During debate, Harris reminds Trump and Americans that she is a gun owner
(PHILADELPHIA) — After former President Donald Trump said during Tuesday’s debate that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats will take people’s guns away, the vice president pushed back with a little-known fact about herself: She is a gun owner.
Harris briefly pivoted from a question on healthcare to respond to the attacks that Trump laid out during an earlier question.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away, [Gov.] .Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff,” she said.
Although Harris has not spoken about her gun-ownership status during the current campaign, she did bring it up five years ago while running for president — telling reporters in Iowa that she became a gun owner for personal safety issues when she was a prosecutor.
Her campaign told CNN at the time that the firearm, a handgun, was securely locked up.
Harris has supported several gun control measures including universal background checks and stricter penalties for drug trafficking.
Trump is also a gun owner, however, his permit will be revoked following his conviction in Manhattan.
(BIG RAPIDS, Mich.) — Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance stepped on stage in Big Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday and spoke behind a bulletproof glass during his remarks outside — the first time he’s done so at his own campaign event.
It’s similar to the new safety measures in place for former President Donald Trump’s outdoor rallies following his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
Vance did have bulletproof glass in Asheboro, North Carolina, last week, but that was a joint event with the former president.
Speaking on the economy and jobs at a farm in Michigan, Vance began speaking about the Labor Department overstating its monthly job growth and then accused the Biden-Harris administration of inflating its job numbers to cover up the economy’s problems.
“Now, last week, the biggest heist in American history happened right under Kamala Harris’ nose,” Vance claimed. “Somebody stole 818,000 jobs that she and Tim Walz had been bragging about. Did y’all see that? Where did they go?”
He accused the administration of “cooking the books to hide how bad the economy really is under Kamala Harris.”
When discussing Harris’ record, Vance claimed that Harris doesn’t know what she believes.
“In some ways, I feel bad for Kamala Harris,” he said. “… But I’m not sure that this is a woman who knows what she actually believes.”
Harris, who laid out her economic agenda earlier this month, is still working to define her stances on several key voter issues. The vice president has already distanced herself from some of her former positions laid out in her 2020 presidential bid.
Vance referred back to Harris’ remarks at the Democratic National Convention last week, where she said there would be “consequences” putting Trump back into the Oval Office, asking “is she the vice president or the vice principal?”
Later, speaking to reporters, Vance said those Harris comments don’t resonate with Americans.
“I don’t think that’s persuasive to most Americans and warning them about voting for the wrong person is just, I think it’s ridiculous,” Vance said.
(WASHINGTON) — When President Joe Biden bids the Democratic National Convention a bittersweet farewell Monday night, he will be introduced by one of his closest champions, his youngest daughter, Ashley.
Although she has remained mostly out of the spotlight compared to her siblings and mother, she has helped promote and advocate on behalf of her father as far back as her childhood.
Ashley Biden, 43, was born in June 1981, the only child of the then-Delaware senator and his second wife, Jill Biden. Ashley’s older half-brothers, Beau and Hunter, quickly developed a strong bond with her, her mother told Delaware Today magazine in 2018.
“Her brothers looked after her. And, she always looked up to them. Wherever they went, she wanted to go, and they took her,” she told the magazine.
At an early age, Ashley Biden was vocal about animal rights, and talked to her father about the issues facing dolphins being caught in tuna fishing nets. Then-Sen. Biden would go on to introduce the 1990 Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act, which required tuna manufacturers to label their products as dolphin free, and he worked with then-California Democratic Rep. Barbara Boxer to help get it passed.
She would go on to earn a degree in cultural anthropology from Tulane University in 2003 and worked as a social worker in Philadelphia and at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families.
She earned a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice in 2010. Two years later, she married physician Dr. Howard Krein.
Ashley Biden would frequently be seen on the campaign trail with her father in 2008 and after he was elected would be seen with him during major events in Washington, D.C., and around the world. Among those trips was a private audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2016.
