DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and DNC Labor Council Chair Stuart Appelbaum released the following statement on the passing of AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy:
“We mourn the loss of a giant in the fight for labor rights and human rights, William ‘Bill’ Lucy. A revered Black labor leader and a steadfast ally in the battle for progress, Bill was a voice for social justice, a champion for worker freedom, and a fighter for all of us. It is with a heavy heart and fond memories that we honor his decades of advocacy and leadership.
“A lifelong coalition builder, Bill Lucy transformed the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and stood on the frontlines of change. He rallied unions, students, and community organizations to fight South Africa’s apartheid regime, marched shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and as a founding member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, he fought to increase Black representation in the labor movement. He served not just as a powerful advocate, but as an inspiration to us all.
“Bill once said, ‘There’s always been a crisis for millions of people not as lucky as we are… we have a responsibility to help them out.’ As we honor his legacy, let us follow his example and remember our responsibility to our neighbors and friends. We’re devastated by this news, and sending our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and coworkers. We are blessed to have been graced by his kindness and humanity, and he will be missed by so many. Rest in power, William Lucy.”
New $2.5M in grants to dozens of key states will fund statecoordinated campaigns
Today, the Democratic National Committee announced new investments to dozens of state parties, rounding out the DNC’s mission to deliver funding and resources to all 57 states and territories for the first time ever in a single cycle. Leveraging its record-breaking fundraising, this latest historic investment to over 30 state parties totals nearly $2.5 million in targeted resource deployment for state coordinated campaigns, the latest tranche of funding as part of the DNC’s historic multi-million dollar investment cycle-to-date. These funds, allocated to both traditionally red and blue states, will boost Democratic wins in down-ballot races. This new funding is part of the DNC’s significant, ongoing investments in state parties since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office and Jaime Harrison became Chair of the DNC.
Under Chair Harrison’s leadership, the DNC has increased its yearly investment in state parties by 25 percent and delivered the largest-ever investment in state parties from the DNC cycle-to-date as Democrats across the country continue to be energized and excited to send Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to the White House.
These newest investments include:
Targeted dollars to help Democrats win down-ballot in Republican-held states, breaking the supermajorities in the Kansas, Missouri, Idaho, Kentucky and Indiana legislatures.
Tailored investments for what is needed most for state parties and coordinated campaigns to win in states and reach key voters. For example, in Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, these investments will support GOTV activities for Puerto Rican voter engagement to win up and down the ballot.
Six-figures worth of new money to support hiring of Black, AAPI, Latino, Youth, and Native American organizers, along with organizing in Tribal reservations and communities to support various state parties’ GOTV efforts in every community.
“From the school board to the White House, the DNC is doing the work to elect Democrats to office at all levels of government. We are the only committee responsible for building Democratic infrastructure to win elections across the map, and with a new $2.5 million in grants, the DNC is delivering a multi-million dollar investment across all 57 state parties this cycle – a historic first for our committee,” said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. “These dollars will go to reaching key constituencies, beefing up organizing operations, and giving our teams on the ground the tools they need to earn every vote in the final stretch before Election Day. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and this latest investment will give us an extra boost of momentum heading into November so that we can send Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to the White House, drive Democratic victories across the country, and pave a New Way Forward in all 50 states – red, purple, and blue alike.”
“We’re thrilled to make history with this round of grant money to state parties by investing in all 57 states and territories,” said ASDC President Ken Martin. “The work that state parties do every day on the ground is absolutely essential to our mission of reaching voters where they are and electing Democrats to office every election cycle. State parties are the backbone of the Democratic Party. Today’s round of announced funding will flip seats from red to blue and will allow our state parties to out-message and out-organize for election cycles to come as we continue to fight for a New Way Forward for all Americans.”
Examples of the latest state party investments include: Florida: Florida is a priority state that we know Democrats can win. The DNC is investing over $400,000 for organizing staff, infrastructure, and tailored messaging to key coalitions. These efforts will improve Democrats’ status in the state for years to come. In total, the DNC has invested over $1 million this cycle thus far in the state.
Idaho: The DNC is investing five-figures into Idaho to help cover the state party’s relational organizing program in Tribal communities. These efforts will be critical in supporting the state party’s goal of breaking the GOP supermajority by 2030. This is the DNC’s first electoral investment in Idaho this cycle.
Louisiana: The DNC is investing five-figures into the state party to support its organizing capacity in all parts of the 6th Congressional District, the new majority-Black congressional district, to engage Black voters. This role will be essential to strengthen the Democratic base in the state and increase turnout for Democratic tickets in cycles to come.
Minnesota: Minnesota is a critical Blue Wall state for Democrats. That’s why the DNC is investing six-figures into a paid canvassing program in the state to meet voters where they are. In total, the DNC has spent roughly $630,000 this cycle thus far in the state.
Missouri: The DNC is investing nearly $100,000 to the state party to hire new organizing staff. Democrats are only two and three seats away, respectively, from breaking super-majorities in the state House and state Senate, and have a critical abortion referendum on the ballot in November. This will be the first electoral investment in Missouri this cycle.
In response to JD Vance fundraising with anti-choice extremists in Florida, including Wilton Simpson, who helped pass Florida’s draconian abortion ban and attacked exceptions for rape or incest, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:
“JD Vance has no shame — women’s lives are on the line because of the abortion bans Donald Trump made possible, but he continues to cozy up to anti-choice extremists for campaign cash. Not only is he fundraising again with Wilton Simpson, who helped pass an extreme abortion ban in Florida, but Vance is also schmoozing with MAGA Republicans who have celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade and are trying to ban abortion nationwide. Today’s fundraiser makes it clear: a vote for the Trump-Vance ticket is a vote for anti-choice extremists pushing a dangerous Project 2025 agenda to rip away our basic rights.”
