Summary
Wrapping up our US politics new coverage for today, though our Middle East crisis news updates will continue. Here’s our updated key news of the day:
Kamala Harris campaigned in Michigan, focusing on her support from organized labor and pledging to support and protect “good union jobs.” In Detroit, Harris called Trump a “union buster” while praising collective bargaining for its benefits to workers. Later, in Flint, Magic Johnson appeared to endorse her and urge Black men to vote for Harris.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump held campaign events in Georgia, where he appeared with Brian Kemp, the state’s Republican governor, who has been the target of Trump’s ire since Kemp refused to overturn the state’s 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, and then in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to a major army base.
Polls show the presidential race is tightening in North Carolina, a swing state Trump won in 2016 and 2020, leaving some Trump supporters concerned.
Biden popped into the White House press briefing today. When asked about the November election, he said he was “confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful,” given Trump’s rhetoric.
Biden also debunked claims from Marco Rubio that the positive jobs report was fake, saying “anything that Maga Republicans don’t like they call fake.” The September jobs report was unexpectedly strong, defying fears of an economic slowdown. The country added 254,000 jobs last month.
JD Vance spoke in Georgia this afternoon, telling undocumented immigrants “you’ve got four months, pack your bags, because you’re going home.” He also dodged a reporter’s question on whether the 2020 election was “rigged.”
Trump announced that his return to Butler, Pennsylvania, tomorrow to rally after the assassination attempt there will include the family of the man killed by the gunman, as well as a host of other rally attendees, first responders and elected officials.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman, wrote an X post that alleged some unnamed entity was controlling the weather. “Yes they can control the weather,” she said in a post. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” No word on who “they” refers to.
As Trump faces an increasingly tight race in North Carolina, Trump’s campaign appears to be focusing on turning out the state’s large military population.
Donald Trump has wrapped up his campaign town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where many of the questions from the audience came from strong Trump supporters and focused on military issues, from changing the name of the major army base in town back to “Fort Bragg,” a tribute to a Confederate general, to the issue of homeless veterans, to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, to a last question from a man who said he was a former F15 pilot in the Air Force and then the Space Force, who said he was fired from his command position during the Biden administration for criticizing the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. He asked Trump if he would support a commission or task force to guard the military from “woke generals” in the future. Trump said he would appoint the man himself to such a commission.
“Thank you for taking time tonight to speak with our troops,” the man said.
Polls show North Carolina is increasingly competitive, despite previous Trump victories
“I’m freaking out about North Carolina,” one major Trump donor, who was granted anonymity to give his candid assessment of the race, told Reuters. “Georgia and Arizona are not in the bag, but heading in the right direction.”
Reuters has more about the increasingly close North Carolina race between Trump and Harris:
Trump leads Harris by 0.5 percentage point in North Carolina, according to a polling average maintained by FiveThirtyEight, a polling and analysis website. The former president leads Harris by 1.1 points in Georgia and 1.2 points in Arizona. All of those figures are within the margin of error for major polls, meaning either candidate could walk away with a victory…
Some Trump allies privately say the race in North Carolina, which Trump won in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, is too close for comfort, even as they think he still has a slight leg up on Democratic rival Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
While Trump’s ad spending in the state has been relatively modest compared with most other battleground states, he has hit the campaign trail hard. His four campaign events in North Carolina, including stops in Wilmington and Mint Hill, in the last month outnumber those in any other state except for Wisconsin and Michigan, according to a Reuters tally.
As Trump once again baselessly claims that the Biden administration is failing to give adequate support to Hurricane Helene victims because many of them are Republicans, it’s worth revisiting this report from yesterday, in which two former Trump national security aides said that Trump was reluctant to give emergency funding to California after wildfires in 2018, until an aide showed him that many Trump voters live in California.
NEW: Two former Trump White House officials told me they had to show voter data to Trump to get him to release disaster funding to CA wildfire victims. He released it after learning that he had as many GOP supporters in Orange Co. as he did in Iowa. https://t.co/VU9fbGsOBl
— Scott Waldman (@scottpwaldman) October 3, 2024
“This is Katrina,” Trump says, of the government’s response Hurricane Helene, accusing the Biden administration of doing “the worst job.”
With a reported death toll of over 200 people so far, Hurricane Helene has been a catastrophic storm.
Hurricane Katrina, during the George W Bush administration, claimed 1,392 lives, Axios reported, and sparked fierce debates over the government’s emergency response, with Kanye West famously alleging that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
But Hurricane Maria, during Trump’s presidency in 2017, claimed 2,975 lives, making it the deadliest US storm of the 21st century. Axios reported.
Donald Trump is declining to sit on the armless swivel chair on the stage in Fayetteville, calling it “the most uncomfortable chair”.
“The one thing I don’t want is to fall on my ass, because that’s gong to be--that will be the only story,” Trump said. “I’m not sitting in that sucker,” he added. “I think it was a booby-trap. That was put there by Kamala.”
The crowd cheered.
Updated
In Fayetteville, Trump calls Harris “more left by far” than progressive US senator Elizabeth Warren, and “more left by far that crazy Bernie Sanders.”
