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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Helen Sullivan (now); with Maanvi Singh ,Chris Stein, Anna Betts and Lili Bayer (earlier)

Kamala Harris holds star-studded event with Oprah in battleground state of Michigan – as it happened

Donald Trump Assassination New York

This blog is closing now, thanks for following along. See all our coverage of the 2024 US elections

Oprah concluded by quoting Maya Angelou, saying, “if you know better you have to do better”.

That event has now ended.

Harris is asked by Meryl Streep what preparations are being made for the possibility that she wins, but Trump does not accept the result.

Harris says many Americans who voted for Trump have decided 6 January was a bridge too far.

She says “the lawyers are working” and that is important to speak to friends and neighbours about misinformation, and to respect poll workers, and to not be afraid to vote.

She doesn’t really answer the question.

People who have experienced gun violence are speaking now, again speaking through tears. A woman whose daughter was involved in a school shooting recounts the feeling of not knowing if her daughter, who survived, was alright.

Harris says what is needed is common sense, and assault weapons bans, and notes that she owns a gun.

If somebody breaks into her house, she says, they’re getting shot. She probably should not have said that, she adds, saying her staff will deal with it later.

Tracee Ellis-Ross points out that women who don’t have children still contribute a lot to society. She is saying this because of JD Vance’s childless cat lady comments.

Updated

Julia Roberts is speaking now via video link.

She says she wants to be able to travel and have people think it is a good thing she is American, not a bad one.

Harris responds to comments from Thurman’s mother and sister, saying, “First of all, I’m so sorry.”

Thurman’s family only recently learned how she died, Harris says.

Amber’s mom shared with me over and over that the word preventable keeps coming to her, says Harris.

Harris points out that Trump chose three members of the supreme court, which then overturned Roe v Wade. She says he did it intentionally.

In 2016 Trump said he wanted abortion legality to be decided by individual states, while Clinton vowed to defend abortion rights.

He has boasted that he “was able to kill Roe v Wade”.

More from Donegan on that story:

Thurman could have been cured with a D&C, or dilation and curettage, a procedure in which the cervix is dilated to create an opening through which instruments can be inserted to empty out the contents of a uterus. The procedure is a popular form of abortion, but it is also a routine part of miscarriage and other gynecological care. If the tissue was promptly removed, she probably would have been fine: a D&C requires no special equipment and takes only about 15 minutes.

But Georgia’s abortion ban outlawed the D&C procedure, making it a felony to perform except in cases of managing a “spontaneous” or “naturally occurring” miscarriage. Because Thurman had taken abortion pills, her miscarriage was illegal to treat. She suffered in a hospital bed for 20 hours, developing sepsis and beginning to experience organ failure. By the time the Georgia doctors were finally willing to treat her, it was too late.

A woman named Shanette is speaking now through tears about her daughter, Amber Thurman.

“You are looking at a mother who is broken,” she says.

Thurman, a Black 28-year-old mother to a young son died in Georgia after doctors at a hospital there refused to perform a simple procedure that could have saved her life – because the law did not allow them.

Here is the Guardian’s Moira Donegan on the subject:

Hadley Duvall, 22, is speaking now. She has told the story of being raped and impregnated, at 12, by her stepfather, as she helps Harris campaign for reproductive rights.

When Roe v Wade was overturned, she says, she found that while her abuse was over, her story was not.

She thanks Harris for “standing up” for women, and “really showing us that life is not about the hard things you go through”.

“You don’t bow down,’ she says.

Here is Duvall speaking in August:

Harris is asked by a young person about the economy, and the difficulty of going from being a student to an independent adult.

She compares her and Trump’s plans.

She has been stronger than at other times on the economy here, waffling less and talking about her policies more.

Harris references Trump’s response at the debate between the candidates, where he said he had a “concept of a plan” for healthcare. She will give small businesses a $50,000 grant, she says. She says the current small business grant of $5,000 is for a “concept of a business”.

Updated

Harris is asked about her plan to tackle the cost of living. The economy is one of the areas where Harris has often been weak in her responses.

She talks about policies she has announced. She says she will take on price-gouging to bring down the price of groceries.

She says she will bring down the cost of buying a home with a tax credit. She will support small business owners.

She takes a swipe at Trump’s family wealth and bankruptcy plans. She says she will extend the child tax credit.

She repeats her idea of an “opportunity economy”.

She says she will sign the bill into law if elected.

Harris is asked by a voter what her specific steps would be on strengthening the border.

“This is not a theoretical issue for me, this is something I have actually worked on,” she says. “I take very seriously the importance of having a secure border.”

She says she has prosecuted cross-border criminal gangs.

She talks about the border security bill that Trump blocked.

“It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl,” she says. It would have allowed more agents.

Trump prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem, Harris says.

Oprah brings up Springfield, and the repeated false claims made by Trump and his running mate JD Vance, about immigrants in the town.

“It seems to us that something happened to you the moment President Joe Biden stepped aside and withdrew his candidacy, that a veil or something dropped, and you just stepped into your power,” Oprah says to Harris.

Oprah stands up and does an impression of Harris walking confidently.

“We each have those moments in our lives where it’s time to step up,” Harris says.

She felt a sense of responsibility, and with that comes a sense of purpose, she says.

