Election 2024: Trump is noncommittal on the prospect of a second presidential debate with Harris

Trump took aim at the Affordable Care Act last night in the debate, reviving a 15-year-old partisan fight over a law that has swung from a liability to a political asset for Democrats.

“Obamacare was lousy health care. Always was. It’s not very good today,” Trump said on the stage. “And what I said, that if we come up with something, and we are working on things, we’re going to do it, and we’re going to replace it.”

Trump indicated that he would eliminate the ACA, also called “Obamacare,” only if he could devise a better and cheaper system. Pressed by debate moderators about whether he has a plan, he said, “I have concepts of a plan,” adding that he intends to release “concepts and options ... in the not-too-distant future.”

Read the full story here.

The famed singer Linda Ronstadt said on Instagram tonight that she was upset to learn that Trump was bringing his "hate show" to Tucson, Arizona, where he is expected to hold a rally tomorrow at a music hall bearing her name.

"Donald Trump is holding a rally on Thursday in a rented hall in my hometown, Tucson. I would prefer to ignore that sad fact. But since the building has my name on it, I need to say something," Ronstadt wrote in a statement shared to her Instagram story. "It saddens me to see the former President bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit."

Ronstadt went on to highlight the Trump administration's family separation policy, which separated thousands of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"For me it comes down to this: In Nogales and across the southern border, the Trump Administration systematically ripped apart migrant families seeking asylum," she wrote. "Family separation made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers."

Trump today attended a Sept. 11 remembrance stop alongside a far-right activist who has pushed a false narrative that the terrorist attack was “an inside job.”

Laura Loomer, a Trump ally, joined him at a fire station in lower Manhattan, where he and Vance met and took photos with firefighters. Some members of the station died responding to the 9/11 attacks.

Throughout the day, Loomer posted videos to social media documenting Trump’s visits to commemorate 9/11. She also attended the debate last night and traveled on Trump’s plane.

Just last year, Loomer posted a lengthy message on X that included a video that falsely said “9/11 was an Inside Job!”

Read the full story here.

The debate stage clash between Harris and Trump drew an estimated 67.1 million viewers, according to the media analytics company Nielsen.

The estimated viewership improved on the ratings for the match-up between Trump and Biden in late June, which attracted roughly 51.3 million viewers — and effectively derailed Biden’s re-election bid.

ABC hosted and aired the Harris-Trump faceoff, which was simulcast on 17 networks, including NBC and MSNBC, according to Nielsen.

Read the full story here.

The counting and certification of electoral votes at the Capitol in January — the first since the Jan. 6 riot in 2021 — will come with significantly increased security, the Secret Service said today.

The Department of Homeland Security has designated the Jan. 6 count as a national special security event, affording it a level of security similar to events like the State of the Union address and the Super Bowl. The Secret Service will oversee planning.

The designation, a first for the certification of electoral votes, is an effort to avoid a repeat of the chaos nearly four years ago when a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt that year’s count affirming Biden’s victory.

Read the full story here.

Former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove said Trump's performance in yesterday's debate could not have gone worse.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled "A Catastrophic Debate for Trump," Rove, a staunch Republican who has advised Trump in the past, said he looked "visibly rattled," "flustered" and "often incoherent" as a result of Harris' attacks.

Meanwhile, Trump failed to effectively pin down Harris for any of her perceived weaknesses, Rove said.

Marking the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Vance celebrated the cordial meeting of Democratic and Republican leaders at ground zero this morning — a significant departure in tone from his attacks against Harris and Walz.

Vance described a sense of “real bipartisan unity” in lower Manhattan today in his remarks before the Enlisted Association of National Guardsmen’s 9/11 Remembrance Gala at One World Trade Center. Hours earlier on Fox News, he characterized Harris as having a “thin and superficial” approach to public policy and the temperament of someone who “doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Vance, donning a tuxedo and a bow tie for the black-tie event on the building’s 102nd floor, went on to recount how he witnessed an “incredible reservoir of patriotic spirit” in the days following the 2001 attacks, only to then see that unity “squandered” by elected officials who did not choose “our fights wisely.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., called for conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Laura Loomer to delete an “extremely racist” post.

“This is appalling and extremely racist. It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA,” Greene, a fellow Trump ally, said tonight in a post on X. "This does not represent President Trump. This type of behavior should not be tolerated ever. @LauraLoomer should take this down.”

