This blog is closing now, thanks for following along. Here is our full story on Kamala Harris’s campaign event with Liz Cheney:
Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s most prominent conservative critics, appealed to the millions of undecided Americans who could decide the outcome of the 2024 election, asking them to “reject the depraved cruelty” of the former president.
A former representative from Wyoming, Cheney cast the stakes in November as nothing less than the future of American democracy as she appeared alongside Kamala Harris in Ripon, Wisconsin, on Thursday, the symbolic birthplace of the modern Republican party.
The daughter of Dick Cheney, the Republican former vice-president, said she had never voted for a Democrat before, but would do so “proudly” to ensure Trump never holds a position of public trust again. Her father will join her in casting his ballot for Harris.
“I know that the most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution,” Cheney said, speaking from a podium adorned with the vice presidential seal. The crowd broke into a chant: “Thank you, Liz!” A large sign looming over them declared: “Country over Party.”
Harris praised Cheney’s “courage” for being willing to cross party lines to endorse – and campaign alongside – the Democratic nominee. During the event, a remarkable joint appearance that would have been unimaginable in the pre-Trump era, Cheney pitched Harris as a unifying leader who will safeguard American institutions.
Cheney and Harris agree on little politically – only that Trump should not be allowed to serve a second term. But their union is part of an effort by the Harris campaign to win over Republican voters who, like Cheney, believe in “limited government” and “low taxes” but are repelled by Trump and his Maga movement.
“No matter your political party, there is a place for you with us and in this campaign,” Harris said. “I take seriously my pledge to be a president for all Americans.”
Chain Bridge Bancorp, a lender popular among Republicans since its inception, priced its US initial public offering at $22 per share on Thursday to raise $40.7m, Reuters reports.
The bank sold 1.85m shares in the IPO, which valued it at about $141m. It had initially aimed for a sale of 1.85 million shares priced between $24 and $26 each.
Chain Bridge has worked with the campaign of every Republican Party presidential nominee since John McCain in 2008.
The bank, with just one branch and 84 employees, has beaten bigger financial rivals to become a must-have partner for political work.
Its fortunes are closely tied to the Republican Party. It warned in its paperwork that “any event that negatively impacts the Republican Party could lead to significant deposit outflows.”
Still, the bank’s strong credit quality might appeal to investors. While worries about bad loans have battered many industry players, Chain Bridge has had no non-performing loans in the last 12 years.
Walz has responded to Bruce Springsteen’s endorsement:
Wow. As a lifelong fan of The Boss, I couldn't be more honored to have his support. https://t.co/YVNUOoW2V0
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) October 4, 2024
Here is our full story:
The 5 November election between Harris and Republican Trump is expected to be tight, especially in battleground states like Michigan, home to a large Muslim American population. The US continues to back Israel as it targets Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Though Emgage has endorsed Harris, other Muslim groups have urged supporters not to back her in the election, especially after Democrats rejected requests for a Palestinian speaker at the party convention in August.
Harris has offered no substantive policy differences on Israel from Biden, who stepped aside as presidential candidate in July.
Trump has said he would reinstate a “travel ban” he imposed as president restricting the entry into the United States of people from a list of largely Muslim-dominant countries. Biden rolled back the ban shortly after taking office in 2021.
“The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering and devastating,” Walz said. Harris is working to ensure “the suffering in Gaza ends now, and the Palestinian people realize the right to dignity, freedom and self determination.”
The Israeli military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and limiting of aid have caused a humanitarian crisis, displacing nearly all of its 2 million people and causing children to die from starvation.
Updated
Here is more from Tim Walz’s event with Muslim voters earlier:
Walz promised Muslim Americans an equal role in their administration should they win the election, as Democrats scramble to win back Muslim backing that has eroded over US support for Israel.
Vice-president Harris and Walz, the governor of Minnesota, are trying to woo Muslim voters furious over President Joe Biden’s administration’s staunch backing of Israel during its year-old war in Gaza against Hamas.
Harris has pledged continued support for Israel while emphasizing her push for a ceasefire, words Walz echoed on Thursday, while promising a role for Muslims.
“Vice-president Harris and I are committed that this White House … will continue to condemn in all forms anti-Islam, anti-Arab sentiments being led by Donald Trump, but more importantly, a commitment that Muslims will be engaged in this administration and serve side by side,” Walz said during an online meeting organised by Emgage Action, a Muslim American advocacy group that recently endorsed Harris.
According to the filing, Trump’s day on 6 January started at 1am, with a tweet pressuring Pence to obstruct the certification of the results. Seven hours later, at 8.17am, Trump tweeted about it again. Shortly before his speech at the Ellipse, Trump called Pence and again pressured him to “induce him to act unlawfully in the upcoming session”, where Pence would be certifying the election results. Pence refused.
At this point, according to the filing, Trump “decided to re-insert into his campaign speech at the Ellipse remarks targeting Pence for his refusal to misuse his role in the certification”.
Trump gave his speech, and at 1pm, the certification process began at the Capitol.
Trump, meanwhile, “settled in the dining room off of the Oval Office. He spent the afternoon there reviewing Twitter on his phone, while the dining room television played Fox News’ contemporaneous coverage of events at the Capitol.”
It was from the dining room that Trump watched a crowd of his supporters march towards the Capitol. He had been there less than an hour when, at “approximately 2.24pm, Fox News reported that a police officer may have been injured and that ‘protestors ... have made their way inside the Capitol.’
“At 2.24pm, Trump tweeted, writing, ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!’”
The filing reads: “The content of the 2.24pm tweet was not a message sent to address a matter of public concern and ease unrest; it was the message of an angry candidate upon the realization that he would lose power.”
A minute later, the Secret Service evacuated Pence to a secure location.
