Democrats to run newspaper ads in Trump’s rally locations calling for debate commitment
(WASHINGTON) — When former President Donald Trump rallies across the country, voters in some of those states will read coverage of his events in their biggest papers — and new Democratic attack ads.
The Democratic National Committee on Friday is launching a new strategy to needle Trump over not committing to debating Vice President Kamala Harris.
The effort will start Friday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ahead of Trump’s rally with his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in Atlanta on Saturday.
The DNC will also take out ads in The Arizona Republic in Arizona, The Detroit News in Michigan, the Las Vegas Sun in Nevada, The News & Observer in North Carolina, The Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin ahead of any rallies Trump holds in those states, according to plans shared first with ABC News.
The ads will be featured on the online homepages of each paper and in their respective print copies.
The DNC has several versions of the ad, all accusing Trump of being frightened to debate Harris. One message reads, “The convicted felon is AFRAID to debate,” while another ties him to the disavowed Project 2025 under the Heritage Foundation, saying the plan would “BAN ABORTION NATIONWIDE. No wonder he’s AFRAID to debate.”
“Donald Trump boasted he’d debate ‘anytime, anywhere,’ but after 34 felony convictions and one campaign meltdown after another, he’s running scared and attempting to dodge his commitment to a September debate,” said DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin in a statement to ABC News.
“Trump’s extreme plans for America are catching up to him, and Democrats won’t let him off the hook for his dangerous Project 2025 agenda. No matter where Trump is on September 10, voters know where he stands. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris will be on the debate stage to offer America the path forward — giving voters the choice to reject Trump’s MAGA extremism once and for all,” her statement concluded.
The DNC’s push is the latest salvo in the will-he, won’t-he storyline of a debate between Harris and Trump.
Trump and President Joe Biden had originally scheduled a Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, but since then, Biden has dropped out of the race, and Harris is poised to take his place atop the Democrats’ ticket officially.
Harris has maintained that she’ll be on stage that day, and Trump has said he’d like to debate but has kept the door open to backing out.
“I want to do a debate. But I also can say this: Everybody knows who I am. And now people know who she is,” Trump said earlier this week on Fox News.
“The answer is yes, but I can also make a case for not doing it,” he ultimately said when asked if he’d debate.
Other comments from Trump included criticizing ABC News and opening the door to debating on other networks. Fox News later proposed that it host a Sept. 17 debate in Pennsylvania.
Harris’ campaign has seized on the hesitancy, accusing Trump of being scared.
“Why won’t Donald Trump give a straight answer on debating Vice President Harris? It’s clear from tonight’s question-dodging: he’s scared he’ll have to defend his running mate’s weird attacks on women, or his own calls to end elections in America in a debate against the vice president,” campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said Monday, referencing Vance’s recently resurfaced comments about childless women.
“Vice President Harris will be on the debate stage September 10th. Donald Trump can show up, or not,” she added.
Jason Miller, a senior advisor to the former president, told Axios Thursday that the Trump campaign is “non-committal” to the Sept. 10 debate, but he believes there should be multiple debates between Trump and Harris.
“Not only will there be another debate, but there should be multiple debates,” Miller said. “We do think there should be some diversification in the outlets for who hosts a debate, but I think the public would be sold short if we only did one debate against Kamala Harris in the general election.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for further comment from ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is back in Washington and is preparing to roll out her economic plan on the road in North Carolina on Friday, which will mark her first major policy rollout since becoming the Democratic nominee. As Donald Trump looks for a campaign reset, he spoke with Elon Musk live on Tuesday and will deliver remarks on the economy in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Walz says he’s ‘damn proud’ of military record, thanks Vance for his service
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in his first solo campaign appearance, defended his military record and thanked his vice presidential opponent, Sen. JD Vance, for his service.
“I am damn proud of my service to this country,” Walz said to applause at the AFSCME convention in California. “And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record. Anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words: thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
Vance has repeatedly criticized how Walz has talked about his military record, which included 24 years in the Army National Guard before he retired to run for Congress in 2005. Vance served as a combat correspondent for four years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Read more about Vance’s comments and Walz’s background here.