In a post Sunday, Loomer launched into a racist tirade against Harris, saying that if she won "the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand."

Harris is the first person of Indian descent to be a major party's nominee for president. She is also the first Black woman to be a major party's presidential nominee.

Angel Sobolewski doesn’t take political advice from pop stars — not even her favorite, Taylor Swift.

That’s why Sobolewski, who regularly promotes Republican candidates through her profile on X, is voting for Trump in November despite being a Swiftie.

“I think you can like an artist without, like, agreeing with their politics,” Sobolewski, 21, said. “You know, if we had to agree with their politics, we’d probably be left with, like, two people.”

Swift’s endorsement of Harris yesterday after her debate with Trump has rankled and disappointed some of Swift’s many fans on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Others said they’re not thrilled about the endorsement — but they were “Ready for It.”

Read the full story here.

Four Trump supporters who also backed him during the general elections in 2016 and 2020 laid out why they’re supporting him for a third time in November.

Carl White, 68, of Phoenix, told NBC News he intends to vote for Trump again "because I think he’s a stronger individual to maintain our nation and do a better job for the people."

Kari Nagle, 60, of Phoenix described Trump as "a reputable man" and "an honest man."

"He’s never done anything wrong," Nagle said.

Election officials from across the country publicly accused the postmaster general today of failing to adequately prepare for the Nov. 5 general election.

In an unusually frank joint open letter, the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has failed to address numerous shortcomings in the Postal Service that election officials have said could lead to fewer people voting and a loss of trust in the electoral system.

“State and local election officials need a committed partner in USPS,” the letter reads. “We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service. Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process.”

Read the full story here.

A few of the voters who remain undecided in the 2024 election were moved by yesterday’s debate — but it might take more than a debate to fully make up their minds.

A handful of Arizona voters previously turned off by both candidates expressed interest in Harris in an NBC News panel after the ABC News debate. All three undecided voters assembled for a similar exercise in the Philadelphia suburbs remained on the fence, with Harris getting a look from two and Trump from one. And while they generally though that Harris had a good debate, but they want to hear more from her about some key issues.

Undecided voters only account for a few percentage points of the electorate right now, according to public polls, with a closely divided country getting behind Trump and Harris. But in a close election, a few percentage points could matter, as it did in 2016 and 2020.

The three undecided Pennsylvania voters from Bucks County — one Democrat, one Republican and one independent — seemed to feel more certain in their frustration with one candidate than in their interest in the other, delivering withering assessments of the debate: “Manipulated.” “Lies.” “Fluff.” “Same old, same old.”

Read the full story here.

In a statement to NBC News, the General Services Administration confirmed that as of 2 p.m. ET, 337,826 people have visited a custom URL that Taylor Swift posted on Instagram last night 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.

In an interview on Fox News, Vance said it was up to Trump to decide if there will be another debate with Harris.

'The president had a very good night. And I know the pundits are trying to tell the story that Kamala Harris knocked him off his game or got under his skin," he said.

Vance added that his preparation for his debate against Walz is focused on understanding the Minnesota governor's stances on various policies, but did not specify which ones. He also replied to Taylor Swift using the term "childless cat lady" in her endorsement of Harris.

"We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans," he said.

As he left the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department, Trump said he's still not sure if he will do another debate but that he was open to doing so on NBC or Fox.

"I would do NBC, I’d do Fox too," Trump said. "But right now we have to determine whether or not we even want to do it.’’ 

According to a source, NBC News is “engaged in discussions with the campaigns about the possibility of hosting another presidential debate.”

NBC News has reached out to both campaigns and Fox News for comment.

Read more here.

While visiting the Shanksville Fire Station this morning, Biden briefly donned a Trump 2024 baseball cap.

Shortly after one of the Trump campaign’s X accounts tweeted a photo of Biden wearing the cap, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, clarified that, “At the Shanksville Fire Station, @POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that. As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”

In response to questions from NBC News, the Trump campaign said they obtained the photo of Biden wearing the hat from “a member of the community.”

The campaign also confirmed they received the photo directly from the community member.

Right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who has been traveling with Trump the past two days, also posted a video to her X account featuring Biden taking off the Trump hat after wearing it.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the image.

