2024 election updates: Harris responds to Biden’s ‘garbage’ comments
(WASHINGTON) — Six days until Election Day, much of the political debate is about “garbage” — first the backlash over those racist comments about Puerto Rico that former President Donald Trump has not apologized for — and now President Joe Biden appearing to call Trump’s supporters “garbage” — stepping on Vice President Kamala Harris’ message of unity — aimed at attracting disaffected Republicans.
More than 53 million Americans have voted early
As of 5:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday, more than 53 million Americans have voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Of the total number of early votes, 27,765,237 were cast in person and 25,686,627 were returned by mail.
Harris responds to Biden’s ‘garbage’ comments
On the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews about to depart for a day of campaigning, Harris was asked about President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comment seeming to refer to Trump supporters. The White House and Biden have said he was specifically referring to the racist remarks made by some speakers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
“Listen I think that first of all, he clarified his comments,” Harris said. “But let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
“You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not,” she said. “And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.”
Trump escalates baseless rhetoric on Pennsylvania’s election system
It’s a state that could tip the result of the 2024 election.
And Trump is ramping up rhetoric sowing doubt on the state’s voting process.
In a post on his social media site on Wednesday morning, Trump claimed there’s “cheating” happening at “large scale levels.” He did not elaborate or provide evidence for his claims.
Some isolated incidents have emerged, including approximately 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications being investigated in Lancaster County, though officials stressed the system worked and that voters can be confident in the election.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim and Olivia Rubin
Harris hits the road with her closing pitch
Harris will take her closing argument to voters on the road after a big speech at the Ellipse in Washington on Tuesday night. She holds a 12:30 p.m. ET rally in North Carolina, a 4:35 ET event in Pennsylvania and a 9:30 p.m. ET rally in Wisconsin.
Trump will also be in North Carolina for a 1 p.m. ET rally before a 7 p.m. ET rally in Wisconsin.
Looming large over the campaign trail are President Joe Biden’s comments from a Vote Latino campaign call Tuesday night. His wording angered Republicans, who saw him as referring to the supporters of Trump as “garbage.” The White House and Biden himself, seeking to clarify the remark, argued he was referring to the racist rhetoric made by a speaker at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., on Wednesday introduced a privileged resolution on the House floor to censure Rep. Clay Higgins. R-La., over his now-deleted post on X in which he called Haitians “thugs” and called Haiti the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere.”
Higgins was apparently reacting to reports that the leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, invoked a citizen’s right to file charges against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, over threats and disruptions the city has experienced since Trump and Vance spread unsubstantiated claims about legal immigrants there.
“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins wrote. “All these thugs better get their mind right and their a– out of our country before January 20th.”
Trump claimed in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian migrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pets and animals from city parks. The city’s 15,000 Haitian immigrants — most of them who are in the country legally — have filled manufacturing, distribution and warehouse jobs but have put a strain on the city’s resources.
In the wake of Trump’s comments, the city has received more than two dozen bomb threats that have caused evacuations of schools and government buildings. The state has sent in additional state troopers and installed surveillance cameras to deal with the threats.
By its rules, the House must take up a privileged resolution within two legislative days, but that won’t happen until after the November election when the House returns from a long recess.
Horsford spoke on the House floor on Wednesday and said Higgins’ post was inciting “hate and fear.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about the post after votes on Wednesday and called Higgins a friend “and a very frank and outspoken person. He’s also a very principled man.”
“He was approached on the floor by colleagues who said that was offensive,” Johnson continued. “He went to the back. I just talked to him about it. He said he went to the back and he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. That’s what you want the gentleman to do. I’m sure he probably regrets some of the language he used. But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.”
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a statement, wrote: “The disgusting statement by Clay Higgins about the Haitian community is vile, racist and beneath the dignity of the United States House of Representatives. He must be held accountable for dishonorable conduct that is unbecoming of a Member of Congress.”
“Clay Higgins is an election-denying, conspiracy-peddling racial arsonist who is a disgrace to the People’s House. This is who they have become. Republicans are the party of Donald Trump, Mark Robinson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Clay Higgins and Project 2025. The extreme MAGA Republicans are unfit to govern,” Jeffries said.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said he spoke to Higgins and urged him to take the post down.
“Clay and I had a conversation about it, and I said I think it’s a bad statement – you should take it down,” Donalds said. “He came back a minute or two later and said he was going to remove it.”
Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost said he believes the post breaks the House code because it came from Higgins’ House social media account.
“It’s completely disgusting,” Frost said. “And a racist and bigoted tweet and I think it shows a lot about the Republican Party – the Republican conference – that they can’t just step up say, ‘You know what? That is wrong that he shouldn’t have posted it,” but yet their best defense is that he deleted the tweet.”
Donalds and congressional sources said a group of Democratic CBC members, including Reps. Frederica Wilson and Sheila Cherfilus McCormick, discussed the tweet with Higgins on the floor.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said she was frustrated that Republicans initially blocked Horsford’s motion to censure Higgins.
“It’s despicable. It’s outrageous, and to see Republicans go along with it means that you’re known by the company you keep — they’re complicit in this,” Lee said.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said she wants Higgins to be punished.
“It was hateful and he meant it,” she said, adding, “He needs to be censured.”
When reached by CNN about the post, Higgins told the news outlet it was “free speech.”
“It’s all true,” Higgins said. “I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want.”
He added: “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.”
(WASHINGTON) — Forty-two years ago, Lita Rosario-Richardson was the only woman on Howard University’s debate team. She made sure that changed — successfully recruiting Kamala Harris.
“I noticed Kamala’s analytical skills and critical thinking skills and that she had a very cogent way of making arguments,” said Rosario-Richarson.
Rosario-Richardson and Harris’ former debate opponents are some of the people who know her debating style best. Many of them are now expressing for the first time how Harris’ earlier debates could impact her upcoming one on Sept. 10 against former President Donald Trump.
The ABC News presidential debate will take place on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET and air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
Seizing a moment
When then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris took the stage against Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley in the general race for California attorney general in 2010, Harris was trailing in the polls.
A reporter asked Cooley about accepting both his pension as a former LA district attorney and an attorney general salary, which would bring him over $400,000 from taxpayers.
“I definitely earned whatever pension rights I have and I will certainly rely upon that to supplement the very low – incredibly low salary that’s paid to the attorney general,” Cooley responded.
Harris’ campaign turned Cooley’s answer into a campaign ad.
Her former aides tell ABC News that Harris had hoped to focus the race on her accomplishments and vision, but she signed off on the ad regardless.
In an interview with ABC News, Cooley said “I think she had very good consultants who constructed an ad,” but added he thought Harris “was not smart.”
On election night, Cooley was narrowly ahead and initially claimed victory, but Harris emerged as the winner when the votes were fully counted weeks later.
Cooley said he had not watched the debate since it happened, but he predicted that in the upcoming debate against Trump “a lot is going to depend upon the rules of the debate, and if she is there for an hour and a half on generally important issues and the questions are fair, she will not be well in a debate setting. She needs her teleprompter. She needs her notes that are probably written by someone else in order to do well.”
Cooley and Harris’ former aides both said neither had a teleprompter during the AG debate and both had notes on stage.
Former California Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, who lost to Harris in the primary for the AG race, said it would be a mistake for Trump to assume Harris is “dumb” going into the debate. “She’s not dumb, and she’s going to prosecute him. She’s not going to debate him … She’s going to treat him like one of the defendants that she prosecuted when she was a rank and file DA in Oakland.”
A perceived Achilles’ heel
Just a few months before the 2010 general election debate, Torrico, former Facebook executive Chris Kelly, Congressman Ted Lieu, former LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and former state assembly member Pedro Nava were among Harris’ opponents in the AG primary race.
Congressman Lieu remembered, “She came from a law enforcement background, and that really came out. She didn’t take any crap. I wouldn’t want to debate her.”
Nava was one of the five men who faced Harris in the primary debate held by Los Angeles ABC station KABC. He described her as unfazed, saying, “There’s nothing more scary than a woman who doesn’t fear men.”
Delgadillo, who was next to Harris at the debate, said what stood out to him most was a call she made to him after the race. “She was extraordinarily magnanimous and gracious after defeating all of us,” he said.
Torrico said he knew Harris was the frontrunner going into the race.
He said, “The question that I always had in my mind was, can we trap her? Can we get her to say something? Can we get her to lose her cool?”
Torrico said in one forum they were seeking the Service Employees International Union’s endorsement. Torrico said he reminded the members in attendance that he had represented many of them, and knowing many spoke Spanish, answered part of a question in Spanish. “They went crazy … and I just looked at her and I thought, ‘Okay, bring it now.'”