Biden says he would attend Trump’s inauguration if he were elected
President Joe Biden on Tuesday, as he was departing the White House, said he would go to Trump’s inauguration in January if he were to win this year’s election.
“I have good manners, not like him,” Biden told reporters after being asked if he’d attend. Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
Biden also defended his calling Trump “a genuine danger to American security,” a comment he made during his CBS News interview over the weekend. Asked whether that contradicted his calls to cool heated political rhetoric, Biden shot back: “That’s just a statement. That’s a factual statement.”
-Fritz Farrow
Judge’s ruling means independent Cornel West can appear on North Carolina ballot
Independent presidential candidate Cornel West will be allowed on the general election ballot in North Carolina following a judge’s ruling that reversed a decision that would have kept him off the ballot in the battleground state.
In a ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle ordered the North Carolina State Board of Elections to certify Justice for All North Carolina as a political party in the state. That party, started by West’s campaign, is nominating him as its candidate in North Carolina and some other states. The board had previously voted to deny certifying the party over concerns about how signatures were gathered for its petition to become a certified party.
Justice for All North Carolina called the decision a “monumental day for our party” but West’s campaign still faces headwinds. The Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that West’s campaign received “illegal In-Kind Contributions” from firms it used to collect signatures for ballot access petitions in Arizona and North Carolina — allegations West has pushed back on.
“We’ve always said we’re going to ensure the third party candidates are playing by the rules, and it’s clear his campaign isn’t playing by the rules,” DNC spokesperson Matt Corridoni told ABC News after the complaint was filed.
-Oren Oppenheim
Walz to make his 1st solo campaign appearance
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday will embark on his first solo Harris-Walz campaign event as Harris’ running mate with a stop in Los Angeles for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) international convention.
Walz is set to speak at 3:35 p.m. ET.
Walz emerged as a popular candidate among labor unions during Harris’ search for a vice president pick, sources said. AFSCME represents 1.4 million public service members, and the union’s president, Lee Saunders, previously released a statement endorsing Harris for president.
Harris to roll out economic plan on Friday
Harris will outline her economic policy in a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday, her campaign announced, making it her first major policy rollout since jumping into the race.
Harris’ speech will detail her plan to “lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price-gouging,” a campaign official said.
The vice president has heavily focused her stump speech on the economy while on the campaign trail in recent weeks, saying over the weekend she would look to eliminate taxes on tips earned by service workers — a proposal Trump announced earlier this summer.
Harris’ college sorority creates PAC
The historically Black Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., of which Vice President Kamala Harris counts herself a member, started its own political PAC last week, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission posted Monday.
The committee is named Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority PAC, Inc., or AKA 1908 PAC, the filing shows.
Harris has been an AKA since her days as a student at the historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C. Harris on Monday visited the campus, her office confirmed to ABC News, but it’s not clear why she was there.
In July, before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Harris spoke at the AKA’s annual Boulé in Dallas, Texas. Since then, as a candidate, she’s also addressed similar national gatherings of two other historically Black sororities, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho.
Trump says he will return to Butler, Pennsylvania after assassination attempt
After discussing the assassination attempt made against him in Pennsylvania in July, former President Donald Trump said he’s planning a trip back to Butler in October.
“We’re going back to Butler; we’re gonna go back in October,” Trump said, adding, “Butler is a big, great area.”
Addressing what he’ll say when he returns, Trump told Musk, “I think I’ll probably start by saying I was so horribly interrupted.”
Trump discusses assassination attempt with Musk, says he turned head at ‘perfect angle’
During his conversation with Musk, former President Donald Trump addressed the assassination attempt made against him during a campaign rally in July.
“It was amazing that I happened to be turned just at that perfect angle,” Trump said of the bullet, which grazed his right ear while his head was turned.
During the discussion, Trump mentioned the man who was killed in the shooting, saying, it was a “very sad situation.”
“We lost somebody that was firefighter, a great Trumper,” Trump said of Corey Comperatore, adding, “He was a just a fantastic family [man] and a fantastic man.”
