Closing summary
This blog is closed – thanks for following along. Here is a summary of today’s key developments:
Donald Trump delivered a speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he repeated similar remarks to his rally on Saturday, calling Kamala Harris “mentally impaired”. He also reinstated his anti-immigrant proposals and his support for fracking in the state of Pennsylvania.
Larry Hogan, a Republican Senate candidate in Maryland, criticized Trump’s recent remarks calling Harris “mentally impaired” during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. Also, Republican senator Lindsey Graham said that he did not think Harris was mentally impaired during an interview with CNN.
Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona who recently left his position as US ambassador to Turkey, announced his endorsement of Harris for president.
Although Kamala Harris has a lead over Donald Trump among Latino voters, Democrats’ advantage over Republicans with Latinos is lower than it was in the past four presidential races, according to an NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll released Sunday.
The rules are set for the vice presidential candidates Ohio Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as they prepare to take the debate stage on Tuesday.
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Kamala Harris is slated to rally in Las Vegas at 10.30pm ET tonight. The rally is part of Harris’s latest western swing, which included the visit to the border wall in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday.
Read coverage of the rally here:
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Kamala Harris’s campaign is trying to reel in younger voters by painting Donald Trump’s tariff-centric economic plan as a threat to tequila.
The Harris campaign recently launched “Trump’s Tequila Tax”, a social media campaign aimed at linking the former president’s proposed 10-to-20% universal tariff plan on all imported goods.
One Instagram video captioned “pov: you’re buying tequila” shows Trump pointing at the camera filmer with the words “20% tax” popping up.
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Kamala Harris is presenting herself as a change agent who will “turn the page” and offer “a new way forward”, a move far from embracing her role in Biden’s White House.
Inflation has been tamed. Illegal immigration has stabalized. Violent crime is down. In theory it is a perfect recipe for electoral success. Yet it is a gift that the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, seems reluctant to accept.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “A new way? She’s been part of a very successful administration and she was chosen by Joe Biden as VP and then essentially chosen to be his successor.
“But she has to pretend that she’s going to be forging a new path because she can’t afford to be too closely associated with Biden. I know one person on the inner campaign staff who cringes every time Harris and Biden have to appear together because the visual reinforces the tie they don’t want people to make. It’s nonsensical.”
Harris, as the incumbent vice-president, will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the Republican president George HW Bush’s fate in 1992. Economic indicators improved over the spring and summer but too late to save him from defeat by Bill Clinton, whose lead strategist, James Carville, memorably summed up: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington DC, said: “When it comes to the economy people believe their own eyes and they will make their judgments on that basis. This is a lesson I have learned in the six presidential campaigns I’ve wandered in and out of: if you have statistics on the one hand and personal experience on the other, it’s no contest.”
More on Harris distancing herself from Biden’s record:
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Donald Trump is slated to visit Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, and receive a briefing on the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and “facilitate the distribution of relief supplies”, his campaign announced.
The former president is expected to deliver his remarks at 2pm ET.
During a speech in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Trump sent his condolences to the families affected by Helene, which killed at least 64 people.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr will participate in a “Make America Healthy Again” event with Dr Phil McGraw in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Trump’s campaign announced.
Kennedy, who was staging an independent bid for the presidency, endorsed the former president after dropping out of the race in August.
Kennedy has hopes of influencing federal health policy under a possible Trump administration. The former third-party candidate has questioned the safety of vaccinating children and promoted theories that suggest HIV is not the true cause of AIDS.
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Joseph Costello, a Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson, reacted to Donald Trump’s speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, picking on the former president’s comments about overtime pay.
“As president, Trump took executive action to rip away overtime pay for *millions* of workers, including nearly 5 million workers without a college degree,” Costello said on Twitter/X.
Costello attached a link to a paper by the Economic Policy Institute titled: More than eight million workers will be left behind by the Trump overtime proposal.
As president, Trump took executive action to rip away overtime pay for *millions* of workers, including nearly 5 million workers without a college degree.https://t.co/H1MhdFb8Fm https://t.co/ofuFIaSJqg
— Joseph Costello (@costellojoseph_) September 29, 2024
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Donald Trump wrapped up his speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, by summing up his proposals as a presidential candidate, pledging to end crime allegedly by migrants, strengthen the military, and “keep critical race theory and transgender insanity out of our schools”.
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Trump repeats plan to close education department if he’s elected
Donald Trump repeated his plan to close the Department of Education if he’s elected as president in November.