JD Vance’s fundraiser today was full of anti-choice extremists, including Wilton Simpson, who helped pass an extreme abortion ban in Florida made possible by Donald Trump…
Tallahassee Democrat: “Florida lawmakers on Thursday voted to approve a 15-week abortion ban that shortens by more than two months the current window available to legally terminate a pregnancy…
“‘I think it’s a great day,’ Senate President Wilton Simpson said about lawmakers approving Florida’s most restrictive abortion regulations (HB 5) since the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision established abortion as a constitutional right in 1973…
“Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate defeated amendments that would have made exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking and mental health.
“‘After 15 weeks, that is a child. And so the argument is, should you kill a baby after 15 weeks because it was (conceived) under certain circumstances?’ Simpson said.”
Trump: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of … Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it. … Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it, and we did something that was a miracle.”
… Jimmy Patronis, who backed a draconian Florida abortion ban and railed against Roe…
Jimmy Patronis: “Today, @GovRonDeSantis took a stand for our unalienable rights by signing the 15 week abortion ban. A huge victory for LIFE during Holy Week. Thankful for the Florida Legislature and our Governor for taking a stand.”
Patronis: “Roe V. Wade was a travesty, both morally and constitutionally. Overturn it!”
…and several of Trump’s anti-choice MAGA minions in Congress.
Kat Cammack: “As we all know abortion is not health care.”
Aaron Bean: “At the United States Supreme Court on one of the most historic days, where many prayers have been answered with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
Michael Waltz: “The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was based on outdated science and a flawed constitutional interpretation.”
Life at Conception Act: “This bill declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being.”
Cosponsors include: Kat Cammack, Aaron Bean, and Michael Waltz.
Washington Post: “The [LCA] has no provisions for processes like IVF, meaning access to the procedure would not be protected. It would ban nearly all abortions nationwide.”
TRUMP DID THIS: Reporting shows that abortion bans across the country — which Trump said are “working very brilliantly” — are delaying emergency medical care and leading to “preventable” deaths.
NBC News: “A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban”
ProPublica: “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.”
“But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state…
“Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed ‘preventable,’ is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days…
“But since abortion was banned or restricted in 22 states over the past two years, women in serious danger have been turned away from emergency rooms and told that they needed to be in more peril before doctors could help. Some have been forced to continue high-risk pregnancies that threatened their lives. Those whose pregnancies weren’t even viable have been told they could return when they were ‘crashing.’”
Trump: “We broke Roe v. Wade and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly … But they’re working, and it’s working the way it’s supposed to.”
Vance’s anti-choice record includes wanting abortion to be “illegal nationally,” criticizing exceptions for rape and incest, comparing abortion to slavery, and more.
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
“During a podcast interview in January 2022, then-candidate JD Vance said he ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’ and was ‘sympathetic’ to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion.”
Newsweek: “J.D. Vance Backs ‘National Standard’ for Abortions”
Daily Beast: “J.D. Vance suggested he would support prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape and incest—and dismissed those catalysts as ‘inconvenient.’”
The Hill: “During his campaign for Senate, Vance applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and supported Texas’s ban on abortion, which does not allow exceptions other than cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
“‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ he said in 2021 when asked whether abortion laws should allow for exceptions for rape and incest.”
JD Vance: “I think that what I really think on – so first of all, the Dobbs decision, everybody knows, overruled Roe v. Wade – I think that was the right decision.”
NBC News: “Senate Republicans block Democratic bill codifying Roe v. Wade abortion protections”
“Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation led by Democrats to revive the protections of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.”
Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.
Letter Signed by Vance and Other Members of Congress: “Abortion is not health care—it is a brutal act that destroys the life of an unborn child and hurts women. Congress did not authorize HHS to extend special provisions for abortion such as these under the guise of ‘health care.’ The Proposed Rule unlawfully thwarts the enforcement of compassionate laws protecting unborn children and their mothers, and directs health care providers to defy lawful court orders and search warrants.”
The Trump-Vance ticket is in lockstep, pushing an extreme anti-choice Project 2025 agenda as their allies plot to ban abortion nationwide and rip away reproductive care.
Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”
Sean Hannity, Fox News: “So you completely agree, are in full, complete agreement with President Trump?”
JD Vance: “My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward.”
Rolling Stone: “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”
“The attacks on mifepristone and resurrection of Comstock stand out as particularly harmful proposals, but they are only two of the dozens of ways the Republicans behind Project 2025 envision restricting access to abortion and contraception if they win the White House next year. Elsewhere in the document, there are proposals to eliminate the morning-after pill from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate under the rationale that it is a ‘potential abortifacient.’”
Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’”
Politico: “Organizations including Heritage, former Vice President Mike Pence’s group Advancing American Freedom, and the Southern Baptist Convention’s public advocacy-focused Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission have worked behind the scenes over the last few weeks to distribute talking points, circulate policy recommendations and educate Republican officials and their staff about their ethical concerns with how IVF is commonly practiced in the United States.”
As JD Vance travels to Michigan today, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:
“Donald Trump gave tax handouts to the ultra-rich at the expense of working families, shuttered factories across the midwest, backed billionaires attacking organized labor, and left office with the worst jobs record since Hebert Hoover – and JD Vance stood behind it all. Now, the Trump-Vance ticket is pushing a Project 2025 agenda to double down on these failed policies with an extreme anti-union blueprint that would let Trump put hardworking Michiganders last if he gets the chance. Voters are sick of the Trump-Vance ticket’s extremism and broken promises, and are ready to cast their ballot for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz’s pro-worker economy that will always put hardworking families first.”
JD Vance is proud to stand by Donald Trump, whose disastrous record includes offshored jobs, shuttered factories, and manufacturing job losses in Michigan and across the country.
