(LONDON) — The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party announced Monday that it has selected Liz Truss as its new leader, putting her in line to be confirmed as the country’s prime minister.
Truss beat rival Rishi Sunak in a leadership election, in which only the 180,000 dues-paying members of the ruling party were allowed to vote. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally name Truss as prime minister on Tuesday.
In a speech following her victory, Truss said it was an “honor” to be elected and paid tribute to her “friend” Boris Johnson, whom she will be succeeding. She will become the U.K.’s fourth prime minister since 2016 and the country’s third female premier ever.
Truss previously served as the foreign secretary under Johnson’s Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the exchequer whose resignation helped bring about Johnson’s downfall in July.
Members of the Conservative Party cast their votes after eight weeks of campaigning, with Truss — a supporter of Johnson’s who said she did not back his resignation — emerging as the overwhelming favorite.
The leadership campaign was dominated by questions about what both candidates would do to tackle a looming economic crisis, with household energy bills set to skyrocket this winter and inflation, already at a four-decade high at 10.1%, is expected to rise further according to the Bank of England. The leadership hopefuls clashed most fiercely on the issue of tax, with Truss saying she would not raise taxes, while Sunak has supported a windfall tax on energy companies’ profits to help ease the burden on households.
Truss has promised action on the energy crisis within a week of taking office, though she has not spelled out her plans in any detail and refused to elaborate when questioned by the BBC on Sunday.
Truss will also have the task of uniting a divided Conservative Party. Johnson’s tenure in office was dogged by scandal – most notably with the issue of ‘Partygate’ – the illegal gatherings held in government residences while the country was under lockdown. While his supporters will remember him for securing a huge election victory, Brexit and support for Ukraine, his detractors say Johnson’s conduct and flexible relationship with the truth damaged the Conservative Party brand.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, said that the appointment of a fourth Conservative prime minister in recent years did not mark a “new dawn” for Britain.
“As summer turns to autumn, the shadows of crisis are lengthening, looming over the whole country,” he wrote. “There is no sign that either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss have grasped the scale of what is facing us, let alone possesses the answers to it.”
Truss will not be formally installed as the new prime minister until Tuesday after Johnson formally submits his resignation to the Queen at Balmoral and his successor is then invited to form a government.
“It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister,” Johnson said on the steps of Downing Street when he announced his resignation. “I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world… But them’s the breaks.”
(WEED, Calif.) — A wildfire raging in Northern California took a tragic turn as two bodies were recovered after the blaze swept into a small town, damaging or destroying more than 100 structures, authorities said.
Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue broke the grim news at a community meeting Sunday night, telling residents that the Mill Fire, which has burned more than 4,200 acres near the town of Weed, had claimed two lives.
“It’s one thing to come up here and tell you things, but to look at your faces … it almost brings me to tears,” LaRue said before reporting that two people had been killed and asking for a moment of silence.
The sheriff’s office released a statement early Monday reporting that the two deceased individuals were women, ages 66 and 73. The sheriff’s office said the remains were located on Friday by first responders within the city limits of Weed.
The sheriff office did not provide any further details on the deaths.
The news came as firefighters appeared to be getting a handle Sunday on the Mill Fire while dealing with new challenges being caused by the Mountain Fire, which is also burning in Siskiyou County near the Oregon border.
The Mill Fire was 40% contained Sunday night after burning 4,254 acres since igniting on Friday, according to Cal Fire officials.
The Mountain Fire has grew from 6,451 acres Sunday morning to nearly 9,000 by Sunday night , according to Cal Fire. The Mountain Fire, which was only 10% contained Sunday night, forced the evacuations of more than 300 people living in the remote rural area of Siskiyou County, officials said.
Winds on the ridges of the Mountain Fire were of particular concern for firefighters, who feared they could spread burning embers and ignite spot fires, according to Cal Fire’s update Sunday on the blaze.
Firefighters are battling the dueling fires amid triple-digit heat.
“Weather continues to be hot and dry with poor overnight relative humidity recoveries,” Cal Fire said Sunday.
The agency said firefighters will remain focused on defending structures and expanding containment lines around the two blazes.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in Siskiyou County to support the response to the fires.
