NationalWatch

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speculated Thursday that the reason Pennsylvania is trending red could be related to former President Donald Trump’s proposal on tariffs, warning that voters in the battleground shouldn’t trust Vice President Harris’ promise to revive American manufacturing.

“This is where President Trump gets the most criticism, but it’s also where President Trump is the most right,” Vance said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, referencing Trump’s plan to implement tariffs as a way to discourage imports and drive domestic production. Harris has criticized the plan as risking price hikes. 

“If you are a business, and you rely on foreign slave labor at $3 a day, the only way to rebuild American manufacturing is to say, if you want to bring that product made by slave labor back into the United States of America, you’re going to pay a big fat tariff before you get it back into our country,” Vance said. 

“My message to Pennsylvanians: don’t trust anybody, especially Kamala Harris, when she tells you she’s going to rebuild American manufacturing without forcing the Chinese to pay a tariff,” he continued, speaking to voters in the critical swing state. “There is no way to do it unless you’re fighting hard against the people who are stealing our jobs and stealing our manufacturing industries, you got to do it. And if you’re not doing it, you’re not serious about rebuilding the American middle class.” 

TRUMP RIPS HARRIS ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DURING LATINO VOTER TOWN HALL: HISPANIC VOTERS ‘MOST AGAINST IT’

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at The Pennsylvanian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024.  (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Vance was responding to a reporter’s question about what county in Pennsylvania the Trump campaign would turn to first to determine whether they won the election. 

“I’m not much of a political prognosticator. The only prognostication I’ll make is that Pennsylvania is going to make Donald Trump the next President of the United States,” Vance said. “I really do believe that.” 

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024.  (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

“If you look at the early voting numbers, if you look at how much redder Pennsylvania has gotten in just the last couple of years, we are going to win this race so long as we work for it over the next 19 days,” Trump’s running mate added. “I really do believe that.” 

CARDINAL DOLAN ‘UPSET’ THAT HARRIS SKIPPING AL SMITH DINNER

Vance credited Pennsylvania’s tradition of world-renowned steel manufacturing and craftsmanship, saying the country has unfortunately “gotten way too far away from self-reliance.” 

Crowds of supporters listen to Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speak at a campaign event at The Pennsylvanian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024.  (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

The senator turned vice presidential pick said he believes Trump’s message is resonating in Pennsylvania more than Republicans from 20 years ago had because of the 45th president’s belief in “making things in America and stamping more products with the incredible label Made in the USA.” 

Citing a statistic he said “scares the hell out of me,” Vance said China has 32% of world manufacturing GDP, meaning 32% of the goods made worldwide are made in China, compared to just 18% made in the U.S.

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“That means China makes more stuff – I’m talking about the pharmaceuticals that we put into the bodies of our children, some of the important weapons systems of the future, the computer chips,” he said. “We’ve got to make more of our own stuff in the United States of America. And the way to do that is to lower regulations, lower energy costs for American businesses, and to rebuild the great American middle class.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris will virtually attend the historic Al Smith dinner on Thursday evening, the Archdiocese of New York confirmed to Fox News Digital. 

“VP Harris will appear via a pre-recorded message,” the communications director for the Archdiocese of New York, Joseph Zwilling, told Fox News Digital on Thursday. 

Harris will be the first presidential candidate in 40 years to not physically attend the Catholic charity event – since 1984 when failed presidential Democratic candidate Walter Mondale skipped. Former President Trump will attend and address the sold-out audience during the event Thursday. 

Harris’ snub of the historic Catholic charity event irked New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan on his podcast this week. 

KAMALA HARRIS PLANS TO SKIP HISTORIC AL SMITH DINNER DESPITE LONG-STANDING TRADITION

Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

“This year will be imbalanced because, sadly, Kamala Harris isn’t coming,” Dolan said on his podcast Wednesday. “It’s a shame because the nature of the evening is to bring people together. The nature of the evening is civility, patriotism, humor. It’s not a campaign speech. It’s not a campaign stop.”

He did add during the podcast that Harris was slated to appear via “Zoom.” 

“She’s sending a Zoom,” Dolan said during the podcast. Adding: “We have it already… I haven’t looked at it. There’s an embargo on it.” 

MORNING GLORY: WHY IS KAMALA HARRIS SKIPPING THE AL SMITH DINNER IN NEW YORK CITY?

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner was launched in 1946, and has raised millions of dollars for charities supporting women and children, and has since grown to become a political and cultural hallmark of election seasons. The dinner is named after the first Catholic presidential candidate, Al Smith, who served as the 42nd governor of New York and ran for president as a Democrat in 1928. 

This year’s dinner will be emceed by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who has portrayed Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in sketches on “Saturday Night Live” this fall.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan speaks during a prayer service for Ukraine at Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment and confirmation that Harris will virtually attend the event, but did not receive a reply. 

The campaign previously told Fox News that the vice president would not physically attend the event, focusing her time on campaigning in the battleground state of Wisconsin instead. 

TRUMP CAMPAIGN PREVIEWS AL SMITH DINNER REMARKS AMID HARRIS’ ABSENCE: ‘WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED’

“The Vice President is going to be campaigning in a battleground state that day, and the campaign wants to maximize her time in the battlegrounds this close to the election. Her team also told the organizers that she would very much like to attend their event as President. This would make her one of the first sitting Presidents to attend,” the campaign said. 

The campaign previously told Fox News that the vice president would not physically attend the event. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Trump attended the dinner in-person in 2016, as did then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and attended 2020’s virtual dinner due to the pandemic. 

Former President Trump reacts during a Univision Noticias town hall event on Oct. 16, 2024, in Doral, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

CLINTON AND TRUMP TRADE JABS AT AL SMITH DINNER

“It will be an honor to attend the SOLD OUT 79th ANNUAL AL SMITH DINNER on October 17th in New York. It will be great to see so many wonderful people there, including Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan. We know the Spirit of Al Smith, the first Catholic Nominee of a Major Party, and John F. Kennedy, the FIRST Catholic President, will be in the room with us that night,” Trump posted on Truth Social last month. 

Cardinal Timothy Dolan sits between, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria on Oct. 20, 2016, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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“It was a virtual event in 2020, and I was delighted to speak to our Catholic friends that day and, of course, it was a HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL evening in 2016 when we were there in person with Crooked Hillary Clinton. The reviews of my remarks were TREMENDOUS. It’s sad, but not surprising, that Kamala has decided not to attend. I don’t know what she has against our Catholic friends, but it must be a lot, because she certainly hasn’t been very nice to them, in fact, Catholics are literally being persecuted by this Administration. Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined,” he added. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is embarking on a swing-state tour in the closing weeks of the election as Republicans fight to keep hold of their razor-thin majority in the House.

Johnson’s “American Revival Tour” is making stops in Michigan this weekend, and additional events are being planned in Ohio and Pennsylvania, among other states.

Its purpose is “highlighting House Republicans’ agenda for the next Congress,” Johnson’s political team told Fox News Digital.

The Louisiana Republican has been crisscrossing the country in 24 states in a bid to keep and possibly expand the GOP’s control over the House.

CLUB FOR GROWTH POURS $5M INTO TIGHT HOUSE RACES AS GOP BRACES FOR TOUGH ELECTION

House Speaker Mike Johnson is taking his “American Revival” tour to the swing states as the election draws near. (Getty Images)

All three states are also being viewed as critical keys to victory for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. It is no surprise they line up considering Johnson’s efforts to unite the GOP behind the former president.

A video rolling out the tour, previewed by Fox News Digital, features Johnson pledging, “We are going to win the White House, the Senate, and take back the House.”

“We’re going to secure the border, unleash our energy sector, protect our rights, support working families, pursue peace through strength,” Johnson says in the video. “Everything is on the line. We will be able to restore those foundations, and we really truly can bring about an ‘American Revival.’”

Johnson has been appearing with Republican incumbents and candidates across the country while also diving into the fundraising circuit – a baptism by fire for a previously little-known policy wonk who was rocketed to the national stage after the ouster of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., roughly a year ago.

SPEAKER JOHNSON RIPS ‘LACK OF LEADERSHIP’ IN BIDEN ADMIN’S HELENE RESPONSE: ‘ALARMED AND DISAPPOINTED’

House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, is battling Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for control of the House next year. (Getty Images)

The work he has put in appears to be paying off. Earlier this week, it was announced that Johnson raised $27.5 million from July through September, “the highest amount raised by a Republican Speaker of the House in the third quarter of a presidential election year,” according to his team.

Of that, just over $8 million went to individual GOP candidates.

That cash will likely be much needed as groups aligned with the House GOP continue to trail their Democratic counterparts.

