Trump claims 'there was no conflict' during Arlington national cemetery visit
Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Trump wrote:
There was no conflict or “fighting” at Arlington National Cemetery last week. It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad.
The US army accused the Trump campaign of turning a wreath-laying ceremony on 26 August to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity.
The army also accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.
An army spokesperson said a female Arlington national cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” during an argument with Trump aides over photos and filming on the grounds for partisan, political or fundraising purposes. A spokesperson for the military said the episode was “unfortunate”, and it was “also unfortunate” that the cemetery “employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked”. The employee is not pressing charges.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case to rule on his motion to vacate his conviction.
In a letter on Friday to the judge Juan Merchan made public today, prosecutors said the court should decide Trump’s motion on presidential immunity and not wait until a federal judge considers a separate motion filed by Trump last week to move the case into federal court. They wrote:
Federal law is clear that proceedings in this Court need not be stayed pending the district court’s resolution of defendant’s removal notice.
Merchan previously said he will rule on Trump’s challenge to his conviction based on the supreme court’s immunity decision.
Updated
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, has warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.
In an interview with Punchbowl News conducted at the Democratic national convention in August but published on Monday, Schumer accused McConnell of enabling Donald Trump’s remaking of US politics and the judiciary.
By helping to shift the supreme court sharply to the right through the former president’s three appointments to the top judicial bench, McConnell had played a part in abolishing the federal right to an abortion in the ruling ending Roe v Wade, and much more, Schumer contended. He said:
Not just on Roe, but on issue after issue where they’re so far out of touch with the American people … Even when McConnell thought Trump was wrong, he went along with [Trump] too many times.
He concluded that McConnell’s “role in history, in my opinion, will go down poorly”.
Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he will not be voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the November election.
Toomey, in an interview on CNBC, said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but that he could not bring himself to support the Republican presidential candidate, citing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Toomey said:
When you lose an election and you try to overturn the results so that you can stay in power, you lose me. You lose me at that point.
“It is an acceptable position for me to say that neither of these candidates can be my choice for president,” he added.
Former Republican Sen. Pat Toomey draws the line on Trump: “When you lose an election and you try to overturn the results so you can stay in power, you lose me. You lose me at that point.”
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 3, 2024
“…neither of these candidates can be my choice for president.” pic.twitter.com/uKwLIuBlSj
Trump and allies plant seeds for ‘chaos and discord’ if he loses, experts warn
Donald Trump and election denialist allies at Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other Maga stalwarts are spreading conspiracy theories about election fraud in order to lay the groundwork for charging the election was rigged if Trump loses, warn election experts and some veteran Republicans.
The consequences of the strategy could be dire. John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, who spoke at the Democratic national convention in August in support of Kamala Harris’s campaign for the presidency, said that former president Trump and his allies “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”, if Trump loses. He added:
They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to foment insurrection if he loses the election.
Twin drives by Trump and Maga allies echo some falsehoods from 2020 about fraud due to voting machines and drop boxes, but now promote Trump’s conspiratorial attacks on federal and state prosecutors who filed criminal charges against him for trying to subvert his loss in 2020, and push baseless claims that noncitizens are poised to vote in large numbers.
Turning Point USA, for instance, has touted a multimillion-dollar drive to get out more votes for Trump in key swing states, while holding a few big rallies for Trump where bogus claims are still being made that the 2020 election was rigged, and new fears are being raised about potential fraud this year.
Read the full story here: Trump and allies plant seeds for ‘chaos and discord’ if he loses, experts warn
Updated
Harris campaign says Trump's comments 'make it clear that he believes he is above the law'
Kamala Harris’s campaign said in a statement after Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election that his comments were evidence that the Republican former president believed he was “above the law”.
On Monday, a Harris campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, said Trump’s comments were another example of the “chaos, fear, and division” Americans experienced under him.
Everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail – from ‘terminating’ the constitution, to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’ – makes it clear that he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not.
Updated
Trump says he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election
Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday.