“There really is so much at stake”.

Harris arrives at star-studded Oprah event

Harris walks into the event, hugging Whitmer and Oprah, and taking a seat in an armchair opposite Oprah.

She says when we’ve dealt with so much that is exhausting with this movement trying to divide Americans, it is important to remember what unites Americans.

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer came onto the stage to encourage people to vote for Harris.

Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley-Dillon is speaking now, and warns voters that “we are still in a margin of error race”, meaning that even where Harris is polling ahead of Trump, it is not by more than the margin of error. The race is tied, she says.

A voter from Win with Black Men says that if he wants to choose someone who will be the best for his family, he doesn’t want someone with 34 convictions.

A voter from White Women Answer the Call says, “even if you are a white woman who is voting for Kamala Harris that’s not enough, you have to get off the sidelines and do the work.”

She calls on white women to persuade other white women to vote for Harris, “in women’s best interests”, and to phone bank.

Stream the event here:

Ben Stiller says he supports Harris because his daughter’s reproductive rights are incredibly important.

Oprah says Rock said there will be “weeping in the streets” when Harris becomes president.

Rock says he has been “writing [Harris] checks for a long time” and that he wants to bring his daughters to the White House to “meet this black woman president.”

Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and others remotely at Oprah-Harris event

Among those at the event are Cat ladies for Kamala, train lovers for Harris-Walz, Republicans for Harris, Swifties for Kamala.

Actors Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep are joining via video chat, as are Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Lopez, Tracee Ellis-Ross and Brian Cranston.

Updated

Oprah says that there are 400 people in the audience, and thousands more joining via video call.

The event is happening in Oakland county, Michigan.

Michigan is a key swing state, with 15 electoral college votes.

That event is starting now. You can watch it here.

Oprah, an Independent, endorsed Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

Updated

Here is the press pool report from the Harris and Oprah event in Michigan:

The pool was let in to the space at 7:40pm. It is a very large sound stage and it’s a big brick facade around the stage. This is being conducted “in the round,” meaning the stage is in the center, with two wood chairs with cream upholstery. The screen on the far wall says “Unite for America. There is a live studio audience here.

Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey will be speaking at an event in Michigan in ten minutes’ time. We will stream – and blog – that live.

Updated

Trump has repeated a statement he has made before, that any Jewish person who votes for Harris or the Democrats “should have their head examined”.

Trump claims that the Kamala Harris “hasn’t lifted a finger” to protect Jewish people.

In August, the Biden-Harris administration approved a $20bn arms package for Israel. Harris has said she is working “around the clock” to secure a ceasefire deal. Harris has said repeatedly she supports Israel’s right to defend itself and has condemned anti-sematism.

Trump meanwhile has said, falsely, that polls that show him ahead of Harris don’t get released.

Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, met with the families of people held hostage by Hamas.

Walz “condemned the brutality against both Americans and Israelis and reaffirmed his and Vice President Harris’s commitment to Israel’s security,” and, “The group discussed the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to end the war and ensure Israel is secure, all hostages are released, and the suffering in Gaza ends,” the campaign said in a statement.

Trump’s remarks so far have consisted of him making comments between thanking person after person in the audience for being there. The Guardian’s David Smith is in the room:

Trump is now on stage.

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, has issued an emergency proclamation following the continued rise in public safety threats over false rightwing rumors about the city’s migrant communities.

On Thursday, Rob Rue released a statement, saying: “Ensuring the safety of Springfield’s residents is our top priority.” He added: “We are addressing these threats with the seriousness they warrant and are taking immediate steps to ensure the security of both our community and our employees. Our commitment to preventing harm is unwavering.”

According to a city statement, the proclamation allows Rue and other city officials to “swiftly acquire resources needed to address potential threats” and will “enable departments to respond more efficiently to emerging risks, including civil unrest, cyber threats and potential acts of violence”.

Harris is stepping up her efforts to win over voters who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, enlisting prominent members of the faith to make the case in pivotal Arizona that Donald Trump does not align with the church’s values, the Associated Press reports.

Her state campaign announced on Thursday an advisory committee to formalise the outreach to current and former members of the church, widely known as the Mormon church.

With nearly 450,000 church members in Arizona, about 6% of the state’s population, Latter-day Saints and former church members could prove critical in what will likely be an extremely close race.

Trump’s event has started but he is not yet speaking. We will bring you any important news from his comments when they happen.

US officials now believe that a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is not expected before the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The newspaper cites top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90% of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon, while Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly said Washington has been working “around the clock” to get to an agreement.

The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months made attempts to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas but have failed to arrive at a final agreement.

Negotiations have been ongoing to clear two obstacles: Israel’s demand to keep its forces in the Philadelphi corridor to maintain a buffer between Gaza and Egypt, and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel had agreed to. The deal has run into obstacles and officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.

Critics and human rights groups have also urged Washington to use its leverage by conditioning military support to Israel but the US has maintained its support for its ally.

Trump’s ‘fighting anti-semitism’ event in Washington is now running almost an hour late.

Updated

Here are the Teamsters endorsements, via the Harris campaign:

The head of the US Postal Service expressed frustration Thursday with ongoing criticism by election officials of how it handles mail ballots while also seeking to reassure voters that it’s ready to handle an expected crush of those ballots this fall, AP reports.

