White House quickly irritated by questions about VP Harris’ viral ‘Southern accent’
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was quick to dismiss a question about Kamala Harris’ apparent new “Southern accent” when she was pressed on the vice president’s recent shift in dialect during a briefing on Tuesday.
Jean-Pierre was taking questions from reporters during her daily news briefing when Fox News’ Peter Doocy brought up Harris’ new “accent” that went viral over the weekend and was compared to “Foghorn Leghorn” following her Labor Day rally in Detroit.
“Since when does the vice president have what sounds like a Southern accent?” Doocy asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jean-Pierre replied, visibly irritated.
KAMALA HARRIS HAS YET TO DO FORMAL PRESS CONFERENCE SINCE EMERGING AS DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE
“Well, she was talking about unions in Detroit using one tone of voice, she used the same line in Pittsburgh, and it sounded like she at least had some kind of Southern drawl,” Doocy pressed.
“I mean, do you hear the question that you’re – I mean, do you think Americans seriously think that this is an important question?” Jean-Pierre pushed back. “You know what they care about? They care about the economy, they care about lowering costs, they care about health care. That’s what they want to hear…democracy and freedom…I’m not going to even entertain some question about … it’s just. Hearing it sounds so ridiculous. The question – I’m talking about the question – is just insane.”
Doocy proceeded to ask whether Harris invokes the purported accent in meetings at the White House.
“I’m just – Peter, we’re moving on. We’re so moving on,” Jean-Pierre said.
HARRIS MOCKED FOR ‘FAKE SOUTHERN ACCENT’ DURING GEORGIA RALLY
Harris spent her Monday holiday in the Motor City hoping to shore up blue-collar union workers in the critical battleground state when she apparently unveiled her new dialect.
“You better thank a union member for the five-day work week,” Harris told the crowd. “You better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union member for paid leave. You better thank a union member for vacation time.”
Conservative critics were quick to share a clip of the remark, knocking Harris’ “Detroit speak,” while criticizing her as “cringe and fake.”
“All of politics is a performance to Kamala Harris,” GOP strategist Matt Whitlock said. “She changes fake accents like she changes policy positions and political personas. Today she’s talking in a fake southern accent, pretending to be a moderate. Next week she’ll be back to San Francisco liberal.”
Critics also pointed out that Harris dropped the accent while making the same stump speech later that day in Pittsburgh.
“Same speech. Two entirely different accents,” conservative commentator Greg Price said while sharing clips from each rally, adding, “She’s the fakest human being that has ever lived.”
Harris has repeatedly been accused of altering her accent depending on the group of people she’s speaking to.
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In July, Harris was slammed for using a fake Southern accent while speaking at a rally in Atlanta. During her 2021 overseas trip to France, critics claimed Harris used a “French accent” while touring a COVID lab.
Elon Musk and RFK Jr resurface video clip of VP Harris with stern warning
X owner Elon Musk and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed on social media that Vice President Kamala Harris would want to “shut down” X if it can’t be made to conform to government oversight.
The two figures backing former President Trump shared a clip from an interview Harris had with CNN in 2019 after a Democratic presidential primary debate, where she blasted social media sites for “directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation,” something she said “has to stop.”
“Translation: If they don’t police content to conform to government-approved narratives, they will be shut down,” Kennedy said, characterizing Harris’ statements from the five-year-old clip.
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A clip of the interview went viral on X this week, as Harris’ critics pointed to it as supposed evidence of how the vice president would stifle free speech on social media platforms if elected president.
In the full interview, Harris expressed her desire to see then-President Trump’s Twitter account – before Twitter became X – removed because of its negative impact on society.
“And when you’re talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts peoples’ perceptions about what they should and should not do,” she said.
Harris then declared that Trump’s account “should be taken down” because he had violated the site’s terms of service.
She also spoke about the need for the government to regulate the platform so that speech like Trump’s, or that of other popular figures, can’t become a bad influence on millions of users.
“And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power,” Harris said.
She added, “They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.”
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Incorrectly claiming she was speaking about Musk – as the short clip did not indicate who she was referring to – Kennedy called out Harris on X for the statements, accusing her of wanting to stifle free speech online if it doesn’t conform to “government-approved narratives.”
