The town hall is now over. Hannity introduced it by saying Trump had answered questions for more than an hour. What they aired lasted 20 minutes.
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Trump questions whether ABC, which is hosting the debate, will be fair. He says he will behave differently depending on whether they are being fair or not.
He says, erroneously and without evidence, the network is “known for being extremely hostile to the people in this room”.
He says it will be an interesting evening. “You don’t know how somebody’s gonna react,” he says.
He says “ABC will try and annoy me”.
Hannity now asks is Trump is prepared for his debate with Kamala Harris next week.
He says he will “let her talk” just like he “let [Biden] talk”. He says “there are those who say Biden is smarter than she is, if that’s the case, we have a problem, ok,” he says.
A question Hannity introduces as “probably the last” – an indication of how edited this town hall is, given we are 15 minutes in – he is asked by a voter about wokeness.
He says the military is unbelievable and “there is no wokeness” in the military.
Trump continues, eventually arriving at “the biggest enemy to this country” which is “the fake news media”.
Trump is addressing his reportedly contentious 26 August visit to Arlington national cemetery, the burial place of more than 400,000 military veterans and their eligible dependents.
He says that “every one” of the people there appreciated his being there.
The US army publicly rebuked Trump campaign officials and accused members of Trump’s presidential campaign staff of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.
Trump is asked if he thinks it will be possible to undo the damage done by the Biden-Harris administration. The voter asking the question says he fears for his three adolescent sons.
Trump says the first thing he should do is pray. He calls the Democrats “stupid” then quickly pivots to immigration.
The Trump town hall is airing now. It was recorded last night and so is not live. Unusually, Hannity did not take questions from the audience during the live show last night, but promised to air them the next day. We’ll bring you any key developments as they happen.
Fox news is expected to air the second half of Trump’s town hall with Sean Hannity in ten minutes’ time. Unusually for a town hall, the purpose of which is for voters to ask questions of a candidate, yesterday’s town hall ended before that could happen – instead it was only Hannity who asked questions of Trump.
The Trump campaign has meanwhile sent out a statement saying Trump will hold a press conference in New York, where he was convicted, at midday tomorrow.
The statement doesn’t say what the press conference is in relation to. It says:
“President Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, will hold a press conference in New York, New York on Friday, September 6, 2024, at 12:00PM EDT”.
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Politico reports that Justice Juan M. Merchan will decide tomorrow, Friday 6 September, on Trump’s motion to delay sentencing in his criminal trial until after the election.
In May a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.
Justice Merchan will decide *tomorrow* on Trump’s motion to delay sentencing. pic.twitter.com/x374e4EdEQ
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 5, 2024
Here is our story on that news:
The father of the teen suspected in the Georgia school shooting has been arrested, the Georgia bureau of investigation has said.
Colin Gray, 54, was arrested by the bureau in connection to the shooting at Apalachee high school. Colin is the father of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old who is suspected of fatally shooting two students and two teachers with an assault-style rifle at the high school on Wednesday.
The teenager has been charged as an adult in the deaths of the school students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and educators Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, the director of the Georgia bureau of investigation, Chris Hosey, said.
At least nine other people – eight students and one teacher at the school – were taken to hospitals with injuries and all were expected to survive, the Barrow county sheriff, Jud Smith, said.
The bureau says Colin Gray is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Summary of Georgia school shooting press conference
Let’s summarise the main points from the press conference by the Georgia bureau of investigation:
Colin Gray, 54, the father of suspected school shooter Colt Gray, 14, has been arrested in connection with the shooting at Apalachee high school, in which four people were killed.
Colin Gray has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
The charges stem from his knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon.
The nine people injured in the shooting are expected to make a full recovery.
Authorities are unaware of precedent in terms of a parent being arrested over a child’s involvement in a school shooting in Georgia.
Press conference has now ended, no further updates immediately expected, a spokesperson says.
Here is our story on the arrest of Colin Gray:
Asked whether there is precedent for a parent being arrested over the a shooting committed by a child in Georgia, the spokesperson says he would “venture to say not”.
Colin Gray is in custody, authorities say. His charges are connected with the actions of his son, they say.
Updated
All nine people injured are expected to make a full recovery, the police say.
GBI press conference
The press conference has started. The GBI has arrested Colin Gray, the father of 14-year-old suspected shooter Colt Gray, the spokesperson is saying, and he has been charged with various crimes including eight counts of cruelty to children.
The charges stem from his “knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon”, the spokesperson says.
Updated
The GBI will hold a press conference about the shooting in seven minutes’ time. We will bring you those developments live.
Georgia authorities have arrested the father of the 14-year-old male student authorities say carried out a mass shooting at a school in Georgia on Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced.
UPDATE #2 - September 5, 2024:
— GA Bureau of Investigation (@GBI_GA) September 5, 2024
In coordination with District Attorney Brad Smith, the GBI has arrested Colin Gray, age 54, in connection to the shooting at Apalachee High School. Colin is Colt Gray’s father.
(1/3)
The boy charged with fatally shooting two students and two teachers with an assault-style rifle had previously been interviewed by investigators.
