WAUKESHA, Wisc. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris blasted Republicans as extremists for trying to ban abortions as she rallied women in the key battleground state of Wisconsin on Monday, marking the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade by leading Democrats’ charge for restoring reproductive rights.

She singled out Donald Trump, who is tightening his grip on the Republican presidential nomination, for saying he was “proud” of helping to limit abortions. Trump nominated three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court during his term in office, paving the way for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“Proud that women across our nation are suffering?” Harris said. “Proud that women have been robbed of a fundamental freedom? Proud that doctors could be thrown in prison for caring for their patients? That young women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers?”

“How dare he?” she added.

The barrage reflects the White House’s intense focus on abortion rights during this year’s presidential campaign. Back in Washington, Biden convened a meeting of his reproductive health care access task force to discuss threats to emergency care and new steps for implementing executive orders on the subject.

The Democratic president described Roe v. Wade as “a fundamental right” that had been “ripped away.”

Biden, Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are holding another rally focused on abortion in Virginia on Tuesday. In addition, Harris’ trip to Wisconsin is the first stop in a nationwide tour to talk about reproductive rights.

In her speech on Monday, Harris described abortion as an integral part of the country’s tradition of personal liberty.

“In America, freedom is not to be given. It is not to be bestowed. It is ours by right,” she said. “And that includes the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body — not the government telling you what to do.”

Harris shared stories of women who have miscarried in toilets or developed sepsis because they were denied help by doctors concerned about violating abortion restrictions.

“This is, in fact, a healthcare crisis,” she said. “And there is nothing about this that is hypothetical.”

Wisconsin faces an ongoing legal battle over abortion. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Republicans argued that an 1849 law that was still on the books would effectively ban the procedure except in situations where a mother’s life was at risk.

“These extremists want to roll back the clock to a time before women were treated as full citizens,” Harris said.

Clinics across the state stopped offering abortions until a court ruled the law did not apply to abortions. Republicans have appealed the decision, and the case will likely be decided by the state supreme court. They’re also pushing for a voter referendum that would ban abortions after 14 weeks, holding a hearing on the proposal on Monday.

The White House is pushing against the limits of its ability to ensure access to abortion without new legislation from Congress, where control is split between Democrats and Republicans.

On Monday, Biden administration announced it was creating a team dedicated to helping hospitals comply with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires hospitals receiving federal money to provide life-saving treatment when a patient is at risk of dying.

The Department of Health and Human Services said it would beef up training at hospitals around the law and publish new information on how to lodge a complaint against a hospital.

Some advocacy groups have criticized HHS as not responding aggressively enough to such complaints. Last week, the Associated Press reported that federal officials did not find any violation of the law when an Oklahoma hospital instructed a 26-year-old woman to wait in a parking lot until her condition worsened to qualify for an abortion of her nonviable pregnancy.

The White House has repeatedly turned to Harris, the first woman to serve as vice president, to make its case on abortion. Her outspokenness contrasts with Biden’s more reticent approach. Although he is a longtime supporter of abortion rights, he mentions less often and sometimes avoids using the word abortion even when he discusses the issue.

“I think the real star from a messaging standpoint is the vice president,” said Mini Timmaraju, head of Reproductive Freedom for All, the activist organization formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League. “Look, Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris. Joe Biden has asked Kamala Harris to lead on this issue. This is going to set us up for a great contrast with the other side.”

While Harris and Democrats have embraced abortion as a campaign issue, Republicans are shying away or calling for a truce, fearful of sparking more backlash from voters.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, recently made a plea to “find consensus” on the divisive issue.

“As much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said during a primary debate in November.

Trump has taken credit for helping to overturn Roe v. Wade, but he has balked at laws like Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Republican candidate who dropped out of the race over the weekend.

“You have to win elections,” Trump said during a recent Fox News town hall.

Vice presidents are rarely decisive figures in reelection campaigns. However, Harris has faced additional scrutiny because of Biden’s age — he would be 82 at the start of a second term — and her status as the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve in her position.

Abortion has reshaped Harris’ tenure as vice president after earlier struggles when dealing with intractable issues like migration from Central America.

Jamal Simmons, a former communications director for Harris, said abortion “focused her attention and her office in a way that nothing had before.”

“Focusing on abortion rights tapped into the vice president’s legal background, her political values and her substantive knowledge in a way that I saw no other issue do while I was there,” he said.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Vice President Harris targets Trump as she rallies for abortion rights in Wisconsin appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will join the U.S. delegation to Dubai for the annual United Nations conference on climate change, the White House said Wednesday.

This weekend’s trip for COP28 appears to have been hastily arranged, since her staff recently said she had no plans to attend.

White House officials did not explain the change in plans, but the announcement comes after criticism of Joe Biden’s decision to skip the summit. He’s also no longer expected to make a promised trip to Africa before the end of the year.

The White House said Biden spoke Wednesday with President Mohamed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting COP28. According to an official summary of the call, Biden said Harris will “showcase U.S. global leadership on climate at home and abroad” and will “help galvanize increased global ambition at this critical event.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, special envoy John Kerry, climate adviser Ali Zaidi and clean energy adviser John Podesta are going to Dubai as well. The summit is an opportunity for world leaders to assess their progress — or lack thereof — in the fight against global warming.

“The urgency of this challenge is clear, but so is our ambition,” Podesta told reporters Wednesday. He said Biden’s agenda was accelerating the spread of clean energy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Harris’ participation in the two-week conference will be brief, and she’s scheduled to leave Washington on Friday and return Sunday. She’s expected to speak publicly Saturday.

