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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Cecilia Nowell

Trump repeats false anti-immigrant claims at Pennsylvania rally as Musk urges everyone to vote – as it happened

Donald Trump Corey Comperatore Pennsylvania Kamala Harris
Donald Trump in suit, people in red reaching toward him.
Donald Trump at a rally at the site of the July assassination attempt against him, in Butler, Pennsylvania, today. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Closing summary

This blog is closed – thanks for following along. Here is a summary of today’s key developments:

  • Donald Trump rallied supporters in Butler, Pennsylvania, three months after a shooter attempted to assassinate him there on 13 July. He was joined by vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, son and daughter-in-law Eric and Lara Trump, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who all railed against immigrants and the Democratic party.

  • Kamala Harris visited North Carolina, to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and receive a briefing from Fema officials. The vice-president’s visit to North Carolina, as Trump rallied supporters in Pennsylvania, came amid concerns that her campaign has not held as many public events as her opponent.

  • Harris campaign proxies toured swing states. Bernie Sanders campaigned in Michigan, while actors like Kerry Washington prepared to visit Arizona.

Updated

Trump has concluded his remarks in Butler, telling rally-goers: “Election day will be the most important day in the history of our country,” before walking out while dancing to the Village People’s YMCA. The former president spoke for an hour and a half.

Updated

Vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is scheduled to appear on “Fox News Sunday” with host Shannon Bream tomorrow.

Walz’s appearance on the traditionally conservative channel comes as the Harris-Walz campaign gains support among establishment Republicans, like former vice president Dick Cheney. Walz in particular has drawn attention for his ability to communicate effectively with conservative audiences.

As Trump slowly begins concluding his remarks in Butler, he has asked the crowd to “send our prayers and support to all the families affected by Hurricane Helene”.

“This has been the worst hurricane response by a president and vice-president since Katrina, and this is simply not acceptable,” he said.

He went on to denounce Kamala Harris, calling her “further left then crazy Bernie Sanders” and “the original creator of ‘defund the police’”, before returning to his usual talking points about immigration, dissolving the education department, energy independence, inflation and transgender athletes.

Updated

Elon Musk tells people watching the Trump rally to register to vote, as the Musk-backed America Pac has spent nearly $14m since August to essentially run the wider ground game for the Trump campaign in the battleground states.

Musk has political ambitions and recently floated the idea of running a government-efficiency commission, while Trump has said he “absolutely” would consider putting Musk in his cabinet in a second administration.

Updated

Musk speaks at Trump rally

Elon Musk has joined Trump on stage in Butler, wearing what he calls a “dark Maga” hat.

Musk is returning to the same core topic that Trump and his proxies have emphasized: inflammatory and unverified concerns that non-citizens will vote in the 2024 election and cast their ballots against Trump. He is encouraging the crowd to register to vote, and make sure their friends and family do the same.

“Fight, fight, fight. Vote, vote, vote,” he concludes.

Musk has become a major contributor to the Trump campaign in recent months, and the two have bonded over many of their shared beliefs.

Updated

Trump has resumed speaking, returning to the inflammatory rhetoric on immigration that has marked his campaign since he first ran for office in 2015.

“Crime rates all over the world are down, they’re taking their gang members and their criminals, they’re taking their people in jail, and they’re releasing them into our country,” he said, continuing with xenophobic comments about “the China virus” and Venezuela.

Despite Trump’s claims, violent crime in the United States has fallen.

Updated

Trump has paused his speech as first responders aid a rally-goer who appears to have fallen ill. Attendees began gathering at the rally eight hours ago. Although the temperature in Butler is only in the high 60s, attendees have collapsed at other political rallies due to heatstroke this election season.

Updated

Trump is now returning to the core topics he’s hammered on at previous rallies and debates: immigration, gender-affirming healthcare, fracking and his political opponents.

First denouncing immigrants and transgender Americans, returning to his claim that Kamala Harris would pay for “transgender operations on illegal aliens”, Trump goes on to reiterate his promise not to ban fracking, a contentious issue in Pennsylvania, where fracking contributes greatly to the state’s economy.

