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“Haley voters for Harris” group gets cease and desist request from Nikki Haley
The “Haley Voters for Harris” political action committee, which had been working with President Biden’s and rebranded to support Vice President’s Kamala Harris’ campaign, has gotten a cease and desist letter from former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.
In a letter sent Tuesday by a law firm representing Haley’s presidential campaign, they wrote the group must “cease and desist from any unlawful use of Ambassador Haley’s name in your political action committee name, and from any use of her name, image or likeness that implies her support for the election of Kamala Harris as President of the United States.”
“Ambassador Haley has been clear in her support of Harris’ opponent. Any intimation that Ambassador Haley supports Harris is intentionally false and misleading,” the letter added.
This was first reported by Fox News.
In response, the Haley Voters for Harris group said they are reviewing the letter with legal counsel, and that they “do not claim to represent Ambassador Haley or her views.”
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“Our rights to engage with voters and encourage them to vote for Vice President Harris – who in our view is the clear better choice for the country – will not be suppressed,” the group said in a statement.
The group, made up of anti-Trump supporters and volunteers during Haley’s GOP primary campaign, had been working with the then-Biden campaign as Haley continued to receive hundreds of thousands of GOP primary votes despite leaving the race shortly after Super Tuesday in March.
But since Mr. Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, the group has shifted their support to Harris, who Mr. Biden endorsed. While Harris has received enough pledged support from delegates to become the likely nominee, there will not be an official nominee until the party holds their virtual roll call, which is expected to happen in early August.
In several battleground states, Haley’s raw vote total outnumbered the 2020 general election margin between Mr. Biden and Trump. In Pennsylvania, where Mr. Biden won by more than 80,000 votes, Haley got 16.6% of the vote, 158,000 votes, in the GOP primary this year.
Austin Weatherford, the Harris campaign’s national Republican engagement director, said Haley and non-Trump Republican voters still have a home with their campaign.
“Our democracy is at its best when Americans speak up and participate in the election process,” he said. “While the MAGA movement continues to push away voters who care about the future of our democracy, standing strong with our allies against foreign adversaries, and working across the aisle to get things done for the American people, the Harris campaign will keep working hard to earn their support.”
Weatherford is also a former aide to former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who has been vocally against Trump and supportive of Harris since Mr. Biden stepped down and endorsed her.
The Haley Voters for Harris group has suggested Harris pick a moderate for her running mate, and cited specifically Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
“Unlike Joe Biden, we believe she doesn’t need to consolidate her base,” a senior adviser said, citing initial enthusiasm from Democratic voters about her candidacy. “And so we hope that her campaign will be focused on expanding to the center of the country.”
“We feel that our work in some ways is almost more important, because she’s less defined to the public and Republicans are trying to paint her in a way that is not reflective of reality,” they added.
During her presidential campaign, Haley often suggested proactively that Harris would end up becoming the Democratic nominee, citing Mr. Biden’s age.
While she was also critical of former president Donald Trump during her primary run, Haley has since given the GOP nominee her “strong endorsement.” In a July speech at the Republican National Convention, she said Trump’s invitation for her to speak was “gracious.”
“If we have four more years of Biden or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off,” Haley said in her convention speech, which was before Mr. Biden dropped out of the race. “For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump.”
Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power, has died. He was 82.
A spokesperson for USA Gymnastics confirmed to CBS News by email that Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife Martha trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
The Karolyis defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy. Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was pushed out after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.
It would not be the last time Karolyi was accused of grandstanding and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.
During the height of the Larry Nassar scandal in the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment — over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
Still, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
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Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
