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Buttigieg Praises Harris’s Focus on ‘People’s Families’ – Slams Vance’s ‘Childless’ Attack
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg took aim at Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate JD Vance, destroying his attack on “childless” Democrats, which he had described as the “future” of the Democratic Party.
In a wide-ranging CNN interview Tuesday night (videos below), Buttigieg criticized Vance’s “obvious interest in power,” highlighting his switch from being extremely anti-Trump to joining the convicted felon’s run for the White House. He also mocked Trump’s apparent attempt to withdraw from an ABC News debate now that Kamala Harris is the Democrats’ de-facto presidential nominee.
CNN host Kaitlan Collins played a 2021 clip in which now-Senator Vance had told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, “It’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
Collins noted that Buttigieg now has kids and Vice President Harris is a step-mother.
“The really sad thing is, he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Secretary Buttigieg responded, referring to his husband with whom he is now raising twins. “He couldn’t have known that but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”
RELATED: Harris Defines Campaign in Roaring Wisconsin Rally: ‘People First’ vs. ‘America First’
“And it’s not about his kids, or my kids, or the vice president’s family,” Buttigieg continued. “It’s about your family, people’s families, whose well-being will depend on whether we go into a future led by somebody like Kamala Harris, who is focused on expanding the prosperity, the freedom, the well-being of our families. And by the way, especially if you have kids and you’re worried about climate, choosing between a party that has a plan on climate that creates jobs, and a party that still calls it a hoax even as we went through the hottest day in world history. Or do you want your children to grow up in a country defined by a return to the chaos and recrimination and cruelty that was the hallmark of the Trump era?”
Buttigieg: I mean the really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey. He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children pic.twitter.com/lFHV44ONPp
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 24, 2024
Buttigieg also called Donald Trump’s decision to add the Ohio Republican Senator to the ticket “regrettable,” while mocking Vance’s flip flop from anti-Trump to Trump running mate.
He told Collins, “the choice of JD Vance is a regrettable choice, because he’s somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Donald Trump is, and he has not explained any reason other than, of course, his obvious interest in power.”
Buttigieg said Vance’s “whole identity is that he is connected to Appalachia, a place that is being hurt so profoundly by the opioid crisis. So the fact that he didn’t just refer to Donald Trump as an idiot, though he did, didn’t just say all kinds of things about how he was terrible, but compared Donald Trump to opioids – that is literally the darkest, most negative thing someone connected to Appalachia could possibly say about a politician. And that was in public, right? In private, he was comparing him to Hitler, reportedly. He has yet to explain why his opinion would be any different other than his own search for power.”
READ MORE: Eight Years Ago JD Vance Wondered How Many Americans Donald Trump Had ‘Sexually Assaulted’
Buttigieg: Vance is a regrettable choice because he is somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Trump is. And he is not explained any reason other than of course, his obvious interest in power, why he changed his mind pic.twitter.com/lATZRqVj1G
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 24, 2024
Collins, noting Trump has claimed he will debate Harris, but not in the previously-agreed ABC News setting, also asked Buttigieg if he thinks Trump is “scared” to debate Vice President Harris.
As she acknowledged Trump agreed to debate Harris, possibly more than once, Buttigieg interjected, saying: “only after backing out of the debate he already agreed to, though, right?”
“I think the interesting thing about this is, what changed,” Buttigieg asked, “from when he said he was ready to do an ABC debate and when he now says he’s not? ABC didn’t change. Donald Trump didn’t change. But there’s a new candidate and clearly he hesitates to debate her on the exact same terms that he thought to be okay.”
Asked why he thinks Trump is “scared” to debate Harris, Buttigieg replied, “I think she is going to be so effective.”
“And she’s going to lay bare his inability to talk about anything but himself and his past. I think what you’ll see is two things that I’m ready for, excited for Americans to see. Yes, the contrast, the way as she laid out very powerfully, she as a prosecutor who has defended people from people like Donald Trump, [she’s] gonna remind everybody about that record, but also a contrast in governing records.”
“She’s going to be I think, very effective in reminding Americans that on issue after issue, they already agree with us, they already agree with her and Democrats. Americans agree with Democrats and disagree with Donald Trump, on taxes and his agenda of tax cuts for the rich. They agree with Kamala Harris, Democrats, and disagree with Donald Trump on his removal of the right to choose in this country. And gun violence, marriage, you can go on down the list. I think she’s very well-positioned to remind Americans of that fact.”
Collins: You think Trump is scared to debate her?
Buttigieg: Afraid, yeah
Collins: Why?
Buttigieg: Because I think she is going to be so effective and she’s going to lay bare his inability to talk about anything but himself.. pic.twitter.com/dKYXI89OGS
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 24, 2024
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: Harris Super PAC Picks Up $7 Million Donation From Megadonor Who Demanded Biden’s Exit
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
