Welcome to the online edition of From the Politics Desk, a nightly newsletter where the NBC News politics team brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the campaign, the White House and Congress.
In today’s edition, we explore how far-right activist Laura Loomer’s access to Donald Trump is unsettling Republican allies, plus “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker digs into the questions Kamala Harris and Trump dodged during the debate.
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Far-right activist Laura Loomer’s access to Trump exposes crisis for his campaign
Jonathan Allen, Julie Zirkin, Vaughan Hilyard
No one can separate former President Donald Trump from Laura Loomer, much to the chagrin of Republicans of all stripes.
Throughout the campaign, aides and advisers have done all they can to protect Trump from Loomer, the far-right social media mogul, and others like him who they say feed into Trump’s ego and stimulate his basest political instincts.
They lost that battle this week: Loomer flew on President Trump’s jet to a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, and then to a Sept. 11 memorial on Wednesday, the latter appearance infuriating some Democrats and Republicans for spreading conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks on the United States.
A big part of what makes Loomer so appealing to Trump is her combative spirit: She defends Trump as fervently as she supports politically extreme theories, such as the unfounded claim that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, which Trump touted during Tuesday’s debate.
Her presence, people familiar with the matter say, reflects that Trump doesn’t trust his campaign aides and that they fear they will upset him in a time of crisis. It has also drawn vocal criticism from members of his own party with whom she doesn’t always see eye to eye.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Thursday that Loomer is “very harmful” and should not be in Trump’s inner circle. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Friday called Loomer “a crazed conspiracy theorist who is hurting Trump’s chances in the election.”
Meanwhile, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene denounced Loomer’s social media posts, which suggested that if Harris, who is Indian-American and black, wins, “the White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be delivered via a call center,” which Loomer called “horribly, deeply racist” and unrepresentative of Trump. (Loomer has refuted all three on X.)
Republican senators, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering their party’s nominee, said Trump was endangering his chances of winning — and staffers who weren’t acting as gatekeepers.
“We’re all astonished that he put her on a plane to the debate, but even more astonished that she was on board on the anniversary of 9/11. This will create insurmountable confusion,” the senator said.
Meanwhile, Trump defended Loomer on Friday: “I don’t control Laura. Laura, she’s a free spirit. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I can’t tell Laura what to do,” he said.
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How an online fringe claim that immigrants eat pets made its way into the debate arena
Henry J. Gomez, Brandy Zadrozny, Alan Smith, Julie Zirkin
For most Americans, this debate was probably the first time they heard the unfounded, racist rumor that Haitian immigrants eat dogs and cats.
But the false claim had been circulating among right-wing internet users before Tuesday and had been promoted by other people close to Trump, including vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
No one involved in Trump’s debate preparations or speaking on behalf of his campaign agreed to speak publicly about the strategy or answer questions about how it evolved from a minority obsession to brief remarks on the debate stage.
The issue in Springfield, about 45 miles from Columbus in southwest Ohio, revolves around thousands of Haitian immigrants who have settled there in recent years, many of them fleeing violence and political unrest and staying legally under a federal program. Residents and political leaders, including Vance, have raised economic and public safety concerns for months, arguing that the influx of as many as 20,000 immigrants into a city with a population of 59,000 in 2020 has strained city resources.
The allegations that pets are being kidnapped, slaughtered and eaten are more recent.
The national neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe was one of the first to spread the rumor in August, posting it on Gab and Telegram, social networks popular with extremists. The group’s leaders blame Trump for allowing the rumor to go viral, but it’s unclear how much influence Blood Tribe has; its account has fewer than 1,000 followers.
The rumor quickly spread across mainstream social media platforms, including Facebook and X. NewsGuard, a misinformation monitor, traced it back to an undated post in a private Facebook group that was shared in a screenshot posted to X on September 5th.
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Real-world impact: A bomb threat on Friday forced evacuations and the closure of public schools and city hall in Springfield, Ohio, for a second consecutive day. Continue reading β
Questions Trump and Harris didn’t answer during the debate
Kristen Welker
In the first (and perhaps only) debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the questions they didn’t answer were in many ways as revealing as the ones they did answer.
It started with the debate’s first question to Harris: “Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?”
Harris responded by pointing to proposals for tax credits for small businesses and a $6,000 child tax credit, and criticized Trump for proposing tariffs and tax cuts for the wealthy, but did not directly answer whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago, despite many economic statistics suggesting that is the case.
Later in the debate, Trump was asked whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if it reached his desk, something his running mate J.D. Vance had said on “Meet the Press” he likely would do.
LINDSEY DAVIS, ABC News: But I want a yes or no answer. Your running mate, J.D. Vance, has said he would veto this bill if it reached your desk.
TRUMP: Well, I didn’t talk to JD about it. And to be fair, JD — I don’t mind him having certain views, but I think he was speaking for me. And I wasn’t.
Trump dodged the question, victimizing Vance in the process.
Trump also did not answer other questions, such as whether he regrets the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, whether he has a plan to replace Obamacare (he replied, “I have a concept of a plan”), or whether he wants Ukraine to win the war with Russia (a question he was asked twice).
DAVID MUIR, ABC News: Time’s up. Let me clarify the question. Do you think it’s in the best interest of the United States for Ukraine to win this war? Yes or no?
TRUMP: I think it’s in the best interest of the United States to end this war, to end it. OK, let’s negotiate and make a deal, because we have to stop all these lives being destroyed.
Harris, meanwhile, did not answer other questions, including whether she would do anything differently than President Joe Biden on immigration and whether she and the Biden administration are responsible for U.S. soldiers killed after withdrawing from Afghanistan.
On Afghanistan, Harris supported Biden’s decision to withdraw troops, saying, “Four presidents have said to withdraw, but Joe Biden withdrew,” and criticized the deal the Trump administration made with the Taliban, saying, “During his presidency, Donald Trump negotiated one of the weakest deals imaginable.”
But she declined to say whether she bore any responsibility for how the deadly retreat unfolded.
With the second debate between the two candidates still to be scheduled, it’s up to reporters to pursue these questions. It’s up to the candidates themselves to get the answers for voters.
ποΈ Today’s top news
π What’s the plan? With Harris pivoting to the center, there are still many open questions about what policies she would pursue if elected. Read more β π· 9 to 5 and more: Trump said at a campaign rally that he would eliminate taxes on overtime pay. Read more β βοΈ Papal declaration: Pope Francis believes Trump and Harris are “both against life” and urged Americans to vote for what they consider to be “the lesser of two evils.” Read more β π What to watch next: Department of Justice plans to file criminal charges for hacking Trump’s campaign. Read more β βοΈ Strike: Workers at Boeing plants in Oregon and the Seattle area are striking after overwhelmingly rejecting a new labor agreement. Read more β βοΈ Heading to trial: Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Newsmax over the 2020 election is set to go to trial later this month. Read more β π To infinity and beyond: Two American astronauts stranded on the International Space Station until February say they plan to vote from space in the November election. Read more β Follow our live election coverage here β
That’s all from the Politics Department. If you have any comments (what you liked, what you didn’t like, etc.), please email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com.
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