(Williamsport, Pennsylvania) — In his most direct answer yet of this election cycle, GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance said he does not believe former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
Vance’s response occurred when a reporter asked, “What message do you think it sends to Independent voters when you do not directly answer the question, ‘Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?'”
“On the election of 2020, I’ve answered this question directly a million times. No, I think there are serious problems in 2020 so did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use,” Vance said.
“But look, I really couldn’t care less if you agree or disagree with me on this issue.”
In a recently resurfaced clip from Spectrum News 1 in 2022, Vance said, “Yeah, I do,” when asked if he believed the 2020 election was stolen.
President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes.
Vance’s response comes after weeks of being asked by reporters if the former president lost the 2020 election.
This past Sunday in his interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz, Vance continued to dodge directly answering if Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Martha, you’ve you asked this question. I’ve been asked this question 10 times in the past couple of weeks. Of course, Donald Trump and I believe there were problems in 2020,” Vance said.
Pressed again by Raddatz, Vance replied, “I’ve said repeatedly I think the 2020 election had problems. You want to say rigged? You want to say he won? Use whatever vocabulary term you want.”
Taking questions from reporters at a campaign event in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, ABC News asked the Ohio Senator if he was concerned about election misinformation could impact this election cycle, Vance said he was concerned.
“I talk to people every now and then who will come up to me and say, ‘Well, you know, there are too many problems out there. We don’t trust the people who are going to count our ballots, and you know, so I’m not going to get out there and vote.’ That’s the exact opposite attitude you should be taking,” Vance said.
Trying to ease those who might have doubts about the election, Vance said that those who will be working the polls on election day are the same people in their community.
“Here’s something else that I think people don’t realize is, if you’re a local voter in a place like Williamsport, the people who are counting your ballots are often your neighbors. And again, it’s the local elections, and especially in our small and rural areas, it’s your neighbors who are counting these votes, it’s your neighbors who are counting these ballots.”
(GEORGIA) — Gabriel Sterling, the Chief Operations Officer of Georgia’s office of Secretary of State, noted in a statement on X that early votes cast Wednesday set a record for a second day.
“So, with the rest of today and absentees we could get close to 600,000 votes cast in Georgia. We continue on the record-setting pace and we are thankful for our election workers at the counties and our voters,” he said.
On the previous day, 312,206 people cast an early vote, shattering the 136,000 votes cast in the first day of early voting in 2002, according to state election data.
Sterling said earlier in the day that the 500,000 votes cast mark represented 10% of the turnout in the 2020 election.
As of Wednesday night, 33,359 absentee ballots have been returned and 33,150 of those ballots were accepted, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Georgia is seen as a crucial swing state for the presidential race, with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been actively campaigning throughout neighborhoods in the state.
Voting rights advocates have been pushing voters to choose the early voting option due to concerns about new rules including one that makes it harder to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if a voter is sent to the wrong polling place. Georgia voters can choose any early voting election site in their county, according to state law.
Early voting in Georgia will continue until Nov. 1.
(NEW YORK) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday hammered former President Donald Trump as thin-skinned and a threat to U.S. democracy in a combative interview with Fox News.
The interview marked an opportunity for Harris to appear on a network that frequently criticizes her and praises her opponent, a notable moment after Republicans had panned her for only granting interviews with friendly reporters or podcasters. True to form, the interview was testy throughout, including multiple exchanges in which Harris and Fox News anchor Bret Baier repeatedly spoke over each other.
Harris raised Trump’s recent rhetoric about the “enemy within” and threats to use the military to go after political opponents on and supposed chaos on Election Day to suggest that he’s unfit for a second term in office, adding that it is “clear to me” that Trump is “unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous.”
“You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
“This is a democracy, and in a democracy the president of the United States in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it,” she said.
The remarks mark an escalation of her rhetoric describing Trump as dangerous for the country as he escalates his rhetoric about internal threats from Americans, including “radical left lunatics,” raising concerns about how he’d use the military in a future administration.
‘Not a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency’: Harris Harris also attempted to flesh out the differences Americans would see between President Joe Biden’s administration and her theoretical term in the White House, offering several examples after Republicans seized on her answer on ABC’s “The View” last week that “not a thing that comes to mind” when asked what she would have done something differently from Biden over the past four years.