US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told reporters that it’s difficult for the Postal Service to address “generalities” about perceived problems and said some election officials don’t fully understand its efforts to deliver ballots in time to be counted.

He said the service will collect and deliver mail ballots more frequently in the days before the 5 November presidential election and would keep processing centres open the Sunday before Election Day. The Postal Service, he said, would take extraordinary measures to “rescue” ballots that are mailed late and at risk of missing state deadlines to be received by election offices.

Elections officials have said for weeks that they are concerned about the Postal Service’s readiness. They’ve cited ballots arriving late or without the postmarks required by some state laws during the primary season.

“We engage in heroic efforts intended to beat the clock,” DeJoy told reporters during a virtual news conference.

“These efforts are designed to be used only when the risk of deviating from our standard processes is necessary to compensate for the ballot being mailed so close to a state’s deadline,” he added. “This is commonly misunderstood in the media and even by election officials.”

Trump is due to speak shortly at an event called “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” in Washington. We’ll bring you anything important from that.

Number of Teamsters union members who have endorsed Harris reaches one million

A million of the 1.3 million members of the Teamsters union have now endorsed Harris, according to Harris spokesperson Lauren Hitt, despite the union’s executive board’s decision not to endorse a candidate for the first time in decades yesterday.

The union had endorsed every Democratic candidate since 2000.

When Harris touched down in Michigan a short while ago, Michigan Teamsters President Kevin Moore was among the people waiting to greet her on the tarmac, according to the press pool report.

Michigan’s Joint Council 43 endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket yesterday.

Updated

Harris and Oprah to speak at campaign event in Michigan

Kamala Harris will speak at a campaign event in Michigan with Oprah Winfrey at 8pm ET: in an hour and forty-five minutes’ time. We’ll bring that to you live.

Updated

In response to Trump’s claim that the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates was “policital”, White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said US President Joe Biden has never spoken to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about interest rates.

Biden had said earlier on Thursday that he had not spoken to Powell since becoming president.

“By the way, I’ve never once spoken to the chairman of the Fed since I became president,” Biden had said.

Today so far

New polling shows that voters are almost evenly split between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in the three Great Lakes battlegrounds that could determine the outcome of the election. The Washington Post found that the vice-president is tied with Trump in Pennsylvania, though another poll released today by the New York Times and others said Harris had the advantage in that state, but was deadlocked with the former president nationwide.

There are signs that Republicans are leaving nothing in this election to chance, with Nebraska’s congressional delegation and Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator and Trump ally, pushing for the red state’s governor to put in motion a plan to switch its system for allocating electoral votes to a winner-take-all set-up that will surely benefit Trump. Such calls have been made before, and we’ll see if this latest push makes a difference.

Here’s what else is going on today:

  • CNN has published reporting on Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, and found that he called himself a “black NAZI!” on a pornography website’s message board. Robinson has denied the lewd commends made in the report, which could tank his already diminishing chances and drag down Trump in the key swing state.

  • Former advisers to Trump have collaborated to build a website that spreads conspiracy theories, including about Moscow’s enemies.

  • Joe Biden said that the US economy has a ways to go before the toll of inflation is eased, but acknowledged yesterday’s interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve was a milestone in the fight against the price increases that bedeviled his presidency.

  • Is the Secret Service investigating Elon Musk for his post on assassinating Harris and Biden? Perhaps.

  • White dudes are reportedly putting down big money to promote Harris in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

  • Biden and Harris will next week welcome Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House. Trump has said he will “probably” meet with Zelenskyy, who is traveling to the United States to address a UN security council meeting.

  • The federal government has sent bomb-sniffing dogs to the town of Springfield, Ohio, where residents have been facing ongoing threats after Trump, JD Vance and others on the right spread false rumors that immigrants were killing and eating pets.

Updated

In the US's nail-biting 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is now in play

North Carolina rejoins a list of crucial swing states whose voters will decide if Harris becomes the United States’ first woman of color to win the White House or if Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office from which he wreaked political chaos for four years.

Up until about two months ago, the odds didn’t look like this.

Though the margins in North Carolina have been close for decades in presidential races, Barack Obama in 2008 was the last Democrat since 1976 to win the state, eking out a win by three-tenths of a percentage point. Joe Biden’s weakness earlier this year threatened to turn North Carolina into an also-ran contest. Every poll through June had Trump beating the president by at least two points, with an average around six.

Party affiliation can only tell so much in a state with a storied history of split-ticket voting. Almost four in 10 of North Carolina’s 7.6 million registered voters choose not to affiliate with a political party. But between August 2020 and August 2024, Republicans added about 161,000 new registered voters in North Carolina while Democrats lost about 135,000 registered voters.

Trump won the state by about 75,000 votes in 2020, a margin of about 1.3 percentage points, his closest winning state, before losing the election. Biden won the four states with closer margins – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

The president’s withdrawal and Harris’s ascent scrambled the math. North Carolina’s secretary of state, Elaine Marshall, described the reaction as euphoric.

“It’s such a dramatic contrast from that venom, that poison, that hatred that’s coming from Republican events,” she said. “That contrasts so strongly with the hope and the expectations of the future from Democratic party events.”’

Read more here:

Updated

Donald Trump is expected to hold a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday.