“Let the states run their own education,” he said.
“We spend more money per pupil than any other nation in the world, by far, and yet we’re ranked at the bottom of every list,” Trump said. “So you know the expression: what the hell do you have to lose? Right?”
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Donald Trump claimed Butler, Pennsylvania, has become a tourist site after his attempted assassination in July.
“Cars are riding by. They’re taking pictures. It’s become an amazing tourist site,”he said.
Trump announced that the event in Butler will honor the firefighter who was shot and killed at the rally in July, Corey Comperator.
Trump to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, site of July attempted assassination
During his speech, Donald Trump confirmed he will return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the attempted assassination attempt in July. His visit is scheduled for 5 October.
“We have a lot of people coming, and I really believe that will be the safest place on Earth,” said the former president.
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Donald Trump brought US Senate candidate David McCormick of Pennsylvania to the stage. McCormick, ex-CEO of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is trying to unseat Democratic Senator Bob Casey, who is seeking his fourth term.
“It’s a race between strength, a guy who says ‘fight’, and weakness,” McCormick said. “We need to bring law and order to secure that border and stop these illegal immigrants coming in and bringing crime and fentanyl into Pennsylvania.”
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Donald Trump reaffirmed his stance that workers’ tips should not be taxed.
He was the first candidate to endorse this proposal during a rally in June. Months later, Kamala Harris also expressed support for the plan, prompting the former president to label her “Copy Cat Kamala” at other rallies.
“We will have no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security benefits for seniors,” Trump said on Sunday.
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“When I win, we will get Pennsylvania energy workers, fracking, drilling, pumping and producing like they have never produced before,” Donald Trump said.
“Kamala vowed to repeatedly ban fracking, and she imposed a natural gas export ban that was a killer, that is starving a state right now of your wealth and wealth that you deserve right now,” Trump said.
Trump criticized Harris’s support for expanding access and manufacturing of electric vehicles in the US.
“Her insane electric vehicle mandate will decimate Pennsylvania’s economy by abolishing gas-powered cars and trucks for American roads and destroying your fossil fuel industry,” he said. “And there are very few states that benefit like you do from fracking.”
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Donald Trump quoted the lyrics of a song supposedly warning against immigration during his speech in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Trump read the lyrics of The Snake, which was written by civil rights activist Oscar Brown in 1963. The song was later a hit for soul singer Al Wilson five years later.
In Trump’s interpretation, it serves as a cautionary tale about the alleged danger posed by immigrants. The former president recounted the allegorical tale of a woman who foolishly embraces a dangerous serpent.
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Trump once again calls Harris 'mentally impaired' in speech
The former president once again called Kamala Harris “mentally impaired” during his speech in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired,” Trump said, adding that Harris “was born that way”.
“There’s something wrong with Kamala, and I just don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing. And you know what? Everybody knows it,” Trump said.
He later played an ad against the vice-president, composed of a compilation of her comments regarding immigration.
“Honestly, we could give you clips like that all day long. This is not your president. This president would destroy our country, worse than Biden. He’s the worst president in history,” the former president said.
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Donald Trump continued his anti-immigrant comments by claiming the crime rate has risen because of migrants, blaming them for theft at department stores.
“We have to let the police do their job, and if they have to be extraordinarily rough …” Trump said.
“The police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told, if you do anything, you’re gonna lose your pension. You’re gonna lose your family, your house, your car,” Trump added. “They’re not allowed to do it because the liberal left won’t let them do it.”
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Donald Trump called Kamala Harris “a radical left lunatic”. He criticized her speech on Friday focused on immigration and her policies on the southern border, as well as her background as a prosecutor in California.
“She actually had a terrible record as a prosecutor,” he said. “She destroyed San Francisco, but what she’s done is a total disqualifier. She should be disqualified. She should resign the vice-presidency and go home to California.”
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Donald Trump said he cannot use the word “Marxist” to attack Kamala Harris because “nobody knows what that is.”
“Most people said: ‘What’s a Marxist? Is that a good thing or bad?’” Trump said.
“I have to use the word communist,” he added.
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Trump attacked Kamla Harris for her previous position on a fracking ban. Now, the vice-president says that she will not attempt to ban fracking if elected president.
He shifted to her policies on the southern border, making anti-immigrant claims by once again calling newly arrived migrants from central America “stone-cold killers”.
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“Erie County was known as a Democrat area until Trump came along,” Trump said, referring to himself in the third person.
