Election 2024: Harris and Walz kick off bus tour in Georgia; Vance hits Pennsylvania and Wisconsin

After three days of arguments and with a trial scheduled for Jan. 5, 2026, the decision of whether Arizona’s “fake electors” case will move forward is now in Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen’s hands.

Defendants argued Monday and yesterday that the indictment against 11 people who signed documents claiming to be Arizona’s Electoral College electors in 2020 — even though Biden won the state and Arizona certified his victory — and other Trump allies should be dismissed on the grounds that they were exercising their First Amendment rights.

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Vance told reporters that he is "not worried at all" about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remaining on the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin, two major battleground states. Kennedy endorsed Trump and said he would remove himself from battleground state ballots in an effort to support his candidacy.

While Trump has welcomed the support of Kennedy, who ran in the Democratic primaries, he has had a frostier relationship with his previous running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence. Vance told NBC News that he has not spoken to Pence since he became the nominee for vice president.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a new interview that he has previously sued Trump while adding that they have always maintained a good relationship.

"I’ve sued him a couple of times on golf courses that he was building or he was trying to build up in the New York state reservoir watershed, and I was suing to keep them from being built," Kennedy said in an interview with “Dr. Phil” McGraw that was taped shortly after he endorsed Trump on Friday and aired tonight.

"But even during that time when I was litigating against him, he ended up giving me a ride to Florida on his plane, and we were friendly," Kennedy added.

Seven advocacy organizations that have been working to engage Latino voters ahead of the presidential election found that many of them are familiar with Project 2025 but that few understood the specifics behind the 900-plus-page conservative policy plan and its potential impact if implemented.

The groups, most of which are left-leaning or progressive, are coming together under a new coalition to launch a bilingual campaign condemning Project 2025 and its stances on specific issues that are important to Latino voters — such as education, health care access, reproductive rights, climate change and immigration, as well as jobs and workers’ rights.

The “Defendiendo Nuestro Futuro, Latinos Against Project 2025” campaign aims to target millions of Latino voters in swing states through door-to-door canvassing efforts, phone-banking and social media.

Read the full story here.

Voters in Savannah, Georgia, have contrasting views about Harris’ rally in the city tomorrow.

Tahisha Wright, 42, expressed optimism about the visit, telling NBC News that Harris brings “a new sense of hope, inspiration and enthusiasm about what’s to come as it relates to being an American and making sure that we have policies that are inclusive to all people, not just a few."

"We’re very excited about Vice President Kamala Harris coming to town," Wright said. "It gives us an opportunity here in Savannah to hear personally from her about her various policies that may impact us right here in Savannah."

An officer was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident this evening along Harris' motorcade route in Georgia, the Savannah Police Department said.

"An SPD motorcycle officer was involved in a single vehicle accident on I-516 this evening. The officer sustained serious injuries and has been transported to Memorial for treatment," police said in a statement posted to X.

Police said they would release more information in the morning. The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harris is in southeastern Georgia for a bus tour.

Vance appeared to double down on his 2021 criticism of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, in which he said that "if she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone."

Vance said he was not reiterating those sentiments to reporters today, saying, "I just said if she wants to brainwash anybody’s kids, she ought to have her own and leave mine alone."

He also pushed back against reports of an “incident” between two members of Trump’s campaign team and an official at Arlington National Cemetery, telling reporters there has been outsized focus on the story.

Trump’s campaign is playing down reports of an altercation during his visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, a move that signals its concern about potential political fallout from the incident.

“A nameless bureaucrat at Arlington whose job it is to preserve the dignity of the cemetery is doing the complete opposite in trying to make what was a very solemn and respectful event into something it was not,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, a retired Marine who was with Trump on Monday at the cemetery in the Virginia suburbs of Washington.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a champion of service members and veterans — an image bolstered by participants in Monday’s ceremony. But he has also created a pattern of disparaging service members that has led even some former aides to question the authenticity of his support for the military.

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Some members of Taylor Swift’s massive fan base are organizing and taking action for their preferred presidential candidate — even without the pop star’s public support.

“Swifties for Kamala,” which has no official affiliation with Swift or Harris, had raised $142,000 for Harris as of this afternoon, said Irene Kim, a co-founder of the organization and its executive director.

Most of it — $122,000 — was collected during a Zoom event the group hosted yesterday. About 34,000 people joined the roughly two-hour call, which featured appearances from singer-songwriter Carole King and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, and Ed Markey, of Massachusetts; and Reps. Chris Deluzio, of Pennsylvania, and Becca Balint, of Vermont.

