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Tag: decision 2024

  • Kamala Harris calls Trump a ‘fascist’ as she argues he’s ‘dangerous’ and unfit for office

    Kamala Harris calls Trump a ‘fascist’ as she argues he’s ‘dangerous’ and unfit for office

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    Vice President Kamala Harris called former President Donald Trump a “fascist” at a CNN town hall Wednesday in Pennsylvania — echoing his onetime chief of staff’s criticism as she makes a more vocal pitch to voters that he is unfit for office.

    John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who was Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, came forward this week to warn that his former boss meets “the general definition of a fascist.” And he said that in private conversations, Trump admired dictators and said he wished he had military generals as loyal as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s.

    Harris said Kelly’s comments, coming just two weeks before the election, are “a 911 call to the American people.” 

    “We must take very seriously those folks who knew him best,” she continued, referring to the numerous former Trump advisers who have broken with him and warned the public that he should not be trusted with power again. 

    “Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked Harris. 

    “Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” she replied.

    Later, she used the word herself to refer to Trump for the first time in public, saying voters care about “not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

    “I believe that Donald Trump is dangerous,” she continued. “As the president of the United States, the commander in chief, he’s saying to his generals, in essence, why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals? Come on!”

    Harris has more forcefully been arguing in recent days that Trump is unfit for office. On Wednesday, after Kelly’s remarks became public, she gave remarks to emphasize them and criticize Trump.

    Harris noted she has the support of Republicans concerned about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, such as former Rep. Liz Cheney, who has been campaigning for her this week. And Harris vowed that, unlike Trump, she would be a “president for all Americans.”

    Trump posted to X and Truth Social moments after the town hall ended, arguing that Harris “sees that she is losing,” so she “is increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind.”

    Harris did not call Trump “Hitler” but rather said the American people “deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, [is] not afraid of good ideas, wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler,” in reference to Trump’s reported comments about Hitler.

    In his social media post, Trump did not directly respond to Harris’ calling him a “fascist.”

    After the town hall, Harris spoke directly with an attendee who asked her about abortion — telling him that she wasn’t trying to convert him to her way of thinking and that her abortion position wasn’t about disagreeing with anyone’s religious views but instead about keeping the government out of the decision.

    With less than two weeks until Election Day, polls show a deadlocked race, with analysts saying it is essentially a coin-flip, with each battleground state able to flip either way.

    Later in the town hall, Harris opened up about her religious faith in a way she rarely does. 

    “I do pray every day. Sometimes twice a day,” she said, before she recounted her childhood church in Oakland, California. “I was raised to believe in a loving God. To believe that your faith is a verb. You live your faith and that the way that one should do that is your work and your life’s work is to think about ways you can serve that is uplifting other people.”

    Meanwhile, halfway across the country in Traverse City, Michigan, Trump used a 90-minute speech to continue personal insults, calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, “a sick guy,” referring to Harris as “a low IQ individual” and adding, “This woman is crazy.”

    Former President Donald Trump worked at a Bucks County McDonalds on Sunday and continued to cast doubt, without evidence, on Vice President Kamala Harris’ summer job years ago at one of the fast food chain’s restaurants. NBC10 political reporter Lauren Mayk reports. 

    Trump also repeatedly criticized Detroit, the biggest city in the crucial swing state of Michigan, saying that “it’s been decimated by stupid politicians.”

    “For 40 years, I’ve been hearing about Detroit’s coming back. Never came back,” he said later.

    Trump’s speech, often meandering, hit many of his usual talking points, demonizing migrants as coming from prisons and insane asylums, highlighting cases of crimes allegedly committed by migrants and spending a lot of time discussing the southern border.

    “I will rescue every town across America that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious, bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out of the country,” he said about migrants.

    During a part of his remarks discussing Hurricane Helene’s flood damage, he referred to the disaster as “a water hurricane,” a comment the Harris campaign quickly highlighted on social media.

    Trump also called Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to the stage to address his supporters. Trump has frequently touted their support, arguing that it shows his supporters come from left-leaning backgrounds, too.

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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    Alex Seitz-Wald and Megan Lebowitz | NBC News

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  • LA councilmember candidate gets backlash for derogatory comments about police

    LA councilmember candidate gets backlash for derogatory comments about police

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    A Los Angeles councilmember candidate is in the hot seat after a recording captured her making a derogative comment toward police.

    Ysabel Jurado, a candidate for LA Council District 14, is addressing the backlash she received after her comments during a meet and greet with constituents at Cal State Los Angeles. In the recording, a student asks the councilmember hopeful what her stance on the police force is, and what her thoughts are on Councilmember Kevin De Leon’s funding for overtime for officers.

    In response, Jurado is heard saying, “What’s that rapper’s? F— the police, that’s how I see them.”

    Jurado issued a statement clarifying why her beliefs are shaped in that manner.

    “In a meeting with students at Cal State LA, I quoted a lyric from a song that’s been part of a larger conversation on systemic injustice and police accountability for decades,” she said, referencing an NWA song. “But it was just a lyric — and I’m proud to be accessible to young people and students, listening to their concerns and treating them like the future leaders they are. That’s something my opponent has failed to do.”

    Read below for Jurado’s full statement.

    Some constituents expressed they thought Jurado’s response was crass.

    “I just thought it was very immature,” said Margarita Amador, a resident of District 14. “Not only insulting LAPD, but law enforcement in general.”

    Others didn’t think much of the candidate’s choice of words.

    “I hear that every day from young people,” said Carlos Montes, another resident of District 14. “They wear little baseball caps with ‘FTP’ on it.”

    In response to Jurado, LAPD Chief Dominic Choi issued a statement decrying her sentiments.

    “Hearing the words ‘f— the police,’ is disappointing and diminishes the hard work and dedication of the men and women of the LAPD,” Choi said in his statement. “This divisive language only serves to erode what should be a positive and collaborative relationship between the police and the people we serve. Every day the men and women of the LAPD put their lives on the line to keep the people of Los Angeles safe, and I wish more people valued their sacrifice”

    Incumbent candidate De Leon also denounced his opponent’s remarks.

    “Those comments are simply disrespectful,” he said in a statement. “I stand where I’ve always stood, 100% behind our frontline officers who go out every day risking their lives to protect Angelenos across our city.”

    Two years ago, De Leon was embroiled in his own scandal after a conversation between him, then-council president Nury Martinez and former councilmember Gil Cedillo was leaked. The recording included racist remarks against Indigenous Mexican immigrants and Councilman Mike Bonin’s son.

    Jurado’s full statement below:

    In a meeting with students at Cal State LA, I quoted a lyric from a song that’s been part of a larger conversation on systemic injustice and police accountability for decades. But it was just a lyric — and I’m proud to be accessible to young people and students, listening to their concerns and treating them like the future leaders they are. That’s something my opponent has failed to do.

