Biden, Trump make campaign pitches as final phase of the race begins

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Today marks the final sprint in the race for the White House.

  The presidential and vice presidential nominees were all out and about on this Labor Day holiday.

  William Brangham reports.

• William Brangham:

  It's perhaps the most normal campaigning that this unconventional election has seen so far. Both parties' candidates made public pitches today, mixing Labor Day messages with talk of the pandemic and of race and policing.

  Joe Biden was in Pennsylvania for a backyard stop with local labor leaders. Later, he was asked about the development of a coronavirus vaccine, which the president has said might be ready for use as soon as next month.

• Former Vice President Joseph Biden:

  One of the problems is the way he's playing with politics, is, he's said so many things that aren't true, I'm worried, if we do have a really good vaccine, people are going to be reluctant to take it. And so he's undermining public confidence.

• William Brangham:

  At a White House event today, President Trump called Joe Biden — quote — "a stupid person," and separately criticized those vaccine doubts, saying the Democrats were anti-science and misguided.

• President Donald Trump:

  We are an absolute leader in every way. Under my leadership, we will produce a vaccine in record time.

• William Brangham:

  The president also again denied reports from last week that he'd denigrated dead and wounded members of the military.

• President Donald Trump:

  I'm not saying the military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't, because they want to do nothing but fight wars, so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.

• William Brangham:

  Meanwhile, the two vice presidential nominees spent today in Wisconsin. In the city of La Crosse, Vice President Mike Pence stressed the Republican ticket's support for law enforcement.

• Vice President Mike Pence:

  I promise you, we will always stand with those who serve on the thin blue line of law enforcement. We're not going to defund the police, not now, not ever.

  (APPLAUSE)

• William Brangham:

  In Milwaukee, Senator Kamala Harris met in private today with the family of Jacob Blake, the young Black man shot in the back seven times by police in Kenosha two weeks ago.

  She followed that with two other stops, including a roundtable with Black business owners.

• Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.:

  One of the attributes of healthy communities is that there's access to capital for the small businesses that are the heartbeat of those communities.

• William Brangham:

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham.