Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Biden administration over listing freshwater mussels as endangered
The lawsuit claims the endangered designation for six mussel species is a misuse of environmental law that threatens Texas’ economy.
Harris says what she’s doing is ‘not new,’ but as president she would take a ‘new approach’ in puzzling answer
Vice President Kamala Harris gave a puzzling and often meandering answer when asked how she would respond to people who accuse her of pandering — eventually admitting that what she’s doing now is “not new,” but if she were president she would take a “new approach” to that job. Harris was interviewed by Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast this week. Sharpe expressed frustration with what he claimed was a disparity in how Black candidates are treated when they lay out their policies. He said they are often accused of “pandering.” “The problem that I have with that is it just seems like only Black people pander,” Sharpe said. NEWT GINGRICH SOUNDS OFF ON KAMALA HARRIS’ ‘WORD SALAD’ INTERVIEWS, ‘INSANE’ POSITION ON ISRAEL-HAMAS He said when other candidates go on shows and lay out their “elaborate plan of what they’re going to do,” they’re not pandering. He said, when Harris lays out what she is going to do if she’s elected president, she’s accused of pandering. Sharpe asked how she plans to “get through to those” that accuse her of pandering and how she can make it clear what she intends to do if she’s elected. Harris told the host if people look at facts instead of misinformation, they will see that almost everything she has done is based on a foundation she built for years. For instance, she said she has worked on the economic empowerment of Black communities for years, and as vice president, she has been responsible for getting billions of dollars into community banks to increase access to capital for minorities and other small business owners. JUDGE REJECTS GOP BID TO RESTRICT OVERSEAS BALLOTS IN PENNSYLVANIA “What I’m talking about doing right now is based on long-standing work,” Harris said. “It’s not new. But as president of the United States, part of why it is important is it is a new approach to that job. “It is about a new way that is based on a new generation of leadership that is based on new ideas and, frankly, a different experience that brings my commitment to the work I am talking about into being,” she added. The Trump campaign seized on the puzzling answer — sharing a clip on X. The clip triggered a flurry of responses from users. “Did anyone understand what she just said?” one user asked. HARRIS CAMPAIGN PLEDGES MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS AS VOTERS STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT HER POLICIES “So, it’s [not] new…but it’s new…but it’s the same…but it’s new. OK, got it. Thanks for clearing that up, Kamalaladingdong,” another user wrote. Still, one more user wrote, “She fails again to explain anything.” The Democratic presidential nominee has continued to storm through battleground states in her bid to become the leader of the free world. Critics have accused her of serving up a series of “word salad” answers to questions that lack any real substance. Last month, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a warning about Harris during an appearance on “Hannity.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Part of this may be psychological, and she may not be capable of uttering a clear, coherent policy position,” Gingrich said. “But whatever the reason, the more we get these word salads, the more obvious it is that she either doesn’t know what she’s saying or she can’t articulate it, or she’s trying to hide. These things all hurt her.”
Walz says Trump, Vance need classes on ‘how to talk to women’
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said his Republican rivals do not know “how to talk to women” during a campaign event Tuesday. Walz mocked former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, during a speech in Savannah aimed at motivating Georgia voters to cast ballots before Election Day on Nov. 5. “They want to talk about things that don’t impact you,” Walz said of the GOP presidential ticket. “The things that impact you, those young folks in here too – where are you going to find child care… How are you going to afford it?” “Now, they asked JD Vance where we should get child care, and he said, ‘Ask grandma to do it,’ because God knows grandma is not doing anything else like having a career and living her life and doing things like that.” GEORGIA GOP CHAIR SHARES 2-PRONGED ELECTION STRATEGY AS TRUMP WORKS TO WIN BACK PEACH STATE He was referring to an interview Vance did with conservative activist Charlie Kirk in early September, though the Ohio Republican’s comments did not focus on women alone but rather grandparents as a unit. He said getting “grandma or grandpa” to help with child care was “one of the ways you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on families who are paying so much for day care.” Walz, however, mocked it, “We should offer classes to these guys to learn how to talk to women so they can get this right, because they don’t know how to do it.” He said of the Democrats’ plan for child care, “We’re talking about making sure we’re hiring more people to work in child care, and we’re incentivizing and being able to subsidize some of the costs so that folks can get out and work. That makes a difference.” GEORGIA DEMS CHAIR REVEALS MESSAGE TO UNDECIDED GOP VOTERS AS HARRIS WORKS TO BUILD BROAD BASE Outreach to women of all races, as well as economic and political backgrounds, has been a cornerstone of the Harris-Walz campaign’s efforts. The latest push by the campaign’s allies has involved pointing out to married Republican women that they could vote for Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump without telling anyone – including their husbands. Walz is doing a multi-stop tour in Georgia on Tuesday, exactly one week until Nov. 5 marks the end of the election season. Both campaigns have dedicated significant attention to the battleground state, which