Tim Walz’s motorcade involved in crash in Milwaukee

Several cars in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s motorcade crashed this afternoon.

It happened just after 12:57 pm according to the reporter covering Harris’ running mate’s travels for the day.

A staff member in the press van appears to have a broken arm and is being treated by medics.

One male reporter had a bloody nose and another woman reporter may have a concussion. She is looking to head to urgent care.

Everyone who wanted to has been checked out by medics and eleven of the twelve person group plan to continue on.

As the reporter described it, she was violently thrown forward as the van slammed into the on in front of it and was hit from behind.

Video and images of the vans show a large dent in the back of one of them while two more behind it are smashed together on the side of the highway.

Walz and Congresswoman Gwen Moore were ahead in the motorcade and not involved. Their vehicle continued on ahead.

Governor Walz is campaigning in Wisconsin for Labor Day.

The White House released an update after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ met with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team in the Situation Room after the killing of American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas in Gaza.

Biden, who returned to the White House this morning, ‘expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder’ the White House said.

He also reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable.  

According to the White House, Biden and Harris received an update from the negotiation team on the status of the ‘bridging proposal’ outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.

They also discussed next steps in the ongoing effort to secure the release of hostages including continuing consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt.

A top Trump volunteer from Massachusetts has lost his position with the campaign after writing in an email that neighboring New Hampshire was not longer in play for the ex-president.

Tom Mountain wrote in an email that Trump was ‘sure to lose by an even higher margin’ in 2024 in New Hampshire than he did in 2016 and 2020, according to a report by The Boston Globe.

Mountain’s email claim it was ‘no longer a battleground state’ cited campaign data and research, the Globe reported.

He sent the email to fellow volunteers directing them to instead direct their support toward Republican efforts to win Pennsylvania.

It comes as Vice President Kamala Harris is headed to campaign in New Hamspshire later this week.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stopped by a Milwaukee hospital Monday afternoon to check on his staff members involved in a motorcade crash earlier in the day.

The motorcade went to the hospital just after 4pm according to the pool reporter.

A campaign official said he wanted to check on staff members who were injured in the crash. The governor was riding ahead in the motorcade when it happened earlier in the day and was not involved.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent in Pittsburgh

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden held a meet-and-greet with union workers ahead of their campaign event.

The duo posed for photos and gave hugs as they worked the room.

Ad spending for television last month in the presidential race hit a whopping $281 million.

In total Republicans spent more than $143 million on TV ads while Democrats spent more than $137 million, according to tracking by AdImpact.

The biggest individual spender in the race was the Harris campaign with more than $71 milllion in August. The Trump campaign by comparison spent just under $50 million.

The states seeing the largest buys: Pennsyvlania with about $37 million from each Republicans and Democrats.

Michigan had about $24 million spent by each Democrats and Republicans.

Republicans spent a bit more than Democrats in Georgia with $22 million to nearly $17 million and in Wisconsin with more than $16 million to $15.5 million.

In North Carolina, Republicans spent 2-to-1 in the must hold state for them with more than $16 million in ad buys while Democrats spent just over $8 million.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is on greeting duty as both President Biden and Vice President Harris – who nearly picked him as her running mate – campaign in his state.

First it was Harris who got the greeting from Shapiro, who wore a white short-sleeved short, on the tarmac in Pittsburgh. Then, the governor headed a delegation greeting the president. Shapiro also joined the president for a drive in ‘the Beast.’

Giselle Fetterman, the wife of Sen. Josh Fetterman, was on hand for both events, following reports about a rift between the senator and the governor.

Fetterman was on Harris’s short list, in part due to running ahead of Biden during his electoral win. Although Harris has clicked with her selection of a another governor, Tim Walz, polls in battleground Pennsylvania show an extremely tight race where a homestate running mate could have helped.

Critics say Kamala Harris used a ‘fake accent’ in a Michigan speech on Monday, and have accused her of switching voices to pander to different crowds.

Social media erupted when the vice president addressed members of a teacher’s union at a Detroit high school.

Allegations she has altered her accent have emerged before and are re-emerging with just two months until election day.