    My commitment to public safety remains as strong as ever. Let’s focus on what matters, as laid out by the LA Times last week: our city is teetering on the edge of a fiscal emergency. We’re in this mess because of reckless decisions, including massive payouts for police misconduct. The result? A city broke, unable to fix busted sidewalks, broken streetlights, or trim trees—services that keep us safe and whole; services that we desperately need. The safest cities in America invest in parks, recreation, youth development, and public infrastructure—departments that my opponent has voted to gut down to less than 1% of the budget.

    When I’m elected, I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and fight for the services and departments that keep us safe, healthy, and whole. It’s not enough to be tough on crime — we’ve got to be tough and smart, and operate with the fiscal responsibility necessary to fix our lopsided budget. And I’m prepared to work with whoever I need to—whether it’s the LAPD or colleagues I may not always see eye to eye with—because my priority is delivering for our district, plain and simple. Our campaign is about real solutions, not distractions.

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    Darsha Philips

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  • Tampa Bay elections officials prepare for early voting, set to begin Monday

    Tampa Bay elections officials prepare for early voting, set to begin Monday

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    PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — The presidential election is right around the corner, and starting Monday, people can begin casting their votes at early voting locations across Florida.

    What You Need To Know

    • Pinellas County has seven early voting locations

    • The recent hurricanes did not affect any early voting polling places

    • On election day, there will be 156 polling places in Pinellas County instead of 168 because of storm damage


    For Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus, she visited the sites in the county to make sure everything is ready for incoming voters.

    “I want folks to know that at every step of the way, we’re doing everything that we can to make sure that the process is fair and secure,” she said.  

    From signs on the wall to the voting booths, Marcus checked for anything out of place.

    This doesn’t happen at just one early voting location, but every one that’s available to early voters in the county.

    “To know what we went through, Helene and Milton, and the impact that it has had on our community across Pinellas County, it really is amazing that we’ve been able to maintain our seven early voting locations,” she said.  

    Helene and Milton have not changed early voting plans in Pinellas County, but the impact of the storms is still felt by those working this election.

    On Election Day, when all polling places open, the plans did change.

    “Election staff had their homes lost, poll workers throughout the community had their homes lost, we lost polling places,” she said.  

    Originally, there were supposed to be 168 election day polling places in Pinellas County, but because of the damage to some of the spots, there will now be 156.

    The seven early voting sites in Pinellas County will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Oct. 21 to Nov. 3.

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    Matt Lackritz

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  • Behind the scenes: What it takes to keep ballots safe

    Behind the scenes: What it takes to keep ballots safe

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    If you haven’t registered to vote for the upcoming presidential election, you are running out of time.

    Monday is the last day that you can register to vote.

    And with a lot of talk about election integrity, some are asking about the safety of ballots.

    At the Registrar of Voters in San Jose, NBC Bay Area’s Damian Trujillo provides a behind-the-scenes look at everything that’s done to make sure your ballot is safe and your vote is counted.

    Watch the video report above to learn more.

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    NBC Bay Area staff

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  • Key dates to know for voting in Massachusetts this November

    Key dates to know for voting in Massachusetts this November

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    Twenty-one days remain until the 2024 general election and ballots are already landing in boxes the commonwealth.

    Massachusetts voters are using a variety of voting options in 2024, with heavy emphasis on mail-in voting, which became permanent following the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.

    “We had discussions afterwards of what worked best, what didn’t work, and we’ve amended and corrected the procedures as we’ve gone forward,” Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin said.

    Early and traditional Election Day voting create a variety of different deadlines.

    Voter registration is due by Oct. 26, early voting is between Oct. 19 and Nov. 1 and Oct. 29 is the final day to request a mail-in ballot.

    “We suggest they don’t use the mail when we get down to seven days,” said Galvin. “The Postal Service has told us — we’ve been in contact with them, pushing them real hard — and they’ve told us don’t rely on them within seven days.”

    Election Day is a few weeks away. Here’s everything you need to know to plan your vote in Massachusetts.

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    For more information on all these voting options, visit the Massachusetts secretary of state’s website.

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    Matt Prichard

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  • ISIS-K behind foiled Election Day terrorism plot, U.S. officials say

    ISIS-K behind foiled Election Day terrorism plot, U.S. officials say

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    ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, directed an Afghan man’s foiled U.S. Election Day terror plot, according to two senior U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

    Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested by the FBI last week in Oklahoma and is accused of planning to purchase two AK-47 rifles, 10 magazines and ammunition, and carry out a mass shooting attack on Election Day targeting large groups of people, according to court documents and Tawhedi’s alleged statements to the FBI after his arrest.

    ISIS-K was responsible for a deadly attack at Crocus City Hall near Moscow, a concert venue, in March that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured, and other attacks. The revelation that a foreign terrorist organization was in communication with a would-be attacker inside the U.S. makes the alleged Election Day plot different from most terrorism cases in the past decade, most of which involved people self-radicalized online or self-directed attempts.

    The charging documents say Tawhedi told the FBI that he was communicating with a person named “Malik” and that he knew “Malik” was affiliated with ISIS. Tawhedi has not yet been arraigned, and no plea has been entered.

    When asked about ISIS-K’s direct involvement in the case, a FBI spokesperson declined to comment.

    Tawhedi had worked as a security guard for the CIA in Afghanistan. He arrived in the U.S. in September 2021 on a special immigrant visa a month after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, court documents said.

    Tawhedi had passed two rounds of vetting — as every Afghan resettled in the U.S. undergoes a rigorous screening and vetting process regardless of which agency they previously worked with — and no derogatory information was detected, a senior administration official familiar with the details previously told NBC News.

    Tawhedi’s mother, who lives in Afghanistan, is believed to be an ISIS sympathizer, two U.S. officials said. 

    NBC News was first to report that a family member of Tawhedi was arrested and charged by French law enforcement this weekend with planning to conduct an attack on a soccer stadium or a shopping center in that country, according to the Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office in Paris.

    In that case, the Afghan charged was 22 years old.

    In the France case, law enforcement officials told NBC News they had opened a preliminary investigation into a potential terror plot in France on Sept. 27. Then on Oct. 8, one day after Tawhedi’s arrest in Oklahoma, the 22-year-old and two other unnamed people were arrested in Toulouse and Fronton, in the Haute-Garonne region of southwestern France where they lived.

    The two other people were questioned and released.

    A French law enforcement official said the investigations revealed “the existence of a planned violent action targeting people in a football stadium or a shopping center instigated by one of them, age 22, of Afghan nationality.” Investigators also found evidence that “establish[es] radicalization and adherence to the ideology of the Islamic State.”

    The emergence of ISIS-K as a deadly terrorist organization plotting and directing attacks worldwide has been a growing problem, multiple U.S. officials have told NBC News.

    In addition to the Crocus City Hall attack, the group launched an attack in Iran this year that killed dozens, while other high-profile attacks have been disrupted in Europe.

    Advocates for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government say Tawhedi is not representative of the large community of Afghans who fought alongside Americans at great personal risk, and they fear his case could tarnish the reputation of Afghans who have resettled here after the U.S. withdrawal.

