2024 election updates: Harris counters racist remarks on Puerto Ricans at Trump rally

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and Jewish advocacy groups on Friday forcefully criticized what they called former President Donald Trump’s “dangerous” and “antisemitic” comments saying Jewish voters would be to blame if he lost the presidential election.

“I’ll put it to you very simply and as gently as I can: I wasn’t treated properly by the voters who happen to be Jewish,” Trump said at an event Thursday night in Washington that was meant to highlight antisemitism. “I don’t know. Do they know what the hell is happening if I don’t win this election? And the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens, because at 40% that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy.”

The backlash was fierce.

“Donald Trump is resorting to the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book because he’s weak and can’t stand the fact that the majority of America is going to reject him in November. But we know that words like these can have dangerous consequences,” Harris campaign national security spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said in a statement. “As Trump has proven, including over the past few weeks with his lies about Springfield, Ohio, he will cling to fearmongering and intimidation, no matter the cost.”

Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, have in recent days pushed the baseless claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, most of whom are legally there, of stealing and eating neighbors’ pets — an accusation roundly refuted by local officials.

“When Donald Trump loses this election, it will be because Americans from all faiths, ethnicities, and backgrounds came together to turn the page on the divisiveness he demonstrates every day,” Finkelstein added.

Harris’ husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish himself, wrote on X Friday that Jewish Americans would not be “intimidated” by Trump’s attacks. “Last night, Donald Trump once again fanned the flames of antisemitism by trafficking in tropes blaming and scapegoating Jews. He even did it at an event purporting to fight antisemitism, no less,” Emhoff wrote. “This is dangerous and must be condemned. We will not be intimidated and will continue to live openly, proudly, and without fear as Jews.”

Non-partisan Jewish advocacy organizations also vocalized their strong opposition to Trump’s comment.

“Whoever a majority of the Jewish community votes for, Jews — roughly 2 percent of the U.S. population — cannot and should not be blamed for the outcome of the election,” the American Jewish Committee wrote in a statement. “Setting up anyone to say, ‘we lost because of the Jews’ is outrageous and dangerous. Thousands of years of history have shown that scapegoating Jews can lead to antisemitic hate and violence.”

Some Jewish voters will vote for Harris, and some will vote for Trump, the AJC said, adding that “None of us, by supporting the candidate we choose, is ‘voting for the enemy.'”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblat wrote on social media that Trump’s comments contradicted the message of the antisemitic event at which he was speaking and can make it worse for Jewish Americans.

“Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss does zero to help American Jews. It increases their sense of alienation in a moment of vulnerability when right-wing extremists and left-wing antizionists continually demonize and slander Jews,” Greenblat wrote “Let’s be clear, this speech likely will spark more hostility and further inflame an already bad situation.”

Amy Spitalnick, who leads the progressive-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs, encouraged more people to join growing chorus slamming Trump’s comment.

“Last night, Trump preemptively blamed the Jews for his possible electoral loss, after spending months calling Jews who don’t support him ‘crazy’ & ‘disloyal.’ Speaking out against this isn’t about partisan politics — it’s about fundamental Jewish safety,” Spitalnick wrote. “We need everyone to do so.”

Trump did receive backing from some on the political right. The Republican Jewish Coalition, a major Jewish political group that has endorsed Trump, praised Trump for his remarks on combatting antisemitism.

Matt Brooks, the CEO of the organization, told ABC News in a phone interview that he thought the comments about Jewish voters and the election were about motivating Jewish voters, and that Democratic claims otherwise are a deflection.

“I think what it was is the president trying to motivate the Jewish community,” Brooks said, adding that Trump “realizes what’s at stake” for American Jews, who feel unsafe in America due to a rise in antisemitism. (Brooks pointed to intimidation faced by Jewish students on college campuses as one example.)

“This is an absolute distraction, to deflect that [Trump] made many significant and important contributions to the Jewish community,” Brooks said.

He added that Trump was also indicating how close of an election it may be in battleground states, where given the likely slim margin, “if the Jewish vote doesn’t move in his favor, it may cost him the election.”

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(HOUSTON) –With only a little more than a week until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is stopping in Houston on Friday where she will give a speech on abortion rights with some help from megastar singer, Beyoncé, according to sources familiar with the planning.

