The Latest: Trump says he was taken off Air Force One last month due to threat
President Donald Trump says he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat he insisted didn’t scare him.
Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge involved in his flight, which saw him stow away in an airport catering container to sneak onto another plane while Air Force One was sent into the sky, essentially as a decoy.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Minnesota Democratic Senate primary Tuesday in the latest victory for an insurgent progressive over the party’s establishment. Flanagan defeated centrist U.S. Rep. Angie Craig with a pledge to fight the influence of corporations and confront Trump.
Here's the latest:
U.S. inflation slowed last month and a measure of underlying price pressures also cooled, suggesting higher oil and gas prices from the Iran war are only having a limited impact on broader costs in the economy.
Consumer prices rose 3.4% in July from a year ago, down slightly from 3.5% in June, the Labor Department said Wednesday. But inflation is still higher than before the Iran war began in February, when it was 2.4%. On a monthly basis, prices rose just 0.1% from June to July.
Inflation has been pushed higher by a series of shocks to the economy, including President Trump’s tariffs imposed last spring, higher gas prices stemming from the Iran war, and a surge in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure that has boosted computer chip prices. The key question for the inflation-fighters at the Fed — not to mention for consumers struggling with high gas and grocery prices — is how quickly those one-time effects will fade.
President Trump pivoted the nation’s attention back to vaccines this week with an executive order that aims to scale back the childhood immunization schedule and space out shots into separate visits.
After acting to overhaul the nation’s vaccine policy and guidance, the Trump administration had recently largely stepped back from additional changes to focus on less controversial subjects, raising questions over the political impetus behind and implications of the Republican president’s renewed focus on vaccines.
For well over a decade, Trump has expressed his view — against medical groups’ guidance — that childhood vaccines should be administered in smaller doses over a long period of time. The executive order sought to bear out that discredited theory.
While the move could endear Trump to some “Make America Healthy Again” voters who want more flexibility on immunizations, it’s also already attracting attacks designed to hurt Trump’s aligned candidates in November’s midterm elections.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Minnesota Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday in the latest victory for an insurgent progressive over the party’s establishment.
Flanagan defeated centrist U.S. Rep. Angie Craig with a pledge to fight the influence of corporations and confront Trump.
“For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money,” Flanagan said as she celebrated her victory in Minneapolis. “Well guess what? The many just won.”
The outcome was another sign of progressive energy among Democratic primary voters. It comes a week after Abdul El-Sayed won a bitter and divisive primary in Michigan that fired up the left and fueled anxiety among party leaders that Democrats will alienate moderate swing voters.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat he insisted didn’t scare him.
Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge involved in his flight, which saw him stow away in an airport catering container to sneak onto another plane while Air Force One was sent into the sky, essentially as a decoy.
He also downplayed the risk to the people — White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — he left on the plane.
“They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,” Trump told reporters after returning from an event in Ohio, saying he had little choice in the matter.
“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it,” he said. “I get a lot of threats.”
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
