GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whose profile is steadily growing in the crowded race for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, is about to face his biggest audience and biggest test: The first primary debate, hosted by Fox News on Wednesday night.
Former President Trump, by far the frontrunner in the race to face off against President Biden next year, won’t be on stage when the GOP candidates meet. That could be a blessing or a curse for the candidates trying to claw their way to the top.
Ramaswamy will be center stage alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when the eight candidates — but not Trump — gather in Milwaukee for the first debate. But the 38-year-old biotch entrepreneur, who has been rising in polls, is already battling pushback leading up to the event.
Ramaswamy drew eyebrows on Monday when The Atlantic quoted him questioning “how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers,” referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The remarks appeared to conflate two separate conspiracy theories on the right.
The candidate was pressed on the comments in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, in which he maintained, “I am not questioning what we — this is not something I’m staking anything out on. But I want the truth about 9/11.”
A spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign told The Hill on Tuesday that his discussion with The Atlantic reporter was a “free-flowing conversation,” and that the candidate was instead referring to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. On Tuesday, The Atlantic released audio of the interview to support how it covered his comments.
Ramaswamy was already expected to face pushback from other candidates on stage Wednesday night over other past comments about Israel and other topics, but the latest controversy opens him up to fresh attacks from rivals, especially as he sees his standing rise in polls.
DeSantis hasn’t directly gone after Ramaswamy, but a memo that a pro-DeSantis political action committee posted online ahead of the debate suggested that he should “take a sledgehammer” to Ramaswamy and call him “Fake Vivek” or “Vivek the Fake.” More from The Hill: |
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Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Elizabeth Crisp, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here. |
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The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the powerful labor union behind shipping company UPS, voted overwhelmingly to ratify a “historic collective bargaining agreement” after a summer of tense negotiations. (The Hill)
- Eighty percent of New Yorkers surveyed say that the recent migrant surge in the city is a “serious problem,” as the state struggles to house the influx of asylum-seekers. (The Hill)
The Biden administration has announced it will give $1.4 billion in grants for the development of “a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come.” (The Hill)
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✈️ Biden plans India trip for G20 next month
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Budget battle be damned: President Biden will head to India next month to attend the annual Group of 20 (G20) summit.
The White House confirmed on Tuesday that the president plans to be in India Sept. 7-10 and will attend several bilateral meetings with other world leaders on the trip.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that Biden and other leaders will discuss several world issues, including climate change, the economy, the war in Ukraine and poverty.
Vice President Harris will travel to Jakarta, Indonesia, Sept. 4-7 for the U.S.-ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit with leaders from the Indo-Pacific.
Congress is expected to return from its August recess next month with a Sept. 30 hard budget deadline for preventing a government shutdown. (The Hill) |
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🛢️ Obama-era offshore drilling rules back under Biden
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The Biden administration has fully restored Obama-era offshore oil drilling rules that were passed in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and rolled back during the Trump administration.
The restored regulations include a mandated analysis and investigation of any failures within three months of an incident and also real-time drilling monitoring. (The Hill) |
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🍑 Trump jokes about flying to Russia over Georgia case
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Former President Trump joked on Truth Social that he’d head to Russia after being indicted in Georgia over allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results there.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who is overseeing the case, “insisted” on his bond, which has been set at $200,000.
Trump is expected to surrender to the Fulton County Jail Thursday on his 13 charges, which include racketeering, conspiracy to commit forgery and solicitation of a public officer to violate their oath. (The Hill) |
What Trump wants you to read before the debate: The former president blasted out this story from The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis to try to back his case against the charges he faces.
🚨 Spoiler alert 🚨 The month-old story doesn’t exonerate Trump, at all.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who has relied heavily on Trump’s support as he navigates an increasingly defiant GOP majority while taking the gavel that he’s long coveted, told reporters of Trump’s legal challenges and the potential for exoneration: “I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through.” He later “clarified he supports expunging both Trump impeachments, but he emphasized such resolutions must first go through the committee process,” Schnell and Lillis reported in the story Trump linked. |
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💸 Social security? Good luck…
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Nearly half of Gen Z adults don’t think they will see a dime of Social Security benefits they’ve earned when they are out of the workforce, a new poll finds.
The survey from the Nationwide Retirement Institute found 45 percent of adults between the ages of 18 to 26 say they expect they won’t get any money from the federal Social Security system, despite paying into it. (The Hill) |
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🎓 Biden officials launch new student loan plan
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Third time’s the charm: The Biden administration has launched a new student loan repayment plan for low-income borrowers as repayments are set to pick back up this fall after the coronavirus pandemic pause.
The Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan’s launch comes just before student loan interest picks back up for the first time in more than three years. Borrowers won’t be penalized if they are unable to pay for up to a year, though. (The Hill) |
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🦠 A third of adults believe COVID-19 vaccines caused thousands of sudden deaths: poll
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COVID-19 misinformation has led many Americans to believe unfounded theories about key health issues including long-term effects, vaccines and reproductive health, a new poll has found.
And nearly all participants in the survey said they were aware of the misinformation campaigns, the study found.
Health experts and clinicians have repeatedly tried to knock down the dangerous theories that spread online and through social media. (The Hill) |
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“We need new laws to combat crypto crimes” — Sam Brown and Erika Kelton (Read here) “Gen Z and millennials will be key in future elections— so how do we reach them?” — Verneé Green (Read here) |
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1 day until the first GOP presidential debate.
146 days until the Iowa caucuses.
328 days until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis.
363 days until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
440 days until Election Day. |
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Slow day: President Biden is on vacation in Lake Tahoe, Nev., and the House and Senate are on August break. Vice President Harris has nothing on her public schedule after returning to D.C. from a break in California. |
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