Thanks for reading. Rachel Leingang’s story from the Trump rally is here:
Summary
Former president Donald Trump delivered a speech in Indiana, Pennsylvania, telling supporters: ‘If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing.’
JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, refused to take a stance on the scandal involving North Carolina’s lieutenant governor during a Charlotte visit.
A key Nebraska lawmaker rejected a Trump-backed effort to change state’s electoral vote rules.
A government shutdown seems to have been averted, with Republican speaker Mike Johnson heading off the politically damaging disruption by agreeing to a spending deal that does not include measures against non-citizen voting, which Trump had demanded.
Kamala Harris won the endorsements of hundreds of former national security and military officials, who said Trump “has proven he is not up to the job”.
The White House laid out how Joe Biden will spend his final months in office, dubbing it the “sprint to the finish”.
On Twitter, Kamala Harris’s campaign also reacted to Trump’s remarks on abortion and the overturning of Roe v Wade.
“Trump: Nobody should want a federal law protecting abortion rights,” reads a tweet.
Trump: Nobody should want a federal law protecting abortion rights pic.twitter.com/zbZig3rEn5
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 24, 2024
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Donald Trump has ended his 96-minute speech in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Kamala Harris’s campaign reacted on Twitter to Trump’s pledge to close the Department of Education.
This is a key goal of Project 2025 https://t.co/0fFTrHznXG
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 24, 2024
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Trump later started using athletes in the Olympics to make anti-trans remarks and false claims. There were no transgender athletes who were competing outside of the gender they were assigned at birth at this year’s Olympic games.
“We are going to keep men out of women’s sports,” he said. “It’s so demeaning to women.”
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Trump praises 'brilliant and brave' supreme court justices over Roe decision
“You will no longer be thinking about abortion,” Trump said to the women in the room. “It is now where it always had to be: with the states, and the vote of the people.”
“Everyone wanted abortion out of the federal government and into the states,” he said. “Six brilliant and very brave justices of the United States supreme court were able to do that for you, and they did it.”
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Donald Trump turned his attention to women, claiming “women are poorer than they were four years ago.”
He claimed women are less healthy, less safe, and more depressed than during his administration.
“I am your protector,” he said. “As president, I have to be your protector.”
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Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris for her history as a prosecutor and attorney general in California, as well as the environmental policies she plans to put in place.
“She wants to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles, which will destroy the Pennsylvania way of life,” he said.
“As Attorney General, she destroyed San Francisco and she destroyed all of California,” Trump said. “Now she’s coming to destroy the United States of America, and we’re not going to let it happen.”
Donald Trump brought Republican David McCormick to the stage. McCormick is running against the Democratic Senator Bob Casey in an uphill battle for the senatorial seat.
“It’s a battle between common sense and these radical liberal policies,” McCormick said.
Donald Trump continued making anti-immigrant remarks.
“If Kamala Harris wins this election, she will flood Pennsylvania cities and towns with illegal migrants from all over the world, and Pennsylvania will never be the same, you will never be the same,” he said.
“When I’m president, all migrant flights to Pennsylvania will stop immediately,” Trump said.
He then claimed that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald’s, a detail in her resumé she uses to win over a powerful bloc of working-class voters.
“She never worked there, and these fake news reporters will never report it,” he said.
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After attacking Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, the crowd in Pennsylvania chanted “send them back!”
Donald Trump later attacked Venezuelan migrants, generalizing the community and calling them “lawless gangs,” while blaming them for problems in the housing market and with crime.
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Donald Trump returned to his claim that the city of Aurora, Colorado, has been overrun by Venezuelan immigrants. Trump has been using Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, as examples of the Biden administration’s mistakes on immigration policies.
“Harris has inundated small towns all across America with hundreds of thousands of migrants,” he said.
He bragged about not using a teleprompter before asking: “Do you think Springfield will ever be the same?”
Trump and JD Vance, his running mate, have falsely claimed that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield – a statement that has been debunked.
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The former president also touched on the famed Pennsylvania steel industry.
“We have to be strong and powerful again, and we must put tariffs on foreign predators,” he said. “We have to make US steel great again.”
During Trump’s administration, he imposed several rounds of tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels, and goods from China. He has said that, if elected, he will would impose 10% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.
