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Biden slams GOP, Trump warns of 'tyranny' ahead of midterms
President Joe Biden pilloried Republicans up and down ballots across the nation as election deniers who reveled in political violence, while his predecessor, Donald Trump, urged voters to oppose “growing left-wing tyranny" on the final Sunday before midterm elections that could reshape Washington's balance of power.
Wrapping up a five-state, four-day campaign swing with an evening rally at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, Biden championed Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. She's locked in a tight race with Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is looking to become the state's first GOP governor since George Pataki left office in 2006.
The president said hundreds of Republican candidates for state, federal and local office are "election deniers, who say that I did not win the election, even though hundreds of attempts to challenge that have all failed, even in Republican courts.”
Biden said that for the deniers, “There are only two outcomes for any election: either they win or they were cheated.”
Biden said Republicans were willing to condone last year's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and that, after the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, some in that party made “light of it” or were “making excuses.”
“There's never been a time in my career where we've glorified violence based on a political preference," the president said.
Read more: Amidst recession fears, Biden has to convince Americans job gains mean better days ahead
More than 39 million people have voted early in Tuesday's races, which will decide control of Congress and key governorships — the first national election since a mob overran the Capitol. Earlier Sunday, as Trump addressed supporters in Miami, a reference to the House speaker prompted chants of “Lock her up!" — a stark reminder of just how far apart each side is.
Trump is hoping that a strong GOP showing on Election Day will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he is expected to launch this month.
“I will probably have to do it again, but stay tuned,” Trump said, teasing an event he has with Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, JD Vance, for Monday. "We have a big, big rally. Stay tuned for tomorrow night.”
Trump also told the crowd that "every free and loving American needs to understand that the time to stand up to this growing left-wing tyranny is right now,” while calling on his supporters to reject the “radical left-wing maniacs” and adding that Hispanics would show up strong for GOP candidates.
Sen. Marco Rubio joined Trump at the rally as he seeks reelection. Not attending the Miami event was Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who is running for reelection against Democrat Charlie Crist and is widely considered Trump’s most formidable challenger if he also were to get into the White House race.
Instead, DeSantis held his own, separate events Sunday in another part of the state where he stuck to the centerpieces of his reelection campaign, including railing against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and “wokeness” in schools and other parts of society. The governor's counter political programing avoided antagonizing Trump — meaning it didn't deliver the dueling 2024 events that could be in his and Trump's near future.
Trump said Sunday that Florida would “reelect Ron DeSantis as your governor.” But he was more confrontational during a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday night, referring to Florida's governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
It's a rivalry that's been simmering for more than a year as DeSantis has taken increasingly bold steps to boost his national profile and build a deep fundraising network.
Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party. Still, many of his supporters are eager for the prospect that DeSantis might run, seeing him as a natural successor to Trump, without the former president's considerable political negatives.
Read more: G-20 summit could put Biden in the same room with Putin and MBS
For national Democrats, meanwhile, the focus is on the fate of their narrow control of the House and Senate, which could evaporate after Tuesday.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the Democrats’ House campaign arm, is in a tough contest for his seat. But he insisted Sunday that Democrats are “going to do better than people think on Tuesday,” adding that his party is “not perfect” but “we are responsible adults who believe in this democracy.”
“I think this race is razor-close and I think everybody who cares about the extremism in this ‘MAGA’ movement — the racism, the antisemitism, the violence — needs to get out and vote and that’s not just Democrats, it’s independents and fair-minded Republicans,” Maloney told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Voters may rebuke the party controlling the White House and Congress amid surging inflation, concerns about crime and pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests the party in power will suffer significant losses in the midterms.
On a weekend that also featured Democratic rallies by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, first lady Jill Biden attended church services while campaigning in Houston on Sunday. Like her husband and his presidential predecessors, she argued that democracy itself was on the ballot.
"So much is at stake in this election," she said. "We must speak up on justice and democracy.”
Traveling in Chicago Vice President Kamala Harris struck a similar tone, saying, “These attacks on our democracy will not only directly impact the people around our country, but arguably around the world.”
Trump has long falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election only because Democrats cheated and has even begun raising the possibility of election fraud this year. Federal intelligence agencies are warning of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists.
Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, said Democrats were “inflation deniers,” trying to deflect the other side's branding of her party as anti-democracy for rejecting the results of 2020's free and fair presidential election simply because Trump lost it.
“If we win back the House and the Senate, it’s the American people saying to Joe Biden, we want you to work on behalf of us and we want you to work across the aisle to solve the problems that we are dealing with," McDaniel told CNN's “State of the Union."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest union of public employees, has been traveling the country rallying for Democrats. He said, “It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be tough, but we aren’t giving up hope."
“Clearly people are concerned about the economy," Saunders said. But he added that voters also are “concerned about the freedoms being taken away from them, whether you’re talking about voting rights or whether your talking about a women’s right to choose.”
Pelosi makes first public remarks since husband’s assault
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her first public appearance since the brutal attack on her husband, rallied grassroots activists Friday, saying the midterm elections for control of Congress are a fight for democracy and “very winnable.”
