Election 2024 Latest: Harris concentrates on Pennsylvania while Trump stumps in the West

Former President Donald Trump will hit the campaign trail in Western states on Friday as his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris fixes her attention on the battleground state of Pennsylvania in the East.

Trump held what was billed as a news conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club in the morning, but took no questions. He was expected to head to northern California for a fundraiser afterward, followed by a rally in Las Vegas, the largest city in swing state Nevada.

Harris, meanwhile, heads to Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre on Friday as she tries to capitalize on her momentum after Tuesday night’s debate. It’s her second day of back-to-back rallies after holding two events in North Carolina, another swing state, on Thursday.

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Here’s the latest:

Pope Francis on Friday slammed both U.S. presidential candidates for what he called anti-life policies on abortion and migration, and he advised American Catholics to choose who they think is the “lesser evil” in the upcoming U.S. election.

“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″ Francis said.

The Argentine Jesuit was asked to provide counsel to American Catholic voters during an airborne news conference while he flew back to Rome from his four-nation tour through Asia. Francis stressed that he is not an American and would not be voting.

Neither Trump nor Harris was mentioned by name.

▶ Read more on the Pope’s remarks

Vice President Kamala Harris will join Oprah Winfrey for an online event called “Unite for America” on Thursday.

Winfrey, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, said in a statement that she’s hoping to drive turnout in this year’s election.

“My goal is to get people excited about the privilege and power of the vote,” she said.

The event will bring together a number of identity-focused grassroots gatherings that sprung up behind Harris, including “White Dudes for Harris,” “South Asians for Harris” and “Out for Harris.” Also involved is the organization called Win With Black Women.

Vice President Kamala Harris is spending time Friday in two patches of Pennsylvania that have been trending Republican over the last several elections.

Harris arrived this afternoon in Johnstown in Cambria County, a once Democratic-leaning county that Republicans have won by an increasingly wide margin over the last three elections.

Later, she’ll hold a rally in Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County. Trump took Luzerne by 14 points in 2020 over President Joe Biden and 19 points in 2016 over the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Without Pennsylvania, the path to victory for Harris is extraordinarily difficult. To that end, her campaign is trying to narrow the margins in parts of the commonwealth that might seem on paper less receptive to her message.

During a visit to the Johnstown bookstore and cafe Classic Elements, Harris alluded to her commitment to hunt for votes in parts of the state that appear less hospitable to a Democrat, saying there were “a lot of people who deserve to be seen or heard” throughout Pennsylvania.

Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s “feeling good” about carrying the swing state of Pennsylvania during a stop in Johnstown on Friday.

Harris dropped in to meet with owners and supporters at Classic Elements, a bookstore and cafe, to discuss her plans to support small businesses if elected.

“Small businesses are so much part of the fabric of a community,” she told the shop owners. Harris said she would be in the state a lot and that “we got to earn every vote.”

Trump is refusing to condemn right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, who traveled with him earlier this week to the debate and several 9/11 memorial events.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine,” Trump told reporters in response to questions about Republican allies who have expressed concern about his decision to associate with her.

“I don’t control Laura,” he said. “I can’t tell Laura what to do. She’s a supporter.”

Trump acknowledged Loomer has “got strong opinions,” but said he was unaware of her recent comments.

Loomer has posted a string of vile posts on the social platform X in recent days about Harris, including one in which she wrote that “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if Harris wins.

Trump on Friday said “crime is at record numbers,” seizing on an annual survey released by the Justice Department on Americans who have been a victim of a crime.

However, the survey shows there has been an overall decline over the past three decades in the rate of people or households who were victims of violent crime. The rate is down dramatically from the 1990s.

Regarding the government’s recent revision of job gains by 818,000, Trump on Friday said, “They had a whistleblower who released the numbers.”

But that is false: The preliminary revision occurred as part of a normal annual process and was released on a previously disclosed date. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added during a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year.

The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically-appointed officials.

Trump on Friday claimed that the United States has “thousands of people being killed by illegal migrants.” But the suggestion that there has been a spike in violent crime nationally as a result of the influx is not supported by facts.