The former president had invited Mark Robinson to previous campaign events in the state. It’s unclear whether he will address the new report about Robinson.

North Carolina would be a key state in Trump’s path to victory. The latest polls have Trump and Kamala Harris tied in a dead heat in the state.

Still, expect for 2008, Democrats have not won North Carolina at the presidential level since 1976. But Democratic voter registration has been up in the state, and the vice-president has been investing time and resources to win its 16 electoral votes. If she manages to do so, Trump would have to virtually sweep every other swing state in order to win.

Updated

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, on Thursday took a procedural step toward setting up a vote next week on a government funding extension as the House scrambles to avert a shutdown starting on 1 October.

Schumer’s move comes a day after the Republican-led House rejected a proposal by the speaker, Mike Johnson, that would have linked a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with a controversial measure backed by conservatives mandating that states require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The final vote was 202 to 220, with 14 House Republicans and all but three House Democrats opposing the bill. Two Republican members voted “present”.

At a press conference on Thursday, Schumer lamented Johnson’s approach, saying that the speaker “flopped right on his face” by pushing a GOP plan. As Congress awaits Johnson’s next move, Schumer said he was setting up a vote for early next week on a legislative vehicle for a bipartisan funding bill.

“If the House can’t get its act together, we’re prepared to move forward,” he said.

Updated

The Democratic Governors Association has issued a statement characterizing Mark Robinson as “unhinged, dangerous and completely unfit” to serve as governor.

The deputy communications director, Izzi Levy, wrote in a statement:

This is just the latest proof that Mark Robinson is unhinged, dangerous, and completely unfit to be governor. Now, as many Republicans warn against the damage Robinson would do as governor, it’s clear that the stakes have never been higher and we must keep our foot on the gas to defeat him in November.

Updated

Robinson has history of controversy

Mark Robinson has a history of controversy.

Prior to the revelations from CNN that he made lewd statements, called for the reinstatement of slavery and called himself a “Black Nazi” on a porn website, Robinson said “some folks need killing” at the Republican national convention, while casting his state’s delegate votes for Donald Trump.

Read more about Robinson’s history here:

Updated

Meanwhile, the federal government has sent bomb-sniffing dogs to the town of Springfield, Ohio.

Residents in Springfield have been facing ongoing threats after Donald Trump, JD Vance and others on the right spread false rumors that immigrants were killing and eating pets. Ohio’s governor has deployed the state highway patrol to provide security to schools in the city in response to more than 30 bomb threats.

Updated

Polls had already suggested that Mark Robinson was slightly lagging behind his opponent, Democrat Josh Stein.

North Carolina has a deeply conservative legislature, but Stein, who had outspent Robinson in his campaign, was boosted by voters who found abortion to be the second most important issue to them after the economy.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s center for politics, said the new revelations about Robinson would do little to affect his campaign’s ultimate fate – but that Robinson could drag Donald Trump down with him.

Updated

Kamala Harris’s campaign has seized on the revelations about Mark Robinson, releasing a video of Donald Trump heaping praise on the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate.

In the video Trump says: “We have to cherish Mark”, calling him “better than Martin Luther King” and “one of the great leaders in our country”.

Updated

Robinson denies referring to himself as a 'black Nazi' and a 'perv'

CNN writes that Robinson strenuously denied writing the statements the network attributed to him.

“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson said in an interview with CNN. Presented with evidence that it was, in fact, him, the lieutenant governor replied: “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”

CNN notes they reached out to Robinson’s campaign on Tuesday morning, and only heard back from him two days later. Shortly before the story was published, the lieutenant governor posted a video on Twitter/X where he denied the reporting.

Updated

Robinson posted lewd statements between 2008 and 2012 on Nude Africa, a pornography website that has a message board, CNN reports.

They were able to link him to the comments made under the handle “minisoldr” because he has used that name elsewhere online, listed his real name on his profile and an email addressed matched to him.

One of the stories CNN reports Robinson recounted on the message board was about spying on a women’s locker room as a 14-year-old:

I came to a spot that was a dead end but had two big vent covers over it! It just so happened it overlooked the showers! I sat there for about an hour and watched as several girls came in and showered.

Robinson is an opponent of LGBTQ rights, saying in 2021: “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

But, on Nude Africa, CNN says he wrote:

I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!

Updated

North Carolina GOP governor candidate Robinson referred to himself as 'black NAZI' on porn website – report

CNN has published their reporting on Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, and found that he called himself a “black NAZI!” on a pornography website’s message board.

The statements were posted more than 10 years ago, and CNN says Robinson, who is Black and currently serves as the state’s lieutenant governor, also wrote about enjoying transgender porn and referred to himself as a “perv”.

Updated

North Carolina's GOP governor candidate Mark Robinson denies reportedly damning story

Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in swing state North Carolina, has pre-emptively denied a story CNN and a Raleigh-based broadcaster are reportedly soon to publish regarding statements he made online.

In a video shared on X, Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, said “the things that you will see in that story – those are not the words of Mark Robinson”. Here’s the video:

Updated

Former advisers to Donald Trump have collaborated to build a website that spreads conspiracy theories, including about Moscow’s enemies, the Guardian’s Matt Bernardini reports:

Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines.

Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.

