Democratic rival of professed QAnon conspiracy theory believer drops out of House race
The Democratic opponent of Republican candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, a professed QAnon conspiracy theory believer, said Friday he was dropping out of the race for the U.S. House seat in Georgia.
Kevin Van Ausdal cited “family and personal reasons” in announcing that he could not continue his candidacy in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Greene is favored to win the open seat in the strongly GOP district.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Van Ausdal said the next steps in his life would be taking him away from Georgia, “so I will be disqualified from serving in Congress.”
It was unclear whether Democrats would select a replacement.
Greene backs the baseless theory that President Trump is battling a cabal of “deep state” saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex. The FBI has labeled the group a domestic terrorism threat.
Some Republicans have distanced themselves from Greene after videos surfaced of her making racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments. Last week, she posted an image of herself holding a rifle with photos of three liberal congresswomen of color, all Democrats, and the vow to “go on the offense” against members of the “Squad.” The image was removed from Facebook a day later.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said he would seat Greene if she is elected to Congress. Trump has called her a “future Republican star,” and she was a guest at the White House when he accepted his party’s nomination in August.
Federal appeals court blocks hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida from registering to vote
A federal appeals court Friday blocked hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida who still owe fines and fees from registering to vote, putting a halt to what was potentially the nation’s largest re-enfranchisement of voters in more than 50 years.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta agreed with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that the payment of fines and fees by felons is part of their “terms of sentence” and must be satisfied before they can register.
The decision comes less than a month before the presidential swing state’s Oct. 5 deadline to register to vote for November’s general election.
“This is a deeply disappointing decision,” said Paul Smith, vice president at the Campaign Legal Center.
House to hold hearing on how continued service by postmaster general could ‘jeopardize’ mail-in voting
A Democratic-led House subcommittee announced that it will hold a hearing Monday on potential conflicts of interest by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy “and evaluate how his continued leadership could jeopardize the Postal Service and the mail-in voting process for the 2020 election.”
DeJoy, who has become a frequent target for Democrats, is not scheduled to testify at the hearing, being held by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Instead, lawmakers will hear from academics and other experts, including S. David Fineman, the former chairman of the U.S. Postal Service board of governors.
Democrats say they are interested in exploring stocks held by DeJoy that could benefit from the privatization of the Postal Service.
The hearing is also likely to focus on accusations that DeJoy reimbursed employees for campaign contributions they made to his preferred GOP politicians, an arrangement that would be unlawful.
The Washington Post reported last week on allegations that DeJoy and his aides urged employees at New Breed Logistics, his former North Carolina-based company, to write checks and attend fundraisers on behalf of Republican candidates.
DeJoy then defrayed the cost of those political contributions by boosting employee bonuses, two employees told The Post.
Biden honors 9/11 victims at Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa.
After spending the morning at the 9/11 memorial in New York, Joe Biden traveled to Shanksville, Pa., to pay respects at the Flight 93 National Memorial there.
Biden laid a white wreath at the foot of a marble column honoring First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr., one of the 40 victims of the plane crash. Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, then stood and observed a moment of silence before greeting members of Homer’s family.
Afterward, the Bidens strolled around the memorial and spoke to other families of the victims of the Flight 93 crash.
“It’s hard to underestimate the willingness of these people to literally lay down their lives,” Joe Biden told the small gathering of people at one point. “It’s one thing to react where you’re in a situation where you’re confronted with something and you have to act immediately. It’s another thing to consciously know that what you’re about to do is likely to cost you your life. I mean, that is an incredible, incredible thing.”
“My mom used to say, Joey, bravery resides in every heart. Someday it will be summoned. The question is, will you respond? These people [on Flight 93] responded.”
Biden’s motorcade left the memorial park just after 1:30 p.m and drove a couple miles to a fire station, according to a pool report. The Bidens brought some sweets, including a cake that Jill Biden held. They visited a large wooden cross draped with an American flag, while dozens of firefighters and their families stood in front of the garage and watched. All but a few were wearing face coverings.
Biden posed for some pictures, smiling with a group of young people. When a man tried to shake his hand, Biden offered back a fist bump. One man said he heard Biden was bringing beer, something he had apparently promised at one point. The former vice president went back to his SUV and retrieved six packs of Bud Light and Iron City Beer. “I keep my promises!” Biden said.
Trump announces that Bahrain will be latest Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel
Trump announced Friday that Bahrain will be the latest Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, calling it “a truly historic day.”
“When I took office the Middle East was in a state of absolute chaos,” Trump said as he touted the achievement to reporters in the Oval Office after returning to Washington from a 9/11 commemoration in Shanksville, Pa. “I restored trust with our regional partners.”
Last month, Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed to end decades of enmity in a historic deal announced by Trump.
“Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region,” Israel, Bahrain and the United States said in a statement Friday.
Officials from Israel, Bahrain and the UAE will be in Washington on Tuesday to sign the peace agreements.
