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Here is our full story on US conservative influencers saying they are ‘victims’ of a Russian disinformation campaign:
Summary
Here is a summary of today’s developments:
A number of high-profile, conservative influencers in the US have said they are “victims” of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, after the Biden administration accused Moscow of carrying out a sustained campaign to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
A top strategist to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will brief Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning strategy, according to a report. Deborah Mattinson, Starmer’s polling expert who was his director of strategy while he was leader of the opposition, will reportedly travel to Washington DC next week.
A fundraising event for some of the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, aiming to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump, was scheduled to take place today at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey – but has been postponed indefinitely.
Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for next week’s presidential debate, according to multiple reports. The US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president will spend the final days leading up to the debate on 10 September in Pittsburgh, the reports say, where she will also hold informal meetings with voters in the battleground of Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.
National polls for the US presidential race have been upended ever since Kamala Harris took over from Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump. While Biden was trailing the Republican former president nationally and in many crucial swing states, Harris has gained about three points in national polls since becoming the nominee. The Guardian’s poll tracker assesses polls over a rolling 10-day period. It now has Harris leading nationally by about two points.
A Republican anti-Donald Trump group is targeting disaffected Republicans and conservative-leaning independents in a new $11.5m ad campaign that will play in key battleground states. The ad buy, by Republican Voters Against Trump, targets voters in swing states and features former Trump voters explaining why they plan to vote for Harris in November.
Trump appeared in a town hall event hosted by Sean Hannity, during which no questions were taken from the audience. Trump repeated false claims about Harris’s stance on fracking, about the US border and immigration, and about Harris saying she had a job at McDonald’s, a claim Trump has said is false. The Harris campaign has confirmed that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in the summer of 1983.
That town hall has now finished, and Hannity appears not to have allowed enough time for questions from the audience. Here is how the event ended:
LMAO Hannity made it all the way through the first installment of his "town hall" with Trump without leaving time for a single audience question pic.twitter.com/c86KY2VQtv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 5, 2024
He says that questions will be aired tomorrow night.
Trump talks about a recent bugbear of his: Kamala Harris saying that she worked at McDonald’s. In a speech two weeks ago in North Carolina, Harris said she had worked at McDonald’s in her youth and understood the struggle of low-wage work, and that she worked as California’s attorney general to lower drug prices and to go after predatory lending in the housing market.
The Poynter institute / PolitiFact’s check on Harris saying she worked there, which Trump has implied is false:
Harris has said in presidential campaign ads and other public appearances that she worked at McDonald’s while she was in college. Her campaign told PolitiFact that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983. Harris attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., from 1982 to 1986.
Hannity is now asking how this year is different from 2016.
If 2016 was about the forgotten man and the forgotten woman, how is 2024 different, Hannity asks Trump.
Trump says, “it’s not so different”. He repeats the claim that the US is being laughed at by the rest of the world.
He repeats his slogan, “Make America great again”.
Trump then added to those comments, responding to Hannity adding to his mention of the Georgia shooting saying, “restrictions have never been so tight”, and bringing up the Trump assassination attempt:
Trump responds to Hannity bringing up the school shooting in Georgia by saying, "it's a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons. And we're gonna make it better and we're gonna heal our world."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 5, 2024
Trump then touts his endorsement from Orban. pic.twitter.com/897cCGoQlG
Updated
Trump’s response earlier when Hannity brought up the mass shooting in Georgia.
Two students and two teachers were killed at a Georgia high school on Wednesday in a mass shooting authorities say was committed by a 14-year-old male student at the school.
HANNITY: We have this terrible shooting in Georgia
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 5, 2024
TRUMP: Right pic.twitter.com/kSXc7YFfys
Here is our story:
The town hall is happening in at the New Holland Arena in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Trump is again talking about Harris’s stance on fracking, and his support for the practice. Kamala Harris will not seek to ban fracking if she becomes US president, she has said, and campaign officials have confirmed.
Fracking is an important issue in Pennsylvania. Here is our reporting:
Hannity asks Trump about Fox proposing a debate between Harris and Trump.
Donald Trump said in August he would be willing to debate Kamala Harris on the friendly environs of Fox News in September – but the vice-president has not signed on to what would be a switch-up.
The former president had previously agreed to appear on ABC News and debate Joe Biden a second time this year before the president ended his re-election campaign.
He has since again agreed to debate Harris next week on the ABC:
Trump is again griping about Biden dropping out of the race, and Harris replacing him as the Demcorats’ nominee.
Trump repeats false claims that Harris “wants to fracking”. He then notes that she has recently said she does not support a total ban on fracking – this follows similar messaging recently that seeks to paint Harris as flip-flopping on certain issues.
Trump talks about Tim Walz, who famously called Trump and his supporters “weird”.
Trump says, referring to Walz, there’s something, “weird with that guy, he’s a weird guy…we're other things perhaps, we’re not weird”.
Trump falsely claims that Harris wants open borders, that the US borders is the “worst in the history of the world”.