Federal Economic Data: Michiganders lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs over the course of Trump’s presidency.
MLive: “On the 2016 campaign trail in Warren, Trump pledged ‘you won’t lose one plant’ if he were elected. GM announced last year it would end production at five North American plants.”
CNN: “Trump told GM workers he could save their plant, but it’s gone for good”
“The President cast himself in 2016 as a savior for workers, taking the unusual tack of publicly pressuring corporations like Carrier into changing their plans for moving or changing production. But despite months of demands, Trump has been unable to get GM to keep jobs at Lordstown.
“Manufacturing activity in September [of 2019] fell to its lowest point in a decade. The Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Trump flipped, have all lost manufacturing jobs since June. Many of those jobs have moved overseas.”
Wall Street Journal: “President Trump’s trade war against China didn’t achieve the central objective of reversing a U.S. decline in manufacturing, economic data show, despite tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods to discourage imports.”
Detroit Free Press: “Trump, tweets couldn’t save U.S. auto jobs in 2017”
New York Times: “After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs”
Bloomberg: “The Offshoring of U.S. Jobs Increased on Trump’s Watch”
Bureau of Labor Statistics: When Trump left office, there were over 170,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than when he started.
Just like Trump — who was one of the most anti-worker and anti-union presidents in American history — Vance stands firmly against working people and has opposed legislation that protects unions.
Trump: “I know the unions. They’re dues-sucking people. They just want their dues and they couldn’t care less.”
New York Times: “Does [Trump] support unions? He has had ‘great success’ in New York building with unions and also in Florida without unions. ‘If I had my choice,’ he said, ‘I think I’d take it without.’”
Associated Press: “During Trump’s presidency, the National Labor Relations Board reversed several key rulings that made it easier for small unions to organize, strengthened the bargaining rights of franchise workers and provided protection against anti-union measures for employees.
“The Supreme Court’s conservative majority — including three justices that Trump nominated — overturned a decades-old pro-union decision in 2018 involving fees paid by government workers. The justices in 2021 rejected a California regulation giving unions access to farm property so they could organize workers.”
Politico: “Vance has consistently opposed the PRO Act, the ‘holy grail of pro-union labor reform’ that organized labor and its allies on the Hill have been fighting for over two years to get passed. … Vance’s skepticism of the PRO Act is part of a more fundamental skepticism that he harbors toward organized labor.”
Fast Company: “Vance also voted in favor of a resolution to strike down the NLRB’s updated joint-employer rule, which would have given workers more leverage when organizing at companies—like Amazon—that rely heavily on third-party contractors, by forcing both employers to participate in labor negotiations.”
Vance has praised Trump’s MAGAnomics tax handout to the ultra-wealthy, which left working families behind while skyrocketing the deficit.
Vance: “The left attacked Donald Trump for those tax cuts said they would make the deficit worse when in reality we took in more revenue because the government got out of the way on the regulatory side and the tax cuts spurred a lot of growth which means more people working, which meant more economic production which meant the entire economy was healthier… I think we have a pretty common sense regulatory and tax agenda.”
New York Times: “The 2017 corporate tax cuts signed into law by Mr. Trump have not increased government revenue … In fact, they have had the opposite effect.”
Washington Post: “For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year”
CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”
The Guardian: “They were billed as a ‘middle-class miracle’ but according to a new book Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts have helped billionaires pay a lower rate than the working class for the first time in history.”
Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.
“The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”
Washington Post: “Trump promised ‘America First’ would keep jobs here. But the tax plan might push them overseas.”
Now, the Trump-Vance ticket wants to enact their extreme and expensive Project 2025 agenda that would rig the economy for the ultra-rich (again) and risk supercharging inflation.
Vance on Trump’s plan that would raise tariffs and raise costs for hardworking Americans: “This is a fascinating proposal and we could talk for a while about it.”
Trump: “You’re all people that have a lot of money… You’re rich as hell.… We’re gonna give you tax cuts.”
Vanity Fair: “DonaldTrumpWants to Give His Favorite Corporations Another Giant Tax Cut in a Second Term: Report”
Axios: “Sixteen Nobel prize-winning economists are jumping into the presidential campaign with a stark warning: Former President Trump’s plans would reignite inflation and cause lasting harm to the global economy if he wins in November.”
The Atlantic: “Trump’s Plan to Supercharge Inflation”
In response to Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts defending the extreme MAGA blueprint that Donald Trump and JD Vance are deeply connected to, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:
“Take it from the chief Project 2025 architect himself: the MAGA extremists behind the dangerous blueprint are ‘waiting for the policymaking season’ and are ‘never going to stop’ as they continue working to give Donald Trump and JD Vance unprecedented and unchecked power to carry out their dangerous MAGA agenda. Project 2025 isn’t just ‘the conservative movement’ – it’s the Trump-Vance ticket’s playbook to gut checks and balances, ban abortion nationwide, and rig the economy for billionaires and big corporations on the backs of the middle class. Trump and Vance can’t run away from their Project 2025 agenda to take us backwards, and the American people will hold them accountable for their out-of-touch plans at the ballot box this November.”
NEW: Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts said the MAGA extremists behind the dangerous blueprint “are waiting for the policymaking season” and are “never going to stop doing presidential transition projects” while saying that Project 2025 “is the conservative movement.”
Kevin Roberts: “They exist in a policy in a political lane and a political season, and we exist in a policy lane and are waiting for the policymaking season. […] We’re never going to stop doing presidential transition projects at Heritage…”
David Gelles, New York Times: “… Did you do a disservice to the conservative movement by putting the wish list out there?”
Roberts: “No, the project is the conservative movement. We’ve got 111 conservative organizations that are part of it.”
