Latest news with #then-Democratic
Scottish Sun
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
I interviewed Kamala Harris before election but it was so weird it was destroyed – I didn't want blame for election loss
'REALLY, REALLY BAD' I interviewed Kamala Harris before election but it was so weird it was destroyed – I didn't want blame for election loss KAMALA Harris gave an interview before the election that was so "confusing and weird" it was immediately deleted, according to the social media personality who hosted it. The then-Democratic nominee's appearance on "Subway Takes", where guests admit their favourite hot take, would alone have lost her the election - so she and the host agreed to erase it. Advertisement 4 Kamala said something plainly inappropriate while appearing on the Subway Takes series Credit: AFP 4 Host Kareem Rahma has revealed what she said to make them delete the video Credit: TikTok / stevebertoni 4 Kamala's team reportedly offered to re-film the episode - but Kareem declined Credit: Getty Kareem Rahma, who hosts the series, has revealed he sat down with Kamala in summer last year, just months before November's election. He told Forbes in an interview posted to TikTok: "Her take was really confusing and weird, not good, and so [we] mutually agreed we shouldn't publish it." Kareem claims the Democratic Party reached out to him to say that Kamala and Tim Walz, her vice-president running partner, were "really interested" in being on the show. The presenter said he got "lucky", because he "didn't want to be blamed for her losing". Advertisement read more in us news TEEN 'KILLER' Girl, 17, hands herself into police over murder of mom and stepdad Doubling down, Kareem said Kamala's take was "really, really bad, and it didn't make any sense". Finally putting viewers out of their misery, he revealed that Kamala's take was "bacon as a spice". Kareem is a Muslim, meaning he can't eat pork-based products and has never eaten bacon - making it a particularly odd choice for Kamala to go with. Kareem previously showed footage of the awkward encounter to the New York Times - which reported he was "taken aback" by Kamala's statement. Advertisement The newspaper reported that she pushed on with: "Think about it, it's pure flavour." And it completely blind-sided the host. Kamala Harris bizarrely brings up viral elephant moment mid-speech but viewers convinced it's part of 2028 plot Kareem revealed back in November to the NYT that the bacon-spice was not the hot take originally pitched by Kamala's team. The democrats said she would be taking aim at people who remove their shoes on aeroplanes. Advertisement So when the misplaced pork take came along, he was baffled. Two senior campaign managers for Kamala said the topic of bacon had been previously raised with Kareem as a subject for the show, the paper reported, though the host and his manager refute this. Harris's campaign reportedly apologised for the blunder and offered to re-film the episode, but Kareem declined. Kareem previously said his main reason for not airing the interview was because he didn't want to upset the Muslim community by spending air time on trivial matters when something as serious as the Israel-Hamas war was ongoing. Advertisement He said: "It was so complicated because I'm Muslim and there's something going on in the world that 100% of Muslims care about. "And then they made it worse by talking about anchovies. Boring!" Whilst Kamala's interview never made it off the tape reel, Tim Walz's was posted in August 2024. He decided to talk about gutter maintenance. Advertisement
The Hill
03-07-2025
- Business
- The Hill
CBS News anchor: ‘The Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle'
CBS News anchor John Dickerson referenced the recent settlement between the network's parent company Paramount and President Trump as part of his sign off on the broadcaster's evening news cast. 'The Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle. Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you've traded away that trust?' Dickerson asked at the end of Wednesday's broadcast. 'The audience will decide that. Our job is to show up, to honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witness it for,' the anchor said in comments first highlighted by Mediate. Paramount on Wednesday announced it would pay Trump's future presidential library $16 million and release transcripts of all future interviews with presidential candidates to settle the suit brought by Trump last fall. The move has faced some criticism from lawmakers and others. The president alleged in his suit the network purposely edited a '60 Minutes' interview with former Vice President Harris last fall to make the then-Democratic presidential nominee seem more coherent. CBS defended its editing in court and public statements, but rumors of a settlement swirled for months as Paramount works to secure a mega merger with entertainment giant Skydance, which will need approval from Trump administration regulators.