    “One bad apple is not reflective of the thousands of Afghan veterans who gave their lives and limbs for our country in the fight against terrorism and who remain dedicated to keeping America safe,” said Geeta Bakshi, a former CIA counterterrorism officer and founder of FAMIL, a nonprofit organization that supports Afghan veterans in the U.S.

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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    Tom Winter, Ken Dilanian and Julia Ainsley | NBC News

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  • Measure G seeks to expand Los Angeles Board of Supervisors

    Measure G seeks to expand Los Angeles Board of Supervisors

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    The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors seldom experiences divisiveness or contention.

    But the powerful board run by five women for each of the five districts across the biggest county in the nation is now split over whether to expand its own agency to have more elected board members. And two opposite sides are actively campaigning for or against Measure G.

    What would Measure G do?

    If the majority of Los Angeles County voters say “yes” on Measure G, they would allow the county to amend its charter to increase the total number of supervisors to nine, instead of the current five. 

    If passed, the county would also create a county executive, who would essentially become “the mayor of the county,” who would be selected by LA County voters.

    Measure G also seeks to establish an ethics commission and a legislative analyst, which would review possible policies for the county.

    3 vs. 2

    While Supervisors Lindsey Horvath, Janice Hahn and Hilda Solis are supporting Measure G, Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Kathryn Barger are against it. 

    Why supporters want Measure G

    1. More representation:
    • Those who want to expand the Board say Los Angeles County is too massive and diverse to be represented by just five people.
    • Supervisors Horvath, who represents the third district, which includes LA’s Westside and the San Fernando Valley, argues county governance reform is long overdue. 
    • “The last time the county government changed was back in 1912 when there were more cows than people in this county,” Horvath said. “We need to change our government to make it responsive to 21st century needs.”
    1. More diversity:
    • Supporters use Supervisor Hilda Solis as an example for why the county board needs to be expanded: While nearly half of LA County’s population is Hispanic, Solis is the lone Latina member of the board.
    • By having more seats at the table and more voices to reflect the diverse county, there will be more policies that could serve and represent different areas, according to Horvath and other supporters. 
    1. Mayor of Los Angeles County
    • In addition to more board members, Measure G seeks to establish a county executive, who would be like a county mayor.
    • Instead of the current Los Angeles County CEO who is appointed by the board, Measure G would make that position an elected office, which would force the county’s budget process more transparent, and whoever drafting the budget would be more accountable to the people of LA, supporters argue.

    What opponents say about Measure G

    1. Giving too much power to one person
    • Opponents say if the position of a county executive is created, the person would have no term limits while overseeing the county with the authority to hire and fire county department heads. 
    • This mayor of the county would also have full control over the county’s budget with no veto power over the board, according to opponents.
    • “It completely alters the balance of power between either five or nine or whatever number of board of supervisors, and this singular person who would be responsible for all 10 million Angelenos,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell during an interview with NBC4’s NewsConference.
    • Supervisor Kathryn Barger also called Measure G is a “Trojan horse” to consolidate all decision-making power into one position.
    1. Too costly
    • While Measure G supporters say that the expansion of the county government would not cost taxpayers, opponents do not buy the argument. 
    • Mitchell says all the costs of increasing the number of board districts and creating the county mayor position would come from the existing county budget.
    • “I don’t know how you set up this brand-new infrastructure of a county-wide CEO, add four new supervisors, plus their staffs and not think it’s going to cost LA County residents money,” Mitchell said.
    1. Stepchildren of LA County
    • Opponents argue those who live in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County would become more disenfranchised under Measure G.
    • As the pie of the LA County budget and resources are split into more slices – more districts and more decision-makers – the board would be more stifled to provide municipal services in the incorporated neighborhoods, opponents claim.
    • “There’s a reason why East LA was fighting for cityhood, and why the San Fernando Valley is frustrated and feels like they’re not heard by the city of LA. This is not going to change that. This is going to make it worse,” Supervisor Barger said.

    While Mitchell and Barger oppose Measure G, Mitchell said she supports the idea of increasing the number of board members, and Barger said she supports the notion of creating an ethics commision.

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    Helen Jeong

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  • Donald Trump holds a rally in California, a state he’s almost certain to lose

    Donald Trump holds a rally in California, a state he’s almost certain to lose

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    With the presidency on the line in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spent Saturday night in solidly liberal California, seeking to link Vice President Kamala Harris to what he described as the failures of her home state.

    Trump is almost certain to lose California, and that won’t change after his Saturday stop in Coachella, a desert city east of Los Angeles best known for the annual music festival bearing its name. Still, Trump took advantage of his visit to tear into the nation’s most populous state, bringing up its recent struggles with homelessness, water shortages and a lack of affordability. Harris, the Democratic nominee, was previously the state’s junior senator and attorney general.

    “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” Trump said, referring to the state as as “Paradise Lost.”

    The former president lost California in a landslide in 2020. He did get 6 million-plus votes, more than any GOP presidential candidate before, and his margins topped 70% in some rural counties that typically favor conservatives on the ballot.

    That’s an enormous pool of potential volunteers to work on state races and participate in phone banks into the most contested states. And Trump drew media coverage in the Los Angeles market, the second-largest in the country.

    Trump visited Coachella in between stops in Nevada, at a roundtable in Las Vegas for Latinos earlier Saturday — where he praised Hispanics as having “such energy” — and Arizona, for a rally Sunday in Prescott Valley. He narrowly lost those two swing states to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.

    Attendees who waited in broiling temperatures that approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) said they didn’t expect Trump to win their state but were thrilled to see him.

    “It’s like a convention of like-minded people,” said Tom Gibbons of Palm Desert, who’s backed Trump since 2016 but been unable to see him in person until Saturday, as he waited in line. “Everybody understands the heartbeat of America, the plight of the working man … It’s reassuring.”

    Going to California gives Trump the “ability to swoop in and leverage this big population of Trump supporters,” said Tim Lineberger, who was communications director for Trump’s 2016 campaign in Michigan and also worked in the former president’s administration. He’s “coming here and activating that.”

    Lineberger recalled Californians making calls to Michigan voters in 2016 on Trump’s behalf and said the campaign’s decision to go into safe, Democratic turf at this point was “an aggressive, offensive play.”

    California is also a fountain of campaign cash for both parties, and Trump will be fundraising. Photos with the former president in Coachella were priced at $25,000, which comes with special seating for two. A “VIP Experience” was priced at $5,000.

    Speaking for 80 minutes Saturday night, Trump ran through the standard list of Republican complaints about the Democrat-dominated state — its large number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, its homeless population and its thicket of regulations — and waded into a water rights battle over the endangered Delta smelt that has pitted environmentalists against farmers.

    The former president was particularly scathing about illegal immigration, warning at one point: “Your children are in danger. You can’t go to school with these people, these people are from a different planet.”

    He continued his long-running spat with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom Trump called “New-scum.” Trump again threatened Newsom over the water rights battle, saying that if he didn’t act in favor of farmers, “we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the forest fires that you have.”

    Republicans beforehand listed a number of potential reasons for Trump’s visit.

