A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Last night in Chicago, former President Barack Obama made the case for electing Vice President Kamala Harris to the office he once held.
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BARACK OBAMA: I am feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible.
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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Obama critiqued former President Trump, saying the country doesn't need a repeat of his chaos and bluster. He urged Democrats to reach out to voters who don't agree with them on everything.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith was in the United Center, joins us now. Tamara, what did Michelle Obama have to say?
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Well, she directly took on something that no one else has yet in the hours and hours of speeches - the racism and sexism that she knows from experience Harris will face a lot more of in the weeks to come and the largely unspoken fear, even with all the hope and euphoria from Democrats, that America isn't ready for a woman of color to be president.
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MICHELLE OBAMA: We cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.
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KEITH: Her message to Democrats that she repeated throughout her speech was do something - to volunteer, to counter lies, to not be complacent in what is expected to be a very close election.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. And then President Obama - former President Obama - followed. What was the crux of his case?
KEITH: Well, both of the Obamas were quite critical of Trump. Michelle Obama said that Harris and most Americans don't come from rich families where they get a lot of chances to get ahead or a free ride to the top. Barack Obama said Trump has never stopped whining about his troubles. And he mocked Trump about his obsession with crowd size on a night when Harris supporters filled not one but two arenas. During the convention last night, Harris held a rally in Milwaukee in the same arena where Trump had made his acceptance speech just five weeks ago.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so tonight, Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will deliver the keynote address. What does he have to do tonight?
KEITH: Americans and even Democrats are still getting to know him, so he's got to fill in some of the blanks about his life, since, until recently, Walz was relatively unknown on the national stage. And Trump and his allies have been going after him. Former President Obama laid some of the groundwork for him last night, emphasizing his authenticity.
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B OBAMA: You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don't come from some political consultant. They come from his closet, and they have been through some stuff.
KEITH: And when the cameras cut to Walz's wife, Gwen, she gave the look of someone who wished some of those ragged flannels would be thrown out.
MARTÍNEZ: I'm hugging my flannels from the night 'cause, Tam, I'm never giving those up. Now, you mentioned how Americans are still getting to know Tim Walz. His running mate, Kamala Harris, is still getting to know Tim Walz as well. So you've been out with them on the trail. How's this getting-to-know-each-other stage going?
KEITH: Yeah. Before she picked him, it would be more accurate to say that they were friendly rather than friends. They have this buddy-comedy energy when they're together now - Walz, the Midwestern high school football coach and teacher turned politician, and Harris, the former prosecutor who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. I called author Chris Whipple, who writes about presidents, to talk about their relationship. He says, it is pretty common for a nominee and their running mate to have a campaign trail marriage without having a real relationship going in. He says, so far, they've done well together campaigning, but it is really hard to know how they would work together in office, should they win.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Tamara Keith, thanks a lot.
KEITH: You're welcome.
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MARTÍNEZ: While Democrats are holding their convention in Chicago, former President Donald Trump is traveling across the country.
INSKEEP: Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, plan to visit swing states every single day this week, hoping to get a message across to voters to choose Trump in November.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is following Trump for some of his stops this week. Danielle, you were at a Trump event outside of Detroit yesterday where he emphasized a crime. What did he have to say? And how does it differ from what Kamala Harris is saying?
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Well, first of all, to hammer home the crime theme, he spoke at a county sheriff's office in the town of Howell, Mich. And this was a small event. This wasn't your typical Trump rally. An officer on hand told me that this was held in a storage building. It was kind of like a machine shed. And it had maybe 100 to 200 people. Now, a lot of those were cops, and Trump pushed a message about supporting and boosting law enforcement. For example, as opposed to defunding the police, he talked about refunding, as he put it, the police. He talked about immunity from prosecution for cops, and also, separately, he talked a lot about undocumented immigrants. He really especially talked about some crimes committed by immigrants in pretty lurid detail. Now, part of what he's doing with that message is trying to paint America as bad right now and say that he is the one to fix it.
Now, that is a big contrast from Kamala Harris. She talks about crime as a prosecutor, talking about how she has put criminals away, and she has talked about putting away, quote, "predators and fraudsters and cheaters." And then she has linked that to Trump, casting him as a criminal, saying she wants to get tough on him. So, broadly speaking, Trump talks about beefing up law enforcement. Also, it is not clear he would have the power to do all that he would want. Now, Harris talks about it in a more systemic way, having been in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor, and also that she wants to end systemic abuses, as she talks about. For example, she co-sponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to protect people from cops in many ways.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, so far at the convention, the Democrats are making the case against Donald Trump, focusing a lot on that so far. How is Trump trying to counter that?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, one thing that's really stood out to me in his last few events is how much he uses the phrase common sense. Here he was yesterday.
