Donald Trump held a rally and speech in North Carolina on Wednesday that his campaign billed as a significant economic address, though the former president spent much of his time airing grievances against his rivals and veering toward familiar topics like the U.S.-Mexico border. Set in a Democratic city surrounded by staunchly Republican mountain counties, the event carried both national and local implications for the former president.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harrisâ presidential campaign is launching a $90 million advertising effort over the next three weeks to introduce the Democrat to voters and sharpen the contrast with Trump. The media buy marks her campaignâs largest-yet investment in messaging to voters with just 2 1/2 months until Election Day in November.
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Vance will âhopefullyâ debate Walz â if his stipulations are met
Sen. JD Vance hasnât committed to debating his Democratic foil, Gov. Tim Walz, on Oct. 1, but he sounds open to doing it, with certain parameters.
Trumpâs running mate said Wednesday on Fox News that he only learned of CBS Newsâ debate invitation several hours earlier, as he was landing following a campaign event in Michigan.
Earlier Wednesday, CBS News posted on its X feed that the network had invited both Vance and Walz to debate in New York City, presenting four possible dates â Sept. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 â as options.
Walz reposted that message from his own campaign account, âSee you on October 1, JD.â The Harris-Walz campaign followed up with a message of its own, saying Walz âlooks forward to debating JD Vance â if he shows up.â
Vance said Wednesday that âhopefullyâ he would debate Walz on that date, adding, âI strongly suspect that weâre going to be there on Oct. 1,â but made no firm commitment, saying he wanted to see specifics on debate moderators and whether an audience would be present.
âWeâre not going to walk into a fake news media garbage debate. Weâre going to do a real debate, and if CBS agrees to it, then certainly weâll do it,â Vance said.
Trump veers off message again: Do voters care about the economy or about Harrisâ laugh?
Trump sought to recalibrate his presidential comeback bid with a North Carolina rally focused on the economy, but he struggled to stay focused on a topic that voters identify as a top concern.
Trump opened his speech with off-script attacks on the media and aired his grievances over the Democrats swapping Vice President Harris for President Biden atop their ticket. He referred to San Francisco, where Harris was once the district attorney, as âunlivableâ and went after his rival in deeply personal terms, questioning her intelligence and saying she has âthe laugh of a crazy person.â
âYou know why she hasnât done an interview? Sheâs not smart. Sheâs not intelligent. And weâve gone through enough of that with this guy, crooked Joe,â Trump said.
Trump said that his aides wanted him to focus on economic concerns but that he was ânot sureâ he agreed the economy is the most important issue of the election.
âDo you think he knows you?â
Walz pointed out that Kamala Harris worked at a McDonaldâs growing up and drew laughs when he asked the crowd if they could imagine Donald Trump working at the fast food chain, challenging his populism.
âDo you think he knows you? You think he knows who you are? You think he knows your family?â he said.
Google reports an Iranian group targeted Biden and Trump affiliates in a cyberattack
An Iranian group linked to the countryâs Revolutionary Guard has tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to President Biden and former President Trump since May, according to Google. The company said the group is still targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Vice President Harris. It said the recipients include current and former government officials, as well as presidential campaign affiliates.
The new report from Googleâs threat-intelligence arm affirms and expands on a Microsoft report released Friday that revealed the suspected Iranian cyber intrusion in the U.S. election.
Google also said it observed the group gain access to one high-profile political consultantâs personal Gmail account and reported the incident to law enforcement in July. Microsoftâs report shared similar information, noting that the email account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign had been compromised.
The new report from Google notes that the same Iranian group targeted both the Biden and Trump campaigns with phishing attacks during the 2020 cycle, as early as June of that year.
The report also notes that the group is active in other cyber espionage activity, including email-phishing campaigns targeted at Israeli diplomats, academics, NGOs and military affiliates.
Trump meanders off message
Throughout his speech, Trump has ping-ponged between his prepared remarks and familiar attacks â often deviating from the teleprompter in the middle of explaining a new economic promise when something triggered another thought for him. He ticked through prepared remarks crisply and quickly. The rest was his more haphazard, sing-song style, punctuated with hand gestures and hyperbole.