The father is charged with the following, according to the GBI:
- 4 counts of Involuntary Manslaughter
- 2 counts of Second Degree Murder
- 8 counts of Cruelty to Children
Updated
A North Carolina judge refused to take Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name off presidential ballots in the battleground state on Thursday, AP reports, a day before the first batches of November absentee ballots are slated to be sent to registered voters who requested them.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt denied the temporary restraining order sought by Kennedy to prevent county elections boards from distributing ballots affixed with his name and requiring it to be removed. State law directs the first absentee ballots for the 5 November elections be mailed to requesters starting Friday. A Kennedy attorney said the decision would be appealed and Holt gave him 24 hours, ordering election officials not to send out ballots before noon Friday.
North Carolina is slated to be the first state in the nation to distribute fall election ballots. County elections offices were expected Friday to send absentee ballots to more than 125,000 in-state and military and overseas voters who asked for them. And over 2.9 million absentee and in-person ballots overall had already been printed statewide as of Wednesday, state elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said in an affidavit.
The process of reprinting ballots without Kennedy’s name and reassembling ballot requests would take at least two weeks, state attorneys said, threatening to miss a federal requirement that ballots be released to military and overseas voters by Sept. 21. But Kennedy lawyer Phil Strach argued in court that Kennedy complied with state law by presenting a written request to step down as the candidate, and that there’s another law allowing the ballot release be delayed under this circumstance. Otherwise, Kennedy’s free-speech rights in the state constitution forcing him to remain on the ballot against his will have been violated, Strach told Holt.
“This is a very straight forward case about ballot integrity and following the law,” Strach said, adding that keeping Kennedy on the ballot would bring confusion to voters who thought he was no longer a candidate.
Australians have already had a taste of the turbulence of dealing with Donald Trump, courtesy of a leaked 2017 phone call between the newly inaugurated president and the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
“I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made,” Trump said as Turnbull implored him to honour a refugee resettlement agreement made with the Obama administration.
Turnbull had used their shared backgrounds as businessmen to emphasise that a deal is a deal, but Trump described it as a “stupid” agreement that would “make me look terrible”.
The Trump administration honoured the deal, but the president wasn’t pleased about it – and he raced to end the introductory phone call with his Australian counterpart.
“As far as I am concerned that is enough, Malcolm. I have had it,” said Trump, according to the transcript published by the Washington Post.
“I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.”
Now, as the Australian government contemplates the possibility of Trump returning to the White House, local analysts say his impulses “run counter to Australians’ instincts” and could be “damaging”.
The Trump assassination attempt, the pressure on Joe Biden to pull out of the race, the subsequent coronation of Kamala Harris have all received extensive media coverage in Australia.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s live news channel interrupted Australia’s own parliamentary question time to air Biden’s speech to the Democratic National Convention.
A YouGov poll in August tested Australian views on the contenders. When asked who they would vote for in the US election, 67% of Australian respondents said they would vote for Harris and 33% said Trump.
It’s not just the personalities that have grabbed attention but also the realisation that as a US treaty ally, Australia would be tangibly affected by the election outcome.
Here is the full story on Trump’s remarks earlier:
Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that they would be “abandoned” if Kamala Harris becomes president.
In his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, the Republican presidential candidate also said he would ban refugee resettlement from “terror-infested” areas such as Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who engage in vandalism, an apparent reference to US college student protesters.
While Trump sketched out few concrete Middle Eastern policy proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in cataclysmic terms for Israel.
“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president. And I think you need to explain that to your people … You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for such a claim.
Under both Trump and Joe Biden, similar numbers of Palestinians were admitted to the US as refugees. From fiscal year 2017 to 2020, the US accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, according to US state department data, compared with 124 Palestinian refugees from fiscal year 2021 to 31 July of this year.
Trump also said US universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as “antisemitic propaganda” if he is elected to the White House.
“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 donors.
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Vance is winding down. He calls on voters to “vote 10 times”, then mocks the media, saying they will report that he called for voter fraud.
No, he says, he means people should “vote 10 times the legal way”, by bringing their families and friends to the polls to vote.
Updated
“Donald Trump and I are the only ticket for strong women and strong families in this country,” Vance says.
Vance supports anti-abortion policies that want to stop women from making decisions about their own bodies, futures and families.
This week, for example, the Guardian reported that a rightwing thinktank report proposing sweeping restrictions on abortions and fertility treatments was endorsed by JD Vance years before he became a fervent backer of Donald Trump and then his vice-presidential running mate known for derisive views on childless women.
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Vance is asked by a journalist who declares herself to be just about the only conservative journalist there – several journalists have been booed by the audience when announcing the publications they work for.
She asks Vance whether he respects women. Vance says he loves strong women because he wouldn’t be here without them.
He says that the “mainstream media” has repeated comments he made sarcastically – he is likely referring to his “childless cat ladies” remark, for example, and remarks about post-menopausal women being good for one thing, which is childcare – instead of repeating the “failures of the Biden-Harris administration”.
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Vance says Georgia shooter is 'absolute barbarian' but denies 'strict gun laws' are solution
Vance is speaking about the mass shooting in Georgia now.
He calls the alleged shooter “an absolute barbarian” and says that “no parent should have to deal with this, no child should have to deal with this”.
He says Harris’s answer to how to make mass shootings less common is to take “law-abiding Americans’ guns away from them”.
“Clearly, strict gun laws is not the way to solve this problem,” he says.
