US approves $7.3 bn sale of F-16 upgrades for Poland
Updated 24 October 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday announced the approval of a $7.3 billion sale of upgrades for Poland’s F-16 warplanes, boosting the defenses of a NATO member that shares a lengthy border with war-torn Ukraine.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security of the United States by improving the security of a NATO ally that is a force for political and economic stability in Europe,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.
“The F-16 Viper Midlife Upgrade (MLU) will bolster Poland’s air defense and surveillance capabilities, support national security, and strengthen Poland’s defense and contributions to NATO,” it said.
The State Department approved the possible sale and the DSCA on Wednesday provided the required notification to Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction.
Suspect in shootings of Democratic office in Arizona had over 200 guns in his home, officials find
Updated 5 sec ago
AP
TEMPE, Arizona: An Arizona prosecutor said Wednesday the man arrested in the three-time shooting of a Democratic National Committee office in suburban Phoenix had more than 200 guns and over 250,000 rounds of ammunition in his home, leading law enforcement to believe he may have been planning a mass casualty event.
Maricopa County prosecutor Neha Bhatia said at Jeffrey Michael Kelly’s initial court appearance on Wednesday that federal agents told her about the large seizure made after Kelly’s arrest. Scopes, body armor and silencers were also found, she said. A machine gun was discovered in the car he was driving.
The sheer size of the cache led authorities to believe “this person was preparing to commit an act of mass casualty,” Bhatia said.
Tempe police said Kelly, 60, also is accused of hanging several political signs lined with razor blades on Tuesday in Ahwatukee, an affluent suburb of Phoenix where most voters have chosen Democrats in recent elections.
Authorities said the hand-painted signs were attached to palm trees and appeared to criticize Democrats and their presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Kelly was being held on three felony counts of acts of terrorism and four other counts related to the shootings, according to police.
The Phoenix resident had an initial court appearance scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, around the same time Tempe police planned to release more information about Kelly’s arrest.
Police said Kelly allegedly fired BB pellets and then gunshots at the glass front door and a window of the Arizona Democrats’ field office in the early morning hours of Sept. 16, Sept. 23 and Oct. 6. Nobody was inside during the shootings.
The Tempe location was one of 18 Harris field offices in Arizona where Democrats gathered to organize Harris campaign efforts. It was shut down after the last shooting, police said.
Arizona is one of the battleground states where the competition between Harris and former President Donald Trump has been particularly intense.
Political violence has already marred the campaign season, with the Republican presidential nominee being targeted by assassination attempts at a campaign rally and at one of Trump’s Florida golf courses.
VP Harris decries Trump after former chief of staff says he wanted generals like Hitler’s
John Kelly, a retired general, warned in interviews that Trump meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office he suggested that Hitler “did some good things”
Harris, the vice president and Democratic nominee, repeated her increasingly dire warnings about Trump’s mental fitness and his intentions for the presidency
Updated 24 October 2024
AP
WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris said Wednesday that comments praising Adolf Hitler reportedly made by Donald Trump to his longest-serving chief of staff offer a window into who the former president “really is” and the kind of commander in chief he would be.
In interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic published Tuesday, John Kelly warned that the Republican nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office he suggested that the Nazi leader “did some good things.”
Harris, the vice president and Democratic nominee, repeated her increasingly dire warnings about Trump’s mental fitness and his intentions for the presidency.
“This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who have worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room,” Harris told reporters outside the vice president’s residence in Washington.
The comments from Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, built on past warnings from former top Trump officials as the election enters its final two weeks.
Kelly has long been critical of Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” His new warnings emerged as Trump seeks a second term vowing to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers “enemies from within.”
“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly recalled to the Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying “nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good,” but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.
In his interview with the Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing “German generals,” Kelly would ask if he meant “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who oversaw the unification of Germany. “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”
Trump’s campaign denied the accounts. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Kelly had “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated” and, after Harris’ statement, accused the Democratic candidate of sharing “outright lies and falsehoods.”
Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s Republican governor and onetime Trump critic, said Kelly’s comments did not change his plans to vote for the former president.
“Look, we’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump, from Donald Trump. It’s really par for the course,” the governor told CNN. “Unfortunately, with a guy like that, it’s kind of baked into the vote at this point.”
