Vice President Kamala Harris is set to give a speech on Friday focused squarely on abortion rights and she’ll do so in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are scrambling to ensure that the U.S. Secret Service has enough money and resources to keep the nation’s presidential candidates safe amid repeated threats of violence. The efforts follow a July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally and after a second apparent attempt last weekend at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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With early voting beginning Friday in three states, voters are split on whether Harris or Trump would better handle the economy, a new AP-NORC poll finds.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Jill Biden attends her first Cabinet meeting to discuss women's health
President Joe Biden invited a special guest to his meeting with his Cabinet on Friday: his wife, Jill Biden. It was her first time attending.
Biden called on her to update the group on a new White House effort to change the approach to and boost funding for research into women’s health issues.
The first lady said “incredible progress” had been made since she and the president launched the initiative in November after she learned about “huge gaps in our understanding of women’s health.”
She called out several departments and agencies, including Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health, for committing hundreds of millions of dollars to spur research and innovation.
The first lady said she’ll be making a new announcement on Monday in New York.
She said the steps taken so far are “building momentum for this research” but added, “We have to keep moving forward.”
DNC seeks to remind North Carolina voters of Trump's ties to Robinson
As Trump returns to North Carolina over the weekend, the Democratic National Committee is up with advertising aiming to remind voters of his ties to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, following a CNN report Thursday about his alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board.
DNC officials say they’re running billboards in nine places across North Carolina, including Robinson’s hometown of Greensboro, showing a photo of him standing alongside Trump. There’s also text of positive things the Republican presidential nominee and former president has said about Robinson.
Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.”
Robinson, the GOP nominee for North Carolina governor, has been a top surrogate for Trump in the state. But Robinson is not expected to attend Trump’s rally on Saturday in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Early voting begins in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia
In-person voting for this year’s presidential election has officially begun, kicking off the six-week sprint to Election Day.
Voters lined up Friday to cast their ballots in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, the states with the first early in-person voting opportunities. About a dozen more states will follow by mid-October.
Some of the voters who cast ballots Friday suggested that they didn’t want to wait, hoping to avoid the potential for trouble or chaos at the polls after a summer of political turmoil.
Other early voters might opt for early in-person balloting instead of mail-in absentee ballots to ensure their votes get counted, given the ongoing struggles of the U.S. Postal Service.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has often sought to sow doubt about mail voting and encouraged voters to cast ballots in person on Election Day. But this year, Trump and the Republican National Committee, which he now controls, have begun to embrace early and mail voting as a way to lock in GOP votes before Election Day, just as Democrats have done for years.
At a polling site in Minneapolis, Jason Miller arrived well before the polls opened at 8 a.m. and was first in line. He was among roughly 75 people who cast ballots in the first hour at the city’s early voting center.
“Why not try to be first? That’s kind of fun, right?” said the 37-year-old house painter.
Teamsters Rail Conference endorses Harris after national union declined to make an endorsement
The Teamsters Rail Conference, which represents 70,000 members, endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Friday.
The announcement comes as a flurry of Teamsters locals back the Democratic ticket even though the national union declined to make an endorsement in the presidential race.
“The lives and livelihoods of railroaders are more dependent than most workers on decisions made by the federal government,” said the Teamsters Rail Conference, which cited Democrats’ support for worker-friendly regulations like paid sick leave.
The rail workers’ endorsement differs from a previous statement from the Teamsters’ national leadership, which cited Harris’ stance on rail strikes as a reason not to endorse her.
Harris says she's ‘very proud’ to have Taylor Swift's support
Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s “very proud” to have earned Taylor Swift’s endorsement but poked at the pop superstar over the Super Bowl in a new video interview released Friday.
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 to win February’s game.
Harris and Swift supported opposing teams. Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, is a 49ers fan, while Swift backs the Chiefs. Her boyfriend is Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
In WIRED’s Autocomplete Interview, which Harris sat for earlier this week, she noted the split with Swift over the Super Bowl but said, “Who’s mad at anyone for being loyal to their team?”
On Swift’s endorsement, Harris said, “I am very proud to have the support of Taylor Swift” and described the singer-songwriter as “an incredible artist.”
“I really respect the courage that she has had in her career to stand up for what she believes is right,” the vice president said.
Swift announced her endorsement shortly after the conclusion of Harris’ debate on Sept. 10 with Republican Donald Trump.
Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election, and her latest tour has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales
Tourists can finally visit the Oval Office. A replica is opening near the White House
Washington, D.C., has a new tourist stop that surely will be made over once the next president settles into office.
“The Peoples’s House: A Washington Experience” is set to open on Monday, covering three floors in an office building a block from the White House.
The education center boasts a full-scale replica of the Oval Office decorated just as President Joe Biden’s currently is — right down to his desk, the armchairs in front of the fireplace and the weathered family Bible resting on a side table.
But it won’t look that way for long.
The plan is to update the replica Oval next year after either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump is elected in November and assumes office, and the décor is set.
The replica will always mirror the Oval Office of the sitting president, so it will be updated regularly, said Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association.
The nonprofit organization raised money to open the education center.
Admission is free; timed tickets are required.
Harris talks openly about her gun ownership
Vice President Kamala Harris has grown more open about her gun ownership in recent weeks, but on Thursday she for the first time said what she’d do with the handgun she owns.
Speaking during a campaign event hosted by the talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harris was addressing her efforts to cut down on violence and pass a new ban on assault-style weapons, when she referenced owning a handgun — surprising Winfrey.
“If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin shot,” Harris added. She continued: “I probably shouldn’t have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”
Oprah and Kamala Harris host town hall
A live stream with Vice President Kamala Harris and talk show host Oprah Winfrey billed as a “Unite for America” rally kicked off Thursday night with more than 230,000 viewers on YouTube alone even before Harris joined, as the Democrat looks to digital-first events to reach voters.
The event was hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, and leaned on celebrities like Brian Cranston, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’s message.
“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” said comedian Chris Rock.
Trump speaks to Jewish leaders in D.C.
Donald Trump appeared before Jewish leaders in Washington D.C. on Thursday to talk about antisemitism.
But as the former president is wont to do, he took a large detour at the top of his speech, name-checking his Republican allies in the crowd, discussing the Green New Deal “scam” and pontificating about his polling numbers at length.
Trump was roughly an hour late to his speech, which was slated to begin around 6 p.m.
“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you, or protect your children, or even protect you with words... I’m here to tell you today that this ugly kind of antisemitic hate for all of us — bigotry and hate — will be turned back ... starting at noon on Jan. 23rd," he said.
"With your vote, I will be your protector and defender and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”