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With the 2016 election spotlight turning to South Carolina, fast-food cooks and cashiers announced they will walk off the job across the state, including for the first time in Greenville, hours before Saturday's GOP presidential debate. The workers, who are calling for $15 and union rights, will strike and protest two days after Milwaukee workers stormed the Democratic debateat the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin.
As candidates are scrambling for African American votes in South Carolina, the very voters they are trying to reach are making a stand: Striking fast-food workers will join more than a thousand underpaid workers - many of whom are first-time voters - at a massive protest outside the GOP presidential debate in Greenville Saturday to demand that candidates stand with the 53% of workers in the state who are paid less than $15/hour.
"Every election I've walked right past the ballot box - not into it - because I believed my vote wasn't worth anything," said Richard Baxter, a Subway worker from Greenville, S.C., who is paid $8.50/hour and will be voting for the first time. "But the Fight for $15 has changed that. Across the country, workers are following presidential candidates everywhere they go to show we're serious about supporting those who fight for $15 and union rights. With 53% of South Carolina workers paid less than $15/hour, we need to elect politicians who are dedicated to changing our future - and the future of our families."
Saturday, Feb. 13: Schedule of South Carolina Fight for $15 Strike Actions and Events
Ongoing Media Availability
Striking fast-food workers available throughout the day for interviews. Contact Giovanna or Anna above to arrange.
1pm ET Strike | McDonald's at 2443 Laurens Rd Greenville, SC 29607
Striking South Carolina fast-food workers available for interviews.
7pm ET Protest at GOP Debate| Falls Park, 601 S Main St Greenville, SC 29607
Massive crowd of underpaid workers will march on the GOP debate.
Everywhere candidates go this primary season, workers in the Fight for $15 are following them, forcing White House hopefuls to address the demands of the nearly 64 million Americans paid less than $15, and in many cases drowning out supporters for the individual candidates:
*New Hampshire: Days ahead of the New Hampshire primary, fast-food workers across the Granite State waged their first-ever strike, which culminated in a massive protest outside a GOP debate in Manchester. ABC News, filming live from the debate site, reported, "The volume was just turned up quite a bit out here, but it's not actually GOP supporters: a big group with signs saying the Fight for $15 - they want a $15/hour minimum wage - came in and took over the place."
*Iowa: Ahead of the Iowa caucus, fast-food workers in the state walked off the job for the first time, and a massive crowd of more than a thousand workers stormed the lobby of the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, drawing widespread attention hours before a GOP debate that evening.
*South Carolina: And earlier this year, a walkout by hundreds of fast-food workers in Charlestonprompted a statement of support by the Democratic National Committee and animpromptu visit from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who grabbed a bullhorn and praised the strikers just moments before he took the floor for that night's Democratic debate.
*Milwaukee: In November, following a nationwide strikein 270 cities and an evening protest outside the GOP debate in Milwaukee, thefirst questiondirected at candidates that night asked them to respond to the demands of fast-food workers seeking $15 and union rights. And on Thursday, hundreds of workers crashed the Democratic debate's media center an hour before the forum kicked off. "The protest was comprised largely of young, black fast food workers from Wisconsin, where 46 percent of workers make less than $15 hourly," Yahoo News reported.
Striking fast-food workers will be joined by home care, child care and other underpaid workers from across South Carolina who are fighting for $15/hour and union rights.
"Candidates who want caregivers' votes need to resolve to end the crisis in long-term care, and that starts with $15/hour and union rights," said Delica Rice-Smith, who lives in Greenville with her two children and is paid $9.50/hour. "Home care is one of America's fastest-growing jobs, but we're among the lowest paid workers in the country. I can't afford my car payments, let alone regular bills like rent and utilizes. I've been working in home care for 5 years, and have seen how hard it is for many to keep doing the job we love because of the low pay. My children's futures depend on fixing our broken home care system, as does the health of parents and grandparents everywhere."
As the Fight for $15 builds a political front ahead of the 2016 election, the New York Times and USA Today have both warned candidates who ignore the growing movement that they do so "at their own peril." Meanwhile, the Associated Press said underpaid workers are flexing, "increasingly potent political muscle," and BuzzFeed has said they "could make up a powerful new voting bloc."
"No one works in child care for big bucks, but when I'm paid $8.00 an hour, I can't afford essentials for myself such as rent," said Tamariah Meritt a Greenville child care worker. "Every kid deserves a healthy, happy environment at home and at the care center when their parents are working. But too many of us can't afford the basics and too many parents can't afford quality care. Politicians have the power to change that. We need our leaders to support $15 an hour and affordable care for all families, so that no child's needs go unmet."
