ABC News releases rules for Sept. 10 debate between Harris and Trump
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(WASHINGTON) — With less than a week until the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump hosted by ABC News, the network on Wednesday released the set of rules that will govern the matchup.
The debate, which will be moderated by World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, will mark the first in-person debate between Harris and Trump and will feature 90 minutes of debate time, with two commercial breaks.
The debate will be held in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center and will have no audience in the room.
Microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak and muted when the time belongs to another candidate. Only the moderators will be permitted to ask questions.
A coin flip was held virtually on Tuesday to determine the podium placement and the order of closing statements; former President Trump won the coin toss and chose to select the order of statements. The former president will offer the last closing statement, and Vice President Harris selected the right podium position on screen, i.e., stage left.
There will be no opening statements, and closing statements will be two minutes per candidate.
Each candidate will be allotted two minutes to answer each question with a two-minute rebuttal, and an additional minute for a follow-up, clarification, or response.
Candidates will stand behind podiums for the duration of the debate and no props or pre-written notes will be allowed on stage. Each candidate will be given a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water.
Campaign staff may not interact with candidates during commercial breaks.
The debate will be produced in conjunction with ABC station WPVI-TV and will air live at 9 p.m. ET on the network and on the ABC News Live 24/7 streaming network, Disney+ and Hulu.
ABC News will also air a pre-debate special, “Race for the White House,” at 8 p.m. ET, anchored by chief global affairs correspondent and This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz, chief Washington correspondent and This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce and senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.
As previously announced by ABC News, to formally qualify for the debate, the participants had to meet various qualification requirements, including polling thresholds and appearing on enough state ballots to theoretically be able to get a majority of electoral votes in the presidential election.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks at a rally at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024, in Bozeman, Montana. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump focused partly on the economy during a speech in North Carolina on Wednesday as his campaign works to reset his close fight against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump advocated mostly for broad reforms, though, while offering little in the way of specifics and he went off on familiar tangents, including hurling repeated insults at Harris.
“Now this is a little bit different day,” Trump said as he began. “We’re talking about a thing called the economy. They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things. So, we’re doing this as an intellectual speech. You’re all intellectuals today.”
Proposals he made included directing Cabinet secretaries and agencies to work to “defeat inflation,” getting rid of job regulations that he said were costing jobs, and highlighting his call for “no tax on tips” and eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors. He also repeated “drill, baby, drill” as his key solution to solving economic issues, accusing Democrats of using the environment to stop the oil and gas industry.
“Inflation is destroying our country. It’s destroying our families. We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues … to the price of prescription drugs, I will instruct my Cabinet that I expect results within the first 100 days, or much sooner than that,” Trump said.
The economy has been one of the Trump campaign’s central election issues this cycle — the former president often spending considerable time discussing inflation, gas prices and the job market. His speech on Wednesday — specifically his attacks on the Biden-Harris administration — included falsehoods as he painted a better situation of the U.S. economy during his administration over the current one.
Trump falsely claimed that when he left office the economy was surging when in fact the unemployment rate was at 6.4% in January 2021. Now, it’s much lower at 4.3%.
He also said inflation has never been as high as it was under President Joe Biden; however, the annual inflation rate peaked at 9% in June 2022 under Biden, and it reached 15% in April 1980. Now, it’s at 2.9%.
Attacking Harris, Trump branded her as a complainer and argued that the policies she’s currently advocating for shouldn’t be taken seriously because she would have already accomplished them as vice president.
“Kamala has declared that tackling inflation will be a day one priority … But day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. Why hasn’t she done it?” Trump said.
After Harris recently advocated for the same no tax on tips policy Trump had announced earlier in the summer, the Trump campaign called Harris “Copy Cat Kamala,” and Trump on stage said it was evidence that she would copy all of his economic policies.
“When Kamala lays out her fake economic plans this week, it will probably be a copy of my plan, because basically, that’s what she does,” he said ahead of Harris’s economic plan rollout set for Friday.
“She’s doing a plan. You know she’s going to announce it this week. Maybe she’s, she’s waiting for me to announce it so she can copy it,” he said.
“During what was billed as a speech about his economic vision, Donald Trump said he’s ‘not sure the economy is the most important topic’ – because when you’re running to slash taxes for rich donors and corporations it’s easy not to care about the working families and middle class Americans who get hurt as a result,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement shared with ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — As the 2024 presidential race intensifies, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are making their appeal to the growing Black and Hispanic voting blocs.
Hispanics and Latinos are growing at the second-fastest rate of any major racial and ethnic group in the U.S. electorate since the last presidential election, according to Pew Research Center.
