In Bucks County, Kamala Harris says democracy is at stake and touts support from Republicans; Donald Trump to work at Philly-area McDonalds

Vice President Kamala Harris framed former President Donald Trump as a threat to the U.S. Constitution and pledged to unify the country Wednesday in a pitch to Republicans at Washington Crossing as she tries to expand support in Pennsylvania, the key battleground of the 2024 race.

“At stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for,” she said. “At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States.”

Harris delivered remarks to a group that included more than 100 Republicans who support her candidacy at the Bucks County park, not far from where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River en route to a victory in the Revolutionary War. The event took place with just 20 days until Election Day and as mail voting is already underway in Pennsylvania.

U.S. Rep Andy Kim, who would be the first Korean-American in the U.S. Senate if elected, condemned as "disgusting," an accusation by New Jersey podcaster and Trump supporter Mike Crispi, that a tie he wore during a debate Tuesday had a North Korean flag on it.

"What is he trying to tell us-Where do his allegiances lie?" Crispi tweeted.

 Crispi last gained attention for a tweet, since deleted, about Gus Walz, son of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, in which he said, " “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”

Vice President Kamala Harris began her remarks by acknowledging the significance of Washington Crossing, not far from where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River en route to a victory in the Revolutionary War.

She said leading up to that, the founding fathers outlined the foundations of American democracy, “Including the rule of the law, that there would be checks and balances, that we would have free and fair elections, and a peaceful transfer of power.”

Harris introduced the more than 100 Republicans standing with her, saying they put “country over party.”

A few relatively minor changes would allow Philadelphia to process mail ballots much faster and finish counting them much sooner after polls close on Election Day, an analysis by Votebeat and Spotlight PA has found.

The analysis found a wide disparity between Allegheny and Philadelphia — Pennsylvania’s two largest counties — in how quickly they counted mail ballots during the November 2022 election.

That year, Philadelphia processed ballots at a rate of 5,000 per hour, while Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh and surrounding municipalities, processed more than 12,000 ballots per hour, based on an analysis of information provided by the counties, publicly available data, and data from the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Vice President Kamala Harris will make a "unity over party" pitch to Republicans at Washington Crossing on Wednesday, with just three weeks until Election Day as she looks to expand support in the narrowly divided battleground state.

Harris will deliver remarks to a group that includes more than 100 Republicans who support her candidacy at the Bucks County park, according to a senior campaign official.

The park, not far from where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River en route to a victory in the Revolutionary War, will serve as a symbolic backdrop for a speech meant to stress bipartisanship and putting country above party, the official said.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ motorcade has made its way through Taylorsville Road in Washington Crossing.

Supporters of former President Donald planned to play a parody to the tune of America’s “A Horse with No Name,” except the words were replaced with derogatory and sexist lyrics about Harris.

But at the last moment the audio seemed to malfunction, so instead some supporters opted to chant “USA! USA!” or to give the deluge of black SUVs a thumbs down as they filmed her motorcade on their phones.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) will join United Automobile Workers President Shawn Fain in Philadelphia on Sunday to galvanize working- and middle-class voters to turn out for Vice President Kamala Harris.

In addition to encouraging voters to return mail ballots at commissioner satellite locations and drop-off boxes around the city, Ocasio-Cortez and Fain will lean heavily into the stark differences between Harris and former President Donald Trump, echoing contrasts the campaign has been drawing between the two candidates, a representative for the Harris campaign said.

An Inquirer analysis of election data in 2016 and 2020 found Democrats have lost support among working-class voters across the city. The trend was most pronounced in Latino precincts, where losses for Democrats were met with gains for Republicans.

Dave Woods (left) as Uncle Sam helps his friend Jim Miller with his Statue of Liberty costume on Wednesday outside Washington Crossing Historic Park, where Vice President Kamala Harris is to later attend a Republicans for Harris event.

Both men are from West Rockhill and Woods is planning on driving his big “America the Beautiful” patriotically festooned truck in as many as five Halloween parades in the coming weeks. His daughter Julian usually portrays Lady Liberty, but she is working the day in Philadelphia so Miller is filling in.

Woods says of being in the parades: “The old guys even salute. I’ve never felt so patriotic in my whole life.”

Andy Kim was the guest earlier this month of Charles N. Hall Jr., president of RWDSU Local 108, a North Jersey union that represents the kinds of workers you encounter all the time: supermarket cashiers, bus drivers, parking authority enforcers, nursing home aides.

A three-term Democratic congressman from Burlington County, Kim, 42, is barreling toward a historic U.S. Senate race win: if elected, he would be the Senate’s first Korean-American, its fourth youngest member, and the first senator from South Jersey since Robert Clymer Hendrickson of Woodbury left office in January, 1955. And he’d be the first Asian-American senator ever from New Jersey.