Some of the former president’s supporters in swing states responded to Kelly’s comments with a shrug.
“Trump did his four years, and we were in great shape. Kelly didn’t have anything good to say about Trump. He ought to have his butt kicked,” said Jim Lytner, a longtime advocate for veterans in Nevada who served in the Army in Vietnam and co-founded the nonprofit Veterans Transition Resource Center.
Harris said Wednesday that Trump admired Hitler’s generals because he “does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally.”
Polls show the race is tight in swing states, and both Trump and Harris are crisscrossing the country making their final pitches to the sliver of undecided voters. Harris’ campaign has spent considerable time reaching out to independent voters, using the support of longtime Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and comments like Kelly’s to urge past Trump voters to reject his candidacy in November.
Harris’ campaign held a call with reporters Tuesday to elevate the voices of retired military officials who highlighted how many of the officials who worked with Trump now oppose his campaign.
“People that know him best are most opposed to him, his presidency,” said retired Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson.
Anderson said he wished Kelly would fully back Harris over Trump, something he has yet to do. But retired Army reserve Col. Kevin Carroll, a former senior counselor to Kelly, said Wednesday that the former top Trump official would “rather chew broken glass than vote for Donald Trump.”
Before serving as Trump’s chief of staff, Kelly worked as the former president’s secretary of homeland security, where he oversaw Trump’s attempts to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Kelly was also at the forefront of the administration’s crackdown in immigration policy that led to the separation of thousands of immigrant parents and their children along the southern border. Those actions made him a villain to many on the left, including Harris.
After Kelly left the Trump administration and joined the board of a company operating the nation’s largest detention center for unaccompanied migrant children, Harris wrote during her 2019 run for president that he was “the architect” of the administration’s “cruel child separation policy. Now he will profit off the separation of families. It’s unethical. We are better than this.”
When she was in Miami for a primary debate in June 2019, Harris was also one of a dozen Democratic presidential candidates who visited the detention center south of the city and protested against the administration’s harsh treatment of young migrants.
In his interview with the Times, Kelly also said Trump met the definition of a fascist. After reading the definition aloud, including that fascism was “a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader,” Kelly concluded Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Kelly added that Trump often fumed at any attempt to constrain his power, and that “he would love to be” a dictator.
“He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Kelly told the Times. Adding later, “I think he’d love to be just like he was in business — he could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot.”
Kelly is not the first former top Trump administration official to cast the former president as a threat.
Retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward in his recent book “War” that Trump was “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” And retired Gen. Jim Mattis, who worked as secretary of defense under Trump, reportedly later told Woodward that he agreed with Milley’s assessment.
Throughout Trump’s political rise, the businessman-turned-politician benefited from the support of military veterans.
AP VoteCast found that about 6 in 10 military veterans said they voted for Trump in 2020, as did just over half of those with a veteran in the household. Among voters in this year’s South Carolina Republican primary, AP VoteCast found that close to two-thirds of military veterans and people in veteran households voted for Trump over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s toughest opponent in the 2024 Republican primary.
Nearly 25 million votes already cast as Harris, Trump hit battleground states
Harris seeks support from undecided voters in Pennsylvania
Trump campaigns in Georgia with Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr
Updated 55 min 44 sec ago
Reuters
PHILADELPHIA/ZEBULON, Georgia: With millions of US voters already heading to the polls, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Wednesday will seek support from undecided voters at a televised town hall in battleground Pennsylvania, while Republican Donald Trump swept through Georgia.
Nearly 25 million voters have cast ballots, either through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots, according to tracking data from the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Several states, including the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia, set records on their respective first day of early voting last week.
“The votes in Georgia are at record levels,” Trump told a religious-themed “ballots and believers” event in Zebulon, Georgia. “The votes in every state, frankly, are at record levels. We’re doing really well and hopefully we can fix our country.”
Voters wait in line on the second day of early voting in Wisconsin at the American Serb Hall Banquet in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 23, 2024. (REUTERS)
The robust early turnout comes as Vice President Harris and former President Trump remain neck and neck in the seven most competitive states with less than two weeks to go until the Nov. 5 election.