As it seeks to make the case that Trump was acting in a private capacity, the filing looks back to election day for Trump’s use of private advisers: “As election day turned to November 4, the contest was too close to project a winner, and in discussions about what the defendant should say publicly regarding the election, senior advisors suggested that the defendant should show restraint while counting continued. Two private advisors, however, advocated a different course: [name redacted] and [name redacted] suggested that the defendant just declare victory. And at about 2.20am, the defendant gave televised remarks to a crowd of his campaign supporters in which he falsely claimed, without evidence or specificity, that there had been fraud in the election and that he had won.”
On 4 January, the filing says, a White House counsel was excluded from a meeting during which Trump sought to pressure Pence to help overturn the election result. Only a private attorney was present, the filing says: “It is hard to imagine stronger evidence” than this that Trump’s conduct was private.
In a court filing unsealed on Wednesday, federal prosecutors argue that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution over the January 6 riots because he acted in a private capacity, and took advice from private advisers.
The indictment seeks to make this case – that Trump acted in his private capacity, rather than his official one – because of a US supreme court ruling in July that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions taken as president.
It also reveals further details about Trump’s alleged mood and actions (or lack of action) on the day, building on evidence that was provided in earlier briefs.
In response to the new filing, the Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the brief “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional”. On Truth Social, Trump, writing in all-caps, called it “complete and total election interference.”
Let’s look at some key points made in the filing:
The filing alleges that Trump’s plan that day was “fundamentally a private one”, and therefore not related to his duties as president but instead as a candidate for office.
It reads: “The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.
“He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.”
The US ports strike that shut down shipping on the east and Gulf coasts for three days came to an end on Thursday after dock workers struck a tentative deal with port operators.
The International Longshoremen’s Association announced that the union had reached an agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance on wages, suspending their walkout until January. Work would resume immediately, the union said.
The strike – which involved 45,000 workers across 36 ports, from Texas to Maine – was the first to hit the east and Gulf coast ports of the US since 1977.
The tentative agreement is for a wage hike of about 62%, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Both sides said in a statement that they would return to the bargaining table to negotiate all outstanding issues.
The launch of a strike so soon to the election prompted scrutiny of key figures’ political views. ILA president Harold Daggett faced questions about his relationship with Donald Trump, while the Guardian uncovered social media posts by David Adam, chair and CEO of USMX, that were staunchly critical of Democrats.
More from what singer Bruce Springsteen said in his endorsement of Harris:
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity.
“And they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all, not just a few like me on top.
“That’s the vision of America I’ve been consistently writing about for 55 years.”
Springsteen joined other famous faces, including Taylor Swift, who have endorsed the Democratic nominees.
“Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime,” Springsteen continued.
“We are shortly coming upon one of the most consequential elections in our nation’s history.
“Perhaps not since the Civil War has this great country felt as politically, spiritually and emotionally divided as it does then at this moment.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. The common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again.
“Now that will take time, hard work, intelligence, faith, and women and men with the national good guiding their hearts.
“America is the most powerful nation on earth, not just because of her overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for, what she means, what she believes in.
“Freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be and love who you want. These are the things that make America great.”
In case you missed Donald Trump’s event earlier:
Trump has promised to make Michigan the “car capital of the world again” as he told a rally in the bellwether county of Saginaw that he will bring back thousands of jobs lost when General Motors moved more than a dozen factories to Mexico.
However, the former president made similar promises to Rust belt states before he was elected in 2016, with little result.
Trump, speaking at Saginaw Valley State University campus with groups of students and union workers in Teamsters for Trump T-shirts behind him, directly addressed the huge loss of industrial jobs in Michigan, a key swing state, over the past three decades.
The speech was Trump’s 11th in the key swing state of Michigan during this election. Kamala Harris is targeting Michigan, alongside the other Rust belt states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as her clearest path to victory.
The state remains up for grabs, with opinion polls giving Harris a slight edge. Saginaw county is widely regarded as a bellwether of which way the election is going in Michigan.
Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the county by just 1.1% of the vote in 2016. Four years later, he lost Saginaw to Joe Biden by 303 votes.
Trump dismissed recent polls that have shown Harris leading by small margins in most of the swing states saying she got a boost after she became the candidate in July, but that is now waning.
“We’re up in every state. They had a honeymoon period,” he said.
'Our hearts are broken': Walz addresses Muslim voters during virtual event
Here is our report from the Walz event with Muslim voters.
“As-salaam alaikum (peace be unto you) everyone and good evening,” vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz greeted Muslim voters in Arabic during a virtual event Thursday evening. In a final push to engage Muslim voters ahead of the election, Walz joined Muslim advocacy group Emgage Action’s “Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward” summit the day after the vice-presidential debate.
“Here in Minnesota, I’ve got the privilege to represent an incredible and vibrant Muslim community,” Walz said as light streamed through a large window behind him. He shared that he and his wife, Gwen, held the first iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan, at the Minnesota governor’s residence in 2019. And last year, Walz also passed interest-free down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers to increase home ownership among Muslim Americans.
During his speech, Walz also acknowledged a collective pain among Muslim and Arab American communities due to Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October. “Our hearts are broken,” Walz said. “The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering and devastating. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed, families fleeing for safety over and over again.”
“We all know on here, this war must end and it must end now. The vice-president’s working every day to ensure that, to make sure Israel is secure, the hostages are home, the suffering in Gaza ends now. And the Palestinian people realize the right to dignity, freedom, and self determination.”
The virtual event came shortly after Emgage Action endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as President and Vice-President.
Harris and Cheney blast Trump over election lies as they make pitch to Republican voters in Wisconsin
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris held a campaign event with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, and Republican royalty, in the swing state – and birth of the Republican party – Wisconsin.
Cheney focused her speech on Trump’s actions on 6 January and his refusal to accept the 2020 election results.