“People say to me, ‘What can I do to make you feel better?’ I say: ‘Vote!’” Pelosi told those on the call.
“I believe that this race is very winnable,” Pelosi said.
Her voice cracked at times as she said of her husband’s recovery, “It’s going to be a long haul.”
Pelosi thanked those on a video call for the outpouring of support for Paul Pelosi, 82, who suffered a fractured skull and other injuries after an intruder broke into their San Francisco home late last week and bludgeoned him with a hammer in what authorities say was an intentional and political attack.
The Democratic leader spoke in the early morning from California, where her husband was released from the hospital late Thursday, her voice breaking throughout the lengthy but upbeat address.
Read: US House Speaker Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, defying Beijing
“What we are doing is not only to win an election, but this is to strengthen our democracy,” Pelosi said. “There is no question that our democracy is on the ballot.”
The speaker’s comments come as Democrats are facing a stiff fight for control of Congress in the midterm elections Tuesday, as energized Republicans are working to flip the House and Senate and end Democratic hold on Washington.
David DePape, 42, is being held without bail on state charges of attempted murder, burglary and elder abuse. DePape’s public defender, Adam Lipson, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf earlier this week and has pledged to vigorously defend him. Lipson declined to comment Friday.
At a hearing Friday, a San Francisco judge disclosed that she had worked with Speaker Pelosi’s daughter in the 1990s, giving prosecutors and the public defender’s office the opportunity to object to her role in the case.
Judge Loretta “Lori” Giorgi said she and Christine Pelosi had worked together in the San Francisco city attorney’s office in the 1990s but had not interacted in years. Christine is one of the Pelosis’ five adult children and while she has never held elected office, she’s considered to be a potential successor when Pelosi retires from her House seat.
In court filings released earlier this week, officials said DePape broke into the home, carrying zip ties, tape and a rope in a backpack. He woke up Paul Pelosi and demanded to talk to “Nancy,” who was out of town. Two officers who raced to the home after Paul Pelosi’s 911 call witnessed DePape hit him in the head with the hammer.
No one objected during Friday’s hearing to Giorgi’s ties to the Pelosi family but either side could in the future and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the case might be heard by another judge regardless. The public defender’s office did not immediately have a comment.
“I do want to make a disclosure on the record that the daughter of Mr. Pelosi, Christine Pelosi, and I were in the city attorney’s office together in the 90s,” Giorgi told the court. “And I have disclosed to counsel the interactions that I had when she and I were together. I haven’t seen or heard or talked to Ms. Pelosi after she left the office. I do see her here today.”
Giorgi worked in the city attorney’s office from 1985 to 2006, when she was appointed to the bench. She rose to the rank of deputy city attorney and was the office’s public integrity chief.
Read: Nancy Pelosi hands out impeachment pens, a signing tradition
Christine Pelosi attended Friday’s hearing but seemed to leave through a back door in order to avoid media waiting in the hallway. She entered the courtroom right before the proceeding started and sat in the front row away from reporters.
Christine Pelosi is active in California and national Democratic politics. In 2019, she released a book about her mother titled “The Nancy Pelosi Way.” In 2017, as chair of the California Democratic Party’s women’s caucus, she was actively involved in the #MeToo movement as it took shape in the state capital.
The city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for details of Giorgi and Christine Pelosi’s employment.
DePape, who is Canadian, overstayed his authorized entry to the U.S. more than two decades ago. He should have been blocked from getting back into the country when he returned a few times over the years, according to a U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Amidst recession fears, Biden has to convince Americans job gains mean better days ahead
President Joe Biden has notched an envious record on jobs, with 10.3 million gained during his tenure. But voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections are far more focused on inflation hovering near 40-year highs.
That’s left the president trying to convince the public that the job gains mean better days are ahead, even as fears of a recession build.
Presidents have long trusted that voters would reward them for strong economic growth, but inflation has thrown a monkey wrench into the already difficult probability of Democrats’ retaining control of the House and Senate.
Economic anxieties have compounded as the Federal Reserve has repeatedly hiked its benchmark interest rates to lower inflation and possibly raise unemployment. Mortgage costs have shot upwards, while the S&P 500 stock index has dropped more than 20% so far this year as the world braces for a possible downturn.
Biden is asking voters to look beyond the current financial pain, saying that what matters are the job gains that he believes his policies are fostering. The government reported Friday that employers added 261,000 jobs in October as the unemployment rate bumped up to 3.7%.
Roughly 740,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since the start of Biden’s presidency, a figure that the president says will keep rising because of his funding for infrastructure projects, the production of computer chips and the switch to clean energy sources.
“America is reasserting itself — it’s as simple as that,” Biden said in a Friday speech. “We also know folks are still struggling with inflation. It’s our number one priority.”
Yet the president is also warning that a Republican majority in Congress could make inflation worse by seeking to undo his programs and treating payments on the federal debt as a bargaining chip instead of an obligation to honor.
