Obama to champion Harris as country’s future in DNC speech: Source
(CHICAGO) — Former President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated speech at the Democratic National Convention stage on Tuesday night is expected to be a full-circle moment between him and Vice President Kamala Harris as he plans to champion her experience and make the case that she is the best person for the job.
Over the last few months, Barack and former first lady Michelle Obama have been in close contact with the vice president and supported her campaign in any way they are able, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
In Tuesday’s address, Obama will affirm why Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are the leaders the country needs right now, a source familiar with the speech told ABC News. He will lay out the task in front of Democrats over the next eleven weeks, and bring into focus the values at stake in this election and at the heart of our politics, according to the source.
The speech is expected to touch on Harris and Obama’s 20 years of friendship and political camaraderie with Harris. The two met at a fundraiser back when Obama was vying for the Illinois seat in the Senate and Harris was the San Francisco district attorney.
When then-Sen. Obama was running for president in 2008, Harris was one of his early supporters in that year’s Democratic primary. In fact, she was on the ground in Iowa in December 2007 knocking on doors to advocate on Obama’s behalf to caucus voters.
Harris talked about her dedication to Obama’s campaign at a 2019 presidential campaign event, recalling a moment when a caucus voter told her “They’re not gonna let him win.”
“And I stepped back in my mind and I looked at what I was looking at,” she said at a 2019 Des Moines event. “Which over the course of at least 85 years, all the indignities, all the injustices, that she has experienced and witnessed, and at that age of life, she wasn’t about to go through experiencing another disappointment or indignity. And so, me being me, I decided well I am not leaving here.”
Harris recalled talking with the voter longer and eventually saw her at the polls the next day.
“So, we know that when we don’t sit back and wait for somebody else to give us permission to tell us what is possible, we make what is possible, possible. We make it happen,” she said.
Obama endorsed Harris in 2010 when she ran for California attorney general and appeared at a rally in Los Angeles where he called her “a dear, dear friend.”
“I want everybody to do right by her,” he told the crowd.
Harris would speak at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and continued to make her case for Obama.
“President Obama stood with me and 48 other attorneys general in taking on the banks and winning $25 billion for struggling homeowners. That’s leadership,” she said. “That’s what President Obama did. And that’s why we need to give him another four years”
In 2013, Obama spoke highly of Harris at a fundraiser in California, but his comments got him in hot water at the time.
“She is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country,” he said.
The comment on Harris’ looks sparked a backlash for being sexist and inappropriate, and he apologized the next day.
Obama would continue to support Harris as she ran for U.S. Senate in 2016 and later Joe Biden’s running mate on the 2020 presidential ticket.
The former president and former first lady have been in regular touch with Harris over the years, providing counsel and being a sounding board, too, a source familiar with the Obamas told ABC News.
On July 26, five days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, the Obamas officially endorsed Harris.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday delivered his latest campaign trail remarks protected by bulletproof glass and multiple visible counter snipers on top of nearby buildings – his first outdoor campaign event not at his properties since a gunman attempted his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month.
It was his third counterprogramming event of the week against the Democratic National Convention, continuing with the series of events in battleground states focused on key election issues this year.
In Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump focused on national security, attacking the Biden-Harris administration on ongoing foreign conflicts, the Afghanistan withdrawal, American hostage deals and other issues.
Contrary to his intimate and small counterprogramming events in Pennsylvania and Michigan earlier this week, this was his biggest campaign event so far this week. Trump – with the American flag in the backdrop just like in Butler – speaking in an open field in front of thousands of supporters, including some who told ABC News they were at the Butler rally and said the set up in Asheboro reminded them of the Butler rally.
As ABC News previously reported, the U.S. Secret Service has ordered multiple sets of bulletproof glass panels to be stored around the country so it can be trucked to wherever it’s needed, sources said. While the measure is typically reserved exclusively for sitting presidents, the Secret Service has made an exception following the attempt on Trump’s life.
The Secret Service had recommended that Trump stop holding outdoor rallies last month after a gunman in Butler fired at him from a rooftop 400 feet from the stage, nicking his ear and killing a spectator in the crowd.
Since July 13, Trump has held nearly a dozen campaign events, all of them indoors.
Claiming the United States was respected during his administration, Trump repeatedly painted a grim picture of a possible Kamala Harris presidency, saying, “If Comrade Kamala wins this November, World War three is virtually guaranteed to happen. Everything she touches, she destroys.”
Escalating his attacks on the sitting vice president, Trump began to directly blame Harris for the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, even falsely claiming that Harris met with Russian President Vladimir Putin days before the Russia-Ukraine war broke out.