“I know everyone in the world has said this, but the inability or unwillingness to realize when he’s being baited and not fall for it is constantly baffling,” a longtime Republican operative said of Trump's debate performance.

Others inside Trump’s debate camp, who were granted anonymity to speak freely, said that they agree the performance was lackluster, and at times Harris caught him flat-footed, but they were skeptical that during an election cycle in which both sides are already entrenched in their positions that this debate could move many votes.

“It was not his best performance, without question,” one Trump adviser said. “But he did enough to get out, I think, without really losing any votes. Like everything else, the debate will have a short shelf life. People will move on to what’s next.”

Read the full story here.

Trump is greeting firefighters and the families of Flight 93 victims at the Shanksville Volunteer Fire station, where Harris and Biden also stopped earlier today.

The first ballots of the 2024 general election are heading to voters, as Alabama officials started mailing them out Wednesday.

Once eligible Alabama voters who requested absentee ballots receive them, they can return them at any point to lock in their votes for president, as well as in statewide and local races, weeks out from Election Day.

Alabama requires that voters have a reason to vote by mail, such as being absent from the county or working during Election Day. Voters who qualify can also go in person to the circuit clerk and fill out an absentee ballot application and ballot in-person as early as Wednesday.

North Carolina was scheduled to mail out the first ballots of the 2024 general election last week, but that was delayed due to a lawsuit from former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy to remove himself from the ballot.

Read the full story here.

In the early afternoon, Harris and Biden visited the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, participating in a wreath-laying ceremony.

It is believed that the actions of the flight’s 40 passengers and crew prevented an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 11, 2001. All on board died when the plane crashed into a field in Shanksville.

Trump visited the site about 90 minutes later. Some people in the general public area cheered for him. As he walked over to the impact site, someone shouted, “We love you, Trump.”

Biden and Harris also visited Shanksville’s volunteer fire department to meet with firefighters and the families and friends of Flight 93 victims.

Asked by reporters on Capitol Hill today whether Trump and Harris should debate again, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said, "I would do as many debates as possible."

Scott was subsequently asked whether he plans to debate his opponent, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. He dodged the question, saying: "I'm watching to see if she's going to start traveling the state. She spends all her time in Miami."

Pressed again about whether he'd debate Mucarsel-Powell, Scott said, "We'll see what happens."

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told NBC News that Trump should have drawn a sharper contrast between his and Harris’ policies when asked whether she thinks the former president had a good debate night.

“I think it was — I think the contrast could have been drawn more sharply on what her policies have done over the last three and a half years,” Capito said. “That’s what I would have focused on.”

Asked whether she thinks Trump took the bait of Harris’ strategy such as getting him to react to crowd sizes, Capito did not dismiss the possibility.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday yanked a government funding bill off the House floor hours before an expected vote after a growing number of disgruntled Republicans vowed to tank the measure.

Following Donald Trump’s lead, Johnson, R-La, had tied a six-month funding bill to the SAVE Act, which would overhaul voting laws to require people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. But now Johnson’s strategy to avert a shutdown at the end of the month is up in the air.

“We’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress with small majorities,” Johnson said as he announced the funding vote would be postponed.

The speaker added that his leadership team will continue to work through the weekend to flip GOP defectors. The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 unless Republicans and Democrats strike a deal to extend funding.

Read the full story here.

Trump questioned why he would debate Harris again in a post to his Truth Social platform today, arguing that he won last night's debate and that boxers and mixed martial arts fighters only ask for a rematch when they lose a fight.

Following the conclusion of the presidential debate last night, Trump offered noncommittal answers when pressed on the possibility of a second debate against Harris by multiple news outlets. The former president told Fox News after the debate that he’d “have to think about it” and “maybe I shouldn’t do it.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarification on the former president’s Truth Social post today.

Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told CNN this morning that Trump will share his plan on health care in the "not too distant future," echoing what the former president said on the debate stage last night.

"I'll definitely get back to you with one as soon as I can," Leavitt said, adding: "President Trump's plan to drive down health care costs ... is to let the free market thrive, to increase competition in the health care marketplace, to give Americans more options for health care." 

During the debate last night, Trump railed against the Affordable Care Act, but when asked to detail his own plan for how to address health care, he said: "I have concepts of a plan. I'm not president right now."