Read: Bangladesh an important country: US President
His challenge is that the party in power generally faces skeptical voters in U.S. midterms and inflation looms over the public mindset more than job growth.
“If you have a job, it’s small comfort to know that the job market is strong if at the same time you feel like every paycheck is worth less and less anyway,” said pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. “Inflation is such political poison because voters are reminded every day whenever they spend money that it is a problem we are experiencing.”
As Biden tries to fend off fears that inflation is causing the country to slide into a recession, his chief evidence of the economy’s resilience is the continued job growth.
“As we see the economy as a whole, we do not see it going into a recession,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in anticipation of the latest jobs report.
Going into the election, Biden and Democrats are already at a disadvantage. Voters generally favor the party out of the White House in midterms, giving Republicans an automatic leg up. When Yale University economist Ray Fair looked at past elections, his model forecast that Democrats would get just 46.4% of the national vote largely because Biden was in the Oval Office.
Fair’s analysis suggests that inflation basically erased the political boost that Democrats could have gotten from strong economic growth during three quarters in 2021. Even if the economy is top of mind for many voters, the conflicting forces of past growth and high inflation cancel out each other.
This makes the Democrats’ vote share roughly the same as suggested by the historical trend, Fair concluded.
Read: Record inflation puts the squeeze on Eurozone economies
But inflation compounds the obstacles for a president who has tried to convey optimism as he tours the country in the run-up to the elections. Research in social psychology and behavioral economics generally shows that people often focus on the negatives and can block out the positives.
“People pay more attention to bad news than to good news and are more likely to retain and recall bad news,” said Matthew Incantalupo, a political scientist at Yeshiva University.
Incantalupo’s research looks at how voters absorb economic news. When unemployment is low, as it is now, he said, voters generally think about jobs as a personal issue — rather than a systemic one involving government policies. But most think about inflation as a social problem beyond any person’s control, unless that individual happens to run the Fed.
“When it is high, everyone experiences it at least a little bit, and there really is no individual way to avoid it,” Incantalupo said. “Voters are going to look to government for remedies under those circumstances, and in many cases that will result in them punishing incumbents, even in the presence of other positive news about the economy.”
Republican candidates have specifically said Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last year overheated the economy, causing prices to rise alongside the job gains that they claim would have happened anyway as the pandemic receded. They have also said that Biden should have loosened restrictions on oil production, in order to increase domestic output and lower gasoline prices.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy — who could become speaker if the GOP wins a House majority — has hammered Biden on high prices. As Biden has warned that Republicans who deny the outcome of the 2020 election are a threat to democracy, the California congressman countered that what voters care about are the costs of gas and groceries.
Read: Inflation: UN expert for increasing benefits, wages or lives will be lost
“President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite — because he can’t talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living,” McCarthy tweeted this past week. “The American people aren’t buying it.”
Still, inflation is not solely a domestic issue. After Russia invaded Ukraine, energy and food costs rose and suddenly flipped the global dynamics as inflation rose faster in parts of the world with less aggressive coronavirus relief than the U.S. Annual inflation in the euro zone is a record 10.7%, much higher than the 8.2% in the U.S.
Meanwhile, growth has slowed in China, the pace of world trade is slipping and Saudi Arabia-led OPEC+ has cut oil production in order to prop up prices. And because the Fed is raising rates to lower domestic inflation, the dollar has increased in value and essentially exported higher prices to the rest of the world.
This has left U.S. voters in the curious position of not necessarily blaming the president for inflation, even as they disapprove of his economic leadership.
An October poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs captured this split. More than half of voters say that prices are higher because of factors beyond Biden’s control. But just 36% approve of his economic leadership.
Journalist killed after police in Haiti open fire
A Haitian journalist died Sunday after being shot in the head when police opened fire on reporters demanding the release of one of their colleagues who was detained while covering a protest, witnesses told The Associated Press.
Reporters at the scene identified the slain journalist as Romelo Vilsaint and said he worked for an online news site. His body was lying face down inside the parking lot of a police station in Delmas in the capital of Port-au-Prince as colleagues surrounded it, crying out as they lifted their arms.
Richard Pierrin, a freelance photographer for Agence France-Presse, told the AP he saw police open fire and Vilsaint get hit.
Gary Desrosiers, a spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, confirmed to the AP that Vilsaint was fatally shot but declined further comment except to say it was a lamentable situation.
As journalists and citizens surrounded the police station after Vilsaint was killed, officers fired tear gas to disperse them.
Reporters at the scene said the journalist being held is Robest Dimanche, who works at local Radio Tele Zenith and was covering a protest when he was detained.
The Online Media Collective, a local journalists’ association, denounced Dimanche’s arrest, saying he was being treated like a “dangerous criminal” and said he was charged with disturbing public order. Dimanche also is a spokesman for the organization.
“Our spokesperson acted within the framework of the journalistic mission by covering a protest movement,” the organization said. “The detention ... is the latest signal, without doubt the most worrying, of a resurgence of attacks on freedom of information, and this journalist must be released.”