“Remember when Biden sent Kamala to Europe to stop the war in Ukraine? She met with Putin, and then three days later, he attacked,” Trump falsely claimed. “How did she do it? Think she did a good job. She met with Putin to tell him, don’t do it. And three days later he attacked. That’s when the attack started.”
In reality, there’s no public record of Harris meeting with Putin. Instead, she met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a security conference in Munich five days before the war broke out.
Trump also suggested Harris was responsible for the way U.S. troops left Afghanistan, saying “she was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan.”
“She had the final vote; she had the final say, and she was all for it,” Trump said, later promising to hold the Biden-Harris administration accountable by asking for the resignations of “every single senior military official who touched the Afghanistan disaster.”
Trump also claimed he would have handled the Afghanistan withdrawal better, claiming he has had conversations with the head of Taliban and that he “respected” him.
“Our adversaries knew that America was not to be trifled with when I was your commander in chief,” Trump said. “… But since the Afghanistan catastrophe, it’s been open season on America and our allies.”
Trump also railed against “woke” military generals throughout his speech, claiming, “I know the good ones, the weak ones,” praising his former military officials like Gen. Keith Kellogg.
Offering a glimpse of what his second term would look like, Trump declared “the days of blank checks for the weapons systems” are over and said he will build “a great Iron Dome” and give it to other countries like Israel.
“We will increase funding, but at the same time, the days of blank checks for the weapons systems over the past are over. I tell you what we will build, we’re going to build a great Iron Dome over our country so that we don’t have to get hit. We give it to other countries, we help Israel and other countries,” Trump said.
Trump also said he would “aggressively” shift funding to “keep American on the cutting edge, investing in drones and other technology, saying he wants to invest “heavily” in “drones and robotics and artificial intelligence and hypersonics.”
Even as he focused on policies, Trump dismissed the idea of stopping personal attacks on Harris – at one point, mocking his advisers for suggesting he should stick to policy and stray away from personal attacks. He then said that many speakers at the Democratic National Convention personally attacked him, referencing Barack and Michelle Obamas speeches last night.
Trump then polled the crowd to see if he should “get personal,” followed by many in the crowd cheering. Prior to Obama’s speech last night, Trump spoke highly of the former president, but quickly shifted his tone saying he was “nasty.”
“Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night? He was taking shots at your president. And so is Michelle. They always say, please stick to policy, don’t get personal. Yet they are getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?”
“I try and be nice to people, you know, but it’s a little tough when they get personal,” Trump said.
“He was very nasty last night. I try and be nice,” Trump said about former Obama’s speech at the DNC Tuesday night.
“Should I not get personal? he asked the crowd. After few agreed, Trump quipped, “I don’t know — my advisers are fired.”
(WASHINGTON) — Both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have extensive records when it comes to criminal justice policy – records that are sometimes completely opposed to one another, and at other times are aligned.
As Trump – who has a criminal record of his own, having been convicted on 34 felony counts – prepares to face off in the general election against Harris, who is a former prosecutor, district attorney and attorney general, their past actions on criminal justice have come into the spotlight.
Here’s a look at some of the candidates’ policy records on crime, the death penalty, policing, and prison reform:
Recidivism
In 2005, as the district attorney for San Francisco, Harris launched “Back on Track,” a reentry initiative aimed at reducing recidivism among young, low-level, first-time felony drug-trafficking defendants.
Candidates between the ages of 18 and 30 who first complete six weeks of community service and then plead guilty to their charges are eligible to participate in the program, during which their sentencing is deferred until they complete a 12 to 18-month supervised “individualized personal responsibility plan” that includes “concrete achievements in employment, education, parenting, and child support,” among other mandates. The program reported that fewer than 10% of the program graduates reoffended after being released, compared to a 53% recidivism rate for California drug offenders within two years of release from incarceration.
The Biden-Harris administration also implemented a new Small Business Administration rule that removed loan eligibility restrictions based on a person’s criminal record.
“Making this available, reducing and eliminating that restriction is going to mean a lot in terms of second chances and the opportunity for people to excel,” Harris said of the program earlier this year.
In 2018, Trump signed a bipartisan bill into law similarly aimed at supporting recidivism reduction programs – a bill Harris voted for as a senator.
The First Step Act (FSA) called for the development of risk and needs assessment programs to reduce recidivism, and required the Bureau of Prisons to help incarcerated people access federal and state benefits, obtain identification, and more. Under the act, incarcerated people could earn time credit for participating in recidivism reduction programming and other activities, which could be applied toward early release.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice, recidivism is estimated to be 37% lower among FSA releases when compared to “similarly situated pre-FSA releases.”