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Trump touched a nerve with fracking in Pennsylvania, saying Kamala Harris is planning to ban it.
“If anybody here believes that she will let your energy industry continue fracking, you should immediately go to a psychiatrist,” he said.
“I will get Pennsylvania energy workers pumping, fracking, drilling and producing like never before.”
Donald Trump claimed that, during his presidency, foreign countries wouldn’t fight each other without his permission.
“They would call me up to ask whether or not they could go to war with some other country,” he said.
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Trump took a stab at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “the greatest salesman in history” and said “he wants them to win this election so badly”.
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Trump promises tax cuts if he wins in November
Donald Trump says he promises to deliver tax cuts, attacking Kamala Harris for her plans to raise the corporate income tax rate.
“Kamala Harris is the tax queen, and she’s coming for your money,” he said. “She’s coming for your pensions, and she’s coming for your savings, unless you defeat her in November.”
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Trump then focused his speech on inflation, pointing to higher prices for energy and groceries.
“Vote Trump, and your incomes will soar,” he said. “Your net worth will skyrocket, your energy costs and grocery prices will come tumbling down, and we will bring back the American dream, bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”
Former President Donald Trump once again falsely claimed that crime is going up, by 45 percent, despite recently released FBI statistics stating otherwise.
Here’s more context:
During his speech in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump called Kamala Harris a “communist” and criticized her border policies.
Trump said he thinks he won the 2016 elections because of his harsh border policies.
“We don’t have a great country any more,” Trump said. “I hate to say it, but America soon will be greater than ever before.”
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Trump: 'If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing'
“Our entire nation is counting on the people of this great commonwealth,” Donald Trump said about Pennsylvania.
“We got to take our country back from these horrible people because, if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” he said.
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Donald Trump said that the 7 October attacks on Israel and the Russian attack on Ukraine wouldn’t have happened if the Biden administration hadn’t been elected.
“Think of how different this world would have been,” he said.
Trump then attacked Harris for dodging questions during her interviews.
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Trump urges supporters to 'get out and vote'
“We’re here today because early voting begins in Pennsylvania over the next two weeks, and we need each and every one of you to go out,” Donald Trump said at the start of his speech in Pennsylvania.
“Go out and make a plan to vote early, vote absentee or vote in person on election day, but you gotta get out and vote,” he said.
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Trump speaks at campaign rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania
Donald Trump started his speech 50 minutes late instead of the scheduled 7pm slot in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
He walked out to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
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Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns have ramped up efforts in Pennsylvania.
In 2008, the state voted for the Democratic candidate, and again in 2012. But in 2016, Pennsylvania voted in favor of the Republican candidate. The state then voted Democratic in 2020.
Earlier today, Trump participated at a roundtable in Pennsylvania to garner support from American farmers. Trump said he would impose a national sales tax with or without Congress.
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Former president Donald Trump is running 20 minutes late for his speech.
He was slated to start at 7pm ET/4pm PT in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
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In a few minutes, Donald Trump will speak at an event at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, about 55 miles east of Pittsburgh. We’ll be covering Trump’s remarks.
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Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer condemned Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib after accusing Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel of potential bias in bringing charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan. Nessel later said Tlaib’s comments were antisemitic.
“The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic,” Whitmer wrote in a statement to CNN’s Jake Tapper, host of State of the Union.
“Attorney General Nessel has always conducted her work with integrity and followed the rule of law. We must all use our platform and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes.”
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New York Republican representative Anthony D’Esposito gave part-time jobs to his lover and his fiancée’s daughter after winning his seat in Congress in 2022, the New York Times reports.
D’Esposito’s hiring decisions are possible violations to congressional ethics rules, especially those against nepotism and engaging in relationships with employees under one’s supervision.
Both were employed in his district office, with the fiancée’s daughter earning $3,800 a month and the woman involved in the affair earning $2,000 a month.
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Earlier today, Donald Trump was asked about his plan to install a blanket tariff on all imports, with additional higher tariffs on goods brought in from China, as a way to extract money from rival nations.
“I don’t need Congress, but they’ll approve it,” the former president said. “I’ll have the right to impose them myself if they don’t.”
