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Why Axelrod says Trump has been ‘off his game’ since Harris entered race
02:32 – Source: CNN
- Countdown to the debate: Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are gearing up for tomorrow’s high-stakes presidential debate, their first face-to-face encounter, as new polls show the race remains tight.
- Varying approaches: Part of Harris’ campaign strategy going into Tuesday is to use the debate as an opportunity to introduce the vice president to undecided voters, according to a source. The Trump campaign, for its part, will argue that Harris “owns everything from this administration,” a spokesperson said.
- The debate rules: There will be no audience, the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it’s not their turn to speak and they will not be allowed to have notes.
- Read about the 2024 candidates’ key policy issues and visit our voter guide.
Our live coverage has ended. Follow the latest 2024 election news here or read through the posts below.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during the Democratic National Convention on August 19, in Chicago.
Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Manu Raju “we need a new chapter,” on Israel policy under Vice President Kamala Harris, when asked if she should break from Joe Biden on the issue.
Some background: In March, the New York Democrat accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people and advocated for cuts to US military aid until humanitarian relief flows freely in Gaza.
Her decision to use the term genocide, as she did during a floor speech in the House chamber, was “taken with extraordinary gravity,” she told CNN.
Jessica Leeds, who previously accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and was a trial witness in a high-profile case against the former president, said Monday that she “laughed out loud” when she heard he recently disputed her allegation and said she “would not have been the chosen one.”
Leeds was one of the first women to come forward during the 2016 presidential campaign to allege that Trump sexually assaulted her. She said she was seated in first class on an airplane next to Trump in the 1970s when he suddenly began groping her. Leeds said she fought off Trump and moved to the back of the airplane.
“I was not the first, of course I was not the last. But there have been enough so that he doesn’t remember,” Leeds told Cooper.
Asked about Leeds’ comments, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung again denied Trump had ever met Leeds and said that “whatever fable she’s trying to peddle is only meant to interfere in the election and distract from” Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival.
Read more about Leeds’ interview here
Several prominent Republicans, including the party’s vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, promoted false claims on Monday that Haitian migrants in Ohio are killing and eating family pets.
It’s the latest turn in a campaign that has increasingly embraced race-baiting messaging, questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial identity while seeking to undermine her immigration policies.
The rumors center on the Ohio city of Springfield, which has experienced a surge in recent migration from Haitians seeking to escape a Caribbean country that has been rocked from years of natural disasters, political assassinations and gang rule.
A post in a Springfield Facebook group recently claimed a neighbor’s daughter’s friend found their missing cat hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home, and it was being prepped to be eaten, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Those rumors were picked up by conservative media and then spread on X, where they gained widespread traction on Monday.
Vance posted a video of himself discussing migration to Ohio at a recent hearing. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” Some accounts shared AI-generated pictures of Trump holding a cat in his hands while being chased by crowds of Black men.
The unsubstantiated claims appear to be the result of an unwieldy game of telephone that began as a rumor in a local Facebook group before spiraling to reach the highest echelons of conservative media and the Republican Party.
Read more here about the false rumor about Haitian immigrants
Vice President Kamala Harris has so far largely avoided confronting Donald Trump on some of his most racially inflammatory policy proposals — even as she continues to underperform among the Hispanic and Black voters who could face the harshest consequences from the former president’s plans.
Not calling out his ideas for the mass deportation of undocumented migrants, for example, or the pressure he wants to put on local governments to adopt tougher policing tactics is a cautious strategy that may reflect the unease in some Democratic circles about bringing attention to the volatile issues of immigration and crime.
But it could also deny her some of her best potential tools to pry back some of the Black and Hispanic voters among whom most polls show Trump is still running better than in 2020.
Since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Trump has constantly attempted to portray her as weak on immigration and crime. The former California attorney general has sought to rebut those charges by emphasizing her toughness on those questions — especially her prosecutorial background in a border state — and highlighting Trump’s torpedoing of a bipartisan border deal.
But the real question for many of the groups working on these issues is whether she tries to turn the tables by portraying Trump’s solutions to these problems as extreme, impractical and racially divisive.
Gary Segura, a pollster who works with UnidosUS, a leading Hispanic advocacy group that has endorsed Harris, said that the vice president was missing an opportunity by avoiding a confrontation with Trump over his mass deportation plans, for example.
Read more of the analysis here
The stage for tomorrow’s debate on September 9.
The stage is set for the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
ABC, which is hosting the event, shared a photo of the stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
For Harris, it will be a marquee moment to show Americans that she is ready to assume the presidency. Trump, meanwhile, is eager to negatively shape voters’ perceptions of his Democratic rival and halt the gains she has made since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket in July.
The White Stripes during a rehearsal for the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, in 2004.
The Trump campaign may be “goin’ to Wichita” before the November election, but The White Stripes would prefer former President Donald Trump stop traveling with their music as part of his playlist.
Jack and Meg White, formerly of the rock duo The White Stripes, filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York on Monday, accusing Trump and his campaign of “flagrant misappropriation” and copyright infringement of their 2003 song “Seven Nation Army.”