He said Harris deflected the original question. “She just went after corporate America and the rich,” he said. “She just totally diffused all of the enthusiasm.”
“I was just sitting there fuming and saying, ‘She’s not answering the question at all. I just answered the question. I hit a home run … and everyone’s clapping for you.'”
Torrico said, “I always thought it was an Achilles’ heel for her … she’s very good at saying a lot of things without answering the actual question.”
He said once at a forum, when he didn’t know she was in attendance, he initially felt he had a great response on stage to a question about criminal justice. “I said something like, whoever the next attorney general is, he would have to do such and such.” Torrico said Harris “just popped out of nowhere, threw her finger in the air and declared, ‘or she will have to!'”
“I was like, ‘Oh God, what are you doing here? Where’d you come from?'” said Torrico.
“The room loved it,” he said.
Torrico said he grew reflective at the DNC. “I’m among the many people she vanquished on the path to where she is now,” he said.
Changing a moment
During her first public office debate for San Francisco district attorney, Harris had been in single digits in the polls, but her former campaign manager says that would change during one of the forums.
Someone in the audience asked Harris how she’d lead independently of the current mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown. Harris had dated Brown about a decade before when he was the Speaker of California’s State Assembly. Harris responded by walking over to her opponents, Bill Fazio and the current DA, Terrance Hallinan, and mentioned the scandals that had been highlighting about each other.
Then she said, “I want to make a commitment to you that my campaign is not going to be about negative attacks.”
Former Harris aides say moments like that helped her beat Fazio, and got her to the runoff.
Fazio said he doesn’t recall that specific moment, but told ABC News that he had more experience as a trial attorney than Harris. But “she certainly was a much more accomplished and natural politician than I ever was. It’s probably the reason I lost.”
“She didn’t back down”
As the only woman at the time on Howard’s debate team, Rosaro-Richardson noticed how Harris challenged men.
“Oftentimes men use their physical prowess and the strength of their voices to win an argument. But I noticed that she didn’t allow that to deter her,” she said.
She remembers one specific moment when Harris was debating a man during her time on the Howard team.
“She was in cross examination, and [the opponent] hit her hand … I don’t know if it was intentional,” she said.
She said Harris stated out loud, “He hit my hand.” But Harris, according to Rosario-Richardson, did a “good job of it at the time … it didn’t throw her off. She was able to gather herself back after a few seconds and get back to the point.”
Rosario-Richardson said she will be watching Tuesday’s debate with other Howard alums and believes Donald Trump will be her most unpredictable opponent yet.
“I would say this is a unique situation because of the unpredictability of how Donald Trump will approach this debate and whether or not she can focus on substantive issues or focus on personal attacks,” Rosario-Richardson said.
She added that regardless of having known Harris’ debate style for over four decades, she has little idea of what to expect like everyone else. “I’m going to be excited. I’m going to feel some of the anticipation,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Arnold Palmer’s daughter, Peg Palmer Wears, reacted to former President Donald Trump’s vulgar comments about her late father, calling them “disrespectful,” “inappropriate,” and “unacceptable.”
“Being at the airport, which is named for my dad, where he flew out of to go to work every day or every week, you know, to come there and talk about … hackneyed anecdotes from the locker room … seemed disrespectful and inappropriate to me,” she told ABC News Monday afternoon.
Not only was Arnold Palmer a renowned American golfer with a popular beverage named in his honor, he also has a regional airport named after him in his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Campaigning at that airport on Saturday evening, Trump kicked off the rally with a long-winded story about Palmer, who dies in 2016, specifically referring to the golfer’s genitals.
“When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump joked.
According to Wears, Trump was “appropriating someone he admires to bolster his own image,” and that “people deserve better.”
“The people coming to these rallies deserve substance about plans Trump has as a candidate, if he could elucidate on some of the threats he’s made to people,” she continued. “I mean, these are important issues that should be discussed for people when they’re getting ready to vote, and using my dad to cover over the important things just seems unacceptable to me.”
Wears also confirmed to ABC News that she will be voting in the presidential election, though she did not disclose which candidate she plans to vote for.
An unaffiliated North Carolina voter, Wears plans to cast her ballot from one of the seven critical battleground states that could impact the election.
According to 538’s polling averages, Trump is leading in North Carolina by 0.8 points.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa, and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.