Trump Kicks Off Debate by Ranting About Migrants Like Deranged Person

Donald Trump kicked off the presidential debate Tuesday night with a rant about immigrants taking over towns and Black jobs across America.

It’s a point that Trump has repeated throughout his campaign, and he hit all of the same points: claiming that immigrants from “prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums” were arriving in the United States, taking “jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics,” a slight variation of his usual line about immigrants taking “Black jobs.”

He also alluded to recent right-wing meltdowns over immigrants in the towns of Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio. In the case of Aurora, Trump and the right claimed that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex, only for its residents and the police to say that was completely false. In Ohio, the right have pushed a narrative about Haitian immigrants killing and eating pets, which was rejected by local police and municipal officials.

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance has also spread the rumor about Haitian immigrants, despite having no evidence of any pets being killed and eaten. Several other conservative politicians, pundits, and influencers have all amplified the rumor, furthering right-wing fearmongering about savage immigrants. Donald Trump, historically, has had no love for Haiti or its people, claiming in 2018 that all Haitian immigrants have AIDS and referring to the country as a “shithole.”

Donald Trump skirted answering a direct question on abortion rights Tuesday night and instead veered into complete make believe on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Avoiding a direct question about his flip-flopping on a national six-week abortion ban during the presidential debate, Trump quoted the Democratic vice presidential pick for something he never actually said.

“Her vice presidential pick, which I think was a horrible pick for our country, because he is really adamant, but her vice presidential pick says that abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine,” Trump said. “He also says, ‘Execution after birth’—execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born—is OK. And that’s not OK with me. Hence the vote.”

Not one state in the nation allows what Republicans have dubbed post-birth abortions, otherwise known as infanticide.

Trump has worked to soften his anti-choice position in the weeks building up to the debate in an attempt to appeal to women’s rights activists and draw more voters to his campaign. But the practical effects of his presidency are still obvious, not least of all instilling a hyperconservative Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, which Trump has proudly taken credit for. In 2023, the former president also claimed that he should be celebrated for every single state abortion ban.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday declined to denounce a racist and xenophobic conspiracy theory about local Haitian immigrants, just hours after Ohio Senator J.D. Vance doubled down by spreading the blatant misinformation.

As DeWine noted in Tuesday’s press conference, the city of Springfield has seen an influx of 15,000 Haitian immigrants over the past four years as a result of the chaos and widespread gang violence caused by the assassination of Haiti’s president in 2021. The United States has granted these immigrants temporary protected status, allowing them to move to the U.S., pay taxes, own homes, and work.

Some Republicans, wanting to look tough on immigration, claim that Springfield is being overwhelmed by the immigrants—and to make their point, they’re even spreading malicious lies about the Haitians. Vance, who is Donald Trump’s running mate, tweeted Monday, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” On Tuesday, he repeated the claim, only allowing that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

And yet, DeWine refused to condemn such rhetoric. When asked whether he would “denounce other Ohio Republicans who are elevating those claims,” the governor said he was just there to establish “the essential facts,” and referred to the city manager’s statement about “any of these particular matters.”

“Look,” he added, “I came here today because I thought it was important to outline for the people, not only of Springfield, but of Ohio and the country, what the essential facts are. The essential facts I have gone over to the best of my knowledge, are the essential facts.”

DeWine referred to statements by Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and City Manager Ryan Heck. Heck, who had written to Vance in July asking for federal support to deal with the influx of immigrants, outright denied the right-wing rumors. He said there were “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

“Additionally,” Heck said, “there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes. Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic.”

When asked about a school bus crash caused by a Haitian immigrant’s reckless driving, which injured 20 students and killed one, DeWine said that there had been an uptick in traffic accidents. While he said he did not “blame” any one group, he also claimed that many Haitians had never driven before.

When asked specifically about the false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating cats or killing geese, DeWine did not condemn them. “Look, I’m not going to comment on that,” he said.

“The local officials [and] people who live in Springfield have talked about different things that might appear on the internet. A lot of things can appear on the internet,” he added. “But they have talked about those, and they have said they’ve not seen evidence of that. And they are the ones who are in the community.”

When asked about Vance specifically, DeWine said, “I would expect a United States senator to be talking about the border.”

DeWine was also asked whether he had spoken to any Haitian immigrants in Springfield. He said he had not.

Republicans in Missouri experienced a major setback on Tuesday when the state Supreme Court ruled against their efforts to block a ballot measure asking voters to restore abortion rights in the state.

The proposal to enshrine abortion rights into Missouri’s state constitution will now be on voters’ ballots in two months and would undo a near-total abortion ban passed by the state’s conservatives in 2022 if voters approve it.

A lawyer for state Republicans and anti-abortion activists, Mary Catherine Martin, tried to claim during Tuesday’s arguments that the abortion ballot initiative “misled voters” by not listing all the laws that it would repeal. A lawyer supporting abortion rights said that the conservatives’ lawsuit was an “attempt to derail democracy.”

