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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Helen Sullivan (now); with Lois Beckett, Dani Anguiano, Richard Luscombe, Anna Betts and Daniel Lavelle (earlier)

Obama says ‘you can count on Kamala’ at Philadelphia rally – as it happened

Donald Trump Kamala Harris Abandon Harris Jeff Bezos Bernie Sanders Barack Obama Michelle Obama Philadelphia United States Alexandria OcasioCortez
Harris arrives at Ann Arbor, Michigan, for her rally.
Harris arrives at Ann Arbor, Michigan, for her rally. Photograph: Lon Horwedel/EPA

This blog is closing now, thanks for following along. You can find all of our US elections coverage here.

The Guardian’s Alice Herman was at the rally given by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders for Harris in Wisconsin earlier.

At the rally, Ocasio-Cortez likened Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant remarks to the words of Adolf Hitler and sought to rally progressive support for Harris.

The New York congresswoman called the election a “precipice” and condemned the former president’s Madison Square Garden rally, where a comic referred to Puerto Rico as “garbage”, spurring widespread outrage on the island.

“They knew exactly what they were doing; let’s dispense with this idea that this is a joke,” said Ocasio-Cortez. She denounced Trump’s guests for saying “absolutely horrific things” about women and minorities.

“It’s the same kind of logic that says a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx has no business connecting with the community of Madison, Wisconsin,” said Ocasio-Cortez, in a speech that sought to reject Trump’s racist rally and project a vision of unity.

Here is our full report on Obama’s rally for Harris earlier, from Matthew Cantor and Lois Beckett:

Barack Obama made an impassioned pitch for Kamala Harris at a Philadelphia rally with Bruce Springsteen on Monday, telling voters: “It’s not just policies that are on the ballot, it’s who we are.

“Whether this election is making you feel excited or scared, or hopeful, or frustrated, or anything in between: do not sit back,” the former president said. “Put down your phone and vote.”

Speaking in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania as Democrats make a final push for support, Obama – sleeves rolled up and relaxed – ripped into Donald Trump with a blend of criticism and humour. “We have to reject the kind of politics of division and hatred that we saw represented” at Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally, where a comedian opening for Trump made a series of racist jokes.

“Here’s a good rule,” Obama said. “If somebody does not respect you, if somebody does not see you as fellow citizens with equal claims to opportunity, to the pursuit of happiness, to the American dream, you should not vote for them.”

David Simon, who wrote the TV show the The Wire, among other things, has added his name to the growing list of people cancelling their Washington Post subscriptions following the editorial board’s decision not to endorse a candidate this election.

Simon says he wasn’t going to cancel, but after reading Jeff Bezos’s op-ed explaining the decision, has decided to do so:

In his essay Bezos – who founded Amazon – said he had taken the decision because he was worried that people had lost trust in the traditional US media and were getting their news from social media, leaving them vulnerable to disinformation.

“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose,” Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, said.

He added: “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say: ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

Here is our full report from Trump’s rally earlier in Atlanta:

Donald Trump yet again descended upon Atlanta with a week and a day to go, looking for votes in a state that is rapidly running out of voters to woo.

“I do hear the votes are coming in very nicely,” the former president said. When he asked the crowd who had voted, about half raised their hands and cheered. “We’ve got to finish it off.”

Just before Trump took the stage on Monday afternoon across the street from the CNN debate stage that took Joe Biden out of the race, Georgia’s early vote count crossed the 3m mark. More than 40% of Georgia voters have already cast a ballot. About 5 million people voted in Georgia’s 2020 presidential race.

Trump refrained from his regular practice of trashing Atlanta, though he disparaged Fulton county’s district attorney Fani Willis and the election interference charges he still faces, referring to “Fani and her boyfriend” attempting to lock up their “political opponent”.

He described the Harris campaign as one of “demonization and hate”, then referred to her “radical, lunatic left policies”.

“They say: ‘He’s Hitler.’ They say: ‘He’s a Nazi.’ I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” he said. “How can Kamala Harris lead America when she hates Americans? … They’re very bad people who are a threat to democracy.”

Trump took issue with recent criticism made by Michelle Obama. “She was nasty,” Trump said.

There are nearly a million Puerto Ricans living in swing states, according to Politico. Because they live on the US mainland, they are eligible to vote next week.

Almost half a million live in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

The Archbishop of the Puerto Rico Archdiocese, Roberto O. González Nieves, has called on Trump to personally apologise for the racist anti-Puerto Rican remarks made at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York, Politico reports.

Updated

Sanders addresses voter concerns about Gaza in new video

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has released a video addressing voter concerns about the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.

In it, he seeks to address a comment and question he says he has heard repeatedly: “I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?”

In the video, Sanders says that his best answer is, in part, “Even on this issue, Donald Trump and his rightwing friends are worse. In the senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The president and vice-president both support getting as much humanitarian aid as possible into Gaza as soon as possible.”

He then repeats comments made by Trump, including saying that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has is” doing a good job” and that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beach-front property for development.

“After Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy towards Netanyahu,” Sanders says.

“And let me be clear. We will have in my view a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump […] but let me also say this, and I deal with this every day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue in this election.”

Sanders then talks about threats to abortion and to addressing climate change.

Here is the full video:

Summary

It’s been an evening of intense overlapping rallies across the US, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump make their final pitch to swing state voters in a race that still appears to be incredibly close. Some key updates from this evening’s political rallies:

  • In Atlanta, on a day his campaign is facing furious backlash for a comedian’s racist remarks about Puerto Rico and Latinos at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally the night before, Donald Trump returned to attacking immigrants and once again pledged to carry out the biggest mass deportation in US history. He blamed immigrants for raping and murdering American women and girls.

  • Trump repeatedly compared migrants and asylum-seekers to an invading army. “The United States is now an occupied country,” he said. “November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We are going to get these criminals out.”

  • In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kamala Harris struck a characteristically more optimistic and unifying tone: “We’re not about the enemy within. We know we’re all in this together.” She also highlighted the frustrations of younger voters.

  • More than a dozen Gaza solidarity protesters briefly interrupted Harris’s speech. “Stop the genocide!” one yelled. Another was carrying a sign reading “Abandon Harris.”

  • In Philadelphia, Barack Obama joined Bruce Springsteen to rally support for Harris, describing her as an empathetic and experienced leader, and one who would work for the people, not for herself. Mostly, Obama spent his speech ripping into Trump, including mocking the Trump-branded Bibles the candidate is selling arguing that the good economy during Trump’s first term was the result of his own eight years in office.

  • In the face of ongoing backlash to the Washington Post’s billionaire owner blocking the paper’s editorial board from endorsing Harris, Jeff Bezos himself has written a note in the newspaper explaining why he thinks newspaper political endorsements are a bad idea.

Updated

Jeff Bezos is now explaining his non-endorsement decision

Amid massive backlash and a reported 200,000 cancelled subscriptions to the Washington Post, the paper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, has published an explanation of his decision. You can read it here.

