Reuters
Walz and Vance clash, politely, at policy-heavy vice presidential debate
By Steve Holland and Joseph Ax
October 2, 20247:29 PM GMT+6Updated 15 hours ago
NEW YORK, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance clashed on Tuesday at a vice presidential debate that was surprisingly civil in the final stretch of an ugly election campaign marred by inflammatory rhetoric and two assassination attempts.
The two rivals, who have forcefully attacked each other on the campaign trail, mostly struck a cordial tone, instead saving their fire for the candidates at the top of their tickets, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.
The most tense exchange occurred near the end of the debate, when Vance – who has said he would not have voted to certify the results of the 2020 election – avoided a question about whether he would challenge this year’s vote if Trump loses.
Walz responded by blaming Trump’s false claims of voter fraud for instigating the Jan. 6, 2021, mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election.
“He is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said, before turning to Vance. “Did he lose the 2020 election?”
Vance again sidestepped the question, instead accusing Harris of pursuing online censorship of opposing viewpoints.
“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.
Walz, 60, the liberal governor of Minnesota and a former high school teacher, and Vance, 40, a bestselling author and conservative firebrand U.S. senator from Ohio, have portrayed themselves as two sons of America’s Midwestern heartland with deeply opposing views on the issues gripping the country.
The rivals each sought to land a lasting blow at the last remaining debate before the Nov. 5 presidential election, arguing over the Middle East crisis, immigration, taxes, abortion, climate change and the economy.
But by and large the two men appeared intent on providing a demonstration of “Midwestern nice,” thanking each other even while they went after their respective running mates in the traditional attack-dog role for vice presidential candidates.
Vance questioned why Harris had not done more to address inflation, immigration and the economy while serving in Biden’s administration, mounting a consistent attack line that Trump often failed to deliver while debating Harris last month.
“If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle-class problems, then she ought to do them now – not when asking for promotion, but in the job the American people gave her 3-1/2 years ago,” Vance said.
Walz described Trump as an unstable leader who had prioritized billionaires and turned Vance’s criticism on its head on the issue of immigration, attacking Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to abandon a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
“Most of us want to solve this,” Walz said of immigration. “Donald Trump had four years to do this, and he promised you, Americans, how easy it will be.”
The night’s tone was a far cry from the divisiveness that has characterized the campaign. Trump has repeatedly denigrated Harris, including leveling racist and sexist attacks, and twice escaped attempts on his life. Walz had previously called his Republican opponents “weird,” and Vance came under fire for past comments disparaging some Democrats as “childless cat ladies.”
TRUMP LIVE-BLOGGING
Item 1 of 12 Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gesture as they speak during a debate hosted by CBS in New York, U.S., October 1, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Segar
[1/12]Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gesture as they speak during a debate hosted by CBS in New York, U.S., October 1, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Segar Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
The debate at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York began with the escalating crisis in the Middle East, after Israel continued its assault on southern Lebanon on Tuesday and Iran mounted retaliatory missiles strikes against Israel.
Walz said Trump is too “fickle” and sympathetic to strongmen to be trusted to handle the growing conflict, while Vance asserted that Trump had made the world more secure during his term.
Asked whether he would support a preemptive strike against Iran by Israel, Vance suggested he would defer to Israel’s judgment, while Walz did not directly answer the question.
Trump, watching on television, was posting furiously during the debate, sometimes twice a minute, on his Truth Social site, attacking the CBS moderators and calling Walz “pathetic” and “low IQ.”
A RAZOR’S EDGE
Political analysts say vice presidential debates generally do not alter the outcome of an election. That said, even a slight shift in public opinion could prove decisive with the race on a razor’s edge five weeks before Election Day.
Walz was asked about a report this week that he was not in China during the violent 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as he had previously claimed.
“I’m a knucklehead at times,” he said during a meandering answer. “I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests, and from that I learned a lot about what it means to be in governance.”
Vance, meanwhile, defended his running mate despite having criticized Trump ahead of the 2016 election.
“I was wrong about Donald Trump,” he said. “I was wrong, first of all, because I believe some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people.”
Walz also criticized Trump for his role in appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who joined the court’s decision to eliminate a nearly half-century nationwide right to abortion, an issue that has proven damaging to Republicans.
Vance, known for his deeply conservative stance on abortion, struck a more moderate tone on Tuesday, saying he did not back a national ban despite having expressed support for Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed 15-week limit in 2022. He said Trump’s view is that individual states should decide whether to limit abortion.
In a social media post, Trump said he would veto a national ban, weeks after he refused to say whether he would during the presidential debate.
Despite Vance’s having written “Hillbilly Elegy,” a popular 2016 memoir, U.S. voters have a negative view of him, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with 51% of registered voters saying they view him unfavorably, compared with 39% who view him favorably. Meanwhile Walz was viewed favorably by 44% of registered voters, with 43% reporting an unfavorable view in the Sept. 20-23 poll.