Death penalty
Trump has consistently been pro-death penalty. Federal executions began under the Trump administration in 2020 for the first time in roughly 17 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
In 2020, the federal government completed 13 federal executions in the final months of the Trump presidency, according to the DPIC.
In 1989, prior to his time in office, Trump called for the return of the death penalty in a series of ads amid the case of five Black and brown boys then known as the “Central Park Five” who were convicted of assaulting and raping a woman in New York City.
Trump took out full-page ads in local newspapers within two weeks after the April 19, 1989 attack, calling to “Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police!” However, the ads never explicitly mentioned the five boys, who were incarcerated for years before they were exonerated after another man confessed to the crime.
Harris has been consistent in her stance against the death penalty: “My entire career I have been opposed – personally opposed – to the death penalty,” Harris said in an August 2019 debate. “And that has never changed.”
However, some have criticized Harris for decisions regarding several death penalty-related cases.
For example, Harris declined to take up the case of convicted murderer Kevin Cooper, who was sentenced to death for a quadruple homicide in California in 1983 and is currently awaiting execution. His team had asked the state for additional DNA testing that they maintained could have exonerated him.
Harris has since changed her views on Cooper’s request, later telling The New York Times “I feel awful about this.”
Additionally, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney overturned the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones in 2014, ruling that the nearly 20 years he spent waiting for execution on death row was a form of cruel and unusual punishment, and so the death penalty was unconstitutional.
As the state’s attorney general, Harris appealed the ruling, arguing that the court’s decision “is not supported by the law, and it undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants.” Carney’s ruling was overturned on appeal the following year.
Prison policy
Under the Trump administration, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 rescinded an Obama-era initiative to phase out private prisons. Sessions then began distributing contracts for new privately-run detention centers.
In January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration ordered the Department of Justice not to renew contracts for privately-operated criminal detention centers. In December 2022, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) ended all contracts with privately owned prisons and transferred federal inmates who had been incarcerated in them to BOP-operated prisons.
Pardons and commutations
The Trump administration commuted the sentences of more than 90 individuals and granted pardons to more than 140 people, according to the DOJ. The Biden-Harris administration has so far commuted the sentences of more than 120 individuals and granted pardons to 25 people, according to the DOJ. The plan ahead
Though the Harris campaign hasn’t yet released the vice president’s official 2024 platform, she previously has supported legalizing marijuana at the federal level, ending solitary confinement, embracing cash bail reform, ending federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, and furthering rehabilitative services for the incarcerated. She has also supported the Justice in Policing Act, which would limit “unnecessary” use of force and no-knock warrants, limit qualified immunity for police officers, and increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct.
The Trump administration’s plan, according to his official campaign website, states that he plans to increase funding to hire and retrain police officers, strengthen qualified immunity and other “protections” for police officers, increase penalties for assaults on law enforcement, and “surge federal prosecutors and the National Guard into high-crime communities.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance defended his past comments on women and families without children, the Trump campaign’s proposals to deport undocumented immigrants and more in a wide-ranging interview with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, which airs in full on Sunday morning.
Despite the race tightening in recent weeks as Vice President Kamala Harris has taken over the Democratic ticket, the Ohio senator emphasized that he and Trump are “extremely confident” in their chances of winning the election.
“I think we’re going to win. I also think that we have to work as hard as possible for the remainder of the election to try to persuade Americans to vote for us,” Vance told Karl. “That’s the name of the game.”
Vance elaborates on ‘pro-family’ views
The senator has come under fire for repeated comments made about childless Americans, including one during an interview in July 2021 with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson where Vance described leading Democrats including Harris as “childless cat ladies.”
In a speech before a conservative group, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which preceded that interview, Vance also suggested that people with children should have extra votes.
“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds, but let’s do this instead,” Vance said in the speech. “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.”
Vance told Karl his notion was a “thought experiment” in response to Democratic proposals to allow younger voters, and not a policy stance.
“Do I regret saying it? I regret that the media and the Kamala Harris campaign has, frankly, distorted what I said,” he said. “They turn this into a policy proposal that I never made. … I said, I want us to be more pro-family, and I do want us to be more pro-family.”
Vance added there are “policy positions behind my view that the country should become more pro-family.” He went on to talk about the economic struggles that families are facing, citing the increased cost of goods, rising medical bills and other costs.
