The Latest: FBI says gunman in Trump assassination attempt saw ‘target of opportunity’

A senior FBI official says the gunman in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump searched online for events of both Trump and President Joe Biden and saw the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are kicking off a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday that will snake through rural areas in the southern part of the state before culminating in a big rally in the coastal city of Savannah.

The Democratic ticket will meet with supporters, campaign staff, small business owners and voters.

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Here’s the Latest:

Gunman in Trump assassination attempt saw rally as ‘target of opportunity,’ FBI official says

The gunman in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump searched online for events of both Trump and President Joe Biden and saw the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity,” a senior FBI official said Wednesday.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot at Trump from a nearby roof before being killed by a Secret Service countersniper, did extensive research for an attack before the shooting and had looked at any number of events or targets, including events the current and former president, said Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office.

The new details were disclosed as FBI officials, in the latest in a series of briefings about the investigation, revealed that they had yet to uncover a motive for the July 13 attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, despite conducting nearly 1,000 interviews.

Trump shares doctored images and messages from QAnon conspiracy theory in flurry of social media posts

Donald Trump ’s attempts to stay focused on the policy issues veered off course Wednesday as the Republican former president shared more than a dozen posts on his social media network that call for the trial or jailing of House lawmakers who investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and special counsel Jack Smith, along with images that include messages from the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Trump also shared a doctored image that was made to look like President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in orange prison jumpsuits, among other political figures, and a lewd post about Harris and Clinton that referenced a sex act. One post seemed to suggest former President Barack Obama should be tried in a military court.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday about the flurry of posts on Truth Social, the former president’s social media network where he communicates primarily to his most devoted base of supporters.

Harris and Walz are kicking off 2-day bus tour in Georgia

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are kicking off a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday that will snake through rural areas in the southern part of the state before culminating in a big rally in the coastal city of Savannah.

The Democratic ticket will meet with supporters, campaign staff, small business owners and voters. The party believes that in order to win the critical battleground state over Republican Donald Trump in November, they need more than Atlanta and the suburbs that delivered for Joe Biden in 2020 and must also make inroads, however small, in GOP strongholds.

The Georgia trip is a makeup visit from earlier in the month when the duo was set to embark on a seven-state swing tour introducing the new Democratic ticket. The North Carolina and Georgia legs of the trip got scrapped as Tropical Storm Debby battered the region.

In addition to the bus tour and the Thursday rally, Harris and Walz will be sitting down with CNN anchor Dana Bash for their first joint interview. The interview will air Thursday night.

Vance criticizes Harris for doing an interview along with her running mate

Republican Sen. JD Vance on Wednesday blasted Vice President Kamala Harris for bringing her running mate along for her first television interview since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.

Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said on Wisconsin conservative talk radio that Harris doing the CNN interview with running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was like a teenager bringing their mom or dad to their first job interview.

“That’s a little bit the feeling that gives off,” Vance said on WISN-AM. “Kamala Harris is just a little too nervous, a little too anxious, about this interview. So she’s going to bring Tim Walz with her to help her out and make sure that if she gets in any hot water, he can bail her out.”

Vance referred to Walz as Harris’ “battle buddy.”

“She can’t talk about her record,” Vance said. “But what she can do is use Tim Walz as a bit of a lifeline. ... It is a bold strategy to hide from the American people, but that’s what she’s doing.”

Vance's interview came ahead of a planned campaign stop Wednesday night in De Pere, Wisconsin.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on ballot in Maine

Kennedy said last week that he was withdrawing from the race in states where he might be a spoiler candidate. He also endorsed former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to office.

Maine election officials said Wednesday that Kennedy met a deadline to withdraw from the ballot in the state.

Maine is a reliably blue state in presidential elections, but is also one of two states that apportions electoral votes by congressional district. Trump has won an electoral vote in the rural 2nd Congressional District in the last two elections.

That 2nd district vote could factor in a close presidential election. Maine also uses ranked choice voting for presidential elections, which further complicates the state’s electoral picture.

New Harris ad campaign seeks to link Trump to Heritage Foundation's Project 2025

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign says it is launching a new ad campaigning meant to tie former President Donald Trump to the conservative “Project 2025” he's sought to distance himself from.

The first ad asserts Trump is “out for control” over voters, juxtaposing Trump quotes with ominous screenshots of the plan. It’s part of Harris’ $370 million in digital and television ad reservations between Labor Day and Election Day.

The ad will be airing across battleground states, as well as the television market that encompasses Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida — a move also undertaken by Trump’s campaign at times — seemingly in an effort to influence the former president’s social media habits.

Led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a detailed 920-page handbook for governing under the next Republican administration, including ousting thousands of civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists to reversing the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medications used in abortions.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025. He posted on social media he hasn't seen the plan and has “no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”

Having a family is expensive. Here’s what Harris and Trump have said about easing costs

The high cost of caring for children and the elderly has forced women out of the workforce, devastated family finances and left professional caretakers in low-wage jobs — all while slowing economic growth.

That families are suffering is not up for debate. As the economy emerges as a theme in this presidential election, the Democratic and Republican candidates have sketched out ideas for easing costs that reveal their divergent views about family.

On this topic, the two tickets have one main commonality: Both of the presidential candidates — and their running mates — have, at one point or another, backed an expanded child tax credit.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has signaled that she plans to build on the ambitions of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to pour billions in taxpayer dollars into making child care and home care for elderly and disabled adults more affordable. She hasn't etched any of those plans into a formal policy platform. But in a speech earlier this month, she said her vision included raising the child tax credit.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican, has declined to answer questions about how he would make child care more affordable, even though it was an issue he tackled during his own administration. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has a long history of pushing policies that would encourage Americans to have families.

Kamala Harris’ election would defy history. Just 1 sitting VP has been elected president since 1836

As Vice President Kamala Harris begins her fall campaign for the White House, she can look to history and hope for better luck than others in her position who have tried the same.

Since 1836, only one sitting vice president, George H.W. Bush in 1988, has been elected to the White House.

Among those who tried and failed were Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000. All three lost in narrow elections shaped by issues ranging from war and scandal to crime and the subtleties of televised debates. But two other factors proved crucial for each vice president: whether the incumbent president was well-liked and whether the president and vice president enjoyed a productive relationship.