The organization also demanded that those responsible for the recent killing of radio journalist Garry Tess and the Oct. 25 attack on Roberson Alphonse, a reporter for Le Nouvelliste newspaper, be brought to justice.
On Wednesday, Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s largest newspaper, announced it was suspending publication of its print product given “serious security problems” that are hampering production and distribution.
Foundation of US democracy being called into question: Obama
Former President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail Friday in Georgia, using his first stop on a multi-state tour to frame the 2022 midterm elections as a referendum on democracy and to urge voters not to see Republicans as an answer to their economic woes.
It was a delicate balance, as the former president acknowledged the pain of inflation and tried to explain why President Joe Biden and Democrats shouldn’t take all the blame as they face the prospects of losing narrow majorities in the House and Senate when votes are tallied Nov. 8. But Obama argued that Republicans who are intent on making it harder for people to vote and — like former President Donald Trump — are willing to ignore the results, can’t be trusted to care about Americans’ wallets either.
“That basic foundation of our democracy is being called into question right now,” Obama told more than 5,000 voters gathered outside Atlanta. “Democrats aren’t perfect. I’m the first one to admit it. ... But right now, with a few notable exceptions, most of the GOP and a whole bunch of these candidates are not even pretending that the rules apply to them.”With Biden’s approval ratings in the low 40s, Democrats hope Obama’s emergence in the closing weeks of the campaign boosts the party’s slate in a tough national environment. He shared the stage Friday with Sen. Raphael Warnock, who faces a tough reelection fight from Republican Herschel Walker, and Stacey Abrams, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who defeated her narrowly four years ago.
Obama will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.
For Obama personally, the campaign blitz is an opportunity to do something he was unable to do in two midterms during his presidency: help Democrats succeed in national midterms when they already hold the White House. For his party, it’s an opportunity to leverage Obama’s rebound in popularity since his last midterm defeats in 2014. Their hope is that the former president can sell arguments that Biden, his former vice president, has struggled to land.
Biden was in Pennsylvania on Friday with Vice President Kamala Harris and plans to be in Georgia next week, potentially in a joint rally with Obama and statewide Democratic candidates. But he has not been welcomed as a surrogate for many Democratic candidates across the country, including Warnock.
“Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today,” said David Axelrod, who helped shape Obama’s campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. “He obviously has great appeal to Democrats. But he’s also well-liked by independent voters.”
Obama tried to show off that reach Friday. The first Black president drew a hero’s welcome from a majority Black audience, and he offered plenty of applause lines for Democrats. But he saved plenty of his argument, especially on the economy, for moderates, independents and casual voters, including a defense of Biden, who Obama said is “fighting for you every day.”
He called inflation “a legacy of the pandemic,” the resulting supply chain disruption and the Ukraine war’s effects on global oil markets — a sweeping retort to Republican attempts to cast sole blame on Democrats’ spending bills.
“What is their answer? ... They want to give the rich tax cuts,” Obama said of the GOP. “That’s their answer to everything. When inflation is low, let’s cut taxes. When unemployment is high, let’s cut taxes. If there was an asteroid heading toward Earth, they would all get in a room and say, you know what we need? We need tax cuts for the wealthy. How’s that going to help you?”
Biden has sought to make similar arguments, and was buoyed this week with news of 2.6% economic growth in the third quarter after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to convince voters who haven’t decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.
“If it’s just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we’re screwed,” Smith said. “But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences.”
Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections “by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don’t always think about as part of the ‘Obama coalition.’”
Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59% approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63% the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That’s considerably higher than his ratings in 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House in a midterm election that Obama called a “shellacking.” In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP regained control of the Senate.
Still, Bakari Sellers, a prominent Democratic commentator, said Obama’s broader popularity shouldn’t obscure how much his “special connection” with Black voters and other non-white voters can help Democrats.
The Atlanta rally brought Obama together with Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator in Georgia history, and Abrams, who’s vying to become the first Black female governor in American history.
In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin he’ll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state’s Black population is most concentrated. Obama’s Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.
With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be most critical to Democratic fortunes.
Axelrod said Obama’s turnabout from his own midterm floggings to being Democrats’ leading surrogate is, in part, a rite of passage for any former president. “Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office,” Axelrod said.
Notably, during Obama’s presidency, former President Bill Clinton was the in-demand heavyweight surrogate, especially for moderates trying to survive Republican surges in 2010 and 2014.
Axelrod said Obama and Clinton have a similar approach.
“What Clinton and Obama share is a kind of unique ability to colloquialize complicated political arguments of the time, just talk in common-sense terms,” Axelrod said. “They’re storytellers.”
US Speaker Pelosi's husband attacked, beaten by intruder
The husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked and severely beaten with a hammer by an assailant who broke into the couple's San Francisco home early Friday, searching for the Democratic leader and shouting, “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?”
The assault on the 82-year-old Paul Pelosi injected new uneasiness into the nation's already toxic political climate, just 11 days before the midterm elections. It carried chilling echoes of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, when rioters chanted menacingly for the speaker as they rampaged through the halls trying to halt certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.