House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in August, according to numbers released late last month.

FORMER REPUBLICAN US SENATOR ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS, SAYS ELECTION OFFERS ‘STARK CHOICE’

The states that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tour will hit will also be critical for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The DCCC raised $22.3 million in August, compared to $9.7 million by the NRCC. House Democrats ended that time period with more cash than the GOP as well – $87 million compared to $70.7 million.

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Meanwhile, Republicans in tight races like Reps. Marianette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Ken Calvert, R-Calif., have been trailing their Democratic challengers in terms of funding as of the latest fundraising quarter.

Johnson is pivoting his “American Revival” tour to swing states after kicking off a pro-Trump event in Texas earlier this month.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, said he was “upset” that Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is skipping out on the Al Smith charity dinner on Thursday. 

“This year will be imbalanced because, sadly, Kamala Harris isn’t coming,” Dolan said on an episode of his podcast Tuesday. “It’s a shame because the nature of the evening is to bring people together. The nature of the evening is civility, patriotism, humor. It’s not a campaign speech. It’s not a campaign stop.” 

Trump is expected to attend the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner on Thursday, while Harris is campaigning in Wisconsin as the Democratic presidential nominee turns her focus to the “blue wall” states, which Hillary Clinton neglected in the final weeks of her failed 2016 campaign. 

KAMALA HARRIS PLANS TO SKIP HISTORIC AL SMITH DINNER DESPITE LONG-STANDING TRADITION

Cardinal Timothy Dolan speaks during the intercessory prayer service for Ukraine at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr in 2022.  (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Dolan argued the dinner is “worth keeping, worth doing,” given it could raise $9 million for charity. 

“We’re upset that she didn’t come because we’ve missed an evening to access something sorely needed now that even she articulates rather eloquently: that we’ve got to turn the page on bitterness,” Dolan said of Harris on the podcast. “And the Al Smith, you know, traditionally tries to do that.” 

“It’s not a roast. There’s teasing, big time teasing,” the archbishop said of the dinner. “A lot of laughs. But, but it’s – it’s a grand evening. … A lot of people think it’s a Catholic campaign stop. Not really, no. I would say the evening is reflective of New York demographics.” 

“It’s not a Republican crowd. It’s not a Democratic crowd,” he said. “It’s kind of evenly split.” 

Vice President Harris arrives at Trenton-Mercer Airport, in Mercer County, New Jersey, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, en route to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

TRUMP APPLAUDS CATHOLIC GROUP’S MULTI-MILLION ANTI-HARRIS CAMPAIGN APPEALING TO CHURCH FAITHFUL

Dolan said there’s a possibility of Harris appearing virtually. 

“The Vice President is going to be campaigning in a battleground state that day, and the campaign wants to maximize her time in the battlegrounds this close to the election,” the Harris campaign told Fox News, explaining her absence. “Her team also told the organizers that she would very much like to attend their event as president. This would make her one of the first sitting presidents to attend.” 

Donald Trump speaks during a Univision town hall on Oct. 16, 2024, in Doral, Florida.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Hosted annually since 1946, the charity dinner has raised millions of dollars for New York’s women and children, according to the foundation’s website, and “has featured renowned cultural, business, and political figures, including most major party presidential nominees during election years since 1960.” 

Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) PAC sent out an email Thursday noting that Harris would be the first presidential candidate to skip the annual Al Smith charity dinner since 1984. 

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“Her radical policies are fundamentally at odds with Catholic teachings, and her history of anti-Catholic rhetoric has further alienated this crucial voting bloc,” the pro-Trump PAC wrote. 

With the 2024 presidential campaign soon coming to a close, Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to rally Black male voters with proposals to boost their financial and career prospects.

The “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” released on Monday promises that a future Harris administration would provide “1 million loans that are fully forgivable to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business.” Harris also proposes new “education, training and mentorship programs that help Black men get good-paying jobs,” in addition to legalizing marijuana and offering assistance to Black men for elderly care. 

But if that all sounds exclusive to non-Black Americans, the Harris campaign assures it is not. In statements to The Wall Street Journal, the campaign said Wednesday that Harris’ proposals will be open to all Americans, regardless of their race or ethnicity. 

HARRIS UNVEILS AGENDA TO HELP BLACK MEN ‘GET AHEAD’ AS POLLS SHOW TRUMP GAINS

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak during a campaign rally at Erie Insurance Arena, in Erie, Pa., Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The vice president is “clear-eyed about how Black men have long been denied the tools that would allow them to grow their wealth, get a good-paying job and support their loved ones—she is championing solutions that will benefit all Americans and address these specific barriers to economic opportunity,” a campaign aide told the WSJ. 

The Harris campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

OBAMA, STUMPING FOR HARRIS, REPEATEDLY TAKES AIM AT TRUMP

A person protests outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 29, 2023.  (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The report notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently shown hostility towards government programs tailored to a specific race. The court in 2023 struck down college and university affirmative action policies, which made institutions of higher learning consider race in admissions in an effort to mandate diversity on campus. 

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. 

PRO-TRUMP BLACK GROUP FIRES BACK AT OBAMA

Activist Edward Blum, founder and president of Students for Fair Admissions, has led the charge to force companies and government entities to abandon programs and policies that take race into consideration, arguing any such endeavor is discriminatory. The WSJ reported that in September, Blum settled a lawsuit with the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund, a group that promotes minority female entrepreneurs, in which the group agreed to end a grant program that awarded $20,000 to small businesses owned and operated by women of color.

Blum told the Journal that he would seek to challenge the Harris administration if she delivered on programs that exclusively benefited Black men or any other racial group. “Racially exclusive programs like the one she has proposed have been repeatedly struck down by the courts in the past,” he said.

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The Harris campaign’s proposal comes as Democrats are increasingly concerned about wavering support among Black men, and in particular younger Black men, for Harris, who would make history if she is elected as the nation’s first female president.

Harris and Trump are locked in a neck and neck race in the seven key battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and will likely determine the winner of the 2024 White House race. Any erosion of support among Black voters, and in particular Black males, could prove costly to the vice president.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Vice President Kamala Harris is barnstorming Wisconsin on Thursday with three separate engagements scheduled across the crucial state. 

The Democratic nominee for president has events scheduled in Milwaukee, La Crosse and Green Bay throughout the day as she tries to make her pitch to voters just weeks from the election. 

FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: HARRIS LOSES HER LEAD AND A NEW ELECTORATE EMERGES

Vice President Kamala Harris is criss-crossing Wisconsin with weeks until Election Day. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

She will begin her day in Milwaukee, which is the state’s biggest Democratic stronghold. According to the Harris-Walz campaign, the vice president will drop in on a business class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She will also speak with students on campus and emphasize her “opportunity economy” plan. 

Afterward, Harris will go to La Crosse and hold a rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. 

STRIKING BOEING WORKERS BOO AFTER DEMOCRATIC SEN. MARIA CANTWELL CRITICIZES TRUMP

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are each fighting to win swing state Wisconsin, which has gone both Democrat and Republican in the past two elections. (Reuters/IStock)

For her last event of the day in Wisconsin, she will have a rally in Green Bay outside of Lambeau Field. 

Harris’ campaign emphasized that counties surrounding Green Bay have trended toward Democrats in recent elections, which they attribute to former President Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric. For this reason, they believe the area presents a prime opportunity for the candidate. 

LAKEN RILEY ACT SPONSOR BLASTS BILL CLINTON’S CLAIM ABOUT GEORGIA STUDENT’S DEATH

Vice President Kamala Harris is holding three separate engagements in Wisconsin on Thursday.  (Reuters)

The campaign noted that Harris’ Wisconsin barnstorm comes as they officially knocked on more than 1 million doors in the swing state. Her team said it has over 250 coordinated staff working in more than 50 field offices in 43 counties in Wisconsin, in addition to a team of campus organizers focused on turning out young voters. 

Wisconsin has notably flipped in the last two presidential elections and is rated one of several “toss-ups” in Fox News Power Rankings’ latest update. Other such states are Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. 

SENATE DEMS TARGET BLACK VOTERS WITH NEW AD AS HARRIS’ SUPPORT FALLS SHORT

For her last event of the day in Wisconsin, Vice President Kamala Harris will have a rally outside of Lambeau Field. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

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Harris and Trump were tied in Wisconsin at 48% each in a recent poll by the Wall Street Journal. The poll was of 600 registered voters in Wisconsin and was conducted over Sept. 28-Oct. 8. It had a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

EXCLUSIVE: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed his committee’s oversight work of the Biden-Harris administration, telling Fox News Digital that Americans “cannot afford” another term of “incompetence.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has “been an active participant in the worst administration in U.S. history that has inflicted untold harm on the American people,” Comer told Fox News Digital. 

