(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado defended Vice President Kamala Harris’ shifts on policy between her 2020 presidential campaign and her White House bid this year as Republicans seize on perceived discrepancies.
Polis, a Harris ally, told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that Harris’ shifts on issues like fracking, the border wall, health care and others are the sign of someone who can adapt as needed.
“I think it’s a sign of a good leader, that they learn and evolve over time,” Polis said. “Whether it’s a move to the middle, the left, the right, it’s really about what works. Kamala Harris is a pragmatic leader who looks at data and science and makes the best decisions she can.”
“Democrats are a broad tent party, and they have people who are conservative, they have people who are liberal,” he added when asked if Democrats running for president in 2020 had veered too far to the left. “What Kamala Harris has said, and I take her at her word, is she’s going to be a leader for all Americans, a president for all Americans. And that means, regardless of your ideology, there’s going to be a place for your viewpoints.”
Republicans have seized on what they cast as flip-flops on a range of issues from her 2020 campaign, when progressive fervor gripped the Democratic Party.
During an interview with CNN on Thursday — her first in-depth interview since accepting the Democratic nominee, Harris insisted that her values hadn’t changed — an argument Polis echoed on Sunday.
When pressed on Harris’ past support for “Medicare for All” — a proposal she no longer supports — the Coloradan said the vice president is still invested in making health care more affordable.
“As a basic value, should every American have access to health care? Absolutely. Almost every other wealthy country does that. We do it very poorly,” he said. “I think she understands that Americans want to have their choice of health care, but can we do better and save people money on health care? Absolutely.”
Harris in 2019 also lambasted the border wall proposed by then-President Donald Trump, calling it at the time a “medieval vanity project” and that she would not support funds for it. Now, she is touting support for a bipartisan border security bill that Republicans blocked from advancing at Trump’s direction, which included roughly $650 million for border wall construction — shy of the $18 billion Trump sought in 2018.
Polis said Harris was right to cast Trump’s border wall proposal as ineffective and a waste of taxpayer money, but that walls and other barriers in certain places along the border could prove effective.
“That’s true that the border wall that Donald Trump has proposed is a huge boondoggle and waste of taxpayer money. He effectively talked about a wall across the entire border, rather than using barriers of different kinds effectively in a cost-effective manner, including imagery from satellites, including on-the-ground intel to secure and lock down the border. What Kamala Harris is for is securing it in the most cost-effective way possible,” Polis said.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he is “heartbroken, devastated, mad” over the six hostages whose bodies were recovered Saturday in Gaza.
The hostages, which included 23-year-old Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, “were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said. IDF officials identified the additional five hostages as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt. Ori Danino.
“If you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran. Iran is the great Satan. Hamas is the junior partner. They’re barbaric, religious Nazis — Hamas, they could care less about the Palestinian people,” Graham told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl during an interview on Sunday. “I would urge the Biden administration and Israel to hold Iran accountable for the fate of [the] remaining hostages and put on the target list oil refineries in Iran if the hostages are not released.”
Graham urged President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “tell the Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei] what he values is on the target list. Until that happens, nobody is coming home.”
Graham, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, also criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not attending Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in July, saying: “She boycotted Bibi’s speech to Congress, sending a signal to Hamas and Iran that America does not really have Israel’s back.”
At the time, a Harris aide insisted to ABC News that the vice president did not preside because of a scheduling conflict, not to boycott or snub the Israeli prime minister. When pressed by Karl on Sunday that Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance also decided to not attend the address, Graham defended the Ohio senator, saying: “JD has been unequivocally supporting Israel. She [Harris] has been horrible. She is slow-walking weapons. She did not attend the speech, and that juiced up every terrorist in the region.”
“I would say on foreign policy, she [Harris] has been a wrecking ball,” Graham said.
Graham said Trump should highlight her failure on foreign policy and her role with the southern U.S. border at the ABC News presidential debate scheduled for Sept. 10.
While he acknowledged Harris “obviously has some talent” given her political experience, Graham said overall “her job performance has been lousy” as vice president. He urged Trump to focus on issues in a head-to-head race, saying: “Every poll says the same thing. The American people trust you with what matters the most to them — the economy, inflation, border security and just managing the government.”
“If I were you, my friend, I would focus on those issues laser-like and you will win this race,” he added.