Their complaint, obtained by CNN, states the two musicians “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks,” noting that the song was used without their “knowledge or consent.”
CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign and representatives for Jack White for comment.
Last month, White said he would seek legal action after Margo Martin, a deputy director of communications for the Trump campaign, shared on social media a since-deleted video of Trump boarding a plane with “Seven Nation Army” playing.
In the Whites’ lawsuit, their attorneys write that the defendants “chose to ignore and not respond to Plaintiffs’ pre-litigation efforts to resolve the matters at issue in this action, leaving Plaintiffs with no choice but to seek judicial recourse in order to hold Defendants accountable.”
Jack and Meg White are among several artists, including Celine Dion, Foo Fighters and ABBA, who have objected to Trump using their music for his campaign. They are the only living artists to file a lawsuit against Trump in 2024. The estate of soul singer Isaac Hayes also sued the Trump campaign for copyright infringement.
Senior Senate Republicans on Monday downplayed former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, saying they doubt it would affect the outcome of the election.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley argued that Cheney was “just one person” and that the “millions and millions of votes that (former President Donald) Trump got in the primary to be our nominee” is more important “than just one vote.”
Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican who represents Cheney’s home state of Wyoming, blasted Cheney’s move, saying, “He’s clearly not thinking about Wyoming anymore. It’s no longer part of his life. President Trump is really, really good for Wyoming and he’s just out of touch with people of his home state.”
Asked if Cheney is influential with some GOP voters, Barrasso said he’s not in Wyoming and then took a swipe at Cheney’s daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a fierce Trump opponent.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise given what his daughter had done over the last two years,” Barrasso said.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis also pointed to the influence of Liz Cheney on her father.
“I was a bit surprised by that, but you also sort of have a daughter involved,” he said. “I don’t know what exactly led him to do that. But I look at the world today, I look at Ukraine, I look at Israel from a national security perspective it’s hard for me to understand why somebody with the depth of experience in national security went that way. But people get to endorse who they want to endorse.”
Former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance continue to falsely describe how one of their major policy proposals, across-the-board tariffs, would work.
Trump has falsely, and repeatedly, claimed that China – not US importers – pays the tariff.
At a rally in Arizona in mid-August, he claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, is lying when she refers to his tariff plan as a “Trump tax.”
“She is a liar. She makes up crap … I am going to put tariffs on other countries coming into our country, and that has nothing to do with taxes to us. That is a tax on another country,” Trump said. In September, he repeated the claim during an interview with Fox News that it’s “a tax on another country.”
Vance said in late August that as a result of tariffs Trump imposed during his presidency, “prices went down for American citizens.” But that’s not true.
Facts First: Trump and Vance’s claims about how tariffs work are false. A tariff is a tax that is paid by US businesses – not other countries – when a foreign-made good arrives at the American border. One of the intended goals of a tariff is to raise prices on foreign-made goods, and study after study show that the duties do drive up costs for Americans.
Here’s how tariffs work: When the US puts a tariff on an imported good, the cost of the tariff usually comes directly out of the bank account of an American buyer.
“It’s fair to call a tariff a tax because that’s exactly what it is,” said Erica York, a senior economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. “There’s no way around it. It is a tax on people who buy things from foreign businesses.”
Trump has said that if elected, he would impose tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar.
These duties would add to the tariffs he put on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines, and many Chinese-made goods including baseball hats, luggage, bicycles, TVs and sneakers. President Joe Biden has left many of the Trump-era tariffs in place.
A foreign company may choose to pay the tariff or to lower its prices to stay competitive with US-made goods that aren’t impacted by the duty. But study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, have found that Americans have borne almost the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products.
CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny looks back at moments from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s past debates to see what to expect in their encounter on Tuesday.
Ahead of a key US presidential debate, families of several American hostages held in Gaza are calling on US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to offer new ideas for securing the immediate release of their loved ones.
CNN spoke with relatives of three US citizens held in Gaza who all expressed frustration that attempts to free their family members over the past 11 months had so far failed.
“Perhaps the deal proposed by President (Joe) Biden back in December was good then, but maybe we need something different now,” said Adi Alexander, whose 20-year-old son Edan was serving in the Israeli military when he was abducted by Hamas on October 7.
The family members told CNN that the approach should include the US seeking new pressure points on Hamas and its sponsor Iran, as well as on other nations with potential influence, like Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, the Gulf state which hosts Hamas officials and has helped facilitate negotiations.
Incentives, such as trade deals, sanctions relief and international prisoner swaps should also be evaluated, the hostage families told CNN, similar to recent deals agreed between Washington and Moscow to free US citizens such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and US basketball star Brittney Griner.
Read more about what families are saying
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Both Democratic and Republican politicians are hoping tomorrow’s debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is an opportunity for voters to see the difference between the candidates.
He said Harris is an “unselfish person” who cares about “people and families,” and attacked Trump’s agenda as “selfish” and “centered on Project 2025,” a right wing policy blueprint that Trump has tried to distance himself from, though several people linked to him authored it.