‘New Kamala accent just dropped,’ one X user wrote in response to a clip of Harris speaking to a teacher’s union at a high school in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

In her remarks, social media users claim that Harris adopted an urban accent to relate to the working class crowd.

‘You may not be a union member but you better thank a union member for the five day work week,’ Harris said in a tone of voice atypical of the one she uses in her usual stump speeches.

By Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter:

Tim Walz is campaigning at Laborfest in Milwaukee to mark Labor Day.

The governor touted being a dues-paying member of a union while serving as a teacher before running for office.

The Minnesota governor said Republicans once accused him of being ‘in the pocket’ of organized labor, but he responded ‘that’s a damn lie. I am the pocket.’

Walz said unions are more popular today than any other time in his lifetime and touted the Harris-Walz ticket for being pro-union.

He claimed Minnesota is a top state for workers but also a top place for business, claiming they don’t have to choose and can do both.

Walz also went after Donald Trump accusing him of promising billionaires tax cuts at Mar-a-Lago while telling workers they already make too much.

‘That’s who this guy is. You tell me who in Wisconsin is sitting around and saying “damn I wish they’d give billionaires tax cuts and screw me over. Damn, I wish they’d take my healthcare away.”?’

He also slammed Trump by comparing him to a school yard bully.

‘Since the very beginning, Donald Trump has been running on the politics of fear. I know something about that. I supervised a lunchroom for a bunch of years. The bullies who want to instill fear, they’re the first ones to find out what happens when the tide turns. He’s running scared now,’ Walz said.

Walz did elude to attacks on him from critics who accuse him of skipping out on his unit in the National Guard before it shipped out the following year to Iraq. He said he was proud to have served.

‘I’m a veteran and damn proud of 24 years of that,’ Walz said passionately.

The crowd cheered him on throughout the energized speech, but the governor did get some boos: it came when be brought up the Packers as a Vikings fan in Milwaukee.

President Biden called Governor Tim Walz to check in after Kamala Harris’ running mate’s motorcade was involved in a crash earlier today in Wisconsin.

Walz was in a vehicle ahead of the vans that crashed and was not involved.

Biden reached out to Walz from Air Force One ahead of campaigning with his vice president later today in Pittsburgh, according to a White House spokesperson.

The official said the president wanted to ‘check in’ with the governor and his team.

According to a pool reporter with the Walz motorcade, one staff member with the travel pool appeared to break an arm when the three vans all slammed into each other. A reporter also may have suffered a concussion. Medics were on the scene to treat minor injuries.

Most of the group of staffers and reporters then moved on to the governor’s next event.

The reporters and staffers who were in the vans involved in a crash in Tim Walz’s motorcade have been loaded into new vans and are now headed to the Minnesota governor’s next event.

According to the reporter in the pool, it’s stilll not clear what caused the crash. She noted that a woman in a BMW appeared to have been stopped on a road that should have been cleared for the motorcade.

The campaign staffer who was injured in the accident was part of the traveling pool staff, according to the campaign.

Vice President Harris did call Walz to check on him after the crash, according to a White House official.

The governor was traveling ahead of the vans that crashed and was not involved.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent in Detroit:

Kamala Harris rallied union members on Labor Day, stopping in Detroit ahead of her first campaign stop with President Joe Biden since becoming the Democratic nominee.

‘It’s always good to be in the house of labor,’ Harris told the cheering crowd.

She spent the majority of her remarks praising unions and the work they do.

‘On Labor Day and every day we celebrate the dignity of work. We celebrate unions, because unions helped build America,’ she said.

She noted unions demanded fair pay, better benefits and safer working conditions.

‘Every person in our nation has benefited from that work. You may not be a union member but you better thank a union member,’ she said.

‘When unions are strong, America is strong.’

Michigan is one of the Midwest states that makes up the Democrats’ ‘blue wall,’ a series of states that are considered a must win in the November election.

Polls show Harris and rival Donald Trump are essentially tied in the state.

‘We are out here running like the underdog in this race because we are,” Harris told the crowd. ‘To speak bluntly – Michigan you know how to win.’

She got in some jabs at Trump, saying he ‘plans to pull us to the past.’

