous rally in Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris challenged former
President Donald J. Trump to keep his previous commitment to debate in
September. A performance by Megan Thee Stallion energized the crowd.
Published
July 30, 2024
Updated July
31, 2024, 12:51 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election
The vice
president, speaking to thousands in Atlanta, poked fun at the former
president’s reluctance to commit to a debate with her.
The momentum
in this race is shifting. And there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it.
You may have noticed. So last week, you may have seen, he pulled out of the
debate in September he had previously agreed to. So he won’t debate. But he and
his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me. Well, Donald. I do
hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. Because as the saying
goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.
‘Say It
to My Face’: Harris Rallies in Georgia with Challenge to Trump
Maggie Astor
Chris
Cameron
Maggie Astor
and Chris Cameron
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election
Here’s
the latest on the presidential race.
Vice
President Kamala Harris challenged former President Donald J. Trump to meet her
onstage in September, responding to his backtracking about a planned debate
with a direct demand: “If you got something to say, say it to my face.”
Ms.
Harris, rallying about 10,000 supporters in the battleground state of Georgia
just over a week since the start of her campaign, highlighted her economic
record and again contrasted her time as a prosecutor with Mr. Trump’s long
history of legal troubles. Her speech at Georgia State University in Atlanta
came after a performance by the rapper Megan Thee Stallion, the latest sign of
the pop-culture momentum behind Ms. Harris.
The
Democratic National Committee said that its delegates would hold a five-day
virtual roll call starting Thursday to select Ms. Harris as the party’s
nominee.
Here’s
what to know:
Arizona
Senate matchup set: Kari Lake, the Republican firebrand who fell short in her
bid for governor in 2022, will square off against Representative Ruben Gallego
in a high-stakes contest for the seat being vacated by Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
Ms. Lake beat Mark Lamb, the Pinal County sheriff, while Mr. Gallego was
unopposed.
A
veepstakes update: How close is Ms. Harris to picking a running mate? She has
already set a busy schedule for next week, starting in Philadelphia on Tuesday,
with whoever is joining the ticket. Five people are said to remain in serious
consideration: Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona; Governors Josh Shapiro of
Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Andy Beshear of Kentucky; and Pete
Buttigieg, the transportation secretary. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina
removed himself from consideration last week.
Project
2025 resignation: The director of Project 2025, the right-wing policy blueprint
and personnel project prepared for the next Republican president that became a
political cudgel used by Democrats, is departing after the effort drew
criticism from Mr. Trump, who has sought to distance himself from the project.
The director, Paul Dans, oversaw the collaborative effort across the
conservative ecosystem led by the Heritage Foundation.
No
attempt to quiet the uproar: Mr. Trump repeated his recent assertion that
Christians will never have to vote again if they cast their ballots for him in
November, brushing aside several requests to walk back or clarify the statement
in a Fox News interview televised on Monday night. Mr. Trump’s initial
comments, to a group of Christian conservatives on Friday, were interpreted by
many Democrats as evidence he would end elections.
On the
trail: Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, held two rallies in
Nevada to start a series of campaign events in the Southwest. He used those
appearances to hone lines of attack against Ms. Harris, denouncing her as a
failed “border czar” and a “wacky San Francisco liberal.”
Dueling
ads from Trump and Harris: Mr. Trump’s campaign is running a television ad in
six battleground states that attacks Ms. Harris on immigration. And Ms. Harris
released her first ad as the Democrats’ likely nominee. It labels her as
“fearless” while leaning into her time as a local and state prosecutor.
Reid J.
Epstein contributed reporting.
Atlanta rally: Harris tells Trump to ‘say it to my face’ and challenges him to debate
Atlanta
rally: Harris tells Trump to ‘say it to my face’ and challenges him to debate
VP touts
prosecution record to cheering crowd after state leaders including Stacey
Abrams take stage to show support
George Chidi
in Atlanta
Tue 30 Jul
2024 21.46 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/kamala-harris-atlanta-rally
Three weeks
ago, the political commentariat was writing off Georgia and talking of narrow
pathways for Joe Biden to hold the White House. Georgia was a desert. Tuesday
evening, an Atlanta crowd greeted Kamala Harris like she backed up a truck full
of sweet tea to that desert.