Chicago Tribune
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Jonathan Zimmerman: On trans issues, we need more nuance
Here's a quick quiz: Who made this comment about the U.S. military? 'The soldier on the battlefield deserves to have and must have utmost confidence in his fellow soldiers. They must eat together, sleep together, and all too frequently die together. There can be no friction in their everyday living that might bring on failure in battle.' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, justifying the new ban on transgender soldiers? Nope. The quote comes from an Army report in 1948, defending racial segregation in the armed forces. Fortunately, President Harry Truman thought otherwise. In an executive order, he required 'equality of treatment and opportunity' in the military 'without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.' I've been thinking about Truman ever since President Donald Trump's own order barring trans people from the armed forces. There is no evidence — none — that trans soldiers are 'harmful to unit cohesion,' as Trump asserted. That's also what makes it different from puberty blockers and trans athletes, the other hot-button gender controversies right now. We don't fully understand the effects of the blockers on teenagers or the physical advantages that a female trans athlete might enjoy when competing against other women. If you're the kind of Democrat who puts a 'Science Is Real' sign on their lawn, you need to be honest enough to admit that our knowledge of these matters is murky. The ban on trans soldiers isn't, though. Just like the old rules requiring racial segregation, it's based on falsehood and prejudice. Indeed, integration reduced prejudice — and enhanced unit cohesion — in the armed forces. In a 1945 survey of white troops assigned to an integrated unit, 64% said they had an unfavorable view of African Americans before serving alongside them. But afterward, 77% said their views toward Black soldiers had become more favorable. Likewise, politicians invoked unit cohesion to justify the ban on gay troops and the 'don't ask don't tell' rule created under President Bill Clinton, which barred them from serving openly. Gay soldiers 'would cause an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order, and discipline and unit cohesion that are absolutely essential to effective combat capability,' then-Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia warned in 1993. But a wide swath of research — in the United States and around the world — showed that wasn't true. A 2009 study of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans found that troops who served with an openly gay or lesbian soldier perceived no loss of unit cohesion or readiness. Nor do we have any data suggesting that trans troops undermine military effectiveness. Israel began accepting trans people into its military in 2013, and a study two years later showed that the policy was working well. 'When you feel accepted and happy as who you are, you want to do your best as a soldier, as a person,' the Israeli army's first openly transgender officer said. That's all our own trans soldiers want: to serve their country and to do their best. A U.S. District Court judge earlier this spring halted the ban on trans troops, who had openly served 'without any discernable harm to military readiness, cohesion, order, or discipline,' he wrote. But in May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to implement the ban while litigation continues. And earlier this month, the deadline passed for trans soldiers to voluntarily separate from the armed forces. The military plans to scrutinize soldiers' social media posts and even their private conversations with commanding officers in order to root out any remaining trans troops. Does that sound like a policy designed to enhance unit cohesion? 'Clearly, Secretary Pete Hegseth's military ban has NOTHING to do with equal standards or military readiness — it's about bigotry,' U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif, posted on X. It was reposted by U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., Congress' lone trans member. But McBride has also called on Democrats to create 'more space in our tent' around other trans issues. In a recent interview, she noted the need for 'nuance' about puberty blockers for teenagers, which have been sharply limited in several European countries. No matter what my fellow Democrats think of the Supreme Court's decision last week upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors — including puberty blockers — we should admit that there are reasonable disagreements on the subject. I don't like the bans, because they inhibit the autonomy of families and their physicians. But I also acknowledge that the science around puberty blockers is heavily contested, and that informed people differ on how we should regulate them. Ditto for the issue of trans athletes, which some Democrats have made into a litmus test: You must support female trans athletes playing on women's teams or you're a bigot. McBride isn't having that, either. 'I think it is an incredibly problematic instinct that many have to excommunicate people who aren't in lockstep with you on every policy,' she said. McBride is right. The only way to win the battle over trans soldiers — where knowledge and justice are clearly on our side — is to come clean when we're not so sure. Americans don't like scolds or know-it-alls. But if we create more space in our tent, they'll come right in.