‘We know the true measure of the strength of the leaders is who you lift up,’ she said.

When she started to speak of looking to the future, a man in the crowd shouted something about the next four years.

‘Let’s just get through the next 64 days,’ Harris told him.

She said Trump tried to block overtime pay, block efforts to raise the minimum wage and appointed union busters to the National Labor Relations Board.

‘Trump’s a scab,’ the crowd yelled.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter:

Vice President Kamala Harris posted that it is ‘long past time for a ceasefire and hostage deal’ after meeting with the U.S. hostage negotiation team with President Biden in the Situation Room earlier today.

The vice president included an image of her speaking during the meeting in her post on X.

Harris wrote the murder of American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages a ‘brutal, barbaric act by Hamas terrorists.’

The vice president met with Golberg-Polin’s parents Jon and Rachel earlier this year.

She and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff also spoke with his parents on Sunday to express their condolences

‘My heart breaks for their pain and anguish,’ she wrote on X after speaking with them.

Vice President Kamala Harris could be heading in a ‘new direction’ away from Joe Biden on the war in Gaza, a top Democrat predicted on Sunday.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told NBC News’ Meet the Press that he had been ‘pushing’ Harris to attach conditions to aid for Israel.

The war is heading into its 11th month and ceasefire talks have been going on for months.

‘I’ve been pushing her to support the enforcement of US law. That is what the enforcement of the Leahy Law and our security laws require, that we don’t have unconditional aid.’ Khanna said.

‘And Kristen, this isn’t unprecedented. In 1982, after the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon, President Reagan called up Menachem Begin in Israel and said, “We will not give aid in a way that’s going to cause humanitarian crises,”’ he added.

‘So we need to have pressure on both sides to end the war. And I’m glad the Vice President’s open to a new direction’.

The U.S. has seized and brought Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane to Florida.

The plane, described by officials as Venezuela’s Air Force One, was seized in the Dominican Republic and brought to the U.S. on Monday and marks the latest escalation with Maduro’s regime.

‘This sends a message all the way up to the top,’ one of the officials described to CNN.

‘Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters,’ they added. ‘We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions.’

Barron Trump ran to his mother after learning his father Donald Trump had been shot during a campaign rally, the former president has revealed.

Trump, during an interview with Fox News‘ Mark Levin, shared how his youngest son was ‘outside having a tennis lesson’ when a gunman tried to assassinate him.

The GOP presidential hopeful claims Barron, 18, found out because someone ‘ran up’ to him yelling: ‘Barron! Barron! Your father’s been shot!’

Barron then ran after his mother Melania to ask her what had happened, Trump said, adding that his wife was ‘was actually watching it live’.

Trump, 78, was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, with the bullet just grazing his right ear. He says it was ‘miracle’ and act of God that he survived.

Britain has suspended a swathe of licenses for military equipment destined for Israel over fears it could be used to break international law in Gaza.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the Commons this afternoon that the government is halting 30 out of around 350 lisences in light of new legal advice.

The action, which is likely to affect parts for fighter jets and drones, comes after widespread calls from pro-Palestinian groups for sales to the Netanyahu regime to be halted to prevent more bloodshed in Gaza.

Lammy told the Commons that Israel could be doing more to ensure ‘life-saving food and medical supplies’ reach civilians in Gaza.

‘Facing a conflict such as this, it is this Government’s legal duty to review export licenses,’ he said.

‘It is with regret that I inform the House today the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.’

But he stressed that the action taken under the Export Control Act did not amount to an ‘arms embargo’ or a blanket sales ban.

The poll by EPIC-MRA shows a razor-thin race with the Republican presidential nominee holding a slight edge in a head-to-head matchup.

The poll has Trump at 47 percent to Harris at 46 percent with seven percent of Michigan voters undecided or declining to say who they support. But there is a 4 percent margin of error, so the presidential hopefuls are essentially in a statistical tie.

Both campaigns have signaled just how important the swing state is with its 15 electoral votes. Biden flipped the state back to blue in 2020 after Trump carried the state in 2016.

The vice president is holding a campaign event in Detroit on Monday. The ex-president held a rally in the state last week.

