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(WASHINGTON) — From the June 28 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, at least 134 people were killed in 148 mass shootings across the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

But during those roughly three months and since, the issue of gun violence prevention, according to some advocates, has been overshadowed by a flurry of hot-button campaign topics: The state of the economy, abortion rights, wars raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, two assassination attempts on Trump and the shifting political landscape in which Vice President Kamala Harris succeeded Biden as the Democratic nominee.

“Gun violence is still one of the most important issues facing our country. We still have an ongoing epidemic,” said Nicole Hockley, the CEO of Sandy Hook Promise — a gun violence prevention group she co-founded following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 children, including her son, and six adult staff members dead.

In an interview this week with ABC News, Hockley cited a Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions report that said for three straight years gun violence has been the leading cause of death in the United States for adolescents under the age of 19.

In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released in August, gun violence was ranked eighth in importance among voters after the economy, inflation, health care, protecting democracy, crime and safety, immigration and the Supreme Court.

According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 61% of Americans say it’s too easy to legally obtain a gun in this country and 58% believe U.S. gun-control laws should be stricter.

“I do appreciate that there are many other large issues and hot topics like the economy, like abortion, like foreign wars that are of interest to voters as well,” said Hockley, whose nonpartisan group does not endorse candidates nor donate to campaigns.

She added, “Perhaps there is an assumption, rightly or wrongly, that everyone already knows what each candidate’s opinion is and what they are likely to do in terms of gun violence prevention, whereas they might not be as clear on things like policies around the economy.”

Debates over gun violence
During the three national debates in the presidential campaign, the subject of gun violence prevention appears to have received less discussion compared to the other contentious topics, some advocates said.

In the Sept. 10 debate between Harris and Trump, hosted by ABC News, gun violence came up when Trump — who was shot in the ear during a July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left one campaign rallygoer dead and two others wounded — alleged, “She wants to confiscate your guns.”

The accusation prompted Harris, who oversees the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to respond, “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”

Harris, the former California Attorney General, also said, “I’m the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs and human beings.”

Ten days after debating Trump, Harris reiterated that she is a gun owner during a televised sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey, adding, “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.”

The most extensive conversation on guns during the debates came during the vice presidential debate when Walz touted his record in Minnesota on combating gun violence, saying his administration had passed an assault weapons ban and enhanced red-flag gun laws to keep weapons out of the hands of people poised to harm themselves or others.

“These are reasonable things that we can do to make a difference,” Walz said about gun violence prevention during the debate.

Vance and Trump oppose most gun-control laws, including an assault weapons ban and national red-flag laws proposed by Harris. The National Rifle Association has endorsed the Trump-Vance ticket.

“Now, more than ever, freedom and liberty need courageous and virtuous defenders,” Doug Hamlin, executive vice president and CEO of the NRA, said in a statement in July. “President Trump and Senator Vance have the guts and the grit to stand steadfast for the Second Amendment.”

During the debate, Vance said on gun violence prevention measures, “Governor Walz and I actually probably agree that we need to do better on this.”

Addressing school shootings, Vance said at the debate, “I, unfortunately, think that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger. And of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experience.”

‘The lockdown generation’

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures, said that despite the myriad issues in this campaign cycle, gun violence prevention still resonates with voters nationwide.

“First and foremost, I get to travel all across this country and meet with our volunteers and partners and candidates running up and down the ballot, and there are so many people that are not running away from this issue but running on it and actually winning,” Ferrell-Zabala told ABC News. “This is a priority for many folks.”

She said that from her experience, young people, who have grown up in the era of school lockdowns and active shooter drills, are particularly energized over the issue of gun violence prevention and plan to vote their conscience.

“This is a big issue. This is a top three for all voters and for young people, this is particularly hitting them because they are the lockdown generation. Many of them are survivors of gun violence themselves,” said Ferrell-Zabala, whose group has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.

According to the 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 88% of respondents also favored preventing mentally ill people from buying guns and 79% wanted the minimum age for buying guns raised to 21.

Ferrell-Zabala said most aspects of gun violence prevention should not be considered political, including requiring gun owners to secure their weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of children or people intent on harming others or themselves.

“They are being used as political issues, but they are not. The majority of people, polls show time and time again, are for common sense gun laws because they know they are going to save lives in this country,” Ferrell-Zabala said. “And what you’re seeing is a product of a gun industry and extremist politicians that are trying to back this guns-everywhere culture, where guns are everywhere for anyone anytime. That’s unacceptable, frankly.”

Hockley said that many of the children who survived the Sandy Hook massacre that claimed the life of her 6-year-old son, Dylan, have now reached the age of 18 and will be voting in their first presidential election.

