Politics

Harris puts transparency (or lack thereof) in the 2024 spotlight

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Harris puts transparency (or lack thereof) in the 2024 spotlight

It’s been a couple of months since Donald Trump promised to release his medical records to the public. It’s a vow the former president has not kept — which is problematic for a variety of reasons.

The New York Times recently reportedfor example, that the Republican, if re-elected, would become “the oldest person ever to serve as president,” and he “could enter the Oval Office with an array of potentially worrisome issues, medical experts say: cardiac risk factors, possible aftereffects from the July assassination attempt and the cognitive decline that naturally comes with age, among others.”

Given the fact that the GOP candidate has spent much of the past decade hiding information about his healththe fact that he said he’d release his medical records, only to reverse course without explanation, fuels concerns.

But what about his Democratic rival? As it turns out, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to show a commitment to transparency that her opponent has rejected. NBC News reported:

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday released a summary of her medical records from her White House physician, who deemed her to be “a healthy 59-year-old female who has a medical history notable for seasonal allergies and urticaria.”

The physician, Joshua Simmons, wrote that the vice president eats a healthy diet and engages in regular daily aerobics and core strength training. “She possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” the vice president’s doctor concluded.

NBC News’ report went on to note that, according to her physician, Harris’ last medical exam in April was “unremarkable” and that all of her routine exams and bloodwork were “normal.”

Such disclosures are supposed to be a routine part of the process, and they were commonplace before Trump decided to reject American political norms.

It’s against this backdrop that Harris is taking the opportunity to initiate a larger conversation rooted in an unstated question: What is Trump hiding?

In a newly released interview with Roland Martinfor example, the Democratic nominee said, in reference to her 2024 rival, “His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview. Every president for the last half century has done one — anyone who’s running for president. Everyone has done it except Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put out my medical records, he won’t put out his medical records.

“And you have to ask: Why is his staff doing that? And it may be because they think he’s just not ready, and unfit, and unstable, and should not have that level of transparency for the American people. There’s a real choice in this election.”

She’s been pushing this line quite a bit in recent days, including a campaign event over the weekend in which Harris asked whether members of Team Trump are rejecting transparency because they fear he’ll be seen as “too weak and unstable to lead.”

I won’t speculate about Trump’s motivations, but there can be no doubt that the former president is at a disadvantage when it comes to transparency. He refuses to release his medical records; he refuses to release his tax returns; he has refused to provide recent accounting related to his foreign customers; he refused while in office to disclose White House visitor logs; and he’s even pursuing a post-election transition process that allows him to keep his donors secret.

In September 2020, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued“President Trump is the most transparent president in history.” It was ridiculous at the time. It’s worse now.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

13 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”