WASHINGTON – Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday in his bid against President Donald Trump in the November national election.
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Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar is pitching an infrastructure plan she says will provide $1 trillion to fix roads and bridges, protect against flooding and rebuild schools, airports and other projects. The plan announced Thursday is the first policy proposal from the Minnesota senator since she joined the 2020 race with a snowy rally not far from where the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. Klobuchar speaks often on the campaign trail about the collapse, which killed 13 people, telling voters “a bridge just shouldn’t fall down in the middle of America.” She also talks about how she worked with Republican colleagues to get funding to rebuild the bridge within 13 months. “America needs someone who will deliver on their promises and get things done for this country,” Klobuchar said in a statement Thursday announcing her plan. She said it will be her top budget priority and pledged to pass it during her first year as president. The plan calls for leveraging $650 billion in federal funding through public-private partnerships, bond programs and clean-energy tax incentives. It would restart the Build America Bonds program President Barack Obama’s administration created to help stimulate the economy during the…
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by Molly Prince Former Vice President Joe Biden is considering naming Stacey Abrams as his running mate for a potential 2020 presidential bid, according to a report published Thursday. Biden’s top advisers have discussed adding Abrams to the top of the ticket in an attempt to show Americans that the former vice president “isn’t just another old white guy,” reported Axios. After her unsuccessful run for governor in 2018, Abrams has openly mulled a second run for the position when Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s term expires in 2022. However, she is also considering a run for Senate against Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue in 2020. Abrams is well-known for her consistent accusations of widespread voter suppression during the 2018 election cycle, which she further claims is racially motivated. Following Abrams’s loss, she appeared regularly on cable news shows and at private events repeating those assertions. There has been no evidence to corroborate Abrams’s claims. Abrams sued the state of Georgia in November over allegations of voter suppression. Interestingly, the lawsuit condemned legislation that Abrams herself helped pass. While Biden has not formally revealed if he will run for president, he has been polling as the top contender for…
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by Molly Prince Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Friday that his 2020 campaign voluntarily recognized a bargaining unit organized with a labor union, making it the first major party presidential campaign to do so. “I’m proud that our campaign is the first presidential campaign to unionize. We cannot just support unions with words, we must back it up with actions,” the Independent senator tweeted. “On this campaign and when we are in the White House, we are going make it easier for people to join unions, not harder.” I’m proud that our campaign is the first presidential campaign to unionize. We cannot just support unions with words, we must back it up with actions. On this campaign and when we are in the White House, we are going make it easier for people to join unions, not harder. https://t.co/JNv3dpss6D — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 15, 2019 A majority of the Sanders campaign staffers decided upon United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 as the representative union. The union primarily represents food and retail service workers, however, it also represents employees of Solidarity Strategies, which is Chuck Rocha’s consulting firm, reported The Huffington Post. Rocha has a close relationship with…
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by Henry Rodgers Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar defended reports about treating her staff poorly, saying she is tough enough to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin if elected president. Klobuchar was one of the first Democratic senators to announce her candidacy for the 2020 presidential campaign. The Minnesota Democrat made the announcement on Feb. 10 in her home state. After her announcement, reports broke that she has a history of being rude to staff, making many of her employees cry, as well as reportedly hitting one of her staffers with a binder. “If you are a boss, you have to have high standards, and that is what I have always had. And that doesn’t mean it’s a popularity contest all the time,” Klobuchar said in an interview with CNN released Thursday. “And so I’ve had high standards for myself, high standards for our staff, and mostly I’m going to have high standards for the country.” Klobuchar also said whoever is going to be president next needs to be “tough” in order to deal with Putin. “When you’re out there on the world stage and dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, yeah, you want someone who’s tough. You want…
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by Jason Hopkins Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar quickly apologized to Hillary Clinton after making a not-so-subtle dig at her 2016 campaign strategy. Presidential hopeful Klobuchar revealed during her 2020 announcement on Feb. 10 where her first campaign stop would be: Wisconsin. “Because, as you remember, there wasn’t a lot of campaigning in Wisconsin in 2016,” she stated to reporters at the time. “With me, that changes.” The reference to the state — which Clinton notably ignored during the 2016 election — was meant as evidence that the moderate senator from the Midwest would run her campaign differently. However, the line drew ire from Clinton’s inner circle and prompted Klobuchar, who had just visited with her three days prior, to reach out to the twice-failed presidential candidate and apologize. Upon making the offensive remark, Klobuchar conducted damage control by hastily sending Clinton an email and then followed up with an apology over the phone. The senior senator from Minnesota claimed her remark had been misinterpreted and was not meant to be offensive, The New York Times reported Tuesday. News of the behind-the-scenes apology comes as Klobuchar has faced other uncomfortable headlines since launching her presidential campaign. Numerous former Klobuchar…