The first reactions have not been very positive, as some on social media are noting.

More coverage here:

Updated

Republicans ask supreme court to weigh in on ballot-counting in Pennsylvania

An important update from Reuters:

Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block a judicial decision from Pennsylvania requiring the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters who make mistakes on their mail-in ballots, potentially affecting thousands of votes in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Pennsylvania asked the justices to put on hold the Oct. 23 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling in favor of two Butler County voters who sought to have their provisional ballots counted after their mail-in ballots were rejected during that state’s primary election for lacking secrecy envelopes…

If the justices are not inclined to pause the state court’s ruling in its entirety, the Republicans asked for an order segregating the provisional ballots at issue in the case, which potentially would give the U.S. Supreme Court time to review the legal dispute after the election.

Updated

The Harris campaign said there were 21,000 attendees at the rally she and Tim Walz held this evening in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to the White House pool reporter.

Barack Obama has wrapped up his remarks in Philadelphia, in a rally urging people to vote for Kamala Harris, and framing the election as a referendum of “who we are, and what we stand for”.

Updated

Obama: "Get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote."

“It’s not just policies that are on the ballot, it’s who we are, and what we stand for, Obama says.

“Whether this election is making you feel excited or scared, or hopeful, or frustrated, or anything in between: do not sit back. Don’t just hope for the best. Get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote. Vote for Kamala Harris as the next president. Vote for Tim Walz as the next vice-president.”

Updated

“Time again, when Donald Trump lies or cheats or shows utter disregard for our constitution when he calls service members who dies in battle losers or suckers, when he calls fellow citizens vermin, people make excuses for him.”

Trump “seems to violate pretty much every precept of the ten commandments”, Obama says, to applause.

Why would veterans, even Republican or more conservative ones, vote for “someone who does not believe in duty or honor?” Obama asks.

Why would Muslim Americans, even those upset about the current policy in the Middle East “put your faith in someone who passed a Muslim ban?” Obama asks.

For Latinos, “how can you tell yourself it’s okay as long as ‘our side wins?’”

Obama says he’s seen openness to Trump especially with some men, who seem to like “this macho, fake-macho thing.

“Real strength is about helping people who need it and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for those who can’t stand up for ourselves,” Obama says. “That is what we should want in our daughters and our sons, and that is what I want to see in the next president of the United States of America.”

Updated

In Philadelphia, Obama is doing something that has been relatively uncommon in American life: he’s talking about the toll of pandemic and how it still affects people. He’s talking now about how there are people who died during the pandemic in Pennsylvania who might have survived to be at the rally tonight if the public health response had been different. For this, he blames Trump.

“Some of these folks would be here if we had a competent response. Not somebody who was suggesting injecting bleach,” Obama said.

Updated

“Kamala Harris doesn’t have concepts of a plan, she has actual plans to make your life better,” Obama says, ripping into Trump’s now infamous remark on his healthcare plan during a debate with Kamala Harris.

Updated

From earlier: pro-Palestine protesters at the Harris rally, and her response

Updated

Barack Obama is saying that people remember Trump’s first term as better for the economy than the current economy. But that wasn’t Trump, Obama claims: “That was good because it was my economy!” Obama says, to cheers.

“I had spent the previous eight years cleaning up the mess that Republicans had left. Financial crisis great recession, the auto industry flat on its back and after those eight years, I handed over 75 straight months of job growth to Donald Trump, and all he did is give a tax cut to people who didn’t need it.

“He didn’t do nothing,” Obama adds.

Updated

Barack Obama is having fun in Philadelphia, clearly enjoying ripping into Trump. He’s even getting a little silly and just threw in an unexpected PG Wodehouse reference, to the series of British comic novels about Bertie Wooster and his servant, Jeeves:

“Do you think Donald Trump has ever changed a flat tire in his life? If he has a flat tire, he calls over his chauffeur. ‘Jeeves, change that tire!’” Obama says. “I don’t know if his name is actually Jeeves. But it might be. Got a fake English accent. Jeeves!”

Updated

Speaking in Philadelphia, Obama is lecturing the crowd on why people should not vote for Donald Trump, and why he sees it as outrageous that the election is still so close.

He’s talking about the racist and bigoted comments that a comedian made before Trump spoke at Madison Square Garden last night, particularly targeting Puerto Rico.

“We have to reject the kind of politics of division and hatred that we saw represented,” he said. “America is ready for a better story!”

Obama says Harris is ready for the challenge of being president. “She actually cares what people are going through. As the oldest child, she saw how the world would sometimes treat her mom: single mother, five foot tall brown woman with an accent.”

Obama is touting Harris’s record as a prosecutor, and saying that she pushed back on Obama’s own administration to make sure homeowners got more mortgage relief after the 2009 housing crisis.

“You might not agree with every decision she made. You didn’t agree with every decision I made,” Obama said, to laughs. “Here’s one thing you have to think about and you can count on with Kamala. If you elect Kamala Harris, she will see you, she will hear you, she will have you back every single day. She knows what it’s like to struggle and to work hard and to be on the outside looking in,” Obama says.

Updated

Watch Obama speak live in Philadelphia

Obama campaigns for Harris in Philadelphia

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have wrapped up their rallies. Now, Barack Obama is speaking to a rally in Philadelphia, and urging the fired-up voters in attendance to make sure their friends and family members also vote. So far, he is focusing on mocking Donald Trump and portraying him as a narcissist only interested in selling people things.

“We know this election is going to be tight. It shouldn’t be. But it will be, because a lot of Americans are still struggling,” Obama says, talking about “a historic pandemic,” and “price hikes, but put a strain on family budgets.”

“I get why people might want to shake things up. I understand that. What I cannot understand is why anyone would think that Donald Trump would shake things up in a way that is good for you.” "

“When he’s not complaining he’s trying to sell you stuff,” Obama says. “He’s trying to sell you a Trump Bible.”

When he crowd boos, Obama says, “Nobody can hear your boos. But they can hear you vote.”

“He wants you to buy the word of God, Donald Trump edition,” Obama says. “Couldn’t recite a verse, but he’ll send you that Bible. And guess where it’s made? Made in China!”

“You cannot make this stuff up,” Obama says. “If it was on Saturday Night Live, people will say, ‘That’s exaggerated.’ It’s not! He’s doing it!”

Updated

Her speech in Michigan over, Kamala Harris was joined onstage by Tim Walz. They waved to the crowd for a while, before the vice-president appeared to step down into the crowd.

The stage from where she spoke is now covered in press and Secret Service, likely watching as she talks to attendees.

Updated

In Atlanta, Trump showed supporters a video claiming the Biden administration has made the US military “woke”, and that he will restore a tough guy, drill sergeant attitude. The video includes mocking clips of Adm Rachel Levine, the first trans official confirmed by the Senate.

Updated

Barack Obama is taking the stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he and Bruce Springsteen are rallying for Kamala Harris.

Ann Arbor is the home to the University of Michigan, whose students could be a treasure trove of votes for Democrats across the swing state. Kamala Harris reached out to them, empathizing with the challenges their generation faces.

“I want to speak specifically to all the young leaders, all the students who are here today,” Harris said.

“I love your generation. I really do, and one of the things about it is you are rightly impatient for change. I love that about you. You are impatient for change because, look, you have only known the climate crisis and are leading ... the charge to protect our planet and our future. You, you young leaders who grew up with active shooter drills and are fighting then to keep our schools safe. You who now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers are standing up for reproductive freedom and for you, and for you, I know that these issues that are at stake, they are not theoretical. This is not political for you. It is your lived experience, and I see you, and I see your power, and I know many of you are voting for the first time.”

Updated

My colleague George Chidi is reporting from Trump’s rally in Atlanta, Georgia:

Watch Kamala Harris speak live in Michigan:

Gaza protesters briefly interrupt Harris speech

More than a dozen Gaza solidarity protesters, mostly young people, were escorted from the rally by Harris campaign staff after disrupting the vice-president’s speech.

“Stop the genocide!” one yelled. Another was carrying a sign reading “Abandon Harris.” Harris has repeatedly been interrupted on the campaign trail by protesters opposed to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Harris used the disruption by a small group of Gaza solidarity protesters to quickly state her position on the conflict.

“And listen, hey, on the subject of Gaza, hey guys, I hear you on the subject of Gaza. We all want this war to end as soon as possible and get the hostages out, and I will do everything in my power to make it so,” drawing cheers from the crowd. That policy is about the same as what Joe Biden is proposing.

Updated

Trump: 'The US is now an occupied country'

“The United States is now an occupied country,” Trump tells supporters in Georgia, once again comparing immigrants to an invading army.

“November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We are going to get these criminals out.

“I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered. These towns have been conquered … can you imagine, just as though a foreign enemy was invading, a military was invading, and probably just as vicious or more vicious. And we will put these bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of this country. Get them the hell out of here.

“I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil,” Trump says.

Updated

If you’re listening to several rallies simultaneously, here in the last full week of the 2024 election, there’s a lot of contrasting tones:

Donald Trump is talking in Atlanta, Georgia, about migrants raping and killing American women and girls and about claims about Venezuelan gang members in Colorado. Kamala Harris is talking about unity in Ann Arbor, Michigan: “We’re not about the enemy within. We know we’re all in this together,” she says.

Bruce Springsteen, holding a guitar, is speaking about the value of building a “middle-class economy” at a rally for Harris in Pennsylvania, and calling Trump “an American tyrant”. He just started playing the guitar.

Updated

Kamala Harris has taken the stage in Ann Arbor, Michigan

“We will win,” Harris tells the crowd.

“We are all in this together … the vast majority of us have far more in common than what separates us.”

Updated

Tim Walz used to be a high school football coach, a job that he clearly enjoyed. He has used football metaphors extensively on the campaign trail, and tonight in Ann Arbor is no exception.

“This is where I’ve gotta do it, huddling up a little bit here. Time for a little bit of a pep talk. Look, we gotta admit it, this game is tied. Two minutes left on the clock. We got the ball. We’re driving down the field. We’re doing the blocking and everything we need to do. And I know you got a saying around here ... the team, the team, the team. And boy, do we have the right team. So all gas, no breaks for the next eight days.”

The crowd chanted “the team” alongside Walz.

Taking the stage as Kamala Harris‘s warm-up act in Ann Arbor, Tim Walz offered advice to those nervous about next week’s presidential election.

“Eight days till the election, and our team is running like everything’s on the line because everything’s on the line. But here’s the good news: if you’re feeling any of that anxiety, any of that nervousness, any of that worry, we’ve got the solution for you – get out there and vote for Kamala Harris. I know – I did it last Wednesday with my son, who voted the first time. And it works.”

Updated

“The jails all over the world are being emptied into our country,” Trump claims, specifically mentioning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Middle East and Central America. “We’re a dumping ground.”

“Kamala is importing savage criminals who assault, rape, murder, our women and our girls. I’m sorry to say that, but that’s what’s happening,” Trump says.

Updated

Trump is now getting into the pre-announced theme of this rally, protecting women.

“I’m going to protect the women in this country … I’m going to protect them from migrants coming into our country that kill seven people … I’m going to protect them from having people come into our country and do damage to the woman or the family of a woman or anybody,” he says.

“I think it’s fine to say I will protect the women of this country and the men of this country and I will protect everyone,” he says.

“They said, ‘Please sir, don’t say that!’”

Updated

If you’re confused about why Trump is riffing about Georgia congresswoman and his own ally Marjorie Taylor Greene driving an exploding hydrogen car, here is some context from the Washington Post:

Updated

Trump is riffing again on his admiration for Elon Musk, calling him “a real patriot” and saying the tech billionaire, the richest man in the world, would be put in charge of cutting costs within government if Trump is elected.

“You know what he’s doing now? … He’s been campaigning in Pennsylvania.”

My colleague Blake Montgomery had a good overview of what the billionaire might expect to receive from his all-in donations and personal campaigning for Trump:

Updated

“You’re going to have a 1929-style depression,” if Harris wins, Trump tells his audience in Georgia.

“She’s a fascist, OK, she’s a fascist,” Trump says of Kamala Harris, speaking to an enthusiastic crowd in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hearkening back to the backlash against Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables” during the 2016 election, Trump tells his supporters that Harris is labeling them fascists.

Updated

Cellphone lights glowed and the crowd waved signs reading “VOTE” as Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers serenaded the crowd in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In between songs, she told the crowd that she was performing at the campaign rally because there was too much at stake in this election to stay silent.

“I can’t ignore the headlines that I’ve been seeing on my phone any longer. I have to face the reality of what’s happening in the next eight days. And, to tell you the complete truth, it’s terrifying,” she said.

“Voting is the key to the future. It’s the key to a candidate who believes in reproductive freedom for all people, it’s the key to a candidate who believes in climate change and has a plan to fight against it. It’s the key to a candidate who believes in upholding the basic human dignity of all people, and who embodies the values that I want to see, not just for myself and for my friends, but for my grandchildren and for your grandchildren ... In these next eight days, you can fight back against the fear of Donald Trump and everything that he creates. You can take action against his darkness. You can choose the light.”

“The new line is that everybody not voting for her is a Nazi. We’re Nazis,” Trump says, talking about Kamala Harris.

“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump says. “My father always used to tell me, don’t use the word, you don’t ever use the word ‘Nazi.’ The way they talk is so disgusting, it’s so horrible the way they talk.”

It was Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, formerly a Marine general, who recently said in an interview that Trump “falls into the general definition of fascist”.

Updated

Kamala Harris is set to take the stage here in a few minutes in Ann Arbor, a Michigan college town that, like so many around the country, has seen spirited protests by students opposed to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Among the speakers introducing the vice-president was Assad Turfe, the deputy county executive of Wayne county, the most-populous in Michigan and home to a large Arab American community.