FBI statistics do not separate crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. In fact, national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.

President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ+ news organization, this week and congratulated Sarah McBride, who is on track to become the first transgender member of Congress.

McBride recently won the Democratic primary in Delaware, Biden’s home state. She’s close with the Biden family, having previously worked for Beau, the president’s late son who served as Delaware attorney general.“I called her and I said, ‘Sarah,’ I said, ‘Beau’s looking down from heaven, congratulating you,’” Biden said in his interview.

Although Delaware used to be more conservative, the president said, “Sarah is going to be, I pray to God, a congresswoman.”

On Friday, Trump said prices “have gone up like no one’s ever seen before,” but that’s not entirely true.

Inflation did soar in 2021-22, though it rose by much more in 1980 when inflation topped 14%. It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

Economists largely blame the inflation spike on the pandemic’s disruptions to global supply chains, which reduced the supply of semiconductors, cars and other goods. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also pushed up gas and food prices.

Inflation has now fallen to 2.5%, not far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Prices are still about 19% higher than they were before the pandemic, but the Census Bureau reported Tuesday that household incomes have risen by a similar amount, leaving inflation-adjusted incomes at roughly the same level in 2019.

Trump in his press conference repeated his claim that crime has skyrocketed under the Biden administration. FBI data has shown a downward trend in violent crime since a spike during the coronavirus pandemic.

Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% between in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records.

FBI data released in June shows that the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.

Trump’s campaign has cited the National Crime Victimization Survey recently released by the Justice Department, which shows that the number of times people or households were victims of violent crime increased by about 40% from 2020 to 2023. The report notes, however, that while the rate of violent victimizations in 2023 was higher than it was in 2020 and 2021, it was not statistically different from the rate in 2019, when Trump was president.

That survey aims to capture both crimes reported to police and crimes that are not reported to police and is conducted annually through interviews with about 150,000 households. It doesn’t include murders or crimes against people under the age of 12.

President Joe Biden says the Haitian community is “under attack” right now and it has to stop. Biden was referring to comments made by Republican former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

The Republicans have falsely claimed immigrants are eating people’s pets and Vance on Friday suggested immigrants in the area were responsible for rising crime and rent, among other claims. In the wake of the onslaught of online insults, bomb threats were sent to multiple agencies in the city, and two elementary schools were evacuated and a middle school was closed on Friday.

Biden, speaking at a luncheon at the White House, didn’t call out anyone by name, but he said: “There’s no place in America ... It has to stop what he’s doing. It has to stop.” He said it was “simply wrong.”

Trump once again described Harris as the “border czar.” But that was never her formal title, and she was never specifically given the responsibility for security on the border.

She was tasked by Biden in March 2021 to tackle the “root causes” of migration from the Northern Triangle — the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — and pushing leaders there and in Mexico to enforce immigration laws.

Trump on Friday claimed he “completely won” the classified documents prosecution against him.

But that assessment leaves out the fact that the judge dismissed the case not because she found that Trump had done nothing but rather because she concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Jack Smith, had been unlawfully appointed.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is a departure from rulings by other federal judges across the country, creating a strong possibility that it will be overturned on appeal — in which case, the prosecution would be revived and the case reinstated.

After a significant delay, former President Donald Trump's press conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club got underway on Friday just before 1:30 p.m. ET.

He began with comments from the mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes, John Cruikshank, who was talking about issues with recent landslides.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — People began betting Thursday on which political party would win control of Congress in the November elections after a judge’s ruling allowing the wagers — the only ones to be legally approved by a U.S. jurisdiction.

New York startup company Kalshi began taking what amounts to bets on the outcome of the November congressional elections after a judge refused to block them from doing so.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb in Washington enabled the company, at least temporarily, to offer prediction contracts across the country — essentially yes-or-no bets — on which party will win control of the Senate and the House in November.

“The Kalshi community just made history, and I know we are only getting started,” said Tarek Mansour, a co-founder of the company. “Now is finally the time to allow these markets to show the world just how powerful they are at providing signal amidst the noise, and giving us more truth about what the future holds.”