Trump and Musk’s conversation on X appears to be delayed
The conversation between former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk appears to be delayed, with many X users reporting they cannot access the Spaces conversation.
“This Space is not available,” appeared for some users on X.
The conversation was scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Judge orders RFK Jr. off New York ballot
A New York judge ruled Monday that the thousands of signatures gathered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign in the state were “invalidated” after a Democrat-aligned group argued he misled voters by listing as his home an address he rarely visits.
The judge, Christina Ryba, ordered the New York Board of Elections to not include Kennedy’s name on the ballot this fall.
A lawyer representing Kennedy told reporters last week they would appeal any ruling that went against them.
The ruling could prompt Democrats to bring similar lawsuits against Kennedy in other states where he gathered signatures from registered voters to appear on the ballot.
The FBI is investigating alleged attempts by Iran to target the then-Biden-Harris campaign, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
The alleged targeting via spear-fishing emails occurred before Biden announced he would exit the 2024 presidential race, the sources said.
While the campaign was targeted, the alleged hack was not successful, sources added.
The FBI is investigating a purported hack of the Trump campaign, according to a brief statement from the agency earlier Monday.
The FBI did not attribute the hack to anyone in its statement.
A source familiar with the matter told ABC News that Trump adviser Roger Stone has also been informed that his email accounts have been compromised, and that he’s cooperating with any investigation into the matter.
The Washington Post first reported the news.
-ABC News’ Luke Barr, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Will Steakin and Katherine Faulders
Biden, Obama, Clintons tentatively slated to speak at DNC: Sources
President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are all tentatively slated to speak at the Democratic National Convention next week, sources familiar said.
The working speaking schedule, which can always change, is as follows, according to the sources:
Monday: President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday: Former President Barack Obama Wednesday: Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, former President Bill Clinton Thursday: Vice President Kamala Harris
-ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks and Fritz Farrow
Trump posts on X ahead of Musk interview
Trump posted on X for the first time in nearly a year ahead of his conversation with Elon Musk scheduled for Monday night.
The video posted is a previously released campaign ad referencing his multiple indictments and telling supporters, “They are not coming after me, they are coming after you.”
The last time Trump posted on X was Aug. 24, 2023. It was a picture of his mugshot from Fulton County, when he turned himself in to authorities following his election interference indictment in Georgia.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh, Soorin Kim
Trump to be interviewed by Elon Musk tonight
Trump, in a post to his conservative social media site Truth Social, announced he will be interviewed live by Musk on X at 8 p.m. ET.
It will mark a major return for Trump to X, formerly known as Twitter, since he was banned from the site following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was reinstated in late 2022 but declined to become active on the site again, despite boasting 88 million followers.
Musk endorsed Trump following the July 13 assassination attempt against the former president. Recently, Musk has amplified misinformation about voting and elections on his X feed.
Walz discusses ‘whirlwind’ 1st week on the campaign trail
In a video posted on his X account, the Minnesota governor discussed what he called “not a normal week” since being named as Harris’ running mate.
Walz confirmed some details reported previously by ABC News and others, including that he informed Harris’ vetting team that he had not used a teleprompter before.
“Not a normal week, which is a good thing. Started by missing a call from the Vice President, pretty important one. And then got that call and honored to join the ticket with Kamala Harris to take us in a great direction,” Walz said.
“After that, it has been a whirlwind. We got on a plane and we flew to Philly, and they told me that in an hour I’d be giving a speech and there would be a teleprompter, something I had never used in my life, so certainly terrified, but was lifted up by the folks in Philly.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris wraps battleground state blitz, Vance makes rounds on Sunday shows
Over the weekend, Harris closed out a cross-country tour that included stops in battleground states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona, as well as North Carolina and Nevada.
New polling released Saturday showed Harris taking the lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin among likely voters. The New York Times/Siena College polls showed Harris at 50% among likely voters in each state, while Trump polled at 46%.