Speaker Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time of the California attack, arrived in San Francisco late Friday. Her motorcade was seen arriving at the hospital where her husband was being treated for his injuries.
“This was not a random act. This was intentional. And it’s wrong," said San Francisco Police Chief William Scott.
At an evening news conference, Scott hailed a 911 dispatcher's work — after Paul Pelosi called for help — as “lifesaving." The chief appeared to hold back tears, his voice breaking at times, as he strongly rejected violence in politics.
“Our elected officials are here to do the business of their cities and their counties and their states. Their families don’t sign up for this,” Scott said. "Everybody should be disgusted about what happened this morning.”
Forty-two-year-old David DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary, and remained in the hospital late Friday, police said. Paul Pelosi underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, and his doctors expect a full recovery, the speaker’s office said.
Biden quickly called Speaker Pelosi with support and later delivered a full-throated condemnation of the “despicable” attack that he said had no place in America.
“There’s too much violence, political violence. Too much hatred. Too much vitriol,” Biden said Friday night at a Democratic rally in Pennsylvania.
“What makes us think it's not going to corrode the political climate? Enough is enough is enough.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell tweeted he was “horrified and disgusted" by the assault.
The nation's political rhetoric has become increasingly alarming, with ominous threats to lawmakers at an all-time high. The House speaker and other congressional leaders are provided 24-hour security, and increasingly more other members now receive police protection. This, as crime and public safety have emerged as top issues for voters in the election.
In San Francisco on Friday, police were called at about 2.30 a.m. to the Pelosi residence to check on Paul Pelosi, said Scott.
Scott confirmed that the intruder gained entry through the rear door of the home, which is in the upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood. Investigators believe the intruder broke through glass-paneled doors, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Paul Pelosi called 911 himself after telling the intruder he had to use the restroom, where his phone was charging, according to another person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. The person said the intruder confronted the speaker's husband shouting, “Where is Nancy?”
Scott said the dispatcher figured out there was "something more” than she was being told, resulting in a priority dispatch and faster police response. “I think this was lifesaving,” he noted.
Inside, police discovered the suspect, DePape, and Paul Pelosi struggling over a hammer, and told them to drop it, Scott said. DePape yanked the hammer from Pelosi and began beating him with it, striking at least one blow, before being tackled by officers and arrested, Scott said. The FBI and Capitol Police are also part of the joint investigation.
Police said a motive for Friday’s intrusion was still to be determined, but three people with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that DePape targeted Pelosi’s home. Those people were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing probe and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The speaker had returned to Washington this week after being abroad and had been scheduled to appear with Vice President Kamala Harris at a fundraising event Saturday night for the LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign. Pelosi canceled her appearance.
On Friday, Harris said, “I strongly believe that each one of us has to speak out against hate, we have to speak out against violence obviously, and speak to our better selves.”
An address listed for DePape in the Bay Area college town of Berkeley led to a post box at a UPS Store.
He was known locally as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed naked at protests against laws requiring people to be clothed in public
Gene DePape, the suspect’s stepfather, said the suspect lived with him in Canada until he was 14 and was a quiet boy.
“He was reclusive,” said Gene DePape, adding, “He was never violent.”
The stepfather said he hadn’t seen DePape since 2003 and tried to get in touch with him several times over the years without success.
Lawmakers from both parties reacted with shock and expressed their well-wishes to the Pelosi family.
“What happened to Paul Pelosi was a dastardly act,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “I spoke with Speaker Pelosi earlier this morning and conveyed my deepest concern and heartfelt wishes to her husband and their family, and I wish him a speedy recovery.”
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy reached out privately to the speaker "to check in on Paul and said he’s praying for a full recovery," spokesman Mark Bednar said.
But some Republicans declined to pause from politics.
Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin, at a campaign stop for a congressional candidate, said of the Pelosis, "There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California.”
In 2021, Capitol Police investigated around 9,600 threats made against members of Congress, and several members have been physically attacked in recent years. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store in 2011, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was severely injured when a gunman opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball team practice in 2017.
Members of Congress have received additional money for security at their homes, but some have pushed for yet more protection as people have shown up at their residences.
Nancy Pelosi, who is second in line of succession to the president, has been viciously lampooned in campaign ads by Republicans and outside groups this election cycle. Her protective security detail was with her in Washington at the time of Friday's attack in California.
Often at her side during formal events in Washington, Paul Pelosi is a wealthy investor who largely remains on the West Coast. They have been married for 59 years and have five adult children and many grandchildren.
Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation.
The Pelosi home in the wealthy neighborhood has been the scene of several protests in the past few years. After Nancy Pelosi was seen on video getting her hair done at a salon while many were shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, stylists protested outside with curling irons. Members of the Chinese community protested recently before Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
During debates over the federal stimulus package, protesters scrawled anarchy signs in black paint across the garage door, along with “cancel rent,” and “we want everything.” They left a pig’s head on the driveway.
Yet the dominant feelings Friday were of support and concern.