“If you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realise our schools are soft targets,” he says. He calls for security to be bolstered at schools.
The audience cheers.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared,” he says.
“We don’t have to like the reality we live in, but we have to deal with it.”
Updated
Vance says Harris will want a moment during the debate when she can interrupt Trump and say: “I’m speaking.” He says that she doesn’t want to be the vice-president so much as the vice-principal.
Updated
A journalist from the Arizona Republic is being booed as she starts to ask Vance a question.
She asks what people can expect to hear from Trump and Harris at the 10 September debate next week.
Vance says he expects that Harris will say she agrees with everything Trump believes now – in keeping with repeated messaging from Trump and Vance that Harris has flip-flopped on policies and opinions.
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JD Vance holds campaign event in Arizona
JD Vance is speaking now in the battleground state of Arizona, at the Biltmore resort in Phoenix.
He says that the Republicans are “working hard on making sure you don’t have a bunch of broken machines” on election day.
Election experts and some veteran Republicans have said that Donald Trump and election denialist allies at Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other Maga stalwarts are spreading conspiracy theories about election fraud in order to lay the groundwork for charging the election was rigged if Trump loses.
Twin drives by Trump and Maga allies have echoed some falsehoods from 2020 about fraud due to voting machines and drop boxes, the Guardian’s Peter Stone reported:
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Meanwhile, the Biden administration and Benjamin Netanyahu were sharply at odds Thursday over prospects of reaching a deal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release, with the Israeli prime minister saying it was “exactly inaccurate” that a breakthrough was close, AP reports.
“There’s not a deal in the making,” Netanyahu said in an interview on Fox and Friends. His public skepticism came as US officials said they were working on a revised proposal to address remaining disputes between Israeli and Hamas leaders after the weekend discovery that six hostages had been killed added urgency to the talks.
John Kirby reiterated Thursday that only disagreements on “implementing details” of a ceasefire proposal need to be hammered out.
“I’ve heard what the prime minister said. I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with him in a public setting,” the national security spokesperson told reporters. “We still believe, though this is incredibly difficult ... if there’s compromise, if there’s leadership, we can still get there.”
Updated
Trump claims Harris would abandon Israel in speech belittling Jewish Americans who vote Democrat
In a speech to Jewish donors on Thursday, Trump repeatedly belittled Jewish Americans who vote Democrat, at one point saying: “I don’t understand how anybody can support them – and I say it constantly – if you had them to support and you were Jewish, you have to have your head examined,” according to the Washington Post.
Trump told the Republican Jewish Coalition: “They’ve been very bad to you.”
He also said that a potential Harris presidency would be cataclysmic for Israel, Reuters reports.
“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president. And I think you need to explain that to your people ... You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for such a claim.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s speech.
Harris has hewed closely to Joe Biden’s strong support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic party that Washington rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy Palestinian death toll in Gaza.
She has, however, called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over our live US politics coverage.
Updated
Today so far
Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty to federal tax charges. He faces up to 17 years in prison and $450,000 in penalties. His decision to plead guilty in the high-profile case will spare Joe Biden from a potentially embarrassing trial before a crucial US election.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that President Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.
A new national survey conducted by Emerson College Polling this week and published on Thursday showed Kamala Harris with 49% support among likely US voters – two percentage points ahead of Donald Trump, whom the survey said received 47% support.
The US government unsealed criminal charges on Thursday against Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born US citizen who is a former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and his wife, alleging that they participated in a scheme to violate US sanctions
A US judge has temporarily halted President Joe Biden’s administration from implementing its latest student debt forgiveness plan.
Updated
Hunter Biden’s decision to plead guilty in the high-profile federal tax case against him will spare Joe Biden from a potentially embarrassing trial before a crucial US election.
Hunter Biden has been open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol, and a trial was expected to dig into his life, including the millions he earned in consultancy work abroad, a crack cocaine addiction and the large sums he spent on online pornography. Republicans have long seized on Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian industrial conglomerate Burisma and a Chinese private equity firm to criticize the president.
Updated
Biden's son faces up to 17 years in prison
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison and $450,000 in penalties after pleading guilty to all nine counts against him in a federal tax case.
The president’s son was scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles after he allegedly failed to pay $1.4m in taxes between 2016 and 2019. During that time, the 54-year-old, who has struggled with addiction, was reportedly spending lavishly on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature”.
“In short, everything but his taxes”, prosecutors said.
His guilty plea will allow Biden to avoid a trial. Typically, defendants who plead guilty in criminal cases reach an agreement with prosecutors beforehand in order to obtain a shorter sentence, but that does not appear to have happened in this case.
Updated
Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty to federal tax charges
Hunter Biden, the US president Joe Biden’s son, has pleaded guilty to federal tax charges.
The 54-year-old entered his plea at a Los Angeles courthouse on Thursday. Prosecutors say he failed to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, and Biden faced two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion.
Updated
US investigators have indicted a prominent Russian state television personality and his wife for violating sanctions and for money laundering as the White House targets Kremlin influence operations before the US presidential election.
Dimitri Simes, a television presenter and producer for Russia’s state-owned Channel One, was charged with receiving more than $1m (£759,000) in compensation, a personal car and driver and a stipend for a flat in Moscow, despite the television station’s designation in 2022 by the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. He and his wife, Anastasia, were charged with money laundering to hide the proceeds of his work for Channel One.