Vance, too, campaigned in key 2024 states and made the rounds on the Sunday shows. During his cable news appearances, Vance reiterated campaign talking points on immigration and repeatedly hit Harris for not sitting down for extensive media interviews and laying out her agenda. Harris has done brief gaggles with reporters and said she’d unveil an economic policy platform this week.
Vance responds to mass deportation plan: ‘Let’s start with one million’
Sen. JD Vance told ABC News he blamed Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration’s policies, such as ending “Remain in Mexico,” for the ongoing migrant crisis.
When asked how he and Trump would accomplish their stated goal of mass deporting as many as 20 million immigrants — a proposal experts previously told ABC News would be a “nightmare” — Vance said they would take a “sequential approach.”
“I mean do you go knock on doors and ask people for their papers? What do you do,” Karl asked.
“You start with what’s achievable,” Vance said. “I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.”
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with one million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” Vance said.
Harris cautions donors to ‘not take anything for granted’
Vice President Kamala Harris attended a fundraiser in San Francisco Sunday where she maintained her campaign “will win this election,” but cautioned donors to “not take anything for granted.”
“I know there’s a lot of enthusiasm out there,” Harris said, adding, “And you know, I’ve never been one to really believe in the polls — whether they’re up or they’re down.”
“What we know is the stakes are so high and we can take nothing for granted in this critical moment,” she continued. “So we will fuel our campaign as we have, with enthusiasm and optimism, but also with a deep commitment to the hard work it’s going to take, and to campaign.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi introduced Harris at the event, touting the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration and the background of vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, several times calling the Harris-Walz ticket “the freedom ticket.”
“[Harris] makes us all so proud. She brings us so much joy. She gives us so much hope,” Pelosi said, calling the vice president “politically very astute.”
(WASHINGTON) — Randi Weingarten, head of the 1.7-million member American Federation of Teachers and a close ally of President Joe Biden, said she’d forgotten to bring something on stage with her at the union’s national convention in Houston, Texas on Monday.
“I don’t have tissues — I should, unfortunately,” Weingarten said, before thanking Biden for his achievements. A day earlier, Weingarten had been among the first labor leaders to express support for the newly announced presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“As you can imagine, my speech changed a lot in the last few days,” Weingarten told the audience.
The sentiment reflects a bittersweet moment for organized labor, a key part of the Democratic coalition, which has indicated widespread support for Harris after remaining an ally of Biden up until his decision to step aside.
Within hours of Kamala’s candidacy, some of the nation’s largest unions offered an outright endorsement and others heaped Harris with praise, while acknowledging that an internal endorsement process must run its course.
The support owes to a perception of Harris as a labor ally and an heir apparent to Biden, as well as an acknowledgment of the difficulty of a shortened campaign in which unions are eager to turn toward defeating Trump, union leaders and labor experts told ABC News.
The onrush to back Harris is part of wider movement among Democratic Party leaders and elected officials that has made her an overwhelming front-runner for the nomination. No challenger has emerged as the party hurtles toward its convention next month.
“Labor unions are coalescing quickly around Kamala Harris,” Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union, which endorsed Harris, told ABC News. “We’re excited.”
The Service Employees International Union, whose 2 million members make it the nation’s largest private sector union, endorsed Harris on Sunday. So did Local 3000 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a labor organization in the Pacific Northwest, which drew attention last week when it became the only Biden-aligned union to call for him to step aside.
On Monday, several other unions followed suit with endorsements, including the American Federation of Teachers.
Additional unions have released statements lauding Harris but stopping short of an outright endorsement as the organizations undergo a formal process for granting support.
AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization, which boasts 60 affiliate unions with 12.5 million members, issued a statement on Sunday speaking of Harris in favorable terms but remains in the midst of its endorsement process.
“It’s safe to say things are moving pretty quickly,” Steve Smith, deputy director of public affairs at AFL-CIO, told ABC News, noting that several of the affiliate unions had endorsed Harris. “She has close ties to many, many unions.”