The mayor of Weed, meanwhile, reported new details on the Mill Fire, which ravaged her town of more than 2,600 people, injuring several people as they fled the flames and damaging or destroying at least 132 structures, including many homes.
Mayor Kim Greene told ABC News the Mill Fire started Friday in an old warehouse at the town’s lumber mill, the Roseburg Forest Products, which sits near a park and a cluster of homes she said were nearly all destroyed.
“My co-worker’s husband ran in and said, ‘There’s a fire,'” Greene recalled. “By the time we go out the front door to see, [there] was just a big puff of black smoke. You could hear the small explosions.”
Fanned by 30 mph winds, Greene said the blaze spread quickly, jumped a set of train tracks and swept into a neighborhood.
Green said many people had only minutes to escape. An ABC News crew observed several walkers and wheelchairs abandoned along streets as people fled for their lives. Numerous vehicles sat charred in roadways and driveways of homes completely destroyed.
The Mill Fire, according to Cal Fire, caused more than 1,000 people to be evacuated.
Firefighters got a break from the high winds on Saturday, but high temperatures continue to be a challenge, Cal Fire officials said. The temperature in Redding, in Northern California, was expected to be 111 degrees on Monday.
Capt. Robert Foxworthy of Cal Fire said the high temperatures are forcing firefighters to take precautions to protect themselves physically.
“It makes it a little bit tougher physically on those firefighters that are working on the ground,” Foxworthy told ABC News. “You have them making sure they are hydrating and making sure they are getting good rest cycles, making sure those folks are getting good meals and nutrition so when they do go and work on these fires in those conditions, they are the best they can be to deal with those conditions.”
ABC News’ Alex Presha and Alyssa Pone contributed to this report.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — In an exclusive interview with ABC’s World News Tonight anchor David Muir, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hinted of more counteroffensives as his country tries to turn the tide of war against Russia.
“It’s a very difficult war,” Zelenskyy told Muir from the presidential office in Kyiv. “We will regain our territory.”
You can watch more of David Muir’s full interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight.
Last week, the Ukrainian military launched a long-awaited counteroffensive near the southern port city of Kherson, which Russian forces seized in early March. Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to the Russians amid the early days of the full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24. The counteroffensive there is one of the first for Ukrainian troops that have been largely on the defensive.
In his nightly video address on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said he had received “good reports” from his military commanders and head of intelligence. He thanks his troops for liberating a settlement in the eastern Donetsk region as well as two settlements in the south, and for advancing and regaining “certain heights” in an eastern area in the Lysychansk-Siversk direction.
Zelenskyy told Muir that Ukrainians “need to, step-by-step, de-occupy our territory.”
“This task is difficult and it doesn’t only depend on us, but I’m sure that is what will happen,” he added. “It’s only matter of time.”
When asked why the Ukrainian military decided to launch the counteroffensive in the Kherson region at this time, Zelenskyy told Muir: “I won’t say that it’s only counteroffensive in Kherson … There is a direction or directions — plural — and we have to move forward.”
Asked to clarify that the Kherson counteroffensive is not the only one underway in Ukraine, Zelenskyy said he “can’t discuss details of any military actions.”
“I want that the enemy gets some surprises from us,” he added.
Muir pressed: “So what you are telling me, more than six months into this war, is that you will cede no Ukrainian territory — that is not on the table?”
Flores Elementary School is pictured in Uvalde, Texas, on Aug. 21, 2022. – Kat Caulderwood/ABC News
(UVALDE, Texas) — When gunfire broke out at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, teacher Elsa Avila said her fourth graders followed lockdown protocols.
“I slammed my door. I turned off the lights, and I told the kids, ‘Let’s move, let’s move. Let’s go, let’s go.’ They knew what to do,” she told ABC News.
As soon as they hid in a corner of the classroom, they heard gunfire in the hallway, Avila said, and the kids started crying.
When Avila stood up to check on her students, she said she felt a gunshot pierce her abdomen and she fell to the floor.
“The kids are terrified,” she said. “I was in so much pain. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk.”
She said her fourth graders comforted her and told her, “It’s going to be okay…We love you.”
The gunman never entered Avila’s classroom. She spent weeks in the hospital recuperating.