“You’re not Joe Biden, you’re not Donald Trump, but, but nothing comes to mind that you would do differently?” Baier asked.
“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” she told Baier.
Harris specifically raised her plans to offer increased housing assistance to first-time home buyers and provide funds to start small businesses.
Still, she added that her administration would mark a turning of the page from what she called the divisiveness of the Trump era in U.S. politics.
Redirecting Her election would mark a change “from the last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country and have Americans literally point fingers at each other,” she said.
Pressed on immigration Baier also pressed Harris on immigration and high levels of border crossings for much of the Biden administration.
Harris did not directly respond to a question about how many undocumented immigrants were released into the country, instead panning Trump for opposing a bipartisan plan that would have beefed up border security. She did, however, express sympathy for families who had loved ones killed by those who crossed the border illegally.
“Those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There is no question about that, and I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred,” Harris said.
“So that is true. It is also true that if border security had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock trying to hold it all together to ensure that no future harm would occur.”
(ATLANTA) Former President Jimmy Carter has voted in the 2024 election, the Carter Center confirmed Wednesday.
Carter, the oldest living president, voted by mail on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Carter Center.
Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, told ABC News earlier this week that the former president planned on voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the “next couple of days.”
“It’s going to be the next couple days; the absentee ballots have gone out,” Jason Carter said.
Carter recently celebrated his 100th birthday. As he neared the milestone, his family said he was trying to live until he could vote for Harris.
Carter entered hospice care in early 2023 amid health challenges. Last year, he made a rare public appearance when he attended a memorial service for his late wife, Rosalynn Carter.
Former President Donald Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening was interrupted twice by medical emergencies in a very warm Greater Philadelphia Expo Center and Fairgrounds before he pivoted — turning the concert into an impromptu concert where he stood on stage swaying to music for nearly 45 minutes.
There was a medical emergency that required an attendee to be placed on a stretcher about 30 minutes into the event. As the crowd started singing “God Bless America,” Trump requested that “Ave Maria” be played on the loudspeakers as medics tended to the man.
Moments later, there was a second medical emergency.
“The safety and well-being of President Trump’s supporters is always his top priority,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary, said in a statement to ABC News after the event. “The two individuals who fainted were immediately given medical attention. As President Trump said tonight, they are great patriots,” Leavitt added.
Trump took four questions, before the first medical emergency occurred.
Following the medical emergencies, Trump requested that the doors be opened but he was advised that for security reasons that wasn’t possible. Both Trump and moderator South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem commented on the heat in the room.
“Open the doors. I wish we could open those doors to outside,” Trump said. “For security reasons, they can’t. But you know what I suggest? Open them. Because anybody comes through those doors, you know what’s going to happen to them.”
“Personally, I enjoy this. We lose weight, you know. No, you lose weight. We could do this — lose four or five pounds,” Trump quipped.
Trump then requested that “Ave Maria” be played again and remained on stage as more music was played.
He continued, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music fest. Who the hell wants to hear questions right? Isn’t that beautiful?”
The former president, adamant about playing his music, stood on stage for nearly 45 minutes swaying to several songs on his playlist as the crowd sang and danced along.
The crowd slowly dispersed, but many stayed for the entirety of the campaign event.
“To lighten the mood, President Trump turned the town hall into an impromptu concert and the crowd loved it,” Leavitt told ABC News, adding, “The room was full of joy.”
On Tuesday, Trump addressed the town hall on his social media platform, calling the event “so different.”
“It ended up being a GREAT EVENING!” Trump wrote on social media.
The Trump campaign has classified those who fell ill as “great patriots” and suggested, “the room was full of joy.”
Notably, with 22 days until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris was also in Pennsylvania on Monday evening stumping to voters in the critical battleground swing state whereas Trump largely dodged answering questions during the actual town hall portion of his event.
In a post on X early Tuesday morning, Harris reposted a video from her campaign’s Kamala HQ account of Trump swaying to music for nearly 45-minutes at his Oaks town hall on Monday, writing “Hope he’s okay.”
Following the concert, Trump made his way to the front row, signing red MAGA hats and 47 signs.
Trump’s movement was noteworthy as he hasn’t interacted with a large crowd to that extent since his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.