Anastasia Simes, 55, was also charged with buying arts and antiquities for a sanctioned Russian oligarch, Aleksandr Udodov, and then storing the works in their home in Virginia before they were shipped onward to Russia. The works were bought from galleries and auction houses in the United States and Europe.
The couple faces 20 years in prison for each count if convicted. They left the US after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and are now believed to be in Russia, the justice department said.
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Allan Lichtman, the historian dubbed the “Nostradamus” of US presidential elections, has predicted that Kamala Harris will win the White House in November’s poll.
Having previously warned the Democrats of the dangers of removing Joe Biden from the ticket, Lichtman nevertheless forecast that the vice-president, who became the party’s nominee after the president withdrew in July, would be elected in a video for the New York Times.
He said Harris was on course to beat Donald Trump even though the Democrats had effectively surrendered the valuable key of presidential incumbency, one of 13 he used to determine the likely outcome.
“Kamala Harris will be the next president of the United States – at least that’s my prediction for the outcome of this race,” Lichtman, 77, says at the conclusion of the quirky seven-minute video, which features him running in a track athlete’s garb against other elderly competitors in a qualifying race for the 2025 national senior Olympics.
“But the outcome is up to you. So get out and vote,” he adds.
Lichtman’s predictions are based on a set of true/false propositions, and take no account of polling trends.
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Hunter Biden offers to plead guilty in tax case without a deal with prosecutors - report
Hunter Biden’s attorney said Biden is offering to plead guilty to the federal tax charges he faces, without a deal with prosecutors, according to CNN.
Hunter Biden, 54, had earlier on Thursday offered to plead guilty to federal tax charges but avoid admitting any wrongdoing – an unusual, last-minute legal manoeuvre that federal prosecutors quickly opposed.
In a Los Angeles court earlier today, Hunter Biden sought to enter what is known as an “Alford plea”, an unusual type of guilty plea wherein a defendant does not admit to the allegations against them. US justice department prosecutors in the courtroom, however, said they would not accept that plea.
On Thursday afternoon, his lawyers took a surprising turn and said that Hunter Biden was prepared to admit that his conduct satisfied the elements of the tax offenses with which he has been charged, CNN reported.
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The Harris-Walz campaign launched a new ad on Thursday focused on Project 2025 aimed at Black Americans in key battleground states, warning that a Donald Trump administration would “take Black America backwards”.
Trump’s “Project 2025 agenda will give him unchecked political power with no guardrails”, the Harris campaign’s new 30-second spot says:
Project 2025 would strip away our voting rights protections, and it eliminates the Department of Education. It would also require states to monitor women’s pregnancies. It bans abortion and would rip away health coverage for millions.
“Donald Trump’s Project 2025 makes one thing clear to Black America: He doesn’t give a damn about us,” said Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz principal deputy campaign manager, in a statement.
This campaign is going to make Trump defend his indefensible Project 2025 and ensure the key coalitions this campaign needs to win in November know exactly how his extreme agenda will take their communities backwards.
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Black voters in the US are often lumped into one bloc, but a new national survey has found that they can be defined by specific clusters: legacy civil rights, secular progressives, next-gen traditionalist, rightfully cynical and race-neutral conservative.
Out of the 2,034 registered voters and 918 Black unregistered voters surveyed, 41% of respondents were found to be legacy civil rights voters who skewed older than 50 years old and had the highest voter turnout rates. Legacy civil rights voters were also the most likely group to believe that their vote has the power to drive change. On the other end, the rightfully cynical, 22% of respondents, were the youngest cohort and the least likely to vote. Based on their personal experiences of racism at work and with the police, this cluster was the least likely to believe that their vote matters.
Next-gen traditionalists, 18% of respondents, were the most religious and least educated cluster, mostly consisting of millennial and generation Z voters. They had a low voter turnout rate and a moderate belief in the power of their vote. The most progressive respondents fell within the secular progressives cluster, at 12%, of which the majority were educated women who were highly likely to vote.
Finally, the race-neutral conservatives, 7% of respondents, consisted mostly of men and were the second oldest cohort as well as the most conservative. Race-neutral conservatives had a moderate voter turnout rate and were likely to blame systemic barriers on individual choices.
Katrina Gamble, CEO of Sojourn Strategies, said during a press conference on Wednesday:
These clusters indicate that there are incredible differences within the Black community, in terms of how people think about democracy and their role in our democracy.
Updated
Biden will not pardon son Hunter, says White House
Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday that President Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.
“No, it is still very much a no,” the White House press secretary said in response to a reporter asking her whether the president intended to pardon or commute his son’s sentence.
This comes as earlier this summer, the president said that he would not commute his son’s sentence, according to the New York Times, and has said over the last few months that he would not pardon his son.
“I’m extremely proud of my son Hunter,” the president said in June, per the Times. “He has overcome an addiction. He’s one of the brightest, most decent men I know. I am satisfied that, I’m not going to do anything. I said I’d abide by the jury decision. I will do that.”
Updated
Federal prosecutors oppose Hunter Biden's plea offer in tax case
After Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, offered to plead guilty on Thursday to federal tax charges but without admitting any wrongdoing, the US justice department prosecutors in the Los Angeles courtroom said they would not accept that plea, according to Reuters.