On that morning, he was jumping on and off the shuttle buses at Loading Zone 15 of Newark International’s Terminal A, reaching over the meat counter to shake hands with the butchers, being pulled into the back stockroom of the former ice rink that is now the Twin City Supermarket in Elizabeth.

Former President Donald Trump will make an unusual stop in the Philadelphia area this weekend: to work behind the counter at a McDonald’s.

Trump will visit the state for a third time this week on Sunday to “work the fry cooker” as part of an effort to tamp down on his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign message about working at McDonald’s while in college, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The former president will make the stop at a McDonald’s in the Philadelphia area, the source said, but the exact location is still unclear. Trump is also scheduled to attend the Steelers-Jets game in Pittsburgh on Sunday, CBS News station KDKA reported.

» READ MORE: Donald Trump will ‘work the fry cooker’ at McDonald’s in the Philly area this weekend

At the corner of Taylorsville and Washington Crossing Roads in Bucks County, more than a dozen supporters of former President Donald Trump have lined the west-facing perimeter of a vacant gas station, holding various Trump flags and banners — one even with Trump’s mugshot on it — next to a parked bus from Jersey’s “Let’s Go Brandon Store.”

The gathering is a protest in preparation of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Washington Crossing Historic Park in purple Bucks County later afternoon.

As YMCA and other musical selections blare through the speaker, some participants mill around tables covered in Trump merchandise — Trump playing cards, a talking Trump birthday card, and a visor with simulation Trump hair, to name a few.

Former President Donald Trump says if elected, he would prevent Philadelphia and other cities across the country from being “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement isn’t required to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Speaking at a Fox News town hall in Georgia, Trump said he would “end all sanctuary cities” by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which grants the president the power to arrest, relocate, or deport men older than 14 from countries at war with the United States, according to the National Constitution Center.

“We can do things in terms of moving people out. We can move them out of the sanctuary cities,” Trump said.

When Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns in Bucks County later Wednesday, she'll be joined by a crowd of Republicans.

Those expected to attend Harris' campaign event today in Washington County include former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.), one of two Republican members of the Jan 6. Committee convened to investigate the insurrection. Former Republican Rep. Jim Greenwood, who represented Bucks County and now cochairs the Republicans for Harris arm of the campaign, will also attend, as will former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.

A campaign official said Harris will be introduced by Republican farmers from Malvern who were harassed for being featured in an ad supporting the vice president.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ is trying to make good on the promise she made in Philadelphia to “earn” Black men’s votes with a new, nine-page policy proposal specifically for Black men.

Unveiled Monday, the Harris campaign’s Opportunity Agenda for Black Men lays out policies that Harris will, if she’s elected, launch or continue to support directly for Black men, or that are more universal but have an outsized impact on Black families. They cover economic opportunity, health care, criminal justice, and civil rights initiatives.

“Black men and boys deserve a president who will provide the opportunity to unleash this talent and potential by removing historic barriers to wealth creation, education, employment, earnings, health, and improving the criminal justice system,” the plan begins.

In a surprising move three weeks before the election, Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to sit for an interview on Fox News.

The interview will be conducted by Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier following Harris' campaign event this afternoon near Philadelphia and air unedited on his nightly news show, Special Report, at 6 p.m.

“All of it will air from the first word to the last,” Baier wrote on social media Tuesday.

The second and final debate of Pennsylvania’s nationally watched U.S. Senate race in many ways felt like a rerun of the fiery first showdown between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey and his GOP challenger Dave McCormick, with the candidates taking nearly every opportunity to advance their favored attack lines against each other.

Casey repeatedly criticized McCormick for his years living in Connecticut and working as an executive of Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund that has invested heavily in China. McCormick, meanwhile, cast Casey as a “status quo candidate” and a “weak” career politician.

But the candidates also answered questions on a number of important policy issues at Tuesday’s debate, which was hosted by Philadelphia’s 6abc. Here’s where Casey and McCormick said they stand on some of the top issues they will face if they win.

» READ MORE: What Senate candidates Bob Casey and Dave McCormick said about the filibuster, abortion, and Puerto Rico in their second debate

President Joe Biden said former President Donald Trump has “become unhinged” and framed the Republican’s perspective as “old and failed,” a message the president used to rev up a room of Philadelphia Democrats just three weeks before Election Day.

“He’s become unhinged. Look at his rallies,” Biden said of Trump, before invoking a town hall event the Republican nominee held Monday in Montgomery County that went off the rails. “[Trump] stood on the stage for 30 minutes and danced. I’m serious. What’s wrong with this guy?”

But Biden, after repeatedly hitting Trump’s record, ended his 20-minute remarks on a hopeful note, saying turning out voters in the city could make Vice President Kamala Harris his successor — a stark reminder of the pressure on Philadelphia voters as the presidential race could hinge on Pennsylvania and its largest city.