“The most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution,” she said. “I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for President Kamala Harris.”
“Vice-President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our history,” Cheney said.
Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again,” Cheney said. “We must defeat Trump on November 5.”
Harris, too, focused her speech on Trump, rather than her policies as the Democratic candidate. The speech was pitched as encouraging voters to cast their ballots for Harris to prevent Trump from taking power, regardless of whether they identified as Republicans.
Harris said she has never wavered from upholding her oath to the American people and democracy unlike Trump. “Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” Harris said. “And as you have heard and know, he refused to accept the will of the people and the results of an election that was free and fair.”
The candidates spoke with large protective glass barriers on either side of them.
Updated
Bruce Springsteen endorses Harris
The Boss has chosen: US singer Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, calling Donald Trump “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime”.
The 75-year-old rocker said Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have pledged a vision of the country which “respects and includes everyone”, while Mr Trump “doesn’t understand the meaning of this country”.
“His disdain for the sanctity of our constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again,” The Boss said in a video on Instagram.
Walz added, “The Vice President’s working every day to ensure [an end to the war]. To make sure Israel secure, the hostages are home, the suffering in Gaza ends now, and the Palestinian people realize the right to dignity, freedom and self determination.”
Walz told voters at the virtual event, according to the Washington Post, “I know the pain of this community is deep” and “The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering & devastating”.
He called for the war to end – as he, Harris and Biden have done previously. The US, however, continues to approve arms packages for Israel.
"I know the pain of this community is deep," Gov. Walz told @EmgageAction. "The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering & devastating. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed, families feeing for safety over & over again...this war must end & it must end now."
— Dylan Wells (@dylanewells) October 3, 2024
Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, was speaking at a virtual event for Muslim voters.
The invitation for the event said, according to Politico, “both presidential candidates have left our community with difficult choices: one threatening the fabric of democracy, the other enabling atrocities in Gaza.”
Harris walks off stage and shakes hands and takes selfies with people in the crowd.
Harris ends by saying together, “we can chart a new path forward”.
On the crowd from the press pool report:
The crowd of several hundred people consists of students, townspeople, and others who drove here from around the state. Many are standing on a hillside outside the fenced-in quad area.
Liz Cheney “stands in the finest tradition” of Republican leaders, Harris says.
Harris’s speech continues to be focused on the danger posed by Trump. She is framing the election for these voters not as one based on policies, or voting for Harris because of what she represents – but on voting for her to make sure Trump does not win.
“People of every party must stand together. And let me be clear. Democracy and freedom are not only at stake here. They are also at stake around the world,” says Harris.
And a reminder to non-Americans: we’re just over a month out from voting day in the world’s biggest economy.
“Our nation is not some spoils to be won,” Harris says, in the service of one individual’s ambition.
“In this election I take seriously my pledge to be a president for all Americans,” Harris says.
This is very much a speech pitched at swing and Republican voters.
Harris and Cheney are standing on the stage behind enormous panels of protective glass to either side of them.
Interestingly, Harris’s speech so far is focused on the threat posed by the Republican candidate, Trump, to democracy in the US, rather than her (Democratic) policies.
Harris says unlike Trump she has never wavered from upholding oath to defend constitution
She has never wavered from upholding her oath, she says, unlike Trump.
“Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” Harris says. “And as you have heard and know, he refused to accept the will of the people and the results of an election that was free and fair.”
Updated
“Who will obey that oath, who will abide by the oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America,” Harris says.
The crowd chants their answer: “Kamala”.
Harris says she has sworn an oath six times in her career.
“We both believe in the nobility of public service,” Harris says.
Harris says she has in common that she was also a kid in Wisconsin once.
“Every time I’ve come here recently one of the conversations we have is that we love our country,” she says.
She says it is important to remember what is at stake – and that the fears of what could happen are “born out of love”.
She thanks Cheney for her “courage”.
“It is so good to be back in Wisconsin,” Harris says.
Harris and Cheney shake hands as VP takes stage
As Harris steps out, she and Cheney shake and clasp hands.
“Can we hear it for Liz Cheney,” Harris says, with a lot of energy.
The chants of “Thank you, Liz” start up again.
Updated
“I know President Harris will be able to unite this nation,” Cheney says.
She will be able to inspire all Americans, and especially, “if I may say, our little girls”.
“So help us right the ship of democracy,” she says, so that we can say that we did our duty and prevailed.
Cheney quotes Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer: “The lesson of our history is that the task of merely maintaining strong and sturdy the structures of a constitutional order is unending, the continuing and ceaseless work of every generation.”
We must choose what Abraham Lincoln called leaders with a “sincere heart”, she says.
Updated
Cheney turns her attention to JD Vance.
“Vance has said repeatedly,” she says, that he would have supported Trump on 6 January.
“History teaches us again and again that democracies can fall,” she says.
Cheney’s tone is calm and steady – she sounds almost quiet – and very serious.
“We, the people, defend our institutions,” Cheney says. “And our institutions held on January 6th” because of brave individuals.
“Especially because of the bravery of the men and women in law enforcement.”
Updated
“Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again,” says Cheney.
“We must defeat Trump on November 5.”
Updated
Cheney says that when Trump was told Pence had been moved to a secure location, he said: “So what?”
Here is a rundown of that section of the justice department filing:
The filing states that Trump said: “So what?” after being told that Pence had subsequently been taken to a secure location.
The indictment notes that the government does not intend to use the exchange at trial. It argues, however, that the tweet itself was “unofficial”.
The filing states that Pence “tried to encourage” Trump “as a friend” when news networks forecast a Biden win on 7 November. This again goes to the assertion that Trump acted in a private capacity.
Pence allegedly told Trump: “You took a dying political party and gave it a new lease on life.”
Updated
Cheney is now talking about the events on January 6th.