In his X post, he asked, “Can someone please explain to her that freedom of speech is a RIGHT, not a ‘privilege’?”
Musk shared Kennedy’s post early Tuesday morning, along with his own comment that the Democratic Party wants to destroy free speech.
He wrote, “This is what she actually believes. Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and the Democratic Party (Kamala is just a puppet) wants to destroy it.”
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Both the Harris campaign and the DNC declined to comment.
Kim Jong Un reportedly ordered dozens of officials executed after deadly floods
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may have ordered at least 30 government officials to be executed after the devastating floods over the summer that killed thousands, according to a new report from South Korea.
The South’s TV Chosun reported Tuesday that North Korean authorities sentenced between 20 and 30 people to capital punishment last month for their failure to stop the deadly flooding.
An official was quoted as telling the outlet, “Twenty to 30 cadres in the flood-stricken area were executed at the same time late last month.”
While it’s difficult to know the details given the North’s extreme secrecy, the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has reported that Kim ordered authorities to “strictly punish” the officials after catastrophic floods hit the Chagang Province, near the border with China, in July.
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North Korean state media reported that heavy rains in late July left more than 4,000 homes as well as numerous other public buildings, structures, roads and railways flooded in the northwestern city of Sinuiju and the neighboring town of Uiju.
Kim blamed public officials who had neglected disaster prevention for causing “the casualty that cannot be allowed.”
The North has rebuffed offers of aid from China, Russia and even South Korea, with whom tensions remain at all-time highs.
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Kim made a two-day tour of Uiju in early August to meet flood victims and discuss recovery efforts. While touring there, Kim was quoted by KCNA as accusing the South of exaggerating the extent of the damage from the floods, decrying it as a “smear campaign” and a “grave provocation” against his government.
Republicans find their nominee to take on Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts Senate seat
Republican attorney and Marine veteran John Deaton of Bolton won a US Senate primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday and will now face longtime Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren in November.
Deaton, a personal injury attorney and crypto advocate, moved from Rhode Island to Massachusetts last year. He faced off in the primary against Ian Cain of Quincy, Massachusetts’ first black and openly gay city council member, and Bob Antonellis, an engineer and political newcomer from Medford.
Deaton, 56, has refused to say whether he’ll vote for Donald Trump in the presidential race; Antonellis was the only candidate to pledge support for the top of the ticket in the historically blue state’s race.
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Deaton was far better-funded than either of his competitors thanks in large part to a $1 million loan he made to his campaign. He more than doubled Cain’s spending and had $975,000 on hand at the end of June, according to FEC records. At the same time, Cain had about $22,000 left in his war chest.
Deaton has often told the story of his low-income upbringing in a violent and impoverished Highland Park neighborhood of Detroit. He said he’d watched a thief stab his mother and, on his first day of high school, had a gun shoved in his mouth.
He said he broke the cycle of poverty by working his way through college and law school before going on to join the Marine Corps and spending seven years as a special assistant to the U.S. attorney in Yuma, Arizona, fighting cartels in the 1990s.
Deaton said he’s spent the last 22 years representing injured workers in legal battles against “corporations and insurance companies.”
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Massachusetts has not elected a Republican to statewide office since moderate GOP Gov. Charlie Baker left the governor’s mansion in January 2023. Polling suggests Warren, a former Republican herself, is likely to hold her seat in November.
The state Republican Party only fielded challengers to Warren and two other House incumbents: Democrat Reps. Stephen Lynch and Bill Keating. Seven other Massachusetts House Democrats, none of whom faced primary challenges, are expected to sail to victory in the general election.
Warren faced a competitive race when she beat out Republican incumbent Scott Brown in 2012. She scored more than 60% of the vote in 2018 and President Biden carried the state with 66% of the vote in 2020.
Deaton has focused on the migrant crisis and on “retiring” Warren from office.
“Thanks to the failed policies of and partisanship of career politicians like Elizabeth Warren, every state is now a border state, and Massachusetts is sucking the consequences,” Deaton said in a campaign video.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis famously flew migrants to the wealthy Massachusetts enclave Martha’s Vineyard in 2022.
