Kamala Harris – TheNewsHub

Elections, hurricane damage and more: Here are four factors that will shape holiday shoppers' purchases

suimt — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 13:00:01 +0000

A Macy’s store is seen at Herald Square on December 11, 2023 in New York City.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Inflation may have cooled, but retailers are still staring down a holiday season with plenty of uncertainty.

Several hard-to-predict factors will influence consumers’ spending, as they deck the halls and look for the perfect gifts. Volatile weather, election distraction and a deal-hunting mindset may shape the season. And fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than last year will put shoppers on the clock.

Yet there’s reason for optimism for retailers: Shoppers are feeling more upbeat and plan to spend more compared with last holiday season, according to an annual survey by consulting firm Deloitte and a separate forecast by the National Retail Federation.

Holiday spending in November and December is expected to increase by 2.5% to 3.5% compared with 2023 and range between $979.5 billion and $989 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s a more modest increase than the 3.9% year-over-year jump from the 2022 to 2023 holiday season, when spending totaled $955.6 billion. The NRF’s figure excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.

Shoppers expect to spend an average of $1,778 on the holidays this year, 8% more than last holiday season, according to consulting firm Deloitte’s survey. The survey, which included about 4,000 consumers and was conducted in late August and early September, attributed that spending increase to a more favorable economic outlook, a perception among respondents that prices would be higher and more willingness to spend among higher-earning households with an annual income of between $100,000 and $199,000.

Low unemployment, a return to more typical inflation levels and a recent Federal Reserve interest rate cut are lifting consumers’ spirits, said Stephen Rogers, managing director of Deloitte’s Consumer Industry Center.

“People are still in a better frame of mind, despite the political chatter,” he said. “When they look at their bank account and think about what their financial situation is, they feel better.”

People shop (L) ahead of Black Friday at a Walmart Supercenter on November 14, 2023 in Burbank, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Home Depot, which sells a wide range of holiday decor including Santa-themed throw pillows and a giant animated reindeer for yards, the high demand for decor could be an opportunity. Yet the home improvement retailer said it’s prepared for consumers to seek value, too.

This holiday season, Home Depot bought more low-priced artificial Christmas trees, such as a prelit tree that sells for $49, said Lance Allen, senior merchant of decorative holiday for the home improvement retailer.

Signs showing support for both Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump sit along a rural highway on September 26, 2024 near Traverse City, Michigan.

Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Walmart and SharkNinja, that are hoping shoppers will browse and buy rather than become glued to the news. The election is on Nov. 5, and it could take days for a winner to be called if the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump ends up as close as polls suggest.

SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas described the election as the “biggest unknown” that will shape the holiday season.

“It may be a blip and it may be nothing, and it may disrupt things for a few weeks if the news cycle is all-consuming,” he said. “Christmas is going to come and there will be a holiday season. It’s just a matter of how many distractions there are.”

He said the election and the news cycle around it may also influence how consumers feel about the economy.

Walmart’s internal research suggests “an uptick in positivity” as its shoppers enjoy the fall and get ready for Halloween, said Jen Acerra, vice president of customer insights and strategy at Walmart.

“The one thing that is still out there and moving is what’s going to happen with the election, and what happens with the election will really determine if this is something that stays positive or not,” she said.

Already, some companies have blamed the election for taking a bite out of their sales. Amazon chalked up a weak forecast in August to election distraction that would dampen demand for online shopping, a comment some mocked as an excuse.

Delta Air Lines‘ CEO, Ed Bastian, said in a CNBC interview this month that the company expects lower demand before and after the election to hit the carrier’s revenue.

“Consumers will, I think, take a little bit of pause in making investment decisions, whether it’s discretionary or other things,” he said. “I think you’re going to hear other industries talking about that as well.”

After Hurricane Milton hit Florida, the city of Clearwater was flooded. Search and rescue operations are ongoing in the area.

Lokman Vural Elibol | Anadolu | Getty Images

Hurricane damage and winter temperatures

For retailers, cooler and wintery weather is always on the Christmas wish list.

Weather can tip shoppers into the holiday spirit and get them in the mood to buy thicker sweaters, coats and gifts, said Evan Gold, executive vice president for Planalytics, a Philadelphia-based company that advises retailers on weather-related inventory planning.

“There’s no external factor that influences consumers’ purchases as directly, frequently and immediately as the weather,” he said.

This year, the early fall got off to a rockier start. The now unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season marked by October sales events coincided with unseasonably warm temperatures in San Francisco and other parts of the country, and severe hurricanes that battered North Carolina and Florida. That makes shoppers less likely to want to buy sweaters, coats and artificial trees.

Yet the weather this year should eventually help retailers, Gold said, since November and December temperatures are expected to be colder than a year ago. He said the shift in weather, such as a dusting of snow or a cold snap, can help signal shoppers to get ready for the season.

Many families will just be trying to rebuild from hurricane damage rather than buying holiday gifts, which could redirect money to furniture, clothes or home repairs, Jack Kleinhenz, the NRF’s chief economist, said on a call with reporters.

