2024 election updates: Vance tells Harris to 'go to hell'

Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz stopped by Liberty County High School in Georgia as part of their bus tour and were greeted by the school’s principal and superintendent and met with the school marching band during rehearsal.

Harris and Walz delivered brief remarks to band members, football players and faculty. After welcoming the class to the "role model club," Harris told the class that as "leaders" the nation is "counting" on them.

"You are showing what hard work can achieve, what discipline, what teamwork. And that's the stuff of greatness," she said.

She continued with a music metaphor that encouraged them to keep up their hard work.

"I will tell you I was in band when I was your age," she said. "And all that you all are doing, it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice, long hours, right? Sometimes you hit the note, sometimes you don't, right? All that practice makes for beautiful music."

-ABC News' Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie.

A spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign defended Wednesday the decision to make the vice president's first televised interview as the Democratic presidential nominee a joint interview with her running mate Gov. Tim Walz.

Ian Sams responded on X to a post by journalist Mark Knoller who questioned if CNN should have "insisted on a one-on-one interview," by saying that "The joint ticket interview is an election year summer tradition going back 20 years."

"Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan, Trump/Pence, Clinton/Kaine, Biden/Harris all did them. Almost always right around the conventions. Harris/Walz join this rich tradition on CNN tomorrow," he said.

-ABC News' Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Garrow

Vance told reporters he’s preparing for the October vice presidential debate by talking to people on the campaign trail, contending he doesn’t need other preparation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“Look, the way I'm doing debate prep is by spending time with these fine people. This is how I do debate prep is to get out there. You get out there, you talk to people, you talk about the issues that matter,” Vance said.

“We don't need to prepare for a debate with Tim Walz. We need to get out there and talk. We need to get out there. Look, we need to get out there and talk to the American people. That's the biggest way that we're going to prepare for that debate on October the first,” he added.

-ABC News' Soo Rin Kim and Hannah Demissie

Sen. JD Vance continued to defend Trump's visit to Arlington Cemetery during a campaign event Wednesday in Erie, Pennsylvania, and went on the attack against Harris, blaming her for the deaths of 13 soldiers three years ago.

"Look, sometimes mistakes happen. That's just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful," Vance said.

"We're gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives, it's that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can, go to hell," he continued.

The federal government conducted a probe into the final days of the war and American withdrawal and the Pentagon's Central Command concluded in 2022 that the attack was not preventable despite others' assertions that it was preventable.

The Pentagon has conducted multiple rounds of reviews, including the latest review published in April that reaffirmed the initial investigation's findings that the attack was not preventable.

Congress has also scrutinized the attack and heard from many military leaders, including former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who told lawmakers last year that he was thwarted in an attempt to stop the suicide bombing.

Harris, who was campaigning in Georgia Wednesday, did not bring up "incident" at Arlington National Cemetery. Harris-Walz communications director Michael Tyler told CNN on Wednesday that the "incident" at Arlington National Cemetery with former President Trump was "pretty sad," but what "we've come to expect" from the former president.

-ABC News' Soo Rin Kim, Cindy Smith and Hannah Demissie