Harris will not speak as tearful supporters leave watch party
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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will not be speaking as election night went into Wednesday morning, according to Harris Campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond who took the stage at a Harris watch party at Howard University.
Photos show partygoers thinning out and Harris supporters crying as results continued to come in.
The mood at Howard University had dampened over the last couple of hours. The night started out with music pumping and crowds dancing.
Later on in the evening, muted crowds watched as the results came in, with many glued to the screen.
The crowd cheered anytime races are called for Harris and booed whenever states were called for Trump.
Former President Donald Trump was reported to be riding over to the convention center with his family and his top campaign leadership team.
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(WASHINGTON) — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the most prominent and influential unions in the country, said Wednesday it will not endorse any presidential candidate this year.
The 1.3-million-member union has historically thrown its weight around in presidential cycles and endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in recent cycles, with 1988 being the last time it supported a Republican, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. However, hours before the union was set to announce its highly coveted endorsement on Wednesday, the Teamsters released polling of union members showing a nearly two-to-one preference for former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The Teamsters thank all candidates for meeting with members face-to-face during our unprecedented roundtables. Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who took on the role in 2022, said in a statement.
“Democrats, Republicans, and Independents proudly call our union home, and we have a duty to represent and respect every one of them. We strongly encourage all our members to vote in the upcoming election, and to remain engaged in the political process,” he added. “But this year, no candidate for President has earned the endorsement of the Teamsters’ International Union.”
Blue-collar union workers have been a mainstay of Democratic support for several cycles, but Trump has made inroads with voters without a college degree, a key demographic that helped eat away at Democrats’ union advantage.
Most of the country’s largest unions, including the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers union, endorsed President Joe Biden before he dropped out, and that support was reiterated for Harris after she took over as Democrats’ nominee. The Teamsters, however, stayed out of the fray.
The union sought to hold meetings with Biden and Trump, and it met with Harris earlier this week before making any decision.
O’Brien ruffled Democrats’ feathers when he addressed the Republican National Convention earlier this summer — a move that was fiercely criticized by some of his counterparts — and praised Trump, though he accused the former president of backing “economic terrorism” when he expressed support for firing striking workers, which is illegal under federal law.
“I want to be clear. At the end of the day, the Teamsters are not interested if you have a ‘D,’ ‘R,’ or an ‘I’ next to your name,” O’Brien said on the stage in Milwaukee. “We want to know one thing: ‘What are you doing to help American workers?’ As a negotiator, I know that no window or door should ever be permanently shut.”
The union’s decision Wednesday marks a blow for both candidates.
Trump had wooed the union, inviting O’Brien to Mar-a-Lago and culminating in O’Brien’s primetime RNC speech.
Harris, meanwhile, has sought to shore up support among non-college educated voters, particularly in the industrial Midwest, a key region in this year’s election where the Teamsters hold sway. The Biden administration has also repeatedly touted its pro-union bona fides, and Biden himself became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line. However, unions were peeved at the role the administration played in averting a rail strike in late 2022.
After the union’s announcement, the Harris campaign said she has “stood strong with organized labor for her entire career.”
“As the Vice President told the Teamsters on Monday, when she is elected president, she will look out for the Teamsters rank-and-file no matter what – because they always have been and always will be the people she fights for,” Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
Trump’s campaign said while the Teamsters didn’t endorse a candidate, “they want President Trump back in the White House.”
“These hardworking men and women are the backbone of America and President Trump will strongly stand up for them when he’s back in the White House,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The internal polling the Teamsters released earlier Wednesday showed that straw polls of members supported Biden over Trump by an 8-point margin, 44-36%.
In explaining its decision, the Teamsters union cited the lack of “majority support” for Harris and “no universal support among the membership” for Trump. However, it did note that Harris had pledged to sign pro-union federal legislation and that Trump would not commit to vetoing national “right to work” legislation, which would allow workers to opt in or out of unions in unionized workplaces — laws that are enacted in several states that national groups like the Teamsters say weakens collective bargaining power.
Still, the Teamsters’ National Black Caucus and several Teamsters’ local chapters got out in front of the national organization and endorsed Harris on their own in recent weeks, including Local 623 in Philadelphia, which pointed to work done during the Biden administration, Harris’ pledge to “expand union rights” and challenge “any anti-union ‘right to work’ legislation,” and the “threat posed by Donald Trump.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Oren Oppenheim, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(GERMANTOWN, PA) — In the final sprint of the election campaign, local officials in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania have mounted an unprecedented push to engage some of the state’s newest and untested voters: 18-year-old high school seniors.
“They’re the largest registered bloc of voters in the city. It’s just a matter of getting them energized to come out and turn out to vote,” said Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein.