The group often votes for Democrats, but many now say they won’t support Harris because of Joe Biden‘s assistance for Israel’s invasion of Gaza, with some going so far as to announce support for Donald Trump. Addressing the crowd, Turfe made the case to the Arab community that Harris has the right policies when it comes to the divisive conflict.

“The past year has been unimaginable for so many people in my community. We are mourning loved ones who have died in Gaza and Lebanon. We are wondering when the suffering will finally stop. We are desperate for a president who sees us, who understands us, and who will give voice to our pain and work to end this war once and for all,” Turfe said.

“I’m here tonight because I know without a doubt that Kamala Harris is that leader. Vice-president Harris has called for a ceasefire that brings the hostages home ... allows displaced families in Lebanon to return to their villages, [allows] the Palestinian people the dignity and self determination they deserve.

“When she wins, she will continue doing everything she can to bring relief to innocent civilians and secure lasting peace for the region.”

He told the crowd Trump was no friend of Arabs and Muslims, reminding the crowd how he banned people from Muslim-majority countries during his first term, and praised Israel’s invasion of Gaza. “We know what Trump thinks of Muslims and Arab Americans and how he treats us,” he said.

“If he gets another chance to occupy the Oval Office, he will only bring more chaos and more suffering.”

Going back to his reality TV roots on The Apprentice, Trump urges his supporters to say, “Kamala, you’re fired, get out of here.”

“Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” the crowd chants. Trump pauses for a few seconds. “Be nice!” Trump says eventually. “Be nice.”

Trump starts talking about Hillary Clinton and the “lock her up” chants from his 2016 campaign. He says that he could have imprisoned Hillary Clinton, but that he did not want to.

“I coulda locked her up, but I didn’t want to lock her up, she’s the wife of the president of the United States previously, and the secretary of state … and then they try to do it to me. Isn’t it terrible?”

He references Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, who brought a case against Trump for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, claims he has been investigated more than Al Capone, talks about his children “constantly getting subpoenaed”.

Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York in May in a case about hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Updated

Trump, in a speech in Atlanta that is reportedly on the theme of “protecting women”, leads the crowd in more furious boos against the idea of making it easier for transgender people to transition.

Updated

“You know who was nasty to me? Michelle Obama,” Trump says, to more boos to the crowd. “…Oooh, she was nasty. She shouldn’t be that way.”

The former president appears to be referencing the former first lady’s speech in favor of Kamala Harris this weekend:

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asks his crowd. “Nooo!” the crowd boos. “I didn’t think so,” Trump said.

Trump takes stage at Atlanta rally after day of outrage over Puerto Rico remarks

Donald Trump has taken the stage at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, after a day of outrage from Puerto Ricans over the remarks of a comedian at a Trump rally last night in New York City.

Updated

Residents of Puerto Rico can’t vote in the presidential election, even though they are US citizens. But what they can do is use their influence with relatives who live on the mainland, and, reporting from San Juan, the Associated Press found evidence that’s already happening.

  • Milagros Serrano, 81, has a son who lives in the swing state of Pennsylvania and said the entire family was outraged by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally in New York City last night. “He can’t be talking about Puerto Rico like that,” she said as she left for a medical appointment. “He’s the one who’s a piece of garbage.”

  • José Acevedo, a 48-year-old health worker from San Juan, shook his head as he recalled the feelings that coursed through him when he watched the rally. “What humiliation, what discrimination!” he said early Monday as he waited to catch a public bus to work. Acevedo said he immediately texted relatives in New York, including an uncle who is a Republican and had planned to vote for Trump.

  • Jenniffer González, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress for the pro-statehood New Progressive party and a Trump supporter, called the remarks “despicable, misguided and disgusting”. She said: “They do not represent the values of the GOP.”

Updated

Up next: Kamala Harris campaigns tonight in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Donald Trump campaigns in Atlanta, Georgia; Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen rally for Harris in Philadelphia; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders rally for Harris in Wisconsin.

Updated

Thousands of LA Times and Washington Post readers cancel subscriptions, reports say

More than 7,000 readers have cancelled their Los Angeles Times subscriptions since news broke that the paper would not be making a presidential endorsement this year, Semafor reports. Multiple editorial board members have resigned and described how the paper’s billionaire owner, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the editorial board from making a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Semafor’s Max Tani notes this number, which would be shocking in most weeks, pales in comparison to the reported 200,000 subscribers who have cancelled Washington Post subscriptions in response to billionaire owner Jeff Bezos blocking that paper from endorsing Kamala Harris.

This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live political coverage from Los Angeles.

Updated

Donald Trump faced mounting suspicion of hatching a plot to steal next week’s presidential election as Democrats and commentators focused on his references to a “little secret” at Sunday night’s tumultuous Madison Square Garden rally.

The allusions initially attracted little notice amid the angry backlash provoked by racist jokes and incendiary rhetoric from a succession of warm-up speakers, including an offensive comment about Puerto Ricans that even Trump’s own campaign felt obliged to disavow.

However, some observers and Democratic politicians believed the most telling remark of the night came from the Republican nominee himself after he introduced Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, on stage and alluded to a shared secret.

“We gotta get the congressmen elected and we gotta get the senators elected,” Trump told the crowd, referring to the congressional elections at stake next week.

“We can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House. Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret – we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”

Read more:

Harris says 'Puerto Ricans deserve better' after racist remarks at Trump New York rally

Kamala Harris’s campaign has seized on the racist remarks about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s New York rally on Sunday in a new campaign ad in which the vice-president argues “Puerto Ricans deserve better.”

In the ad released on Monday, Harris also criticized Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island and killed thousands of people in 2017. “He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” she said.

A report from 2021 found that the Trump administration delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after the hurricane.

Updated

Donald Trump has pledged to gut the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate law, even though some of his closest allies have benefitted from it.

At least seven of Trump’s associates and fundraisers – or the companies they run – have obtained incentives thanks to the climate law, Reuters first reported.

The IRA increased consumer interest in clean energy loans from California-based financial technology company Mosaic, which counts Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner’s private equity fund Affinity Partners as an investor. Another IRA beneficiary was carbon capture and sequestration project Summit Carbon Solutions, in which Trump ally Harold Hamm’s fossil fuel company Continental Resources invested $250m in 2022.

Though its founder Elon Musk has attacked the IRA, Tesla has also received gargantuan subsidies from the IRA. Musk is one of Trump’s most consequential boosters.

Vicki Hollub, the Occidental Petroleum CEO and a major Trump donor and fundraiser, has also benefited from the IRA’s carbon capture tax credit and other subsidies. And pipeline company Energy Transfer – headed by longtime Trump supporter Kelcy Warren – participates in carbon capture and hydrogen projects boosted by IRA tax credits.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act represented the biggest green downpayment in American history. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the law.

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Kamala Harris took another swipe at her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, during her visit to a semiconductor plant in Michigan.