As the summer drew to a close, Avila, an educator for more than 30 years, knew she wasn’t ready to return to school.
Tuesday marks the first day of classes for the Uvalde school district, over three months after the May 24 massacre that killed 19 students and two teachers. The school year, which usually starts in August, was pushed back to give everyone more time to prepare for the new year.
With Robb’s doors shuttered, students from that school will be moved to one of three other district elementary schools.
The students who were wounded at Robb left the district and are now attending Uvalde’s Sacred Heart Catholic School, where classes started in August, according to the diocese. In the wake of the massacre, Sacred Heart said its enrollment more than doubled to over 100 students.
Some Uvalde families, critical of the school district’s safety protocols, aren’t ready to send their kids back to classrooms and are opting for homeschooling or virtual learning. Uvalde’s school district said it created a new virtual schooling framework so children can learn from home and access counselors and other resources remotely.
Eight-year-old Zayon Martinez, who was at Robb the day of the massacre, is one of those choosing virtual learning as he starts third grade.
Zayon didn’t act like himself for weeks after the shooting, his dad, Adam Martinez, told ABC News. Zayon is starting to get back to normal, he said, but still has nightmares and is extra cautious.
Early in the summer, Adam Martinez said he knew his 12-year-old daughter and Zayon wouldn’t be ready to return to their classrooms.
“We started putting pressure on the school board and the police, city council,” he said. “We were demanding actions like more school safety, firing the cops, fencing, bulletproof windows.”
The district soon “started moving a little faster” with the new protocols, like fencing and a larger police presence, he said.
“But as I told my children that, they didn’t care,” Adam Martinez said. “They said, ‘Who cares if there’s cops or not? They’re not gonna go in, they’re not gonna protect us.'”
A state investigation found the police response to the school shooting was delayed 77 minutes and plagued with failures. A special committee in the Texas legislature issued a report that found school district police chief Pete Arredondo “failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander.”
Arredondo was fired on Aug. 24.
His lawyers said in a statement that day that he couldn’t have served as incident commander because he was on the front line and that officers were unaware there were others in the room with the shooter.
The legislature’s report also found failures in facilities maintenance and advance preparation, including insufficient security at points of entry and a “culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks.”
District superintendent Dr. Hal Harrell announced new security measures this summer, including assigning 33 state public safety officers to the district; installing 500 cameras; creating one single point of entry at each school; and hiring a “campus monitor” responsible for walking the grounds and checking the gates, locks and doors.
Avila, who isn’t returning to teach as she recovers, said she’s not sure what will make students and parents feel comfortable to transition back to classrooms, because she sees a lot of holes in the district’s protocols.
Avila said Uvalde’s schools need better training, nothing that teachers had been trained for a “lockdown,” but not an active shooter.
“I know if the shooter’s in the building we should be trying to get out. But we were never trained on, how are you going to get out if there’s somebody in the building?” she said, noting that the classroom windows didn’t open.
She said some of the protocols — locking doors and turning off lights — were a hindrance to police who had no idea they were in the classrooms.
The district said it’ll conduct “extensive professional development and training on campus security, campus and district protocols.”
Avila’s also concerned about staff communication. She said she texted her principal saying she’d been shot, but said that wasn’t shared with police.
The district has promised to “evaluate and audit communication and WiFi” at its campuses.
While the district is now providing mental health resources, Avila said she’s worried about the students whose parents aren’t comfortable letting their children meet with counselors.
And although Uvalde is offering virtual learning, Avila said she didn’t find online school during the pandemic especially effective.
“A lot of them don’t have adult supervision during that time…so it’s up to the child to be disciplined and follow along. And we just didn’t see that happening,” she said.
Adam Martinez said his wife will be at home to monitor their 8-year-old and 12-year-old’s virtual learning. The family plans to reevaluate online schooling at the end of the semester.
Venessa Rendon is sending her three children back to in-person school, including her son who attended Robb.
“In my home, virtual is not an option. I feel that their interaction with their peers, and then being in a classroom setting, is more beneficial to them,” she said.
Junior Andrea Perez said her mom wanted her to try virtual learning, but she felt it’d be too difficult to learn that way. Her cousin who attended Robb isn’t going back to in-person learning yet, she added.