    With congressional races in play that could determine which party controls the House, the Coachella rally “is a get-out-the-vote type of thing that motivates and energizes Republicans in California, when they are not as close to what is going on in the national campaign,” Republican consultant Tim Rosales said.

    Jim Brulte, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, said he thinks Trump is angling for something that has eluded him in previous campaigns: winning more total votes than his Democratic opponent.

    “I believe Donald Trump is coming to California because he wants to win not only in the Electoral College, but he wants to win the popular vote. There are more registered voters in California than there are residents in 46 of the other 49 states,” Brulte said.

    The Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles sits on the Pacific Coast, south of the city. But Trump has long had a conflicted relationship with California, where a Republican has not carried the state since 1988 and Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by about 2-to-1.

    California was home to the so-called Trump resistance during his time in office, and Trump often depicts California as representing all he sees wrong in America. As president, he called the homeless crises in Los Angeles and San Francisco disgraceful and threatened to intercede.

    Newsom on Wednesday predicted Trump would be denigrating his state at the rally, overlooking its strengths as the world’s fifth-largest economy. The governor said that for the first time in a decade, California has more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.

    “You know, that’s not what Trump is going to say,” he predicted.

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    The Associated Press

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  • Ballot drop boxes open across Southern California

    Ballot drop boxes open across Southern California

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    Ballot drop boxes across Southern California officially opened Tuesday.

    Here’s everything you need to know before Nov. 5.

    When can I vote?

    Los Angeles County began sending out vote-by-mail ballots to all registered voters starting last week. Once a ballot is filled, it can be mailed back or dropped off at a ballot box around the city.

    Ballots just be dropped in a ballot box by Nov. 5 by 8 p.m.  or mailed prior to Nov. 5. Ballots in the mail can arrive as late as Nov. 12 if postmarked before the deadline. 

    Tuesday, Oct. 8 is the first day voters are eligible to deposit their ballot into a ballot box. 

    Where are ballot drop boxes located?

    Ballot drop boxes in Los Angeles can be found at the following locations:

    Additional ballot box locations for the following counties can be found here:

    What does a ballot box look like?

    All official ballot boxes will have the text “Official Ballot Drop Box” clearly marked on the outside of the box.

    Ballot boxes in Los Angeles will typically feature a blue, yellow, and white color scheme, written instructions on side, and seal of Los Angeles county. 

    Ballot boxes across counties have different designs. 

    Ventura county boxes are typically white with red lettering.

    Orange county boxes are orange, white and brown while boxes in Riverside and San Bernardino county feature a red, white and blue design. 

    Boxes are often bolted into cement or chain into place to meet national security standards.  

    Ballots are picked up regularly by two county election workers. Problems or issues can be reported here.

    Tampering with a drop box is a felony under California elections code.

    Is my ballot complete?

    Before dropping off your ballot, be sure to:

    • Place your voted ballot card inside the official return envelope
    • Securely seal the envelope
    • Sign and date the back of the envelope 

    If a vote by mail ballot is returned unsigned a “Unsigned Ballot Statement” will be sent, asking for a signature. A signature is required to verify a voter’s identity and process the ballot.

    How soon will my ballot be counted?

    According to California Secretary of State Shirley Webers, ballots are collected:

    • Every 96 hours – excluding Saturdays and Sundays – between the 29th day before the election and the 10th day before the election.
    • From staffed drop boxes at least every 72 hours – excluding Saturdays and Sunday –  after the 10th day before the election through the closing of the polls on Election Day.
    • From unstaffed drop boxes every 48 hours – excluding Saturdays and Sundays – after the 10th day prior to an election through the closing of the polls on Election Day.

    Voters can track their ballot via the Vote by Mail Status Tool.

    What can’t I do near a ballot box?

    Within the immediate vicinity of a person voting or within 100 feet of the doorway to a polling location you may not do the following:

    • Asking a person to vote for against any candidate or ballot measure
    • Displaying a candidates name, face, or logo
    • Distributing or wearing merchandise with a candidates name, face, or logo
    • Blocking or loitering near the box
    • Providing information in favor or opposition to any candidate or ballot measure
    • Providing information about a person’s eligibility to vote

     Participating in any of the following actions can result in fines, or even imprisonment. 

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    Benjamin Papp

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  • Harris blasts Arkansas governor’s comments about her lack of biological children

    Harris blasts Arkansas governor’s comments about her lack of biological children

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    Vice President Kamala Harris hit back at Arkansas GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comments that Harris “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she doesn’t have children.

    “I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper.

    “Two,” she added in the taped interview, which aired Sunday, there are “a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life, and I think it’s really important for women to lift each other up.”

    “We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both,” Harris, who is a stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, told Cooper, adding, “And I consider it to be a real blessing.”

    Harris discussed her relationship with her stepchildren, Cole and Ella Emhoff, who are her husband’s biological children from his first marriage.

    “They are my children. And I love those kids to death, and family comes in many forms,” Harris said.

    Last month, Huckabee Sanders, who served in former President Donald Trump‘s administration, told attendees at a town hall: “My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”

    A spokesperson for Huckabee Sanders’ office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, has criticized women on a similar basis, saying in 2021 that Democrats who don’t have biological children are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

    Asked what message Vance’s comments send to women who can’t conceive or have children naturally, Harris them “mean and mean-spirited.”


    Leon Neal/Getty Images

    Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appears on stage on the second day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

    “I think that most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength isn’t who you beat down. The real measure of strength of a leader is who you lift up,” she added.

    Cooper also asked Harris about Trump’s comments last month at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where he said that under a future Trump administration, “you will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You’re not going to be in danger any longer. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

    Trump added, “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free.”

    Harris blasted Trump, blaming him for nominating three Supreme Court justices who voted to overrule Roe v. Wade.

    “They did just as he intended,” Harris said, adding that “there are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exceptions for rape or incest … which means that you’re telling a survivor of a crime with a violation of their body they don’t have a right to make a decision about what happens to their body next.

    The newly unsealed court filling argues that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.

    “This is the same guy that is now saying that?” Harris asked, referring to Trump’s comments about protecting women. “This is the same guy that said women should be punished for having abortions? This is the same guy who uses the same kind of language he does to describe women? So yeah, there you go.”

    A spokesperson for the Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

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    Alexandra Marquez | NBC News

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  • Bay Area voters react to vice presidential debate

    Bay Area voters react to vice presidential debate

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    Many Bay Area voters gathered in places like San Jose and downtown San Francisco on Tuesday night to watch the first and only vice presidential debate.

    For the most part, it was civil. At times polite.

    But it did have some heated moments between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance from Ohio.

    This could be the final showdown on the debate stage for both campaigns. In San Francisco, the opposite reactions from local Democrats and Republicans made it seem like they were not watching the same debate.

    The election is now just less than 35 days away.

    Ian Cull has more in the video above.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio met Tuesday for their first and only scheduled vice presidential debate. Raj Mathai speaks with political analyst Larry Gerston.