He repeatedly digressed from discussing a policy contrast with Harris to swiping at her hometown of San Francisco. He noted several times that it was Biden, not Harris, who earned votes from Democratic primary voters. During a section of his speech on energy, he slipped seemingly at random in an apparent dig at Hunter Biden, the presidentâs son, and his âlaptop from hell.â
As soon as Trump had committed to slashing energy prices by âhalf, at least halfâ within 12 months or âa maximum of 18â of his potential presidency, he hedged, seemingly off script: âIf it doesnât work out, youâll say, oh well, I voted for him and he still got it down a lot.â
Walz stumps at Colorado fundraiser
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz praised the economies of his home state and Colorado during a fundraiser in Denver on Wednesday, noting that Minnesota recently edged Texas out of CNBCâs top five state economies, drawing cheers.
Walz said the âlibertarian westernismâ found in both Colorado and Minnesota includes supporting reproductive rights, adding that Texas canât make the same promise to protect the rights of women-leading companies.
âCome live in states that are free. Come live in states that let you make your own choices,â Walz said, speaking in the midday heat on the grounds of a historic mansion owned by Tim Gill, a former software entrepreneur and a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights credited with helping shift Colorado to Democratic control.
The former teacher and football coach criticized vouchers allowing students to attend private schools, saying thatâcannibalizes the public schools,â and also spoke out against book bans, drawing more cheers.
âDonât read it if you donât want to,â Walz said.
Trump takes the stage at North Carolina campaign rally
Former President Donald Trump is opening what was pitched as an economic speech with his usual off-script attacks on Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, the âfake news mediaâ and President Joe Biden.
Trumpâs speech in Asheville, North Carolina, is billed as the latest attempt for the GOP nominee to reset his campaign since Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed his vice president.
Harris, Walz will have a joint bus tour ahead of the DNC
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tm Walz, are gearing up for the Democratic National Convention with a joint bus tour.
Harris, Walz and their spouses, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz, will start the tour in Pittsburgh on Sunday. That follows Harris introducing Walz as her running mate at a Philadelphia rally last week, underscoring just how important a swing state Pennsylvania will be.
The bus tour will begin a day after Walz makes a solo campaign stop in Omaha, Nebraska, the state where he was born.
Nebraska overall is reliably Republican, but awards its electoral votes by congressional district â meaning Omahaâs single delegate is competitive.
Both Walz and Harris will later in the week address their partyâs convention, which opens on Monday in Chicago.
Senate intelligence committee leaders warn against meddling in US elections
The leaders of the Senate intelligence committee are warning Iran and other adversaries not to meddle in the election after former President Donald Trumpâs campaign said it was hacked and blamed groups linked to Tehran.
Committee chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the alleged infiltration of the campaignâs systems is a reminder that âour foreign adversaries are intently interested in disrupting our democratic process.â
The two lawmakers called on law enforcement and the intelligence community to investigate and deter attempts to influence the election. They said the U.S. would respond to any nation that tries to hack into campaigns or spread disinformation in an effort to meddle with the election.
âThere will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process, and the Administration and both political parties must make that clear,â Warner and Rubio wrote.
The Trump campaign said Saturday that someone illegally accessed its network and obtained access to internal documents. Trump has blamed Iran, citing a Microsoft report stating Iran had sought to hack into a presidential campaign. Iran has denied involvement.
The FBI on Monday confirmed that itâs investigating the intrusion of the Trump campaign. Two people familiar with the matter said the FBI also is investigating attempts to gain access to the Biden-Harris campaign.