Republican Whip John Thune said he is hoping Trump can draw a stark contrast with Harris and “expose her record” on the debate stage.
Thune said Trump needs to “stay focused on the issues. And don’t make things personal. This is a choice for the American voters. It ought to be about people’s records, their positions and their vision for the future.”
The world knows what kind of a debater former President Donald Trump is: loose with the facts, quick with an insult and cocksure to the extreme.
But what about Vice President Kamala Harris?
While her 2020 presidential campaign barely registered – she ended her campaign in December 2019, before the first primary votes were cast – Harris did leave a mark in one important way. On the primary debate stage in June 2019, before she was his running mate or he was anywhere near the White House, Harris eviscerated Joe Biden, attacking him on his past praise of men like the late Sens. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and John Stennis of Mississippi, “who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
Harris has, no doubt, spent her debate prep time working on material to use against her rival this year. She and Trump are set to meet for the first time and debate Tuesday night in the key state of Pennsylvania. ABC News is broadcasting the event.
Unlike with Biden, Harris won’t have to go back to the 1970s to come up with lines of attack. She can look to his criminal conviction in New York, his liability in a sex abuse and defamation case, his nationalist policies, his unfounded claims about election fraud – for which there is no evidence – or his outrageous pledge to jail election officials.
But, also during that 2019 debate, Harris was criticized by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard about her record as a prosecutor. Gabbard argued that Harris was too hard on marijuana offenders and had other criticisms of her time as a prosecutor.
Gabbard has reportedly helped Trump with his own debate prep, and Trump will want to paint Harris as to the left of the American mainstream – someone who changed her positions for political expediency in 2019 and has now changed them again to run for president.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be on the ballot in Michigan, the state’s highest court ruled on Monday, despite Kennedy pushing to have his name removed after the former presidential candidate ended his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
The court said its majority opinion that Kennedy “has not shown an entitlement to this extraordinary relief” after seeking to have his name removed from the ballot, reversing a Michigan Court of Appeals decision to take him off the ballot on Friday after an appeal from the Michigan secretary of state.
Kennedy had qualified for Michigan’s ballot after being nominated by the Natural Law Party, a minor party with ballot access in the state. In a concurring opinion, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Welch cited Natural Law Party chair Doug Dern’s opposition to Kennedy’s withdrawal four months after his party nominated Kennedy as part of her basis for concluding Kennedy did not have a “clear right” to be removed from the state’s ballot.
Some background: The decision undercuts Kennedy’s hope to push his supporters toward Trump after he endorsed the former president last month. Kennedy has been attempting to remove his name from battleground states as part of a strategy to maximize Trump’s support in places that could determine the outcome of the election. Last week he told his supporters to back Trump “no matter what state you live in.”
The ruling settles a hard-fought legal effort by Kennedy to remove his name from Michigan’s ballot, after initially losing a Michigan Court of Claims decision. He then appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor to remove him from the ballot on Friday before that decision was overturned on Monday.
Absentee voting in Michigan is scheduled to start September 26, although ballots for overseas and military voters are required to go out by September 21.
Ethan Cohen contributed to this report
United We Dream Action, the political arm of the largest immigrant youth-led organization, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, marking the first presidential endorsement in a general election.
Sollod underscored the stakes of the election for immigrants, telling CNN that the importance of it contributed to the group’s decision to weigh in at this point of the race. UWDA has previously endorsed candidates in the primaries.
Since Harris assumed the top of the ticket, allies and immigrant advocates have pushed her team to address not only border security but also the millions of undocumented immigrants in the US.
Harris allies have often pointed to her longstanding relationship with the immigrant community dating back to her days holding office in California when describing her approach to immigration.
The Harris campaign quickly went on the offensive on immigration in late July, citing her work prosecuting transnational gang members and the failed bipartisan border measure.
“We want her to be a pro-immigrant president,” Sollod said.
Vice President Kamala Harris walks alongside Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff at the Pennsylvania Air National Guard Base, 171st Air Refueling Wing, in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, on September 8.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff on Tuesday weighed in on Vice President Kamala Harris’ preparation ahead of the presidential debate, telling a crowd in North Carolina that “she’s ready.”
“There’s a debate tomorrow, and the one thing she did say to the press yesterday was simply, ‘I’m ready,’” Emhoff said during a campaign stop in Raleigh. He was referencing remarks Harris made during their walk in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, yesterday in which she gave a thumbs up and said “I’m ready” after being asked by pool reporters if she is ready to debate Trump.
Emhoff gave a preview of the past few weeks on the trail, emphasizing the robust campaign schedule has resulted in him barely seeing the vice president.
Emhoff’s remarks came during a stop on the campaign’s “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour where he was joined by Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz. The two outlined the stakes of the election for reproductive freedom while laying out the Harris-Walz ticket’s vision to move the country forward.
The Trump campaign on Monday previewed some of the lines of attack that former President Donald Trump is likely to deploy during ABC’s presidential debate tomorrow.
The campaign argued that Vice President Kamala Harris “owns everything from this administration.”