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    NBC Bay Area staff

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  • Doug Emhoff makes campaign stop in Menlo Park, mobilizes Silicon Valley execs

    Doug Emhoff makes campaign stop in Menlo Park, mobilizes Silicon Valley execs

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    The Second Gentleman of the United States Doug Emhoff made a stop in Menlo Park to speak at a campaign reception on Sunday.

    Doug Emhoff said his purpose for coming here was not only to fundraise in the final stretch of the campaign, but to mobilize Silicon Valley executives and industry leaders who can influence undecided voters here, and in key swing states.

    The private fundraiser was held at the home of Box CEO Aaron Levie and his wife, Joelle Merson, co-founder and CEO of Paradigm.

    “A lot of the points were made, [and] we’ve heard before,” said Karthik Chandran of Pleasanton. “It was really good to hear all of it directly from him in person.”

    Emhoff, who’s had a successful career as an attorney spanning 3 decades, shared personal anecdotes about Vice President Kamala Harris’ character as a wife and stepmother. He also touched on his Jewish heritage and hope he’s used his platform to work on strategies to combat antisemitism.

    At the podium, he encouraged business executives to travel out of the state and volunteer for the Harris camp.

    “Go to Arizona, go to Nevada, I think a lot of people will think about doing that, helping out,” said Joe Davis of Atherton

    Emhoff even addressed this views on former president Donald Trump, calling him a coward and a “fake tough guy.”

    On Sunday, Trump campaigned in the battleground state of Pennsylvania and said people are tired of Harris’ “act.”

    Across the county, Harris rallied supporters in Las Vegas after a campaign stop in San Francisco Saturday and Los Angeles earlier in the day.

    Both events racked in close to $55 million for the Harris-Walz campaign.

    Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz greeted fans at the Michigan vs. Minnesota football game on Saturday, while Trump was in the stands at the Alabama-Georgia game.

    “This is where the ordinary people are,” said James Taylor, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco. “Having a lot of money is important, but it’s not everything, you still have to have a strong ground game.”

    With the election just five weeks away, Walz and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance will go head to head in a live debate on Tuesday.

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    Emma Goss | NBC Bay Area

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  • Rev. Al Sharpton, Central Park Five members get out the vote in Philadelphia

    Rev. Al Sharpton, Central Park Five members get out the vote in Philadelphia

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    What to Know

    • With less than 40 days until Election Day, the Rev. Al Sharpton’s choice of a battleground state for a get-out-the-vote bus tour made sense. It was a strategic choice on Sharpton’s part to recruit speakers who many first knew as Black and Latino teenagers wrongly convicted in a case that former President Donald Trump supported so vociferously.
    • The civil rights leader and more than 50 supporters boarded a bus Friday from Harlem to Philadelphia with members of the group formerly known as the Central Park Five to energize youth voters.
    • It was the first stop of the National Action Network’s voter engagement tour, with future appearances planned in the battleground states of Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

    A few dozen New Yorkers boarded a bus in Harlem on Friday with civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton and members of the group formerly known as the Central Park Five, bound for Philadelphia, where they toured the city hoping to energize the youth vote ahead of the 2024 election.

    With less than 40 days until Election Day, the choice of a battleground state for a get-out-the-vote bus tour made sense: whichever presidential candidate wins Pennsylvania is likely to do so by a slim margin and with a lion’s share of the Black vote. But it was a strategic choice to recruit speakers who many first knew as Black and Latino teenagers wrongly convicted in a case that former President Donald Trump supported so vociferously, Sharpton said.

    “There are polls saying that some Black men are moving toward Trump,” he told The Associated Press on Friday. “I don’t know if that’s true or not. But Black men need to hear some Black men saying, ‘Let me tell you about the Trump I know.’”

    The Trump that the Central Park Five knows is the one who took out a newspaper ad in New York City, in the aftermath of the 1989 attack on a white female jogger, calling for the teenagers’ execution. The case roiled racial tensions locally and later became a national symbol of racism in the judicial system.

    And more than 34 years later, the group of men, now known as the Exonerated Five, see the former president as a convicted felon who passed through the same courthouse hallways when he was found guilty in a hush money trial in June.

    Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated men, said Friday that using his voice to encourage voter participation lines up with lessons his mother taught him as a teenager. His message to voters in Philadelphia was part condemnation of Trump and part championing doing one’s civic duty.

    “We have to fight like the lives of our children’s, children’s children depend on it,” said Salaam, who won a seat on the New York City Council last year. “Will we be allowed to somehow appreciate the American dream, or will we be plunged further into the American nightmare?”

    The jogger case was Trump’s first foray into tough-on-crime politics that preluded his full-throated populist political persona. Since then, dog whistles as well as overtly racist rhetoric have been fixtures of Trump’s public life.

    But the Republican presidential nominee has been supportive of reforms that speak to flaws in the criminal legal system. As president, Trump signed a law eliminating harsh sentences for non-violent drug crimes that had filled the nation’s prisons and exacerbated racial disparities in incarceration. In 2018, he used his power to commute the sentences of people like Alice Marie Johnson, who served 21 years in federal prison on a drug trafficking conviction.

    Salaam and the other wrongly convicted young men had their convictions vacated in 2002 after evidence linked another person to the brutal beating and rape of the Central Park jogger. Trump in 2019 refused to apologize to the exonerated men, and again defended his position on the case during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month.

    Of the Exonerated Five — which includes Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — just Salaam and Wise boarded the bus to Philadelphia. With Sharpton and more than 50 supporters, Salaam and Wise engaged residents and students at Sharon Baptist Church, the University of Pennsylvania and the Community College of Philadelphia.

    Wise said the message he was bringing to Philadelphians was simple: “Get out the vote, while we’re still here and while we’re still alive.”

    Of the Exonerated Five, Wise spent the most time in prison before his conviction was overturned. He wants people to vote as a way of preventing any other young person from experiencing what h did.

    “I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing this for little Korey who’s not here no more,” he said. “I’m representing him.”

    The bus tour was sponsored by Sharpton’s National Action Network, a nonprofit civil rights group that does not endorse political candidates. But Sharpton and the exonerated men have been outspoken this election year, calling out Trump’s rhetoric around the Central Park jogger case, as well as his record on matters involving race.

    In August, during the final night of Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Sharpton shared the stage with members of the Exonerated Five. From the stage, Salaam called out Trump’s failure to apologize for his harmful rhetoric in the Central Park jogger case.

    Weeks later, during the debate, Harris evoked the exonerated men in her own critique of Trump’s decades-long history of stoking racial division. In the spin room after the debate, as Trump walked through speaking to journalists, Salaam flagged down the former president and confronted him.

    Trump mistook him for a supporter, a moment that Salaam found bizarre. But he still walked away feeling proud, the councilman said.

    “These moments of standing for yourself, of speaking for yourself, also speaks life into others,” Salaam told AP. “It gives others the opportunity to see, if he could stand up, I could stand up. If he could still be here, I could be here.”

    Sharpton said Philadelphia was the first of other planned legs of his organization’s voter engagement tour. In the coming weeks, he said he would make appearances in the battleground states of Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

    The effort’s success will be judged not just by the outcome of the election, but by the community’s turnout on Nov. 5, said Malcolm Byrd, National Action Network’s chief operating officer.