▶ Read more about the endeavor

Former President Donald Trump plans to deliver remarks next Monday about cryptocurrency and the launch of the company World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform controlled by the Republican nominee’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric.

His speech will come 50 days before Election Day, an extraordinary use of dwindling campaign time to promote a personal business. The Republican former president has long mixed his political and business interests and marketed sneakers, photo books and Trump-branded Bibles during his 2024 campaign.

“We’re embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind,” Trump said in a video posted Thursday to X, the social media site that will also host his address on the subject at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday from his Mar-a-Lago home.

▶ Read more about Trump’s stance on cryptocurrencies

Former President Donald Trump will campaign Friday in Western states as his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris keeps her focus on one of the biggest battleground prizes in the East, Pennsylvania.

Trump is scheduled to hold what’s being billed as a news conference in the morning at his Los Angeles-area golf club before heading to northern California for a fundraiser, followed by a rally in Las Vegas, the largest city in swing state Nevada.

Harris, meanwhile, heads to Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre on Friday as she tries to capitalize on her momentum after Tuesday night’s debate. It’s her second day of back-to-back rallies after holding two events in North Carolina, another swing state, on Thursday.

While speaking in Charlotte, Harris took a victory lap for her debate performance in which she needled Trump and kept him on the defensive. Recounting one moment while campaigning in North Carolina, she mocked Trump for saying he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

▶ Read more here.

NEW YORK — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.

It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.

While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.

▶ Read more here.

WASHINGTON — Even as she promoted her efforts to boost clean energy, Vice President Kamala Harris said in Tuesday’s debate that the Biden-Harris administration has overseen “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over-rely on foreign oil.″

The comment by Harris, a longtime climate hawk who backed the original Green New Deal, surprised supporters and opponents alike — and conflicted with frequent boasts by Harris and President Joe Biden that they are champions in the fight to slow global warming.

After former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Biden-Harris administration reentered the global pact aimed at reducing emissions. The administration also set a target to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and moved to accelerate renewable energy projects and shift away from fossil fuels.

▶ Read more here.

Trump said Thursday in Arizona that as president he’d seek to end taxes on overtime wages. It’s his latest appeal to the working-class voters he’s counting on to return him to the White House. Trump has also pledged to end taxes on tips and Social Security wages.

The proposals would take a significant bite out of federal revenue, ballooning the deficit unless accompanied by significant spending cuts.

“It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break,” Trump said. Harris has announced her own proposal to stop taxing tips.

More on Trump’s plan to end taxation of tips here.

Supporters wave as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport, in Johnstown, Pa., for a campaign event, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris takes a selfie with Sen. John Letterman, D-Pa., and his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman, after Harris arrived at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport, in Johnstown, Pa., for a campaign event, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, escorted by U.S. Air Force, Director of Flightline Protocol, Maj. Philippe Caraghiaur, walks to board Air Force Two, to travel to Pennsylvania for campaign events, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, escorted by U.S. Air Force, Director of Flightline Protocol, Maj. Philippe Caraghiaur, walks to board Air Force Two, to travel to Pennsylvania for campaign events, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference held at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference held at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference held at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is allocating more than $100 billion in emergency aid designed to address extensive damage caused by disasters after this week's scramble to find consensus on a government spending bill.

The money comes after back-to-back hurricanes — Helene and Milton — slammed into the southeastern United States this fall, leaving havoc in their wake. But the money would go to much more than just those two storms under the bill signed Saturday by President Joe Biden that keeps the federal government funded through March 14.

Biden said in a statement that the bill “delivers the urgently needed disaster relief that I requested for recovering communities as well as the funds needed to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge ” in Baltimore, which collapsed under the impact of a massive container ship that lost power and veered off course in March.

The disaster funding looked set to pass earlier this week until President-elect Donald Trump issued new demands that tanked a compromise and threatened a pre-Christmas federal shutdown. A slimmed-down version cleared Congress early Saturday when Republicans abandoned Trump's core request.