Trump last week added a new campaign pledge to get IVF paid for by the government or covered by insurance. When asked Sunday about Trump’s IVF announcement, Graham told Karl: “I think he [Trump] just tried to show his support for IVF treatments that, you know, we’ve been accused, the party has, of being against birth control. We are not. We’ve been accused of being against IVF treatments. We’re not.”
Graham said he’d support a tax credit for Americans using IVF and other treatments to become pregnant.
“I would support a tax credit,” Graham said. “That makes sense to me, to encourage people to have children.”
However, when pressed by Karl, the South Carolina senator said he does not support mandating insurance companies to cover what Trump proposed regarding IVF.
“You wouldn’t support this idea of mandating insurance companies to cover this, would you?” Karl asked.
“No. No, I wouldn’t because there’s no end to that,” he said. “I think a tax credit for children makes sense, means tested. … I’ll talk to my Democratic colleagues. We might be able to find common ground here.”
The presidential debate set to be held by ABC News will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 10 and will be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis. It will be produced in conjunction with ABC station WPVI-TV/6abc, 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.
(NEW YORK) — In a new report released as students return to campus, a Columbia University antisemitism task force has found the school failed to stop hate on campus and has not treated Jewish student concerns “with the standards of civility, respect, and fairness it promises,” calling the problem “serious” and “pervasive.”
Additionally, the task force of faculty members at the New York City school recommends a new definition of anti-Jewish hate, concluding, in part, that “celebrating violence against Jews or Israelis and discriminating against them based on their ties to Israel” constitutes antisemitism.
It comes as House Republicans in Washington have requested Columbia and other colleges and universities provide detailed plans on how they will deal with pro-Palestinian demonstrations that the GOP lawmakers say caused “antisemitic chaos” and disrupted the previous academic year.
Unrest broke out this past spring at Columbia and schools across the country, with students setting up encampments and clashing with police, disrupting classes and graduations as they protested against Israel’s invasion of Gaza after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The Columbia task force said it heard testimonials from hundreds of Jewish and other students.
“These student stories are heartbreaking, and make clear that the University has an obligation to act,” its report said.
The task force said many Jewish and Israeli students “were on the receiving end of ethnic slurs, stereotypes about supposedly dangerous Israeli veterans, antisemitic tropes about Jewish wealth and hidden power, threats and physical assaults, exclusion of Zionists from student groups, and inconsistent standards. We propose this definition for use in training and education, not for discipline or as a means for limiting free speech or academic freedom.”
The report continued, “Specifically, we recommend anti-bias and inclusion trainings for students, resident advisers, resident assistants, teaching assistants, student-facing staff, and faculty. In a community dedicated to freedom of speech and pluralism, we must prepare students with different views and backgrounds to engage with each other. We must encourage mutual respect, tolerance, civility, and an open learning environment.”
In an Aug. 23 memo to students obtained by ABC News, interim President Katrina Armstrong said the school recently established an Office of Institutional Equity to redouble its commitment to addressing discrimination and harassment on campus, including alleged Title VI violations. The office will streamline any violations to ensure they’re handled fairly, according to Armstrong.
“Redoubling our commitment to addressing discrimination and harassment and the toll they take will be essential going forward,” Armstrong wrote, adding, “Effectively managing protests and demonstrations allows us to advance our educational and research missions while enabling free speech and debate.”
The letters from the Republican chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Education and the Workforce Committee ask “what policies, procedures, and concrete measures your University will be implementing to prevent a reoccurrence of the anti-Semitic chaos that swept across America’s campuses last school year.”
“These disruptions are likely to return to campuses this fall and you [the schools’ leadership] must be prepared to act,” Reps. Jason Smith and Virginia Foxx, respectively, wrote to 10 universities, asking for responses by Sept. 5.
Columbia student Eden Yadegar was a guest of Foxx during Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July and spoke at a roundtable on Capitol Hill in February, detailing how she said she was followed around campus by protesters brandishing sticks.
“At this point ignoring Jewish students is a characteristic of the administration not just a transient issue,” Yadegar told ABC News after the task force report was released. “And if they won’t even listen to us, I don’t see how they plan on fixing the issues directly affecting us every single day.”
The latest such disruptions include a pro-Palestinian organization at the University of Michigan, which held a ‘die-in’ demonstration on campus this week, according to the Michigan Daily.
Michigan President Santa Ono sat down for a transcribed interview before Foxx’s committee earlier this month. The university’s student government was shut down by pro-Palestine activists at the start of the new school year, according to the report.