Hard to believe, but the 2024 presidential election will officially begin this week with the very first ballots going out on Friday.

The key battleground state of North Carolina will begin sending mail ballots to all voters who request them, including military personnel and overseas voters, on September 6.

It’s the first state to start mailing out ballots ahead of the presidential election and comes before Kamala Harris and Donald Trump even go headt-to-head on the debate stage a few days later on September 10.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now in a legal battle in North Carolina to get his name removed from the 2024 presidential election ballot.

The independent presidential candidate announced at the end of August his decision to suspend his bid in 10 of the most competitive states and endorse Donald Trump’s campaign for a second term.

But RFK Jr. faced a road block on getting off the ballot in North Carolina and is now suing the state’s board of electors to get his name off the ballot so he doesn’t hurt Trump’s chances in the key swing state.

If he can’t get off the ballot in North Carolina, it could undermine RFK Jr.’s decision to suspend his bid in order to benefit the Republican nominee.

Ballots for the presidential race will start sending to voters in North Carolina this week for early and absentee voting.

RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in 10 competitive states last month and endorsed Donald Trump. The two appeared together at a rally in Arizona on August 23 (pictured)

President Joe Biden was back to weighing difficult tradeoffs in stalled ceasefire negotiations as he returned to the White House Monday following his two-week vacation.

The president reworked his travel plans for Labor Day to allow him to hold talks with his hostage negotiating team in the White House Situation Room, days after the horrific killings of six hostages in Gaza.

The new logistics had him flying directly to the White House via Marine One from near his Rehoboth Beach vacation house, on a day that mixed R&R, fraught policy choices, campaign politics.

Upon arrival, Biden was immediately asked by reporters about the strikes in Israel demanding a ceasefire agreement, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a deal.

‘No,’ was Biden’s stern reply.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter:

During her visit to Pittsburgh, PA this afternoon Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to say U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned and operated. That’s according to a Harris campaign official.

The vice president will also stress her commitment to always have the backs of American steel workers.

Harris is headed to Pittsburgh for her first joint campaign event with President Biden since she became the Democratic presidential nominee.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

President Joe Biden ended his two-week vacation on Labor Day as he flew back to the White House from his Rehoboth Beach vacation home.

Biden has been mostly out of sight since he flew to California following his speech to the Democratic National Convention August 19th. He has spent the last week in Delaware, relaxing on the beach and reading newspapers, venturing out to go church, and commenting on the tragic killings of six hostages in Gaza.

On Monday, he received the President’s Daily Brief at home, then boarded Marine One to fly back to the White House – dodging holiday traffic on the roads. He has plans to meet with hostage negotiators in the Situation Room this morning along with Vice President Harris. Then he flies to Pittsburgh, where he will join Harris at a campaign event.

There are indications the public will be seeing more of Biden even though he is no longer seeking reelection. He heads to battleground Wisconsin Thursday – his first trip there since dropping out of the race.

Clooney, whose op-ed in the New York Times appeared to be one of the prompts for Biden to quit running, said: ‘The person who should be applauded is the President, who did the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington, and that’s true.

‘All the machinations that got us there, none of that is going to be remembered, and it shouldn’t be.

‘What should be remembered is the selfless act. It’s very hard to let go of power, we have seen it around the world.

‘For someone to say: ‘I think there is a better way forward’ – all the credit goes to him. All the rest will be forgotten.’ He added: ‘I’m very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now which many people are surprised by, and I think we are very excited for the future.’

By Emily Goodin, Senior White House Correspondent

Kamala Harris will jet off to Detroit on Monday morning for a campaign push with two stops ending alongside the man she replaced: Joe Biden.

Harris and Biden will connect in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, to rally union members in the critical battleground state crucial in deciding the 2024 race.

The date and sitting for their first sighting together is significant: It’s being held on Labor Day in a must-win state.

But their trip is being overshadowed by the war in the Middle East.

Before leaving for her stop, Harris will join Biden on Monday in the Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss the efforts to free the remaining hostages.

Trump was speaking at the Moms for Liberty convention in Washington on Friday when he expressed skepticism over this piece of Harris’s biography, which she has used to proclaim her ordinary background.