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More than 140 mothers across Pennsylvania are launching a “Moms Oppose McCormick” coalition, including health care workers, community leaders and educators, in support of Democratic Sen. Bob Casey's re-election campaign against businessman David McCormick.

Democratic Reps. Madeleine Dean, Mary Gay Scanlon and Chrissy Houlahan are chairing the coalition.

“Senator Casey has a record of fighting to make a difference for women and families across Pennsylvania,” Casey's campaign said in a news release, crediting Casey’s work on a variety of topics, including abortion rights and paid family leave.

Citing the issue of abortion, Dean said in a statement that "McCormick has shown time and again that he does not stand with Pennsylvania women, girls, mothers and families."

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said today that being a parent isn't a requirement for being a good teacher.

“Teaching children is one of the most important things we can do, regardless of whether we are parents or not,” Weingarten said in an MSNBC interview, adding that an educator "doesn't have to be a parent to be a great teacher."

Remarks that resurfaced yesterday showed Vance harshly criticizing Weingarten in 2021 for not having "some of her own" kids.

The man who tried to assassinate Trump last month had searched for information on both the Republican and Democratic national Conventions before he opened fire at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, FBI officials told reporters today, suggesting that the Trump event was a “target of opportunity.”

FBI officials also said they had found no indication or evidence that any co-conspirators worked with Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who tried to kill Trump just days before he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention.

“I want to be clear: We have not seen any indication to suggest Crooks was directed by a foreign entity to conduct the attack,” FBI Assistant Director Bobby Wells told reporters.

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As 21 columns of fire shot out of the stage, Trump walked out in front of a booming crowd in Phoenix last week to introduce the exiled scion of Democratic royalty he hoped would, once again, reset the campaign.

“Had he been allowed to enter the Democratic primary, he would have easily beaten Joe Biden,” Trump told a huge crowd about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who stood onstage prepared to endorse him over the objection of his own family. “But they would not let him.”

Kennedy’s support for Trump comes after weeks of momentum by Harris. Biden’s exit from the race gave her a polling boost, which even Trump’s team expects to continue after last week’s widely watched Democratic National Convention.

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Vance told reporters during a question-and-answer part of a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, that Harris can "go to hell," condemning her and the Biden administration over the attack at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan in 2021, in which 13 U.S. service members died.

Vance was answering a reporter's question about an "incident" at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, when Trump visited Section 60 with relatives of those service members.

"Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there hasn't been a single investigation or a single firing," Vance said. "Sometimes mistakes happen. That's just the nature of government, the nature of military service, but to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful."

Vance said that if they're going to discuss a story related to Abbey Gate, "it's that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can — she can go to hell."

The Supreme Court today rebuffed a Biden administration plea seeking to revive the latest plan to tackle federal student loan debt.

The court in a brief order denied an emergency request the administration filed seeking to lift a nationwide injunction imposed by an appeals court. No dissents were noted.

The Education Department issued a regulation finalizing its Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan in July 2023, the month after the Supreme Court ruled the administration lacked authority to implement Biden’s earlier loan forgiveness program.

Multiple conservative-leaning states, led by Missouri, challenged the new effort, like the previous one.

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Trump’s campaign is releasing a video today featuring a group of Black women who plan to vote for him as he tries to make inroads with a key part of Harris’ base.

The video, titled “I’m Not With Her” and shared first with NBC News, includes more than a dozen Black women, several from battleground states, expressing their opposition to Harris, with some framing her as being out of touch with Black voters.

“I and millions of others Black Americans will cast my vote for Donald J. Trump,” Bebe Diamond of New York City said in the video.

The monthslong Trump Media stock slide continued today as shares of the company majority-owned by Trump fell below $20 for the first time since the Truth Social parent started trading under the ticker symbol DJT in March.

As of early afternoon, the stock had dropped around 75% from its intraday high on March 26, when the company debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Trump Media has also lost more than half its value since its surge on July 15, the first trading day after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump owns nearly 59% of Trump Media’s stock. Even after it lost much of its value, Trump’s stake at today’s stock price is still worth more than $2.2 billion — more than half of his on-paper net worth, according to Forbes. He is allowed to start selling shares in the latter half of September.

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In an hourlong interview with "Dr. Phil" McGraw that aired last night, Trump claimed that he would win California, a Democratic stronghold that he lost by more than 5 million votes, or nearly 2-to-1, in the 2020 election, if there was “an honest vote count.”