In Ono’s welcome message to the Michigan community, he said protest is embraced and celebrated at the school so long as it doesn’t endanger or disrupt the operations of the university.
Other schools, including the University of Central Florida (UCF), will vote on how to tighten protest restrictions later in September, according to a UCF notice of proposed regulation amendment. The university didn’t see massive protest encampments last school year but there were noticeable demonstrations at its graduation ceremonies.
The House Republican letters to schools come amid a congressional probe the GOP says is aimed at rooting out antisemitism on college campuses, a drive now led by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
This spring, Johnson broadened the jurisdiction of six Republican-led committees by sending letters to the 10 schools that the Ways and Means and Education committees were already investigating. Smith and Foxx’s investigations include elite institutions such as MIT and Harvard as well as Columbia. An MIT spokesperson said the school is reviewing the request.
In contrast, the former chairman of the Education committee, Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, sent an open letter to colleges in his southeastern Virginia congressional district on Friday. He told ABC News that his letter was meant to notify schools of the resources available to them through the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
“Campuses should be prepared for whatever might happen to make sure they’re not in violation of constitutional rights for freedom of speech or Title VI,” Scott said.
“It is a violation of Title VI to allow a hostile racial or ethnic environment. You also have to have freedom of speech, and sometimes these are in conflict,” he said, adding, “There are resources available at the Department of Education to help people balance these.”
Scott has criticized the GOP investigations into antisemitism on college campuses because he said Republicans don’t raise the same concerns about Islamophobia.
“The only way you can effectively deal with antisemitism is to address all forms of hate and discrimination, and we [the committee] have aggressively ignored everything else,” Scott told ABC News.
In December, House Republican Conference Chair and Education Committee member Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., pressed the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT at a hearing on alleged antisemitic conduct at their institutions. Stefanik called their testimony “morally bankrupt” and demanded their resignations. Harvard President Claudine Gay and Penn President Liz Magill resigned not long afterward.
Earlier this year, the Education committee sent subpoenas to Harvard for failing to produce “priority documents” related to the monthslong congressional antisemitism probe.
In August, after Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned, Foxx subpoenaed Columbia for failing to turn over “necessary” documents to her committee.
Shafik wrote in her resignation announcement that her stepping down would allow Columbia to better deal with future challenges.
“Even as tension, division, and politicization have disrupted our campus over the last year, our core mission and values endure and will continue to guide us in meeting the challenges ahead,” she wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House is expected to keep in place its restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons deep inside Russia, despite pressure from a delegation of Ukrainian officials that arrived in Washington on Thursday, a U.S. official said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister, Rustem Umerov, and Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, arrived with a list of Russian targets that Kyiv believes it could strike using U.S. weapons if given permission, according to several officials.
According to a Ukrainian official, the officials will argue that such strikes could be effective in altering the course of the conflict, which is now in its third year.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss ongoing private talks between the two countries.
The Biden administration has already eased some restrictions on the use of U.S. arms, allowing Ukraine to launch limited defensive strikes against Russian forces across its border.
Among Ukraine’s most coveted items is a long-range missile system — the Army Tactical Missile System, or “ATACMS,” which the Biden administration has delivered. And this spring, after months of pressure by the Ukrainians, the U.S. shipped a longer-range version that could strike as far as 190 miles, enabling it to hit targets inside Russian-occupied Crimea.
But while the U.S. has made its support for Ukraine clear, it’s also sought to avoid deep strikes inside the Russia homeland, seeing such a move as a major provocation with both U.S. and NATO trying to avoid direct conflict with Moscow.
According to a U.S. official familiar with the latest round of discussions, the reluctance by the White House to relax its rules on the use of ATACMs to hit far-flung targets inside Russia is due in part to the limited number of them.
The system is successfully being used in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. And pulling those systems to focus on other targets wouldn’t likely be useful, the official said.
Another question for Washington would be whether loosening restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons would make much of a difference.
Recent intelligence suggests Russia is believed to have relocated more than 90 percent of its aircraft out of range of the system, according to the U.S. official.
“There’s not a silver bullet to win the war,” the official said. And a change in policy “means Ukraine would have to choose between striking in the Donbas in Crimea or inside Russia with limited resources.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky has long advocated for more weapons from the West with no restrictions. At an Aug. 24 press conference in Kyiv, he said he plans on attending the United Nations General Assembly in September where he’ll present the U.S. and other world powers a path to victory in the war.