Trump again specifically mentions immigrants from the Congo. Here is my colleague David Smith on similar comments from Trump’s interview with Elon Musk:
The Department of Justice indictment says that the company it calls US Company 1, “describes itself as a ‘network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues’.”
This is the same way that a company called Tenet media describes itself on its website: “Tenet Media is a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”
The Tennessean reports that, “The indictment states the Tennessee-based company was incorporated around 19 January, 2022, which matches records from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office. The indictment says the company applied to the Tennessee Department of State to conduct business on 22 May, 2023.”
The Guardian has contacted Tenet for comment. The company has not released a statement or commented on the allegations in the Department of Justice indictment, which does not name the company. It has not responded to other media organisations’ requests for comment, including the New York Times and CBS, according to their reporting.
Trump says he “didn’t have anything at all” when he first ran for president, he was just a “successful” business person. He is now talking about immigrants and making the claims he has made before. He claims, for example, incorrectly, that Americans “won’t have medicare” if immigrants continue to come into the US.
Hannity begins by asking the audience whether they feel they are better today than they were four years ago, when the Biden-Harris administration began. Trump enters the stage to loud cheers and chants of “USA”.
Trump town hall begins
Donald Trump’s town hall moderated by Sean Hannity is starting now.
Donald Trump will be speaking at a town hall at the New Holland Arena in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in ten minutes’ time. It will be moderated by Sean Hannity and aired on Fox News, and we will bring you key developments from that.
Liz Cheney, the Republican former representative of Wyoming, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. 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, daughter of 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, 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 6 January and course reversals on issues such as forcing China to sell TikTok.
Here is the full story on the Harris-Trump debate rules:
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have accepted the rules for the first presidential debate in Philadelphia, due to air on ABC next week, the network said on Wednesday – including muted mics when the other candidate is speaking.
ABC News said in a release that Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Trump, her Republican rival, “have qualified for the debate under the established criteria, and both have accepted the following debate rules”.
The Trump and Harris campaigns had been in dispute over the debate guidelines, including over whether microphones should be shut off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak. The Harris campaign had previously pushed for live, or “hot”, microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”. Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, had been pressing for them to be turned off.
US conservative commentators say they are 'victims' of alleged Russian disinformation campaign
US conservative commentators have responded to the unsealed US Department of Justice indictment that accuses “Two RT Employees [of] Covertly Funding and Directing US Company that Published Thousands of Videos in Furtherance of Russian Interests”.
The release does not name the company. It says that it is “a Tennessee-Based Online Content Creation Company”, and refers to it as “Company 1”.
The Guardian’s Andrew Roth reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration has accused Russia of carrying out a sustained disinformation campaign targeted at American voters and meant to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
In its most direct accusation of election meddling to date, the US government accused the state-financed RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and other Russian state-backed media of spearheading a covert campaign of disinformation promoting pro-Kremlin views laundered through their online and television networks.
The treasury department also sanctioned the RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees of the network over the aggeled campaign of disinformation around the elections. Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” the department alleged.
Conservative podcaster Tim Pool posted a statement on Twitter / X “regarding allegations and the DOJ Indictment”, saying, “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.”
My statement regarding allegations and the leaked DOJ Indictment
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 4, 2024
Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are…
Conservative commentator and YouTuber Benny Johnson said an hour ago, “A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme”:
A statement on the leaked DOJ indictment today:
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 4, 2024
A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s…
Updated
Here is AP’s report following Harris on the campaign trail today:
Vice President Kamala Harris used a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses, a pro-entrepreneur plan that may soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and large corporations to pay higher taxes.
Describing small businesses as “an essential foundation to our entire economy,” Harris said she wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for startup expenses, with the goal of eventually spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years.
The speech was part of Harris’ effort to strengthen her economic credentials with only two months until the end of the election.
“You’re not only leaders in business. You’re civic leaders,” Harris said. She added, “You are part of the glue and the fabric that holds communities together.”
The vice president spoke at the Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, outside Portsmouth, and met with co-founders Annette Lee and Nicole Carrier. Their brewery got support to open its current location through a small business credit and installed solar panels using federal programs championed by the Biden administration.
After that, Harris visited another women-owned small business, Port City Pretzels, which was founded in 2015 and had expanded out of its original, 500-foot facility into a larger location. One of the co-owners, Suzanne Foley, led Harris around brown boxes bearing the company’s logo, some stacked head-high and waiting to be shipped to customers around the country.
“Thank you for visiting our little company,” said Foley, who beamed and chatted with Harris as the pair walked around the facility. At one point, the vice president asked of the pretzels “Is it a family recipe?” When the answer came back yes, she offered, “Is it a secret family recipe?” Foley responded, “It’s not really, no.”
Huffington Post’s Yashar Ali has posted this Harris campaign TikTok to Twitter/X: it is a roundup of some of Donald Trump’s comments on abortion:
Kamala Harris’ campaign put up a TikTok of Trump talking about abortion against Subway Surfer.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 4, 2024
First time a campaign has ever done this, I believe. pic.twitter.com/BxyL5HnYa5
More now on Cheney’s endorsement, via the Associated Press:
Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney on Wednesday said she would support Kamala Harris for president, ending weeks of speculation about how fully the member of a GOP dynasty-turned-Trump critic would embrace the Democratic ticket.
