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      Harris and Cheney talk economy, women’s health and Trump in Michigan campaign event – US elections live

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      Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Donald Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene and the federal government’s response while campaigning in North Carolina today.The former president falsely suggested, once again, that federal money meant for hurricane relief was “spent … on illegal migrants”. There is no basis for the claim that disaster funding was reallocated to services related to immigration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the major US immigration agencies. But money allocated for a program to help migrants is separate and unrelated to disaster response funds.Trump also falsely implied that the Democrats were spending money on undocumented people so that they could “vote in the election”, reiterating his frequently cited baseless claim about election fraud.He also claimed Fema’s money is “all gone”. But this is false, CNN noted, as the federal agency told the network last week that its disaster relief fund had roughly $8.5bn remaining.More here:As Kamala Harris’s Michigan rally with Liz Cheney comes to a close, moderator Maria Shriver asks the vice president how she copes with the stress of the race and what her message is to voters who are struggling with anxiety over the election.Harris says, “I wake up in the middle of the night usually these days … but I work out every morning. I think that’s really important [for] mind, body and spirit … I try to eat well. I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband everyday … My family grounds me in every way.”The vice president adds:
      We cannot despair … Every individual has the power to make a decision about what this will be… so let’s not feel powerless. I get the overwhelming nature of this all makes us feel powerless … That’s not our character as American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment.”
      Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman now campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, outlines Trump’s threats on foreign policy:
      He heaps praise on the world’s most evil people, while he attacks with venom his political opponents here at home … If you look at where the Republican party is today, there’s been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants …
      Don’t think that Congress can stop him … all he has to do is what he’s doing and say, I won’t fulfill our Nato treaty obligations, and Nato begins to unravel.
      Liz Cheney, campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, criticizes commentators who assert that the vice-president isn’t ready to be president:
      She is supremely qualified to be president of the United States. There sometimes are some men who suggest that she’s not, but if you look at her qualifications, there’s no question that she’s somebody that I know I can count on, who will put the good of this country first.
      Cheney also emphasizes her conservative credentials while explaining her support for Harris: “The very first campaign I ever volunteered in was for President Gerald Ford … and ever since then, I have been voting for Republicans. I’ve never voted for a Democrat.”Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, has taken the stage at Kamala Harris’s campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Liz Cheney.Shriver starts off by making a pitch for bipartisanship, saying: “I served as a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration in California. So I get this bipartisan thing. I’ve seen it up close. And now I’m a proud independent … People of both parties used to get along really well.”Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
      I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
      Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. That’s not quite true – the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
      They’re great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didn’t only endorse me, saying I’m the greatest president there’s ever been … What about George Washington? No, you’re better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, you’re better, they said, I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
      The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is “cognitively impaired”.But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets land.He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. “I forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say he’s cognitively impaired because he put he’s cognitively impaired,” Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.“You know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,” he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
      I’ll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. I’d say about 92% couple of good ones. That’s a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.
      Trump is now onstage in Greenville, North Carolina, where he’s been whipping up the crowd with his usual attacks on Kamala Harris.Earlier in the day, he took note of Harris’s campaigning alongside Liz Cheney. On Truth Social, Trump implied that Arab voters – significant communities of which live in Michigan, a battleground state – are unlikely to look kindly on the vice-president associating with the daughter of Dick Cheney, who, as vice-president under George W Bush, was an architect of the US invasion of Iraq:Arab voters are indeed a source of concern for Democrats, though mostly over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Stephen Starr:Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”The former president then invited Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has helped relief efforts in the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene devastated the area just over three weeks ago, to speak.At the podium, Smith thanked Trump for coming to the area.“The biggest fear that western North Carolina is sitting on right now, at least in the communities we’ve talked to, is being forgotten,” Smith said.“To have you here and have an opportunity to have this conversation at a national level, will keep western North Carolina on the map, and not leave the communities holding the bag on the back end of this, so we’re very grateful that you’ve shown up,” Smith said to the former president.Trump continued his remarks by accusing the federal government of leaving North Carolinians “helpless and abandoned” after Hurricane Helene. “In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government, and yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government, unfortunately,” Trump said.“Citizens poured into western North Carolina from all over the country, bringing food, water, fuel, medical aid, even helicopters.”“Nothing is more inspiring than to see the American spirit triumph over adversity with the most selfless acts of generosity and love” he added.Donald Trump held a press conference in western North Carolina, where he surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and attacked the federal government’s recovery efforts.“Driving up here you see the kind of destruction, actually incredible” he said. “The power of nature, nothing you can do about it but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good.”“I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you and the American people are with you all the way” Trump said. “We are going to continue to be with you, we will see what happens with the election and on January 20th I think you are going to have a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.”Trump also addressed those who had lost family members and loved ones to the storm. “To everyone who has lost a loved one … we ask God to give you comfort and peace,” he said.“It’s been a terrible ordeal and this area was hit about as hard as anyone has ever seen….the communities were ravaged and destroyed, we are praying for you and we will not forget about you.”Trump’s repeated criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Helene comes as the director of Fema condemned the former president and his supporters for spreading misinformation about the hurricane and the response by the federal disaster agency, which, the director said, has hampered the government’s ability to get people the help they need.Donald Trump has long drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five, a group of men who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted for a crime and who earlier today sued him.After the jogger’s assault, he spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, Reuters reports.Trump in 2019 stood by his prior comments about the Central Park Five, and declined to apologize.The Guardian adds that at the debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump said of the men: “They pled guilty…They killed a person, ultimately.”The five then-boys, who were tried as adults, actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court.Yusef Salaam watched the debate in Philadelphia, afterwards telling the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are right now, full-circle moment, being able to be participants in this great democracy on the cusp of everything really powerfully supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m ready for it.”The five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park have sued Donald Trump for defamation over statements he made at last month’s US presidential debate, Reuters reported.Known widely as the Central Park Five, the defendants spent between five and 13 years in prison before they were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and the confession of another person.Trump falsely said at the September 10 debate with presidential rival Kamala Harris that the Central Park Five had killed a person and pleaded guilty.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called Trump’s statements “demonstrably false.”A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called the case “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s remarks “cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.” The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.Kamala Harris is on tour of the three Great Lakes swing states with Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who broke with her party over their support for Donald Trump. In their first event together in a Philadelphia suburb, Harris warned voters to take Trump seriously, while Cheney said she came around to backing the Democrats because she does not think the former president will stand up for American allies. They will appear together in metro Detroit and then Milwaukee before the day is through. Meanwhile, Tim Walz was on daytime talk staple “The View”, where he said that Trump’s comments about deploying the national guard against his political enemies was a sign that he planned to bend the country’s “constitutional guardrails”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The White House proposed an expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow women to access birth control without a prescription.

