WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris surprised some viewers during her debate with Donald Trump when she said that she's a gun owner, raising the fact to counter her Republican opponent's accusation that she wants to confiscate firearms.
“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said, referencing her running mate. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”
Harris previously talked about owning a gun in 2019 during her first campaign for president.
“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris previously said. “I was a career prosecutor.”
At the time, her campaign said that Harris purchased a handgun years earlier and kept it locked up. A spokesperson did not provide any additional details when asked on Tuesday.
The exchange about gun ownership came as Trump tried to paint Harris, who started her political career as a San Francisco district attorney, as radically liberal.
“She is destroying our country,” he said. “She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”
Harris rebutted each of Trump's allegations, adding that he should “stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”
Walz, the Minnesota governor, has also talked about gun ownership and boasted of his marksmanship.
Republicans frequently describe Democrats as a threat to the second amendment, while Democrats describe their proposals as common sense measures to protect public safety.
Harris has called for implementing universal background checks and expanding red flag laws to take away guns from people who are deemed dangerous or unstable. She also wants to ban so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The European Union's top diplomat warned Tuesday that every day that passes without a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war risks the lives of the hostages held by the militants and of those in the Gaza Strip as well as a regional war breaking out.
Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, came before journalists just after news broke from Lebanon of at least eight people killed and 2,750 others wounded by exploding pagers across the country, including members of the militant group Hezbollah. Suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which earlier Tuesday stressed that halting Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel's north to allow residents to return to their homes was now an official war goal.
Borrell said he would seek more information from Beirut, where he just traveled from, but acknowledged it could escalate the already-boiling tensions in the region.
“Certainly there is the possibility of the war spilling over to Lebanon,” Borrell said.
Borrell, when asked repeatedly about when he hoped a cease-fire could be reached, insisted he couldn't offer a time. Months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas has not seen any major hostage release, while the Gaza Strip has been decimated by an Israeli offensive.
Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. The Israeli military operation has killed over 41,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Meanwhile, Israel has launched repeated, dayslong operations in the West Bank, which the Palestinians also hope will form a part of a future state.
“President Biden announced a plan for a cease-fire. Everybody was expecting it to be agreed and quickly,” Borrell said. “I cannot foresee what can happen in the next days or weeks. The only thing I can say is that all actors involved have to continue pressure on both parties to reach this agreement.”
He added: “The trouble is not a matter of waiting for tomorrow. Tomorrow is already too late.”
Meanwhile, Borrell stressed that attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea also threatened both economies and the environment. He brought up the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion, which carries 1 million barrels of oil and has been burning for weeks after a series of Houthi attacks.
An EU naval mission called Operation Aspides just towed the Sounion away from Yemen so salvagers can attempt to offload the crude on board as the vessel remains on fire. Borrell stressed the mission would remain “defensive” and wouldn't attack Houthi positions, even if they come under fire.
The Houthi campaign is “not against Israel, it's against the freedom of navigation and about the economy of Egypt,” Borrell said, referencing the slowdown in traffic through the Suez Canal, a key source of hard currency for Cairo.
“Just before the war in Gaza, the prospect were good for the situation in Yemen,” he added, referring to peace talks to end a yearslong Saudi-led war sparked by the rebels seizing the capital, Sanaa.
“Then everything became stalled. And it is still stalled. This is one the examples of the spillover effect of the war" in Gaza, he said.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, listens to a question from a journalist during a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaks during a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks during a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaks during a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaks during a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