REMINDER: Project 2025 is “undeniably a Trump-driven operation.”
Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
Trump: “There are some things in [Project 2025] that everybody would like.”
CNN: “Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved”
Politico: “Many of the authors of the blueprint are former Trump officials, and the Heritage Foundation has spent the past year-plus recruiting people to implement the plans within the administration, Scott said.”
The Week: “Many of Trump’s indicated plans for a second term fall in line with the Project 2025 outline.”
New York Times: “[Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts] told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ … The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”
Washington Post: “Trump took a private flight with Project 2025 leader in 2022”
“‘[The Heritage Foundation is] going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,’ Trump said.”
JD Vance has deep ties to Project 2025 architects, has praised the extreme MAGA blueprint as containing “good ideas,” and “has made it impossible for Trump to run away from Project 2025.”
Vox: “J.D. Vance has made it impossible for Trump to run away from Project 2025”
Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”
Vox: “Vance is on record supporting these [Project 2025] ideas. Last year, he signed a letter demanding that the Justice Department prosecute physicians and pharmacists ‘who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws.’ In 2022, he said he was ‘sympathetic’ to the idea that the federal government should stop efforts to help women traveling out of their states to get abortions. … The second controversial area where Vance is sympatico with Project 2025 is centralizing presidential power over the executive branch.”
New York Times: “Vance Championed 2017 Report on Families From Architects of Project 2025”
Axios: “J.D. Vance wrote foreword of upcoming book from Project 2025 architect”
New Republic: “Project 2025 Leader Is Overjoyed by Trump’s Vice Presidential Pick”
Vox: “Kevin Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the driving force behind Project 2025, told Ward that ‘[Vance] is absolutely going to be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.’”
Nick Corasaniti, New York Times: “[Roberts] reacted to the news [of Vance’s VP selection] ‘with a broad smile on my face’ and said that ‘privately, we were really rooting for him.’”
Politico: “[Project 2025 architect Russell Vought] told POLITICO Magazine that he is in ‘regular contact’ with Vance’s Hill office and that ‘we probably have one of the closest relationships with [Vance’s] office that we do with any Hill office.’”
Trump and Vance have repeatedly echoed extreme Project 2025 plans, which include banning abortion nationwide with or without Congress, cruel mass deportation schemes, mass firings of civil servants, and tax giveaways for billionaires and corporations.
Roll Call: “‘Dumping ground’: Trump echoes conservative ‘Project 2025’”
The Atlantic: “At the top of Vought and Dans’s must-do list for the next president: reissuing an executive order that Trump signed during his final months in office—and which President Joe Biden promptly reversed—that would allow the government to remove civil-service protections from as many as 50,000 federal jobs. The move would create a new class of employees known as Schedule F whom the president could fire at will.”
Associated Press: “Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”
Vance: “I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, is fire every single civil servant… replace them with our people.”
Rolling Stone:“Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”
“GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access.”
Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”
Washington Post: “Vance urged DOJ to enforce Comstock Act, crack down on abortion pills”
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
CNN: “Project 2025’s proposals for reforming the country’s immigration laws appear heavily influenced by those who helped execute Trump’s early enforcement measures. Former acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan – the faces of Trump’s polarizing policies – contributed to the project, as did Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of the policy advisers pushing to end certain immigrant protections behind the scenes.”
Project 2025: “Prioritizing border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation, is critical.”
New York Times: “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans”
Education Week: “Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy agenda that proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, has become a dominating force in the 2024 election campaign.”
Trump Campaign: “President Trump pledges to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and to send all education work and needs back to the States.”
Project 2025: “The corporate income tax rate should be reduced to 18 percent.”
CBS News: “Millions of low- and middle-class households would likely face significantly higher taxes under the Project 2025’s proposals.”
Washington Post: “Trump and his advisers have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law. … Trump’s advisers, though, have discussed proposals to make deeper cuts to the overall corporate tax rate, potentially to as low as 15 percent, or to use the revenue from the proposed tariffs to pay a dividend to U.S. households. Further cutting corporate taxes … would primarily benefit large firms.”
REALITY CHECK: The Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda is extreme and unpopular – Americans are ready to reject this dangerous and out-of-touch MAGA playbook in November.
NBC News: “On Project 2025… a whopping 57% of voters have a negative view of it, versus just 4% who see it in a positive light.”
Newsweek: “Project 2025’s Unpopularity Continues to Grow: New Poll”
Miami Herald: “As Americans learn more about Project 2025, they become more opposed, poll finds”
Navigator Research: “Project 2025 Has Become Significantly More Unfavorable Since Trump Attempted to Distance Himself From the Plan”
“A plurality of Americans believe Project 2025 accurately represents what Trump stands for.”
Navigator Research: “Americans oppose all the key elements in Project 2025, with the greatest concerns around health care, worker’s rights, and dismantling federal programs. Over four in five Americans oppose an array of policies proposed in Project 2025 such as ‘allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime’ … Additionally, four in five oppose ‘allowing the government to monitor people’s pregnancies to potentially prosecute them if they miscarry.’
“Americans’ overall opposition to Project 2025 increases after reading about its specific policy goals. … Three in five Americans say Project 2025 would benefit the wealthiest Americans, CEOs, and corporations.”
As Americans living abroad begin to request their ballots, the DNC and Dems Abroad are ensuring that eligible American voters living in foreign countries have all the information they need to receive and fill out their ballots in the most important election of our lifetimes. It is not too late for Americans abroad to request their ballots. Americans abroad can head to votefromabroad.org to register to vote and learn more about their options for letting their voices be heard.
From the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin there are approximately 1,625,136 people living abroad, including service members. In 2020, just 44,000 votes across Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin won Joe Biden the presidency. In fact, abroad voters made a notable difference in Georgia and Arizona during the 2020 presidential election.
