The latest on the 2024 campaign as DOJ files new evidence in election case against Trump

America’s position on the world stage is top of mind for young voters in this presidential election.

The Israel-Hamas war has proved to be a key sticking point for progressive and young voters, as well as Arab American and Muslim communities. The past several months have seen protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza at college campuses across the country.

Jean Kojali, who is 23 and lives in Cobb County, Georgia, said she wants the US to stop sending aid to Israel and expressed that it’s a key issue for her.

“The United States, we pride ourselves on this, like, protector of democracy and human rights, but we are currently aiding and abetting and funding this genocide, which is just … it’s really upsetting,” Kojali told CNN.

“If Vice President Harris doesn’t start to lay up a bit on this hardened US-Israel relationship, I don’t know if there’s a path to the presidency for her,” she added.

Harris has had to navigate the complex dynamics of the Israel-Hamas war on both the diplomatic level and a political one as the head of the Democratic ticket. Her positions have not been at odds with Biden’s, but she has advocated a more empathetic approach to the Palestinians and in public has sometimes struck a more forceful tone than the president when discussing the situation in Gaza.

Katelyn Kalkowski, a 24-year-old from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said Harris needs to further contrast herself with Biden over the war in Gaza.

“I think that is really important to younger voters that she speaks on Palestinian suffering and kind of works towards the ceasefire and, you know, just hears us,” she said.

JD Vance speaks at a campaign event in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on October 2.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance defended former president Donald Trump’s style on the campaign, saying he can be warm greeting voters on the ground and also “pissed off” about Vice President Harris’ leadership, which he deemed “an absolute disgrace.”

“I love that Donald Trump can do both of those things at the same time. He can go out there and talk to the American people and be warm and engaged. He can talk to a normal American citizen about their struggles and paying for groceries and housing under Kamala Harris’s policies. And then he can go on a debate stage and tell Kamala Harris that she ought to stop screwing up, and she ought to stop talking about solving the country’s problems. She ought to go and actually do it,” Vance said.

“That’s the kind of President we need. That’s the kind of leader that we need. And I think his message gets through,” Vance added, as the crowd loudly cheered.

Vance claimed Democrats are sowing division in the country by silencing Americans instead of engaging in debate.

Advocating for “open dialogue,” Vance said that is what would heal the divisions in our country. He said that he and Trump will “bring this country back together by encouraging the free exchange of ideas.”

In Marne, Michigan, Vance on Wednesday suggested that local election officials wanted the federal government to take action to secure US elections, though those same officials have repeatedly said elections are safe and secure.

This post has been updated with more comments from Vance.

Following a campaign event in Aurora Hills, Michigan, where Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance spoke, CNN asked some voters about the civility of last night’s debate and why it seems surprising.

While Midge is a Vance fan, she said she liked Walz’s overall demeanor at times during the debate, and that last night reminded her of contests from years ago.

“I thought he was not aggressive like we’re used to, and it’s kind of like the way the old debates used to be years ago between the Dems and Republicans. There was respect,” Midge said.

Midge’s husband Burt said he was impressed with Vance’s debate performance.

A bipartisan group of election officials briefed reporters Wednesday about the voting already underway in their states, and what they’re doing to make sure the election goes smoothly over the next few weeks.

Here are some key takeaways:

Fallout from new Georgia election rules: Zach Manifold, the elections supervisor for Gwinnett County, which is in the Atlanta area, condemned the Georgia State Election Board for imposing new hand-count requirements. Trump loyalists on the board approved the rules last month over bipartisan objections.

“It’s not an ideal situation – not something we really want to see,” Manifold said, pointing out that nonpartisan election officials were “very vocal” in their opposition before the board approved the rule.

Nonetheless, he said “we are moving forward” to train staff and brace for potential delays to the public reporting of results, because the new rules force counties to verify by hand that the number of ballots counted by the machine matches the number of ballots that were cast at every precinct. He said this would likely have a disproportionate impact on smaller and medium sized counties, slowing their results.

The cost of keeping RFK Jr. on the ballot. An election official from Durham County, North Carolina, said his county spent more than $50,000 to reprint ballots after a court fight involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

After RFK Jr. endorsed Trump, he tried to take his name off some state ballots, though he missed the deadline in some places. The North Carolina State Board of Elections ruled that it was too late to redo the ballots in the state, but the North Carolina Supreme Court later ruled that he must be removed.

Officials in Durham County had already spent about $60,000 to print many of their ballots before the ruling, according to Derek Bowens, director of elections for Durham County. They were then forced to pay another $50,000 to go back to their vendor and re-do all the ballots that had already been printed with RFK Jr’s name, he said.

“It came with a 25% markup, due to the rush nature of reprinting the ballots,” Bowens said. “The ballot reprint added a thread to the equation that certainly has complicated our processes this election.”

Securing mail-in ballots. Officials from across the country stressed that mail-in voting is reliable and secure, despite false claims from former President Donald Trump that is riddled with massive fraud.

Santa Fe County Clerk Katherine Clark described the extraordinary lengths her office takes to make sure the process is safeguarded. For instance, there is round-the-clock video surveillance of ballot drop boxes and drive-through locations, and they put GPS trackers on all the “ballot bags” that contain mail ballots.

“I have a dashboard and it shows me exactly where my ballot bags are,” Clark said.

More about the briefing: The Wednesday briefing was organized by the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, a nonprofit group that works with nearly 100 of the biggest election offices across the country.

The US Supreme Court is seen in Washington, DC, on July 29.

The legal wrangling over special counsel Jack Smith’s ability to prosecute Donald Trump for the alleged conduct outlined in Wednesday’s filing could very well land the case back before the Supreme Court.

What may happen next: Trump is expected to push back in his own filing against prosecutors’ arguments and will argue that the whole case should be dismissed under the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. It’s possible that federal Judge Tanya Chutkan will want to hold oral arguments before deciding what to keep and what to toss out in the case.

Chutkan has already noted that however she rules on the immunity issues, it will undoubtedly be appealed to higher courts and likely before a trial. It’s unclear whether such an appeal would delay the proceedings in Chutkan’s court, as they did during the first round of immunity-related appeals. No trial date has been set.