Senior Jazmin Cazares, whose 9-year-old sister, Jackie, died at Robb, is also returning to the classroom.
“I’m mentally preparing myself,” she said. “I’m ready to be back, to try to find a little normalcy in my life, but it’s really rough.”
Cazares found it hard to stay focused during COVID-19 virtual learning, so she chose in-person to get more interaction with her teachers.
“Everyone’s a little divided” on back to school, she said. The teen said she thinks the district hasn’t “done much” to upgrade security.
“If you don’t feel safe at school, if your parents don’t feel like you’re safe at school, don’t go. There’re so many other options,” the teen said.
Veronica Mata, whose bubbly 10-year-old daughter, Tess Mata, was killed at Robb, is returning to her job as a kindergarten teacher at another elementary school in Uvalde.
“Teaching was always something that I wanted to do. And I know that Tess would have wanted me to go back,” she told ABC News. “I think if I would have stayed home, it wouldn’t have been good for me.”
“She always loved teaching,” her husband, Jerry Mata, added.
Veronica Mata said she feels safe going back to the classroom.
She added, “We want the accountability. But we can’t let that anger take over our lives. Tess wasn’t an angry person and I think I cannot live being angry all the time.”
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Olivia Osteen, Jim Scholz, Lucien Bruggeman, Joe Diaz, Kiara Alfonseca, Kat Caulderwood, Brian Mezerski, Mireya Villareal and Patrick Linehan contributed to this report.
(WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash.) — At least one person is dead and several others are unaccounted for after a float plane crash in Puget Sound on Sunday, officials said.
“A de Havilland DHC-3 Otter crashed in Mutiny Bay off Whidbey Island, Wash., around 3:10 p.m. local time Sunday,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
There were 10 people onboard, nine adults and one child, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The FAA said initial reports “indicate 10 people were aboard.”
The Coast Guard recovered the body of one person, the branch’s Pacific Northwest division wrote on Twitter Sunday evening.
“The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate,” the FAA said. “The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide additional updates.”
The plane was traveling from Friday Harbor to Renton Municipal Airport when it crashed, the USCG said, and the cause of the crash is unknown at this time. The Coast Guard had initially said the plane was traveling from Friday Harbor to Seattle Tacoma International Airport, which it later corrected.
The Coast Guard responded to a report of the crash that was initially said to have eight adults and one child onboard, the USCG Pacific Northwest had said earlier Sunday. The USCG later corrected its statement, saying there were 10 people unaccounted for.
South Whidbey Fire/EMS said that its crew was at the scene near the west side of Whidbey Island.
ABC News’ Marilyn Heck, Teddy Grant and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(CHARLESTON, S.C.) — A shooting in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday has left five people injured, according to the Charleston Police Department.
Five people were wounded and treated at area hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries, Sgt. Elisabeth Wolfsen told ABC News.
Teenager killed, 3 people wounded in 7-Eleven shooting in Maryland: Police
The shooting incident occurred around 12:55 a.m. near King and Morris streets, Charleston police said.
Law enforcement officials arrested 20-year-old Trayvon Davis and an unidentified 16-year-old male suspect in connection to the shooting. Both have been charged with firearm violations, police said in a press release.
According to the Charleston Police Department, a sixth person was believed to be wounded by gunfire, but police determined that the person was injured after falling to the ground.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Surveillance video obtained by investigators shows missing Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher being violently abducted during her early morning jog by a man matching the description of a suspect charged in the kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.
A massive search for Fletcher is ongoing and her family has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
The Memphis Police Department announced via Twitter early Sunday that 38-year-old Cleotha Abston has been charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence in the case of the missing kindergarten teacher.
Police said they detained Abston on Saturday evening after he was found inside an SUV that authorities were searching for in connection with the abduction.
An affidavit of the complaint made public Sunday by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and obtained by ABC affiliate station WATN-TV, said Abston was taken into custody outside the home of a woman the SUV is registered to and where Abston was residing, according to the affidavit.
Abston allegedly tried to flee in the SUV, but a team of U.S. Marshals was able to quickly take him into custody, the affidavit states.