The growth of the website, which has not been reported on before, comes at a time when the US is seeking to crack down on Russian influence ahead of the 2024 election. Recently, the justice department charged two members of RT (formerly known as Russia Today) with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering for payments they allegedly made to “recruit unwitting American influencers”. It also placed sanctions on RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees.

Updated

Vice-President Kamala Harris is participating in a live stream with Oprah Winfrey and the campaign says it’s anticipating some “surprises”.

Will Beyoncé make a surprise appearance? Do audience-members get a car? Is it Leon Panetta?

We’re not totally sure. You’ll have to tune into the live stream tonight at 8pm to find out. The campaign said 200,000 people had formally RSVPd, but they’re expecting more to join the livestream. There will be a “few hundred” guests in the studio as well, it said.

Oprah endorsed Harris in a rousing speech at the Democratic national convention in which she specifically appealed to independent voters. The campaign argues that Harris’s appearance alongside the TV personality will reach a cross-section of “persuadable” voters.

It’s part of the campaign’s voter registration-week organizing push.

Updated

Biden, Harris to meet with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will next week welcome Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House.

“On Thursday, September 26, President Biden will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine at the White House. Vice-president Harris will also meet separately with President Zelenskyy at the White House,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The leaders will discuss the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine, including Ukraine’s strategic planning and U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. The President and vice-president will emphasize their unshakeable commitment to stand with Ukraine until it prevails in this war.”

Donald Trump has said he will “probably” meet with Zelenskyy, who is traveling to the United States to address a UN security council meeting.

A major story may be developing in North Carolina’s race for governor, where Republicans earlier this year nominated as their candidate Mark Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor who has a history of making inflammatory statements.

Citing sources familiar with the reporting, National Review says CNN is working on a story about “unsavory comments Robinson made in several online chatrooms”. The Carolina Journal reports that Robinson is under pressure from state Republicans and the Trump campaign to withdraw from the race over the story, which contains information leaked to CNN and Raleigh’s WRAL by Democratic attorney general Josh Stein’s campaign for governor.

Today is the deadline for Robinson to drop out, though his campaign has called both the National Review and Carolina Journal’s reporting “complete fiction”.

Here’s more on Robinson and his troubling past statements:

Updated

Biden went on to talk about how his administration has addressed post-pandemic supply chain snarls, prescription drug prices and semiconductor manufacturing.

But in the midst of talking about his respect for the Federal Reserve’s independence to do its job free of political considerations, Biden fibbed.

“And unlike my predecessor, I respect the Federal Reserve independence as they pursued its mandate to bring inflation down. That independence has served the country well. By the way, I’ve never once spoken to the chairman of Fed since I became president,” Biden said.

That last part is not true:

That said, there are no indications Biden’s interactions with Powell come anywhere near how Donald Trump treated the central bank chair during his presidency:

Updated

Biden says 'we do have more work to do' as he touts economy's recovery

Joe Biden said that the US economy has a ways to go before the toll of inflation is eased, but acknowledged yesterday’s interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve was a milestone in the fight against the price increases that bedeviled his presidency.

“As you all know, inflation was 9.1% in the United States. Today, it’s much closer to 2%. That doesn’t mean our work is done. Far from it, far from it. No one should confuse why I’m here. I’m not here to take a victory lap. I’m not here to say a job well done. I’m not here to say we don’t have a hell of a lot more work to do. We do have more work to do,” the president said.

He then argued that both consumers and businesses should feel optimistic about the future:

The Fed lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory. It’s a declaration of progress. It’s a signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery. You know, I believe it’s important for the country to recognize this progress, because, if we don’t, the progress we made will remain locked in the fear of negative mindset and dominate our economic outlook since the pandemic began, instead of seeing the immense opportunities in front of us right now.

This is a moment, in my view, for business to feel greater confidence, to invest higher, to expand. It’s a moment for individuals to feel greater confidence, buying a home, a new car, starting a family, starting a new business.

Updated

Biden to promote economic policies after Fed lowers rates in sign of inflation's easing

Joe Biden has just taken the stage at the Economic Club of Washington, where he is expected to take credit for declining inflation that spurred the Federal Reserve to yesterday slash interest rates for the first time in four years.

Lowering rates is a sign the powerful central bank believes the pressures that drove up price growth to levels not seen since the 1980s during Biden’s presidency are easing.

We’ll let you know what Biden has to say.

The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s criminal gun case has agreed to delay the sentencing until 4 December, Reuters is reporting.

A jury convicted Hunter, the son of president Joe Biden, earlier this summer on three felony gun charges he faced related to buying and possessing a handgun while being a drug user.

He was set to be sentenced on 13 November, according to CNN, but Hunter’s attorneys asked the judge to move the sentencing to a later date, in part due to his family members being currently involved with government work, traveling with the current administration and being busy with the 2024 presidential campaign.

Updated

The Uncommitted National Movement announced on Thursday that it would not be endorsing Kamala Harris for president.

In a press conference on Thursday, Abbas Alawieh, an Uncommitted leader and delegate from Michigan, said:

Vice-president Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear statement in support of upholding existing US and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her.

The group said that they also opposed a Donald Trump presidency, and were not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election. They urged uncommitted voters “to register anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot.”