“We need no less determination from our partners in these matters. Each of our friends who can persuade our allies to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons can truly help bring our shared victory closer,” he said.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a town hall meeting at La Crosse Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on August 29, 2024. — Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
(LA CROSSE, Wis.) — Former President Donald Trump introduced a new campaign platform on Thursday aimed at helping Americans with the cost of IVF.
At a town hall moderated by his supporter, one-time Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Trump said he and his team have been exploring ways to help those wanting in vitro fertilization.
“I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization … the government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get — we’ll mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that,” he told Gabbard.
“We want to produce babies in this country, right?” he added.
Trump first spoke about the idea of government-funded or insurance-covered fertility treatments earlier in the day during a campaign stop in the battleground state of Michigan.
When asked by NBC News if it would be the government or insurance companies paying for IVF, the network reported that Trump said it would be the latter, “under a mandate.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s camp on Thursday night walked back comments the former president made earlier in the day suggesting he did not support Florida’s now-implemented six-week ban on abortions.
“I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time and I told them I want more weeks,” Trump told NBC.
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he added, noting that he believes abortion should be a states’ issue, something he’s said before.
Later, though, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to clarify the candidate’s remarks.
“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Susan B. Anthony, Pro-Life America, President Marjorie Dannenfelser also released a statement Thursday night saying she had spoken to the president, and he told her he hasn’t “committed” to how he’ll vote on Florida’s Amendment 4. The amendment, if passed, would insert language into the state’s constitution that abortions determined medically necessary by a patient’s healthcare provider would be permitted.
“He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position,” her statement read.
(NEW YORK) — Most Americans say they and Kamala Harris alike are prepared to accept the outcome of the 2024 presidential election as legitimate. Donald Trump, not so much.
Eighty-one percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll say that regardless of which candidate they support, they are prepared to accept the outcome of the election. Fewer, but still 68%, see Harris as prepared to accept the outcome. Just 29% say the same about Trump.
Nearly all of Harris’ supporters, 92%, say they personally are prepared to accept the outcome. That declines to 76% of Trump’s supporters. Instead, 21% of his supporters — which translates to 8% of all adults — are not prepared to do so.
Other, sharper political divisions inform views in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos. Just 6% of Harris’ supporters think Trump is prepared to accept the election outcome, rising to a still-mild 58% among his own supporters. Ninety-seven percent of Harris’ supporters think she is prepared to accept the outcome; among Trump’s supporters, only 44% think the same.
Trump’s election denial claims resonate with some Americans.
One in three (34%) lacks confidence that votes in the election will be counted accurately, similar to the share who said so in 2022. Sixty-five percent are very or somewhat confident in an accurate count; just half of them, 32%, are very confident.
Moreover, an identical 34% think Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, little changed since his inauguration.
These views are strongly related: Nearly nine in 10 Americans who think Biden legitimately was elected are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, dropping to 26% of those who think it wasn’t legitimate.
Views on election integrity also are associated with preparedness to accept the outcome. Among people who are confident that votes will be counted accurately, 92% say they are prepared to accept the outcome, versus 61% of those who lack confidence in the count. And 91% of those who think Biden was legitimately elected are prepared to accept this year’s outcome, versus 64% of those who think not.
Groups
There are wide gaps by partisanship in confidence in the vote count, with half of Republicans (51%) lacking confidence it will be accurate. Ninety percent of Democrats express confidence in the count, dropping to 64% of independents and just 48% of Republicans.
In a similar pattern, 96% of Democrats think Biden was legitimately elected; 66% of independents and just 30% of Republicans agree.
That said, partisan divisions in personal preparedness to accept the outcome this year are much milder. About eight in 10 Republicans (78%) and independents (81%) alike say they’ll accept it, as do 89% of Democrats.
Ideology is another factor: At least eight in 10 people who are liberal, moderate or somewhat conservative are prepared to accept the outcome, dropping to 64% among those who identify themselves as very conservative.
Just 38% of very conservatives are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, rising to 50% of somewhat conservatives, 68% of moderates and 89% of liberals. And only 21% of very conservatives think Biden legitimately won in 2020; this doubles to 42% of somewhat conservatives, then jumps to 70% of moderates and 92% of liberals.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® Aug. 23-27, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,496 adults. Partisan divisions are 29-29-30%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.