Although Texas seems to be a strange choice in the final stretch before the election when both candidates target key battleground states, the campaign argues it was chosen because of the state’s restrictive abortion ban, which bans abortion in almost all circumstances. It also allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and those who assist patients who are seeking an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion remains a rallying issue among Democrats who were able to stave off a “red wave” during the 2022 midterms by centering their messages around it. The campaign claims reproductive freedom is still one of the top issues among undecided voters, and they consider Texas to be “ground zero.”

The campaign said it plans on featuring powerful stories from several women whose lives have been put at risk over these abortions bans. That includes Ondrea, a Texas woman who first shared her story in a new Harris campaign ad out this week. Ondrea was pregnant in the fall of 2022, but when her water broke at 16 weeks, she was told her daughter wouldn’t survive. She was not offered necessary medical care — an abortion, the ad says. The ad shows the wound and scars Ondrea says she incurred after undergoing a six-hour emergency surgery — during which doctors cut her open from her breast to her pelvis in order to save her life.

On Friday, Harris said the abortion ban in Texas will be central to the event.

“It is a very important state, and we are here to really highlight that, sadly, the elected leaders of Texas, a lot of them have made Texas ground zero in this fundamental fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body. So, tonight we will be discussing the impact of that, not only to the women and their families, but to people around the country because of Trump abortion bans,” she said.

“And I do believe it is critically important to acknowledge that this is not just a political debate, this is not just some theoretical concept. Real harm has occurred in our country, a real suffering has occurred. People have died,” she added.

Harris’ rally will also feature Houston native, Beyoncé. Although the popular “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer has yet to officially endorse Harris, the vice president uses Beyoncé song “Freedom” as her walk-out song, which is often woven into her messaging.

Also in attendance will be famous folk singer Willie Nelson, another Texas native, along with Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, who has campaigned for Harris in the past.

It is not yet clear if Beyonce and Nelson will perform.

Roughly two hours away, former President Trump will also be in Texas in Austin where he will speak on immigration before interviewing with influential podcaster Joe Rogan who has the most-listened-to podcast in the United States.

Harris will go on to Michigan on Saturday where she will campaign with former first lady Michelle Obama for the first time after holding her first joint rally with former President Barack Obama at a get-out-the-vote rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday.

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(WASHINGTON) — Politicos in Washoe County, Nevada, proudly refer to their home as “the swingiest county in the swingiest state,” where voters in the sprawling and sparsely populated swath of desert might very well tilt the scales of a deadlocked presidential election in November.

But Washoe has also carved out a reputation as the epicenter of a troubling nationwide trend: County officials refusing, for one reason or another, to certify election results.

Despite a legal requirement to accept the vote tally and pass the results along to state election officials, county supervisors in at least eight states have bucked this ministerial duty in recent election cycles, according to one watchdog group, prompting concern among democracy experts that it could upend voters’ faith in the election process.

“What was a sort of wild and desperate idea in 2020 has caught on with certifying officials in the last couple of elections,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit think tank. “It won’t be a successful tactic to overturn the outcome of our election, or to stop certification. But it will cause chaos and distrust in the meantime.”

In Washoe County, two members of the county board of commissioners have emerged as symbols of the broader dispute over vote certification: Alexis Hill, the Democratic chair of the board, and Michael Clark, a Republican commissioner. During board meetings, the two sit less than ten feet from each other on the dais. But when it comes to just about everything else — including the role of the commission in certifying election results — they are miles apart.

Hill, 41, lives just blocks from downtown Reno, the county’s most populous city, with her husband and 3-year-old daughter. Most days, she commutes to the county offices on her e-bike. Clark, 73, decamps each day to his ranch near Washoe Lake, where he tends to his horses, mules and dogs. On weekends, he rides his Harley.

‘A dark afternoon’

In the commissioners’ chambers, Hill and Clark regularly tangle over budgets and policy. But no issue fires them up more than election integrity. And in July, Clark and two Republican colleagues made national headlines when they refused to certify the outcome of two local races — prompting fears of what might come to pass in November.

“It was a dark afternoon,” Hill told ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran. “Decisions like that, they break institutions … they make people believe that we don’t have a fair and free election.”