      Harris has scheduled an interview with NBC News from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday.

      A new poll found Trump may have lost his edge among voters when it comes to handling the economy, while Harris is viewed more favorably overall.
      Kamala Harris’s push for the support of Republican voters won her the support of the daughter of Gerald Ford, the late Republican former president who served from 1974 to 1977.Susan Ford Bales’s endorsement is perhaps most consequential in Michigan, the ex-president’s home and also a swing state coveted by both candidates. The Detroit News has Bales’s statement:As they wrapped up their joint event in Pennsylvania, Liz Cheney was asked to give something of a closing argument to her fellow Republicans for why they should support Kamala Harris.The former congresswoman said:
      I think that in this election, and especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny from Donald Trump and JD Vance. And we have the chance in this race to elect somebody who, you know is going to defend the rule of law.
      You know, vice-president Harris is going to defend our constitution. We have the chance to remind people that we are a good country. We are a good and honorable people. We are a great nation and in this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know vice-president Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be here.
      Thus concluded the first of three joint events the pair will do today. They now fly to Michigan for an event in the Detroit suburbs, followed by another in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.All three states are part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of swing states along the Great Lakes where voters traditionally back the party, but where polls show Harris is locked in a tight race against Donald Trump. More

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      Olivia Nuzzi leaves New York magazine after revelation of RFK Jr relationship