“Americans living overseas understand how important this election is to America’s standing on the world stage and our strength here at home,” said DNC Acting Co-Executive Director Roger Lau. “This election was always going to be close, and the future of our country will be decided by razor-thin margins. As states begin to mail out absentee ballots, it has never been more critical that every eligible American participate in the democratic process. Voters abroad can head to votefromabroad.org to turn the page on Donald Trump’s chaos and division, and usher in a new way forward with Vice President Harris, Governor Tim Walz, and Democrats up and down the ticket.”
“For Americans abroad, the general election has begun,” said Martha McDevitt-Pugh, International Chair of Democrats Abroad. “Americans abroad can still register and we are in a sprint to register as many of them as we can before their state deadlines, and to help everyone who registered to send their ballot back on time. I’m so proud of the amazing team of Democrats Abroad volunteers who have hosted hundreds of in person and online voter registration and support events all across the world in the last two months. Together, we will again make votes from abroad the margin of victory for Harris-Walz and many others.”
Registering as an overseas voter provides voters federal protections under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) which are not available to those who register as regular absentee voters. These include:
Ballots sent 45-days in advance (earlier than most states’ absentee ballots)
The ability to receive ballots by email or online, regardless of voting state
The ability to submit a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB)
After new reporting revealed a dramatic rise in pregnant women dying under Texas’ abortion ban, JD Vance is doubling down on the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda by fundraising with an anti-choice extremist in Texas. In response, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:
“While women across Texas are dying under a draconian abortion ban made possible by Donald Trump, JD Vance is cozying up to an anti-choice extremist who attacked those standing up for reproductive rights as ‘satanic, evil, and crude.’ There is only one ticket that will protect our freedoms, and that’s Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The American people will stop the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda and will not let them take their dangerous abortion bans nationwide.”
JD Vance is attending a fundraiser tonight hosted by anti-choice extremist Barry Smitherman, who praised a draconian abortion ban in Texas and attacked the legislation’s opponents as “satanic, evil, and crude.”
Texas Tribune: “In a recent speech to an anti-abortion group on the economic impact of terminating pregnancies, Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, a Republican candidate for attorney general, said he believed many unborn babies ‘would have voted Republican’ …
“And he praised the recent passage of abortion restrictions by the Texas Legislature. Smitherman described proponents of the legislation as ‘civil and polite, but persistent,’ and characterized their opponents as ‘satanic, evil and crude.’”
Donald Trump “proudly” overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for extreme abortion bans across the country, including allowing Texas’ draconian trigger law to take effect.
Texas Tribune: “U.S. Supreme Court rules there’s no right to abortion, setting up Texas ban”
Teen Vogue: “Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Women Denied Abortions Despite Pregnancy Complications”
Washington Post: “Infant death rate spiked in Texas after restrictive abortion law, study finds”
“The law was implemented some nine months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Researchers warn the findings may foreshadow changes in other states that now ban abortion in all or most instances.
“Infant deaths from fetal abnormalities, the leading cause of death for babies under a year of age, rose by 22.9 percent in Texas in 2022 but fell by 3.1 percent for the rest of the country, the study found. Infant deaths from unintentional injuries also increased by 20.7 percent in Texas in the same period, compared to 1.1 percent nationally.”
Trump: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of … Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it. … Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it, and we did something that was a miracle.”
New York Times: 22 states across the country currently have abortion bans.
TRUMP DID THIS: Reporting shows that abortion bans across the country — which Trump said are “working very brilliantly” — delaying emergency medical care and leading to “preventable” deaths.
NBC News: “A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban”
ProPublica: “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.”
“But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state…
“Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed ‘preventable,’ is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days…
“But since abortion was banned or restricted in 22 states over the past two years, women in serious danger have been turned away from emergency rooms and told that they needed to be in more peril before doctors could help. Some have been forced to continue high-risk pregnancies that threatened their lives. Those whose pregnancies weren’t even viable have been told they could return when they were ‘crashing.’”
Trump: “We broke Roe v. Wade and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly … But they’re working, and it’s working the way it’s supposed to.”
Trump, Vance, and MAGA Republicans are pushing their extreme anti-choice Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion nationwide — with or without Congress — and are promising anti-choice extremists will “always have a seat” at their table.
Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”
Trump: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life. And it’s very important.”
Sean Hannity, Fox News: “So you completely agree, are in full, complete agreement with President Trump?”
JD Vance: “My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward.”
Vance, to anti-choice extremists: “Cultural conservatives… will always have a seat at the table in the Republican Party of this president and of this leadership…”
Rolling Stone: “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”
“[Project 2025] explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion. That law, the Comstock Act, is viewed as a de facto federal abortion ban by reproductive rights advocates and anti-abortion activists alike…
“The attacks on mifepristone and resurrection of Comstock stand out as particularly harmful proposals, but they are only two of the dozens of ways the Republicans behind Project 2025 envision restricting access to abortion and contraception if they win the White House next year. Elsewhere in the document, there are proposals to eliminate the morning-after pill from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate under the rationale that it is a ‘potential abortifacient.’”
Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’”
Politico: “Organizations including Heritage, former Vice President Mike Pence’s group Advancing American Freedom, and the Southern Baptist Convention’s public advocacy-focused Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission have worked behind the scenes over the last few weeks to distribute talking points, circulate policy recommendations and educate Republican officials and their staff about their ethical concerns with how IVF is commonly practiced in the United States.”
Vance’s anti-choice record includes wanting abortion to be “illegal nationally,” celebrating Trump’s overturning of Roe, attacking exceptions for rape and incest, and more.
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
“During a podcast interview in January 2022, then-candidate JD Vance said he ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’ and was ‘sympathetic’ to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion.”