(WASHINGTON) — The Arlington National Cemetery staffer who tried to stop the Trump campaign from filming a video among the graves of recently fallen service members has declined to press charges, according to a statement released Thursday by the Army that said the “employee and her professionalism was unfairly attacked.”
The updated statement also defended the actions of the employee, who the military has opted not to name publicly due to privacy and safety concerns.
“This employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption,” according to the statement.
The Army said the incident was reported to Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia, which has jurisdiction over the cemetery, “but the employee subsequently decided not to press charges. Therefore, the Army considers this matter closed.”
“This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked,” the Army continued. “ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.”
Trump campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, has said his team was given permission to have an official photographer and videographer outside the main press pool.
According to the Army statement, public wreath laying ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are routinely allowed. However, it said participants from Trump’s campaign were told in advance there should be no photography or video taken in “Section 60,” where recently fallen service members are buried.
Federal law prohibits campaigns from using the military cemetery for political campaigning or election-related activities.
Virginia Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly has called for the public release of the police report with the names redacted.
“The public has a right to know. It must be released protecting the staffers’ identities,” he said.
In response to the Army statement, Cheung said, “This employee was the one who initiated physical and verbal contact that was unwarranted and unnecessary.”
ABC News’ Soorin Kim. Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With 70 days before Election Day as of Tuesday, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump get back to campaigning with Harris in Georgia on Wednesday and Trump in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, campaigned in Michigan while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz picks up the trail on Wednesday in Boston.
Here’s how the news is developing…
Harris continues Georgia bus tour, Walz heads to North Carolina
Harris is continuing her tour with two stops at local businesses in Chatham County in Georgia. She will be joined by Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams.
Later Thursday, Harris will deliver remarks at a rally in Savannah.
Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, will head to North Carolina for a “local political event” and a campaign reception.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris, Walz make campaign stop at Georgia high school
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz stopped by Liberty County High School in Georgia as part of their bus tour and were greeted by the school’s principal and superintendent and met with the school marching band during rehearsal.
Harris and Walz delivered brief remarks to band members, football players and faculty. After welcoming the class to the “role model club,” Harris told the class that as “leaders” the nation is “counting” on them.
“You are showing what hard work can achieve, what discipline, what teamwork. And that’s the stuff of greatness,” she said.
She continued with a music metaphor that encouraged them to keep up their hard work.
“I will tell you I was in band when I was your age,” she said. “And all that you all are doing, it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice, long hours, right? Sometimes you hit the note, sometimes you don’t, right? All that practice makes for beautiful music.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris spokesman defends joint interview
A spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign defended Wednesday the decision to make the vice president’s first televised interview as the Democratic presidential nominee a joint interview with her running mate Gov. Tim Walz.
Ian Sams responded on X to a post by journalist Mark Knoller who questioned if CNN should have “insisted on a one-on-one interview,” by saying that “The joint ticket interview is an election year summer tradition going back 20 years.”
“Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan, Trump/Pence, Clinton/Kaine, Biden/Harris all did them. Almost always right around the conventions. Harris/Walz join this rich tradition on CNN tomorrow,” he said.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Garrow
Vance claims he doesn’t need to prepare for a debate
Vance told reporters he’s preparing for the October vice presidential debate by talking to people on the campaign trail, contending he doesn’t need other preparation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“Look, the way I’m doing debate prep is by spending time with these fine people. This is how I do debate prep is to get out there. You get out there, you talk to people, you talk about the issues that matter,” Vance said.
“We don’t need to prepare for a debate with Tim Walz. We need to get out there and talk. We need to get out there. Look, we need to get out there and talk to the American people. That’s the biggest way that we’re going to prepare for that debate on October the first,” he added.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim and Hannah Demissie
Vance says Harris ‘can go to hell’ for criticizing Trump for Arlington Cemetery visit
Sen. JD Vance continued to defend Trump’s visit to Arlington Cemetery during a campaign event Wednesday in Erie, Pennsylvania, and went on the attack against Harris, blaming her for the deaths of 13 soldiers three years ago.
“Look, sometimes mistakes happen. That’s just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful,” Vance said.
“We’re gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can, go to hell,” he continued.
The federal government conducted a probe into the final days of the war and American withdrawal and the Pentagon’s Central Command concluded in 2022 that the attack was not preventable despite others’ assertions that it was preventable.