She attacked the former president again for the tone and content of his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, and defended the Chips and Science Act she said he wanted to abandon:

We are eight days out from an election, so I’ve got to also talk about the contrast, because my opponent spends full time talking about, just kind of diminishing who we are as America, and talking down at people, talking about that we’re the garbage can of the world. We’re not.

He just recently did a radio talk show and talked about how he’d get rid of the Chips act. That was billions of dollars investing in just the kind of work that’s happening here. And you know how we did it? We created tax credits to create the incentive for the private sector to do this work. That’s good work.

When he was president, he sold advanced chips to China that helped them with their agenda to modernize their military. That’s not about what’s in the best interest of America’s security and prosperity, which should be two of the highest priorities for president of the US.

There is a very serious choice presented in the next eight days. And as much as anything it is a question about what is the direction of the future that we want for our country.

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JD Vance says Americans need to 'stop getting so offended at every little thing' when asked about Puerto Rico remarks

As Donald Trump’s campaign faces intense criticism over racist remarks from a speaker at the Republican candidate’s New York rally on Sunday, JD Vance has responded by saying that Americans need to “stop getting offended”.

Tony Hinchcliffe, a podcaster and comedian who spoke ahead of Trump at Madison Square Garden, described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”. His comments have drawn widespread condemnation and outrage.

Trump’s running mate said he had “heard about” the joke, and argued that Kamala Harris is painting the former president’s supporters as “Nazis”.

“I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’s closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke. That is not the message of a winning campaign.

“I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m so over it.”

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'I remember': singer Marc Anthony's stinging attack on Trump rally and legacy

The Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony has just posted a stinging attack on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, reminding voters how the then president “blocked billions in relief while thousands died” on the island after 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

“I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember. I remember what it was like when Trump was president. I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico … About our people,” he posted on X to his 11m followers:

I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico ‘dirty’ and ‘poor.’

But I was not surprised … because I ALSO remember … he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists. He’s told us what he’ll do. He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it.

This election goes way beyond political parties. Now let’s remember what the United States represents and stands for. It’s our name - United. Regardless of where we’re from. I’m Marc Anthony … I remember.

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'Suspect vehicle' identified in ballot box arson

Police say they have identified “a suspect vehicle” connected to incendiary devices that set fire to separate ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state early on Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Surveillance images captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box, officials said.

That fire damaged three ballots inside. Around the same time, a fire was set at a drop box in nearby Vancouver, Washington, on early Monday, and hundreds of ballots were destroyed.

Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected, and were also linked to an incident on 8 October when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver.

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Nevada supreme court rejects Republican 'postmark ballot' lawsuit

The Nevada supreme court on Monday upheld the state’s post-election deadline for mail ballots lacking a postmark, CNN reported. The ruling is a rejection of a lawsuit brought by Republicans and the Trump campaign.

The lawsuit challenged Nevada’s acceptance of mail ballots that are missing postmarks up to three days after an election. The supreme court, however, said the plaintiffs had failed to make a convincing case.

“Notably, the RNC [Republican national committee] presented no evidence or allegations that counting mail ballots without postmarks … would be subject to voter fraud, or that the election security measures currently in place are inadequate to address its concerns regarding these ballots,” the ruling said.

According to CNN, a similar case was filed by Republicans in federal court, but the US ninth circuit court of appeals is unlikely to resolve that case before next Tuesday’s election.

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Harris to 'reassess' degree requirements for federal jobs

Kamala Harris has been touring a semiconductor plant in Saginaw county, Michigan, on Monday afternoon, and talking up the Chips and Science Act.

The Democratic presidential nominee said that if she wins next week’s election she will be reassessing “on day one” which federal jobs require a college degree and which ones do not.

The comment, at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility in Hemlock, is both a policy proposal and a political bridge, the Associated Press news agency said, reporting her visit.

One of the clearest political divides in the nation over the past few presidential cycles has been between college-educated and non-college-educated voters, with Democrats acknowledging they need to cut into Donald Trump’s support among the latter group, it said.

“One of the things immediately is to reassess federal jobs, and I have already started looking at it, to look at which ones don’t require a college degree,” Harris said. “Because here is the thing: that’s not the only qualification for a qualified worker.”

Earlier in her speech, Harris said: “We need to get in front of this idea that only high-skilled jobs require college degrees.”

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Moms for Liberty, a rightwing activist group focusing on education, launched a video ad in four battleground states on Monday targeting a Biden administration rule protecting LGBTQ+ students from gender bias.

The ad, titled That’s Not Fair, features a father comforting his athlete daughter after she lost a race. “Dad, it’s not fair! I had to run against a boy! It’s not right,” the girl tells her father, who replies: “I know.”

The ad will air in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.

In June, a federal judge in Louisiana appointed by Donald Trump blocked the Biden administration from enforcing an education department rule extending sex discrimination protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.

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We’re learning more about Donald Trump’s plans for the final days of the presidential election campaign. He’ll be at his Florida mansion, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday morning to deliver “remarks to the press”.

That would be the same press the Republican nominee denounced as “the enemy of the people” at his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday night, and on many other occasions previously.

A statement from the Trump campaign gave no clue as to the topic, but the fact the Palm Beach event is billed as “remarks”, rather than a press conference, might suggest the former president is reluctant to take questions, especially over the New York rally that was blighted by vitriol, racism and hate from a succession of speakers.

He was most recently in Florida last week at a roundtable of Latino leaders.

Also on Monday, the campaign announced Trump will be appearing at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Wednesday afternoon. And he will host an election night watch party next Tuesday at the West Palm Beach convention center.

Bannon to be released from prison Tuesday: report

Steve Bannon will be released from prison on Tuesday, according to a report published Monday by Washington DC online media outlet Notus that says he’s “ready for retribution”.

Bannon, one of Donald Trump’s most loyal henchmen and vocal mouthpieces (save for a short period in the Maga wilderness), will be released from a low-security Connecticut prison after serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.

The report says the former senior White House adviser is expected to get straight back out on the campaign trail in support of his master, including returning to host his War Room podcast that became essential listening for Trump’s Make America great again faithful.

“Expect to see a newly invigorated Stephen K Bannon, more intent than ever to take his fight to the administrative state,” Raheem Kassam, the conservative British activist told Notus.

“I would not be surprised to see him immediately hitting the campaign trail, as well as hosting his War Room show for four hours each day. Every second will count. Every word will matter.”

The report used words including “domestic revolution”, and “merciless campaign of retribution on Maga critics” in connection with Bannon’s upcoming release.

He surrendered to custody on 1 July after the supreme court rejected his appeal to avoid prison time for defying multiple subpoenas surrounding the House’s 6 January insurrection investigation.

The Notus report gave an eye-opening account of Bannon’s time behind bars:

Like at most prisons, the 1,248 inmates at FCI Danbury tend to divide into racial, religious or geographic groups known as ‘cars’. According to fellow inmates, Bannon has gravitated toward the ‘white car,’ which includes mobsters serving time for fraud and similar racketeering-type behavior.

