John T. Bennett | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump traded new verbal barbs Thursday as both campaigns headed into Labor Day weekend largely making a case against their opponent.
If the day was a barometer of the race with just two full months of campaigning to go, there were mixed signals for both sides. Harris defended her policy stance changes and vowed to include, if elected, a Republican in her Cabinet. Trump dinged his foe on the economy before announcing what would be a costly health care proposal to “produce babies.”
Perhaps the day’s biggest stumble came from Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee, who was booed by some firefighters during a stop in Boston as he called them “haters.”
Harris wrapped the second day of a bus tour through south Georgia with a rally in Savannah, a day that included an interview with CNN — her first sit-down interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump started his big Thursday with remarks ostensibly about the economy in Michigan — he did not stick to just that key issue — before heading to a town hall in neighboring Wisconsin.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales lists Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin as Toss-ups, underscoring the importance of the very busy Thursday evening. A YouGov survey of registered voters released Wednesday put Harris up 47% to 45% nationally, but the company added a key finding in a summary of the poll: “Trump holds a small lead among Independents: 42% to 37%.”
The two nominees split the battleground states in a survey out Thursday from Emerson College Polling and The Hill, with Harris leading narrowly in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Trump had small leads in Arizona, Wisconsin and North Carolina. They were tied in Pennsylvania.
Here are four takeaways from one of the busiest days yet in the Harris vs. Trump campaign.
Harris vague on specifics
Harris opted to use many of her answers to try dinging Trump while reiterating parts of what has become her campaign stump speech — including hitting Trump for killing a bipartisan Senate immigration and border package.
At one point, when asked how she would tackle inflation, Harris criticized “mismanagement” by Trump while he was president during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Harris was unable to tell CNN correspondent Dana Bash what she would do on Day 1 in the White House, if elected. Instead, she mentioned “strengthening the middle class” before ticking off a list of items from her stump speech.
In fact, she and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, did not point to a single executive action that she might sign upon taking office. Trump, on the other hand, has said he would take action on illegal immigration and energy extraction — though he has been vague on the substance of those possible orders.
Pressed on her shift away from calling to ban oil and natural gas fracking, the vice president did not explain what prompted her to change her mind. Earlier Thursday, Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., said in a television interview that technology had made fracking cleaner and safer.
She was more clear in vowing to “enforce our laws” at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying she did just that as California state attorney general.
Harris: GOP in Cabinet
After saying during her Democratic National Convention speech that she would, if elected, serve as a president for all Americans, she again struck a cross-aisle tone on Thursday night.
The VP told CNN it would be “really important” to include a Republican in her potential Cabinet.
“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion,” she said. “I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
The idea has become something of a throwback.
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all appointed members of the other party to senior administration positions. That pattern, however, was not continued by Trump. President Joe Biden has named some Republicans to posts, though none at the Cabinet level — former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Trump critic, has been Biden’s ambassador to Turkey, a post he is slated to leave on Sunday.
Even before the interview aired, some Trump campaign officials were criticizing it. “You have to, as president, you have to be able to do (interviews),” Trump said in Michigan. “You’re dealing with the toughest, smartest, most ruthless, people in the world. If you can’t do an interview, we got the wrong person.”
Former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who ran against then-President Trump in the 2020 Republican primary, said Harris was right to do her first interview as the Democratic nominee. “She’s running for the highest office in the land,” he said in a telephone interview this week. “She should take questions from our free media, who represent the people.”
Trump: ‘We want to produce babies’
In an appeal to women voters, Trump contended, if elected, his second administration would pay for the IVF treatments of “all Americans that get it, all Americans that need it” or would “mandate” that insurance companies foot the bill.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Republican vice presidential candidate U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, on the second day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS)
He did not, however, explain how much such a sweeping initiative would cost nor how the federal government would come up with the money. Republicans have pushed for deep spending cuts during Biden’s term, and have blanched at new spending.
“What we’re going to do is for people who are using IVF, the government is going to pay for it or we’re going to mandate that your insurance company will pay for it,” Trump said at the Wisconsin town hall. “We want to produce babies in this country.”
Trump then noted that he first made the IVF promise at an earlier event in Michigan and he launched into a diatribe about rebuilding U.S. automobile manufacturing and pushing back against cheaper automobiles being built in Mexico. Minutes later, he was railing against “the fake news.”
His pivot to those familiar topics came after the town hall’s moderator, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has endorsed him, said she and her husband were unable to conceive a child after she underwent IVF treatments.
The group Reproductive Freedom for All dismissed Trump’s campaign vow in a statement: “In truth, the GOP’s platform includes anti-abortion language referencing the 14th Amendment, which could be used to ban all abortion as well as some forms of contraception and IVF if passed into law.”
Trump: ‘Last person in the room’
Trump hit the stage in Potterville, Mich., in the afternoon an hour late, and he stayed on topic — for a few minutes, at least.
He told supporters their “long economic nightmare” would be “over,” if he is elected in November. He accused Harris and Biden of an “economic reign of terror” and “one atrocity after another,” allegations that Harris campaign and White House officials counter by saying economic fundamentals are stronger now than under Trump.
Trump claimed Harris was “the one who has given us every single disaster our country is facing.” He tried to pin the blame for the Biden administration’s deadly and chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan on the VP, noting she has said she was the “last person in the room” advising Biden.
Vice presidents have no constitutional decision-making powers over policy matters.
Political town halls often are produced by a television network with a journalist asking some questions and fielding others from voters. But Trump’s Thursday evening event was put on by his campaign.
Still, Walsh said, it was not without risk for the GOP nominee.
“I think there’s risk in whatever he does,” Walsh said, citing Trump’s penchant for false statements, name-calling and other antics. “That kind of thing only appeals to his base. … It’s generally a turnoff to people in the middle.”
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