Trump to rally in New York; Harris to speak at Hispanic conference

The president of Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college in Springfield, Ohio, condemned the false claims pushed by Trump and Vance saying Haitian immigrants in the city have eaten cats and dogs.

“They’re falsehoods, and I don’t know that there’s anything I could say or anybody could say to change their opinion,” Michael Frandsen, the college’s president, said during an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room” yesterday.

Wittenberg University received bomb threats by email seemingly “from the same source” after the baseless claims, Frandsen said, which prompted the school to cancel in-person classes and hold them virtually. He said the school has shared those emails with the city police department and the FBI.

Frandsen said some of the threats “actually named students by name. We have had threats of physical violence, of bombing and of shooting, so lots of different sorts of threats.

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Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus last night elected Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., as its new chairman after Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the only other candidate, dropped out of the race, according to two GOP sources familiar with the matter.

The election was called after Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., resigned as the group’s chairman last week in the middle of his term following his primary loss this summer to a Trump-backed challenger, GOP state Sen. John McGuire. 

Good had originally endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary, dividing the Freedom Caucus.

Harris is a staunch Trump ally. His term will only run through early January 2025. Freedom Caucus members, who frequently clash with and create headaches for GOP leadership, will select a new chairman for the next Congress, though Harris will have an opportunity to run for a full-two-year term at that time.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will be in upper Manhattan today and then Brooklyn to deliver remarks at a pair of campaign receptions.

Vance will deliver remarks at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 3 p.m. ET.

In the evening, he will attend a reception and dinner fundraiser in Washington, D.C.

Trump will speak at an indoor rally in Uniondale, New York, at 7 p.m.

It will be Trump’s first campaign rally since the apparent attempt on his life Sunday.

NBC New York reported that heightened security measures will be in place.

“This will be the safest place in the country on that day, Wednesday,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told NBC New York.

Harris spoke at a discussion hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia yesterday, weeks after Trump questioned her racial identity at a separate event with NABJ members. During the interview, Harris rebuked false claims spread by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, about Haitian immigrants abusing pets in Springfield, Ohio. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez has more.

Harris will deliver remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference in Washington, D.C., at 12:15 p.m. ET.

The vice president will then participate in a virtual campaign event, at 3:45 p.m.

Voters in the key battleground of Pennsylvania may notice their ballots look different this year, as the state prepares to deploy a new design in the general election for the first time this year that aims to reduce the number of rejected votes.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt officially certified the state’s ballot for this fall’s presidential election Monday after the state Supreme Court upheld a ruling that rejected third-party candidate Cornel West’s effort to appear on it, which was the final outstanding legal issue for the ballot.

That cleared the way for counties to start preparing, printing and distributing mail ballots to those who request them. Once they’re available, voters will be able to head to their local election offices and request and cast mail ballots in person.

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