“I know this will shock you, but that’s just not the case,” Bernie Sanders wrote in the Guardian this summer, in response to this Republican attack line.
At the Fayetteville town hall, an elderly veteran of the Vietnam war who sent Trump his Purple Heart, in tribute to Trump’s survival of the attempted assassination attack this summer in Butler, Pennsylvania, is on the stage asking the former president a question about how Trump will prevent homelessness among veterans, and also “kicking these illegal aliens out of the freakin’ hotels and providing them with money” while veterans remain homeless.
The question may be related to a story that circulated in rightwing media earlier this year, and which turned out to be false:
Updated
Trump takes stage in Fayetteville, home to Fort Liberty
“Should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?” Donald Trump asks the crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to the army base that was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023, as part of a Department of Defense effort to rename military bases that paid tribute to Confederate soldiers.
The crowd cheered in approval.
“We did win two world wars from Fort Bragg,” Trump adds. “This is no time to be changing names.”
The Associated Press notes: “The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for Gen Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key civil war battles that contributed to the Confederacy’s downfall.”
Updated
Axios is reporting that venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, of Andreessen Horowitz, has emailed his employees to inform them that he and his wife “will be making a significant donation to entities who support the Harris Walz campaign,” after going public with his support for Trump in July.
Horowitz reportedly wrote that “Felicia and I have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time” and said that their donations would be “a result of our friendship.”
NEW: Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz dumps Trump, plans "significant" donation to Kamala Harris https://t.co/DG0XwysaqX
— Dan Primack (@danprimack) October 4, 2024
The SF Standard previously reported that Horowitz’s public embrace of Trump this summer was seen as an “astonishing about-face” that left longtime friends and acquaintances “scratching their heads,” since the Bay Area couple had previously been longtime Democratic donors, and Felicia had been outspoken about challenges for trans people in US as the parent of a trans child. (Horowitz tweeted angrily about this particular article before it came out, denouncing it as a hit piece.)
Kamala Harris has just wrapped up a rally in Flint, Michigan, focused on her economic policies and support for the labor movement.
Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at 7pm EST, about a half hour from now. Fayetteville is known as an army town: it’s the home of Fort Liberty, the largest army base in the US by population.
“The election is here,” Harris says, noting that ballots are going out and that early voting in Michigan starts in late October.
Harris supporters are now chanting “USA! USA! USA!” as she talks about Democrats’ love for their country and the importance of patriotism.
Harris leads the Michigan crowd in chants of “We are not going back,” one of the signature rallying cries of the campaign, and then adds, “Ours is a fight for the future, and ours is a fight of freedom.” She pivots to abortion, saying that one of three women in the US now lives in a state with a “Trump abortion ban.”
As labor leaders rally support for Kamala Harris in front of a fired-up crowd in Michigan, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today on some behind-the-scenes “wariness” among some labor leaders about Harris’ brother-in-law, the chief legal officer at Uber, and reportedly a close adviser to Harris and her campaign.
Kamala Harris’s brother, Tony West, could become a liability, per the WSJhttps://t.co/irn8GzrXBT pic.twitter.com/KJm09A1M7Q
— Marcus Baram (@mbaram) October 4, 2024
Harris pledges to support 'good union jobs' at Flint rally
“I come from the middle class and I will never forget where I come from,” Harris tells the Flint crowd, pledging to support growth in cities like Flint and more “good union jobs,” including jobs “that do not require a college degree,” since a college degree is not the only measure of a worker’s skill or experience.
Harris added, as president, she will highlight which federal jobs do not require a college degree, and challenge the private sector to do the same.
Updated
Big cheers from the Michigan rally crowd as Harris references the “solid jobs report” that came out this morning, which showed the country added 254,000 jobs last month.
Updated
“We are the underdog,” Harris tells a cheering crowd in Flint, Michigan, warning that her supporters needed to keep campaigning hard until election day. “But there’s the thing about us: We like hard work. Hard work is good work,” she adds.
Kamala Harris speaks in Flint, Michigan
Kamala Harris has taken the stage at a rally in Flint, Michigan, to sustained cheers. She was introduced by Eric Price, the president of the local chapter of the United Auto Workers.
“We’ve got 32 days until the election,” she said. “32 days. 32 days.”
Updated
In Michigan, Magic Johnson urges Black men to vote for Kamala Harris
Speaking at a Harris campaign event in Flint, Michigan, the NBA legend described his longtime support for the vice president, and emphasized the importance of Black men voting for Harris, CNN reports:
Magic Johnson takes the stage here in Flint. He says it’s good to be back home.
— Eva McKend (@evamckend) October 4, 2024
“You’ve been working hard. We need to work harder.”
“There’s a lot of Black men in here…our Black men, we gotta get them out to vote,” he says. pic.twitter.com/d9YQangg5y
Trump wanted to deny wildfire aid to California because it's a Democratic state
2018 broke records as California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire season. More than 1.6m acres burned. 100 people died as the fires destroyed the rural down of Paradise and razed homes across the state.