Vance: Harris responsible for policies that have been âdecimating the American auto industryâ
Ohio Sen. JD Vance is arguing to Rust Belt voters in Michigan that Vice President Kamala Harris is responsible for policy decisions he says have been âdecimating the American auto industry.â
During a campaign stop in Byron Center, Michigan, on Wednesday, Vance told a crowd gathered outside a family-owned trucking company that Harris only âpretends to stand for normal Americans,â arguing that policies she supports on immigration result in âflooding this country with millions of illegal day laborers.â
Vance has been ping-ponging among the Rust Belt states where margins between Harris and former President Donald Trump are anticipated to be slim in Novemberâs election.
As he hits the road, Vance has been targeting Harris directly, along with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Last week in Wisconsin, as both Vance and Harris ended up landing at the same airport around the same time, Vance exited his plane and walked across the tarmac over to the government plane on which Harris had flown, holding a gaggle with the reporters traveling with her, and criticizing Harris for not sitting for an interview since her ascent to the top of Democratsâ ticket.
On Wednesday, Vance again levied that criticism, saying Harris âdoesnât talk to the media, she just talks behind a teleprompter.â
He also took issue with the way in which Democrats subbed Harris in for Joe Biden after the president shuttered his 2024 campaign last month.
âEverything about her campaign is fake,â Vane said. âItâs a fake ticket that never earned a single Democratic primary vote.â
Trump casts early vote in Florida state primaries before heading to North Carolina for rally
Former President Donald Trump cast his early vote in the Florida state primaries Wednesday before traveling to Asheville, North Carolina, for a campaign rally. Tuesday is election day for the Florida primaries and some nonpartisan races.
The GOP presidential nominee told reporters he would be focusing his speech at the rally on the economy. Heâs criticized the Biden administration for the rampant inflation, but a report Wednesday showed continuing signs that inflation is slowing down.
When asked about the FBIâs investigation into the alleged hacking of his campaign, Trump accused Iran of being behind it.
âThey are looking at it, and they are doing it very professionally,â he said. âIt looks like itâs Iran doing it. And the reason is because I was strong in Iran, and I was protecting people in the Middle East, and maybe they arenât so happy about that.â
Trump said he did not want to say whether the information came from the FBI.
Pro-Trump lawyer removed from Dominion case after leaking documents to cast doubt on 2020 election
A pro-Trump lawyer who is facing felony charges in Michigan of improperly accessing voting equipment following the 2020 presidential election has been disqualified from representing a prominent funder of election conspiracy theorists who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems.
Michigan lawyer Stefanie Lambert has been representing Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by Dominion, one of the main targets of conspiracy theories over former President Donald Trumpâs 2020 election loss.
Lambert was disqualified from the case on Tuesday after admitting to releasing thousands of confidential discovery documents that she had agreed to keep private.
Due to Lambertâs actions, the documents that all parties âhad agreed to keep confidential, have now been shared widely in the public domain,â U.S. District Court Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya wrote in a 62-page opinion.
Contenders in key Wisconsin Senate race come out swinging after primaries
Republican millionaire businessman Eric Hovde and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin are wasting no time going after one another.
Hovde easily captured the GOP nomination Tuesday, officially setting the field in Wisconsinâs closely watched Senate race. The seat in battleground Wisconsin is seen as essential for Democrats, who know they must win there if they hope to maintain majority control of the Senate. A win there for Republicans would dramatically increase their chances of gaining the upper hand in an election landscape that has Democrats defending far more Senate seats this year.
Hovde is banking on his deep pockets and an endorsement from former President Donald Trump to knock off Baldwin, a liberal Democrat whoâs honed her ability to appeal to key independent and moderate voters.
Baldwin launched a rural Wisconsin tour Wednesday with a stop at a farm in Merrill before a brewery tour in Chippewa Falls in a key swing area of western Wisconsin. Hovde aired two new positive ads featuring his wife and others touting his charitable work and his battle with multiple sclerosis.
Judge rejects Donald Trumpâs latest demand to step aside from hush money criminal case
Donald Trump has lost his latest bid for a new judge in his New York hush money criminal case as it heads toward a key ruling and potential sentencing next month.
In a decision posted Wednesday, Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step aside and said Trumpâs demand was a rehash ârife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claimsâ