It’s likely, too, that more evidence could come out in coming days. A hefty appendix accompanying Wednesday’s filing remains under seal, and Chutkan has asked both sides to weigh in on how much of it should be made public.

Among the documents in the appendix are grand jury transcripts and notes from FBI interviews conducted during the years-long investigation.

One key part of Wednesday’s filing is the allegation from prosecutors that Donald Trump knowingly pushed false information out to support his claims of a fraudulent election.

An example of these falsehoods, the filing says, is how Trump and his co-conspirators continued to claim that voting machines across several key states were not secure and their tallies inaccurate.

They did this despite the National Association of Secretaries of State and other federal and state officials saying repeatedly that the 2020 election was the most secure in US history and there was no evidence of changed or lost votes in the system.

Despite mounds of evidence offered to Trump that highlighted the security of the election, including hand re-tally counts to verify the machine counts, Trump still made false claims about voting machines during his infamous January 6 speech.

Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to give remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against former President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on August 1, 2023.

The Trump campaign slammed special counsel Jack Smith’s new filing in a statement, saying it is “another obvious attempt” by the Biden administration “to undermine American Democracy and interfere in this election.”

The Trump campaign added in the statement that Smith is “hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department.”

Trump argued the newly released filing was a “hit job” and claimed, without evidence, it was released in response to the vice presidential debate Tuesday night.

“Democrats are Weaponizing the Justice Department against me because they know I am WINNING, and they are desperate to prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris. The DOJ pushed out this latest “hit job” today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump also baselessly claimed the Harris campaign was directing the Department of Justice and argued the filing should not have been released before the election.

The filing is the most comprehensive narrative to date of the 2020 election conspiracy case against Trump.

This post has been updated with Trump’s reaction.

FBI experts have mapped out what Donald Trump was doing on his phone while the US Capitol riot unfolded, special counsel Jack Smith said in his filing Wednesday.

Those logs show that Trump “was using his phone, and in particular, was using the Twitter application, consistently throughout the day after he returned from the Ellipse speech.”

Smith said three unidentified witnesses are also prepared to testify that on the afternoon of January 6, the television in the White House dining room where Trump spent much of the day was “on and tuned into news programs that were covering in real time the ongoing events in the Capitol.”

That testimony would allow prosecutors to show a future jury what Trump saw unfolding on TV while he made comments and posted online that afternoon.

A woman attends a watch party at Arizona GOP headquarters for the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 1.

It was a calmer, more civil debate — and a less popular one overall.

The vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance scored more than 43 million viewers on television Tuesday night, according to Nielsen estimates.

The 43 million figure is the combined audience across 15 television networks that simulcast the CBS-produced debate. An unknown number of additional viewers watched the debate on YouTube and other online platforms.

Vice presidential debates are typically lower rated than presidential face-offs, and this year was no exception. Last month’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump drew more than 67 million viewers across 17 networks, according to Nielsen.

Four years ago, 57 million tuned in to the only vice presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle between Harris and then-Vice President Mike Pence. In 2008, a record 69.9 million watched Joe Biden and Sarah Palin face off on television in the most-watched VP debate, according to Nielsen.

Still, Tuesday’s viewership total was enough to make the Walz-Vance debate one of the most-watched single telecasts of the year in the United States.

Special counsel Jack Smith is trying to capitalize on Donald Trump’s post-presidency comments defending his actions on January 6 and the violence from his supporters at the US Capitol that day.

Prosecutors in a new filing zeroed in on this as part of their push to frame their case as all about Trump’s personal conduct that has nothing to do with his official duties — which they are doing after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that presidents are immune from prosecution for official actions taken while in office.

They said Trump’s continued efforts, after leaving the White House, to blame his Vice President Mike Pene for the violence at the Capitol speaks to Trump’s criminal intent while president on January 6.

Since leaving office in 2021, Trump has repeatedly praised the rioters and even pledged to pardon some of them if he returns to the White House, all while still falsely claiming he actually won the 2020 election.

The Secret Service was warned about Donald Trump threatening to criticize then-Vice President Mike Pence if he failed to overthrow the 2020 election results, according to a new filing.

The filing details how on January 5, Trump once again met with Pence to allegedly tried to pressure him not to certify the electoral college votes. In that meeting, Smith wrote citing Pence’s book, Trump threatened to criticize his vice president publicly.

Smith said that Pence told someone identified only as “P8” about that comment. P8 was so concerned by the prospect that he alerted Pence’s Secret Service detail.

Trump tried again to pressure Pence on the morning of January 6, shortly before driving to deliver his speech at the Ellipse, prosecutors said. Pence, however, again refused and Trump “was incensed,” the filing said.

It was then that Trump “set into motion the last plan in furtherance of his conspiracies: if Pence would not do as he asked, (Trump) needed to find another way to prevent the certification of Biden as president,” the filing said, adding that Trump “sent to the Capitol a crowd of angry supporters.”

Prosecutors also said Trump personally posted on Twitter that Pence “didn’t have the courage” to overturn the election results as the riot was unfolding. The revelation comes as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s argument as to why the Tweet should be considered a private act and therefore not protected under presidential immunity.

The post targeting Pence was “a matter of intense personal concern to the defendant as a candidate for office,” Smith wrote, adding that Trump knew at that time that his request for Pence to block the certification was illegal.

According to the filing, when Trump was told Pence had been taken to a secure location during the Capitol riot, Trump replied, “So what?”

Vice President Kamala Harris walks with Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson as they survey the damage from Hurricane Helene, in Augusta, Georgia, on October 2.

Vice President Kamala Harris thanked first responders in Georgia and provided an update on the federal response as she acknowledged the pain and loss of life experienced by many Americans across the southeast of the US following the devastation of Hurricane Helene.

During her remarks, Harris provided updates on FEMA’s response, including money for people who need it for immediate needs like food or baby formula or to help with recovery activities like home repair.

And she announced that President Joe Biden has approved Georgia’s request for 100% federal reimbursement of local costs incurred by the disaster. This will help cover the costs of debris removal, first responders, search and rescue and other emergency response activities.

