Ex-Trump defense secretary says Arlington cemetery should never be used for ‘partisan political purposes’ – live | US elections 2024

Donald Trump yesterday said he had agreed on the rules for his 10 September debate with Kamala Harris, but a spokesman for the vice-president indicates they still are not on the same page over whether the microphones will be on or off when it is not a candidate’s turn to speak.

Trump yesterday said he had agreed to the same rules that governed his June debate with Joe Biden. In that case, microphones were muted when it was not time for him or the president to talk.

In an interview with CNN today, the Harris campaign’s communications director Michael Tyler implied that Trump had agreed that microphones would be on throughout – something the former president has not explicitly said.

“We’re going to have a 90-minute debate. Both candidates have said that they are comfortable with live, unmuted microphones for the duration of the debate that allows for the free flow and exchange of ideas between the two candidates. I understand that Donald Trump’s team of handlers is now attempting to overrule him. But as insofar as the candidates themselves, we’re in total alignment that this should be a 90-minute debate with live microphones. And so that’s what we look forward to,” Tyler said.

Asked if Harris would attend the debate, hosted by ABC News, if microphones are not always on, Tyler replied:

We fully intend to debate. We’re going to be there. The question is, will Donald Trump commit to the terms that he’s publicly agreed to? Or will he let his team overrule him? So I guess we’ll see if when he shows up on September 10, which decision he has made.

Mark Esper, a former defense secretary under Donald Trump, told CNN that he hoped the reported altercation between the former president’s staff and an official at Arlington national cemetery was investigated, while saying that the grounds should never be used for “partisan political purposes”:

Esper served under Trump from 2019 until shortly after the 2020 election, when Trump fired him. The former defense chief has since decried Trump as a “threat to democracy”.

In newly resurfaced remarks from 2021, JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, attacked teachers and Democratic leaders who do not have children.

In the clip, Vance, who was speaking at a forum held by the Center for Christian Virtue can be heard saying:

So many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children, that really disorients me and disturbs me.

Randi Weingarten, who’s the head of the most powerful teachers’ union in the country, she doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.

In a post on X, Weingarten responded to Vance’s resurfaced comments, calling them “gross” and “sad and insulting to millions of modern families, and school teachers including Catholic nuns, none of whom should be targeted for their family decisions”.

This comes just weeks after Vance came under fire after a clip of him in 2021 calling leading Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies” resurfaced.

Tim Walz encouraged unionized firefighters to watch Kamala Harris’s 10 September debate with Donald Trump, saying: “It’s going to be good.”

“Kamala Harris, she’s ready to hold him accountable on the debate stage,” Walz said of Trump. He continued:

Tell me you’re not looking forward to that. Look, I know you’re busy. You’re going to be watching Monday Night Football or something, but it’s going to be good. It’s going to be good because again, as I said, this is going to impact you. The things that are said on that debate stage are going to impact your retirement. They’re going to impact your kids, education, they’re going to impact infrastructure. These are things that matter to us.

Tim Walz is now onstage at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston, where he’s talking about the Harris campaign’s policies towards labor unions.

We’ll let you know what the Minnesota governor has to say.

Two staffers for Donald Trump’s campaign had a “verbal and physical altercation” with an official at Arlington national cemetery over filming and taking photos in a section reserved for recent US casualties of war, NPR reports.

The Trump campaign has denied the episode, which it blamed on an “unnamed individual” who was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode”. The national cemetery told NPR that it had filed a report over the incident.

Here’s more:

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent US casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members would be authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to the source.

Trump participated in an event to mark the third anniversary of a deadly attack on US troops in Afghanistan as US forces withdrew from the country; 13 US service members were killed in the attack. The Trump campaign has blamed President Biden and Vice President Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, for the chaotic withdrawal.

In a statement to NPR, Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s spokesman, strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: ‘We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.

‘The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,’ Cheung said in the statement.

The Trump campaign declined to make that footage immediately available.

In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery said it ‘can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.’

Kamala Harris has not done a single sit-down interview since embarking on her presidential campaign, but that will change on Thursday at 9pm ET when CNN airs a joint interview with Tim Walz.

The network says the candidates will talk about their swing through Georgia, and we can expect the vice-president to also be asked for her thoughts on Joe Biden ending his bid for a second term and clearing the way for her to become the Democratic nominee.

It’s just one interview, though, and is unlikely to quiet the attacks from Donald Trump, his running mate JD Vance and other Republicans who claim that Harris and Walz can’t handle scrutiny from the press. We’ll see if the pair schedule more encounters with the media in the weeks to come.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. There are seven swing states whose voters are expected to decide the November presidential election: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. It’s that last state which will be getting special attention from Kamala Harris and Tim Walz over the next two days, as they look to preserve inroads made by Joe Biden four years ago, when he became the first Democrat to win its electoral votes since 1992. The pair is kicking off a bus tour of the state’s southern counties on Wednesday that will culminate on Thursday with Harris holding a rally in Savannah.

Their campaign says that Harris and Walz are aiming to build off their momentum from last week’s convention, when they accepted the party’s nomination amid enthusiasm from Democrats. They’re also aiming to win a state that may be the toughest to hold in November – polls generally show Donald Trump with the advantage among Georgia voters, though the gap has grown narrower since Harris entered the race. We’ll see what the vice-president and Minnesota governor encounter as they traverse the state today.

Here’s what else is happening:

• Trump earlier this week visited Arlington national cemetery, and his campaign staff had an altercation with an official who tried to prevent them from taking pictures in area where only employees are allowed to do so, NPR reports. The Trump campaign has rejected their description of events.

• The Cook Political Report, the closely watched forecaster, now views North Carolina as a “toss up” in the presidential election. The state hasn’t voted for a Democratic candidate since 2008.

• The Senate GOP campaign arm is buying ads for incumbent Ted Cruz, in a sign that polls of his re-election race against Democrat Colin Allred in the Republican bastion may be too close for comfort.