In 2012, she joined the Delaware Center for Justice and where she worked on programs to combat gun violence and teenage gang activity. She would eventually be promoted to serve as the non-profit’s executive director.
She stepped down from her position at the non-profit in 2019 to help with her father’s presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign season, Ashley Biden made visits to several stops and touted her father’s work and policies to voters.
She was also active on social media encouraging voters to support her father.
It was also during this time that Ashley Biden became a victim of identity theft by two Florida residents.
Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander stole a diary she left behind at one of her former residences in September 2020 and then sold it to right-wing activist group Project Veritas, according to federal prosecutors.
Harris and Kurlander pleaded guilty in August 2022 to “to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property involving the theft of personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was a candidate for national political office,” according to the Justice Department.
Harris was sentenced in April to one month in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and Kurlander’s sentencing is slated for the fall. Ashley Biden did not attend the sentencing hearing, “because it would only increase my pain,” she said in a letter to the judge.
“The point of the theft, I assume, was to be able to peddle grotesque lies by distorting my stream-of-consciousness thoughts,” she said.
She asked the judge to impose prison time on Harris in the letter that was unsealed after the sentencing.
“My goal in asking Your Honor to impose a term of incarceration is to ensure that another woman isn’t bullied and shamed like this ever again. The despair I have often felt will never truly go away,” she wrote. “But I ask Your Honor to hold Ms. Harris accountable so that she thinks twice before doing it to someone else.”
After her father was elected to the White House, Ashley Biden continued to be at her family’s side and accompanied them on several trips including June’s visit to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
When the president delivered his speech declaring that he would not seek reelection last month, Ashley Biden was among the family members who was in the Oval Office. She was seen teary-eyed and hugging her father after the speech was done.
(JOHNSTOWN, Penn.) — Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters she was “feeling very good about Pennsylvania” while campaigning on Friday in the key battleground state, even as both supporters and detractors came out for the occasion.
In an unannounced stop to Classic Elements, a cafe and bookstore in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Harris told reporters, “I am feeling very good about Pennsylvania, because there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania who deserve to be seen and heard.”
“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said. “And ultimately, I feel very strongly that — got to earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here.”
She added, “We’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”
Harris and former President Donald Trump remain locked in a tight race in Pennsylvania, with 538’s presidential polling average for Pennsylvania showing less than a percentage point between the candidates as of Friday afternoon.
Both campaigns will look to win the state, which Biden won by about a 1% margin in 2020 — four years after Trump won by slightly less 1%.
Before she spoke with the media, Harris chatted with the store’s owner while Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and his spouse Giselle Fetterman looked on.
Harris spoke about a small business owner neighbor she had growing up who was a “second mother” to her. Harris also praised the staff for their work.
When Harris went into the main seating area of the cafe, a patron called out, “Kamala, we love you!” to which Harris responded, “I appreciate you, thank you” to applause and comments of “Madame Vice President.”
Speaking to the patrons, Harris said, “We’re doing it together. But I wanted to come to Johnstown … I wanted to come and visit this small business — you know, a lot of the work I care about is about building community, right? There are many ways to do that … one of them is our small businesses.”
But Harris encountered both supporters and detractors outside of the bookstore.
Near the bookstore, people behind temporary fencing held signs that were both supportive of Harris and supportive of Trump.
One person could be heard chanting “USA!” while another chanted “We’re not going back” — which can often be heard at her campaign events.
And one person could be seen holding up a sign that said, “Even my dog hates Trump.”
Earlier, when she landed in Johnstown, there was a large crowd gathered at the airport hanger; Harris was greeted by the Fettermans and Johnstown Mayor Frank Janakovic.
As the motorcade drove to the bookstore, some healthcare workers lined a street holding up middle fingers and a sign that said, “Harris sux.”
The visit came ahead of a Friday evening rally Harris is set to hold in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and amid a battleground-state swing by Harris, running mate Gov. Tim Walz, and others launched after the ABC News presidential debate on Tuesday.