2024 election updates: Harris campaign launches ad on Jan. 6 debate clash

(FLINT, Mich.) — Vice President Kamala Harris dunked on former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, particularly on the auto industry at her rally Friday night, with an assist from NBA star and Michigan native, Magic Johnson.

“When it came to building the cars of the future, Donald Trump sat on the sidelines and let China dominate and then he talks down to American workers, saying ‘we can’t compete with Chinese workers,'” Harris said. “And make no mistake, Donald Trump is no friend of labor.”

Harris’ attacks focused on what she said was her rival’s unkept promises on manufacturing and putting Michigan auto jobs at risk something her campaign attacked Trump on the same topic in a digital ad launched last month.

The vice president also highlighted comments that Vance made earlier this week about whether the Trump administration would honor a $500 million grant going to General Motors to convert a Lansing plant to make electric vehicles.

“So, two days ago, Donald Trump’s running mate suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River assembly plant in Lansing close down, the same plant that our administration helped save earlier this year, along with 650 union jobs,” Harris said. “Michigan, we together fought hard for those jobs, and you deserve a president who won’t put them at risk.”

Asked by the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday whether Trump would honor or cancel the Biden administration grant, Vance didn’t give a direct answer.

“First of all, the $500 million grant came along with some really ridiculous strings and no protections for American jobs not getting shipped to foreign countries because a lot of not just the cars themselves, but the battery components, the minerals, this stuff is all produced in China, and so when we write massive checks on American taxpayer expense to these companies, a lot of times what we’re doing is selling American middle class jobs to the Communist Chinese, and we ought to be doing exactly the opposite,” Vance told the Detroit Free Press.

“We ought to be rebuilding the American middle class and investing in our own workers, not shipping our tax dollars off to electric vehicles made in China,” Vance added.

In Michigan, Trump is running a new ad targeting auto workers, accusing Harris of wanting to “end all gas powered cars” and force Americans to drive electric vehicles. Harris shot back Friday night.

“Let us be clear: Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive,” Harris said. “But here’s what I will do, I will invest in communities like Flint.”

Johnson, who is from Lansing and went to Michigan State, spoke in the program ahead of Harris, and praised her as “strong,” “smart” and “passionate.”

“Nobody’s going to outwork her. She’s committed to you as the people United States, the people of Michigan. She’s committed to you,” Johnson said. “She’s going to be a president for everybody. And one thing she’s going to do is finally unite us, bring us together, that other party is trying to tear us down.”

But the five-time NBA Finals champion took time to directly address Black men, a demographic whose support for Democrats has softened.

“There’s a lot of Black men in here. I don’t mean to not talk to other people, but this is important,” Johnson said. “Our Black men, we’ve got to get them out to vote, that’s number one.”

“Kamala’s opponent promised a lot of things last time to the Black community that he did not deliver on,” Johnson added. “And we gotta make sure Black men understand that. So, that’s why I’m here: To make sure I help Black men understand, first, get out and vote, and then vote for the next president of the United States Kamala Harris.”

Johnson also called on America to take inspiration from Mexico, which swore in its first woman president on Tuesday.

Earlier Friday, ahead of the Flint rally, Harris stopped by a firehouse in Redford Township, right outside Detroit, where she labeled Trump “an existential threat” to labor.

“Donald Trump’s track record is a disaster for working people, and he’s trying to gaslight people all over our country, but we know the facts and we know the truth: He is an existential threat to America’s labor movement,” Harris claimed.

In a short statement Thursday, Edward Kelly, the president of the firefighters’ union, announced his board voted not to endorse a candidate for president — following the Teamsters’ lead.

“This decision, which we took very seriously, is the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity,” Kelly said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is doing a series of moderated conversations with former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in suburban cities in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday — the day before in-person voting begins in Wisconsin.

With roughly two weeks until Election Day, the effort is part of the Harris campaign’s effort to reach swing voters in the crucial battleground states. Harris is speaking with Cheney in the suburban areas of Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

The conversations were to be moderated by Bulwark publisher and longtime Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host and writer Charlie Sykes.

Both Harris and former President Donald Trump have events scheduled for battleground states this week as they work to win over voters in what’s expected to be a close contest. On Monday, Trump is spending time in in the battleground state of North Carolina.

While in Pennsylvania, Harris and Cheney worked to pick off Republicans disaffected with their party’s nominee who may vote for the vice president and focus on the dangers Trump poses to the country and to democracy — especially white suburban women who voted Republican.

“There are months in the history of our country which challenge us, each of us, to really decide when we stand for those things that we talk about, including, in particular, country over party,” Harris said.

Cheney, a staunch Trump critic who endorsed Harris in September despite their party and policy differences, said “every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part” in her supporting Harris.

“In this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know Vice President Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be in this place.”

At the Michigan event, Cheney said that she understood why some Republicans would find it difficult to publicly support Harris.