The senator said that he and Trump have a plan to lower the cost of housing and food but didn’t provide details during the interview.
Trump said in an interview with Fox News last week that his solution to bringing down costs was, “We’re gonna drill, baby, drill.”
Trump has also advocated for more tariffs and tax cuts as part of his economic policies.
Vance responds to mass deportation plan: ‘Let’s start with 1 million’
The senator brought up the ongoing migrant crisis and again blamed Harris and the Biden administration’s policies, such as ending “Remain in Mexico.”
When asked how he and Trump would accomplish their stated goal of mass deporting as many as 20 million immigrants – a proposal experts previously told ABC News would be a “nightmare” — Vance said they would take a “sequential approach.”
“I mean do you go knock on doors and ask people for their papers? What do you do,” Karl asked.
“You start with what’s achievable,” Vance said. “I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.”
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with 1 million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” Vance said.
Vance agrees with Trump that VP picks don’t matter to most voters During an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago last month, and just a short time after Trump announced Vance as his running mate, the former president raised some eyebrows when asked whether Vance would be ready to be president “on Day 1” if needed.
“You can have a vice president who’s outstanding in every way, and I think JD is, I think that all of them would’ve been, but you’re not voting that way. You’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me,” Trump said, without addressing whether Vance would be ready on “Day 1.”
In the interview with ABC News, Vance said he agreed with Trump’s view.
“They’re voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris, not for JD or Tim Walz,” he said. “I also think that he’s right that the politics of this really don’t matter that much.”
However, Vance stressed he’s “absolutely” sure Trump is confident he could step up as a commander in chief if needed.
“What I think that he does believe because he made it the main focus of his vetting process, is, ‘Do I think this person can be president on day one if, God forbid, something happens? Yes,'” Vance said.
Vance repeats false claims about Tim Walz’s policies
During a rally in Montana on Friday night, Trump pushed falsehoods about Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz’s policies concerning transgender youth, accusing the Minnesota governor of signing “a law letting the state kidnap children to change their gender.”
Walz has signed legislation aimed at protecting the rights of transgender individuals to access gender-affirming care, which can include gender-affirming surgeries but also services like counseling and non-surgical medical procedures like hormone therapy and puberty suppressants. The law does not allow what Trump claimed.
Vance said he didn’t fully watch the late-night rally but repeated some of those false claims in the interview with Karl, saying Walz “supported taking children away from their parents if the parents don’t consent to gender reassignment.”
He referenced Walz’s recent statement at a rally accusing Republicans of not “minding their own damn business.”
“One way of minding your own damn business, Jon, is to not try to take my children away from me … if I have different world views than you.”
Karl pushed back, calling the “kidnapping” characterization “crazy.”
The April 2023 law that Walz signed in the wake of other states curtailing or banning access to gender-affirming care has been mischaracterized by Republicans.
The Minnesota law protects patients who come to the state to receive gender-affirming health care, even if the patients live in a state where such care is illegal. The law also specifically allows the state’s courts to assume “temporary emergency jurisdiction” in cross-state child custody disputes where a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming care and is in Minnesota to do so.
The executive director of LGBTQ+ advocacy group OutFront told The Washington Post that under the law, courts can settle parental disputes over whether their child should get this care, but it doesn’t result in the parent against such care losing custody of their child.
Vance pushes back on white supremacist Trump once dined with who recently insulted his wife’s race
Karl also asked Vance about a racist attack targeting his wife, Usha, from white nationalist live-streamer, Nick Fuentes, who Trump dined with in November 2022.
In a recent livestream, Fuentes said, “What kind of man marries somebody named Usha Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity.”
“My attitude to these people attacking my wife is, she’s beautiful, she’s smart. What kind of man marries Usha A very smart man and very lucky man,” Vance said of his wife during the ABC News interview. “If these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, [or] my personality, come after me. But don’t attack my wife. She’s out of your league.”
Trump faced significant blowback for dining with Fuentes, along with rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) back in November 2022 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At the time, Trump said he did not know who Fuentes was and that he was brought to the dinner by Ye. In a statement given exclusively to Fox News Digital, Trump said, “I had no idea what his views were, and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn’t have been accepted.”
But the former president has not denounced Fuentes’ white nationalist views beyond that, or the recent comments about Usha Vance.
In the interview, Vance contended Trump had “issued plenty of condemnations,” and did not question the former president’s dinner with Fuentes.
“The one thing I like about Donald Trump, Jon, is that he actually will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views,” Vance said, adding that Trump has been close and friendly with his family.
ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan contributed to this report.