“It’ll be just an adjustment in their budget in what they’ll be spending for, but it’s really too early to know the full impact on retail,” he said.

Home Depot expects that, too. It pulled holiday product out of 124 of its big-box stores to make room for items that hard-hit areas need, such as shingles and drywall, Allen said. Instead, he said, it plans to sell a more limited assortment in those stores of items such as wreaths and its top-selling trees.

“They’re trying to rebuild and recover their houses,” he said. “So obviously, they’re not going to go buy a nine-foot reindeer and put that out there.”

A shorter holiday season

Thanks to the calendar, the holiday rush may be on overdrive.

Shoppers will have five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year compared with last year — which could dampen spending or potentially motivate time-pressured shoppers to seek out rush shipping, curbside pickup or other quicker options to get gifts.

The pressure will be on retailers to make the most of each day and to deliver on convenience, as shoppers race to get what they need and expect items to arrive within a few hours or at minimum, within a few days, said the NRF’s Shay.

“A shorter period does have consequences and implications and one of those, of course, is that the shipping season will be shorter,” he said.

On a recent store tour, Kohl’s Chief Marketing Officer Christie Raymond said the retailer expects it will have to work harder to woo customers, especially lower- and middle-income shoppers, who have felt pinched by the cumulative effect of inflation and crunched for time.

“We think they’re feeling more squeezed than last year,” Raymond said. And, she added, shoppers have also said they are “feeling time-squeezed.”

To appeal to those consumers, Kohl’s wants to have more of what they need, Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer Nick Jones said.

The retailer has bulked up its offering of gift items, added more party dresses and started to sell a wider range of decorations, including Christmas trees, lawn ornaments and wrapping paper.

“We want to be a holiday destination,” he said. “We haven’t got the food, but we’ve got everything else.”

Harris asks if Trump is "fit to do the job," highlighting health questions

Harsh — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 01:40:14 +0000

Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris has increasingly questioned former President Donald Trump’s ability to handle the demands of another four years in the White House as she seeks to contrast her age with Trump’s.

“I’m seeing that his team at least is saying he’s suffering from exhaustion,” Harris, who turns 60 on Sunday, told reporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday.

Harris was citing a Politico report that said several Trump interviews that were in the works had failed to come to fruition because the 78-year-old Republican nominee was “exhausted.” A Trump campaign spokesperson told Politico that was “unequivocally false.”

“Look, being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world. And so we really do need to ask, if he’s exhausted being on the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job? And I think that’s an open-ended question and we need an answer,” Harris said.

Harris said it’s a “legitimate question,” adding, “it should be a concern if he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail.”

Trump has yet to release his recent medical records, claiming Friday, “you’ve got them all.”

His campaign has said he’s in “perfect and excellent health” to be president. In November 2023, Trump shared a letter from his doctor of osteopathic medicine that said he had been examined in September 2023 and that his “overall health is excellent.” The letter did not give specifics on his vitals or medications.

“I’ve done five exams over the last four years,” Trump told CBS News as he campaigned in Michigan.

When pressed on whether he had actually released all of his medical records, Trump called on Harris to take a cognitive test.

“Obviously, I’m in the middle of a very big and very contentious fight we’re leading,” he said. “I’ve given my health exams. I’ve also done cognitive tests twice, and I’ve aced them, meaning a perfect score. I want to see her do a cognitive test because she couldn’t, because she wasn’t born smart.”

Trump also said he’s “gone 48 days now without a rest,” adding, “I’m not even tired, I’m really exhilarated.”

If elected in November, Trump would be the oldest person to ever assume the Oval Office.

Harris released a letter from her doctor last week that said she is in “excellent health” and “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” required to serve as president. Her physician, Dr. Joshua Simmons, said Harris’ latest blood work and other test results were “unremarkable,” and that she has no personal history of high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiac disease, neurological disorders or other serious conditions. He noted that she has a history of allergies and urticaria, also known as hives, for which she has been on allergen immunotherapy for the past three years.

In a recent letter, more than 230 doctors, nurses and health care professionals, most of whom are backing Harris, called on Trump to release his health records, arguing he was “displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.” Absent detailed records, the letter said, “we are left to extrapolate from public appearances.”

Caitlin Huey-Burns and

Nidia Cavazos

contributed to this report.

Caitlin Yilek

Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

Trump again refuses to release current health records, as Harris questions his fitness

Aseem — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 22:53:34 +0000

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, addresses the media as he arrives at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on October 18, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images

Donald Trump on Friday dismissed more questions about whether he would release his current medical records, doubling down on refusing to provide a health update even as Kamala Harris works to sow doubts about his fitness for the presidency.

The 78-year-old Republican nominee, when asked if he will release his health records, suggested that he has already shared enough information about his medical status.

“Yeah, my health records – I’ve done five exams over the last four years. You’ve got them all,” Trump told a reporter on an airport tarmac after landing in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday afternoon.

Trump then appeared to suggest that he was too busy campaigning against Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee, to devote time to update his records.

