Latest news with #BidenHarris
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Musk says his money elected Trump. Where would things stand if Kamala Harris was president instead?
'She'd be focused on working families, Black and brown communities. She would be delivering on exactly what she ran for,' said former Biden-Harris White House official Yemisi Egbewole. During the public and nasty breakup between billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, Musk made a shocking claim—in addition to the claim that Trump is mentioned in the sealed FBI files on Jeffrey Epstein—that Trump would not be president if it weren't for his money. Referring to last year's presidential election, Musk wrote on X, 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.' By public admission, Musk confirmed what many Democrats have long said about the outsized role of Musk's nearly $300 million in 2024 campaign donations to Trump, whose upset victory against Democratic nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris, still has the Democratic Party in a state of rehabilitation. 'It's incredible that he's saying the truth out loud that billionaires buy elections. It's amazing to see a billionaire say that they get to define the future and to say it so plainly,' said Yemisi Egbewole, former chief of staff for the White House Press Secretary's Office. The former Biden-Harris official told theGrio that, despite Republicans asserting that Trump won the 2024 election because he better understood voters, Musk's admission proves he actually won 'because the richest man in the world said, 'I want this man to be president.'' Political analyst Reecie Colbert said she believes Elon Musk's comments warrant a probe from Democrats. 'Since we're in the era of Trump investigating political adversaries, I say, let's get these Democratic attorneys general on the line in these swing states and do an investigation into the 2024 election,' Colbert told theGrio. She asked, 'Did Elon Musk unduly influence the election?' Any investigation would have to be at the state level. President Trump has a tight grip on the federal government, including an executive branch that has been transformed in his political image. 'Clearly, Kash Patel is not going to do it,' said Colbert, referring to the FBI director, a Trump loyalist who has floated false claims and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Reflecting on the 2024 presidential election, Democratic strategist Joel Payne told theGrio, 'I think back to Kamala Harris warning at several points during last year's campaign, including at the [Democratic National Convention], where she said Donald Trump is an unserious man and the consequences of him being elected are very serious.' Payne asserted, 'We are existing within a prime exhibit of what she was talking about.' Egbewole said Kamala Harris as President would never have 'let a billionaire dictate the national narrative,' explaining, 'She would be too busy passing legislation to move this country forward.' The former White House staffer said Harris would be focused on creating a new pathway to jobs, expanding health care, and investing in the fight against climate change. 'If she were president, the conversation wouldn't be two egomaniacs trading barbs back and forth. She would not be in Twitter fights,' Egbewole said. 'She would be delivering wins. She'd be focused on working families, Black and brown communities. She would be delivering on exactly what she ran for.' Since Trump took office, millions of Americans have protested in the streets, outside of federal buildings, and inside the offices of elected officials in opposition of several executive actions from the president and his 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' which would cut more than $1 trillion in Medicaid, SNAP and education. 'People kind of got used to the investments that were made into allowing millions of people to gain access to health care, allowing families to have some breathing room,' said Colbert, who is the host of 'The Reecie Colbert Show' on Sirius XM. 'I think they just took it for granted and they really underestimated the massive shock to not just the government, but the economy that Trump would usher in.' If Harris were president, she said the country would be 'humming along,' adding, 'We probably would have passed a reconciliation bill that extended the Child Tax Credit and moved the needle on the minimum wage.' She continued, 'We would have moved the needle on investments in housing affordability, and we would have continued to see the emphasis that the last administration placed on shoring up health care.' While delivering remarks at the State of the People Tour in Los Angeles, Harris said Trump's government takeover is 'decades in the making,' referring to the conservative policy document, Project 2025, which she and Democrats frantically warned voters about during the 2024 election. 'What else has been in the making for a very long time [is] what we know how to do in terms of organizing, what we know how to do in terms of mobilizing, what we know how to do in terms of connecting people together to own our power,' said Harris, who is considering a run for California governor or another bid for president in 2028. In a room filled with Black elected officials, organizers, activists, and community members, the former vice president said that Trump's vision for America is 'narrow' and 'self-serving.' 'We also have a vision for America,' said Harris. 'A vision of America that understands…the power of the people to dictate their own future and not be told what they must accept.' She added, 'We wait to be given nothing. We take what we need, and we do it by understanding how we organize, how we reach out, how we build community [and] how we build coalition.' More must-reads: 'The girls are fighting': Trump vs. Musk feud may entertain but Dems say these policies are at stake for Black America Carla Hayden, historic former Librarian of Congress, breaks silence after White House abruptly fired her 'Insatiable hate': Advocates warn of deaths amid Trump's 'bigoted' travel ban against Black and brown countries
CNN
30-05-2025
- General
- CNN
Ashley Allison reacts to FBI's Bongino complaining about rigors of the job
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and his boss Kash Patel are under fire for shooting down conspiracy theories. Bongino talked about the pressures of the office in a recent interview, and former Biden-Harris adviser Ashley Allison was not sympathetic.