Ahead of her remarks, Harris surveyed the storm damage in the neighborhood and met with a family and business owner who was impacted by the storm.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr decided in 2020 to publicly rebut Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was rigged after watching Trump spread these lies on Fox News, prosecutors say.

“On November 29, (Barr) saw the defendant appear on the Maria Bartiromo Show and claim, among other false things, that the Justice Department was ‘missing in action’ and had ignored evidence of fraud,” prosecutors wrote.

That was when “(Barr) decided it was time to speak publicly in contravention of the defendant’s false claims, set up a lunch with a reporter for the Associated Press, and made his statement,” according to the filing. Barr’s name is redacted in the filing and he is referred to as “P52,” which is described as the “attorney general.”

This was the December 1, 2020, statement where Barr infamously said the Justice Department had looked into potential election irregularities but didn’t find any widespread fraud that could’ve tipped the results. This was a major move by Barr, a lifelong Republican who at the time was a staunch Trump ally.

Another mention of false election fraud claim: Prosecutors also said that during a November 9 call with Trump, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey — who is not named by prosecutors but identified as the state’s governor — walked him through the vote margins and noted that Trump’s odds of winning the key state were low. Ducey described the situation to Trump, according to the brief, as “ninth inning, two outs” and Trump “several runs down.”

In their section about Trump’s Arizona-focused conduct, Smith’s team also highlighted that his allies were constantly changing the supposed number of noncitizen voters. Prosecutors note Trump was told on November 13 by his campaign manager that a claim circulating around the internet about a substantial number of noncitizen voters was false.

Even as they face a high bar for introducing evidence from Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, the special counsel’s team sought to do so by framing a series of interactions between the two as conversations between “running mates,” where Pence tried to convince Donald Trump he needed to accept his electoral defeat.

In a few filing Wednesday, prosecutors include details of a number of conversations:

As part of these private conversations, prosecutors say, Pence “tried to encourage” Trump “as a friend” after news networks called the election for Joe Biden. In other interactions, Pence encouraged Trump to consider running for reelection in 2024. Those interactions, prosecutors argued, were not at all related to Trump’s official duties as president.

“The content of the conversations at issue — the defendant and Pence’s joint electoral fate and how to accept the election results — have no bearing on any function of the Executive Branch,” they wrote in the filing.

After losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump told family members “it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” prosecutors allege in a new filing.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team said Wednesday that they have a witness who will testify that he was aboard Marine One with the Trump family when the then-president said this to his wife Melania Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Prosecutors did not name the official in the filing, but they said he was the Director of Oval Office Operations.

“He witnessed an unprompted comment that the defendant made to his family members in which the defendant suggested that he would fight to remain in power regardless of whether he had won the election,” prosecutors wrote.

At the time, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were White House employees, serving as advisers to the president and Melania Trump was first lady. However, prosecutors wrote Tuesday that this conversation aboard Marine One was “plainly private” and had nothing to do with the Trump family’s official government responsibilities.

“The defendant made the comment to his family members, who campaigned on his behalf and served as private advisors (in addition to any official role they may have played),” prosecutors wrote.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz expressed some relief coming out of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, telling supporters during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania he’s “excited last night’s done.”

“I’m excited to be here, I’m excited last night’s done,” Walz said at the beginning of his brief remarks at a restaurant in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Walz’s relief comes after CNN reported he was feeling nervous heading into the face-off with his Republican counterpart, Ohio Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday.

Walz also appeared to play up the significance of the candidates at the top of the ticket in his remarks, reminding those in attendance of Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance during the presidential debate against former president Donald Trump earlier this month.

Walz’s remarks came during a stop at Mofongo Restaurant, a family-owned Puerto Rican restaurant in central Pennsylvania, as part of the Harris campaign’s effort to connect with Latino voters in key states.

Walz noted that Harris was meant to attend the swing with him before pulling out of the trip to survey damage from Hurricane Helene in Georgia, and connected the damage done by the hurricane to the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico in 2017.

“She’s down in Georgia making sure our fellow Americans are safe. We’re getting recovery from the hurricane,” Walz said. “We know how these things can hit, whether it’s Maria in Puerto Rico, we need to get this right.”

Walz touted Harris’ economic proposals and attacked Trump’s hardline immigration proposals, arguing that Republicans shouldn’t “blame every problem on immigrants.”

He also defended the residents of Springfield, Ohio, after Republicans elevated conspiracy theories about Haitian migrants in the town eating household pets, saying he spoke to United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain about the residents.

Former first lady Melania Trump says she supports abortion rights “free from any intervention or pressure from the government” in her upcoming memoir, according to excerpts of the book obtained by The Guardian.

The former first lady, The Guardian reports, says that “restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body” and notes that she has believed this “throughout my entire adult life.”

“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she writes, according to The Guardian.

She also writes in the book that she has disagreed with her husband on some immigration policies, The Guardian reported.

Read more about Melania Trump’s comments in her upcoming memoir.

A campaign sign in support of former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance is seen along a rural highway near Kingsley, Michigan, on September 26.

The Trump campaign said Wednesday its political operation raised more than $160 million in September and that it ended the month with $283 million cash on hand.

The campaign said 96% of the donations in September were under $200 and the average donation was $60. The September haul is $30 million more than the reelection effort raised in August.

“President Trump continues to inspire millions of everyday Americans to join his America First movement and help fuel the campaign with their hard-earned money. In September, nearly 2.5 million donations under $200 were made. These supporters have allowed us to bank the funds we need as we move into the campaign’s final weeks,” Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.

“Our momentum continues to grow from supporters and donors across the country as we enter the homestretch toward victory,” he continued.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team described evidence that allegedly shows that Donald Trump and his co-conspirators “plotted to manipulate” then-Vice President Mike Pence about his role in the election certification process in the lead-up to January 6, 2021. Some of that evidence includes contemporaneous notes written by Pence, according to the filing.

Trump personally asked one of his co-conspirators John Eastman to explain to Pence why he should reject the official electoral college votes on January 6. Pence took notes during that meeting, Smith said, which allegedly memorialized Trump saying that “when there’s fraud the rules get changed” and “this whole thing is up to MP.”

