(LONDON) — Israeli forces continued their intense operations inside Gaza after Hamas leader and Oct. 7, 2023 attack mastermind Yahya Sinwar was killed in a firefight with Israeli forces.
The development comes as Israel continues intense air and ground campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and mulls its response to Iran’s latest ballistic missile attack. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Tuesday in a bid to kickstart stalled cease-fire talks and prevent further regional escalation.
Over 150 patients in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital in critical condition
More than 150 people in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital are in critical condition and are facing increasingly dire conditions, according to the hospital director.
Health services cannot be provided to the sick and injured due to the depletion of medical supplies, according to the director.
“Kamal Adwan Hospital remains partially functional but is struggling to meet growing needs due to intensified hostilities in the north and a shortage of medical supplies and fuel. A strike near the hospital causing damages to the gate was reported earlier today, 22 October,” the World Health Organization said in a statement Wednesday.
“As hostilities intensify in North Gaza, WHO is deeply concerned about the last two functional hospitals – Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda – which must be protected. A complete lack of health care in North Gaza would make an already catastrophic situation worse, and lead to more lives being lost,” the WHO said.
Gaza polio vaccine campaign postponed due to ‘intense’ attacks, UN says
The World Health Organization announced Wednesday that it has been forced to postpone the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
The WHO blamed “escalating violence, intense bombardment, mass displacement orders and lack of assured humanitarian pauses across most of northern Gaza.”
The third and final round of the vaccination push was due to start on Wednesday, the WHO said, and aimed to vaccinate 119,279 children across northern Gaza.
“The current conditions, including ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure continue to jeopardize people’s safety and movement in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination, and health workers to operate,” the organization wrote in a statement published on its website.
-ABC News’ Morgan Winsor
Blinken to travel to Qatar, UK after Saudi visit
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Qatar and the U.K. after his Wednesday stop in Saudi Arabia, the State Department announced.
Blinken left Israel early Wednesday following meetings with officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
The visit was the first on a Middle East tour intended to kickstart stalled cease-fire negotiations in Gaza and encourage a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning ahead of a planned meeting with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.
-ABC News’ Cindy Smith
US has ‘not seen evidence’ of bunker under Beirut hospital: Austin
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Wednesday that U.S. officials have “not seen evidence” to support Israel’s claim of a Hezbollah bunker located under Al-Sahel hospital in southern Beirut.
“We’ll continue to collaborate with our Israeli counterparts to gain better fidelity on exactly what they’re looking at,” Austin added.
Israel claims Hezbollah is using the purported bunker to store hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold under the city’s southern Dahiya suburb. Hospital officials have denied the allegation.
The area — known as a Hezbollah stronghold — has been the focus of its intense airstrikes on the Lebanese capital over the past month.
-ABC News’ Chris Boccia
Austin says no staffers probed in FBI’s Israel leak investigation
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday denied reports that one of his senior staffers is under investigation by the FBI in connection with leaked Pentagon documents purportedly relating to Israel’s planned retaliatory strike on Iran.
“There’s no OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] official being named as a part of this investigation,” Austin told reporters while in Rome, Italy. “So that is not true at this point.”
“I’ve seen no evidence of that, or any indication that any OSD official will be implicated as part of this.”
-ABC News’ Chris Boccia
More overnight Israeli strikes rock Beirut
The Israel Defense Forces said warplanes conducted another night of airstrikes in the Lebanese capital targeting what it said were Hezbollah weapons storage, arms manufacturing and command center targets in the southern suburbs.
The airstrikes centered on Dahiya — an area of south Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
More than 2,500 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Oct. 7, 2023, with nearly 12,000 injured, according to tallies from the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Will Gretsky
Blinken departs Israel for Saudi Arabia
Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed Israel early Wednesday for Saudi Arabia — the next stop on his latest Middle East tour.
Before boarding his plane in Tel Aviv, Blinken told reporters that Israel has now achieved most of its military objectives in Gaza — including the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — but at great cost to Palestinian civilians.
Blinken said it was time to end the conflict, having spent Tuesday meeting with Israeli leaders — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and the families of hostages in a bid to revive cease-fire and hostage release talks.
There is now a need to establish whether a post-Sinwar Hamas will be more open to a diplomatic resolution, Blinken said, plus to facilitate more aid into Gaza and to establish a concrete plan for the post-war governance of the territory.
Blinken said such questions would be part of his meetings with other Middle East leaders through this week.
-ABC News’ Shannon Kingston
US officials press Israel on ‘General’s Plan’
During their meeting Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about reports that some Israeli officials wanted to seize control of north Gaza using controversial methods, according to a senior U.S. administration official.
Coined the “General’s Plan” by media outlets, the idea would be to force evacuations of the area and assume anyone who stays behind is an enemy combatant and can be fired upon and starved.
The senior U.S. administration official said Blinken noted in the meeting that there’s a “perception” that this method is official Israeli policy.
The official said Netanyahu and his top aide, Ron Dermer, denied that it was and said the perception was “deeply damaging” to their efforts.
“We did hear a very clear commitment that that is not their state of policy,” the official told a reporter.
-ABC News’ Shannon K. Kingston
Blinken, Netanyahu meet as US pushes for cease-fire
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for over 2 1/2 hours on Tuesday, as the U.S. makes a push for a cease-fire agreement to end Israel’s conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Blinken and Netanyahu discussed the need to capitalize on the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to reach an agreement that would secure the release of the remaining hostages being held in Gaza and putting in place a plan that provides lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
Blinken also discussed the importance of increasing the flow of aid being allowed into Gaza. The U.S. warned Israel last week that assistance could be withheld if humanitarian aid doesn’t reach civilians in Gaza.
Lebanese hospital sustained ‘severe material damage’ in Israeli strike
Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital will continue providing care despite the building sustaining “severe material damage” in an Israeli strike on Monday, according to Dr. Jihad Saadeh, the head of the hospital.
“Because of the targeting that has happened, we have sustained severe material damage to the hospital, including the destruction of solar panels, extensive destruction of all glass facades and damage to the hospital walls. Severe damage because it seems the shrapnel was very large,” Saadeh said.
“We will not stop. Several entities even called me yesterday asking if I would like to evacuate the hospital. I told them, not at all. We will not evacuate. There is no hospital left but us. After the sinful targeting of the suburb’s hospitals, there is no one left except for us. So we will continue our work, God willing,” Saadeh said.
Drone attack on Netanyahu’s house caused damage
The drone that targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home on Saturday caused some damage to the structure, according to a person familiar.
Netanyahu called the attack an “attempt to assassinate me and my wife,” in a statement Saturday. They were not in the home at the time of the attack, according to the prime minister’s office.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
63 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon Monday
At least 63 people were killed and 234 were injured in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
Since the start of Israel’s increased strikes on Lebanon, at least 2,546 people were killed and 11,862 others were injured, the ministry said.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Gaza’s development set back 69 years by war, UN says
The United Nations Development Programme published a new report Tuesday suggesting that Israel’s war against Hamas has set the Gaza Strip’s development back by as much as 69 years.
Poverty levels in Gaza are projected to rise to 74.3% in 2024, affecting over 4 million people, the report said — including 2.61 million “newly impoverished” people.
The territory’s GDP is expected to contract by some 35.1% in 2024 compared to a no-war scenario, it added, with unemployment potentially rising to almost 50%.
“The assessment indicates that, even if humanitarian aid is provided each year, the economy may not regain its pre-crisis level for a decade or more,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.
Evacuation leaflets accompany Israeli attacks in north Gaza
At least 12 people were killed or injured in Israel Defense Forces attacks in northern Gaza over the past 24 hours, officials from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday.
At least 87 people were killed over the weekend in an IDF attack in the Beit Lahia neighborhood, officials said, just north of the Jabalia refugee camp which has been the focus of recent Israeli operations in the area. The IDF disputed the death toll.
Meanwhile, the IDF dropped leaflets over Beit Lahia on Tuesday urging residents to evacuate southwards.
Footage from the area showed long lines of people — mostly women and children — fleeing with their belongings under the watch of Israeli forces.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta and Guy Davies
Beirut hospital won’t evacuate despite Israeli strike, director says
The general manager of Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital said on Tuesday that staff would continue treating patients there despite a nearby Israeli airstrike.
“We are committed to continuing our work and will not evacuate the hospital,” Dr. Jihad Saadeh said. “Although the hospital has suffered damage from shrapnel, we are prepared to treat patients in the hospital corridors if necessary.”
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said 13 people including a child were killed and at least 57 others injured in the Israeli airstrike late Monday, with significant damage done to the nearby hospital — the largest public medical facility in Lebanon.
There was no warning issued before the strike on the hospital, sources told ABC News. The Israel Defense Forces denied the hospital was hit and said its strike was on a nearby Hezbollah target.
Saadeh told Tuesday’s press conference that some 50 healthcare centers, 150 ambulances, 150 paramedics and 15 hospitals have been targeted in Israeli attacks.
-ABC News’ Josiane Hajj Moussa and Guy Davies
IDF strike near hospital in Lebanon kills 13 and injures at least 57
An Israel Defense Forces strike near Rafik Hariri Hospital in southern Beirut on Monday killed 13 people including a child and injured at least 57 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
Seventeen of those injured required hospitalization, with seven in a critical condition, the ministry said in a Tuesday statement.
The hospital, which is the largest public medical facility in Lebanon, sustained significant damage, officials said.
There was no warning issued before the strike on the hospital, sources told ABC News.
The IDF denied attacking the hospital in a statement, claiming it was targeting a Hezbollah target close to the facility. “The strike did not hit the hospital and the IDF emphasizes that the hospital was not targeted, and the hospital itself and its operation were not affected, the IDF said.
-ABC News’ Josiane Hajj Moussa, Jordana Miller and Guy Davies
Israel designates Al-Qard al-Hassan as a terrorist organization
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced Tuesday that he designated the Al-Qard al-Hassan finance institution — which Israel alleges is a key financial vehicle for Hezbollah — a terrorist organization.
“Hezbollah’s bank is used to purchase weapons, pay the salaries of terrorists and keep Hezbollah’s terror machine going,” Gallant wrote in a post on X.
“Degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities requires both a military and economic campaign,” he added. “We are destroying the terrorist organization’s ability to both launch and buy missiles.”
Israel has been targeting Al-Qard al-Hassan infrastructure throughout Lebanon in recent days. The strikes have been especially fierce in Beirut, and particularly in its southern Dahiya suburb which is known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Blinken lands in Israel
Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to begin a tour of Middle East nations in bid to reinvigorate cease-fire talks in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
The revival of stalled cease-fire talks and the prevention of further regional escalation are at the top of the agenda for America’s top diplomat.
Blinken’s latest regional tour comes just two weeks to go until the U.S. presidential election and with Israel still mulling its retaliation against Iran for the latter’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack.
-ABC News’ Shannon Kingston and Guy Davies
IDF claims 230 more strikes in Lebanon and Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces said in a social media post Tuesday that it struck around 230 Hezbollah and Hamas targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the previous 24 hours.
The strikes killed “dozens” of fighters, the IDF claimed, and hit targets including three purported command centers of a Hezbollah drone unit in southern Lebanon.
In Gaza, fighting continues in the Jabalia area in the north of the strip, which is under intense Israeli bombardment and sweeping evacuation orders.
The IDF said “thousands of civilians have been evacuated” from the area, while “dozens of terrorists were arrested from among the civilians.”
Another 10 fighters were killed in a strike in the area, the IDF added. Troops also dismantled several tunnel shafts and a rocket launcher in Beit Lahia, to the north of Jabalia.
Elsewhere, the IDF reported an airstrike on a rocket launcher and ammunition in the southern Rafah area.
IDF claims Nasrallah’s bunker located underneath Beirut hospital
The Israel Defense Forces claimed late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s gold-filled bunker is located underneath a Beirut hospital, which hospital officials said was being evacuated Monday out of an abundance of caution.
“There are millions of dollars in gold and cash in Hassan Nasrallah’s bunker. Where is the bunker located? Directly under Al-Sahel Hospital — in the heart of Beirut,” IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video address Monday.
The IDF released 3D renderings of the hospital building and the bunker it said belonged to Nasrallah, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes in Beirut last month, but has not provided tangible proof. Hagari said the Israeli air force is monitoring the site but added, “We will not strike the hospital itself.”
“We are not at war with the people of Lebanon. We are at war with Hezbollah,” he said.
Following Hagari’s remarks, Lebanese hospital officials said the hospital is being evacuated out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the patients. Lebanese Parliament member Fadi Alameh, the owner of the hospital, said he has requested that the Lebanese army and United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon investigate the Israeli allegations.
Lebanese official Wiam Wahhab said the “talk of weapons depots” at the hospital “is illogical and false.”
“This points to the beginning of targeting hospitals, and the army must deploy around the hospital and protect it,” he said.
Dr. Youssef Bakhash, the president of the Lebanese Order of Physicians, told the Lebanese media group Al Jadeed that the “pretext of the existence of tunnels and funds beneath Sahel Hospital is aimed at targeting and disrupting the healthcare sector.”
Israel’s conflict with Iran to last ‘many months’: Former IDF general
Israel’s planned attack on Iran will mark the “beginning of a war” that will last “many months,” retired Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi told ABC News.
Israel’s war with Hezbollah had gone incredibly well and the IDF had surpassed its own expectations in degrading the Iranian proxy, Avivi said, adding that the same mentality would be applied to dealing with the Iranian regime itself.
“We have a historical opportunity to deal with Iran so they don’t pose another threat to Israel,” said Avivi, the founder of the right-wing think tank Israel’s Defense and Security Forum.
Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran will be “fierce and strong and very surprising” when it happens, he said.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge and Jordana Miller
300 Hezbollah targets hit in Lebanon in past 24 hours: IDF
The Israel Defense Forces said it hit 300 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours, which saw an intense night of airstrikes on Beirut.