During his trip to New York, Vance stopped by Cantor Fitzgerald's offices, where he offered praise to the company for the work they have done since 9/11. After the attacks, the company established a relief fund in honor of nearly 700 employees who died after the first plane struck the North Tower, where its headquarters was located.

"I'm just thrilled to be here for a few minutes for what you do, to tell you how much we're grateful for what you do," Vance said. "And I just came from the firehouse, the firehouse five in lower Manhattan, and then it is such an amazing thing to see both the tragedy of 9/11 but the incredible lives that people have built out of that tragedy. "

Vance also shared that he met with a woman at the fire station who lost her husband on 9/11. She gave birth to her fourth child on Sept. 13, just two days after her husband's death.

"Those guys know that you all are supporting them. They know that you guys haven't forgotten about them," he said.

From 10 p.m. to midnight ET on Tuesday, as the presidential debate ended and Taylor Swift announced her endorsement of Harris, the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue handled more than $20 million in online donations, according to an NBC News analysis of the company’s data.

After Trump baselessly claimed during the debate that Haitian migrants in Ohio were eating pets, GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida complimented the Haitian immigrants in his community, saying his experience with them has been “very positive."

Still, Scott did not downplay the story itself, telling NBC News, “I don’t know exactly what’s happening up in Springfield, but some people don’t like it.”

Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has regularly traveled with Trump in recent months and attended the debate last night, was with his campaign today at an event honoring the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

She is seen in the photo below at Engine Company 4/Ladder Company 15 fire station in lower Manhattan. She is standing next to Margo Martin, the campaign’s deputy director of communications.

Loomer in a post to X last year promoted a conspiracy theory suggesting 9/11 was part of an inside job that involved Americans.

Asked what he thought of last night's debate, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said ''I'll talk to you after the election.'' Young previously said he wouldn't support Trump in the 2024 election.

Inflation slowed to 2.5% on a yearly basis in August, the coolest level since early 2021, according to the latest reading of the widely watched Consumer Price Index.

Prices are a hot topic in the presidential campaign, with Trump slamming the Biden-Harris administration for red-hot inflation even though it's subsided recently, and Harris vowing to go after corporations for price gouging.

While some categories' prices remain stubbornly high, such as auto insurance, the data released Wednesday set the stage for the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate by a quarter point at its meeting next week. The central bank had held the rate steady above 5% for over a year following several increases intended to stifle inflation as it put added strain on consumers' spending.

Read the full story here.

Shares of Trump Media sank today, the morning after the former president's debate performance against Harris was widely panned.

The Truth Social parent company's stock fell to under $16 a share, hitting a new low, part of a sustained decline following a brief surge in its price after the attempt on Trump's life in July.

The slide also comes a little over a week before Trump would be allowed to sell shares in the company, which could net him potentially more than $1 billion, although such a big sale would likely tank the shares further.

The FBI Agents Association paid tribute to former special agents suffering from 9/11-related illnesses and those who died during the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

In a statement, the group said the late FBI special agent Leonard “Lenny” Hatton provided critical information to the FBI and led people to safety after rushing to the World Trade Center and the late FBI special agent John P. O’Neill had escaped the North Tower but returned to the area to help others.

“Our thoughts are with the FBI Special Agents, FBI employees and other first responders who continue to battle illnesses resulting from their exposure to hazardous materials at the 9/11 sites,” the group said. “The World Trade Center Health Program reports that over 60,000 emergency responders, recovery, and cleanup workers have been diagnosed with 9/11-related illnesses, including more than 300 FBI employees.”

Walz remembered the 23rd anniversary of 9/11 in a post on X, referring to it as "unthinkable tragedy" that "profoundly changed our nation."

"Today, we mourn the lives lost, honor the nation’s heroic first responders, and reflect on the unwavering spirit of the American people," he wrote.

Walz learned about Taylor's Swift endorsement while he was live on the air with Rachel Maddow, who read the pop star's Instagram post to him.

With a big smile on his face, he said he was "incredibly grateful" and urged "Swifties" to step up and vote for Harris.

"That was eloquent, and it was clear," Walz said of the endorsement. "And that’s the type of courage we need in America, to stand up. We have seen it out of those Republicans who were at the DNC. We have seen it out of women who would like to have their own personal lives kept personal, but are forced to go out there because they nearly died because they can’t get abortion services in a pregnancy."