“[H]as to do w/you – you can be bold,” his notes allegedly said.

While Trump began to “directly and repeatedly” pressure Pence, his co-conspirators worked to orchestrate the pressure campaign behind the scenes, Smith said. The filing makes clear that investigators are working to tie Trump to the actions of his co-conspirators who were responsible for allegedly concocting the plot.

Smith repeatedly cites calls that Trump made to Pence, including a call the morning of January 1, in which Trump allegedly told Pence that people “are gonna hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid.” The special counsel said that Trump spoke with some of his co-conspirators including Eastman twice before that call took place.

Some of these conversations with Pence, prosecutors said, don’t fall within the protection of immunity because they only touched on “discrete duties” Pence had in the certification process.

Prosecutors also argue that in some conversations with Pence to try and convince him to join the conspiracy to overthrow the election, Trump let in private actors and “explicitly excluded” a White House attorney from one meeting with Pence.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Dane Manufacturing in Waunakee, Wisconsin, on October 1.

Donald Trump’s team will likely oppose special counsel Jack Smith’s new filing Wednesday in the 2020 election subversion case, according to a CNN legal analyst, relying on their previous argument that the former president is still immune from prosecution and likely pushing any trial beyond 2024.

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” that “what happens next is Donald Trump’s team has opposed this and will continue to oppose this.”

Honig, a former federal prosecutor, said Trump’s team will claim that all of the conduct alleged in the filing was related to his role as president and therefore official acts and that he is immune based on the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

“Judge [Tanya] Chutkan at the end of this, probably after the election, will come down with a ruling saying, ‘here’s what I find can stay in the case and here’s what I find if anything is out of the case,’” Honig said.

But, Honig said, the Supreme Court was “explicit” that Trump’s team can appeal Chutkin’s ruling before going to trial.

“Which means, no way we get a trial before the election, no way we get a trial, really, before the end of 2024,” Honig said. “We are still a ways away.”

Honig said Judge Chutkan will decide what can stay in case, then Trump can ask the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to review her decision. And if he loses there, he can ask the Supreme Court to take a second look at the case.

Special counsel Jack Smith is again using the Hatch Act — which limits the political activities of federal employees — to bolster their 2020 election subversion charges against former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors said in a new filing that the Hatch Act allows White House staffers to “wear two hats,” separating out their official conduct to serve the public from their political conduct to help a candidate.

Therefore, even if some of Trump’s alleged wrongdoing occurred on White House grounds and in front of White House staff, he doesn’t have immunity because that fell under the “political” umbrella, Smith’s team wrote.

In essence, prosecutors are urging the judge in the case to adopt a broad view of what falls outside of the Supreme Court’s decision immunizing actions taken by the sitting president as part of his official duties.

The special counsel team made its argument by bringing up an interaction between Trump and a White House official, whose identity was redacted in the new filing.

This post has been updated with additional details.

Prosecutors describe an effort by Trump operatives to “create chaos” in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election when the voting looked to be going for President Joe Biden.

In Philadelphia, prosecutors allege campaign operatives sought to create confrontations at polling places and them “falsely claim that his election observers were being denied proper access” as a predicate to claim fraud.

Prosecutors also raised the fracas in at the Detroit Counting Center, pointing to evidence that a campaign staffer, upon learning a heavy incoming batch of votes leaned for Biden, asked for “options to file litigation” even if was “itbis[sic}.”

The same campaign operative said “make them riot” when told that protests at the counting center were heading in the direction of the so-called Brooks Brothers riot that disrupted the 2000 Florida count.

Prosecutors also say Trump told others an attorney who spread false election information was ‘unhinged’: Trump allegedly told others that Sidney Powell, the attorney who spread false information around the election, appeared “unhinged” in one of the press conferences she and others held to call into question the election results.

At other times, Trump “mocked and laughed” at Powell and called “her claims ‘crazy’ and made reference to the science fiction series Star Trek when describing her allegations.”

Soon after, the campaign began distancing itself from Powell, saying that she was practicing law on her own and was not part of Trump’s legal team, despite his earlier statement that she was on the legal team fighting to election results.

In their filing on Wednesday, prosecutors identify witnesses they hope to call at a trial to testify against Donald Trump — including election officials in battleground states and his White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

The prosecutors say they also want to show a jury at trial Trump’s campaign speech on January 4, 2021, in Georgia, and his campaign speech on the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, just before the riot at the US Capitol.

And, they’d like to show the jury tweets that they say can prove Trump was driving the public campaign of fraud in the election, as he knew there was none that was widespread enough to overturn his loss. They argue those tweets weren’t part of Trump’s official work as president.

Prosecutors say they would like to call at trial the only other adviser to Trump who had access to his Twitter account to testify that the former president was sending tweets on January 6, 2021, that would put pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence. The person is described as White House deputy chief of staff.

The filing said that person would testify that “he sent tweets only at the defendant’s express direction, and that person 45 did not send certain specific Tweets” — specifically a tweet Trump sent that said Pence didn’t have the courage to block the certification of the vote.

Campaign speeches: Prosecutors are also telling the court some of Trump’s campaign speeches can be used against him to prove to a jury he was acting on his own, for his own benefit.

The prosecutors point out that Trump only talked about his own margins in the race, only referred to his own voters as “we,” and was largely making accusations about the person he ran against — Joe Biden.

Trump wasn’t talking about down-ballot races that voters would also decide on Election Day, the prosecutors point out.

This post has been updated with additional details.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is working to show how Donald Trump was directly involved in the plot to nominate fake electors in a new filing Wednesday.

Why this is key: The plot is a central part of the allegations that Trump himself was working to undermine the 2020 election results.

For example, Smith’s team identifies one individual, whose name is redacted in filings, who worked in Trump’s White House and appears to have relayed information about the fake electors plot to Trump while the strategy was unfolding.

The person, identified only as “P9,” appears to have personally had discussions over the phone about the fake electors strategy with Trump, and had repeated text conversations with other people in the campaign about how the strategy was “crazy” or “illegal,” according to the filing.