He then claims to be leading by a wide margin in the polls, although the presidential election remains closely tied, with Kamala Harris slightly ahead in national polling.

Updated

Trump is now speaking about his mission to “make America great again”.

“We have to have a fabulous military to protect us from evil, everything has to be the best. We have to have the best schools. We have to have a strong borders. We don’t want bad people coming in and hurting us,” he said.

“You deserve a nation that builds things again, makes things better, that aims for the stars once more, and that once again commands respect, and we want to get respect like we had it four years ago.

“We are going to win the greatest election in the history of our country. Maybe the greatest election of all time.”

Updated

Trump addresses family of Corey Comperatore

Trump is addressing the family of Corey Comperatore, a first responder who was killed at the 13 July rally in Butler.

“There’s one more hero could not make it back here tonight because he is no longer with us, right? You know that is, Corey, our beautiful Corey,” he said. “Corey Comperatore was a incredible husband and father, a devout Christian, a veteran and a proud former fire chief. Very respected in the town.

“When the sound of gunshots pierced the air on that July evening, Corey leapt into the fire one more time and in his last seconds on this earth, he threw himself on the top of his wife and daughters. He didn’t want them hurt.”

Trump then acknowledged the time, 6.11pm ET, exactly the same as the shooting in Butler in July, and asked the crowd to observe a moment of silence before opera singer Christopher Macchio performed Ave Maria.

Updated

Trump is thanking the US Secret Service for saving his life on 13 July and again from another assassination attempt two weeks ago.

“They were on top of me so fast, they were on top of me, and there was not even a moment of doubt in their minds,” he said. “In that moment, those agents displayed a devotion to duty that cannot be described, and they did it yet again less than three weeks ago, when they really did a fantastic job.”

The Secret Service is currently under investigation for security failures on 13 July.

Updated

Trump has begun addressing rally-goers in Butler. Beginning with: “And, as I was saying”, Trump briefly continued with the point he had been making on 13 July about border crossings before a gunman opened fire on him.

The former president continued: “Exactly 12 weeks ago, this evening, on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and to silence the greatest movement, Maga, in the history of our country.”

Updated

Trump takes the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania

Trump has taken the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, following a movie-like voiceover and Lee Greenwood’s song God Bless the USA.

Updated

As rally-goers in Butler, Pennsylvania, wait for Trump to take the stage, Kamala Harris is in Charlotte, North Carolina, visiting a donation center after Hurricane Helene devastated the state.

Amid widespread misinformation, the White House and Fema are attempting to quell the spread of rumors about the availability of disaster relief.

Updated

Scott Presler, a conservative activist, has joined Eric and Lara Trump on stage at the Trump rally in Butler, encouraging attendees to register to vote. Presler is specifically addressing Pennsylvania’s union workers, Amish community, hunters, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, asking them to vote for Trump.

Lara Trump, chair of the Republican National Committee, joined her husband, Eric Trump, on stage at the Trump rally in Butler.

“This is no longer a fight between Republican versus Democrat, left versus right. It is good versus evil,” she said. “And if you had any question whether God exists, and he performs miracles, we got our answer here on July 13, right here in Butler, Pennsylvania.”

Echoing Vance’s language referring to Trump as a messianic figure, Lara Trump continued: “He spared Donald Trump’s life because he was not finished with Donald Trump. And he did it not once, but twice. And I’ve said it time and time again, but now you feel it more than ever: Donald Trump was made for such a time as this.”

Lara Trump went on to speak about her work “making sure that we have free, fair and transparent elections, that only legal citizens are voting in our elections here in the United States of America”. She added: “If you’re an illegal citizen voting in our election, we’ll track you down and prosecute you to the full extent of the law and you’re leaving this country,” before encouraging the crowd gathered in Butler to register to vote.

Although Trump and Republicans have claimed that massive numbers of non-citizens are voting in US elections, there is no proof that non-citizens are voting, or even registering to vote, in any meaningful numbers.

Updated

Key event

Eric Trump and his wife, the RNC co-chair Lara Trump, are speaking at the Trump rally in Butler.

