The Daily Signal - Harris Breaks Silence on Death of 13 In Afghanistan Withdrawal, Disagreement Over Harris-Trump Debate, Loans for Illegal Aliens | Aug. 26

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Monday marks three years since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.  Rocket and drone attack between Hezbollah and Israel comes to an end.  The Trump and Harris campaigns are in disagreement over whether candidates’ microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak during the Sept. 10 debate.   California moves ahead with plans to approve loans for illegal aliens who want to buy a home.  Relevant Links Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three years ago today, an ISIS suicide bomber killed 13 Americans during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, August 26. It has been three years since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and three years since 13 service members lost their lives during that withdrawal. So what did the current president and the two presidential candidates have to say about this tragedy today? President Biden was at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware today. He did issue a statement this morning that said in part today and every day we honor our fallen, and he praised those fallen soldiers as patriots in the highest sense. Former President Donald Trump was at Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier,

along with family members of the fallen 13 soldiers. And on social media, Trump called the withdrawal, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris broke her silence on the tragedy. She said in a statement three years ago today, outside of Kabul Airport, an ISIS terrorist killed 13 American service members and more than 100 innocent Afghans and wounded many more. During an interview with CNN before the withdrawal in 2021, Harris says she was the last person in the room speaking with the president when he made the choice to pull troops out

of Afghanistan, per Jason Miller's ex-account. He just made a really big decision, Afghanistan. Yes. Were you the last person in the room? Yes. And you feel comfortable. I do. And I'm going to add to that.

This is a president who has an extraordinary amount of courage. The Taliban is back in control in Afghanistan following that withdrawal three years ago. And just last week, the Taliban codified new morality laws in Afghanistan. The laws require women to veil their faces in public and prohibits women from speaking in public. It also requires men to grow beards and prohibits drivers from playing music and cars. Over the weekend, Israel launched a preemptive stride. on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. The IDF said that the attack was conducted

after they learned that Hezbollah was preparing a large attack on Israel. The IDF identified Hezbollah terrorist organization preparing to fire missiles, rockets, towards Israeli territory. In a self-defense act to remove these threats, the IDF is striking terror targets in Lebanon from which Hezbollah was planning

to launch their attacks on Israeli civilians. This follows more than 6,700 rockets, missiles, and explosive U.IVs fired by Hezbollah at Israeli families, homes, and communities since October 8th. Hezbollah vowed retaliation after Israel carried out a strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah's top military commander last month. The exchange of rockets and drones on Sunday resulted in the death of three militant fighters in Lebanon and one Israeli soldier. So the big question is, is further escalation still to come? Well, the Washington Post reports that officials and analysts believe that further escalation is not imminent. Instead, the rocket and drone firefight was a chance for Hezbollah to show its strength and for Israel to show its defensive capabilities. A task force is investigating the assassination attempt on former

President Donald Trump, and that task force was in Butler, Pennsylvania today, the site of that attempted assassination on the former president. The task force is made up of both Republicans and Democrat lawmakers. It's led by Chairman Republican Representative Mike Kelly, who told the press that this is not a Republican or Democrat issue, but an American issue. The thing is it recognizes we are U.S. representatives, not Democrats, not Republicans, but both searching for the answers and reassuring the American people that we can work together and we can get the right answers. So this doesn't happen again. The task force also met with local officials today to discuss the security lapses that led

to that assassination attempt. Let's hit the campaign trail for a minute. We are 70 days out from the election and only 15 days away from the Trump-Harris debate. Trump and Harris are scheduled to debate on September 10th. But conflict over the debate format is raising questions about whether it will happen. Politico reports that Trump and Harris, their campaigns, specifically, are in disagreement about whether the candidate's microphones will be muted when it's not their turn to speak. Before Biden dropped out of the race, he and Trump had agreed to two debates, the first being on June 27th that was hosted by CNN and the second debate to be hosted by ABC on September 10th. And part of the agreement was that microphones would be muted if the candidate wasn't speaking.

But now the Harris campaign says that they want new terms since Biden is no longer the candidate. And specifically, the Harris campaign wants the microphones to be left on for both candidates during the entirety of the debate. Brian Fallon is the Harris campaign's senior advisor for communications. He told Politico that our understanding is that Trump's handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don't think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes. on his own. Jason Miller is a senior advisor for Trump, and he told political playbook that if Kamala Harris isn't smart enough to repeat the messaging points her handlers want her to memorize, that's their problem. This seems to be a pattern for the Harris campaign, he continued. They won't allow Harris to do interviews. They won't allow her to do press conferences, and now they want to give her a cheat

sheet for the debate. My guess is that they're looking for a way to get out of any debate with President Trump. Well, Trump has indicated in comments to the press today that he's fine with the mics being on the whole time, but that is ultimately up to the Trump campaign to give the final word on. California is moving ahead with plans to approve loans for illegal aliens who want to buy a home. California has something called the Dream for All shared approach. The program was only launched last year, but it gives first-time homebuyers up to a loan of 20% of the home that they are purchasing to cover the down payment. Now, Democrats on the California Senate Appropriations Committee have approved amending the program to allow illegal aliens to

apply. If signed into law, the new bill amending the loan program would prevent a prospective homeowner from being denied from the program based on their immigration status. Fox News Digital asked the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom if the governor would sign the bill. A spokesperson for Newsom said that the governor doesn't typically comment on pending legislation, but went on to say that if the bill reaches Governor Newsom's desk, the governor will evaluate it on its merits. With that, that's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for joining us here for the Daily Signal's top news. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on

new shows, either our afternoon, top news editions, or our morning interview editions. Tomorrow morning, the Daily Signal's Bradley Devlin is sitting down with Jason Chafetz for a conversation on problems within the Secret Service. That's a conversation you are not going to want to miss. Be sure to check that out on Tuesday morning. And don't forget to leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you like to listen. We love hearing your feedback. Have a great rest of your Monday. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. morning. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you.

Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, Mary Margaret O'Lehand, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.