“I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, ‘I can’t be public.’ They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence. But, but they’ll do the right thing,” she said.

“And I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody, and there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th, vote for Vice President Harris,” she added.

Cheney voted to impeach Trump following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and was vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. She received backlash from Trump and other Republicans for her criticism of the former president and was censured by the Republican National Committee.

Since her endorsement of Harris, Cheney has campaigned for the vice president — including in battleground Wisconsin, where she called Trump petty, vindictive and cruel.

Cheney is among a handful of prominent Republicans, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have pledged to support Harris’ bid.

The number of actual votes these events could move, with just two weeks to go, is small — yet could be significant in states expected to be decided by slim margins, Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist, told ABC News.

Ideally, Zepecki said, the events would bring over “Republicans available to Harris who might need one last reminder, one last push in that direction.”

George Levy, a 66-year-old voter from Delaware County, outside Philadelphia, said he was an independent until Trump entered the political arena in 2015.

“I’m never going back. I’ll be a Democrat from now on,” he told ABC News as he waited in line to enter the intimate theater in Malvern, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb that was the site of the first Cheney discussion of the day.

“[Cheney] did the right thing for our country, and I’m proud of her for doing that,” he said. “I know she doesn’t agree with many Democratic policies, but she believes in our country and loves our country, and I appreciate her speaking out.”

In a social media post on Monday, Trump attacked Harris for campaigning with Cheney, claiming that the former Wyoming Republican congresswoman is going to lead the United States to go to war with “every Muslim Country known to mankind” like her father and former Vice President Dick Cheney “pushed” former President Georgia W. Bush to the war in the Middle East.

Harris’ events this week will feature more interactivity where voters see the vice president taking questions — including during her town hall with CNN on Wednesday in Pennsylvania.

ABC News’ Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

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(GEORGIA) — With early voting underway in the key battleground state of Georgia, a top election official in the state forcefully pushed back Wednesday on false claims of voting machine fraud — a debunked conspiracy theory that proliferated after the 2020 presidential election and has now been revived by some prominent Republican figures.

“[There is] zero evidence of a machine flipping an individual’s vote,” said Gabriel Sterling, a top official on the Georgia secretary of state’s office. “That claim was a lie in 2020 and it’s a lie now.”

Sterling, in his comments, called out “certain congresspeople” — appearing to reference Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently pushed an unsubstantiated allegation that a Georgia resident’s early vote had been switched by a voting machine.

Greene, in an interview and social media post, shared an unidentified Whitfield County voter’s claim that a voting machine had printed their ballot with a different selection than the one they had made on the machine — a claim that local officials said was simply a case of human error.

“Humans make mistakes. They’re called mistakes for a reason,” Sterling wrote in a post on X. “This issue is human/user error, always will be. Whitfield Co. handled it & voter voted.”

In her tweet about the alleged incident, Greene told her followers to “please double check your printed ballot” before turning it in, and noted that “we vote on Dominion voting machines” — a reference to the voting machine company that was the target of numerous false conspiracy theories in 2020.

Greene pushed the same claims in an interview last week with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, according to a clip posted online, claiming the machine “kept on switching the votes” of that voter.

“It sounds similar to what we heard in 2020,” Greene said of the incident, which occurred in her district, again noting Georgia’s use of Dominion machines.

X owner Elon Musk — who, like Greene, is a supporter of former President Donald Trump — made similar conspiracy theory claims while speaking at a town hall in Pennsylvania last week.

Dominion, in the wake of the 2020 election, filed a series of defamation lawsuits after it became the center of a false conspiracy theory that voting machines had rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden. Last year the company settled its landmark defamation suit against Fox News for a $787 million. The other suits are still ongoing.

In a statement, Dominion pushed back on Greene’s new claim.

“The false claim that voting machines can switch votes has been repeatedly debunked,” a Dominion spokesperson said. “As both state and local election authorities have confirmed, the issue in Whitfield County was due to voter error. The county provided the voter with an opportunity to mark and print a new ballot with their correct choices and the issue was quickly resolved.”

In a press release, the Whitfield County Board of Elections said there was no issue with the voting machine, and that this was “the only incident among over 6,000 ballots cast.”

“If we had reason to suspect that the machine was in error, we would have immediately taken the machine out of service,” the statement said. “No machines have been taken out of service.”

The statement noted that Georgia law allows voters to void their printed ballot “if they make the wrong selection on the ballot marking device.”

Greene, responding to a separate Facebook post by the election board, thanked the poll workers for “resolving the issues” and defended their work, writing that it is “not their fault.”

“They don’t make the Georgia state election laws and they are just doing their jobs,” Greene said of the poll workers.

Speaking at the press conference on Wednesday, Sterling said the “main situation” they have encountered includes “elderly people whose hands shake and they probably hit the wrong button slightly and they didn’t review their ballot properly before they printed it.”

“Anyone claiming machines are flipping votes are lying or don’t research,” Sterling wrote in a post on X last week.

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