Earlier Saturday, police contacted Aston’s brother and another witness, who both claimed the suspect showed up at their home around 7:50 a.m. on Friday and they saw him cleaning the inside of the SUV, washing his clothes in a sink and “acting very strangely,” according to the affidavit.
Police, according to the affidavit, suspect the 34-year-old Fletcher suffered “serious injury” during the abduction. During questioning, Abston, who works at a dry cleaner, refused to tell investigators anything about Fletcher’s whereabouts, according to the affidavit.
Abston’s brother, identified as 36-year-old Mario Abston, who is currently not believed to be linked to the abduction, was also arrested on drug and firearm charges, according to police.
Police said Fletcher remains missing and they, along with their local and federal partners, continue to search for her. The investigation into her abduction is “active and ongoing,” police said.
Fletcher was last seen jogging in the area of Central Avenue and Zach Curlin Street in midtown Memphis, near the University of Memphis campus in southwest Tennessee, on Friday morning at approximately 4:20 a.m. local time, before she was approached by a man and forced into a dark-colored GMC Terrain, according to police. The SUV took off, traveling westbound on Central Avenue, police said.
Fletcher’s husband, Richard Fletcher, reported her missing around 7 a.m. on Friday, telling investigators she never returned home from her regular 4 a.m. jog, according to the police affidavit.
A bicyclist told investigators that he was riding in the area of Central Avenue around 6:45 a.m. on Friday and found a cellphone that belonged to Eliza Fletcher lying in the street along with a pair of Champion slides sandals, according to the affidavit. The sandals were tested at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s lab and allegedly contained Cleotha Abston’s DNA, according to the affidavit.
Investigators also went to the location where the bicyclist found Fletcher’s cellphone and the sandals, and obtained surveillance video from a business they said captured the abduction, the affidavit states. The security video, according to the affidavit, showed the black GMC Terrain initially driving by Fletcher as she jogged and then stopping in a parking lot ahead of her and waiting for her to come by.
“A male exited the black GMC Terrain, ran aggressively toward the victim, and then forced the victim Eliza Fletcher into the passenger’s side of the vehicle. During this abduction, there appeared to be a struggle,” the affidavit states.
Citing the video, investigators said the SUV sat in a parking lot with the victim inside for about four minutes before it drove off, according to the affidavit.
The video also captured the same SUV in the area of the kidnapping about 24 minutes prior to the abduction, the affidavit alleges.
Fletcher was wearing a pink jogging top and purple running shorts at the time of her abduction. She has brown hair and green eyes, weighs 137 pounds and is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, according to police.
After confirming Abston’s DNA on the sandals left at the kidnapping scene, investigators learned the SUV was registered to a woman Abston lived with. Investigators also learned that Abston worked at a dry cleaners and obtained his cellphone number from his boss, according to the affidavit.
Investigators determined through an analysis of the cellphone that it was in the vicinity of the abduction when it occurred, according to the affidavit.
While investigating Abston’s whereabouts before and after the kidnapping, police obtained security video from a local movie theater that showed Abston there on Thursday wearing a pair of Champion slide sandals, according to the affidavit.
St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis said in a statement on social media that Fletcher is a “beloved” junior kindergarten teacher at the all-girls prep school.
Fletcher’s family released a video statement through the Memphis Police Department on Saturday, pleading for her safe return.
“We want to start by thanking everyone for their prayers and outpouring of support,” Fletcher’s uncle, Mike Keeney, said in the video while surrounded by members of their family, including Fletcher’s parents, brother and husband.
“Liza has touched the hearts of many people and it shows,” he added.
The family urged anyone with information on the case to contact authorities. They are offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to Fletcher’s safe return.
“More than anything, we want to see Liza returned home safely,” Keeney said. “We believe someone knows what happened and can help.”
Anyone with information on Fletcher’s whereabouts can call the Memphis Police Department at either (901) 528-2274 or (901) 545-2677, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND, or to dial 911.
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly one month since the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, cited the privileges given to Trump as a former president as justification for taking 15 boxes of classified documents out of the White House.
“You know, I have lived in the classified world most of my professional career, I personally wouldn’t do that. But I’m not the president of the United States. But he has a different set of rules that apply to him,” McCaul told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, who asked if he saw any reason that Trump took the highly classified materials.