As part of its ongoing investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz, the House Ethics Committee recently issued a subpoena for documents from a civil lawsuit brought by one of the Florida congressman’s longtime friends against several third parties, ABC News has learned.
The subpoena, which has not been previously reported, requests all documents related to Gaetz that are part of a lawsuit brought last year by Gaetz’s longtime friend, prominent Florida lobbyist Chris Dorworth, who alleged he was defamed by several third parties over the course of the yearslong sex trafficking probe into Gaetz, sources told ABC News.
The documents from the lawsuit, which include witness depositions and affidavits, could provide Congress with new details regarding allegations that have dogged Gaetz for years, including the allegation he had sex with a minor who was introduced to him by his onetime friend Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and is serving an 11-year prison sentence.
Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing. Last year, following a yearslong investigation, the Justice Department declined to bring any charges against the congressman.
Last week, Gaetz stated that he would no longer voluntarily participate in the House Ethics probe, which he blasted as a “political payback exercise,” and said that he had recently learned that the committee had issued — but not yet served him — a subpoena for his testimony.
The Florida congressman also reiterated his denial that he ever had sex with a minor. “Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum,” Gaetz said in a statement to the committee posted on social media.
Members of the House Ethics Committee declined to comment to ABC News. Representatives for Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment.
When reached for comment, Greenberg’s attorney, Fritz Scheller, told ABC News, “While I am reluctant to comment on a pending congressional investigation, Joel Greenberg’s position remains the same. He will fully cooperate with all congressional inquiries, whether by subpoena or not, and regardless of whether the cooperation occurs in the rain or on a train, with a fox or in a box. Yes, Mr. Greenberg will fully cooperate here or there, he will cooperate anywhere.”
Among the documents related to the civil lawsuit, according to court filings, is the deposition of the woman who Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor, as well as testimony from another woman who was a witness in the DOJ investigation, plus Dorworth’s deposition and an affidavit from Gaetz’s former girlfriend. Those documents could be turned over to Congress as part of its ongoing probe into related allegations.
The documents Congress is seeking stem from a lawsuit brought last year by Dorworth, who alleged that the onetime minor, identified in the lawsuit only as “A.B.,” and others, including Greenberg and his family, worked to defame him amid the Justice Department’s probe.
Gaetz, who was not a party in the suit, was scheduled to sit for his own deposition as a witness in the lawsuit prior to Dorworth dropping the suit in early September. Dorworth has a separate ongoing defamation lawsuit against the Greenbergs in state court.
It is unclear if and what documents have been handed over to Congress. And while many of the lawsuit’s documents, including depositions and sworn statements, remain sealed, recent public court filings shed some light on what alleged details could be included in the underlying documents requested by Congress.
One filing, Exhibit 23 in a motion for attorneys fees filed by attorneys representing the Greenbergs, details some of the allegations made during discovery in the lawsuit, including that Gaetz was allegedly among the guests at a July 2017 party that “A.B.,” who was 17 years old at the time, also attended. The filing states that according to a woman who attended the party, there was “alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy also known as molly, and marijuana” present, that there was “access to the bedrooms” for “sexual activities,” and that A.B. was seen naked at the gathering.
In July, the House Ethics Committee released a rare statement updating the status of its probe into Gaetz. The committee stated that it had stopped looking into certain claims, including whether the Florida congressman misused state identification records or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity, but that its investigation had found that other allegations “merit continued review.”
The committee said that it would continue to review claims that Gaetz “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use” and that he “sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”
In Gaetz’s statement last week regarding the committee probe, he reiterated his denial of any wrongdoing while seemingly responding to a string of questions the committee issued to him earlier in the month.
In response to whether or not he had ever used illicit drugs, Gaetz stated, “I have not used drugs which are illegal, absent some law allowing use in a jurisdiction of the United States. I have not used ‘illicit’ drugs, which I consider to be drugs unlawful for medical or over-the-counter use everywhere in the United States.”
(NEW YORK) With just weeks to go until the presidential election, a Georgia judge has ruled that certification of election results by county officials in the state is “mandatory” — a new ruling that is likely to be heralded by election experts amid rising fears that rogue election officials could seek to delay or decline to certify results after Election Day due to allegations of fraud or error.
“Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” the order states.
