In the first debate for the presidency of the United States, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden swapped verbal punches over American manufacturing jobs.
"They said it would take a miracle to bring back manufacturing,” Trump said last night. “I brought back 700,000 jobs. They brought back nothing. They gave up on manufacturing." However, Biden claimed "manufacturing went into a hole" before the coronavirus pandemic.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) says the manufacturing slowdown is actually a matter of finding qualified workers. Manufacturing companies would say, according to the congressman, “We would be building a new facility, we’d be doing more but we just can’t find enough workers.”
Of last night’s debate, Gallagher called it “more just an all-out verbal brawl.”
“I’m not sure it changed anybody’s minds,” the congressman told Cheddar. “It probably forced a lot of people to change the channel.”
Still Rep. Gallagher stressed the importance of presidential debates. He said they allow for important policy disagreements to be discussed openly, like policing in America. “I think there’s a meaningful disagreement between both candidates on the issue of law and order, how we can support our police,” Gallagher told Cheddar.
Gallagher serves his state’s 8th district, an area in northeast Wisconsin which includes Green Bay. It’s just north of Kenosha, which has recently been at the center of the conversation over systematic racism in America’s police force. In August, police shot Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, seven times in front of his children in broad daylight. The state saw widespread protests in the wake of his shooting.
Gallagher said he believes there are dangers to the “demonization” of police officers after incidents like Blake’s. “Our cops are not all evil racists that wake up every day trying to hurt people because of the color of their skin,” the congressman said. “They want to keep the community safe and we've got to keep those relationships healthy.”
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