Cheney, who co-chaired the House investigation into the 6 January 2021, attack, became a fierce Trump critic and was ousted in her 2022 Republican primary in Wyoming as a result, made her announcement at an event at Duke University. In a video posted on the social media network X, she finished by talking about the “danger” she believed Trump still poses to the country.
“I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” she said. “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
The daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney has been perhaps Trump’s highest-profile Republican critic. She joins other Republicans like her former 6 January committee member, former Representative Adam Kinzinger and former Rep. Denver Riggleman, as backers of Harris. More than 200 alumni of the Bush administration and former Republican presidential campaigns of the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney also announced their endorsement of Harris last week.
Cheney was in House Republican leadership at the time of the 6 January attack but broke with most of her caucus over Trump’s responsibility. She lost her leadership post and was one of the few Republicans willing to serve on the 6 January committee, which was appointed by Democrats who controlled the House at the time.
Updated
CBS reports that Cheney’s endorsement of Harris has been confirmed by Cheney’s spokesperson:
FLASH: Her spokesman confirms Liz Cheney is voting for VP Kamala Harris for President
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 4, 2024
Who is Liz Cheney – and why does her endorsement matter?
Liz Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney, who was president under George W Bush, is often described as Republican party royalty – and is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump.
She was chair of the January 6 committee, and has described Trump as “unstable” and “depraved”, according to the New York Times.
But it was uncertain whether she would endorse Harris, or stop just short of that. At an event at Duke University on Wednesday evening, she said that she would be voting for Harris.
On Monday this week, 200 Republicans who worked for President George W Bush and the former presidential candidates Senators Mitt Romney and John McCain, released an open letter in support of Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz.
The letter warned that there was more to fear from Trump than a repeat of his first term because he is now bound up with the authoritarian plan to impose rightwing control across the entire US government, including non-partisan federal agencies, known as Project 2025.
ABC releases 10 September debate rules
ABC, which will host the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on 10 September next week, has released the rules for the debate, which will air live.
Both Trump and Harris have accepted the rules, according to a release just sent out by the network.
They include:
The debate will be 90 minutes with two commercial breaks.
The two seated moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, will be the only people asking questions.
A coin flip was held virtually on Tuesday, 3 September, to determine podium placement and order of closing statements; former President Donald Trump won the coin toss and chose to select the order of statements. The former president will offer the last closing statement, and the vice-president Harris selected the right podium position on screen (stage left).
No opening statements; closing statements will be two minutes per candidate.
Candidates will stand behind podiums for the duration of the debate.
Props or prewritten notes are not allowed onstage.
No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.
Candidates will have two-minute answers to questions, two-minute rebuttals, and one extra minute for follow-ups, clarifications, or responses.
Candidates’ microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak and muted when the time belongs to another candidate.
Candidates will not be permitted to ask questions of each other.
Campaign staff may not interact with candidates during commercial breaks.
Moderators will seek to enforce timing agreements and ensure a civilized discussion.
There will be no audience in the room.
Updated
Interim summary
Kamala Harris’s campaign has accepted rules for the upcoming debate with Donald Trump. The rules for the 10 September debate of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will include muting microphones, which had previously been a source of disagreement between the campaigns.
A Republican-led House committee sent a subpoena to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, seeking documents and communications related to a vast fraud scheme conducted by a non-profit that used pandemic relief funds meant for feeding kids.
At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Kamala Harris laid out her economic vision for America, which includes providing low- and no-interest loans to small businesses, ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, and proposing a smaller increase on the capital gains tax, she said.
The Biden administration accused Russia of using the state-backed media outlet RT to “direct disinformation and propaganda” targeted at American voters and meant to influence November’s US presidential elections.
Updated
Liz Cheney, the former US representative, endorses Kamala Harris
The former US representative Liz Cheney, described by the New York Times as “one-time member of GOP royalty”, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president during an event at Duke University, saying, “Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
Cheney has repeatedly pledged to stop Trump from becoming president again.
Liz Cheney endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris at Duke University@newsobserver pic.twitter.com/taoMYNQ6d1
— Emma Cline (@emmacline_) September 4, 2024
This is Helen Sullivan taking over our live US politics coverage.
Updated
The Guardian’s Callum Jones reports that Donald Trump’s tiny social media empire has seen its extraordinary stock market rally wiped out by a steep sell-off.
Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, closed below $17 on Wednesday, reversing all their gains since the company’s rapid rise took hold in January.
The former president has been prohibited by a lock-up agreement from starting to sell shares in the firm until late September. While his majority stake in the firm is still worth some $2bn on paper, its value has fallen dramatically from $4.9bn in March.
As a business, TMTG is not growing rapidly. It generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings, and lost $58.2m.
Nor is Truth Social growing rapidly as a platform. While TMTG has not disclosed the size of its user base, the research firm Similarweb estimated that in March it had 7.7m visits – while X, formerly Twitter, had 6.1bn. That same month, however, TMTG was valued at almost $10bn on the stock market.
