While the first presidential debate has been widely deemed a disaster and raised questions about the remaining scheduled political bouts, Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said that former Vice President Joe Biden should still gear up for the long haul.
However, Menendez called on the Commission on Presidential Debates to make some serious changes before the next scheduled rounds. Wednesday afternoon, the Commission announced it will rethink conditions of debates moving forward.
"I think there should be debates but there has to be a different system in which the moderator has to have some control because otherwise the American people get nothing and the nation is further humiliated," he told Cheddar.
"I thought the debate was a national disgrace," Menendez added, placing most of the blame on Trump's incessant interruptions during Biden's responses.
The Democratic senator has long been critical of the president but more so recently, taking him to task on the Senate floor over his reported tax payments of $750 in 2016 and 2017. Menendez said it is absolutely an issue that the American people are concerned about.
"I think no one is happy to pay taxes but they are certainly extremely unhappy when the president of the country pays nothing and they pay more than their fair share," he said.
Menendez also raised questions about the vast amount of debt the president reportedly holds and whether the lenders are foreign entities. "The American people deserve to know that. Several national security experts say that raises a serious national security question."
Like many of his fellow Democrats, Menedez also opposes Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling it a direct threat to the election and an unfair process to the American people.
"Millions of people are voting already. They should have a say in who nominates the next Supreme Court justice by virtue of being elected as president," he explained.
As more people use mail-in ballots in light of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump continues to undermine the legitimacy of the process, potentially setting up a Supreme Court battle that could decide the outcome of the election, but Menedez said that in America, "the people decide the election, not some justice on the Supreme Court."
"If this, in fact, nomination does come up for a vote, which it should not before the election, then I certainly would not be voting for her," Menedez said.
He also pointed to Barrett's position critical of the Supreme Court decision that upheld the Affordable Care Act and her potential ability to dismantle the national health care law as reasons to consider voting against her appointment to the bench.
While there wasn't much to celebrate following last night's debate, Menendez said currently he is enjoying Hispanic Heritage Month.
"Hispanic Heritage Month is important because it is a celebration of the contributions of a community that has had a history in our country since before the founding of the nation," he noted. "The largest minority, fastest-growing in the nation, a trillion-dollar domestic marketplace that comes from the community; and so, these are all the elements that we celebrate at this time every year."
Born to Cuban immigrant parents, who fled to New York City and later relocated to Union City, N.J. in the 1950s, Menendez said the values instilled in him as a young man by his parents carved the path he's currently on, ultimately leading him to become just the sixth Latino person to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
After scrutiny over the negative impact on the mental health of children, social media apps have begun adding stricter limitations to parental controls. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focusing on recommendations for entertainment platforms, joined Cheddar News to talk about the changes, why they might not be enough, and what parents can do to help. "It's almost that the companies — whether they're Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever — have to start the process from the beginning of designing the product," he said. "They have to be much more clear about age verification so that a 12-year-old and 11-year-old can't get on there." Steyer also pushed for federal legislation to reign in the issue.
As Big Tech companies from the U.S. like Google and Apple managed to build market dominance overseas, the European Union has decided to curb what it sees as monopolistic growth. Greg Martin, the co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about how the impact of the antitrust regulations being adopted. "I think there's a lot of great outcomes here, but those will be far down the road [because] I do think there's some interoperability things that need to be worked out technologically," he said. "But it's going to be really good ultimately for the consumer in my opinion."
Tenicka Boyd is a digital creator making content that reflects her two passions: activism and style. The TikTok star joined Cheddar News to talk about her platform and new looks this Spring. Boyd admitted that at first she wanted to remain anonymous on the social media platform before finding her passion. "I just joined TikTok hoping that no one would find me, and I started creating colorful content," she said. "I didn't know that you could monetize this and really do it full time, and I just followed my passion because I realized that you can have multiple different lives and do multiple different things."
Catching you up on what you need to know on March 25, 2022, with Ukrainian forces retaking Kyiv, 300 deaths reported from the bombing of a theater used as a shelter in Mariupol, U.S. regulators ditch a climate review of natural gas projects, the 94th Academy Awards, and more.
North Korea says it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile under the orders of leader Kim Jong Un, who vowed to continue expanding his nuclear arsenal while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.
Ukrainian authorities in the besieged ruins of Mariupol say that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering.