“Obviously, I’m in the middle of a very big and very contentious fight,” he said. “We’re leading. I’ve given my health exams.”

Trump added that he has “done cognitive tests twice, and I’ve aced them. Meaning a perfect score.”

“I want to see her do a cognitive test because she couldn’t ace because she wasn’t born smart,” he said, before walking away from the press.

The Trump campaign did not respond to CNBC’s request for additional comment on Trump’s remarks in Michigan.

Trump told CBS News in August that he would “very gladly” release his medical records, but his campaign has not done so.

Harris, who turns 60 on Sunday, released a detailed health report from her White House doctor on Oct. 12. That same day, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung claimed in a statement that the Republican nominee “has voluntarily released” multiple health reports.

Cheung pointed to a three-paragraph letter from Dr. Bruce Aronwald, which was shared last November and related to an exam of Trump that was conducted more than a year ago.

Cheung also referred to two memos penned in July by Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who formerly served as Trump’s White House physician. Those memos focused on the injury Trump sustained when he narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a July 13 campaign rally.

Harris, meanwhile, has recently ramped up her health-focused attacks on Trump, who would become the oldest person in U.S. history elected president if he prevails in the Nov. 5 election.

During a rally in North Carolina on Sunday, she put a spotlight on Trump’s refusal to release a comprehensive health report, along with his decision not to agree to a second debate.

“It makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away? One must question, one must question, are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America? Is that what’s going on?” Harris said.

Harris backs slashing medical debt. Trump's "concepts" worry advocates.

Harsh — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:16:08 +0000

Patient and consumer advocates are looking to Kamala Harris to accelerate federal efforts to help people struggling with medical debt if she prevails in next month’s presidential election.

And they see the vice president and Democratic nominee as the best hope for preserving Americans’ access to health insurance. Comprehensive coverage that limits patients’ out-of-pocket costs offers the best defense against going into debt, experts say.

The Biden administration has expanded financial protections for patients, including a landmark proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to remove medical debt from consumer credit reports.

In 2022, President Joe Biden also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which limits how much Medicare enrollees must pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, including a $35-a-month cap on insulin. And in statehouses across the country, Democrats and Republicans have been quietly working together to enact laws to rein in debt collectors.

But advocates say the federal government could do more to address a problem that burdens 100 million Americans, forcing many to take on extra work, give up their homes, and cut spending on food and other essentials.

“Biden and Harris have done more to tackle the medical debt crisis in this country than any other administration,” said Mona Shah, senior director of policy and strategy at Community Catalyst, a nonprofit that has led national efforts to strengthen protections against medical debt. “But there is more that needs to be done and should be a top priority for the next Congress and administration.”

At the same time, patient advocates fear that if former President Donald Trump wins a second term, he will weaken insurance protections by allowing states to cut their Medicaid programs or by scaling back federal aid to help Americans buy health insurance. That would put millions of people at greater risk of sinking into debt if they get sick.

What to know about financial risks of increasingly popular medical credit cards

05:59

In his first term, Trump and congressional Republicans in 2017 tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a move that independent analysts concluded would have stripped health coverage from millions of Americans and driven up costs for people with preexisting medical conditions, such as diabetes and cancer.

Trump and his GOP allies continue to attack the ACA, and the former president has said he wants to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act, which also includes aid to help low- and middle-income Americans buy health insurance.

“People will face a wave of medical debt from paying premiums and prescription drug prices,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, a consumer group that has backed federal health protections. “Patients and the public should be concerned.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries about its health care agenda. And the former president doesn’t typically discuss health care or medical debt on the campaign trail, though he said at last month’s debate he had “concepts of a plan” to improve the ACA. Trump hasn’t offered specifics.

Harris has repeatedly pledged to protect the ACA and renew expanded subsidies for monthly insurance premiums created by the Inflation Reduction Act. That aid is slated to expire next year.

The vice president has also voiced support for more government spending to buy and retire old medical debts for patients. In recent years, a number of states and cities have purchased medical debt on behalf of their residents.

These efforts have relieved debt for hundreds of thousands of people, though many patient and consumer advocates say retiring old debt is at best a short-term solution, as patients will continue to run up bills they cannot pay without more substantive action.

“It’s a boat with a hole in it,” said Katie Berge, a lobbyist for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The patient group was among more than 50 organizations that last year sent letters to the Biden administration urging federal agencies to take more aggressive steps to protect Americans from medical debt.

“Medical debt is no longer a niche issue,” said Kirsten Sloan, who works on federal policy for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. “It is key to the economic well-being of millions of Americans.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is developing regulations that would bar medical bills from consumer credit reports, which would boost credit scores and make it easier for millions of Americans to rent an apartment, get a job, or secure a car loan.

Harris, who has called medical debt “critical to the financial health and well-being of millions of Americans,” enthusiastically backed the proposed rule. “No one should be denied access to economic opportunity simply because they experienced a medical emergency,” she said in June.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has said his own family struggled with medical debt when he was young, signed a state law in June cracking down on debt collection.