They make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population and are projected to account for almost 15% of eligible voters in November, Pew’s research shows.
The Black community makes up almost 14% of the population, and is projected to account for 14% of eligible voters in November, Pew found.
A majority of both voter blocs voted in favor of Biden in 2020 – 92% of single-race Black, non-Hispanic voters and 59% of Hispanics and Latinos, according to Pew.
A majority of each voter bloc plans to vote for him again in 2024 – but the solid hold on the demographics are wavering.
Biden holds the lead with 49% of Hispanic and Latino voters against Trump’s 42%, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll. Among Black voters, Biden holds the lead with 77% to Trump’s 17%.
A majority of white voters expect to vote for Trump according to the poll – with 53% in favor of the former president against Biden’s 39%.
This comes amid a growing national debate about race and diversity, with some conservatives aiming to remove diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools, the workplace and government who claim they promote racial division and unfair advantages for marginalized groups. Progressives, who aim to solidify these initiatives, say these programs aim to remedy longstanding forms of inequality and discrimination against such groups.
This escalating battle has sent Biden and Trump around the country courting Black and Hispanic voters on the issues of the economy, education, immigration and more.
The appeal to Black voters
Trump has recently attended events at Black Conservative Federation Gala in South Carolina, 180 Church in Michigan and New York City’s South Bronx to court Black voters and announce his “Black Americans for Trump” coalition.
Trump has centered his appeal to Black voters by equating his criminal prosecutions to the historic discrimination Black Americans have faced.
“I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing,” Trump said in an appearance in the South Bronx, a predominantly Black and Hispanic community.
He continued, asserting that Black people are starting to vote for him because “what’s happening to me, happens to them.”
Trump campaign’s Black media director, Janiyah Thomas, told ABC’s Kyra Phillips that Black voters feel like they’re being taken for granted by the Democratic Party.
“President Trump’s resonating with more people because we’ve had a Black president, we’ve had a Black vice president, and a lot of Black people are saying they have nothing to show for it,” Thomas said.
At the annual NAACP National Convention on July 16, Biden zeroed-in on Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and tax cuts for corporations and wealthier households. He also used the stage to highlight Trump’s past controversial comments on Black figures.
“Black voters haven’t forgotten that this man entered public life calling for the death penalty for the innocent Central Park 5 and entered political life spreading racist conspiracy theories about Barack Obama,” Biden said.
He continued, “We haven’t forgotten that Black unemployment and uninsured rates skyrocketed when Trump was in the White House. And we sure haven’t forgotten Trump repeatedly cozying up to white supremacists and demonizing Black communities to his political benefit – because that’s exactly what he’ll do if he wins a second term. Black voters sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020, and they’re ready to make Donald Trump a two-time loser in 2024.”
Biden has since been targeting Trump on the issues that appear to ring the loudest among Black voters. Pew found that these issues are: improving the education system, strengthening the economy and ensuring the financial stability of Social Security.
“He left no room for us to do what we should be doing: investing in things that affect people’s lives, like child care, eldercare, and so much more that grow the economy and help people,” said Biden.
Trump has also repeatedly touted unfounded claims that undocumented immigrants are taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”
“You know who’s being hurt the most by millions of people pouring into our country? The Black population and the Hispanic population. Because they’re taking the jobs from our Black population, our Hispanic population. ” said Trump at the Republican National Convention. “By the way, you know who’s taking the jobs, the jobs that are created? 107% of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.”
However, data does not show that immigrants — particularly undocumented immigrants — are taking over the job market. Pew found that 4.6% of U.S. workers in 2021 were unauthorized immigrants, virtually identical to the share in 2017.
It is also unclear what Trump means when referring to “Black” and “Hispanic” jobs.
The appeal to Hispanic voters
Biden has been traveling to states with large Hispanic populations, like Arizona and Nevada, to tout the lowest unemployment rates for Hispanics and the general population seen in decades, his efforts to reduce or cap costs for medication, and the rise in Hispanic entrepreneurship and business ownership under his administration.
He was scheduled to speak on a Spanish-language Univision radio show, as well as a conference for the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, UnidosUS, as well as speaking with local union leaders before he tested positive for COVID-19.
His recent slate of Hispanic-focused outreach comes amid the signing of a new executive order to increase funding to Hispanic-serving institutions to “increase Latinos’ access to educational opportunities,” according to a White House official.
The official also told ABC News that the Education Department has proposed a new rule Wednesday to expand federal programs to “help low-income Americans, and those who would be first in their families to go to college, seek higher education” — increasing access to as many as 50,000 people each year including DACA recipients, according to the official.
