(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday — the second anniversary of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade — took the offensive, launching blistering blows against former President Donald Trump on abortion rights, just three days ahead of Thursday’s debate.
“Trump has not denied much less shown remorse for his actions. Instead, he quote, ‘proudly’ takes credit for overturning Roe,” Harris said at an abortion rights rally in Maryland. “My fellow Americans, in a court of law that would be called an admission in the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America. Donald Trump is guilty.”
Biden, Harris, the White House, and their campaign worked to center the fight on abortion, an issue that has galvanized voters in both red and blue states over the last two years, and that they view as critical to their chances at reelection in November.
Biden’s surrogates fanned out around the country: Harris was traveling to Arizona for a roundtable on abortion after her Maryland rally; first lady Jill Biden is in Philadelphia for campaign events; and second gentleman Doug Emhoff has three campaign events across Michigan.
Biden himself is not on the trail to mark the Dobbs anniversary; he is instead at Camp David where he has been since last Thursday and is taking part in debate prep with over a dozen aides, including standing for full 90-minutes mock debates, ahead of his showdown with Trump later this week. But the president did comment on abortion access.
“Two years ago today, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court majority ripped away the fundamental freedom for women to access the health care they need and deserve,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “the consequences have been devastating.”
Biden later said, “Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for this nightmare.”
In a video posted to social media, Biden read from a post by Trump taking credit for being able to “kill Roe v. Wade” and said: “Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House.”
“We know what will happen if he gets another four. For MAGA Republicans, Roe is just the beginning,” Biden argued. “They’re going to try to ban the right to choose nationwide. They’re coming for IVF and birth control next.”
The Biden campaign rolled out a TV ad featuring Kaitlyn Joshua, a woman from Louisiana, telling of her experience with abortion bans and laying blame at Trump’s feet.
“I was right around 11 weeks when I had a miscarriage. The pain that I was feeling was excruciating. And I was turned away from 2 emergency rooms,” Joshua said. “That was a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade.”
The ad is part of a larger $50 million advertising blitz the campaign rolled out earlier this month.
Over the weekend at a Faith & Freedom conference, Trump continued to boast that he picked three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overrule Roe, saying that although they took a lot of “heat” over the decision, it was the “right” choice.
“I with stood vicious attacks to pick and confirm three great Supreme Court justices,” he said. “We have also achieved what the pro-life movement fought to get for 49 years and we’ve gotten abortion out of the federal government and back to the states.”
The Trump campaign on Monday pushed back on the Biden team’s coordinated messaging against the former president.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, labeled Biden, Harris and Democrats as “radical extremists” in a statement, accusing them of supporting “taxpayer funded abortions up until birth.”
It’s an accusation the White House flatly denied Monday.
“The president and the vice president do not support abortion up until the time of birth, nor do they support abortion after birth, in fact, that’s not abortion,” Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said on a call with reporters.
Leavitt, Trump’s spokesperson, also said the Democrats “lie about President Trump’s position on this issue in a desperate attempt to scare voters. The truth is that the Dobbs Decision returned the power back to the people in every respective state to make decisions on the issue of abortion.”
She later added: “President Trump also strongly supports ensuring women have access to the care they need to create healthy families, including widespread access to IVF, birth control, and contraception, and he always will.”
Congressional Republicans this month blocked bills that would protect IVF and contraception, claiming they were Democratic election-year messaging. It’s a move White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slammed on Monday as “extreme,” “out of touch” and “wrong.”
At her rally, Harris was introduced by Kate Cox, a Texas woman who left her state to get an abortion after being told by her doctor that her life was at risk and who was one of the first lady’s guests at this year’s State of the Union address.
“Today, I’m happy to share that I’m pregnant again,” Cox said to cheers. “I hope that by then, when we welcome our baby to the world, it will be a world led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
Ms. Lauryn Hill is heading back on the road to keep the Miseducation parties going. She’s teamed with the Fugees for a co-headlining tour commemorating her one and only solo album, The Miseducation of Ms. Lauryn Hill.
The trek will start on Aug. 9 and make its way through the U.S. before going abroad to London, Manchester and other international stops. Music from The Score and other Fugees albums will be also performed, with her son YGMarley showing up as support on select dates; surprise guests are still to announced.