The facts of what Donald Trump did on that day do not come from Trump’s opponents, Cheney says, they come from those closest to him.
Cheney was one of ten Republicans to vote to impeach Trump after the 6 January riot.
Every president in US history has fulfilled their duty to oversee the peaceful transition of power, she says. “Every president except Donald Trump”.
Here is a look at the court filing unsealed yesterday, in which federal prosecutors argue that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution over January 6 because he acted in a private capacity, and took advice from private advisers:
Updated
The peaceful transition of power is critical to America’s democracy, she says.
“Violence does not and must never determine who rules us – voters do,” she says.
Updated
“As we meet here today, our republic faces a threat unlike any we have faced before,” she says.
Trump refused to accept the 2020 results, she says.
“Putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration, it is our duty,” she says.
Harris 'standing in the breach at a critical moment in our history, says Cheney
“Vice-President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our history,” Cheney says.
Updated
Liz Cheney tells crowd she's voting for Harris in first-ever vote for a Democrat
Cheney is now talking about the party she has belonged to “my entire life”.
She cast her first vote ever in 1984 for Reagan, she says. She served in both Bush administrations. She was the third-highest ranking Republican leader.
She is laying the groundwork for why her endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris – given earlier this month – is significant.
“The most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution,” she says.
“I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for President Kamala Harris.”
The crowd cheers and again chants, “Thank you Liz”.
“But mostly, we’re not going back,” she says.
Updated
“I have to tell you all, Wisconsin is special for me for a particular reason,” she says.
And that is because she was born in the state.
Wisconsin was also the birth place of the Republican party, at a meeting in a small white school house.
From that historic site’s website: “The Republican Schoolhouse, also known as Little White Schoolhouse or Birthplace of the Republican Party, is a historic former one-room schoolhouse now located at 1074 West Fond Du Lac Street in Ripon, Wisconsin.”
Liz Cheney now on stage
Liz Cheney – Republican royalty, former congresswoman, daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney – is now on stage in Wisconsin.
The crowd chants “Thank you Liz”.
Updated
Liz Cheney, the Republican former representative of Wyoming, who is holding a campaign event today in Wisconsin with Kamala Harris, endorsed the Democratic nominee for president earlier this month.
The former legislator made the pronouncement on Tuesday at an event at Duke university in North Carolina. This move makes her the latest Republican to publicly say that they will not be supporting Donald Trump.
“I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” Cheney, the daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, told the crowd. “And as a conservative, as somebody who believes in and cares about the constitution, I have thought deeply about this and the present danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, I am voting for Kamala Harris.”
Cheney’s announcement, which was met with cheers from the audience, puts her on the growing list of lifelong Republicans who will be voting against Trump. In March, the former vice-president Mike Pence told Fox news that he will not be endorsing his former running mate in November, citing Trump’s actions on January 6 and course reversals on issues such as forcing China to sell TikTok.
Cheney has long been a detractor of Trump. In 2021 she was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump after January 6. Weeks later Cheney was voted out of her leadership role among House Republicans. During a closed-door vote before her ousting, Cheney was reportedly booed after voicing criticisms of Trump.
Read the full story here:
Updated
A live stream of that event is here:
Watch Live: Vice President Kamala Harris holds a campaign event with Liz Cheney in Wisconsin https://t.co/jteLzbyfav
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 3, 2024
Kamala Harris is holding a campaign event with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney shortly in the swing state of Wisconsin – otherwise known as the badger state.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over our live US politics coverage – we’ll bring analysis and reporting on that event live.
Today so far
Soon, Kamala Harris will appear alongside by Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman tonight at a campaign event in Ripon, a small Wisconsin town known as the birthplace of the Republican party. Meanwhile, Tim Walz will appear at the “Million Muslim Votes” summit.
During a rally in Michigan, Donald Trump pledged to bring back drilling in the Alaska arctic wildlife refuge if he becomes president. He also falsely accused the Biden administration of mishandling disaster relief funds in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, while rewriting history about his own administration’s record following natural disasters.
Neither Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, nor Georgia’s governor, Brain Kemp, will meet with Joe Biden today during the president’s visits to communities in the two states that have been hit by Hurricane Helene. According to White House pool reports, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden spoke with Kemp earlier today and both governors, who are Republicans, were invited.
Melania Trump has doubled down on her support for abortion rights today, following yesterday’s revelation, with the Guardian getting the scoop, that she is firmly pro-choice. This despite her husband, former president Donald Trump, boasting of his pride at nominating the members of the US supreme court who tipped the bench into its conservative supermajority that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, ripping up the national right to abortion care.
Only about 2% of households in the 100 counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene-related power outages were protected by flood insurance, according to NBC News. The figures were compiled through analysis of census bureau data, PowerOutage.us data and national flood insurance programme policy data.
Harris to campaign in Wisconsin with Liz Cheney, while Walz will speak at Muslim voters summit
Kamala Harris will soon appear in Ripon, Wisconsin, alongside Republican former representative Liz Cheney, in an appeal to voters in the symbolic birth of the Republican party.
The two have little overlap when it comes to policy – but Cheney, who was ostracized from her party after turning on Donald Trump following the January 6 insurrection – has endorsed Harris, along with her father, former Republican vice president Dick Cheney.
Meanwhile, Tim Walz will appear at the “Million Muslim Votes” summit alongside former House representative Andy Levin, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison California representative Ro Khanna and Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen.
Harris and Walz have emphasized their broad appeal – and the fact that they have been endorsed by progressives like Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and conservatives like Liz Cheney.
But the running mates’ appearances today will make for a stark split-screen. While Harris woos Republicans, and touts the support of architect of the “war on terror” that led to the surveillance and profiling of Muslim Americans, and a mastermind of the invasion of Iraq, Walz will be attempting to reassure Muslim American voters who are distraught by the US support for Israel amidst the bombardment of Gaza and now its attacks on Lebanon.