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      The politics writer Olivia Nuzzi and New York magazine have parted ways just over a month after she was placed on leave following the disclosure that she had engaged in a “personal” relationship with Robert F Kennedy Jr.The departure was announced in a statement from New York magazine on Monday afternoon.In the statement, the publication noted that the law firm they hired to review Nuzzi’s work during her reporting on the 2024 campaign, which included a lengthy profile of Kennedy, found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias” in her coverage.“Nevertheless”, the statement continued, “the magazine and Nuzzi agreed that the best course forward is to part ways. Nuzzi is a uniquely talented writer and we have been proud to publish her work over her nearly eight years as our Washington Correspondent.“We wish her the best,” it added.Shortly after the magazine released the statement, an attorney for Nuzzi also issued a statement saying that the reporter was “gratified though not surprised that two different investigations have determined that her reporting on the 2024 campaign was sound and that she did nothing wrong.“For nearly eight years, she consistently produced critically celebrated and hugely popular journalism in her capacity as the Washington Correspondent for New York Magazine,” the statement reads, adding that Nuzzi is “grateful for the editors, fact checkers, and artists with whom she worked and to the readers who have supported her with their time, subscriptions, and engagement. She looks forward to the next chapter of her career.”The news that Nuzzi and New York magazine are parting ways comes a little over a month after the magazine placed Nuzzi on leave and released their initial statement.In that statement the publication announced that Nuzzi had admitted to the magazine’s editors that she had engaged in a personal relationship with Kennedy while reporting on the campaign, which, the publication said, was a “violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures.“Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” the magazine said on 19 September.At the time, the magazine said that an internal review of her published work had found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias, and announced that Nuzzi was currently on leave. The magazine added that it was conducting a more thorough third-party review.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We regret this violation of our readers’ trust,” the statement read.In September, Nuzzi also acknowledged the relationship in a statement and said that earlier in 2024, the nature of some communication between herself and a former reporting subject “turned personal” adding that during that time, she did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source.She continued: “The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I
      deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”It later came out that the source was RFK Jr, who Nuzzi had written a lengthy profile on while he was running his high-profile Independent campaign for president, before he suspended his run and endorsed Donald Trump in August.A spokesperson for RFK Jr told CNN last month that Kennedy “only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece”. More

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      Liz Cheney urges conservatives to back Kamala Harris over abortion

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      Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman and longtime opponent of abortion rights, condemned Republican-imposed bans on the procedure and urged conservatives on Monday to support Kamala Harris for president.Cheney was speaking at the first of three joint events with Harris in the suburbs of three swing states aimed at prising moderate Republican voters away from party nominee Donald Trump. She has become the Democrat’s most prominent conservative surrogate and is rumoured to be under consideration for a seat in a potential Harris cabinet.At the first event in Malvern, a Philadelphia suburb, against a blue backdrop that said “a new way forward” and red one that said “country over party”, Cheney suggested that Republican-led states have overreached in restricting abortion since the supreme court’s 2022 Dobbs decision ended it as a constitutional right.“I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life, but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” said Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney.“I think this is not an issue that we’re seeing break down across party lines, but I think we’re seeing people come together to say: what has happened to women, when women are facing situations where they can’t get the care they need, where in places like Texas, for example, the attorney general is talking about suing, is suing, to get access to women’s medical records … that’s not sustainable for us as a country and it has to change.”Harris nodded repeatedly and applauded in response. The audience also clapped warmly.It was a striking attempt to build a permission structure for conservatives to back Harris, who has made reproductive freedom a centrepiece of her campaign and vowed to restore the protections of Roe v Wade if authorised by Congress. Cheney, by contrast, has an A rating from Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, a group that grades members of Congress based on their anti-abortion credentials.Monday’s three events in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were being held in counties won by Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, had sought to neutralise abortion as an election issue by supporting states’ autonomy and rejecting calls for a national ban.Cheney has vocally opposed Trump since the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and was vice-chair of a congressional committee investigating the attack. Her recent endorsement of Harris fuelled speculation that she could play a part in a future Harris administration.