The Pentagon has conducted multiple rounds of reviews, including the latest review published in April that reaffirmed the initial investigation’s findings that the attack was not preventable.
Congress has also scrutinized the attack and heard from many military leaders, including former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who told lawmakers last year that he was thwarted in an attempt to stop the suicide bombing.
Harris, who was campaigning in Georgia Wednesday, did not bring up “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery. Harris-Walz communications director Michael Tyler told CNN on Wednesday that the “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery with former President Trump was “pretty sad,” but what “we’ve come to expect” from the former president.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim, Cindy Smith and Hannah Demissie
Biden to travel to Wisconsin next week to tout economy
President Joe Biden will travel to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Sept. 5 to highlight his economic agenda, according to the White House.
Exact details of the trip, including the locations in the state, weren’t immediately revealed.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Walz promises to fight for labor freedoms at International Association of Fire Fighters
Gov. Tim Walz addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) convention on Wednesday in Boston, making the case that the Democratic ticket was the one that would fight for their freedoms, including labor protections.
“People tell me, look, I’m really not that into politics. My response to that is, too damn bad — politics is into you,” Walz said to what he acknowledged as a bipartisan audience.
Walz said that Harris “is proudly part of the most pro-labor administration in history,” and that when they “win this election, we’ll have your back like you’ve had ours.”
“We believe that you, not politicians, should be made free to make your own health care choices,” Walz concluded. “We believe that workers deserve to collectively bargain for fair wages and safe working conditions.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
JD Vance responds to new special counsel indictment
Sen. JD Vance, asked by ABC News on the tarmac in Nashville about the superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case, framed the special counsel’s actions as an effort to influence the election.
“I haven’t read the whole thing, but it looks like Jack Smith doing more of what he does, which is filing these absurd lawsuits in an effort to influence the election,” the GOP vice presidential candidate said.
The new indictment adjusts the charges to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Vance pushed back against the Harris-Walz campaign’s assertion that the Supreme Court ruling goes too far and grants the former president too much immunity, arguing that the president needs some immunity in order to do the job.
“If the president doesn’t have some level of immunity in how he conducts his office, in the same way that judges have to have immunity, police officers have to have immunity. There has to be some recognition that people can’t be sued for doing their job,” Vance said.
Tulsi Gabbard, former US Representative from Hawaii, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, US,Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Tulsi Gabbard, who once ran for president as a Democrat, is taking on a prominent role as part of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign team.
On Thursday, she will moderate what Trump’s campaign is calling a “town hall” with him when he visits La Crosse in battleground Wisconsin.
Gabbard publicly endorsed Trump on stage in Michigan earlier this week, and joined his presidential transition team along with fellow former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,” Gabbard said. “This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can, once again, serve us as our commander in chief.”
Trump called Gabbard an “amazing person” and that he looked forward to working with her.
Gabbard, a military veteran who represented Hawaii in Congress for eight years, has also been aiding Trump as he prepares for his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10. Gabbard debated Harris and President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, and made headlines at the time for taking aim at Harris’ record as a prosecutor.
Since leaving the Democratic Party in 2022 to register as an independent, Gabbard’s adopted several views that align with those held by Trump and his Republican allies.
That includes opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders; criticism of the criminal indictments against Trump; and statements railing against the so-called deep state and “woke” ideologies of the Democratic Party.
Gabbard, an anti-interventionist when it comes to foreign policy, has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of stoking tensions around the globe — describing Democrats as a “cabal of warmongers” when she became an independent.
“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote of the Russia-Ukraine war on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022.
She also shared false information alleging U.S. involvement in Ukraine biological weapons laboratories. Her comments received pushback from the likes of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican, who described her comments as “treasonous lies” that were “parroting false Russian propaganda.”
The State Department, around the time such claims were being spread, said the Kremlin was intentionally proliferating “outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine.”
The year Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard made multiple appearances on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox to discuss the conflict, clips of which were aired on Russian-state media.
After leaving the Democratic Party, she campaigned for election-deniers in the 2022 midterm cycle, including Arizona’s Kari Lake and New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc — both of whom were defeated.
During an event for Bolduc, she compared President Biden (who she endorsed in the 2020 primary after bowing out of the race) to Adolf Hitler.