JD Vance asked about Trump’s “concepts of a plan” for health care

07:00

CFPB officials said the regulations would be finalized early next year. Trump hasn’t indicated if he’d follow through on the medical debt protections. In his first term, the CFPB did little to address medical debt, and congressional Republicans have long criticized the regulatory agency.

If Harris prevails, many consumer groups want the CFPB to crack down even further, including tightening oversight of medical credit cards and other financial products that hospitals and other medical providers have started pushing on patients. These loans lock people into interest payments on top of their medical debt.

“We are seeing a variety of new medical financial products,” said April Kuehnhoff, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “These can raise new concerns about consumer protections, and it is critical for the CFPB and other regulators to monitor these companies.”

Some advocates want other federal agencies to get involved, as well.

This includes the mammoth Health and Human Services Department, which controls hundreds of billions of dollars through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. That money gives the federal government enormous leverage over hospitals and other medical providers.

Thus far, the Biden administration hasn’t used that leverage to tackle medical debt.

But in a potential preview of future actions, state leaders in North Carolina recently won federal approval for a medical debt initiative that will make hospitals take steps to alleviate patient debts in exchange for government aid. Harris praised the initiative.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

Bitcoin approaches $70,000 with speculators eyeing record highs

suimt — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 04:11:11 +0000

Bitcoin last traded at $70,000 in July, and reached an all-time high of almost $74,000 in March.

Bitcoin bulls are setting their sights again on the record highs reached in March with optimism building around riskier assets and the looming US elections.
“After six months of price consolidation this year, the stage is set for a perfect storm in favor of Bitcoin and other crypto assets,” wrote Blockforce Capital’s Brett Munster. He cited a rise in global liquidity, including from China, which has been offering a raft of stimulus measures in recent days in an attempt to boost its economy.
The original cryptocurrency gained as much as 2.9% to $68,376 on Wednesday before paring the increase to trade around $67,800.Bitcoin last traded at $70,000 in July, and reached an all-time high of almost $74,000 in March.
Bitcoin Trades at Highest Level Since July
“Global liquidity is on the rise again, with central banks across the world injecting cheap capital into their economies,” Munster wrote. “When global liquidity has exceeded its moving average in the past, it has often coincided with significant upward movements in the price of Bitcoin.”
Other smaller tokens gained, with Dogecoin jumping around 10% and XRP increasing about 2%.
Adding to the optimism is a pledge this week from Vice President Kamala Harris to support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. The acknowledgment follows years of complaints from the crypto sector that US officials have chosen a path of regulation through enforcement rather than by providing clarity. Former President Donald Trump has actively sought crypto voters during the current presidential race versus Harris and has several ongoing crypto-related endeavors.

US courts in key battleground states preparing to decide election cases swiftly

Aseem — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:00:26 +0000

Courts in US battleground states are taking steps to expedite lawsuits over the November 5 election, hoping to avoid drawn-out disputes that could delay the results.

Arizona’s court system on Tuesday became the latest to adopt special procedures governing election litigation to ensure such challenges are decided as swiftly as possible. The state’s supreme court issued an order directing trial court judges to prioritise any lawsuits concerning the outcome of the 2024 election.

“Giving judicial priority to such statutory proceedings is of heightened importance in a presidential election,” Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote.

She ordered that any election-related cases must be scheduled with sufficient time for appeals to be decided, including cases concerning vote recounts and related to presidential electors, before election results must be finalised.

Arizona is one of seven competitive states expected to decide the presidential race between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republicans and Democrats have filed a wave of election-related lawsuits across the country as they spar over ground rules ahead of the vote, and legal experts say Election Day will likely unleash a fresh flurry of court fights over counting and certifying totals.

After he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump and his allies unsuccessfully tried to change the outcome of the election with more than 60 lawsuits seeking to overturn the results based on false allegations of widespread voter fraud.

This cycle, Trump’s allies have already laid the groundwork to challenge the results with lawsuits raising concerns over mail-in ballot verification measures and possible illegal voting by non-citizens, amongst other issues.

The Arizona order follows similar actions to ensure speedy outcomes in post-election litigation in at least two of the other battleground states.

“These new measures seem clearly aimed at concluding litigation regarding the presidential election before the federal deadlines for certification of electors,” James Gardner, an election law expert at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said in an email.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in August temporarily modified its rules to ensure election-related appeals were addressed in three days, rather than the usual 10, and said parties would need to file briefs within 24 hours of launching an appeal of any election-related court ruling.

Michigan’s state court administrator last month in a memo advised court clerks and judges statewide to notify the clerk of the state’s supreme court and various state officials upon the filing of any election-related lawsuit.

The Michigan Court of Appeals plans to publish on its website information about contacting its clerk’s office after business hours and the steps required of a party who might wish to seek an emergency appellate ruling, the memo said.

Courts are also girding for potential Election Day security risks after a top US judiciary official warned in September that judges could face heightened threats “during times of increased national tension.”

Justin Levitt, an election law scholar at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said preemptive orders like Arizona’s reflect a recognition that litigation over the election’s outcome is likely following the 2020 election.

