Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign reportedly announced Harris will skip the historic Al Smith dinner, eschewing a decades-old campaign tradition.

The decision was first reported by CNN Saturday afternoon, citing Harris campaign officials. The campaign reportedly told event organizers Harris was instead planning to campaign in a battleground state, but the report did not specify which state Harris will be campaigning in.

The annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is traditionally held in New York City to benefit Catholic Charities and is hosted by the archbishop of New York.

Every presidential election year, the Republican and Democratic candidates will typically come together to give humorous speeches at the dinner. The tradition began when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon spoke at the event in 1960.

HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN: WHICH CANDIDATE HOLDS THE EDGE ON THIS CRUCIAL ISSUE

There have been exceptions to the tradition. The Al Smith dinner opted not to invite the two major presidential candidates during the 1996, 2000 and 2004 election cycles.

Fox News Digital asked the Trump campaign if the Republican candidate plans on attending the dinner but did not immediately hear back. The last time a Democratic candidate opted out of the event while a Republican nominee attended was in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan gave a speech without Walter Mondale in the audience. 

In 2020, both President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden appeared at the dinner. Neither candidate took shots at the other despite the intensity of the race.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLL SHOWS IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP 2024 SHOWDOWN

“Throughout my life of public service I’ve been guided by the tenets of Catholic social doctrine,” Biden said in his speech. “What you do to the least among us, you do to me.”

“Catholics have enriched our nation beyond measure,” Trump said at the dinner. “The essence of the Catholic faith, as Jesus Christ said in the gospel, ‘Everyone will know you are my disciples.'”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately hear back.

The Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

Former President Trump had a heartwarming moment with his grandchildren at a Saturday rally in battleground North Carolina.

The Republican nominee brought his grandchildren, Luke and Carolina, onto the stage while speaking to rallygoers in Wilmington. Luke and Carolina Trump are the young children of Eric and Lara Trump.

“We also have…a very important member of my family. Far more important than Eric or Lara,” Trump joked to the audience. “And her name is Carolina.”

“And she’s beautiful and she’s sweet and she doesn’t know how evil life is,” he added. “Can I ask Carolina to come up? Is that possible?”

BILL MAHER MAKES THIS BOLD 2024 PREDICTION AFTER TRUMP-HARRIS DEBATE

Moments later, Trump reappeared at the podium holding his 5-year-old granddaughter and took her to the microphone.

“Make American great again,” Carolina said, confusing “America” and “American.”

The crowd cheered wildly before Trump introduced Luke and invited him on stage.

“Would anybody like to meet Luke? Her brother? Luke, come on up,” the Republican said, before picking up his grandson and bringing him to the podium.

HARRIS TELLS OPRAH ANYONE BREAKING INTO HER HOME IS ‘GETTING SHOT:’ ‘PROBABLY SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID THAT’

Luke, who is 7 years old, told the cheering crowd to “Vote for grandpa,” and received loud cheers in response. Trump told the audience that he actually asked Luke to say something else.

“I whispered into his ear, so cute, I said, ‘Say MAGA,’” the presidential candidate said. “He said, ‘Vote for grandpa.’”

“He didn’t care what I said and that was actually much better.”

Trump added that his daughter-in-law Lara grew up in North Carolina before continuing the rest of his speech against his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Earlier in the rally, Trump stressed the importance of getting the vote out in the Tar Heel State.

“Exactly 45 days from now, we’re going to win North Carolina,” Trump predicted. “We’re going to defeat Kamala Harris, and we’re going to make America great again.”

President Biden is meeting privately with the three other world leaders that make up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue at his Delaware estate.

The White House released statements acknowledging the arrival of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida already, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was spotted arriving at the home on Saturday.

The meetings are taking place in the president’s hometown of Wilmington — an excessively private affair that has sparked outrage from the White House Correspondents’ Association.

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION PROTESTS ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ LACK OF PRESS ACCESS AT BIDEN’S QUAD SUMMIT

The foreign leaders are invited to a low-profile dinner on Saturday night hosted at Archmere Academy, the president’s former school.

Administration officials have tried to characterize the unusual format and venue for the event as a gesture of hospitality, but media figures have protested the private nature of Biden’s final meeting with the world leaders.

“These are personal relationships that mean a lot to him. And he believes personal relationships are important to foreign policy,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby previously told the press.