Judge Robert McBurney, as part of an ongoing election case, found that the law is clear: “the superintendent must certify and must do so by a certain time.”
“There are no exceptions,” he wrote in the Monday night ruling.
The ruling comes after Georgia’s controversial State Election Board recently passed new rules that some voting rights activists are concerned would cause chaos in the certification process. One of those new rules allows election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” prior to certification.
Specifically, McBurney’s ruling Monday noted that certification by the county superintendents must occur, even in the case where there are concerns about fraud or error.
“While the superintendent must investigate concerns about miscounts and must report those concerns to a prosecutor if they persist after she investigates, the existence of those concerns, those doubts, and those worries is not cause to delay or decline certification,” McBurney wrote. “That is simply not an option for this particular ministerial function in the superintendent’s broader portfolio of functions.”
Broadly, McBurney noted that the election officials must still certify the results, but report concerns to authorities:
“And if in the course of her canvassing, counting, and investigating, a superintendent should discover what appears to her to be fraud or systemic error, she still must count all votes — despite the perceived fraud — and report her concerns about fraud or error to the appropriate district attorney,” the judge wrote.
Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(ATLANTA) — Early in-person voting kicks off in Georgia on Tuesday as uncertainty over new election rule changes looms large in one of the crucial states that will decide this year’s presidential election.
Georgia counties will provide early in-person voting for at least 16 days, with some counties offering an extra voting day on Sunday. Nov. 1 will be the last day of early in-person voting.
The commencement of Georgia’s three-week period for early voting comes as the Georgia state election board recently passed sweeping new changes to the state’s election system, including how votes are tabulated.
Over the summer, the Republican-controlled State Election Board passed a rule requiring all ballots to be hand counted on election night, prompting legal challenges and pushback from both major parties as officials warned about potential delays in reporting results.
Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, told the board it was operating outside of its authority, and warned that the rule changes were likely not lawful. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign joined a lawsuit from Georgia Democrats suing to block the last-minute rule changes.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. scheduled hearings this week to hear about the lawsuits challenging the new rules, including the hand-counting provision and new rules that expand access to poll watchers.
Another prominent Republican in the state, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also promised that while Georgia law mandates certification on Nov. 12, he raised concerns about potential false claims that could arise as potential reporting delays linger.
“Everything we’ve been fighting for since 2020 has been to give the voter quicker, you know, responses, quicker results, and that’s why we’re going to post all the early votes by 8 p.m,” Raffensperger said in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday.
“Well, this now drags on for the final 30 percent until one, two, three, or four o’clock in the morning.” he said. “Really, that just becomes a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, and so we don’t support it, but the judge will make that determination. We’ll find out. We’ll follow the law.”
Georgia voters will already face changes this election cycle due to the state’s Election Integrity Act, SB 202, passed in 2021, which adds more verification for voters requesting absentee ballots, limits the amount of ballot drop box locations, and, in one of the most controversial rule changes, the law now makes it a misdemeanor to give away food or water within 150 feet of a polling place or within 25 feet of a voter in line.
Advocates of the rule change argue that those rule changes will provide more transparency to the election process and have been set in place well before November’s election so poll workers and voters have had time to understand the changes.
However, Democrats have repeatedly attempted to block provisions of the law, claiming that the strict rules on identification will disenfranchise voters and criminalize portions of the election process.
Candidates are educating their voters about the new voting landscape in Georgia, emphasizing how crucial turnout will be in the state.
Former President Bill Clinton spent time in middle Georgia on Sunday and Monday, focusing on mobilizing supporters in rural areas for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“They’ve been able to make it easier for states that agree with them to make it harder for people to vote, but not impossible, and Georgia has more experience than almost any other state in climbing those barriers and breaching them,” he said at a campaign stop in Columbus on Monday.
Former President Donald Trump will mark the start of early voting in Georgia with a series of campaign stops on Tuesday. He will first tape a Fox News town hall focused on women’s issues before delivering remarks at a rally in Atlanta.
The Harris campaign is deploying surrogates around the state on Tuesday and the vice president is expected to visit the state later this week as polling shows an extremely tight race in the Peach State — which helped secure President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 after it narrowly flipped in favor of Democrats.