Deaton wrote on X on Monday that Warren is “more focused on her national profile and special interest groups” than spending time in local communities. “It’s going to cost her on Nov. 5th.”
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All three candidates have made the border central to their campaign and bashed the state’s sanctuary policies.
Antonellis said he would push to end sanctuary state status in Massachusetts, which he said is “destroying whole regions of the country.” He had also pushed to ban offshore and onshore wind farms and came under fire for claiming the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
“Washington is stealing our liberty and freedoms, systematically, even Demonically,” Antonellis wrote on his campaign website. “9/11 as an ‘inside job,’ we’ll be talking more about Harvard’s role in that, it was done, in part, to get American Patriots to support the Patriot Act, which forces Americans to nearly undress, just to get on a plane, and legalized spying on everyone.”
Stephen A Smith says WNBA legend was removed from broadcast over Caitlin Clark
Caitlin Clark led the Indiana Fever to a 100-93 victory over the Dallas Wings on Sunday.
Missing from the game was WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes. Nancy Lieberman replaced Swoopes as the Wings’ color commentator for the game instead.
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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smtih believed that Swoopes was removed from the broadcast due to her personal feelings toward Clark.
“What incriminates, in my opinion – it’s just my opinion – but what incriminates somebody like Sheryl Swoopes even more who, by the way, was supposed to be calling the game with y’all yesterday, and she did not call the game,” Smith said during a recent episode of “The Stephen A. Smith Show”.
“And no doubt it had something to do with the fact that, when Caitlin Clark had performed early in the week she didn’t want to talk about it at all.”
Smith is referring to when Clark scored 31 points with 12 assists during the Fever’s 100-81 win over Angel Reese’s Chicago Sky last week.
“We recognize that, and we know in television the way that I do. I know what producers do, I know bosses do when you see your personal feelings, whatever they may be infiltrating the proceedings and compromising your position as a professional.”
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Bally Sports Southwest did not have a comment for Fox News Digital when asked about Swoopes not being on the broadcast. The Dallas Wings did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Swoopes, during an appearance on “Gil’s Arena,” podcast with former NBA star Gilbert Arenas in February, made incorrect statements about Clark’s collegiate career and stats.
Swoopes said that Clark stayed in college for five seasons and that she took over 40 shots per game while discussing the topic of how Clark broke the NCAA’s all-time basketball points record her senior year in 2023.
While, in fact, Clark played just four seasons while averaging just 22.7 shots per game en route to the record.
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Swoopes posted the text message apology she sent to Clark following those comments from February to X on Monday.
“Hey Caitlin, I wanted to personally reach out to you and say I made a mistake on what year this is for you, COVID year has me all confused,” Swoopes wrote. “I also have nothing but respect for you and your game and appreciate your skill. Congrats on everything you have accomplished thus far. Be blessed.”
The other screenshots show Clark thanking Swoopes for reaching out and her contributions to the WNBA. Swoopes said that she appreciates Clark and her game and told her to “keep being great!”
Swoopes, during an August episode of her “Queens of the Court” podcast, notably omitted Clark as a reason for the recent improvement of the Fever. Swoopes only praised Aliyah Boston, Kelsey Mitchell and Lexie Hull.
However, Clark has been the team’s leading scorer during its win streak and is already one of the top scorers in the WNBA.
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The Fever began the season 1-8 and have since gone 16-8. After their win on Sunday, they are over .500 for the first time all season at 17-16.
Smith responded to Swoopes’ statements in that episode and said the Hall of Famer was “insane to do that.”
“Do you have any idea how that makes you look?”
Swoopes took to X to respond.
“You talk about whomever and whatever you want to on your podcast. Correct? So why can’t I? Also, did you listen to the ENTIRE episode? NOPE! I have a personal relationship with these players and they deserve recognition as well.”
Smith said that Swoopes’ basketball acumen makes her lack or praise of Clark seem personal.
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“But I think in the case of Sheryl Swoopes, and I’m not going to belabor this point, but it’s important to be made that Sheryl Swoopes is a winner. She was great, and she’s a phenomenal basketball mind.”