Fewer than half of 18- and 19-year-old voters nationwide cast ballots in the 2020 election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
But Pennsylvania teens have historically participated at a higher rate than the national average and may be helping to close the gap with other voting groups, experts say. More than 70,000 young Pennsylvanians reach voting age every year.
“There’s really been a much greater and much more visible investment in registering new voters and doing get-out-the-vote efforts in Philadelphia this year,” said political scientist Matt Levendusky at the University of Pennsylvania.
President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania by just 80,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election. Both political parties say they are fighting for every last vote in 2024.
“Really it’s sort of a battle of inches between Trump and Harris. So the campaigns will really be trying to get all of these teenage voters out,” Levendusky said.
With razor thin polling margins in races up and down the ballot, state school district officials, city council members and nonprofit civic groups have joined forces to organize nonpartisan bus tours and student field days to target voting-eligible teens and educate them on how and why to cast ballots.
“We make sure they understand that elected leaders are being hired. When we vote, we’re hiring them to do a job. And when they don’t do that job, we have the power to fire them through our votes,” said Angelique Hinton, who helped create PA Youth Vote, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group leading the effort.
At Martin Luther King High School in Germantown, ABC News joined hundreds of high school seniors assembled for an outdoor field day of election-themed activities.
Students participated in a relay race to the ballot box, a mock election with sample 2024 ballots, and a tug of war meant to illustrate how the number of people on each side can sway the outcome of a contest.
“We want them to have that mindset — run to the polls on Election Day! We have the mock election so they can actually practice voting for the first time,” said Kamryn Davis, the PA Youth Vote program director.
Many of the students said they appreciated the outreach and felt increasingly empowered.
“I am following the political election a lot. I am into the debates, and I am watching the debates. So I do feel pretty positive about who I’m taking on voting for this year,” said Jymirah Wood.
She and fellow senior Janeeiah Simmons said they also volunteered to be poll workers on Election Day.
“I’m not, like, someone who’s super duper political myself,” Simmons said, “but I feel like in this year with the election, it’s really important because so many changes can happen depending on who wins.”
Still, voter apathy remains a big challenge in underfunded communities, organizers said. Many students told ABC News they worried about uncontrolled gun violence, rampant substance abuse, the rising costs of food, and the stress of a better future that often seems out of reach.
Several students said they were unfamiliar with the candidates or unhappy with the choices.
“We’ve just got to find the right language to connect with our young people,” Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said. “It is not lost on us that the students who are here today registering to vote may very well determine how the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania votes in the presidential election on November 5th.”
Senior and JROTC cadet Gio Arzu, the oldest of seven who works at a fast food restaurant after school to support his family financially, said he is imploring his classmates to participate.
“Don’t be scared to speak, to speak out. To get your voice out there and you’re good,” he said. “Just get your voice out there and just get your votes in.”
As the presidential candidates make their final pitch in Pennsylvania, many of the state’s youngest voters said they are listening.
“Especially coming from, like, an immigrant family, it’s a really important time to educate others on how one can make change and actually stepping up and doing something,” Rochelle Meneses said.
Added Gianna Tran: “I’m voting because I think there’s a lot of change that I want to see in, not just the city, but Pennsylvania state as a whole. And the only way to change it is through voting.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Secret Service failed to make clear decisions and did not communicate properly with local law enforcement or provide necessary resources that caused “foreseeable, preventable” security failings on July 13, when a would-be assassin opened fire on former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a new Senate committee report.
The highly anticipated interim report was released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by both Republicans and Democrats and reflects the work of the committee since it opened its probe following the Butler attack.
This report focuses on the Butler shooting and does not extend to investigatory efforts launched after a separate second assassination attempt on the former president at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this month.
Since the Butler attack, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe has acknowledged that the event was a “failure” by the agency, but the committee, which interviewed multiple Secret Service personnel, found that individuals “declined to acknowledge individual areas of responsibility for planning or security as having contributed to the failure to prevent the shooting that day, even when as an agency, the USSS has acknowledged ultimate responsibility for the failure to prevent the former president of the United States from being shot.”
On a call with reporters, Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters pointed to several failures by the Secret Service.
“Every single one of those failures was preventable and the consequences of those failures were dire,” Peters said. “This was the first assassination attempt of a former president and the presidential candidate in more than four decades.”
Peters was joined on the call by committee ranking member Rand Paul, R-Ky., Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., ranking member on the investigations subcommittee.
“Whoever was in charge of security on the day of Butler, whoever’s in charge of security during the recent assassination attempt, those people can’t be in charge. They there’s so many human errors,” Paul said. “No amount of money that you give to Secret Service is going to alleviate the human errors if you leave the same humans in charge who made these terrible, dramatic mistakes with regard to security.”