It’s
probably too early – nine days since the president’s withdrawal and the
vice-president’s ascension – to know if sentiment in Georgia had shifted enough
to justify jubilation. But the crowd in Atlanta treated the new presumptive
presidential nominee as a reason to celebrate after months of her quieter
campaigning in the city as the vice-presidential nominee.
“As many of
you know, before I was elected vice-president … I was an elected attorney
general and an elected district attorney,” Harris said after taking the stand.
“Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type, and I have been dealing with
people like him my entire career.”
This
elicited chants of: “Lock him up!”
Harris
addressed a crowd of 10,000 who filled the Georgia State Convocation Center,
with people waiting outside for a seat. She touted her prosecution record and
referenced Trump’s criminal convictions and the findings of fraud in his
businesses.
“As an
attorney general, I held big Wall Street banks accountable for fraud. Donald
Trump was found guilty of fraud,” Harris said. “In this campaign, I will
proudly put my record against his any day, including on the issue of
immigration.”
Harris spoke
of walking underground tunnels at the California border and prosecuting
traffickers, and pledged to bring back the border security bill that was tanked
in Congress by Republicans to preserve the issue in the campaign.
Referencing
a Migos song – popular as an Atlanta group – she said: “He does not walk it as
he talks it.”
Ahead of
Harris’s appearance on Tuesday, several Atlanta voices made the case for her.
Mayor Andre Dickens noted that this was the vice-president’s 15th time visiting
the state since 2021. Harris has been in Atlanta so often that she may as well
have rented a condo in Buckhead to save money.
Harris is
expected back in the state next week, and will debut her running mate on a
seven-stop swing state tour, according to details confirmed by her campaign.
Politico reported Harris will hold the first rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Harris said she as of today has not yet picked the candidate yet.
For the last
two years, Harris has been Joe Biden’s chief campaign surrogate in Georgia,
making deliberate connections with campaign organizers and Black community
leaders, a weapon in the Democratic arsenal that Republicans have not been able
to match.
“Georgia is
on everybody’s mind,” said Raphael Warnock, the senator and reverend, to a
boisterous crowd. “And there’s a reason. Because of what you did in 2020, 2021,
everybody knows that the road to the White House goes through Georgia.”
Donald Trump
has been on his heels in recent polls, which show ground captured in the rust
belt. The former president announced that he would refrain from committing to a
debate against Harris until after the Democratic national convention, which the
senator Jon Ossoff characterized as cowardice.
“I know
about having an opponent who’s too scared to debate,” Ossoff said, harkening
back to his winning 2020 campaign against then senator David Perdue, in which
he spent 90 minutes debating an empty chair. “The candidate who is dodging
debates is the candidate who is losing.”
Stacey
Abrams took the stage at 5.33pm to thunderous chants of “Stacey!”, which Abrams
immediately turned around into a chant for “Kamala!”
“We are the
ones who put our boots on the ground,” said the former gubernatorial candidate
and voting rights advocate. She preached the virtues of a progressive
presidency on infrastructure development in the Black community, on job
creation and on the climate. She pointedly noted that Georgia’s governor, Brian
Kemp, who defeated her two years ago, took credit for new investment in solar
panel manufacturing in Georgia even as the federal government has been spurring
those investments.
“They
started with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden believing in the environment,” she
said.
Now that
Harris has replaced Biden as the presumptive nominee, the question is whether
there is time to capitalize on the administration’s connections in a state that
may still be difficult to win for Democrats.
“When we get
deep into those communities, when we are hitting apartment complexes in the
hood, when we’re places we don’t usually go, I’ll know its real,” said state
representative Imani Barnes, a Democrat representing a sprawling suburban
district in DeKalb county near Atlanta.
Barnes’
constituents range from CDC scientists to some of the poorest immigrant
communities in the state, and she can see how campaigns have to change the
language on flyers to reach some voters. “That’s how we know a campaign is
making a difference.”
Previous
appearances in Georgia by Biden and Harris have been closely vetted campaign
events filled with a curated selection of activists, advocates and party
leaders. Though the guest speakers on Tuesday were a selection of federal
officials and local leaders – with Geoff Duncan, the former Republican
lieutenant governor, stalking the edges of the press pit – that selectivity was
less evident.