President Biden won by less than 1% in 2020. In particular, both have pushed supporters to vote early in-person or absentee rather than on Election Day. ‘ILLEGAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND VOID’: GEORGIA JUDGE STRIKES DOWN NEW ELECTION RULES AFTER LEGAL FIGHTS The Trump campaign’s Georgia team said on Tuesday morning ahead of Walz’s public appearances, “Since Kamala Harris said she wouldn’t have done anything different from Joe Biden, Tim Walz is campaigning for another four years of unmanaged illegal immigration, sky-high prices, and war abroad.” “Georgia voters know President Trump will fix what Kamala Harris broke and flock to the ballot box for his America First Agenda on Nov. 5,” the campaign said. When asked for comment on Walz’s remarks specifically, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the ex-president had a better record on women and families than Harris did. “Kamala Harris may be the first woman Vice President, but she has implemented dangerously liberal policies that have left women worse off financially and far less safe than we were four years ago under President Trump,” Leavitt said. “Women deserve a president who will secure our nation’s borders, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families thrive – and that’s exactly what President Trump will do.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Vance roasts Walz over video game gaffe, needling former coach on football IQ
Ohio senator and Republican candidate for vice president JD Vance took aim at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s football IQ after the Democratic vice presidential nominee posted a confusing tweet during a livestream of himself playing Madden. “They parade Tim Walz around as some kind of football genius as a former football coach, and maybe I know more about football than Gov. Tim Walz does,” Vance said during a rally in Saginaw, Michigan on Tuesday. The comments come after Walz teamed up with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to livestream a session of the two playing the Madden NFL video game against each other, an event that was reportedly an effort by the campaign to widen its appeal among young male voters. TIM WALZ FUMBLES COMMON FOOTBALL TERM, GETS SCORCHED ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ‘YOU DON’T RUN A PICK 6!’ But it was a social media post made during the livestream by Walz, who worked as a defensive coordinator at Mankato West High School, that had many questioning the Minnesota governor’s football knowledge, boasting on X that Ocasio-Cortez “could run a mean pick 6.” “And I can call an audible on the play,” Walz continued in the post, which was subsequently deleted. “We both know that if you take the time to draw up a playbook, you’re gonna use it.” Critics quickly seized on the post, noting that a “pick six” is not a play that you run but instead the result of a defensive player intercepting the ball and running it in for a touchdown, resulting in six points. KAMALA HARRIS DOWNPLAYS DIMINISHING SUPPORT FROM MALE VOTERS: ‘IT’S NOT THE EXPERIENCE I’M HAVING’ Vance joined the chorus during his Tuesday event in Michigan, arguing that the post proved the Minnesota governor’s lack of football knowledge. “Those of you that know football know that you don’t run a pick six,” Vance said. “A pick six is something that happens accidentally on the football field. You run like a spread offense or a West Coast offense.” Vance then argued that he is likely more knowledgeable at football than Walz, going on to quip that former President Trump might also “know more about working at McDonald’s than Kamala Harris does,” referencing Trump’s day serving fries at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s compared to accusations that Vice President Kamala Harris lied about having work experience at the popular fast-food chain. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Politics is a little absurd from time to time and sometimes we oughta poke fun at the absurdity of our political process,” Vance added. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Oversight group seeks docs from Walz’s Minnesota as DOJ rebukes Virginia voter-roll maintenance
Shortly after the Justice Department objected to, and a federal judge blocked Virginia from removing thousands of ineligible voters from its rolls, a conservative good-government group announced a lawsuit to compel document production from a similar case in the home state of Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. While attorneys for the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project said they are chiefly pursuing the documents as a matter of public interest and following a similar request from the Republican National Committee, the parallels between Virginia and Minnesota’s cases cannot be ignored. The Oversight Project’s lawsuit seeks to compel Minnesota’s Department of State and Department of Public Safety to produce records related to voter roll maintenance. In September, the public safety department informed lawmakers it had worked with the state department to inactivate 1,000 voters during a manual review of 104,000 total Minnesotans. DOJ PREVIOUSLY PRE-CLEARED LAW AT CENTER OF YOUNGKIN VOTER ROLL CULLING ORDER After Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an order laying out the culling of essentially self-identified ineligible voters under a 2006 law from then-Democratic Gov. Timothy Kaine, the feds balked and Biden-appointed Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered the reinstatement of all voters removed from the rolls under the order. On Sunday, the Fourth Circuit upheld the ruling and officials in Richmond signaled they wanted the Supreme Court to weigh in. “Let’s be clear about what just happened: only 11 days before a presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals – who self-identified themselves as noncitizens – back onto the voter rolls,” Youngkin said in a statement Friday. Comparing his case to the situation in Richmond, Oversight Project chief counsel Kyle Brosnan said that while the “Biden-Harris administration has brought