“Over the past three years, the administration has taken historic action to expand opportunity for Latino families and communities, including creating more than 15 million jobs – with 5 million created for Latinos, helping Latino entrepreneurs start new businesses at the fastest rate in over 10 years, working to ensure equitable educational opportunity for students, addressing our broken immigration system through new executive actions, and more.
Trump has also set his sights on Hispanics and Latinos, forming a “Latino Americans for Trump” coalition that consist of Latino leaders from across the country, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.
“In 2020, we got more votes from Hispanic Americans than any Republican in more than 50 years, and we won the Texas border counties that no Republican candidate had won in more than a century!” the campaign release quoted Trump. “In 2024, we’re going to win an even larger share of the Hispanic American vote, setting all-time records for Republicans up and down the ballot.”
Trump has cited inflation, rising interest rates, and the lack of affordable housing as issues he plans to focus on to turn Latino voters. He’s also doubled down on strict and controversial immigration policies, including plans to deport “millions” as migrant encounters along the southwest border have reached an all-time high in recent months.
His campaign has also touted his criminal indictments, trials and impeachments as alleged “persecution” — aiming to connect with Latinos who may have faced hardships in their home countries.
“Just like the Cuban regime, the Biden regime is trying to put their political opponents in jail, shutting down free speech, taking bribes and kickbacks to enrich themselves,” Trump claimed without evidence at a November 2023 rally in Florida.
Trump has since been convicted of 34 felonies related to the New York hush money trial.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump voted early in the Florida Republican primary on Wednesday, casting his ballot at a polling location near his home in Palm Beach. But Trump’s participation in early voting offers a stark contrast to some of his previous criticisms of the practice.
Walking out of the polling site on Wednesday, Trump called it a “great honor to vote” and praised the “fantastic job” done by the poll workers.
However, he has repeatedly flip-flopped in his messaging to supporters, sometimes encouraging them to vote early or by mail — while at other times making false and misleading claims about the security of the process.
“Mail-in voting is totally corrupt,” Trump falsely claimed in February at a campaign rally in Michigan. “Get that through your head. It has to be.”
In March, Trump again falsely claimed that “anytime the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating,” which he said during an interview with the far-right British politician Nigel Farage.
That rhetoric was central to Trump’s attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election false claims pushed by him and his supporters that electoral fraud stole victory from him in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that year.
No widespread vote-by-mail fraud has ever been found despite the claims.
A Washington Post analysis of data collected in three vote-by-mail states from 2016 and 2018 showed that instances of double voting and people voting on behalf of deceased people made up just 0.0025% of the more than 14.6 million ballots cast. That amounts to 372 possible instances of fraud, far from what would be required to swing a national election.
With polls predicting neck-and-neck races in crucial battleground states, Trump and his allies have sought to retool their message around early and absentee voting in recent months while still trying to hold on to the hard line Trump drew against those practices in 2020.
“President Trump has been very clear in his remarks and rally speeches throughout this campaign cycle that Americans should vote early if their states allow,” Trump campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to ABC News.
“[Elections] used to be one day, now it’s, you know, two months,” Trump said, complaining about early voting at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June. But then, during the same speech, he urged his supporters to vote early if they wanted.
“Do it early. Do it. Just do it. You’ve got to vote. And watch your vote, guard your vote, and follow your vote,” he said.
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Mark Whatley, who was hand-picked by Trump following the ouster of former party chair Ronna McDaniel, has advocated for creating a “national early-vote program” that will target and encourage voters to get to the ballot box.
“Voters can vote early. They can vote on Election Day. They can vote by mail. Do I care how they vote? No, I do not,” Whatley said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June. “I care that they vote.”
Asked about Trump’s comments against mail-in voting, Whatley claimed the Republican Party is investing a significant amount of resources “protecting the vote” to ensure “election integrity” so voters can trust the system.
“We are spending a very significant amount of our time protecting the vote. We are building the Protect the Vote campaign around it,” Whatley said, referring to the latest iteration of the Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote effort.
At campaign rallies in recent weeks, the former president’s campaign has also promoted mail-in and early voting, putting up signs encouraging supporters to request mail-in ballots or pledge to vote early in person.
Trump echoed that message during a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last month while still falsely alluding to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen.
“If you want to save America, get your friends, get your family, get everyone you know, and vote,” Trump said in the state, which will kick off early voting for the general election on Sept. 16 — the first in the country. “Vote early, vote absentee, vote on Election Day. I don’t care when you vote, but whatever you do, you have to vote and make sure your ballot counts.”