BIDEN HOLDS FIRST CABINET MEETING IN NEARLY A YEAR, FIRST LADY JOINS FOR FIRST TIME

“This is the first time President Biden will host foreign leaders in Wilmington as president, reflecting his strong relationship with the leaders, and their strategic importance,” the State Department said in a briefing.

WHCA president and Politico correspondent Eugene Daniels said in an email to the press obtained by Fox News Digital, “The lack of access to the president of the United States for these bilateral meetings due to a location chosen by the White House is unacceptable to the WHCA.”

In a message to the White House, Daniels said, “My understanding is that the current posture of the administration is for the press to only see the leaders drive in with no eyes, or cameras on POTUS in this historic moment. I can’t remember a time where this president has had a bilateral meeting on US soil and the press and therefore the American people were blocked from seeing it.” 

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He continued, “And the WHCA’s position is that shouldn’t be the case this time either. [We] have talked through different scenarios and possibilities for the pool to be able to cover these moments. While we understand that there are security concerns, it’s essential for the public to have direct and independent press accounts of the greetings at the very least.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was “not unusual” for the press to not have access to the president as he meets with foreign leaders at his home and continued to emphasize how reporters would be able to see Biden and the world leaders when they leave.

The meeting is expected to be one of Biden’s final summits with foreign leaders after he dropped out of the presidential election earlier this year.

Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.

President Biden is meeting privately with the three other world leaders that make up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue at his Delaware estate.

The White House released statements acknowledging the arrival of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida already, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was spotted arriving at the home on Saturday.

The meetings are taking place in the president’s hometown of Wilmington — an excessively private affair that has sparked outrage from the White House Correspondents’ Association.

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION PROTESTS ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ LACK OF PRESS ACCESS AT BIDEN’S QUAD SUMMIT

The foreign leaders are invited to a low-profile dinner on Saturday night hosted at Archmere Academy, the president’s former school.

Administration officials have tried to characterize the unusual format and venue for the event as a gesture of hospitality, but media figures have protested the private nature of Biden’s final meeting with the world leaders.

“These are personal relationships that mean a lot to him. And he believes personal relationships are important to foreign policy,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby previously told the press.

BIDEN HOLDS FIRST CABINET MEETING IN NEARLY A YEAR, FIRST LADY JOINS FOR FIRST TIME

“This is the first time President Biden will host foreign leaders in Wilmington as president, reflecting his strong relationship with the leaders, and their strategic importance,” the State Department said in a briefing.

WHCA president and Politico correspondent Eugene Daniels said in an email to the press obtained by Fox News Digital, “The lack of access to the president of the United States for these bilateral meetings due to a location chosen by the White House is unacceptable to the WHCA.”

In a message to the White House, Daniels said, “My understanding is that the current posture of the administration is for the press to only see the leaders drive in with no eyes, or cameras on POTUS in this historic moment. I can’t remember a time where this president has had a bilateral meeting on US soil and the press and therefore the American people were blocked from seeing it.” 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He continued, “And the WHCA’s position is that shouldn’t be the case this time either. [We] have talked through different scenarios and possibilities for the pool to be able to cover these moments. While we understand that there are security concerns, it’s essential for the public to have direct and independent press accounts of the greetings at the very least.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was “not unusual” for the press to not have access to the president as he meets with foreign leaders at his home and continued to emphasize how reporters would be able to see Biden and the world leaders when they leave.

The meeting is expected to be one of Biden’s final summits with foreign leaders after he dropped out of the presidential election earlier this year.

Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.

Former President Trump vowed to “protect women at a level never seen before” if elected, and to ensure that “powerful exceptions” for abortion are adopted across the nation, in a social media post early Saturday.

Trump, in the lengthy late-night missive to his Truth Social in all capitalized letters, said “women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago, and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were four years ago.” 

TRUMP VOWS HE ‘WILL NOT BLOCK’ ABORTION PILLS OR MEDICATION IF ELECTED, SAYS HE BELIEVES IN ‘EXCEPTIONS’

“I will fix all of that, and fast, and at long last this national nightmare will be over,” he said. “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free!”

Polls have consistently shown Trump running strongly, against Vice President Kamala Harris in most demographic groups, but struggling with women. Much of that has been attributed to the fact that the three justices he picked for the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined abortion protections under federal law.