“Our entire nation is counting on the people of the Commonwealth, and I know you will not let us down,” Trump said. “You’re not going to let us down. We’re going to have a tremendous vote. We’re leading by a lot in Pennsylvania.”
Donald Trump referenced the Alabama-Georgia college football game he attended on Saturday, saying the crowd went “stone-cold crazy” when he walked in.
Before he attended the game, the former president held a rally in Wisconsin’s Prairie du Chien Area Arts Center.
“The administration would not let us have 50,000, maybe more people,” he said.
“We were going to do an outdoor rally, and we ended up having to do it inside,” Trump said. “They said they couldn’t get us enough people because they were guarding the United Nations.”
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Trump begins speaking in Erie, Pennsylvania
Donald Trump began his remarks in Erie, Pennsylvania.
He sent his condolences to the families in the south-eastern part of the US, still feeling the brutal effects of Hurricane Helene.
“It’s been absolutely devastating,” he said. Trump added that the hurricane “hit a lot harder than anyone even thought possible”.
He later criticized Joe Biden for “sleeping right now in one of his many estates”.
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Former president Donald Trump is running late, per usual, for his scheduled remarks in Erie, Pennsylvania.
His rally comes about a month after Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Senator JD Vance, held his event in the lakeside city.
Campaign advisers are naming Pennsylvania as the most important battleground state ahead of the elections in November. Pennsylvania is the most populous battleground state and awards the most votes in the electoral college.
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Donald Trump is scheduled to make remarks at a rally shortly in Erie, Pennsylvania, and we’ll be following his remarks.
The rally is taking place at the Bayfront Convention Center. Trump’s next rally in Pennsylvania is slated for 5 October in Butler, about 100 miles south of Erie, revisiting the site of the attempted assassination attempt in July, according to his website.
Erie county, in the north-west corner of the state, is what’s known as a “boomerang county” by election experts. It boomeranged from Democrats to Republicans and back in recent presidential election cycles.
The county voted for Barack Obama twice, then Trump in 2016, and for Joe Biden in 2020 by a narrow margin.
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Larry Hogan, a Republican Senate candidate in Maryland, criticized Donald Trump’s recent remarks calling Kamala Harris “mentally impaired” during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“I think that’s insulting, not only to the vice-president, but to people that actually do have mental disabilities,” Hogan said. “I’ve said for years that Trump’s divisive rhetoric is something that we could do without. I think he’s his own worst enemy.”
Trump attacked Harris at a campaign rally on Saturday, referencing her visit to the US-Mexico border on Friday and questioning her mental capacity amid the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the border crisis.
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Ron DeSantis is making a concerted effort to maintain draconian limits on abortion access in Florida that have led to accusations the rightwing Republican governor is conducting a “state-sponsored intimidation campaign” against abortion rights and trampling on civil liberties in the state, writes the Guardians’s Joseph Contreras.
A near total ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Florida in May after the state supreme court ruled that the right to an abortion was no longer covered by the privacy clause in the Florida constitution.
Passage of legislation called Amendment 4 would change the state constitution to prohibit government interference with the right to an abortion before the viability of a fetus, which typically begins around the 24th week of a pregnancy.
But registered voters in Florida have recently reported unannounced visits from law enforcement personnel that appear to be part of an all-out drive by DeSantis to use state government agencies and public funds to block passage of Amendment 4, which would enshrine in the state constitution a woman’s right to an abortion.
More context on the accusations here:
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The rules are set for the vice presidential candidates Ohio Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as they prepare to take the debate stage on Tuesday.
CBS News announced the official rules, including a 90-minute slot and no audience in the studio, similar to the debate between the presidential candidates.
“For each question, the candidate who was asked the question will have two minutes to answer, and the other candidate will be allowed two minutes to respond,” reads a statement from the network. “Following that, each candidate will have one minute for additional rebuttals. And the moderators may at their discretion give candidates an additional minute each to continue a topic.”
CBS News also added that it “reserves the right to mute the candidates’ microphones, but otherwise, they will be hot.”
Republican senator Lindsey Graham said that he did not think Kamala Harris was mentally impaired, a comment Donald Trump made during a speech this weekend.
Still, he called her policies “crazy” on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper.
“I just think she’s a crazy liberal,” Graham said. “I’m not saying she’s crazy, I’m saying your party, your policies, are batsh*t crazy.”
The former president made this remark during a speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin, where he escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric and attacked the vice-president after she visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign.