Trump told the host Mark Levin:
It’s so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it? You get indicted and your poll numbers go up.
Trump: Who ever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it. pic.twitter.com/EneMFJg7kD
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 2, 2024
Trump faces federal charges in Washington DC for his alleged actions to subvert the 2020 election results, and is separately charged in Georgia with racketeering over an alleged scheme to overturn the state’s election results.
Updated
Harris to unveil new economic policy plans before debate – report
Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.
With days until her first debate with Donald Trump, Harris is aiming to draw a contrast with her Republican opponent’s calls for a lower corporate tax rate, the Washington Post reported, citing sources.
Harris campaign advisers have also discussed including plans to bolster the safety net, such as through childcare or paid leave expansions, alongside tax proposals, the report said.
Updated
Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor for Michigan, said that more Americans will be engaged as the election season kicks in and that voters will see why Kamala Harris is a better choice over Donald Trump.
“All Donald Trump offers is anger and grievance, whereas Kamala Harris has actual plans that will help people keep more money in their pockets,” Whitmer told CNN on Tuesday.
This is a stark choice in front of us, and I’m confident that as voters start to get more engaged in this upcoming election, that they’ll see Kamala Harris’s agenda is about making their lives better, and Donald Trump’s about making Donald Trump’s life better.
Trump “doesn’t get it and cares about winning an election, not necessarily what he’s going to do once he does”, she added.
Updated
Harris campaign to transfer $25m to down-ballot Democrats
The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee will transfer $25m to support down-ballot candidates, according to an announcement made today.
The Harris campaign said it was transferring $10m each to the Democratic campaign arms of the Senate and the House, as well as an additional $2.5m to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps elect Democrats to statehouses. The Harris campaign is also sending $1m each for groups backing Democratic gubernatorial and attorney general candidates.
A statement by the Harris campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said:
The vice-president believes that this race is about mobilizing the entire country, in races at every level, to fight for our freedoms and our economic opportunity. That’s why the vice-president has made the decision to invest a historic sum into electing Democrats up and down the ballot.
Updated
Donald Trump “just doesn’t give a shit” about members of the US military, the former president’s nephew – a vocal critic of the Republican White House nominee – has said.
Fred Trump III discussed his uncle’s eportedly contentious 26 August visit to Arlington national cemetery, in which the US army accused members of Trump’s presidential campaign staff of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.
Trump III was speaking to the MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who said it called to mind how the elder Trump once infamously remarked that fallen military members were “suckers” and “losers”, as his former chief of staff John Kelly said.
Asked why some in the military might continue supporting his uncle, Trump III replied: “I have no idea.” He described giving an interview on a radio show which is broadcast to actively serving military members and telling “the truth”.
“He just doesn’t give a shit about them,” Trump III, 61, added.
He just doesn’t. Donald believes in Donald.
The revelation regarding how Robert F Kennedy Jr was asked if he would be vice-president under Donald Trump is contained in a Times story exploring the rapprochement between two men who had previously been at loggerheads – and explaining how Kennedy, a former Democrat, came to abandon his presidential effort and endorse Trump as the Republican nominee for president.
The timing of the call by Calley Means – just after Trump had been wounded by a would-be assassin – appeared to be inspired by the fact that Kennedy’s father, Robert F Kennedy, and his uncle, President John F Kennedy, had both been killed by assassins, and the assumption that he would identify with Trump’s plight.
It is unclear whether Trump was genuinely considering choosing Kennedy as his running mate at that stage. Days later, at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, he announced JD Vance as the vice-presidential nominee.
But as recently as April – at a time when he was lambasting Kennedy as “a radical left Democrat” – Trump was apparently also considering him as his vice-president and musing about he liked the sound of a “Trump-Kennedy” ticket. His campaign even conducted internal polling on its potential electability, according to the Times.
RFK Jr was asked if he would join Trump ticket hours after assassination attempt
Robert F Kennedy Jr was asked if he would be vice-president under Donald Trump hours after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July, it has been revealed.