“This is a big family. They tried to take away someone we all love,” Eric Trump said. “They’ve tried to get my father every single second since he went down that golden escalator. Lara and I have witnessed it every single day. They tried to smear us. They tried to bankrupt us. They came after us.

“And then guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him, and it’s because the Democratic party, they can’t do anything right.”

Updated

John Paulson, a New York-based billionaire investor, and Steve Witkoff, a New York-based real estate investor and landlord, have both briefly taken the stage in Butler.

“When [Trump] is elected president, he will deliver the greatest economic boom to America than we’ve ever seen,” Paulson said. “We’ll see growth in our energy sector. We will become a manufacturing powerhouse. We’ll see growth in real wages, which will benefit all Americans.”

“My friend has stood up to tyrants and bullies, making tough decisions and always putting this country first, even when it wasn’t an easy choice. That’s why we need him more now than ever. This isn’t about politics. It is about the soul of our country,” Witkoff said, riffing off Joe Biden’s former campaign slogan.

Updated

During a campaign stop in Michigan yesterday, Arab American advocates asked Kamala Harris to break from Joe Biden’s Israel policy and push harder for an end to the war in Gaza, CNN reports.

“She pledged to work with our community, include our community, and [said] that she completely understands what we’re saying. She is hopeful that if she wins, she’ll be able to deliver on all of this once she’s president,” Wa’el Alzayat, the CEO of Emgage Action, told CNN.

Updated

Donald Trump arrives in Pennsylvania

Trump has arrived in Pennsylvania but has yet to take the stage in Butler. New York Times photographer Doug Mills has captured him hugging the family members of Corey Comperatore, a first responder who was killed at Trump’s rally in Butler on 13 July.

Updated

As JD Vance speaks at the Trump rally in Butler, Kamala Harris is in Charlotte, North Carolina, receiving a briefing from Fema officials on the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

“I’ve talked with many of you within actually hours and certainly days of Helene hitting this beautiful state. And, I thank you all for the work you’ve been doing around the clock,” Harris told officials in the room, the Washington Post reports.

On stage in Butler, Vance speaks about his own recent visit to North Carolina – evoking the ties to Appalachia that he has built his career around.

“We’re going to make sure emergency funding goes to American citizens and not illegal aliens,” he said.

Updated

JD Vance takes the stage in Butler

JD Vance has taken the stage in Butler before former president Trump’s appearance.

Amid chants of “Fight, fight, fight” and “USA, USA”, Vance compared Trump to a messianic figure.

“I believe as sure as I’m standing here today that what happened was a true miracle. And on that day, America felt the truth of scripture,” Vance said. “I truly believe that God saved President Trump that day.”

Vance also noted the attendees who had been shot and killed in July, before denouncing Democrats, whom, he said, “continued to use dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric” about Trump after the assassination attempt. Although Trump initially embraced a spirit of unity after the July shooting, Vance popularized the idea that Democratic rhetoric had caused the shooting.

“The media has continued to call Donald Trump, the guy who actually won his primary, a threat to democracy,” Vance said, before directing his comments towards Kamala Harris, saying: “How dare you talk about threats to democracy. Donald Trump took a bullet for democracy.”

Updated

It’s less than an hour until Trump takes the stage in Butler, and the former president has made a flyby of the rally.

It’s unclear how many people have gathered in Butler to hear the former president speak at the site where a gunman opened fire at him in an assassination attempt in July, but it’s surely shaping up to be one of Trump’s largest rallies.

The Trump campaign is contending that 100,000 people are attending – which would make it nearly 10 times larger than any rally he’s hosted before.

Trump’s obsession with crowd sizes, which dates back to as early as his 2017 inauguration, has become the butt of jokes and genuine concern among Republican party leadership.

Updated

Hollywood stars are descending on Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend to campaign for Kamala Harris, the Arizona Republic reports.

Actors Kerry Washington, Jessica Alba, Glenn Close and Michael Ealy will be campaigning on Sunday, just days after Jennifer Garner visited the state on behalf of the campaign.