The court’s ruling follows Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s decertification of the ballot measure, removing it from state ballots after a lower court ruled against it on Friday. It’s no surprise that Republicans sought to prevent voters from considering the measure, as pro-abortion ballot initiatives nationwide have been successful since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Even in red states like Ohio, voters enshrined abortion access into law in 2023, and the year before, five states with abortion on the ballot voted to protect reproductive rights. Two of those states, Kentucky and Montana, explicitly rejected anti-abortion measures.

Missouri is one of 10 states to have abortion rights on the ballot this November. In Florida, Republicans are sending law enforcement officers around the state to investigate the verified signatures that put an abortion constitutional amendment on the ballot, an effort drawing criticism for coming across as intimidation. Republicans in Florida and Missouri seem to not care too much about democracy, or the will of voters, if it goes against conservative ideology.

Donald Trump keeps repeating lies about election fraud, and on Tuesday morning, CNN’s Kasie Hunt called out his daughter-in-law about it.

Hunt brought up a Truth Social post Donald Trump made on Sunday where he said that 20 percent of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent, claimed Democrats are cheating, and called for an investigation. The CNN presenter asked Lara Trump, a co-chair of the Republican National Committee, why the former president was saying this if he wanted more votes.

“He’s specifically referencing information from the 2020 election,” she replied, though that’s not actually clear in the Truth Social Post. “What we’re talking about right now is making sure that every vote matters and every vote counts.”

Hunt followed up, asking for evidence of fraudulent mail-in ballots in the 2020 Pennsylvania election.

“I didn’t see that report, so I’d have to go back and look at it,” Trump replied. “I can’t directly speak to that.”

Trump spent the interview trying to spin her father-in-law’s words by claiming he wants every voter in the U.S. to vote how they are most comfortable, whether that’s by mail-in ballot or in person. But this contradicts a lot of what the Republican presidential nominee has said and continues to say about the electoral process.

The former president’s conspiracies about fraudulent ballots recently convinced Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to insist on paper ballots in his state and his supporters in Georgia to change state election laws to help him. Meanwhile, he’s pressuring Republicans in the House to attach his “voter fraud” measures into a critical spending bill—thus changing voting laws just weeks before the election.

Trump has a long history of casting doubt on the electoral process, from his repeated claims about a rigged election to his refusal to accept the 2020 results and subsequent attempt to overturn them, and his preemptive efforts to discredit November’s results if they go against him. On Tuesday, Hunt exposed how Trump’s closest advisers enable this behavior even when they can’t explain it themselves.

The rules of the presidential debate are apparently still being hashed out just hours before the first matchup between Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Harris’s communications director Michael Tyler accused Trump of being “muzzled” by his campaign over the controversial decision to mute his microphone during Harris’s responses—a call that some critics have derided as the political equivalent of bowling lane “bumper guards.”

Skirting a question about Harris’s spontaneous burst onto the 2024 campaign trail, Tyler sidestepped to jab Trump and the former president’s inability to control himself on the debate stage.

“Yeah, listen, I think, well, it remains to be seen what Donald Trump says, obviously his team decided to overrule him and has muzzled him somewhat on the debate stage,” Tyler said. “But I think regardless of which version of Donald Trump actually shows up on the debate stage, it is an opportunity for the vice president, right? To communicate her vision for where she wants to take this country.”

Tyler’s media hit clearly got to the former president, who took to Truth Social to vent his frustrations about Harris’s publicist.

“Why does FoxNews keep putting on, for endless periods of time, Michael Tyler, Kamala’s publicist, who spews nothing but lies—like Project 2025, etc,” Trump fumed. “Fox tries to be so politically correct, when the other side plays for keeps. RIDICULOUS!!!”

Donald Trump is once again trying to steer the Republican Party from the backseat.

On Tuesday, the Republican presidential nominee decided to plant himself in the middle of the debate over funding the government, making it that much harder for House Speaker Mike Johnson to rally his caucus behind a six-month continuing resolution to avert a shutdown in three weeks. At the crux of the issue is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility—or SAVE—Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote.

“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday afternoon. “THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN—CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”

Trump regularly (and baselessly) insists that Democrats are letting undocumented immigrants vote in an attempt to rig the election. This latest claim comes as he struggles to attract new voters, while his presidential opponent Kamala Harris has seen a steady rise in the polls.

It is, of course, already illegal and impossible for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections. But adding a proof of citizenship requirement to the stopgap funding measure would restrict voter access in less resourced regions of the country, and add another barrier to fulfilling the quintessential American ideal of a free and fair democracy.

Johnson, meanwhile, is already on the verge of losing the funding measure: currently, the conservative leader is facing six “no” votes, while he can only afford to lose the votes of four House Republicans.

But it’s not the first time that Trump has tried to seed division in the American legislative system from the campaign trail. Earlier this year, the former president had a heavy hand in coercing Republicans to tank a bipartisan border deal so that he could overinflate concerns about immigration and run on the issue.

A judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday from a member of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections board who refused to certify the results of the state’s primary election.