Comer compiled a 72-page report with the committee’s “118th Congress accomplishments,” highlighting the committee’s work — including its investigation into the Biden family’s domestic and international business dealings, oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis, as well as probing the fraud and abuse related to COVID unemployment relief benefits and the infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the U.S. 

“Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee are committed to achieving what Democrats have neglected: rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government and holding the Biden-Harris Administration accountable,” he said. “We have succeeded.”

BIDEN COMMITTED ‘IMPEACHABLE CONDUCT,’ ‘DEFRAUDED UNITED STATES TO ENRICH HIS FAMILY’: HOUSE GOP REPORT

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is announcing a hearing into the Biden administration’s policy “failures.” (Getty Images)

“Our thorough oversight and investigations have revealed rampant waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the Biden-Harris Administration, and we’ve provided the transparency and accountability the American people demand,” Comer said. 

The report included the committee’s latest Secret Service oversight following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally in July. Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned the day after she publicly testified before the committee. 

“Americans cannot afford another four years of the same failed policies and incompetence,” Comer told Fox News Digital. 

“Vice President Kamala Harris has been an active participant in the worst administration in U.S. history that has inflicted untold harm on the American people,” Comer continued. “We must return to pro-growth, America-first policies to restore prosperity, liberty, and security for the American people.”

During the 118th Congress, the House Oversight Committee held 135 hearings, sent more than 600 investigative letters, issued 51 subpoenas, heard testimony from 112 government witnesses and saw 23 bills passed in the House — with three signed into law. 

The committee investigated the Biden family’s business dealings, finding that from 2014 to the present, Biden family members and their associates received more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities. The committee claimed that the family set up shell companies to conceal the payments from scrutiny. 

The White House previously ripped the investigation as an “evidence-free, politically-motivated” probe. 

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer speaks during a news conference. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Comer also co-led the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Comer’s Oversight Committee led the inquiry after its monthslong investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, alongside the House Judiciary Committee and House Ways & Means Committee. 

The committees concluded that Biden engaged in “impeachable conduct, “abused his office” and “defrauded the United States to enrich his family.”

TAXPAYERS LOST MORE THAN $100B TO COVID UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FRAUD, COMMITTEE FINDS

“We also exposed Joe Biden’s corruption at the highest levels of government as he actively participated in his family’s influence peddling racket that made the Bidens millions from Chinese, Russian and other foreign entities,” Comer told Fox News Digital. 

From those investigations, Comer, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending Hunter Biden and James Biden be charged with making false statements to Congress about key aspects of the impeachment inquiry. 

The White House discounted the committee’s investigations, calling the impeachment inquiry a “failed stunt” that “will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories.”

Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, is seen during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Getty Images)

Following the investigation, Comer introduced the bipartisan Presidential Ethics Reform Act — a bill requiring presidents and vice presidents to disclose conflicts of interest while in office and disclose foreign payments, expensive gifts, loan transactions and tax returns during the two-year period prior to taking office, time in office, and for two years after leaving office. That bill also required presidents and vice presidents to make disclosures for immediate family members who receive foreign payments and other gifts, or who use official travel for personal business. 

HOUSE OVERSIGHT INVESTIGATING WALZ OVER ‘LONGSTANDING CONNECTIONS’ TO CHINA

Regarding its oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis, Comer said the committee found there have been more than 8 million illegal immigrants encountered entering the country and over 1.9 million gotaways — illegal immigrants who avoided agents but were detected by other forms of surveillance — since they took office. 

As for China, Comer sent letters to 25 federal agencies to investigate whether officials were aware of CCP outreach to the American public. The committee held briefings with 23 federal agencies revealing “there is no cohesive, government-wide strategy to identify, deter, and defeat CCP political warfare.”

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023 in Lukeville, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The committee also found that American taxpayers lost more than $100 billion to fraud and improper payments as a result of temporary unemployment insurance programs created in response to COVID-19. 

The committee also investigated Biden-Harris administration officials implementing a “radical environmental agenda” that Comer said is “jeopardizing jobs, energy security, and national security.”

SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR CHEATLE RESIGNS AFTER MOUNTING PRESSURE IN WAKE OF TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Meanwhile, after the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, Comer launched an oversight investigation into the U.S. Secret Service, acting “quickly” to investigate the “historic failure and prevent a similar incident from happening again in the future.” 

Comer held an immediate hearing with Cheatle, who testified publicly about the egregious security lapses that led to the assassination attempt of Trump and the murder of an innocent attendee, Corey Comperatore. 

Cheatle resigned the following day. 

Most recently, Comer launched an investigation into Harris’ running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for alleged connections to the CCP. 

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Comer said the committee’s “effective, targeted oversight has led to transparency, accountability, and solutions for the American people.” 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warned noncitizen criminals with felony convictions this week that they “forfeit the privilege” to be in the United States — in the type of muscular language rarely used by the Biden administration.

“Noncitizens with felony convictions forfeit the privilege to be in the United States,” ICE’s enforcement and removal operations (ERO) office in New York said on Tuesday.

The statement came as it announced multiple arrests in New York City, which is a sanctuary city that limits cooperation with ICE detainers. Those detainers are requests that ICE be notified when a potentially deportable suspect is being released so that they can be taken into ICE custody. It means that ICE agents have to go into the community to make arrests of immigrant criminals.

TRUMP SOUNDS ALARM ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MURDERERS: ‘A LOT OF BAD GENES IN OUR COUNTRY’ 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers look to arrest an undocumented immigrant during an operation in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn on April 11, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The ICE account noted the arrest of a 45-year-old Jamaican citizen convicted of forcible touching, and a 34-year-old Guatemalan convicted of illegal re-entry. Agents also arrested a 38-year-old Dominican Republic citizen charged with sexual misconduct and a “criminal sex act.”

The Biden administration has said it is prioritizing public safety and national security threats as part of its narrowed enforcement priorities. However, it has come under fire for a sharp drop in deportations compared to the prior administration.

Recently, the deportation of criminals came under scrutiny after numbers showing that among those in removal proceedings but who are not in ICE detention, there are 425,431 convicted criminals. That is up from about 405,000 in June 2021 and 368,000 in April 2016.

NEW POLL REVEALS TRUMP HAS SIGNIFICANT LEAD ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE

Overall, the non-detained docket, which lists those in removal proceedings or who have a final order of removal but who are not in ICE custody, has expanded to more than 7.4 million people, up from around 3.7 million when former President Donald Trump left office. 

Immigration has become a top election issue, with both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris pushing to be seen as tougher on the border crisis than the other.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

A number of polls, however, have shown Trump to be the more trusted candidate on border security and immigration among voters.

Harris has hammered Trump on his failure to back a bipartisan border security bill that would have increased funding for the border and limited releases into the interior. Conservatives said the bill would only codify high levels of illegal immigration. Trump has accused the administration of fueling the crisis with its liberal border policies.

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He recently commented on the number of illegal immigrant criminals in the country.

“You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” he said.

With less than three weeks to go until Election Day, a new poll in battleground Georgia indicates former President Trump holding on to his single-digit lead over Vice President Harris in the fight for the state’s 16 crucial electoral votes.

But a survey in neighboring North Carolina, another key swing state that also has 16 electoral votes up for grabs, shows Harris with a slight edge over Trump.

According to a pair of Quinnipiac University polls released on Wednesday, the GOP presidential nominee tops the Democratic Party standard-bearer 52%-45% among likely Georgia voters, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver each receiving 1% support.

Trump’s seven-point lead edged up a point from his 50%-44% margin over Harris in Quinnipiac’s September survey in Georgia.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS IN THE 2024 ELECTION SHOW 

Former President Trump sat down with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner for a town hall on “The Faulkner Focus” and answered questions from female voters in Georgia. (“Fox & Friends” screengrab)

Most other public opinion surveys in Georgia indicate a much tighter margin-of-error race between the vice president and the former president.

President Biden narrowly edged Trump in Georgia in 2020 to become the first Democrat to carry the state in a White House race in nearly 30 years, since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS 

In Quinnipiac’s North Carolina poll, Harris edges Trump 49%-47%, with Oliver at 1%.

That’s a switch from last month, when Trump held a two-point advantage over Harris.

Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Harris speaks during a campaign event at East Carolina University, Oct. 13, 2024, in Greenville, N.C. (AP Photo/David Yeazell)

Most other recent polling indicates Trump with a slight edge over Harris in a state he narrowly carried over Biden four years ago.

