PITTSBURGH — Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis on Thursday, the final day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, spoke out against a possible second term for former President Donald Trump, a nationwide abortion ban and a recently released conservative policy proposal.
Davis and other leaders spoke at a news conference on the city’s South Side days after the failed assassination attempt on Trump. Saturday Rally in Butlerhis Tuesday nomination of JD Vance as the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate and the unveiling Project 2025nearly 1,000-page draft policy.
Acknowledging that the shooting claimed the life of a bystander and that Trump and two others were injured, Davis said political violence has no place in the United States. He then turned his attention to the impact Project 2025 could have on Pennsylvania.
President Joe Biden condemned Project 2025 How ““the greatest attack on our system of government and our individual liberties ever proposed in the history of this country” during a rally in Detroit on July 12.
While Trump dismissed Project 2025 as a reflection of his agenda, Davis cited CNN Review which found that at least 140 people working in the Trump administration supported Project 2025, including six of his former Cabinet secretaries.
“Project 2025 was created for Trump by those closest to him, and it should be for every American,” he said. “We’re here in Pittsburgh to send a clear message to the people of Milwaukee. The people of Pennsylvania will not allow Project 2025 to happen.”
Across the border, hours later, Democratic county commissioners from Philadelphia’s collar counties echoed the sentiment, condemning the attempted bombing in Butler, warning of the prospect of a second Trump term and the impact they believe Project 2025 would have if implemented.
“As the Republican National Convention winds down, I want to take a moment to talk about the accomplishments of the former president,” Chester County Commissioner Marian Moskowitz said at the event in Lower Merion Township. “Even with a Republican Congress, Donald Trump was only able to achieve two things. A tax code rigged for the wealthy and a radical conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court.”
Moskowitz’s colleague, Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell, said that if elected to a second term, Trump would arm the Justice Department and pardon those charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He also stressed that the future of the Supreme Court is at stake in the upcoming presidential election.
“Let’s not forget that the next president will have the opportunity to appoint, … as many as three Supreme Court justices,” Maxwell said. “We don’t want the Heritage Foundation to be selecting the people who serve in that position.”
Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija said Project 2025 is “already underway” and cited the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Trump’s immunity, arguing that the ruling sets a legal precedent that Trump will be “completely immune from accountability” if elected to a second term.
Project 2025 was developed by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The proposal calls for abolishing the Department of Education, ending the sale of abortion pills and a radical expansion of presidential power, including placing the Justice Department under the president’s control.
Trump has said on his Truth Social social media account that he had nothing to do with it, but the authors of the proposal describe it as a roadmap for a conservative Republican presidency.
In Pittsburgh, City Controller Rachael Heisler discussed the future of reproductive rights under the Trump-Vance administration. Vance responded that “two wrongs don’t make a right” when asked about exceptions to abortion laws in cases of rape or incest.
In 2022, he said he supported a nationwide abortion ban. Vance later retracted those comments.saying abortion law should be left to the states, mirroring Trump’s move away from a nationwide ban.
Heisler noted Vance’s comments regarding exceptions to abortion law and Trump’s 2016 comment that “there must be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
“It’s disgusting and horrific. It needs to be voted down in November,” Heisler said. “President Biden has laid out his positive vision for this country. He wants to protect women and their rights and expand opportunity for all of us.”
The day after his State of the Union address, Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Delaware County and emphasized its commitment to making Roe “the law of the land” again.
Moskowitz invoked Biden, citing his pledge to make Roe “the law of the land” again at a Delaware County high school the day after he delivered an energetic State of the Union address.
“As Joe Biden said … women are not disempowered electorally or politically,” she said. “And they will use their power to defeat Trump and restore abortion rights.”
After Biden’s penniless debate performance in overdue June, 19 Democratic members of Congress and one Democratic senator urged Biden not to seek a second term.
Pennsylvania Democrats like U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, as well as Gov. Josh Shapiro, have defended Biden during those talks. U.S. Rep. Susan Wild (D-7th District) has expressed concerns about Biden’s electability in November.
Four southeastern Pennsylvania county commissioners who are delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August reiterated their support for Biden on Thursday.
“President Biden is our presumptive nominee, and I know there have been many calls for him to concede, but as leaders of our party, we have an obligation to support President Biden, and that is an inherently personal choice that he has to make,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Jamila Winder. “In my opinion, we have to support our presumptive nominee, and that is President Biden.”
An AP-NORC poll released Wednesday found that 65% of Democrats say Biden should not run for president in November.
Winder said it was their responsibility to remind voters of the current administration’s accomplishments, while Moskowitz said the polls were simply a moment in time and said people won’t really start focusing on the presidential election until September and are made aware that Biden is the right choice in this election.
When asked if Project 2025 would make her job as controller more tough, Heisler said the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority received $79 million in federal funding to replace lead-containing pipelines, which Project 2025 could threaten.
“Project 2025 is a drastic, disjointed and serious cut to the entire federal apparatus,” she said. “I’m not sure if that money will continue to be paid out under Project 2025, in fact I’m almost certain it will disappear.”
Community leader Holiday Adair ended the event with a vehement condemnation of Project 2025.
“Make no mistake, Donald Trump and JD Vance’s Project 2025 will not save America,” Adair said. “It will hurt America and it will certainly hurt the people of Pennsylvania.”
The Republican National Convention was the main topic of the press conference, which Adair contrasted with recent events of the Biden campaign.
“We’ve seen Donald Trump and the Republican Party present their dark vision for America, and that’s a really stark contrast to President Biden, who’s traveling the country, presenting his own accomplishments and a positive vision that moves us forward, not backward,” she said.
She added that Republicans will not stop attacking abortion access after the US Supreme Court overturned the ruling. Roe v. Wadewhich led to the introduction of an abortion ban throughout the country.
“People on the RNC stage bragging about taking down Roe v. Wade“who have already introduced drastic abortion bans across the country, and as Project 2025 makes clear, they plan to go further,” she said.
During the press conference, speakers linked Project 2025 to the Trump-Vance agenda, with Davis calling it “Trump-Vance Project 2025.” In response to questions after the press conference, Davis responded to Trump’s public rejection of Project 2025.
“When you elect a president, you’re not electing just one person, you’re electing an entire administration,” he said. “If you look at the people he’s going to put in his administration… he could say he doesn’t have any discernment about it, but if his chief of staff, his secretaries, his department heads that he authorizes, all follow that playbook, it doesn’t really matter.”
(This article was updated at 6:36 p.m. on Thursday, July 18, 2024, to include reporting from John Cole at a Biden campaign event in Montgomery County.)