“We have been to many events with the Pelosis over the last 2 decades and we’ve had lots of occasions to talk about both of our families and the challenges of being part of a political family. Thinking about the Pelosi family today," tweeted Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
At the Capitol, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Senate president pro tempore and third in the presidential line of succession, said he had known Paul Pelosi “forever.” He said, “It’s just horrible.”
G-20 summit could put Biden in the same room with Putin and MBS
President Joe Biden will make a week-long, three country trip next month for a quartet of summits—including one that could potentially put him in the same room as China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Friday that Biden will first travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Nov. 11 for the COP 27 climate conference before heading to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to participate in the U.S.-ASEAN Summit of Southeast Asian leaders and the East Asia Summit. He'll then head to Bali, Indonesia for the Group of 20 summit, a gathering of leaders from most of the world's largest economies.
The president's overseas travel begins just days after the pivotal midterm elections in the United States, which will determine which party controls the House and Senate.
The G-20 summit could also offer Biden his first opportunity as president to meet face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Xi, and potentially puts him in the same room with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The prince, who often is referred to by his initials MBS, is the de facto leader of the oil rich kingdom.
Putin, Xi and MBS have yet to announce their travel plans.
Biden and Xi travelled together in the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents and have held several calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the U.S.-China relationship has become increasingly fraught.
The U.S. president has taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur and other ethnic minorities, squelching democracy activists' voices in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, its military provocations against democratic, self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia's prosecution of its eight-month -old war against Ukraine
Xi's government, meanwhile, has criticized the Biden administration's posture toward Taiwan—which Beijing looks to eventually unify with communist mainland China— as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier this week that U.S. and Chinese officials were working to arrange a meeting of the leaders but one has not yet been confirmed. Biden on Wednesday at the start of a meeting with Defense Department officials underscored the "responsibility to manage increasingly intense competition with China.”
“We must maintain, as I said, our military advantage, but we’re making it clear that we don’t seek conflict,” Biden said.
It's less likely that Biden would hold one-on-one meetings with Putin or MBS.
The Biden administration organized the international community to hit Moscow with a barrage of sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has pledged more than $40 billion in economic and military assistance to assist Ukraine and its neighbors impacted by the war.
Biden and Putin held a face-to-face meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2021, months before Russia began massing troops along Ukraine's border. They last spoke by phone in February, with Biden warning Putin that Russia would face “severe costs” if he moved forward with the invasion.
Biden announced earlier this month that there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia after the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance moves to cut oil production. The White House also said it is reevaluating its relationship with the kingdom in light of the oil production cut that White House officials say will help Russia, another OPEC+ member, pad its coffers as it continues its nearly eight-month war in Ukraine.
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel separately to Bangkok, Thailand, to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ meeting Nov. 18-19, and then visit Manila, the Philippines, the White House said.
Recession or not? Points to ponder to understand US economy
The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the July-September quarter, the government reported Thursday, underscoring that the United States is not in a recession despite distressingly high inflation and interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
But the economy is hardly in the clear, and the solid growth reported for the third quarter did little to alter the growing conviction among economists that a recession is very likely next year.
Higher borrowing rates and chronic inflation will almost certainly continue to weaken consumer and business spending. And likely recessions in the United Kingdom and Europe and slower growth in China will erode the revenue and profits of American corporations. Such trends are expected to cause a U.S. recession sometime in 2023.
Still, there are reasons to hope that a recession, if it comes, will prove a relatively mild one. Many employers, having struggled to find workers to hire after huge layoffs during the pandemic, may decide to maintain most of their existing workforces even in a shrinking economy.
In the July-September quarter, the economy accelerated to a 2.6% annual pace, after two quarters of contraction. Consumers spent more and exports jumped, offsetting a sharp slowdown in home sales and construction.
Six months of economic decline is a long-held informal definition of a recession. Yet nothing is simple in a post-pandemic economy in which growth was negative in the first half of the year but the job market remained robust, with ultra-low unemployment and healthy levels of hiring. The economy’s direction has confounded the Fed’s policymakers and many private economists ever since growth screeched to a halt in March 2020, when COVID-19 struck and 22 million Americans were suddenly thrown out of work.
By far the biggest threat to the economy remains inflation, which is still near its highest level in four decades. Even for workers who received sizable raises, their pay has dropped once it’s adjusted for inflation. The pain is being felt disproportionately by lower-income and Black and Hispanic households, many of whom are struggling to pay for essentials like food, clothes, and rent.
High inflation has also become a central issue in Republican attacks on President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, who have been thrown on the defensive as they seek to maintain control of Congress in the midterm elections.
So what is the likelihood of a recession? Here are some questions and answers:
WHY DO MANY ECONOMISTS FORESEE A RECESSION?
They expect the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes and persistently high inflation to overwhelm consumers and businesses, forcing them to slow their spending and investment. Businesses will likely also have to cut jobs, causing spending to fall further.