“I think it’s very smart and very sensible for the courts to get ahead of the logistics, to get ahead of the process, just to make sure to get it done smoothly,” said Levitt, who served as a White House adviser on democracy policy under Biden.

Published On:

Oct 16, 2024

Trump or Harris? Here are the 2024 stakes for airlines, banks, EVs, health care and more

suimt — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:36:31 +0000

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris face off in the ABC presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024.

Getty Images

With the U.S. election less than a month away, the country and its corporations are staring down two drastically different options.

For airlines, banks, electric vehicle makers, health-care companies, media firms, restaurants and tech giants, the outcome of the presidential contest could result in stark differences in the rules they’ll face, the mergers they’ll be allowed to pursue, and the taxes they’ll pay.

During his last time in power, former President Donald Trump slashed the corporate tax rate, imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, and sought to cut regulation and red tape and discourage immigration, ideas he’s expected to push again if he wins a second term.

In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed hiking the tax rate on corporations to 28% from the 21% rate enacted under Trump, a move that would require congressional approval. Most business executives expect Harris to broadly continue President Joe Biden‘s policies, including his war on so-called junk fees across industries.

Personnel is policy, as the saying goes, so the ramifications of the presidential race won’t become clear until the winner begins appointments for as many as a dozen key bodies, including the Treasury, Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

CNBC examined the stakes of the 2024 presidential election for some of corporate America’s biggest sectors. Here’s what a Harris or Trump administration could mean for business:

American Airlines and JetBlue Airways in the Northeast and JetBlue’s now-scuttled plan to buy budget carrier Spirit Airlines.

The previous Trump administration didn’t pursue those types of consumer protections. Industry members say that under Trump, they would expect a more favorable environment for mergers, though four airlines already control more than three-quarters of the U.S. market.

On the aerospace side, Boeing and the hundreds of suppliers that support it are seeking stability more than anything else.

Trump has said on the campaign trail that he supports additional tariffs of 10% or 20% and higher duties on goods from China. That could drive up the cost of producing aircraft and other components for aerospace companies, just as a labor and skills shortage after the pandemic drives up expenses.

Tariffs could also challenge the industry, if they spark retaliatory taxes or trade barriers to China and other countries, which are major buyers of aircraft from Boeing, a top U.S. exporter.

— Leslie Josephs

JPMorgan Chase faced an onslaught of new rules this year as Biden appointees pursued the most significant slate of regulations since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Those efforts threaten tens of billions of dollars in industry revenue by slashing fees that banks impose on credit cards and overdrafts and radically revising the capital and risk framework they operate in. The fate of all of those measures is at risk if Trump is elected.

Trump is expected to nominate appointees for key financial regulators, including the CFPB, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that could result in a weakening or killing off completely of the myriad rules in play.

“The Biden administration’s regulatory agenda across sectors has been very ambitious, especially in finance, and large swaths of it stand to be rolled back by Trump appointees if he wins,” said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy at Wolfe Research.

Bank CEOs and consultants say it would be a relief if aspects of the Biden era — an aggressive CFPB, regulators who discouraged most mergers and elongated times for deal approvals — were dialed back.

“It certainly helps if the president is Republican, and the odds tilt more favorably for the industry if it’s a Republican sweep” in Congress, said the CEO of a bank with nearly $100 billion in assets who declined to be identified speaking about regulators.

Still, some observers point out that Trump 2.0 might not be as friendly to the industry as his first time in office.

Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio, has often criticized Wall Street banks, and Trump last month began pushing an idea to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, a move that if enacted would have seismic implications for the industry.

Bankers also say that Harris won’t necessarily cater to traditional Democratic Party ideas that have made life tougher for banks. Unless Democrats seize both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency, it may be difficult to get agency heads approved if they’re considered partisan picks, experts note.

“I would not write off the vice president as someone who’s automatically going to go more progressive,” said Lindsey Johnson, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, a trade group for big U.S. retail banks.

— Hugh Son

Inflation Reduction Act.

Harris hasn’t been as vocal a supporter of EVs lately amid slower-than-expected consumer adoption of the vehicles and consumer pushback. She has said she does not support an EV mandate such as the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019, which she cosponsored during her time as a senator, that would have required automakers to sell only electrified vehicles by 2040. Still, auto industry executives and officials expect a Harris presidency would be largely a continuation, though not a copy, of the past four years of Biden’s EV policy.

They expect some potential leniency on federal fuel economy regulations but minimal changes to the billions of dollars in incentives under the IRA.

— Mike Wayland

more than $4 trillion a year.

Despite spending more on health care than any other wealthy country, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases and the highest maternal and infant death rates, according to the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.

Meanwhile, roughly half of American adults say it is difficult to afford health-care costs, which can drive some into debt or lead them to put off necessary care, according to a May poll conducted by health policy research organization KFF.

Both Harris and Trump have taken aim at the pharmaceutical industry and proposed efforts to lower prescription drug prices in the U.S., which are nearly three times higher than those seen in other countries.