According to polling forecasts from 538, a victory in Georgia for either campaign would be pivotal to ensuring an electoral victory, which would give Trump around a 3-in-4 shot at winning the presidency and Harris about a 9-in-10 chance of becoming the next president.
That polling is reflective of how both campaigns have been prioritizing Georgia.
“If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell. Because we can’t have her be president of the United States. She’s grossly incompetent. We can’t let that happen,” Trump said during a rally in Atlanta in August.
Trump in recent weeks has publicly mended his relationship with Brian Kemp, the state’s popular Republican governor, after furiously lashing out at him after Kemp refused to give in to Trump’s demands in 2020 to prevent state officials from certifying the election.
Earlier this month, the two appeared together for the first time since 2020 when Trump toured the state after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Georgia.
Harris has campaigned on the issue of abortion in Georgia, using the state’s six-week abortion ban and Trump’s role in overturning Roe vs. Wade to appeal to suburban women — a key voter bloc.
“Now we know that at least two women, and those are only the stories we know here in the state of Georgia, died, died because of a Trump abortion ban,” Harris said last month after a ProPublica report tied the deaths of two Georgia women to the state’s restrictive ban.
“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect. He brags about overturning Roe v. Wade in his own words, quote, ‘I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.’ He is proud, proud that women are done.”
(DENVER) — GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance is standing by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that Venezuelan gangs have invaded and conquered Aurora, Colorado.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, as he did in a rally in the city on Friday.
Mike Coffman, the Republican mayor of Aurora, said Trump’s claims are “grossly exaggerated” and “have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
Asked by “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday if he supports Trump making those claims, Vance did not back down.
“Well, Martha, you just said the mayor said they were exaggerated. That means there’s got to be some element of truth here,” Vance said.”
Raddatz followed up with Vance, saying the issues in Aurora were limited to a handful of apartment complexes and that the mayor released a statement saying the city’s “dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns and will continue to do so.”
Vance responded, saying Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris caused the issues in Aurora.
“Unfortunately, when you let people in by the millions, most of whom are unvetted, most of whom you don’t know who they really are, you’re going to have problems like this.”
“Kamala Harris, 94 executive orders that undid Donald Trump’s successful border policies. We knew this stuff would happen. Bragged about opening the border, and now we have the consequences, and we’re living with it. We can do so much better, but frankly, we’re not going to do better, Martha, unless Donald Trump calls this stuff out. I’m glad that he did.”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of states in the southeastern U.S., including Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia, Trump has falsely suggested that aid from FEMA meant for the hurricane was going to migrants and that the federal government is going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.
Asked if he believed that true, Vance defended the president.
“What the President said is that fundamentally, FEMA aid is distracted by going to illegal migrants,” Vance responded. “We’ve got Republican congressmen who are on the ground who represent that area saying that they have to call the White House to get food and water to FEMA? I don’t, frankly, think there’s anything malicious going on here, Martha, but I do think that we’ve had an incompetent response to this particular crisis, particularly in Western North Carolina, which, to be fair, was hit harder than a lot of us expected it.”
Vance called the federal government’s response to the crisis incompetent, saying members of the military are still “trickling” into western North Carolina.
Raddatz pushed back against the false claims that the government is not assisting people in Republican areas and citing Pentagon officials who said that active duty troops were staged and ready to go before being called upon and were instantly out the door.
On Friday in Georgia, Vance said that the attorney general is the second-most important government role after the president.
Raddatz pressed Vance if Trump would go after his political opponents if he won another term.
“No, he was president for four years, and he didn’t go after his political opponents. You know, who did go after her political opponents? Kamala Harris, who has tried to arrest everything from pro-life activists to her political opponents,” Vance said.
To follow up, Raddatz told Vance that Trump has said in the past that those who have cheated will be prosecuted.
“Well, he said that people who violated our election laws will be prosecuted. I think that’s the administration of law,” Vance said. “He didn’t say people are going to go to jail because they disagree with me.”
Vance continues to refuse to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. In an interview with “This Week” earlier this year, Vance said he wouldn’t have certified the results of the 2020 race until states submitted pro-Trump electors.
Raddatz pressed Vance again on the 2020 election.
“In interview after interview, question after question, and in the debate, you refuse to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” Raddatz said. “So I’m just going to assume that if I ask you 50 times whether he lost the election, you would not acknowledge that he did. Is that correct?”