Clark relented a week later under “extreme duress,” he explained at a commission meeting in July. The state’s attorney general had threatened him with felony prosecution for failing to execute a duty of his office.

In an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran, Clark said he is not an election denier, but believes county election officials have failed to properly maintain the voter rolls. Clark pointed to thousands of mail-in ballots that were sent out to registered voters but returned to the county as undeliverable, which he characterized as evidence of poor recordkeeping by the registrar of voters.

“I believe that the people that are running the registrar of voters office can’t keep accurate records,” Clark said in the interview. “When I see sloppy bookkeeping, I don’t trust it.”

Washoe County Manager Eric Brown has acknowledged that the returned ballots might represent voters who had moved, thereby complicating their ability to vote — but he said at a recent meeting that the county had upgraded its voter registration system, which he said “has enhanced tracking and certification capabilities.”

“Moving forward, keeping track of voter records is going to be — we’ll be able to do that much more accurately,” Brown said.

Clark also said his vote to not certify results in July — which was the third time in his two-year tenure on the commission that he did so — was precipitated by what election experts have called erroneous legal advice from a county attorney who told commissioners to vote their conscience.

Clark’s vote “shocked” the state’s elections chief, Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar.

“It is a ministerial duty to certify the election,” Aguilar, a Democratic, told ABC News’ Terry Moran. “If there are concerns and questions about the election — about the election process, about the election administration — [the commission has] the power to schedule an agenda item to have a conversation about how elections work.”

‘That’s just not their job’

All fifty states make election-certification by county officials a mandatory duty of their job to prevent local partisan politicians from meddling in election results. Election disputes, which frequently arise, are typically resolved through audits, recounts, and the courts.

“It may seem odd to people that [the county officials] who are certifying the election aren’t necessarily the ones that investigate all the things that happened in the election,” Morales-Doyle said. “But that’s just not their job.”

But in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when former President Donald Trump sought to challenge the outcome of the vote, some county officials have refused to certify results.

It began in Wayne County, Michigan, where Trump reportedly pressured two county officials to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to the Detroit News. In the intervening election seasons, more than two dozen officials in eight states, including key swing states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, have followed suit, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In Arizona, two Republican supervisors in Cochise County were charged with felonies for delaying certification of the 2022 midterm election until a court ordered them to do so. Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to go to trial next year. Both also remain in their seats on the county board.

And in Georgia, a state judge this week issued a directive that county officials cannot block the certification of votes due to allegations of fraud or error, ruling that officials “have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results.”

‘How you undermine democracy’

Back in Nevada, election officials say they are preparing for any possible challenge to the upcoming election results.

“So is this a contagion?” Moran asked Aguilar. “Do you see this happening in other counties this time around?”

“It may, but I think we are prepared, and we have been preparing for the last 18 months to address any issue that comes up. This was one of them,” Aguilar said. “I’ve been working extremely hard with the attorney general to anticipate some of these situations.”

“We have pre-drafted legal filings — kind of like a Mad Libs, right?” Aguilar said. “You know the county, you fill in the county name, you fill in the date, you fill in the facts. And you file that thing as soon as you can before the Nevada Supreme Court.”

Experts say the failure of county officials to certify results is unlikely to succeed in delaying or altering the outcome of the presidential election. But that does not mean it should not alarm American voters.

“Every time this has been tried before, courts have put a quick end to it. And they will again this year,” Morales-Doyle said. “But what it might do is undermine the public’s faith in our process. And that’s really damaging in and of itself.”

“That’s really harmful,” he said. “Democracy works because people have faith in the outcome of their elections. If you undermine that enough, that’s how you undermine democracy.”

In Washoe County, Hill said she would “absolutely” certify the results, regardless of the outcome in the presidential race or in her own reelection race for commissioner.

“I feel like we are ready to go for this general election. And I have no concerns,” she said. “I do believe that there are really good people who are trying to hold the house together.”

Clark, for his part, offered a more reserved commitment.

“Are you going to certify an election in November?” Moran asked him.

“Well, I guess I’m going to have to,” Clark said. “I don’t want to have an argument with the attorney general. The attorney general and the state of Nevada have much deeper pockets than I have.”

ABC News’ Hannah Prince contributed to this report.

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