Donald Trump repeated lies about the Biden administration’s hurricane response, going so far as to claim that the president and vice-president were “stealing” Fema funds to give to immigrants.
“They stole the Fema money like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” he said.
Trump and his allies have been repeatedly claiming that Fema is out of money because it allocated funds to help communities receiving an influx of immigrants at the border.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, did warn that Fema is underfunded for the remainder of hurricane season. That’s in part because the stop-gap government funding bill did not contain enough funding for Fema, which is facing a $2bn deficit.
Fema’s Shelter and Services Program allocated $300m during the 2024 fiscal year to help communities “offset the costs of providing food, shelter and other supportive services after receiving an influx of migrants”. That’s a small fraction of the agency’s overall budget. For 2025, it has requested a total of $33.1bn.
Updated
At his rally, Trump also claimed he “had the best four years with hurricanes”.
Trump: "We had the best four years with hurricanes." pic.twitter.com/KRk1ZPelys
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 3, 2024
During his tenure …
Trump imposed a hiring freeze at the National Weather Service, resulting in more than 200 of vacancies within the agency that predicts and oversees extreme weather warnings. The Washington Post reported in 2017: “Some of those Weather Service vacancies listed in the document, obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Washington Post, were in locations that would be hit by the major hurricanes that barreled through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.”
Trump falsely claimed that Hurricane Maria’s death toll was being inflated by his Democratic rivals. In fact, studies suggest that far more people died than the official death toll suggested at the time. A report by the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health estimates up to 4,600 people were killed.
In 2021, a report by the housing department’s office of the inspector general found that Trump administration delayed more than $20bn in hurricane relief aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
An internal report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency also found that it failed to properly prepare for hurricane season.
Updated
In a review of Trump’s record responding to natural disasters, E&E also found a discrepency in aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, which primarily affected Florida; and Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
On March 9, 2019, Trump signed an order directing FEMA to pay 100 percent of most disaster costs in Florida. As a result, FEMA paid roughly $350 million more than it would have without Trump’s intervention, according to an E&E News analysis.
But less than two months earlier, Trump threatened to veto a disaster-aid measure in Congress that would have FEMA pay 100 percent of all disaster costs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria killed more than 3,000 people.
According to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s book, Trump said: “They love me in the Panhandle … I must have won 90 percent of the vote out there. Huge crowds. What do they need?”
Updated
The voting habits of residents did play into Donald Trump’s decision-making about disaster relief when he was president, reports E&E News.
The outlet interviewed Mark Harvey, Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council, who revealed that the former president refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018.
But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.
‘We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,’ said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials.
California’s governor Gavin Newsom, reacted to the report on Twitter/X, calling it a “glimpse into the future” if Trump is re-elected.
A glimpse into the future if we elect @realDonaldTrump…
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 3, 2024
Trump was willing to hold back aid after devastating wildfires in California until he saw proof that people liked him.
He doesn’t care about America. He only cares about himself. https://t.co/Sec9XuhjZr pic.twitter.com/NRC5sNMzXl
Joe Biden, meanwhile, wrote: “You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you. It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it.”
Updated
Trump lies that Helene victims have had no federal help after Biden-Harris provide $20m in 5,000 personal in aid
As Joe Biden visits the wreckage of Hurricane Helene, Donald Trump has been baselessly suggesting that the administration has ignored Republican victims and that federal aid is scarce because funds are being given to immigrants.
“They’re dying, and they’re getting no help from our federal government because their money has been spent on people that should not be in our country,” Trump told his supporters.
The Biden-Harris administration said that the government has provided $20m in “flexible, upfront funding” and deployed 5,000 federal personnel to aid in recovery.
Updated
“His competition that night? He cannot be president. He cannot be president of the United States,” Donald Trump said of JD Vance’s vice-presidential opponent, Tim Walz.
“How good did JD Vance do the other night?” Trump added, praising his running mate as the crowd descended into a cheers of “JD! JD!”
“I drafted the best athlete,” Trump continued.
Updated
Trump pledges to bring back plan to drill for oil and gas in Alaska arctic wildlife refuge
Donald Trump pledged to bring back drilling in the Alaska arctic wildlife refuge if he becomes president.
Trump said:
We would have supplied the entire Asian continent. We would have supplied Asia. We would have supplied everybody. But we’ll have it redone very quickly … I actually got it approved in Congress as part of …the biggest tax cuts in history for this country. I got that approved in Congress. We got ANWR [Alaska National Wildlife Refuge] so they didn’t kill it in Congress, and I don’t think they ever could. So we’ll get it back very quickly. It’s going to be back very fast.
Trump added:
And it would have been great for Alaska but it would have also … been great for our country but we’ll have it approved very quickly.
In 2021, Trump’s administration auctioned off portions of ANWR to oil drillers but failed to attract much bidders.
Updated
Donald Trump has switched his attacks on Joe Biden, calling him “the worst foreign policy president”.
The former president then went on to say: “We have to be too big to rig” before going on to repeat the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
The crowd, highly energized, descended into a chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Updated
Trump arrives on stage for rally in Saginaw, Michigan
Donald Trump has walked on stage to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
“We’re going to make America great again,” Trump said in his opening remarks before launching into a tirade against Kamala Harris, calling her a slew of names including “Lying Kamala”.
Updated
Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a rally shortly in Saginaw, Michigan.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.
Updated
Here are some images coming through the news wires of Hurricane Helene and its aftermath across the country:
Updated
The Biden administration has provided nearly $4m directly to individuals and families in need of critical financial assistance, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said onboard an Air Force One gaggle as the president was en route to Tallahassee, Florida.