Using other details in the filing from “P9,” prosecutors are also trying to show that Trump was well aware he had lost the election as he pressed on with the reversal schemes.

When Trump told the staffer he would not pay the private lawyer spearheading his legal challenges unless the challenges were successful, the staffer told Trump that the private attorney would never be paid. That prompted a laugh and a “we’ll see” from Trump, the filings said.

The private attorney is identified by prosecutors as co-conspirator 1, who CNN has previously identified as Rudy Giuliani.

In a follow-up conversation, the White House official told Trump that Giuliani would not be able to prove his false claims in court and Trump told the staffer, “The details don’t matter.” The brief lays out several other interactions between the White House staffer and Trump in which Trump was told that the election fraud claims wouldn’t hold up in court.

This post has been updated with additional details.

A federal judge in Washington, DC, released a filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s office that provides the most comprehensive narrative to date of the 2020 election conspiracy case against Donald Trump.

It weaves together what prominent witnesses told a federal grand jury and the FBI about the former president, along with other never-before-disclosed evidence investigators gathered about his actions leading up to and on January 6, 2021.

Read the full filing below.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference held at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on September 13.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office stressed the private and political nature of Donald Trump’s actions around the 2020 election in his new court filing Wednesday.

“The executive branch has no authority or function to choose the next president,” prosecutors wrote.

That argument appeared designed for federal appeals courts, including the Supreme Court, that have placed a heavy emphasis in recent years on the historical understanding of the separation of powers.

In other words, Smith is arguing that Trump’s effort to overturn the election was necessarily private because the Constitution gives a president no official authority for choosing his successor.

Special Counsel Jack Smith argues throughout his lengthy filing Wednesday that the actions Donald Trump took to overturn the 2020 election were in his private capacity — as a candidate — rather than in his official capacity as a president.

That argument flows from the Supreme Court’s decision in July, which granted the former president sweeping immunity for official actions but left the door open for prosecutors to pursue Trump for unofficial steps he took.

Prosecutors say that Trump was told by advisers that the 2020 vote likely would not be finalized on Election Day and that he could misleadingly look ahead in the ballot count on Election Night only to fall behind once all of the ballots were counted. Nonetheless, Trump told his advisers that he would claim victory before the ballots were fully counted, prosecutors say.

One private political adviser, three days before Election Day, described Trump’s plan as: “He’s going to declare victory. That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner,” according to the filing.

That advisor, not identified by name by prosecutors, also described the Democratic lean of the mail ballot vote “a natural disadvantage” and said “Trump’s going to take advantage of it. That’s our strategy.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against former President Donald Trump on August 1, 2023 in Washington, DC. 

A federal judge in Washington, DC, has released the most comprehensive narrative to date of the 2020 election conspiracy case against Donald Trump.

The 165-page document comes from the prosecutors in Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office, as they lay out their case for a trial judge in a way that they believe would overcome the immunity protections around the presidency that the US Supreme Court has outlined.

The legal filing is expected to include the fullest accounting yet of evidence in the election subversion case against Trump as if it were an opening statement that would be made to a jury — though this is a filing on paper. It comes one month before the November presidential election and long before any trial could be scheduled​.

The filing has some redactions. It weaves together what prominent witnesses told a federal grand jury and the FBI about Trump, along with other never-before-disclosed evidence investigators gathered about the former president’s actions leading up to and on January 6, 2021.

How we got here: The filing is the way the special counsel is telling its story after it had to rework the original indictment after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Trump had immunity for official acts in office, according to Paula Reid, CNN chief legal affairs correspondent.

The judge is now tasked with considering all of these details laid out by Smith and assessing them against the immunity ruling, Reid said.

Prosecutors have not dropped any of the four charges that they initially brought against the former president, but they did adjust the way they described the allegation to argue that they were personal acts — not official.

CNN reporters are going through the filing now and will share the latest updates here.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sought to clarify his comments about school shootings during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate by pointing to friends and relatives of victims of school shooters with whom he’s developed relationships in recent years.

Walz told reporters as he arrived in Pennsylvania for a bus tour through the state that he’s “super passionate” about reducing gun violence at schools but that he needs “to be more specific on that” after he said in Tuesday’s debate he “became friends with school shooters.”

A Harris campaign official told CNN on Tuesday following the debate he was referring to meetings with relatives and friends of victims of school shooters.

Walz pointed to his past meetings with the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and said he’s formed a friendship with David Hogg, a gun violence reduction advocate who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.

“And I sat as a member of Congress with the Sandy Hook parents, and it was a profound movement. David Hogg is a good friend of mine. You have seen me do this. I was talking about being people where there are school shooters (sic). And, I need to be more specific on that, but I am passionate about this,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to travel to North Carolina “in the coming days,” according to the White House.

Harris received updates on ongoing response and recovery efforts in the state following Hurricane Helene’s devastation and spoke with Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer on Tuesday.

Harris reaffirmed the Biden administration’s commitment to providing resources to the areas devastated by the storm.

The vice president is expected to survey damage, provide updates on federal response and meet with impacted communities during the upcoming visit.

President Joe Biden is also visiting North and South Carolina on Wednesday to tour the damage from the storm and meet with local officials. He will also go to impacted communities in Florida and Georgia, the White House said.

Some more context: The enormous scope and scale of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in two key battleground states that could determine the election’s outcome, Georgia and North Carolina, have made the storm an instant campaign issue.

Biden has approved major disaster declarations for Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. State and local officials from both parties have so far praised Biden’s response — but former President Donald Trump has been seeking to gain a political advantage by jabbing the administration.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News on Tuesday in New York.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said on Wednesday he traveled to Hong Kong and China in August of 1989, further clarifying comments he previously made in which he said he was in China during the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests that were violently quelled in June of 1989.

Walz told reporters traveling with him to Pennsylvania on Wednesday he was “wrong” in suggesting previously he was in the country during the protests and said he traveled to the country in August of 1989 to prepare for a teaching position in China.

Walz also said he traveled to China approximately 15 times as the leader of education trips with students, clarifying comments he previously made in which he suggested he’d made as many as 30 trips to China.