“What she’s not realizing is that when she doesn’t state the obvious it’s automatically going to be assumed that it’s something personal, because we know you know the basketball game, the game of basketball too well to ignore the kind of things that she’s ignoring when it comes to Caitlin Clark.”
The Fever’s next game is away against the Los Angeles Sparks on Wednesday.
Country singer’s daughter says it’s her ‘duty to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself’
Country singer Rory Feek’s daughter Heidi is doubling-down on how she feels about her father’s parenting of her sister, Indiana, and has decided to take legal action.
Heidi and Hopie, Rory’s oldest daughters, have expressed their concern about their father putting their 10-year-old sister in “harms way” and shared that he has banned communication between the sisters.
“This is a devastating change for her, because we’ve been in her life since the day she was born,” Heidi said in an interview with People magazine. “She’s even come to stay with us once a month for most of her life.”
On Saturday, the country singer penned a long blog post, titled “love, dad” and said that Heidi’s claims about him have “broken my heart.”
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“I love my daughters, Heidi and Hopie, with all my heart. And I do not want to hurt them, even if their desire is to hurt me deeply. It mostly makes me want to love them more,” Rory wrote.
“Now, I realize it’s my duty to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Rory and his second wife, Joey Feek, found fame together as Rory + Joey and welcomed Indiana — Indy — in 2014. Joey passed away from cancer in 2016. Since Indiana’s mother’s death, Heidi and Hopie “developed a special maternal bond” with their sister who has special needs, according to their GoFundMe page.
Heidi has been close with Indiana over the past several years, and she even served as her flower girl during her wedding in 2018. Heidi told People that their bond began to change a few years ago.
She told the outlet that Rory would not allow Heidi or Hopie to FaceTime Indiana anymore, which served as their main source of communication since they lived in different states.
Then, text messaging was not allowed.
“We supported his decision because we could still talk to her on the phone and she continued to visit us in Alabama,” Heidi told the outlet. “But things got concerning when Rory began canceling her visits to Alabama without rescheduling. Eventually, he said she wasn’t allowed to do overnight visits anymore, with no explanation. After that, we were only allowed to see her three times: her 10th birthday, one dinner, and the Homestead festival in June — when we saw her last. Now, he doesn’t let us talk to her on the phone and won’t respond to my texts.”
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In Rory’s blog post, he noted that Indiana is allowed to talk to her sisters, but confirmed she’s not allowed overnight visits with them. He explained that he has different “worldviews” than his oldest daughters and doesn’t want to expose his youngest to certain things. He also noted Heidi and Hopie “refused to respect my wishes when she [Indiana] was there.”
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“But Indiana is my daughter, and I know what Joey would want, and I am standing firmly on not compromising the values and principles that are important to me to raise Indy with,” Rory wrote. “I tell her that hopefully soon, we’ll all be back together, and she’ll get to talk to and see them again. I do look forward to that day almost as much as Indy does.”
After Rory released his blog post, Heidi took to Instagram to share a message of her own.
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Heidi included several slides, directing the conversation at her father, before concluding with, “This is Hopie and Heidi again, love is action. And we love our little sister Indiana more than anything in the world. So we are taking action. Love, your daughters.”
During her interview with People, Heidi explained that she and Hopie were told that their mother did not want to be part of their lives, but only recently discovered that wasn’t the truth.
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“When we started getting cut off from Indy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this had all happened before,” Heidi told the outlet. “That’s when I found my mom and called her. She had always wanted to be part of our lives and had been waiting my whole life to share her story with me. Now, I realize it’s my duty to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Rory denied Heidi’s claim in his blog post.
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“All this to say that I know that this has not been an easy life for Heidi and Hopie,” the musician wrote. “Most of the first fifteen years of their lives were without a mother and the one that they did get to finally have passed away young, just when they started to all become really close. And though they’ve recently reconnected with their birth mother, which I’m so glad to hear, it sounds like she has a whole other side of the story that she’s shared with them, saying that I kept them from being with her all those years. I hope someday they give me the opportunity to share my side of the twenty years that I raised them on my own, rather than just accuse me of something without any chance to respond.”
Heidi and Rory did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.