Janet Jackson says sorry to Kamala Harris after questioning her race
Singer Janet Jackson has backtracked on comments about Kamala Harris that sparked a race row, as a new poll shows one of the US candidate’s popularity has surged.
US Election
Don't miss out on the headlines from US Election. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Janet Jackson has apologised for her comments in an interview where she questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris was black, saying her controversial remarks were “based on misinformation.”
In The Guardian interview published on Saturday, the pop superstar was asked about the prospect of having the first-ever black and female president.
“Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian,” Jackson said.
Jackson then added: “Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.” (Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris, is black, was born in Browns Town, Jamaica, and grew up in Jamaica.)
Following outrage on social media, Jackson’s manager issued a statement to Buzzfeed saying the singer was sorry about her comments to the Guardian.
“[Jackson] deeply respects Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman,” Mo Elmasri’s statement said.
“Janet apologizes for any confusion caused and acknowledges the importance of accurate representation in public discourse.”
Elmasri added, “We appreciate the opportunity to address this and will remain committed to promoting unity.”
It comes as Harris’s popularity has surged by 16 points since announcing her bid for the US presidential race in July, according to a new poll, the largest increase for any politician since George W Bush after the 9/11 attacks in 2011.
With just six weeks until Americans go to the polls, the latest NBC News national poll shows Ms Harris leading by 5 points against Donald Trump (49 per cent to 44 per cent), within the margin of error, while Mr Trump holds advantages on the economy, inflation and the border.
“In July, there was a stiff breeze heading directly at President Biden and obscuring a clear path to victory. Today, the winds have turned in Kamala Harris’ favour,” said Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
A new poll released on Wednesday showed Ms Harris with significant leads over Mr Trump in swing-states Pennsylvania and Michigan, two “blue wall” battlegrounds seen as key to winning the White House in November.
The surveys, conducted after the September 10 televised debate between the two candidates, suggest a post-showdown boost for the Vice President, who is widely perceived as having outperformed her Republican opponent on stage.
In the latest poll of likely voters by Quinnipiac University, Ms Harris is leading ex-president Mr Trump 51 per cent to 45 per cent in Pennsylvania, and tops him 50-45 per cent in Michigan, two states in the post-industrial Rust Belt in the American Midwest and Northeast.
A third Rust Belt state that makes up a trio seen as vital for a Harris victory, Wisconsin, has the race essentially tied, with Ms Harris one percentage point ahead, according to Quinnipiac.
Overall polling shows the tightest of races in the seven battleground states that will likely determine the winner in the US Electoral College system.
Mr Trump leads narrowly in the so-called Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, according to an amalgam of polls on survey tracker RealClearPolitics.com. It shows Ms Harris barely ahead in the fourth Sun Belt state of Nevada.
The Pennsylvania poll of 1331 likely voters is notable as Ms Harris’s six-point margin is outside Quinnipiac’s 2.7 percent margin of error – and twice the same poll’s margin of three percentage points in August.
FOLLOW UPDATES BELOW:
TRUMP REVEALS FUTURE
Donald Trump says he won’t run again for president of the United States if he loses in the upcoming November election.
Responding to a question on whether he would run in the US 2028 presidential election campaign if he lost this year, the 78-year-old said he would not.
“No, I don’t. I think that that will be, that will be it. I don’t see that at all,” he told US outlet Full Measure.
It comes after Donald Trump rejected a second debate against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris before the US presidential election on November 5, saying it was “too late” with early voting already underway in some states.
Ms Harris had challenged the Republican nominee and former president to another debate on Saturday local time after accepting an invitation from broadcaster CNN to host the event on October 23.
“Vice President Harris is ready for another opportunity to share a stage with Donald Trump,” her campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
“The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their ballots.”
But, while speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Mr Trump said it was “too late” for another debate with early voting already underway in some states.
“It’s just too late, voting has already started,” he said.
He added, to a large and enthusiastic crowd of supporters, that while CNN had been “very fair” when he debated President Joe Biden in June, “they won’t be fair again.”
Mr Trump has attended two debates so far, one against President Joe Biden and one against Ms Harris, who has since replaced her boss at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Most US political pundits put Ms Harris as the winner of the last debate, which was held on September 10.
Mr Biden’s poor debate performance against Mr Trump in June, where the president struggled to complete some of his sentences, catalysed concerns over his age and ramped up pressure for the 81-year-old to drop out of the race.
The move has left the 78-year-old Mr Trump, now the oldest presidential nominee against a much younger Ms Harris who is just 59.
The debate announcement came as three states — Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota — have already begun early voting in what is an agonisingly close race.
On the campaign trail on Friday, Ms Harris cast Mr Trump and his party as “hypocrites” over abortion, blaming Mr Trump for an abortion ban in the battleground state of Georgia that she said had caused the deaths of two women.
Mr Trump has frequently bragged on the campaign trail that his three Supreme Court picks paved the way for the 2022 overturning of the national right to abortion, turning the issue over to state governments.
At least 20 states have since brought in full or partial restrictions, with Georgia banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The race remains neck-and-neck, with Mr Trump running with the support of a conservative religious voter base and others, many of whom feel disaffected by the country’s political status quo.
Hard line anti-immigrant rhetoric has become a centrepiece of his election campaign.
The race between Harris and Trump has continued despite a tense atmosphere that was brought to the fore last weekend when a gunman appeared to have tried to assassinate Mr Trump in Florida, the second such threat in as many months.