In his post, Trump wrote that women “will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and a vote of the people—and with powerful exceptions, like those that Ronald Reagan insisted on for rape, incest, and the life of the mother—but not allowing for Democrat demanded late term abortion in the 7th, 8th, or 9th month, or even execution of a baby after birth.”

“I will protect women at a level never seen before,” he said. “They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure.” 

Trump added: “Their lives will be happy, beautiful, and great again!” 

The former president’s play for the female vote comes after Vice President Harris campaigned in Georgia, delivering a speech about the consequences of, what her campaign calls “extreme Trump Abortion Bans.” 

“After Vice President Harris spent the week speaking about the consequences of Trump Abortion Bans and the stakes of this election for women’s lives, Donald Trump snapped — taking to his phone late at night to rant and rave about women,” Harris-Walz 2024 Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in response to Trump’s Truth Social post. “After ripping away our reproductive freedom, now he’s trying to tell us how to think.” 

Chitika said “Trump thinks he can control women — he’s wrong.” 

The Harris campaign said he is “terrified that women across the country will vote like our lives and freedoms depend on it, because they do.” 

“Women aren’t stupid. We see Trump’s Project 2025 agenda for what it is: an extreme plan to ban abortion nationwide and threaten access to IVF and birth control,” Chitika said. “We’ll vote like it this November.”

JD VANCE VOWS TRUMP WOULD NOT IMPOSE FEDERAL ABORTION BAN, VETO IT IF COMES ACROSS DESK

But Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital that Harris and President Joe Biden have put women’s lives in danger, and noted the names of women who have been killed by illegal immigrants.

“President Trump is right. Kamala may want to be the first woman president, but she’s made the lives of women worse — more dangerous and more unaffordable,” Leavitt said. “If Kamala cared about protecting women, she would close the border and stop allowing rapists and murderers to flow into our country to prey on young women and girls. Kamala has never said the names of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nunguaray, and Rachel Morin. President Trump has honored their lives and consoled their grieving families.” 

Leavitt added: “If women want safety, security and prosperity for our families, there’s only one option on the ballot — President Trump.”

As for Project 2025, a blueprint for a Republican administration crafted by the Heritage Foundation, Leavitt repeated Trump’s assertion that he did not commission it and has no plans to implement it if elected.

“President Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Project 2025,” Leavitt said, adding that “Kamala’s campaign is lying because they are losing.”

Harris continues to claim that Trump will install a national abortion ban that would allow for no exceptions, despite Trump repeatedly saying that he would never support a national abortion ban, and believes in exceptions for abortion, including rape, incest, and life of the mother. 

Harris has refused to say whether she supports any abortion restrictions up to birth. 

Trump has vowed that he “will not block” abortion pills or abortion medication for women, should he be elected president.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Thursday stood by past remarks calling Haitian migrants who have entered the U.S. through a Biden-era parole program or who are protected from deportation “illegal aliens” — amid an ongoing debate about migration into the U.S.

Vance was asked at a campaign event about why he was referring to migrants from Haiti in towns like Springfield, Ohio, as “illegal aliens” when many of them have come in through the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV) or are protected from deportation via Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

“The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants — hundreds of thousands of them, by the way, 20,000 in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of them all across the country — they are here legally.”

BIDEN ADMIN’S PAROLE USE IN SPOTLIGHT AS IT REVEALS EYE-POPPING NUMBER OF MIGRANT ARRIVALS IN US

“And what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole and Temporary Protected Status. She used two programs to wave a wand and to say, we’re not going to deport those people here,” he said. “Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien. An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make any alien legal. That is not how this works. “

The CHNV parole processes were expanded by the Department of Homeland Security in 2023 to allow up to 30,000 migrants from those four countries into the U.S. each month if they are vetted and have a supporter already in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration redesignated and extended TPS for Haiti last year, offering protection from deportation and work permits for hundreds of thousands of Haitians — even those in the country illegally.

Republicans have objected to the use of parole programs by the Biden administration, both the CHNV program and the use of the CBP One app at ports of entry to allow in 1,450 migrants per day via parole. They argue that Congress has limited the use of parole to a “case by case” basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, and that use of parole in such quantities is a breach of that. Republican states sued over the CHNV program this year, but they have lost in court.