Seven brigade commanders, 21 battalion commanders and 24 company commanders for Hezbollah were killed in its ongoing operations, the IDF said.
More strikes against Hezbollah targets are expected all over southern Lebanon Monday night, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
Still unclear whether intelligence docs were leaked or hacked: White House
There’s no indication yet whether classified documents on Israel’s retaliation plans were leaked or hacked, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday.
“I’m just not able to answer your question whether it was a leak or a hack at this point. We’ll let the investigation pursue its logical course there,” Kirby said.
Kirby said that President Joe Biden was “deeply concerned” about the incident, and that while they don’t expect more documents to be revealed, they are on high alert amid the investigation.
“We’re certainly going to keep our antenna up and our eyes open for any potential future disclosures,” he said.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
7 Israeli citizens arrested after allegedly spying for Iran
Seven Israeli citizens were arrested after allegedly spying for Iran, Israeli authorities said Monday.
The Israel Security Agency and Israel Police said they “successfully dismantled a spy network” that allegedly gathered sensitive information on Israel Defense Forces bases and energy infrastructure.
The citizens were allegedly recruited by Iranian agents to conduct “security-related tasks” over at least two years, authorities said, including “extensive reconnaissance missions” on air force and navy installations, ports, Iron Dome system locations and energy infrastructure.
Photographs and videos of “numerous” IDF bases, ports and energy infrastructure were seized as part of the investigation, authorities said.
“It is assessed that these activities have inflicted security damage on the state,” the ISA and Israel Police said.
The seven Israelis were allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, often through cryptocurrencies, for their work, authorities said.
Prosecutors are expected to file an indictment against them in the coming days.
Austin: ‘Hard to say’ what Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran will look like
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters while traveling to Ukraine on Monday that it’s “hard to say” what an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran will look like, when asked whether the response should be proportional.
“That’s an Israeli decision,” he said. “Whether or not the Israelis believe [it] is proportional and [how] the Iranians perceive it, I mean, those are maybe two different things.”
Austin told reporters that the U.S. is “going to continue to do everything we can” to get both parties to “begin to de-escalate.”
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Blinken to visit Israel in Middle East tour
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will begin a tour of Israel and other Middle Eastern nations on Monday in a bid to inject new life into stalled cease-fire and hostage release negotiations in Gaza, the State Department said.
Blinken “will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the State Department notice said.
“He will continue discussions on post-conflict period planning and emphasize the need to chart a new path forward that enables Palestinians to rebuild their lives and realize their aspirations free from Hamas’ tyranny,” the statement said.
Blinken will also “underscore that additional food, medicine and other humanitarian aid must be delivered to civilians in Gaza,” it continued.
The situation in Lebanon — where Israel is continuing an intense air and ground campaign and Hezbollah is still firing across the shared border — will also be a topic of discussion, the State Department said.
Blinken will continue pursuit of a “diplomatic resolution” that “allows civilians on both sides” of the border to return to their homes, the statement said.
-ABC News’ Cindy Smith
‘Beirut in flames’ after night of airstrikes, foreign minister says
“Beirut in flames,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Monday following an intense night of airstrikes on the Lebanese capital.
“A wide-scale Israeli attack targeted Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure in Beirut and across Lebanon last night,” Katz said.
“Massive fires were seen above Beirut as over 15 buildings were struck following evacuation warnings to residents,” the foreign minister wrote.
“Hezbollah has paid and will continue to pay a heavy price for its attacks on northern Israel and its rocket fire. We will keep striking the Iranian proxy until it collapses.”
-ABC News’ Guy Davies
IDF claims ‘dozens’ of strikes on Hezbollah financial targets
Israel Defense Forces warplanes launched “a series of targeted, intelligence-based strikes against dozens of facilities and sites used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to finance its terrorist activities,” the IDF said in a Monday post to X.
The Sunday night strikes hit targets in Beirut, southern Lebanon and elsewhere “deep within” the country, the IDF added.
The IDF said the targets were linked to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, which Israel has accused of acting as a key financier of Hezbollah activities.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
US investigating intelligence leak on Israel’s alleged plan to attack Iran
Documents purporting to show classified U.S. intelligence-gathering on Israel’s preparations for a possible retaliatory strike against Iran appeared on social media platforms late last week.
The impact of the circulation of these documents on current and future planning by the Israeli military is unclear at this time.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the situation when reached by ABC News. However, a law enforcement source on Sunday confirmed with ABC News that there is an investigation underway.
Markings on the documents indicate that they would have originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects, analyzes and distributes intelligence gleaned from satellite and aerial imagery.
If the documents are authentic, it would indicate a major intelligence breach.
According to Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense contributor, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East: “The future coordination between the U.S. and Israel could be challenged, as well.”
The Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on CNN Sunday and acknowledged that there is an investigation underway into the possible intelligence leak, adding, “We’re following it closely.”
-ABC News’ T. Michelle Murphy
IDF says it’s targeting infrastructure in Lebanon of group allegedly financing Hezbollah
The Israel Defense Forces announced it was targeting infrastructure Sunday night in Lebanon that has been linked to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association, an organization it alleges is involved in financing Hezbollah.
The United States placed sanctions on the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association in May 2021 related to financing Hezbollah activities.
The Al-Qard Al-Hassan group has 31 branches in Lebanon — including in Beirut and Bekaa, officials said. At least one strike was reported Sunday evening in the Chyah neighborhood of Beirut.
“The ‘Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association’ is involved in financing the terrorist activities of the Hezbollah organization against Israel, and therefore the IDF has decided to attack this terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF said in a statement Sunday. “The IDF continues to work forcefully to destroy Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure. Therefore, we call on people inside buildings used by Hezbollah to stay at least 500 meters away from them for the next few hours.”
Bridget Bennett for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The race for the White House is heading into the final stretch with most polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck-and-neck in key states with two weeks to go.
Harris campaign seizes on John Kelly’s remarks about Trump
The Harris campaign seized on former White House chief of staff and ex-Marine general John Kelly’s remarks panning Trump as a “fascist,” among other things, convening a press call of former GOP military leaders to sound a similar alarm.
“This is a difficult conversation for me as a lifelong Republican who always, you know, supported the Republican Party until Donald Trump came along,” Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson said.
Anderson mocked the fact that Trump “couldn’t qualify to be in the military — he has 34 felony convictions — so, how can we have the commander-in-chief be in charge of a military that he couldn’t possibly join?”
Kevin Carroll, who served as senior counsel to Kelly when he was Homeland Security secretary under Trump, also underscored the seriousness of Kelly’s surprisingly public rebuke of his old boss.
“I had the honor of working aside him, and I know him speaking out this way was no small step for him,” Carroll said.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow
Gov. Walz voting today with wife, son
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, is casting his ballot Wednesday in the 2024 election.
Walz is voting with his wife Gwen and their son Gus, who is a first-time voter, according to the campaign.
They will vote early for Harris at the top of the ticket, the campaign said. They will also vote for Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth term, and Rep. Betty McCollum as well as other Democratic candidates further down the ballot.
Hope, the governor’s daughter, has already cast her ballot in Montana, Walz has said. On Sunday during a stop in Saginaw, Michigan, the governor said that Hope, who lives in Bozeman most of the time but is often out campaigning with him, had recently returned to the state to cast a vote for Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in that critical Senate race.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris set for CNN town hall, Trump heads to Georgia
Harris will continue a media blitz with a 7 p.m. interview airing on Telemundo. In excerpts of the taped interview released on Tuesday, Harris outlined how her economic plans would benefit Latino me and discussed the recent election in Venezuela.
At 9 p.m., Harris will do a live CNN town hall in battleground Pennsylvania.
Trump will be in Georgia, another key swing state, where he’ll participate in a 3 p.m. “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall.” Later, he’ll be at a Turning Point Action rally in Duluth at 7 p.m.
Trump calls Xi Jinping ‘brilliant’ and touts relationship with Putin
At his rally in North Carolina on Tuesday night, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping and remarked on his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump repeatedly called Xi “a brilliant man” who “runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.”
“He’s a fierce man. I got along with him very well,” Trump said. “Putin — these are people that are tough people. Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons all over the place.”
The comments came after Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly warned he believed Trump would rule as a dictator if elected to a second term in an interview with The New York Times.
John Kelly says Trump fits definition of a ‘fascist’
John Kelly, who served as chief of staff in Trump’s administration, described the former president as a “fascist” during an interview with the New York Times.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism, it’s a far right, authoritarian, ultra nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized hypocrisy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief, natural, social hierarchy,” Kelly told the newspaper. “So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks will prove work better in terms of running America.”
Kelly also said he believed Trump would “love” to be a dictator, and that he was comfortable saying Adolf Hitler “did some good things, too.” Kelly also claimed Trump referred to veterans who lost limbs as “losers and suckers.”
The Trump campaign pushed back in a statement.
“John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women, whereas Kamala Harris has completely disrespected the families of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including the Abbey Gate 13,” said campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
Harris tells Telemundo how her economic plan will benefit Latinos
Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network, released clips on Tuesday of an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris — part of a more extensive conversation that will be aired on Wednesday.
In the clips, she comments primarily on her economic position and plan, describing herself as a “pragmatic capitalist.”
“I am a capitalist. I am a pragmatic capitalist,” she can be heard saying in one of the clips.
She went on to describe the need for leadership in America that actively works with the private sector “to drive new industries and build up small-business owners, to allow us to increase home ownership, to allow people and their families to build intergenerational wealth.”
She also stated that a new approach would need to understand “that some of the best jobs that we have available don’t necessarily require a college degree.”
In a separate clip, when asked how that plan might affect Latino men, Harris answered, “A lot of my agenda is about creating opportunity for people to succeed. So, for example, part of the agenda that I’ve already presented, I am very aware how it would affect Latino men.”
She explained that it involved building a strong economy that supports working people, and especially small-business owners, and added: “I know that Latino men often have a more difficult time having access to the big loans from the big banks because of relationships, because of things that are not necessarily grounded in their qualifications. So, I am focused on what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that will understand the community and be able to give those kinds of loans.”
Returning to her thoughts on the importance of families establishing generational wealth, she also said that part of her economic plan that would impact Latinos would be $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homeowners.
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Conor J. Finnegan, Will McDuffie
Biden says of Trump: ‘We gotta lock him up. Politically, lock him up’
President Joe Biden said former President Donald Trump poses a “genuine threat” to American democracy, during a visit to New Hampshire Democratic Party headquarters, saying, “We gotta lock him. Politically lock him up.”
The remarks came after Biden listed Trump’s proposals such as doing away with the Department of Education, taking on the federal civil service and the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting presidents broad immunity. Biden said: “I mean, so I know this sounds bizarre. It sounds like – if I said this five years ago, you’d lock me up.”
Then Biden said, referring to Trump, “We gotta lock him up. Politically lock him up. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
“Lock her up” was an oft-repeated line by Trump and his supporters in 2016, a reference to Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information on her private email server.
Trump’s campaign quickly seized on Biden’s comments, calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to condemn the remarks and pushing claim that it shows Trump’s legal battles are purely political — charges prosecutors have repeatedly denied.
“Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary of the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “The Harris-Biden Admin is the real threat to democracy. We call on Kamala Harris to condemn Joe Biden’s disgraceful remark.”
Jill Stein says ‘voters should vote for themselves’ in response to new Harris attack ad
Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, told ABC News Live “Voters should vote for themselves,” in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’ team running an attack advertisement against her. The ad, which started airing in the last week in some swing states, claimed that “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”
“Voters are being told over and over again that you don’t own your vote, that politicians own your vote,” the candidate who ran for the White House in 2012 and 2016, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“We do not have a lesser evil candidate, we have two greater evils,” Stein added, about Americans casting a vote for either former President Donald Trump or Harris.
A large part of Stein’s campaign has focused on slamming Harris for the Biden administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the 2016 election, the serial candidate received almost 1.5 million votes, enough votes in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to exceed Trump’s margins of victory.
Stein said that if she wasn’t on the ballot, a “vast majority of those voters would not have come out to vote.”
-ABC News’ Shannon Caturano
Tulsi Gabbard announces she’s joining Republican Party
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday she is officially joining the Republican Party.
Gabbard made the announcement during an appearance on stage at a rally for former President Donald Trump in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Gabbard has been stumping for Trump on the trail and recently advised him ahead of his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Her announcement Tuesday marks a further political shift after her run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.
“I’m proud to stand here with you today, President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party,” Gabbard said, calling the Republican Party the “party of equality” and “common sense” even as Trump repeatedly used insults to make personal attacks against his opponents during his own remarks.
“I am joining the party of the people … and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace,” Gabbard said.
“I’m looking forward to casting my vote for President Trump, because you are our best and only hope in this election to lead our country toward a future where every one of us can live in a truly free, peaceful and prosperous nation,” Gabbard continued, stressing that “every single vote will count.”
Eminem takes the stage at Harris rally in Detroit
Eminem took the stage at a Harris rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday where he introduced former President Barack Obama.
“I’m here tonight for a couple of important reasons,” Eminem said before sharing how much the city means to him. “Going into this election, the spotlight is on us more than ever,” he said of the swing state.
The Grammy-winning artist encouraged the crowd to “get out and vote.”
Eminem went on to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she supports a future where “freedoms will be protected and upheld” before introducing Obama to the stage.
Walz, Obama energize crowd to get out and vote at Wisconsin rally
At an energetic but not completely packed joint campaign rally to mark early voting in the swing state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, former President Obama and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made their pitch for the Democratic ticket while blasting former Trump’s behavior and character with just two weeks until Election Day.
The rally was held in Madison’s Alliant Energy Center, which is able to hold more than 10,000 people. The event space was not completely filled — only about two-thirds of the seats and floor space was taken.
Walz took aim at Trump and questioned his ally billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, who Walz claimed was “the real running mate.”
“So look, Elon’s on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dip*** on these things,” Walz said to laughs.