She went on to add:
Yesterday, we announced that the president approved 100% federal cost share for emergency response activities in Florida and Georgia, as well as Tallahassee [Tennessee] and North Carolina. This means that the federal government will cover 100% of the costs associated with things like debris removal, first responders, search and rescue, shelters, and mass feeding.
This latest announcement builds the president’s previously approved requests for major disaster declarations from the governors of Florida and Georgia, which unlocked additional assistance for residents on their road to recovery.
Updated
In international news today, Iran has warned Washington that a large Israeli strike will lead to attacks on Israeli infrastructure and any country that aids such an attack will be deemed an Iranian target.
This after Joe Biden said he was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iran oil facilities.
In a statement issued by Iran’s mission at the UN in New York, Iran said:
Should any country render assistance to the aggressor, it shall likewise be deemed an accomplice and a legitimate target. We advise countries to refrain from entangling themselves in the conflict between the Israeli regime and Iran and to distance themselves from the fray.
Iran also stressed no messages to “aggressors” will be sent except through the Swiss diplomats, the country designated to transmit Iranian messages to the US. There had been claims that Iran was using Qatar as an intermediary with the US.
The Guardian is covering all the developments in the Middle East as they emerge, via articles but also our global live blog, here.
Updated
Joe Biden is in Florida before heading to Georgia to survey storm damage, following his visit to the Carolinas yesterday.
Here are some of the latest images from the news wires. Press are traveling alongside the US president, although not directly with him other than onboard Air Force One.
Biden took an aerial tour of affected parts in northwestern Florida, in Marine One.
Roads are impassable in some areas, especially for the kind of security motorcade a US president has to travel in.
The president is receiving a briefing at Keaton Beach, Florida, before departing for Georgia.
Updated
Interim summary
Hello US politics and election blog readers, it’s another very busy day of news, so please stay close to the blog as we bring you developments as they happen.
Joe Biden is currently in Florida, where he was taking an aerial tour of north-western parts of the state hardest hit by Hurricane Helene, as well as receiving briefings on the ground. The US president will head to Georgia a bit later and is due to make public remarks at 4.15pm ET.
There are a number of events planned on the election campaign trail for both Democrats and Republicans.
Here’s where things stand:
Neither Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, or Georgia’s governor, Brain Kemp, will meet with Joe Biden today during the president’s visits to communities in the two states that have been hit by Hurricane Helene. According to White House pool reports, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden spoke with Kemp earlier today and both governors, who are Republicans, were invited.
Melania Trump has doubled down on her support for abortion rights today, following yesterday’s revelation, with the Guardian getting the scoop, that she is firmly pro-choice. This despite her husband, former president Donald Trump, boasting of his pride at nominating the members of the US supreme court who tipped the bench into its conservative supermajority that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, ripping up the national right to abortion care.
Only about 2% of households in the 100 counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene-related power outages were protected by flood insurance, according to NBC News. The figures were compiled through analysis of census bureau data, PowerOutage.us data and national flood insurance programme policy data.
Swing states a go-go. Trump will campaign in Michigan this afternoon, Kamala Harris is holding a rally in Wisconsin this evening and Michigan tomorrow.
Melania Trump made an extraordinary declaration in an eagerly awaited memoir to be published a month from election day: she is a passionate supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body – including the right to abortion.
Harris, the US vice-president and Democratic party nominee for president in November’s elections, is set to be joined by Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, early this evening for a campaign event in Ripon, a small Wisconsin town known as the birthplace of the Republican party. Cheney recently endorsed Harris.
Updated
Death toll from Hurricane Helene reaches 200 – AP
Hurricane Helene and the aftermath of the massive storm has now killed 200 people in the US, as North Carolina and Georgia reported yet more fatalities, the Associated Press reports.
Some remote communities are still cut off and more people are still reported as missing, either because they have perished or cannot get in touch to say they are safe because of knocked-out internet and cellphone signals.
The death toll jumped from 189 to 200 after Georgia officials added eight to their tally and North Carolina added three, AP reports.
Search and rescue operations continue today in the mountains of western North Carolina, which bore the worst of the storm.
Helene came ashore late last Thursday in north-western Florida, where it caused huge storm surge and flooding, before carving a swift path of apocalyptic destruction through the southeastern US. It was the deadliest to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina smashed into New Orleans as a category 5 in 2005.
This is Chimney Rock, the same exact spot before and after the hurricane.
— Luana (@N7Luana) October 1, 2024
Lake Lure, Black Mountain, Swanannoa are also gone.
Houses destroyed by landslides, entire families displaced and/or dead.
This is horrible. pic.twitter.com/q3IDlIVVY8
Updated
Hurricane Helene’s devastation could disrupt voting in the swing state of North Carolina.
The Guardian’s Dharna Noor reports:
The devastating path charted by Hurricane Helene has taken at least 190 lives, decimated entire communities, and cut off access to food, water and power for many. It could also disrupt voting, including in North Carolina, one of just a handful of states likely to decide the 5 November presidential election.
Long before the storm made landfall on Thursday, politicos have kept a close eye on North Carolina as a key battleground state, with polls showing the state is closely divided in the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Early voting in North Carolina will begin on 17 October as planned, state officials said, but adhering to that schedule will not be an easy task.
“The destruction is unprecedented and this level of uncertainty this close to election day is daunting,” Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the state’s election board, told reporters.
For the full story, click here:
Florida and Georgia governors will not meet Biden during visit
Neither Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, or Georgia’s governor, Brain Kemp, will meet with Joe Biden today during the president’s visits to communities in the two states that have been hit by Hurricane Helene.
According to White House pool reports, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden spoke with Kemp earlier today and both governors were invited.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene has risen to at least 191 as hundreds more remain missing. The category 4 hurricane has been one of the deadliest storms in US history.