A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign responded to these remarks: “This is the core tenet of Trump’s Project 2025 playbook: seize power for himself, squeeze the middle class to the tune of nearly $4,000 a year, and make high costs even worse – all as he and his billionaire friends get another tax giveaway,” she said.
Vance dodges questions about Mark Robinson during North Carolina campaign event
JD Vance kept getting asked by reporters about Mark Robinson. The crowd booed each time.
“As I’ve said, that is Mark Robinson’s case to make to the people of North Carolina,” Vance said. “I’m not going to make it for him and the people of North Carolina, they get to be the judges of whether they believe him or not.”
Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, has faced increasing pressure to drop out from the gubernatorial race after a damning CNN story reported that he made lewd and sexually explicit comments on the pornography site Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012.
“I really cannot believe that the American media is so much more focused on this than on the struggles of their fellow citizens,” Vance said.
Shortly after, Vance ended his speech.
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During his rally in Charlotte, JD Vance called gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s reported comments uncovered by CNN (among others, referring to himself as a “Black Nazi”), “gross”.
But he added that Robinson had claimed he had never made the comments, which appeared on a porn forum in 2010.
“I think it’s up to Mark Robinson to make his case to the state of North Carolina that those weren’t his statements.”
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Vance says his 'responsibility' to 'listen to the people' when asked about false pet-eating claim
JD Vance was asked whether he would change anything about the way he spreads the debunked false claims of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio.
“My responsibility is to listen to the people that I serve and not a biased media, and that’s what I’ll keep on doing in Springfield, Ohio,” he answered. “To the people of this great state of North Carolina, I will always listen to you even when the media attacks me. I will listen to you about what’s going on in your communities.”
“I wish the American media was half as interested in the stress on the local schools, the stress on the hospitals and unaffordable housing as they are, and debunking a story that comes from the residents of Springfield,” Vance said.
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During a Charlotte, North Carolina rally, JD Vance tapped into a well of grievance, blaming “illegal aliens” for the opioid epidemic and the scourge of fentanyl in the US.
Vance has drawn condemnation for his unfounded claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were stealing cats and dogs from community members and eating them. He has since doubled down on his claims, suggesting during an interview on CNN that he had license to “create stories” to garner interest in a topic like immigration.
During his rally in North Carolina, Vance said that Harris was a “bad person for causing this border crisis” and that he and others “are not bad people for complaining about it.”
At the end of his speech, JD Vance supported Trump’s plan around environmental policy. Trump plans to scrap the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and its cleantech subsidies.
“You want to talk about why our farmers are struggling? Because everything from the diesel fuel that they use to the fertilizer they use has gotten more expensive because of Kamala Harris’s energy policies,” Vance said.
He is now taking questions from reporters.
JD Vance recounted the story of his mother, who had struggled with opioid addiction, to attack Kamala Harris’s policies at the southern border.
Harris said she hopes to revive the border compromise law that would close loopholes in the asylum process. She also supports an earned pathway to citizenship.
“We want Donald Trump because he’s going to make it possible for us to enforce the border,” Vance said.
These remarks come after Vance's false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.
During his speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, JD Vance said American families can no longer afford necessities, citing the higher price of a carton of eggs compared to the price during former president Trump’s administration.
“We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to afford a nice life for your American family,” Vance said.
He also said prices for gasoline and homes are higher. “We just need to get back to common sense economic policies,” he said.
“The American Dream doesn’t exist without homeownership,” Vance said.
JD Vance attacked Kamala Harris, saying she dodges media interviews and questions related to the economy.
“How can we trust Kamala Harris to represent us in front of the most dangerous regimes in the world if she won’t even sit for an interview with the American media?” Vance said.
“It’s funny to try to have her answer what her actual plans are for the American people,” he said.
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Vance says North Carolina could be state that 'turns this country red' in campaign speech
JD Vance has taken the stage. The Republican vice presidential pick said North Carolina is one of the race’s most important states.
“It is going to be the state that turns this country red,” Vance said. “We’re going to send Donald Trump back to the White House, and we’re going to do it thanks to the great patriots of this state.”
“Donald Trump has a record to be proud of, and Kamala Harris has a record to be ashamed of, so we’re not going to promote her,” Vance added.
