Election 2024 updates: Trump campaign claims it was hacked by ‘foreign sources’
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, continue to travel to battleground states as Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance campaigns on behalf of himself and former President Donald Trump.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Harris cautions donors to ‘not take anything for granted’
Vice President Kamala Harris attended a fundraiser in San Francisco Sunday where she maintained her campaign “will win this election,” but cautioned donors to “not take anything for granted.”
“I know there’s a lot of enthusiasm out there,” Harris said, adding, “And you know, I’ve never been one to really believe in the polls — whether they’re up or they’re down.”
“What we know is the stakes are so high and we can take nothing for granted in this critical moment,” she continued. “So we will fuel our campaign as we have, with enthusiasm and optimism, but also with a deep commitment to the hard work it’s going to take, and to campaign.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi introduced Harris at the event, touting the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration and the background of vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, several times calling the Harris-Walz ticket “the freedom ticket.”
“[Harris] makes us all so proud. She brings us so much joy. She gives us so much hope,” Pelosi said, calling the vice president “politically very astute.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, an ally of Donald Trump, said the presidential race will be a close one and the former president will put in the work to win in November.
When pressed by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on whether or not Trump has to pivot his messaging to focus more on Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies, Cotton replied that Trump’s “campaign has known all along, and they’ve said all along that this race is going to be a close race,” though Trump himself has also predicted a wide margin of victory for himself.
“We know the race will probably come down to a few hundred thousand votes in a few states. President Trump has been campaigning hard and vigorously now for months. Obviously, that’s going to increase in its pace as we get closer to the election, and President Trump is going to draw a sharp contrast with Kamala Harris,” Cotton said.
Cotton’s remarks come as Republicans urge Trump to focus more on his messaging. While he has consistently noted voters’ frustrations on inflation and immigration, he has also thrown personal jabs that some in his party consider distractions, including saying he’s better looking than Harris.
The lack of messaging discipline comes as polling shows Harris significantly improving on President Joe Biden’s standing nationally and in key swing states. 538’s national polling average now shows Harris up by 3.6 points nationally.
Republicans are also frustrated by what they claim is a lack of policy transparency by Harris.
The vice president recently released details of her economic plan, including fighting price gouging and expanding assistance for new parents and first-time homebuyers. She has not said much else, aside from disavowing policies she proposed in 2020 like banning fracking.
“[S]he’s taking these efforts not to change her positions, but to hide her positions. Jon, the American people are totally justified to conclude that Kamala Harris is a dangerous San Francisco liberal based on what she campaigned on the last time she ran for president and what this administration has done the last four years,” Cotton said.
“If she has changed her position, she owes it to the American people to come out and say to her own words when she changed and why she changed,” he added.
Cotton also dismissed any momentum Harris could have coming out of the Democrats’ convention in Chicago, which included several Republican supporters who cast Trump as a threat to democracy.
“Well, in every election Jon, you have some members of one party endorsing the candidate of the other party. That’s a very traditional aspect of American politics,” Cotton said. “I mean, look at what just happened this week. The Democratic Party under Kamala Harris has gone so far to the left that you actually had a Kennedy endorse a Republican,” Cotton said, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent endorsement of Trump.
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a weekend letter to Congressional appropriators urging them to pass government funding bills after the election in the “vulnerable time around transitions” to “uphold the bipartisan tradition of funding our nation’s defense prior to the inauguration of a new president,” a source in the department told ABC News.
In his letter to bipartisan committee chairs on government funding, Austin urged lawmakers to avoid a six-month stopgap funding measure, calling a regular funding bill for the Pentagon “the single most important thing that Congress can do to ensure U.S. national security.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed the six-month continuing resolution to fund the government beyond the inauguration of a new president. The government funding deadline is September 30.
Austin’s letter does not signal opposition to a one-month stopgap – but he urges “action immediately after the election.”
“The repercussions of Congress failing to pass regular appropriations legislation for the first half of FY 2025 would be devastating to our readiness and ability to execute the National Defense Strategy,” Austin writes.
The defense secretary points out to Congressional leaders that a six-month continuing resolution “would represent the second year in a row, and the seventh time in the past 15 years” the Pentagon has been stalled until midyear in receiving its funding orders from the legislative branch.
“I am fully aware of the political pressures that will challenge the Congress from fulfilling its duty before our national elections conclude,” he writes. “No matter who wins this election, there will be a Presidential transition. I urge you and your colleagues to take up action immediately after the election to limit damage to our national security during this vulnerable period around transitions and uphold the bipartisan tradition of funding our nation’s defense prior to the inauguration of a new President.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — After former President Donald Trump said during Tuesday’s debate that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats will take people’s guns away, the vice president pushed back with a little-known fact about herself: She is a gun owner.
Harris briefly pivoted from a question on healthcare to respond to the attacks that Trump laid out during an earlier question.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away, [Gov.] .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,” she said.
Although Harris has not spoken about her gun-ownership status during the current campaign, she did bring it up five years ago while running for president — telling reporters in Iowa that she became a gun owner for personal safety issues when she was a prosecutor.
Her campaign told CNN at the time that the firearm, a handgun, was securely locked up.
Harris has supported several gun control measures including universal background checks and stricter penalties for drug trafficking.
Trump is also a gun owner, however, his permit will be revoked following his conviction in Manhattan.