“Between them, there’s a mother lode of electoral votes ready to be mined. One state favors Trump. The other is up for grabs,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

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Pointing specifically to North Carolina, Malloy noted that “in a tight race, there is an enormous gender gap, women for Harris and men for Trump, going down to the final stretch.”

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

The release of the polls comes as both states this week kick off early in-person voting.

Georgia began ballot box voting on Tuesday and set a new record on day one. North Carolina begins early voting on Thursday.

In Georgia, the new poll indicates independent voters supporting Trump 49%-42% over Harris. In North Carolina, Trump edges Harris 49%-45% among independent voters.

The new survey also indicates Democrat state Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina leading scandal-plagued Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson 52%-40% among likely voters in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper.

The polls were conducted Oct. 10-14 with 1,328 likely voters in Georgia and 1,031 likely voters in North Carolina questioned.

The sampling error was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points in Georgia and plus or minus 3.1 percentage points in North Carolina.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation quietly updated its 2022 crime data to show an increase in violent crimes, despite previous data showing violent crimes had fallen that year, which was touted as a victory for the Biden-Harris administration. 

“For some reason, the media, they did pick the crime data that they think goes and makes the Democrats look as good as possible. And then even when the crime data that they’ve relied on turns out by the very source of that data to be wrong, none of them fix it,” John Lott, the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview this week. 

The FBI released its annual crime in the nation data for 2022 last year, which found a 2.1% decrease in violent crimes compared to 2021, Lott explained. The data was lauded by Democrats and the media as part of a turning point for crime woes in the U.S., following the crime wave of 2020, when defund-the-police protests and riots swept the nation and the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders upended daily life.

Now, the data reflects a net increase of 80,029 violent crimes in 2022 over 2021. Lott found that under the umbrella of violent crime, there were an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies and 37,091 aggravated assaults that year. 

VIOLENT CRIMES HAVE INCREASED UNDER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN DESPITE DEMS’ DENIALS: EXPERT

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden attend a campaign event in Pittsburgh on Sept. 2. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

“To give people an idea of the size of the change, when the 2022 data came out in September 2023, they initially reported that violent crime had fallen by 2.1% in 2022.… That’s the final data, supposedly, for 2022. The revision of that final data that came out last month, now claims that rather than the 2.1% drop, that there was actually a 4.5% increase in violent crime that occurred in 2022. That’s a 6.6 percentage point change there,” Lott told Fox News Digital. 

“It’s from a drop to an increase. And, you know, the bizarre thing to me is, for a year after the 2022 data was put out, we were having headlines, news articles after news articles saying, ‘Violent crime is falling, people mistakenly or erroneously believe that it’s increasing.’ And, you know, and they were relying on this data. But you don’t see any corrections in the news. Saying, ‘Oops, the FBI data that we relied on was wrong, that rather than a drop, there was actually an increase that had occurred,’” he added. 

‘WEAK-ON-CRIME LIBERAL’: TRUMP CAMPAIGN HITS BACK AFTER HARRIS BLAMES HIM FOR ‘VIOLENT CRIME WAVE’

President Biden and the Harris campaign have touted that violent crimes had fallen under their leadership, with Biden calling the reported violent crime drops “historic” while citing the FBI’s most recent data. 

“This year, the homicide and violent crime rates have continued their rapid decline from their peaks during the last administration,” Biden said in an official White House statement late last month. “… Communities across our country are safer now than when I took office.”

“Americans are safer today than when Vice President Harris and I took office. We can’t stop now,” Biden added in a separate White House statement in August touting crime data from an independent organization of police chiefs across the nation. 

Former President Trump gestures at a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena in Prescott Valley, Arizona, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Trump campaign, when asked about the revised data, took a victory lap, saying, “President Trump was right…. AGAIN!”

“The federal government lied about Biden’s cognitive decline, lied about the job numbers, and now we learn they lied about crime numbers too,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “Kamala Harris must admit she’s wrong and address how she plans to bring down the rising crime crisis. Every mainstream media reporter who was quick to correct President Trump must cover this new revelation if they have any shred of integrity left.”

Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that “crime in this country is through the roof” under the Biden-Harris administration, despite the previous figures promoted by the FBI showing violent crime was allegedly on a downward trend. 

When asked about the revision, the White House argued that following the passage of the American Rescue Plan in 2021 under the Biden-Harris administration, violent crime is “at a near 50-year low.” 

“Under the previous administration, our country saw the biggest increase in murder rates on record. President Biden and Vice President Harris immediately got to work to turn it around and passed the American Rescue Plan, which led to the largest ever federal investment in public safety. As a result, violent crime is at a near 50-year low, and is continuing to decline this year according independent data from police chiefs in the nation’s largest cities,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. 

An administration official added in a comment to Fox Digital that the “FBI often adjusts crime estimates as more data is reported.”

“During the prior administration, the FBI upwardly adjusted crime data during its last three years: in 2018, 2019, and 2020. These adjustments are standard practice,” the official continued before citing an article on the data this week. “Real Clear Investigations fails to mention that, in 2021, there was a sharp decline in the number of agencies participating in FBI data collection because the FBI temporarily disallowed an earlier collection method. The FBI switched back to its prior method in 2022.”

Lott explained he noticed the quiet update when the FBI released its 2023 crime data set last month, adding: “It was pretty easy to see that things had changed.”

“For 2022 and 2021 in particular, they had some changes for a few of the previous years, but they were very small. The changes for 2021 and 2022 were very large. You know, I looked through the press release that the FBI had put out, there was no mention of them having changed the data for earlier years. And surely no mention of the large change that had occurred. I looked through the Uniform Crime Report summary report that the FBI puts out, and there was no mention of the size of the change. There’s one footnote there that vaguely mentions that they had updated the data for 2022. No mention about updating it for 2021 or any other time,” he said, calling the discovery “shocking.” 

2ND AMENDMENT STEPS IN AFTER COPS STEP BACK IN WAKE OF DEFUND MOVEMENT IN CHICAGO

The data update is akin to when the Bureau of Labor Statistics overestimated the number of jobs created in the U.S. by 818,000 between March 2023 and March of this year, Lott said. 

The NYPD arrive at a crime scene near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan on July 26. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Lott authored an article on the data for Real Clear Investigations this week, which argued the updates to 2022 stats open the door to questioning if the 2023 stats showing an estimated 3% drop in violent crimes compared to 2022 are legitimate. 

“Without the increase, the drop in violent crime in 2023 would have been less than half as large — only 1.6% instead of the reported drop of 3.5%,” Lott wrote.

While FBI data has shown alleged drops in violent crimes in recent years, other government data sets have shown crime has increased in the last few years. 

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN SAYS CRIME IS DOWN, BUT INDEPENDENT DATA SHOWS VIOLENT CRIME UP ACROSS 66 CITIES

The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation outside its headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 15, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Crimes such as rape or sexual assault, aggravated assault and robbery increased from 2020 to 2023, the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed last month as part of its National Crime Victimization Survey. Across the board, the survey found total instances of reported violent crimes increased from 5.6 per 1,000 individuals aged 12 and over in 2020, when Trump was still in office, to 8.7 per 1,000 in 2023. 

PUBLIC SAFETY GROUP FINDS FBI VIOLENT CRIME DATA IS HIGHER THAN INITIALLY REPORTED

Lott, who also served as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs, authored an op-ed for Real Clear Politics last month and detailed that the DOJ survey found that total violent crimes are 55.4% higher in 2023 than in 2020, the end of Trump’s tenure, while rape crimes increased by 42%, robbery by 63% and aggravated assault by 55%. The DOJ survey does not include surveys on murder, but that category is almost always reported to police departments, and subsequently to the FBI, he noted, and makes up about 1% of the U.S.’ total violent crimes.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI and Harris campaign regarding the 2022 data but did not immediately receive replies. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting that a Georgia appeals court restore six of her original criminal counts against former President Trump and his co-defendants in her 2020 election case after a judge tossed the charges earlier this year. 

Willis filed a brief to the Georgia Court of Appeals requesting it overturn Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to dismiss charges against Trump and allies, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported Wednesday.

GEORGIA JUDGE DISMISSES TWO CRIMINAL COUNTS AGAINST TRUMP IN FANI WILLIS’ 2020 ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE

McAfee, in March, dismissed six of the charges against Trump, saying Willis failed to allege sufficient detail. 

Last month, McAfee also dismissed two other criminal counts against Trump, saying Willis and Georgia prosecutors had no authority to bring the charges, which related to the alleged filing of false documents in federal court. 

McAfee did, however, uphold the racketeering charge in the case, which was brought against all the defendants.

