Vance preparing for VP debate with Tom Emmer playing Walz
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As Sen. JD Vance prepares to face Gov. Tim Walz in next week’s vice-presidential debate, the Ohio senator is turning to Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer to help him in debate rehearsals by playing Walz, sources familiar with the plans told ABC News.
One of the sources said Emmer was invited to stand in for Walz so that Vance could prepare to take on the governor’s folksy personality.
Vance’s debate preparations have included sessions at his Cincinnati home and online sessions with his team and with Jason Miller, a senior advisor on former President Donald Trump’s campaign, a source told ABC News.
Vance is expected to paint Walz as too liberal, focusing on the policies he has passed while governor of Minnesota, one of the sources said.
Emmer is the third-ranking Republican in the House and serves as the majority whip. Emmer also previously served as the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Emmer backed Trump for president earlier this year — despite the fact that the former president called Emmer a “Globalist RINO” who is “totally out-of-touch” with Republican voters, effectively tanking Emmer’s speakership bid in October 2023.
Walz and Emmer overlapped in the House from 2015 through 2019 before Walz ran for governor of Minnesota.
Walz’s debate preparations are also underway with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg acting as a Vance stand-in during the Walz team’s debate rehearsals. Walz has also held policy sessions with his own longtime aides, Biden White House alumni and members of the Harris-Walz campaign team.
The vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News is set to be in New York City on Tuesday, Oct. 1, the network has announced, with both Walz and Vance agreeing to participate. The debate will be moderated by “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” moderator and CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
(LINCOLN, NE) — Dan Osborn, a former union president and Navy veteran who ran an unusually competitive U.S. Senate campaign in deep-red Nebraska as an independent, is launching a new political action committee meant to help working class candidates like himself run for office.
“At least the idea is to help other people like me, who are teachers, nurses, plumbers, carpenters, bus drivers, to be able to run for office in their particular counties, states, areas, and we can help them accomplish that,” Osborn told ABC News in an interview by phone on Monday.
“You know, we’ve created something pretty special here in Nebraska. And I just want to continue that.”
The organization, the Working Class Heroes Fund, is a new hybrid political action committee (PAC) that will support working-class candidates and mobilize working class voters, according to an announcement and a PAC spokesperson. The group will also advocate for labor unions, including supporting strike funds, which help union workers cover expenses if they go on strike.
Osborn hopes the PAC’s work will help bring more workers’ perspectives to government, about how “people don’t want handouts from their government… they just want to know when you go and you put in your time, you put in your eight hours work for eight hours pay, that your paycheck matters, right?” Osborn said. “And going to be able to afford your mortgage and your cars and hopefully set aside money for college and some Christmases.”
The PAC is a new organization and not a conversion of Osborn’s campaign committee, according to a spokesperson. It will vet and consider which working-class candidates to support on a case-by-case basis, and will support candidates across political parties.
Could supporting candidates across party lines lead to pushback? Osborn, who eschewed party labels or support during his Senate bid, feels that doesn’t matter.
“I’ve never really understood why, if you’re a part of a party, that you have to have a specific set of beliefs, and you have to reject the other set of beliefs, and vice versa,” he said.
Osborn had campaigned explicitly on his labor bonafides, including his work as a steamfitter and mechanic, as well as his insistence that he’d be a truly independent voice in the Senate.
On Election Day, Osborn lost to Fischer by 8 percentage points — not as thin of a margin as some polls had predicted, but well ahead of the margin between President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris; Harris lost statewide to Trump by 21 points. (Harris did lead Trump in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, netting her one Electoral College vote.)
Asked if he was surprised by the margin between him and Fischer, Osborn said, “Yes, I was, actually — and it sucked. I suppose if I had to describe it in one word, it sucked.
“You know, I really thought that the people in Nebraska saw the value in electing a working-class person,” he said, but a late influx of money into the race supporting his opponent made a difference. “Does it hurt a little bit? Sure, but again, I think we created something here.”
His family is “not taking [the loss] as good as I am,” Osborn said later with a chuckle. “Everybody goes back to school and we go back — I’m going back to work tomorrow, and my wife, she was working the whole entire time to help pay for the endeavor. But, you know, we were all hoping for different results, and we didn’t see it.”
Osborn said he was not surprised by the larger margin between Trump and Harris, given Nebraska’s deep Republican lean.
One of the trickier dynamics in the race was that as Osborn tried to maintain an independent image, some national Democrats or Democratic groups indicated that if he was elected to the Senate, he would caucus with Democrats. (Throughout his campaign, Osborn emphasized he would not plan to caucus with either party.)