Newsweek: “J.D. Vance Backs ‘National Standard’ for Abortions”
Daily Beast: “J.D. Vance suggested he would support prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape and incest—and dismissed those catalysts as ‘inconvenient.’”
The Hill: “During his campaign for Senate, Vance applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and supported Texas’s ban on abortion, which does not allow exceptions other than cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
“‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ he said in 2021 when asked whether abortion laws should allow for exceptions for rape and incest.”
JD Vance: “I think that what I really think on – so first of all, the Dobbs decision, everybody knows, overruled Roe v. Wade – I think that was the right decision.”
Vance: “The Supreme Court’s decision [to overturn Roe v. Wade] was a victory… We’re united in our gratitude and admiration for these devoted defenders of the unborn and for the judges, justices, and especially President Trump, whose commitment to defending the law and the constitution allowed this breakthrough after over 50 years.”
NBC News: “Senate Republicans block Democratic bill codifying Roe v. Wade abortion protections”
“Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation led by Democrats to revive the protections of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.”
Republicans who voted against include: JD Vance.
REALITY CHECK: Attacks on reproductive rights, like Trump and Vance’s anti-choice Project 2025 agenda to rip away reproductive freedoms, are wildly unpopular.
USA Today: “Americans overwhelmingly oppose the next goal of many anti-abortion activists, to enact a federal law banning abortion nationwide. By 80%-14%, those surveyed opposed that idea, including 65% of Republicans and 83% of independents.”
Axios: “Record share of U.S. voters back abortion rights and will vote on it: Gallup”
NBC News: “Abortion rights have won in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned”
Axios: “There’s widespread support for letting women obtain drugs for medication abortion from their doctor or a clinic, with 72% supporting — including half of Republicans.”
In response to Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts reaffirming that the Trump-Vance ticket is running on the extreme, out-of-touch, and deeply unpopular Project 2025, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:
“In the words of its architect Kevin Roberts: Project 2025 is the ‘largest, broadest scale’ operation for ‘institutionalizing Trumpism’ — and that’s what Vice President Harris is ‘running against.’ No amount of spin from Donald Trump or JD Vance changes their deep ties to this ‘undeniably Trump-driven operation’ to force through an extreme blueprint that would ban abortion nationwide with or without Congress, give tax handouts to the ultra-rich, and gut checks and balances. Trump himself says there are things in their agenda that ‘everybody would like,’ while Vance has lauded Project 2025’s ‘good ideas.’ The Trump-Vance ticket and Project 2025 would put all of our rights at risk, and the American people will show up to reject this dangerous and out-of-touch MAGA playbook in November.”
Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts reaffirmed this morning that the Trump-Vance ticket is running on the extreme Project 2025 agenda.
Shannon Bream, Fox News: “Kevin, since we have you here, I want to ask about somewhere she has landed some punches, and this is the connecting Project 2025 from Heritage to President Trump. Here’s how the New Republic reports on it: ‘Mass deportations? Check. Shove a Christian God into schools and workplaces? Check. Weaponize the DOJ for Trump? Check. Fire civil servants en masse and replace them with vetted MAGAs? Check.’ It goes on from there. Can you answer any of those? And the secondary question of the Trump-level or Trump team members’ involvement with Project 2025?”
Kevin Roberts: “Project 2025 is the largest, broadest scale conservative movement boilerplate set of policies … That’s what Vice President Harris is running against.”
Project 2025 is “undeniably a Trump-driven operation” which both Trump and Vance have praised.
Trump: “There are some things in [Project 2025] that everybody would like.”
Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”
Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
Washington Post: “Trump took a private flight with Project 2025 leader in 2022”
“But in April 2022, Trump shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, according to people familiar with the trip, plane-tracking data and a photograph from on board the plane, which has not been previously reported. They flew together to a Heritage conference where Trump delivered a keynote address that gestured to Heritage’s forthcoming policy proposals…
“‘I personally have talked to President Trump about Project 2025,’ [Roberts] said in the interview, ‘because my role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me’…
“‘[The Heritage Foundation is] going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,’ Trump said.”
New York Times: “[Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts] told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ … The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”
CNN: “Vought said his group, the Center for Renewing America, was secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action on Trump’s plans if he wins, describing his work as creating “shadow” agencies. He claimed that Trump has ‘blessed’ his organization and ‘he’s very supportive of what we do.’”
CNN: “Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved”
The Week: “Many of Trump’s indicated plans for a second term fall in line with the Project 2025 outline.”
Trump and Vance have repeatedly echoed extreme Project 2025 plans, which includes banning abortion nationwide with or without Congress, cruel mass deportation schemes, mass firings of civil servants, and tax giveaways for billionaires.
The Atlantic: “At the top of Vought and Dans’s must-do list for the next president: reissuing an executive order that Trump signed during his final months in office—and which President Joe Biden promptly reversed—that would allow the government to remove civil-service protections from as many as 50,000 federal jobs. The move would create a new class of employees known as Schedule F whom the president could fire at will.”
Associated Press: “Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”
Vox: “‘If I was giving him one piece of advice’ for a second term, Vance said on a 2021 podcast: ‘Fire every single mid level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.’”
Rolling Stone:“Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill”
“GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access.”
Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”
Washington Post: “Vance urged DOJ to enforce Comstock Act, crack down on abortion pills”
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
CNN: “Project 2025’s proposals for reforming the country’s immigration laws appear heavily influenced by those who helped execute Trump’s early enforcement measures. Former acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan – the faces of Trump’s polarizing policies – contributed to the project, as did Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of the policy advisers pushing to end certain immigrant protections behind the scenes.”
New York Times: “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans”
Education Week: “Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy agenda that proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, has become a dominating force in the 2024 election campaign.”