During the interview, Trump cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, calling them “terrible,” and baselessly claiming that they invite widespread voter fraud.

Trump cited the crowds at his rallies in California, which he described as “so big” that “there’s no way I could lose” the state.

“If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California,” he said, adding, “If we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

Trump claimed without evidence in an interview with talk show host "Dr. Phil" McGraw that Biden and Harris made it difficult for him to have adequate Secret Service protection at his campaign rallies.

In the interview, which was taped Friday and aired last night, he implied Biden and Harris may partly be to blame for the assassination attempt on him in July.

"He always made it very tough for us to have the proper number of Secret Service people. And I don’t know whose fault it is, but I will tell you, I’d have these massive rallies with 50-60,000 people, more, and our people were always fighting to get more security, more Secret Service, and he knew that we didn’t have enough, and he’d have a rally of three or four people," Trump said about Biden.

A week ago, the rift between Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp looked beyond repair, as Trump relentlessly ridiculed a popular battleground state Republican posing a potential mortal threat to his campaign.

Then Vance got Kemp on the line. 

Within hours of their phone call last week, Kemp, who along with his wife had been the target of vicious Trump attacks, was on Fox News publicly declaring his support for the GOP ticket. Soon after that, Trump was thanking Kemp for the kind words.

Vance, in an interview aboard his campaign plane Tuesday night, downplayed any role he might have had in brokering a truce, wagering that his was one of many important voices in Kemp’s ear. But he also described a strategy, blessed by Trump, that takes advantage of the idea that he can reason with or appeal to people in ways Trump cannot.

“A lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences, too,” Vance said, describing the dynamic between him and Trump. 

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In remarks at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention this morning, Walz criticized Trump's record as president by arguing that some of his policy positions didn't help workers.

"When Donald Trump was president, he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers, he opposed efforts to raise the minimum wage, and he even proposed slashing budgets for federal fire service programs. Those are just simply facts. But look, it's not just what they've done, it's what they're going to do," Walz said in his speech in Boston.

The Trump administration in 2019 expanded overtime pay to more than 1 million workers, fewer than the number that would have been affected by an Obama administration plan that had been struck down in court, The Associated Press reported. In 2020, when Trump ran for re-election, he said at a debate against Biden that increasing the minimum wage would hurt small businesses and that states should decide the issue.

CHICAGO — Hang out long enough at a Democratic event these days and someone will say it: “It feels like 2008.”

The packed arenas, the bonkers fundraising, early reports of voter registration spikes, the hundreds of thousands of new volunteers who’ve stepped forward — and all of it in just the five weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris moved to the top of the ticket — have had Democrats betting they’ve captured the magic of 2008. It was a transformative year in Democratic politics, setting Barack Obama on a path to become the first Black president. He won decisively, taking 365 electoral votes. 

In interviews with party officials, volunteers and campaign officials, common themes emerged that they say make today reminiscent of 2008. Phone calls are streaming into their offices with voters proactively wanting to help, many from people who haven’t volunteered before. Younger voters are engaging. Small-dollar donations are pouring in, a third of which in the last week were from first-time donors. And large-dollar donors who hadn’t given to the party in years are getting off the sidelines.   

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Kerry Kennedy will join Latino Labor leaders — including Dolores Huerta, who co-founded United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s — today in Phoenix to campaign for Harris.

Latino voters are a key voting bloc for delivering battleground states such as Arizona and Nevada this election.

Kennedy has been outspoken about her brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to endorse Trump last week. She released a statement signed with four other of her and RFK Jr.'s siblings denouncing Kennedy's endorsement of Trump and calling it a "betrayal" of their family's values.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got some good news in Nevada, where a court ruling will allow his name to be taken off the ballot there this fall after he dropped out and endorsed Trump.

The ruling came as part of a lawsuit Kennedy filed while he was still an active candidate attempting to secure a spot on the ballot. But the court order shows the two sides had agreed to drop the case, agreeing that Kennedy shouldn't be on the ballot.

Kennedy said when he dropped out last week that he wanted to remove his name from swing state ballots where he risked being a "spoiler." But state laws in Michigan and Wisconsin have prevented him from doing so there.

Trump shared a statement on his Truth Social account from family members of the American service members who were killed at Abbey Gate in 2021, which came after reports of an "incident" at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.

"We had given our approval for President Trump's official videographer and photographer to attend the event, ensuring these sacred moments of remembrance were respectfully captured and we can cherish these memories forever," the family members said in the statement posted by Trump.

