Live updates: Harris, Walz to do first sit-down interview | AP News

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The Associated Press

What to know:

• What the polls are showing: Democrats’ enthusiasm about their vote has surged over the past few months, according to polling from Gallup. About 8 in 10 Democrats now say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared with 55% in March.
• Arlington altercation: An Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” during an altercation with Trump’s staff during a wreath-laying ceremony but declined to press charges, an Army spokesman said Thursday.
• Sept. 10 debate: The Harris and Trump campaigns are arguing over whether microphones should be muted except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak during the high-stakes debate.

Trump has repeatedly called the Republican party a “leader” on IVF this month — a claim many IVF experts and medical ethicists have refuted by pointing to what they say is an innate tension between support for IVF and for the laws granting legal personhood to fetuses and embryos that are pillared by many GOP lawmakers.

At least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. This type of legislation, based on the idea that life begins at conception, could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.

Reproductive rights legal experts also warn of the potential that Trump, if elected, would appoint judges who support fetal personhood, which may lead to restrictions on IVF down the line.

“That’s a very real risk that we could see the impacts through court rulings a few years down the line,” said Kimberly Mutcherson, a professor of reproductive rights, bioethics and health law at Rutgers Law School.

In Alabama, clinics paused IVF treatments after the all-conservative state supreme court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children in February. Soon after, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so that IVF procedures could continue in the state.

In the weeks after the ruling, congressional Republicans rushed to appear unified in support for the fertility treatment, despite histories of voting for fetal personhood laws many medical ethicists and legal experts say are legally inconsistent with IVF access.

These attempts at unity on the issue have also been complicated by opposition from anti-abortion leaders, including members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus who have objected to expanding IVF access for veterans, and by Senate Republicans blocking legislation that would have made IVF access a federal right.

In an interview with NBC, Trump seemed to indicate that he will vote to repeal Florida’s six-week abortion ban that was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year.

The former president told NBC that banning the procedure after six weeks is “too short,” and that “it has to be more time.”

“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump said.

Florida voters, of which Trump is one, will get to vote on a ballot measure in November that legalizes abortion until fetal viability. That would expand the right even beyond the prior ban on abortion at 15 weeks that Florida had in place before its newest law.

Trump has previously called DeSantis’ signing of the six-week ban a “terrible mistake.” But he has also taken credit for appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned nationwide abortion rights and called it “a beautiful thing to watch” as states set their own laws.

Trump has shifted his position on abortion over the years but his current stance is that restrictions should be left to the states. His running mate JD Vance said in a recent interview that Trump would not support a national abortion ban if elected president and would veto such legislation if it landed on his desk.

The vice president was asked by CNN about Trump falsely saying he only learned she was Black a few years ago because she’d always promoted her Indian heritage.

She responded to CNN’s Dana Bash with, “same old, tired playbook” and “next question, please.”

Trump made the false statement during a July interview during the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. Harris is the first woman, and first Black and Asian American person to be elected vice president. She is now the first Black woman and first Asian American person to be the presidential nominee of a major political party.

Harris’ mother and father were immigrants from India and Jamaica, respectively. She’s a graduate of Howard University, a preeminent historically Black institution in the U.S. She pledged to a historically Black sorority and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus when she was a U.S. senator.

Trump recently came under criticism for the way he discussed the Congressional Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration for service members.

Praising billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, Trump said she fared “much better” than receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor because recipients of that award are often badly injured or dead.

Despite the Veterans of Foreign Wars admonishing Trump by calling his comments “flippant” and “asinine,” he repeated a version of the remark at his campaign event in Michigan, saying he’d “rather get” the Medal of Freedom because the Medal of Honor recipients “often times they’ve suffered greatly, right? They’ve suffered greatly or they’re not around.”

Demonstrators protesting the U.S. role in the Israel-Gaza war briefly disrupted Kamala Harris’ speech in Savannah on Thursday.

Harris paused to say that she and President Joe Biden were working on a cease-fire deal to bring home hostages.

She said the “president and I working around the clock.”

Former President Donald Trump says that, if he wins a second term, he wants to make IVF treatment free for families.

“I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,” he said at an event in Michigan. “Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.”

IVF treatments are notoriously expensive and can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round.

He also said that new parents will be allowed to deduct expenses on caring for newborns from their taxes. “We’re pro-family,” he said.

The announcement comes as Trump has been under intense criticism from Democrats for his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the Constitutional right to an abortion.

The decision is expected to be a major motivator for Democrats this November.

Kamala Harris said at a rally Thursday in Savannah that Donald Trump does not trust women and insists the former president will sign a national abortion ban.

“If he wins, Donald Trump will go forward. He will sign a national abortion ban you best believe.”

Trump has said abortion should be left up to the states, but he’s also taken credit for appointing the judges on the Supreme Court who created a conservative majority and overturned federal abortion protections.

Swedish supergroup ABBA has asked Donald Trump to stop using their music at campaign rallies, but the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign says it has permission.

“ABBA has recently discovered the unauthorized use of their music and videos at a Trump event through videos that appeared online,” said a statement to The Associated Press from the band, whose hits include “Waterloo,” “The Winner Takes It All” and “Money, Money, Money.”