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Bishop took a stab at Kamala Harris, saying she “can’t explain how she’ll lower the cost of living or secure the border.”
He cited high crime rates in North Carolina. “They have no ideas or answers that work for the people,” Bishop said before extending his support for Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Congressman Dan Bishop, candidate for attorney general in North Carolina, took the stage before JD Vance in Charlotte.
“I’m your nominee to become the first Republican attorney general for North Carolina since Zeb Walser in 1896,” he said.
In a few minutes, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, is expected to deliver a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina. We’ll be covering his remarks.
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The sentencing of the disgraced former senator Robert Menendez has been delayed until 29 January.
A judge on Monday delayed the sentencing of the New Jersey Democrat in his federal corruption case, which was originally set for late October.
Menendez, 70, a three-term senator, was found guilty by a jury in a Manhattan courtroom of 16 counts of corruption, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent.
A years-long investigation found Menendez had accepted bribes in the form of cash and gold bars in exchange for helping the governments of Qatar and Egypt.
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In Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spoke at an event hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, which is led by Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin.
Trump discussed his plans to counter the US reliance on China, backing his idea to use massive tariffs on goods imported from China to protect US industries and raise revenues.
“Nobody’s done for farmers what I’ve done,” he said.
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Vance taps Republican Tom Emmer to help him with debate prep - report
JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential pick, has picked Representative Tom Emmer to help him in his upcoming debate preparation against Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential pick, according to the New York Times.
Over the past month, Vance has been working closely with his team, reviewing strategies for the face-off with Walz.
Donald Trump’s running mate will be debating Kamala Harris’s running mate on 1 October in New York City at 9pm, marking their first televised debate.
The preparation sessions have taken place at Vance’s home in Cincinnati and via online meetings with his inner circle, including Trump campaign strategist Jason Miller, the Times reported.
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Congress appears on track to enact a spending bill that will keep the government open through 20 December, after Republican House speaker Mike Johnson dropped his demand for passage of a law requiring voters prove their citizenship before registering.
Donald Trump has demanded passage of that bill, and in remarks on the Senate floor earlier today, majority leader Chuck Schumer condemned his tactics ahead of the election:
The matter is now very straightforward: we now have less than a week to pass a funding bill through the House, through the Senate, and on to the president’s desk.
Both sides will have to act celeritously and with continued bipartisan good faith to meet the funding deadline. Any delay or last minute poison pill can still push us into a shutdown. I hope – and I trust – that this will not happen.
Of course, as we proceed, it’s important to remember that negotiations didn’t have to wait until the last minute. This agreement could have very easily been reached weeks ago, but Speaker Johnson and House Republicans chose to listen to Donald Trump’s partisan demands instead of working with us from the start to reach a bicameral, bipartisan agreement.
Remember: Donald Trump has spent the entire month urging House Republicans to shut the government down if his poison pills weren’t passed. That is outlandishly cynical: Donald Trump knows perfectly well that a shutdown would mean chaos, pain, needless heartache for the American people. But as usual, he just doesn’t seem to care.
Here’s the latest on the spending negotiations:
Keeping Nebraska’s unique system of allocating electoral votes by congressional district in place improves Kamala Harris’s chances of winning the election with only the three Great Lakes battleground states – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Those three states combined with an electoral vote from Nebraska – which seems gettable, as the district encompassing the largest city Omaha leans Democratic – would send the vice-president to the White House.
But Politico reports that the Teamsters union declining to endorse any candidate last week, after backing Democrats for years, could be a warning sign for Harris, particularly when it comes to the white voters who will decide the victor in the Great Lakes states. Here’s more on that:
The Teamsters withholding an endorsement from Harris this week — after internal polling showed most respondents backing Trump — is sparking fresh concerns that the GOP nominee could have higher-than-expected support among union members, especially men. Labor leaders in other sectors attest that, like in 2016 and 2020, the former president has maintained a grip on key parts of their rank-and-file despite his anti-union record. Privately, Democrats say Harris still has work to do to win over older, white, working-class voters who make up a large portion of the electorate in the Rust Belt and have been hit by high prices.