In a call with reporters ahead of Tuesday’s debate, Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller pointed to the handling of the US-Mexico border and illegal immigration, Harris casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate to pass stimulus bills and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as issues that the campaign believes Harris “owns.”
Miller also said he expects “there’ll be some surprises during the debate tomorrow.”
Miller pointed to Harris’ interview with CNN in which she said her “values have not changed,” even as her positions on some issues have changed, and argued that answer, “really opens the door to talking about what are those values, what has Kamala Harris stood for over the years going all the way back to the beginning.”
Miller claimed Harris has been the one in charge of the country, not President Joe Biden, and at one point referred to the Biden administration as the “Harris-Biden” administration, though Harris is not the president.
On Trump, Miller said that the former president is “going to be himself. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind here.” Adding that Harris is “in this debate bootcamp being drilled by new advisers who worked for President Obama that she doesn’t know.”
Miller said, “All these new people, these strangers trying to put thoughts in her head. These binders of stats and details. She has no idea what any of this is. No idea whatsoever. And she’s trying to figure out what type of person she wants to be, because her positions are changing, though her values have stayed the same.”
Asked how Trump has been preparing, Miller said Trump has been giving both longer interviews and shorter pull-aside interviews, news conferences, rally speeches and town halls.
“Every possible style of question President Trump is prepared for because that’s what he’s been doing this entire campaign,” he said.
A new CNN Poll of Polls, including national polls conducted since the Democratic National Convention, finds a tight race with no clear leader between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Harris has an average of 49% support in the new CNN Poll of Polls while Trump has 48% across five polls conducted between August 23 and Sept. 6. That’s effectively unchanged from the previous Poll of Polls average.
The latest average includes a Pew Research Center poll released Monday, which finds Harris and Trump tied at 49% among registered voters and shows little change in voter preference from their previous survey conducted in early August.
More on the poll: The CNN Poll of Polls is an average of the five most recent non-partisan, national surveys of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards and ask about a 2024 presidential general election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Surveys including named third-party or independent candidates are not included.
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby speaks during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on September 9 in Washington, DC.
White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby blamed the Trump administration for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, which was outlined in a report from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul on Monday.
The report released Monday has been lambasted by Democrats for being politically motivated while revealing no new information. Republicans have said the withdrawal, which saw the deaths of 13 service members after an explosion near the Kabul airport, was a failure of the Biden administration. Kirby declined to further “belabor” the White House’s feelings about the partisan nature of the report.
Retired military leaders place blame on Trump administration as well: Several retired military officials issued a letter in support of Vice President Kamala Harris as Republicans attempt to tie her to the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The letter comes after House Republicans and Democrats issued dueling documents casting blame for mistakes made in the US exit from Afghanistan. The Republican report cites Harris as having worked “in lockstep with President Biden behind the scenes to withdraw all US troops.” It also aims to implicate Harris in its accusations by referring to the current government as “the Biden-Harris administration.”
The group of retired generals placed blame on former President Donald Trump for “putting service members in harm’s way” while he was in office, and argued he didn’t leave the Biden administration in a position to execute a withdrawal efficiently.
With less than two months to Election Day, three Republicans on Georgia’s five-member board are pushing through new rules that could jeopardize election certification, particularly if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the state, election experts and voting rights groups say.
The reshaping of the election board in one of the most critical battleground states of 2024 highlights how some Republicans who cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election results have now taken on prominent roles driving election rules and, in some areas, overseeing elections.
The board is set to consider another slate of new rules at its September 20 meeting.
Read more about how the changes could impact the 2024 election.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance posted an eight-part thread on social media picking apart Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign policy page, which was posted to her website Sunday night, specifically her plan on taxes, home ownership, rental prices, small businesses, education, energy, child care and the southern border.
“It has been 50 days since Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. In the dead of the night yesterday, she finally released her campaign policy page. Here’s what I think of it,” Vance posted on X.
The Ohio senator claimed that the housing crisis in American can’t be fixed until the border is secure.
Specifically on her affordable child care proposals, Vance criticized her “one-size-fits-all model” and said it excludes families who prefer faith-based providers or those who prefer to stay home to watch their children or use the help of a loved one.
At the New York Economic Club, Trump dodged a question on whether he would commit to prioritizing legislation that would make child care affordable, saying childcare “is relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
Highlighting how he is a “working-class kid who went to Ohio State on the GI Bill and then to Yale,” Vance also claimed Harris “wants to double down on the failures of our education system.”
More context: The Harris/Walz campaign website added a host of policy positions under an issues tab on Sunday. Republicans have persistently called out the Democratic ticket for failing to clearly outline their policy aspirations.
Harris’ vision for what she characterizes as “a new way forward” includes details on how to address economic anxieties, safeguard fundamental freedoms, promote public safety, and strengthen national security. CNN has reached out to the campaign for comment.
CNN’s Eva McKend contributed reporting to this post.
Part of Kamala Harris’ campaign strategy going into Tuesday is to use the presidential debate as an opportunity to introduce the vice president to undecided voters, alongside trying to expose former President Donald Trump and “his true colors,” as one source described it to CNN.