Updated
Melania Trump’s book publisher requested $250,000 in exchange from CNN after the outlet requested an interview with the former first lady.
On Thursday, CNN reported that it had reached out to Trump’s book publisher two months ago with a request to interview the former first lady ahead of her autobiography’s release, Melania.
In response, Skyhorse Publishing, Trump’s book publisher, sent an “Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement” last week, which included a clause that “CNN shall pay a licensing fee of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000).”
A few days later, Skyhorse Publishing said it had sent the payment demand by accident.
“Neither Melania nor anyone from her team knew anything about the NDA and the document that was sent reflected an internal miscommunication,” Tony Lyons, the president and publisher of Skyhorse, told CNN in a statement.
“Had CNN signed an NDA, in the normal course of business, we would have approached Melania’s team to discuss [specifics of the interview],” Lyons added.
Updated
Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election were partially thwarted by a wrong number.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Rudy Giuliani texted the wrong number as he tried to persuade Michigan legislators to help overthrow the 2020 election.
According to a document unsealed in federal court on Wednesday, on 7 December 2020, Giuliani tried to send a message urging someone unspecified to help in the plan to appoint a slate of fake electors.
“So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the legislature that states the election is in dispute, there’s an ongoing investigation by the legislature, and the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline under Michigan law,” Giuliani wrote.
As Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, his allies sought to appoint alternate slates of electors in states that he lost to send to Congress. These false slates of electors met in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona and signed certificates in which they represented that they were valid electors in their states. Trump allies then attempted to send those certificates to Congress for counting on 6 January 2021. The plan failed.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
Melania Trump reiterates support for abortion rights: 'a fundamental principle that I safeguard'
Melania Trump has doubled down on her support for abortion rights, saying in a new video released on Thursday:
Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard. Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth? Individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?
https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND pic.twitter.com/Y9MT3uj97b
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) October 3, 2024
In her upcoming memoir, Melania, the former first lady took a stance on abortion rights that deviated from her husband’s.
In one part of her book that the Guardian reviewed, Trump wrote:
It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.
With a little over a month left to go until election day, reproductive rights has been a divisive issue throughout the campaign trail, with Republicans including Donald Trump and his supporters repeatedly attacking abortion rights and spreading falsehoods.
During the presidential debate last month, Trump, using an oft-repeated attack line, falsely claimed that Democrats supported abortion “after birth” and were “executing” babies.
Updated
Biden to visit Florida and Georgia to survey hurricane aftermath
Joe Biden is set to visit Florida and Georgia on Thursday where he will survey the aftermath of Hurricane Helene which has killed nearly 200 people.
Biden’s upcoming visit follows his visit to the Carolinas yesterday where he met with local and state officials and first responders.
On Wednesday, Biden amended North Carolina and Georgia’s disaster declaration by authorizing an increase in the level of federal funding for emergency work undertaken in the wake of the hurricane.
“Under the president’s order today, federal funds for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, has been increased to 100% of the total eligible costs for 90 days from the start of the incident period,” the White House said.
Updated
In a new Truth Social tirade on Thursday morning, Donald Trump accused Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of poorly handling the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
The former president wrote:
Kamala and Sleepy Joe are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they are handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina. It is going down as the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE – BUT THEIR MANAGEMENT OF THE BORDER IS WORSE! MAGA2024.”
The hurricane, which has killed nearly 200 people in recent days across multiple states, has been used as a major talking point by Trump’s campaign team as the former president and his running mate, JD Vance, cast skepticism toward climate change.
During Tuesday’s debate, Vance appeared to call the climate crisis “weird science” by saying: “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions – this idea that carbon emissions drive all the climate change … Let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true.”
Updated
As some Americans are informed they need to prove their citizenship, Donald Trump and other Republicans are spreading the false idea non-citizens could vote in vast numbers.
The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang and Sam Levine report:
These purges are not just complicating the ability of some qualified voters to cast a ballot this year. They’re also setting the stage for future laws that restrict voters’ access to the ballot and are giving fuel to Donald Trump and his allies to seed doubt about the integrity of elections and undermine results if he loses in November.
Trump and other Republicans are already using the false idea that non-citizens could vote in widespread numbers to suggest the election could be stolen.
“Our elections are bad,” Trump said during the 10 September debate. “And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote. And that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”
There is no proof that non-citizens are voting, or even registering to vote, in any meaningful numbers. It’s not the first time Republicans have made these claims, but the purges and rhetoric over non-citizen voting this year is, perhaps, at its apex.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
As part of the Anywhere but Washington series, the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland traveled to Georgia where election deniers and rightwing conspiracy theorists are facing a new generation of gen Z candidates and voters who could tip the race in favor of the Democrats:
Updated
The Democratic National Committee is buying new billboards and digital ads in the places where Donald Trump is campaigning this week aimed at reminding voters that he and his running mate, JD Vance, still are refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election.
The billboards will go up in Saginaw, Michigan and Fayetteville, North Carolina. They feature a picture of Trump and Vance and say: “Trump and Vance still deny the 2020 election results. Defeat these election deniers.”
The advertisements come on the heels of a debate in which Vance repeatedly refused to say whether Trump won in 2020 and also declined to give a straight answer on whether he would certify the 2024 vote. “That’s a damning non-answer,” Tim Walz said during the debate. The Harris campaign has already cut an ad on the topic.
“Nearly four years later, Donald Trump and JD Vance still deny the results of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won.Trump and Vance can continue to try to rewrite history, but this is the truth: when Trump lost fair and square, he encouraged a violent insurrection on our nation’s capital and attempted to overturn Michiganders’ votes for his own personal benefit,” Stephanie Justice, a DNC spokesperson, said in a statement.
Updated
Donald Trump said yesterday that he would revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, as he double downed on his vow to deport them if he is reelected in November’s presidential election.
