Vice President Kamala Harris criticized former President Trump’s remarks at a rally about protecting Americans, particularly women, from migrant crime “whether the women like it or not,” calling his comment “offensive.”

Speaking with reporters Thursday morning, Harris said, “It’s just, it actually is being very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their rights and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” tying his comments on illegal immigration to abortion.

During his Green Bay, Wisconsin, rally, Trump talked about the southern border under President Biden and Harris. “Kamala has imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, from insane asylums and mental institutions all over the world, from Venezuela to the Congo, including savage criminals to assault, rape and murder our women and girls,” he said.

He then discussed conversations with his staff on whether he should profess that he specifically wants to protect women from the consequences of an unsecured border. According to Trump, his advisers suggested it could be inappropriate to say.

Trump is notably against a federal abortion ban and has emphasized that he wants the issue to remain in the individual states.

The vice president referred to state-level abortion restrictions as a “Trump abortion ban,” claiming, “one in three women live in a Trump abortion ban state and has legal restrictions on the right she rightly should have to make decisions about her own body.”

In a 2023 survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the nuance of public sentiment on abortion was revealed in greater detail. While most Americans believed that abortion should be legal to a certain extent, opinions changed drastically when the 15-week and 24-week markers were addressed.

Overall, nearly three quarters believed in legal abortion at six weeks, including more than half of Republicans. However, just 51% supported legal abortion at 15 weeks, and only 27% backed it as far as 24 weeks.

The poll was conducted June 22-26, 2023, and featured 1,220 respondents. The margin of error was +/- 3.9 percentage points.

Kamala Harris says Trump’s comment on women ‘is offensive to everybody’

PHOENIX (AP) — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

“I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way,” Harris said before she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

She followed up those remarks at her rally in Phoenix: “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women.”

The comments by Trump come as he has struggled to connect with female voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a message centered on freedom. She’s making the pitch that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow as both campaigns sprint toward Tuesday’s presidential election.

At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the term protector because it was “inappropriate.”

Then he added a new bit to the protector line. He said he told his aides: “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”

Those comments shaped much of Harris’ Thursday as the two campaigns jostled over the remarks.

The actress and singer Jennifer Lopez introduced Harris at a Las Vegas rally that also included a performance by the pop band Maná. Lopez in emotional remarks talked about her background as a Puerto Rican and emphasized the importance of women for the Democratic nominee, who had just arrived after a separate rally in Reno.

“I believe in the power of women,” Lopez said. “Women have the power to make the difference in this election.”

Lopez also pushed back at comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”

“You can’t even spell American without Rican,” she said. “This is our country too.”

Trump appointed three of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, he has taken to claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and ensure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”

Harris tied Trump’s comments to his approach to reproductive rights, but Trump generally speaks more of protecting women from criminals, terrorists and foreign adversaries, in keeping with the bleak picture he paints of a country in decline.

“I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things,” Trump said during the rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Before Trump headlined a rally in Henderson, Nevada, on Thursday night, he responded to a top Harris campaign surrogate’s claim that the former president does not surround himself with strong, intelligent women.

Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban said as a guest on ABC’s “The View” earlier Thursday that, “You never see” Trump “around strong, intelligent women — ever.”

 

 

 

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Halloween shooting at Vancouver Mall kills 1, injures 2, police say

 

One person was killed and two injured in a shooting at the Vancouver Mall food court around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, police said, as shoppers described hearing shots ring out and ran for the doors while others sheltered in place.

Police received an early report that the shooter was seen dressed all in black wearing a clown mask and last seen running toward JCPenny. The shooter was still at-large late Thursday.

A family-friendly Halloween event was happening inside the mall when police said an unidentified person in the food court area shot and killed another person and “fired other rounds that struck two other individuals.” Their conditions were unknown.

By around 8:30 p.m., police said the danger had passed. “There is currently no active threat inside the mall,” Vancouver police wrote on X at that time.

Detectives were trying to identify the shooter through video footage from the mall, located near the interchange of Interstate 205 and State Route 500, with more than 125 stores, including Macy’s, H&M, Hobby Lobby and JCPenney.

Vancouver resident Jadyn Christy was leaning on a railing on the second floor of the mall when he said “out of nowhere” he heard gunshots that made his “ears ring.” He said he heard between five and 10 gunshots. His pregnant girlfriend and her 4-year-old son and another close friend with their child were inside the Hot Topic clothing store, he said.

“I quickly realized this wasn’t OK,” Christy said. He immediately ran inside the store, yelled, “Get out! There’s a shooter!” and started to collect his girlfriend, her son and friend. People in the store panicked and ran out, knocking over boxes, he said.

“It was chaos,” he said.

Christy, his girlfriend with her son and their friend ran out of the mall to their car.

“People were just hanging outside and even dozens were still pouring in as I screamed, ‘Shooter! Shooter! Shooter, Run, Run!’” he said. “I ran as fast as I could to our vehicle.”

He was thankful they got out safely, but said the mall was crowded and the mall security appeared to be “overwhelmed.”

“It was supposed to be safe,” Christy said.

The mall was hosting an “evening trick-or-treating” event that started at 5 p.m. and was scheduled to last until 8 p.m.

Elliott Hunt was with friends by the Round1 Bowling & Arcade on the mall’s second floor. He said he heard two loud sounds initially coming from the direction of the food court but thought somebody had possibly dropped something really heavy.

“We all turned our heads toward the food court and looked and then there were four more shots in succession. By then, it was very clear it was gunshots,” he said.

What followed were “absolutely god-awful screams,” he said, and “everyone started sprinting.”

He was with several friends, including one who had two young children, a 4-month-old and a 1-year-old. They had decided to spend Halloween night at the mall because it was cold and raining.

Once they realized there was gunfire, they ran out the second-floor doors near Jimmy John’s restaurant. The crush of people trying to race out the doors made it impossible for Hunt’s friend to squeeze his daughter’s stroller through. “He just picked his daughter up and ditched the stroller,” Hunt said.

By the time they got outside, Hunt said the area was swarming with tactical police officers, fire trucks and ambulances.

Hunt called another friend who worked in a pet store on the mall’s first floor below the food court. She told him she and other staff were locked in a back room of the store for at least an hour before police escorted them out of the mall.

Hunt said it was terrifying to think someone was shot and killed so close to them. Hunt, who grew up in Woodland and Vancouver, had worked at the mall’s arcade for two years and used to meet friends at the mall to hang out.

“People were just there trying to have fun,” he said.

Police said any Halloween shoppers or revelers who sheltered in place immediately after the shooting could leave the mall through any exit, although police also set up a reunification area near Hobby Lobby. Vancouver police worked to clear the mall Thursday night.

 

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