While the campaign has boasted of the recent momentum behind the vice president, Harris aides and allies see Tuesday night’s debate as an opening to try to broaden the base.
Sources close to the campaign describe the vice president as keenly aware of the strategies Trump is likely to employ, but her team is also preparing her to remain focused on the policy issues and her vision to reach those persuadable voters.
“She’s very aware of who he is and what he’s going to bring,” one of the sources said. “She has a plan. She has a vision. She’s going to put it forward.”
It’s not wholly unlike the strategy Harris had previously been planning for—reminding voters of the unpredictability of Trump and, as she’s repeatedly mentioned on the trail, what her campaign has cast as attacks to personal freedoms.
Before Harris became the lead of the party’s ticket, her team had been preparing her to take that message against Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD Vance. That has spilled into her preparations heading into Tuesday.
“She’s been prepping for this for a long time,” one source told CNN. “Vance was a stand-in for Trump. We were always taking it to Trump.”
Kamala Harris launched a new ad Monday aimed at touting economic proposals and drawing a contrast with Donald Trump, declaring that “this election is about two very different visions for our nation.”
Airing ahead of tomorrow night’s high-profile debate showdown, Harris’ new ad emphasizes her policies to lower the cost of living, as inflation during the Biden-Harris administration has created a political vulnerability for Democrats that Republicans have seized on in their attacks.
She continues, “Together we will build an economy where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed. Now is the time to chart a new way forward.”
The new ad first began airing in Nevada this morning, and the campaign also launched a version of the ad with on-screen text in Spanish.
Former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance continue to falsely describe how one of their major policy proposals — across-the-board tariffs — would work.
Trump has falsely, and repeatedly, claimed that China — not US importers — pay the tariff.
At a rally in Arizona in mid-August, he claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, is lying when she refers to his tariff plan as a “Trump tax.”
“She is a liar. She makes up crap … I am going to put tariffs on other countries coming into our country, and that has nothing to do with taxes to us. That is a tax on another country,” Trump said.
In September, he repeated the claim during an interview with Fox News: “It’s not a tax on the middle class. It’s a tax on another country.”
And he said again during a rally in Wisconsin Saturday that “it’s not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.”
Vance said in late August that as a result of tariffs Trump imposed during his presidency, “prices went down for American citizens.”
“They went up for the Chinese but they went down for our people,” Vance added.
But that’s not true.
Facts First: Trump and Vance’s claims about how tariffs work are false. A tariff is a tax that is paid by US businesses — not other countries — when a foreign-made good arrives at the American border. One of the intended goals of a tariff is to raise prices on foreign-made goods, and study after study shows that the duties do drive up costs for Americans.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be in Philadelphia for the presidential debate on Tuesday as a surrogate for former President Donald Trump, a spokesperson for Kennedy tells CNN.
Kennedy will appear in the spin room — where supporters of each candidate put their “spin” on the debate in conversations with media — on behalf of Trump, according to the spokesperson.
Kennedy endorsed Trump and suspended his independent White House bid last month, urging his supporters to back the former president. Trump has said Kennedy would play a role in his administration if he is elected.
Kennedy’s alliance with Trump came after a long history of attacking the former president.
Trump’s running mate: Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance will also hit the spin room Tuesday, after attending a Philadelphia debate watch party hosted by the Trump campaign, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Earlier on Tuesday, Vance has a fundraiser in Greenville, North Carolina.
CNN’s Kit Maher contributed reporting to this post.
An important part of Vice President Kamala Harris’ preparations to debate Donald Trump Tuesday night has entailed getting ready for possible insults, derogatory comments and name-calling from the former president, two sources familiar said.
The team helping to prepare Harris have had to look no further than Trump’s recent public comments, including at his political rallies, to get a sense of the kinds of things the GOP nominee may say on the debate stage.
It is anybody’s guess just how much Trump will be inclined to try to personally insult his rival tomorrow night — and how much of it will even be heard by the public, given that candidates’ mics will be off when it is not their turn to speak. If the mics were on the entire time, the Harris adviser said, “it would show he does not have the temperament to be president.”
As she has been reading up on Trump’s policy positions, past comments and even insults he has directed at her, two people Harris has extensively spoken with are President Joe Biden and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — both have experienced insults thrown their way by the former GOP president on the debate stage.
Coming just weeks after the Democratic National Convention, where Harris formally accepted her party’s nomination for the presidency, the vice president’s advisers see this week’s ABC News debate as a critical opportunity to speak to voters, including those who are starting to tune in for the first time and are interested in giving her a second look.
Former Republican presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens during a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at Desert Diamond Arena on August 23 in Glendale, Arizona.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, two prominent surrogates for former President Donald Trump, will speak at a rally alongside anti-vaccine activists and Trump supporters on the National Mall in Washington, DC later this month.
The rally, organized by the group “Rescue The Republic,” a group founded by anti-vaccine organizers Matt Tune and Bret Weinstein and Libertarian National Committee chair Angela McArdle, will feature Kennedy and Gabbard speaking alongside prominent anti-vaccine voices, including actor Russell Brand, and conservative firebrands like Lara Logan.
