Harris implies Trump a ‘coward’ during Pennsylvania campaign appearance

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks as her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz looks on during a stop on their campaign bus tour in Rochester, Pennsylvania, on August 18, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 19 August 2024
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Harris implies Trump a ‘coward’ during Pennsylvania campaign appearance

  • “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward,” Harris said in a campaign rally in Pennsylvania
  • Rejecting advice not to go personal, Trump had repeatedly referred to Harris as a “radical” and a “lunatic”

ROCHESTER, Pennsylvania: US Vice President Kamala Harris indirectly criticized former President Donald Trump on Sunday, suggesting her opponent in the Nov. 5 election was a “coward” whose politics focused on putting down rivals.
The remarks came in a campaign appearance in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania with running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, before Harris heads to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which kicks off Monday.
“Over the last several years there’s been this kind of perversion that has taken place, I think, which is to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down. When what we know is the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up,” Harris told a crowd of supporters. “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward.”
She did not directly name Trump, who in a campaign appearance Saturday in eastern Pennsylvania referred to Harris as a “radical” and a “lunatic.”
Opinion polls have shown Harris bringing fresh energy to the campaign and closing the gap with former President Trump both nationally and in many of the eight highly competitive states including Pennsylvania that will play a decisive role in picking Democratic President Joe Biden’s successor.
Harris, who is Black and has Asian heritage, will be the first woman president if she wins in November.
Trump on Saturday said he believed she would be easier to beat than Biden, 81, who dropped out last month under pressure from his own party after a disastrous debate against Trump.
Pennsylvania was one of three Rust Belt states, along with Wisconsin and Michigan, that helped power Republican Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 election.
Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, flipped the trio back to the Democrats in 2020, and Harris aims to hold on to them.
Sources said on Saturday that she is likely to join Biden on stage at the convention on Monday as he passes the torch to her as the party’s nominee for president.
The Trump campaign will try to counter-program the convention with a series of swing-state events this week. He will visit a manufacturing facility in York, Pennsylvania, on Monday, where his campaign says he will focus on the economy, and a county sheriff’s office in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday to talk about safety and crime.
Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, will travel to Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday for remarks on national security, and on Friday Trump will join Turning Point Action, a group founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, for a rally in Glendale, Arizona, aimed in part at highlighting efforts to boost turnout.
Trump supporters said they hope he will refocus his campaign on policy rather than the repeated personal attacks against Harris he has leaned heavily on in the weeks since she emerged as the Democratic candidate.
“President Trump can win this election. His policies are good for America and if you have a policy debate he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election,” Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Policy is the key to the White House.”


France, Germany, Spain to resume delayed fighter talks, sources say

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France, Germany, Spain to resume delayed fighter talks, sources say

  • A ministerial meeting is planned for the week of November 24

BERLIN/PARIS: France, Germany and Spain are set to resume high-level talks on the next phase of a major fighter project after delays caused by the recent political crisis in France, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
A ministerial meeting is planned for the week of November 24 as the three nations try to bridge differences over the next phase of the Future Combat Air System, which calls for a flying demonstrator model, two of the people said.
A third source said a meeting was planned but that its date had not yet been announced.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is separately due to meet his French counterpart, Catherine Vautrin, in Paris next Monday, two of the sources said.
No comment was immediately available from the three defense ministries involved in the 100-billion-euro project to develop a system of crewed stealth fighters and packs of armed drones.
Pistorius told reporters last week that no new date for a trilateral ministerial meeting had been set, but he reiterated Germany’s call for a decision on the next phase by end-year.
Berlin has blamed French industry for blocking the program’s next phase by demanding sole leadership of the project, in a coded reference to Dassault Aviation.
Dassault, which handles France’s industrial participation in the project while Airbus represents Germany and Spain, has denied reports that it wants to control 80 percent of the project.
Pistorius said last week that he had discussed the topic with France’s Vautrin, who had stated her intention to continue with the project, which is widely known as FCAS, or its French acronym, SCAF.
Speaking ahead of a recent meeting with Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles, Vautrin said there was urgency to move ahead because France’s current Rafale warplanes would need to be replaced by 2040.