Sen. Tillis says independent probe of Louis DeJoy would be ‘best way to clear’ him
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), an ally of embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, said he welcomed an investigation of DeJoy, saying it would be the “best way to clear” DeJoy’s name.
Tillis’s comments marked his first known public reference to the accusations that DeJoy, a longtime Republican fundraiser and donor, reimbursed employees for campaign contributions they made to his preferred GOP politicians, an arrangement that would be unlawful. The Washington Post reported the news in a Sept. 6 article, for which Tillis had declined to comment through his spokesman.
In an interview Wednesday, North Carolina-based conservative talk show host KC O’Dea asked Tillis about the “Louis DeJoy witch hunt” and the senator’s response to the allegations reported by The Post.
Tillis echoed O’Dea’s description of a “witch hunt” to characterize the House inquiry into DeJoy. However, he said he supports the idea of an investigation.
“Make no mistake about it, there is going to be a witch hunt. It’ll come out of the House,” Tillis said. “I’m perfectly fine, like the president said, with doing an investigation. I think it’s the best way to clear Louis DeJoy’s name.”
Tillis then accused Democrats of “desperately trying to find ways for people not to focus on the issues that should drive the outcomes of the election.”
“Senator Tillis supports an independent investigation on this matter, not the partisan witch hunt that will come out of the House,” Andrew Romeo, spokesman for Tillis, said Friday.
Tillis was one of the biggest beneficiaries of donations from the employees of DeJoy’s former company. Tillis’s campaign committees collected nearly $300,000 from people at the company in 2014, campaign finance records show.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is now investigating DeJoy and his testimony last month, when he forcefully denied he had repaid executives for contributions to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Correction: This story incorrectly characterized Tillis’s comments as supporting the House Democrats’ investigation. The story has been updated.
Biden compares coronavirus pandemic to 9/11 tragedy: ‘Now, as then, our heroes are ordinary people doing extraordinary things’
Asked what his Friday morning visit to the 9/11 memorial in New York City meant to him, Biden said he was honoring those who died 19 years ago and admiring the families who continued to return to the site of the attack.
“It means I remember all my friends that I lost,” Biden said, according to a report.
“It takes a lot of courage for someone that lost someone to come back today,” Biden continued. “I know from experience — losing my wife, my daughter, my son — you relive it, the moment as if it’s happening. It’s hard.
“It’s a wonderful memorial, but it’s hard. It just brings you back to the moment it happened, no matter how long, how much time passes. So I admire the families who come.”
Biden, whose campaign pulled its advertising for the day, vowed early Friday morning that his focus would remain on the solemnity of 9/11. In a lengthy statement Biden released Friday afternoon remembering the tragedy, he alluded to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 187,000 Americans since February.
“This year, we mark the anniversary of 9/11 in the midst of another crisis that compels us to summon the best of the American people in the face of unconscionable, inconceivable loss — a crisis that has already taken nearly 200,000 Americans, testing our resolve and character with each passing day,” the statement read.
“Now, as then, our heroes are ordinary people doing extraordinary things: nurses and doctors; delivery drivers and grocery clerks; public transit workers and educators; regular Americans thrust into courageous acts of sacrifice and service. Now, as then, we owe it to them to come together as a nation — so that Americans can once again do what we did so bravely nineteen years ago: turn from tragedy to purpose, rebuild our lives, and begin, in time, to heal.”
Court examines North Carolina’s new law that requires photo IDs for voting
A federal appeals court on Friday struggled with how to weigh North Carolina’s history of discriminatory voting restrictions while examining the state’s latest election law that requires voters to present photo identification before casting ballots.
The new photo ID provision has been blocked by federal and state judges and will not apply in the November election. Officials in the swing state began mailing absentee ballots last week.
Ahead of oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) urged the judges to prevent the measure, known as S.B. 824, from taking effect over objections from Republican legislative leaders.
Analysis: Trump’s dubious tax gambit fizzles, as even red states balk
For weeks, Trump has waited in vain as Congress has failed to reach a deal on coronavirus relief that he hoped would include a payroll tax cut.
So he resorted to what critics derided as a gimmick: He would allow companies to defer payroll taxes through the end of the year, with the promise that the deferred taxes would later be forgiven. He even indicated that he would somehow forgive the taxes without congressional authorization, despite that being pretty patently unconstitutional.
The reaction shows how little confidence American businesses — and even some red states — have in Trump’s promise.
No major employer has thus far taken advantage of the deferral, and small business are also balking. Even some GOP-run states like Arizona and Indiana have opted out.
Harris remembers 9/11 at Fairfax, Va., ceremony
As Biden visited Ground Zero and Trump spoke in Shanksville, Pa., Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Kamala D. Harris addressed a small group of first responders and onlookers at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in Fairfax, Va., on Friday morning.
Joined by her husband, Douglas Emhoff, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Harris (Calif.) stood for a moment of silence and a bagpiper’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” before offering brief remarks.