The group says the rally is designed to have the “left and right unite.” Trump and his allies have touted the endorsements of Kennedy and Gabbard, two former Democrats, to signal his appeal across party lines.
There is a new addition to the Harris/Walz campaign website: a host of policy positions under an issues tab.
Republicans have persistently called out the Democratic ticket for failing to outline their policy aspirations online clearly.
Now, with just two days to go until her debate with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris’ vision for what she characterizes as “a new way forward” includes details on how to address economic anxieties, safeguard fundamental freedoms, promote public safety, and strengthen national security.
CNN has reached out to the campaign for comment.
ABC News officially announced the rules last week of tomorrow’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, noting that both candidates had agreed to the format.
ABC’s rules, first shared with the campaigns last month, largely mirror the format of CNN’s presidential debate in June between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Harris’ camp had lobbied for the mics to remain on for the duration of the debate to “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates,” to no avail.
Here are the rules of the face off:
- The candidates’ microphones will be muted when their opponent speaks
- There will be no audience
- The candidates will not be permitted to have written notes
- No staff can visit them during the two commercial breaks
- The candidates cannot ask questions of one another
- Trump, according to ABC News, won a virtual coin flip to determine podium placement and order of closing statements during the debate. Trump chose to offer the last closing statement, and Harris chose the right podium position on screen.
The network, according to the source familiar, offered assurances to the Harris campaign that if there is significant cross talk between Harris and Trump, it may choose to turn on the mics so that the public can understand what is happening, the moderator would discourage either candidate from interrupting constantly and the moderator would also work to explain to viewers what is being said.
You will be able to watch the ABC debate live on CNN tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET.
CNN’s Hadas Gold and Kate Sullivan contributed reporting to this post.
Former President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Potterville, Michigan, on August 29.
Several retired military officials issued a letter in support of Vice President Kamala Harris as Republicans attempt to tie her to the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The group explained in their letter that Harris “has demonstrated her ability to take on the most difficult national security challenges in the Situation Room and on the international stage, from rallying our allies against Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine to standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the Indo-Pacific against China’s provocative actions, to advancing U.S. leadership on space and artificial intelligence.”
The letter comes as House Republicans and Democrats issued dueling documents casting blame for mistakes made in the US exit from Afghanistan. The Republican report cites Harris as having worked “in lockstep with President Biden behind the scenes to withdraw all US troops.” It also aims to implicate Harris in its accusations by referring to the current government as “the Biden-Harris administration.”
Generals slam Trump: The group of retired generals placed blame on former President Donald Trump for “putting service members in harm’s way” while he was in office, and argued he didn’t leave the Biden administration in a position to execute a withdrawal efficiently.
“Without involving the Afghan government, he and his Administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban that freed 5,000 Taliban fighters and allowed them to return to the battlefield,” the letter claimed.
The group also accused Trump of leaving President Joe Biden and Harris “with no plans to execute a withdrawal, and with little time to do so. This chaotic approach severely hindered the Biden-Harris Administration’s ability to execute the most orderly withdrawal possible and put our service members and our allies at risk.”
The fight to define Kamala Harris is dominating campaign advertising as the vice president heads into her first debate matchup with Donald Trump tomorrow night, and as polling shows there are many voters still seeking more information about the new Democratic standard bearer.
According to AdImpact data, 60 out of 80 unique TV ads that aired in the presidential race over the last 30 days targeted Harris, including ads with either a positive or negative tone, and ads drawing contrasts. Over the same period, 42 out of 80 TV ads targeted Trump.
Ads targeting Harris accounted for about $194 million out of $215 million in total broadcast TV spending over the last 30 days, reflecting both sides’ focus on shaping perceptions of the vice president. By comparison, ads targeting Trump over the same period account for about $69 million in TV spending.
More on ad spending: Looking ahead, Democrats continue to hold a significant advantage in future ad bookings through Election Day — though Republicans have cut into that edge as leading GOP outside groups have bought more ad time. With a total of about $534 million in advertising bookings left to air in the presidential race, Democrats lead with about $333.3 million to about $200.7 million for Republicans.
Vice President Kamala Harris said that she predicts former president Donald Trump will lie during Tuesday’s debate and expects him to attack her racial and gender identity.
Harris said in an interview on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” released Monday that she is preparing for Trump to “speak a lot of untruths” and to attack her personally during Tuesday’s debate, pointing to the “tired playbook” of attacks he’s thrown at her and others throughout his political career.
Harris specifically referenced Trump’s previous attacks on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, suggesting he may invoke her identity as a Black woman during the debate.
Harris said in the interview, which was taped last Wednesday, during her trip to New Hampshire, that she is hoping to make the case that Trump “tends to fight for himself” drawing the contrast with her own commitment to work on behalf of voters.
“What I intend to point out is what we, so many people know, and certainly, as I’m traveling the country in this campaign, he tends to fight for himself, not for the American people. And I think that’s going to come out during the course of the debate,” she said.
Harris has been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since Thursday preparing for tomorrow’s debate against Trump.
As Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump gear up to face off Tuesday in the presidential debate, both camps continue working to court voters.