“Seriously, where is Senator Vance, after he got asked the simplest question in the world at the debate, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? And after two weeks, he finally said, ‘No, he didn’t.’ That’s where he’s been spending his time,” Walz said.
Obama then came on stage and embraced Walz.
“Love that dude. Love that man. The kind of person who should be in politics,” Obama said.
At three points during Obama’s remarks at the Madison rally, which was billed as an event where the Democrats pushed early voting on the first day that in-person locations opened in Wisconsin, the former president utilized his old, famous saying: “Don’t boo, vote!”
The crowd started to chant “Vote!” at the end of Obama’s remarks.
“So whether this election is making you feel excited or scared or hopeful or frustrated or anything in between, do not sit back and hope for the best. Do not think this is a distraction or a joke. Get off your couch and do what? Vote,” Obama said. “Put down your phones and do what? Vote. Vote for Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States. Vote for Tim Walz as the next vice president of the United States, vote for [incumbent Sen.] Tammy Baldwin and this whole incredible Wisconsin Democratic ticket.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris declines to discuss ‘hypotheticals’ on possible Trump pardon
Harris declined to discuss a possible pardon of Trump, who was convicted in May in a New York court of 34 criminal counts.
“I’m not going to get into those hypotheticals. I’m focused on the next 14 days,” she told NBC’s Hallie Jackson.
Asked if doing so could help the country move on, Harris said, “What’s going to help us move on is I get elected president of the United States.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Harris evades questions on Biden’s decline
Harris was asked about President Joe Biden’s mental state during an interview with NBC’s Hallie Jackson on Tuesday.
Asked by Jackson whether she had seen “anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors,” Harris did not answer directly.
“It was a bad debate. People have bad debates. He is absolutely…”
“Well, that’s the reason why you’re here and he’s not running for the top of the ticket,” Jackson responded.
“Well, you’d have to ask him if that’s the only reason why,” Harris said.
“What do you think?” Jackson asked.
“I am running for president of the United States, Joe Biden is not, and my presidency will be about bringing a new generation of leadership to America that is focused on the work that we need to do to invest in the ambitions and aspirations of the American people.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Biden warns Trump will eliminate Inflation Reduction Act, Obamacare if elected
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders teamed up Tuesday afternoon at an event in Concord, New Hampshire, to tout a new report showing Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on their prescription drugs so far in 2024 through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Biden warned that this progress could be undone if Trump wins in November.
“Trump and MAGA Republicans want to eliminate the Inflation Reduction Act, which we’re talking about, the big bill which made all these savings possible, raising prescription drug prices again for millions of Americans,” he said.
Biden said Trump and the GOP have tried to replace the Affordable Care Act 51 times and mocked the former president for having only a “concept of a plan.”
Biden said if Harris isn’t elected, Trump will “kick 45 million people off their health insurance,” give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, get rid of the Department of Education and gut Social Security and Medicare.
“He’ll hurt hard-working people,” he said.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Vance pushes GOTV message in Arizona
In his fourth visit to the swing state of Arizona, vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance had one simple message to voters: get out and vote for Trump.
“Here’s the scenario that I want you to consider, and I don’t mean to give you nightmare fuel here, but I’m going to do it,” Vance said. “We wake up on November the 6th and Kamala Harris is barely elected President of the United States by a 700-vote margin in the state of Arizona. Think about that and ask yourself what you can do from now until then to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Asked by local reporters what’s the strategy to get across the finish line with those who are still undecided, Vance asked them to look at the former president’s record, arguing that America was in a better position with him as commander-in-chief.
Asked if he’s confident in the Arizona election system and if he’s going to accept the results of the 2024 election, Vance said he thinks “that we’re in a better place than we were in 2020.”
-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie
Harris says she believes Trump could declare victory before all votes counted
Harris acknowledged Tuesday that “of course” it is possible that Trump could declare victory before all the votes are counted next month.
“This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo a free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked, some who were killed,” Harris told NBC’s Hallie Jackson in a clip of their interview that was released Tuesday afternoon.
Harris said that she and her team “will deal with election night and the days after as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus” on that scenario.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an effort from the Republican National Committee to reinstate a series of election rules, including requiring ballots be counted by hand, after they previously were blocked by a lower judge.
The state’s high court ruling was unanimous, according to the order.
The lower court judge previously ruled that seven election rules passed by the state’s Republican-led Election Board were “unlawful and void.” The RNC then appealed, with RNC chairman Michael Whaley in statement saying the judge “exemplified the very worst of judicial activism.”
The order from the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday said the appeal “will proceed in the ordinary court” once it is docketed.
-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin
Over 19M Americans have voted early as of Tuesday afternoon
Over 19 million Americans have voted early as of Tuesday afternoon, according to data from Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Roughly 7.1 million votes have come in through early in-person methods while the remaining votes have been cast through mail ballots, the data showed.
There is a large showing of early votes in the swing state of Georgia which has seen record early vote turnout since early in-person voting began last week.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 1.84 million Georgians, roughly one in four registered voters, have cast their ballot, with over 1.74 million votes cast at early voting polling places across the state according to Georgia’s Secretary of State office.
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd and Ivan Pereira
Trump to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast Friday: Sources
Trump is set to tape an interview for the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast Friday at Rogan’s Austin, Texas, studio, multiple sources told ABC News.
Rogan’s podcast garners a vast amount of viewership each week and ranks as one of the most-listened-to podcast on Spotify.
The interview comes as Trump has been engaging in more long-format media appearances and podcasts and works to appeal to young male voters, a key group of Rogan listeners.
Earlier this cycle, Rogan and Trump got into a back-and-forth spat on social media after Rogan expressed his support for then-candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during on an episode over the summer.
“He’s the only one who makes sense to me,” Rogan said of Kennedy in an August episode.
“He doesn’t attack people. He attacks actions and ideas, but he’s much more reasonable and intelligent.”
In response, Trump posted on his social media platform that “it will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024.”
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Cheney keeps up fire on Trump over Jan. 6
Former Rep. Liz Cheney tore into Trump on Tuesday over the Jan. 6, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and his tariff policies.
Speaking with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Cheney excoriated Trump as unfit for office and a threat to American democracy for his role in sparking the mob, echoing an argument she’s been making on the campaign trail with Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.
“I believe he’s unfit, and he’s dangerous, but I made the decision beyond that to endorse Vice President Harris. And it is certainly the case that there are policies on which we disagree, but she is somebody who’s devoted her life to public service. She is somebody who, even if you disagree with her, and maybe especially if you disagree with her, I can tell you, she will listen,” Cheney, of Wyoming, said at the Detroit Economic Club.
“You all in business, when you think about, what are you looking for in somebody you hire, you’re looking for somebody that you can trust, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be responsible, who’s going to operate in good faith,” she told the audience. “You certainly wouldn’t hire somebody who was unstable and erratic. And we need to think about this election in those terms.”
-ABC News’ Tal Axelrod
Bruce Springsteen to headline concerts at events with Obama, Harris, campaign says
Bruce Springsteen is bringing his greatest hits to the campaign trail as he is set to headline concerts in key swing state cities with Harris and former President Barack Obama, a senior campaign official told ABC News.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician will perform in Atlanta on Thursday with Harris and Obama as part of a get-out-the-vote event followed by another show in Philadelphia with Obama in attendance, the official said.
More concerts will be announced, the official said.
“The Boss” announced his support for Harris saying she and Gov. Tim Walz have “a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity, and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all” and that former President Donald Trump, “doesn’t understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American.”
Campaign advisers see these major mobilization events as massive opportunities to harness voter enthusiasm to get out the vote before Election Day.
–ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow
Trump takes questions from vocal supporters at Latino event, attacks Harris’ intelligence
Trump took friendly questions from Latino supporters during a roundtable aimed at courting minority voters in Florida on Tuesday.
The questions came from many longtime supporters including Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue, pastor Apostle Guillermo Maldonado and “Sound of Freedom” actor Eduardo Verastegui, who spent a lot of their time praising the former president.
Trump talked about immigration for the first time about 30 minutes in, and used false claims about immigrants crossing into the country, calling them a “military supreme.”
The crowd was relatively calm given the ballroom set-up; however, Trump did get applause when he brought up “men in women sports,” where he doubled down on more transphobic rhetoric.
“So there’s a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness, and we have to start because she’s a radical left,” Trump said of Harris.
Trump also repeatedly made racial and ethnic jokes and attacks during the event.
The former president also went after Harris’ intelligence, calling her “slow” and “stupid.”
He also continued to make his baseless claim that there might not be another election if Harris wins.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Trump hits Harris as ‘lazy as hell’ for not being on the trail
Trump returned to his Doral, Florida, golf club to host a roundtable with Latino community members Tuesday and used the opportunity to criticize Harris for not having any campaign events that day.
The roundtable was supposed to be focused on Trump’s appeal to Latino Americans, but during his opening remarks, Trump gave a generic, rambling stump speech where he complained about his heavy campaign schedule compared to Harris’. The vice president is off the trail on Tuesday and taping interviews for NBC News and Telemundo.
“She’s sleeping right now. She couldn’t go on the trail. You know, you think when you have 14 days left, you wouldn’t be sleeping. She’s not doing anything today,” Trump said, not mentioning her TV interviews scheduled for Tuesday.
As the topic of exhaustion came up into the final stretch of the campaign, Trump kept going after Harris for taking days off as he talked about how much he was campaigning.
“Who the hell takes off? You have 14 days left, and she’ll take a couple of more days off too. You know why she’s lazy as hell, and she’s got that reputation,” he said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
DOJ launches voter assistance site for hurricane victims
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched a webpage on Tuesday that compiles information to help voters in states impacted by recent hurricanes Helene and Milton to have access to the ballot.
The resources are aimed to help voters in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.
“The site identifies and provides links to various state changes made to accommodate voters who have been displaced, lost their identification documents, have had polling sites moved or who are unsure where or how they can vote. It also provides contact information so that voters can reach local voting officials who can provide the most specific and up-to-date guidance,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Harris highlights key tie-breaking vote over prescription drugs
Vice President Kamala Harris, who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, called Tuesday’s Health and Human Services report on cost-savings for prescription drugs evidence of the administration’s mission to deliver accessible health care to everyone.
The report showed 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved almost $1 billion on prescription drugs in the first half of 2024 as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“All Americans should be able to access the health care they need — no matter their income,” Harris said in a statement.
The Inflation Reduction Act for the first time put a cap on what Medicare enrollees spend on out-of-pocket costs for their medications and a lower cap that goes into effect next year ($2,000) and is estimated to impact 19 million people.
The administration estimated that this year’s cap saved impacted Medicare enrollees an average of $1,802, and that when the cap lowers further, the savings will be higher.
Harris highlighted the combination of other efforts the administration is also making to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, like capping insulin at $35 and negotiating on contracts with pharma companies so the government pays less for drugs.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Senate Dems release report on early voting
Democratic senators, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, released a report Tuesday urging Americans to cast their ballots as soon as possible and warning that election results may not be known on Election Day.
“Just like 2020, Donald Trump and his allies continue to refuse to commit to accepting the results of the election if he loses while pushing dangerous and divisive rhetoric to sow discord and undermine confidence in our election process. Americans losing faith in the results of our elections doesn’t just risk another January 6th but puts our very democracy at risk,” Schumer said in a statement with the release of the report. “Senate Democrats remain committed to ensuring all Americans can vote without fear or intimidation.”
The report details the early voting and mail-in ballot count procedures, including details on how and when some swing states count their ballots.
Using these details, the report asserts that “early vote counts may create the appearance that one particular candidate is ahead but that may change depending on whether in-person or mail-in vote totals are reported first. Americans should be prepared to reject misinformation and be patient about results in places where counting ballots may take longer.”
Trump still refuses to accept that he lost the 2020 election and has encouraged voters to cast ballots for him on Nov. 5 so that his margin of victory is “too big to rig.”
-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin
ABC News’ John Karl to speak with Liz Cheney
Former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney will sit down with ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent and Co-Anchor of “This Week” Jonathan Karl at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday afternoon.
Part of the event will be streamed on ABC News Live.
Karl’s discussion with Cheney comes a day after she hit the campaign trail with Harris for a series of moderated conversations in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, in which they sought to appeal to white suburban women who vote Republican.
Trump courts Latino voters, Harris off the trail
Trump will hold a roundtable at the Latino Summit at his Doral golf club in Miami. The event was postponed because of Hurricane Milton and comes as the former president seeks to eat away at Harris’ edge with Hispanic voters, particularly males.
Trump will later head to Greensboro, North Carolina, for a rally.
Harris, notably, has no public events scheduled for Tuesday, spending her afternoon instead doing interviews with NBC News and Telemundo.
Former President Barack Obama joins Minnesota Gov. and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz for a rally in Madison, Wisconsin.
Trump and Harris prepare for flood of legal activity around election
Harris and Trump are preparing for a flood of legal activity before and after the election after the former president launched an avalanche of lawsuits seeking to overturn his loss in 2020.
Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign announced what they described as an “historic” “election integrity” program that an RNC official said in recent months has engaged in over 130 election lawsuits across 26 states, and recruited approximately 5,000 volunteer attorneys who are ready to be activated on Election Day.
Democrats, for their part, have intervened in “dozens of baseless Republican lawsuits to debunk their lies and defeat them in court,” according to an internal memo prepared by Harris’ chief attorney, Dana Remus.
Read more here from Olivia Rubin, Will Steakin and Lucien Bruggeman.
Nevada Republicans outpace Democrats in in-person early voting, trail in mail-in voting
Republicans are outpacing Democrats in in-person early voting in Nevada while Democrats are outpacing Republicans in mail-in voting, the Nevada Secretary of State Office’s latest report shows.
The latest report, updated Monday night, reflects early in-person voting and mail-in voting turnout in the first three days. It showed 52% of in-person early voters so far have been Republicans, while 28% were Democrats. Of all mail-in ballots cast so far, 43% so far have been Democrats and 30% Republicans.