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MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota–Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) officially declared her candidacy for President of the United States Sunday during a snowy rally on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Several of her Minnesotan colleagues spoke before her, including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). Klobuchar’s Senate counterpart, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), touted Klobuchar’s record of supporting Planned Parenthood, and criticized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his alleged failure to adequately address Klobuchar’s line of questioning during his confirmation process. Prince, naturally, was invoked several times throughout the event and one of his former collaborators, DJ Dudley D, emceed the occasion. https://twitter.com/AGockowski/status/1094671348801175552 “Hey, if Prince could do that halftime show in all that rain, I can do this in this snow,” Klobuchar joked. Despite the blizzard-like conditions, Klobuchar managed to attract a massive crowd that was estimated at around 9,000 people. She began her address by thanking her “amazing and incredible team and staff for putting this together.” Leading up to her announcement, Buzzfeed News and Huffington Post released separate reports detailing Klobuchar’s abusive behavior toward her staff, which included claims that she “yelled, threw papers, and sometimes even hurled objects.” Klobuchar’s speech “We are gathered…
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by Grace Carr Former Vice President Joe Biden and a possible candidate in the next presidential election formerly argued that integration would keep black people from fully embracing their identities and rejected busing as an attempt to desegregate schools. “I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” then-senator Biden said in 1975 after facing criticism from white voters, The Washington Examiner reported Friday. Desegregation is “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept,” Biden said, according to the Examiner. Biden was a Delaware Senator from 1973 to 2009. His statements follow those he made during his 1972 run for Senate when he supported the federally-mandated practice of busing. Biden previously claimed he knew segregation and busing were terrible things, but flipped-flopped on the issue following voter backlash, according to the Examiner. He described busing in his 2007 biography as a “liberal train wreck” that tore people apart in the 1970s. “People have to be held accountable,” said University of Cleveland urban studies…
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by Molly Prince Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris raised approximately $1.5 million in one day following her announcement that she will be seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020. In the 24 hours after Harris announced her presidential bid, she received an influx of primarily small donations from more than 37,000 individuals, Harris’s campaign told The Wall Street Journal. During the first 12 hours, the California senator had fundraised $1 million, with an average contribution of more than $35 per donor. Comparatively, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders raised the $1.5 million over the same time period after he launched his presidential campaign in 2016, reported WSJ. He ultimately raised $238 million by the end of his campaign, primarily from donations of $200 or less. Leading up to her presidential announcement, the first-term senator had been actively elevating her national profile. Harris spent more money on Facebook ads during the summer than any other senator despite not being up for re-election in November 2018, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Harris, a high-profile member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, faced both massive backlash and praise for her combative line of questioning of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court…
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by Henry Rodgers Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called Sen. Elizabeth Warren a “total fraud” Monday, the day the Massachusetts Democrat announced she was forming a presidential exploratory committee. In a fiery statement from the RNC, McDaniel called out Warren for her “phony claim to minority status,” referencing Warren’s claims that she is part Native American, also calling her an “extreme far-left obstructionist and a total fraud.” McDaniel also said she is confident President Donald Trump would defeat Warren in 2020 if she decides to run. “Senator Warren couldn’t be more out of touch,” McDaniel said. “With her lack of support from voters – including in her home state – on top of her phony claim to minority status, now that she is formally running Americans will see her for what she is: another extreme far-left obstructionist and a total fraud. Voters know President Trump’s agenda gets results and they will make their voices heard at the ballot box in 2020.” This all comes as Warren announced Monday that she is officially forming a presidential exploratory committee in a bid to run for president in 2020 against Trump. Warren made her first national political move by donating…
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