“I know they were taken out of the White House while he was president and whether or not he declassified those documents remains to be seen. He says he did. I don’t have all the facts there,” said McCaul, who has been pushing for more information about the search to be released alongside some fellow GOP lawmakers.
Martha pushed back, saying that Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr found the idea of Trump standing over documents and declassifying them to be absurd.
Raddatz also brought up Joe Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, in which he was highly critical of MAGA Republicans. Immediately after the president’s remarks, McCaul took to Twitter, writing that “attacking half of America will only further divide our country.”
Raddatz questioned McCaul on his social media statement, asking, “When you look at those polls showing 60 to 70% of Republicans believe Joe Biden is not the legitimate president, what is Biden supposed to do when the country cannot even decide what democracy means?”
McCaul said that while “democracy is messy,” it is “better than all the other forms of government,” and also argued that if Biden’s intention with the speech was to unify the American people, it “had just the opposite effect.”
“And, you know, saying that Republicans are a threat to democracy is really a slap in the face … you know my vote on certification and my position on that. I took an oath to the Constitution but having said that, you don’t come out to unify the nation,” McCaul said, adding that it “was not a presidential address.”
Raddatz asked for McCaul’s — who was a former federal prosecutor — reaction to Trump’s remarks in a speech Saturday where Trump referred to the FBI and the Department of Justice as “vicious monsters.”
“I think the perception is what a lot of Republicans I know see on the heels of the Russian investigation, the Steele dossier,” McCaul said. “There’s a certain distrust but verify attitude — when it comes to the Department of Justice and the FBI, and it, frankly, saddens me because as a alumni of DOJ, I hate to see people’s faith in our institutions be weakened.”
Asked by Raddatz about how much Donald Trump should be blamed for the division in the country, McCaul blamed both political parties for the recent heightened rhetoric. He made a reference to Abraham Lincoln who, rather than condemning the opposing party during that time, brought them into the conversation in the spirit of unity, he said.
That is the mission that Biden should embark on but failed to do in his speech Thursday, according to McCaul. “It was a campaign speech before the midterm elections, and that’s basically how I see it,” he told Raddatz.
(WILKES-BARRE, Penn.) — In his first rally since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home last month, former President Donald Trump took the stage in Pennsylvania for nearly two hours during which he responded to the raid on his home last month and President Joe Biden’s remarks earlier this week.
“The shameful raid and break-in of my home Mar-a-Lago was a travesty of justice,” Trump said of the search. “The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters.”
Trump was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Saturday campaigning in support of Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor against Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is taking on Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the U.S. Senate race.
Trump praised both candidates while emphasizing the importance of taking back the House and Senate this November.
“Two months from now the people of Pennsylvania are going to fire the radical left democrats and you are going to elect Doug Mastriano as your next governor, and you are going to send my friend Oz, he is a great guy, to the US Senate,” Trump said. “You’re going to elect an amazing slate of true America first Republicans to Congress.”
And though Saturday’s rally was in support of his Pennsylvania candidates, Trump spent the vast majority of his speech focused on his own issues– mainly with the FBI, the Department of Justice, fellow Republicans and Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president…..He’s an enemy of the state,” Trump said in response to Biden’s remarks earlier this week.
Amid these high stakes, Trump’s rally also comes as fallout continues from the Aug. 8 FBI search at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where agents recovered classified documents as part of an investigation into his handling of presidential records after leaving office.
On Friday, Judge Cannon unsealed a detailed inventory showing what the FBI seized during the search. The list states some documents bearing classification markings ranging from confidential to top secret were found intermingled with newspaper clippings, photographs and other documents.
Trump almost immediately launched into a response to the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home Saturday, framing it as persecution of a political enemy. He attacked law enforcement without offering any substantive response to the allegations against him regarding his handling of classified documents.
“There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats of American freedom than just a few weeks ago you saw when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history. The shameful raid and breaking of my home Mar a Lago was a travesty of justice,” Trump said.
Those in line to hear him speak on Saturday expressed beliefs that Trump was unfairly targeted.
“I don’t feel he did anything wrong. I think that will come out in the end, but they just want to turn people against Trump,” said Barbara, a voter from Mountain Top, Pennsylvania.