In her filing, Willis said the trial court “erred by quashing six counts of the indictment in this case.” 

“The indictment more than sufficiently placed Cross-Appellees on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges,” Willis argued, adding that her indictment “included an abundance of context and factual allegations.” 

Willis is arguing that the court “should reverse the trial court’s order and reinstate counts 2, 5, 6, 28, 36, and 38 of the indictment.”

Lead Trump defense counsel in the case, Steve Sadow, told Fox News Digital that Willis’ brief is “simply incorrect on the law.” 

“The trial court’s dismissal order properly decided that the State failed to sufficiently plead the allegations in the dismissed counts under Georgia law,” Sadow said. 

The case was thrown into limbo when it was revealed Willis reportedly had an “improper affair” with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she hired to help bring the case against Trump. Wade later stepped down.  

FANI WILLIS FACES NOTHING BUT SETBACKS IN CASE AGAINST TRUMP

In June, the Georgia Court of Appeals paused the proceedings until it hears the case to disqualify Willis, yet another major setback for Willis. 

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The Georgia Court of Appeals said it would hear Trump’s argument to have Willis disqualified on Dec. 5, a month after the 2024 presidential election. 

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

After allegations of plagiarism levied against Vice President Harris, the New York Times quoted an expert who insisted Republicans were “mak[ing] a big deal” out of minor violations that were “an error and not an intent to defraud.” Meanwhile, speaking to the Washington Post, the same expert blamed Harris’ plagiarism on technical difficulties.

Despite the benign reaction to the revelations of Harris’ plagiarism from her 2009 book about prosecuting crime, the reaction to plagiarism accusations against Joe Biden during his 1987-1988 run for president was much more aggressive, and many, such as the Washington Post, have credited the scandal with derailing his then-campaign.

“Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., fighting to salvage his Presidential campaign,” the New York Times wrote in 1987 after reports he lifted excerpts from other politicians’ speeches to use as his own and plagiarized a paper in law school. They also called the revelations “damaging,” while independent columnist Lewis Grizzard described Biden’s plagiarism as “thievery and disinformation.”

NY TIMES ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS, CHOOSES DEMOCRAT IN 17TH STRAIGHT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 

Joe Biden announces his bid for the 1988 Democrat presidential nomination. (Steve Liss/Getty Images)

The public was concerned enough about Biden’s alleged plagiarism that he was forced to withdraw from his regular duties in Congress, which, at the time, included the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork, to hold an impromptu press conference to answer questions about the ordeal. Roughly a week later, Biden withdrew from the race amid the backlash.

When asked during the press conference if he thought the plagiarism accusations would affect his run for the presidency, Biden said he didn’t think so but conceded it would come down to how the press portrayed it to the American people: “You all will make the judgment about that. It will all depend on how you write it. I don’t mean that – I’m not being smart. It will all depend on how the American people look at me. They’re going to look at me and say, ‘Is Joe Biden being honest with me? Or is Joe Biden not being honest with me?” 

The New York Times’ reporting on Harris’ plagiarism was slammed by Republican critic Christopher Rufo, who was the force behind the Harris account of plagiarism. Rufo, alongside an Austrian plagiarism expert, said they found dozens of violations in Harris’ 2009 book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.” These reportedly included verbatim passages lifted from news reports at NBC and the Associated Press, as well as sections taken from Wikipedia, all without any citation or quotes indicating it was not her language. Harris also plagiarized excerpts from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report, a report from the Urban Institute and a press release from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for her book, according to Rufo.

NY TIMES ADVICE COLUMN PONDERS APPROPRIATENESS OF FLEEING THE COUNTRY IF ‘WRONG CANDIDATE’ GETS ELECTED

A front-page article from the New York Times after the first assassination attempt on former President Trump. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

After the New York Times came out with its reporting on the matter, Rufo criticized the paper for “lying.” The Times, which spoke to plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, said Rufo only found “five sections” of “about 500 words” that amounted to something problematic. Bailey referred to the alleged plagiarism as an “error and not an intent to defraud,” adding that Rufo was trying to “make a big deal of [something minor].” 

The paper added that “none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer.” Meanwhile, in 1987, the Times slammed claims from Biden that the ideas he reportedly plagiarized came to him spontaneously: “Mr. Biden’s borrowing raises questions about how much a candidate can adapt someone else’s language and thoughts, whether he remembers to give credit or not,” the outlet posited at the time.

Rufo also blasted the Washington Post’s coverage for downplaying the Harris plagiarism allegations. The paper, which spoke to Bailey as well, blamed the “errors” on technical difficulties.

“Bailey said such errors are not uncommon in material written from the late 1990s to around 2010, a period when electronic research became more common, but plagiarism detection had not yet emerged,” wrote the Post.

Kamala Harris and conservative activist Christopher Rufo (Getty Images)

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Rufo also drew a contrast between how the Post criticized first lady Melania Trump for what he described as “lifting a few turns of phrase” during a 2016 speech.

“When Kamala Harris did this more than a dozen times, the paper explained that it was OK because Kamala didn’t know how to use a computer,” he said.

In addition to alleging plagiarism by Harris, Rufo was also the force behind alleging plagiarism by the former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay. The revelations that Gay had reportedly copied numerous academics over the course of her own academic career subsequently led to her removal as Harvard’s president.

Fox News Digital reached out to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Harris campaign for comment but did not hear back by press time.

Kamala Harris’ first interview on Fox News was a contentious affair, and at times she and Bret Baier wound up talking over each other. 

But while the vice president repeatedly ducked some questions, she also had several moments when she appeared to be standing up to her least favorite network–undoubtedly something she hoped to achieve.

WHY TRUMP, BATTLING MEDIA HOSTILITY, IS DECLARING WAR ON FACT-CHECKERS

She showed passion, even anger, raising her voice, on a question about most of the country believing we’re on the wrong track, saying that Donald Trump was “unfit to serve” and “unstable.” Turning questions into broadsides against the former president was her signature move.

But what about half the country that supports him, Baier asked. “Are they stupid?”

A side-by-side of Bret Baier and Kamala Harris. (Fox News Media/Getty Images)

No, but “he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish,” Harris said. Trump is the one talking about “an enemy within,” and using the military against Americans. “He’s talking about locking people up because they disagree with him.”

Several times she told Baier “you and I both know” before lobbing a grenade at Trump, trying to project an image of standing up to both Fox and her opponent. She wanted this fight.

AS A CAUTIOUS KAMALA LOSES MOMENTUM, DEMOCRATS ARE PANICKING OVER A TRUMP WIN

Among the questions Harris didn’t want to answer:

Does she support taxpayer-funded transgender surgery for federal inmates, as she did in 2019? “I will follow the law,” she said flatly, insisting Trump had done the same. (The Trump camp shot back that the first such surgery took place in 2022, during her tenure.)

Didn’t she know that Joe Biden had been diminished? She danced around that one.

Bret Baier interviews Kamala Harris on Fox News. (Fox News Channel)

Why hasn’t she made progress on these issues during her time as vice president?

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said, pointing out that she hasn’t spent most of her life in Washington. That was a cleanup of her disastrous response on “The View” that she couldn’t think of a single thing where she differed from the president.

TRUMP COUNTERS HARRIS MEDIA BLITZ BY RIPPING BOB WOODWARD, HOWARD STERN AND HER HURRICANE BRIEFING

The Fox anchor spent the first chunk of the interview on immigration, following up again and again to pin her down. 

At first Harris conceded the obvious: “We have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired.”

Why didn’t you fix it? Trump killed their most recent attempt at a bipartisan bill, though nothing was accomplished when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

Laken Riley’s killing gripped the nation. (ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP via Getty Images)

Had she changed her position since her 2019 campaign, when she said border crossings should be made legal?

“I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings,” Harris responded, without explaining the change.

Asked about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, such as the murder of Laken Riley, Harris called them “tragic cases” and said her heart went out to their families.

There were times when her answers seemed thin, and other times when she slipped in a litany of her proposals.

The confrontational session was Harris’ first of this short campaign, after a series of softball sitdowns with people openly supporting her candidacy.

Fox News got the exclusive, and Harris got what she wanted: A defiant half hour in which she could try to change minds among the largest audience by far in cable news. 

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She should abandon her friends like Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert and do more tough interviews, because that’s how you show voters you can take the heat.

A former ICE field director is warning that a violent Venezuelan gang is more organized than the infamous MS-13, and is backing former President Donald Trump’s plan to stamp out the gang in Colorado and across the U.S.

John Fabbricatore, who served as an ICE field director and is currently a GOP congressional candidate in Colorado, told Fox News Digital that he would not describe Tren de Aragua as a gang. The organization has popped up throughout the U.S. and has been linked to a number of crimes amid the crisis at the southern border.

