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Year: 2024

Kamala Harris’ campaign criticizes Trump for serving ‘self-obsessed rich guys’ after interview with Elon Musk

Kamala Harris’ campaign criticizes Trump for serving ‘self-obsessed rich guys’ after interview with Elon Musk

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is blasting former President Trump’s interview with billionaire Elon Musk, saying Trump’s campaign is in service of “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class.” Trump joined Musk on X Spaces, a live audio chat feature on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, for an interview Monday night, although it had a shaky start due to technical difficulties. Millions of people ultimately listened to the interview, according to the live tracker throughout the discussion. Musk said in a post after the interview that he would also be happy to host Harris on X Spaces. During Monday’s interview, Musk gave Trump ample time to explain his stance on various issues such as immigration, the assassination attempt he survived at a campaign rally last month, inflation and the idea of eliminating the Department of Education to allow states authority over school systems. TRUMP CHATS WITH MUSK IN LENGTHY, OVERARCHING INTERVIEW AS HARRIS CONTINUES SNUBBING MEDIA “I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states … Of the 50 [states], I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or, you know, 20 of them, will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great,” Trump said, adding that deep blue states like California may struggle if the department is eliminated. The Harris campaign hit Trump following the interview for the policy proposals the former president touched on and took a jab over the technical difficulties the X Space endured. “Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement. “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.” Project 2025 is a controversial initiative organized by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that was authored by a number of conservatives, including some former Trump administration officials. X MELTS DOWN AFTER TRUMP-MUSK’S INTERVIEW ‘SPACE’ IMMEDIATELY CRASHES The initiative offers right-wing policy recommendations for Trump should he win the presidency, including replacing civil service employees with Trump loyalists, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding for Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as health care and infusing the government with Christian values. Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative, which has been criticized as being an authoritarian and Christian nationalist plan that would undermine civil liberties, saying he knows nothing about it, that parts of it are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” and that its backers are on the “radical right.” Monday marked Trump’s return to X after nearly a year of not posting on the social media platform, posting a series of campaign ads prior to the interview with Musk. Before Musk purchased X in 2022, Trump was suspended from the platform following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when the platform was still known as Twitter. But even after Musk reinstated his account, Trump’s only post was sharing his mugshot in August of last year. “This country is going down, and these people are bad people that we’re running against. And they’re liars. They make statements. They do things that are so bad. They say they’re going to make a strong border. They say they’ve been great on the border, and they’ve been the worst in history. They say they’ll stop crime,” Trump said towards the end of the interview. Trump also addressed President Biden’s decision last month to suspend his re-election campaign, saying it was a Democratic “coup” that pressured the president to step aside. Biden’s decision came amid pressure from Democrats to drop out of the race over concerns about his mental acuity. “This was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. He didn’t want to leave, and they said, ‘We can do it the nice way, or we can do it the hard way,’” Trump said. “They just took him out back behind the shed and basically shot him,” Musk responded before Trump criticized Biden as “the worst president in history.” Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Trump chats with Musk in lengthy, overarching interview as Harris continues snubbing media

Trump chats with Musk in lengthy, overarching interview as Harris continues snubbing media