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      Earlier this month, appearing on the popular daytime talkshow The View, Harris said she would differ from Joe Biden by including a Republican in her cabinet. She was asked by radio host Howard Stern if that might be Cheney but avoided a direct answer. Appointing Cheney would carry considerable political risks given her hawkish foreign policy and her father’s role in instigating the Iraq war.Trump has frequently tried to paint Harris, who is from deep blue California, as a radical liberal but she struck a moderate tone during her appearance with Cheney, who lost her House seat after she co-chaired a congressional committee that investigated the January 6 attack.She promised to “invite good ideas from wherever they come” and “cut red tape,” and she said “there should be a healthy two party system” in the country. “We need to be able to have these good intense debates about issues that are grounded in fact,” she said.“Imagine!” Cheney responded.“Let’s start there!” Harris said as the audience clapped. “Can you believe that’s an applause line?”View image in fullscreenVoters in Chester county, which includes Malvern, narrowly voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 but the county was won by Hillary Clinton by nine percentage points in 2016 and Biden by 17 points in 2020.The discussion was chaired by Sarah Longwell, who runs the group Republican Voters Against Trump, and lasted 40 minutes including two questions from the audience.Harris said Trump “has been using the power of the presidency to demean and to divide us” and “people are exhausted with that”. The vice-president added: “People around the world are watching. And sometimes I do fret a bit about whether we as Americans truly understand how important we are to the world.”Cheney praised Harris, saying: “I’m a conservative. I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. You have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump.”Cheney said she was concerned about allowing a “totally erratic, completely unstable” Trump to run foreign policy. “Our adversaries know that they can play Donald Trump,” she said. “And we cannot afford to take that risk.”But some observers questioned the wisdom of campaigning with Cheney in Michigan, which has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, given her hawkish foreign policy and her father’s role in instigating the Iraq war. Many such voters are now wavering or abstaining because of the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the crisis in Gaza.Trump weighed in on Monday, writing on his Truth Social platform: “Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the Middle East, also wants to go to War with every Muslim Country known to mankind.”More than a hundred former Republican officeholders and officials joined Harris last week in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from where general George Washington led hundreds of troops across the Delaware River to a major victory in the revolutionary war. At a rally there, Cheney told Republican voters that the patriotic choice was to vote for Democrats. More

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      Walz says Musk’s $1m voter giveaway reflects that Trump has ‘no plan’

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      Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Democratic vice-presidential candidate, said Elon Musk’s plan to give away $1m a day in support of Donald Trump is a reflection of a ticket with “no plan”.Musk offered registered voters in swing states a chance to enter a $1m a day giveaway if they sign his Super Pac’s petitions, “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms”. Experts have questioned whether the plan is legal or, in effect, buying votes.“Well, I think that’s what you do when you have no plan for the public,” said Walz, when asked about the giveaway on ABC’s The View, a daytime talkshow.“When you have no economic plan that’s going to benefit the middle class, when you have no plan to protect reproductive rights, when you have no plan to address climate change and produce American energy – you go to these types of tactics,” said Walz.As to whether Musk’s strategy was legal, Walz said: “I’ll let the lawyers decide.”This is the second time the Democratic presidential ticket has appeared on The View talkshow in recent weeks. Kamala Harris announced a new “Medicare at home” plan on the show, which she said would help seniors pay for home health aides without driving themselves into destitution.Walz, known to be chatty in such interviews, also quipped that “one nice thing” about Trump is that “he will not be president again.” He advised JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, to “just go in and order the chocolate doughnut”, referring to an awkward campaign stop.This is one of several recent TV outings for Walz, including an upcoming appearance on The Daily Show and recent appearances on Fox News Sunday. The governor appeared ebullient on The View – akin to the television appearances that helped land him the job as second on the Harris ticket.In the abbreviated time that Harris had to pick a running mate, and in which Walz has had to introduce himself to the country, he briefly took a more conservative approach to campaigning. Most notably, Walz was panned during the vice-presidential debate.Walz appeared more confident on Monday, telling voters watching The View: “Choose a future where you’re the center of it not Donald Trump.”