“Springfield is such a beautiful place – have you seen what has happened to it? It has been overrun. You can’t do that to people. They have to be removed,” Trump told NewsNation in an interview.
Trump, asked if he would revoke the migrants’ TPS, said: “Absolutely. I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country.” Pressed on what would happen in the event the Haitian government refused to receive the migrants, he said “they will”, without providing additional details.
Donald Trump tells NewsNation that he’d “absolutely revoke” the Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/WnMwCsgyWs
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) October 3, 2024
The majority of the 15,000 Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally under TPS, a decades-old programme which provides deportation relief and work permits. The Biden administration extended TPS to hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the US in June. Violence in Haiti has displaced over half a million people and nearly five million are facing severe food insecurity.
In September, Trump pledged to conduct mass deportations of Haitian immigrants from Springfield, despite most being there legally. Springfield become a flashpoint in the presidential election after baseless claims by Trump and his running mate, US senator JD Vance, that migrants in the town were eating cats and dogs. It has faced a series of bomb threats to schools and other facilities in the wake of the claims.
Updated
Flood insurance coverage lowest in counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene – report
Only about 2% of households in the 100 counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene-related power outages were protected by flood insurance, according to NBC News. The figures were compiled through analysis of census bureau data, PowerOutage.us data and national flood insurance programme policy data.
Less than 1% of the North Carolina counties most heavily affected by the hurricane were covered, while in South Carolina it was under 0.3%, according to the analysis.
Many people who lived in houses damaged by Helene are likely to see their insurance costs rise steeply. Flood insurance is sold separately from homeowners’ insurance, which usually does not cover flood damage.
The storm, which slammed into Florida’s Gulf coast almost a week ago, has dumped almost unprecedented amounts of rain through Georgia and the Carolinas, to Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. You can see a visual timeline of the hurricane here.
Updated
In a court filing made public yesterday, US prosecutors said Donald Trump was acting outside the scope of his duties as president when he pressured state officials and then-vice president Mike Pence to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Federal prosecutors said he “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power.
The 165-page filing is likely the last opportunity for prosecutors to detail their case against Trump before the 5 November election given there will not be a trial before then. You can read more on this story here.
The special counsel Jack Smith outlined what he called Trump’s “increasingly desperate” efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results. He has also accused Trump of knowing “his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisors – acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity – told him they were not true”.
The filing is meant to keep the federal criminal election subversion case against the Republican presidential candidate moving forward following a July US supreme court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for their official actions in office. Trump’s lawyers tried to keep the latest filing sealed. Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called it “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional”.
Responding on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges accusing him of a conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election, defraud the US out of accurate results and interfere with Americans’ voting rights.
Updated
Where will Harris and Trump be campaigning today and tomorrow?
Much of the media attention today will focus on Kamala Harris delivering remarks in the battleground state of Wisconsin, during which she will praise former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.
Here is a look at where Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump will be campaigning before the weekend, with their focus shifting to Michigan:
Thursday: Trump will hold a rally in Saginaw county, a key Michigan city in the centre of the state. He has stepped up his focus on Michigan, holding two rallies there less than a week ago. In 2020, Joe Biden’s win in Saginaw county by a slim 303 votes contributed to his victory in the state.
Friday: Harris will hold a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, continuing her tour of states that have been critical to Democratic victories. Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016, and Joe Biden won them in 2020.
The seven swing states critical to the November election are:
Arizona
Georgia
Michigan
Nevada
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Updated
Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir
Melania Trump made an extraordinary declaration in an eagerly awaited memoir to be published a month from election day: she is a passionate supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body – including the right to abortion.
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign in which Donald Trump’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
You can read the full story by my colleague Martin Pengelly here:
Updated
Kamala Harris to be joined by Liz Cheney for campaign event in GOP birthplace
Good morning, US politics readers.
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, is set to be joined by Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, on Thursday for a campaign event in Ripon, a small Wisconsin town known as the birthplace of the Republican party. They will appear together in a historic white schoolhouse in Ripon, where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the birth of the GOP.
In a further bid to appeal to more moderate Republican voters and independents, Harris is expected to praise Cheney – a vocal opponent of Donald Trump – for what she will describe as her patriotism and commitment of putting country before party.
In her speech, Harris will say she will uphold the constitution and the rule of law if she wins the November presidential election, stressing that her outlook is not dictated by rigid ideology.
She will say that anyone who has called for the termination of the constitution should never be allowed to serve as president (in December 2022, Trump called for the termination of the constitution to overturn the 2020 election – which he falsely claims he won - and reinstate him to power).
Wisconsin is a battleground state both Harris and Trump are eager to win. Trump in particular is probably going to need to take the so-called Badger state, one of the closest swing states of recent elections. In 2016, he won the state by less than 1% of the vote and then lost it four years later by an even narrower margin.
Cheney, the former representative of Wyoming and daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, endorsed Harris for president last month. Today will be Cheney’s first campaign appearance with Harris since the endorsement. Cheney voted to impeach Trump, the former Republican president, after the January 6 insurrection and led the committee that would refer him to the justice department for criminal prosecution.
Her father, who was seen as an influential figure during the presidency of George W Bush, endorsed Harris a couple of days later, saying there had “never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump”. Hundreds of former and current Republican officials in the military, national security and local governments have publicly backed Harris for president.
Recent polling shows Harris is struggling to gain traction with Republican voters despite already having moderated many of her positions on key policy areas to appeal to them. She abandoned her opposition to fracking and private healthcare, for example. Harris is also alienating many Democratic voters by staunchly supporting Israel, despite its war on Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.
While Harris led Trump 47% to 40% among all voters in a 20-23 September Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 5% of the poll’s Republican respondents said they would back her in the election.
Updated