“It’s not clear to us what they are trying to do,” one prosecutor reportedly told the judge overseeing the case.
It was not clear whether the judge would accept the offer or go ahead with the trial. Jury selection is due to begin on Thursday.
Updated
A new national survey conducted by Emerson College Polling this week and published on Thursday, showed Kamala Harris with 49% support among likely US voters – two percentage points ahead of Donald Trump, whom the survey said received 47% support.
Three percent of likely US voters said they were undecided, the survey found, and 1% planned to vote for someone else.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a news release on Thursday that the “2024 presidential race currently mirrors 2020, with the Democratic lead narrowing from four points to two in national polls” and added that “in 2020, Biden re-established his four-point lead in late September ahead of the first debate; now, we’ll see what impact the debate has on the trajectory of this race.”
The first presidential debate between the vice-president and the former president is due to take place on ABC News next week.
Updated
Harris campaign raises $300m in August – report
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign raised more than $300m in the month of August, NBC reported on Thursday, citing two sources familiar with the fundraising numbers.
This comes shortly after the Trump campaign said it had raised $130m in August.
Updated
The US government unsealed criminal charges on Thursday against Dimitri Simes, a Russian-born US citizen who is a former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and his wife, alleging that they participated in a scheme to violate US sanctions for the benefit of a sanctioned Russian broadcaster and of laundering funds obtained from that scheme.
The news release from the justice department alleges that since 2022, Simes and his wife, Anastasia Simes, received more than $1m as well as a car, a driver and a stipend for an apartment in Moscow in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One.
According to the Associated Press, the network was sanctioned by the US in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Authorities said in the news release on Thursday that the couple have a home in Virginia, but that they currently “remain at large and are believed to be in Russia”. In August, FBI agents raided their Virginia home.
Updated
Judge halts Biden's latest student debt forgiveness plan – report
A US judge has temporarily halted President Joe Biden’s administration from implementing its latest student debt forgiveness plan, Reuters is reporting.
The decision comes just two days after seven Republican-led states, including Florida and Georgia, filed a lawsuit against the plan.
In the order on Thursday, the judge in Georgia issued a temporary restraining order, effectively halting the plan, and wrote that the education department is “restrained from mass canceling student loans, forgiving any principal or interest, not charging borrowers accrued interest, or further implementing any other actions” under the program.
The order states that the ruling is effective immediately and will remain in effect for 14 days, unless extended. A hearing on the policy is also scheduled for 18 September.
Updated
In a leaked email reportedly sent by the Trump campaign, campaign managers warned staff not to speak or communicate with any member of the press, “on or off the record”, unless they had been authorized by senior leadership or received permission from a member of the communications team.
The email, posted on X by a reporter for Puck News, was obtained by media outlets on Wednesday, according to HuffPost.
“We have done a great job at preventing leaks, and that has been because everyone knows what the policy is and what we expect from everyone. Information is power -and the press doesn’t give a damn if you lose your job because you spoke out of school,” the email reads.
“Success requires buy-in from everyone,” it continues. “If just one of us goes off course, it jeopardizes not only the team, but also President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”
NEW leak: Trump's co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles warn staff in internal email to stop talking to the press less than an hour ago, with the threat of termination. There must be a hot story in the works... pic.twitter.com/Buob6psJ5z
— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) September 4, 2024
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Interim summary
The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution for interfering in the 2020 election said she would not consider political concerns in deciding how the case should proceed after the supreme court granted broad immunity to former presidents. The hearing in Washington DC concluded on Thursday without judge Tanya Chutkan setting a trial date.
Donald Trump said he will create a government efficiency commission if he is re-elected to the White House, adopting a policy idea that was pitched to him by Elon Musk. Musk has agreed to head that taskforce, Trump said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, adding that the tech entrepreneur would be “a good one to do it”.
Donald Trump has quietly wound down his presidential campaign in states he was targeting just six weeks ago – Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire – amid polling evidence showing that Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race has put them out of reach and narrowed his path to the White House.
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s only surviving son, will change his plea in his federal tax avoidance criminal case to guilty, according to reports on Thursday citing one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers. Jury selection in the trial will begin on Thursday in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.
Hunter Biden stands accused of failing to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, as well as facing two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion. Both the tax charges and gun charges from a previous case carry maximum sentences of more than 20 years in prison, although legal experts say that, as a first-time offender, Biden is likely to be punished far less harshly.
The White House urged Vladimir Putin to stop talking about the upcoming US presidential election, after the Russian leader joked that he was backing Kamala Harris for president. Putin’s comments came just a day after the Biden administration accused Russia of carrying out a sustained disinformation campaign targeted at American voters with the aim of influencing the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
Kamala Harris will attend a rank-and-file presidential roundtable discussion with the powerful Teamsters union on 16 September, the union announced.
Kamala Harris will travel on Thursday to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she will prepare for next week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump. ABC News announced on Wednesday that both Harris and Trump had accepted the rules for the 10 September debate, including muted mics when the other candidate is speaking.