“Georgia
saved the whole nation,” Warnock said. “I have a feeling that Georgia is going
to save the nation one more time.”
In her
speech, Harris sought not only to attack her opponent but to refocus on top
voter issues in Georgia, such as the economy.
“Building up
the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said. “When our
middle class is strong, America is strong. To keep our middle class strong,
families need relief from the high cost of living so that they have a chance
not to get by but to get ahead.”
She said she
would go after price gouging and hidden fees by banks and other companies, and
take on corporate landlords to cap unfair rent increases, and to cap
prescription drug costs.
“There are
signs Donald Trump is feeling” the competition, she says.
“You may
have noticed he pulled out of the debate.”
She repeated
the assertion made by her campaign in recent days that Trump is “just plain
weird”.
“I do hope
Trump will agree to meet me on the debate stage, because as the saying goes –
if you got something to say, say it to my face,” she said as the crowd
exploded.
The
convocation center at Georgia State University is a state-owned building.
Election law requires the facility to offer its use on the same terms to the
Trump campaign. Hence, Trump will appear here Saturday, offering a mark to
compare their relative fortunes even as he refuses to accept debate.
IDF charges reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners
.jpeg)
Indictment
comes as nine other soldiers appear in Israeli military court over allegations
of sexual abuse of detainee
Emma
Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem
Tue 30 Jul
2024 19.43 BST
Israel’s
military has charged a reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian
prisoners, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, as nine other soldiers appeared in
military court for an initial hearing over allegations they had sexually abused
a detainee from Gaza.
The new
indictment alleges that the unnamed soldier, assigned to escort handcuffed and
blindfolded Palestinians, used a baton and his assault rifle to attack
prisoners on multiple occasions.
He did this
even though their restraints meant they posed no threat, and he made videos of
the violence. “The accused used severe violence against the detainees he was
entrusted with guarding,” the IDF spokesperson said.
The other
soldiers detained on Monday are accused of raping and attacking a Palestinian
prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention centre so violently that he was taken to
hospital in critical condition, Israeli media reported.
His injuries
included a ruptured intestine, severe injury to the anus and lungs, and broken
ribs, the Israel daily Haaretz reported. A doctor who treated the man told the
paper that when he saw the horrific extent of the injuries, he initially
assumed they were caused by other inmates.
“I didn’t
believe that an Israeli jailer would do such a thing,” said Yoel Donchin, who
is also a professor at the Hadassah university hospital.
Haaretz
quoted him saying: “If the state and the members of the Knesset think there is
no limit to the abuse of prisoners – let them come and kill them themselves
like the Nazis, or close the hospital.”
When nine
soldiers were arrested on Monday, it prompted an invasion of two military bases
by politicians and demonstrators, mostly representing far right parties, who
were furious about the arrests and described the men as heroes.
The group
surged past police, and the IDF had to call in extra units from other areas to
restore order. An increase in threats against the Military Advocate Gen Brig
Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi prompted the military to step up her security.
At the
closed hearing on Tuesday, military prosecutors requested an extension of the
men’s detention to Sunday. One man was released without further charges, a
Haaretz reporter said, but deliberations about the other eight continued into
the night.
Protesters
outside the court objected to the arrest and chanted against the police. The
accused soldiers have been granted anonymity for at least two weeks.
Nati Rom, a
lawyer representing three of them, did not elaborate on the nature of the
alleged sexual abuse and told the Associated Press the men were innocent. The
military says it is investigating “substantial abuse” but gave no further
details.
The
detentions are the first time Israel has charged soldiers with abuse of
Palestinian detainees, but they come after months of reporting by the UN and
multiple media organisations into widespread abuse of Palestinian prisoners
held by Israel.
Many have
centred on Sde Teiman, which was set up as a temporary holding centre for
detainees to be processed when taken out of Gaza but became an overcrowded
prison. Israel has refused to allow the International Committee of the Red
Cross access to Palestinian prisoners, and human rights activists have
described it as “the Israeli Guantánamo”.