Harris told the few dozen service members and an accumulation of onlookers from nearby buildings that she was at the gym, working out in the early morning in California when she saw planes hit the World Trade Center 19 years ago.
“Everyone stopped, got off their equipment, and we all just watched in utter disbelief,” Harris said. “Strangers were hugging each other. People who had never spoken to each other before were holding each other.”
Harris said that Americans’ first instinct was “to hug and hold each other — perfect strangers — understanding at our core, without reflection, without thinking about it, that we’re all in this together.”
“Honoring them is also about reminding us who we are as Americans,” she said. “In times of tragedy, in times of despair, in times of suffering and pain, we, by our very nature of who we are, we stand together.”
Harris told first responders in attendance that her brother-in-law is a firefighter in California, and that her background as district attorney and state attorney general means it has been “part of my career to stand with each of you.” Six first responders who responded to the plane crash at the Pentagon were in attendance at the ceremony, according to Fairfax Fire Chief John S. Butler.
“What our attackers failed to understand was that the darkness they hope would envelope us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts — the instinct to care for one another, to transcend our divisions and see ourselves as fellow citizens,” Harris said. “The instinct to unite.”
Trump pays tribute to ‘heroes of Flight 93’
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid solemn tributes here Friday to the 40 people who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed into an open field in rural Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
Under cloudy skies on a dewy morning, Trump, speaking softly, delivered a message of remembrance at the Flight 93 National Memorial to the families of the victims, including those lost in the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.
“Today, every heartbeat in America is wedded to yours,” Trump said. “The heroes of Flight 93 are an everlasting reminder that no matter the danger, no matter the threat, no matter the odds, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back.”
Trump said the al-Qaeda attacks were orchestrated and executed by “radical Islamic terrorists,” and he recounted his conquests in the war against Islamic State terrorists, including the January killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.
With the nation bitterly divided and the election less than two months away, Trump paused his caustic campaign rhetoric to try to sound a note of unity. He recalled how the nation came together in the days following the attacks 19 years ago.
“We were united by our conviction that America was the world’s most exceptional country, blessed with the most incredible heroes, and that this was a land worth defending with our very last breath,” Trump said. “It was a unity based on love for our families, care for our neighbors, loyalty to our fellow citizens, pride in our flag, gratitude for our police and first responders, faith in God — and a refusal to bend our will to the depraved forces of violence, intimidation, oppression and evil.”
Pence stops by firehouse first to respond to 9/11 attacks
Following appearances at two ceremonies, Pence made a stop at a firehouse adjacent to the World Trade Center site that was the first to respond to the attack in 2001, saying he came to “pay a debt of gratitude.”
“Like every other American, I watched,” Pence said. “I watched as the towers burned. I watched as people rightly ran out and you ran in.”
Pence commended the firefighters for considering the lives of those in the twin towers “more important than your own” and offered condolences for those who died that day.
“I know for many of you they weren’t just other members of the department; they were family, they were friends,” he said.
At an earlier event, both Pence and his wife, Karen, read scripture. It was held by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation to honor a firefighter who ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel with heavy gear strapped to his back to reach the burning towers.
Biden, at 9/11 site in New York, shares grief with woman whose son died in attacks
During his time Friday at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, Biden at one point moved close to comfort a woman in a wheelchair who said her son died at age 43.
She held an image in her lap, which Biden took and examined, reflecting on losing his own son, Beau.
“It never goes away,” Biden said. The woman repeated the phrase, as names of those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, were read aloud over the speakers.
One of Biden’s hallmarks during his pre-coronavirus campaign was his interactions with Americans, which took place one-on-one after events. But he has had almost none of those since concerns over spreading the virus have limited his ability to hold such intimate conversations where, like he did Friday morning, he leans in close, albeit now with a mask.
The woman, 90, and perhaps joking, told Biden she was entering her “last year,” at which point her daughter suggested she knock it off. “You don’t know that, Mom!” she said. “You’re still kicking!”
“You and I will be here next year,” Biden assured the woman.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-N.Y.) walked up to them and told the woman he didn’t believe she’s 90, at which point he learned she also is Italian American.
“Oh,” he said, unsurprised. “She’s got that Italian blood. You see how young?”
“I may be Irish,” Biden said. “But I’m not stupid.” He motioned to Jill Biden and mentioned her original family name, Giacoppa, which her Italian grandfather had changed.
Then, Cuomo looked back at the 90-year-old woman and motioned at Biden.
“I told you he was smart!” he said.
Trump observes moment of silence on Air Force One
Trump participated in a moment of silence on Air Force One at 8:46 a.m., marking the time the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Towers in New York, shortly after he landed in Pennsylvania.
Trump, first lady Melania Trump and staff gathered in a conference room on the plane.
Trump stood with his arms clasped.
“God bless America,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said when the moment of silence was concluded.
Trump repeated, “God bless America.”
Trump will be participating in a commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., later Friday morning.