    “This is not just a mobilization effort, just for us to go to say we did something,” he said. “We want to plant a fire in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. … We’re going with a spark, with the hope that by Election Day it’ll be an inferno of justice.”

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    Aaron Morrison

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  • Trump says he won’t run again in four years if he loses November election

    Trump says he won’t run again in four years if he loses November election

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    Former President Donald Trump said he doesn’t believe he would run for office again in four years if he loses the November election.

    “No, I think that that will be, that will be it. I don’t see that at all,” Trump told interviewer Sharyl Attkisson on her show “Full Measure” when asked if he sees himself running again in four years if his presidential bid is unsuccessful.

    “I think that hopefully we’re going to be successful,” Trump added in the interview, which aired Sunday.

    The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The former president was also asked about whether former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, tech billionaire Elon Musk or former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be appointed to Cabinet positions if he were to win a second term in office. Trump did not rule out the possibility.

    Trump suggested that Kennedy, who suspended his presidential bid and endorsed the former president last month, would be “great on health and on the environment.” Pressed on whether that means leading Health and Human Services, Trump replied that “it doesn’t mean anything” and said he has not made deals with anyone when it comes to potential Cabinet appointments.

    “It’s too early, but it’s getting to be that time, wouldn’t you think?” he said.

    The former president said Gabbard, who ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary but has since left the party and endorsed the former president, “has always been good from the standpoint of common sense.”

    “She’s like a commonsense person. I’ve watched her for a long time on shows. I’ve known her a little bit, and was a great honor when we got her,” he said. “She’s, you’re right, she was a Democrat and popular too in Hawaii. And she will be, she will be terrific.”

    Trump noted that Musk endorsed him “very powerfully” and agreed that the tech billionaire could help with “government waste” when Attkisson suggested the possibility.

    “He feels this is the most important election we’ve ever had. And as you know, he probably has a couple of other things to do. But he’s indicating he might be willing to,” Trump said.

    “The thing that we talk about more than anything else is exactly that, it’s costs,” he said. “He’s a big cost cutter. He’s always been very good at it, and I’m good at it.”

    After Musk announced his endorsement of Trump in July, Trump said in an August interview with former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan that he wouldn’t expect the tech billionaire to serve in his Cabinet if he wins because Musk has work obligations as head of various companies, but floated the idea that he could “consult with the country and give you some very good ideas.”

    Earlier this month, Trump said he would adopt Musk’s plan for a government efficiency commission to cut federal spending, adding that Musk had agreed to lead the commission “if he has time.”

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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    Emma Barnett and Summer Concepcion | NBC News

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  • Are Trump and Harris particularly Christian? That’s not what most Americans would say

    Are Trump and Harris particularly Christian? That’s not what most Americans would say

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    Vice President Kamala Harris is a Baptist who was influenced by religious traditions in her mother’s home country of India.

    Former President Donald Trump grew up a mainline Presbyterian but began identifying as a nondenominational Christian near the end of his presidency.

    Despite that, few Americans see the presidential candidates as particularly Christian, according to a new survey conducted Sept. 12-16 by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. Only 14% of U.S. adults say the word “Christian” describes Harris or Trump “extremely” or “very” well.

    Strikingly, that appears to matter little to part of Trump’s loyal base: white evangelical Protestants. About 7 in 10 members of this group view him favorably. But only about half say Trump best represents their beliefs — around 1 in 10 say this about Harris, and one-third say neither candidate represents their religious beliefs — and around 2 in 10 say “Christian” describes him extremely or very well.

    “They really don’t care about, is he religious or not,” said R. Marie Griffith, a religion and politics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

    The survey results represent the shift in how white evangelicals now talk about morality and religion in politics, said Griffith. She pointed to a white evangelical culture that takes care of its own, but sees liberal outsiders as evil, and therefore, support for a Democrat is unimaginable to many.

    Evangelical leaders, she said, are pushing this idea that, “this is God’s man, and we can’t ask why. We don’t have to ask why. It doesn’t matter if he’s moral, it doesn’t matter if he’s religious. It doesn’t matter if he lies compulsively. It’s for the greater good that we get him re-elected.”

    At the Republican National Convention, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a conservative Christian and Trump’s former White House press secretary, invoked God when she addressed the first assassination attempt against him.

    “God Almighty intervened because America is one nation under God, and he is certainly not finished with President Trump,” she said. “And our country is better for it.”

    Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said white evangelicals likely see him as instrumental to their goals, such as his appointment of conservative, anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court.

    “He’s their guy no matter what,” said Butler.

    For the head of the Democratic ticket, a large majority — three-quarters — of Harris’ fellow Black Protestants view her favorably and 6 in 10 say she best represents their religious beliefs. But only around 4 in 10 say “Christian” describes her very or extremely well. That’s still higher than the share of Democrats overall who think this about Harris, at around one-quarter.

    Butler is not surprised that esteem for Trump is low among Black Protestants, and that they are more likely to see Harris, a Baptist with influences from the spiritual tradition of her mother’s native India, as Christian.

    “I think African Americans have a better understanding about interfaith families, because it happens a lot with us,” she said.

    Overall, about half of Americans surveyed said that Christian at least “somewhat” described Harris, while about one-third said so about Trump.

    Griffith questioned if one reason so few Americans see Harris as particularly Christian, is because they just don’t know much about her yet. Harris joined the race late, becoming the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden was pressured to step away in July.

    The Black Church PAC, a progressive group, is now trying to mobilize voters for Harris. On a recent online discussion hosted by the PAC, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, a Missouri-based United Church of Christ minister, encouraged pastors to ask every Sunday for congregants to pull out their phones and check their voter registration status, and to prepare to use the church bus to give rides to the polls.

    “Kamala Harris is not perfect – no one is perfect. But what she is, is competent. What she is, is prepared. What she is, is qualified. … What she is, is she’s faithful to the things she says she will do and courageous enough to say what she won’t do,” said Blackmon.

    Neither candidate fared particularly well when Americans were asked if they’d use the words “honest” or “moral” to describe them. Around one-third say those words describe Harris extremely or very well, and about 15% say the same for Trump. Adding in those who say the words “somewhat” describe the candidates raises the levels to more than half for Harris and about one-third for Trump.

    “I wonder if it speaks to just a deep cynicism about politics – that people are really so convinced that all politicians are liars,” said Griffith.

    ___

    The poll of 2,028 adults was conducted September 12-16, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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    Holly Meyer, Peter Smith, Amelia Thomson-deveaux | Associated Press

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  • Harris looks for boost from Oprah with star-filled event livestream

    Harris looks for boost from Oprah with star-filled event livestream

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    Vice President Kamala Harris looked for a boost with persuadable and less-motivated voters as she participated in a livestream Thursday evening with former talk show host Oprah Winfrey to focus on her plans to cut costs for the middle class, restore a national right to abortion and address gun violence.