But Donald Trump, who was president at the time, was reluctant to approve federal disaster aid for California, because he did not see it as a pro-Trump state, a former Trump aide told Politico’s E&E News on Wednesday.
The former aide, Mark Harvey, was a senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council, and has recently endorsed Kamala Harris.
Harvey told E&E News that Trump only changed his mind about providing federal relief to California after Harvey showed him voting results to demonstrated 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,” Harvey told the news outlet.
Both Joe Biden and California governor Gavin Newsom responded to the news article, with Newsom calling it “a glimpse into the future if we elect @realDonaldTrump.”
You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 3, 2024
It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it. https://t.co/FuPHwtlZuu
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
It’s worth noting that Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp held a joint press conference with Trump and is campaigning to help him win the state of Georgia, despite Trump pressuring him to change the 2020 election results in his state, and then publicly attacking him for years when Kemp refused, saying he needed to follow the law.
As recently as this August, Trump was trashing Kemp in public, saying “Kemp is very bad for the Republican party,” ranting about his failure to support Trump in the past, and also attacking Kemp’s wife, who had said publicly she was not going to vote for Trump.
At the time, Kemp pushed back on Trump, asking him to “leave my family out of it” and not engage “in petty personal insults.”
My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats - not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past.
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) August 3, 2024
You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it. pic.twitter.com/m8y6CSuZKY
But today, as Georgia has emerged as a key swing state and also a center of legal disputes over ballot-counting and election integrity, Kemp is showing up to help Trump win.
Updated
Trump and Republican Georgia governor Brian Kemp held a very short joint press conference after surveying the damage left in Georgia by Hurricane Helene.
It was the first joint event Trump and Kemp have held together since 2020, amid very public tensions between the two politicians.
Former President Trump spoke at a Helene recovery presser with Gov. Brian Kemp in GA.
— stephen fowler (@stphnfwlr) October 4, 2024
Trump's prepared speech stuck to storm focus, but answers to shouted q's after turned political, attacking Biden storm response/migrants and talking poll numbers.https://t.co/KiwtcQQgNh pic.twitter.com/8b2VIwyDE8
Updated
This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live US politics coverage from Los Angeles.
The National Rifle Association announced today that they will be holding a pro-gun rally in Savannah, Georgia, ahead of the 2024 election.
🚨NEW:
— NRA (@NRA) October 4, 2024
Join us October 22 in Savannah, Georgia, as we underscore the importance of our Second Amendment rights and the stakes in the 2024 elections.
President @realDonaldTrump will deliver remarks as the special guest keynote speaker at NRA’s Defend the 2nd event.
Full event… pic.twitter.com/3vDg0ijgHJ
Donald Trump will be the keynote speaker at the event, which will also feature officials from the gun rights group. A major backer of Trump in his 2016 run for president, the NRA has struggled in recent years with legal battles and internal scandals, which led to the resignation of its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, this January.
Busy day so far...
Here’s what Friday looked like:
President Joe Biden popped into the White House press briefing today. When asked about the November election, he said he was “confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful,” given Trump’s rhetoric.
Biden also debunked claims from Marco Rubio that the positive jobs report was fake, saying “anything that Maga Republicans don’t like they call fake.” The September jobs report was unexpectedly strong, defying fears of an economic slowdown. The country added 254,000 jobs last month.
JD Vance spoke in Georgia this afternoon, telling undocumented immigrants “you’ve got four months, pack your bags, because you’re going home.” He also dodged a reporter’s question on whether the 2020 election was “rigged.”
Kamala Harris is in Michigan, where she first rallied in Detroit and called Donald Trump a “union buster” while praising collective bargaining for its benefits to workers.
Donald Trump announced that his return to Butler, Pennsylvania, tomorrow to rally after the assassination attempt there will include the family of the man killed by the gunman, as well as a host of other rally attendees, first responders and elected officials.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman, wrote an X post that alleged some unnamed entity was controlling the weather. “Yes they can control the weather,” she said in a post. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” No word on who “they” refers to.
Latino voter registration groups told the New York Times they are being followed by conservative activists who film them and hurl accusations about noncitizen voting.
Groups like Poder Latinx, in Phoenix, say their members are increasingly confronted while registering voters outside places like motor vehicle departments.
“Some said they were increasingly concerned about safety and intimidation,” the New York Times reports. “Some tell canvassers to scrub their public social media profiles and avoid posting photos showing their location in real time. These days, many canvassers go out bracing for an argument about stolen elections.”
The tense environment comes as Republicans continue to spread unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are voting in US elections in high numbers, one way Trump and his allies will try to undermine election results if he loses in November.
Has Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan, endorsed Trump, as Trump claimed on Truth Social? That would be news to Dimon.
“Jamie Dimon has not endorsed anyone. He has not endorsed a candidate,” Dimon spokesman Joe Evangelisti told CNBC.
Trump still has the post claiming Dimon’s endorsement up on Truth Social, posted an hour ago, though Trump apparently told NBC News he didn’t know about the post and hadn’t posted it himself.
Updated
A stricter voter ID law that went into effect last year will likely cause thousands of Ohio voters’ ballots to be rejected, Cleveland.com is reporting.