“I believe that they will be very much voting to stop this epidemic,” Hockley told ABC News. “I’m sure they’ll have other concerns as well, women’s rights, human rights. Gun violence prevention is also a human right, the right to live to your full potential. These students have seen the worst of what our country can offer in terms of school violence and I very much believe and hope that they will be voting that as one of their main issues.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa.) — With less than two weeks to Election Day, one Pennsylvania county has unveiled a new mobile voter services van that aims to make voting more accessible for residents.

The van, the first one ever for the Keystone State, offers a convenient space where individuals can register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, or even fill out and submit their mail-in ballots right on the spot.

Neil Makhija, Montgomery County Commissioner and Chair of the Board of Elections, said the county wanted people to recognize that voting is something to celebrate.

“We have been showing up at fall festivals, community centers, senior centers, and letting people know that their voice matters,” Makhija said.

Makhija says local residents have been excited about the convenience of the van, stating they were thrilled to be able to vote before November.

The van represents a new approach by officials in Pennsylvania to gather votes. Instead of making voters deal with complicated procedures, officials are going out to meet voters and simplifying the voting process.

Pennsylvania will once again be crucial in the upcoming presidential election in November, as the state holds a significant number of electoral votes.

“We are witnessing what could be the closest presidential election in our lifetime,” Makhija said. “In Pennsylvania, it’s all that much more important because we can be the state that decides it all. I would love to come away from election night seeing everyone who was eligible cast their ballot.”

Pennsylvania is one of seven key swing states that will determine this year’s election. Both presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are looking to garner the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.

Voters in Pennsylvania can vote by mail. Montgomery County officials recommend applying online. According to the Montgomery County government website, you can return your ballot by mail, at a drop box, or in person at a satellite office.

Voters with an illness or disability who cannot pick up or drop off their mail-in ballot must fill out the Designated Agent form to allow someone else to handle it.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The race for the White House remained essentially a dead heat on Friday — with 11 days to go until Election Day.

Kamala Harris was headed to Texas to highlight abortion access and Donald Trump was set to appear on Joe Rogan’s highly-popular podcast.

More than 31 million have voted as of Friday morning

As of Friday morning, more than 31 million Americans had voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Of the total early votes numbering 31,402,309, in-person early votes accounted for 13,687,197 ballots and mail-in ballots numbered 17,715,831.

This means that more than 16 million people have voted since Monday.

-ABC News’ Emily Chang

Harris to hit Trump for not releasing medical records at Texas rally on abortion rights

Harris will go after Trump in her speech in Houston, Texas, on Friday night that will focus on reproductive rights.

“The Attorney General of Texas is suing the United States Government so that Texas prosecutors can get their hands on the private medical records of women who leave the state to get care,” Harris will say, according to released excerpts of her speech.

“So, see what is happening: Donald Trump won’t let anyone see his medical records. But these guys want to get their hands on yours? Simply put: They are out of their minds,” she will say.

The vice president will reiterate her campaign pledge to push Congress to pass a bill restoring Roe v. Wade if elected.

“We are fighting for an America where, no matter who you are, or where you live, you can make that decision based on what is right for you and your family,” Harris will say.

ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie

Harris rips Trump over his ‘garbage can’ comments

Speaking to reporters before her event later today in Houston, Harris said she wanted to address Trump’s comment that America has become a “garbage can” and “dumping ground” for migrants from around the world.

“You know, it’s just another example of how he really belittles our country,” Harris said. “This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash.”

“And I think, again, the president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are,” the vice president added.

Trump’s comments are the latest example of his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

-ABC News’ Will McDuffie

Walz says it’s time to ‘execute’ at fundraiser

In what could have been his final financial event of the campaign, Tim Walz, at a fundraiser in Pennsylvania, said it was now time to use all that money to focus on the ground game.

“Now it’s time to execute … Never in my lifetime, would I have believed that the choice would be so stark,” he said.

The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee entered the final three weeks of the election with a clear cash advantage over the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, latest FEC records show.

As of Oct. 16, the Harris campaign, the DNC and their joint fundraising committees reported having nearly $270 million in cash on hand compared to $202 million the Trump campaign, the RNC and their joint fundraising committees had in the bank, the new filings show.

The Trump campaign committee, in particular, had $36 million in the bank as of Oct. 16 compared to the Harris campaign committee having $119 million in cash on hand.

-ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Soorin Kim

Trump repeats threat to jail election officials

Trump on Friday reposted his earlier message promising, before any evidence of fraud, to prosecute and deliver long prison sentences for election workers and others who he deems to have cheated during November’s election.

“Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Election officials had called such a threat “dangerous” given the heightened threat environment.

“It makes me concerned that this will set other people off. I think the one thing that we’ve seen before is that words have consequences and meaning,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told ABC News last month.

“And while we are concerned, we are also prepared. Elections officials across the country have been working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to monitor and track threats, to make sure we’re keeping our voters safe and make sure we’re keeping our elections officials safe,” Fontes said.

Harris says she hasn’t voted yet but it’s on ‘priority list’

Harris, taking reporter questions on Friday, was asked if she’s cast her ballot yet.

Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, voted with his wife and son in Minnesota earlier this week.

Harris said she hasn’t voted but “it’s on my priority list for these next few days.”

Trump to call into Virginia rally after voter purge program halted
Trump is attempting to place doubt about voter rolls in Virginia after a judge ordered voters purged from election rolls as a result of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s directive to be reinstated.

A federal judge said on Friday Youngkin’s program violated the National Voting Rights Act of 1993.

“This is a totally unacceptable travesty, and Governor Youngkin is absolutely right to appeal this ILLEGAL ORDER, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hopefully fix it! Only U.S. Citizens should be allowed to vote. Keep fighting, Glenn – AND REPUBLICANS IN VIRGINIA, KEEP VOTING EARLY!” Trump posted on his social media platform.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump is set to rally with Youngkin on Saturday. Trump said he plans to call into the rally to highlight the issue.

“I will be calling in to Glenn’s Rally with Lara Trump tomorrow morning to talk about this crazy Ruling, and announce my final stop in Virginia before Election Day.”

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh

Pennsylvania county says it stopped thousands of voter registration fraud incidents

Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Board of Elections said that approximately 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration applications were dropped off at the election office in two batches around the deadline to register.

The deadline to register in the swing state was Oct. 21.

The board said “concerns were raised” during the normal review process and law enforcement was alerted.

Notably, the board says in its statement that the fraud was “identified and contained” and lauded this incident as one that shows that the election “system is secure.”

“Our system worked,” the board declared. “We will continue to operate with the highest levels of veracity, integrity, and transparency so that Lancaster County voters can be confident in our election.”

-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin

The Washington Post won’t endorse a presidential candidate

The Washington Post announced Friday it will not issue an endorsement in this year’s election — a first for the legacy newspaper in more than three decades.

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” publisher William Lewis wrote in a note explaining the decision.

The Post follows the Los Angeles Times in not backing a candidate.

Both newspapers had endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020 against Trump.

McConnell, Johnson rebuke Harris for calling Trump ‘fascist’

In a rare joint statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell strongly condemned Harris calling Trump a “fascist” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

The two Republican leaders say Harris’ remarks have “only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus. Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th century seem to dare it to boil over. The Vice President’s words more closely resemble those of President Trump’s second would-be assassin than her own earlier appeal to civility.”

McConnell and Johnson say they have been briefed on the “ongoing and persistent threats to former President Donald Trump.”

Harris quickly seized on John Kelly’s comments to The New York Times this week that he believed Trump fit the description of a fascist. Kelly served as Trump’s chief of staff and is a retired general.

Trump has claimed for months that Harris is a “fascist” or “communist” or “Marxist.”

-ABC News’ Lauren Peller

Virginia judge strikes down voter purge that impacted 1,600 people

A federal judge issued a partial ruling finding that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order to conduct a daily voter purge process violated the National Voting Rights Act of 1993.

A total of 1,600 voters removed from the rolls since August must be added back within the next five days.

The judge said the process left no room for individualized inquiry, which violated the act’s requirement that “when in the 90-day provisional, it must be done on an individualized basis.”

-ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson

Trump zeroes in on ‘blue wall’ states

Trump will embark on a rigorous schedule making his final pitch to voters. The former president is focusing on the “blue wall” states this weekend and early next week, specifically targeting Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

After stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump will culminate his weekend campaigning with a rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, in which the former president has coined as a “celebration of the whole thing” with his nine years of campaigning coming to close.

-ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa and Soorin Kim

Americans accused of noncitizen voter fraud face doxxing

Eliud Bonilla, a Brooklyn-born NASA engineer born to Puerto Rican parents, was abruptly purged from the voter rolls as a “noncitizen.”

Bonilla later voted without issue, but the nuisance soon became a nightmare after a conservative watchdog group published his personal information online after obtaining a list of the state’s suspected noncitizen voters.

“I became worried because of safety,” he told ABC News, “because, unfortunately, we’ve seen too many examples in this country when one person wants to right a perceived wrong and goes through with an act of violence.”

