Election 2024 Latest: Trump and Harris resume campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
Election 2024 Latest: Trump and Harris resume campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
The presidential campaign is moving forward after another apparent attempt on Donald Trump ‘s life. Trump was safe after the incident in Florida and praised the Secret Service for protecting him but didn’t shy away from blaming his opponents. The Republican nominee claimed without evidence that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ comment that he is a threat to democracy had inspired the attempt on Sunday.
The man suspected in the incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours, according to court documents filed Monday. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.
Trump is expected to travel to Michigan while Harris will speak at a Black journalists forum in Pennsylvania.
Here is the Latest:
Harris says racial justice work must be addressed but sidesteps reparations question
Harris stressed she supported acknowledging history and working to address victims of racist policies like redlining but declined to embrace efforts by some congressional Democrats for reparations.
“I think Congress will have the ability to do this work,” Harris said. She didn’t endorse any potential executive order on reparations and did not say the word “reparations.”
Harris says her heart breaks for Springfield, Ohio
Harris said Tuesday that her heart breaks for Springfield, Ohio, after threats of violence following comments amplified by Republican Donald Trump about immigrants kidnapping and consuming people’s pets.
“You have that kind of microphone in front of you you really ought to understand at a very deep level that your words have meaning,” she said.
Trump made the comments during the presidential debate. Days later, schools were shut down and government buildings closed because of threats of violence.
Harris says the Israel-Hamas war must end
While speaking during her NABJ appearance in Philadelphia, Harris said the latest Israel-Hamas war has to end and a ceasefire and hostage deal must get done. She added that far too many “innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
Harris said she believes a two-state solution is the best solution, even if it doesn’t seem feasible right now. She said the goal is to ensure “the Israelis have security and Palestinians in equal measure have security, have self-determination and dignity.”
When asked whether she’d change policy in the region, she stressed the ceasefire must be done.
Harris says she needs to ‘earn’ the vote of Black men
Harris said it’s important “not to operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket.” She said, like any voting bloc, she needs to “earn their vote.”
She added that she was “working to earn the vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I’m Black.”
A more demure NABJ appearance for Harris versus Trump
The vice president’s extended and measured comments at the start of her NABJ appearance were received in a quiet venue at the WHYY Philadelphia studio. There was no interjection or reaction from the crowd at the outset. It was a marked contrast from the opening remarks during Trump’s July NABJ interview, which began with a contentious exchange at the beginning of the event.
Harris sits down with panel of reporters hosted by NABJ
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is sitting down with a panel of reporters hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia.
Harris was asked whether Americans are better off than they were three years ago.
The vice president said the Biden administration inherited a difficult economy.
Trump re-ups his threat against election workers and others in Truth Social post
Trump is re-upping his threat against election workers, donors and others as he continues to stoke unfounded fears about the integrity of the 2024 vote, posting again on his social media site that, “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Trump had posted the same message, which begins with the words, “CEASE & DESIST,” on his Truth Social site earlier this month.
In the post, he warns that he and others will be “watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election.”
There is no evidence of the cheating he continues to insist took place in 2020, even though dozens of courts, Republican election officials and his own government said Biden won fairly.
Trump, in the post goes on to say the 2024 vote “will be under the closest professional scrutiny” and that: “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
“Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials,” he adds.
VP says woman’s death after delayed abortion treatment shows consequences of Trump’s actions
Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that the death of a young Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill shows the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.
Amber Thurman’s death, first reported Monday by ProPublica, occurred just two weeks after Georgia’s strict abortion ban was enacted in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide abortion rights. Trump appointed three of the justices who made that decision and has repeatedly said he believes states should decide abortion laws.
“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Harris said in a statement. “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
▶ Read more here.
Voto Latino registered more people after Biden dropped his bid than during same period in past years
Voto Latino registered more people in the days immediately after President Joe Biden announced he would not be the Democratic presidential candidate than the organization registered for the entire month of July in previous presidential elections.
Chief Program and Research Officer Ameer Patel said the organization registered more than 50,000 people from July 21 until the end of the month. By comparison, the nonprofit advocacy group registered 2,252 people in July 2016 and 25,156 in July 2020.
Two of the states with the most activity were Texas and Florida, Patel said.
Issues the organization is watching include voter purges, said founder Maria Teresa Kumar, who added that dropping people from voting rolls in smaller communities could have large impacts. “This was not on our radar,” she said.
More than 6 in 10 Latino voters supported Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and 35% supported former President Donald Trump.
However, a July poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only about 4 in 10 Latinos said they were somewhat or very optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party, and about one-quarter said the same about the Republican Party.
Harris condemns apparent assassination attempt against Trump, says ‘violence has no place’
Vice President Kamala Harris says she was “briefed immediately after” Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and that she is grateful “he’s OK.”
