JD Vance Awfully Quiet After Report on How His Mom Got Health Care

JD Vance credited Donald Trump for his family being able to get off of Medicaid and onto private health insurance, at the vice presidential debate earlier this month. But he isn’t telling the whole story: that it was due to Obamacare.

Vance’s mother was able to buy private insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplace, run by Ohio, after overcoming substance abuse, becoming financially stable, and earning too much to stay on Medicaid. At the debate, Vance was also referring to a cousin in Florida who got private insurance through the state marketplace, a campaign spokesperson told The Washington Post.

Vance said that Trump fixed a lot of issues with the ACA after Republicans failed to repeal the bill early in his presidency. But this belies the fact that Vance’s family members reaped the benefits of the ACA despite Trump and the rest of the GOP repeatedly attempting to undermine, and then remove, it.

If Trump had been successful, the ACA and its marketplaces would not exist in their current form, if at all, said Andrew Sprung, an independent health analyst, to The Washington Post.

“If any Vance family members transitioned to the marketplace because they earned out of Medicaid, they should be grateful that Trump and Republicans in Congress failed to repeal and replace the marketplace with an alternative that would have provided far less affordable coverage,” Sprung said.

Vance’s current praise of Trump also goes against what he was saying in 2017, when the then president and Republicans in Congress were trying to repeal and replace the bill. Back then, Vance said that Republicans’ proposals would hurt low-income Americans.

“The ‘full repeal’ bill is nothing of the sort—it preserves the regulatory structure of Obamacare, but withdraws its supports for the poor,” Vance wrote in a column for The New York Times seven years ago.

Vance’s health care proposals, like Trump’s,  essentially bring back health insurance companies’ ability to charge more for preexisting conditions. This would hurt the same low-income Americans Vance was supposedly concerned about in 2017, and stick older Americans with those conditions with a higher bill, and that could include Vance’s family members.

Elon Musk’s super PAC has already hit a major bump in the road in its canvassing operations for Donald Trump.

A glitchy door-knocking app means Musk’s America PAC is paying canvassers, with no way to verify that the volunteers are actually getting the word out about Trump.

America PAC is aiming to turn out at least 800,000 voters in swing states to support Trump this November. But the Campaign Sidekick app used by Trump and Musk’s canvassers is plagued by design problems and glitches.

As The Guardian reported, the app requires enough internet to be able to stream 4K video. As door knockers often do their routes in isolated rural locations, that internet speed is not available. The PAC is then forced to rely on “offline walkbooks” to make sure the volunteers are completing their routes. The only problem? Those walkbooks have no geolocation and don’t always upload properly, making it impossible to track the canvassing efforts.

“Maybe Elon Musk can give his canvassers a Starlink,” one America PAC political operative joked to The Guardian.

Uniquely in this campaign, canvassers are paid by the door. This gives people a way to hack the system. With no geolocator, canvassers can operate with little supervision, “speed-running” through their list or just playing hooky. Republicans have struggled with this in the past, with instances of volunteers falsifying data and just hanging out in a casino.

As opposed to Musk’s other functionality failures—like X’s buggy issues and Teslas bursting into flame—this particular Elon fail may actually give Democrats something to smile about. And though it may seem like a niche issue, Musk’s America PAC has essentially hijacked Trump’s door-knocking outreach operations, meaning that issues with the canvassing operation could have real implications on Trump’s outreach in swing states and on Musk’s chances to prove himself worthy to Trump.

Trump’s co-campaign chief Chris LaCivita, of course, denied there was any issue. “Our canvassing apps work fine, and we’ve invested in new technology this cycle that is unmatched in politics to supplement our efforts. This is a clear hit job from a failed vendor who we’ll be sure to name and shame as soon as we finish winning this campaign.”

MAGA Republicans have begun touting the arrest of an armed man outside Donald Trump’s rally Saturday as a “thwarted” third assassination attempt, but federal investigators said that there was no indication that the man was there to hurt the Republican presidential nominee. In fact, the man said he was a Trump fan. 

Vem Miller, a 49-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada, resident, was arrested outside Trump’s disastrous rally in Coachella, California, after he was found to be carrying two unregistered firearms, ammunition, and several fake passports, according to the Associated Press. He was also driving an unregistered black SUV with a fake license plate, and carried fake press credentials. 

CBS’s Scott McFarlane reported Monday that authorities don’t believe Trump was in any danger from Miller. “A federal law enforcement source tells CBS News there is no indication that this was an assassination attempt,” McFarlane said. 

“In a statement to CBS News, Miller calls the allegations ‘a bunch of lies’ and said police made a mistake,” McFarlane said. “In a video he posted overnight, Miller says he’s a staunch support of the former president, has been active in helping him get reelected, and was invited to the rally.”

In a 75-minute video statement, Miller said he had received a special invitation from the Republican Party of Nevada to attend the event, and said he had been to “countless” Trump events before that. Miller claimed that he’d spoken to Don Jr. and Eric Trump, knew many people within the Trump family, and had even met Trump multiple times, according to Newsweek.  

The validity of Miller’s statements is not yet determined, but his remarks did not seem to betray any intent to harm the Republican presidential nominee. 

It seems that MAGA acolytes are running with their own story. 

“A third would-be assassin was caught yesterday with a fake VIP/press pass and loaded weapons trying to get into President Trump’s Coachella rally,” wrote Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna in a post on X Sunday. “This needs to stop. Please join me in praying for President Trump.”