“About 15 back-and-forths with my students, um, taking them to China to understand both first of all the culture, but also to teach Chinese students about democracy,” he said.

The latest CNN Poll of Polls of recent presidential election surveys in battleground Wisconsin finds no clear leader in the state, with Vice President Kamala Harris averaging 49% support among likely voters, compared with 46% for former President Donald Trump.

The average includes five surveys conducted in mid-to-late September. Two — a Marquette Law School poll released Wednesday, and a MassINC/Wisconsin Watch survey released early last week — show Harris with a slight advantage among likely voters, while the remaining polls show a tighter race, with only a 1- or 2-point margin separating the candidates.

When multiple versions of the ballot test are available on a survey, the average includes the version more closely matching the list of candidates slated to appear on the state’s ballot.

In the Marquette poll, 49% of likely voters support Harris and 44% support Trump when third-party candidates are included, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who remains on the state’s ballot) at 3% support. President Joe Biden’s job approval rating in Wisconsin stands at 43% among the state’s registered voters, Marquette finds, while retrospective approval for Trump’s time in office now stands at 47%.

The Marquette poll also looks at Wisconsin’s Senate race, where it finds Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin with a modest edge over Republican Eric Hovde among likely voters (51% to 45% when third party candidates are included, and 53% to 46% in a head-to-head matchup).

Vice President Kamala Harris makes her way to board Air Force Two before departing Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin on September 20.

Vice President Kamala Harris drew contrast with her support for labor and former President Donald Trump’s amid the ongoing port worker strike.

The International Longshoremen’s Association, she said in a statement issued by her campaign, “play a vital role transporting essential goods across America” and “deserve a fair share of these record profits.”

Trump, Harris added, “wants to pull us back to a time before workers had the freedom to organize.”

Harris pointed to her support for the PRO Act, a law supporting unions and collective bargaining.

But the Biden administration is now confronting the complicated politics and limited toolkit of the stoppage in the home stretch of the critical election season.

CNN has reported the severity of the economic impact will depend on the length of the strike. A one-week strike would cost the US economy about $2.1 billion, according to an estimate Monday from the Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan research firm with expertise in estimating the cost of strikes and other disruptions.

In this January 2022 photo, Dominion voting machines sit in the basement at the election offices Rome, Georgia.

Just weeks before early voting begins in Georgia, Republican Party officials and Donald Trump allies are trying to preemptively sow doubt about the viability of Dominion systems used across the key swing state, arguing in court that the machines should not be used because they are not safe or secure.

In a replay of 2020 tactics, Republicans have continued to claim without proof that Dominion voting systems are susceptible to mass manipulation and vote-flipping by a nefarious actor. And GOP officials in DeKalb County, Georgia, aided by a familiar cast of pro-Trump lawyers, have signaled they are planning to once again question the 2024 election results if Trump loses.

They have sued in state court, arguing the Dominion voting machines are not in compliance with Georgia law and want the Secretary of State’s office to make voting records and ballot images available for public inspection within 24 hours of the election. But the lawsuit is also raising concerns that the DeKalb County GOP officials are attempting to mislead voters so they can explain away a potential loss in November.

Ironically, the plaintiffs are relying in part on data obtained from five Georgia counties after the 2020 election when Trump was fighting Joe Biden’s legitimate win, including an unauthorized breach of Coffee County’s systems that led to criminal charges in the racketeering case against Trump and his allies.

While state election officials have acknowledged no voting system is without vulnerabilities — as shown by the alleged physical breach of Coffee County’s offices — they insist Georgia’s voting equipment is completely secure and there has been no proof of widespread fraud.

Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) introduces former President Donald Trump during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Minnesota.

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s debate performance and said it “reconfirmed my choice” to select him as his running mate.

“JD was fantastic last night — it just reconfirmed my choice,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “There was a brilliance to what he did.”

Trump criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and argued he “embarrassed himself” at the debate.

“On the other hand, Tim Walz proved to be a man that doesn’t have it in any way shape or form for the office that he is seeking, though I would put him a large number of steps above Kamala,” Trump said.

Trump said Walz “embarrassed himself and the Democrat Party last night but was made to look even worse by JD’s brilliant performance.”

“This is what the country needs; smart people, not people that can’t put two sentences together,” Trump said. “We have to take our country back.”

After Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz grabbed pizza from Justino’s Pizza in Manhattan along with his wife, Gwen, while Ohio Sen. JD Vance visited the spin room.

Following the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris last month, Trump took to the spin room, while Harris went to a watch party in Philadelphia.

The spin room is where supporters of each candidate put their “spin” on the debate as they talk with journalists.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will hold a rally in York, Pennsylvania, today alongside Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman in his first campaign rally after Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.

The Harris campaign said the event will kick off a daylong bus tour through Central Pennsylvania, with the governor expected to make stops in Harrisburg and Reading as well as York.

The trip will be Walz’s fifth visit to the state since joining the Democratic ticket, the campaign said.

A blitz of new presidential campaign ads hit airwaves Wednesday on the heels of the Vice Presidential debate, as the Harris campaign continued tailoring its messaging on health care and immigration, and the Trump campaign threw the kitchen sink at the Democratic nominee.

Two new Harris TV ads began airing Wednesday morning, one of them focused on the Affordable Care Act – the second ad that the campaign has launched this week touting the program – and the other a Spanish-language spot slamming the Trump administration’s handling of immigration.

In addition, the Harris campaign released another ad Wednesday on the exchange between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance on January 6 and Trump’s 2020 election loss at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate. At the debate, Walz put Vance on the spot during a discussion of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, launched four new TV spots on Wednesday morning, throwing the kitchen sink at Harris with a variety of attacks – referencing inflation, the Green New Deal, the war in Ukraine, and transgender health care policies.

One of the ads, which first aired in Georgia, claims that Harris “is gonna significantly raise taxes,” and warns that “under Kamala, prices have already soared – now she’d make it worse.”

A debate between Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is seen in Times Square in New York on October 1.

The vice presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio was a civil and policy-oriented affair, and it included some important developments.

Here are key lines from the debate, which was hosted by CBS News in New York City on Tuesday.