Trump Campaign: “President Trump pledges to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and to send all education work and needs back to the States.”
Project 2025: “The corporate income tax rate should be reduced to 18 percent.”
CBS News: “Millions of low- and middle-class households would likely face significantly higher taxes under the Project 2025’s proposals.”
Washington Post: “Trump and his advisers have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law. … Trump’s advisers, though, have discussed proposals to make deeper cuts to the overall corporate tax rate, potentially to as low as 15 percent, or to use the revenue from the proposed tariffs to pay a dividend to U.S. households. Further cutting corporate taxes … would primarily benefit large firms.”
In response to MAGA Republicans on Sunday shows refusing to condemn Donald Trump’s antisemitic comments and Mark Robinson’s hateful extremism, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:
“JD Vance had an opportunity this morning to do the right thing and condemn the hateful extremism of Mark Robinson, and he refused. Trump’s mouthpieces are doubling down on a dangerous playbook – trafficking in antisemitic tropes and extremism that’s intended to divide us. The American people are sick of the Trump-Vance ticket’s embrace of hate and bigotry, and this November, they will elect Vice President Harris and Governor Walz and send Trump and Vance a message that we’re not going back.”
JD Vance refused to answer or condemn Mark Robinson’s behavior when asked if he was comfortable with Robinson’s hateful, extreme rhetoric.
Lauren Mayk, NBC 10 Philadelphia: “Some news I wanted to talk about out of North Carolina with Mark Robinson. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. Governor Walz is also in this area, he just mentioned it at a rally this afternoon. I don’t know that you’ve gotten a chance to talk about it, so I wanted to ask you, are you comfortable with Mark Robinson as the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina?”
JD Vance: “Well, look, the allegations are pretty far out there of course, but I know that allegations aren’t necessarily reality, and what I’d say is, it’s ultimately up to Mark Robinson and North Carolina whether he’s going to be their governor and whether he wants to stay in the race. I’ll let them make that decision.”
Mayk: “Do you believe him that those were not his posts?”
Vance: “I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him. I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion. He’s going to make whatever arguments he wants to make.”
Tom Cotton, multiple times, refused to condemn the antisemitism of Donald Trump and Robinson.
Jake Tapper, CNN: “Let’s turn to the 2024 election because at an event earlier this week, ostensibly about combating antisemitism, former President Trump suggested that if he loses, it will be the fault of Jewish voters. Take a listen.”
Clip of Trump: “Any Jewish person that votes for her, especially now, her or the Democrat Party, should have their head examined. If I don’t win this election and I’ve been very good, you know, they say Trump’s been right about everything, in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”
Tapper: “Are you comfortable with that, with Donald Trump saying, if he loses, preemptively, it’s the fault of the Jews, a group already experiencing a rise of antisemitism in this country from the left and the right, but still, preemptively, it’s the fault of the Jews?”
Tom Cotton: “Well, Jake, Donald Trump has been saying things like this for at least 11 months…”
[…]
Tapper: “But you know what, when I was watching the Republican National Convention, I heard Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson speak, and Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is your party’s nominee for Governor in North Carolina. He has been saying antisemitic things for years, for years […] In the last week, we’ve heard that he actually was, in the past, posting on a porn site calling himself a Black Nazi, praising Mein Kampf, saying that Adolf Hitler would’ve been better than Barack Obama. That is your party’s nominee for governor in North Carolina, who has been antisemitic for years. Do you like him? Do you think he should be the next governor of North Carolina?”
Cotton: “I’ve seen these allegations, Jake, and they’re concerning allegations. He owes the people of North Carolina more answers about it.”
Tapper: “Do you think that Trump should still support Mark Robinson in North Carolina?”
Cotton: “I’ll leave that to President Trump, and most importantly, I’ll leave it to the people of North Carolina.”
Lindsey Graham tried to cover for Trump and Robinson, and said he was “okay” with Trump refusing to say he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia.
Kristen Welker, NBC News: “Let’s start talking about the embattled gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, Mark Robinson. Of course, it’s alleged that he put these posts up, very controversial, on a pornographic website. He said he didn’t do it. Former President Donald Trump spoke yesterday in North Carolina, didn’t mention him, has not dropped his endorsement. Senator, do you think that former President Trump should drop his endorsement of Mark Robinson?”
Lindsey Graham: “I think what’s gonna happen here is he deserves the chance to defend himself, Mark Robinson.
[…]
“Okay. Well, so what I would do if I were him, I would hire me the best lawyer I could find. I’d sue the hell out of CNN because what they’re saying about him is just unbelievable.”
Welker: “Let’s talk about another headline this week. Donald Trump was speaking at an Israeli-American Council event. He did make waves because he seemed to suggest that Jewish voters would be to blame if he doesn’t win the election, Senator. Listen to what he said.”
Clip of Trump: “If I don’t win this election, and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens, because at 40% that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy.”
Welker: “The second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, said those were trafficking in tropes scapegoating Jews. Is he right? How do you respond?”
Graham: “I would tell President Trump that the Jewish-American voter is probably concerned about the same thing that all other voters are.”
Welker: “Very quickly on Ukraine. At the debate last week, Donald Trump was asked if he wants Ukraine to win the war, repeatedly pressed on this, he did not answer. What message does that send to Vladimir Putin, that he couldn’t say yes, I want Ukraine to win?”
Graham: “What does winning look like? Here’s what I think will happen if President Trump wins: he will end this war.”
Welker: “Senator, quickly, because we’re almost out of time, does it concern you that he can’t just say yes, I want to see Ukraine win, does that not send a mixed message to Putin?”
Graham: “No, I’m very — It concerns me that Ukraine was invaded on Biden’s watch.”
Welker: “Were you happy with that answer, Senator? Were you happy with that answer?”