The pattern reflects trends from the 2020 presidential election, when Republicans outpaced Democrats in early in-person voting and Democrats outpaced Republicans with mail-in voting.
In total, 245,356 mail-in ballots and early in-person ballots had been cast as of Monday night, with just under 40% of them being Republicans and 36% of them being Democrats.
In-person early voting in Nevada began on Oct. 19.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim
Elon Musk’s PAC pays out 3rd $1 million check to voter
Elon Musk’s America PAC said late Monday that it handed out a third $1 million check to a voter who has signed its petition backing the Constitution.
The PAC said in a post to X that the check was given to Shannon Tomei from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, posting a photograph of Tomei holding the check.
“Every day until Election Day, a person who signs the petition will be selected to earn $1M as a spokesperson for America PAC,” it added.
Musk shared the announcement and congratulated Tomei. In other posts, he has been urging people to register to vote in Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground state in next month’s presidential election.
The first two winners were announced during a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over the weekend, with Musk handing over the checks to the winners on stage. It’s unclear how the third check was delivered.
Musk has thrown his weight behind former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, describing Trump as the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.”
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim
Harris takes jabs at Trump’s dance moves, calls him ‘increasingly unstable’
Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney capped off their battleground tour in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in their bid to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.
During the final event on Monday, Harris continued to draw a contrast between herself and former President Trump and even poked fun at his dance moves during his campaign rally last week.
Harris, who called Trump’s onstage dancing a “solo dance,” said that it was proof that the former president is “increasingly unstable.”
“What we see about him in public, whether it be his rallies or, as you said, the — what would it be called? — just a solo dance? I don’t know,” said Harris, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“I think it does lead us, and it should lead us, to observe that he is increasingly unstable,” Harris said.
Harris was referencing Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, last week where two medical emergencies in the crowd interrupted the event, which eventually turned into what his campaign at the time called an “impromptu concert.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Tim Walz reacts to ‘Daily Show’ appearance with Jon Stewart while fundraising in NYC
Fresh off his taping of the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Gov. Tim Walz told a crowd at the Standard Hotel in New York City on Monday night that the experience was “great” but that the comedian’s monologue at the start of the show was filled with what he considered “doom.”
“I’m like, ‘Quit with the doom.’ You know?” Walz said.
“Yes, Donald Trump is horrible, and the stakes are incredibly high, and women’s lives are at risk, and they demonize immigrants. And then he goes to McDonald’s to try and distract us, even though, the day before that, he said, you know, ‘We need to do something against the enemy from within,’” he went on.
“But there’s an antidote to this,” he concluded, explaining that there was more than enough positivity in the support he has been receiving as he campaigns in battleground states.
At the fundraising event, Walz was introduced by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Hochul told the crowd that she got to know Walz when they were both representing red districts as Democrats in Congress.
She said that she gives Vice President Kamala Harris “a lot of credit” for choosing Walz as a running mate, whom she called “a genuine human being.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Trump recalls assassination attempt while courting religious voters in North Carolina
At a Believers and Ballots event in North Carolina Monday, former President Donald Trump worked to court religious voters.
Trump talked about his spiritual journey with the crowd as he emphasized a faith background we don’t often hear him talk about.
“But as I look back at my life’s journey and events, I now recognize that it’s been the hand of God leading me to where I am today,” said Trump.
The former president reflected on the assassination attempt made against him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania over the summer.
“My faith took on new meaning on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I was knocked to the ground, essentially by what seemed like a supernatural hand,” Trump said.
“I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that’s to make our country greater than ever before,” he added.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina reject challenges to overseas votes
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina on Monday ruled against legal challenges that attempted to disqualify votes cast by eligible American voters overseas.
Republican plaintiffs claimed that election offices in those two states, as well as in Pennsylvania, had created loopholes that would allow ineligible people to vote through overseas absentee ballots.
In Michigan, the judge dismissed one of three suits filed, calling it in his opinion “an 11th-hour attempt to disenfranchise these electors.”
In North Carolina, the judge denied a request by plaintiffs to set aside the ballots of overseas voters until a time at which their individual eligibility could be verified. Superior Court Judge John Smith wrote in that instance that there was “absolutely no evidence that any person has ever fraudulently claimed that exemption and actually voted in any North Carolina election.”
His ruling also stated conclusively that, “This court has weighed the hypothetical possibility of harm to plaintiffs against the rights of the defendants and finds that on balance the equitable discretion of this court should not be invoked to treat an entire group of citizens differently based upon unsupported and speculative allegations for which there is not even a scintilla of substantive evidence.”
A ruling on a similar lawsuit in Pennsylvania is expected soon.
-ABC News’ T. Michelle Murphy and Ivan Pereira
Trump spends millions on anti-trans ads despite lack of voter interest
Donald Trump and his Republicans allies are aggressively pushing anti-trans messaging in the final stretch of his campaign — despite the fact that transgender issues are among the least important issues motivating voters to head to the ballot box, according to a Gallup poll.
The Trump campaign and Republican groups have spent more than $21 million on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ television ads as of Oct. 9.
Additionally, in recent months, Trump-aligned political groups have flooded the airwaves with ads disparaging policies that support the transgender community.
Despite the small size of the transgender population in the U.S., these issues have played a key role in many Republican campaigns on both the state and federal levels.
Trump’s own political agenda, titled Agenda 47, is laden with transgender-based proposals, including a ban on transgender participation in women’s sports, an end to gender-affirming care funded by federal or state dollars, and more.
ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on his ad spending.
-ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca and Soo Rin Kim
Walz to travel to Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania later this week
After Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz campaigns in Wisconsin on Tuesday (where he’ll be joined by former President Barack Obama for a rally in Madison), he’ll remain out on the trail this week.
On Wednesday, Walz will speak at an evening fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky.
On Thursday, he will spend the morning making political stops in Durham, North Carolina — just a week after he visited the city with former President Bill Clinton. He’ll then make local stops in Greenville, North Carolina, in the afternoon and hold a rally in Wilmington that night.
On Friday, Walz will campaign in Philadelphia, where he’ll speak at a fundraiser in the city around noon.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris says she wakes up in middle of night from election stress
Harris said she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night from the stress of the final days of the election, when asked how she handles stress and anxiety during a discussion in Michigan on Monday.
“You know, I wake up in the middle of the night, usually these days. Just to be honest with you,” Harris told Maria Shriver, who moderated the discussion between the vice president and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in Royal Oak. “But I work out every morning. I think that’s really important to just kind of, you know, mind, body and spirit.”
“Say more about that,” Shriver pressed Harris.
“I work out, I try to eat,” Harris responded. “You know, I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband every day.”
“My family grounds me in every way,” she added.
The exchange started with Harris making something clear: She’s not taking edibles.
“Everybody I talked to says, you know, I have to turn off the news, I can’t read anything, I’m meditating, I’m doing yoga. I’m so anxious. I just don’t even know. I’m eating gummies, all kinds of things, you know?” Shriver said to Harris, asking, “What are you doing?”
“Not eating gummies,” Harris said to laughs from the crowd.
-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie
Liz Cheney makes a case for conservatives to back Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a series of moderated conversations with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.
In those appearances, Cheney made a case for conservatives to vote Democrat in the upcoming election and support Harris’ bid for the White House.
“What I would say is that if people are uncertain, if people are thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’m a conservative, I don’t know that I can support Vice President Harris,’ I would say, I don’t know if anybody is more conservative than I am,” said Cheney, who was the third-ranking member of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021.
Cheney also warned Republicans considering voting for Trump that Congress would not be a check on him.
“For anybody who is a Republican who is thinking that, you know, they might vote for Donald Trump because of national security policy, I ask you, please, please study his national security policy,” Cheney said. “Not only is it not Republican — it’s dangerous. And without allies, America will find our very freedom and security challenged and threatened.”
“And one final point on this: Don’t think that Congress can stop him,” Cheney added.
In Malvern, Pennsylvania, Cheney said she thought there would be Republican voters who would cast their ballots for Harris — even if they did not reveal it publicly.
In Michigan, she went further, encouraging voters to do just that, saying, “If you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody, and there will be millions of Republicans who do that on Nov. 5, vote for Vice President Harris.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Will McDuffie and T. Michelle Murphy
Trump pushes false claims that Democrats are trying to cheat in election
Rallying in Greenville, North Carolina, on Monday, Trump launched baseless claims about possible fraud in the 2024 election — despite earlier in the day saying he hadn’t seen evidence of it.
At one point during the rally, Trump turned to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to ask him about election security.
“He’ll stop the cheating. He’s going to stop the cheating,” Trump said to Whatley. “Are they cheating? Michael, they’re trying, but are they? They’re not going to get away with it, right? … They got away with it in plenty of places.”
Earlier in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump told his supporters that he hasn’t seen any evidence of cheating in the election thus far, but added, “I know the other side and they are not good.”
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soo Rin Kim
More than 1.5M have voted early in battleground Georgia
The office of the Georgia Secretary of State announced Monday that more than 1.5 million voters have voted early in person in Georgia as of Monday afternoon.
“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.
In-person early voting started in the key battleground state on Tuesday, Oct. 15.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 15 million early votes have been cast nationally, including almost 5 million in-person early votes, according to an analysis by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
Harris reiterates she worked at McDonald’s after Trump stunt
On her way to her moderated conversation in Michigan, Harris was asked if she had worked at a McDonald’s while deplaning Air Force 2.
“Did I? I did,” she said.
Her past experience at McDonald’s has become a fixation of Trump’s, who over the weekend worked the fryer at one of the chain’s restaurants in the Philadelphia area.
Trump has claimed Harris never worked at the fast food giant. Harris, in introducing herself to voters this campaign, has told the story of working there between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University in an effort to contrast her working-class roots with Trump’s background.
-ABC News’ Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim
Cheney gives Harris backup on abortion
Harris got backup on a hot-button cultural issue from an unlikely source Monday — conservative former Rep. Liz Cheney.
Cheney — who has broken with Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot — still boasts a conservative record. But Monday, she waded into an issue that Democrats hope will help them win over voters on Election Day.
“I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said, referencing the Supreme Court decision that scrapped federal abortion protections.
“In places like Texas, for example, the attorney general is talking about suing, is suing, to get access to women’s medical records. That’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”
The remarks, made in a Philadelphia suburb, were notable as Harris looks to cement support among suburban female voters.
Harris works to earn Pennsylvania’s Republican votes alongside Liz Cheney
Harris is doing a series of moderated conversations with former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in suburban cities in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.
While in Pennsylvania, Harris and Cheney worked to pick off Republicans disaffected with their party’s nominee who may vote for the vice president and focus on the dangers Trump poses to the country and to democracy.
“There are months in the history of our country which challenge us, each of us, to really decide when we stand for those things that we talk about, including, in particular, country over party,” Harris said.
Cheney, a staunch Trump critic who endorsed Harris in September despite their party and policy differences, said “every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part” in her supporting Harris.
“In this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know Vice President Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be in this place.”
Read more about Harris and Cheney’s events here.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow
Trump appears on The Undertaker’s podcast
Trump continued his alternative media outreach effort by sitting down for a podcast interview with retired pro wrestler Mark Calaway, also known as “The Undertaker.”
During the podcast, Trump repeated his anti-trans rhetoric, promising to not allow “men playing in women’s sports” as Calaway brought up his teenage quarterback daughter.
“You don’t want to go and wrestle a guy like if you were doing that, because people do that — like your father — right? He’s a little too much to handle,” Trump said to Calaway’s daughter, who was present for the interview, after Calaway asked him about Title IX..
“I will get rid of it fast. Men playing in women’s sports is insane,” Trump said.
Republicans have invested heavily in ads targeting the transgender community this cycle.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh
Walz on what he’d do differently from the Biden admin and appealing to voters
Tim Walz joined ABC’s “The View” on Monday, where he discussed what he would have done differently than the Biden-Harris administration — a questioned that Harris herself struggled with in her own appearance on the talk show.
The governor said that he wished one of their ticket’s proposals — an expansion on Medicare — “would have been proposed sooner.” He argued their campaign is focusing heavily on things like the care economy and child care affordability.
Walz also discussed how they can appeal to men and Black voters, two voting blocks where Trump is having success.
“As as vice president says, we have a responsibility to earn the votes from everyone and not make the assumption that men or women are going to be with us. I hear oftentimes about the Black community. Why would we assume that they were with us, unless we’re putting out proposals that positively impact their life?” Walz said.
He argued that they are trying to make voters aware of their proposals on housing, child care, small businesses and more.
Trump won’t denounce violence against FEMA workers during North Carolina stop
Trump toured devastation caused by Hurricane Helene just outside Asheville, North Carolina, and later delivered remarks to the press where he began by slamming the job from the White House for their hurricane response, continuing to push false claims about FEMA assistance in the wake of violence against FEMA workers.
“The power of nature. Nothing you can do about it, but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House. It’s been not good. Not good. I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you, and the American people are with you all the way,” Trump said.
Later, he pushed false claims about the allocation of FEMA assistance, once again falsely saying that money dedicated to hurricane relief was going to offer assistance to migrants unaffected by the storm.
“FEMA has done a very poor job … They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing other things, things that I don’t think bear any relationship to this money, there was, they were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election. Because that’s what a lot of people are saying. That’s why they’re doing it,” Trump falsely said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soorin Kim
Sen. Bernie Sanders to join Biden in New Hampshire
In a strategic visit to boost Democrats’ presence in the purple state ahead of the election, President Joe Biden will be joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday in New Hampshire to talk about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, a senior administration official told ABC News.
The president is also expected to stop by a New Hampshire Democratic Party campaign office to support Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the official said.
The economy and costs are a top issue to voters in New Hampshire, polling shows, and Sanders, who made the high price of U.S. health care a central point of both his presidential campaigns, is a popular figure in the state, which neighbors his own.