“TdA is a true organization. They’re not a gang. They have a better structure than MS-13 ever had. So I think that’s the difference and if we look at TdA, just in the amount of time that TdA have been in the United States and how fast they’ve grown. When you look at that, you need to realize that they’ve grown faster and gotten into certain aspects of crime better than MS-13 did and MS-13 has been here for 25 years,” he said.

NEW REPORT WARNS BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN GANG’S FOOTPRINT WILL REMAIN IN US ‘FOR DECADES’ 

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during an event with the Economic Club of Chicago, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Chicago.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Tren de Aragua is believed to have started in the Tocoron prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua and has since expanded into Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and the U.S. There have been numerous crimes in the last year that have been linked to TdA, in states including Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Colorado and New York.

This week, an apartment management company in Colorado sounded the alarm on the troubles it has been facing as the group has taken over multiple apartment blocks in Aurora.

Fabbricatore says that the U.S. should look to other countries where TdA has a presence.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES ‘OPERATION AURORA’ TO TARGET ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GANG MEMBERS IN COLORADO

These images from a CBP intelligence bulletin, show tattoos and identifiers for Tren De Aragua. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of known or suspected members TdA members.  (ICE)

“TdA has put a foothold and has built up structure and foundation in other South American countries after leaving Venezuela in just a few short years. And when we look at that and we see what they’re already doing in the United States, that’s the worry,” he says.

“And I think enough news organizations are not looking into that to see how fast TDA has grown in such a short amount of time. And that’s why we have to do what we have to do. We have to put them out now. We have to make sure that they don’t grow to get a strong foothold,” he warned.

BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN STREET GANG SPARKS FEAR IN US AMID MIGRANT SURGE: WHAT TO KNOW

Suspected members of the Venezuela-based transnational gang Tren de Aragua were seen on surveillance footage shared by the El Paso County Attorneys Office at the Gateway Hotel. (KFOX14/El Paso County Attorneys Office)

Former President Donald Trump announced last week that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle “every illegal migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” 

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Trump said, if elected, the federal government would “send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country.” 

Fabbricatore, who was given a shout-out by Trump at the rally, said he thinks those opposing the program are misunderstanding it.

‘I think President Trump’s basic want on this is just to protect the United States, protect United States citizens from the crimes that are being committed against them from foreign born criminal organizations. And if this is something that he’s got to pull out of a hat because no one else is doing anything about it, then it’s something that that needs to be needs to be tried,” he said.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Emma Woodhead contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump ripped the Biden-Harris administration for the nation’s illegal immigration crisis during a town hall event with undecided Hispanic voters, arguing that Hispanic voters “are most against” illegal migration across the border. 

“We have to have a lot of people come into our country. We just want them to come in legally through a system, because [the Biden-Harris administration] released hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers, terrorists. They’re coming in totally, nobody knows who they are, where they come from, and the people that are most against it are the Hispanic people,” Trump said in the event that aired Wednesday evening. 

“They are totally against it,” he added, after he was asked by a Spanish-speaking voter who would occupy farm and produce jobs if illegal immigrants are deported under his administration. 

“Noticias Univision Presenta: Los Latinos Preguntan … Donald Trump Responde” aired at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, spotlighting immigration, the economy, and Trump defending his previous administration in the hour-long pre-recorded event. The town hall, which was hosted by Televisa anchor Enrique Acevedo, is the second held by Univision this election cycle, after hosting Vice President Kamala Harris last week. 

HISPANIC VOTERS RAIL AGAINST ‘DISHONEST’ BIDEN-HARRIS BORDER RECORD AS POLL SHOWS TRUMP GAINING IN KEY STATES

DORAL, FLORIDA – OCTOBER 16: Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during a Univision Noticias town hall event on October 16, 2024 in Doral, Florida. Trump addressed undecided Latino voters as he continues campaigning against his rival, Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Trump’s appearance on Univison comes as he works to earn Hispanic voters’ support, with recent polling showing he’s making gains with the voting bloc. 

One Republican voter who resides in the battleground state of Arizona questioned Trump about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, asking the 45th president if he believes the migrants are eating cats and dogs, as he has previously cited on the campaign trail and during his presidential debate against Harris. 

Trump said he will travel to Springfield and provide “a full report” after his visit. 

INEFFECTIVE PLANNING, LACK OF CONNECTIONS HAS DEMS ON EDGE IN ‘KEY’ BATTLEGROUND: REPORT

Former US President Donald Trump during a Noticias Univision presidential town hall in Miami, Florida, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. Trump shifted from a mostly defensive stance of his protectionist trade policies to more of an offensive posture by going after those he considers to be “anti-tariff.” Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Getty Images)

“I was just saying what was reported, that’s been reported. And eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be. But this is, all I do is report. … I was there, I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look and I’ll give you a full report when I do. But that’s been in the newspapers and reported pretty broadly,” Trump responded. 

CNN DATA REPORTER PREDICTS TRUMP WILL WIN ‘HISTORIC’ NUMBER OF BLACK AND HISPANIC VOTERS

“I will say this, as far as Springfield is concerned, because I do know that situation. You have a city of 52,000 people, and they’ve added almost 30,000 migrants into the city. If you were a person that lived there, if you lived in Springfield, Ohio, and all of a sudden you couldn’t get into a hospital, you couldn’t get your children into a school, you wouldn’t be able to buy groceries. You can no longer pay the rent because the government’s paying rent,” he continued. “….If any of that happened, it would be a disaster for you.”

Sign welcoming motorists to city of Springfield, Ohio. (Michael Lee/Fox News Digital)

Polling published this month found Vice President Kamala Harris has an edge over Trump among self-identified Hispanic voters in two key battleground states, Arizona and Nevada, but Trump has made gains among younger male Hispanic voters compared to four years ago, according to a pair of Suffolk University/USA Today polls. 

A Fox News poll published Wednesday found that Harris received majority support among Hispanics, at 52%, and voters under age 30, at 54%, however, those stats trail President Biden’s support in 2020, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis election survey. That poll overall found Trump has a two-point average over Harris overall, which is a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage. 

While in Florida, various recent polling found Trump leading Harris among Hispanic voters, the Miami Herald reported on Wednesday. 

Trump continued fielding various questions from audience members, including one female full-time student in Florida who asked how he plans to tackle the spiraling national debt, which is worrying her. 

“We have record national debt. We’ve never had anything like it before. We were getting ready to start paying down debt, and then we got hit with a thing called COVID, or the China virus,” he responded. 

“What’s going to solve the problem is growth. It’s a thing called growth that nobody even talks about from the Democrat standpoint, because they don’t know about growth. But we’re going to bring companies in. We’re going to bring tremendous business to our country, and that’s going to solve that. Also, waste, fraud and abuse. And we have Elon Musk, who’s a fantastic guy and a fantastic genius. He’s a genius at a lot of things, but he’s a great business person,” he explained, citing his plan to make tech billionaire Elon Musk the “secretary of cost-cutting” if he’s re-elected. 

TRUMP OUTPERFORMING 2020 SUPPORT AMONG HISPANICS, WHO PREFER HIM ON IMMIGRATION, POLL SHOWS

DORAL, FLORIDA – OCTOBER 16: Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump stands with moderator Enrique Acevedo (L) as he attends a Univision Noticias town hall event on October 16, 2024 in Doral, Florida. Trump addressed undecided Latino voters as he continues campaigning against his rival, Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A stay-at-home mom from North Carolina asked Trump if he agreed with his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, on her pro-choice abortion stance in her new memoir that suggested a woman’s right to choose an abortion is a “fundamental right of individual liberty.”

NEW POLL SHOWS WHO HISPANICS ARE BACKING IN SOUTHWEST SWING STATES

“First of all, I told Melania that she has to go with her heart and she has to do what she has to do. She has to support what she wants to support. And she wrote a great book. It was just, it’s the number one bestseller. I hope you all go out and buy it, but it’s really a great book. But I want her to do what she wants to do. I wouldn’t be one to oppose what I think,” he responded. 

“They wanted to get rid of Roe v. Wade and let it come back to the States. And I’ve done that,” he added on abortion. “And now the people are voting on it, and you’re going to see it’s going to heal. It will never heal. It would have never healed if it stayed in Congress, if it stayed in the federal government. It’s now in the states. The people are voting as we speak. The people are voting. Some states have completed – like Kansas, Ohio, and a lot of others. But,, it’s going to settle a problem that was only going to get more divisive, divisive and worse. It was a big, big dispute for a long period of time.”