Harris was widely seen as the winner of her sole debate with Trump on Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, which was far more chaotic than Tuesday’s affair.
That square-off did little to change the trajectory of an extremely close election battle. While Harris has edged ahead in national polls, most surveys show voters remain fairly evenly divided in the seven states that will decide the November election.
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Reporting by Steve Holland in New York; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Stephanie Kelly, Allende Miglietta, Jarrett Renshaw, Kanishka Singh, Jasper Ward; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller
November 5, 20249:16 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
Item 1 of 2 Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo
[1/2]Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently interviewed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for nearly three hours, said on Monday he has endorsed the former president in the race to the White House.
Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 U.S. election in what polls show to be a tight race. Harris has got multiple celebrity endorsements.
“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Rogan said on X while posting a clip of his interview with billionaire Elon Musk, who has also endorsed Trump. Rogan said in his post that Musk made the “most compelling case for Trump.”
Trump’s recent interview with Rogan lasted about 3 hours and was released on YouTube and Spotify in late October. The two discussed a range of topics and the interview got over 45 million views on YouTube.
The former president criticized Rogan in August on Truth Social, his social media platform, after the podcaster praised then-independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has since pulled out of the race and endorsed Trump. Trump later called Rogan a “good guy.”
Trump and Harris have courted voters with appearances on podcasts, in addition to more traditional rallies and media interviews.
Spotify (SPOT.N), opens new tab said in March “The Joe Rogan Experience” had 14.5 million followers, almost triple the platform’s second most popular program. Rogan also has more than 19 million followers on Instagram and 18 million followers on YouTube.
A poll by YouGov last year found that 81% of his listeners are male and 56% are under 35 years old, a demographic that tends to support Trump over Harris.
Harris’ team had been in touch with Rogan’s program about a possible appearance but her campaign said in late October she will not appear on his podcast.
Rogan joins a list of celebrities like Musk and wrestler Hulk Hogan to have endorsed Trump.
Harris has a much bigger list of celebrity endorsements – ranging from basketball superstar Lebron James and actress Meryl Streep to comedian Chris Rock and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Superstar singers Beyonce and Taylor Swift have also endorsed her.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan
By Kanishka Singh and Sheila Dang
November 5, 20249:52 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X this year, according to a report, opens new tab by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The platform is also playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, election and misinformation experts said on Monday.
A spokesperson for X said the company’s Community Notes feature, which lets users add additional context to posts, is more effective at helping people identify misleading content than traditional warning flags on posts.
Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has curtailed content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has thrown his support behind former President Donald Trump, who is locked in an exceptionally close race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Musk’s massive reach with nearly 203 million followers helps enable “network effects” in which content on X can jump to other social media and messaging platforms such as Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and expert on disinformation. “X is a conduit from one platform to another,” she said.
At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year have promoted claims about the U.S. election that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, amassing 2 billion views, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s report.
In Pennsylvania, one of the seven key swing states, some X users have seized on instances of local election administrators flagging incomplete voter registration forms that would not be processed, falsely casting the events as examples of election interference, said Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, during a press briefing on Monday.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable government and voting rights.
Some X accounts implied “that there was voter fraud, when in fact, we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties were following the rules and … therefore only eligible voters are voting,” Hensley-Robin said.
Cyabra, a firm that uses AI to detect online disinformation, said on Monday that an X account with 117,000 followers played a key role in helping spread a fake video purporting to show Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed.
X’s spokesperson said the platform took action against many accounts that shared the video.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sheila Dang in Austin; Additional reporting by Stephanie Burnett; Editing by Lincoln Feast
By Reuters
November 5, 20244:36 AM GMT+6Updated 9 hours ago
- A person picks up a sticker while voters head to a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The top court in the battleground state of Georgia ruled on Monday that Cobb County cannot extend the deadline for counting about 3,000 absentee ballots that were sent out shortly before Election Day, handing a victory to the Republican National Committee and presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Siding with the RNC, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned a judge’s ruling extending the deadline until Friday in Cobb County, located in suburban Atlanta. The court decided that only absentee ballots that arrive by 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday (0000 GMT Wednesday) can be counted.
Civil rights groups had sued last week seeking to extend the deadline, arguing that the county violated state law by failing to promptly send out about 3,000 absentee ballots. County officials said they were overwhelmed by a surge in requests.
The Republican National Committee had argued that extending the deadline would violate state law.
“Election Day is Election Day – not the week after,” RNC Chair Michael Whatley wrote in a post on social media.
Cobb County is a large and racially diverse area in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. The county voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by 14 percentage points in the 2020 election. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020.
A spokesperson for Cobb County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state high court ordered that ballots received after Election Day be separated from other ballots and set aside. Voters who did not receive an absentee ballot or did not have enough time to mail it can vote in person on Tuesday.
Georgia is one of seven closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of the race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham
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