The Fed is poised to keep raising its benchmark interest rate after having already hiked it five times this year, from near zero to a range of 3% to 3.25%. Fed officials have projected that their short-term rate, which affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, will reach about 4.6% next year, which would be the highest level since late 2007.
Read: How do we know when a recession has begun?
Consumers have been remarkably resilient so far this year. Still, there are signs that high inflation and borrowing costs have begun taking a toll. Last quarter, consumer spending grew at just a 1.4% annual rate, according to Thursday’s government report, down from 2% in the second quarter and less than half its pace of a year ago.
Thursday’s figures also showed that businesses are cutting back on investment in buildings and factories, and the housing market has been hammered by rising mortgage costs. Those trends are expected to intensify, leading to a likely recession.
WHAT ARE SOME SIGNS THAT A RECESSION MAY HAVE BEGUN?
The clearest signal, economists say, would be a steady rise in job losses and a surge in unemployment. Claudia Sahm, an economist and former Fed staff member, has noted that since World War II, an increase in the unemployment rate of a half-percentage point over several months has always resulted in a recession.
Many economists monitor the number of people who seek unemployment benefits each week, which indicates whether layoffs are worsening. Weekly applications for jobless aid have increased in recent months, but not by very much. Instead, employers have added a robust average of 370,000 jobs in the past three months.
ANY OTHER SIGNALS TO WATCH FOR?
Many economists monitor changes in the interest payments, or yields, on different bonds for a recession signal known as an “inverted yield curve.” This occurs when the yield on the 10-year Treasury falls below the yield on a short-term Treasury, such as the 3-month T-bill. That is unusual. Normally, longer-term bonds pay investors a richer yield in exchange for tying up their money for a longer period.
Inverted yield curves generally mean that investors foresee a recession that will compel the Fed to slash rates. Inverted curves often predate recessions. Still, it can take 18 to 24 months for a downturn to arrive after the yield curve inverts.
Ever since July, the yield on the two-year Treasury note has exceeded the 10-year yield, suggesting that markets expect a recession soon. And just this week, the three-month yield also temporarily rose above the 10-year, an inversion that has an even better track record at predicting recessions.
WHO DECIDES WHEN A RECESSION HAS STARTED?
Recessions are officially declared by the obscure-sounding National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists whose Business Cycle Dating Committee defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”
The committee considers trends in hiring as a key measure in determining recessions. It also assesses many other data points, including gauges of income, employment, inflation-adjusted spending, retail sales and factory output. It puts heavy weight on jobs and a measure of inflation-adjusted income that excludes government support payments like Social Security.
Read: How to recession-proof your life amid economic uncertainty
Yet the NBER typically doesn’t declare a recession until well after one has begun, sometimes for up to a year.
DON’T A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK WE”RE ALREADY IN A RECESSION?
Yes, because many people now feel much more financially burdened. With wage gains trailing inflation for most people, higher prices have eroded Americans’ spending power.
And the Fed’s rate hikes have helped send the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate surging above 7% this week, the highest level in two decades. It has more than doubled from about 3% a year ago, thereby making homebuying increasingly unaffordable.
DOES HIGH INFLATION TYPICALLY LEAD TO A RECESSION?
Not always. Inflation reached 4.7% in 2006, at that point the highest in 15 years, without causing a downturn. (The 2008-2009 recession that followed was caused by the bursting of the housing bubble).
But when it gets as high as it has this year — it reached a 40-year peak of 9.1% in June — a downturn becomes increasingly likely.
That’s for two reasons: First, the Fed will inevitably sharply raise borrowing costs when inflation gets that high. Higher rates then drag down the economy as consumers are less able to afford homes, cars, and other major purchases.
High inflation also distorts the economy on its own. Consumer spending, adjusted for inflation, weakens. And businesses grow uncertain about the future economic outlook. Many of them pull back on their expansion plans and stop hiring, which can lead to higher unemployment as some people choose to leave jobs and aren’t replaced.
China greatest security challenge for US: Pentagon
China remains the greatest security challenge for the United States despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S. military is equipped and shaped for the future, according to a new Pentagon defense strategy.
While the document released Thursday says that conflict with China “is neither inevitable nor desirable,” it describes an effort to prevent Beijing’s “dominance of key regions” — a clear reference to its aggressive military buildup in the South China Sea and increased pressure on the self-governing island of Taiwan. It warns that China is working to undermine American alliances in the Indo-Pacific and use its growing military to coerce and threaten neighbors.
At the same time, the 80-page, unclassified report notes Russia’s war in Ukraine and says Moscow is a serious threat to the U.S. and its allies, with nuclear weapons, cyber operations and long-range missiles. And it warns that as China and Russia continue to grow as partners, they “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist.”
China “is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon. “Unlike China, Russia can’t systemically challenge the United States over the long term. But Russian aggression does pose an immediatee and sharp threat to our interest and values.”
The report reflects that the U.S. for the first time is facing two major nuclear-armed competitors in Russia and China.