ridiculous lawsuits against Alabama and Virginia for their voter roll maintenance efforts, which removed thousands of noncitizens from the voter rolls, the Justice Department is curiously uninterested in Minnesota’s voter roll maintenance efforts. We will continue fighting for transparency on this important election integrity issue.” Brosnan added that Minnesota had not responded to its original request via the state version of the federal FOIA statute, prompting legal action. APPEALS COURT RULES AGAINST VIRGINIA’S EFFORT TO BLOCK REINSTATEMENT OF SUSPECTED NONCITIZENS ON BORDER ROLLS Asked about the NVRA exception given to Minnesota and other states, there are still multiple other reasons why the public should be apprised of the communications behind the Minnesota case, including the overall issue of proper voter roll maintenance. “At the core of it, you still have the Justice Department bringing an action against a state like Virginia that removes noncitizens from its ballot. And you have here a situation where noncitizens were potentially automatically registered to vote through the DMV in Minnesota. “You can find a statutory provision to prevent noncitizens from voting.” Additionally, Brosnan said an automatic registration provision at the state DMV likely led to these ineligible voters being added to the rolls in the first place – prompting public interest in the situation regardless of its comparisons with Virginia’s controversy. “These offices had brought to the secretary of state’s office’s attention that noncitizens were automatically registered through the DMV… and we filed an open-records request to get the actual number and look at why that occurred.” “You have this in the context of a wide-open border with 10 million illegal aliens flowing through under the current administration,” adding that Virginia’s case is proof that many ineligible voters are able to “slip through the cracks” of the safeguards to the voter registration process. In a 2023 interview following Walz’s signing of the “Democracy for the People Act,” Secretary of State Steve Simon spoke to Minnesota’s MPR News about the law and was asked about the risk of “undocumented people” ending up on the rolls. “It’s a very sensible question,” the Democratic official said, explaining the Department of Public Safety has experience in the field, and that, “what that means is that no one will even be put in the pile that could possibly be automatically registered.” “You won’t even go into that pile, unless there has been some demonstration of U.S. citizenship.” Brosnan, joined by attorney Neal Cornett, added of the Virginia case that the Justice Department – as any other observer – should find the idea of removing ineligible voters a good thing in terms of “sanctity of the ballot.” While Virginia has gone Democratic in federal elections, geographically, it is a 500-plus mile expanse of relatively conservative areas emanating from Democratic strongholds in Arlington-Fairfax, Norfolk, Winchester, Roanoke and Richmond. Brosnan noted that, in September, an RNC official sought information from Simon’s office about its Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) system. The general counsels for Simon’s office and that of the Department of Public Safety responded in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital in which they said individuals may only be registered through AVR if they had provided “citizenship-affirming documentation” at the time of their DMV registration. The process appears similar in Virginia. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The letter said the state completed a manual review of 103,986 records on Sept. 10 and that 1,485 records “that should not have been sent… to be registered through AVR.” “This is either because their documentation was unreadable due to poor scanning quality, missing required information, mislabel[ing] as citizenship-affirming when it was not or unable to be validated for other reasons.” The attorneys wrote that the only statewide election to be conducted under the law was the August 2024 primary, where the secretary of state’s office found no evidence of an ineligible person voting. Simon’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Appeals court rules against GOP in case challenging 225K voter registrations in North Carolina
A federal appeals court blocked a GOP effort to challenge 225,000 voter registrations in North Carolina that they claimed were made without an ID requirement. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections claiming voters were registered using a registration form that did not require identification such as an ID or Social Security number. The suit claimed that allowing people on voter rolls without identification violated the Help America Vote Act. The case was sent to a federal court by the State Board of Elections, but on Oct. 17, Chief District Judge Richard Myers ruled that parts of the case be moved back to the state court. But in a Tuesday ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his decision — meaning the case will remain in federal court where Myers will determine how it proceeds. DEMS NEED TO RAMP UP EARLY VOTING EFFORTS TO MATCH GOP MOMENTUM IN NORTH CAROLINA: ANALYST The reversal serves as a blow for the Republican plaintiffs who supported Myers’ efforts to return the case to the state court. In the ruling, Circuit Judge Nicole Berner said that sending the case back to the state court was “improper.” GOP CHALLENGES TO OVERSEAS BALLOTING RULES STYMIED IN TWO KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES “The State Board refused to perform Plaintiffs’ requested act—striking certain registered voters from North Carolina’s voter rolls—on the ground that doing so within 90 days of a federal election would violate provisions of Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Berner wrote. “We are not convinced that defendants conceded to a violation of HAVA, but we need not reach that issue. Defendants argue that HAVA Subsection (a)(2)(A) actually prohibits them from removing the voters in question rather than requiring them to do so,” the decision read.