Updated
At issue in Donald Trump’s federal criminal election interference case now is how to apply the supreme court’s decision to grant immunity to former presidents for official conducted related to their duties in Trump’s criminal case over his attempts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
The supreme court devised three categories of conduct: core presidential function that carries absolute immunity, an official act within the outer perimeter of the presidency that carries presumptive immunity, or an unofficial act that carries no immunity.
Trump says Elon Musk has agreed to head government efficiency commission
Donald Trump said he will create a government efficiency commission if he is re-elected to the White House, adopting a policy idea that was pitched to him by Elon Musk.
Trump, speaking at the Economic Club of New York, said that he will create a government efficiency commission “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.
Musk has agreed to head that taskforce, Trump said, adding that it would be “interesting” and that Musk would be “a good one to do it”.
Trump says that Elon Musk has agreed to serve in his administration pic.twitter.com/yRV9u7usOk
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 5, 2024
Updated
Trump election interference hearing adjourns without new trial date
The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution for interfering in the 2020 election said she would not consider political concerns in deciding how the case should proceed after the supreme court granted broad immunity to former presidents.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan said at a hearing in federal district court in Washington on Thursday that she viewed the Trump team’s proposals as a way to limit anything that could be politically damaging from emerging with less than 70 days until election day. Chutkan told the lead Trump lawyer John Lauro:
It strikes me that what you’re trying to do is affect the presentation of evidence in this case in a way so as not to impinge on the election of the president.
The admonishment from Chutkan came as both sides asked the judge to file the first brief after Trump was re-indicted last month on slimmed down charges, after the supreme court deemed the original indictment to contain charges for which Trump was immune.
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Trump to back Elon Musk's proposal for government efficiency commission – reports
Donald Trump is expected to voice his support for the creation of a government efficiency commission, first proposed by Elon Musk, during a speech to top business executives in New York today, according to multiple reports.
Trump is expected to announce a series of new economic plans during his remarks at the Economic Club of New York that will include cutting the corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that make products in the US and pledging to rescind certain unspent funds appropriated during the Biden administration, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump has been discussing the idea of a government efficiency commission with aides for weeks, Reuters reported, citing sources.
In a recent conversation on X, Musk suggested Trump form a commission tackling government spending as a way to address inflation. “I’d be happy to help out on such a commission,” Musk told Trump.
The presidential commission would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and be tasked with finding and eliminating fraud, according to CNN.
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Harris to meet Teamsters union
Kamala Harris will attend a rank-and-file presidential roundtable discussion with the powerful Teamsters union on 16 September, the union has announced.
Harris has committed to meet with union members, the Teamsters general executive board, general president Sean O’Brien and general secretary-treasurer Fred Zuckerman, the Teamsters posted to X.
A statement from O’Brien reads:
We look forward to having a conversation on the direction of the country and the issues that matter to working people.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS TO ATTEND TEAMSTERS RANK-AND-FILE ROUNDTABLE
— Teamsters (@Teamsters) September 5, 2024
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters will host a rank-and-file Presidential roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, Sept. 16, in Washington, D.C.
Harris has committed to meet with… pic.twitter.com/JAz2Z5WIWC
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Judge in Trump's election subversion case 'not concerned with election schedule'
A hearing in a Washington DC federal courthouse to consider the next steps in the election interference case against Donald Trump has now concluded.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, did not schedule a date for the trial, saying that it was a “an exercise in futility” because “the issue of immunity will stop these proceedings once again”.
During the hearing, Chutkan clashed with Trump attorney John Lauro, who argued that special counsel Jack Smith’s team was rushing forward with an “illegitimate” indictment before the November presidential election. “We want an orderly process that does justice to the supreme court opinion,” Lauro told the court.
Chutkan bristled at Lauro’s accusation that the process was “inherently unfair, particularly during this sensitive time”, according to AP. The judge said:
I understand that there is an election. I’ve said before … that the electoral process and the timing of the election … is not relevant here. The court is not concerned with the electoral schedule.
“We are talking about the presidency of the United States,” Lauro responded, to which Chutkan shot back:
I’m not talking about the presidency of the United States. I’m talking about a four-count indictment.
She went on to say that it appeared that the defense was trying to delay the case because of the election, adding:
That’s not going to be a factor I consider at all.
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Hunter Biden to change plea to guilty in federal tax case
Hunter Biden intends to plead guilty to the federal tax-related charges against him, according to his attorney Abbe Lowell.
The announcement was made shortly before jury selection was expected to begin in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles, AP reported.
Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, stands accused of failing to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, as well as two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion.
Both the tax charges and the gun charges carry maximum sentences of more than 20 years in prison, although legal experts say that, as a first-time offender, Biden is likely to be punished far less harshly even if he were to be found guilty a second time.
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Melania Trump, the former first lady, posted a video on X promoting her upcoming memoir ahead of its release next month.
“Writing this memoir has been a deeply personal and reflective journey for me,” Trump wrote.
As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to clarify the facts. I believe it is important to share my perspective – the truth.
My Story.
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) September 5, 2024
My Perspective.
The Truth. https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND pic.twitter.com/HHGQaA6d5v
The former first lady’s office announced last month that her memoir, titled Melania, would be released this fall.
The book is described as the “powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has defined personal excellence, overcome adversity, and carved her own path”.
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White House says Putin should 'stop talking about our elections, period'
The White House has urged Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to stop talking about the upcoming US presidential election, the Russian leader joked that he was backing Kamala Harris for president.