In May, board official Julie Adams launched a lawsuit against the county, arguing that she could not certify the results of the primary election without having access to all information about the voting procedures. Elections Board director Nadine Williams had barred her from seeing some information.

Adams also sought a court ruling on whether her duty to certify election results is “discretionary, not ministerial, in nature,” according to the suit.

Judge Robert C.I. McBurney dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning that Georgia election officials will continue to have a mandatory duty to certify the election results, scrambling Adams’s attempt to upend years of precedent and Georgia state law.

An amendment to Georgia’s state constitution allows for plaintiffs to seek declaratory relief from the government, which could determine Adams’s obligations in her role as an election superintendent. However, the law required that any complaint seeking relief must be brought against the state or local government only, and no other forms of relief can be included in the complaint.

“Failure to comply with either requirement is fatal: the non-compliant complaint ‘shall be dismissed,’” McBurney wrote in his order.

Adams’s first complaint in May was brought against the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, as well as Williams. According to the judge, “Neither is a proper party for such a suit.” The complaint also requested injunctive relief, which would prohibit Williams from denying Adams access to election materials and processes.

In July, the defendants argued a motion to dismiss using this argument, and Adams amended her original complaint, bringing her case solely against Fulton County. “That was too little, too late; the fatal pleading flaw cannot be undone,” wrote the judge.

Adams, a staunch election denier, was backed by the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.

McBurney made clear that Adams can refile her claim, this time listing the proper party, and that if she “moves with alacrity,” her claim “can be considered alongside” a challenge to the Georgia election board’s new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results. The rule, which was passed in August, would make it significantly easier for county election officials to delay or refuse certification of election results in populous Democratic strongholds such as Fulton or DeKalb counties in November.

At Tuesday’s night’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris is sure to get under Donald Trump’s skin. But just to be extra sure, she’s bringing two of his old administration staffers along.

Former Trump White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci and former Trump national security official Olivia Troye will be attending the debate in Philadelphia as guests and surrogates of the vice president. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung quickly tried to dismiss the news.

“Nobody is going to listen to someone who was a low-level staffer who didn’t even work for President Trump and someone who barely lasted more time than an expired ham sandwich as White House communications director,” Cheung said in a statement, referring to Scaramucci’s infamously short 10-day tenure.

Scaramucci has not held back on criticizing Trump and his campaign, warning about the repercussions of another Trump presidency and even offering predictions on how long J.D. Vance would last as Trump’s running mate. Troye has called out Trump’s mental fitness, alluding to multiple worrying instances during his time in office, and made a speech at the Democratic National Convention calling for her fellow Republicans to reject Trump and support democracy.

In 2016, Trump brought Bill Clinton sexual harassment accusers Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick to one of his debates with Hillary Clinton in an attempt to abuse and humiliate his opponent. Harris’s aim appears to be different: to show viewers that people who used to work for Trump now see the dangers of him returning to office. Bringing Troye and Scaramucci also offers the side benefit of getting Trump rattled.

The debate promises to be an interesting contest, especially since Trump has tried to get out of it and his campaign has argued over the rules, trying to keep microphones muted when it isn’t Trump or Harris’s turn to speak. The Trump campaign seems to be worried that the former president and convicted felon won’t be able to keep himself from interrupting or resorting to petty insults, and Harris’s campaign wants him to be able to hurt his own cause. Having guests at the debate who Trump can’t stand may allow Harris to get inside his head.

With less than three weeks to avert a government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson is back to begging his caucus to keep the money flowing.

The Louisiana politico has vowed to bring a continuing resolution to the floor “as soon as possible.” In a meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday, Johnson reportedly encouraged his fellow conservatives to back the six-month funding bill, claiming that Americans around the country had been enthusiastic about the measure when he shopped it around in August, reported Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

Johnson can only afford to lose four House Republican votes on the continuing resolution, which has been integrally tied to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility—or SAVE—Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote. So far, he’s got six “nos,” including Representatives Tim Burchett, Jim Banks, Mike Rogers, Cory Mills, Thomas Massie, and Matt Rosendale.

Five House Democrats voted for the SAVE Act before it was rolled into the continuing resolution, which would extend government funding until March. Republicans have warned that any opposition from those five, who include Representatives Henry Cuellar, Don Davis, Jared Golden, Vicente Gonzalez, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, would be “pure politics.”

But there are other, fiscal reasons why the continuing resolution has a rocky future in the House, including fears that such a measure would have a negative impact on the Pentagon.

And even if the stopgap bill does manage to scrape by the House, its chances of passing through the Senate are slim to none, setting the stage for an ominously familiar experience to the one that preceded former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s exit.

“As we have said repeatedly, avoiding a government shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party. Speaker Johnson is making the same mistake as former Speaker McCarthy did a year ago, by wasting precious time catering to the hard MAGA right,” Senate Democratic leaders said in a statement issued last week. “This tactic didn’t work last September, and it will not work this year either. The House Republican funding proposal is an ominous case of déjà vu.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up,” they continued. “Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands.”