| October 14, 2024 07:45:07 AM |
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| October 14, 2024 07:45:07 AM |
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Coming soon from the AP: In our new Beyond the Story newsletter, Executive Editor Julie Pace is your guide inside the newsroom, with intel and answers to your questions. Sign up here. During his first term as president, Donald Trump tested the limits of how he could use the military to achieve policy goals. If given a second term, the Republican and his allies are preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil. Welcome to this week’s edition of AP Ground Game. |
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Prescott Valley, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) |
Trump posits going further on using US military at home |
The Republican nominee has pledged to recall thousands of American troops from overseas and station them at the U.S.-Mexico border. He has explored using troops for domestic policy priorities like deportations and talked of weeding out military officers who are ideologically opposed to him.
Trump’s vision amounts to a potentially dramatic shift in the role of the military in U.S. society.
As Trump’s campaign heads into its final stretch against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, he’s promising forceful action against immigrants who do not have permanent legal status. He’s also referenced “the enemy from within,” saying in an interview airing Sunday that "it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
The former president and his advisers are developing plans to shift the military’s priorities and resources, even at a time when wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East. Trump’s top priority in his platform, known as Agenda 47, is to implement hardline measures at the U.S.-Mexico border by “moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas” there. Read more.
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Of note:
Trump also has said he will use the National Guard and possibly the military as part of the operation to deport millions of immigrants who do not have permanent legal status. While Trump’s campaign declined to discuss the details of those plans, his allies are not shy about casting the operation as a sweeping mission that would use the most powerful tools of the federal government in new and dramatic ways. |
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Harris calls Trump out for hurricane misinformation |
Harris used an appearance Sunday before a largely Black church audience in battleground North Carolina to call out Trump for spreading misinformation about the government’s hurricane response.
Harris did not say Trump’s name, but he is most prominent among those promoting false claims about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Florida was in the path of both storms, with Helene also hitting North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, while Milton headed for the open Atlantic. The vice president spoke at the Koinonia Christian Center about the “heroes” all around who are helping residents without regard to political affiliation.
Harris said they are trying “to gain some advantage for themselves, to play politics with other people’s heart break, and it is unconscionable,” she said. “Now is not a time to incite fear. It is not right to make people feel alone.” Read more. |
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Of note:
Trump made a series of false claims after Helene struck in late September, including saying that Washington was intentionally withholding aid from Republicans in need across the Southeast. The former president falsely claimed the Federal Emergency Management Agency had run out of money to help them because it was spent on programs to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally. |
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His protests aside, Trump’s agenda has plenty of overlap with Project 2025 |
Trump insists that Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society, does not reflect his priorities for a White House encore.
Yet from economics, immigration and education policy to civil rights and foreign affairs, there are common ideas and shared ideology between Project 2025 and Trump’s outline for another term – from his official “Agenda 47” slate, the Republican platform he personally approved and his other statements. There are also differences: Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation and written by many conservatives who worked in or with Trump’s administration, offers more particulars on some issues than the former president. Read more. |
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Of note:
Both constructs want to reimpose Trump-era immigration limits, ramp up executive power, and would roll back DEI and LGBTQ programs. Project 2025 backs Ukraine’s defense, while Trump has questioned U.S. support. |
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, center, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, right, appear on screen as Harris speaks at a campaign rally at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) |
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Harris has a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Monday, participates in a town hall in Detroit hosted by radio host Charlamagne tha God on Tuesday and campaigns across Wisconsin on Thursday.
- Trump speaks at The Economic Club of Chicago and delivers remarks in Atlanta on Tuesday, participates in a Univision town hall in Miami on Wednesday and speaks at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York City on Thursday.
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With the presidency on the line in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump spent Saturday night in solidly liberal California, seeking to link Harris to what he described as the failures of her home state. Read more. Harris on Saturday helped pack diapers into boxes of personal care products destined for North Carolina hurricane victims, agreeing with one helper who said “it takes a village.” Read more. |
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