Trump in recent days has sought to rally turnout from Christian evangelicals, hoping they will set aside any concerns about his frequent off-color commentary like his tale about Arnold Palmer’s anatomy.
Trump, who made campaign rallies a staple of his political career starting back in 2015, said in Zebulon that “in many ways it’s sad” that his time as a political candidate is coming to a close. If he wins on Nov. 5, he would serve his second and final term.
“We’ve been doing this for nine years, and it’s down to 12 days,” he said.
After Zebulon, Trump was headed to Duluth, Georgia, for a rally with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Harris was to participate in a CNN town hall in Chester Township, Pennsylvania, an attempt to persuade the dwindling number of undecided voters to support her and help turn the tide in a closely divided race where even a small percentage of votes could be critical.
Harris on Wednesday seized on comments by Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly, who told the New York Times that the former president met the “general definition of fascist” and admired dictators.
Harris, who has argued that Trump is a threat to US democracy, called Trump’s remarks as quoted by Kelly “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous.” Trump’s campaign has denied Kelly’s account, calling them “debunked stories.”
Harris tried and failed to push Trump to agree to a second presidential debate on CNN after she was considered to have won the first and only presidential debate between the two candidates, which took place in September on ABC News.
Pennsylvania and Georgia are among the seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency, and both candidates are likely to spend much of the rest of their campaigns visiting them. Harris held a marginal 46 percent to 43 percent lead nationally over the former president in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
US Justice Department warns Musk over $1 million giveaway
Musk, a Trump supporter, announced plans to give $1 million to one registered voter in a swing state every day until the US election on November 5
Winners of the contest are chosen at random but they must be registered voters and must sign a petition that supports “free speech and the right to bear arms”
Updated 24 October 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk’s America PAC has been warned by the Justice Department that its $1 million daily giveaways to registered voters may violate federal law, US media reported Wednesday.
Musk, the world’s richest man, announced the contest on Saturday in Pennsylvania, one of the seven “swing states” that will likely determine who will become the next US president — Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
Musk, a Trump supporter, announced plans to give $1 million to one registered voter in a swing state every day until the US election on November 5.
CNN and 24sight News said the letter from the Justice Department to Musk’s political action commitee warns that the $1 million sweepstakes may violate federal law, which prohibits paying people to register to vote.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
The winners of the contest are chosen at random but they must be registered voters. They are also required to sign a petition that supports “free speech and the right to bear arms.”
Danielle Lang, a professor at Georgetown Law School who specializes in election law, told AFP earlier this week that the contest could be “subject to civil or criminal enforcement by the Department of Justice.”
“It is illegal to give out money on the condition that recipients register as voters,” Lang said.
“As the terms of this ‘contest’ to win $1 million require the recipient to be a registered voter in one of seven swing states (or to register if they have not already), the offer violates federal law,” she said.
Trump meets definition of a fascist, his former chief of staff says
Retired general Scott Kelly says Kelly said Trump would seek to rule like an authoritarian if he returned to the White House
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung disparaged Kelly, saying he “has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories”
Weighing in, Democratic presidential candidate Kamal Harris said the reported remarks only show that Trump is a threat to US democracy
Updated 24 October 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump meets the definition of a fascist and “prefers the dictator approach to government,” his former White House chief of staff said in a series of interviews with the New York Times.
With less than two weeks until the Nov. 5 election, John Kelly, a longtime critic of Trump’s, told the Times that the former Republican president had no understanding of the US Constitution or the concept of the rule of law.
Kelly said the former president would seek to rule like an authoritarian if he returned to the White House. In the interviews published on Tuesday, he quoted Trump as having told him German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”
Trump’s team has denied the accounts.
“He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Kelly said, according to the newspaper. “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
A retired US Marine Corps general, Kelly served as Trump’s White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019. Since Kelly left the White House the two men’s relationship has soured and both are open about their disdain for each other.
“John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON!” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that Kelly “has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories.”
Retired US Army brigadier general, Republican Steve Anderson, said on a call with reporters organized by the Harris campaign that he was disappointed Kelly did not go as far as endorsing Harris after his criticism of Trump.
In the Times interview, Kelly stressed that as a former military officer he was not endorsing any candidate.