On Friday, the Secret Service released a four-page Mission Assurance Report, which affirms many of the findings in the committee’s report, but the committee report offers additional details from interviews with USSS and local officials.
As part of the investigation, the committee interviewed Secret Service agents, as well as the Secret Service counter snipers that were at the rally.
A closer look at the roof of the building where shots were fired from
The Senate report pays special attention to the American Glass Research building from where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired, and unveils new details about the timeline of events on that day.
In the lead-up to the event, local law enforcement raised concerns about the building. The report finds that the line of sight from the AGR building plagued rally planning and that it was identified as a concern, but that no steps were taken to mitigate the threat. Trees obstructed the view of the sniper team that was positioned atop one of the nearby roofs.
The Secret Service initially began planning for the rally in early July with state and local law enforcement. The planning meetings lacked answers or a general plan, according to the report.
A Butler County Emergency Services Unit commander told the committee the July 11 site walkthrough was “incredibly disorganized” with “no coordination,” and said he felt like “there was really no plan.”
When the USSS counter sniper team leader did a walkthrough of the area, he told the committee he “wasn’t independently looking at the threat areas,” but rather making sure the roofs were safe for law enforcement to stand on.
The leader assumed that if there were an issue with one of the lines of sight with a sniper position, that counter sniper would have told the head of the unit.
Agents from the Secret Service were notified of a suspicious person with a rangefinder 27 minutes before shots were fired, but that information was not relayed to senior Secret Service leaders on the ground.
Three minutes before shots were fired, local law enforcement communicated over the radio that someone was on the roof of the AGR building. The information was passed to the Secret Service two minutes before Crooks fired. A local officer said there was someone armed on the roof 22 seconds before shots were fired, but that information wasn’t passed on to the Secret Service.
Secret Service counter snipers did see local law enforcement running towards the AGR building with their guns drawn, but did not alert the former president’s protective detail.
“At that time, we didn’t know what we were working with,” a USSS counter sniper told the committee.
Though counter sniper efforts ultimately failed to prevent Crooks from firing, the Senate report finds that Trump’s Butler rally was the first time that a USSS counter sniper team was assigned to a protectee who was not the president, vice president, or formally nominated party nominee. Snipers were only at the rally in response to “credible intelligence” of a threat. Though the committee did not identify what that threat was, sources have told ABC News that Iran has targeted the former president since the killing of General Soliemani.
When the Secret Service sniper took his shot at Crooks, he did so “mere seconds” after identifying him, his partner told the committee.
Officers told the committee they didn’t get resources they needed
Rowe has repeatedly asserted publicly that no assets were denied for the Butler rally. But some of the committee’s findings suggest otherwise.
The operator of the USSS counter drone measures, known as C-UAS, told the committee he requested additional C-UAS equipment and personnel in the 11 days before the rally. However, these requests were denied, at times without explanation, according to the report.
The USSS lead advance agent told the committee Trump’s Secret Service detail requested counter assault team liaisons to help coordinate tactical assets in advance of the July 13 rally, but USSS denied this request, the report found.
When the CUAS system went down, the agent who was responsible for it called the manufacturer hotline to start troubleshooting the problem, delaying the deployment of the system for hours.
Previous testimony from the acting director stated that Crooks flew a drone over the rally site during the few hours the CUAS system was down.
Secret Service communications and those of local law enforcement were “siloed” in real time, according to the committee’s report.
Those issues included inoperable radios — in one instance, the head of the Pittsburgh Field Office gave his radio to the lead advance agent on the ground because his radio wasn’t working. These types of problems were commonplace, according to the report.
At one point, some of the agent’s communications were getting crossed with those of the detail of first lady Jill Biden, who was nearby.
Blumenthal called the Secret Service’s lack of accountability an “Abbott and Costello” routine, making reference to the infamous “Who’s on First” skit.
“It was really truth being stranger than fiction,” Blumenthal said of the finger-pointing as to who was responsible and who was in charge of the Butler event.
Committee leaders stress that the report is an interim set of findings meant to be expanded upon by further lines of questioning.
Blumenthal also called for new leadership at the Secret Service.
Peters told reporters last week that there have been instances in which agencies were not as responsive to committee requests as he would’ve liked.
Though the committee staff examined “over 2,800 pages” of documents provided by USSS and transcribed 12 interviews with USSS personnel, the report does reflect instances in which agencies did not meet committee requests.
“The majority of documents provided by the USSS and DHS are heavily redacted. This has unnecessarily hindered the Committee’s ability to carry out its constitutional authority to investigate and acquire information necessary to identify needed reforms,” the report says.