In 2023 comments to Fox’s Jesse Watters, Gabbard continued to make comparisons to Hitler as she said Biden and the party’s focus on diversity was similar to the “geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler.”
More recently, she’s accused Biden of weaponizing law enforcement to go after his political opponent after Trump was indicted on federal charges stemming from his handling of classified material and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) earlier this year, she suggested, like many Republicans have, that the criminal charges against Trump were an effort to interfere in the 2024 election.
“The Democrat elite and their cronies are using our criminal justice system to prosecute and distract the Republican presidential candidate in the midst of his campaign,” she said.
After Biden dropped out of the race, Gabbard turned her focus toward Harris — though asserted a larger “deep state” was at work in the federal government.
“Biden’s out, Kamala is in. Don’t be fooled: policies won’t change. Just like Biden wasn’t the one calling the shots, Kamala Harris won’t be either. She is the new figurehead for the deep state and the maidservant of Hillary Clinton, queen of the cabal of warmongers. They will continue their efforts to engulf the world in war and taking away our liberty,” Gabbard claimed on X.
Kamala Harris,Douglas Emhoff, Tim Walz and Gwen Walz pose on on Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 22, 2024 in Chicago. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Coming off of a brief respite from the campaign trail after a star-studded week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz are heading to Georgia for a two-day bus tour that ends with Harris holding a solo rally in Savannah on Thursday.
The tour marks the first time the two campaigns will be in the crucial swing state together, with a planned stop for their first sit-down interview since Harris ascended to the top of the ticket with CNN’s chief political correspondent and anchor Dana Bash on Thursday.
The tour’s first stop was at Liberty County High School, where Harris, Walz U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams and state Rep. Al Williams were greeted by the school’s principal and superintendent, before listening in on the school marching band’s practice. In remarks to the band and football players, Harris told them that they were leaders that the country is counting on.
“We wanted to come up just to let you know that our country is counting on you. We’re so proud of you,” she said. “You are showing what hard work can achieve.”
Walz, a former teacher and football coach, told the students that education is a path to the middle class.
“Education is the key to the middle class,” he said. “The pathway to the middle class shouldn’t be burdened with debt given the opportunity to get there. This is truly about building towards the future, and you’re that future.”
The pair later stopped at Sandfly BBQ in Savannah, where Walz chatted with a group of teachers, telling them their job is “noble work.”
Although there is no notable post-convention polling that has been released to date, the campaign saw a bump in donations of $82 million during the week of the DNC, bringing the total haul since launching her candidacy last month to $540 million, her campaign said.
Hoping to build on that momentum, Harris and Walz are scheduled to travel through Georgia’s southeast where they will meet with supporters, small business owners and Georgia voters, according to the campaign. It will be their second bus tour after they previously went on a bus tour through western Pennsylvania before the DNC.
The Harris campaign is looking to sway voters in battleground Georgia — a state President Joe Biden only narrowly won in 2020, beating former President Donald Trump by about 12,000 votes.
Currently, Harris is neck-and-neck with Trump in the polls in the state, according to 538’s average. Trump barely leads in Georgia with 46.6% compared to Harris’ 46%, 538’s polling average shows.
“Campaigning in southern Georgia is critical as it represents a diverse coalition of voters, including rural, suburban, and urban Georgians — with a large proportion of Black voters and working class families,” said Harris-Walz Georgia state director Porsha White in a memo.
This is all in addition to their 35,000 new volunteers, as well as more than 190 Democratic campaign staffers in 24 coordinated offices across the state, officials said.
Through extensive “Get Out the Vote” organizing efforts, Black voters were a huge contributing factor to Biden’s win in a state that former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had all but skipped during their presidential runs.
Harris’ tour is a testament that the campaign still feels like Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are in play.
“We turned Georgia blue for the first time in three decades in 2020, and we’re seizing on the energy and putting in the work to win again in 2024,” White said in the memo.
A Harris spokeswoman told ABC News said that the vice president will make two stops at local small businesses in South Georgia on Thursday, then thank volunteers in Chatham County, before rallying in Savannah late in the afternoon.
Walz, meanwhile, will travel to North Carolina for a “local political event” and a campaign reception.
Following CNN’s interview, Walz will head to Massachusetts for a solo rally on Thursday. Voters will see Harris, Walz and their spouses — second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, respectively — on the trail again for a Labor Day blitz across several battleground states prior to ABC News’ debate on Sept. 10.