    The event, billed as “Unite for America,” and hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, sought to tap into the same energy as long-running Winfrey’s talk show, which drove bestseller lists and allowed celebrities to share their softer side and everyday people to share stories of struggle and inspiration.

    It leaned on celebrities like Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Lopez and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’ message over the course of 90 minutes and to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee. More than 300,000 people were watching the Harris campaign livestream on YouTube alone and the event was also being streamed on other major social media platforms.

    “We each have those moments in our lives when it’s time to step up,” Harris said when Winfrey asked about her overnight transformation as she went from President Joe Biden’s running mate to being the Democratic nominee in her own right after he suddenly dropped out in July. “I felt a sense of responsibility, to be honest with you, and with that comes a sense of purpose.”

    Winfrey told Harris it looked as if a “veil dropped” and she “stepped into your power.”

    At one point Harris reminded viewers that she owns a gun — which surprised Winfrey — saying, “If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin’ shot.” She added, “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

    Harris was given the chance to talk about her plans to reduce the cost of housing and lower taxes for the middle class, as she took questions from voters in Michigan and Virginia.

    Oprah recognized Hadley Duvall in the audience, a 22-year-old woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child.

    “You can’t wait until it’s too late to care about reproductive healthcare, because then it’s too late,” said Duvall, who is featured in a new Harris campaign ad. “Thank you for hearing us and seeing us when the Supreme Court won’t,” Duvall added in praise of Harris.

    Harris and Winfrey also welcomed the mother and sister of a young Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill. 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. Harris has blamed her death on Trump.

    “Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family and we would have done whatever to get my baby, our baby, the help that she needed,” said Thurman’s mother, Shanette Williams.

    Harris praised their courage in speaking out and called out a “healthcare crisis” caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. “They have no right to be in your womb,” added Winfrey.

    Kamala Harris said Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s repeated comments about Haitian immigrants are “lies grounded in tropes.”

    Natalie Griffith, a student who was shot twice last month at Apalachee High School in Georgia, joined with her parents. Her mother described the fear she felt after learning about the gunfire at her child’s school.

    “No parent should go through this,” Marilda Griffith said through tears, describing rushing out of work, then running to the school to learn if her daughter was OK. She appealed for federal action to curb gun violence.

    Harris, after pointing out that she herself owns a gun, said assault-style rifles were designed to kill as many people as possible on a battlefield, and “don’t belong on the streets of a civil society.”

    The event comes as Harris is working to continue to share her biography and governing philosophy with voters during her abbreviated presidential campaign, with early voting already underway in some states.

    Harris has limited her interactions with the traditional media, instead prioritizing digital engagement and casual — and often more controlled — moments that her campaign hopes will reach voters who increasingly get their news from digital sources.

    “I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” comedian Chris Rock said.

    The in-the-round stage has the appearance of a college campus, with faux brick pillars and a background of trees and green turf under the chairs of the several hundred guests in the audience. Dozens more supporters were featured on video screens in the hall.

    “I look around at these screens, Oprah, and I look at who’s in the room, and this is America,” Harris said.

    The event is meant as a unifying event of Harris supporter groups that spun off organically after a “Black Women for Harris” call drew tens of thousands of viewers — and raised $1.5 million — in the hours after Harris took over for Biden after he ended his campaign. They included “White Dudes for Harris,” “Comedians for Harris” and ‘Swifties for Harris.”

    The event included a direct call to action to viewers to volunteer for Harris’ campaign and to make calls and knock on doors for the Democrat.

    Winfrey ended with a call “for all decent people, for all caring people” to back Harris, saying of Trump, “We’re better than this.”

    —

    Miller reported from Washington.

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    Josh Boak and Zeke Miller | The Associated Press

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  • Trump rejects second Harris debate

    Trump rejects second Harris debate

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    • Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said there will not be another debate against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
    • But Harris once again called for another debate against Trump.
    • Trump claimed on Truth Social that he won their first debate in Philadelphia.
    • Trump previously debated against President Joe Biden, whose poor performance led to his withdrawal from the race.

    Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday said there will not be another debate against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

    The former president in a Truth Social post claimed that he won his first debate against Harris on Tuesday night. He cited as evidence the fact that Harris’ campaign had challenged him to another debate shortly after the first one ended.

    In fact, numerous conservative commentators and some of Trump’s own supporters have said Harris outperformed him.

    But Trump in Thursday’s post wrote, “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’”

    “Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate,” Trump wrote.

    Multiple post-debate polls actually show audiences by a sizable margin believe Harris won. In the wake of the debate, Trump and his allies lashed out at host network ABC News and accused the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, of political bias.

    The showdown in Philadelphia was Trump’s second presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. He debated in late June against President Joe Biden, who performed so badly that he ultimately withdrew his reelection bid and endorsed Harris as his replacement.

    Trump in his Truth Social post wrote, “KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!”

    Less than an hour after that post was sent, Harris again called for another debate.

    “Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” she said at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    “And I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate, because this election and what is at stake could not be more important.”

    The two presidential running mates, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are still set to meet on Oct. 1 for their one and only vice-presidential debate.

    The campaigns have publicly squabbled over the debate schedule since Harris took over the Democratic ticket.

    Trump had previously tried to push Harris to accept an early-September debate on Fox News. He also said at one point that he was game for another debate hosted by NBC News on Sept. 25. Harris’ campaign did not immediately agree to that debate.

    Trump had waffled on whether to participate in an ABC-hosted debate, claiming that his ongoing defamation lawsuit against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos created a “conflict of interest.”

    The campaigns also traded barbs about the debate rules, with Harris’ team unsuccessfully pushing for both candidates’ microphones to stay on even when it was not their turn to answer.

    Trump and Harris ended up facing off for the first, and possibly only, time on Tuesday night.

    Moments after the debate ended, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon called for a second debate in October.

    “Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?” she said.

    Trump claimed victory in the debate, and quickly cast doubt on whether he would agree to another round.

    In a Truth Social post Wednesday, he wrote, “Why would I do a Rematch?”

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    Kevin Breuninger,CNBC

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  • More than 337,000 people visit Taylor Swift’s link to register to vote

    More than 337,000 people visit Taylor Swift’s link to register to vote

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    Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president may boost voter registration beyond Democrats’ “wildest dreams.“

    The General Services Administration, which oversees the website, confirmed to NBC News that as of 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, 337,826 people have visited a custom URL that Swift posted on Instagram when she announced she was endorsing Harris.

    The custom URL directs people to vote.gov, a website that helps visitors to register to vote in their state. The site also breaks down Americans’ voting rights, explains election processes and provides a roadmap to frequently asked questions.

    Swift’s Tuesday post, which has garnered more than 9.6 million likes, urged voters to do their own research and remember to register to vote.

    “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice,” she said. “Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.”

    In a boost to the Harris campaign, Swift unveiled her endorsement to her massive Instagram following of 283 million accounts after the debate.

    “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift said in her post. “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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    Megan Lebowitz and Alexandra Marquez | NBC News

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  • Trump comes out against Florida’s abortion rights ballot measure after conservative backlash

    Trump comes out against Florida’s abortion rights ballot measure after conservative backlash

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    Former President Donald Trump came out on Friday against a ballot measure in his home state of Florida that would expand access to abortion, after spending a day doing damage control on the issue.