Updated

Rob Rue, the mayor of Springfield, Ohio, issued a proclamation on Thursday, allowing him “temporary emergency powers to mitigate public safety concerns”, in response to recent threats to public safety in the city, according to the Springfield News Sun and other local news outlets.

The proclamation will allow the city to acquire resources quicker, and allow departments to respond more efficiently to potential threats and emerging risks.

Officials said that the proclamation will remain in effect until the city determines risks to public safety have subsided.

“Ensuring the safety of Springfield’s residents is our top priority,” Rue said, according to multiple local news outlets.

He added: “We are addressing these threats with the seriousness they warrant and are taking immediate steps to ensure the security of both our community and our employees. Our commitment to preventing harm is unwavering.”

Updated

In the latest setback for the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive the federal student loans of many Americans, a federal judge has extended the block on the administration’s latest loan forgiveness plan, according to CNBC.

US District Judge Randal Hall, who was appointed by former Republican president George W Bush, said in a ruling on Wednesday, per CNBC, that he would maintain the order blocking the administration from cancelling any student debt, for another 14 days while litigation continued.

Updated

The day so far

New polling shows that voters are almost evenly split between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in the three Great Lakes battlegrounds that could determine the outcome of the election. The Washington Post found that the vice-president is tied with Trump in Pennsylvania, though another poll released today by the New York Times and others said Harris had the advantage in that state, but was deadlocked with the former president nationwide. There are signs that Republicans are leaving nothing in this election to chance, with Nebraska’s congressional delegation and Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator and Trump ally, pushing for the red state’s governor to put in motion a plan to switch its system for allocating electoral votes to a winner-take-all set-up that will surely benefit Trump. Such calls have been made before, and we’ll see if this latest push makes a difference.

Here’s what else is going on today:

  • Joe Biden will this afternoon tout his economic record after the Federal Reserve yesterday lowered interest rates for the first time in four years, a sign that inflation is ebbing.

  • Is the Secret Service investigating Elon Musk for his post on assassinating Harris and Biden? Perhaps.

  • White dudes are reportedly putting down big money to promote Harris in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Updated

Earlier today, Marist released polls of the so-called Blue Wall swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that show a tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the traditional Democratic bulwarks.

The vice-president saw her best result in Michigan, where Marist found she has a five-percentage-point advantage over Trump, with 52% support to his 47%.

But it was nearly a dead heat between the candidates in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the pollster says. Trump and Harris are tied with 49% support each in the former state, and in the latter, the vice-president is up by only one percentage point over Trump.

Secret Service may be investigating Elon Musk post on assassinating Biden and Harris – report

After a gunman was found in the woods near where Donald Trump was playing golf on Sunday in what the FBI would later say appears to be another assassination attempt, Elon Musk, the rightwing Tesla CEO, made an inflammatory post on X asking why no one had targeted Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.

Bloomberg News sought records from the Secret Service regarding Musk’s tweet, and if it was being investigated for it. What the outlet received in response isn’t quite definitive, but does indicate that the agency was aware of what he said:

The Secret Service investigates when they’re trying to determine whether a person poses an imminent threat to one of their protectees. Threatening the US president or vice president is a felony that can carry a hefty fine or up to five years in prison.

FOIA Files sent Freedom of Information Act requests to the Secret Service’s Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, Office of Protective Operations and Office of Investigations for documents and emails referencing Musk’s post.

On Wednesday, the agency responded to the requests by saying records it has about Musk’s post were “compiled for law enforcement purposes” and are being withheld because “disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

We followed up with the Secret Service’s FOIA division and were told that the Protective Intelligence Division advised that it cannot release any records because of “enforcement proceedings.”

The agency “is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk,” said Nate Herring, a spokesperson for the Secret Service. “As a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence. We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”

Here’s more on Musk’s unfortunate comment, and the White House’s response:

Updated

White Dudes For Harris to make $10m TV ad buy in swing states – report

White Dudes For Harris will spend somewhere around $10m on television ads promoting the vice-president’s candidacy in three battleground states, Politico reports.

Backed by a Pac called Beige Rainbow, the group argues in the ad airing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that Donald Trump has made white men look bad, and that Kamala Harris’s policies would offer the country a better future:

A previous fundraiser by “white dudes” brought in millions for Harris’s campaign shortly after Joe Biden ended his bid for a second term:

Updated

Last week, Nebraska’s Republican governor, Jim Pillen, reiterated that he is in favor of switching to a winner-take-all system of allocating its electoral votes, but would only call a special session if he believed the legislature would approve the bill.

“As I have consistently made clear, I strongly support statewide unity and joining 48 other states by awarding all five of our electoral college votes to the presidential candidate who wins the majority of Nebraskans’ votes. As I have also made clear, I am willing to convene the legislature for a special session to fix this 30-year-old problem before the 2024 election. However, I must receive clear and public indication that 33 senators are willing to vote in such a session to restore winner-take-all,” Pillen said.

“At this time, I have not yet received the concrete and public indication that 33 senators would vote for WTA. If that changes, I will enthusiastically call a special session.”

One thing Donald Trump’s campaign may want to bear in mind: Democratic lawmakers in Maine, the other state that allocates its electoral votes by congressional district, have raised changing to a winner-take-all system if Nebraska does so, Maine Public reports. Maine is generally a blue state but one of its congressional districts leans Republican, meaning the change would effectively negate Nebraska’s shift, by giving all of Maine’s electoral votes to the Democrats.