Sanders and Biden will discuss new data on savings brought about by the administration’s hallmark Inflation Reduction Act, the senior official said. The act implemented significant price caps for Medicare enrollees, including a $35 cap on insulin already in effect and a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs that kicks in in 2025. The White House estimates the caps will bring about cost savings of $400 per year for nearly 19 million seniors.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Tim Walz to join ABC’s ‘The View’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Harris’ running mate, will join ABC’s “The View” on Monday.
His interview comes after Harris herself appeared on the show as part of a media blitz earlier this month.
Walz recently quipped on Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s on Sunday as part of his mockery of Harris’ past employment there. Walz said he took “full responsibility” for the campaign stop after he once joked he couldn’t imagine the former president working a McFlurry machine.
Harris, Cheney to make the case to disaffected Republican voters
Harris is stumping with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The two will hold a moderated conversation in each of the “blue wall” states.
Cheney endorsed Harris in early September, warning Trump posed a threat to democracy after what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our capitol to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said at her first joint appearance with Harris earlier this month.
“I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, that is depravity, and we must never become numb to it,” she continued. “Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again. We must defeat Donald Trump on Nov. 5.”
Trump to survey hurricane damage before rally in North Carolina
At noon, Trump will survey devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina.
He’ll later hold a 3 p.m. rally in Greenville before a 6:30 p.m. meeting with faith leaders in Concord.
Trump has criticized the Biden-Harris response to the storm, and spread misinformation about the federal government’s recovery efforts and assistance. Such misinformation, Biden and other officials have said, is harming those who need assistance and resulting in threats against FEMA workers.
Polls show close race between Harris, Trump
The latest polling averages from 538 show the two candidates running even in key swing states Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has a slight lead over Harris in Georgia and Arizona.
Overall, 538’s national polling average shows Harris ahead by just 1.8%.
(DELPHI, Ind.) — A pair of teenage girls who were on the Delphi, Indiana, hiking trail the same day two younger girls were murdered are speaking out about their recollections of the “bridge guy.”
Railly Voorhies testified Tuesday at Richard Allen’s murder trial that she was on the small-town trail on Feb. 13, 2017, with a friend and two sisters.
Voorhies, who was 16 at the time, said she passed a man near Freedom Bridge on her walk home.
When asked to describe the man, Voorhies said he was a Caucasian man with his face covered. She said he was overdressed for the weather, had on dark clothes, was wearing a hat and had his hands in his pockets.
The prosecution pulled up a photo of the “bridge guy” — the grainy image of the suspect walking on the bridge near where the girls were last seen — and Voorhies said, “That was the man I had waved at on the trail.”
During cross-examination, defense attorney Jennifer Auger noted that Voorhies gave a different description of the man when interviewed earlier. Voorhies first described the man as in his early 20s or 30s with a bigger build, brown eyes, dirty blonde curly hair, a square jaw and a wrinkly face. She also said he was wearing black jeans, a black hoodie, black boots and a black mask.
During redirect, prosecuting attorney Stacey Diener asked Voorhies if she had ever given a statement to police or asked to give a statement about estimating someone’s height or weight.
Voorhies said, “No. I was certain that was the man that I saw. I can say with confidence the person in the picture is the person I saw.”
Auger then asked Voorhies if the photo of the “bridge guy” influenced her memory, and Voorhies responded, “Possibly, yes.”
Breann Wilber, who was on the trail that day with Voorhies, testified that she also noticed the man who was overdressed for the warm weather.
She said the man was walking with a “purpose,” didn’t respond when Voorhies said hello and gave off “weird vibes.”
Wilber said that, when she saw the picture of the “bridge guy,” the “first thing I thought is — that is the person I saw on the trail.”
During cross-examination, Wilber was also pressed on how her description of the man she saw on the trail changed over the years.
Best friends Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, were walking along the trail when they were killed on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat as they walked over the Monon High Bridge. After crossing the bridge, they saw a man behind them, and Libby started a recording on her phone at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said.
The man pulled out a gun and ordered the girls to go “down the hill,” prosecutors said. The girls complied, and then the video on Libby’s phone stopped recording, according to prosecutors.
The eighth graders’ bodies were discovered the next day.
Allen, a Delphi resident, was arrested in 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Voorhies noted in court that she was friends with Libby and Abby on Snapchat, while Wilber said she knew Libby’s older sister and was friends with Libby on Snapchat.
(NEW YORK) — Tens of thousands of Boeing machinists on Wednesday will vote on a new contract proposal that could end a weekslong work stoppage against the embattled aerospace company.
Workers overwhelmingly rejected a previous offer last month, putting the outcome of the impending vote in doubt.
Hours before workers were set to cast ballots, Boeing released an earnings report showing the company had lost a staggering $6.1 billion over the most recent quarter due primarily to costs associated with the strike.
“We have some really big rocks that we need to get behind us to move the company forward,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a letter to investors on Wednesday.
Ortberg singled out the strike as an issue that must be addressed “first and foremost.”
“We have been feverishly working to find a solution that works for the company and meets our employees’ needs,” Ortberg said.
The new offer delivers a 35% raise over the four-year duration of the contract, upping the 25% cumulative raise provided in the previous offer. The offer, however, falls short of workers’ demand for a 40% cumulative pay increase.
The proposal also hikes Boeing’s contribution to a 401(k) plan, but it declines to fulfill workers’ call for a reinstatement of the company’s defined pension. The contract includes a $7,000 ratification bonus for each worker, as well as a performance bonus that Boeing had sought to jettison.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union representing 33,000 Boeing workers, released a statement on Saturday calling the proposal “worthy of consideration.”
“With the help of Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su, we have received a negotiated proposal and resolution to end the strike, and it warrants presenting to the members,” IAM said.
The company and its workers have faced significant financial losses during the nearly six-week strike.
Union members have received $250 per week from a strike fund, beginning in the third week of the work stoppage. That compensation marks a major pay cut for many of the employees.
Mid-ranking workers involved in the strike typically make $20 per hour, which totals $800 per 40-hour work week, while higher-paid members earn salaries upward of $100,000 per year, or nearly $2,000 per week
“The question is whether the employees and their union determine that they have the power to get more from Boeing,” Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told ABC News. “It’s whether they think they can extract more from Boeing, or Boeing says, ‘You know what, this is it.'”
The strike was set to cost Boeing $108 million per day in lost revenue, amounting to as much as $5.5 billion in losses should the work stoppage last 50 days, investment bank TD Cowen said in a report reviewed by ABC News at the outset of the dispute. So far, the strike has lasted 40 days.
In September, Boeing announced furloughs and pay cuts for some white-collar employees in response to the strike. Last week, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg announced plans to cut 17,000 jobs, which amounts to about 10% of its global workforce.
“This is really painful for Boeing,” Richard Aboulafia, managing director of aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, told ABC News.
The most recent IAM strike against Boeing in the Pacific Northwest, in 2008, lasted 57 days. Work stoppages undertaken by unionized Boeing employees in the same region have historically lasted an average of 60 days, a Bank of America Global Research analysis found after examining seven previous strikes, the earliest in 1948.
Workers will cast their ballots in a ratification vote on Wednesday. If a majority of workers back the proposal, the contract will be adopted and the strike will end.
Over the days leading up to the vote, the outcome remained unclear, Jake Rosenfeld, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies labor, told ABC News.
“What are the workers going to do?” Rosenfeld said. “That’s a really tough question.”
(LONDON) — Turkey‘s interior minister reported deaths and injuries after a “terrorist attack” at Turkish Aerospace Industries facilities near the capital Ankara on Wednesday.
Three people were killed and 14 injured in the attack, Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X. Two attackers were “neutralized,” he added.
“I condemn this heinous attack,” Yerlikaya wrote. “Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
The Turkish Aerospace Industries site is some 25 miles outside Ankara.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
(DELPHI, Ind.) — A 30-second video filmed by 14-year-old victim Libby German just before she was murdered in Delphi, Indiana, was played for the jury on Tuesday during Richard Allen’s trial.
Allen is accused of killing Libby and 13-year-old Abby Williams while the best friends walked on a trail in their small town on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
The video — played during testimony from Indiana State Police digital forensic examiner Brian Bunner — showed Libby filming herself and Abby walking on the Monon High Bridge. At one point, the camera panned up, and no one was behind Abby. In a later shot, the video shows a man walking behind her.
According to Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV, a girl’s voice is heard on the video saying, “There’s no path — the trail ends here, so we have to go down here?”
Libby’s mother cried in court when she heard the voice.
The video, which was not enhanced, was played just once for the jury.
Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat as they walked over the Monon High Bridge, prosecutor Nick McLeland told the jury last week in his opening statement. After the girls crossed the bridge, they saw a man behind them, and Libby started a recording on her phone at 2:13 p.m., he said.
The man pulled out a gun and ordered the girls to go “down the hill,” McLeland said. The girls complied, he said, and then the video on Libby’s phone stopped recording.
The eighth graders’ bodies were discovered near the trail one day later.
Indiana State Police crime scene investigator Brian Olehy testified Monday that both girls’ necks were cut, noting that Libby’s was “viciously slashed.” A large pool of blood was visible between their bodies, he said.
Olehy said some of the girls’ clothing was found inside-out in the nearby creek.
Sticks were partially laid over the bodies, Olehy said. When he and another deputy lifted Libby’s body off the ground to place it in a body bag, he said leaves and dirt stuck to her back.
Libby’s phone — in its Harry Potter-themed case — was found underneath Abby’s body, Olehy said.
On Tuesday, Olehy returned to the stand and walked the jury through evidence collected during the autopsies, including: sex assault evidence kits for Abby and Libby; Libby’s Delphi swimming sweatshirt with red stains; jeans with red stains; a gray bra with red stains and a black bra with red stains.
Libby’s mom wiped away tears as Olehy explained the sex assault evidence collection kit.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Brad Rozzi asked if any of the recovered DNA evidence was linked to Allen, and Olehy responded, “No.”
Rozzi asked Olehy if it seemed like the sticks in between the girls’ bodies were placed there intentionally. Olehy replied, “They appeared to be placed there by an individual,” and he went on to say the sticks seemed to be an “attempt at concealment.”
Allen, a Delphi resident, was arrested in 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to murder. Allen has admitted to police that he was on the trail that day, but he denied any involvement in the murders, according to court documents.
(WASHINGTON) — John Kelly, a former four-star Marine general and former chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, hammered his old boss in a stunningly public fashion on Tuesday — just two weeks before Election Day.
Kelly, who had previously refrained from discussing his time in the White House so openly, said in expansive interviews with The New York Times that Trump’s discussion of using the military against the “enemy within” — who, in Trump’s words included Democratic foes — pushed him to come forward.
“And I think this issue of using the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly said.
The former general held nothing back, arguing that Trump could fit the bill of a “fascist.”
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he told The Times.
“So, certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” he added.
Kelly went on to explain that Trump had said he wanted generals like those that Adolf Hitler had, a comment that Kelly found shocking and told the former president not to repeat.
The remarks from Kelly, while astounding coming from a veteran who attained such a high ranking in uniform, is just the latest to come from a former senior official in Trump’s administration.
Mark Milley, a retired Army general and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is a “fascist to the core.”
“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.
Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, said earlier this month that he feared Trump would use the military against his domestic critics and that he would likely have fewer guardrails in a hypothetical second term.
“My sense is his inclination is to use the military in these situations whereas my view is that’s a bad role for the military. It should only be law enforcement taking those actions,” Esper said on CNN.
“I think President Trump has learned, the key is getting people around you who will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do. And I think he’s talked about that, his acolytes have talked about that, and I think loyalty will be the first litmus test,” he added.
Trump throughout his tenure has also praised authoritarians, including boasting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s intelligence, calling North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un “tough” and heaping praise on Hungarian leader Viktor Orban.
Trump’s campaign has hit back at the former officials, including going after Kelly on Tuesday.
“John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women, whereas Kamala Harris has completely disrespected the families of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including the Abbey Gate 13,” he added, referencing the 13 service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The latest eye-popping comments from Kelly come as early voting is already underway and Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris fight for a small but significant slice of undecided voters.
Harris’ campaign is anticipated to seize on the latest comments.
“The people who know him best are telling us Trump is unhinged and pursuing unchecked power that would put us all at risk. We should all listen,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.
However, national debate over Trump’s character has raged largely unabated since 2015, leaving Republicans skeptical the latest comments will make an impact with voters.
GOP pollster Robert Blizzard said it’s “hard to believe this is going to be the ‘ah, gotcha now’ moment for Democrats.”
“I have a difficult time believing there is a single voter that doesn’t have a hard and fast opinion on Donald Trump. They’ve come to that conclusion themselves, and I can’t imagine these people, who the average voter has never heard of, change that opinion,” added a former senior Trump administration official.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to turn over records related to former President Donald Trump’s controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery – meaning the public could soon see the incident report concerning an alleged altercation between Trump campaign officials and a cemetery employee.
American Oversight, a watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against DOD to obtain the incident report of the alleged Aug. 26 incident involving a member of Trump’s campaign and the cemetery staff member.
ABC News has previously reported that there was a physical and verbal altercation between a Trump campaign official and a staff member attempting to enforce federal law prohibiting campaigning at the cemetery.
Trump’s aides filmed a campaign video in a section of the cemetery where recently fallen service members are buried.
In September, ABC News reported law enforcement officials at a Virginia military base were still investigating the incident even after the Army said it considered the matter closed, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
In the days following the incident, the Army defended the cemetery staffer, saying the person had been “unfairly attacked.”
As part of the probe led by the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Police Department, an investigator with the base’s police department had sought to contact Trump campaign officials about the incident, the sources said.
Trump’s campaign insisted its aides acted appropriately and promised to release video they said would exonerate its staff. That video has not been released.
Trump, accompanied by some military family members, was visiting the graves of service members killed in the Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal of Afghanistan — something he has made a campaign issue.
