Harris lauds Biden’s ‘unmatched’ legacy in 1st public appearance since Biden left 2024 race
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday made her first public appearance since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed her.
Harris gave remarks at an event celebrating the NCAA championship teams Monday morning on the South Lawn of the White House. She is filling in for Biden, who is recovering from COVID.
“I wanted to say a few words about our president. Joe Biden’s legacy of accomplishment over the past three years is unmatched in modern history,” Harris said at the top of her statement. “In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office.”
Harris didn’t specifically address her own candidacy, but said she was grateful for Biden’s service to the country.
“I am firsthand witness that every day our president, Joe Biden, fightsfor American people. And we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation,” she said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(PHILADELPHIA) — During the presidential debate Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump doubled down on the false claim that migrants from Haiti are stealing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said.
These baseless rumors have spread widely online in recent days — amplified by right-wing politicians, including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance — after a series of social media posts have gone viral claiming Haitian migrants were abducting people’s pets in order to eat them.
A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
“Additionally, there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes. Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic,” the spokesperson added.
According to the Springfield News-Sun, the Springfield Police Department has not received any reports of pets being stolen and eaten. The city even created a webpage debunking some of the claims.
Migrants have been drawn to the region because of low cost of living and work opportunities, the city says on its site. The city estimates there are around 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living in the county, and that the rapid rise in population has strained housing, health care, and school resources. But the city also says that the migrants are in the country legally and that many are recipients of Temporary Protected Status from the federal government.
The false claim that immigrants are targeting people’s pets stemmed from a social media posting originally from a Springfield Facebook group that went viral, where the poster wrote that their neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat. The poster went on to make an unsubstantiated claim of Haitians allegedly taking the cat for food.
The post was picked up by people on social media, including rightwing activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA and Elon Musk.
One of the most prominent images circulating online, which depicts a man holding a dead goose, was taken two months ago not in Springfield, but in Columbus, Ohio. The resident who took the photo told ABC News he was surprised to see his image used to “push false narratives.”
Prominent Republicans have boosted this falsehood on social media. An AI-generated image, which showed Trump holding cats and ducks, was shared by the House Judiciary GOP account on X.
Vance, in particular, has magnified the debunked claim.
In a post on X, Vance published a video of himself at a July Senate Banking Committee hearing, reading a letter from Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck about the city’s challenges in keeping up with housing for the growing Haitian immigrant population.
In the post, Vance pushed the false claim that Haitian immigrants are kidnapping and eating people’s pets in Springfield.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” Vance wrote on X. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he asked, a term that Republicans have attempted to tag Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris with, although she has denied holding that role.
(CHICAGO) — Former Michigan Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm praised the party’s energy at its national convention in Chicago as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to formally accept its presidential nomination.
“It is very high,” Granholm told ABC News about Democrats’ enthusiasm. “People will be exhausted if it stays this high all the way through. But honestly, for Democrats, it has to stay high. There is so much work to do if we can’t take anything for granted. These polls are starting to look good. It’s clear she’s got momentum, but this is not for time to let up on the accelerator.”
Still, Granholm said, it’s hard to take anything for granted.
Trump remains the leader of his own movement of loyal supporters, and polling in the past has consistently underestimated his support, including in 2016, when he overcame historical trends and his own stumbles to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who Democrats were virtually certain would prevail.
“Always concerned about overconfidence. You always have to run like her 10 points behind. Yes, she’s got momentum, but that does not mean you let up, you accelerate. Let’s keep going,” she said.
Still, Granholm said, Democrats are putting forth an inspiring candidate.
Harris would be a groundbreaking president as a woman of color. But, Democrats have argued, her appeal expands beyond that.
“I do think that it is emblematic of the diversity and coalition that the Democratic Party represents,” Granholm said. But her policies “are what really gets and bring people in, in addition to the more than symbolism of having a first in a woman person of color.”
Harris is set to blitz the campaign trail in the sprint to Election Day on Nov. 5, even making a pit stop in Milwaukee, Wis., on Tuesday night while the convention plays out in Chicago.
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D, said the energy at the Democratic National Convention is “very high.”
And, Granholm said, it would behoove Harris to have President Joe Biden tag along and allow him to talk about accomplishments that voters may not be aware of, including investments in infrastructure and science and technology.
“What he’s done is given her a foundation on which to build,” she said.