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      Trump uses North Carolina visit to reiterate hurricane relief conspiracies

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      Donald Trump on Monday used a trip to a hurricane-ravaged part of North Carolina to double down on false claims about the federal government’s recovery effort and promote baseless conspiracy theories about immigration.Trump claimed the Biden administration had not done enough work for recovery and aid in North Carolina, saying instead the federal government spent its resources on “illegal migrants”, three weeks after a hurricane devasted the state.Trump and some other Republicans have earned widespread condemnation for boosting false claims around the recovery effort in the state. They have ranged from claims that the US government can influence the weather to theories that crucial aid was being withheld, prompting some government officials to warn of threats to federal emergency workers.But Trump did not hold back in his attacks. After surveying damage in western North Carolina, Trump gave a press conference in the city of Asheville, saying that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had been gutted by the Biden administration and was doing a “poor” job in helping residents of the state affected by the hurricane.“The power of nature, nothing you can do about it. But you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good,” the Republican presidential candidate said.Hurricane Helene, which struck the US eastern coast on 27 September has led to the deaths of 95 people in North Carolina and widespread damage. Nearly 5,000 roads remained closed as of Sunday, with more than 8,000 people approved to receive individual assistance from Fema.During his press conference, Trump encouraged voters in North Carolina to get out and vote, despite the destruction in the state.He also pointed to the Biden administration, saying the White House has limited Fema’s recovery efforts, deciding to instead spend money on “illegal migrants”, implying it may have been done to possibly influence the 2024 elections.“They were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election, because that’s a lot of people are saying that’s why they’re doing it – I don’t know, I hope that’s not why they’re doing it,” Trump said.Fema is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also oversees the major federal immigration agencies: Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.“They’ve spent it on illegal migrants,” Trump said, in reference to federal government money. “Many of them are murderers, many of them are drug dealers, many of them come out of mental institutions and insane asylums, and many of them are terrorists.”Immigration has been a major campaign issue for both political parties. As Republicans accuse Democrats of being “soft” on immigration enforcement policies, the Democratic party has shifted to the right, pushing for tougher immigration policies. This year, the Biden administration put in place significant changes to asylum policy, restricting access to asylum at the US ports of entry.

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      Trump, in similar fashion to his 2016 presidential campaign, has continued to demonize immigrants and asylum seekers, claiming they are bringing more crime to the USand placing Americans at risk and using racist language and imagery.Last month, the Trump-Vance campaign circulated false rumors that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. The campaign also promoted false and sensational rumors that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado.“They spent money to bring these people into our country, and they don’t have the money to take care of the people from North Carolina and other states,” Trump said on Monday about the Biden administration.Trump also said that, if he is elected, he would help reconstruction efforts in North Carolina by slashing “every bureaucratic barrier” and would recruit businesses to operate in the state “through the proper use of taxation incentives and tariffs – one of the most beautiful words that nobody understands, or very few people understand”. More

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      Can Democrats still win in rural states? Montana’s Senate race offers high-stakes litmus test