The former president is potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of penalties following two civil trials, taking a significant chunk out of his personal fortune. Trump Media has, however, previously insisted that there is no “conceivable sign anywhere” that Trump plans to sell shares in TMTG.
Updated
Harris campaign accepts rules for debate with Trump – report
Kamala Harris’ campaign has accepted rules for the upcoming debate with Donald Trump.
The rules for the 10 September debate of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will include muting microphones, a source told Reuters.
The campaigns had disagreed over whether microphones should be shut off when it isn’t a candidate’s turn to speak. Harris’ campaign had previously advocated for live microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”.
Updated
Here’s footage of Kamala Harris’s remarks on the Georgia school shooting from earlier today:
Tim Walz and the Harris campaign have trolled JD Vance over the GOP vice-presidential nominee’s awkward encounter at a doughnut shop:
Gov. Walz: Look at me, I have no problem picking out donuts pic.twitter.com/emsKtTaTJD
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 4, 2024
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate said: “Look at me, I have no problem picking out donuts.”
The remark is a reference to Vance’s recent visit to a doughnut shop during which the GOP candidate stumbled while ordering, saying he’d get “whatever makes sense”.
Tina Smith, a US senator from Minnesota, has also weighed in:
Can confirm! https://t.co/HvAXhXLpED pic.twitter.com/juFKqj7X7E
— Tina Smith (@TinaSmithMN) September 4, 2024
Updated
Biden and Harris to visit Ground Zero
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will travel to Ground Zero in New York to commemorate the September 11 attacks, the White House has just announced.
The president and vice-president will also visit the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, officials said in a press release. Donald Trump is also reportedly considering a stop at the 9/11 memorial in New York on the anniversary, according to the New York Times.
Updated
A Republican-led House committee sent a subpoena to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, seeking documents and communications related to a vast fraud scheme conducted by a non-profit that used pandemic relief funds meant for feeding kids.
NBC News first reported the subpoenas, which were sent to Walz; Minnesota’s commissioner of education, Willie Jett; the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack; and the agriculture inspector general, Phyllis Fong.
The House committee on education and the workforce wrote to Walz to say it had been investigating the Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota department of education’s oversight of federal child nutrition programs and Feeding Our Future, the group that is alleged to have stolen more than $250m in pandemic funds.
The subpoena does not seek an in-person appearance from Walz before the committee. It sets an 18 September deadline for turning over documents.
Five of the people involved in the scheme were convicted for their roles earlier this year in a trial that included an attempt to bribe a juror with a bag full of $120,000 in cash left at her home. In total, 70 people have been charged in relation to the scheme.
Updated
The Harris campaign has not said whether Kamala Harris supports requiring automakers to build only electric or hydrogen vehicles by 2035 – a position that she held during her 2020 presidential campaign.
According to Axios, the Harris campaign has sent contradictory signals about her position on a mandate for automakers, a key issue in pivotal battleground states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where many autoworkers are based. The report says:
In a lengthy ‘fact-check’ email last week that covered several issues, a campaign spokesperson included a line saying that Harris ‘does not support an electric vehicle mandate’ – suggesting she changed her previous position, without elaborating.
When asked to clarify Harris’s position, the campaign declined to comment, according to the report.
Updated
The Trump campaign said it raised $130m in August, ending the month with $295m cash on hand.
The fundraising was slightly lower in August when compared with the previous month; the Trump campaign said it raised $138.7m in July and had a cash-on-hand total of $327m at the end of July.
Updated
When Kamala Harris mentioned Donald Trump during her campaign speech in New Hampshire, a member of the audience shouted “Lock him up”.
Harris responded by saying that “the courts will handle that and we’ll handle November”.
Harris now has a standard reply for people in her crowds who yell "lock him up!" about Trump. Here it is. pic.twitter.com/oYUC9NlLmG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 4, 2024
Updated
Harris vows to make tax code 'more fair' in New Hampshire speech
Kamala Harris says she will make the US tax code “more fair” while also prioritizing investment and innovation.
“Billionaires and big corporations must pay their fair share in taxes,” she tells her supporters. “That’s why I support a billionaire minimum tax and corporations paying their fair share.”
She says that while her administration will ensure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, it will also tax capital gains “at a rate that rewards investment in America’s innovators, founders and small businesses”.
If you earn a million dollars a year or more, the tax rate on your long-term capital gains will be 28% under my plan. Because we know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad based economic growth, and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger.
Updated
Kamala Harris says she will also invest in small businesses and innovators throughout America, noting that “talent exists everywhere in our country” but that not everyone has access to the financing, venture capital or expert advice.
She says that if elected, her administration will expand access to venture capital, support innovation hubs and business incubators, and increase federal contracts with small businesses. Small businesses in rural communities will be a particular focus, she says.
Kamala Harris says she will also help existing small businesses to grow, by providing low- and no-interest loans to small businesses that want to expand.