Presale tickets for U.S. shows will be available, starting with the Citi presale on Tuesday at 10 a.m. local time through the Citi Entertainment program. For those going abroad, a Mastercard presale starts Wednesday, with others becoming available later in the week.
General tickets for both go on sale Friday. Two dollars from each ticket sold will go toward organizations focused on mental health, women’s wellness, community small-business development and education via the MLH fund.
(SAN DIEGO, Calif.) — A search continued Monday for a 50-year-old woman a day after she went missing while hiking in a wilderness area in San Diego, according to police.
The hiker, identified by police as Diem Le Nguyen, vanished Sunday morning after she became separated from her hiking group of about 100 people while on the Nighthawk Trail in Black Mountain Open Space Park in the Rancho Peñasquitos area of north San Diego, according to the San Diego Police Department.
“Due to the weather and difficulty of the trail, she is missing at risk,” the police department said in a post on the social media site X.
“SDPD along with countywide resources is still looking for Diem Nguyen. Multiple search dogs are being utilized, we ask volunteers to avoid the area so that it doesn’t impact the dog’s ability to detect,” police said on X Monday.
Nguyen set out on the hike with a group, police said. Around 8 a.m. PT, Nguyen decided to go ahead of her group and finish hiking the Nighthawk Trail alone, police said.
About 90 minutes later, Nguyen made contact with her hiking group and “shared she was at the end of the trail.”
“She has not made contact or been seen since,” according to police.
By 3 p.m. Sunday, search-and-rescue teams, along with a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department helicopter crew, were combing the area for the missing hiker.
A photo taken on the trail Sunday of Nguyen flashing a peace sign and standing next to a trailhead sign was released by police on X.
Police officials asked for the public’s help in finding Nguyen, requesting that anyone with information about her whereabouts call 911 immediately.
Nguyen and her group were hiking in high temperatures that enveloped the San Diego area over the weekend. The National Weather Service had issued a heat advisory for the area, where temperatures soared into the low 90s on Sunday.
Police said some members of the hiking group turned back because of the heat, but Nguyen was determined to reach the summit of the 4,048-foot-tall Black Mountain.
When she disappeared, Nguyen was dressed in a black shirt with a pink heart on the front, black pants, a brown hat, sunglasses and a backpack, according to police.
As the search for Nguyen continued Monday, another California hiker said he was thankful to be alive after getting lost on a hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California and spending 10 days in the wilderness before search and rescue crews found him last week.
Luke McClish, 34, of Boulder Creek, California, said he set out on June 11 for what he thought would be a short hike without informing anyone of his plans. Five days later, his family reported him missing when he failed to show up at a Father’s Day dinner. When he was found at the bottom of a ravine on Thursday, McClish told rescuers he lost 30 pounds over the 10 days he was missing and survived by drinking a gallon of creek water every day.
Kendrick Lamar took to the streets of Compton to film the “Not Like Us” music video. Footage surfaced of him performing the song in front of a large crowd that had awaited his arrival. The clips, some of which also featured the song’s producer, DJ Mustard, made their way through social media after TMZ reported K.Dot hired extra security for the shoot. He reportedly asked the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to deploy deputies, paying them $120 an hour.
Cardi B was the Inspiration Award recipient at the 2024 Hollywood Unlocked Awards, and she delivered a speech that included a message to her haters. “I just want to say thank Jason [Lee] so much for this award. I’m really my biggest critic and I always say this: ‘Nobody has it harder than in the industry and in every genre than a female rapper.’ And I’m going to tell you why,” she said. “You have to have the best verse. Not only that, you have to kill the charts. On top of that, your personal life has to be perfect, or then the opp b****** are going to use that against you.”
If you’re wondering how Kid Cudi‘s doing after his foot surgery, he says he’s doing just fine. Responding on the social platform X to a fan who asked how his feet are feeling, he said, “Its healing! Barely any scars from surgeries, f***** unreal. Im Wolverine now.” He then shouted out his surgeon for doing “a really fantastic job.”
Tinashe has new merch to go with her current song, “Nasty.” The line offers booty shorts, boxer briefs, thongs, heart pendants and more, some of which include the phrases “I’ve been a nasty girl” and “Match my freak” from the hit song.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will take up a constitutional challenge to state bans on gender-affirming care for minors in its next term.