Bonilla’s story highlights a real-world impact of aggressive efforts to purge state voter rolls of thousands of potential noncitizens who have illegally registered. Many of the names end up being newly naturalized citizens, victims of an inadvertent paperwork mistake or the result of a clerical error, experts say. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Read more about Bonilla’s story and a fact check of noncitizen voting claims here.

Half of Americans see Trump as fascist, Harris viewed as pandering: POLL

A new poll from ABC News and Ipsos found half of Americans (49%) see Trump as a fascist, or “a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.”

A majority of voters (65%) also said Trump often says things that are not true.

But Harris also faces perception headwinds, though far fewer Americans (22%) said they viewed her as a fascist.

Fifty-seven percent of registered voters said Harris is making proposals “that just are intended to get people to vote for her,” not that she intends to carry out. Just more than half (52%) said the same about Trump.

Read more takeaways from the poll here.

Trump to appear on Joe Rogan podcast in play for young male voters

Former President Donald Trump sits down with podcast host Joe Rogan for the first time Friday, appearing on the highly popular “The Joe Rogan Experience,” as he reaches out to an audience of mostly young males as potential voters.

The podcast, which boasts approximately 15.7 million followers, a Spotify representative confirmed to ABC News, is greater than the population of any of the seven election battleground states.

Read more here

-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd and Emily Chang

Harris heads to Texas to highlight abortion access

Vice President Kamala Harris was headed to Houston Friday to speak on one of her top issues — reproductive freedom.

Her campaign says she chose Texas because of the state’s restrictive abortion law – which bans abortion in almost all circumstances.

Harris will be joined, her campaign says, by women who have suffered because of lack of abortion access and related medical care.

She will also be joined by celebrities, including Beyonce and Willie Nelson.

-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim

More than 31 million have voted as of Friday morning

As of Friday morning, more than 31 million Americans had voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Of the total early votes numbering 31,402,309, in-person early votes accounted for 13,687,197 ballots and mail-in ballots numbered 17,715,831.

This means that more than 16 million people have voted since Monday.

-ABC News’ Emily Chang

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ARIZONA) — Former President Donald Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric at a rally in battleground Arizona on Thursday, calling the United States a “garbage can for the world.”

“We’re a dumping ground. We’re like a — we’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what, that’s what’s happened to us. We’re like a garbage can,” Trump said at a rally in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday.

Trump made the comments as he criticized the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of the border, a key voter issue — especially in Arizona, a border state and swing state that President Joe Biden flipped to edge out Trump by 0.3 percentage points in 2020. Trump also made the comments with less than two weeks until Election Day — and as the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris duke it out in what’s expected to be a close contest.

The former president went on to claim that criminals and other bad figures are from all over the world are coming into the country unchecked.

“First time I’ve ever said ‘garbage can,'” Trump said. “But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”

Harris told reporters in Houston on Friday that Trump’s assertion that America is a “garbage can for the world” “belittles our country.”

“This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash,” Harris said. “And I think, again, the president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are.”

While the “garbage can” remarks may be a first for Trump to utter at a rally, it’s not the first time he has used anti-immigrant rhetoric — now a common element at his events. Since he began campaigning for president this cycle, Trump has said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and called them “criminals” who will “cut your throat.”

Earlier this year, Trump repeated false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating the dogs and cats of the town’s residents. Notably, Trump mentioned the baseless claims — which were amplified by right-wing politicians, including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance – on the presidential debate stage.

Earlier this month, the former president used anti-immigrant rhetoric during an interview on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” to disparage many of the legal Haitian migrants living in Springfield Ohio, referring to their temporary protective status as “a certain little trick.”

“Look at Springfield, where 30,000 illegal immigrants dropped, and it was, they may have done it through a certain little trick, but they are illegal immigrants as far as I’m concerned,” said Trump. “They’re destroying the town … they’ll end up destroying the state. We cannot let this happen.”

He has also called for the round up and deportation of millions of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.

Also in October, the former president suggested he believes that migrants have it “in their genes” to murder people, adding “we got a lot of bad genes in our country.”

“How about allowing people to come through an open border — 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” Trump said during an interview on the “Hugh Hewitt Show.”

Despite the fact that U.S. citizens commit crimes at higher rates than undocumented immigrants, Trump painted them as “criminals” who will “cut your throat” at a campaign stop in Wisconsin in September.

“And you remember when they say no, no, these are migrants and these migrants, they don’t commit crimes like us,” Trump said. “No, no, they make our criminals look like babies. These are stone-cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

Trump also featured anti-immigrant rhetoric in his 2016 White House bid — often casting them as rapists and drug traffickers.

ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.