But many of Trump’s efforts to lower costs have been temporary or not immediately effective, health policy experts said. Meanwhile, Harris, if elected, can build on existing efforts of the Biden administration to deliver savings to more patients, they said.

Harris specifically plans to expand certain provisions of the IRA, part of which aims to lower health-care costs for seniors enrolled in Medicare. Harris cast the tie-breaking Senate vote to pass the law in 2022.

Her campaign says she plans to extend two provisions to all Americans, not just seniors: a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug spending and a $35 limit on monthly insulin costs.

Harris also intends to accelerate and expand a provision allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time. Drugmakers fiercely oppose those price talks, with some challenging the effort’s constitutionality in court.

Trump hasn’t publicly indicated what he intends to do about IRA provisions.

Some of Trump’s prior efforts to lower drug prices “didn’t really come into fruition” during his presidency, according to Dr. Mariana Socal, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For example, he planned to use executive action to have Medicare pay no more than the lowest price that select other developed countries pay for drugs, a proposal that was blocked by court action and later rescinded.

Trump also led multiple efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including its expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults. In a campaign video in April, Trump said he was not running on terminating the ACA and would rather make it “much, much better and far less money,” though he has provided no specific plans.

He reiterated his belief that the ACA was “lousy health care” during his Sept. 10 debate with Harris. But when asked he did not offer a replacement proposal, saying only that he has “concepts of a plan.”

— Annika Kim Constantino

Paramount Global and Skydance Media is set to move forward, with plans to close in the first half of 2025, many in media have said the Biden administration has broadly chilled deal-making.

“We just need an opportunity for deregulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to do even better,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in July at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley conference.

Media mogul John Malone recently told MoffettNathanson analysts that some deals are a nonstarter with this current Justice Department, including mergers between companies in the telecommunications and cable broadband space.

Still, it’s unclear how the regulatory environment could or would change depending on which party is in office. Disney was allowed to acquire Fox Corp.’s assets when Trump was in office, but his administration sued to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. Meanwhile, under Biden’s presidency, a federal judge blocked the sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House, but Amazon’s acquisition of MGM was approved.

“My sense is, regardless of the election outcome, we are likely to remain in a similar tighter regulatory environment when looking at media industry dealmaking,” said Marc DeBevoise, CEO and board director of Brightcove, a streaming technology company.

When major media, and even tech, assets change hands, it could also mean increased scrutiny on those in control and whether it creates bias on the platforms.

“Overall, the government and FCC have always been most concerned with having a diversity of voices,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital media investment.
“But then [Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter] happened, and it’s clearly showing you can skew a platform to not just what the business needs, but to maybe your personal approach and whims,” he said.

Since Musk acquired the social media platform in 2022, changing its name to X, he has implemented sweeping changes including cutting staff and giving “amnesty” to previously suspended accounts, including Trump’s, which had been suspended following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Musk has also faced widespread criticism from civil rights groups for the amplification of bigotry on the platform.

Musk has publicly endorsed Trump, and was recently on the campaign trail with the former president. “As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA,” Musk said at a recent event. The billionaire has raised funds for Republican causes, and Trump has suggested Musk could eventually play a role in his administration if the Republican candidate were to be reelected.

During his first term, Trump took a particularly hard stance against journalists, and pursued investigations into leaks from his administration to news organizations. Under Biden, the White House has been notably more amenable to journalists.

Also top of mind for media executives — and government officials — is TikTok.

Lawmakers have argued that TikTok’s Chinese ownership could be a national security risk.

Earlier this year, Biden signed legislation that gives Chinese parent ByteDance until January to find a new owner for the platform or face a U.S. ban. TikTok has said the bill, the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with bipartisan support, violates the First Amendment. The platform has sued the government to stop a potential ban.

While Trump was in office, he attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order, but the effort failed. However, he has more recently switched to supporting the platform, arguing that without it there’s less competition against Meta’s Facebook and other social media.

— Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman

Washington Post previously reported.

In keeping with the campaign’s more labor-friendly approach, Harris is also pledging to eliminate the tip credit: In 37 states, employers only have to pay tipped workers the minimum wage as long as that hourly wage and tips add up to the area’s pay floor. Since 1991, the federal pay floor for tipped wages has been stuck at $2.13.

“In the short term, if [restaurants] have to pay higher wages to their waiters, they’re going to have to raise menu prices, which is going to lower demand,” said Michael Lynn, a tipping expert and Cornell University professor.

— Amelia Lucas

has said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” Last year, the White House issued an executive order that led to the formation of the Commerce Department’s U.S. AI Safety Institute, which is evaluating AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Trump has committed to repealing the executive order.

A second Trump administration might also attempt to challenge a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires companies to disclose cybersecurity incidents. The White House said in January that more transparency “will incentivize corporate executives to invest in cybersecurity and cyber risk management.”

Trump’s running mate, Vance, co-sponsored a bill designed to end the rule. Andrew Garbarino, the House Republican who introduced an identical bill, has said the SEC rule increases cybersecurity risk and overlaps with existing law on incident reporting.

