September 28, 2024, presidential campaign news

Migrants pass through razor wire after crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas, on February 1.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Saturday said the Biden-Harris administration is more focused on providing resources to undocumented immigrants than its own citizens, arguing that compassion must first be shown to Americans through strict border security measures.

Vance said he believes his ticket’s approach to the border will “maximize compassion.”

A campaign sign in support of former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance is seen along a rural highway near Kingsley, Michigan, on September 26.

Republicans campaigning on behalf of former President Donald Trump encouraged voters to take advantage of early and mail-in voting in Michigan, where absentee ballots started getting sent to voters this week.

“Let’s make sure we vote early and vote absentee, and then track your vote the whole way” to “make sure it counts,” Michigan House GOP Leader Matt Hall said at a Team Trump bus tour stop Saturday morning.

He said he told the former president, who campaigned in Michigan on Friday, that “he’s doing better in these key battlegrounds of the state than he did in ’16 or ‘20.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who joined the tour stop Saturday, told CNN he “absolutely” supports voting by mail.

Some background: Trump has urged supporters to vote early and by mail this election cycle, despite his false claims that mail-in voting caused election fraud during the last presidential race.

The campaign in June announced a program aimed at promoting absentee, mail-in and early in-person voting — practices the former president has disparaged for years while promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Sen. JD Vance speaks at a campaign town hall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, on September 28.

A spokesperson for the Trump-Vance campaign said GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance does not know Lance Wallnau despite appearing at a town hall Saturday hosted by the self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, who a history of inflammatory remarks.

Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said the Ohio senator has never met Wallnau, who finished speaking at the town hall about half an hour before Vance took the stage.

The Trump-Vance campaign on Wednesday sent out a release stating that Vance would be a “featured guest” at a town hall hosted by “The Lance Wallnau Show.”

Wallnau, a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and Trump supporter, recently described Vice President Kamala Harris’ debate performance as “witchcraft” and said “a cult spirit” is “operating on her and through her.” Wallnau also has a history of statements defending January 6 insurrectionists and the Proud Boys.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, on September 28.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday blamed the Biden administration for having to change the location of his campaign event in Wisconsin and said the administration “couldn’t give us the Secret Service necessary.”

The Secret Service is mandated to protect all foreign heads of state while they are on US soil. The president of Iran was in the US this week and addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that the US government is “intensely tracking” a threat by Iran against current and former US officials. CNN has reported that law enforcement officials have been concerned about the persistent threat of Iran potentially attempting to assassinate former Trump officials and the former president himself.

“I think it’s a disgrace,” Trump added.

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson told supporters gathered at a campaign event Saturday that he burned his hand on a “big rig” truck Friday night.

“I was getting out of the truck, and several of my fans and supporters were coming around the truck. I was trying to get out without running into them and doggone if I didn’t lay my hand on that tailpipe, the exhaust pipe,” said the North Carolina lieutenant governor, showing his bandaged hand. “I am fine. It is just a minor second-degree burn, and it is just fine.”

Mike Longergan, Robinson’s campaign communications director, said Friday night that Robinson was treated for second-degree burns at Northern Regional Hospital “following an incident at a campaign event” in Mount Airy. A law enforcement source told CNN that there was no foul play involved.

Robinson’s hospitalization came amid continued fallout from CNN’s reporting on the lieutenant governor’s past inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz delivers remarks at a campaign event in Superior, Wisconsin, on September 14.

Tim Walz is telling people he’s just as nervous about facing JD Vance as he was the Sunday afternoon in August when he warned Kamala Harris in his running mate interview that he was a bad debater.

Maybe more nervous, according to multiple people who’ve spoken to him.

And the pressure is even higher, when for the first time in modern campaign history, the vice presidential debate Tuesday is likely to be the last marquee event before Election Day. With many voters still saying they don’t know enough about Harris, it could be up to Walz to help convince them to trust a vice president he barely knew himself before she picked him.

Talking to the aides who have coalesced around him in Minnesota, Walz constantly comes back to how worried he is about letting Harris down, according to close to a dozen top campaign staffers and others who have been in touch with the governor and his team. He doesn’t want Donald Trump to win. He doesn’t want Harris to think she made the wrong choice.

He feels genuine contempt for and confusion over what he views as Vance’s abandonment of their common roots, and for flipping so many of his positions to fit with Trump. The digs he takes at Vance by saying he didn’t know many Midwesterners who went to Yale are a glimpse into his anxiety that his opponent learned to be a sharp debater there, according to people who know Walz.

