(WASHINGTON) — With 70 days before Election Day as of Tuesday, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump get back to campaigning with Harris in Georgia on Wednesday and Trump in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, campaigned in Michigan while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz picks up the trail on Wednesday in Boston.
Here’s how the news is developing…
Harris continues Georgia bus tour, Walz heads to North Carolina
Harris is continuing her tour with two stops at local businesses in Chatham County in Georgia. She will be joined by Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams.
Later Thursday, Harris will deliver remarks at a rally in Savannah.
Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, will head to North Carolina for a “local political event” and a campaign reception.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris, Walz make campaign stop at Georgia high school
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz stopped by Liberty County High School in Georgia as part of their bus tour and were greeted by the school’s principal and superintendent and met with the school marching band during rehearsal.
Harris and Walz delivered brief remarks to band members, football players and faculty. After welcoming the class to the “role model club,” Harris told the class that as “leaders” the nation is “counting” on them.
“You are showing what hard work can achieve, what discipline, what teamwork. And that’s the stuff of greatness,” she said.
She continued with a music metaphor that encouraged them to keep up their hard work.
“I will tell you I was in band when I was your age,” she said. “And all that you all are doing, it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice, long hours, right? Sometimes you hit the note, sometimes you don’t, right? All that practice makes for beautiful music.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris spokesman defends joint interview
A spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign defended Wednesday the decision to make the vice president’s first televised interview as the Democratic presidential nominee a joint interview with her running mate Gov. Tim Walz.
Ian Sams responded on X to a post by journalist Mark Knoller who questioned if CNN should have “insisted on a one-on-one interview,” by saying that “The joint ticket interview is an election year summer tradition going back 20 years.”
“Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan, Trump/Pence, Clinton/Kaine, Biden/Harris all did them. Almost always right around the conventions. Harris/Walz join this rich tradition on CNN tomorrow,” he said.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Garrow
Vance claims he doesn’t need to prepare for a debate
Vance told reporters he’s preparing for the October vice presidential debate by talking to people on the campaign trail, contending he doesn’t need other preparation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“Look, the way I’m doing debate prep is by spending time with these fine people. This is how I do debate prep is to get out there. You get out there, you talk to people, you talk about the issues that matter,” Vance said.
“We don’t need to prepare for a debate with Tim Walz. We need to get out there and talk. We need to get out there. Look, we need to get out there and talk to the American people. That’s the biggest way that we’re going to prepare for that debate on October the first,” he added.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim and Hannah Demissie
Vance says Harris ‘can go to hell’ for criticizing Trump for Arlington Cemetery visit
Sen. JD Vance continued to defend Trump’s visit to Arlington Cemetery during a campaign event Wednesday in Erie, Pennsylvania, and went on the attack against Harris, blaming her for the deaths of 13 soldiers three years ago.
“Look, sometimes mistakes happen. That’s just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful,” Vance said.
“We’re gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can, go to hell,” he continued.
The federal government conducted a probe into the final days of the war and American withdrawal and the Pentagon’s Central Command concluded in 2022 that the attack was not preventable despite others’ assertions that it was preventable.
The Pentagon has conducted multiple rounds of reviews, including the latest review published in April that reaffirmed the initial investigation’s findings that the attack was not preventable.
Congress has also scrutinized the attack and heard from many military leaders, including former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who told lawmakers last year that he was thwarted in an attempt to stop the suicide bombing.
Harris, who was campaigning in Georgia Wednesday, did not bring up “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery. Harris-Walz communications director Michael Tyler told CNN on Wednesday that the “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery with former President Trump was “pretty sad,” but what “we’ve come to expect” from the former president.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim, Cindy Smith and Hannah Demissie
Biden to travel to Wisconsin next week to tout economy
President Joe Biden will travel to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Sept. 5 to highlight his economic agenda, according to the White House.
Exact details of the trip, including the locations in the state, weren’t immediately revealed.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Walz promises to fight for labor freedoms at International Association of Fire Fighters
Gov. Tim Walz addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) convention on Wednesday in Boston, making the case that the Democratic ticket was the one that would fight for their freedoms, including labor protections.
“People tell me, look, I’m really not that into politics. My response to that is, too damn bad — politics is into you,” Walz said to what he acknowledged as a bipartisan audience.
Walz said that Harris “is proudly part of the most pro-labor administration in history,” and that when they “win this election, we’ll have your back like you’ve had ours.”
“We believe that you, not politicians, should be made free to make your own health care choices,” Walz concluded. “We believe that workers deserve to collectively bargain for fair wages and safe working conditions.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
JD Vance responds to new special counsel indictment
Sen. JD Vance, asked by ABC News on the tarmac in Nashville about the superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case, framed the special counsel’s actions as an effort to influence the election.
“I haven’t read the whole thing, but it looks like Jack Smith doing more of what he does, which is filing these absurd lawsuits in an effort to influence the election,” the GOP vice presidential candidate said.
The new indictment adjusts the charges to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Vance pushed back against the Harris-Walz campaign’s assertion that the Supreme Court ruling goes too far and grants the former president too much immunity, arguing that the president needs some immunity in order to do the job.
“If the president doesn’t have some level of immunity in how he conducts his office, in the same way that judges have to have immunity, police officers have to have immunity. There has to be some recognition that people can’t be sued for doing their job,” Vance said.
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