Ahead of the election, workers will continue to collect signatures on their Fight for $15 Voter Agenda, a five-point platform that launched late last year and calls for $15 and union rights, affordable child care, quality long-term care, racial justice and immigration reform--issues identified by underpaid workers as key factors in whether they will go to the polls for a candidate. They will put politicians on notice that, as a voting bloc, workers paid less than $15 could swing elections all across the country.
A recent pollof workers paid less than $15/hour commissioned by the National Employment Law Project showed that 69% of unregistered voters would register to vote if there were a candidate who supported $15/hour and a union; and that 65% of registered voters paid less than $15/hour would be more likely to vote if there were a candidate who supported $15/hour and a union. That's 48 million potential voters paid less than $15 who could turn out if there were candidates who backed higher pay and union rights.
Fast food workers are coming together all over the country to fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. We work for corporations that are making tremendous profits, but do not pay employees enough to support our families and to cover basic needs like food, health care, rent and transportation.
"This is as close to a recorded confession as you’ll ever see in a case like this," said a former federal prosecutor.
In an audio recording that is reportedly in the possession of federal prosecutors, former President Donald Trump admits he did not declassify secret military documents that he took from the White House after losing reelection and failing to overturn the results.
CNNobtained a transcript of the recording that shows the former president said, "As president, I could have declassified, but now I can't."
According to CNN, Trump was referring to a "classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran." Citing several unnamed sources, the outlet reported that the audio tape "captures the sound of paper rustling, as if Trump was waving the document around, though is not clear if it was the actual Iran document."
"Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this," Trump says in the recording, the transcript shows. "This was done by the military and given to me."
Fresh details on the contents of the recording, the existence of which CNN first reported last week, came hours after news broke that Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury on seven criminal charges stemming from the classified documents case. The federal charges reportedly include willful retention of military secrets and obstruction of justice.
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti argued that Trump's comments on the audio tape, as reported by CNN, appear to be damning for the former president, who has repeatedly said he "declassified everything."
"This is as close to a recorded confession as you’ll ever see in a case like this," Mariotti wrote on Twitter.
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, added that the transcript is "absolutely devastating."
"Just blows a hole in the defenses Trump had been putting out," Bookbinder tweeted.
\u201cAn apparent tape of Donald Trump, post presidency, saying that he had with him classified documents that he could have declassified as president but didn't is absolutely devastating. Just blows a hole in the defenses Trump had been putting out.\nhttps://t.co/296uLj4JYa\u201d— Noah Bookbinder (@Noah Bookbinder) 1686317432
CNN reported that in the taped meeting, which took place in July 2021 at the former president's New Jersey golf club, Trump was "complaining... about chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley."
The meeting, reportedly attended by Trump aides and two unnamed people working on the autobiography of Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, "occurred shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern," according to CNN.
"He said that I wanted to attack Iran," Trump says of Milley in the recording. "Isn't that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this—this is off the record, but—they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me, this was him."
Glasser reported that "Milley had been engaged in an alarmed effort to ensure that Trump did not embark on a military conflict with Iran as part of his quixotic campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election and remain in power."
"The chairman secretly feared that Trump would insist on launching a strike on Iranian interests that could set off a full-blown war," Glasser wrote.
In the audio tape, according to CNN, Trump tells his aides and others at the July 2021 meeting that he has "all sorts of stuff—pages long." The FBI seized nearly 200,000 pages from Trump's Florida residence during an August 2022 raid.
"Wait a minute, let's see here," Trump continues. "I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this.”
"Instead of trying to divide the country and undercut our legal system, congressional Republicans should respect the outcome of the special counsel's comprehensive investigation."
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday warned his Republican colleagues against attempting to delegitimize the special counsel investigation that led to a federal indictment against Donald Trump after many GOP lawmakers did just that, rallying around the former president and echoing his condemnation of the probe as a "witch hunt."
"Instead of trying to divide the country and undercut our legal system, congressional Republicans should respect the outcome of the special counsel's comprehensive investigation and the decisions of the citizens serving on the grand jury," said Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
"Dangerous rhetoric about a 'two-tiered system of justice'—discriminating against the rich no less—in order to prop up the twice-impeached former president not only undermines the Department of Justice but betrays the essential principle of justice that no one is above the commands of law, not even a former president or a self-proclaimed billionaire."