The case from Tennessee involves the 15-year-old transgender daughter of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville.
The family alleges that Senate Bill 1, which prohibits certain types of medical treatments for minors with diagnosed gender dysphoria, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The law restricts access to puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries for the purpose of gender transitioning.
By denying only transgender youth access to these forms of medically necessary care while allowing non-transgender minors access to the same or similar procedures, SB 1 discriminates against transgender youth, they argue.
“It was incredibly painful watching my child struggle before we were able to get her the life-saving health care she needed. We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” plaintiff Samantha Williams said in a statement.
“I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her. We don’t want to leave Tennessee, but this legislation would force us to either routinely leave our state to get our daughter the medical care she desperately needs or to uproot our entire lives and leave Tennessee altogether,” she said. “No family should have to make this kind of choice.”
Tennessee is home to more than 3,000 transgender adolescents, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Williams family in the case.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee and other states with similar laws contend that each state is free to regulate medical standards and procedures as it sees fit.
Gov. Bill Lee has defended the law in the past, saying, “Tennessee is committed to protecting children from permanent, life-altering decisions,” in an April 2023 post on X after the Justice Department also argued the law violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Twenty-five states have passed bans on gender-affirming youth care, including Florida, Ohio and Montana, where the laws are currently on hold under court order during litigation.
Research has found that hormone therapy can improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Major national medical associations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and more than 20 others — agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial and medically necessary.
LGBTQ advocates on Monday called on the Supreme Court to restore access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth across the country.
“Everyone deserves access to the medical care that they need, and transgender and non-binary young people are no exception. No politician should be able to interfere in decisions that are best made between families and doctors, particularly when that care is necessary and best practice,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said Monday in a statement. “These dangerous bans have forced families to make heartbreaking decisions to support their children.”
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors on Monday told the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s federal classified documents case that a limited gag order was necessary to prevent the former president from inviting a “violent act” on the law enforcement agents involved in the case.
As assistant special counsel David Harbach attempted to demonstrate that Trump was aware of the “predictable response of some of his supporters” when he made false statements about FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago — including a campaign statement that President Joe Biden was “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger” — Judge Aileen Cannon challenged the prosecutor to produce evidence and justify the constitutionality of the proposed gag order.
“The most important thing is it talks about an event that is central to this case in utterly misleading terms,” Harbach argued. “The government is at a loss to conceive any possible reason Mr. Trump would say something so false … and inviting of retributive violence.”
“Where on the attachments do you see a call for violence?” Cannon responded after criticizing prosecutors for not producing ample evidence of a pattern of conduct from Trump’s other criminal and civil cases.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.
Cannon pressed Harbarch on the argument that a modification of Trump’s release conditions — rather than a standalone gag order like in the former president’s federal election interference case — would avoid issues related to the First Amendment.
“Do conditions of release still need to comport with the Constitution?” Cannon asked. “The First Amendment is in the Constitution.”
Cannon also expressed skepticism about the impact of Trump’s statements on the law enforcement officers, highlighting that any public filings included redactions for the names and identifying information of law enforcement agents. Harbach responded by arguing that some agents were previously doxed, and described Trump’s recent statements as “beyond irresponsible.”
Harbach argued that there is “ample danger between now and trial … that some sort of violent act will occur” because of Trump’s conduct, and said that Cannon needed to impose the restrictions on Trump’s speech to protect the integrity of the proceedings. When Cannon suggested waiting until trial to impose any restrictions on speech, Harbach argued immediate action was necessary.
“That die has already been cast … by defendant’s conduct,” Harbach said.
The first hour of the hearing grew contentious at times, as Cannon pushed Harbach for evidence and details.
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” Cannon told Harbach at one point. “I expect decorum in this courtroom at all times.”
“I didn’t mean to be unprofessional. I apologize for that,” Harbach later said
The request for a gag order by the special counsel follows a month of escalating rhetoric from Trump about federal agents’ use-of-force policy during their August 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents.
In a filing last month, Smith argued that Trump’s statements that law enforcement officers were “complicit in a plot to assassinate him” were intentionally false and misleading, and “put a target on the backs of the FBI agents.”