The rate of rejected provisional ballots has increased substantially in the state because of the law, the local outlet said. In the decade before the new ID law, about 0.6% of these ballots were rejected because of identification - but that rate increased to 8.2% in the elections held since the law was approved in 2023.
Even the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Thomas Hall, said he believes the large increase is a concern.
“I do think that this is a problem,” he told the outlet. “I don’t want people not to be able to vote because of the bill.”
Joe Biden reacted at the White House press briefing to a question about US senator Marco Rubio’s social media comments earlier that the latest jobs figures, which were good news for the US president, are fake.
Rubio, a Florida Republican and prior candidate for president, said on X: “Another fake jobs report out from Biden-Harris government today.”
Another fake jobs report out from Biden-Harris government today
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 4, 2024
16 of the last 17 reports have been significantly revised downwards after media helps them with their fake headlines
But all the fake numbers in the world aren’t going to fool people dealing with the Biden-Harris…
Biden said: “Anything that Maga Republicans don’t like, they call fake. The jobs numbers are the jobs numbers and they are real.”
He was referring to the Make America Great Again (Maga) slogan of Donald Trump and his hard right acolytes, such as Rubio.
American employers added 254,000 jobs last month in the penultimate jobs report before the US election, defying fears of a slowdown in the labor market.
Job creation unexpectedly accelerated in September, while the headline unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in August.
Updated
At a donor event in August, Donald Trump delivered an apocalyptic message about a possible Kamala Harris presidency and spoke in obscene terms about immigrants. The Guardian’s David Smith reports:
Donald Trump unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade about undocumented immigrants and predicted that this “could be the last election we ever have” if Kamala Harris wins during a private fundraising dinner this summer.
The Guardian obtained a 12-minute recording of a speech that the Republican presidential nominee gave at a dinner on 10 August in Aspen, Colorado, where attendees were required to donate anywhere from $25,000 to $500,000 a couple.
Trump devoted most of his address to border security and immigration, recycling xenophobic claims now familiar from his rallies. “Radical leftwing lunatics” want people to come in from prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums, he asserted without evidence, adding that the US was harbouring “a record number of terrorists”.
Biden not confident US elections will be peaceful and finds Trump's comments 'dangerous'
Joe Biden said he is confident that November’s election will be free and fair but added: “I don’t know if it will be peaceful” – essentially because of the possible threat of violence from extremist Republicans.
The US president made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room moments ago and took press questions.
He was asked if he had confidence that it will be a free and fair election and that it will be peaceful.
Biden said: “Two separate questions. I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful, the things that [Donald] Trump has said and the things that he said last time when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous.”
Q: "Do you have confidence that it will be a free and fair election and that it will be peaceful?"
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 4, 2024
President Biden: "I'm confident it will be free and fair. I don't know whether it will be peaceful. The things that Trump has said...were very dangerous." pic.twitter.com/HrhpaooEHe
Trump said at a rally in Michigan this week: “We did great in 2016 and a lot of people don’t know that we did a lot better in 2020. We won. We won. It was a rigged election. That is why I am doing it again. If I thought I lost I would not be doing this again.”
When asked if he will accept the results of the forthcoming election he hedges, saying he will “if” this or that. Experts called the 2020 election the most secure in US history and then-attorney general William Barr said there was no fraud that would have changed the result from a Biden victory.
Updated
Kamala Harris hails unions and blasts Trump as 'union buster' in campaign speech in Detroit
Kamala Harris is speaking at a rally in Detroit, Michigan, where she is vying for support from working-class voters and union members, who have long formed a base of Democratic party support. During her speech, she gave a shout-out to the United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and told the audience that “collective bargaining benefits everybody”.
Although unions overwhelmingly favor Harris, the Teamsters union and the International Association of Firefighters both declined to endorse in this election – a snub for Harris.
During her speech, Harris blasted Trump for supporting right-to-work laws and for his administration’s anti-labor policies during his first term.
“This is a man who has been a union buster his entire career,” said Harris. “As president, he did not lift a finger to save the pensions of millions of American workers.”
Updated
New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, is resisting calls to step down after bring
hit with federal bribery charges, and senior New York Democrats are
standing by him, but a new poll shows that the public may not be so
forgiving.
A Marist poll released on Friday shows that 69% of New York City residents,
including 71% of Democrats, think Adams should resign. If he does not,
63% of residents say New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, should begin the
process of removing Adams from his position, and 65% of residents in
New York City, including 68% of Democrats, think he did something
illegal.
Adams, the first sitting New York mayor to be charged with federal
crimes, is accused of accepting illegal donations and perks from a
Turkish government official and Turkish businesspeople, and providing
favorable treatment in return. Adams has pleased not guilty.
New York federal prosecutors have said it is “possible” he could be
hit with more charges and it is “likely” additional defendants will be
charged.
Alex Spiro, the mayor’s private attorney, has said the threat of new
charges is because prosecutors “are suddenly facing dismissal of their
actual, flawed case and sanctions for misconduct”.
“This is the sort of nonsense that prosecutors say when they don’t have a real
case. If they had a real case, they would have brought it,” he added.