In an interview recorded on Monday with a Spanish-language radio host Chiquibaby, Harris echoed her past sentiments about the attack, condemning “violence of any kind.”
“We have to have civil dialogue, and be able to talk through our differences,” Harris said. “And violence has no place.”
The interview was airing Tuesday on a show that is syndicated on 100-plus Spanish-language radio stations.
The vice president also talked about her mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan, who was born in India, being an immigrant to the U.S. She blamed Trump for helping to derail a bipartisan border security plan in Congress and detailed her previously announced plans to use tax incentives to encourage first-time home purchases and combat grocery “price gouging” to help tame inflation.
Elon Musk has often inflamed politically tense moments, raising worries for the US election
Hours after an apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, Elon Musk took to his social platform X to post a thinking emoji and a comment that “no one is even trying to assassinate” the Democratic president and vice president.
Amid anti-Muslim riots in the U.K., which were ginned up by a false rumor, Musk declared that “civil war is inevitable” in the country.
And when an anonymous X user distorted data to claim a surge in sketchy voter registrations in three U.S. states, Musk amplified the false post and called it “extremely concerning.”
All three posts sparked quick backlash from public officials who called Musk’s words irresponsible and misleading. As his words amass millions of views and thousands of shares, they also illustrate the ability of one of the world’s most influential people to spread fear, hate and misinformation during fraught political moments around the world.
▶ Read more here.
Election officials prepare for threats with panic buttons, bulletproof glass
The election director in Cobb County, an Atlanta suburb where votes will be fiercely contested in this year’s presidential race, recently organized a five-hour training session. The focus wasn’t solely on the nuts and bolts of running this year’s election. Instead, it brought together election staff and law enforcement to strategize on how to keep workers safe and the process of voting and ballot-counting secure.
Having a local sheriff’s deputy at early voting locations and panic buttons that connect poll managers to a local 911 dispatcher are among the added security steps the office is taking this year.
Tate Fall, Cobb County’s election director, said she was motivated to act after hearing one of her poll workers describe being confronted during the state’s presidential primary in March by an agitated voter who the worker noticed was carrying a gun. The situation ended peacefully, but the poll worker was shaken.
▶ Read more about what officials are doing across the country
Florida to launch state-level prop of apparent assassination attempt on Trump
Florida law enforcement will launch a state-level criminal probe of the apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
DeSantis told reporters that the “suspect is believed to (backslash)have committed state law violations.” DeSantis’ announcement comes a day after Ryan Routh was charged with federal firearms crimes.
Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county.
Harris and Walz court young voters in battleground states
Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are kicking off a week of action to encourage young voters in battleground states to sign up to vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Walz has events on Tuesday in Macon, Georgia, and Atlanta, followed by a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, while his wife, Gwen, appears in Las Vegas.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and actor Jane Fonda are among a group of high-profile Harris supporters who are set to participate in the registration drive.
More than 130 voter registration events will be held on college campuses — at basketball tournaments, football games and more — in the handful of states where Harris and Walz and the Republican presidential ticket of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, are focusing their campaigns, the Harris-Walz campaign said.
The campaign will also have a presence at historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, including setting up kiosks to assist students with registration.
Trump shoutout Elon Musk
As he participated in an event on his X social media platform, Trump gave a shoutout to Elon Musk, saying the tech billionaire “endorsed me for president so strongly.”
Trump also called Musk his “friend,” commending his efforts on space travel in particular.
Musk deleted a post on X in which he said “no one is even trying to assassinate” Biden and Harris in the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
Early Monday, after taking down the post about the apparent Trump assassination, Musk wrote on the platform: “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”
Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on the social media site he bought for $44 billion in 2022, has increasingly embraced conservative ideologies in recent years and endorsed Trump for president.
A ‘much better result’
Trump says the apparent attempt on his life was a “much better result” than when he was shot in July because no others were wounded or killed.
“That was some crazy day, and yesterday you had another one with a different result, actually much better result,” Trump said.
The host noted that some of Trump’s sons were in the room for the interview.
Trump recounts the apparent assassination attempt
He and his friends playing golf “heard shots, being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”
Trump said they got into carts “and we moved along pretty good.”
“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said, of not being able to finish the round of golf.
Trump said an agent had seen a gun barrel “and started shooting in the bushes … and ran toward the target.”
Trump also noted that a civilian woman in the area drove her vehicle to the back of Routh’s vehicle and took pictures of the license plate, which she then gave to authorities, who were able to track the suspect down.
Trump addresses apparent assassination attempt on X
Trump is participating in his first speaking appearance since the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday.
The former president is taking part in an X Space about the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform controlled by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric.
From his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump commended the Secret Service for doing an “excellent job.”
Farokh, the event’s host, began by applauding Trump for not canceling his appearance.
By The Associated Press