‘Your boy (B) is in the white car, sits with the Italians, the godfather type,’ said Fred Carrasco Jr, who is serving more than a decade behind bars for armed drug trafficking, noting that ‘he basically sticks to his crew [and] hangs out with one guy’ who he describes as ‘pretty tough’.

The white inmates have their own table, and Bannon is a regular there now, he added.

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The Guardian’s latest Today in Focus podcast is out.

It’s a special election edition, and Ed Pilkington, chief reporter of Guardian US, shares his thoughts on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally with host Lucy Hough.

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Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemns the rhetoric displayed by Trump and his allies at Madison Square Garden

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released a statement condemning the “shameful rhetoric” displayed at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday, where speakers made racist remarks about immigrants, and one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”.

In the statement, the caucus called the language and rhetoric at the rally as “not only divisive but dangerous”.

Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences. When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise.

The statement continues:

This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.

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Concern over Trump and House speaker Johnson's election 'secret'

During Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last night, Trump told the crowd that he and Mike Johnson, a Republican and the current speaker of the House, had a “little secret”.

In the remarks, Trump appeared to point at Johnson, and then told the crowd: “He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.”

He continued: “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”

It’s hard to say exactly what Trump was referring to, but on Monday morning, the Democratic representative Dan Goldman appeared on CNN and said that he suspects that Trump’s secret with Johnson is a “backup plan for when he loses”.

A new CNN poll released on Monday found that most voters think Trump will not concede if he loses the 2024 election.

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Authorities are investigating ballot box fires in Oregon and Washington

Authorities say they are investigating after two ballot boxes were set on fire early on Monday morning in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.

The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in a ballot drop box at about 3.30am this morning and found that an incendiary device had been placed inside.

Vancouver officials responded to an arson at a ballot box at about 4.00am this morning, authorities there said.

When officers arrived, the box was smoking and on fire, and they located a suspicious device next to the box.

Soon after, Metro Explosive Disposal Unit members arrived and safely collected the device, and the fire was extinguished.

The FBI is continuing to investigate the incident.

According to the Associated Press, hundreds of ballots in Vancouver were destroyed, and three ballots in Portland were damaged.

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Biden calls Trump's Madison Square Garden rally 'simply embarrassing'

Speaking outside a polling station in Delaware on Monday, President Joe Biden described Donald Trump’s rally yesterday at Madison Sqaure Garden where speakers made racist and vulgar remarks as “simply embarrassing”.

“It’s beneath any president, but that’s what we’re getting used to. That’s why this election is so important” Biden said.

“Most of the presidential scholars I’ve spoken to talk about the single most consequential thing about a president is character. Character,” Biden continued. “And he puts that in question every time he opens his mouth.”

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President Joe Biden casts his early vote in Delaware

With just 8 days to go until election day,Joe Biden cast his early vote on Monday at a polling station in Delaware.

The president waited in line for about 40 minutes before casting his ballot, the Associated Press reported.

Biden then handed his identification to the election worker, who had him sign and announced: “Joseph Biden now voting.”

As Biden voted behind a black drape, some first-time voters were announced, and the room erupted in cheers for them.

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Interim summary

It’s been a busy morning of election developments, with plenty of fall out from Donald Trump’s racist campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.

Here’s what we’ve been watching:

  • The district attorney’s office in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down Elon Musk’s controversial $1m giveaways to voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states. The move by Larry Krasner, the city’s district attorney, follows warnings from the justice department that the handouts by the prominent Trump acolyte, and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, might violate federal election laws.

  • Kamala Harris said Trump is “focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country” in her first public comments since the New York rally. The Democratic nominee said she was “proud to have the support of folks like Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and others who were supporting me before that nonsense last night at Madison Square Garden”.

  • Joe Biden cast his ballot for Harris after waiting in line for 40 minutes at a polling station in Delaware. According to the Associated Press, the president also had harsh words about the Trump rally, calling it “simply embarrassing”, and said Trump calls his own character into question “every time he opens his mouth”.

  • Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, said she was “confident” that Harris would be the next president. “We are not cruel, and we aren’t evil, and we don’t elect people who are,” she told an event called An Afternoon With Liz Cheney, held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

  • Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during his address to the Trump rally, said critics need to get over his comments. “These people have no sense of humor. Wild that a vice-presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist,” he said, referring to Democrat Tim Walz’s criticism.

There’s plenty more to come this afternoon. Please stick with us.

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Alaska’s Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, says she’s not voting for Donald Trump in this election. But she’s not voting for Kamala Harris either.

Murkowski made the announcement in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News over the weekend, reported Monday by the Associated Press.

That Murkowski has no time for Trump is no surprise. She has said previously that she didn’t vote for him in 2016 or 2020, and was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial.

But she has not followed other rebel Republicans in announcing support for Harris. The former congresswoman Liz Cheney, for example, has campaigned with the vice-president and said she would vote for her.

“I want to vote for somebody and not against someone,” Murkowski told the Daily News, adding that she will vote for one of the six other presidential candidates on the Alaska ballot, without saying which.

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Biden arrives to cast 2024 vote in Delaware

Joe Biden has joined a voting line at a polling station in New Castle, Delaware, the Associated Press reports.

When the president arrived at the polling place at the Delaware department of elections, there was a long line of people lined up waiting to vote, the agency said.

Biden chatted with some of them, and was pushing an older woman in a wheelchair who was ahead of him in line.

It looks to be a carefully stage-managed photo opportunity. As president of the US, Biden could, if he so chose, be in and out quickly, surrounded by security detail.

Opting to take his place in line, conversing with voters as he waits, the commander-in-chief presents himself as a man of the people.

We’ll let you know if he has any comments for reporters.

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Nearly half of US voters think government does a poor job of representing ordinary people, half are skeptical that self-governance is working, and three-quarters think democracy is under threat, according to one of the last polls before the 5 November presidential election.

The survey, published on Sunday by the New York Times in collaboration with Siena College, sketched out a deeply divided political landscape. Both sides of the divide expressed distrust of the other – and doubts in general about the US’s brand of democracy.

But they come together with an overall perception: a majority said the country was plagued by corruption, with 62% saying that the government was mostly working to serve itself and elites than any broader purpose of collective good.

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Harris: 'Nonsense' Trump rally fueled by hate and division

Kamala Harris has responded to Donald Trump’s racist Madison Square Garden rally in comments just now on her way to campaign stops in Michigan.

The former president, she says, is “focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country”.

The Democratic presidential nominee was speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, in her first public comments since last night’s New York event in which numerous speakers spouted hatred, vitriol and racism – including calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.

Harris said of the Trump event:

It is not in any way something that will strengthen the American family, the American worker. Nothing about what he is saying is actually going to support the aspirations, the dreams and the ambitions of the American people.

It is absolutely something that is intended to, and is, fanning the fuel of trying to divide our country. I’ve said many times there’s a big difference between he and I. If he were elected, on day one, he’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office working on his enemies list.