Vance rattled off the short version of his own inspiring biography, which includes that he was raised by a grandmother on Social Security and that he joined the military and went to college on the GI Bill.

The first question the men answered was about whether Israel should be able to strike at Iran. Walz turned that question back to Trump’s fitness.

Walz might have preferred to have Trump on the debate stage Tuesday night. Vance said many of the things Trump says, but he did it with a control that Trump lacks. Vance said Trump was effective as a world leader because of “effective deterrence,” which basically means people were afraid of him.

Read 34 more key lines from the debate.

Sen. JD Vance speaks during a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday in New York.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said he was at “11” out of 10 on the nerves scale ahead of the debate and reminded voters to contrast the records of Vice President Harris and former President Trump.

“A friend asked me how nervous I was on a scale of 1 to 10. The answer? 11,” Vance said, also sharing the prayer a priest sent to him before taking the stage.

Michael Tyler, communications director of the Harris-Walz campaign, said on Wednesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz laid out a clear vision during the vice presidential debate last night and said the campaign is focused during the final days until the election.

Tyler compared Walz’s performance to Vance’s, who he called a “slick debater” and said Walz’s performance was the opposite of “the dangerous chaotic dark vision that JD Vance was propagating.”

He said the campaign is “excited coming off of last night,” but they’re focused on the task at hand over the course of the final days before the election, pointing to media appearances and a bus tour in Pennsylvania Walz has planned.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly spoke with an undecided voter, Alex, in Grand Rapids, Michigan following the vice presidential debate, who called it “peaceful” and “a breath of fresh air.”

“It was the first time I feel like we really got to see unity within, within our politics in a really long time, at least for as long as I’ve been able to watch politics,” the undecided voter said.

He said he hopes to see more debates like the one last night.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would veto a federal abortion ban if he is elected again.

“Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!),” Trump wrote in an all-caps post on his Truth Social platform during the CBS vice presidential debate between his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“Like Ronald Reagan before me, I fully support the three exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother,” Trump continued.

The GOP nominee has repeatedly said he would not sign a federal abortion ban, but during last month’s ABC debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he would not commit to vetoing such a ban and instead argued he “wouldn’t have to.”

When he was asked during that debate about Vance telling NBC News that the former president would veto such legislation, Trump said he hadn’t spoken to Vance about it, saying, “I don’t think he was speaking for me.”

More context: Abortion has been a key contrast in the 2024 race, with Harris enjoying a clear advantage on the issue. That’s partially fueled her lead among female voters nationally and in swing states. Democrats have made abortion rights a prominent part of their messaging this year, pointing to state-level restrictions made possible by Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices voting with the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Read more about Trump’s comments here.

US Army Sgt. 1st Class Stuart Stroubel clears a downed tree in Augusta, Georgia, on September 30.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance are fresh off the heels of the vice presidential debate, while former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris continue to campaign ahead of the election next month.

Here’s a brief overview of what the candidates are up to today:

Harris: She will travel to Augusta, Georgia to survey the impacts of Hurricane Helene and receive an on-the-ground briefing about the continued recovery efforts. Harris will provide updates at 4:00 p.m. ET on federal actions that are being taken to support emergency response and recovery efforts in Georgia and other states throughout the Southeast following Hurricane Helene.

Walz: The Democratic vice presidential candidate will travel from New York City to Central Pennsylvania to kick off a bus tour with stops in Harrisburg, Reading, and York, Pennsylvania. Walz will deliver remarks at a campaign rally at 3:00 p.m. ET in York, Pennsylvania, joined by York native, Sen. John Fetterman. He will then join two political engagements later in the afternoon.

Trump: The former president sat down for a pre-recorded interview with radio host Dave Ramsey, which will be released Wednesday morning.

Vance: The Ohio senator will deliver remarks at an event in Auburn Hills, Michigan on jobs and manufacturing at 1:30 p.m. ET. He will also deliver remarks at an event in Marne, Michigan on the economy, prices, and inflation at 5:30 p.m. ET.

Gov. Tim Walz speaks during the vice presidential debate as Sen. JD Vance listens in New York on Tuesday.

The Harris campaign has released an ad on the exchange between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance on Jan. 6 and Trump’s 2020 election loss at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.

At the debate, Walz put Vance on the spot during a discussion of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance Tuesday night, attempting to force the Ohio senator to acknowledge a reality that Trump himself won’t.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” was how Vance began his response.

“That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz shot back.

Vance tried to sidestep the violent attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on the day Congress was gathering to officially count Electoral College votes and certify Joe Biden’s victory.

“On January 6, what happened? Joe Biden became president; Donald Trump left the White House,” Vance said, while attempting to argue that Trump’s actions in 2020 were not unusual.

Gov. Tim Walz speaks during the debate on Tuesday.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sit down for two national TV interviews in the coming days as part of an increase in media appearances amid the governor’s campaign stops following Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, a Harris campaign official tells CNN.

Walz will make his late-night TV debut since joining the Democratic ticket and will participate in several digital media engagements, including participating in a high-profile pop culture podcast while continuing to participate in interviews with local and Hispanic media during his upcoming travel. The campaign official did not specify which outlets would be interviewing Walz or when they would air.

Walz has participated in relatively few national media interviews since becoming Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. He participated in a joint interview with Harris on CNN in August, and did live interviews with ABC News and MSNBC following September’s presidential debate between Harris and former president Donald Trump. That stands in stark contrast to his Republican counterpart Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who has been interviewed regularly by national media outlets since joining the Republican ticket in July.

Following Walz’s swing through Pennsylvania on Wednesday, he will travel to Ohio for fundraisers in Cleveland and Cincinnati on Saturday before heading to western part of the country. Walz will attend fundraisers in California and Washington and hold campaign events in Reno, Nevada and in Arizona to mark the beginning of early voting in that battleground state next week, the campaign official said.

Walz had previously scheduled a rally in Reno, Nevada, in September, but the event was postponed due to the Davis Fire.

Members of the New York Young Republican Club watch the vice presidential debate in New York on Tuesday.

The vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was something that’s become increasingly rare in modern American politics: Normal.