    His announcement came a day after telling NBC News that Florida’s six-week ban is “too short” and declining to take a clear stance on a state ballot measure that would expand access to the procedure.

    On Friday, Trump said, once again, that women need “more time” than six weeks to decide whether to have an abortion, but that the “Democrats are radical” and he couldn’t back the amendment.

    “So I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks. I’ve disagreed with that right from the early primaries when I heard about it, I disagreed with it,” Trump said in comments to Fox News. “At the same time, the Democrats are radical, because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month. … So I’ll be voting no for that reason.”

    The proposed amendment would bar restrictions on abortion before fetal viability, around the 24th week of pregnancy, while ensuring exceptions to protect the health of the mother.

    The backlash from anti-abortion advocates was fierce after Trump’s interview with NBC News, with some warning that the Republican presidential nominee was risking losing support from a key bloc of the party’s base.

    Alarmed by what she saw, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the influential anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called Trump on Thursday to ask for clarity on his comments, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation. Trump told her that he didn’t state a position on an amendment on his home state’s ballot this fall.

    Dannenfelser told him that “it’s imperative that you’re clear because there’s confusion now that you may be in support of this,” the source added. She also told him the amendment is “incongruent” with his opposition to late-term abortion.

    During the interview with NBC News, Trump said, “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” when asked how he would vote on the ballot measure. It’s unclear what he meant as the Florida initiative gives voters a binary choice.

    Later Thursday, Trump’s campaign issued a statement saying the former president had “not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.”

    Meanwhile, anti-abortion activists, who have provided critical support to Trump during his three presidential runs, piled on. Some also criticized his suggestion that he’d mandate that the government or insurance companies pay for in vitro fertilization treatments. 

    “Former President Trump now appears determined to undermine his prolife supporters,” evangelical theologian Albert Mohler wrote on X. “His criticism of Florida abortion restrictions & his call for government funding of IVF & his recent statement about ‘reproductive rights’ seem almost calculated to alienate prolife voters.”

    The clash put Trump and Republicans in uncharted waters, facing the first presidential election in half a century without Roe v. Wade on the books to protect abortion rights. The GOP was largely unified behind legislation to outlaw abortion at the state and federal levels when they were able to use it to rally anti-abortion voters with no chance of it succeeding legislatively.

    But some Republicans now fear voter backlash from the majority of Americans who say in polls they want abortion to be mostly or always legal, particularly as Democrats seek to further capitalize on the issue. And Trump, who has bragged about appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, is still struggling to navigate it.

    The number of babies born using in vitro fertilization, or IVF, is growing every year in the U.S., but there are still a lot of misconceptions about what IVF actually is. Here’s what you need to know.

    Abortion foes are caught in their own bind over whether to abandon Trump or to support him in the hope that Republicans will win in November and continue to pursue nationwide abortion restrictions, despite the former president’s claims to the contrary.

    “If Donald Trump loses in November, it will be his improvisational approach to abortion that alienated the pro-life community that costs him victory,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson said.

    Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life — which has helped organize tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists, mostly on college campuses — wrote Thursday on X: “My phone is blowing up with @SFLAction volunteers who no longer will door knock for President Trump if this is not corrected. With polls neck and neck, this is the last thing we need right now to defeat Kamala’s pro-abortion extremism.”

    She told NBC News the Trump campaign “personally” told leaders in her group that he’s undecided on the Florida measure. She said they expect him to vote “no” and warned that Trump’s waffling on the issue would likely hurt his support with many volunteers.

    “When they hear the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, walking back past pro-life statements, it’s devastating to them,” she said. “And it’s shocking to them that Republicans would betray this very important part of the Republican Party.”

    “He needs to be very careful with his words,” she added.

    Taryn Fenske, a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, pushed back against Trump’s initial comments.

    “Donald Trump has consistently stated that late-term abortions where a baby can feel pain should never be permitted, and he’s always stood up for parents’ rights,” Fenske said in a statement on X. “Amendment 4 would allow late-term abortions, eliminate parental consent, and open the door to taxpayer-funded abortions. It’s extreme and must be defeated.”

    The governor’s wife, Casey DeSantis, also weighed in, saying the initiative “would open the door to taxpayer funded abortions” and added, “We must spread the word and vote NO on 4!”

    Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said Trump is lying about his shifts on abortion and his pro-IVF rhetoric.

    “We’re going to hold Donald Trump and JD Vance accountable for the devastating impacts of overturning Roe v. Wade and their threats to access to IVF. So every day between now and Election Day, we are going to make sure that the communities that will decide this election know the fundamentals here and the fundamental choice this election,” Harris spokesman Kevin Munoz told reporters on Friday. “Kamala Harris is going to fight for your rights. Donald Trump will take them away.”

    In response to Trump’s announcement Friday about how he’ll vote on the amendment, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying that Trump “will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant” and said if he’s elected, he will “limit access to birth control, threaten access to fertility treatments and ban abortion nationwide, with or without Congress.”

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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  • Vance dodges on whether Trump’s immigration policy would lead to family separation

    Vance dodges on whether Trump’s immigration policy would lead to family separation

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    Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, on Saturday evaded multiple questions about whether Trump’s proposed “zero tolerance” policy on immigration would lead to family separation.

    First, Vance told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that before imposing mass deportations, Trump would need to “stop the bleeding.”

    “You have to stop so many people from coming here illegally in the first place, and that means undoing everything that [Vice President] Kamala Harris did practically on day one of the administration,” he added, later saying: “Before we even fix the problem, we’ve got to stop the problem from getting worse.”

    Asked again by moderator Kristen Welker about whether the Trump administration’s plan would include family separation, Vance dodged again.

    “I think that families are currently being separated,” he said, adding that “you’re certainly going to have to deport some people in this country.”

    He argued that mass deportations under Trump would “start with the most violent criminals in our country.”

    “Those people need to be deported,” Vance said. “That’s where you focus federal resources.”

    Vance went on to blast Harris again, baselessly accusing her of backing policies that led to family separations and to children living with criminals.

    When President Joe Biden and Harris first took office, Biden rescinded the Trump-era zero-tolerance policy and established a family reunification task force that found that more than 5,000 families were separated under the policy.

    More recently, the Biden administration worked with a bipartisan group of senators to craft a comprehensive immigration and border security plan that seemed to have buy-in from both parties on Capitol Hill.

    But GOP support for the bill tanked after Trump indicated his disapproval of the plan.

    Vance’s remarks Saturday came days after Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona for a campaign event.

    While there, the former president also dodged NBC News’ questions about whether his proposal for “zero tolerance” policies on the border would lead to family separations, instead saying “provisions will be made” for mixed-status families that may have some members who are American citizens and some who are undocumented.

    Trump did not clarify what provisions would be made for those families.

    This story first appeared on NBCNews.com.  More from NBC News:

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    Alexandra Marquez | NBC News

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