If I’m elected president of the US, which I fully intend to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.

Harris was asked if she saw a comparison in the Trump rally with a Nazi event held there in 1939, and to expand on her economic plan for Puerto Rico, announced on Sunday:

What he did last night is not a discovery. It is just more of the same, and maybe more vivid than usual. Donald Trump spends full time trying to have Americans point their finger at each other, fans the fuel of hate and division, and that’s why people are exhausted with him.

That’s why people who formerly have supported Donald Trump and voted for him are supporting me, voting for me. People are literally ready to turn the page. They’re tired of it.

In terms of Puerto Rico … my plan is about opportunity economy writ large, but a specific target will include a task force focused on the needs of Puerto Rico, understanding that it has very specific needs in terms of upgrading and repairing its electric grid.

I’m proud to have the support of folks like Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and others who were supporting me before that nonsense last night at Madison Square Garden, and are supporting me because they understand they want a president who is about uplifting the people and not berating, not calling America a garbage can.

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Joe Biden is expected to cast his ballot for Kamala Harris, his vice-president, in Wilmington, Delaware, shortly.

The president had breakfast with Democratic congresswoman and Senate hopeful Lisa Blunt Rochester in New Castle this morning, the Associated Press reported.

Blunt Rochester has been Delaware’s lone House member since 2017 and is seeking to become the first Black woman elected to represent the state in the Senate.

Biden endorsed Blunt Rochester in a video released on Sunday evening by her campaign. He will cast his early-vote ballot then head for the White House.

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Hundreds of presidential election ballots are believed to be lost lost after an incendiary device reportedly started a fire at a drop box in Vancouver, Washington, on Monday.

The ABC affiliate KATU posted photos to its website of thick gray smoke coming from inside the red ballot box, and reported that burning ballots were pulled from inside.

Multiple police units are on the scene, the station said, but officials have not yet released further details about what happened.

The Columbian reported that a second ballot drop box in Portland was also targeted.

Fears about the security of drop boxes for ballots, and voting papers sent through the mail, have escalated in recent weeks. Police in Phoenix, Arizona, arrested a man last week for allegedly setting fire to a USPS mailbox containing mail-in ballots.

Disinformation and conspiracy theories about drop boxes and voting by mail have become a staple of rightwing efforts to discredit elections. Among the most prominent was hard-right provocateur Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked book and movie 2000 Mules which falsely claimed paid “mules” had carried illegal ballots to drop boxes in swing states in 2020.

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An investigation published Monday by ProPublica reveals how one of Donald Trump’s key allies drew up plans for the US military to be used to quell domestic unrest, among other extremist measures to be deployed if he wins a second term of office.

Russell Vought, a hard-right aide who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, gave private speeches this year and last in which he boasted of drawing up a legal framework for Trump to make executive decisions unhindered by government lawyers or military leaders.

The allegations have added poignance given Trump’s comments in recent days about using the military against “the enemy within”, referring to US citizens and Democratic politicians who did not agree with or support him.

As well as plans for the military, Vought’s sweeping vision for a second Trump term includes defunding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and putting career civil servants “in trauma”, ProPublica reported.

ProPublica and Documented said they obtained videos of two speeches that Vought delivered during events for the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump thinktank he leads.

Employees or fellows include Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department lawyer who helped Trump scheme to reverse his 2020 election defeat; and Ken Cuccinelli, Trump’s former acting deputy secretary of the homeland security department, ProPublica said.

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Elon Musk sued over $1m voter giveaways

The district attorney’s office in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to shut down billionaire Elon Musk’s controversial $1m giveaways to voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states, calling the gimmick “an illegal lottery”.

The move by Larry Krasner, the city’s DA, follows warnings from the justice department that the handouts by the prominent Trump acolyte, and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, might violate federal election laws.

His lawsuit names Musk, and his political action committee America Pac, as the defendants.

“America PAC and Elon Musk are running an illegal lottery in Philadelphia (as well as throughout Pennsylvania),” Krasner said in a statement.

They were, he added: “lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1m. That is a lottery.”

South Africa-born Musk announced earlier this month he would give away $1m each day until election day to someone who signs his online petition supporting the US constitution. Numerous people have received money, according to reports.

The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland attended a “surreal” rally in Pittsburgh last weekend at which a Pennsylvania voter, Kristine Fishell, was unveiled as an early winner.

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Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary of Donald Trump’s campaign, on Monday issued a demand for an apology for “disgraceful comments” she believes were smearing the supporters of a presidential contender.

She was not, however, referring to the hateful, racist remarks directed towards Puerto Ricans by the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally; or Tucker Carlson’s description of Kamala Harris as a “Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor”; or the radio personality Sid Rosenberg’s claim that Hillary Clinton is a “sick bastard”, made during a rant that included references to “fucking illegals”.

Leavitt’s outrage was directed instead at Tim Walz, Democratic vice-presidential nominee, for remarks he made claiming Trump had “descended into madness” in the past few weeks, and that his Sunday rally in New York had “a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the 1930s at Madison Square Garden”, namely a 1939 Nazi rally that took place there.

“Walz needs to apologize for his disgraceful comments smearing Trump supporters,” Leavitt said in a statement. “This kind of rhetoric has already inspired assassination attempts.”

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the outspoken Democratic New York congresswoman, called Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event “a hate rally” during an appearance on Monday on MSNBC.

The politician known as AOC represents a district with a large Latino population:

This was not just a presidential rally. This was not just a campaign rally. These are mini-January 6 rallies. These are mini-stop-the-steal rallies. These are rallies to prime an electorate into rejecting the results of an election if it doesn’t go the way that they want.

Trump, and his fellow speakers, “do not respect the law of the US”, Ocasio-Cortez said, suggesting they were using rhetoric to take the election “by force”:

That is what they mean, and that is what they are doing when they are inciting violence and hatred against Latinos, against Black Americans, against Americans who don’t have children.

We have to understand how unhinged this campaign has gotten, and the only reason the rhetoric has gotten this far is precisely because they’re trying to prime the kind of froth that led up to the January 6 on the capitol. It’s important we connect those dots.

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Kerry Washington, John Legend and Stevie Wonder are among a number of prominent voices who will feature in campaign commercials for Kamala Harris this week targeting Black voters.

The Democratic national committee announced on Monday it was spending “a seven-figure sum” on the I Will Vote campaign targeting Black voters through ads in 55 Black publications and on 48 Black radio stations nationwide.

“The Black vote will play a major role in the outcome of this election, and there’s only one candidate who will prioritize the safety and dignity of the Black community while advancing our fundamental freedoms, rights, and economic opportunity,” Jaime Harrison, DNC chair, said in a statement announcing the buy-up.

Some recent polls have suggested Harris is losing support from Black voters, particularly Black men, while other experts say there is no need for Democrats to panic. My colleague Gloria Oladipo took a look at the issue earlier this month:

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Here’s our story of the resignation of Washington Post columnist Michele Norris, the latest high profile writer to leave the newspaper in protest at its decision not to endorse a candidate in next week’s presidential election.

