Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who served under the Trump administration, warned Donald Trump against being too “big and strong” in his upcoming debate against Kamala Harris, The Hill reports.

Said Ross: “The only danger is Trump being big and strong and a man. He has to be careful not to be seen as piling on a woman. People don’t like to see a woman pushed too hard.”

A new ABC News/ Ipsos poll finds Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump nationally among likely voters, 52% to 46%.

Key takeaway: “While the overall numbers are essentially unchanged from before the convention, the gender gap has widened. Harris leads by 13 points among women, 54% to 41%, while it’s Trump +5 points among men, 51% to 46%, for an 18-point gap.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris is doubling down on criticism of former President Donald Trump following reports that Trump’s campaign staff got into a confrontation with an official at the Arlington National Cemetery last week,” Politico reports.

“The direct attack from Harris is the latest turn in the controversy over Trump’s Arlington visit Monday, where he attended a memorial with families of service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Democrats have characterized Trump’s visit as a crass attempt to politicize the military and its fallen service members, and several Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Pentagon to provide more details on whether the former commander-in-chief flouted laws that prohibit political activities at the military cemetery.”

New York Times: Others have politicized Arlington, but Trump’s approach has no precedent.

CNN: Arlington cemetery controversy deepens as Trump and Harris trade attacks.

New York Times: “The campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, when combined with their super PACs, have raised $1.3 billion, and that’s not counting money raised by dark-money organizations that are active in the presidential race and don’t disclose their donors.”

“The final two months of the election typically see donors write some of the biggest checks of the campaign season. So we’re just getting started.”

“Donald Trump’s campaign, under pressure from Vice President Harris’ rise in the polls, is facing a persistent challenge from within: Trump himself, and his tendency to undermine his own strategy,” Axios reports.

“The ‘Trump will be Trump’ dynamic has been evident throughout 2024. But as the campaign heads into a nine-week sprint to Nov. 5, his off-script whims appear to be increasingly throwing mud on his advisers’ game plans.”

“The 2024 presidential race is set to enter a critical new juncture, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump set to debate and the first swing state ballots hitting mailboxes shortly after the Labor Day holiday weekend,” CNN reports.

“As the calendar turns to September, both campaigns are narrowing their focus on key battleground states — with Harris eyeing an expanded map and Trump digging in across the Upper Midwest states that delivered him the presidency in 2016 and ousted him from office in 2020.”

“It all comes as voting is set to begin this week. The first ballots of the 2024 election will go out Friday in North Carolina, one of a handful of potentially critical Sun Belt states. Then, two weeks later, early in-person voting starts in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia.”

“A man at Donald Trump’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, stormed into the press area as the former president spoke Friday but was surrounded by police and sheriff’s deputies and was eventually subdued with a Taser,” the AP reports.

“The altercation came moments after Trump criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.”

“For Kamala Harris, it is Pennsylvania. For Donald Trump, it is Georgia,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Each campaign has a state that is arguably ‘must-win’ in its path to 270 electoral votes, which explains why both nominees are expending so much time, energy and money in those two places—to secure their own prize and block the other.”

“Harris will spend part of the Labor Day holiday in Pittsburgh alongside President Biden, after a postconvention bus tour Wednesday and Thursday that took her through rural Georgia. Trump, meanwhile, has been traveling across the so-called “blue wall” states, including the biggest battleground prize of Pennsylvania.”

Said Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik: “There are two pivot points for the election: Pennsylvania and Georgia. If Trump can win Pennsylvania or Harris can win Georgia, I think they are then overwhelming favorites to win the election. It’s still possible for Trump to win without Georgia, it’s still possible for Harris to win without Pennsylvania, but it’s a lot more difficult.”

Kamala Harris taunted Donald Trump for insisting on muted microphones at their debate.

Said Harris: “Donald Trump is surrendering to his advisors who won’t allow him to debate with a live microphone. If his own team doesn’t have confidence in him, the American people definitely can’t. We are running for President of the United States. Let’s debate in a transparent way—with the microphones on the whole time.”

Sen. J.D. Vance said that professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children in a September 2021 podcast interview in which he also claimed men in America were “suppressed” in their masculinity, The Guardian reports.

The vice-presidential candidate said of women like his classmates at Yale Law School that “pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning… but they all find that that value system leads to misery.”

Vance also sideswiped Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a one-time Somali refugee, claiming she had shown “ingratitude” to America, and that she “would be living in a craphole” had she not moved to the US.