“Martha, you’ve you asked this question. I’ve been asked this question 10 times in the past couple of weeks. Of course, Donald Trump and I believe there were problems in 2020,” Vance said.
Pressed again by Raddatz, Vance replied, “I’ve said repeatedly I think the 2020 election had problems. You want to say rigged? You want to say he won? Use whatever vocabulary term you want.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris released a report with details about her health and medical history on Saturday, as the Harris team tries to place former President Donald Trump’s health and advanced age under new scrutiny.
Harris “remains in excellent health,” her physician, Dr. Joshua Simmons, said in a letter on Saturday. “She possesses the physical and mental resilience required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief.”
The doctor pointed to seasonal allergies and hives (urticaria) as a “notable” part of her health history. He also listed a number of over-the-counter medications used to improve her symptoms, which he said have never been “severe.”
Simmons details Harris’ most recent physical exam, which was in April 2024. He said the results were “unremarkable.” The doctor also said he found her routine bloodwork was “unremarkable,” though he noted that her Vitamin D levels were “in the insufficient range.”
Simmons also noted that the vice president has a family history of colon cancer. He detailed no other personal history of a number of conditions.
A senior Harris aide said they see the release of the vice president’s medical report as an opening to highlight how little is known about the health of 78-year-old Trump.
The most comprehensive details that are known of Trump’s health care are from a nearly 7-year-old report from his physician at the time following a physical exam. In that report, it was learned Trump had high cholesterol, was overweight and had rosacea, a benign skin disease.
Trump refused to release his medical records during his first campaign in 2016, and despite promising multiple times to release his medical records in this race, he’s not done so yet.
In response to ABC News’ requests concerning Trump’s medical records, his campaign is pointing to previous letters released by former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, and Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Bruce Aronwald.
Jackson’s letters, released in July after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, describe in detail the former president’s ear injury but doesn’t detail Trump’s health conditions. In one of the two letters, Jackson wrote that he reviewed Trump’s medical records from Butler Memorial Hospital and said he was rapidly recovering from the injury.
Aronwald’s letter, released in November last year, said he conducted “several comprehensive examinations” and reported that his “overall health is excellent,” without providing any details.
“President Trump has voluntarily released updates from his personal physician, as well as detailed reports from Dr. Ronny Jackson who treated him after the first assassination attempt,” Trump campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said. “All have concluded he is in perfect and excellent health to be Commander in Chief.”
Cheung added that Trump “has maintained an extremely busy and active campaign schedule unlike any other in political history, whereas Kamala Harris has been unable to keep up with the demands of campaigning and reveals on a daily basis she is wholly unqualified to be President of the United States.”
Not much was known about Harris’ health prior to this new report, either.
For example, in contrast to President Joe Biden, whose physician has issued memos following his routine physicals, no such reports have been made available for the vice president. Only her annual check-up in 2021 was announced by the White House, but results from that visit were not released.
The White House had also previously announced that Harris tested positive for COVID-19 in April 2022, for which she was treated with the drug Paxlovid.
Ahead of the release of Harris’ medical report, ABC News had also inquired about the records for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Harris and Trump’s running mates, respectively.
This new move by Harris is a stark illustration of how the political baggage of advanced age has flipped.
Before he dropped out of the race for a second term, Biden’s age was an effortless battering ram for Trump and Republicans. The former president would attack his successor, America’s oldest president, as “sleepy Joe” “sick” and “weak.” But now it’s Harris, who is approximately two decades Trump’s junior, and her allies taking advantage of their opponent’s age.
Walz described Trump’s debate performance as “a nearly 80-year-old man shaking his fist at clouds;” former President Bill Clinton joked during his Democratic National Convention speech, “Two days ago I turned 78… and the only personal vanity I want to assert is I’m still younger than Donald Trump.”
Hours before the vice-presidential debate earlier this month, the Harris campaign rolled out a new ad taking aim at Trump, who, if he wins, would be the oldest person elected president, through Vance.
“He’s not just weird or dangerous,” a narrator says of Vance, “he could be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.” The ad ends with clips of the former president appearing to slur his words.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Soorin Kim, Isabella Murray, Hannah Demissie, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