Updated
JD Vance dodged a reporter’s question about whether or not he thought the 2020 election was “rigged”, first telling the reporter “bless your heart”, and then adding that he was “focused on the future”. He added that he believed a story about Hunter Biden’s business dealings abroad could have affected the election results and claimed that “big tech companies censored that story”.
Vance has largely avoided addressing questions about Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and he has said he would have supported slates of false electors had he been vice-president in 2020.
Updated
Vance tells immigrants: 'You have four months, pack your bags, you're going home'
During a rally in Lindale, Georgia, JD Vance struck an angry tone on immigration, telling undocumented immigrants: “You’ve got four months, pack your bags, because you’re going home.”
According to a 2024 Pew Research report, about 11 million US residents in 2022 were undocumented immigrants. Donald Trump has vowed to implement mass deportations if elected, a draconian policy that experts have called “inhumane” and immigrant advocates worry would further marginalize Latino communities in the US.
Updated
JD Vance is in Lindale, Georgia, as he and Donald Trump swing through the southern state. He was joined by his wife, Usha Vance.
Vance gave a shoutout to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was in attendance and noted how the Republican representative from Georgia was one of his first endorsements in his run for Senate. Greene made news earlier in the day for suggesting an unnamed “they” could control the weather, posted in as misinformation swirls about Hurricane Helene.
The site for the event was once a mill, which Vance used as a device in his speech to talk about offshoring of American jobs. “What happened to American manufacturing was a literal horror,” he said, adding that the Trump presidency represents a return to US manufacturing.
Harris “stabbed working people in the back” while in office, Vance claimed, and ran through a list of economic dings against the vice-president. “Kamala Harris, you’re fired, go back to San Francisco where you belong,” he said.
Updated
Midday summary...
Here’s what’s happened so far today:
Kamala Harris will campaign this afternoon in Michigan, starting in Detroit and then going to Flint, as she swings through the swing state. The United Auto Workers put out a statement attacking Trump ahead of Harris’s visit.
Donald Trump announced that his return to Butler, Pennsylvania, tomorrow to rally after the assassination attempt there will include the family of the man killed by the gunman, as well as a host of other rally attendees, first responders and elected officials.
In other Trump news: he is mad that Harris keeps bringing up Project 2025, people leave his rallies because they are long and they have things to do, and that the Oklahoma superintendent wants to put bibles in schools – potentially the Trump-endorsed bibles.
The September jobs report was unexpectedly strong, defying fears of an economic slowdown. The country added 254,000 jobs last month.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman, wrote an X post that alleged some unnamed entity was controlling the weather. “Yes they can control the weather,” she said in a post. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” No word on who “they” refers to.
The dock workers strike is over, for now, which is welcome news to the Biden administration.
The former president Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail for Harris starting next week.
Updated
People leave Trump rallies early in droves for various reasons, exacerbated by the fact the Trump often starts speaking late and speaks longer than people can pay attention to, the Washington Post found.
The Post talked to people at rallies across the country to see why they were taking off while Trump was still talking. Many of them wait in line for hours, then wait for even longer as Trump is delayed, then have personal obligations or are simply over it.
“Some said they wanted to beat traffic or had work the next day,” the Post reported. “Others complained about sound quality. One man wanted to go home to his French bulldog. Another needed to get home to his daughter. A third had a Yorkie with him that started acting out. A fourth man said his phone died.”
That some Trump rally attendees leave early has been a sore spot for the former president. The contention that people are leaving while he’s speaking came up during the presidential debate, with Kamala Harris saying people leave early because of “exhaustion and boredom”.
One voter said she was undecided until she attended a Trump rally alongside her aunt, a Harris supporter, seemingly following Harris’s entreaty during the debate for people to attend or watch a Trump rally to see what he was all about.
Anastasia Bennett, 22, attended a Las Vegas rally, where Trump showed up late. “It was the insults and just being an hour late,” she said, adding that she would be voting for Harris.
Updated
The Oklahoma state superintendent wants to put Bibles in schools – and those Bibles could end up being the Trump-branded variety.
Ryan Walters has gained national attention for several moves he’s made in office and comments on the role of religion in schools. The Bibles-in-schools effort comes amid a rise in Christian nationalism and as books are banned by some school boards in red-leaning areas around the country.
The state would need 55,000 Bibles, so a public bid was put out to detail the kind of Bible it is looking for, with specifics for what version of the Bible and that it contains US founding documents like the pledge of allegiance and Bill of Rights.
Reporters at Oklahoma Watch found that one Bible seems to fit the bill: the God Bless the USA Bible, which is endorsed by Trump. Trump gets money for purchases of this Bible, which costs $60 a pop. Another Bible, the $90 We the People Bible, could meet the parameters and also is endorsed by Trump.
Updated
On Truth Social this morning, Donald Trump is hitting out at Kamala Harris for making Project 2025, the conservative manifesto, a theme of her campaign. The project, fronted by the Heritage Foundation, has been a drag on Trump, despite its goal of institutionalizing Trumpism.