TRUMP REVEALS NEW PLEDGE AMID HAITIAN REFUGEE CONTROVERY: ‘I WILL SAVE OUR CITIES’

“These processes — a safe and orderly way to reach the United States — have resulted in a significant reduction in the number of these individuals encountered at our southern border,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier this year in a statement when that case was decided. “It is a key element of our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere, and other countries around the world see it as a model to tackle the challenge of increased irregular migration that they too are experiencing.”

The administration says that the use of the parole programs encourages legal immigration and has been tied to a sharp drop in illegal crossings from those nationalities.

“All CHNV beneficiaries continue to be thoroughly screened and vetted by CBP prior to their arrival to the United States and must meet other eligibility criteria authorization to travel to the United States in a safe, orderly and lawful way once they purchase their own commercial airline tickets,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Monday.

“Since DHS has implemented these safe, orderly and lawful processes, encounters of CHNV nationals in between POEs are down 99%,” the statement said.

But the debate has come back into the spotlight in recent days amid attention on the influx of Haitian migrants into small towns like Springfield, Ohio. Both Vance and Former President Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that Haitians in Springfield were eating pets of the people that live there.

As that debate has continued, and sparked a slew of memes, it has led to more attention on the use of parole. The administration recently announced that more than 1.3 million migrants have been allowed in using the CBP One app. While critics have pointed out that many of the migrants are not here illegally due to the use of parole, Vance pushed back.

BIDEN ADMIN RESTARTS CONTROVERSIAL MIGRANT FLIGHT PROGRAM WITH ADDITIONAL VETTING AFTER FRAUD REVELATIONS 

“What is fundamentally illegal is for Kamala Harris to say we’re going to grant parole not on a case by case basis, but to millions of illegal aliens who are coming into this country. That does not magically make them legal,” he said.

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Vance also criticized the use of TPS by the administration. The Trump administration attempted to end the use of TPS for a number of nationalities, including Haitians.

Vance described TPS as a “government edict saying that you’re not allowed to deport people anymore.”

The remarks show how the debate about immigration has extended beyond the southern border, where numbers have dropped sharply in recent months after an executive order by President Biden that limited arrivals into the U.S. 

Former President Trump said recently that he will “immediately end the migrant invasion of America.”

“We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” he said.

Fox News’ Sophia Compton contributed to this report.

Vice President Kamala Harris entered the final stretch of the 2024 race for the White House with a large fundraising advantage over former President Trump, new federal filings show.

Harris hauled in nearly $190 million in fundraising for her 2024 campaign in August, more than quadrupling the $44.5 million that Trump’s team reported bringing into his principal campaign account last month — this according to figures from the Federal Election Commission made public on Friday.

The Harris campaign also vastly outspent the Trump campaign last month, as it dished out roughly $174 million. Much of those expenditures went to creating and running ads, as the campaign aimed to familiarize Americans with Harris after she replaced President Biden on the Democrats’ 2024 ticket two months ago.

HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN: WHICH CANDIDATE HOLDS THE EDGE ON THIS CRUCIAL ISSUE

The Trump campaign, by comparison, listed just $61 million in expenditures, with most of the spending going toward media buys.

But despite the Harris spending spree, the vice president’s campaign entered September with $235 million cash-on-hand, far ahead of the $135 million Trump’s coffers, according to the FEC filings.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLL SHOWS IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP 2024 SHOWDOWN 

The latest cash figures are another sign of the vice president’s surge in fundraising since becoming her party’s standard-bearer.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns use a slew of affiliated fundraising committees to haul in cash, and those panels file their reports on a different schedule.

The Harris campaign announced earlier this month that they and their allied committees hauled in $361 million in August — nearly triple the $130 million reported raised by the Trump campaign and its aligned committees.

The vice president’s team also touted that Harris hauled in $47 million from nearly 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her first and potentially only debate with Trump, which took place earlier this month in Philadelphia.

When asked about the fundraising deficit, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital in the debate spin room earlier this month that “the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.”

However, he emphasized that “we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through and we’re going to win on November 5.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Former President Donald Trump has a “special” connection with the people of Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman warns.

Fetterman made the observation during a conversation with The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg during the 2024 Atlantic Festival on Thursday.

“Trump has created a special kind of hold within the coronet he’s remade – the party – and he has a special kind of place in Pennsylvania, and I think that only deepened after the first assassination attempt,” Fetterman said. 