Trump’s appearance in Pennsylvania comes just days after President Joe Biden’s back-to-back visits in the battleground state, during which he condemned Trump and his fellow “MAGA Republicans” as a dominant force in today’s GOP and a threat to American democracy.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said in a prime-time speech from Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Thursday. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Biden’s ramped up rhetoric comes as he seeks to recast the November elections as a choice between those who want to save the “soul of the nation” or those who he says are a danger to democracy.
“Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president,” Trump said “You’re all enemies of the state? He’s an enemy of the state. You want to know the truth.”
Trump supporters waiting in line to see the former president give remarks criticized Biden’s rhetoric and said it has only energized them even more ahead of the midterms. Evy Mecjes, and Debbie Latsha called Biden’s speech “very divisive.”
“We’re now the bad guys. We are the terrorists of the United States of America,” Mecjes said.
Latsha said Biden’s speech showed how “afraid” Democrats were of the power Trump still has over the Republican Party.
“They’re a little afraid of all the people that are rising up and whose eyes are being opened, who are waking up to what’s truly happening in our government,” Latsha said. “So let’s see if we can smash them down a little bit more and divide people a little bit more. I mean, there was nothing unifying about that.”
They defended Trump supporters pointing to school closures during the pandemic and inflation as examples of how they felt Democrats have hurt Americans.
“People are rising up because we’re pissed off about how our government is treating us and you know, President Biden does not speak for the people,” Mecjes remarked.
Biden will be back in Pennsylvania again on Sunday, spending part of his Labor Day weekend in Pittsburgh.
While Republicans have generally been favored to win back control of both chambers of Congress this midterm cycle, recent legislative victories for Democrats and some positive economic news has bolstered Democrats’ chances to keep their majorities.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defended President Joe Biden’s prime-time address on Thursday, warning of the threat “MAGA” Republicans pose to American democracy on “This Week,” saying Biden spoke “optimistically” about the country, but also said that the nation needs to “call out hatred.”
“This ‘MAGA’ Republican agenda, this hate-filled agenda … we saw incite violence on our nation’s Capitol, has no place in a democracy. And if we are not … calling it out, which is what the president did, then our country, everything that our country is built upon is in danger,” Bottoms, now a senior adviser for public engagement for the White House told co-anchor Martha Raddatz Sunday morning.
In his remarks, Biden used some of his harshest language to date to criticize former President Donald Trump, and his supporters, saying they “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic” — a notable shift for Biden, who ran on a message of uniting the country after Trump’s four years in office.
The speech, delivered just months before the midterm elections, was seen by many as an effort to help frame the November elections as a referendum on Trump, and was heavily criticized by Republicans as divisive, saying it disparaged the 70-plus million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020.
A new analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks hate speech, said after the Biden speech, there was a surge online in conversations that said Biden’s remarks singling “MAGA” Republicans were interpreted as a declaration of war against conservatives and Trump voters.
Bottoms stressed that Biden was not speaking about all Republicans, but those who supported the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“The president has not called out all Republicans. He’s been very specific about this ‘MAGA’ agenda,” she said. “I’ll just remind you of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. when he said that, ‘it’s not the words of our enemies that we will remember. It’s the silence of our friends’ and what the president has said, is that mainstream Republicans, Independents, Democrats, can all come together, we’ve seen us come together, to do what’s right on behalf of the American people,” Bottoms said to Raddatz.
While Biden criticized “MAGA” Republicans for supporting candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, there has also been criticism of Democrat groups who have been accused of bolstering far-right Republican candidates in races, in hopes of increasing Democratic odds in November.
Raddatz asked Bottoms about those claims and whether Biden should address them.
“I think what the president will continue to do is encourage people to go out and vote their conscience, whatever their conscience may be, and what the president will continue to do, which what we saw him do just this week, is to remind people who we are as a country, who we are as a nation,” Bottoms said.
“So does he support that? Does he support supporting those extreme candidates?” Raddatz pressed.
“I cannot speak to what the president supports. I can speak to what he has said publicly and what he has said publicly is that we are a nation that values the rule of law, that we are a nation of peace, that we are a nation that values that peaceful transition of power, and this MAGA agenda has no place in our democracy,” Bottoms said.