Trump called Harris “Lyin’ Kamala” and said she continues to try to tie him to the project. “Lyin’ Kamala has been informed, legally, that I have, and had, nothing to do with it, NEVER READ IT, NEVER SAW IT, but her ads continue, full blast.”
It’s unclear what Trump means by Harris being “informed, legally” on this claim. Trump himself did not write or, more than likely, read the 900-plus page document, but his allies and former officials from his first administration are all over it. Its policy ideas also in many instances align with Trump’s.
Democrats have seized on the negative impression of the project, putting it in billboards and ads around the country to warn voters of the danger a second Trump term poses.
The United Automobile Workers, which endorsed Kamala Harris, put out a statement today saying Donald Trump and JD Vance are “invading Michigan and threatening” a $500m federal grant promised by the Biden administration to convert a General Motors plant into a site to make electric vehicles.
Vance, in Michigan yesterday for campaign stops, wouldn’t commit to fulfilling the grant, the Detroit News reported.
“The bottom line is that Donald Trump and JD Vance are a menace to the working class and are openly threatening to double down on Trump’s legacy of job destruction,” the UAW said.
Updated
Guardian readers gave us their thoughts on Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, casting JD Vance as a “slick talker” and Tim Walz as “sincere”.
One supporter of the Harris-Walz ticket said Walz was “polite and sometimes to a fault”, refusing to jump in with outrage at Vance’s comments and instead sticking to his accomplishments as Minnesota governor and the Harris campaign’s talking points.
In general, voters said the debate was more civil and policy-focused than they were used to, including from presidential candidates.
Updated
Harris to campaign in Michigan
Kamala Harris will campaign in Michigan today, appearing first in Detroit and then in Flint. Her remarks in Detroit are scheduled to begin at 1.50pm ET.
Harris was last in Michigan, a vital swing state, on 19 September for a streamed event with Oprah Winfrey.
The mayor of Flint, Sheldon A Neeley, wrote an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press endorsing Harris today, saying: “I urge all of you to listen to her message, hear her vision and consider what she can do for you and for America.”
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Trump to be joined by family of firefighter killed in rally shooting when he returns to Butler
Donald Trump will return tomorrow to the Pennsylvania town where a gunman tried to assassinate him this summer, bringing with him a host of elected officials and the family of a man who was killed by the gunman.
The Trump campaign released a list of attendees for Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “on the very same ground where he took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.
The wife, daughters and sisters of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed that day, will be in attendance, as will various people who attended the first rally or served as first responders.
JD Vance, the vice-presidential nominee, and Elon Musk, the owner of X, will also be there, as will be numerous congressmen, local elected officials, sheriffs and Republican party officials.
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Two groups, the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund and the House Majority Pac, have launched a $10m paid media campaign aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next month.
Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House, and Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to take back control of the chamber.
One of the new ads accuses Brandon Williams, a New York Republican representative facing a tough re-election race after the state’s redistricting process, of being “dangerously wrong on abortion”.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, framed the ad buy as a necessary investment to ensure a “gun sense majority” in the House.
“We know a majority of voters across the country support common sense gun safety laws, but in order to keep making progress in Washington we need to flip the House to a gun sense majority,” Feinblatt said.
“We’re proud to partner with House Majority Pac to ensure voters in key districts know which candidates will fight hard to keep schools, law enforcement and our communities safe from gun violence – and which candidates are putting them at risk by standing in the way.”
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Joe Biden celebrated the latest jobs report as a positive sign for the direction of the US economy, even as he implored Congress to do more to help American families struggling to get by.
“With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” Biden said in a statement. “Under my administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new businesses have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling.”
The jobs report comes as a majority of Americans (61%) believe inflation is increasing despite actually falling significantly from its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, a recent Harris-Guardian poll found.
“Make no mistake: we have more to do to lower costs and expand opportunity,” Biden said. “Congress should pass our plan to build millions of new homes, expand prescription drug price caps, empower workers and protect the right to organize, and cut taxes for hardworking families.”
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US adds more than 250,000 jobs in September, defying fears of slowdown
The latest US jobs report showed the country added 254,000 jobs last month, defying fears of a hiring slowdown, the Guardian’s Callum Jones reports:
Job creation unexpectedly accelerated in September, while the headline unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in August.
Economists had expected a non-farm payrolls reading of just 132,500 for September, after a cooler summer of employment growth.
Hiring instead rose sharply from recent months. In August employers added 159,000 jobs, and in July they added 144,000.
Both estimates for July and August were revised higher by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday – adding 72,000 more jobs than previously reported – highlighting the strength of the labor market.
As November’s presidential election edges closer, the US economy is a key issue for voters. Earlier this week, a Harris Poll for the Guardian found that Kamala Harris’s economic policies proved more popular than those put forward by Donald Trump in a blind test.
The poll nevertheless highlighted economic pessimism on both sides of the aisle, with almost half of respondents wrongly stating that the US was in recession.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
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The Arizona Teamsters endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential race, joining more than 20 other local Teamsters units that have backed the Democrat after the union’s international arm declined to issue an endorsement last month.
Harris won unanimous support from the Arizona Teamsters’ executive board, the group said in a statement.