“He’s also somebody who has been focused on bipartisanship, so independents and others who may not be aware of what this president has done and be able to help get the word out, for some weirdo reason, people still seem to think that Republicans have a better agenda, when, in fact, for real people, the agenda that the Democrats are putting forward is so much better, he can be a great explainer for that,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican JD Vance is alleging Democrat Tim Walz is guilty of “stolen valor” — an explosive allegation that supporters of Walz say goes too far.
The allegation also has legal implications. It’s against federal law to lie about military service to try to defraud people.
While there’s no evidence that Walz is guilty of such a crime, there are questions about how Walz has talked about his service, including claims that he carried a gun “in war,” when he never saw active combat.
The Harris-Walz campaign issued a statement saying that “in his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”
Here’s what to know:
Walz retired from the Army National Guard as the crisis in Iraq was growing to run for political office.
By 2005, Tim Walz had logged 24 years with the Army National Guard and earned the rank of command sergeant major — the highest enlisted rank for his unit and one with considerable responsibility.
It was possible his unit would be sent to war, as Pentagon officials hoped the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq would protect the new coalition government and prevent a civil war.
Walz, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s war policies and father of a 4-year-old girl at the time, opted to file his retirement papers that May and run for public office instead.
Walz won, successfully flipping a Minnesota House seat from red to blue for the first time in years and becoming the highest-ranked enlisted veteran to serve in Congress.
According to records by the National Guard, the 1st Battalion of the 125th Field Artillery received an alert order on July 14, 2005, – two months after Walz retired. The mobilization order came in August and the unit mobilized in October.
Joseph Eustice, another retired command sergeant major who served with Walz, tells ABC News that while there was speculation of a deployment around that time there was no firm indication that Walz’s unit would be sent to Iraq until that July alert order.
Eustice says he remembers Walz struggling with the timing of wanting to serve as a lawmaker but also avoiding asking for a deferment so he could do so.
“He had a window of time. He had to decide. And in his deciding, we were not on notice to be deployed. There were rumors. There were lots of rumors, and we didn’t know where we were going until it was later that, early summer, I believe,” Eustice told ABC News.
Vance said Walz as a command sergeant major at the time shouldn’t have allowed his unit to deploy without him.
“I think it’s shameful to prepare [a] unit to go to Iraq to make a promise that you’re going to follow through and then to drop out right before you actually have to go. I also think it’s dishonest,” Vance said.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said his record as someone who enlisted at age 17 and spent more than two decades in the Army National Guard “speaks for itself.”
Walz served as command sergeant major but didn’t stay in that role long enough to keep it in retirement.
There’s no evidence Walz broke any rules by retiring when he did. After more than 20 years of service with the National Guard, a person can retire at any point, regardless of where they are in their contract, according to the National Guard.
Walz had joined the Nebraska National Guard at age 17, later transferring to the Minnesota National Guard, spending a total of 24 years in the service.
According to experts, Walz’s retirement would have to have been approved by his commander. Officials say retirement requests can be denied if a Guard unit is mobilized, though the ultimate decision is up to the unit commander.
What is noteworthy is that Walz still uses the rank of command sergeant major on his website.
Walz indeed achieved that rank in service in September 2004. But he would have had to serve in that particular role for three years to retire as one officially, according to the National Guard.
“After 24 years in the Army National Guard, Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005,” according to the governor’s website.
Walz said he carried a gun “in war,” but he also has acknowledged he was never in direct combat.
In a video clip tweeted out by the Harris campaign on Tuesday, Walz tells an audience that he carried guns “in war” while trying to make the case for restrictions on gun access.
“We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war,” Walz said.
Walz would have carried a gun during his service when the U.S. was at war following the 9/11 terror attacks, including a deployment to Italy in 2003 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
But there is no evidence that Walz was ever engaged in active combat, and he has acknowledged as much, according to a 2018 interview with Minnesota Public Radio.
“I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that,” Walz said. “I willingly say that I got far more out of the military than they got out of me, from the GI Bill to leadership opportunities to everything else.”
Still, Vance insists Walz’s comment about carrying a gun “in war” and not “during war” is tantamount to stolen valor.
“What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not,” he said.
Vance is a former Marine who served in Iraq but wrote in his memoir that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.”
“I served in a combat zone. I never said that I saw a firefight myself, but I’ve always told the truth about my Marine Corps service. That’s the difference,” Vance said Wednesday.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Alex Presha contributed to this report.