FETTERMAN REAMS OUT NY TIMES FOR PLATFORMING TERRORIST PROPAGANDA AFTER INTERVIEW WITH SENIOR HAMAS OFFICIAL

A deranged gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. The shooting, which Trump miraculously survived with only a wound on the side of his head, sharpened support among his die-hard base.

“I also want people to understand, you know, and it’s not science, but there is, there’s energy and there are kinds of anger on the ground in Pennsylvania — and people are very committed and strong,” Fetterman said Thursday. “And I joked that his signs became like the state flower – and you see that everywhere.”

However — after President Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris’ rapid ascension as the Democratic presidential nominee, polls indicate she holds a slight lead over Trump in the Keystone State.

FETTERMAN SETS POLITICS ASIDE AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, SAYS US MUST ‘TURN DOWN … THE TEMPERATURE’

A Thursday poll from the Washington Post had Harris at 48% support among likely and registered voters, while Trump sits at 47%. A New York Times poll gave Harris a slightly larger lead, with the vice president sitting at 50% compared to Trump’s 46%.

Fetterman expressed skepticism of Harris’ reported lead in Pennsylvania on Thursday, comparing the situation to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s seven-point lead in Pennsylvania that ultimately collapsed on Election Day during her failed 2016 presidential bid.

“Everybody thought that it was in the bag, but that’s not the energy and the other kinds of things that were really consistent with what I’m witnessing all across,” Fetterman recalled. “And then, sadly, we saw what happened.”

“People understand who he is and what he’s about, and enough people think that that’s the feature, and it’s not a bug,” he added.

After nearly four decades of military service, it was one small task that pushed Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., to the brink and brought an abrupt end to a long, successful career. 

“I kind of slowly saw it coming,” the Pennsylvania Republican told Fox News Digital in an interview. He was talking about a trend toward progressivism that he saw as antithetical to a military that was designed to strip soldiers of their individual wants and needs and rebuild them into one fighting force. 

“The culminating point for me is when my boss came to me and said, ‘You’re going to be in charge of enforcing the gender reassignment policy in the command,’” he said.

“The military is an organization where you take orders,” Perry said. “So, I decided that that was an order I wasn’t willing to take. And so I told my boss that I was going to be retiring.

“At that point, the military no longer reflected my value, sad to say, and I just didn’t want to be a part of it… Kind of the low point for me about what I was doing there, why I was there.”

In another instance, Perry, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Intel Committee, said he was given a sheet on which to rate his fellow officers’ performance. 

NAVY PREPARES FOR CHINA CONFLICT WITH NEWLY ANNOUNCED STRATEGY 

“Over the course of my tenure, it came to a point where you had room for about one sentence to talk about the officers’ war-fighting functions, because the whole rest of the space was filled up with things like, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ sexual harassment, equal opportunity,” he explained.

“The military is designed to be lethal, and it’s about lethality and readiness. And it was clear to me that we had long since left that focus.”

Perry, 62, retired from the Army National Guard in 2019 as a brigadier general after 39 years of service. A fighter pilot by craft, he’d commanded units through deployments to Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Iraq. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2013. 

The congressman said he believes he is not unique in leaving due to a politically charged environment. “Many, many good members were just leaving because they no longer, I think, felt like the military reflected their values,” Perry said. 

Recruitment issues in recent years have led to the smallest U.S. fighting force since before World War II. 

“They act like they don’t know what the problem is, but to me, it’s as clear as the nose on my face,” he said. “For a lot of people, the military was the great equalizer of societal differences.” 

This week was the House’s “woke week,” where Republicans passed party-line messaging bills that would root out such ideologies within corporations and industries. It came amid a failed continuing resolution (CR) that left no clear path forward to funding the government beyond Sept. 30. 

Military leaders have warned against any CR, or legislation to extend government funding at current levels for a set amount of time, that would delay boosting the military budget for the next fiscal year. They have warned that a government shutdown would “devastate” readiness and Congress must quickly pass legislation that grows its spending capabilities. 

“The same military leaders that act like that they can’t sustain some operation throughout a temporary impasse here in Congress are the same ones that say we’ve got to keep on spending this inordinate amount of money on systems that simply fail to produce,” Perry griped. 

HARROWING FOOTAGE SHOWS US TROOPS BEING FIRED AT OVERSEAS 

Congress regularly offers the Department of Defense more money than it asks for — in June, the House passed a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would pave the way for Pentagon funding to stand at $851 billion in fiscal year 2025, after a DoD request of $849.8 billion.