Here’s who you can expect to see and where:
Donald Trump will join a National Faith Advisory Pre-Debate Prayer Call with Pastors Paula White, Jentezen Franklin, Lorenzo Sewell, and IFA President Dave Kubal at 8 p.m. ET.
Kamala Harris: A pre-recorded radio interview with Vice President Harris will be aired on Monday morning. Later, at 4.40 p.m. ET Harris will depart Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and land in Philadelphia, PA ahead of Tuesday’s debate.
Tim Walz: The Minnesota governor will travel to Dallas and in the afternoon will deliver remarks at a campaign reception on behalf of the Harris Victory fund. He’s also expected to campaign in Nevada tonight.
Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz: At 2:00 p.m. ET, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and First Lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz will deliver remarks in Raleigh from a Harris-Walz Campaign “Fighting for Freedom” Bus Tour Stop. At 4:05 p.m. ET, Emhoff will deliver remarks at a team Harris-Walz phone bank in Raleigh.
President Joe Biden: Biden will travel back to Washington, DC from Delaware. At 5:00 p.m. ET, Biden will deliver remarks from the White House to celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act and to mark Disability Pride Month.
Former first lady Melania Trump joins former President Donald Trump on stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18.
Former first lady Melania Trump narrated a short video claiming there are “efforts to silence my husband” as she prompted her new book.
In the new video posted to X on Sunday, she said the results of 2020 election forever changed Americans’ lives.
“It impacted our quality of life, cost of food, gasoline, safety and even the geopolitical landscape. America is more divided today than ever before. It has become increasingly apparent that there are significant challenges to free speech, as demonstrated by the efforts to silence my husband,” she said in a new video posted to X on Sunday that included a link to pre-order her memoir.
The comments are rare, as Melania Trump has maintained a low profile throughout the 2024 presidential campaign of her husband, Donald Trump, making only a handful of public appearances since the former president launched his third White House bid.
Among them include:
- An appearance at Trump’s campaign kickoff in November 2022 at their Mar-a-Lago home
- A brief appearance in March when she accompanied her husband to vote in the Florida presidential primary
- Attending the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer
The former first lady’s office announced last month that her memoir, “Melania,” would be released this fall.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The most important moment in the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump comes tomorrow, as the vice president prepares for what could be her only opportunity to directly confront a former president whose political dominance she is pledging to end.
Their debate is particularly important for Harris, who is battling to define herself in voters’ eyes and keep up the positive momentum she’s enjoyed since becoming the Democratic Party’s new nominee this summer.
The debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will be the first face-to-face encounter between Harris and Trump, who are locked in a tight race.
For Harris, it’s a marquee moment to show Americans that she is ready to assume the presidency, a question very much on the minds of voters as the fall campaign intensifies.
Trump, meanwhile, is eager to negatively shape voters’ perceptions of his Democratic rival and halt the gains she has made since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket in July. Harris has eliminated what for much of the year had been Trump’s lead over Biden in presidential polling.
Both Harris and Trump are offering themselves as change agents of sorts. Harris has pitched herself as a clean break from a bitterly divisive era of politics dominated by Trump. The former president, though, points to Harris’ time in the Biden administration and says she bears the blame for inflation, higher mortgage rates and more.
A new CNN Poll of Polls including polls conducted since the Democratic National Convention finds a tight race with no clear leader between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Harris has an average of 49% support in the new Poll of Polls, while Trump has 47% across polls conducted between August 23 and Sept. 6. The new average is largely unchanged from the previous average, which found Harris at 50% to Trump at 48%.
The Poll of Polls includes the four most recent national polls measuring the views of registered or likely voters in a 2024 presidential general election.
Takeaways from one of the polls: A New York Times and Siena College poll of likely voters conducted from September 3 to 6 showed 48% say they support Trump to 47% for Harris, with no clear leader.
Other takeaways from the Times-Siena poll:
- The survey suggests a sizable share of voters still need more information about Harris, with 28% of likely voters saying they feel like they need to learn more about her, compared to just 9% who say they need to learn more about Trump
- The poll also suggests a wide gender gap among likely voters, with women breaking for Harris by 11 points (53% to 42%), while men favor Trump by 17 points (56% to 39%)
- Harris has an 8-point advantage among likely voters younger than 30 (51% support Harris to 43% for Trump), while Trump has the upper hand among those age 65 or older
- Independent likely voters tilt narrowly toward Harris, 48% to 44%, while those likely voters who say they did not vote in 2020 split 49% Trump to 40% Harris
- Harris holds broad advantages among likely Black and Latino voters
Former President Donald Trump participates in a town hall campaign event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on August 29.
Former President Donald Trump said Sunday he would vote for a ballot measure in Florida that would legalize adult recreational marijuana use — a position that puts him at odds with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders in the state who oppose the initiative.
He continued, “As president, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens.”
Trump previously said he thought the ballot initiative in Florida would pass and that he thought adults in Florida shouldn’t be arrested for having “personal amounts” of marijuana on them. He also called for the Florida legislature to create laws that prohibit recreational marijuana use in public spaces.
DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the GOP presidential primary but then endorsed the former president when he dropped out, has bashed the ballot initiative as “radical” and said earlier this year if it passed, “This state will start to smell like marijuana in our cities and towns.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Mosinee, Wisconsin, on Saturday.
Donald Trump limbered up for his debate with Kamala Harris by showing the extremism that risks playing into the vice president’s claim that he’s an “unserious man” who is an “extremely serious” threat if he’s returned to the White House.
Trump warned he will jail election officials he considers cheats; is complaining Pennsylvania’s voting is a fraud; vowed to pardon January 6 rioters; railed against women who accused him of sexual misconduct; and spent hours in recent days on sometimes incoherent rants that raised questions about his state of mind.
But new polling ahead of Tuesday’s showdown in Philadelphia shows the race tied up nationally, suggesting Harris’ momentum after replacing President Joe Biden on the ticket hasn’t resulted in a commanding edge.
The tightness of the contest shows both Trump’s enduring appeal to tens of millions of Americans as he seeks a political comeback and the huge task facing Harris as she tries to save an election Democrats seemed doomed to lose before Biden bowed out.
That makes tomorrow’s debate — the first since June’s consequential clash on CNN that eventually ended Biden’s campaign — the most critical scheduled event before Election Day.
The way each candidate is preparing highlights the different paths Americans can choose in November and the sharp contrast in the style of the presidency that will ensue if Harris or Trump are at the Oval Office desk.
The Harris campaign is taking aim at GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s former top officials who have distanced themselves from serving during his time as president in a new ad.
The campaign appears to be attempting to get under Trump’s skin as he prepares to face off with Vice President Kamala Harris: It will run, the campaign said, on “Fox News and in the West Palm Beach and Philadelphia media markets on debate day.”
It features first-person testimony from some of Trump’s top lieutenants, including his vice president, Mike Pence.
“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said in 2023.
It also features his defense secretary, Mark Esper, who said in 2023 that Trump’s actions “(place) our nation’s security at risk.”
And his national security adviser, John Bolton, who warned days ago on CNN that Trump “will cause a lot of damage.”
And his chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark Miley, who obliquely referenced Trump as he said in 2023, “We don’t take an oath to a king or queen, pirate or dictator. We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
The ad, titled “The Best People,” is part of an existing $370 million digital and TV advertising expenditure by the Harris campaign.
Donald Trump on Sunday called on the FBI to investigate mail-in ballots in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania and made claims unsupported by evidence of widespread voter fraud as the former president escalates his efforts to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2024 election.
The post comes a day after Trump threatened prosecution and “long term prison sentences” for election officials and political operatives, who he suggested could cheat in the 2024 election, if he again wins the presidency in November.
Trump has routinely suggested he would weaponize the justice system to go after his political opponents if voters return him to the White House — threats that began after he was first indicted in his Manhattan hush money case more than a year ago.
Trump regularly spreads conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that he lost to President Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes and falsely claims there was widespread voter fraud.
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened prosecution and “long term prison sentences” for election officials and political operatives, who he suggested could cheat in the 2024 election, if he again wins the presidency in November.
Trump, again falsely claiming Democrats engaged in fraudulent behavior in 2020, said that he, attorneys and legal scholars are “watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely.”
Trump’s threats of prosecution are part of his repeated efforts to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2024 election. He has routinely suggested he would weaponize the justice system to go after his political opponents if voters return him to the White House — threats that began after he was first indicted in his Manhattan hush money case more than a year ago.
Trump, who regularly spreads conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and falsely claims there was widespread voter fraud, added on Saturday, “I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation!”
Despite Trump’s repeated claims, the 2020 election was highly secure, and he lost to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes. There is no evidence of voter fraud even close to widespread enough to have changed the election outcome in any state.
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff went for a walk in Pittsburgh on Sunday as she remains in the area preparing for Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia.
Asked by reporters if she was ready to debate former President Donald Trump, Harris gave a thumbs-up and said, “I’m ready.”
Harris also stepped out for a break Saturday, briefly meeting voters at a local business.
A July sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became Vice President Kamala Harris’ debut on the world stage.
Despite having met with more than 150 world leaders since becoming VP, this meeting felt different.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she said, before dismissing reporters ahead of the meeting, a moment that captured the complicated dynamics that have colored her foreign policy ambitions, and offered a preview of the type of statesmanship she would pursue as president.
Harris did not enter the job with vast experience on the world stage. Both advisers and foreign officials she’s interacted with say Harris managed to take what was essentially a supporting role and turn it into a crash course in foreign diplomacy. One former senior adviser described the vice president taking home massive briefing books and often peppering staffers with questions as she was briefed on multiple foreign policy issues.
She began, some said, rather scripted and uncertain but emerged within her first year in office as a more confident voice. In meetings, she can appear alternatively warm – searching for commonalities over food or family – and steely, as she holds a firm line on US policy.
Harris advisers argue nothing could have better prepared her to step onto the global stage, should she win the election in November, than her time as vice president.
Read more about how Harris has carved out her foreign policy path here.