The Latest: Candidates will try to counter criticisms of them in dueling speeches

Derided by Donald Trump as a ''communist,'' Vice President Kamala Harris is playing up her street cred as a capitalist. Attacked by Harris as a rich kid who got $400 million from his father on a ''silver platter,'' Trump is leaning into his raw populism.

The two presidential candidates are set to deliver dueling speeches Wednesday that reflect how they're honing their economic messages for voters in battleground states. Both are trying to counter criticism of them while laying out their best case for a public that still worries about the economy's health.

Follow the AP's Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here's the latest:

A Democratic group is setting aside money to give to states for post-election litigation

The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State says it's setting aside $5 million to give to states' top elections officers for post-election litigation.

The group is launching a legal defense fund to help the Democratic Secretaries of State in Maine, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina with expected litigation over the results of the 2024 election. The step comes as former President Donald Trump has signaled that he'll challenge a possible loss in court.

''This effort will help ensure that Secretaries of State can do their jobs of administering free and fair elections, and ensure that voters have their voices heard at the ballot box,'' Travis Brimm, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

Trump's campaign says he'll hold a rally in town that was site of July assassination attempt

Trump next month plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was struck by a bullet in an assassination attempt.

The former president's campaign said Wednesday that Trump will hold a rally Oct. 5 at the same place he did during the July 13 attack.

The Republican presidential candidate plans to honor Corey Comperatore, the ex-fire chief who was shot and killed at the July rally, along with two other attendees who were injured by the shooter.

''After not one, but two attempts on his life in the past nine weeks, President Trump is more determined than ever to see his mission through to the end,'' Trump's campaign said in a statement.

Biden's advice for Harris to win the election is for her to ‘be herself'

President Joe Biden said his advice to Vice President Kamala Harris for winning the November election was to ''be herself.''

Biden was in New York on Wednesday and sat down with the co-hosts of ABC's ''The View.'' He fielded a range of questions about the presidential race, ending his reelection campaign and tensions in the Middle East.

Biden endorsed Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination and said she is ''smart as hell.''

''She has the energy. She has the intelligence. She has the grit. She has the stamina, and she has the guts to do the right thing,'' he said.

Biden, 81, also said he was ''at peace'' with his decision to end his campaign but remained confident he could have defeated Republican Donald Trump.

Harris will visit the US-Mexico border on Friday

Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday as her campaign increasingly tries to make the issue of immigration more of a strength.

That push could counter a line of attack from Harris' opponent, former President Donald Trump.

Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the trip but insisted on anonymity Wednesday to confirm details that had not been announced publicly.

Trump has built his campaign partly around calling for cracking down on immigration and the southern border, even endorsing using police and the military to carry out mass deportations should he be elected in November.

Since taking over for President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has leaned into her experience as a former attorney general of California, saying she frequently visited the border and prosecuted drug and people smuggling gangs in that post.

As she campaigns around the country, the vice president has also frequently criticized top Republicans for voting down a sweeping, bipartisan immigration package in Congress earlier this year after Trump opposed it.

— By Zeke Miller and Colleen Long

Wisconsin mayor says he did nothing wrong when he removed an absentee ballot drop box

The mayor of a central Wisconsin city who ran for office on his opposition to absentee ballot drop boxes said Wednesday he did nothing wrong when he put on work gloves, donned a hard hat and used a dolly to cart away a drop box outside City Hall.

Wausau Mayor Doug Diny posed for a picture Sunday to memorialize his removal of the city's lone drop box that had been put outside City Hall around the same time late last week that absentee ballots were sent to voters.

''This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,'' Diny said Wednesday. ''I'm a member of staff. There's nothing nefarious going on here. I'm hoping for a good result.''

The move, which prompted a protest in the city Tuesday night and anger among drop box advocates, is the latest example in swing state Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes. Several Republican-run municipalities, including six in Milwaukee County, two in Waukesha County and three in Dodge County, have opted against using drop boxes for the presidential election in November, while they're being embraced in heavily Democratic cities including Milwaukee and Madison.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, banned the use of drop boxes in 2022. But in July, the now-liberal controlled court reversed that decision and said drop boxes could be used. However, the court left it up to each community to decide whether to install them.

Vance says the war in Ukraine has taken resources ‘at a time when Americans are suffering'

Vance says the ''biggest problem'' with the Russia-Ukraine war is that it ''has distracted and consumed a lot of resources at a time when Americans are suffering.''

During a call Wednesday with reporters about union support for the Trump-Vance campaign, the GOP vice presidential nominee echoed Trump's claims that ''Russia would have never invaded Ukraine'' if Trump, not Biden, had been in office.

And if Trump is returned to the White House, Vance said ''everything is going to be on the table, but I think that nothing is going to definitively be on the table'' in terms of Trump's approach to negotiating an end to the war.

Vance did not respond directly when asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's recent criticism of him as ''too radical'' in an interview with The New Yorker. The Ohio senator has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine in the war, saying in his speech at the Republican National Convention this summer that there should be ''no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.''

Vance says he doesn't think he needs to prepare as much as Walz is for the debate

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance says he's not planning to have a debate camp because ''we have well developed views on public policy.''

Speaking to reporters on a call with union supporters Wednesday, the Ohio senator said he feels no pressure to do ''anything similar'' to the debate preparation being done by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

''I don't think we have to prepare that much'' because ''we don't have to hide our record from the American people,'' Vance said.

Vance also said former President Donald Trump supports the rights of workers to unionize and collectively bargain, but he demurred from full-throated support by also saying states should choose their own labor laws that can support or reduce unionization efforts.

Trump's supporters gather at a manufacturing plant ahead of speech

Trump was set to address a relatively small crowd inside a massive Charlotte-area manufacturing plant.

The Republican former president's supporters gathered among metal machines and and palettes of red, white and blue tubing. Trump's podium was flanked by rows of work stations, metal beams and a large campaign sign that proclaimed, ''JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!''

Harris will do a sit down interview with MSNBC

Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down with Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

The Democratic candidate is visiting the city to give a speech on the economy and manufacturing.

Harris has faced criticism for avoiding media interviews during her abbreviated campaign for the presidency. The conversation with Ruhle will be her first one-on-one interview with a national network since becoming her party's nominee. Harris previously sat down with CNN's Dana Bash alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate.

Top Muslim-voter organization endorses Harris as Middle East conflict escalates

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the endorsement of one of the nation's largest Muslim American voter mobilization groups, marking a significant boost to her campaign since many Muslim and Arab American organizations have opted to support third-party candidates or not endorse.

Emgage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, endorsed Harris' presidential campaign Wednesday, saying in a statement provided first to The Associated Press that the group ''recognizes the responsibility to defeat'' former President Donald Trump in November.

The group, based in Washington D.C., operates in eight states, with a significant presence in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The organization will now focus its ongoing voter-outreach efforts on supporting Harris, in addition to down-ballot candidates.

A tale of crushing security lapses and missed chances to stop the man who shot Trump

The acting director of the Secret Service was incensed at what had happened that July evening. ''What I saw made me ashamed,'' Ronald Rowe Jr. said. ''I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.''

The unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally stage, is just one of the myriad questions behind the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. The more that investigators unpack from that day, the more missed opportunities that could have prevented the attack are revealed.

As the United States grapples with a second attempt on Donald Trump's life, in Florida, there remains a reckoning to be done from the Pennsylvania shooting on July 13 that killed one man and wounded three — the ex-president among them.