The Latest: Trio of crises loom over the campaign's final stretch

Oct 2, 2024 4:40 PM - 1877 words

By The Associated Press

In a debate that evoked a calmer era in American politics, Tim Walz and JD Vance went after each other’s running mates Tuesday and sought to shore up their campaigns’ vulnerabilities at a time of renewed fears of a regional war in the Middle East and sadness over devastation from Hurricane Helene.

Meanwhile, those new trials — along with a dockworkers strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming over the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could help shape the public mood as voters decide between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’

Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that lays out fresh details from the landmark criminal case against the former president.

The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial. Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”

“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being alerted that his vice president, Mike Pence, was in potential danger after a crowd of violent supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.

The filing was submitted, initially under seal, following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office, narrowing the scope of the prosecution charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Read more here.

Anti-abortion leaders are undeterred as Trump for the first time says he’d veto a federal abortion ban

Anti-abortion leaders said Wednesday that they’re undeterred after Donald Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he has explicitly said so after previously refusing to answer questions on the subject.

During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the Republican presidential nominee posted on his social media platform Truth Social that “everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it.”

With the election less than five weeks away, Trump has been trying to thread a divide between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights. The former president is trying to make up ground with women — a group that views Democratic nominee Kamala Harris more favorably nationally — in the handful of battleground states that will likely determine the winner.

“Trump’s statement last night is just one more example of Republicans trying desperately to rebrand themselves on the issue of abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at the national abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “But at the end of the day, the only thing that has actually changed is their rhetoric on the issue. It’s their reaction to seeing the political consequences for this deeply unpopular policy position.”

Read more here.

Walz acknowledges some moments he misspoke during the debate with his Republican rival

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that “I need to be more specific on that” and acknowledged he misspoke during a debate with his Republican rival a day earlier when he said he had “become friends with school shooters.”

“I’m super passionate about this,” the former schoolteacher told reporters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He clarified that he had gotten to know the parents of victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting while he was in Congress, as well as the activist and school-shooting survivor David Hogg, calling him a “good friend of mine.”

Said Walz, “I need to be more specific on that, but I am passionate about this.”

Walz also acknowledge again that he “got his dates wrong” when he claimed he was in China during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Cybersecurity head says there’s no chance a foreign adversary can change US election results

Security for America’s election systems has become so robust that Russia, Iran or any other foreign adversary won't be able to alter the outcome of this year’s presidential race, the head of the nation’s cybersecurity agency said Wednesday.

Jen Easterly told The Associated Press in an interview that voting, ballot-counting and other election infrastructure is more secure today than it’s ever been.

“Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” said Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Federal agencies have warned of growing attempts by Russia and Iran in particular to influence voters before the Nov. 5 election and election conspiracy theories have left millions of Americans doubting the validity of election results.

Easterly says those efforts are primarily aimed at sowing discord among Americans and undermining faith in the security of the nation’s elections.

Court says betting on U.S. congressional elections can resume, for now

Betting on the outcome of U.S. Congressional elections can resume, at least temporarily, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dissolved an order it had previously issued that prevented New York startup company Kalshi from taking bets on which political party would control the House and Senate after this November’s elections.

The ruling clears the way for such betting to resume while the court further considers the underlying issues in the case.

So far, Kalshi has only offered bets on congressional races; it was not immediately clear whether they plan to expand offerings to include the presidential election.

The court said it could reconsider a ban if the commission provides new evidence of serious harm to the public interest in the coming weeks.

Harris issues a statement on the dockworkers strike

“This strike is about fairness," the vice president said in the Wednesday statement. “Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown. The Longshoremen, who play a vital role transporting essential goods across America, deserve a fair share of these record profits.”

In the statement, she criticized her opponent, former President Donald Trump, as someone who wants to take the country “back to a time before workers had the freedom to organize.”

“Donald Trump makes empty promise after empty promise to American workers, but never delivers," Harris said. “He thinks our economy should only work for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who actually build them.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is reiterating her opposition to the acquisition of US steel by Nippon Steel of Japan

“I feel very strongly that U.S. Steel needs to remain a U.S. company, and that the people working there need to be American workers,” Harris during an interview with KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.

It’s a position consistent with the White House.

Pressed on U.S. Steel saying it could be forced to move its headquarters from Pittsburgh and cut jobs if the deal doesn’t go through, Harris told the TV station that it's her “priority to keep jobs in Pittsburg.”

President Joe Biden has opposed the acquisition of U.S. Steel to a foreign entity and his administration has indicated it could move to block the sale amid a government review of it. Since taking over for Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has repeatedly taken a similar stance.

Walz is taking a bus tour through Pennsylvania

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is holding a bus tour through central Pennsylvania with stops in the capital of Harrisburg, as well as York, and Reading.

In York, he’s being joined by Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman for a rally. While on the tour, Walz plans to meet with labor organizers and leaders from rural areas and the Hispanic community.

Vice President Kamala Harris had originally been set to do the bus tour with Walz following Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate in New York, but she's instead heading to Georgia on Wednesday to see areas hard-hit by Hurricane Helene.

On Saturday, Walz has fundraisers scheduled for Cleveland and Cincinnati, then will head to California and Washington state. That swing will feature campaign stops in Reno, Nevada — a makeup for a planned trip in September that Walz scrapped because of wildfires -- and Arizona, where early voting will be kicking off.

The Harris campaign says Walz will also increase the number of media interviews he's doing post-debate, with an eye to reaching target voters across key demographics.

Harris and Biden are fanning out across the Southeast amid Helene's devastation

Over the past four years, President Joe Biden has jetted off to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires and tropical storms. It’s not a role Kamala Harris has played as vice president.

But on Wednesday, they'll both fan out across the Southeast to grapple with the damage from Hurricane Helene, seeking to demonstrate commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response. Biden is heading to North and South Carolina, while Harris is going to Georgia.

Harris’ stop will also serve as a political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She’s trying to step into the role for which Biden is best known — showing the empathy Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her campaign for president.

Pennsylvania town grapples with Trump assassination attempt ahead of his return

Former President Donald Trump is going back to Butler, Pennsylvania, where the world saw him pump his fist and beseech followers to “fight,” even as blood streaked his face from a would-be assassin’s bullet.

In announcing his return, the current Republican nominee said he planned to “celebrate a unifying vision for America’s future in an event like the world has never seen before.”

The question is: Is Butler ready?

While many are predicting a large crowd to hear Trump speak back at the very Farm Show property where a bullet grazed his right ear on July 13, there's also apprehension in town, along with a sense that Butler is still healing.