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      He was a young and little-known underdog. So Max Baucus, candidate for Congress, decided to trek 630 miles across Montana and listen to people talk about their problems. “As luck would have it, on the first day, I walked into a blizzard,” he recalls, pointing to a photo of his young self caked in snow. “It was cold! But the blizzard didn’t last that long.”Baucus shed 12lbs during that two and a half month journey in 1974. He also made friends. The Democrat defeated a Republican incumbent and would soon go on to serve as a Montana senator for 36 years. He never lost an election but saw his beloved home state undergo many changes. Among them is the prospect that Democrats like him are now facing political extinction.Jon Tester, a moderate Democrat who is one of Montana’s current senators, is fighting for his political life in the 5 November election. Opinion polls suggest that he is trailing his Republican rival Tim Sheehy. Control of the closely divided Senate, and the ability to enable or stymie the ambitions of a President Kamala Harris or President Donald Trump, could hinge on the outcome.The Senate race in Montana is widely seen as a litmus test of whether Democrats can still win in largely rural states that have embraced Trump’s Republican party. It is also a study in whether the type of hyperlocal campaigning that Baucus practised half a century ago can outpace shifts in demographics, media and spending that have rendered all politics national.View image in fullscreen“Montana was not yet discovered,” recalled Baucus, 82, sitting near old campaign posters – “Democrat Max Baucus walks for Congress” – in the brick-and-wood institute that bears his name on Bozeman’s idyllic main street. “There was much more retail politics, knocking on doors, shaking hands, going all around the community, knowing people personally. There’s a saying that Montana is one big small town and that was very true back then. It’s not quite as true today.”Tester, 68, a likable, unpretentious dirt farmer who is Montana through and through, epitomises the old retail politics. His campaign ads emphasise his rural background, including three fingers missing on his left hand — lost to a meat grinder that he still owns. He has been in the Senate for 18 years and praised for his work on behalf of the agriculture industry, military veterans and Native American communities.For some voters, such authenticity still resonates. Nels Johnson, 62, who works for a conservation organisation in Bozeman, said: “I’m going to vote for Jon Tester because he’s a third-generation Montanan, knows Montana values and what Montana hopes to be. His opponent is not as in touch.”View image in fullscreenSheehy, 37, is an outsider by comparison. The former Navy Seal moved to Montana in 2014 to raise a family and start an aerial firefighting business. He is also cast in the Trump mould: he has no previous political experience, is hostile to the media – he has given few interviews – and has been dogged by a string of controversies over exaggerated or misleading claims about his past.Marc Racicot, 76, a former governor of Montana and ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee turned Trump critic, said: “Mr Sheehy is an acolyte of Donald Trump and so the shadow of Trump is going to influence his candidacy – what he’s willing to do and able to do and also his character and capacity to govern in a way that reflects democratic virtues and values.”Nowhere is the contrast between the candidates more palpable than in their relationship to this year’s presidential nominees. In August, Sheehy stood alongside Trump, who won Montana overwhelmingly in the 2020 election, at a rally in Bozeman. No one is expecting Tester to hold a campaign event with Harris anytime soon. Indeed, he has declined to endorse her.View image in fullscreenIt is pragmatic calculation that recognises how Montana, which is about the size of Japan and has more cows than people, has altered since Tester came into office. The state has witnessed an influx of newcomers from Arizona, Washington state, California and Texas. During the coronavirus pandemic, Montana had the third-highest rate of growth in the country.The state’s politics have veered to the right. When Tester entered the Senate in 2007, Democrats held almost every statewide elected office in Montana from governor, secretary of state and attorney general to two of the state’s three seats in the House of Representatives. But Republicans have steadily picked off one Democratic stronghold after another. Tester is now the last Democrat standing in statewide office.He has survived three close races before but this looks set to be his toughest yet: he has never run before when Trump was at the top of the ballot. By distancing himself from the White House race, he is asking voters to split their ticket – something that is increasingly rare in the era of political tribalism and declining local media.View image in fullscreenMike Dennison, a veteran political journalist and analyst, said: “Republicans have totally tried to nationalise this race. Every chance they get, whenever they say Tester they say Biden or Harris. They want to tie him to the national Democrats and that’s absolutely what Tester does not want to do.“The Republicans want to say this race is for control of the Senate. Tester doesn’t want to talk about that at all. He wants to talk about himself and his issues. That is what’s going on here: Democrats have had a tough time in rural America and Montana is certainly rural America.”Republican-aligned groups are duly pumping millions of dollars into the race. Dennison added: “The amount of money in this race by Montana standards is just stunning. The prior race six years ago, when Tester ran and Trump came out to the state four times to campaign against him, was a $100m race. This is going to be a $250m race.”View image in fullscreenYet for many of the voters whose screens are saturated with endless campaign ads, the number one issue is affordability. Cities such as Bozeman and Missoula have housing crises with many local people priced out.Brian Guyer, emergency and supportive housing director at the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), a non-profit organisation in Bozeman that runs a shelter with capacity for a hundred unhoused people, said there has been a sharp rise in individuals turning up with everything they own because of rent increases or shifts from long- to short-term rentals.Guyer said: “They end up seeking out overnight shelter because there aren’t alternatives for them, which has turned into an odd dynamic here. We have your standard shelter guests – people who are dealing with addiction – but now we also have people who are actively participating in the Bozeman workforce but the cost of living is so expensive that the shelter is their only option in terms of places to stay. In a perverse way, this is workforce housing.”View image in fullscreenSheehy has, unsurprisingly, attempted to fit the problem into a national framework. Borrowing from Trump’s central campaign theme, he has argued with little evidence that immigrants are coming to the state and driving up the price of housing.Zooey Zephyr, a progressive Democrat who is the first transgender member of the Montana state legislature, says: “We have seen from the top of the ticket of the Republican party an effort to take the issues our country is facing right now and blame it on an ‘other’. So, hey, let’s ignore the fact the state of Montana had a multibillion dollar surplus in 2023 and the legislature controlled by a Republican supermajority did not address the housing crisis adequately.“No, instead they’re going to stoke fears that it has something to do with immigration being the main driver. We know the demographics of Montana are largely white, partially Native American, but they’re going to drum up fear about a small percentage of people in the state and try to vilify them. That’s a fear-based playbook that we’ve seen Sheehy using but it is a playbook we have seen in every election cycle.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenIn fact, many of the new arrivals are members of Sheehy’s own party, quitting liberal cities and drawn to Montana’s clear air, open spaces and good schools (the TV series Yellowstone has also boosted the state’s profile). Now nearly half of Montanas were not born in the state. They know or care little for Tester’s long service or Montana’s independent streak.Luke Huffines, 28, a forester, moved to Montana a month ago and will vote for Sheehy – if he can register in time. “I like Sheehy’s background,” he said. “He’s Navy Seal and he’s definitely got businesses going on. He’s got private firefighting planes and whatnot and I feel like he’s getting a lot of backlash because he’s got his shit together. What’s wrong with capitalism?”Huffines is also a supporter of Trump. He explained: “He just doesn’t give a shit. And he gets so much backlash and he just keeps moving forward.”View image in fullscreenFor their part, Democrats have branded Sheehy as exactly the type of rich out-of-stater who bought up multiple hones across Montana and helped drive up costs for locals. A recent report by the National Association of Realtors found that, in terms of wages versus prices, Montana now has the least affordable properties in the nation.Shane Doyle, 52, a Native American who lives in Bozeman, describes it as a “reverse gold rush”. He said: “They’re coming here to add to what has already been a white, gated, almost resort community. The town is filled with Republicans who have come here to feel comfortable around other white people and enjoy the amenities of the outdoors and the recreation of the waters and the skiing and the hiking.“The only place where you see minorities here in Bozeman is either on the college campus or on the outskirts of town. I’m one of the very few Indians who lives here and has managed to find a career path that allows me the money to live here.”Montana has seven Indian reservations and almost 70,000 Native Americans, representing about 7% of its total population, according to census data. The voting bloc has long leaned Democratic but Republicans have recently courted tribal leaders hoping to gain their support. Sheehy has faced demands to apologise over past remarks he made about Native Americans being “drunk at 8am” and throwing beer cans at him on the Crow Reservation.View image in fullscreenTester has warned that Sheehy wants to sell off public lands to rich people and make Montana his own personal playground. Doyle, a member of the Crow tribe and executive director of the nonprofit group Yellowstone Peoples, regards Tester as a “staunch supporter” and believes that, if Democrats ran the state, there would be scope to bring back animals such as bison, elk, wolves and bears.