A number of prominent Republicans, including House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), erupted in response to news of the indictment in the classified documents case, which makes Trump the first ex-president to face federal charges. Trump is widely seen as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Gaetz took to Twitter to decry the indictment as "an attempt to distract the American public" from "millions of dollars in bribes" that the Biden family, including the president himself and his son Hunter, has supposedly taken from "foreign nationals"—a claim that House Republicans have been pursuing for months without anything to show for it.
"This scheme won't succeed," Gaetz wrote late Thursday. "President Donald Trump will be back in the White House and Joe Biden will be Hunter's cellmate."
Jordan, who is currently seeking unredacted documents related to Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump, said after news of the indictment broke that "it's a sad day for America."
"God bless President Trump," added Jordan, who was recently sued by the Manhattan district attorney for interfering in a separate investigation that produced a 34-count felony indictment against the former president.
Other Republicans, including Trump's 2024 rival Ron DeSantis, offered similarly outraged reactions to the classified documents indictment before even seeing it, alleging "weaponization" of the Justice Department against Trump and claiming the former president is the victim of a "two-tiered system of justice."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), for his part, signaled that the congressional GOP will attempt to retaliate.
"House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable," McCarthy tweeted.
As The New York Timesnoted Thursday, "members of Congress have no power to stop criminal charges, but they can attempt to interfere with prosecutors through their legislative powers, such as issuing subpoenas, demanding witness interviews or documents, restricting Justice Department funding and using the platform of their offices to attempt to publicly influence the case."
Trump is reportedly facing seven total counts in the classified documents case, including willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy—charges that could carry years in prison.
The former president said he's been instructed to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday. ABC Newsreported that the federal indictment against Trump "is expected to be a 'speaking indictment' that will lay out chapter and verse the government's case to the public."
While the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination faces various legal issues, it is the first time a former U.S. president has faced federal charges.
Former President Donald Trump said Thursday night that he has been indicted in the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents, a development that sources familiar with the matter also confirmed to multiple media outlets.
While the Manhattan district attorney in April charged Trump with 34 felony counts involving alleged multiple hush money payments during the 2016 election cycle, the latest indictment marks the first time an ex-president has faced federal charges. Both CNN and The New York Times reported that he faces seven new criminal counts.
According toABC News, the charges "include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations."
\u201cABOUT DAMN TIME\u201d— Public Citizen (@Public Citizen) 1686271298
"Today is a historic day for accountability and upholding the principles upon which our democracy was founded. No one is above the law—not even an ex-president," said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president for Public Citizen, in response to the news. "This fact should unite us, not divide us."
"The Justice Department has found what numerous legal scholars have found: sufficient evidence that Trump committed a federal crime in the handling of classified documents since he left office," added Gilbert. "Even Trump's own attorney general, Bill Barr, told CBS News that 'This would have gone nowhere had the president just returned the documents, but he jerked them around for a year and a half… There is no excuse for what he did here.'"
"What's left is for the courts to decide," she said, "as they would in any criminal case."
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, announced the indictment in a series of posts on his Truth Social platform. After taking aim at President Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020 and is seeking reelection, Trump said that he has been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.
The ex-president proclaimed his innocence and declared that "this is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America." He posted a four-minute video about what he called "A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME" and is already fundraising off of the development, urging supporters to "prove that YOU will NEVER surrender our country to the radical Left."
After Trump announced his 2024 campaign in November, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, as special counsel to oversee probes into the twice-impeached former president's role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his handling of classified documents.
Smith's appointment came after the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida residence, last August. Later that month, the U.S. Department of Justice released a redacted affidavit which explained what prompted the raid, during which agents retrieved several boxes of materials.
Ahead of Trump's announcement Thursday, David Rothkopf argued in a piece for the Daily Beast that "my brothers and sisters in the media and the D.C. commentariat need to stop referring to the former president's theft of classified documents vital to our national security as merely 'the documents case.'"
Rothkopf continued:
Based on evidence that has already been made public we know that Trump did not mistakenly shift a classified document or two from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. He was briefed repeatedly on the proper handling of classified materials. He has even acknowledged, on tape, that he understood how such sensitive, easily weaponizable documents should be treated.
But he ignored the law. He ignored the advice he was repeatedly given. And, based on reporting to date, he stole scores of items that were not his, to which he had no right, which could put the lives of Americans and our national interests and those of our allies at risk.
Linking to the article, Noah Bookbinder, head of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, tweeted: "This is important. Donald Trump is likely to be charged soon not for mishandling documents, but for endangering America's national security. How we talk about this matters, and that is a more accurate and appropriate description."