NPR reported yesterday that two Trump campaign aides had a confrontation Monday with a cemetery official who tried to prevent them from filming. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung denied part of the story, including that there was “no physical altercation.”

Arlington National Cemetery confirmed to NBC News that an "incident took place when Trump visited the site at Section 60 to mark the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan.

Harris and Walz today are set to begin their first joint visit to Georgia with a bus tour through the southeastern part of the battleground state, which represents “a diverse coalition of voters, including rural, suburban, and urban Georgians — with a large proportion of Black voters and working class families,” Porsha White, Georgia state director at the Harris campaign, said in a memo.

Hours after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and assaulted dozens of police officers in an attempt to reach members of Congress, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., referred to the then-president as “a domestic enemy.”

The comments came in video shot by documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Pelosi’s daughter, that HBO recently turned over to Congress. NBC News yesterday reviewed more than 30 minutes of video from the roughly 48 hours surrounding the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, including video that showed Pelosi being led away from the building by her security detail as she pressed her staff members to get the National Guard to respond to the Capitol.

The newly surfaced remarks go further than the public ones she made Jan. 7, when she said Trump had “incited an armed insurrection against America” and “instigated” an attack that would “forever stain our nation’s history.”

Read the full story here.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won Georgia in the 2020 election and again in 2022, has directly told Kamala Harris he’s “all in” on helping her defeat Donald Trump this fall.

But he warns it will be difficult.

“We built an architecture to win,” Warnock told a small group of reporters in Chicago during the Democratic convention last week. “I think we can put Georgia in the Harris-Walz column. I’m not going to pretend that that will be an easy thing to do. But can we do it? I absolutely believe that we can.”

Georgia will be front and center this week as Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, begin a bus tour together in the state today, which is scheduled to end in the Savannah area with a solo Harris rally tomorrow. The same day, Harris and Walz are set to do a joint TV interview, Harris’ first since she became her party’s nominee.

The Harris campaign is launching an extensive ad campaign in battleground states focusing on Trump and Project 2025 in the lead-up to the Sept. 10 debate with ABC News.

The ads are both for digital and TV, and will air every day in every market across the country beginning today, according to the campaign.

It's not clear exactly how much money is being put forth for the ads. Harris' team did not provide a number but said that it would be an "eight figure investment in national TV placements," drawn from $370 million the campaign set aside for paid media between Labor Day and Election Day.

The Harris campaign said the theme of the ad campaign, "Control," would focus on Trump’s own words to tell battleground voters about what it called "the existential danger Trump’s Project 2025 agenda poses to American democracy, freedom, and the middle class."

The former president has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, a proposed blueprint by the Heritage Foundation for another Trump term, despite the involvement of his allies in the proposal.

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Democrats are launching a digital program designed to direct voters to personalized information on candidates who will appear down their ballot in the battleground state this fall.

The goal is twofold: get the word out about the state’s Democratic candidates and give the state party access to valuable data. 

When organizers and volunteers hand out flyers about the upcoming election, there will now be a QR code that brings voters to the Pennsylvania Democrats’ website.  Once a voter scans the QR code, they will be directed to enter their name and address, which will provide them with information on which candidates they have the opportunity to vote for, as well as on polling locations and mail voting instructions. Each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and state House districts have distinct literature to promote candidates who will appear on the ballot. 

Arlington National Cemetery yesterday confirmed an incident took place when Trump visited there Monday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan.

“We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed,” the statement read.

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” said the cemetery in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

Trump’s running mate will hit battleground states in the Great Lakes region today, heading to Erie, Pennsylvania, in the early afternoon and the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area in the evening.

At both events, Vance is expected to deliver remarks on the economy, inflation and energy.

Walz will deliver remarks at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston as the Harris-Walz ticket vies for the union vote and markets the Minnesota governor as a labor champion.

“Governor Walz, a former union member himself, has a strong record of standing up for unions and delivering for workers — from joining the picket line and passing the most pro-worker package of laws in Minnesota history, to guaranteeing Minnesota workers paid sick, medical, and family leave,” a Harris-Walz campaign statement said.

The association is one of the largest labor unions, with 350,000 firefighters, rescue workers and emergency medical workers as members.

Harris is scheduled to depart Washington this afternoon for Savannah, Georgia.

The vice president will be holding a series of campaign events in the battleground state, which was closely contested in the 2020 election and ultimately went to a Democrat, Joe Biden, for the first time in nearly three decades.

The Harris-Walz ticket is hoping to continue that momentum as it leads a bus tour across Georgia and sits down for its first joint interview Thursday.