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      Doyle said: “Tim Sheehy says he wants to protect public lands but we’re all sceptical of that because we know he’s very interested in privatisation. There’s a lot of money to be made on Montana’s public lands and I’m afraid that, if we go full red, they’ll be more emboldened to act on their agenda. That’s going to be a bad thing for all Montanans because the crown jewel of Montana is our public lands. We have a lot to lose.”Just as in other parts of the US, Doyle has seen the Montana Republican party lurch to the “Make America great again” (Maga) right and fan the flames of extremism. “Bozeman has become the epicentre of white supremacy,” he said. “All of our elected officials here are along those lines. Bozeman has now become the home base for the Republican candidates and we haven’t seen a lot of support from them for Indian Country.”Doyle has seen truckers drive aggressively through town, flying flags and blowing black smoke. “We have groups here that are white supremacist and they are fully armed and they make themselves visible. They’re intimidating, they’re threatening and it’s no fun to live around them. They didn’t used to be here before Trump won.”While affordability and immigration loom large, Democrats are pinning their hopes on reproductive freedom in the aftermath of the supreme court’s decision to overturn the Roe v Wade decision. Next month’s general election ballot will include an initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, potentially galvanising many young, female and progressive voters.View image in fullscreenIf Tester is defeated by his less experienced but Trump-friendly opponent, one more blue dot will be extinguished. It will be a fresh data point in the great sorting between blue states and red states, between urban liberals and rural conservatives, between so-called coastal elites and flyover states.One factor in the polarisation is the decline of local newspapers and rise of talk radio and cable television, which offer national news through a partisan lens.Ken Toole, 69, a Democrat who served in the Montana state senate, said he and his neighours agree on identifying problems such as taxes, the concentration of wealth and monopolies in the meatpacking industry. “But they just have absolutely no faith that Democrats can deal with that and we’re talking about people who are sitting in their tractor all day listening to talk radio.“I work cattle with my neighbours and talk to them pretty regularly – it’s not like they’re foaming at the mouth. Over time, the brand of Democrats in areas like this has just been eroded. The difficult question for me is, how do you build it back?” More