“Candidly, Trump has a solid, solid base of working-class people that have bought into his message,” said Jimmy Williams, president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, which has endorsed Harris. “It’s movable and it’s been moving. But it’s not like some tide that’s turned.”
Some Teamsters leaders have questioned the methodology of the polling showing Trump winning majority support among the union’s members. But one pro-Harris union official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, spoke in dire terms about it. The person said it is a “red flag” that is reminiscent of the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton underperformed among union households despite winning the majority of top labor endorsements.
“Hard not to have HRC flashbacks right now, to be honest, that stuff might be wrong beneath the surface,” the official said. “I hope it’s not.”
Democratic strategists said Harris’ performance in November could come down to the historic gender gap, especially among blue-collar voters, that has so far defined this election.
Key Nebraska lawmaker rejects Trump-backed effort to change state's electoral vote rules – report
An attempt by Donald Trump and his allies to convince Nebraska state lawmakers to change their system for allocating electoral votes appears to have faltered, after a key legislator said he opposed the campaign.
The Nebraska Examiner reports that Mike McDonnell, an Omaha-area lawmaker who only recently switched his registration to GOP from Democratic, said he will not support changing the state’s rules for allocating electoral votes to a winner-take-all system. Under the current system, electoral votes in Nebraska are allocated by congressional district, and Joe Biden won the district around Omaha four years ago. The change would benefit Trump, as it would almost certainly allow him to pick up all five electoral votes in the solidly red state.
“I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue. After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change,” McDonnell said.
While Republicans control Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, dissent within the party has stopped governor Jim Pillen from calling a special session to change the electoral vote rules.
Here’s more on the recent legislative push:
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Trump accuses justice department of 'mishandling and downplaying' second assassination attempt
Donald Trump launched a partisan attack on the justice department and FBI in a just-released statement, accusing the agencies of showing leniency towards the suspect arrested last week for apparently attempting to assassinate him.
“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” the former president wrote.
He went on to accuse the agencies of conspiring against him, mentioning his two impeachments as well as his involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, among other scandals that occurred during his presidency, and after. “The DOJ and FBI have a Conflict of Interest since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long,” he wrote.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who was Trump’s one-time rival but has since endorsed him, has announced that the state will open its own investigation of the incident, which occured at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach.
Trump said that investigation should be taken precedent:
If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution. Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced. The TRUTH would be followed, wherever it leads. OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT AND DISCREDITED, especially as it pertains to the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. LET FLORIDA HANDLE THE CASE!
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Police Leaders for Community Safety, a nonpartisan advocacy organization made up of law enforcement leaders from across the US, has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president.
In a statement posted on Monday, Sue Riseling the chair of the organization, said that the endorsement of Harris “reflects Harris’ track record and unwavering commitment to public safety and the rule of law”.
Riseling added that as law enforcement leaders, they “know first-hand what it will take to make our communities safer – and that includes having Kamala Harris as our next president”.
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Man suspected of attempting assassination of Trump ordered to remain in jail without bond – report
On Monday, Ryan Routh, 58 – who was arrested in Florida this month and accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course – was ordered to remain in jail without bond to await trial on two gun-related charges, according to a new report from Reuters.
This comes as US prosecutors are seeking to charge Routh with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate, Reuters added.
Earlier today, it was revealed in a court filing that Routh left behind a note where he acknowledged that he intended to kill the former president.
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The Republican Governors Association reportedly said in a statement that its pro-Mark Robinson advertisements are set to expire on Tuesday, and that no further placements have been made, according to the New York Times.
This comes just days after CNN reported that Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, had made disturbing comments on a porn message forum, including describing himself as a black Nazi.
Earlier today, it was also reported that several of Robinson’s top staffers on his campaign have quit in the days following the media report.
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Joe Biden is scheduled to appear on ABC’s The View talk show on Wednesday, the network announced, adding that it will be Biden’s first interview since the Democratic National Convention and the July presidential debate.
The network added:
The exclusive appearance marks the first live appearance by a sitting president on the show and the second time a sitting president has visited, following former Barack Obama’s history-making visit which aired July 29, 2010.
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The United States is sending additional troops to the Middle East during the sharp surge in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said moments ago.
Pentagon press secretary Maj Gen Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The US currently has about 40,000 troops in the region, the Associated Press writes.