Putin, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok earlier today, claimed he is supporting Harris because of how she “laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that everything is fine with her”. Putin said:
Our ‘favorite,’ if you can call it that, was the current president, Mr [Joe] Biden. But he was removed from the race, and he recommended all his supporters to support Ms Harris. Well, we will do so – we will support her.
Putin’s comments came just a day after the Biden administration accused Russia of carrying out a sustained disinformation campaign targeted at American voters with the aim of influencing the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, responded to Putin’s comments at a briefing:
Mr Putin ought to stop talking about our elections, period. He shouldn’t be favoring anybody one way or another.
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Judge Tanya Chutkan, holding a hearing in Washington on Donald Trump’s election interference case, is now moving on to the Trump’s team request that she consider whether the special counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed before grappling with the ramifications of the supreme court’s immunity decision on the indictment.
Chutkan notes that the Trump team could have filed a motion to dismiss based on Smith’s appointment last year and didn’t, while there is binding law from the US court of appeals for the DC circuit that means she would have to deny such a motion in any case.
Lauro says the reasons for this are twofold: US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas raising the appointment issue in his concurrence in the immunity ruling, and the fact that US district judge Aileen Cannon – in the classified documents case – dismissed that indictment on the appointment issue last month.
A skeptical Chutkan tells Lauro that he can file a motion for leave, which means in legal jargon that he can file a formal request for permission to file the motion, laying out why the Trump team has legal authority for such a move.
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Hunter Biden arrives at Los Angeles courthouse as he begins second federal trial in three months in tax case
For the second time in three months, Hunter Biden will sit in a federal courtroom as a jury of his peers is assembled to assess whether he is guilty of a slew of criminal charges.
The son of Joe Biden stands accused of failing to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, as well as two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion.
Three months ago, the younger Biden, who is 54, was found guilty in Delaware on three felony counts relating to his purchase of a handgun in 2018 because he wrote on his gun-purchase form, falsely, that he was not a user of illicit drugs.
The new trial takes place in Los Angeles, where Biden has lived for years and where, according to the prosecution, he spent lavishly on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes”.
The trial begins in Los Angeles on Thursday with jury selection expected to last two days, and opening statements scheduled for Monday. The most serious charges relate to his 2018 return on which, according to the prosecution, he sought to claim his children’s college tuition fees and more than $27,000 in online pornography as business expenses.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding over the hearing in Donald Trump’s election interference case, is discussing with Trump’s lawyer John Lauro whether they should be able to file the opening brief counteracting the slimmed-down indictment charging Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 election, or if the special counsel gets to go first.
Lauro is arguing that the superseding indictment is buttressed by Trump’s communications with his vice-president Mike Pence, which US supreme court decided were presumptively immune – and prosecutors have to overcome the presumption.
As a result, Lauro argues, the Trump team should go first so they can file a motion to dismiss the case based on the supreme court’s immunity decision. Chutkan is skeptical.
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Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris puts her on the growing list of lifelong Republicans who will be voting against Donald Trump.
In March, the former vice-president Mike Pence told Fox news that he will not be endorsing his former running mate in November, citing Trump’s actions on 6 January and course reversals on issues such as forcing China to sell TikTok.
Other prominent Republicans to vote against the party’s nominee include Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican representative for Illinois; Olivia Troye, who worked in the Trump administration as homeland security adviser to Pence; and Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s former press secretaries, all of whom spoke at the recent Democratic national convention in Chicago.
These appearances follow years of the establishment Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, known as “Never Trumpers”, decrying Trump and the risks they see him posing to the health of the nation.
Liz Cheney, the Republican former representative of Wyoming, endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Tuesday, making her the latest Republican to publicly say that they will not be supporting Donald Trump.
Cheney, the daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, made the pronouncement on Tuesday at an event at Duke university in North Carolina. “I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” she said.
And as a conservative, as somebody who believes in and cares about the constitution, I have thought deeply about this and the present danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, I am voting for Kamala Harris.
Liz Cheney endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris at Duke University@newsobserver pic.twitter.com/taoMYNQ6d1
— Emma Cline (@emmacline_) September 4, 2024
Donald Trump has, so far, successfully avoided coming face to face with the judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his federal election subversion case.
Trump is not expected to be in attendance on Thursday for the first court hearing since prosecutors reworked their indictment in his election interference case, after the supreme court’s ruling granting him broad immunity from criminal charges.
Instead, the former president’s team of lawyers are in federal court in Washington to argue on his behalf. They are Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Lauro and Greg Singer.
Appearing in court today for the prosecution are Thomas Windom and Molly Gaston.
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Last week, Donald Trump’s lawyers suggested to the judge a months-long process to move the case forward, in light of the supreme court’s ruling that conferred broad immunity to former presidents.
Judge Tanya Chutkan says she will not set a schedule in the Trump January 6 case at this status conference but hopes to do so later today.
Chutkan, addressing Trump’s attorney John Lauro, noted that it had almost been a year since they were last in a courtroom together, adding that he looked “rested”. Lauro responded:
Life was almost meaningless without you.
Chutkan, laughing, replied:
Enjoy it while it lasts.