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Although Kamala Harris has a lead over Donald Trump among Latino voters, Democrats’ advantage over Republicans with Latinos is lower than it was in the past four presidential races, according to an NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll released Sunday.
Support for the vice-president is at 54% among registered Latino voters, according to the poll of 1,000 Latino voters. The former president has the support of 40% and another 6% say they’re unsure or wouldn’t vote.
The margin of error in the poll, conducted between 16-23 September, is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Harris’s advantage is a boost from Joe Biden’s standing when the president was running for a second term, but it’s still lower than the past leads Democratic presidential candidates enjoyed in 2012 (by 39 points), 2016 (50 points) and 2020 (36 points), according to the poll.
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Pete Buttigieg has been masquerading as JD Vance before Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, where Tim Walz will go head-to-head with the Ohio senator in Minneapolis.
Buttigieg may have been suffering deja vu – he posed as Mike Pence during Kamala Harris’s prep sessions ahead of the 2020 VP debate.
Walz will be able to lean on skills learned in the school classroom. Walz spent 17 years as a public school teacher, so he knows how to think on his feet – and deal with a disruptive kid.
One of the big questions of the night is likely to be whether Vance can redeem himself after a troubled start to his candidacy. Will he be able to get past all the “weirdness”, as Walz has framed it, and bring consistency to the messaging of an often chaotic Trump campaign?
From awkward encounters with doughnut shop workers, to the ongoing furor around his “childless cat ladies” remark, Vance has been the subject of online mockery that has at times appeared to engulf him. He also seems to be stuck on the same culture war issues that consume Trump.
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Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, is scheduled to speak at a campaign event in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday.
The second gentleman will also be at a campaign event in Menlo Park, California, later today.
Harris was also in the Bay Area this weekend, but it will likely be her last visit to the region where she was born and raised. The San Francisco Examiner reported that campaign officials wrote on the invitation that Harris would spend the majority of her campaign’s final month in battleground states.
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Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona who recently left his position as US ambassador to Turkey, announced his endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.
“I want to support a candidate who understands that political opponents are our fellow citizens – the ‘loyal opposition’ as our parties once knew each other – not the enemy,” Flake said in a statement.
“I want to support a candidate who respects the will of the voters and would never attempt to use the powers of the Presidency to overturn an election after having been turned out by the voters,” Flake added.
I’ll be supporting @KamalaHarris for President and @Tim_Walz for Vice President. My full statement below. pic.twitter.com/6b28mkBPMD
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) September 29, 2024
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Vice-President Kamala Harris is slated to rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
The rally is part of Harris’s latest western swing, which included walking alongside a towering, rust-colored border wall fitted with barbed wire in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday.
Harris attended a San Francisco fundraiser on Saturday and had plans for a Sunday event in Los Angeles before heading to Nevada, with a return to Washington set for Monday night.
Tonight’s speech is scheduled for 10.30pm ET.
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Trump was hailed at the Georgia-Alabama football game at the University of Alabama with musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr and with two-time major champion golfer John Daly.
Trump came to the football game as the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr, a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so that he could enjoy a warm welcome.
Many University of Alabama fans, anticipating Trump’s visit to their campus for a showdown between the No 4 Crimson Tide and No 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They’re eating the Dawgs!”
They broke out in random chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” throughout the day, a preview of the rousing welcome he received early in the second quarter as he sat in a 40-yard-line suite hosted by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at an event in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the north-west corner of Pennsylvania, on Sunday. The former president is heading to a town where Biden won Erie county in 2020 by less than 1,500 votes in a key swing state.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Kamala Harris is set to hold a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night, also looking to gain momentum in a swing state ahead of November. The rally is part of Harris’s recent western tour, which included her first visit to the US-Mexico border since she took the role at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket from President Joe Biden.
The vice-presidential candidates, the Ohio senator JD Vance and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, are preparing to take the debate stage on Tuesday.
Here’s what else is happening:
Donald Trump attended a football game at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa moments after delivering remarks against immigrants on Saturday afternoon in the Rust belt.
Walz has been prepping for the debate in Minneapolis with the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, while Vance has been holding mock debates with the Republican whip in the US House, Tom Emmer, according to the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington.
As the US’s tumultuous 2024 election unfolds, with concerns about democracy being at risk, several assassination attempts on Donald Trump, and fears of civil unrest, there has also been a troubling shift in how animals are politically treated in American politics.