The new deployments come after significant strikes by Israeli forces against targets inside Lebanon that have killed hundreds and as Israel is preparing to conduct further operations and the state department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.
Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the US embassy urges US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the state department had cautioned on Saturday.
You can follow the latest updates on the Middle East in our dedicated live blog:
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The day so far
The man suspected of attempting an assassination of Donald Trump wrote a note where he acknowledged that he indeed intended to kill the former president, federal prosecutors revealed in a court filing. The document included several new details of the incident at a Florida golf course where Trump was playing last week, including that the FBI geolocated two cellphones belonging to Ryan Wesley Routh to the area around the former president’s properties in the weeks leading to his arrest. Meanwhile, a new poll shows Kamala Harris trailing the former president in three of the four Sun Belt swing states, while another survey has her seeing a historic spike in her favorability ratings.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
A government shutdown seems to have been averted, with Republican speaker Mike Johnson heading off the politically damaging disruption by agreeing to a spending deal that does not include measures against non-citizen voting, which Trump had demanded.
Harris won the endorsements of hundreds of former national security and military officials, who said Trump “has proven he is not up to the job”.
The White House laid out how Joe Biden will spend his final months in office, dubbing it the “sprint to the finish”.
White House announces Biden's 'sprint to the finish' in final months of presidency
Joe Biden is set to depart the White House next January, after he ended his bid for a second term and endorsed Kamala Harris. This morning, his administration’s communications director Ben LaBolt announced Biden’s “sprint to the finish”, a plan to spend his final months in office doing what he can to achieve his administration’s priorities.
“When the president decided to step back from the campaign and endorse the vice-president, he called his senior team together that day and said we need a plan for the next 180 days to finish as strong as we started,” LaBolt wrote, continuing:
Every day the president meets with his team, he is pushing to lay it all out on the field for the remainder of the term. His directives are:
Aggressively execute on the rest of his agenda
Look for new opportunities to put a stake in the ground for the future
Hit the road to highlight the Biden-Harris record
Show up as a president for all Americans and communicate directly with them on how the Biden-Harris Agenda will pay dividends now and 10, 20, 30 years into the future
LaBolt offered a preview of what Biden would be doing in the days and weeks to come:
The week of 9/23, the president will roll out new policy to combat gun violence. This is a president who has taken dozens of executive actions to counter the scourge of gun violence, established the first ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention – overseen by the vice-president, and signed the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in nearly 30 years.
The week of 9/23, the president will give a speech on the historic work he has done to tackle the climate crisis and the Biden-Harris administration will make new policy announcements to keep building on this progress
The president will keep traveling the country – highlighting the Biden-Harris record
The president will travel internationally as he continues to strengthen our alliances and partnerships on the world stage, which has been a top priority for him as president having restored American leadership on the world stage
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North Carolina has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, but recent polls have shown Kamala Harris within striking distance of taking its 16 electoral votes. The Guardian’s George Chidi has a look at why:
Landon Simonini found himself standing in the middle of a Charlotte highway lane at 2.30 in the afternoon, stuck in an artificial traffic jam while drivers waited for Kamala Harris’s plane to land and the motorcade to clear for the rally later that day.
He was out of his car, because why not? He wasn’t going anywhere soon. His red Make America great again cap stood out among others cursing the traffic gods.
Simonini, born and bred in Charlotte, builds houses. His livelihood depends to some degree on Charlotte’s tremendous growth. But not all growth is great, he said.
“This is a traditionally southern state,” Simonini said. “Over 100 people move to Charlotte a day. That is changing the election map. I am born and raised in Charlotte, for 33 years. I have lived here my entire life. I went to school at UNC Charlotte. This is my city. It is a conservative city and I want to keep it that way.”
But in America’s nail-biting 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is now in play. It rejoins a select list of crucial swing states whose voters will decide if Harris becomes America’s first woman of color to win the White House or if Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office from which he wreaked political chaos for four years.
Hundreds of former national security officials endorse Harris
A group of more than 700 former military and national security officials have released an open letter endorsing Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, who they write “has proven he is not up to the job”.
“Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests. Her relentless diplomacy with allies around the globe preserved a united front in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most ‘lethal’ force in the world,” reads the letter released by National Security Leaders for America.