Every vote will count in the race, whose result Trump has once again refused to say he will accept if he loses.
The former president faces criminal charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 result, after which his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The result is expected to hinge on just seven crucial swing states, including Georgia.
Trump on Friday sought to lay the blame for any potential loss at the door of Jewish American voters, sparking outrage.
“If I don’t win this election … in my opinion the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Mr Trump told an anti-Semitism event last week, repeating his grievance that Jewish voters have historically leaned towards the Democrats.
Mr Trump campaigned in North Carolina on Saturday local time.
SEXT SCANDAL ROCKS ELECTION
A star political reporter, who appeared on the hit TV show Billions, was suspended from a major American publication over an allegedly inappropriate “sexting relationship” with Robert F Kennedy Jr.
The bombshell claim is a blow to the campaign of Donald Trump after the high-profile endorsement from Mr Kennedy, who suspended his independent run in swing states but remains on the ballot across most of the US.
New York magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi, 31, insisted a relationship with a “reporting subject” never became physical but admitted that communications “turned personal”; while she was still engaged to her then finance.
Mr Kennedy, who is married to Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, was made an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign’s transition team with a key responsibility over personnel in a future White House.
A spokesman for Mr Kennedy said he “only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece”.
The 2023 profile, titled The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign, detailed Ms Nuzzi’s first meeting with Mr Kennedy, who she wrote “walked through the French doors dressed for his morning hike in blue jeans, a black hoodie, Keens, and an unfriendly expression”.
New York magazine said in a statement they found no inaccuracies or evidence of bias but regretted the “violation” of their readers’ trust by Ms Nuzzi, who had a cameo in a 2016 episode of Billions.
“Nuzzi acknowledged to the magazine’s editors that she had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign, a violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures,” the statement said.
“Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” it continued. “She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review.”
While none of the parties involved directly named Mr Kennedy, he was identified by media trade outlet Status, which was first to report the “romantic” relationship that sourced believed began around the new year.
Ms Nuzzi and her former fiance, Politico reporter Ryan Lizza, 50, called off the marriage in recent weeks.
In a statement on Politico, Mr Lizza said he would no longer be involved in any coverage of Mr Kennedy “because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancee”.
Mr Kennedy’s defection from the Democratic Party to join forces with the Republicans was heralded with much fanfare by Mr Trump.
But campaign insiders fear the impact has been at best muted, or at worst detrimental, after a string of controversies following Mr Kennedy, including allegations he beheaded a whale, ate dogs, and dropped of a bear carcass in New York’s Central Park.
DONALD TRUMP BECOMES AN UNLIKELY POPSTAR
Donald Trump has unwittingly collaborated on this season’s new pop hit – They’re Eating the Cats which has rocketed into the top four trending songs on YouTube.
The remix by South African musician David Scott features Trump’s now infamous comments about migrants in Ohio consuming pets – a claim which has since been thoroughly debunked.
With more than 6.5 million views, the up and coming hit has already netted Mr Scott a cool A$24,000 in ad revenue.
However rather than keep the profits, Mr Scott is donating them to an animal shelter in Springfield, Ohio with the windfall set to help stray animals find a loving home.
FIRST VOTES CAST IN US ELECTION
The first early voters cast their ballots for November’s knife-edge US presidential election, as Democratic candidate Kamala Harris headed for a campaign event focused on the hot-button issue of abortion.
Three US states — Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota — were starting early voting, a practice that Republican nominee Donald Trump has previously cast doubt on when falsely claiming he won the 2020 election.
Dozens of people waited at an early voting polling station in the centre of Arlington, Virginia, just outside the capital Washington.
A number had “Harris-Walz” shirts, while there were also some “Trump-Vance” signs in front of the building.
“I’m excited,” said Michelle Kilkenny, 55, adding that voting early, “especially on day one, helps the campaign and raises the enthusiasm level.”
Most US states permit in-person voting or mail-in voting to allow people to deal with scheduling conflicts or an inability to cast their ballots on election day itself on November 5, local time.
SECRET SERVICE ADMITS FAILURES
The US Secret Service detailed a litany of security failures uncovered by its review of the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a rally in July.
Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to open fire from a nearby rooftop at the outdoor event held by Republican election candidate Trump, who narrowly escaped death and suffered a wound to his right ear.
The review “identified deficiencies in the advanced planning and its implementation by Secret Service personnel,” Acting Director Ronald Rowe said at a press briefing.
“While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols.” Among the failures identified by Rowe were poor communication with local law enforcement, an “over-reliance” on mobile devices “resulting in information being siloed” and line of sight issues, which “were acknowledged but not properly mitigated.” “At approximately 18:10 local time, by a phone call, the Secret Service security room calls the counter sniper response agent reporting an individual on the roof of the AGR building,” Rowe said.
“That vital piece of information was not relayed over the Secret Service radio network.”
– with AFP
More Coverage
Originally published as Janet Jackson says sorry to Kamala Harris after questioning her race
Read related topics:Donald Trump
Join the conversation
‘Nervous, glum’: Why Vance walked all over Walz in VP clash
And under the harsh spotlight of prime time TV, VP candidate Tim Walz struggled to meet the moment against his Republican rival JD Vance, writes Tom Minear.
Read more
Walz became ‘friends with school shooters’ in debate gaffe; Vance defends Trump
JD Vance and Tim Walz faced-off in a debate where Kamala Harris' VP candidate stumbled on a few awkward moments as they debated gun crime, energy, the Middle East, the border, China and abortion.
Read more