Here's a look at what's in the bill for disaster relief and where the money will go:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund is essentially the country's checkbook for emergencies. Out of it, the government reimburses states and local governments for things such as removing debris accumulated after hurricanes or overtime costs for firefighters and police who work during disasters.

It also includes money for individual residents, ranging from the $750 payments that disaster survivors can get to $42,500 that some uninsured homeowners can receive to help them rebuild.

Esther Manheimer, mayor of Asheville, the largest city in the North Carolina mountains that was hard hit by Helene, said city officials were pleased to see th additional disaster dollars.

It’s only been four weeks since Asheville residents could drink from and bathe in the water coming out of their faucets. Some businesses in western North Carolina have shuttered permanently or are struggling to survive, and well over 200 roads in the region remain closed.

In a statement earlier in the week, Manheimer emphasized that it was still going to be a long recovery and that "already we see the long-term economic, budgetary and employment impact Helene left in her wake.”

The disaster relief fund was nearly running on fumes after Helene and Milton. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell warned during a Senate hearing in November that the fund was down to $5 billion.

The Biden administration had asked Congress for about $40 billion for the relief fund but the bill eventually passed provides a lower amount, $29 billion.

It’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t the only money for the disaster relief fund, said Stan Gimont, a senior adviser for community recovery at Hagerty Consulting. He used to run the community development block grant program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

More money can and likely will be designated to the fund later when Congress does a full-year appropriation, he said.

There's also about $21 billion in disaster assistance to help farmers.

North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said earlier this week that he was pleased by the agricultural aid but that the state has a lot of specialty crops such as sweet potatoes and Christmas trees that are generally not covered by federal programs. He said he will have to wait and see what specifically ends up being covered.

“We are still evaluating the bill as there are a lot of nuances in it. The devil is in the details," he said.

Other money will go toward rebuilding damaged roads and highways ($8 billion), while more money (about $12 billion) would go toward helping communities recover through HUD grants.

The block grant money is one of the key funds for homeowners who don’t have insurance or enough insurance to recover from disasters.

There’s also $2.2 billion for low-interest loans for businesses, nonprofits and homeowners trying to rebuild after a disaster.

But the money doesn't go just toward local residents.

For example, there's money for the military to address damage from hurricanes and typhoons and for a new hurricane hunter — the planes used to research hurricanes — and funds to help NASA rebuild hurricane-damaged facilities.

No. The money goes to cover more than those two disasters.

Some of the money is specifically earmarked for certain projects such as $1.5 billion designated for assistance after the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history — the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire — and the rebuilding of the Baltimore bridge.

But a lot of the money also goes more generally toward major disasters that happened in recent years.

The types of disasters covered in the legislation include droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, and smoke exposure.

Gimont points out that disaster recovery can take a long time so the country is both paying for disasters that happened previously while it prepares for events that will happen in the future.

Take the massive Maui fire, for instance. It decimated the Hawaiian town of Lahaina last year, but Gimont said just the cleanup itself extended into late summer 2024.

Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

FILE- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, right, and Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, await the arrival of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris for a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene, at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, in Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

FILE - Michael Vierra looks at his house after it was destroyed by a wildfire, in Lahaina, Hawaii, Sept. 26, 2023. Authorities in Maui strongly encouraged homeowners to wear protective gear provided by nonprofit groups when visiting their properties to protect against asbestos, lead and other toxic remains of the wildfire. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin, File)

FILE - Homes consumed in wildfires are seen in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - As Hurricane Milton approaches, a car sits half-buried in sand in Bradenton Beach, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - This photo provided by the North Carolina Department of Transportation shows the collapsed eastbound lane of I-40 into the Pigeon River in North Carolina near the Tennessee border, Sept. 28, 2024. (N.C. Department of Transportation via AP, File)

FILE - A man walks near a flooded area near the Swannanoa river, effects from Hurricane Helene , Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco, File)

FILE - Ben Phillips, left, and his wife Becca Phillips scrape mud out of their living room in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Marshall, N.C., Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - Damage from Hurricane Helene near Asheville, N.C., is seen during an aerial tour for President Joe Biden, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)