As for Trump, the group writes:
Mr Trump threatens our democratic system; he has said so himself. He has called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. He said he wants to be a “dictator,” and his clarification that he would only be a dictator for a day is not reassuring. He has undermined faith in our elections by repeating lies, without evidence, of “millions” of fraudulent votes.
He has shown no remorse for trying to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th, promises to pardon the convicted perpetrators, and has made clear he will not respect the results of the 2024 election should he lose again.
That alone proves Mr Trump is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.
Here’s more:
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Days after the House of Representatives failed to pass a government spending bill coupled with legislation against non-citizen voting demanded by Donald Trump, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, is making a new attempt to head off a government shutdown without bowing to the former president’s demands. Here’s more on the legislative maneuvering, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:
US congressional leaders have agreed to a short-term funding deal in a move that averts a damaging pre-election government shutdown and also amounts to a snub for Donald Trump.
The prospect of a shutdown at the expiration of the current government funding on 30 September had been looming after Republicans insisted on tying future funding to legislation that would require voters to show proof of US citizenship – known as the Save Act and backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats.
After weeks of backroom maneuvering, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced a compromise that provides funding for another three months while decoupling it from the Save Act. Any other path would have been “political malpractice”, he added.
The new package continues present spending levels while also giving $231m in emergency funds to the beleaguered Secret Service to enable it to provide added protection for Trump – the Republican presidential nominee, who has been the subject of two failed apparent assassination attempts – as well as his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, before the presidential election on 5 November.
It represents a climbdown for Johnson, who had previously adhered to Trump’s demand that government funding be conditioned on passing the Save Act. The bill – has become an article of faith for the former president and his supporters due to their belief, unsupported by evidence, that electoral fraud is rife.
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Kamala Harris has seen a surge in favorability among voters and is increasingly viewed as the candidate most likely to bring change, a NBC News poll released on Sunday found.
Among registered voters nationwide, the vice-president is ahead by five percentage points, with 49% support against Donald Trump’s 44%. She is also seen as the candidate more likely to bring “change”, a potentially significant finding given that other surveys have found many Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Among respondents, 47% say Harris represents change, while 38% say the same of Trump.
NBC News also found Harris’s favorability jumped 16 points since July, a surge comparable only to what George W Bush saw after the 9/11 attacks.
Kamala Harris continued to goad Donald Trump over the weekend to debate her again. But, as the Guardian’s Joanna Walters and Edward Helmore report, the former president’s campaign insisted there would be no more debates:
Kamala Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN to participate in another debate with Donald Trump, on 23 October, her campaign said on Saturday.
“Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate. It is the same format and setup as the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules and ratings,” the Harris campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said in a statement.
“I will gladly accept a second presidential debate on October 23,” Harris later posted on X. “I hope Donald Trump will join me.”
Trump debated Joe Biden in June when the US president was still running for re-election. Biden performed so badly that he ended up dropping out of the race in July, and Harris, his vice-president, ascended to the nomination.
Asked about Harris’s acceptance of the CNN invitation, a Trump spokesperson pointed to the former president’s prior statements that there would be no more debates.
Donald Trump will hold a rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina, near Charlotte, on Wednesday afternoon, his campaign announced.
It will be the former president’s second rally in the swing state in recent days, after he spoke to supporters in Wilmington over the weekend. North Carolina Republicans are grappling with the fallout from last week’s report that Mark Robinson, their candidate for governor, had a history of making lewd and offensive statements on a pornography site’s message board.
The statements were bad enough that most of Robinson’s campaign staff has resigned. Here’s more on that:
Here’s more on what we learned from prosecutors today about Ryan Wesley Routh’s motivations to make a suspected second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore:
The man accused in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump at a golf course in Florida left behind a note saying that he intended to kill the former president and maintained in his car a handwritten list of dates and venues where the Republican White House nominee was to appear, the justice department said on Monday.
The new allegations were included in a detention memo filed ahead of a hearing on Monday at which the justice department was expected to argue that 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh should remain locked up while the case is pending.
The details are meant to buttress prosecutors’ assertions that Routh had set out to kill Trump before the plot was thwarted by a Secret Service agent who spotted a rifle poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where the former president was playing on 15 September.