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Trump pleads not guilty to charges in revised election interference indictment
Trump’s attorney John Lauro has confirmed that Trump is entering a plea of not guilty to the superseding indictment.
Federal prosecutors and lawyers for Donald Trump are in court today to discuss how to move forward with the federal election subversion case against Trump in the first hearing after the supreme court’s ruling granting him broad immunity from criminal charges.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is in federal court in Washington DC where she will hear arguments from Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith, who submitted dueling proposals on Friday in the case that charges the former president with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the runup to the 6 January 2021 riot at the Capitol.
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Trump's 2020 election interference case resumes
Donald Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Lauro and Greg Singer are in the courtroom for today’s status conference in the Trump January 6 case, where they will press judge Tanya Chutkan to adopt their delay-inducing schedule to go through the immunity ruling.
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In addition to the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump has also refocused his campaign efforts on North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, where he had significant polling leads before Harris made them competitive, according to the Axios report.
It’s a stark contrast from late July, when the Trump campaign came rolling out of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee boasting that it could expand its electoral map.
In the days after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the Republican National Committee chair, Michael Whatley, laid out an ambitious plan to campaign in the major battleground states and also court votes in states that Trump lost in 2016 and 2020. Whatley said:
We’ve now started to engage in Minnesota and in Virginia and in New Hampshire. So we’re playing offense all around the country. The Biden campaign is playing defense.
Today, New Hampshire stands as a sign of how Trump’s path to victory is narrowing, with a series of polls showing Kamala Harris opening a lead over Trump, according to Politico.
In an email on Sunday, a top Trump volunteer wrote that the campaign “as determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state” and advised supporters to instead direct their attention to Pennsylvania.
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Trump scaling back campaign efforts in some swing states – reports
Donald Trump is scaling back his campaigning in several states he had previously targeted, including some swing states, according to reports, in a sign of how the Republican presidential candidate’s path to victory is narrowing in his run against Kamala Harris.
Trump’s campaign is placing less emphasis on New Hampshire, Minnesota and Virginia and instead pouring resources into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – three states seen as crucial to both sides’ chances of victory, according to an Axios report.
In New Hampshire, Trump’s campaign appears to be drawing down its operations. The Republican candidate has not set foot in the state since he won the state’s primary in January, and his campaign has not sent a high-profile surrogate there since the spring, according to Politico.
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Donald Trump lobbed his usual insults and accusations at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz during a town hall aired on Fox News and then falsely claimed that immigrants from around the world were pouring into the US.
In the pre-taped interview that aired on Wednesday evening, the former president walked onto the stage in a Pennsylvania arena to cheers, applause and chants of “USA” from his supporters.
The town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, comes less than a week before Trump and Kamala Harris meet on the debate stage and as both presidential candidates’ campaigns have drilled down on the US’s six so-called battleground states: Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. The election forecaster Nate Silver predicted that Pennsylvania is likely to be the “tipping point” for the election.
Read the full report here: Trump lobs same insults at Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania town hall
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Donald Trump, in characteristically capricious style, had threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate, claiming he would not be given a fair opportunity.
Last week, he posted on his Truth Social network that ABC News was “fake news” and attacked its “so-called Panel of Trump Haters” after seeing the Republican senator Tom Cotton interviewed by Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week.
On Wednesday, Trump attended a town hall event moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity, during which he took the chance to ridicule ABC News, which is hosting the debate.
“ABC is the worst network in terms of fairness,” Trump said.
They are the most dishonest network. The meanest, the nastiest, but that is what I was presented with. I was presented with ABC … I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see how nasty they are, how unfair they are. I agreed to do it because they wouldn’t do any other network.
Harris and Trump accept debate rules, including allowing mics to be muted
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have accepted the rules for the presidential debate in Philadelphia, due to air on ABC next week, the network said on Wednesday – including muted mics when the other candidate is speaking.
ABC News said in a release that Harris and Trump “have qualified for the debate under the established criteria, and both have accepted the following debate rules”.
The Trump and Harris campaigns had been in dispute over the debate guidelines, including over whether microphones should be shut off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak. The Harris campaign had previously pushed for live, or “hot”, microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”. Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, had been pressing for them to be turned off.
The statement released by ABC made it clear that candidates’ microphones would be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak – and muted when the time belongs to another candidate.
It also said the debate would last 90 minutes and have two commercial breaks, and would be administered by two seated moderators, the ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, who would be the only people asking questions. There will be no audience in the room.
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Harris heads to Pittsburgh to prepare for high-stakes debate
Good morning US politics readers. Kamala Harris will travel today to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she will prepare for next week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump. Trump, meanwhile, is set to deliver remarks at the Economic Club of New York and later appear remotely before a gathering in Las Vegas of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
On Wednesday, ABC News announced that both Harris and Trump had accepted the rules for the 10 September debate, drawing an end to a dispute between the two campaigns over the debate guidelines, including over whether microphones should be shut off when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
A federal judge will hear arguments today to consider how to proceed with special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case against Donald Trump, in the first hearing since the supreme court’s immunity ruling.
Joe Biden will travel to Westby, Wisconsin, to deliver remarks on his economic agenda.
Jury selection is set to begin in Los Angeles for Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in his federal tax trial, his second trial of the year after he was convicted on felony gun charges in June.