Also at stake in the election is the fate of dealmaking for tech investors and executives.

With Lina Khan helming the FTC, the top tech companies have been largely thwarted from making big acquisitions, though the Justice Department and European regulators have also created hurdles.

Tech transaction volume peaked at $1.5 trillion in 2021, then plummeted to $544 billion last year and $465 billion in 2024 as of September, according to Dealogic.

Many in the tech industry are critical of Khan and want her to be replaced should Harris win in November. Meanwhile, Vance, who worked in venture capital before entering politics, said as recently as February — before he was chosen as Trump’s running mate — that Khan was “doing a pretty good job.”

Khan, whom Biden nominated in 2021, has challenged Amazon and Meta on antitrust grounds and has said the FTC will investigate AI investments at Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft.

— Jordan Novet

With medical report out, Kamala plays health card against Trump

Diksha — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 06:30:37 +0000

Democratic White House candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday, as she aims to put pressure on Republican nominee and ex-president Donald Trump to publish his own health records.

“Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency”.

According to Simmons, her most recent physical exam, conducted in April, was “unremarkable”. Simmons noted that Harris suffers from seasonal allergies and hives, which are managed by non-prescription as well as prescription medications. She is slightly nearsighted and wears contact lenses, the report said.

“She possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” the doctor wrote.

The US vice president’s team seeks to put the spotlight on the physical health and mental acuity of 78-year-old former president Trump, who has so far refused to release any detailed medical information.

Republican Trump became the oldest presidential nominee in US history after 81-year-old President Joe Biden withdrew from the White House race in July.

Biden passed the torch to 59-year-old Kamala Harris after a disastrous debate against Trump raised concerns in the Democratic Party about his own mental sharpness.

Harris’s campaign drew attention to a recent series of articles in the New York Times that raised concerns about the fact that Trump had failed to disclose basic information about his health.

The newspaper also published an analysis of Trump’s language showing that his speeches are increasingly long, “confused” and include vulgarities, a trend seen by experts as a possible sign of cognitive change.

Trump insists he is fully fit, but he has not released any full medical report for his campaign.

In late 2023, Trump released a note from his former White House doctor declaring him to be in “excellent” health, but it was short on details and did not say what tests Trump had undergone when he had a physical in September 2023.

The same doctor, Ronny Jackson, issued a statement in July after Trump’s ear was wounded by an assassin’s bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania, saying the former president was doing well.

Trump, meanwhile, boasted about a cognitive test he had undergone with Jackson while president in 2018, but then immediately flubbed his doctor’s name, calling him “Ronny Johnson”.

They Were Loyal Republicans — Until Trump and Abortion Bans

Aseem — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 09:02:03 +0000

“I consider myself an original Republican. We used to refer to Biden and Kamala in our house as the ‘corpse and the cackler.’” “I am a lifelong Republican — of smaller government, lower taxes, not intervening in our lives.” “I grew up in the Reagan era, and Reagan was a hero in my home. So he was my hero.” “I think in this day and age, you really can’t say that if someone is pro-choice, they must be liberal.” Abortion is changing the Republican Party this election. Here in Arizona, almost one-third of Republicans say they’ll support Proposition 139, a state ballot measure that would make abortion legal until about 24 weeks. “I would say 20 years ago, that definitely would not have been the case.” We spoke to three longtime supporters of the Republican Party about how the end of Roe v. Wade is changing their vote. “I grew up very Catholic. I never knew anybody who had an abortion. I don’t think I said the word out loud until after I’d been married.” “When I heard about Roe being overturned, I was not terribly surprised. Our state law reverted back to the previous law, which was from 1864.” “No one could quite believe it. I mean, it really came so quickly.” Passed during the Civil War when Arizona was still a territory, the 1864 law was a near-total ban on abortion. “Even conservatives in Arizona thought that it didn’t make a lot of sense.” The law was overturned in May, and a ban after 15 weeks was put into place. But it made some Arizonans rethink their stance on abortion. “I had to stop and think: Well, how do I feel about it? What could the potential repercussions be? And the more I read, the more news stories I saw, the more afraid I got for women. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am a mother of 10 and a grandmother. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but I just don’t believe it’s my right to choose for someone else.” “I think when people go through this, it is probably the most painful decision they’ve ever made. I was a delegate to the 2016 convention, and the day that we had the vote in Arizona to go to the convention, I realized that I was bleeding. Turns out that I somehow was pregnant and it had released. I went to the doctor, and I had to have a D&C. Let’s say the 1864 law was in place. Would they have allowed me to have a D&C? Would they have investigated me? 2016, I voted for Trump; in 2020, voted for Trump, but I won’t vote for him again.” “President Trump prides himself in the fact that he dismantled Roe v. Wade. It doesn’t serve women well. It doesn’t serve the country well. And so I can’t support and would say to friends of mine, if Prop 139 is your issue, I don’t see how you could support candidate Trump.” “I will always be a Republican. I listen to NPR in the morning, it reminds me every day why I’m a Republican, but I can’t see myself voting for either of them, for either party at this point.” “I will be voting for Kamala Harris. I have done phone banking on one occasion and I’ll be doing it again. This time, I think that a lot of Arizonans feel, and I feel like our vote actually counts.”