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The town hall was originally scheduled for Oct. 8, but was postponed due to Hurricane Milton. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Vice President Kamala Harris is facing criticism for touting oil production under the Biden administration after becoming the Democratic nominee, while previously calling for such companies to “pay the price” for climate change.

During her 2019 presidential bid, Harris told voters that she was in favor of the Department of Justice investigating oil companies, such as Chevron and Shell, for “profiting off” pollution. 

“These big oil companies, these fossil fuel companies, look, you should be really prepared to look at a serious fine or be charged with a crime. Because here’s the thing, these big oil companies and these fossil fuel companies have been making so much money and profiting off of this pollution,” Harris said.

Yet, after becoming the Democratic nominee, the vice president began touting the “largest increase in domestic oil production in history” under the Biden-Harris administration.

CNN SEGMENT PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON KAMALA HARRIS’ FLIP-FLOP ON FAR-LEFT POSITIONS

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event on Thursday, Oct. 10, on the Gila River Indian Community reservation in Chandler, Arizona. (AP/Ross D. Franklin)

“My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil. We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over rely on foreign oil,” Harris said during the one and only presidential debate against former President Trump in swing state Pennsylvania.

“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” Harris said.

Fox News Digital asked the Harris campaign whether she still supported investigating big oil for pollution, but did not receive a response.

HARRIS DODGING FLIP FLOP ATTACKS AS FACELESS SURROGATES FLIP KEY POSITIONS: ‘PLAYING POLITICS’

CNN called out Harris for flipping on the issue since becoming the Democratic nominee.

Vice President Kamala Harris listens during her debate with former President Trump in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, 2024. (Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

“This is a very sharp turn from where Harris once stood on this issue not so very long ago,” host Erin Burnett said on Wednesday.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a bill in 2023 to mandate utilities produce 100% carbon-free power by 2040, echoed her most recent stance on the issue. 

“America’s producing more natural gas and more oil than at any time in our history,” Walz said during a recent interview with WGAL 8.

The U.S. Oil and Gas Association (OGA) slammed Harris’ resurfaced comment from the debate, saying Harris had “nothing to do” with domestic oil production growth.

CNN SEGMENT PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON KAMALA HARRIS’ FLIP-FLOP ON FAR-LEFT POSITIONS

“In just four years, you and POTUS created the single worst regulatory and legislative environment in our industry’s 160-year history. You’ve put into place 250 separate actions designed to put us out of business. You wanted to put our CEOs in jail, confiscate our capital and prevent our investors from getting any return,” OGA wrote in a post on X formerly Twitter, on Wednesday. “And in spite of all that – we worked around you, over you and have beat your team. Now you want to take credit for what we did in spite of you. Not gonna let it happen.”

A Valero Energy Corp. refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, Feb. 19, 2021. (Eddie Seal/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Representatives from the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) said Harris’ acknowledgment of an oil production boost means that a strong U.S. oil and natural gas industry is good for the U.S. economy.

“This election season, Vice President Harris is taking credit for production records because she knows we need more energy, not less. Despite her policies and remarks derived from environmentalists’ talking points about shutting down our industry, I believe Harris also knows American oil and natural gas producers have the cleanest oil and natural gas operations in the world and adhere to the highest environmental and safety standards,” Jeff Eshelman, IPAA president and CEO, told Fox News Digital. “The United States needs the energy, and we should not rely on foreign adversaries as the Vice President said.” 

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Harris recently shifted her stance on fracking, coming out in support of the method this cycle after saying that “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking” during a CNN town hall in 2020.

Fears are allegedly mounting within the Democratic Party that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is failing to effectively connect with voters in Pennsylvania – the battleground state that will likely determine the outcome of the election – a report claimed. 

Alleged poor campaign management and staffers lacking relationships with Democratic political leaders in the Keystone State are allegedly rocking the campaign, according to Politico. The outlet reported that Democrats are worried that the campaign’s state manager lacks an understanding of Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, while campaign staffers have allegedly not invited local Democratic politicians to events in the state, and have not effectively deployed surrogates across the state. 

Politico reported that it spoke with 20 Democratic politicians, allies, and party leaders for the story, who reported they are restless over Harris’ campaigning efforts. 

POPULAR PA DEMOCRATIC MAYOR WARNS TRUMP IS ‘OUT-MESSAGING’ HARRIS: ‘I GET MORE FROM COLBERT’

Politico reported that some Pennsylvania Democrats are restless over Vice President Harris’ campaigning efforts. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on Politico’s report, but did not receive a reply. 

One union leader in the state, Ryan Boyer, pointed to the Harris campaign’s Pennsylvania manager, Nikki Lu, as part of the issue allegedly affecting the campaign in the battleground state. 

“I have concerns about Nikki Lu,” Boyer, who serves as business manager for the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, told the outlet. “I don’t think she understands Philadelphia.”

“We need young African American men to come home. We need African American women… to come out in record numbers, and disaffected African Americans,” he added. “We have surrogates in this area that have tremendous credibility in our communities. And Nikki Lu was slow to get to them.”

HARRIS PLAYS MASHUP OF TRUMP’S ‘ENEMY WITHIN’ COMMENTS AT ERIE RALLY, AFTER CROWD CHANTS ‘LOCK HIM UP’

Lu is a native of Pittsburgh, which sits on the western side of the massive state, and about 300 miles away from Philadelphia. The campaign is focused on amplifying voter turnout in both the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas, the outlet reported. 

Vice President Kamala Harris during the debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

During separate closed door meetings last month in Philadelphia, Latino and Black Democratic leaders sounded the alarm about their concerns, including requesting they have a greater presence at events and that the campaign acquire a “more sophisticated understanding” of how to engage with diverse voting demographics, according to five people who attended the meetings. 

“I feel like we’re going to win here, but we’re going to win it in spite of the Harris state campaign,” a Democratic elected official in Pennsylvania who spoke to Politico under the condition of anonymity. “Pennsylvania is such a mess, and it’s incredibly frustrating.”

PA TOWN ROILED BY TALK OF MIGRANT HOUSING IN CIVIL-WAR-ERA ORPHANAGE BUILDING

The Harris campaign told Politico that they have stronger outreach to minority voters in the state compared to Trump’s camp, but did not address the outlet’s question regarding alleged concerns that Lu lacks an understanding of Philadelphia.  

“Our campaign is running the largest and most sophisticated operation in Pennsylvania history,” Harris’ national campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in comment to Fox Digital on Wednesday. “While Trump’s team still refuses to tell reporters how few staff they have in the state, we have 50 coordinated offices and nearly 400 staff on the ground,” she said. 

“While the Trump campaign closed its ‘minority outreach offices,’ we invested in targeted advertising to Black and Latino voters starting in August of 2023 and have now spent more than any previous presidential campaign on outreach to these communities. The Vice President is also campaigning aggressively in Pennsylvania – spending 1 out of 3 days in the state in September,” 

The campaign also directed Fox Digital to a recent New York Times story detailing reported GOP divisions in the state’s northwestern area. 

Trump campaign spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico that the Trump campaign has more than two dozen offices in the state. 

“There’s no part of the commonwealth that we’re ignoring,” he said. 

Fox News Digital spoke with Salvatore J. Panto Jr., the longtime Democratic mayor of Easton, which is located near Allentown and about 75 miles north of Philadelphia, who said, “Democrats are being out-messaged by the Republicans.”

“In the one commercial where Kamala Harris is saying, ‘Well, that’s Bidenomics,’ I think that is hurting this because I think the Trump campaign has done a much better job of saying, ‘Things are really bad,’” Panto said during a Monday interview with Fox News Digital.

BIDEN’S OLD BACKYARD NOW A KEY PENNSYLVANIA BATTLEGROUND FILLED WITH ‘PURPLE’ VOTES

Former President Trump gestures at a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Prescott Valley, Arizona. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

“I get more of that on the Stephen Colbert show at night than I do from the Kamala Harris campaign. I think she should be pointing out that his 2025 plan is much different than her plan. And she’s not afraid to talk about her plan. He hasn’t said ‘boo’ about his.”

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Political eyes are locked on Pennsylvania yet again this election cycle, as Keystone State voters are championed as the ones who will likely determine the outcome of the federal election. Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 when he successfully campaigned against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but lost the state in 2020 against President Biden. 

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report. 

The Border Patrol is facing a large-scale outage of security cameras at the southern border with a memo reportedly warning it is having “significant impacts” on operations in apprehending migrants, although officials note there are other layers of security in place as well.

NBC News reported that an October memo said nearly one-third of cameras, roughly 150 of 500 cameras on surveillance towers, were out due to technical issues. 

