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‘Wow’: Liz Cheney reveals Kamala Harris just secured a powerful Republican’s vote

Former Rep. Liz Cheney revealed Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has secured the vote of powerful Republican who once held significant power in the White House.
The Republican also happens to be Cheney's dad.
“Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris," the former Wyoming representative said at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.
Replied the moderator, "Wow."
According to USA Today reporter John C. Moritz, there were "Big cheers from the decidedly left-leaning audience."
ALSO READ: Trump’s RFK Jr. endorsement actually helps Harris
Dick Cheney was the all-powerful vice president behind former President George W. Bush, and like his daughter Liz, a conservative unafraid to speak out against Trump.
Liz Cheney endorsed Harris officially on Wednesday, arguing Trump represented a danger to American Democracy.
"As a conservative and someone who believes and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses," she said. "Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump but I will be voting for Kamala Harris."
Dick Cheney criticized Trump while campaigning for his daughter in her unsuccessful 2022 reelection campaign.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it. He knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know.”
Kamala Harris should remind debate watchers of Trump’s historic failure: analysis

Vice President Kamala Harris should remind debate watchers of Donald Trump's greatest failure as president – and one of the major reasons he was not re-elected for a second term.
Democrats have effectively adopted vice presidential candidate Tim Walz's framing around Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance as "weird," and Bloomberg columnist Nia-Malika Henderson urged Harris to use her running mate's summation of the former president's response to the Covid pandemic that killed more than 400,000 Americans on his watch.
“He froze in the face of Covid, and our neighbors died because of it,” Walz said last month during a campaign appearance in Michigan, "and by doing nothing about Covid, he drove this economy into the ground.”
Reminding voters of that historic failure comes with risks, Henderson concedes, because many Americans prefer not to dwell on bad memories associated with the pandemic, and many still accuse Democrats of overreacting with safety measures in those early days.
ALSO READ: 'Bacon. Wind. Marco Rubio': New York Times Trump coverage spurs laughter from critics
"But 'getting over' Covid won’t be easy, given that it remains one of the top 10 leading causes of death, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Henderson wrote. "Trump’s approach to the pandemic doesn’t bode well for what he would do in a second term. While he pushed for a Covid vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed, he sowed confusion about the vaccine’s effectiveness, spread conspiracy theories and consistently downplayed the seriousness of the virus."
Trump's misinformation proved especially deadly for his own supporters, with research showing pro-Trump counties had much higher death rates than those that backed president Joe Biden in 2020, and the nation never fully recovered from his early mishandling of the pandemic.
"He called it a hoax," Henderson wrote. "He said it would disappear. He said fewer tests would mean fewer cases. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci an idiot and praised quacks who were pushing unproven treatments for Covid. He dithered and delayed and people died as a result. Rather than having a national strategy, Trump deemed the federal government a mere 'backup' option for the states as they scrambled for ventilators, personal protective equipment and a system for testing and contact-tracing."
The former president claims credit for rescuing the economy and tens of millions of jobs, but Henderson said Harris must correct the record and remind voters that the pandemic was still raging the last time they voted for president in 2020 – when Trump was still in the White House.
"In her 2020 debate against Vice President Mike Pence, Harris’ first question was about Covid," Henderson wrote. "She said that Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic was the 'greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.' With thousands dying daily and Trump recommending bleach and ultraviolet light as a cure, the 2020 presidential election was a referendum on Covid and Trump’s competence."
"He treated the pandemic like it was a branding challenge, not a medical and economic catastrophe," Henderson added. "Democrats must remind voters of this, raising the specter of Trump at the helm again, spinning lies and doing nothing as another disaster unfolds."
Trump’s hush money sentencing delay dismantles key campaign talking point: legal expert