Oklahoma schools chief bills Kamala Harris $474M for education costs, citing illegal immigration
Oklahoma’s top elected education official sent a “demand letter” to Vice President Kamala Harris that essentially served as an invoice for what the illegal immigration crisis under her tenure overseeing the border has cost Sooner State schools. “As the statewide elected Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Oklahoma and the Executive Officer of the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), it is my duty to ensure that the resources allocated to our public schools are counted for and used in the most effective manner possible for the benefit of Oklahoma students’ education,” Ryan Walters wrote to Harris. In August, Walters tasked the department to work with school districts to calculate the financial impact borne by taxpayers on illegal immigrant minors. That analysis resulted in an estimate of $474.9 million, which he demanded of Harris in the letter. “This demand amount is, by necessity, an estimate because only your administration knows the true number of illegal immigrants crossing this nation’s borders and the actual costs of illegal immigration,” he said, calling for Harris to conduct a potentially more accurate accounting of the costs incurred by Oklahoma schools. OK SCHOOLS CHIEF DEDICATES MILLIONS TO PUT ‘A BIBLE IN EVERY SCHOOL’ “Under your supervision, the costs in education due to illegal immigration have risen astronomically. Your failed oversight and efforts are a direct cause of the current crises Oklahoma and other states now face. Oklahoma taxpayers, schools, teachers, and parents should not bear the burden of your failings. They deserve better,” Walters said. In a Tuesday interview, Walters said the border crisis is “crippling” Oklahoma schools, and that paying for these minors’ education is the “largest unfunded mandate in the country.” He said Oklahoma has been the first state to both calculate the education costs of the border crisis and to actually bill the Biden-Harris administration for the fiscal disparity. In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order directing hospitals to collect cost information in a similar fashion, for patients “not lawfully present in the United States.” LANDMARK BILL TARGETS HIDDEN FOREIGN FUNDS IN SCHOOLS AS OFFICIALS WARN OF CCP INFLUENCE “Since she’s been the border czar, she’s failed our country,” Walters said. “Open borders has had an impact on every aspect of society, but it has overrun our schools, decimated our families. And it is absolutely time to hold them accountable for that.” Walters said he invites other states to follow suit and calculate the real costs of illegal immigration, to show the true effects of the crisis on the country. Harris’ office did not respond to a request for comment. When asked if he expects a response or a remittance, Walters said the administration has long been “unresponsive to the needs of all Americans.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “I know that they’ve magically pretended like they’ve cared about it here in the last 60 days of their campaign. But the reality is, as you’ve seen story after story, data point after data point, and they’ve ignored them,” he said.