The southern border is Kamala Harris’s biggest political liability

Aseem — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 12:55:45 +0000

KAMALA HARRIS’S candidacy has injected some energy into what had been a poisonous presidential race between two old men who bickered over their golf games on national television. But her ascension comes with risks. As Joe Biden’s vice-president, Ms Harris is in essence running as an incumbent. She will inherit his weaknesses, which Republicans are more than ready to exploit. That is most evident on immigration.

On July 25th House Republicans (with six Democrats) passed a resolution condemning her for failing to “secure the border”. Donald Trump talks about her potential presidency in apocalyptic terms. “Kamala Harris will make the invasion exponentially worse,” he told reporters. “Our whole country will be permanently destroyed.”

In 2016 Mr Trump manufactured a border crisis to whip up fear and loathing. But now the crisis is real: migrant encounters at America’s southern border have surged during the Biden administration. There were nearly 2.5m apprehensions at the border in fiscal year 2023, a record. Encounters have fallen by more than half since their peak in December thanks to increased enforcement from Mexico and an executive order that Mr Biden signed in June tightening asylum. But polling from The Economist and YouGov suggests that 14% of registered voters view immigration as the most important issue facing the country, second only to inflation.

In 2021 Mr Biden tasked Ms Harris with looking at the “root causes” of migration in Central America. Republicans have interpreted this broadly, dubbing her the administration’s “border tsar” and placing the blame for high levels of migration at her feet. One of the biggest challenges of her campaign will be countering these claims, and persuading voters that she has a plan to fix the problem.

So far that plan is elusive. Her record offers few hints. As with other issues, Ms Harris has changed her mind on immigration to suit her ambitions. When she was the district attorney of San Francisco, her tough-on-crime policies extended to immigration. She annoyed progressive Democrats by supporting a policy that required law enforcement to refer undocumented juveniles who were arrested to immigration authorities. As California’s attorney-general she worked with federal officials to disrupt drug-trafficking.

But she embraced more progressive, and outlandish, policies as a presidential hopeful. The abject cruelty of Mr Trump’s policy of separating families at the border, and photos of children in cages, led many Democrats to call for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency tasked with detaining and deporting migrants. “We’ve got to critically re-examine ICE,” Ms Harris told MSNBC, a left-wing cable news channel. “And we need to probably think about starting from scratch.” During her short-lived campaign she supported government-provided health care for undocumented immigrants and civil penalties, rather than criminal ones, from crossing the border illegally. These statements have already become fodder for Republican attack ads.

As vice-president her record on immigration is scant. Ronald Klain, Mr Biden’s former chief of staff, told the Atlantic that Ms Harris was not thrilled about her assignment to tackle the causes of migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by encouraging development, democracy and the rule of law. During a trip to Guatemala she had a stark message for would-be migrants: “Do not come.” But when she was asked why she had not been to the southern border, she replied, defensively, “And I haven’t been to Europe.”

She can point to some progress. Ms Harris raised more than $5.2bn from private companies to promote development in the region. Central America’s governments are more stable, and migration from the Northern Triangle has fallen. But the source of that stability differs wildly from country to country. El Salvador’s strongman president, Nayib Bukele, has locked up 1% of the country’s population. In 2023 the election in Guatemala of Bernardo Arévalo, an anti-corruption reformer, was a success for American diplomacy. Sanctions on Guatemalan elites who tried to keep Mr Arévalo from taking office helped ensure the transition of power. But it is unclear how involved Ms Harris was. “She set the initial tenor in what expectations were on good governance…but most of the actual policies were driven by the State Department,” says Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a think-tank.

Even so, her work in Central America has not seemed like a priority. She has visited the region only twice. Mr Biden, who was tasked with a similar job during the second term of his vice-presidency, visited Latin America 14 times.

In some ways the “root causes” strategy is a hangover from an earlier time. As recently as 2020 migrants from Mexico and the Northern Triangle accounted for the vast majority of encounters at the border. But during the Biden administration, the southern border has become a global crossroads. Migrants from Ecuador, China, India and Turkey try their luck. Promoting development and democracy was never a way to cut migration in the short term. Now it is impossible to have a “root causes” strategy for the entire world.

Ms Harris knows the border is a political liability for her. She will try to remind Americans of Mr Trump’s more draconian policies. She is considering Mark Kelly, a senator for Arizona and a former astronaut, as a potential running-mate. Mr Kelly persistently called for increasing border security years before Mr Biden signed his executive order.

She may well continue her boss’s strategy of carrots and sticks: ramping up enforcement while finding new legal pathways for undocumented migrants ingrained in their communities. Her biography is proof that such ideas can coexist. “I expect her to sound like a prosecutor when she talks about the border,” says Mr Selee, “and like the child of immigrants when she talks about immigration and America’s future.”

From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com