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Philly’s firefighters union backs Bob Casey’s rival in Senate race

Philly’s firefighters union backs Bob Casey’s rival in Senate race

The firefighters’ union representing Pennsylvania’s largest city endorsed Republican businessman David McCormick in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race Thursday. The president of IAFF Local 22, the union representing more than 4,500 firefighters and first responders in Philadelphia, said this election cycle was the first time they’d met with Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. over his 12 years in office. “Dave McCormick possesses all the qualities that will catapult us forward,” union president Mike Bresnan said at a press conference announcing the endorsement. “We are confident that Dave McCormick will show up when we need him. He is unequivocally the right choice for senator at this pivotal moment in our country’s history.” Speaking at the Northern Liberties-based union hall, McCormick said that first responders see first-hand how parts of Philadelphia and the country at-large are struggling and facing the repercussions of lax criminal justice policies. “We’re here today to talk about exactly why these folks are voting for change, as opposed to the status quo,” he said. “We have urban decay, skyrocketing murder rates. They’re making sections of this incredible city a terrifying place to raise children,” he said, as he stood only a mile or so from Kensington, the North Philadelphia neighborhood often dubbed “America’s largest open-air drug market.” He pointed to “Soros-funded prosecutors” in terms of progressive law enforcement policies, naming Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, as one who has “undermined the rule of law” in his work. “[Casey] has essentially supported policies that have made the jobs of these [firefighters and first responders] a lot tougher. He supports liberal prosecutors like Larry Krasner. He refuses to stand up for a tough order and tough border policies and voted against a total of $800 million in funds for opioid and narcotic detection in the Senate.” McCormick added that Casey also voted against Kate’s Law, a bill that would mandate minimum imprisonment for illegal immigrant felons, after a young woman was murdered by a Mexican national several years ago on a San Francisco pier. The Republican nodded to the fact that the IAFF’s local in Philadelphia endorsed Casey in his re-election bid against former Hazleton mayor and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., in 2018, appearing to suggest that the nod his way this year was groundbreaking. McCormick concluded by criticizing Casey and others over the closure of the PYREX manufacturing plant in Charleroi, Washington County, Pa., where the company is based. “He ignored the union workers there for weeks. He only spoke to them after he heard that I was standing with them in solidarity.” Adding to the endorsement, Bresnan said Thursday that McCormick “is unequivocally the right choice for senator at this pivotal moment in our country’s history.” Philadelphia, both the largest and bluest city in Pennsylvania, has received more attention from statewide Republicans in recent races. In 2022, Dr. Mehmet Oz visited Kensington to treat the drug addicts in the infamous neighborhood. Former President Donald Trump also stopped just outside the city limits in Trevose recently for his widely-covered “shift” at the local McDonald’s’ drive-thru. Trump had held an event in Center City earlier in the campaign cycle to celebrate the release of new, branded footwear he was hawking. The former president’s 2016 win was bolstered by votes in Philadelphia’s once-reliably moderate-Republican western and northern suburbs – an area that became disaffected with the right in 2020 in supporting Joe Biden and in 2022 in helping to elect Gov. Josh Shapiro. Fox News Digital reached out to the Casey campaign for comment but did not hear back by press time. 

Vance rips Harris in battleground Georgia: ‘Stop telling Americans they’re bad’ for wanting ‘secure border’

Vance rips Harris in battleground Georgia: ‘Stop telling Americans they’re bad’ for wanting ‘secure border’