She also pledges to “cut the red tape that can make starting and growing a small business more difficult than it needs to be”.
For example, Harris says she will make it cheaper and easier for small businesses to file their taxes.
Let’s just take away some of the bureaucracy in the process to make it easier for people to actually do something that’s going to benefit our entire economy.
Updated
Kamala Harris moves on to talking about what she calls an “opportunity economy”, which she envisions is a one “where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed”.
She says America’s small businesses are an “essential foundation to our entire economy” and that she wants to see 25m new small business applications by the end of her first term, if she is elected.
To help achieve this, Harris says she will lower the cost of starting a new business. It costs about $40,000 to start a new business, she says, and the current tax deduction for a startup is just $5,000.
Harris proposes to expand the tax deduction for startups to $50,000, which she says is essentially “a tax cut for starting a small business”.
Updated
Harris says Georgia school shooting 'a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies'
Kamala Harris, speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire, begins her remarks by talking about the high school shooting in Georgia.
“We’re still gathering information about what happened, but we know that there were multiple fatalities and injuries,” Harris told her supporters. “Our hearts are with all the students, the teachers and their families.”
She said Wednesday’s shooting is “a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies”, adding that it is “outrageous” that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether they will come home alive.
It’s senseless. It is. We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all.
Updated
Harris speaks at campaign event in New Hampshire
Kamala Harris has just taken to the stage at a campaign event outside a brewery in New Hampshire, where she is reportedly expected to announce her economic plans including a smaller increase in taxes on capital gains.
Harris is speaking from behind bulletproof glass enclosure, after the Secret Service added protective measures for outdoor campaign events in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July.
Updated
Joe Biden is preparing to announce that he will formally block Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel, according to the Washington Post.
Biden had promised to block the acquisition of US Steel, once the world’s largest company and which played a key role in the nation’s industrialization, by a Japanese company and to keep US Steel as a “totally American-owned, American-operated” company.
US Steel warned earlier today that a failure to merge with Nippon Steel would put thousands of American union jobs at risk, and signaled that it would close some steel mills and potentially move its headquarters out of Pennsylvania, a critical election battleground state.
Updated
Harris to break with Biden on capital gains tax – reports
Kamala Harris is planning to propose a less drastic increase in the top capital gains tax rate, breaking with a plan that Joe Biden outlined in his budget blueprint earlier this year, according to a report.
Harris’s advisers have been discussing the move behind the scenes in recent days, according to the Wall Street Journal. The top rate under discussion is 28% but could change, the report says.
Harris plans to announce her plans in an upcoming economic speech in New Hampshire this afternoon, according to CNN.
Updated
The White House has released a statement from Joe Biden on the high school shooting in Georgia.
The president said he and the first lady, Jill, are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short because of “senseless gun violence”.
What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart.
“We cannot continue to accept this as normal,” he added. He said he was closely coordinating with officials at the federal, state and local level.
Biden also called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats to pass “common-sense” gun safety legislation, adding:
We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks and end immunity for gun manufacturers. These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart.
Updated
Merrick Garland also spoke about the shooting at a Georgia high school, and said the FBI were on scene to assist local law enforcement.
The US attorney general said he is “devastated for the families who have been affected by this terrible tragedy”.
Multiple people were reported killed and about 30 others injured in the Wednesday morning shooting at Apalachee high school in Barrow county, 50 miles north-east of Atlanta.
Updated
RT editor-in-chief covertly recruited US influencers to spread pro-Kremlin messages, says treasury department
The US treasury department announced sanctions against the Russian state media network RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonovna Simonyan, and nine others affiliated with the network over what it said were efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential election.
It said that beginning in early 2024, RT executives began a “nefarious effort to covertly recruit unwitting American influencers in support of their malign influence campaign”.
Simonovna Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” and allowed RT to used a front company to disguise its own involvement or the involvement of the Russian government in content meant to influence US audience, the department said.
Other RT employees included in the latest sanctions are the network’s deputy editor-in-chief, Elizaveta Yuryevna Brodskaia, who the US said has reported to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin; deputy editor-in-chief Anton Sergeyvich Anisimov, who the US said “conducts activities on behalf of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB); deputy director of RT English-language broadcasting Andrey Vladimirovich Kiyashko; digital media projects manager Konstantin Kalashnikov; and Elena Mikhaylovna Afanasyeva, who the US said “covertly interacted with prominent US social media influencers under the cover of a fake persona”.
Updated
Merrick Garland warned that Russia is not the only foreign power seeking to interfere in US elections.
The US attorney general noted that the US intelligence community recently pointed to “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” during this election cycle.
“The justice department’s message is clear,” he said:
We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government. We will be relentlessly aggressive, encountering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.
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Merrick Garland says Americans have right to know 'when foreign power attempts to exploit' US
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, speaking before a meeting of the justice department’s election threats taskforce, said the American people “are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country … to send around its own propaganda”.
Garland accused the Russian government of using the state-backed media outlet RT to “direct disinformation and propaganda” in the wake of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine.