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Medicaid, Welfare and a Work Requirement
To the Editor: Re 'If You Want Welfare and Can Work, You Must,' by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, Brooke Rollins and Scott Turner (Opinion guest essay, May 16): My successor at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Dr. Oz, and his colleagues claim that taking coverage away from people who don't meet a work requirement will promote work. They are wrong: This policy is a Medicaid cut that will hurt families and our health care system. We know, because they tried this policy during the first Trump administration — and it failed. Medicaid supports work. When I was the administrator, C.M.S. helped people with disabilities get Medicaid home care so they could get to work. We expanded treatment for mental illness and addiction, which set people on the road to recovery. It's common sense: People who can't get the care they need will have a harder time looking for work or keeping a job. In 2018, Arkansas' work requirements led to 30 percent of Medicaid enrollees losing coverage, although only 4 percent of Medicaid enrollees were not working, in school or otherwise exempted. The red tape made it harder for everyone to keep health care coverage — and it didn't increase employment. Medicaid also supports our nation's economy by keeping millions of workers healthy and serving as a safety net for those who can't work. It is crucial to maternal and infant health, keeping our nation's hospitals open and supporting our health care work force. During the Biden-Harris administration, the rate of uninsured was the lowest in U.S. history. Our focus should be making health care coverage more affordable for all Americans.
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Exact moment of Kamala Harris' blistering split with Joe Biden revealed in bombshell new book
was furious after Joe Biden put on a hat endorsing Donald Trump for president during her presidential campaign. A new book by CNN 's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson details the struggles the Biden-Harris team had with each other as Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign and ultimately endorsed Harris to take his place After Biden dropped out of the race in July, the Harris campaign distanced themself from the president even as he was anxious to get on the road and help her win according to Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. But one event in particular reportedly incensed Harris and her team who were running neck and neck with former President Trump in the latter part of the campaign. Biden met with a group of volunteer firefighters as part of his presidential duties during a commemoration of the 9/11 terror attacks in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The president got into a conversation with an elderly man wearing a Trump 2024 hat and autographed the hat when he was asked. When someone in the hat shouted that Biden should put on the hat, he obliged, earning applause and cheers from the crowd. The Trump team couldn't believe it. 'Thanks for the support, Joe!' the Trump campaign playfully wrote on social media, sharing photos of the moment. 'What is he doing?' Harris asked her team, according to the book. 'This is completely unhelpful. And so unnecessary.' The Harris campaign decided they would no longer campaign with Biden in the future, as they were trying to emphasize her leadership qualities and push the president into the background. No matter how hard they tried to sideline Biden, he continued making news that the Harris campaign considered unhelpful. In October, Biden told supporters 'we got to lock him up,' when talking about former President Donald Trump, at a time when Trump and his supporters were accusing Biden and Harris of 'lawfare' to remove him from the presidential race. Later that month, Biden also referred to President Trump's supporters as 'garbage,' which the campaign famously branded as an insult to working class Americans. 'That's terrible. Remember Hillary? She said 'deplorable.' And then she said 'irredeemable,' right?…' Trump asked at a rally as he paraded into the event in a Trump brand garbage truck. 'That didn't work out. 'Garbage' I think is worse, right?' The Harris team struggled mightily with Biden from the very beginning of the race. When Biden made his decision to drop out of his reelection campaign he told Harris he wanted to wait a week before endorsing his vice president. The president phoned Harris to inform her of his decision and said he wanted Harris to run in his place. But when the president's team emailed her a draft of Biden's planned statement, she grew alarmed after it contained no endorsement of her for president, Tapper and Thompson write. According to the book, Harris spoke with Biden to express her concern, but the president explained he wanted to wait to endorse her until his official announcement in the Oval Office the following week. The president's aides Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti reportedly explained they and the president wanted Biden's statement to stand on its own. But Harris wouldn't budge. 'That open airtime will be filled with speculation about why you're not endorsing your own vice president. It will cripple our ability to get off to a strong start,' she told Biden. They later conceded to Harris' wishes. Biden would announce his departure from the race and he would endorse Harris in a separate statement later in the afternoon. Twenty-seven minutes after Biden dropped his bombshell announcement he followed up by endorsing Harris. 'My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it's been the best decision I've made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,' he wrote. Even though Biden endorsed Harris, there were many on his team who did not think she could actually win, the book notes. Harris was notoriously protective of her personal political brand and frequently turned down requests from the president's team to assist the president. Original Sin confirms Harris was distrustful of the president's team as she felt they were setting her up for failure by assigning her politically toxic issues for her to handle such as the migrant crisis.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