NBC News
22-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
A cast of scandal-plagued candidates tests the limits of what New York City voters will forgive
Few political operatives have it easier than opposition researchers in New York City this year. New York's 2025 municipal races feature a scandal-laden cast of characters whose alleged or proven misdeeds have made front-page headlines for years. They include the front-runner heading into Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has spent much of his bid to become New York's next mayor cleaning skeletons out of his closet, whether he's wanted to or not. The scion of a storied political family, Cuomo resigned in disgrace from the governorship in 2021 after an investigation led by state Attorney General Letitia James found that he had harassed 11 women and subjected some of them to unwanted touching and groping. A formal agreement between the state executive chamber and the U.S. Justice Department, released in 2024, found Cuomo had subjected at least 13 female employees to a 'sexually hostile work environment.' But Cuomo isn't the only candidate seeking political redemption in New York City this month. Should he win Tuesday's Democratic primary, he'll take on incumbent Eric Adams, a Democrat running for re-election as an independent. Adams was indicted in September on federal corruption charges, which were dropped this year when the Justice Department argued, among other things, that the case distracted from Adams' ability to enact President Donald Trump's immigration agenda. And then there's Anthony Weiner. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after accidentally tweeting a sexually explicit photo of himself. More sexually explicit messages came out in 2013 when he ran for mayor in a first political comeback attempt. In 2016, the FBI launched an investigation after Weiner he was accused of sending sexual messages to a 15-year-old girl. Upon seizing Weiner's computer, investigators discovered Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, had used the same laptop to send emails to her boss: then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The ordeal sparked a new FBI review of Clinton's use of a private email server just days before the 2016 presidential election, which Clinton lost to Trump. The FBI's investigation also led to Weiner's pleading guilty in 2017 to transferring obscene material to a minor, being sentenced to almost two years in prison and registering as a sex offender. Weiner is now out of prison, and his political animal can't be caged. He is vying for a spot on the New York City Council — part of an unofficial slate testing what voters will forgive and what they won't in 2025. In an interview this month, Weiner argued that the way he's handled his controversies can't be compared to the ways Cuomo and Adams have handled theirs. 'I'm not denying. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm not asking for a pardon,' said Weiner, running for a district encompassing the Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods of Manhattan. 'I've served my time. I accepted responsibility. Now I'm moving forward,' Weiner said. In the first Democratic mayoral debate, when the moderators asked Cuomo to share a regret from his years in politics, he did not share a personal failing; instead, he said he regretted 'that the Democratic Party got to a point that we allowed Mr. Trump to be elected.' Cuomo's rivals aren't letting him forget the accusations he's faced. Asked a seemingly innocuous question at that debate about improving public safety on New York City's subway system, underdog candidate Michael Blake jumped in: 'The people who don't feel safe are young women, mothers and grandmothers around Andrew Cuomo. That's the greatest threat to public safety in New York City.' One week later, during the next debate, Cuomo's main rival, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, unleashed a new slew of attacks. After Cuomo had lambasted Mamdani over his experience, Mamdani pounced. 'I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo,' Mamdani said in a monologue that went viral. The allegations that led to his resignation — which Cuomo has repeatedly denied, though he also said upon resigning that there had been "generational and cultural shifts" that he "didn't fully appreciate" — have come up in the campaign alongside other controversies from his governorship. Another 2021 report from the state attorney general accused him of undercounting nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic. On Juneteenth, City Council member Chi Ossé, who endorsed Mamdani, posted on X to resurface a 2019 interview in which Cuomo said the N-word while quoting a New York Times op-ed. Still, Cuomo leads the pack in polling, though he could face a fight due to the city's ranked choice voting system. Adams, too, has denied wrongdoing and claimed vindication since the federal charges he faced were dropped. Weiner says his experience has shaped the way he perceives Cuomo's and Adams' situations. 'Going through the maelstrom of public outcry, outcry and scandal, I do read the papers differently than I used to,' said Weiner, 60. 'I have what they say in Yiddish or Hebrew 'rachmones.' I have feeling for people in difficult circumstances.' Despite the empathy, he said comparing his checkered to Cuomo's and Adams' is 'apples and oranges.' 'They're denying they did anything wrong. They're suing their detractors and their accusers. I'm accepting responsibility. I paid my debt to society,' he said. 'I have this notion that everything I have done up to now has led me to this exact spot.' For New Yorkers heading to the ballot this cycle, forgiveness is not one-size-fits-all. Carmen Perez, 55, from West Harlem, is willing to give Cuomo another chance but isn't crazy about the other embattled candidates. 'I've seen what Cuomo can do,' said Perez, who runs a program for senior citizens. 'During the pandemic, he literally just took over and said, 'This is how we're going to do this and this is how we're going to get through this.'' 'That's what you want to hear from a leader during a crisis.' When it comes to Adams, Perez is less enthusiastic. 'I would hope that most people would take this opportunity and really examine why people are running and what's the real purpose behind their running,' she said of Adams, implying the controversies around him are stickier than the ones around Cuomo. In the case of Esther Yang, a yoga teacher from the city, none of the beleaguered candidates deserves her vote. 'I think their parents did not raise them well enough,' she said. 'I'm a yoga teacher, so I believe that how you do anything is how you do everything,' Yang said, before turning specifically to Cuomo and Adams: 'I believe that if you can't get your act together for your personal life, then I don't think you should be a mayor for your professional life.' Weiner's candidacy is also a nonstarter for Yang.