The note, addressed “Dear World”, was placed in a box that was dropped at the home of an unidentified person who contacted law enforcement officials after last Sunday’s arrest. It appears to have been based on the premise that the assassination attempt would ultimately be unsuccessful.
In addition to the geolocation data tying two of his cellphones to the areas around Donald Trump’s properties, FBI agents also found in Ryan Wesley Routh’s possession a list of dates where the ex-president would be in August, September and October.
Prosecutors added that Routh had “a notebook with dozens of pages filled with names and phone numbers pertaining to Ukraine, discussions about how to join combat on behalf of Ukraine, and notes criticizing the governments of China and Russia”.
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Suspected second Trump assassin repeatedly visited area around golf course, Mar-a-Lago – prosecutors
Two cellphones found in the car Ryan Wesley Routh was driving when he was arrested were geolocated to areas near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his golf course in Florida in the weeks leading up to his apparent assassination attempt, prosecutors wrote.
The phones, part of six that FBI agents found in Routh’s vehicle, made repeated visits to the vicinity of the two Trump properties between 18 August and 15 September, the court document said.
Agents also examined the SKS rifle found in the bushes outside the golf course where Trump was playing, and discovered a fingerprint they matched to Routh.
The rifle was found in the bushes outside the fence line near the sixth hole of the golf course, and prosecutors wrote that Trump was playing on the fifth hole when a Secret Service agent saw the rifle’s gun barrel protruding from the bushes, and opened fire.
In addition to the rifle, prosecutors wrote that FBI agents found a backpack and shopping bag attached to the fence that contained plates “capable of stopping small arms fire”.
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FBI agents also reviewed a book they believe Routh authored in February 2023 called Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII and the End of Humanity, according to the court document.
In the book, Routh stated that he:
Must take part of the blame for the [person] that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal. No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.
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In a court document submitted today, prosecutors said Ryan Wesley Routh dropped off a box at a witness’s house months prior to making his attempt on Donald Trump’s life.
After learning of Routh’s arrest, the unnamed witness opened the box and contacted law enforcement. Prosecutors say the box contained “ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones, and various letters.”
One letter was addressed to “The World” and read, in part:
This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.
He [the former President] ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.
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Man suspected of second assassination attempt on Trump acknowledged plot - prosecutors
The man suspected of making a second attempt on Donald Trump’s life last week acknowledged that was his intention in a note discovered by police, prosecutors wrote on Monday.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” Ryan Wesley Routh wrote in the note, which was included in a package he gave to an unnamed witness before his arrest.
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Trump leads Harris in Sun belt battleground states, poll finds
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Broadly speaking, there are two groups of swing states expected to decide the presidential election: the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and the Sun belt states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. The closely watched pollsters at the New York Times and Siena College today released new data from three of the latter group, showing Donald Trump preferred by voters over Kamala Harris, albeit to varying degrees. The poll finds the vice-president’s standing is weakest against Trump in Arizona, where she now has a five-point polling deficit after the same pollsters showed her with a five-point lead last month. The race in Georgia is tighter but the tightest state is North Carolina, which has not supported a Democratic candidate for president since 2008.
The survey is the latest sign of the the presidential race remaining in toss-up territory two months after Harris took over as the Democratic candidate from Joe Biden. The Times and Siena College poll is just one data point among many others, but if its findings bear out, it would leave the vice-president reliant on the Great Lakes states as well as Nevada, the fourth Sun belt state that was not surveyed, or a single Nebraska congressional district to win the White House.
Here’s what else is happening today:
The government appears to have dodged the threat of another shutdown, after congressional leaders reached a spending agreement that expires on 20 December, defying Trump’s demands that they also approve legislation to require voters to prove their citizenship when registering.
Biden honors women’s soccer champions Gotham F.C. at 10.30am ET, then meets with president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates at 12.20pm before heading to New York City for the UN general assembly.
Israel has launched a volley of airstrikes at Lebanon today, again raising fears of a regional conflict. You can read out live blog all about it here.
JD Vance is delivering remarks in Charlotte, North Carolina at 5pm.
Trump will hold a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania at 7pm.
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