The United Auto Workers, an influential union in key swing states, will likely convene its international executive board to discuss a possible endorsement, a union official said. In a statement, the official called Harris an “ally” and a “champion” for workers. UAW had previously endorsed Biden.
Still, at least one Biden-aligned labor leader voiced reluctance to join his peers in backing Harris. John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union, described the public push to remove Biden from the Democratic ticket as a “betrayal.”
“They did it in a way that tarnishes Biden and I don’t like it,” Samuelsen told ABC News.
Samuelsen said he wants to wait to see who joins Harris as her vice presidential nominee, assuming she becomes the nominee.
“I don’t have a relationship with her,” he added. “I got to know Biden pretty well. I have faith in Biden that he wouldn’t screw transport sector workers. At this point, workers have been betrayed so many times by both parties that it doesn’t make any sense not to be as prudent as possible.”
The Teamsters, a 1.3-million member union whose President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention last week, has not released a statement about Harris. The union has not traditionally endorsed a candidate until after both major party conventions, a spokesperson told ABC News.
On the whole, unions have come out in support of Harris not only because of Biden’s perceived strength with organized labor but also the limited time remaining in the campaign, Johnnie Kallas, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois, told ABC News.
“The reality is we’re three-and-half-months out from Election Day,” Kallas said. “If this was a conversation, it should have been had a year ago.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Monday visited the LBJ Presidential Library to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and gave remarks on his new proposals to reform the U.S. Supreme Court.
The remarks were Biden’s first major speech since his Oval Office address last week on his decision to exit the 2024 race.
In Austin, Texas, he discussed his administration’s work to protect civil rights and his calls for reforms to the nation’s highest court, including term limits and an enforceable code of conduct for justices as well as a constitutional amendment against presidential immunity, all of which face long-shot odds of congressional approval with a Republican-controlled House and closely divided Senate.
“In recent years, extreme opinions that the Supreme Court has handed down have undermined long established civil rights principles and protections,” Biden said.
“I have respect for institutions and the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution, but what’s happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers. Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s decisions,” he continued, checking off recent decisions that he said led him to the reform proposals, saying those decisions have “undermined long established civil rights principles and protections.”
“And most recently and most shockingly, the Supreme Court established in Trump vs. the United States a dangerous precedent,” Biden said. “They ruled, as you know, that the president of the United States has immunity for potential crimes he may have committed while in office, immunity. This nation is founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law!”
The setting for Monday’s remarks was also significant, as Biden is the first sitting president since Lyndon B. Johnson to not seek reelection.
In stepping away from the campaign trail, Biden’s focus is now shifted to how to “finish the job” in the final few months of his presidency and cement the legacy of his decades-long political career.
“The president is focused like a laser beam on making sure that the next six months matter to the American people,” Stephen Benjamin, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, told reporters on Monday. “He is soliciting the ideas and thoughts of the best and brightest people in this administration, but also from across the country, asking people, ‘What is left undone, what else do we need to work to secure?'”
Benjamin said he expects the president to continue to work on accountability for the Supreme Court, fortifying the economy, lowering prices for American families and more.
On his 18-year term limit proposal, Biden said this will help ensure that the court changes with some regularity and would remove “an extreme court attacking the confirmation process.”
“That would make timing for the court’s nomination more predictable and less arbitrary. And reduce the chance that any single presidency imposes undue influence on generations to come,” he said.
Republicans in Congress signaled they are ready to challenge Biden’s agenda.
House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the proposed Supreme Court reforms, which Biden is floating after several court controversies this term, as “dangerous” and said they are “dead on arrival in the House.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also argued in floor remarks that the administration is pushing for reform because they don’t agree politically with the court’s recent decisions.
“Why is the Biden Harris administration so willing to put the crown jewel of our system of government, the independent judiciary, to the torch? Because it stands in their way,” McConnell said.
In closing, Biden spoke about Vice President Kamala Harris who supports his court reforms and who has now taken the torch from Biden as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I’ve made clear how I feel about Kamala,” Biden said. “She has been a champion of rights throughout her career. She will continue to be an inspiring leader and project the very ideal of America.”