Her trip will be closely watched for reasons other than climate change. She’s the highest-ranking U.S. leader to visit an Arab nation since the war between Israel and Hamas began almost two months ago.

A White House official said the vice president’s engagement with world leaders at the summit was likely to include conversation on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss tentative plans.

Biden had originally planned to visit Jordan as well as Israel in October, but the stop was scrapped amid controversy over an explosion at a hospital in the Gaza Strip.

Although the blast was initially blamed on Israel by Hamas authorities, further analysis — including by The Associated Press — indicated that a misfired Palestinian rocket was the cause.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Vice President Harris will attend COP28 climate conference in Dubai appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — From a vaccination site in the desert West to a grade school on the Eastern seaboard, President Joe Biden’s top messengers — his vice president and wife among them — led a cross-country effort Monday to highlight the benefits of his huge COVID relief plan.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses are embarked on an ambitious tour this week to promote the $1.9 trillion plan as a way to battle the pandemic and boost the economy.

The road show — dubbed the “Help is here” tour by the White House — began with Harris visiting a COVID-19 vaccination site and a culinary academy in Las Vegas and first lady Jill Biden touring a New Jersey elementary school. Biden himself heads out on Tuesday.

“We want to avoid a situation where people are unaware of what they’re entitled to,” Harris said at the culinary academy. “It’s not selling it; it literally is letting people know their rights. Think of it more as a public education campaign.”

The White House is wasting no time promoting the relief plan, which Biden signed into law last week, looking to build momentum for the rest of his agenda and anxious to avoid the mistakes of 2009 in boosting that year’s recovery effort. Even veterans of Barack Obama’s administration acknowledge that they did not do enough then to showcase their massive economic stimulus package.

Biden stayed back in Washington for a day, declaring that “hope is here in real and tangible ways.” He said the new government spending will bankroll efforts that could allow the nation to emerge from the pandemic’s twin crises, health and economic.

“Shots in arms and money in pockets,” Biden said at the White House. “That’s important. The American Rescue Plan is already doing what it was designed to do: make a difference in people’s everyday lives. We’re just getting started.”

Biden said that within the next 10 days, his administration will clear two important benchmarks: distributing 100 million stimulus payments and administering 100 million vaccine doses since he took office. To commemorate those milestones, Biden and his top representatives are embarking on their most ambitious travel schedule of his young presidency, visiting a series of potential election battleground states this week.

The sales pitch was leaving Republicans cold.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the target of doses that Biden set when he took office as “not some audacious goal” but just the pace that he inherited. And he mocked Biden’s talk of Americans working toward merely being able to gather in small groups by July 4th as “bizarre.”

The Biden plan cleared Congress without any backing from Republicans, despite polling that found broad public support. Republicans argued the bill was too expensive, especially with vaccinations making progress against the virus, and included too many provisions not directly linked to the pandemic.

After beginning the sales campaign with high-profile speeches, Biden will head to Pennsylvania on Tuesday and then join Harris in Georgia on Friday. Others on his team are visiting the electorally important states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire. The trip Monday marked Harris’ first official journey in office and included an unscheduled stop at a vegan taco stand as well as a coffee stand at the Culinary Academy Las Vegas.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We want to take some time to engage directly with the American people and make sure they understand the benefits of the package and how it is going to help them get through this difficult period of time.”

The White House has detailed a theme for each day, focusing on small businesses, schools, home evictions and direct checks to most Americans. Jill Biden was joined by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on a tour Monday of Samuel Smith Elementary School in Burlington, where she highlighted steps the school took to reopen.

But her tour revealed the challenges ahead: In one classroom she visited, only two students were in attendance for in-person learning while the other 17 were virtual. The first lady sat down at a computer to say hello to the remote learners.

“I just I love being here at a school again: Educators, parents and students, the entire school has come together to bring kids back to the classroom,” she said. “But even with your best efforts, students can’t come, they can’t come in every day, which means that their parents are still having to take time off of work, or figure out childcare solutions. And this school like schools across this country can’t fully reopen without help.”

The president on Monday also announced that he had chosen Gene Sperling, a longtime Democratic economic policy expert, to oversee the massive stimulus package, the role Biden himself had played for the 2009 economic rescue package. The goal, Biden said, is to “stay on top of every dollar spent.”

“I learned from my experience implementing the Recovery Act just how important it is to have someone who can manage all the moving parts with efficiency, speed and integrity and accountability,” said the president.

The plan’s key features include direct payments of $1,400 for most single taxpayers, or $2,800 for married couples filing jointly, plus $1,400 per dependent — a total of $5,600 for a married couple with two children. The payments phase out for people with higher incomes.

An extension of federal unemployment benefits will continue through Sept. 6 at $300 a week. There’s $350 billion for state, local and tribal governments, $130 billion for K-12 schools and about $50 billion to expand COVID-19 testing, among other provisions.

Restaurants and bars that were forced to close or limit service can take advantage of a new multibillion-dollar grant program, and the plan also has tens of billions of dollars to help people who have fallen behind on rent and mortgage payments.

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, joined his wife for the Western trip, visiting a food relief organization Monday in Las Vegas and participating in a listening session with the organization’s partners. In addition to the president, vice president and their spouses, Cabinet secretaries will also be out on the tour. Hundreds of mayors and governors, including Republicans, are being lined up to give interviews to discuss what the plan means for their communities.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went first, touring a UPS distribution center in Landover, Maryland, on Monday that also delivers vaccines in the Washington area.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post The road show begins: VP Harris, Jill Biden promote aid plan appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.