19-06-2025
- Politics
North Carolina lawmakers finalize bill that would scrap 2030 carbon reduction goal
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina legislators finalized a bill Thursday that would eliminate an interim greenhouse gas reduction mandate set in a landmark 2021 law, while still directing regulators to aim to cancel out power plant carbon emissions in the state within the next 25 years. With some bipartisan support, the state Senate voted to accept the House version that would repeal the 2021 law's requirement that electric regulators take 'all reasonable steps to achieve' reducing carbon dioxide output 70% from 2005 levels by 2030. The law's directive to take similar steps to meet a carbon neutrality standard by 2050 would remain in place. The bill's Republican supporters pushing the new measure say getting rid of the interim goal benefits ratepayers asked to pay for future electric-production construction and is more efficient for Duke Energy, the state's dominant electric utility. The bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who can veto the measure, sign it or let it become law without his signature. Stein previously expressed concerns about the Senate version of the measure, worried that it could hurt electricity users and threaten the state's clean-energy economy. His office didn't immediately provide comment after Thursday's vote. With over a dozen House and Senate Democrats voting for the final version, the chances that any Stein veto could be overridden are higher. Republicans in charge of the General Assembly are only one House seat shy of a veto-proof majority. The bill also contains language that would help Duke Energy seek higher electric rates to cover financing costs to build nuclear or gas-powered plants incrementally, rather than wait until the project's end. The 2021 greenhouse gas law marked a rare agreement on environmental issues by then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican lawmakers. At least 17 other states — most controlled by Democrats — have laws setting similar net-zero power plant emissions or 100% renewable energy targets, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. North Carolina and Virginia are the only ones from the Southeast. The legislation came about as President Donald Trump's administration has proposed rolling back federal environmental and climate change policies, which critics say could boost pollution and threaten human health. Republicans are promoting them as ways to reduce the cost of living and boost the economy. The state Utilities Commission, which regulates rates and services for public utilities, already has pushed back the 2030 deadline — as the 2021 law allows — by at least four years. The panel acknowledged last year it was 'no longer reasonable or executable' for Duke Energy to meet the reduction standard by 2030. Bill supporters say to meet the goal would require expensive types of alternate energy immediately. If the interim standard can be bypassed, GOP bill authors say, Duke Energy can assemble less expensive power sources now and moderate electricity rate increases necessary to reach the 2050 standard. 'Our residents shouldn't be saddled with higher power bills to satisfy arbitrary targets,' Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release after the vote. Citing an analysis performed by a state agency that represents consumers before the commission, GOP lawmakers say removing the interim goal would reduce by at least $13 billion what Duke Energy would have to spend — and pass on to customers — in the next 25 years. Bill opponents question the savings figure given uncertainty in plant fuel prices, energy demand and construction costs. They say the interim goal still holds an aspirational purpose and was something that Duke Energy had agreed in 2021 to meet. Provisions in the measure related to recouping plant construction expenses over time would reduce accumulated borrowing interest. Environmental groups argue the financing option would benefit Duke Energy's bottom line on expensive projects even if they're never completed, and the bill broadly would prevent cleaner energy sources from coming online sooner. They also contend another bill section would shift costs to residential customers. 'This bill is bad for all North Carolinians, whether they're Duke Energy customers or simply people who want to breathe clean air,' North Carolina Sierra Club director Chris Herndon said after the vote while urging Stein to veto the measure. Bill support came from the North Carolina Chamber and a manufacturers' group, in addition to Duke Energy. 'We appreciate bipartisan efforts by policymakers to keep costs as low as possible for customers and enable the always-on energy resources our communities need,' the company said this week.