5 ways the Trump administration is implementing Project 2025
Whether Project 2025 was President Trump's plan for his second presidency was a big point of contention during the presidential campaign. His opponents in the race — first President Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris — aggressively tried to tie him to the Heritage Foundation's unpopular conservative playbook, which was unveiled in 2023. Trump vociferously denied it was his plan, and the White House still does. Now, several months into Trump's second term, what is clear is that he is working with incredible speed to implement an array of policies that align with those espoused by Project 2025's conservative authors and contributors, some of whom Trump has appointed to prominent administration posts. A tracking project claims Trump has already implemented more than 40% of Project 2025's recommendations. Here are five areas where the alignment is evident: In a Project 2025 chapter on the powers of the executive, Russell Vought — who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term — envisioned Trump moving quickly to 'break the bureaucracy to the presidential will' by firing huge numbers of career federal employees, installing loyalists in positions of power and taking control of the federal purse strings from Congress. Vought argued career federal employees with liberal leanings had taken too much power, and the next conservative president should seize that power back. When Trump was elected, he appointed Vought to again head OMB, and Vought, along with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, swiftly got to work attacking the federal bureaucracy. The OMB froze trillions of dollars in federal funding allocated by Congress. Vought prompted mass government layoffs by ordering federal agencies to 'focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated.' The courts are now hearing multiple challenges to firings, funding cuts and other Trump administration efforts to downsize the federal government. Trump appointed multiple immigration hard-liners with ties to Project 2025 to prominent roles in his administration, including Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy and Tom Homan as his 'border czar.' They have pushed various policies also espoused by the playbook. Project 2025 said prioritizing 'border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation,' was crucial, called for many more detention beds to be created, and said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should rescind policies that barred agents from staging immigration enforcement raids in 'sensitive places' such as schools, hospitals and churches. The Trump administration has ordered the biggest mass deportation program in U.S. history, called for billions to be invested in massive new immigration detention facilities, and promptly did away with ICE policies barring raids in sensitive places. It has also claimed sweeping executive powers to target immigrants in the country illegally, as Project 2025 recommended. Project 2025 proposed that all federal regulations that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity be rescinded, that transgender service members be ousted from the military and that gender-affirming care be strictly limited. It also called for bans on federal funding for gender-affirming care and for 'gender ideology' to be removed from all school curricula, suggested transgender athletes were endangering girls' sports, and called for the total erasure of transgender identities in federal regulations, policies and materials. Trump has begun implementing all of those policies. His administration announced plans to remove transgender service members, ordered the removal of LGBTQ+ references in agency materials, threatened local schools that allow transgender athletes to compete, threatened hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, and began clawing back federal funding from LGBTQ+ healthcare providers. In his chapter on trade, economist Peter Navarro argued the U.S. must expand domestic manufacturing and called on the next president to take a particularly hard line on trade with China. Promptly after being elected, Trump appointed Navarro as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Within months, he announced sweeping new 'reciprocal tariffs' against nations around the globe and even stiffer tariffs on China, suggesting those moves would return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. The episode sent shock waves through the global economy and has produced rare examples of pushback against Trump's agenda from Republicans in Congress. Project 2025 called for dismantling the Department of Education. The Trump administration has ordered massive layoffs there, which Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the 'first step' toward eliminating the agency. It has also sought to rescind hundreds of millions of dollars in education funding and ordered schools nationwide to end 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' or DEI, initiatives and support for transgender students. Project 2025 also called for ending federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, accusing both the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio — and even 'Sesame Street' — of harboring anti-conservative bias and having little educational value. Trump signed an executive order to cut the funding. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
