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November 1, 2024 Trump's comments to right wing media figure Tucker Carlson last night at an event in Glendale, Arizona, about former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming, coming as they have after the extraordinary racism and sexism of Trump's Sunday event at New York City's Madison Square Garden, have highlighted the centrality of the campaign's attack on women. She's a radical war hawk, trump told Carlson. Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. Today, Trump surrogates have tried to say he was referring to Cheney's positions on American warfare, but it seems pretty clear he is fantasizing about seeing her in front of a firing squad. Journalist Magdy Jacobs noted the parallels between this statement and his 2020 command to the Proud boys to stand back and stand by, the precursor to the proud boys attacking the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In both statements, Trump avoided explicitly calling for violence, but absolutely set the stage for it. This morning, Cheney responded to Trump's threat this is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. While Trump began to attack Cheney openly when she accepted the role of vice chair of the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, where her presence clearly made Republicans like Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, willing to share what they knew, Trump's suggestion that Cheney should face a firing squad seems to be a general expression of the anger of white men accustomed to dictating the terms of public life when faced with the reality that they can no longer count on being able to cow the people around them, Trump's attack on Cheney has galvanized his unpopularity with women. While the larger meaning of the maga's attacks on women got additional illustration with the news broken today by Lizzie Presser and Kabitha Serana of ProPublica that a pregnant 18 year old in Texas suffering from sepsis was turned away from emergency rooms twice before. Doctors at a third visit required two ultrasounds to make sure her fetus no longer had a heartbeat before they would move her into intensive care. She died within hours. Today's news continued to be bad for Trump. Last week on the Joe Rogan podcast, Trump talked about the chips and Science act that authorized about $280 billion to encourage domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the US While the law has brought significant private investment into the construction of new manufacturing plants and has created manufacturing jobs, Trump complained to Rogan that chip deal is so bad. After listening to that conversation, Republicans are determined to cut government spending to make way for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But the Chips and Science act has brought important supply chains home and has created more than 115,000 new high paying jobs in the US and it has brought significant investment to battleground states $19.5 billion to Arizona, 75 million to Georgia, 325 million to Michigan, 750 million to North Carolina and 93 million to Pennsylvania. Johnson quickly realized that acknowledging the Republicans hopes of repealing it was a bad mistake days before an election and claiming he had not heard the question accurately, said he had no intent to undermine the Chips and Science Act. At a closed door meeting earlier this week, Johnson said repealing the Affordable Care act is a Republican priority. He tried to walk this comment back as well, but Pennsylvania Republican senatorial candidate Dave McCormick kept the issue in front of voters when he was caught on a hot mic, saying he wants to reform the ACA and that he opposes the provision in the ACA that allows children to stay on their parents health insurance until they're 26. Trump's mental state continues to deteriorate, taking with it the former president's inhibitions. After going on a rant about the people he blamed for troubles with his microphone at a sparsely attended rally in Warren, Michigan, the Republican nominee for president of the United States of America simulated oral sex on stage. An official with the Harris campaign told reporters today that they fully expect Trump will replay the game plan of 20 and claim victory on election night before all the votes are fully counted. In an interview on Wednesday, Harris noted that they were ready if Trump prematurely declared victory. We are sadly ready if he does, and if we know that he is actually manipulating the press and attempting to manipulate the consensus of the American people, we are prepared to respond, she said. Washington state governor Jay Inslee has activated the state's National Guard so it will be fully prepared to respond to any civil unrest before or after the election. The Department of Justice today announced it would monitor the polls in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states to make sure they comply with federal voting rights laws. Although the federal government has monitored certain polls since 1965, officials in the states of Florida, Missouri and Texas promptly announced they would not permit Department of Justice officials inside polling stations. Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris made two stops in Wisconsin today before packing the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition center in Westallis, near Milwaukee. In Madison, Harris told a reporter, what I am enjoying about this moment most is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I am seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common and know they have everything in common. And I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.
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Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, MA. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.