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      The Guardian view on foreign powers in Sudan: struggling for advantage while civilians starve | Editorial

      by

      The often denied but obvious involvement of foreign powers in Sudan’s deadly civil war is now firmly in the spotlight. Tens of thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed since it began last April. Now, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has accused the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) of bombing its ambassador’s residence in Khartoum, causing “extensive damage”. The SAF denied it, claiming that last month’s strike was the work of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), backed by the UAE.What’s not in doubt is that both sides are committing war crimes and that they are able to do so because foreign governments are supporting them. The ceaseless flow of arms has resulted in a vast, growing humanitarian disaster. Last week, UN-appointed experts accused combatants of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians. Additionally, 10 million people have been displaced, and diseases such as cholera are rapidly spreading amid the world’s largest hunger crisis.While the autumn harvest should somewhat alleviate immediate food shortages for many, the longer-term prognosis is catastrophic. Both factions have targeted volunteers working to feed the hungry, many of whom are former members of the resistance committees that led the pro-democracy protests a few years ago.Wars between would-be strongmen punish and kill the powerless. But there is something especially grotesque about seeing the citizens of Sudan, having seen off a dictator and attempted to transition to civilian government, sacrificed to the cynical interests of outsiders.Though the UAE denies supporting the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, UN experts have laid out “credible” allegations of arms shipments. The UAE is interested in strategically valuable Red Sea ports and resources from gold to land. Saudi Arabia and Egypt support the SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who has also sought closer ties with Iran.All this has been described as “a Middle East war being played out in Africa”. But diplomatic energy is focused on the spiralling Middle East war in the Middle East. When the UAE’s leader, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, visited Mr Biden in Washington recently, Sudan merited just two paragraphs in their lengthy joint statement. Sudan has not always been the priority even when it comes to Sudan. A new paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that the US never matched rhetorical support for the democratic opening there with adequate strategic planning, engagement or assistance. The Trump administration’s priority was pressuring the transitional government to recognise Israel as it tried to advance its Abraham accords.The latest plans for informal talks to resolve the struggle between the two generals fell through. Having recently launched a counteroffensive to retake Khartoum, Gen Burhan appears in denial about the strength of his hand. A resolution in Sudan seems unlikely unless key external actors – namely the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – reach an agreement. With the US showing no sign of turning up the pressure, the UK government, which leads on the issue at the UN security council, should step up. But so should others. The UAE was dismayed when the US rapper Macklemore pulled out of a concert in Dubai over its role in Sudan. Its keenness to burnish its international standing means that a cultural boycott and protests by sports stars and fans could have real impact.

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