As part of that effort, RT and its employees implemented a nearly $10m scheme to direct a Tennessee-based company to contract US-based social media influencers to disseminate content “deemed favorable to the Russian government”, he said.
In a separate enforcement action, the justice department is seizing 32 internet domains that it alleges the Russian government has used “to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections”, he said.
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US sanctions leading names at RT, Russian state media, amid accusations of election interference
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has accused Russian state media outlet RT and its employees of implementing a scheme to direct a US company to disseminate material that is favorable to the Russian government.
Garland is holding a press conference right now announcing sanctions for election meddling.
This includes announcing indictments against two senior editors at RT for alleged money laundering.
He said that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation “as part of a program to influence the 2024 election” for president in the US.
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The White House press briefing is now due to begin at 1.45pm ET in the west wing, pushed back from the previous schedule for the event, of 1.30pm ET.
It’s highly likely that when it does begin the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, will address the shooting at a high school in Georgia, details of which are still unfolding.
The White House put out a comment quickly after reports began coming through. Those reports say there have been casualties, some believed fatal, and law enforcement say a suspect is in custody. Further details and official confirmation of reports are still awaited, but the White House said that Joe Biden had been informed.
Interim summary
Hello, live blog readers, it’s never a dull day when there’s an election, especially one as pivotal as the 2024 presidential election. We’ll bring you news developments as they happen, so stick with the Guardian.
Here’s where things stand:
The US plans to accuse Russia of a sustained effort to influence the election by using Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target US voters with disinformation, according to reports. The Biden administration will reportedly announce a series of actions later today in connection with such allegations.
A top strategist to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will brief Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning strategy, according to a report. Deborah Mattinson, Starmer’s polling expert who was his director of strategy while he was leader of the opposition, will reportedly travel to Washington DC next week.
A fundraising event for some of the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, aiming to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump, was scheduled to take place today at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey – but has been postponed indefinitely.
Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for next week’s presidential debate, according to multiple reports. The US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president will spend the final days leading up to the debate on 10 September in Pittsburgh, the reports say, where she will also hold informal meetings with voters in the battleground of Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.
National polls for the US presidential race have been upended ever since Kamala Harris took over from Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump. While Biden was trailing the Republican former president nationally and in many crucial swing states, Harris has gained about three points in national polls since becoming the nominee. The Guardian’s poll tracker assesses polls over a rolling 10-day period. It now has Harris leading nationally by about two points.
A Republican anti-Donald Trump group is targeting disaffected Republicans and conservative-leaning independents in a new $11.5m ad campaign that will play in key battleground states. The ad buy, by Republican Voters Against Trump, targets voters in swing states and features former Trump voters explaining why they plan to vote for Harris in November.
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RT, the Russian state media network reportedly at the center of US accusations of a Kremlin-backed disinformation campaign to influence the 2024 election, has responded to the allegations.
In a statement to Reuters, RT said:
Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections.
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Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, is reportedly preparing to speak today about the Biden administration’s claims of Russian disinformation campaigns targeting the presidential election.
Garland and other law enforcement leaders are expected to speak briefly at the opening of a meeting of the justice department’s elections threats taskforce, the Associated Press is reporting.
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Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has thanked a religious liberties group for its efforts to block reforms of the court aimed at reining in the justices’ ethical breaches, including those of her husband.
A new recording obtained by the investigative website ProPublica and the watchdog Documented discloses a July email in which Ginni Thomas thanked First Liberty Institute for fighting to oppose supreme court reforms. She specifically referred to White House proposals from Joe Biden designed to rein in wayward justices on the country’s highest court, of which her husband is the prime example.
The email was read out by the head of First Liberty Institute, Kelly Shackelford, on a 31 July call with donors to the group. He said the email had been written by Ginni Thomas that same day.
Two days previously, Biden had called for sweeping changes to the court, including term limits for the nine justices and a code of ethics that would be enforced by an outside body. Under current arrangements, the justices are liable to a voluntary code which they individually police themselves.
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, the US president explained why he thought a tougher code of ethics was now necessary. He pointed to “scandals involving several justices” that had damaged public confidence in the court, including “undisclosed gifts to justices” and “conflicts of interest connected with Jan 6 insurrectionists”.
Biden did not mention names, but Clarence Thomas has been implicated in both types of ethically questionable behaviour. ProPublica has exposed the lavish international travel that the justice enjoyed courtesy of the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow.
A Russian lawmaker has described reports that the Biden administration plans to accuse Moscow of trying to influence the 2024 presidential election as “pure rubbish”.
Maria Butina spent 15 months in US prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent and is now a lawmaker for the ruling United Russia party.
She told Reuters that the US claims were a “witch-hunt”, adding:
Russia thinks it does not matter who wins the US elections – the only winner is the US private military-industrial complex. That is what matters – and nothing else.
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Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are in various stages of planning likely visits to the World Trade Center site in New York City to commemorate the 9/11 attacks next week, according to a report.
Harris is planning to travel to New York City after the 10 September presidential debate with Trump, the New York Times reported, citing sources.
Biden is discussing his own plans to attend ground zero, the report says. Trump is also considering visiting ground zero, according to the Times.