“As a result, ABBA and its representative has promptly requested the removal and deletion of such content. No request has been received; therefore, no permission or license has been granted.”

A spokesman for the Trump campaign said it had obtained a license. “The campaign had a license to play ABBA music through our agreement with BMI and ASCAP,” the spokesperson told the AP.

▶ Read more about the Trump and ABBA

Harris told CNN that she would name a Republican to her Cabinet if elected.

The vice president noted in the interview airing at 9 p.m. ET tonight that there are still 68 days until the election “so I’m not putting the cart before the horse.” She said she didn’t have a particular Republican in mind but thinks having a member of the GOP in her Cabinet is important because “I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion.”

She continued: “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.”

Harris has pledged to be a president for all Americans.

Former President Donald Trump is campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin as he ramps up his battleground state travel heading into the traditional Labor Day turn toward the fall election.

Trump is intensely focused on recapturing states he won in 2016 but lost narrowly in 2020 as he continues to adjust to the reality of his new race against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump’s first stop was Potterville, Michigan, near the state capital of Lansing, where he railed against the Biden administration over inflation in the most dramatic terms, accusing Harris and President Joe Biden of having presided over “an economic reign of terror” and “committing one financial atrocity after another.”

“Kamala has made middle-class life unaffordable and unlivable and I’m going to make America affordable again,” he vowed to supporters at Alro Steel.

In a new book, former President Donald Trump calls his 2018 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki “a GREAT meeting” and threatens to imprison Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg if the tech mogul does anything this year akin to his $400 million donation to local election offices in 2020.

The book, entitled “Save America,” is a collection of pictures, anecdotes and reminiscences from Trump’s presidential campaigns and term in office.

In it, Trump defended his widely criticized Helsinki meeting with Putin, in which Trump said he gave equal weight to the Russian president’s claims not to have interfered in the 2020 presidential election as to the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies. In regards to his meeting with Zuckerberg, Trump writes that “He would bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT,” referring to the more than $400 million that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg, donated to election offices in 2020.

The book is scheduled to be released Sept. 3. It is one of a number of commercial ventures the former president has launched that include a special pair of sneakers, an edition of the Bible and digital trading cards. “Save America” will sell for $99 with a signed copy going for $499.

▶ Read more about Trump’s new book

The first clip of CNN’s interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, is up.

In it, Harris is pressed about once supporting the Green New Deal — a sweeping package of policies meant to drastically reduce the nation’s greenhouse emissions at an accelerated pace — and other liberal policy initiatives she supported while running in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary but now no longer does.

“My values have not changed,” Harris responded.

She added of the Green New Deal, “I have always believed — and I have worked on it — that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter.”

The vice president said that the U.S. had to set deadlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the Biden administration has done that. She added that her policies around the U.S.-Mexico border also have not changed, noting that she prosecuted human and drug smugglers as California attorney general.

This is the first sit-down interview Harris has done since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed her.

An Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” in an altercation with former President Donald Trump’s staff during a wreath-laying ceremony to honor service members killed in the Afghanistan War withdrawal, but she declined to press charges, an Army spokesman said Thursday.

The Army spokesman said the cemetery employee was trying to make sure those participating in Monday’s wreath-laying ceremony to mark the third anniversary of the attack were following the rules, which “clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”

“This employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption,” the Army spokesman’s statement said. “This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked.”

The controversy comes as Trump has been working to tie his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the chaos of the Afghanistan War withdrawal with just over two months until Election Day.

▶ Read more about the controversy at Arlington National Cemetery

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters at a briefing Thursday that the military has approved a request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide additional support to both the Harris and Trump presidential campaigns.

The support will include both active duty and National Guard forces who will provide additional helicopter lift, explosives detection, chemical weapons detection and military working dogs among other assets to provide both campaigns increased security and support.

The support will continue for both campaigns through election day and for the next president and vice-president-elect through inauguration day, Singh said.

Harris’ lack of media access over the past month has become one of Republicans’ key attack lines. The Trump campaign has kept a tally of the days she has gone by as a candidate without giving an interview. On Wednesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, suggested Harris needed a “babysitter” and that was why Walz would be there.

“They know Kamala Harris can’t get through an interview all by herself. There is not a lot of confidence in somebody to become the leader of the free world and ask people to make her president of the United States when she can’t even sit down (for) an interview,” she said on “Fox & Friends.”

The CNN interview is set to air at 9 p.m. EDT. It is scheduled to be taped at 1:45 p.m. EDT during her two-day bus tour through southeast Georgia that culminates with an evening rally in Savannah. Harris campaign officials believe that in order to win the state over Trump in November, she must make inroads in GOP strongholds across the state.

Biden and Harris, Trump and Pence, Obama and Biden all did them at a similar point in the race.

The difference is those other candidates had all done solo interviews, too. Harris hasn’t yet done an in-depth interview since she became her party’s standard bearer five weeks ago, though she did sit for several while she was still Biden’s running mate.