The Harris-Walz campaign reports that Washington’s trip is specifically aimed at mobilizing Black voters. Washington, who is best known for her role in the ABC drama series Scandal, will attend a Black Voters for Harris-Walz Block Party alongside former US attorney general Eric Holder, former ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and Senate-hopeful Ruben Gallego.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are ramping up events in Arizona, which remains a hotly contested swing state. Next week, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, will also be campaigning in the state, while Donald Trump Jr prepares for his own visit.

Updated

Pre-programming at the Trump rally in Butler has begun with a prayer and the national anthem before the former president’s appearance at 5pm ET today.

Trump will be joined this afternoon by a host of guests including his son Eric Trump, Elon Musk, JD Vance, several attendees of the July rally where a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump, local police and Republican party officials, and congressional representatives from Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas and Missouri.

Updated

Since George Floyd’s death in 2020, Republican-led states have expanded riot laws to suppress protesters, the Guardian’s Chris Stein reports, and Trump has a track record of calling for militarized responses to demonstrations.

In an article published today, Stein investigates the stakes of the 2024 election:

Since Floyd’s death in May 2020, Republican-led states have enacted laws expanding the definition of rioting to encompass protesters who stayed peaceful when others did not, protecting drivers who run over demonstrators that block roads and enhancing penalties against protesters who target oil and gas infrastructure and deface monuments. The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), which tracks the legislation, has found that hundreds of proposals have been made by state and federal lawmakers nationwide, and more than two dozen signed into law.

The push comes as the GOP’s standard bearer, Donald Trump, campaigns for the presidency on a platform that includes suppressing protests. He has vowed to deploy the national guard “where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order”, while simultaneously promising pardons for people convicted over the January 6 insurrection. As president, Trump reportedly encouraged the military to shoot protesters, and, this year, allies such as the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, have said the national guard should be used against college students demonstrating over Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

If he returned to the White House, Trump could direct a militarized response to protests and pressure congressional Republicans to pass legislation that would impose nationwide penalties like those already in effect in Tennessee.

Updated

Key event

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are on their way to the rally in Butler.

The former president boarded his flight to Butler from West Palm Beach, Florida, about half an hour ago.

Meanwhile, the tech billionaire has shared on X that he is en route to Pennsylvania.

Updated

As the Trump and Harris campaigns host events across the country today – now one month before the 5 November election – the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring. We will update our averages once a week, or more if there is major news.

As the Guardian’s Sam Levine writes today:

With her highest national polling average since July, Harris is now leading in five of seven key swing states. Nationally, the Guardian’s tracker shows Harris with 49.3% of the vote, compared with 46% for Trump. The election is a month away, and already an estimated 1.4 million Americans have voted as of midday on Friday.

The race is still extremely close. The simplest path to collecting the 270 electoral votes needed to win is still the blue wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. While Harris leads Trump in all three according to the Guardian’s analysis (Pennsylvania by 1.2 points, Michigan by 0.1 points and Wisconsin by 2.2 points), those advantages are quite slim.

Updated

JD Vance attending fundraiser in Massachusetts before joining Trump in Pennsylvania

JD Vance is attending a fundraising luncheon today in Gloucester, Massachusetts, before Trump’s rally in Butler, which Vance will attend.

According to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the luncheon invitation, the event is being hosted by Michael and Renee Minogue. The couple run a Boston-based Christian foundation, which had $22m in assets in 2022.

Updated

Bernie Sanders is campaigning in Michigan for Kamala Harris this weekend. The Vermont independent senator is scheduled for four stops in the state today and tomorrow, including a rally in Warren this morning, where he spoke alongside the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain.

The events will focus on “strengthening the working class” and “rally[ing] against corporate greed”, Sanders says.

Harris herself visited Michigan yesterday, where she spoke at a rally in Detroit. During that speech, Harris made specific references to the state’s unions, including the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and denounced Trump as a union buster.

Harris and Trump have been closely tied in Michigan, but Trump appears to have narrowly pulled ahead in the swing state, according to a recent statewide poll. Democratic representative Elissa Slotkin raised concerns about Harris’s polling at a recent campaign event, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Updated

The Secret Service has beefed up security measures in Butler before Trump’s rally this evening.