“This November the stakes are high,” the group said. “We need strong leadership that will support labor and ensure we keep our seat at the table. We will continue to hold our elected officials accountable, protecting Teamster members and their families.”
The news comes one day after another major union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, announced it would refrain from issuing an endorsement in the presidential race. The IAFF executive board voted, by a margin of 1.2%, against endorsing a candidate, the group said.
The snub from the IAFF was noteworthy given that the union was one of the first major groups to back Joe Biden’s presidential bid back in 2020.
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Jeffries says embattled NYC mayor Adams should not resign
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries does not believe that the New York mayor, Eric Adams, should resign from his post, despite the city leader’s recent indictment on bribery and fraud charges.
“My view is that Mayor Adams, like every other New Yorker and every other American, is entitled to the presumption of innocence and entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers who will ultimately determine his fate within the legal system,” Jeffries told NBC News last night.
“At the same time, it’s important for Mayor Adams to articulate to New Yorkers in a compelling way a plan and a path forward to ensure that the city is continuing to function and run in a manner that meets the needs of everyday New Yorkers and in a manner that New York City, which we believe is the greatest city in the world, deserves.”
A number of prominent New York Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Adams to resign given the charges against him, but the mayor has refused to do so.
“This is a great moment to step up and show all New Yorkers, who are going through complexities in their lives, how you remained focused on your agenda and that’s what I’m going to do,” Adams said on Sunday after a visit to a church in the Bronx.
He added: “I’m going to step up. I’m not going to resign – I’m going to reign.”
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As Republicans try to expand their narrow majority in the House next month, the Cook Political Report has moved five midwestern races in Democrats’ direction.
According to Cook’s Erin Covey, two of Iowa’s Republican-held House seats, in the state’s first and third congressional districts, are now considered “toss-ups”. Before today, Cook gave the districts’ Republican incumbents, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, an advantage in their races.
“[Nunn’s] district is dominated by Des Moines and its expanding suburbs (Dallas County, outside of Des Moines, is the fastest growing county in the state), and is home to a growing number of white college-educated voters who’ve continued to move away from the GOP. Private polling conducted by both parties over the past month now shows [Kamala] Harris carrying this district,” Covey writes.
“It took Miller-Meeks four attempts to finally win [her] southeastern Iowa district, scraping by with a six-vote win in 2020. But though she won reelection in Iowa’s 1st District by a decent seven-point margin over Democrat Christina Bohannan in 2022, it looks like she’s in much more jeopardy against Bohannan this year.”
Covey also moved one House seat in Illinois and another in Indiana from “Lean Democrat” to “Likely Democrat”. Meanwhile, Republican congressman Ryan Zinke might be facing some trouble in Montana’s first district, where the race is now rated “Lean Republican” instead of “Likely Republican”.
“Monica Tranel, an environmental lawyer and former Olympic rower, came surprisingly close to defeating Zinke last cycle,” Covey writes. “Though Trump carried it by seven points in 2020, Zinke only beat Tranel by three points after barely getting through the Republican primary.”
House Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to retake the majority, which would almost certainly elevate the chamber’s current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, to the speakership.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene says 'they' control weather as Helene death toll reaches 125
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right congresswoman of Georgia, is once again facing criticism for peddling a baseless – and just plan bizarre – claim about the weather.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The eyebrow-raising comment came as the death toll from Hurricane Helene rose to 215, after the storm tore through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee last week. Greene had previously shared a map of the hurricane’s devastation overlaid with an electoral map to seemingly draw a (very questionable) connection between the two.
Hakeem Jeffries should be the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Enjoy your weekend campaigning everybody. https://t.co/5NqVhCIy27
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) October 4, 2024
Greene did not specify who “they” were in her tweet, but she has a controversial history when it comes to weather claims. In 2018, Greene suggested California wildfires were caused by a laser beam from space that was connected to the Rothschild family, which has frequently been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat of Hawaii, said of Greene’s tweet: “[House Democratic leader] Hakeem Jeffries should be the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Enjoy your weekend campaigning everybody.”
For context, Republicans are trying to hold onto a narrow majority in the House this November.
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Biden and Harris welcome end to port strike
Joe Biden welcomed the tentative deal to end the east coast port strike and called it a “critical” step towards a “strong contract” for dock workers who had kept US ports open and supply chains running during the Covid pandemic.
In a statement released by the White House, the president said:
I want to applaud the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports.
Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract. I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic. And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table.
I want to thank the union workers, the carriers, and the port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding. Collective bargaining works, and it is critical to building a stronger economy from the middle out and the bottom up.
Kamala Harris released a statement, saying she wants “to applaud all involved for their efforts”.
The vice-president added that this “represents the power of collective bargaining. As I have said, this is about fairness – and our economy works best when workers share in record profits. Dockworkers deserve a fair share for their hard work getting essential goods out to communities across America.”
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Dock workers' deal to end strike heads off misery for US economy
Dock workers announced late on Thursday that they had agreed a deal with port operators to end a three-day strike that threatened to cause crippling disruption to supply chains.