Updated

The Trump campaign dispatched Lindsey Graham, the US senator representing South Carolina who is a close ally of the former president, to Nebraska earlier this week to encourage Governor Jim Pillen and state lawmakers to change to a winner-take-all system for allocating its electoral votes, NBC News reports.

It’s unclear if Graham’s visit managed to shift the opposition to the switch by some Republican state lawmakers. Pillen has said he will only call the legislature into a special session to make the change if it has the votes to pass.

Here’s more on Graham’s visit, from NBC:

Graham, acting on behalf of the Trump campaign, was working to encourage Pillen to call a special legislative session at which lawmakers could consider changing the state’s apportionment of electoral votes, the source said.

Nebraska allocates its electoral votes by congressional district. The swing district around Omaha often goes to Democrats in an otherwise ruby red state.

Wednesday’s meeting, previously reported by KOLN-TV, took place in Lincoln. Graham’s office confirmed the local report but declined to comment further.

If Nebraska were to switch to a winner-take-all system, it would almost certainly give former President Donald Trump an extra electoral vote in what is expected to be a tight presidential race.

That one electoral vote could prove decisive.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but loses every other swing state, she and Trump would be tied at 269 Electoral College votes under a winner-take-all setup in Nebraska with Trump winning the state. In that scenario, the race would be thrown to the US House, where each state delegation would get one vote for president. Republicans hold a majority of delegations and are favored to retain it, even though the House majority could change hands after the November election.

Updated

The GOP might dominate Nebraska politics, but there has not been enough support among the state’s Republican lawmakers for changing its system of allocating electoral votes in a way that would almost certainly benefit Donald Trump. The guy who is also writing this live blog traveled to Omaha earlier this year (when Joe Biden was still running for re-election) to find out why:

For Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the road to the White House runs through battleground states clustered along the Great Lakes, and in the fast-growing “sun belt” of the south. But if the election turns out to be extremely close, the two candidates’ fortunes may hinge on a few hundred thousand voters clustered in a single congressional district in the middle of the country.

This lesser-known front can be found in Nebraska, one of only two states in the country, along with Maine, that allocate a portion of their electoral votes by congressional district, rather than giving all of them to the winner of the state.

In 2020, Biden became the first Democrat in 12 years to win Nebraska’s second congressional district, which encompasses the largest city, Omaha, and its suburbs. The pressure to win a majority of its voters is expected to be even higher this year, as Biden looks to fend off a resurgent Trump while reassuring Democrats that he can still do the job after his troubling performance in their first debate.

While much of the candidates’ attention is focused on the seven swing states expected to decide the election (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia) the Biden campaign also counts winning the Nebraska district as among its priorities – so much so that some Trump allies are encouraging the state’s Republican lawmakers to change their rules to ensure the former president wins the entirety of its electoral votes.

“I think the district is probably going to get more attention this time than it did even in 2020,” said Ryan Horn, a Republican media strategist who splits his time between Omaha and Washington DC.

Updated

Republicans make new push for Nebraska to change its voting rules in Trump's favor

Nebraska’s all-Republican congressional delegation has sent a letter to the state’s governor asking him to call the legislature into a special session to change its system for apportioning electoral votes in a way that would almost certainly benefit Donald Trump.

The midwestern state is one of two in the nation, along with Maine, that allocates votes by congressional district. Nebraska is heavily Republican, but the district around its largest city, Omaha, leans Democratic and voted for Joe Biden in 2020. In certain scenarios, the state’s electoral vote could decide the election, and in a letter to the governor, Jim Pillen, and the speaker of the Nebraska legislature, John Arch, both Republicans, the state’s three representatives and two senators call on them to switch to a winner-take-all system for allocating the state’s votes:

Updated

Kamala Harris is heading to the battleground state of Michigan today, for an 8pm rally in Farmington Hills, near Detroit.

She’ll then head back to Washington DC, but has campaign events planned for tomorrow in Wisconsin and Georgia.

In addition to his speech marking a turning point in the US economy’s battle with inflation, Joe Biden is speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual gala at 8.45pm this evening, in Washington DC.

Updated

Biden to hail 'new milestone' for US economy in speech, as interest rates decline

Joe Biden will address the Economic Club of Washington DC today, one day after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in four years, marking a significant turning point for the economy.

While the president is expected to hail a “new milestone” in America’s post-pandemic economic recovery, his top officials said he would acknowledge there remains more work to do.

“This is not meant to be a declaration of victory,” Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, told reporters. “This is meant to be a declaration of progress.”

Biden “knows this is no time for a victory lap”, according to Zients, and will use his speech to “lay out how we build on the progress we have made”.

Lael Brainard, the president’s top economic adviser, pointed to housing, healthcare and childcare as examples of areas where his administration wanted to improve affordability.

Here’s more on the Fed’s decision yesterday to drop interest rates by half a percentage point, and signal more cuts will follow in the months to come:

Updated

The New York Times poll is something of an outlier, in that it shows Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck nationally.

Most national surveys taken recently have given the vice-president the advantage, some with margins bigger than others. Poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight has a good rundown of what other data has found, and you can find it here.