Did that hurt his campaign? Osborn thinks it made a difference.
“I can’t consult with those people. I don’t even know who they are. They’re making money off of my name, which is completely ridiculous,” he said, adding that he wants independent expenditures out of politics more generally.
His own organization, however, is allowed to make independent expenditures, as a hybrid PAC. Asked about that, Osborn acknowledged the irony but said the PAC will support candidates who support campaign finance reform and want an end to how money influences politics.
“The independent expenditure is part of the problem, and I would love nothing more than our elected officials to get rid of my PAC because it shouldn’t exist. You know what I mean? None of this should exist.”
Even as he launches the PAC, however, Osborn said he is also heading back to work as a steamfitter.
“The debt collectors do not care that I ran the closest Senate race in the country, unfortunately,” he told ABC News. (Pre-Election Day polling had found the race among the closest Senate races in the country, although the final results have been closer in other Senate races, such as in Michigan and Pennsylvania.) “So I got to pay my bills. So yes, I’m going back to work.”
Would he run again for public office? Osborn said he wouldn’t rule it out: “I’m open to everything that’s going to be on the table.”
“In my neighborhood, there’s a position open: the dogcatcher’s open,” he added, “So I should probably start there,” he said, although he immediately clarified, “That’s a joke.”
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd, Will McDuffie, Isabella Murray, and Kate Walter contributed to this report.
(ORLAND PARK, IL) — A 24-year-old Illinois man has been arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance in a voting line before punching an election judge in the face, police said.
The incident occurred on Sunday at approximately 11 a.m. when Orland Park police officers were dispatched to the Orland Park Township Office in Illinois due to a man — later identified as 24-year-old Daniel Schmidt — “causing a disturbance in the voting line,” police said.
“Officers on scene learned that Schmidt entered the township building and walked past numerous other voters waiting in line to enter the voting area,” the Orland Park Police Department said in a press release detailing the incident. “An election judge posted at the entrance told Schmidt to go to the back of the line and wait his turn, which Schmidt refused.”
Police said that another election judge was called at that point to help assist in the disturbance and Schmidt was once again instructed to go to the back of the line, which Schmidt declined to do.
“Schmidt attempted to push past that election judge and was prevented from entering by that judge and several other employees,” authorities said. “Schmidt began to yell profanities and punched the election judge in the face, knocking their glasses off.”
Several other patrons jumped in and managed to restrain Schmidt until officers arrived and found him inside the Township office where he tried to resist arrest, police said.
“At Orland Park Police Headquarters, the Cook County States Attorney’s Office was contacted and approved (2) counts of Aggravated Battery to a victim over 60 (Class 3 Felony), (2) counts of Aggravated Battery in a public place (Class 3 Felony), (5) misdemeanor counts of Resisting Arrest and one misdemeanor count of Disorderly Conduct,” said the Orland Park Police Department.
Schmidt was held overnight and transported to Bridgeview Courthouse for a detention hearing and the investigation is currently ongoing.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump presented different visions for the future of abortion rights during their presidential debate Tuesday.
Harris promised to sign a bill that reinstates protections for abortion rights that existed under Roe v. Wade if it reaches her desk as president while Trump would not commit to vetoing a national abortion ban if it comes to his desk.
During the debate, Trump — who claimed he wouldn’t have to veto a national ban — said he believes in exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.
“There’s no reason to sign a ban because we have gotten what everyone wanted,” Trump said, referring to leaving the regulation of abortion up to state governments.
At least 22 states have abortion bans or restrictions in effect since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe — ending federal protections for abortion rights. Of those states, 14 have ceased nearly all abortion services and four have six-week bans in effect, prohibiting abortion care before most women know they are pregnant.
Three of the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe were appointed by Trump when he was president.
Ten states will have reproductive rights-related questions on the ballot this November, nine of which specifically address abortion.
Voters in all six states that have had abortion questions on the ballot since Roe was overturned have voted to uphold abortion rights.
During the debate, Trump also falsely claimed that some states allow for the killing of an infant after birth. Killing a baby after birth is illegal in all 50 states.
Most states that allow abortions do so until fetal viability. But, there are no gestational limits on abortion in 9 states — including Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Gov. Tim Walz’s state of Minnesota — and Washington, DC.
Advocates for abortion rights say the absence of legal consequences after fetal liability doesn’t mean doctors will try to terminate full-term, healthy pregnancies. In fact, access to third-trimester procedures is limited, costly and medically complex — typically done only when a woman’s life is threatened or the fetus isn’t expected to survive.
Many Democrats say they want to pass legislation that would codify the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe vs Wade, which protects abortion rights up until viability.