Agents will be operating a counter-drone system and securing the building where shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks fired upon Trump in July, CNN reports. Trump will also be speaking from behind ballistic glass.

“You’re going to see a lot more enhancements,” one federal official told CNN.

The Secret Service is also more closely coordinating with local law enforcement, including the Pennsylvania state police.

Updated

Elon Musk to attend Trump rally in Butler today

Elon Musk will attend Trump’s rally in Butler this evening, the Trump campaign has confirmed in a list of guests who will be joining the former president.

“I will be there to support!” the tech billionaire replied to a post by Trump on Musk’s social media platform, X, saying he was returning to the Butler Farm Show grounds.

As rally-goers gathered in Butler this morning, Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, from the former Trump White House chief strategist, was being powered by a Cybertruck – Tesla’s recall-prone, tank-like, electric truck.

For more on the Trump-Musk relationship, Cybertrucks and Bannon’s War Room, see reporting from our Guardian colleagues:

Updated

Fema reports more than $110m distributed after Hurricane Helene

Before Kamala Harris’s scheduled visit to North Carolina today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reports more than $110m in federal assistance has been distributed to Hurricane Helene recovery efforts.

Harris will receive a briefing today from Fema administrator Deanne Criswell before surveying the damage in North Carolina. This week marks Harris’s first time visiting the scene of a humanitarian crisis as vice-president – a role typically filled by Joe Biden, who this weekend is instead traveling to Camp David.

Harris said this week that she wanted to “personally take a look at the devastation, which is extraordinary”.

For more on the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, see reporting from Richard Luscombe and commentary from Rebecca Solnit in the Guardian:

Updated

With election day exactly one month away, Democrats are raising concerns about Kamala Harris’s relatively light campaign schedule, particularly as Trump draws crowds to rallies like today’s, Politico reports.

According to Politico, Harris has spent more than a third of the days since the Democratic national convention receiving briefings or conducting internal meetings. Of the remaining days, she’s spent just more than half holding rallies and other public-facing campaign events. The vice-president has spent about half of her days in Washington DC since the convention, rather than campaigning in swing states.

That news comes as the Washington Post reports that the Harris campaign is spending nearly three times as much as Trump, as the candidates remain closely tied.

Updated

As the Trump and Harris campaigns ramp up into high gear for a final month of campaigning before election day – including at high-profile rallies such as today’s in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service is at “a breaking point”, NBC News reports.

A dozen current and former Secret Service agents told NBC News that insufficient staffing and an increased workload have contributed to errors, such as those in Butler when a gunman opened fire at Trump on 13 July.

“There is a huge security risk because you already have agents that are burnt out, exhausted now having even less time to make a solid security plan and get all assets in order,” a current agent told NBC.

“I love my agency but they are setting themselves up for another incident,” said one former agent.

Both current and former officials told NBC they are concerned the agency will witness a mass exodus of personnel over the next 18 months.

For more context on recent Secret Service failures, see Robert Tait and Ed Helmore’s reporting in the Guardian:

Updated

Trump to speak in Butler, Pennsylvania, months after assassination attempt

Still hours before Trump is scheduled to speak in Butler, Pennsylvania, this evening, reporters on the ground at the rally are reporting a large and eager crowd.

The Trump campaign is touting the rally as a return to “the very same ground where [Trump] took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.

A Pennsylvania voter tell Fox News: “I think we’re on hallowed ground today.”

Updated

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are touring the country this weekend, while their proxies do the same. Perhaps most notable: Trump is scheduled today to return to Butler, Pennsylvania – where a shooter attempted to assassinate him less than three months ago. He’ll be joined by the family of Corey Comperatore, a rally-goer who was shot and killed at a July rally.

Meanwhile, the vice-president is traveling to North Carolina today, where Hurricane Helene has devastated much of the state, killing at least 200 people. Harris will receive a briefing on recovery efforts, and provide updates on federal actions to support the emergency response.

Here’s what else is happening:

  • The Trump campaign has announced a weekend-long tour of Georgia, which will make three stops in the state today, ending in Atlanta.

  • Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, will travel to Camp David, where they will remain over the weekend.

Updated

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