Judge rejects GOP bid to restrict overseas ballots in Pennsylvania
A U.S. judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday rejected a Republican-led lawsuit aimed at bolstering the vetting process for overseas voters – an effort that had sparked sharp criticism and concerns that it could disenfranchise thousands of Keystone State voters, including U.S. service members and their families. The lawsuit was filed late last month by six out of eight House Republicans from Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation. The group had argued that the state law made it possible for overseas residents to register and vote in elections without proper identification. Voters can “receive a ballot by email and then vote a ballot without providing identification at any step in the process,” the Republican plaintiffs alleged. FLURRY OF PRE-ELECTION LEGAL CASES IS NOW ‘STANDARDIZED’ STRATEGY, EXPERTS SAY U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the suit Tuesday as a “nonstarter,” noting that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their lawsuit, which seeks to update a law that has been on the books for 12 years. He also cited procedural issues with the case, noting they failed to produce evidence or articulate a “viable course of action.” “An injunction at this late hour would upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters, to say nothing of the state and county administrators who would be expected to implement these new procedures on top of their current duties,” Conner said. TRUMP CAMPAIGN DEPLOYS IN PENNSYLVANIA’S LARGEST SWING COUNTY The push comes as Republicans in at least three swing states have sought to crack down on overseas voting in the final sprint to Election Day. The RNC and state-level groups in Michigan and North Carolina have also filed lawsuits in recent weeks seeking additional restrictions on a vetting and verification process they argue is devoid of proper safeguards. The lawsuits sparked immediate protest from a group of House Democrats and former military members, who argued that the remedy sought by the plaintiffs was overly restrictive and risked disenfranchising thousands of U.S. service members stationed abroad. According to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), an estimated 1.6 million U.S. voters living overseas are eligible to vote in one of seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. The states, which carry a combined total of 93 Electoral College votes, are considered to be crucial in deciding the next president in a virtual dead heat race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Pennsylvania has 19 on its own, giving it outsize importance in the election. Earlier this month, a lawyer testified to the court that over 26,000 overseas ballots had already been cast in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear how many of those would be impacted by a court decision. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Harris ad suggests Trump will send Asians back to interment camps
The Harris-Walz campaign rolled out a new TV and digital ad on Saturday invoking the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and other acts of anti-Asian hate, comparing them to former President Donald Trump. In the 30-second ad, titled “Our America,” the Harris campaign accuses Trump of having an “outdated vision of America” that “has no place” for Asian Americans. The ad features symbols of American freedom, including the Constitution, purportedly “under attack by Trump and his extremist allies,” the Harris campaign said in a news release. TRUMP CAMPAIGN’S CLOSING MESSAGE TO VOTERS: ‘HARRIS BROKE IT, TRUMP WILL FIX IT’ The ad “alludes to moments when Asian Americans were denied their civil rights – such as the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit,” the campaign said. “We have a choice between someone who wants unchecked power and has an outdated vision of America that has no place for us… Or a president who will respect all Americans, who will never view us as ‘others,’” the narrator says. “Protect our democracy and our communities. Vote.” The ad features men, women and children of Asian descent, including a purported Iraq War veteran giving a salute. The video is appearing on television in battleground states as well as across an array of digital channels like Meta, Snap, YouTube and radio, the Harris-Walz campaign says. POLLSTER DISSECTS TRUMP’S LATEST AD MOCKING KAMALA HARRIS AS ONE OF HIS ‘MOST SIGNIFICANT’ In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, sent around 117,000 people of Japanese descent to internment camps, the majority of whom were American citizens. Roosevelt issued an executive order on Feb. 19 of that year, coming two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When the internees were taken to the camps, they could bring only what they could carry. Nine of the camps were shut down by the end of 1945 following a Supreme Court decision, with the final camp closing in March 1946. Chin, 27, was an American draftsman of Chinese descent who was fatally assaulted in San Francisco in a racially motivated assault by two White men following a fight at a strip club. Federal authorities said two autoworkers blamed Chin for layoffs at car factories due to Japanese imports. After Chin left the club, the two men tracked him down at a fast-food eatery and attacked him, authorities said. Chin later died at a hospital. There was a sharp increase nationwide in anti-Asian hate crimes with the onset of the pandemic and the ad seeks to link these attacks to Trump with #StopAsianHate posters being broadcast behind a group of children. “The choice for Asian American voters in this election couldn’t be clearer. While Trump surrounds himself with loyalists to emulate the dictators he admires and intends to wield unchecked power to serve himself, Vice President Kamala Harris has only ever had one client: the people,” Andrew Peng, the Harris-Walz 2024 Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander spokesperson said in the release. The new ad comes as Harris ramps up her attacks on the former president, calling him “increasingly unhinged and unstable” as well as a “fascist” last week.
Hundreds illegally got Texas teacher licenses through cheating ring, Harris County prosecutors say
Five people were charged in connection with the scheme. Investigators say aspiring teachers would pay for help cheating in the certification test.