Thursday, July 25, 2024

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1/ Biden, speaking to the American public from the Oval Office, said he ended his re-election campaign because there is “a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices — yes, younger voices.” He said that “saving our democracy” was “more important than any title,” and that “The best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation.” Biden never mentioned Trump by name, but instead framed his decision to step aside by saying, “Americans are going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division. We have to decide — do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy.” Biden, who entered political life as one of the youngest U.S. senators in history and is leaving as the nation’s oldest president in history, praised Kamala Harris and ended by saying “it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.” (Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / CNN / Axios / NPR)

2/ Kamala Harris warned that Trump and Project 2025 would “return American to a dark past” of “chaos, fear and hate.” In a speech to the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Harris blasted the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page vision for a second Trump term, saying: “Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed trickle-down economic policies, back to union busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires [they] want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness [and] want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.” She added: “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books,” as teachers responded with chants of “Bring it on, bring it on.” While Trump has largely tried to distance himself from Project 2025, his vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, wrote the foreword for the upcoming book from the architect of the right-wing blueprint. “We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” Vance writes. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.” (CNBC / Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / ABC News / Bloomberg)

3/ JD Vance once argued that Kamala Harris is unfit to be president because she has not given birth to children. During a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Vance called Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other Democrats the “childless cat ladies” who “want ...

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