Former President Donald Trump spoke with tech billionaire Elon Musk in an overarching, lengthy interview Monday evening on X as Vice President Kamala Harris continues avoiding the media since landing on the top of the Democratic ticket for the White House.  “It’s pretty sad when you think that somebody that does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She’s got all friendly interviewers,” Trump said of Harris Monday evening during his roughly two-hour interview with Musk on X Space.  Trump’s comments come as Harris has avoided the media for 22 days. She has snubbed formal press conferences or sit-down interviews, including for a Time magazine cover story, since she emerged as the DNC’s nominee for the White House after President Biden dropped out of the race last month.  “She is considered more liberal, by far, than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical-left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in. She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero,” Trump added of Harris.  KAMALA HARRIS DECLINES TIME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW AS SHE CONTINUES TO AVOID THE PRESS Trump’s interview with Musk kicked off after 8:30 p.m. Monday, following a “massive” distributed denial-of-service attack on the platform that caused delays, Musk explained on X. More than 1 million people ultimately listened to the interview according to the live tracker throughout the discussion.  X MELTS DOWN AFTER TRUMP-MUSK’S INTERVIEW ‘SPACE’ IMMEDIATELY CRASHES The two held a laid back interview, where Musk prompted Trump with topics before the 45th president was offered ample time to elaborate on policy issues such as immigration, the assassination attempt on his life last month, spiraling inflation and closing the Department of Education in favor of states taking the mantle on school systems.  “I want to close up Department of Education, move education back to the states. … Of the 50 [states], I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or, you know, 20 of them, will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great,” Trump said, while noting left-wing states such as California could struggle if he does eliminate the DOE.  The 45th president also spoke at length with Musk about the current state of immigration in the U.S.  “I believe it’s over 20 million people came into our country. Many coming from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, or a bigger version of that is insane asylums. And many are terrorists. And I’ll tell you what, they’re coming not just from South America. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Asia. They’re coming from the Middle East,” Trump told Musk, who endorsed Trump earlier this year.  Trump said that despite Harris’ recent rhetoric to address the spiraling migrant crisis at the border, she and Biden have had years to address migration but “won’t do anything.”  “She had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won’t do anything. It’s all talk. She’s incompetent and he’s incompetent. And frankly, I think that she’s more incompetent than he is, and that’s saying something, because he’s not too good,” he said.  On the topic of immigration, Trump also credited a slide his campaign made showing immigration stats for saving his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month during a rally, when shooter Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate him. The 45th president looked over to the slide on immigration data when Crooks opened fire, which narrowly saved his life as the position of his head had abruptly changed.  “That slide — illegal immigration saved my life,” he told Musk. “The incredible thing is that the chart, I used it less than 20% of the time. It was just a moment.” “It’s always to my left, never my right, and it’s always at the end of the speech,” Trump added of the position of the slide.  “I’m going to sleep with that chart always,” he joked.  FBI INVESTIGATING IRAN’S HACK OF TRUMP CAMPAIGN DOCUMENTS Trump went on to rattle off a list of wars and world events the U.S. could have avoided if Biden were not in the Oval Office, while noting he was tough on nations such as Russia, China and North Korea and knows the countries’ respective leaders “well.”   “First of all, the Israeli attack would have never happened. Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, and we’d have no inflation, and we wouldn’t have had the Afghanistan mess, if you think of it well … if you take a few of those events away, and we have a different world.” HARRIS CAMPAIGN POSTS DEBUNKED CLAIM THAT TRUMP CALLED CHARLOTTESVILLE NEO-NAZIS ‘VERY FINE PEOPLE’ He pointed to his tweets back in 2017 when he slammed North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as “little rocket man” as tensions heightened between the two nations amid a series of North Korea missile and nuclear tests.  “I had that problem worked out very quickly,” Trump said of North Korea. “It was nasty at the beginning with Rocket Man … [Jong-Un] said he has a red button on his desk. I said, ‘I have a red button on my desk too, but my red button is much bigger, and my red button works.’ And then I called him ‘Little Rocket Man.’” “Anyway, here’s the bottom line. All of a sudden, I got a call from him, and they said they want to meet, they wanted to meet me. And we met … and I got along with him great. We were in no danger, but President Obama thought we were gonna end up in a war, a nuclear war, with him,” he said.  BURGLARY AT TRUMP CAMPAIGN VIRGINIA HEADQUARTERS CAUGHT ON SURVEILLANCE CAMERA UNDER INVESTIGATION Trump also addressed