The Biden administration is reportedly planning to accuse Russia of Kremlin-sponsored attempts to target US voters with disinformation in a sustained effort to influence the 2024 presidential election.
According to reports, the White House is expected to publicly condemn Moscow on Wednesday alongside an announcement by the justice department of law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign.
As we reported earlier, the Russian state media network RT is expected to be a major focus of the US announcement. US intelligence agencies have flagged RT as a source of Russian propaganda and disinformation and required it to register as a foreign agent.
In July, the justice department accused a senior editor at RT of being involved in a Kremlin-backed scheme to spread online disinformation in the US, including about Russia’s war in Ukraine, using fictitious social media profiles posing as authentic Americans.
US officials are expected to also name the Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company that has already faced US sanctions for allegedly running fake news sites in Europe on behalf of the Russian government, according to CNN.
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Biden administration to accuse Russia of trying to influence 2024 election – reports
The US plans to accuse Russia of a sustained effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election by using Kremlin-run media and other online platforms to target US voters with disinformation, according to CNN, citing sources.
The Biden administration will announce a series of actions on Wednesday targeting what it says are Russian government-sponsored attempts to manipulate US public opinion ahead of the November election, NBC reported, citing senior US officials.
They will include the White House publicly condemning the actions and the justice department announcing law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign, according to reports.
The Russian state media network RT is expected to be a major focus of the announcement, the reports say.
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, is expected to speak publicly this afternoon about the announcement, according to reports.
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Republican Voters Against Trump, the group of disaffected Republicans devoted to stopping Donald Trump from returning to the White House, is stepping up its efforts with an $11.5m ad buy in critical battleground states.
The group is rolling out a new advert featuring former Trump voters vowing never again to back him, focused on the three so-called “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Joe Biden won in 2020 and which Kamala Harris must retain in November.
The executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, Sarah Longwell, told MSNBC that the thinking behind the ad buy was to give former Trump voters who are thinking about switching to Harris a “permission structure”. She said that focus groups had shown a “tremendous openness” among some Trump voters to backing the vice-president.
“We are taking Trump-voting voices and elevating them so it sends a signal to other Trump voters who are Kamala-curious,” Longwell said.
They are interested in voting for her either because Donald Trump presents such a threat, or because people are bored by Trump – they are bored with all the drama and tired of the insults.
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Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, will give the keynote speech in Washington on Saturday at a dinner hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.
In a statement announcing Walz’s attendance, Kelley Robinson, president of the organization, said:
Whether it was as a veteran, teacher and football coach, member of Congress, or governor, he has spent his career championing equality.
BIG NEWS: We are thrilled to have Vice Presidential Nominee Governor Tim Walz join us at our National Dinner! He has been a steadfast champion for the LGBTQ+ community and will continue fighting for our rights once he is elected to the White House. pic.twitter.com/nRsZfzuMYg
— HRC 🥥🌴 (@HRC) September 4, 2024
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In August, I attended a Maga-aligned tent revival in western Wisconsin, which promised hope, worship and healing. Much of the event, though, was political: speaker after speaker addressed topics like Covid-19 lockdowns, January 6 (an event one of the headlining speakers at the Courage Tour, Lance Wallnau, attended) and the importance of conservative Christians getting involved in politics.
One of the groups, called the Lion of Judah, is working to enlist poll workers to “fight the fraud” in November – an effort that extremism researchers worry could pose problems for election offices.
I spent some time digging into the Lion of Judah, and found that their course encourages participants to sign up as poll workers as “the first step on the path to victory this Fall”.
“That signals a very insidious desire to monkey around with the results of the election,” said Matthew Taylor, a researcher at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies whose work has focused on anti-democratic currents on the religious right.
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Half of gen-Z voters said they will vote for Kamala Harris in November, according to a new NBC News poll published today.
The poll shows one-third of gen-Z voters said they plan to vote for Donald Trump, and 1 in 10 said they do not plan to vote in the presidential election.
Harris has the support of 60% of young voters who said they are “almost certain” they will vote in November.
The results of the poll show a significant gender gap: young women said they will vote for Harris by 30 points, while young men said they favor Harris by only four points over Trump.
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Starmer strategist to brief Harris campaign on Labour's election-winning strategy – report
A top strategist to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will brief Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign on Labour’s election-winning strategy, according to a report.
Deborah Mattinson, Starmer’s polling expert who was his director of strategy for three years while he was leader of the opposition, will travel to Washington DC next week, Politico reported.
Mattinson will meet strategists from the Harris-Walz campaign and share insight on Starmer’s decisive path to victory in July’s UK election, it said.
A former colleague who worked alongside Mattinson on Labour’s campaign told the outlet that she wanted to “put the ‘hope and change stuff’ to one side” and maintain a ruthless focus on Harris’s appeal in swing states.
It comes after several of Starmer’s closest aides including Morgan McSweeney, now the head of political strategy in Downing Street, and Downing Street communications director Matthew Doyle traveled to Chicago for the Democratic national convention last month and met with members of the Harris campaign, the outlet said.