The newly reported delay of former President Donald Trump's sentencing hearing in his criminal hush money trial could have a surprising effect on his campaign, one former assistant District Attorney says.
Kristen Gibbons Feden appeared on MSNBC Friday to discuss New York City Judge Juan Merchan's decision to push Trump's sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records until Nov. 26, weeks after Election Day on Nov. 5.
Gibbons Feden argued Merchan's decision would undercut a key talking point in Trump's presidential reelection campaign.
"It being after the election really helps to dis-convince, or go against Trump's narrative that the judiciary in this particular case was being politicized," she said.
"Placing it after the November election... allows Trump's narrative to be cut," said Gibbons Feden. "He cannot say that any type of decision made with regard to the sentencing is going to influence the election again because the sentencing decisions are going to be made afterwards."
Gibbons Feden noted Trump for months has targeted the family of the judge, claiming political ties interfered with his criminal trial, which concluded with a guilty verdict from 12 New York City jurors in May.
The former prosecutor also noted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had not pushed back on Trump's demands to delay sentencing until after Election Day.
"The prosecution wasn't opposing it and just requesting it be as expeditiously as possible, which it absolutely is," she said. "It allows him the opportunity to appeal and really seems to meet a middle ground and be an objective decision."
Read Also: How Donald Trump could run for president — and lead the nation — from prison
This is one of four trials that Trump has faced since leaving office.
Trump was ultimately found guilty of falsifying business records to bury salacious stories about his relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
The former president pleaded not guilty and denied an affair with Daniels, who testified against him in court.
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Ex-Trump adviser charged with working for sanctioned Russian media: Prosecutors

Donald Trump's former campaign adviser stands accused of working with the Russians and laundering cash they paid him, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born U.S. citizen who advised Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, is named in a Justice department indictment accusing him and his wife Anastasia of accepting more than $1 million, a car, and driver as payment from the state television network, a press release shows.
If convicted of the charges, the two face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
ALSO READ: (Opinion) Something broke Trump’s brain
Russia Channel One was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over the nation's invasion of Ukraine, according to the Justice department.
Simes, 76, has a home in Virginia but remains at large and is believed to be in Russia with his wife, prosecutors said.
His wife Anastasia is also accused of providing art and antiques to a sanctioned oligarch, prosecutors said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Simes' home in AugustSimes' home in August.
At the time, Simes, speaking to Russian state media company Sputnik, suggested he is a target of political persecution, saying that the FBI search “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state.” He added, “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.”
Simes' son on Thursday echoed these sentiments on X Thursday afternoon.
"[President] Joe Biden and his stooges are impotent cowards," Dimitri Simes Jr. wrote. "Our family is safe and sound in Russia. We will not be intimidated. In fact, we’re only going to get louder. Stay tuned!"
‘He did me a favor’: Trump says he’s ‘insulted’ by Putin’s fake Harris endorsement

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested Thursday that he might be "insulted" if Russian President Vladimir Putin actually endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump made the remarks while speaking to the Economic Club of New York.
"Putin came out today, he endorsed Kamala, and I didn't know, was I supposed to call him up and say, thank you very much, I appreciate it," Trump opined. "But he endorsed Kamala. I have a feeling, I don't know, I don't know exactly what to say about that."
"I don't know if I'm insulted or he did me a favor," he added.
In fact, Putin was most likely joking when he said this week that he backed Harris after the Biden administration sanctioned Russia for interfering in U.S. elections.
ALSO READ: Why Trump's Arlington controversy is actually a crime
Putin claimed he would support Harris just as he had backed President Joe Biden.
"She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her," the Russian dictator teased.
Trump uses insensitive word to describe Gold Star families during Arlington fiasco

Donald Trump told a crowd at The Economic Club of New York Thursday that his campaign team was taking photos at Arlington Cemetery to mark the "celebrating" of the families of those who died in an attack on American soldiers in Afghanistan three years ago.
Saying that he was at Arlington "four days ago" — though in fact it was a week earlier on Aug. 26 — Trump hit back at criticism that he was illegally using the burial ground for political campaigning.
"They were celebrating three years, honoring their children, and yeah, that's right. They call them their children," Trump said of the parents of the slain soldiers.
"But many of those people that were so badly hurt, they don't talk about them," Trump claimed. "No legs. No arms. Obliteration of their face, their entire body. And nobody mentions that we left Americans behind. Large numbers."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confessed in March that he wasn't sure how many Americans were left in Afghanistan. After the withdrawal there were an additional 800 Americans pulled out by Aug. 2022, Politico reported.
Trump's campaign said that reports that Trump staff were involved with an altercation with an Arlington official as they took photos in the burial ground was "made up," though the U.S. Army refuted that in a statement that was criticial of the campaign's activities.
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