Officials at UN Security Council push for a permanent seat for Africa

Officials at UN Security Council push for a permanent seat for Africa

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urges reform, says the African continent is underrepresented in a changing world. The United Nations chief has called for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to reform its outdated structure and assign Africa a permanent seat at the table, stressing that the continent is underrepresented. Addressing the council on Monday during a high-level debate, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the composition of the UNSC has failed to keep pace with a changing world. “We cannot accept that the world’s preeminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people … nor can we accept that Africa’s views are undervalued on questions of peace and security, both on the continent and around the world,” he said. The 15-member UNSC consists of five permanent members with veto power – China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom – while the remaining 10 nonpermanent seats are allocated regionally. The 10 seats include three seats for African states; two each for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and other states; and one for Eastern Europe. In May, the UNSC called for the role of African countries to be strengthened in addressing global security and development challenges. Today, I addressed the @UN Security Council on the urgent need for #UNSC reform, emphasizing the historical injustice of Africa’s underrepresentation. We must reflect the world as it is, not as it was 80 years ago. The credibility of the UN depends on meaningful change. I… pic.twitter.com/Jkozt3YCJ8 — UN GA President (@UN_PGA) August 12, 2024 UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis said at the debate that the UN must reflect the world as it is. “The fact that Africa continues to be manifestly underrepresented on the Security Council is simply wrong, offending as it does both the principles of equity and inclusion,” he said. “It runs counter to the principle of sovereign equality of states and calls for the urgency to reform this institution to reflect the world as it is now, rather than what it was nearly 80 years ago.” A ‘favourable’ moment Speaking at the UNSC, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio said Africa demands two permanent seats in the UNSC and two additional nonpermanent seats. .@PresidentBio of #SierraLeone speaking in the #UN Security Council regarding the historical injustice against #Africa and enhancing the continent’s effective representation in the #UNSC: “Africa demands two permanent seats in the UN Security Council and two additional… pic.twitter.com/bf2Ny6KdVB — Rami Ayari (@Raminho) August 12, 2024 “The African Union will choose the African permanent members. Africa wants the veto abolished. However, if UN member states wish to retain the veto, it must be extended to all new permanent members as a matter of justice,” he said. Carlos Lopes, a professor at the University of Cape Town who previously served as a high representative for the African Union (AU), told Al Jazeera that African attempts to have better representation aren’t new, but current geopolitics have made this current moment “quite favourable”. “[There’s] a competition for Africa’s votes; Africa’s bloc has become much more difficult to actually align with one position or another,” Lopes said. “The Africans have been able to navigate these geopolitical tensions very well. We have seen it with the membership of the G20 being expanded to include the African Union. Now it’s another attempt by the Africans to push the envelope and try to do it at the Security Council.” Adblock test (Why?)

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 900

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 900

As the war enters its 900th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Tuesday, August 13, 2024. Kursk incursion Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said Kyiv controls about 1,000sq km (386sq miles) of the Russian region of Kursk after launching a surprise incursion across the border on August 6. Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian ground attacks on his region had resulted in the loss of 28 settlements and that the incursion was about 12km deep and 40km wide. Smirnov said 12 civilians have been killed and 121 injured as a result of the fighting. Some 121,000 residents have been evacuated. Putin, who held a meeting with senior officials on the situation, said Ukraine was trying to destabilise Russia and that there would be a “worthy response“. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which also lies on the border with Ukraine, said some residents were being evacuated amid increased Ukrainian military activity. Russia’s state news agency TASS later reported that 11,000 people had been evacuated from the Krasnaya Yaruga district. Fighting in Ukraine The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts were unable to determine what caused a fire at a dormant cooling tower at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have each blamed the other for the fire. The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had taken control of the settlement of Lysychne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Politics and diplomacy China urged de-escalation amid Ukraine’s Kursk incursion. “China will continue to maintain communication with the international community and play a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the crisis,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said in a statement. Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis signed a joint declaration with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani expressing “deep concern” over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, but said that Moscow should be present at the next peace summit. The first summit was held in June and Moscow was not invited. State prosecutors and anticorruption police in Ukraine said they had arrested one of the country’s four deputy energy ministers and three other suspects as they were caught “red-handed” receiving part of a $500,000 bribe. A Russian court sentenced Uzbek community leader Usman Baratov to four years in a penal colony for a social media post mocking troops fighting in Ukraine, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported. Weapons The United States warned Iran against sending ballistic missiles to Russia, saying it would invoke a “severe” US response and undermine efforts by Tehran to improve relations. The Reuters news agency, citing European officials, reported on Friday that Iran was planning to deliver hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles to Moscow. Adblock test (Why?)