 “Anybody that’s worn the uniform has seen the horrific ways — I’ve been in places where we’re throwing connexes of new equipment out. The American taxpayer wants to support their members that wear the uniform and potentially sacrifice their life, but I think that the military as an organization has been willing to abuse that privilege,” said Perry. 

The Pentagon’s top testing office, the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, released a report earlier this year that found that less than a third of the nation’s F-35 jets are ready for combat at any given moment. 

“What is the cost of that? I would like to see our military leaders address those kinds of things,” said Perry.

“The same people that say that our national debt is one of our biggest national security issues… they say you deal with it, but it can’t affect us.” 

“​​You know guys wearing flip-flops, using motorboats or whooping our tail in the Gulf of Aden,” said Perry, “So with all due respect, when you can buy a $10,000 drone, and we’ve got to service that with a $25,000 missile, something isn’t adding up here to me.”

Election season is ramping up, with absentee voting beginning Saturday in seven more states – Delaware, Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont.

That means voting is now underway in over a dozen states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Virginia. States starting their early voting Saturday are not competitive at the presidential level, but there are two competitive House races among them:

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Delaware.

Absentee voting is kicking off Saturday in Delaware, The Associated Press reports. Absentee ballots are available to all voters in the state of Delaware. Absentee ballots must be received by the Department of Elections Office of the voter’s county by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Early in-person voting is available at designated sites in each county from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3.

Delaware residents can register to vote via writing, in-person, or through the state government’s online portal. The voter registration deadline is the 4th Saturday before the election. 

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Indiana.

Indiana is beginning to send out absentee ballots to voters who have applied Saturday. To vote absentee by mail, the application must be received 12 days before Election Day by 11:59 p.m. 

Individuals who intend to cast absentee ballots by mail must have a reason to request a vote-by-mail ballot. These reasons include disability, reasonable expectation for absence from the county, work obligations and more. 

All senior citizens 65 years of age and older qualify for absentee vote-by-mail ballots.

In-person absentee voting is available to all for 28 days before the election, ending at noon on the day before Election Day. Additionally, in-person absentee voting is available on the two Saturdays immediately preceding the election.

Voter registration forms must be completed and returned to county registration offices on or before Oct. 7.

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for New Jersey.

Mail-in voting begins on Sept. 21 as ballots are mailed to voters who have applied with their county clerk.

Voters can cast ballots by mail if postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots must be received by the county Board of Elections on or before the sixth day after the polls close.

Voters will be able to cast an early ballot in-person from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3.

The voter registration deadline is Oct. 15.

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Oklahoma.

Any registered voter in Oklahoma is allowed to request an absentee ballot, until the deadline of Oct. 21. 

Absentee ballots must be received by 5 p.m. on the third Monday preceding the election (15 days).

Early voting is available to all Oklahoma voters and no excuse is needed. Voters can cast their ballots early from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.

The voter registration is Oct. 11. Voters are able to register online, by mail, or in-person.

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Rhode Island.

Rhode Island voters who cannot or prefer not to cast their ballot at the polls on Election Day are allowed to vote by mail. Mail-in ballots can be requested online or via writing. Mail ballots must arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Rhode Island voters can cast early ballots in-person during the 20 days leading up to Election Day, Oct. 16 to Nov. 4.

Voters must be registered 30 days before the election to cast their ballots in Rhode Island.

Same day registration is available, but such voters will only be able to cast ballots for president and vice-president, not down-ballot candidates.

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Texas.

Absentee ballots begin to be mailed in Tennessee by Sept. 21, according to the AP. To vote absentee in Tennessee requires an excuse.

In-person early voting runs from Oct. 16 to Oct. 31. 

The deadline for voter registration in Tennessee is Oct. 7.

This is a guide to registration and early voting. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes, and deadlines, please go to Vote.gov and the election website for Vermont.

Absentee ballots begin to be sent to military and overseas voters on Sept. 21. Mailing of ballots to all active voters begins Sept. 23.

Early voters can apply for an early voter absentee ballot by telephone, in-person or in writing. Authorized family members may also apply on an individual’s behalf.

Early voter absentee ballots must be submitted by 5 p.m. on Nov. 4.

Individuals in Vermont can register online, via paper application or at their local clerk’s office.