Once the presumptive nominee, President Biden to spend Election Day at White House with no public events
ABC/Lorenzo Bevilaqua
(WASHINGTON) — For the better part of 2023 and 2024, President Joe Biden plotted a course to Nov. 5, 2024. As the incumbent, the veteran politician was the presumptive Democratic nominee, clinching enough delegates in March, and locked in a tight race with former President Donald Trump.
But instead of spending Election Day preparing for an evening speech, the president’s daily schedule is empty beyond his daily briefing by aides: No public events.
The president and first lady Jill Biden will spend election night watching the election results in the White House residence with “long time aides and senior White House staff,” according to a White House official.
“The President will receive regular updates on the state of races across the country,” the official added.
Monday night, Biden also held calls with Democratic state party chairs across the country. Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin state Democratic Party, told ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks that the call was “electrifying.”
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he wrote, in part, in a letter posted on social media. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
Biden created last-minute controversy on Oct. 29 when he seemed to call Trump supporters “garbage” during a campaign call hosted by the nonprofit Voto Latino.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” Biden said.
Trump quickly seized on the comments, saying Biden “meant it,” though the president posted a clarification, saying his comment was about the comedian who made the joke and “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it.”
“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden said in the post on X.
(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.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s advisers may have publicly insisted he doesn’t need any debate prep, but the former president is preparing more than he’s letting on, sources tell ABC News.
Trump is holding informal policy sessions with a small team of advisers, including GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who once challenged Vice President Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2019, the sources said.
Gaetz has been firing questions at Trump around some of the more challenging issues, such as his legal troubles, including his federal indictments on election interference and retaining classified documents, criminal conviction in the New York hush-money case and stance on abortion, according to the sources.
Two people familiar with Trump’s preparation also told ABC News that Trump has been briefed on Harris’ past debates, including the headline-making moment when she hit back at former Vice President Mike Pence with the words, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.” That exchange went viral then, and Trump has privately told his allies he won’t let that happen to him.
Sources told ABC News that Trump’s recent press address on Friday has left some on the GOP side with pre-debate concerns.
While Trump has continued with his campaign schedule, his movements on Friday puzzled some Republicans. Trump, following his appeal of the $5 million a federal jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll after finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, came before the cameras rattling off — in often vivid detail — the accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women over the years. All of which he has denied.
Meanwhile, as ABC News previously reported, Harris has been engaged in traditional debate prep in Pittsburgh.
The cameras caught her in the city on Sunday on a walk with second gentleman, Doug Emhoff. But, she ignored two shouted questions on Trump’s claims that he’ll jail his political opponents and how she plans to respond to personal attacks from Trump on the debate stage.
On Saturday, Trump posted on TruthSocial, writing, “… the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election have continually been disproven.
Harris, on Sunday, did respond to a third question shouted at her by the media about whether she was ready by echoing, “ready,” and giving a thumbs up before disappearing around the side of a building.
In related news, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, will appear in the spin room following the debate, ABC News has confirmed.
The ABC News presidential debate will take place on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET and air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
(WASHINGTON) — Issues with a host of communications and technical difficulties with drone capabilities plagued the U.S. Secret Service at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where an assassin took a shot at former President Donald Trump, according to a new report released Friday by the agency.
The Secret Service said it failed to secure the line of sight to the former president, by not securing the roof of the AGR building near the Butler Fair Grounds and law enforcement did not communicate to all personnel involved that there was a threat to the former president, the report said.
The report also revealed there was no discussion with the Secret Service advance staff about positioning a local sniper team on top of the AGR roof and the “lack of due diligence” in the construction of the secure perimeter should have been focused on more acutely.
“It’s important that we hold ourselves accountable for the failures of July 13, and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this,” U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Friday.
The report was an effort from the Secret Service to be transparent about the failures that occurred on July 13, when Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly climbed on top of a neighboring building and opened fire on Trump, striking him in the ear before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.
“We’re in a pivotal moment in the history of the Secret Service, and at a pivotal moment in history of our country, and I’ve directed that the Secret Service embark on a significant paradigm shift that will redefine how we conduct protective operations,” Rowe said Friday. “What occurred on Sunday demonstrates that the threat environment in which the Secret Service operates is tremendous and under constant threat, and we’ve been in this heightened and increasingly dynamic threat environment since July 13.”
“A consistent theme gathered from state and local law enforcement personnel who helped secure the Butler rally was the presence of communications deficiencies,” according to an executive summary of the report released on Friday.
The “deficiencies” included a lack of resources to share information, a “variety” of communications channels used by different law enforcement agencies, and the agency’s inability to convey the Secret Service’s “protective needs.”
“Some local police entities supporting the Butler venue had no knowledge that there were two separate communications centers on site (i.e., the Secret Service security room and the Butler County Emergency Services Mobile Command Post),” the executive summary said. “As a result, those entities were operating under a misimpression that the Secret Service was directly receiving their radio transmissions.”
Federal personnel on the scene were not informed through the radio of a description of the assailant, or vital information received from local law enforcement regarding a suspicious individual on the roof of the AGR complex, the report said.
The information was being passed through mobile devices in a “fragmented fashion” instead of being relayed through the Secret Service’s radio network, the report said.
“This failure was especially acute in terms of the [Former President’s] protective detail, who were not apprised of how focused state and local law enforcement were in the minutes leading up to the attack on locating the suspicious subject,” the executive summary said. “If this information was passed over Secret Service radio frequencies it would have allowed [Former President’s] protective detail to determine whether to move their protectee while the search for the suspicious suspect was in progress.”
The Secret Service was not made aware that a local agency was providing support to the Secret Service, according to the report.
“Neither the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh Field Office leadership nor anyone on the agency’s advance team were aware of this outreach for support,” the report said. “This led to a situation where the local tactical team operating on the second floor of the AGR building—a team that was providing mutual aid support—had no prior contact with Secret Service personnel before the rally.”
There was “no discussion” with the Secret Service about positioning that local team on the roof of the AGR building, according to the report’s executive summary.
Another challenge impacting the Secret Service on July 13 was its drone system was experiencing “technical difficulties,” the agency said.
The FBI director testified to Congress that Crooks flew a drone outside of the secure perimeter before the rally started.
“It is possible that if this element of the advance had functioned properly, the shooter may have been detected as he flew his drone near the Butler Farm Show venue earlier in the day,” the executive summary said.
The report also found that the Butler Farm Show site “as seen by the Secret Service and our local law enforcement partners as a challenge.”
It was selected by the campaign and local officials “because it was the better venue to accommodate the large number of desired attendees.”
“Advance personnel and multiple supervisors with oversight of the security plan at the Butler Farm Show venue recognized line of site concerns,” the report found. “However, the security measures to alleviate these concerns were not carried out on July 13, 2024 as intended. There was a lack of detailed knowledge by Secret Service personnel regarding the state or local law enforcement presence that would be present in and around the AGR complex.”