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DONALD TRUMP: I'd like to say the Republican Party is now the party of common sense. Conservative - yeah, I guess conservative. It doesn't matter. It's the party of common sense.
KURTZLEBEN: And like I said, he - I think he's been saying that quite a bit in the last few weeks, and I think you could see that as a counter to the weird attacks the Democrats are launching at him and Vance, casting Trump and JD Vance as weird. I asked the campaign about this. They said, no, this is just - this is a thing he's been saying since 2016. And, yeah, it's a common phrase, but given how much he's saying it lately, he's been casting Democrats as too liberal and just trying to take back the mantle of normal.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So where is Donald Trump heading to today?
KURTZLEBEN: Today, he and his running mate, JD Vance, will be in Asheboro, N.C., talking national security. And I think you can really expect them to keep talking about global affairs from an isolationist lens. After all, Trump has criticized NATO. He wants to ratchet back aid to Ukraine, and you can imagine they'll also talk about pushing aid to Israel.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, that's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you very much.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
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MARTÍNEZ: The final report is out in an investigation into the deadliest mass shooting in Maine's history.
INSKEEP: Last year, a man with an assault rifle opened fire at two popular night spots in Lewiston, Maine, killing 18 people, and then took his own life. Yesterday, an investigative panel released its findings on the events leading up to that tragedy.
MARTÍNEZ: And we're joined now by Kevin Miller with Maine Public Radio to talk about the, quote, "multiple missed opportunities" that were highlighted in that report. Kevin, the special commission found a number of failures on the part of law enforcement and the Army Reserve. So what did the report have to say?
KEVIN MILLER, BYLINE: Yeah, that's right. The report found that the leaders of the gunman's Army Reserve unit failed to take the necessary steps to, quote, "reduce the threat" that the gunman, Robert Card, posed to the public. But members of Robert Card's family had also raised concerns about his increasing paranoia and his access to guns. Card was acting erratically and aggressively during a training mission, and reserve leaders actually ordered him to undergo an evaluation, and he spent about two weeks in a psychiatric hospital. But the commission said those reserve leaders didn't do enough after his release from that hospital. Here's the commission chairman, Dan Wathen.
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DAN WATHEN: Despite their knowledge, they ignored the strong recommendation of Card's mental health providers to stay engaged with his care and take steps to remove weapons from his home.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So given those warning signs, why weren't his guns taken away?
KEVIN MILLER: The report says the local sheriff's office had, quote, "sufficient probable cause" to take Robert Card into protective custody. Now, Maine has a yellow flag law on the books, where if a medical professional and a judge agree that someone poses a high enough threat, that person could be forced to temporarily give up their guns. But that never happened in this case. Sheriff's officials said at the time that Card hadn't committed any crimes, and they suggested that his reserve leaders actually downplayed the threat that he posed. Reserve leaders dispute that, and they said they really had no legal authority to take his personal guns. So there's been a lot of finger-pointing over who was most at fault.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what about the family members of the victims? I mean, what did they have to say about this report?
KEVIN MILLER: Well, immediately after the report was released, the attorneys for victims' families and survivors held a press conference on the steps of Lewiston City Hall. They agreed with a lot of the conclusions, but one of the attorneys, Ben Gideon, also made clear that this isn't over.
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BEN GIDEON: The next step in this process needs to be real accountability, and that's where we come in. And in the next few months, you will be hearing what that plan entails in terms of the civil lawsuits and cases that we will be pursuing on behalf of all of our clients.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so definitely sounds like it's, as you said, not over. What else might come out of this?
KEVIN MILLER: Well, the commission didn't make any policy recommendations. They said that's really up to elected leaders. State officials actually passed several laws earlier this year tightening gun restrictions, things like expanded background checks and a waiting period on gun purchases. And that was really a big deal in a gun-friendly state like Maine. But it'll be interesting to see whether this latest report sparks any discussion of additional policy changes.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's Kevin Miller with Maine Public Radio. Kevin, thank you.
KEVIN MILLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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