Senior Judge Paul Friedman agreed with American Oversight that the records were pertinent to the public and ordered them released by Oct. 25.
“With the election just two weeks away, the American people have a clear and compelling interest in knowing how the government responded to an alleged incident involving a major presidential candidate who has a history of politicizing the military,” Chioma Chukwu, American Oversight Interim Executive Director said in a statement.
“These records belong to the public, and we’re pleased the court agreed on the need to expedite our request. We look forward to receiving the incident report and making it available to the public,” he said.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Luis Martinez and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
Bridget Bennett for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The race for the White House is heading into the final stretch with most polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck-and-neck in key states with just about two weeks to go.
John Kelly says Trump fits definition of a ‘fascist’
John Kelly, who served as chief of staff in Trump’s administration, described the former president as a “fascist” during an interview with the New York Times.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism, it’s a far right, authoritarian, ultra nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized hypocrisy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief, natural, social hierarchy,” Kelly told the newspaper. “So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks will prove work better in terms of running America.”
Kelly also said he believed Trump would “love” to be a dictator, and that he was comfortable saying Adolf Hitler “did some good things, too.” Kelly also claimed Trump referred to veterans who lost limbs as “losers and suckers.”
The Trump campaign pushed back in a statement.
“John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women, whereas Kamala Harris has completely disrespected the families of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including the Abbey Gate 13,” said campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
Harris tells Telemundo how her economic plan will benefit Latinos
Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network, released clips on Tuesday of an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris — part of a more extensive conversation that will be aired on Wednesday.
In the clips, she comments primarily on her economic position and plan, describing herself as a “pragmatic capitalist.”
“I am a capitalist. I am a pragmatic capitalist,” she can be heard saying in one of the clips.
She went on to describe the need for leadership in America that actively works with the private sector “to drive new industries and build up small-business owners, to allow us to increase home ownership, to allow people and their families to build intergenerational wealth.”
She also stated that a new approach would need to understand “that some of the best jobs that we have available don’t necessarily require a college degree.”
In a separate clip, when asked how that plan might affect Latino men, Harris answered, “A lot of my agenda is about creating opportunity for people to succeed. So, for example, part of the agenda that I’ve already presented, I am very aware how it would affect Latino men.”
She explained that it involved building a strong economy that supports working people, and especially small-business owners, and added: “I know that Latino men often have a more difficult time having access to the big loans from the big banks because of relationships, because of things that are not necessarily grounded in their qualifications. So, I am focused on what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that will understand the community and be able to give those kinds of loans.”
Returning to her thoughts on the importance of families establishing generational wealth, she also said that part of her economic plan that would impact Latinos would be $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homeowners.
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Conor J. Finnegan, Will McDuffie
Biden says of Trump: ‘We gotta lock him up. Politically, lock him up’
President Joe Biden said former President Donald Trump poses a “genuine threat” to American democracy, during a visit to New Hampshire Democratic Party headquarters, saying, “We gotta lock him. Politically lock him up.”
The remarks came after Biden listed Trump’s proposals such as doing away with the Department of Education, taking on the federal civil service and the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting presidents broad immunity. Biden said: “I mean, so I know this sounds bizarre. It sounds like – if I said this five years ago, you’d lock me up.”
Then Biden said, referring to Trump, “We gotta lock him up. Politically lock him up. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
“Lock her up” was an oft-repeated line by Trump and his supporters in 2016, a reference to Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information on her private email server.
Trump’s campaign quickly seized on Biden’s comments, calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to condemn the remarks and pushing claim that it shows Trump’s legal battles are purely political — charges prosecutors have repeatedly denied.
“Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary of the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “The Harris-Biden Admin is the real threat to democracy. We call on Kamala Harris to condemn Joe Biden’s disgraceful remark.”
Jill Stein says ‘voters should vote for themselves’ in response to new Harris attack ad
Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, told ABC News Live “Voters should vote for themselves,” in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’ team running an attack advertisement against her. The ad, which started airing in the last week in some swing states, claimed that “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”
“Voters are being told over and over again that you don’t own your vote, that politicians own your vote,” the candidate who ran for the White House in 2012 and 2016, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“We do not have a lesser evil candidate, we have two greater evils,” Stein added, about Americans casting a vote for either former President Donald Trump or Harris.
A large part of Stein’s campaign has focused on slamming Harris for the Biden administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the 2016 election, the serial candidate received almost 1.5 million votes, enough votes in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to exceed Trump’s margins of victory.
Stein said that if she wasn’t on the ballot, a “vast majority of those voters would not have come out to vote.”
-ABC News’ Shannon Caturano
Tulsi Gabbard announces she’s joining Republican Party
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday she is officially joining the Republican Party.
Gabbard made the announcement during an appearance on stage at a rally for former President Donald Trump in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Gabbard has been stumping for Trump on the trail and recently advised him ahead of his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Her announcement Tuesday marks a further political shift after her run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.
“I’m proud to stand here with you today, President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party,” Gabbard said, calling the Republican Party the “party of equality” and “common sense” even as Trump repeatedly used insults to make personal attacks against his opponents during his own remarks.
“I am joining the party of the people … and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace,” Gabbard said.
“I’m looking forward to casting my vote for President Trump, because you are our best and only hope in this election to lead our country toward a future where every one of us can live in a truly free, peaceful and prosperous nation,” Gabbard continued, stressing that “every single vote will count.”
Eminem takes the stage at Harris rally in Detroit
Eminem took the stage at a Harris rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday where he introduced former President Barack Obama.
“I’m here tonight for a couple of important reasons,” Eminem said before sharing how much the city means to him. “Going into this election, the spotlight is on us more than ever,” he said of the swing state.
The Grammy-winning artist encouraged the crowd to “get out and vote.”
Eminem went on to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she supports a future where “freedoms will be protected and upheld” before introducing Obama to the stage.
Walz, Obama energize crowd to get out and vote at Wisconsin rally
At an energetic but not completely packed joint campaign rally to mark early voting in the swing state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, former President Obama and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made their pitch for the Democratic ticket while blasting former Trump’s behavior and character with just two weeks until Election Day.
The rally was held in Madison’s Alliant Energy Center, which is able to hold more than 10,000 people. The event space was not completely filled — only about two-thirds of the seats and floor space was taken.
Walz took aim at Trump and questioned his ally billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, who Walz claimed was “the real running mate.”
“So look, Elon’s on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dip*** on these things,” Walz said to laughs.
“Seriously, where is Senator Vance, after he got asked the simplest question in the world at the debate, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? And after two weeks, he finally said, ‘No, he didn’t.’ That’s where he’s been spending his time,” Walz said.
Obama then came on stage and embraced Walz.
“Love that dude. Love that man. The kind of person who should be in politics,” Obama said.
At three points during Obama’s remarks at the Madison rally, which was billed as an event where the Democrats pushed early voting on the first day that in-person locations opened in Wisconsin, the former president utilized his old, famous saying: “Don’t boo, vote!”
The crowd started to chant “Vote!” at the end of Obama’s remarks.
“So whether this election is making you feel excited or scared or hopeful or frustrated or anything in between, do not sit back and hope for the best. Do not think this is a distraction or a joke. Get off your couch and do what? Vote,” Obama said. “Put down your phones and do what? Vote. Vote for Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States. Vote for Tim Walz as the next vice president of the United States, vote for [incumbent Sen.] Tammy Baldwin and this whole incredible Wisconsin Democratic ticket.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris declines to discuss ‘hypotheticals’ on possible Trump pardon
Harris declined to discuss a possible pardon of Trump, who was convicted in May in a New York court of 34 criminal counts.
“I’m not going to get into those hypotheticals. I’m focused on the next 14 days,” she told NBC’s Hallie Jackson.
Asked if doing so could help the country move on, Harris said, “What’s going to help us move on is I get elected president of the United States.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Harris evades questions on Biden’s decline
Harris was asked about President Joe Biden’s mental state during an interview with NBC’s Hallie Jackson on Tuesday.
Asked by Jackson whether she had seen “anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors,” Harris did not answer directly.
“It was a bad debate. People have bad debates. He is absolutely…”
“Well, that’s the reason why you’re here and he’s not running for the top of the ticket,” Jackson responded.
“Well, you’d have to ask him if that’s the only reason why,” Harris said.
“What do you think?” Jackson asked.
“I am running for president of the United States, Joe Biden is not, and my presidency will be about bringing a new generation of leadership to America that is focused on the work that we need to do to invest in the ambitions and aspirations of the American people.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Biden warns Trump will eliminate Inflation Reduction Act, Obamacare if elected
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders teamed up Tuesday afternoon at an event in Concord, New Hampshire, to tout a new report showing Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on their prescription drugs so far in 2024 through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Biden warned that this progress could be undone if Trump wins in November.
“Trump and MAGA Republicans want to eliminate the Inflation Reduction Act, which we’re talking about, the big bill which made all these savings possible, raising prescription drug prices again for millions of Americans,” he said.
Biden said Trump and the GOP have tried to replace the Affordable Care Act 51 times and mocked the former president for having only a “concept of a plan.”
Biden said if Harris isn’t elected, Trump will “kick 45 million people off their health insurance,” give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, get rid of the Department of Education and gut Social Security and Medicare.
“He’ll hurt hard-working people,” he said.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Vance pushes GOTV message in Arizona
In his fourth visit to the swing state of Arizona, vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance had one simple message to voters: get out and vote for Trump.
“Here’s the scenario that I want you to consider, and I don’t mean to give you nightmare fuel here, but I’m going to do it,” Vance said. “We wake up on November the 6th and Kamala Harris is barely elected President of the United States by a 700-vote margin in the state of Arizona. Think about that and ask yourself what you can do from now until then to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Asked by local reporters what’s the strategy to get across the finish line with those who are still undecided, Vance asked them to look at the former president’s record, arguing that America was in a better position with him as commander-in-chief.
Asked if he’s confident in the Arizona election system and if he’s going to accept the results of the 2024 election, Vance said he thinks “that we’re in a better place than we were in 2020.”
-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie
Harris says she believes Trump could declare victory before all votes counted
Harris acknowledged Tuesday that “of course” it is possible that Trump could declare victory before all the votes are counted next month.
“This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo a free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked, some who were killed,” Harris told NBC’s Hallie Jackson in a clip of their interview that was released Tuesday afternoon.
Harris said that she and her team “will deal with election night and the days after as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus” on that scenario.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an effort from the Republican National Committee to reinstate a series of election rules, including requiring ballots be counted by hand, after they previously were blocked by a lower judge.
The state’s high court ruling was unanimous, according to the order.
The lower court judge previously ruled that seven election rules passed by the state’s Republican-led Election Board were “unlawful and void.” The RNC then appealed, with RNC chairman Michael Whaley in statement saying the judge “exemplified the very worst of judicial activism.”
The order from the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday said the appeal “will proceed in the ordinary court” once it is docketed.
-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin
Over 19M Americans have voted early as of Tuesday afternoon
Over 19 million Americans have voted early as of Tuesday afternoon, according to data from Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Roughly 7.1 million votes have come in through early in-person methods while the remaining votes have been cast through mail ballots, the data showed.
There is a large showing of early votes in the swing state of Georgia which has seen record early vote turnout since early in-person voting began last week.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 1.84 million Georgians, roughly one in four registered voters, have cast their ballot, with over 1.74 million votes cast at early voting polling places across the state according to Georgia’s Secretary of State office.
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd and Ivan Pereira
Trump to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast Friday: Sources
Trump is set to tape an interview for the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast Friday at Rogan’s Austin, Texas, studio, multiple sources told ABC News.
Rogan’s podcast garners a vast amount of viewership each week and ranks as one of the most-listened-to podcast on Spotify.
The interview comes as Trump has been engaging in more long-format media appearances and podcasts and works to appeal to young male voters, a key group of Rogan listeners.
Earlier this cycle, Rogan and Trump got into a back-and-forth spat on social media after Rogan expressed his support for then-candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during on an episode over the summer.
“He’s the only one who makes sense to me,” Rogan said of Kennedy in an August episode.
“He doesn’t attack people. He attacks actions and ideas, but he’s much more reasonable and intelligent.”
In response, Trump posted on his social media platform that “it will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024.”
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Cheney keeps up fire on Trump over Jan. 6
Former Rep. Liz Cheney tore into Trump on Tuesday over the Jan. 6, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and his tariff policies.
Speaking with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Cheney excoriated Trump as unfit for office and a threat to American democracy for his role in sparking the mob, echoing an argument she’s been making on the campaign trail with Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.
“I believe he’s unfit, and he’s dangerous, but I made the decision beyond that to endorse Vice President Harris. And it is certainly the case that there are policies on which we disagree, but she is somebody who’s devoted her life to public service. She is somebody who, even if you disagree with her, and maybe especially if you disagree with her, I can tell you, she will listen,” Cheney, of Wyoming, said at the Detroit Economic Club.
“You all in business, when you think about, what are you looking for in somebody you hire, you’re looking for somebody that you can trust, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be responsible, who’s going to operate in good faith,” she told the audience. “You certainly wouldn’t hire somebody who was unstable and erratic. And we need to think about this election in those terms.”
-ABC News’ Tal Axelrod
Bruce Springsteen to headline concerts at events with Obama, Harris, campaign says
Bruce Springsteen is bringing his greatest hits to the campaign trail as he is set to headline concerts in key swing state cities with Harris and former President Barack Obama, a senior campaign official told ABC News.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician will perform in Atlanta on Thursday with Harris and Obama as part of a get-out-the-vote event followed by another show in Philadelphia with Obama in attendance, the official said.
More concerts will be announced, the official said.
“The Boss” announced his support for Harris saying she and Gov. Tim Walz have “a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity, and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all” and that former President Donald Trump, “doesn’t understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American.”
Campaign advisers see these major mobilization events as massive opportunities to harness voter enthusiasm to get out the vote before Election Day.
–ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow
Trump takes questions from vocal supporters at Latino event, attacks Harris’ intelligence
Trump took friendly questions from Latino supporters during a roundtable aimed at courting minority voters in Florida on Tuesday.
The questions came from many longtime supporters including Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue, pastor Apostle Guillermo Maldonado and “Sound of Freedom” actor Eduardo Verastegui, who spent a lot of their time praising the former president.
Trump talked about immigration for the first time about 30 minutes in, and used false claims about immigrants crossing into the country, calling them a “military supreme.”
The crowd was relatively calm given the ballroom set-up; however, Trump did get applause when he brought up “men in women sports,” where he doubled down on more transphobic rhetoric.
“So there’s a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness, and we have to start because she’s a radical left,” Trump said of Harris.
Trump also repeatedly made racial and ethnic jokes and attacks during the event.
The former president also went after Harris’ intelligence, calling her “slow” and “stupid.”
He also continued to make his baseless claim that there might not be another election if Harris wins.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Trump hits Harris as ‘lazy as hell’ for not being on the trail
Trump returned to his Doral, Florida, golf club to host a roundtable with Latino community members Tuesday and used the opportunity to criticize Harris for not having any campaign events that day.
The roundtable was supposed to be focused on Trump’s appeal to Latino Americans, but during his opening remarks, Trump gave a generic, rambling stump speech where he complained about his heavy campaign schedule compared to Harris’. The vice president is off the trail on Tuesday and taping interviews for NBC News and Telemundo.
“She’s sleeping right now. She couldn’t go on the trail. You know, you think when you have 14 days left, you wouldn’t be sleeping. She’s not doing anything today,” Trump said, not mentioning her TV interviews scheduled for Tuesday.
As the topic of exhaustion came up into the final stretch of the campaign, Trump kept going after Harris for taking days off as he talked about how much he was campaigning.
“Who the hell takes off? You have 14 days left, and she’ll take a couple of more days off too. You know why she’s lazy as hell, and she’s got that reputation,” he said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
DOJ launches voter assistance site for hurricane victims
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched a webpage on Tuesday that compiles information to help voters in states impacted by recent hurricanes Helene and Milton to have access to the ballot.
The resources are aimed to help voters in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.
“The site identifies and provides links to various state changes made to accommodate voters who have been displaced, lost their identification documents, have had polling sites moved or who are unsure where or how they can vote. It also provides contact information so that voters can reach local voting officials who can provide the most specific and up-to-date guidance,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Harris highlights key tie-breaking vote over prescription drugs
Vice President Kamala Harris, who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, called Tuesday’s Health and Human Services report on cost-savings for prescription drugs evidence of the administration’s mission to deliver accessible health care to everyone.
The report showed 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved almost $1 billion on prescription drugs in the first half of 2024 as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“All Americans should be able to access the health care they need — no matter their income,” Harris said in a statement.
The Inflation Reduction Act for the first time put a cap on what Medicare enrollees spend on out-of-pocket costs for their medications and a lower cap that goes into effect next year ($2,000) and is estimated to impact 19 million people.
The administration estimated that this year’s cap saved impacted Medicare enrollees an average of $1,802, and that when the cap lowers further, the savings will be higher.
Harris highlighted the combination of other efforts the administration is also making to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, like capping insulin at $35 and negotiating on contracts with pharma companies so the government pays less for drugs.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Senate Dems release report on early voting
Democratic senators, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, released a report Tuesday urging Americans to cast their ballots as soon as possible and warning that election results may not be known on Election Day.
“Just like 2020, Donald Trump and his allies continue to refuse to commit to accepting the results of the election if he loses while pushing dangerous and divisive rhetoric to sow discord and undermine confidence in our election process. Americans losing faith in the results of our elections doesn’t just risk another January 6th but puts our very democracy at risk,” Schumer said in a statement with the release of the report. “Senate Democrats remain committed to ensuring all Americans can vote without fear or intimidation.”
The report details the early voting and mail-in ballot count procedures, including details on how and when some swing states count their ballots.
Using these details, the report asserts that “early vote counts may create the appearance that one particular candidate is ahead but that may change depending on whether in-person or mail-in vote totals are reported first. Americans should be prepared to reject misinformation and be patient about results in places where counting ballots may take longer.”
Trump still refuses to accept that he lost the 2020 election and has encouraged voters to cast ballots for him on Nov. 5 so that his margin of victory is “too big to rig.”
-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin
ABC News’ John Karl to speak with Liz Cheney
Former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney will sit down with ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent and Co-Anchor of “This Week” Jonathan Karl at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday afternoon.
Part of the event will be streamed on ABC News Live.
Karl’s discussion with Cheney comes a day after she hit the campaign trail with Harris for a series of moderated conversations in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, in which they sought to appeal to white suburban women who vote Republican.
Trump courts Latino voters, Harris off the trail
Trump will hold a roundtable at the Latino Summit at his Doral golf club in Miami. The event was postponed because of Hurricane Milton and comes as the former president seeks to eat away at Harris’ edge with Hispanic voters, particularly males.
Trump will later head to Greensboro, North Carolina, for a rally.
Harris, notably, has no public events scheduled for Tuesday, spending her afternoon instead doing interviews with NBC News and Telemundo.
Former President Barack Obama joins Minnesota Gov. and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz for a rally in Madison, Wisconsin.
Trump and Harris prepare for flood of legal activity around election
Harris and Trump are preparing for a flood of legal activity before and after the election after the former president launched an avalanche of lawsuits seeking to overturn his loss in 2020.
Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign announced what they described as an “historic” “election integrity” program that an RNC official said in recent months has engaged in over 130 election lawsuits across 26 states, and recruited approximately 5,000 volunteer attorneys who are ready to be activated on Election Day.
Democrats, for their part, have intervened in “dozens of baseless Republican lawsuits to debunk their lies and defeat them in court,” according to an internal memo prepared by Harris’ chief attorney, Dana Remus.
Read more here from Olivia Rubin, Will Steakin and Lucien Bruggeman.
Nevada Republicans outpace Democrats in in-person early voting, trail in mail-in voting
Republicans are outpacing Democrats in in-person early voting in Nevada while Democrats are outpacing Republicans in mail-in voting, the Nevada Secretary of State Office’s latest report shows.
The latest report, updated Monday night, reflects early in-person voting and mail-in voting turnout in the first three days. It showed 52% of in-person early voters so far have been Republicans, while 28% were Democrats. Of all mail-in ballots cast so far, 43% so far have been Democrats and 30% Republicans.
The pattern reflects trends from the 2020 presidential election, when Republicans outpaced Democrats in early in-person voting and Democrats outpaced Republicans with mail-in voting.
In total, 245,356 mail-in ballots and early in-person ballots had been cast as of Monday night, with just under 40% of them being Republicans and 36% of them being Democrats.
In-person early voting in Nevada began on Oct. 19.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim
Elon Musk’s PAC pays out 3rd $1 million check to voter
Elon Musk’s America PAC said late Monday that it handed out a third $1 million check to a voter who has signed its petition backing the Constitution.
The PAC said in a post to X that the check was given to Shannon Tomei from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, posting a photograph of Tomei holding the check.
“Every day until Election Day, a person who signs the petition will be selected to earn $1M as a spokesperson for America PAC,” it added.
Musk shared the announcement and congratulated Tomei. In other posts, he has been urging people to register to vote in Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground state in next month’s presidential election.
The first two winners were announced during a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over the weekend, with Musk handing over the checks to the winners on stage. It’s unclear how the third check was delivered.
Musk has thrown his weight behind former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, describing Trump as the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.”
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim
Harris takes jabs at Trump’s dance moves, calls him ‘increasingly unstable’
Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney capped off their battleground tour in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in their bid to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.
During the final event on Monday, Harris continued to draw a contrast between herself and former President Trump and even poked fun at his dance moves during his campaign rally last week.
Harris, who called Trump’s onstage dancing a “solo dance,” said that it was proof that the former president is “increasingly unstable.”
“What we see about him in public, whether it be his rallies or, as you said, the — what would it be called? — just a solo dance? I don’t know,” said Harris, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“I think it does lead us, and it should lead us, to observe that he is increasingly unstable,” Harris said.
Harris was referencing Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, last week where two medical emergencies in the crowd interrupted the event, which eventually turned into what his campaign at the time called an “impromptu concert.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Tim Walz reacts to ‘Daily Show’ appearance with Jon Stewart while fundraising in NYC
Fresh off his taping of the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Gov. Tim Walz told a crowd at the Standard Hotel in New York City on Monday night that the experience was “great” but that the comedian’s monologue at the start of the show was filled with what he considered “doom.”
“I’m like, ‘Quit with the doom.’ You know?” Walz said.
“Yes, Donald Trump is horrible, and the stakes are incredibly high, and women’s lives are at risk, and they demonize immigrants. And then he goes to McDonald’s to try and distract us, even though, the day before that, he said, you know, ‘We need to do something against the enemy from within,’” he went on.
“But there’s an antidote to this,” he concluded, explaining that there was more than enough positivity in the support he has been receiving as he campaigns in battleground states.
At the fundraising event, Walz was introduced by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Hochul told the crowd that she got to know Walz when they were both representing red districts as Democrats in Congress.
She said that she gives Vice President Kamala Harris “a lot of credit” for choosing Walz as a running mate, whom she called “a genuine human being.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Trump recalls assassination attempt while courting religious voters in North Carolina
At a Believers and Ballots event in North Carolina Monday, former President Donald Trump worked to court religious voters.
Trump talked about his spiritual journey with the crowd as he emphasized a faith background we don’t often hear him talk about.
“But as I look back at my life’s journey and events, I now recognize that it’s been the hand of God leading me to where I am today,” said Trump.
The former president reflected on the assassination attempt made against him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania over the summer.
“My faith took on new meaning on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I was knocked to the ground, essentially by what seemed like a supernatural hand,” Trump said.
“I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that’s to make our country greater than ever before,” he added.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina reject challenges to overseas votes
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina on Monday ruled against legal challenges that attempted to disqualify votes cast by eligible American voters overseas.
Republican plaintiffs claimed that election offices in those two states, as well as in Pennsylvania, had created loopholes that would allow ineligible people to vote through overseas absentee ballots.
In Michigan, the judge dismissed one of three suits filed, calling it in his opinion “an 11th-hour attempt to disenfranchise these electors.”
In North Carolina, the judge denied a request by plaintiffs to set aside the ballots of overseas voters until a time at which their individual eligibility could be verified. Superior Court Judge John Smith wrote in that instance that there was “absolutely no evidence that any person has ever fraudulently claimed that exemption and actually voted in any North Carolina election.”
His ruling also stated conclusively that, “This court has weighed the hypothetical possibility of harm to plaintiffs against the rights of the defendants and finds that on balance the equitable discretion of this court should not be invoked to treat an entire group of citizens differently based upon unsupported and speculative allegations for which there is not even a scintilla of substantive evidence.”
A ruling on a similar lawsuit in Pennsylvania is expected soon.
-ABC News’ T. Michelle Murphy and Ivan Pereira
Trump spends millions on anti-trans ads despite lack of voter interest
Donald Trump and his Republicans allies are aggressively pushing anti-trans messaging in the final stretch of his campaign — despite the fact that transgender issues are among the least important issues motivating voters to head to the ballot box, according to a Gallup poll.
The Trump campaign and Republican groups have spent more than $21 million on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ television ads as of Oct. 9.
Additionally, in recent months, Trump-aligned political groups have flooded the airwaves with ads disparaging policies that support the transgender community.
Despite the small size of the transgender population in the U.S., these issues have played a key role in many Republican campaigns on both the state and federal levels.
Trump’s own political agenda, titled Agenda 47, is laden with transgender-based proposals, including a ban on transgender participation in women’s sports, an end to gender-affirming care funded by federal or state dollars, and more.
ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on his ad spending.
-ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca and Soo Rin Kim
Walz to travel to Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania later this week
After Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz campaigns in Wisconsin on Tuesday (where he’ll be joined by former President Barack Obama for a rally in Madison), he’ll remain out on the trail this week.
On Wednesday, Walz will speak at an evening fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky.
On Thursday, he will spend the morning making political stops in Durham, North Carolina — just a week after he visited the city with former President Bill Clinton. He’ll then make local stops in Greenville, North Carolina, in the afternoon and hold a rally in Wilmington that night.
On Friday, Walz will campaign in Philadelphia, where he’ll speak at a fundraiser in the city around noon.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris says she wakes up in middle of night from election stress
Harris said she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night from the stress of the final days of the election, when asked how she handles stress and anxiety during a discussion in Michigan on Monday.
“You know, I wake up in the middle of the night, usually these days. Just to be honest with you,” Harris told Maria Shriver, who moderated the discussion between the vice president and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in Royal Oak. “But I work out every morning. I think that’s really important to just kind of, you know, mind, body and spirit.”
“Say more about that,” Shriver pressed Harris.
“I work out, I try to eat,” Harris responded. “You know, I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband every day.”
“My family grounds me in every way,” she added.
The exchange started with Harris making something clear: She’s not taking edibles.
“Everybody I talked to says, you know, I have to turn off the news, I can’t read anything, I’m meditating, I’m doing yoga. I’m so anxious. I just don’t even know. I’m eating gummies, all kinds of things, you know?” Shriver said to Harris, asking, “What are you doing?”
“Not eating gummies,” Harris said to laughs from the crowd.
-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie
Liz Cheney makes a case for conservatives to back Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a series of moderated conversations with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.
In those appearances, Cheney made a case for conservatives to vote Democrat in the upcoming election and support Harris’ bid for the White House.
“What I would say is that if people are uncertain, if people are thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’m a conservative, I don’t know that I can support Vice President Harris,’ I would say, I don’t know if anybody is more conservative than I am,” said Cheney, who was the third-ranking member of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021.
Cheney also warned Republicans considering voting for Trump that Congress would not be a check on him.
