Keith Ellison, DFL Chair weigh in on RNC

Kelsey Christensen KSTP

DFL leaders weigh in on RNC

As the Republican National Convention wraps up in Milwaukee late Thursday night and the party’s agenda takes shape, Minnesota Democratic leaders are sounding off on what they’re calling a “sharp contrast” between the two entities.

On Thursday morning, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and DFL Chair Ken Martin spoke, hours after JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, took the stage at the RNC about Trump’s plan, which includes a national abortion ban and also try to ban the Comstock Act, which would outlaw the sending of medicated abortions through the mail.

“If somebody tells you who they are, believe them,” Ellison said.

The Project 2025 agenda, a nearly 1,000-page handbook made by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican administration, was also brought up on Thursday.

While former president Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation president says the group had been privately rooting for Vance to be his running mate, ABC News reports.

Martin added that “Trump picked Vance because he will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t do on Jan. 6th, even at the cost of our democracy.”

Their news conference also came a day after a new poll from the Associated Press shows two-thirds of Democrats — including some top politicians in Washington, D.C. — say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the race.

Biden, however, says he’s reluctant to walk away.

“If I had some kind of medical condition that emerged — if a doctor came and said you had this problem, that problem. But I made a huge mistake with the whole debate,” said Biden.

The survey — which was done before Trump selected Vance as his running mate — showed that for most Americans, Vance is still an unknown. Six in 10 don’t know enough about him to form an opinion, while 17% have a favorable view and 22% view him negatively.