Trump’s defense attorneys responded to the request by claiming that prosecutors have failed to demonstrate that Trump’s statements resulted in any material threats or harassment against law enforcement.
Echoing the former president’s defense against the limited gag order in his New York criminal hush money case, Trump’s lawyers wrote that the proposed gag order — which they describe as a “shocking display of overreach and disregard for the Constitution” — amounts to political interference by limiting Trump’s statements ahead of this week’s presidential debate and the Republican National Convention in July.
“[T]he motion is a naked effort to impose totalitarian censorship of core political speech, under threat of incarceration, in a clear attempt to silence President Trump’s arguments to the American people about the outrageous nature of this investigation and prosecution,” defense lawyers said in a June filing.
The gag order hearing, being conducted by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, follows a continuation this morning of Friday’s hearing in which defense attorneys are seeking to have the documents case dismissed on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.
‘False and extremely dangerous’
Trump’s recent public statements related to the Mar-a-Lago search, during which agents found more than 100 documents with classified markings, have emphasized the use-of-force policy in place during the raid, which Trump has repeatedly associated with “Biden’s DOJ.”
Prosecutors argue that law enforcement employed the Department of Justice’s standard use-of-force policy, which allows the use of force “when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”
In filings, Smith also emphasized that the search was scheduled in the off-season when Trump and his family were not present at Mar-a-Lago and that it was conducted with coordination with Secret Service and Mar-a-Lago staff — and that Trump’s lawyer was notified before the search was executed.
In a rare public rebuke, the FBI issued a statement last month to confirm that law enforcement used standard protocols related to use of deadly force during the raid, adding that, “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland also described accusations that the DOJ authorized Trump’s assassination as “false and extremely dangerous” and added that the same policy was in place during the search of President Biden’s home during the investigation into his retention of classified documents.
Threats against law enforcement
Prosecutors have emphasized that the proposed gag order against Trump would be narrowly limited — solely prohibiting Trump from falsely speaking about “FBI agents intending to murder him and his family” — in order to protect the safety of law enforcement officials.
To illustrate the threat against law enforcement officials, prosecutors claimed that Trump’s rhetoric encouraged a supporter to make threats to an FBI agent associated with the Hunter Biden case, including threatening that supporters would “hunt you down” and “slaughter you” if Trump does not win the 2024 election.
Prosecutors also argued that a Trump supporter attacked an FBI field office in Cincinnati with an AR-15 and a nail gun in August 2022 after the raid on Mar-a-Lago — an attack which prosecutors say was partially inflamed by Trump’s comments on social media after the raid.
Defense lawyers wrote that Trump has engaged in his “constitutionally protected campaign speech” and that prosecutors have failed to prove that Trump’s statements have directly resulted in threats or harassment.
In addition to highlighting two examples of threats or violence, prosecutors broadly argued that Trump’s inflammatory language about the raid has created a “combustible atmosphere” that poses an immediate risk to law enforcement.
“No court would tolerate another defendant deliberately creating such immediate risks to the safety of law enforcement, and this Court should not wait for a tragic event before taking action in this case,” prosecutors said in a filing last week.
Trump’s other gag orders
Trump has generally been unsuccessful in challenging the gag orders imposed in his other criminal and civil cases, occasionally securing stays of the orders but failing to overturn the orders as unconstitutional.
New York’s highest court declined to take up Trump’s challenge to the gag order in Trump’s civil fraud case, which prohibited Trump from making comments about judicial staff.
Last week, the same court declined to immediately consider Trump’s challenge to the gag order in his New York hush money case — which prohibits Trump from making statements about jurors, witnesses, and others involved in the case — after determining that “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved” in Trump’s challenge. A mid-level appeals court last month found that the gag order “properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice.”
Trump also unsuccessfully challenged the gag order in his federal election interference case that prohibited from making statements about prosecutors other than Smith, witnesses, and courthouse staff.
“Given the record in this case, the court had a duty to act proactively to prevent the creation of an atmosphere of fear or intimidation aimed at preventing trial participants and staff from performing their functions within the trial process,” a panel of Court of Appeals judges in Washington, D.C., wrote in an order last year upholding the gag order.
