CBS News
In new memo, Democratic Congressional campaigns urge emphasis on message of “freedom”
In a campaign memo reviewed by CBS News, Democratic Congressional campaign operatives are encouraging their candidates to focus on a messaging around the concepts of “freedom” to win a series of competitive U.S. House races throughout the nation.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s memo urges a continued focus on the ideas of freedom as a pathway to regaining the majority in the U.S. House, which remains highly competitive in the homestretch to Election Day.
“It is incumbent on House Democrats to focus on calling out GOP attacks on reproductive freedom, economic freedom, and freedom from violence or fear,” the memo says. “In public-facing media, both paid and earned, House Democrats and candidates are engaging and energizing voters with messaging that centers on the fight for our freedoms.”
The memo includes an array of issues in which such a message has been — and can be — utilized. For example, the memo says “Donald Trump and House Republicans are attacking Americans’ freedoms — rolling back reproductive freedoms, banning books in schools, and dictating to people who they are allowed to love or how they can or cannot build a family. These far-right extremists are hellbent on restricting rights and taking away Americans’ freedoms.”
Mary Altaffer / AP
The final months of the race for control of the House have featured campaign advertisements, mailings and speeches focused on a variety of wedge issues, including consumer prices, border security, gun control and public safety.
The Democratic campaign memo includes a broader argument that concept of “freedoms” can be utilized to encompass several pressing issues that are important voters, including women’s reproductive rights, the controversial Project 2025 to overhaul the executive branch, the ongoing criticisms of Trump’s defense of Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and his baseless claims of 2020 election fraud.
“Across the battlefield, DCCC candidates and ‘frontliners’ are engaging the issue and working diligently to ensure voters know that electing House Democrats means codifying the protections of Roe, fighting for families and investing in their economic freedom, and standing up to Donald Trump and House Republicans’ plans to attack their freedoms,” the memo says. “This strong contrast messaging is essential to help Democrats reclaim the House majority to defend our rights, freedoms, democracy, and future.”
Speaking with CBS News between campaign stops in Nebraska, Democratic Congressional candidate Tony Vargas invoked some of his party’s messaging on freedom issues.
“This is a Republican party that wants to take away — and tell you — what you can learn,” Vargas said. “They want to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body. They’re inserting themselves between women’s healthcare decisions.”
After meeting with Democratic party volunteers in Dutchess County, New York, last month, Rep. Pat Ryan also emphasized a message that invoked the word freedom. Ryan, a Democrat facing a stiff reelection fight, told CBS News, “We’ve seen the far right and Donald Trump double-down and triple-down on taking away rights. “
A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee responded to the Democrats’ messaging efforts, telling CBS News that “the Republican platform is to grant Americans freedom from Kamala Harris’ inflation, border, and public safety crises. We will win in November because voters refuse to live in fear of Democrats’ effect on their economic and community security.”
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