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One million people have now registered to vote this cycle through Vote.org, according to Politico’s Playbook, including 17% who live in the seven top swing states.
More than one-third of the new registrations are from 18-year-olds – compared with 8% in 2020 – and 79% of are from voters under 35.
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January 6 fundraiser at Trump's New Jersey golf club postponed indefinitely
A fundraising event for some of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021 scheduled to take place today at Donald Trump’s golf club in New Jersey has been postponed indefinitely.
The J6 Awards Gala, which was planned for Thursday at Trump’s Bedminster golf club, has been “postponed” and the location and time are to be announced, according to the event’s website.
Trump has been invited to speak at the event alongside confirmed speakers including his former lawyer and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro and Anthony Raimondi, a conservative influencer.
The event had been touted as a way to “honor and celebrate” some of the January 6 defendants “who have shown incredible courage and sacrifice”, with tickets ranging from $1,500 per person for general admission to $50,000 for a “platinum table” for 12 at the VIP reception.
The event website did not provide a reason for the postponement, but the New York Times said it had obtained text messages in which event planners cited “multiple issues outside of our control, the main one being safety concerns of attendees and staff”.
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Harris to travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for debate
Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for next week’s presidential debate, according to multiple reports.
Harris will spend the final days leading up to the debate on 10 September in Pittsburgh, the reports say, where she will also hold informal meetings with voters in the battleground of Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.
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But national polling is only part of the picture. Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election despite winning more votes than Donald Trump, because of the electoral system by which the president is elected.
The US presidential election is decided by races in individual states that have a set number of electoral college votes. This means the race is decided by a handful of swing states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia.
Looking at data from RealClearPolitics, Kamala Harris has managed to at least close the gap on, if not overtake, Trump in the swing states. This is especially evident in Georgia and Arizona, where Harris has gained more than four points since Biden dropped out of the race.
Sitting ahead of Trump by a couple of points nationally is not enough to give Harris a secure lead in any of the swing states. Trump and Harris are still within two points of each other in seven swing states – well within the margin of error for polls.
Harris leading in polls but state-level data puts race on knife-edge
National polls for the US presidential race have been upended ever since Kamala Harris took over from Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump.
While Biden was trailing the Republican former president nationally and in many crucial swing states, Harris has gained about three points in national polls since becoming the nominee.
The Guardian’s poll tracker assesses polls over a rolling 10-day period. It now has Harris leading nationally by about two points.
But when comparing this performance with previous elections, data from RealClearPolitics reveals Harris’s lead over Donald Trump is weaker than those of his previous opponents. As of 30 August in their respective campaigns, Hillary Clinton led Trump by five points in 2016 and Joe Biden was ahead of him by 6.3 points in 2020.
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“Donald Trump has destroyed the Republican Party,” a spokesperson for Republican Voters Against Trump said in a statement announcing the ad blitz.
And every election cycle he drives more and more Republicans to vote for Democrats, because they believe Donald Trump and the GOP candidates who imitate him are unfit for office.
The group says it helps elevate the voices of disaffected Republicans and “build a permission structure for many other traditional GOP voters to reject Donald Trump and his Maga movement, even if it means voting for Democrats with whom they might have policy differences.”"
Here’s the ad by Republican Voters Against Trump launched on Tuesday, which the group said is aimed at “conservative-leaning independents and undecided Republicans by featuring former [Donald] Trump voters who now support [Kamala] Harris.”
In the video, multiple former Trump voters talk about the dangers of a second Trump administration and about why they now support Harris.
These former Trump voters are voting for Kamala Harris in 2024.
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) September 3, 2024
This ad is running now in AZ, MI, NE, PA, and WI as part of our new $11.5 million swing state ad blitz. pic.twitter.com/1xrGhOu9qg
The campaign also features 79 billboards showing former Trump voters from each swing state, with the messages: “I’m a former Trump voter. I won’t vote for Trump” and “I’m a former Trump voter. I’m voting for Harris.”
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Republican anti-Trump group launches $11.5m ad buy
Good morning, US politics readers. With the general election just nine weeks away, a Republican anti-Donald Trump group is targeting disaffected Republicans and conservative-leaning independents in a new $11.5m ad campaign that will play in key battleground states.
The ad buy, by Republican Voters Against Trump, targets voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nebraska and features former Trump voters explaining why they plan to vote for Kamala Harris in November.
Over the last few weeks, the Harris campaign has zeroed in on courting Republican voters, and more than 200 former GOP staffers declared their endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate in an open letter last week. The Harris campaign also launched Republican Voters for Harris, which included more than 25 endorsements, and several Republican speakers were featured at the Democratic national convention last month, including former congressman Adam Kinzinger, the former lieutenant governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
Kamala Harris is expected to unveil a series of economic proposals at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this afternoon.
Donald Trump will be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, tonight for a town hall moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Tim Walz will be in Pennsylvania today for campaign events in Lancaster and Pittsburgh.
JD Vance will deliver campaign remarks in Mesa, Arizona, at an event hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action.
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