‘She also said, “I worked at McDonald’s.” Turned out she didn’t work at McDonalds,” the former president mentioned to the audience.

‘Did anyone see that?’ he continued. ‘After an exhaustive study that took about 20 minutes, they found out she never worked there.’

Tim Walz appeared to make a quick escape Saturday when asked about the discovery of six slain hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The Minnesota governor was posed the question at his home state’s state fair in St. Paul, hours after the bodies were found in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of the city.

From the footage, it was unclear whether the potential vice president heard the inquiry, but as soon as it was uttered, he bid onlookers farewell.

The captives – identified Saturday as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino – were among the more than 200 taken by militants on October 7.

Five were taken from the targeted Israeli music festival, and another from a nearby farming community. The IDF said all were ‘brutally’ murdered ‘a short while’ before troops were able to locate them.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are meeting with the U.S. hostage negotiating team in the Situation Room on Monday morning.

The gathering comes two days after six hostages, including 23-year-old American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were killed on Saturday by Hamas terrorists.

The Labor Day meeting is closed to the press and comes as the one-year anniversary approaches of Hamas’ initial invasion in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deadliest single-day attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Goldberg-Polin was among those taken hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Oct. 7 attack. He and five other Israeli hostages were murdered on Saturday.

Pressure has been mounting for the last year for President Biden to withhold humanitarian aid and force Hamas’ hand in releasing Israeli and other foreign hostages being held by the terrorist group in Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

In the last two weeks after his speech at the Democratic Convention, Biden has been on vacation – first in California and then at his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden relax on the beach in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Saturday, August 31

Tim Walz’s older brother has warned that the Democratic vice presidential hopeful is ‘not the type of character’ you want in the White House.

Jeff Walz, 67, took to Facebook last week to share his concerns about his younger brother running alongside Kamala Harris.

‘The stories I could tell,’ he stated in one of the posts, a five-word warning that may send shudders down the spines of staff at Harris HQ.

The married father-of-two was urged to throw his weight behind the Trump campaign by other Facebook users when he declared Friday evening: ‘I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology.’

Jeff, who lives in Freeport, Florida, with his wife Laurie, followed up that post by replying to others who told him to ‘speak up … at this pivotal moment in history.’

An historian who’s been called the ‘Nostradamus’ of predicting winners of presidential elections has dropped a major hint as to who he thinks will take the White House come 2025.

Allan Lichtman, who has correctly called nine out of the 10 last elections, said in a YouTube livestream Thursday he is nearing his ‘final prediction’ for the 2024 race.

‘You don’t have to be patient for a whole lot longer. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend … and within days after that the prediction should be out,’ the American University professor said on the stream with his son, Sam. ‘And this will be a final prediction.’

While being coy about his ultimate forecast, Lichtman gave away a big clue by slamming a rival pollster, Nate Silver, who recently said Trump was his favorite.

‘I just saw today the most absurd prediction,’ Lichtman said, referring to Silver.

The latest polling suggests that Kamala Harris has received little to no convention boost, showing Donald Trump ahead of the vice president in several crucial swing states.

A Trafalgar Group survey of seven of the toughest contests – considered by experts to be Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada – show Trump either in the lead or even with Harris.

The Trafalgar survey, which is considered by polling aggregators to lean Republican, also shows Harris almost even with Trump in Michigan, with the former president eking out a 47% to 46.6% lead.

The distraught parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin have broken their silence after learning he was killed by Hamas.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was kidnapped by terrorists from the Nova Festival – where he was celebrating his birthday with friends – on October 7 last year, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel. He lost part of an arm in the attack.

His parents Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, just 12 days ago, begged Hersh to ‘stay strong’ and ‘survive’ in a gut-wrenching speech at the Democratic National Convention that saw the couple call for a ceasefire deal.

But yesterday the the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed that the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas have been recovered from Gaza with Hersh being among the deceased.

Hersh’s family confirmed his death in a statement on Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza. They said: ‘With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.’

In wake of Hersh’s murder, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down with US hostage negotiators today to push for a deal that ‘secures the release of the remaining hostages’.