In welcome news for the Harris-Walz campaign, the International Longshoremen’s Association announced that the union agreed to a tentative deal with the United States Maritime Alliance on wages and will extend the contract through January 2025. Work would resume immediately, the union said.
The tentative agreement is for a wage hike of around 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 in January.
The strike had threatened to disrupt trade just weeks ahead of the election – and at a time when Democrats need good news on the economy.
As the Guardian’s David Smith wrote earlier this week, the first dockworkers’ strike since 1977 could have snarled supply chains and caused shortages and higher prices if it had stretched on for more than a few weeks. That would have been a political gift to Trump, whose polling lead on the economy has been eroded by Harris. Both are vying for trade union support.
Before the strike deal was announced, Trump tried to make hay of the stoppage, claiming at a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, that there would be no strikes if he is re-elected president.
An executive representing ports where tens of thousands of workers went on strike this week made a series of critical and crude remarks about Joe Biden, tied Kamala Harris to concerns about over-taxation, and appeared to endorse a rightwing conspiracy theory.
David Adam, chairman and chief executive of the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), attacked prominent Democrats in a string of social media posts uncovered by the Guardian.
A month ago, when a LinkedIn user suggested that “everything Biden has touched in the past is turning to shit!”, Adam replied: “The runny kind … ”
It was part of a discussion about how Biden’s student-debt relief plan was being held up in the courts. In another comment on the thread, Adam wrote: “If ya can’t get an American Democrat to pay what they borrrowed [sic], how you gonna get a California illegal immigrant to pay back their $150K loan the CA Dems are offering?”
Just a few weeks ago, Adam commented on a meme that claimed the US has a 48% fuel tax, which was debunked in 2022 by Politifact, when the same post was shared in Canada with the same claim.
He seemed to suggest responsibility lay with the Biden administration and Harris, however, writing: “Someone ask Kamala to explain why this is such and is she gonna fix it?!”
USMX did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Adam’s posts.
Republican former election clerk jailed for nine years of voter meddling in Colorado
A local elections official who became a hero to election deniers was sentenced to nine years in prison on Thursday for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome.
Tina Peters allowed a man affiliated with the pillow salesman and election-lie trafficker Mike Lindell to misuse a security card to access the Mesa county election system.
Jurors found Peters guilty in August, convicting her of seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges.
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 the ANWR to oil drillers but failed to attract many bidders.
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In a final push to engage Muslim voters ahead of the election, Tim Walz joined Muslim advocacy group Emgage Action’s Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward summit the day after the vice-presidential debate.
The Guardian’s Melissa Hellman reported from the event:
“As-salaam alaikum (peace be unto you) everyone and good evening,” the vice-presidential candidate greeted Muslim voters in Arabic during a virtual event Thursday evening.
“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.
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Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, saying Donald Trump is “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime”.
The US rock legend appealed to Americans to reject Trump’s chaos and vote for Harris, saying the country needs “women and men with the national good guiding their hearts”.
In a video message, Springsteen said “not since the civil war has this country felt as emotionally and spiritually divided”, adding “it doesn’t have to be this way”.
He also excoriated Trump’s “disdain for the sanctity” of the US constitution, democracy, rule of law and peaceful handover of power that “should disqualify him”.
Springsteen said: “He doesn’t understand the meaning of this country, its history and what it means to be deeply American.”
Bruce Springsteen endorsed Vice President Harris, calling Donald Trump “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime.”
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 3, 2024
pic.twitter.com/NVpEtHUuN6
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On Thursday evening, Kamala Harris enlisted the help of Republican former senator Liz Cheney for a campaign event in Wisconsin. The pair focused their speeches on Trump’s 2020 election lie.
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports this from the event:
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.
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.”
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.”
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Barack Obama to hit campaign trail for Kamala Harris in effort to woo swing-state voters
Good morning US politics readers.
Former US president Barack Obama will crisscross the battleground states for Kamala Harris, with a kickoff in all-important Pennsylvania next week.
According to a senior Harris campaign official, Obama will hold his first event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next Thursday, the beginning of blitz across the handful of rust belt and Sun belt states that will likely decide the 2024 election.
Obama remains one of the Democrats’ most powerful surrogates, second perhaps only to his wife, Michelle Obama. His return to the campaign trail follows a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, where he cast Harris as a forward-looking figure and a natural heir to his diverse, youth-powered political coalition. Harris was one of Obama’s earliest supporters of what seemed like a long-shot presidential bid against Hillary Clinton. She knocked doors for him ahead of the Iowa caucuses in 2008. More than 15 years later, he will return the favor.
With just 32 days away to the election, here’s what else is happening today:
Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Flint, Michigan, this evening – one of the swing states critical to her winning the presidency. Her event comes a day after Donald Trump promised to make Michigan the “car capital of the world again”.
Trump and Georgia governor Brian Kemp will visit Evans, Georgia, to receive a briefing on the devastation of Hurricane Helene. They’ll give a press conference at 3.45pm ET.
JD Vance is in Lindale, Georgia, and will deliver remarks at 1 pm.
Trump hosts a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at 7 pm.