Graham: “I’m okay with the answer of not telling what winning looks like.”
Marco Rubio continued to make excuses for Trump’s bizarre, false claims about Haitians.
Margaret Brennan, CBS News: “Do you agree that [Trump and Vance’s false claims about immigrants] is a distraction from the broader point and dangerous?”
Marco Rubio: “Well, it shouldn’t be a distraction. Because at a minimum,it shouldn’t keep us from, for example,saying maybe I don’t believe the dogs and the cats things, but there are, literally, people moving in by the thousands in Springfield, Charleroi in Pennsylvania, you know, that’s a 4,000 person city that has 2,500 migrants.”
Brennan: “But it wasn’t everyday people making the claims, it was the Republican nominee and his vice president making those false claims about Haitian migrants, that rhetoric.”
Rubio: “Those are claims that people in those communities made, maybe some have now recanted or moved aside from it.”
In response to Donald Trump’s dangerous, out-of-touch, and offensive claim that women are happy with his extreme abortion bans, DNC Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:
“Let’s be clear: women who are suffering from severe health complications and increased mortality rates are not ‘happy’ or ‘healthy’ in the wake of Trump’s abortion bans. Women are ‘thinking about abortion’ because Donald Trump ripped away our basic rights and paved the way for extreme bans that are delaying emergency care for millions and leading to preventable deaths. Now, the Trump-Vance ticket wants to ban abortion nationwide — with or without Congress — through their careless and cruel Project 2025 agenda, forcing every woman in America to contend with the horrific tragedies we’re already seeing happen in states across the country. The American people won’t stand for it, and will remember it when they vote this November.”
Donald Trump claims that thanks to him, women will be “happy, healthy, confident, and free,” even as his abortion bans across the country have led to delayed emergency medical care and preventable deaths.
Trump: “Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now where it always had to be.”
Trump: “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE”
NBC News: “A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban”
ProPublica: “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.”
“But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state…
“Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed ‘preventable,’ is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days…
“But since abortion was banned or restricted in 22 states over the past two years, women in serious danger have been turned away from emergency rooms and told that they needed to be in more peril before doctors could help. Some have been forced to continue high-risk pregnancies that threatened their lives. Those whose pregnancies weren’t even viable have been told they could return when they were ‘crashing.’”
If given the chance, the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda would ban abortion nationwide.
Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”
Trump: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life. And it’s very important.”
CNN: “JD Vance said in 2022 he ‘would like abortion to be illegal nationally’”
“During a podcast interview in January 2022, then-candidate JD Vance said he ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’ and was ‘sympathetic’ to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion.”
Newsweek: “J.D. Vance Backs ‘National Standard’ for Abortions”
Daily Beast: “J.D. Vance suggested he would support prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape and incest—and dismissed those catalysts as ‘inconvenient.’”
New Republic: “On January 20, 2025, conservatives plan to resurrect a 150-year-old defunct law to ban abortion across the nation. This is not a secret plan—far from it. It’s part of the 180-Day Playbook produced by Project 2025, detailing priorities for an incoming conservative president on day one. These 900 pages lay out a Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist…
“The playbook says the president should enforce a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, which right-wing groups see as a way to ban abortion nationally because it outlaws the use of the mail for the purposes of sending or receiving any object that could be used for an abortion.”
Vance: “I’ve reviewed a lot of [Project 2025]. There are some good ideas in there.”
Axios: “[Project 2025] is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”
New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”
REMINDER: Trump “proudly” overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for extreme abortion bans across the country — something his extreme anti-choice running mate JD Vance has celebrated.
Reuters: “Iowa, like other Republican-controlled states, moved to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of … Roe v. Wade.”
Trump: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it. … Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it, and we did something that was a miracle.”
Trump: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”
Vance: “I think that what I really think on – so first of all, the Dobbs decision, everybody knows, overruled Roe v. Wade – I think that was the right decision.”
Rolling Stone: “Trump Claims Credit for All Abortion Bans”
Trump campaign radio ad: “And Trump nominated conservative judges, leading to Roe v. Wade being overturned.”
Trump celebrated states enacting draconian abortion bans across the country as “working very brilliantly” and said he’d allow states to punish women who get an abortion.
Trump: “We broke Roe v. Wade and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We gave it back to the states, and the states are working very brilliantly … But they’re working, and it’s working the way it’s supposed to.”
Trump: “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, and in this case, the law of the state.”
Interviewer: “Are you comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned?”
[…]
Trump: “Again, that’s going to be—I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
[…]
Interviewer: “Prosecuting women for getting abortions after the ban. But are you comfortable with it?”
Trump: “The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”
REALITY CHECK: Trump and Vance’s anti-freedom agenda to rip away reproductive rights is wildly unpopular.
USA Today: “Americans overwhelmingly oppose the next goal of many anti-abortion activists, to enact a federal law banning abortion nationwide. By 80%-14%, those surveyed opposed that idea, including 65% of Republicans and 83% of independents.”
Axios: “Record share of U.S. voters back abortion rights and will vote on it: Gallup”
NBC News: “Abortion rights have won in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned”
Axios: “Most Americans support abortion access one year after Roe v. Wade: poll”
CNN Poll: “About two-thirds (65%) oppose the 2022 Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and 34% approve, numbers that have remained effectively unchanged in CNN’s polling across the nearly two years since the ruling. Those who strongly disapprove of the decision continue to outnumber those who strongly approve by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
“A 69% majority who disapprove of overturning Roe, including 82% of those who strongly disapprove, say that federal politicians should work to pass laws ensuring national abortion access.”
Axios: “There’s widespread support for letting women obtain drugs for medication abortion from their doctor or a clinic, with 72% supporting — including half of Republicans.”