The strategy, along with two other reports released Thursday on missile defense and nuclear weapons, provides a sweeping blueprint for America’s military planning over the next four years. While much of it is consistent with the previous report, the strategy takes into account how the world has changed since 2018, when U.S. troops were still fighting in Afghanistan and a massive Russian invasion of Ukraine seemed almost unthinkable.
Read: Pentagon chief: al-Qaida may seek comeback in Afghanistan
The previous strategy, released in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, reflected the fundamental shift from a U.S. military focused on countering extremists to one that must prepare for war with a major power.
The 2022 defense strategy increases the focus on allies as a key element of U.S. defense, underscoring the broader Biden administration effort to repair relations with partner nations that were splintered by Trump. At the center of the new document is the concept of “integrated deterrence,” which means the U.S. will use a broad combination of military might, economic and diplomatic pressures, and strong alliances — including America’s nuclear arsenal — to dissuade an enemy from attacking.
It concludes that China remains “the most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades,” while Russia remains an “acute” threat.
Since the last report, both China and Russia have become more aggressive in using their militaries. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, and China has escalated its longstanding threat to retake Taiwan, by force if necessary. And Russia, North Korea and Iran have all accelerated their nuclear weapons testing and threats.
This is the first strategy since the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan and withdrew all troops last year. The U.S. still has a small number of troops in Iraq and nearly 1,000 in Syria, but has largely shifted from the counterterrorism operations that dominated the last two decades to focus on threats from major competitors such as China.
The new review calls for increased research and development on cutting-edge technologies, including hypersonics, cyber, artificial intelligence and directed energy. And in a nod to recent recruiting challenges, it says the Pentagon must change its culture to attract a skilled force.
The Pentagon also released an accompanying nuclear posture review, which underscores the growing risks of nuclear danger, particularly as the relationship between China and Russia grows. It says the U.S. is committed to modernizing its nuclear forces while also looking at current nuclear capabilities that may no longer be needed for deterrence.
The nuclear review confirms the cancellation of the sea-launched cruise missile program, calling it not necessary. The program was included in the 2018 Trump administration’s posture review, but the Biden budget early this year signaled its end by eliminating its funding.
This is the first time the Pentagon’s three strategy documents — the national defense review, and those governing missile defense and nuclear posture — were developed and released at the same time.
Read: The big Pentagon internet mystery now partially solved
The new focus on integrated deterrence comes as the U.S. finds itself at a crossroads where all three legs of its nuclear-triad — submarine-launched nuclear missiles, long-range bomber aircraft and ground-based launching systems — are aging fast and require hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize.
But the country also faces a new environment where its decades-old approach of avoiding nuclear war is changing. Nuclear deterrence focused for decades on preventing war between just two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the United States, and relied on the concept of mutually assured destruction to prevent either side from resorting to a first strike.
Now, however, Russia has repeatedly threatened to use lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in response to a counteroffensive by Kyiv that has retaken swaths of land previously held by Russian troops. And Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine with its conventional forces could cause it to rely more on its nuclear forces.
“We are certainly concerned about escalation, we have been so from the very beginning of this conflict,” Austin said. “It would be the first time that a nuclear weapon has been used in over 70 years. So that certainly has the potential of changing things in the international community.”
At the same time, in the Pacific, officials say North Korea is preparing for another nuclear test, which would be the first in five years.
The report also notes China’s and Russia’s rapid gains in hypersonic missiles, which are harder for the U.S. to detect. They are also improving their abilities to shoot down satellites, or shove them out of orbit. The U.S. has rushed to counter those threats by building a ring of low-orbiting satellites that aims to hasten the detection of hypersonic launches and also to build in redundancy, so if one U.S. satellite is attacked, the remainder of the ring is still operating.
8 found dead after house fire in Tulsa area; homicide feared
Eight people were found dead Thursday in a burning Tulsa-area house in what was being investigated as multiple homicides, police said.
The fire was reported about 4 p.m. Thursday in a quiet residential area of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 13 miles (20 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa.
Broken Arrow police said that although the fire and the deaths were being investigated as homicides, they did not believe an immediate threat to the public existed.Police spokesman Ethan Hutchins said the scene was complex “with a lot of moving parts,” so no other information was being released immediately.
“Understandably, this is a shock to Broken Arrow. It's a safe city. Broken Arrow doesn't have this kind of situation every day,” Hutchins said.
Catelin Powers said she was driving with her children nearby when she saw a column of smoke near her house, so she drove to investigate.
“When I got closer to the house, I saw smoke pouring out from the very top of the house, which looked like maybe the attic,” she told The Associated Press.
Two men and a woman on her phone were standing in front of the house, Powers said, when another man emerged from the front door dragging an apparently unconscious, unresponsive woman. “Her arms were flopped to her sides,” she said.
“She was in either very short shorts or underwear and a tight shirt,” Power said. She described the woman as having a tan complexion “and looked maybe to be mid-twenties.”
Suspecting the woman was dead, Powers said she drove on so her children would be spared the sight.
Broken Arrow is Tulsa’s biggest suburb, with almost 115,000 residents.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was assisting in the investigation, he said.