In an event that is unlikely to change the trajectory of the presidential race, the two VP candidates were cordial with each other, training their attacks instead on the tops of the opposing tickets and focusing largely on policy differences. Vance repeatedly hit Vice President Kamala Harris on border security, while Walz lambasted former President Donald Trump on abortion rights.

Here are some key takeaways from the debate:

Springfield pet-eating claims feature in immigration clash: During a debate over immigration and border security, Walz invoked Vance’s false claims about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio.

“There’s consequences for this,” Walz said, pointing out that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, dispatched state troopers to Springfield to ensure the safety of children after a series of bomb threats. Vance shot back, “The people I care most about in Springfield are the American citizens.”

What Vance didn’t say: The 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian migrants in Springfield are in the United States legally. But Walz didn’t fact-check Vance on that matter. And when he didn’t, CBS moderator Margaret Brennan explained those immigrants’ legal status.

Vance dodges on January 6: The clearest divide of the night came when Walz put Vance on the spot during a discussion of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance, attempting to force the Ohio senator to acknowledge a reality that Trump himself won’t.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” was how Vance began his response.

“That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz shot back.

Midwestern nice … up to a point: In many ways, this vice presidential debate reflected the way typical Americans argue about contentious issues. There was no name-calling, few canned zingers and a clear directive for both Vance and Walz not to get personal – unless they were aggressively agreeing that the issues were, in fact, issues. The housing crisis, they agreed, was a crisis. Gun violence, both said, needed to be reduced.

Instead of jousting among themselves, Vance and Walz behaved agreeably in the service of trying to depict the respective presidential candidates as uniquely divisive or misguided.

Read more takeaways from the debate and watch one of the moments below.

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Georgia, which was impacted by Hurricane Helene, on Wednesday, according to a White House official, scrapping a previously scheduled campaign event in Pennsylvania.

Harris will provide updates on federal actions supporting emergency response and recovery efforts in Georgia and other states throughout the Southeast.

CNN previously reported that the scope and scale of Hurricane Helene’s devastation in two key battleground states has made the storm an instant campaign issue.

The vice president is also expected to travel to North Carolina in the coming days, according to the official.

Sen. JD Vance speaks during the vice presidential debate with Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday in New York.

Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate between vice presidential nominees Tim Walz and JD Vance were closely divided over which candidate did the better job, according to a CNN instant poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS, and the event left viewers with more positive views of both candidates.

Among debate watchers, Walz remains the candidate who’s seen more positively and as more in touch with their needs and vision for the country. Vance, who suffers from more of an image deficit among both viewers and the public at large, boosted his standing among the debate audience, outperforming expectations and gaining ground on the share who perceive him as qualified. He was also narrowly seen as doing a better job than Walz of defending his running mate.

Both men, the poll finds, are viewed by a majority of debate watchers as qualified to assume the vice presidency if needed. And practically none of the voters who tuned in saw the debate as a reason to change their votes.

Following the debate, 51% of viewers said that Vance did the better job, with 49% picking Walz. In a survey conducted of the same voters prior to the debate, Walz held the advantage as the candidate they expected to perform more strongly, 54% to 45%.

The closely divided opinions about the outcome of Tuesday’s debate stand in sharp contrast to the more decisive audience reaction following this year’s top-of-the-ticket debates. In June, two-thirds of debate watchers thought that former President Donald Trump outperformed President Joe Biden, while a 63% majority who tuned in to the September debate between Trump and Kamala Harris said that the vice president did the better job.

Keep reading about the CNN Instant Poll of last night’s debate here.

In Tuesday’s debate, Sen. JD Vance spoke for about 38 minutes and 59 seconds overall, while Gov. Tim Walz spoke for about 40 minutes and 42 seconds.

Here’s how long each candidate spoke for:

President Donald Trump speaks during his interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl in October 2020.

Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s asked CBS News for an apology over an interview he did in 2020 with CBS’ Lesley Stahl, and the former president suggested he would need that before agreeing to another “60 Minutes” interview.

CBS News said earlier on Tuesday that Trump had backed out of a “60 Minutes” interview with veteran CBS anchor and correspondent Scott Pelley.

“Well, right now I went to, they came to me and would like me to do an interview, but first I want to get an apology, because the last time I did an interview with them, if you remember, they challenged me on the computer,” Trump said as he spoke to reporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump sat down with Stahl in October 2020 and abruptly ended the interview when he apparently objected to Stahl’s questions.

“If you remember Lesley Stahl, we got into a little bit of an argument on the camera, talking about that and other things. And you know, they really owed me an apology,” Trump said.

“I never got an apology. So, I’m sort of waiting. I’d love to do ’60 Minutes’, I do everything,” Trump said.

The former president added, “I’d like to get an apology, so I’ve asked them for an apology, let’s see if they do it.”

CBS said earlier Tuesday that correspondent Bill Whitaker is slated to follow Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail and interview her later this week.

Former President Donald Trump has backed out of an interview with “60 Minutes,” the most-watched newsmagazine in the United States, according to CBS News.

CBS disclosed Trump’s change of plans on Tuesday evening, a few hours before the network is set to host a vice presidential debate between Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, and Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz.

“For over half a century, 60 Minutes has invited the Democratic and Republican tickets to appear on our broadcast as Americans head to the polls,” the network said in a statement. “This year, both the Harris and Trump campaigns agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes.”

Trump committed first, followed by Harris, through campaign spokespeople, CBS said. Veteran correspondent Scott Pelley was lined up to interview Trump.

“After initially accepting 60 Minutes’ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate,” CBS said in a statement.

The network was notified earlier Tuesday – throwing a wrench into its programming plans, since the Harris and Trump interviews were supposed to air on a special Monday night edition of “60 Minutes” next week.

CBS says the special edition will go forward in some fashion. Correspondent Bill Whitaker is slated to follow Harris on the campaign trail and interview her later this week.

“Our original invitation to former President Donald Trump to be interviewed on 60 Minutes stands,” the network said in a statement.

Trump sat down with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl in October 2020 and abruptly ended the interview when he apparently objected to Stahl’s questions.