“For anybody who is a Republican who is thinking that, you know, they might vote for Donald Trump because of national security policy, I ask you, please, please study his national security policy,” Cheney said. “Not only is it not Republican — it’s dangerous. And without allies, America will find our very freedom and security challenged and threatened.”
“And one final point on this: Don’t think that Congress can stop him,” Cheney added.
In Malvern, Pennsylvania, Cheney said she thought there would be Republican voters who would cast their ballots for Harris — even if they did not reveal it publicly.
In Michigan, she went further, encouraging voters to do just that, saying, “If you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody, and there will be millions of Republicans who do that on Nov. 5, vote for Vice President Harris.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Will McDuffie and T. Michelle Murphy
Trump pushes false claims that Democrats are trying to cheat in election
Rallying in Greenville, North Carolina, on Monday, Trump launched baseless claims about possible fraud in the 2024 election — despite earlier in the day saying he hadn’t seen evidence of it.
At one point during the rally, Trump turned to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to ask him about election security.
“He’ll stop the cheating. He’s going to stop the cheating,” Trump said to Whatley. “Are they cheating? Michael, they’re trying, but are they? They’re not going to get away with it, right? … They got away with it in plenty of places.”
Earlier in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump told his supporters that he hasn’t seen any evidence of cheating in the election thus far, but added, “I know the other side and they are not good.”
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soo Rin Kim
More than 1.5M have voted early in battleground Georgia
The office of the Georgia Secretary of State announced Monday that more than 1.5 million voters have voted early in person in Georgia as of Monday afternoon.
“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.
In-person early voting started in the key battleground state on Tuesday, Oct. 15.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 15 million early votes have been cast nationally, including almost 5 million in-person early votes, according to an analysis by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
Harris reiterates she worked at McDonald’s after Trump stunt
On her way to her moderated conversation in Michigan, Harris was asked if she had worked at a McDonald’s while deplaning Air Force 2.
“Did I? I did,” she said.
Her past experience at McDonald’s has become a fixation of Trump’s, who over the weekend worked the fryer at one of the chain’s restaurants in the Philadelphia area.
Trump has claimed Harris never worked at the fast food giant. Harris, in introducing herself to voters this campaign, has told the story of working there between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University in an effort to contrast her working-class roots with Trump’s background.
-ABC News’ Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim
Cheney gives Harris backup on abortion
Harris got backup on a hot-button cultural issue from an unlikely source Monday — conservative former Rep. Liz Cheney.
Cheney — who has broken with Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot — still boasts a conservative record. But Monday, she waded into an issue that Democrats hope will help them win over voters on Election Day.
“I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said, referencing the Supreme Court decision that scrapped federal abortion protections.
“In places like Texas, for example, the attorney general is talking about suing, is suing, to get access to women’s medical records. That’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”
The remarks, made in a Philadelphia suburb, were notable as Harris looks to cement support among suburban female voters.
Harris works to earn Pennsylvania’s Republican votes alongside Liz Cheney
Harris is doing a series of moderated conversations with former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in suburban cities in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.
While in Pennsylvania, Harris and Cheney worked to pick off Republicans disaffected with their party’s nominee who may vote for the vice president and focus on the dangers Trump poses to the country and to democracy.
“There are months in the history of our country which challenge us, each of us, to really decide when we stand for those things that we talk about, including, in particular, country over party,” Harris said.
Cheney, a staunch Trump critic who endorsed Harris in September despite their party and policy differences, said “every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part” in her supporting Harris.
“In this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know Vice President Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be in this place.”
Read more about Harris and Cheney’s events here.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow
Trump appears on The Undertaker’s podcast
Trump continued his alternative media outreach effort by sitting down for a podcast interview with retired pro wrestler Mark Calaway, also known as “The Undertaker.”
During the podcast, Trump repeated his anti-trans rhetoric, promising to not allow “men playing in women’s sports” as Calaway brought up his teenage quarterback daughter.
“You don’t want to go and wrestle a guy like if you were doing that, because people do that — like your father — right? He’s a little too much to handle,” Trump said to Calaway’s daughter, who was present for the interview, after Calaway asked him about Title IX..
“I will get rid of it fast. Men playing in women’s sports is insane,” Trump said.
Republicans have invested heavily in ads targeting the transgender community this cycle.
-ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh
Walz on what he’d do differently from the Biden admin and appealing to voters
Tim Walz joined ABC’s “The View” on Monday, where he discussed what he would have done differently than the Biden-Harris administration — a questioned that Harris herself struggled with in her own appearance on the talk show.
The governor said that he wished one of their ticket’s proposals — an expansion on Medicare — “would have been proposed sooner.” He argued their campaign is focusing heavily on things like the care economy and child care affordability.
Walz also discussed how they can appeal to men and Black voters, two voting blocks where Trump is having success.
“As as vice president says, we have a responsibility to earn the votes from everyone and not make the assumption that men or women are going to be with us. I hear oftentimes about the Black community. Why would we assume that they were with us, unless we’re putting out proposals that positively impact their life?” Walz said.
He argued that they are trying to make voters aware of their proposals on housing, child care, small businesses and more.
Trump won’t denounce violence against FEMA workers during North Carolina stop
Trump toured devastation caused by Hurricane Helene just outside Asheville, North Carolina, and later delivered remarks to the press where he began by slamming the job from the White House for their hurricane response, continuing to push false claims about FEMA assistance in the wake of violence against FEMA workers.
“The power of nature. Nothing you can do about it, but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House. It’s been not good. Not good. I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you, and the American people are with you all the way,” Trump said.
Later, he pushed false claims about the allocation of FEMA assistance, once again falsely saying that money dedicated to hurricane relief was going to offer assistance to migrants unaffected by the storm.
“FEMA has done a very poor job … They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing other things, things that I don’t think bear any relationship to this money, there was, they were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election. Because that’s what a lot of people are saying. That’s why they’re doing it,” Trump falsely said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soorin Kim
Sen. Bernie Sanders to join Biden in New Hampshire
In a strategic visit to boost Democrats’ presence in the purple state ahead of the election, President Joe Biden will be joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday in New Hampshire to talk about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, a senior administration official told ABC News.
The president is also expected to stop by a New Hampshire Democratic Party campaign office to support Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the official said.
The economy and costs are a top issue to voters in New Hampshire, polling shows, and Sanders, who made the high price of U.S. health care a central point of both his presidential campaigns, is a popular figure in the state, which neighbors his own.
Sanders and Biden will discuss new data on savings brought about by the administration’s hallmark Inflation Reduction Act, the senior official said. The act implemented significant price caps for Medicare enrollees, including a $35 cap on insulin already in effect and a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs that kicks in in 2025. The White House estimates the caps will bring about cost savings of $400 per year for nearly 19 million seniors.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Tim Walz to join ABC’s ‘The View’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Harris’ running mate, will join ABC’s “The View” on Monday.
His interview comes after Harris herself appeared on the show as part of a media blitz earlier this month.
Walz recently quipped on Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s on Sunday as part of his mockery of Harris’ past employment there. Walz said he took “full responsibility” for the campaign stop after he once joked he couldn’t imagine the former president working a McFlurry machine.
Harris, Cheney to make the case to disaffected Republican voters
Harris is stumping with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The two will hold a moderated conversation in each of the “blue wall” states.
Cheney endorsed Harris in early September, warning Trump posed a threat to democracy after what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our capitol to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said at her first joint appearance with Harris earlier this month.
“I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, that is depravity, and we must never become numb to it,” she continued. “Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again. We must defeat Donald Trump on Nov. 5.”
Trump to survey hurricane damage before rally in North Carolina
At noon, Trump will survey devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina.
He’ll later hold a 3 p.m. rally in Greenville before a 6:30 p.m. meeting with faith leaders in Concord.
Trump has criticized the Biden-Harris response to the storm, and spread misinformation about the federal government’s recovery efforts and assistance. Such misinformation, Biden and other officials have said, is harming those who need assistance and resulting in threats against FEMA workers.
Polls show close race between Harris, Trump
The latest polling averages from 538 show the two candidates running even in key swing states Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has a slight lead over Harris in Georgia and Arizona.
Overall, 538’s national polling average shows Harris ahead by just 1.8%.
Democrats for years have struggled with working-class, populist voters, ceding precious political territory to Republicans. This year, a slate of congressional races could help reverse the tide — or intensify it, even beyond Election Day.
Democratic lawmakers like Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana, and Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Mary Peltola of Alaska and Marie Gluesenkamp of Washington, represent working-class areas who are running tough reelection campaigns this year. With Republicans’ tissue-thin House majority and Democrats’ one-seat Senate majority, their races are among those at the heart of both parties’ paths to congressional control.
But with Republicans cleaning up with working-class voters and Democrats featuring fewer and fewer national leaders with brands that appeal to them, keeping those remaining lawmakers in office is also crucial to the party’s hopes of maintaining a bench of national spokespeople in the long-term fight over blue-collar populism.
Populist fervor among working-class voters is “definitely a major driving force,” said John LaBombard, a former Senate aide to red-state Democrats. “I tend to think that my party has at times been slow on the uptake in terms of what a winning message and a winning candidate means to working-class voters, and as a result of factors both in our control and out of our control, to a degree, we’ve been losing that fight big time.”
LaBombard emphasized “the importance of having go-to figures in the national party where those folks can stay to their constituents, ‘we’re not just another national Democrat. We understand working people. We understand and can speak to these issues.’ And it helps the Democratic Party to be a bigger tent and be more appealing and less toxic to winnable voters.”
Democrats have been on their back foot with white voters without college degrees since former President Donald Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015, using his brash brand of politics to appeal to voters frustrated with a government they felt had left them behind. That slippage, Democrats fear and polls suggest, is expanding with Black and Latino voters without a college degree.
(WASHINGTON) — Voters without college degrees are far from the only sought-after demographic — Vice President Kamala Harris is also working to gin up support among women and seniors with appeals to issues like abortion and entitlements, and Trump is working to expand backing from younger men, leaning on male-oriented podcasts to underscore a bravado his campaign believes is appealing.
But voters without college degrees are particularly coveted as one of the anchors of today’s politics. And they lean toward Republicans — backing Trump by a 50-48 margin in 2020 but a 53-42 margin in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll — risking Democrats’ path to the White House and congressional majorities this year.
“It’s the biggest engine that there is in Republican politics, and it is the biggest area of recovery that the Democrats are focused on in this election cycle in particular,” said former Wisconsin GOP strategist Brian Reisinger, the author of “Land Rich, Cash Poor,” which explores the economic struggles of farmers. “Republicans are doing everything they can to maximize it as their primary path to victory, and you’ve got Democrats who have recognized it.”
Democrats insist that their policies are more suited for working-class voters, pointing to their support for unions and tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, among other things. But, lawmakers and operatives said, there’s a more emotional hurdle Democrats have failed to pass before engaging in a policy discussion — recognizing voters’ frustrations.
“People communicate on an emotional level first and you do not talk people out of their feelings with a spreadsheet. You have to understand what they’re saying to you,” said Gluesenkamp Perez. “Rural communities like mine, we don’t like we don’t like it when a politician says, ‘hey, sorry, your economy’s collapsed, fill out this 200-page grant application, and maybe I’ll help you.'”
It’s a strategy that a shrinking handful of lawmakers have deployed effectively to remain in office, representing what on paper would appear to be hostile territory.
Golden, a tattooed combat veteran whose district is anticipated to once again back Trump this year, described populism in a speech in July as “the public’s disdain of an elite consensus that seems stacked in favor of the powerful and wealthy — regardless of party or ideology — at the expense of everyone else — regardless of party or ideology.”
Voters “trust that when necessary, I’ll stand up for them against elites who don’t care about them, or where they’re from, or how they’ve lived, even when that means standing up to my own party,” he said.
To persuade voters of that, though, Democratic lawmakers and candidates have to have a shared lived experience with the voters whose backing they want.
“You have to have candidates who are driving a s—box, who have struggled to get a home loan, who are working multiple jobs. You have to have different candidates,” said Gluesenkamp Perez, who ran an auto-repair shop before winning her seat in 2022. “The model that you need to be somebody with a J.D. and a trust fund and no kids does not deliver the nuance.”
Democrats are trying to create an opening.
Harris elevated Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a military veteran, hunter and former public schoolteacher, to be her running mate. Gluesenkamp Perez name checked Rebecca Cooke, who grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, and Whitney Fox, the daughter of a nurse and single mother, as examples of congressional challengers who can expand the party’s appeal.
And the party still counts a coterie of lawmakers already in Congress — for now.
“There’s a lot of voters in rural areas who might be very conservative, they might be really leaning Republican, but they’re not all that ideological. What I mean by that is, if they think that you’re fighting for them, and they hear the right issues, they’re willing to vote for you,” Reisinger said.
Democrats’ ability, or lack thereof, to pull that off is crucial this year.
Brown and Tester’s races will likely decide the Senate majority, and there are enough Democratic populists who can make a difference in which party controls the House of Representatives.
And beyond fighting for congressional majorities, Democrats who are desperate to make up ground, particularly in rural America, said they need those lawmakers in office to make a strong case and show that rhetoric of a big tent party isn’t just talk.
But standing in their way is a Republican Party that under Trump has swallowed up support in rural America, clinching a longtime GOP goal.
“Twenty years ago, I said the Republican party should become the party of Sam’s Club, not just the country club. Ironically, Donald Trump did more to advance that goal than any Republican candidate in a long time,” said former Republican Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
And, some Democrats warned, prolonging existing perceptions of Democrats could morph into a political reality that could make it hard for candidates to defy.
“There’s still a lot of ground to make up in terms of credibility,” LaBombard said.
“Depending on how this election goes, we have the opportunity for some perhaps limited but significant steps in the right direction in terms of the Democratic Party appealing to working-class, populist-type voters. Or we also have the opportunity to lose a ton of ground in terms of the voices we have and have elevated up to this point.”