The
Association of Civil Rights in Israel has taken the government to court over
the treatment of prisoners at Sde Teiman, filing an appeal asking for the
centre to be closed over abuse. The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said in June that “all efforts” would be made to transfer prisoners out, but it
is still in operation.
Tal Steiner,
executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote in
the daily Haaretz on Tuesday: “Sde Teiman was a place where the most horrible
torture we had ever seen was occurring.”
The New York
Times documented an allegation of rape from a senior nurse who said two
soldiers lifted him up and pressed his rectum against a metal stick fixed to
the ground. A report by the UN’s Palestinian relief agency Unrwa into abuse
allegations at Sde Teiman provided a similar account of a detainee forced to
“sit on something like a hot metal stick”, who said another detainee died after
anal rape with an “electric stick”.
Israel’s
military denies “systematic abuse” has taken place at Sde Teiman. Announcing
the new charges on Tuesday, a spokesperson said: “The IDF operates and will
continue to operate out of a deep commitment to the rule of law, and complies
with its obligations according to the rules of Israeli and international law.”
A Top Hamas Leader Is Killed in Iran
Updated
July 31,
2024, 2:30 a.m. ET3 minutes ago
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/31/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas-iran
A Top Hamas Leader Is Killed in Iran
Hamas accused Israel of killing Ismail Haniyeh, who
was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. He was a key player
in cease-fire negotiations.
Farnaz
Fassihi Patrick Kingsley Adam Rasgon and Ronen Bergman
Here’s the
latest on the assassination.
Ismail
Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated in Iran, the
country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hamas said on Wednesday, a severe blow
to the Palestinian group that threatens to engulf the region in further
conflict.
Hamas
accused Israel of killing Mr. Haniyeh, who led the group’s political operations
from exile in Qatar. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly
elected president of Iran.
Mr. Haniyeh
was a key figure in Hamas’s stalled cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and
his assassination makes the prospects for a deal even more unclear.
Israel’s
military has not commented and said it does not respond to reports in the
foreign news media. In recent years it has carried out a number of high-profile
assassinations in Iran, rattling the country’s leaders and prompting a security
overhaul including the ouster of a top security official.
On Tuesday,
the Israeli military said it had carried out a separate strike on a Hezbollah
commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The target of that strike, Fuad Shukr,
was a senior commander responsible for a strike on Saturday that killed 12
children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town, according to Rear Adm.
Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman. Hezbollah and Israel
have not announced Mr. Shukr’s death.
After
Israel’s nine months of conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, the succession of
fast-moving events since Saturday has once again brought the region into
uncertain territory. Until late last week, there were raised hopes that Israel
and Hamas might finally agree to a deal to suspend a war that they have fought
since Oct. 7, when Hamas’s attack on southern Israel prompted Israel’s
devastating bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
Mediators
had also hoped that a truce in Gaza might encourage one between Israel and
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that began exchanging fire with Israel in
solidarity with Hamas in the hours after the Oct. 7 attack.
After the
killing of two senior leaders from the two groups within a matter of hours, the
calculus has again shifted. Now, the focus is on how Hamas and Hezbollah will
respond to the attacks on their leaders; how Iran will react to a strike on its
territory; and whether either reaction leads to the outbreak of a wider
regional war. An Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Syria in April led
Iran to fire hundreds of missiles at Israel.
Here’s what
else to know:
Iran is
holding an emergency meeting of its Supreme National Security Council at the
residence of the supreme leader. The commander in chief of the Quds forces, who
oversees the network of militias, is also at the meeting, according to two
Iranian officials.
Iran’s new
president, Masoud Pezeshkian, takes office facing the major security breach of
failing to protect an ally. It raises questions about the safety of Iran’s top
leaders who were in close contact with Mr. Haniyeh. The country’s supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with him on Tuesday.
Mr. Haniyeh
became the leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2006. He moved to Qatar in 2017 when he
was named the group’s overall political leader. In Gaza, he was succeeded by
Yahya Sinwar, who is considered an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which
around 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage.
In April,
three of Mr. Haniyeh’s sons were killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City.
Israel identified the three adult sons as Amir, Mohammad and Hazem Haniyeh and
said all three were Hamas military operatives.
Gabby
Sobelman contributed reporting.
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