Norris says the Post’s non-call was a “terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976”.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that the newspaper’s editorial page editor David Shipley is set to meet disgruntled staff this afternoon to discuss the episode, a gathering Stelter predicts will be “tense”.

The public backlash against the Post included uncounted cancelations of subscriptions and criticism from many, including legendary reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate scandal.

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Voters think Trump unlikely to concede if he loses - poll

A survey published Monday by CNN contained a revelation unlikely to surprise many: most voters think Donald Trump is unlikely to concede defeat if he loses to Kamala Harris next week.

The Republican nominee and former president, of course, still hasn’t admitted he lost the last contest, in 2020, to Joe Biden. That might help explain why only 30% of registered voters in the CNN/SSRS poll believe he would accept defeat to Harris, and call her to concede.

Other findings: 73% say Harris would accept an election loss; 54% believe Harris would concede if she lost and that Trump would not; 18% say that both candidates would do so; and only 11% believe Harris would not concede, but Trump would.

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Good morning, it’s Richard Luscombe in the US, taking over from my colleague Daniel Lavelle. I’ll be guiding you through the next few hours of what promises to be a lively first day of the last full week of an exhausting, and bruising, presidential election campaign.

  • Joe Biden is expected to cast his vote in Wilmington, Delaware, this morning, before heading for the White House. His first scheduled public remarks for the day are at a Diwali celebration this afternoon, but we’ll be watching out for any comments he makes as he casts his ballot.

  • Kamala Harris will be in Saginaw, Michigan, this afternoon, meeting with union workers before a rally in Ann Arbor on Monday evening.

  • Donald Trump will be in Georgia, with an event in Atlanta set for this evening.

  • Wisconsin is where we’ll find the vice-presidential hopefuls, Democrat Tim Walz appearing in Manitowoc and Waukesha before joining Harris later in Ann Arbor. Republican JD Vance will be Wausau and Racine.

As we prepare for today’s feast of election fare, it’s worth catching up on our account of the story of the day (so far at least), Trump’s frenzy of racism, anger and vitriol last night at Madison Square Garden, written by my colleagues Adam Gabbatt and Ed Pilkington:

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz travels to key swing state to win support among the Navajo Nation.

Walz visited Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation’s capital, on Saturday afternoon, aiming to connect with Navajo voters just 10 days before the general election.

“It is a privilege to be standing here on Navajo land,” said Walz, the governor of Minnesota. “I am grateful you would see fit to bring me here. I am here today because there are 10 more days until the election and we are not taking any vote for granted. We are here to show respect to the Navajo Nation and earn your vote.”

Walz, whose state is home to 11 federally recognized Native American tribes, spoke on the importance of Indigenous communities.

“The highest law is to honor tribal sovereignty, promote tribal consultation, ensure tribal self-determination across this country,” Walz said. “If tribal nations are doing well and your kids are doing well, the rest of the country is going to be just fine.”

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Liz Cheney 'confident' Kamala Harris will win election

Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, said she was “confident” that Kamala Harris would be the next president.

“We are not cruel, and we aren’t evil, and we don’t elect people who are,” she told an event called An Afternoon With Liz Cheney, held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

Cheney claimed that during the Capitol riot, Jim Jordan, a Republican representative from Ohio, offered her his arm to help with evacuating the building. “Get away from me – you effing did this,” Cheney said she responded.

She said that the decisions by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times not to publish endorsements over the next president was “all about fear”.

Fear is “a tool that every autocrat uses”, she said.

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A second columnist for the Washington Post resigns in wake of the newspaper’s failure to back a candidate for president.


Michele Norris announced on X that “of yesterday, I have decided to resign from my role as a columnist for The Washington Post — a newspaper that I love. In a moment like this, everyone needs to make their own decisions. This is the reason for mine.”

She added that the Post’s non-endorsement was a “terrible mistake” and “an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976”.

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Tony Hinchcliffe doubles down on hateful jokes at Trump rally

In response to Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s objection to his racist jokes, made at Donald Trump’s rally held at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, Tony Hinchcliffe posted on X:

These people have no sense of humor. Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his “busy schedule” to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist. I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.

Ocasio-Cortez was on a live stream with the vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz when news of the comments emerged.

Updated

AOC: racist Puerto Rico joke at Trump rally 'super upsetting'

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez says she found Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokes at Trump’s rally “super upsetting”

Hinchcliffe’s racist jokes included:

“There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.

“These Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.”

Democratic representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who is of Puerto Rican descent, was watching the comedian’s set with vice-president candidate Tim Walz and commented:

When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you. It’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them… I want every Puerto Rican in Philadelphia and Reading and across the country to see this clip”


Updated

Tech titan Elon Musk spoke at the MSG rally and introduced Melania Trump.

Trump called Musk “a genius” and “special”.

Musk said: “Your money is being wasted, and the department of government efficiency is going to fix that.”

Trump’s claim that Musk is a genius is undermined slightly by his business record. Several of Musk’s enterprises, including Tesla and SpaceX, have relied on US subsidies and government contracts.

Musk’s stewardship of Tesla has been marked by over-promising and under-delivering on a range of products, including fully self-driving vehicles; the so-called Hyperloop, which was intended to revolutionise transport, ended up being scrapped to build a parking lot; two million Tesla cars had to be recalled due to safety concerns, and the Tesla Roadster, a car promised to consumers in 2017, was delayed again this year.

Since purchasing Twitter (now X) for $44bn, the value of the social media platform has been reduced by over half.

Musk has also faced criticism after reports that he has spoken privately with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Updated

Trump campaign distances itself from racist jokes at rally

Donald Trump’s campaign has moved to distance the presidential hopeful from racist insults aimed at Puerto Ricans amid a backlash over remarks at a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden last night.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic told the Republican event. His set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

His joke was immediately criticised by Kamala Harris’s campaign. The Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny backed Harris shortly after Hinchcliffe’s appearance.

The normally pugnacious Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.

Angel Cintron, the head of the GOP on the island, and US representative Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents parts of Miami and has participated in recent Trump events, were among Republicans to criticise Hinchcliffe’s comments.



Luis Fonsi, a Puerto Rican artist who sings the hit “Despacito,” went on Instagram and wrote “going down this racist path ain’t it.”

“We are not OK with this constant hate,” he wrote in a message shared on Instagram. “It’s been abundantly clear that these people have no respect for us.”

The singer Ricky Martin, who had previously endorsed Harris, was also offended by the comment and said “that’s what they think of us,” on Instagram.

More on this shortly, in other developments:

  • Trump will join National Faith Advisory Board for a faith summit in Atlanta this afternoon and will attend a rally in the city later.

  • Harris and her vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, to hold a joint campaign rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Monday.

  • Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen are holding a campaign rally for Harris in Philadelphia.

Updated

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