Trump says he won’t participate in any more debates before the 2024 election
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will not take part in any more debates ahead of the 2024 election.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump argued that Vice President Kamala Harris could’ve accepted an offer to debate on Fox News on Sept. 4, or could’ve negotiated a second debate before the ABC News debate.
“She was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS. KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” Trump posted on his social media platform. ” Trump wrote.
Harris had challenged Trump to another showdown immediately after Tuesday’s matchup in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Harris took the stage at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, just after Trump’s announcement. Although she did not cite Trump’s social media post, Harris said he and she “owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate, and I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate,” Harris said. “Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to families across America, like bringing down the cost of living, investing in America’s small businesses, protecting reproductive freedom and keeping our nation safe and secure.”
“But that’s not what we heard from Donald Trump,” she continued. “Instead, it was the same old show, that same tired playbook that we have heard for years, with no plans for how he would address the needs of the American people because, you know, it’s all about him, it’s not about you. Well, folks, I said it then, I say it now, it’s time to turn the page.”
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
(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.
(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa.) — With less than two weeks to Election Day, one Pennsylvania county has unveiled a new mobile voter services van that aims to make voting more accessible for residents.
The van, the first one ever for the Keystone State, offers a convenient space where individuals can register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, or even fill out and submit their mail-in ballots right on the spot.
Neil Makhija, Montgomery County Commissioner and Chair of the Board of Elections, said the county wanted people to recognize that voting is something to celebrate.
“We have been showing up at fall festivals, community centers, senior centers, and letting people know that their voice matters,” Makhija said.
Makhija says local residents have been excited about the convenience of the van, stating they were thrilled to be able to vote before November.
The van represents a new approach by officials in Pennsylvania to gather votes. Instead of making voters deal with complicated procedures, officials are going out to meet voters and simplifying the voting process.
Pennsylvania will once again be crucial in the upcoming presidential election in November, as the state holds a significant number of electoral votes.
“We are witnessing what could be the closest presidential election in our lifetime,” Makhija said. “In Pennsylvania, it’s all that much more important because we can be the state that decides it all. I would love to come away from election night seeing everyone who was eligible cast their ballot.”
Pennsylvania is one of seven key swing states that will determine this year’s election. Both presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are looking to garner the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.
Voters in Pennsylvania can vote by mail. Montgomery County officials recommend applying online. According to the Montgomery County government website, you can return your ballot by mail, at a drop box, or in person at a satellite office.
Voters with an illness or disability who cannot pick up or drop off their mail-in ballot must fill out the Designated Agent form to allow someone else to handle it.
Yulia Navalnaya speaks about her late husband, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navaly, on The View. Via ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, says she wants Americans to cherish their democracy as they prepare to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
“I would say to American voters, don’t take everything like granted,” Navalnaya told ABC’s The View in an interview airing Thursday. “You are still living in democratic country and I still believe in American institutions and just make the right choice.”
Navalnaya spoke to The View for the launch of a memoir written by her late husband, Russia’s most famous pro-democracy campaigner and President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest opponent. He died in prison in February and the book, titled “Patriot,” was mostly written while he was detained.
You can watch The View interview with Yulia Navalnaya on ABC at 11 a.m. ET on Thursday, Oct. 24.
Navalnaya did not express a preference for Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump to win the election. However, her husband expressed alarm about the possibility of a second Trump presidency in a letter written from prison.
“Trump’s agenda and plans look truly scary. What a nightmare,” Navalny wrote to his friend, the photographer Yevgeny Feldman, who shared the letter from December 2023.
Navalny died suddenly in a prison camp in the Russian Arctic in February. Russian authorities claimed the 47-year-old died from natural causes, but his family and supporters accused the Kremlin of murdering him.
In September, independent Russian investigative news outlet The Insider said it obtained the police report into Navalny’s death. It reportedly stated that, in the minutes before he died, Navalny had suffered a “sharp pain” in his stomach, vomiting and convulsing on the floor.
In the final version of the police report, the description of Navalny’s symptoms as described in the initial report — all strongly suggestive of a possible poisoning — had been left out, according to The Insider.
Navalny was imprisoned in January 2021 after deciding to return to Russia, despite his near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent months earlier. He was arrested on arrival at the airport in Moscow and sentenced to 19 years, on charges widely condemned as politically motivated.
Married to Navaly for 24 years, Navalnaya worked closely with him before his death but largely remained out of sight. Since his death, she has stepped forward to fill his place as an opposition leader. She leads his organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and campaigns internationally for greater efforts to punish Putin’s regime.
“When he was killed, it was very important for me to show that even they are ready to kill the person, to kill our opposition leader. He wasn’t just my husband, he was very close friend,” she told The View. “He was leader whom I supported and it was very important for me to show that we’ll continue our fight. And to remind the world about him.”
Navalnaya also told the panelists that she’s certain the full story of how her husband died will be revealed, noting that the Anti-Corruption Foundation was working to make it happen.
She was unable to attend her husband’s funeral in March — which was held under intense restrictions in Moscow — because she faced possible detention. A Russian court in July ordered her arrest on extremism charges.
Navalnaya is undeterred by possible threats to her well-being , she told The View panelists.
“I hope it never happens, but if something will happen with me, there will be other people, and there will be people who [will be] fighting with Putin’s regime for many years,” she said.
Despite the dangers to him, Navalnaya said they both wanted Navalny to return to Russia, hoping to encourage people in their country to “not be afraid.”
“There are a lot of people in Russia against Putin’s regime,” she said. “Of course, it was an option to stay somewhere abroad in exile. But when I think about it, I’m thinking that he would be unhappy.”
In his book, Navalny expressed his belief that he would never be released while Putin’s regime remained and that authorities would likely poison him.
He also wrote about the harsh conditions in prison and his conviction that returning to Russia was worthwhile despite his imprisonment. He also recounted one of Navalnaya’s visits in the early days of his time in prison, during which they accepted that he would likely die in detention.
“It was one of those moments when you realize you found the right person. Or perhaps she found you. Where else could I ever have found someone who could discuss the most difficult matters with me without a lot of drama and hand-wringing?” he wrote. “She entirely got it and, like me, would hope for the best, but expect and prepare for the worst. I kissed her on the nose and felt much better.”
Navalnaya told The View that the thing she misses most in the wake of her husband’s death is coming home and spending evenings talking with him.
“I probably miss evenings. When you come back home,” she said. “I’m sitting here speaking with you and I want to come back home and to share this with him and to discuss it. And all these, you know, very ordinary things, of course I miss a lot.”