Updated

Presidential race deadlocked nationally, but Harris leads in Pennsylvania – poll

The New York Times also released polling data this morning, which contained some better news for Kamala Harris’s standing in the vital swing state of Pennsylvania: she leads Donald Trump, with 50% support to his 46%.

But nationally, the two candidates are in a dead heat, polling at 47% each. The Washington Post poll released earlier today did not include nationwide perceptions of the candidates.

Much like the Post’s, the Times poll, conducted with Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer, finds voters believe Harris was the winner of last week’s presidential debate, with 67% saying she did “well”, compared to 40% who said the same for Trump.

Updated

The Washington Post poll of Pennsylvania also finds a similarly tight race for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Bob Casey.

Democrats currently control Congress’s upper chamber, but face an exceptionally difficult task in holding on to it beyond the end of the year. The party can only afford to lose one seat, and will need to win the re-election of senators representing two red states: Ohio and Montana.

Thus, the Post poll’s finding that Casey is practically neck and neck with his challenger, Dave McCormick, is likely to rattle Democrats. Among likely voters, Casey is at 47% support, against McCormick’s 46%. If third-party candidates are excluded, they are tied, at 48% support each.

Updated

Trump and Harris tied in vital swing state Pennsylvania, poll suggests

A Washington Post poll published this morning shows that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are essentially tied in Pennsylvania, the swing state viewed as perhaps the most likely to determine the outcome of the presidential election.

The survey conducted after last week’s presidential debate found that 48% of likely and registered voters support Harris, and 47% back Trump, with the rest planning to vote for third-party candidates. Excluding other candidates, Harris and Trump are tied at 48% support among likely voters, while among registered voters, Harris has a slight advantage at 48% support to Trump’s 47%.

However, the vice-president did impress debate watchers in the state: 54% of those surveyed said she won last week’s face-off, with only 27% saying the same about Trump.

Updated

Kamala Harris is set to participate in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey today, the Associated Press reported.

Donald Trump will be in Washington to address a Fighting Anti-Semitism in America evening event, and will also speak before the Israeli-American Council.

Updated

US House fails to pass federal funding bill as shutdown deadline nears

A government funding package championed by Republican House speaker Mike Johnson failed to pass on Wednesday, with less than two weeks left to prevent a shutdown starting 1 October.

The final vote was 202 to 220, with 14 House Republicans and all but three House Democrats opposing the bill. Two Republican members voted “present”.

The bill was not expected to pass, as a number of House Republicans had voiced criticism of the proposal before the vote. Given Republicans’ narrow House majority and Democrats’ widespread opposition to the bill, Johnson could only afford a handful of defections within his conference. Johnson delayed a vote on the funding package last week in the hopes of consolidating Republicans’ support, but those efforts could not get the bill across the finish line.

Johnson’s proposed bill combined a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

Donald Trump, who has championed baseless claims of widespread non-citizen voting, has pressured Johnson to reject any funding measure unless it includes “election security” provisions, a stance that the former president doubled down on hours before the vote.

Read the full story.

US health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds

The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.

In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes.

“I see the human toll of these shortcomings on a daily basis,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation with a focus on healthcare research and policy.

“I see patients who cannot afford their medications … I see older patients arrive sicker than they should because they spent the majority of their lives uninsured,” said Betancourt. “It’s time we finally build a health system that delivers quality affordable healthcare for all Americans.”

Read the full story here.

Iran sent hacked Trump documents to Biden campaign, FBI says

Iranian hackers sought to interest President Joe Biden’s campaign in information stolen from rival Donald Trump’s campaign, sending unsolicited emails to people associated with the then-Democratic candidate in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election, the FBI and other US agencies have said.

The FBI confirmed on 12 August that it was investigating a complaint from Trump’s presidential campaign that Iran had hacked and distributed a trove of sensitive campaign documents. On 19 August intelligence officials confirmed that Iran was behind the hack.

There’s no indication that any of the recipients in Biden’s campaign team responded, officials said on Wednesday, and several media organisations approached over the summer with leaked stolen information have also said they did not respond.

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign called the emails from Iran “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity” that were received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts.

Read more here.

Associated Press

Trump stages first rally since apparent assassination attempt

Donald Trump on Wednesday night staged his first rally since he became the target of a second attempted assassination in as many months, telling his supporters in a sports venue outside New York City that what he called “these encounters with death” had only hardened him.

“God has now spared my life. It must have been God, not once, but twice,” Trump said to loud cheers from the ecstatic crowd.

The former president took his usual ragbag of lies, hyperbole, and dark and racist invective to the Nassau Coliseum in the suburbs of Long Island, just seven miles from the borders of New York City. It was an audacious choice of location, given that there are just 48 days til the election and New York is on neither main party’s list of priorities.

The state is reliably Democratic, having last voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 1984 with Ronald Reagan’s re-election. Even Nassau county, where the arena is situated, voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by 54% to Trump’s 45%, while the latest New York state polls show Kamala Harris comfortably ahead of him by double digits.

Yet Trump clearly saw method in his madness. Long Island, the leafy suburbs that stretch east from the city, has shifted towards the right in recent years, becoming something of an incubator for the Make America Great Again (Maga) upheaval.

Read the full story here.

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