The startling proposal was made as part of a frantic bid to reach out to Kennedy, who was staging an independent bid for the presidency, in the name of “national unity” following the failed attempt by a lone gunman, Thomas Crooks, to kill Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July.
Kennedy reportedly rejected the suggestion from Calley Means, an entrepreneur who sometimes advised him on chronic diseases and was acting as an intermediary, according to the New York Times.
But he later called Means back to say he would be prepared to talk to Trump.
Introducing Kamala Harris to a crowd in Pittsburgh on Monday, Joe Biden described the accomplishments of his administration in Pennsylvania, from investments in clean energy to infrastructure money.
Biden noted that his administration required project labor agreements that respected labor rights and required American products, while reminding listeners that Donald Trump appointed union busting officials to the National Labor Relations Board. Biden said:
Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America and unions built the middle class.
The appearance of Biden and Harris together provides an image of how the two may campaign in the waning days of the election. Biden described Harris as having “the backbone of a ramrod and the moral compass of a saint”.
Biden is the first sitting president to walk a union picket line, supporting the United Auto Workers in their dispute with major car manufacturers in September 2023.
.@KamalaHarris believes as I do that unions are the spine of this economy. She will be a historic, pro-union president.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 2, 2024
Folks, we've got one more job to do together. Join us in this fight: https://t.co/FKzIXhmOeg
Kamala Harris, at a rally in Pittsburgh on Monday, voiced support for the Protecting the Right to Organize (Pro) act, a broad basket of labor reforms that would spur union organizing.
Kenny Cooper, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union, introduced Joe Biden and Harris, noting that the passage of the Butch Lewis Act by Harris’s tie-breaking vote saved the benefits of 2 million union members.
“They were only tied up for one reason,” he said. “We couldn’t find a Republican senator.”
Harris also cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which the United Steelworkers (USW) international president, David McCall, said in comments had been “revolutionizing the cement, chemical, glass and steel sectors along with other traditional core industries”.
Harris spent the morning in Detroit, hailing the virtues of union organizing – the five-day work week, sick leave, vacation time and other benefits – with labor leaders at Northwestern high school. She said:
We celebrate unions because unions helped build America, and unions helped build America’s middle class. When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.
Updated
Kamala Harris’s commitment to oppose the sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon represents one of the few specific policy promises she has made since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket.
On Monday, between comments about the administration’s support for organized labor and Donald Trump’s attacks on labor organizing, Harris spoke against the pending purchase of US Steel and said it should remain domestically owned and operated.
US Steel is an historic American company and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies. And I couldn’t agree more with President Biden: US Steel should remain American-owned and American-operated.
The United Steelworkers union, representing about 10,000 US Steel employees, opposes the $14.9bn deal, taking issue with Nippon Steel’s alleged violations of the union’s rights concerning change of control under their four-year basic labor agreement signed in 2022. The union and the companies are in arbitration talks.
Updated
Biden teams up with Harris in first joint campaign appearance in pitch to union workers
Good morning US politics readers. Joe Biden joined Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh on Monday for their first joint appearance on the presidential campaign trail since he ended his re-election bid in July and endorsed her.
The pair appeared at a rally to mark Labor Day with a tribute to union workers in Pittsburgh in the vital swing state of Pennsylvania. “We are so proud to be the most pro-union administration in American history,” Harris said.
Trade unions are a key Democratic constituency and Harris on Monday pledged to oppose the pending purchase of US Steel by Nippon Steel, arguing that the iconic Pennsylvania steel company should remain in the hands of American owners. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, also opposes the Nippon Steel deal and has said he will block it if president.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
The House and Senate are out this week.
Biden is back in Washington DC after having spent the last two weeks holidaying in California and at his home in Delaware. He will head to Wisconsin on Thursday and Michigan on Friday.
Harris will be in New Hampshire on Wednesday and then travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday.
The Harris campaign has released “Focused”, part of a $370m ad buy running through election day.
Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, will testify publicly before Congress next week about nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.