New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu reacted to last night's debate during an interview on CNBC this morning, saying, "I mean, as someone who’s, you know, voting for Trump and supporting Trump, it was frustrating."

Still, Sununu dismissed the idea that the debate would drastically move the needle among voters, saying that the majority of swing voters "really care about results" on issues such as inflation and the economy and "I think it’s obvious to them that the vice president didn't answer those questions and really avoided it."

Sununu admitted that another chunk of swing voters might judge Trump on his style last night, but "there's still 50 days to go." 

Philippe Reines, the Democrat who played Trump during debate prep for both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris this time, posted a photo of himself in his Trump-like attire.

Reines, known for being combative in his own right, has talked about being tasked with channeling Trump, trying to mimic his mannerisms and talking points.

Reines posted a photo of himself with Trump's signature red tie. "To do:" he wrote, 'facial, haircut, spiritual cleanse."

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both shook hands with former President Donald Trump upon arrival at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City this morning.

The 9/11 ceremony in lower Manhattan has begun.

Biden, Trump and Harris are in attendance at ground zero. Hours after the presidential debate in Philadelphia concluded, Trump and Harris are standing just feet apart without addressing each other, with Biden and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg standing between them.

Harris and Trump shook hands soon after they arrived at the ceremony.

Trump’s running mate, Vance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y., are also in attendance.

Trump said he wasn’t a fan of pop superstar Taylor Swift when asked about her endorsement of Harris last night after the debate concluded.

The former president said he actually likes Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and friend of Swift, “much better.” Trump thanked her last week after she appeared to express support for him online.

“She’s a big Trump fan,” he said of Mahomes last night. “I was not a Taylor Swift fan.”

Trump slammed President Joe Biden as someone Swift “couldn’t possibly endorse” and described her as a “very liberal person.”

Trump railed against the moderators of last night’s presidential debate on ABC News, saying it was “rigged” during a call into Fox News' "Fox & Friends" this morning.

“I think they were terrible, and they should be embarrassed,” Trump said. “I mean, they kept correcting me, and what I said was largely right, or I hope it was right, but what they said was absolutely wrong. The other you know what she said, and they refused to correct.”

Trump, however, said he thinks that “it was one of my better debates, maybe my best debate,” before going onto argue that ABC should have its license revoked over the moderators’ treatment of him.

“To be honest, they’re a news organization, they have to be licensed to do it, they ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” he said.

Ukraine woke today to a glaring display of the potentially expanding range — and possible limits — of American support.

Hours after Trump refused to say whether he wanted the U.S. ally to win the war against Russia, Kyiv welcomed Washington’s top diplomat — hoping he will bring a long-awaited shift on its use of long-range weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit offered a show of support at a critical moment in the conflict while the timing offered contrast with Trump’s comments, perhaps the most notable foreign-policy moment of his presidential debate with Harris.

But in Ukraine, many eyes were focused on the arrival of Blinken and whether it would herald news that the U.S. will allow its ally’s military to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike deeper inside Russian territory.

Read the full story here.

Harris and Trump faced off in their first debate last night, trading barbs on foreign policy, abortion and guns.

Trump advanced a number of debunked conspiracy theories related to migration, crime and voting in the combative showdown, while Harris made misleading statements about manufacturing jobs and whether U.S. troops are in combat zones.

Here’s what Harris and Trump got right and wrong on the debate stage in Philadelphia.

Read the full story here.

In many ways, yesterday’s debate was quite familiar. Just like our politics for the last nine years, the entire debate revolved around one person: Donald Trump.

By any conventional measure that any political veteran of any political stripe would accept, not a one would say under oath that Trump had a good night. He violated all the basic advice that any candidate would be getting before a debate. Don’t take the bait, don’t focus on yourself, don’t be superficial, don’t forget to talk about your opponent and her plans, and don’t forget to talk about your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

Read the full analysis here.

They had never met before Tuesday night’s debate, but Harris and Trump will be together in the same place again Wednesday morning for a commemoration of the 9/11 attacks.

Harris is expected to attend a service at the Memorial plaza at ground zero in New York City, as is Trump, according to a source familiar with his plans. Biden will be there as well.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden and Harris were attending because “they want to honor the 2,977 lives that were lost on that tragic day and support the families and also their loved ones who are still, still feeling a horrible pain.”