“The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations,” the memo said.

CHOPPERS, DOGS AND TOWERS: INSIDE THE FED’S FIGHT AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT INTRUDERS

The Remote Video Surveillance Systems are nearly 15 years old and are used to monitor areas of the border without the need for regular on the ground patrols. Agents will rely on a variety of detection and surveillance, including AI-powered towers, helicopters, K-9s, the border wall and the agents themselves.

A Border Patrol vehicle sits near the border walls separating Tijuana, Mexico, from the United States, June 4, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

In response to a Fox News Digital query on the report, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it uses a multilayered approach that includes various technological advantages to enhance capabilities.

“While older technology like the Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS) have been helpful operational tools for more than 15 years, they require significant maintenance and upgrades as they pass the end of their planned lifecycle. As systems go down, CBP works to resolve the issue by refreshing systems with new camera optics or replaces them entirely with a combination of mobile tower systems, aerial platforms, relocatable tower systems, and fixed observation posts to provide coverage in critical areas,” a spokesperson said.

Agents have noted the helpfulness of Automated Surveillance Towers, which are more advanced and use AI to track migrants and help agents locate them. CBP has deployed more than 300 of those towers.

Officials say that RVSS is an old, costly system requiring regular maintenance and dedicated staff to monitor the cameras. That is opposed to the newer systems that use AI and provide alerts to agents in real time.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES ‘OPERATION AURORA’ TO TARGET ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GANG MEMBERS IN COLORADO

“CBP continues to install newer, more advanced technology that embrace artificial intelligence and machine learning to replace outdated systems, reducing the need to have agents working non-interdiction functions within a local command center.”

However, the National Border Patrol Council’s branch in Laredo, Texas, recently highlighted the issues and told agents that it “shares your concerns that inoperable camera towers along the border are causing serious Officer Safety and Border Security concerns.”

“We hope this issue is resolved soon, as the problem has been ongoing for quite some time!” they said in a Facebook post. “The American Taxpayer has made significant investments in technology along the border, and they expect that this technology is operational.”

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The report comes as border security remains a top issue ahead of the 2024 election. Both presidential candidates, Republican former President Trump and Democrat Vice President Harris, have pledged to provide more funding to the border and have been attempting to show voters that they are the stronger candidate for securing the border.

Polls show that Trump is generally the more trusted candidate on the issue among voters.

A top Senate Democrat was booed by striking Boeing workers in Seattle on Tuesday after she disparaged former President Trump and blamed him for housing shortages. 

“Housing everywhere in the United States of America is expensive as all get out. We haven’t built enough supply,” Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told striking members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751. 

“I was in a key negotiation five years ago to get a bipartisan bill that would have built millions, hundreds of thousands, up to a million units by now, but Donald Trump came in and squashed that deal.”

LAKEN RILEY ACT SPONSOR BLASTS BILL CLINTON’S CLAIM ABOUT GEORGIA STUDENT’S DEATH

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was booed after mentioning a housing shortage and blaming it on former President Trump during a union rally with striking Boeing workers. (Reuters)

She was drowned out by booing from the crowd in addition to some inaudible remarks. 

“My point is this,” the senator began again after being unable to speak over the disruption. “Everywhere in America we need more affordable housing.”

“When you first hear that audio clip, it appears that they’re booing whatever Donald Trump had done. The exact opposite is true,” IAM 751 union member Dan Zahlman said in an interview Tuesday with “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH Seattle. 

SENATE DEMS TARGET BLACK VOTERS WITH NEW AD AS HARRIS’ SUPPORT FALLS SHORT

Boeing workers from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 attend a rally at their union hall during an ongoing strike in Seattle on Tuesday. (Reuters)

“She was trying to interject some left-wing radical politics into what is a very rare labor opportunity for IAM members to be able to try to make real gains in their retirement benefits. And that’s not what we were there for. She did not have a friendly audience to spew that at.

“I don’t think she realizes… but there is a tremendous amount of Donald Trump support from union membership,” he added. “All anybody has to do is go through a union parking lot at a Boeing plant, and you’ll see a lot of Trump stickers on bumpers.” 

‘A LOT OF TRUMP SIGNS’: RESIDENTS IN BLUE STRONGHOLD MILWAUKEE BREAK DOWN 2024 ELECTION

Boeing factory workers gather on a picket line during the first day of a strike near the entrance of a production factory in Renton, Washington, on Sept. 13. (Reuters)

The senator is up for re-election in blue Washington next month. Democrats are heavily favored to hold onto the seat in the state. 

Cantwell’s office and campaign did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital. 

The union voted last month to begin striking, rejecting a contract that would have raised pay for members 25% over a period of four years. The IAM 751 union has about 33,000 members. 

‘I WAS MUCH BETTER OFF’: THESE VOTERS BACK TRUMP IN TOP BATTLEGROUND COUNTY

Supporters of former President Trump hold up signs during a campaign rally at the North Carolina Aviation Museum & Hall of Fame in Asheboro, North Carolina, on Aug. 21. (Peter Zay/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is about respect, this is about the past and this is about fighting for our future,” IAM District 751 President Jon Holden said at the time. 

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In its own statement on the strike announcement, Boeing said, “The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members. We remain committed to resetting our relationship with our employees and the union, and we are ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement.”

The company indicated in a regulatory filing this week it expects to use a stock and debt offering to raise about $25 billion, while also beginning a $10 billion credit agreement to offset losses from the strike as debt payments loom. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A Georgia judge struck down several rules recently passed by the State Elections Board (SEB) on Wednesday, measures that were a subject of fierce debate between Trump and Harris surrogates in the key battleground.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Cox ruled the new provisions “illegal, unconstitutional and void” in an opinion released Wednesday evening, according to multiple outlets.

It comes hours after he weighed two lawsuits on the rules – one led by the Georgia Democratic Party, and a second by civil rights groups which also included current and former GOP state officials.

One of the measures – a requirement for all ballots to be hand counted by three county election officials after they had been machine tabulated to ensure the totals match – has become a political lightening rod in recent weeks.

GEORGIA GOP CHAIR SHARES 2-PRONGED ELECTION STRATEGY AS TRUMP WORKS TO WIN BACK PEACH STATE

Both the Trump and Harris campaigns are pouring enormous resources into Georgia. (Getty Images)

That rule was temporarily blocked in a separate ruling made Tuesday night challenging the SEB’s new measures. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney did not take issue with the rule’s intent but argued it would be untenable to implement at this late stage. 

Cox’s ruling invalidates that measure, while also invalidating a rule directing county officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results, and giving them the ability “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.”

TRUMP VS HARRIS ROUND 2? VOTERS IN KEY GA COUNTY REVEAL IF THEY WANT SECOND DEBATE

Cox also blocked new signature and photo ID requirements for people dropping off absentee ballots for others.

The rules were passed last month in a 3-2 vote by the Republican majority on the elections board.

Democrats had accused the GOP officials of trying to sow doubt and chaos in the elections process, while supporters of the rule changes said they were necessary guardrails to ensure voter confidence.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, pictured here, blocked one of the measures at issue in Judge Cox’s hearing after he heard a separate lawsuit on Tuesday. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

In the wider-ranging of the two cases on Wednesday, led by Eternal Vigilance Action, a group founded by former GOP state legislator Scot Turner, the plaintiffs argued the SEB was out of its scope of authority in levying the new rules.

“Three members of the state election board, kind of like Napoleon, they put a crown on their head and say, ‘We are the emperors of election,’” the plaintiffs’ lawyer said. “No, that is not the way our system of government works.”

GEORGIA DEMS CHAIR REVEALS MESSAGE TO UNDECIDED GOP VOTERS AS HARRIS WORKS TO BUILD BROAD BASE

But the defendants and supporting groups, including attorneys for the Georgia Republican Party, argued the state’s General Assembly gave the SEB the scope to craft such rules.

“They don’t say which one of those statutes should be found unconstitutional because, remember, to rule in favor of the plaintiffs here, you’re going to have to find that the General Assembly’s grant of authority to the agency was unconstitutional,” said a lawyer for the GOP.

President Biden won Georgia by less than 1% in 2020. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“They don’t say which one of the three powers we have that they violated, could be all three of them, could be one of the three. And if it’s a constitutional challenge, you can’t have something that’s that vague to bring into a court to ask you to declare it to be unconstitutional.”

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Both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaigns have dedicated significant time and resources to Georgia, which President Biden won by less than 1% in 2020.

Harris’ campaign lauded the Tuesday ruling that blocked the hand-counting ballots rule, declaring, “Our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision.”

Fox News Digital reached out to both the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.