Walz’s debate strategy: The plan for Tuesday night, several people involved told CNN, will be to largely skip Vance and go right at Trump — but to also squeeze the Ohio senator between his attempts to appeal to undecided voters.

Read more here.

Sen. JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance take the stage during a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on July 27.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance addressed his biracial family and his journey to the Christian faith at a Saturday town hall hosted by evangelist Lance Wallnau in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

Vance said he often fields questions about his children with his wife, Usha, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants. He also said that only in America, where he was taught not to “see skin color,” could they have fallen in love.

“I think because I’ve got biracial children, and I’m sometimes asked by reporters, they’ll say, ‘Well, do you think your children should be Indian, or do you think they should be White?’ And I’ll say, ‘I think they should be American, because that’s what unites us together as a common family,’” Vance said.

Vance said he didn’t describe himself as a Christian as a young man – and he was skeptical about those who were devout Christians – but he came to his faith through Usha and was eventually baptized in 2019.

“I wanted to be a good husband to this woman I had fallen in love with, and I wanted to be a good father to the babies that I knew we were going to eventually have. And when you start asking yourself, ‘What do I need to do to be not a successful person, but a good person, to be a good husband and father?’ I kept on returning to the faith of Mamaw,” Vance said, referring to his grandmother, who helped raised him through his mother’s addiction troubles.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance made a stop at a restaurant near Pittsburgh this morning, but it was moved outdoors after an employee said they did not want a campaign event inside, according to reporters traveling with Vance. The restaurant later clarified that the Ohio senator and his team were “welcomed into our restaurant shortly after.”

It appeared the campaign did not get permission from the manager to come inside the restaurant with press and cameras. Vance briefly exited his motorcade but was instructed to get back inside while his team talked to staff.

A woman was heard saying, “No cameras. We’re not doing an event here. I’ve explained this a bunch of times. Folks are welcome to come and have lunch. We’re not having a campaign event here.”

A campaign official said the restaurant didn’t want the media taking video inside, so Vance’s team set up a photo line outside where supporters could meet the Ohio senator.

The restaurant, Primanti Bros., aimed to clear up any confusion surrounding Vance’s visit with a statement Saturday evening on X. The restaurant said that it has hosted “sitting presidents, politicians, and political candidates from the spectrum for over 90 years” and that “our doors are open to all patrons who wish to dine with us.”

This post and headline have been updated with additional information.

Sen. JD Vance speaks during a town hall campaign event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, on September 28.

In the closing months of a crowded Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself stuck in the middle of the pack.

The pollster for a supportive super PAC warned that Vance’s campaign was in “precipitous decline,” arguing that he had failed to convince Republican voters of his conservative bona fides and loyalty to Donald Trump.

“Vance needs a course correction ASAP,” the pollster wrote in a February 2022 memo.

It arrived a month later. With the five main primary contenders meeting onstage for the umpteenth time, the two perceived front-runners nearly came to blows. As they stood nose to nose, one readied to fight while the other uttered a sexist expletive. Vance, seated at the edge of the stage, pounced.

“Think about what you just saw. This guy wants to be a US senator and he’s up here, ‘Hold me back. Hold me back,’” Vance said to loud applause. “What a joke. Answer the question. Stop playing around.”

It was a breakthrough moment for Vance, one that led to a second look from GOP voters in his state and from Trump. Clips of the exchange and other debate moments impressed Trump, sources told CNN, and played a role in Vance securing a race-defining endorsement from the former president.

On Tuesday, that ability will be tested once again. Vance, now the Republican nominee for vice president, will join his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for the first time on a debate stage in New York.

Vance, at just 40 years old and two years into his political career, is still a largely unproven commodity. Also unknown is whether he can successfully pick apart the Democratic ticket while improving — or at least not further jeopardizing — his likability among voters.

Read more on Vance’s story.

President Joe Biden told union workers Saturday that former President Donald Trump would “rather cross” picket lines than join one while touting his administration’s pro-worker efforts.

“You know, do you think he has any idea about the work you do every day?” he said of his predecessor while speaking via phone to the North America’s Building Trade Unions.

Biden also touted the job creation under the administration as well as efforts to expand affordable child care and protections for pregnant and postpartum workers.

Some background: This isn’t the first time Biden and Trump have thrown shots at each other while discussing union workers.

Biden joined members of the United Auto Workers on the picket line last year in Michigan at a time he was facing consistently low polling numbers on his handling of economic issues.

The visit was slammed by Trump, who claimed Biden “had no intention” of walking the picket line until the former president said he would make a speech in Michigan. Ahead of Trump’s speech to union members in Detroit, Biden’s campaign rolled out an ad criticizing the former president’s treatment of autoworkers.