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was in Georgia on Saturday morning. He rallied supporters and called out Vice President Kamala Harris for what he says is the suggestion that voters are bad people for supporting conservative policies. “Here’s my message to Kamala Harris,” Vance told the crowd in Atlanta. “Stop censoring your fellow citizens, try to persuade them and you might actually get somewhere. Stop telling people they’re racist because they want their children to go to schools with kids who speak the English language.” Vance continued, “Stop telling American citizens they’re bad people because they don’t want fentanyl flooding their communities. Stop telling the American people they don’t deserve to have smaller hospital wait times. Stop telling the American people they’re bad for wanting a secure southern border.” BEYONCÉ SAYS ‘I’M HERE AS A MOTHER’ AS SHE ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS AT MASSIVE RALLY IN TEXAS Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Vance’s appearance in Georgia came as early voting numbers have hit record totals in the key battleground state where election officials say the vote count has already exceeded more than half of 2020’s total turnout. FROM ‘JOYFUL’ TO ‘FASCIST’ – WHY KAMALA HARRIS ADOPTED BIDEN’S PLAYBOOK ON BLASTING TRUMP “So over 50% of the turnout for 2020 has already voted in Georgia,” tweeted Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office. “So for people like Joe Biden & Stacey Abrams, you were wrong saying we had voter suppression here. It’s easy to register & vote in Georgia…and really hard to even try to cheat. Great job by our voters & counties.” More than 2.6 million people in the Peach State have voted early, according to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. The total vote count in the 2020 election was barely under five million, with former President Trump narrowly losing to President Biden by a margin of just 11,779 votes.  Vance told a reporter after his remarks on Saturday that he believes Republicans in Georgia have embraced early voting as opposed to past years, in part due to the election reforms the state has put in place. Gov. Brian Kemp signed an overhaul of Georgia’s election rules into law in 2021, after Trump made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud that he said cost him the state’s 16 electoral votes in the last presidential election. Republicans said that new restrictions on absentee and mail-in voting, expanded voter ID requirements and prohibitions on non-poll workers from providing food and drink to voters waiting in line at poll centers were necessary to preserve election integrity. Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report

Harris’ polling in NYC is lowest in decades for Democratic nominee: NYT poll

Harris’ polling in NYC is lowest in decades for Democratic nominee: NYT poll

A New York Times/Siena College poll has Vice-President Harris polling at the lowest numbers for a Democratic presidential nominee in decades. It comes just hours before former president Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a historic rally at Madison Square Garden where he is expected to re-iterate that he is making a long-shot play for the state’s 28 electoral college votes.  The new poll, released Saturday morning, shows Harris leading Trump by 66% to 27% among registered voters, still a substantial lead but a major decline judging by President Biden’s 76% to 23% win over Trump in the deep blue city in 2020. ELON MUSK, DANA WHITE TO APPEAR AT ‘HISTORIC’ TRUMP MSG RALLY If it held, it would represent the worst showing for a Democratic presidential candidate in the city since 1988, according to The New York Times.  The top three issues affecting registered voters in the poll are the economy, followed by immigration and abortion.  The city has battled several crises over the last few years and is still reeling from the effects of its COVID-19 era lockdowns.  New York City has the highest median monthly rent for one-bedrooms out of 100 cities, according to rental marketplace platform Zumper.  The city continues to house tens of thousands of migrants with spending on the crisis expected to exceed $5 billion, and Mayor Eric Adams has previously said costs could balloon to over $10 billion by the end of next fiscal year. CNN DATA GURU SAYS THERE IS A 60% CHANCE THE ELECTION ENDS WITH AN ‘ELECTORAL COLLEGE BLOWOUT’  Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Adams’ administration is also in crisis mode after he was indicted last month on bribery and corruption charges while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul performed weakly in the 2022 governor’s race, winning by only 6 points. In the midterm elections, Democratic candidates for the House won the state’s popular vote by only nine percentage points on average, per the Times, compared with Biden’s roughly 23-point victory in 2020. Biden took New York state by 60.87% to Trump’s garnering 37.74%, a 1% gain for the former president compared to 2016.  The Democrats’ struggle for House control in the midterms arguably ran through New York, with the party losing four seats, including several in Democratic-leaning districts. Trump has made national gains among Black, Hispanic and younger voters, and he is seeking to tap into this demographic with his rally on Sunday.  He also visited a Bronx barbershop earlier this week and in May held a rally in the borough too which had a permit allowance of 3,500 people. The New York Post reported the Bronx rally drew up to 10,000 supporters.  The poll was conducted from Oct. 20 to Oct. 23 with pollsters speaking with 853 voters in New York City. Overall, more than 98 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone and the poll has a margin of error of 3.9% A national New York Times/Siena College poll has the two candidates deadlocked at 48% each. 