She added a screenshot of a New York Post headline that described a “Third Trump assassination thwarted.”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also got in on the thoughts and prayers. “Yesterday a man in possession of multiple firearms was arrested outside the Coachella rally. Pray for President Trump, his family, and the entire Trump Team. This appears to be a thwarted third assassination attempt,” Greene wrote in a post on X Sunday. 

A Michigan Republican listed the wrong election date in an ad aimed at Black voters, according to a legal complaint filed on Sunday.

Tom Barrett, who is running for Congress in Michigan’s 7th congressional district, placed an ad in the October 2 issue of the Michigan Bulletin, a Black-owned weekly publication based in Lansing. The ad boldly stated: “On November 6 VOTE FOR TOM BARRETT.” The problem is that the election is on November 5.

In response, the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus filed a legal complaint with the state attorney general, accusing Barrett’s campaign of trying to hurt Black voter turnout with the ad. The group says that such efforts are illegal in Michigan, where purposefully spreading misinformation about the election process to stop people from voting is a crime.

“At best, Tom Barrett and his Campaign have committed a shocking oversight which will undoubtedly lead to confusion by Black voters in Lansing,” the legal filing states. “And, at worst, this ad could be part of an intentional strategy to ‘deter’ Black voters by deceiving them into showing up to vote on the day after the 2024 election.”

The caucus’s complaint calls for investigations not only from Michigan’s attorney general but also from a local county prosecutor. In response, Barrett’s campaign claims that the wrong date was just a “proofing error” and didn’t have any negative intent, according to spokesperson Jason Roe. He noted that the campaign sent mailers to Black voters on October 2 and 9 with the correct election date.

“Our campaign has been committed to outreach to the Black community and Black leaders because it is important to Senator Barrett that every community be heard in this election,” Roe told The Washington Post in a statement. “The goal is to earn more support from Black voters.”

But as of Monday, 12 days after the initial error, the campaign had yet to publish a correction. Roe said that the next issue of the Bulletin will contain an ad with November 5 as the date. But the caucus is not convinced.

“It strains credulity that this was a simple mistake,” said the caucus’s legal filing. “Tom Barrett and his Campaign placed two nearly identical ads in two different newspapers within a week of each other. The ad placed in the newspaper read predominantly by Black voters has the wrong election date; while the ad placed in the newspaper not read predominantly by Black voters has the correct election date.”

There’s a long history of Republicans and conservatives promoting misinformation in attempts to depress Black voter turnout. In 2020, several Facebook ads targeted Black and Latino voters with various false claims about President Biden and Black Lives Matter. Robocalls have in years past even told Black voters to stay home, claiming that a Democratic victory was assured.

A report in June from nonprofit Onyx Impact, which fights disinformation among Black Americans, said that 40 million Americans could regularly be targeted and fed disinformation within Black online spaces as the election nears. With November 5 only weeks away, bad actors could be targeting voters everywhere to cause chaos.

Donald Trump’s campaign has begun raising money for hurricane relief—but it’s not exactly clear how that money will be used.

Two weeks ago, the Trump campaign created a GoFundMe “as an official response for MAGA supporters to offer their financial assistance to their fellow Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene,” according to the fundraiser website.

A few days after the page went live, it was updated with a list of the charities that would receive the MAGA funds.

Fitting with Trump’s smears against federal relief efforts, three of the four charities listed—Samaritan’s Purse, Water Mission, and Mtn2Sea Ministries—are Christian or Evangelical NGOs. The fourth charity listed is the “Clinch Foundation,” which is likely the Clinch Memorial Hospital’s Foundation in Valdosta, Georgia.

The page did not, however, say how the campaign planned to disburse funds from the Trump campaign’s pot—more than $7.7 million as of Monday. The fundraiser has received donations of $500,000 each from Republican megadonors Steve and Andrea Wynn and former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler.

While some of these charities have already received initial funds from the Trump campaign, it’s not clear how much has already been or will be disbursed.

Only Mtn2Sea Ministries has reported just how much it received, sharing that it got $25,000 from funds raised by Trump’s GoFundMe, in a Facebook post from the organization last week. “This is the only funds we expect to [receive] from this GoFundMe account and are very grateful for it to help us serve,” the post read.

So, where exactly is the other $7.65 million going? It’s still entirely unclear.

The GoFundMe’s latest update said simply, “We have made an initial disbursement and will continue providing more funds as support continues to come in.”

Late last month, when Samaritan’s Purse delivered supplies to Valdosta, Georgia, Trump promptly took credit for providing the “truckloads” of aid. In a less publicized moment of his speech, Trump revealed that the supplies had been provided by “Franklin’s incredible organization,” referring to Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse.

Samaritan’s Purse spokesperson Gabrielle Bouquet told the Associated Press that the organization was grateful for Trump’s “steadfast support of the work we do in Jesus’ name,” but she declined to say just how much the former president’s campaign fundraiser has contributed. Water Mission also confirmed that it had received funds but did not specify how much, according to the AP.

Trump previously used GoFundMe to raise money following his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, in June. A spokesperson for GoFundMe told the AP that the majority of those funds had already been disbursed, mostly to the families of those injured and killed at the rally.

While Trump’s use of the crowdfunding site does not violate any campaign finance laws, it is unorthodox. “It’s pretty unusual and actually quite odd,” campaign finance attorney Brett Kappel told the AP.

Trump’s choice of subject is also strange, according to Kappel, who said political candidates often donate campaign funds to IRS-approved nonprofits.

Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said that the Republican presidential nominee wanted to “help find a way for his supporters to give as much direct support as they can.”

Meanwhile, Trump has claimed to have donated $25 million of his own money to hurricane relief, but there is currently no actual evidence he did, according to Snopes.