Fetterman calls Trump’s support in Pennsylvania ‘astonishing’: ‘You can see the intensity’

Fetterman calls Trump’s support in Pennsylvania ‘astonishing’: ‘You can see the intensity’

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman opened up about the state of the presidential race in his key battleground state and called former President Trump’s support there “astonishing” while predicting that Elon Musk’s endorsement is “going to really matter.” “There’s a difference between not understanding, but also acknowledging that it exists,” Fetterman told the New York Times in an interview published Saturday morning when asked about enthusiasm for Trump in Pennsylvania. “And anybody who spends time driving around, and you can see the intensity. It’s astonishing.” Fetterman continued, “I was doing an event in Indiana County. Very, very red. And there was a superstore of Trump stuff, and it was a hundred feet long. [There were] dozens of T-shirts and hats and bumper stickers and all kinds of, I mean, it’s like, Where does this all come from? It’s the kind of thing that has taken on its own life. And it’s like something very special exists there. And that doesn’t mean that I admire it. It’s just — it’s real.” Fetterman said he believes Musk, who endorsed Trump and appeared with him at a rally at the site of the first assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, will be appealing to voters in Pennsylvania. JOE ROGAN TELLS TRUMP THE ‘WILD S—‘ HE SAYS FUELED HIS POPULARITY DURING THREE HOUR PODCAST INTERVIEW “And now [Elon] Musk is joining him,” Fetterman said. “I mean, to a lot of people, that’s Tony Stark. That’s the world’s richest guy. And he’s obviously, and undeniably, a brilliant guy, and he’s saying, Hey, that’s my guy for president. That’s going to really matter.” Fetterman said he was “alarmed” when Musk began showing up on the campaign trail for Trump and said he’s a “bigger star than Trump” in “some sense.” BILL MAHER PRAISES TRUMP’S ‘BRILLIANT’ MCDONALD’S VISIT, CALLS HARRIS SNUBBING JOE ROGAN A ‘MISTAKE’ “Endorsements, they’re really not meaningful often, but this one is, I think,” Fetterman said. “That has me concerned.” Fetterman told the New York Times that he does not believe the 2024 election will come down to “a certain policy” but will instead come down to the “stark choice” between Harris and Trump.  “It’s visceral,” Fetterman said. “And that’s why the people that are left that haven’t made up their decision are going, you know, what do I want for the next four years? And I do believe enough people will choose Harris. But it’s going to be much, much closer than anyone would want.” The Real Clear Politics average of polling in Pennsylvania shows Trump narrowly leading Harris by less than a percentage point. Political eyes are locked on Pennsylvania as the state that will likely determine the outcome of the election. Trump and Harris have both repeatedly zigzagged the state campaigning in recent weeks, while voter registration for the state released this week shows sizable shifts benefiting the GOP in the final stretch of the election cycle.  Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report

Trump blasts Harris at Michigan rally for ‘partying’ while a ‘war’ is ‘going on’: ‘Nobody’s in charge’

Trump blasts Harris at Michigan rally for ‘partying’ while a ‘war’ is ‘going on’: ‘Nobody’s in charge’

Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Michigan on Friday night where he slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for “partying” while tension in the Middle East boiled over. Trump spoke in Traverse City, as Israeli fighter jets were bombarding Iranian military targets and Harris was at a rally in Houston with Beyonce. “You know where she is tonight?” Trump asked the crowd. “She’s out partying. So Israel is attacking. We’ve got a war going on, and she’s out partying. At least we’re working to make America great again. That’s what we’re doing. Kamala, Kamala, she’s the worst president in the history of our country.” Israel launched its largest ever attack on Iran Friday in a wave of retaliatory airstrikes after the Islamic Republic fired a barrage of missiles toward Israelis earlier this month.  HARRIS BREAKS SILENCE AFTER GOP LEADERS SAY ANTI-TRUMP RHETORIC ‘RISKS INVITING’ ANOTHER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT Additionally, the Trump campaign put out a press release with a photo of Trump in Austin earlier in the day when he highlighted “the tragic human cost of Kamala’s border invasion” and was joined by the mother of Jocelyn Nungary, whose daughter was murdered allegedly by illegal immigrants. “Kamala, meanwhile, will be partying with celebrities in Houston as she makes another desperate attempt to salvage her flailing campaign,” the campaign said. “Don’t expect her to apologize to the families of Jocelyn Nungaray or any of the other American citizens victimized by illegals she imported into our communities — she couldn’t care less. In Kamala’s America, illegal immigrants are the priority as Americans are relegated to the second tier in their own country. The split screen tells you all you need to know.” Harris was campaigning in Houston, Texas on Friday night at a rally where an estimated 30,000 people showed up to hear from the presidential candidate as well as music superstar Beyonce.  GOP LAWMAKERS, LEADERS REACT TO ISRAEL’S RETALIATORY STRIKES AGAINST IRAN: ‘AMERICA STANDS WITH ISRAEL’ Beyoncé, whose hit song “Freedom” has been adopted by the vice president as her campaign trail anthem, spoke ahead of Harris and introduced her at the event, which leaned heavily into reproductive rights. “It’s time for America to sing a new song,” Beyoncé said as she formally endorsed the vice president in her White House race against former President Trump. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big, loud, Texas welcome to the next President of the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris.” And she emphasized that “I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician, I’m here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.” Trump added during his rally that “Kamala is also in total freefall with the Arab and Muslim population in Michigan. She’s in a freefall. She sent their jobs overseas, brought crime to their cities and tonight in the Middle East, it’s like a tinderbox. It’s ready to explode. People are being killed at levels that we’ve never seen before and that’s taking place right now. In Michigan she is in literally a freefall. They’ve had it with her. Nobody’s in charge. Joe Biden is asleep. Kamala is at a dance party with Beyonce.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response. “During his low-energy speech in Michigan tonight, @realDonaldTrump, Arrived 3 hours late and spoke to a dwindling crowd, Insulted Detroit, Attacked Beyoncé, said his handlers tell him women don’t like him,” Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika posted on X on Friday night. Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Elon Musk, Dana White to appear at ‘historic’ Trump MSG rally

Elon Musk, Dana White to appear at ‘historic’ Trump MSG rally

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White are just some of the names expected to speak at former President Trump’s much-anticipated rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) on Sunday. “The World’s Most Famous Arena” is expected to be packed with Trump supporters as the Republican nominee returns to his “deep blue” home state as his campaign enters its final days with increasing momentum. MSG is a 19,500-seat venue.  The Trump campaign says the program includes political icons, celebrities, musical artists, and friends and family of former President Trump who will all discuss how he is “the best choice to fix everything that Kamala Harris broke.” TRUMP VOWS TO ‘SAVE’ DEEP-BLUE NEW YORK CITY IN MASSIVE, HISTORIC BRONX RALLY “This epic event, in the heart of President Trump’s home city, will be a showcase of the historic political movement that President Trump has built in the final days of the campaign,” the campaign said in a press release.  Musk has already hit the campaign trail for Trump, delivering a memorable speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, when the former president returned to the same site where an assassination attempt was made on his life on July 13.  White, who has been a close friend of Trump for years and played a role in him reestablishing the mixed martial arts company in the early 2000s, introduced the former president at this year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, telling the crowd the stakes have never been higher. Other notable attendees this Sunday include former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, political commentator Tucker Carlson and former Democrat presidential nominee turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard.  High-profile names from the political world include Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump as well as the former president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. will also feature. TRUMP ADVISER UNPACKS WHY FORMER PRESIDENT IS HOLDING RALLY IN DEEP-BLUE STATE WEEKS FROM ELECTION From the music world, Death Row Records founder Michael Harris Jr. is set to appear, as will singer Lee Greenwood and opera singer Christopher Macchio. The former president, speaking at a campaign event in Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, said he is making a play for New York, which hasn’t been won by a Republican since then-President Ronald Reagan won his 1984 re-election in a landslide. “We’re going to make a play. We’re going to make a play for New York. Hasn’t been done in a long time. It hasn’t been done in many decades,” Trump said.  “We’re making a play for New Jersey. We’re making a play for Virginia,” Trump continued, before adding that he is also aiming to compete in Minnesota and New Mexico. This will be Trump’s second big rally in the state of New York.  Trump held a rally at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island, last month. More than 60,000 tickets were requested, but the venue only seats 16,000. Thousands of supporters who were not admitted to the venue watched him speak on large screens outside.  Trump also held a rally in the Bronx in May at Crotona Park, which had a permit allowance of 3,500 people. The New York Post reported the Bronx rally drew up to 10,000 supporters.  Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.