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      Trump stands by false claims about immigrants – as it happened

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      Bret Baier has asked Kamala Harris repeatedly about immigration.You supported allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for drivers licences and to apply for free healthcare, he says. Do you still support those things?The vice-president says it was five years ago that she said those things, and that what she supports is the law. Baier presses her and again, she says she and Tim Walz believe in supporting and enforcing the law.We’re wrapping up our live US politics coverage for the day, thanks for following along.Here is our news story on the Kamala Harris interview on Fox news:Kamala Harris said her presidency “would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency” in a testy interview with the rightwing Fox News channel on Wednesday night as she criticized Donald Trump over his continuing threats against “the enemy within”.The 25-minute interview, conducted after Harris held a rally with more than 100 Republican officials in Pennsylvania, was the first time Harris had sat for a conversation with Fox News, which has been a consistent supporter of Trump.Bret Baier, Fox News’s chief political anchor, is seen as a straight news counterbalance to the vitriol of Fox News’s evening shows, but still came with a laundry list of rightwing topics, including immigration, the rights of transgender people and Joe Biden’s performance, as Harris attempted to sell herself to the channel’s older, largely Republican, audience.The event featured pointed questions for Trump, about his wife Melania’s support for abortion rights, noted in her new memoir, and about the 6 January, 2021, Siege of the US Capitol by his supporters who breached the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.“Your own vice-president doesn’t want to support you now,” said Ramiro Gonzalez, of Tampa, Florida, a Republican who said he was no longer registered with the party but wanted to give Trump the chance to win him back. Gonzalez was referring to former vice-president Mike Pence, who has disavowed Trump in light of 6 January.Trump’s response: “Hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election. That’s why they came.”“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions,” Trump told Gonzalez.More now from Trump’s Univision town hall. During the event, hosted by Univision, America’s nation’s largest Spanish-language network, Trump defended his call for mass deportation of immigrants who are in the US illegally, even as he nodded to a need for immigrant labour, the Associated Press reports. “We want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally, and they have to love our country,” the Republican presidential candidate said during the event, scheduled to air Wednesday evening. Trump was answering the question of Jorge Velásquez, a farm worker who said most people doing such jobs are undocumented and suggested, if they’re deported, food prices will increase.Trump then returned to his criticism of Harris for being a critical player in the Biden administration’s that presided over an influx of migrants with criminal backgrounds.Here is some analysis from the associated press of Trump and Harris’s recent media appearances:Both candidates have largely avoided traditional interviews during the campaign, preferring to sit before friendly hosts, often in nontraditional media settings. The two-day interview marathon was a noteworthy partial break from that strategy.Harris, whom the Trump campaign hammered for not doing interviews after replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, has ramped up the pace this month. The vice-president appeared on ABC’s “The View,” spoke with radio host Howard Stern and taped a show with late-night comedian Stephen Colbert, among other appearances. She also sat down with the newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” as is traditional for presidential candidates, while Trump canceled his appearance with the show.Harris’ appearance on Fox with anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday seemed designed to show her willingness to face any questioner, especially after Trump bailed on “60 Minutes.” The risks of that became apparent quickly as Baier challenged her immediately on immigration and often interrupted her afterward.In contrast, Trump, in his Chicago interview Tuesday, frequently spoke over Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait and even insulted him as the audience cheered Trump on. Micklethwait challenged Trump’s support for tariffs and his plans to pay for his campaign promises.The former president also faced a friendly all-women audience in a Fox News town hall before participating in a town hall on the Spanish-language network Univision, where he faced pointed questions from Latino voters. Like Harris, Trump is trying to broaden his coalition to get the key votes he needs to win the neck-and-neck race. So, for him as well, every interview counts.Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday stood by debunked claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets, telling Latino voters during a town hall he was “just saying what was reported.”Trump in recent weeks has amplified a false claim that has gone viral that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing residents’ pets or taking wildlife from parks for food. There have been no credible reports of Haitians eating pets, and officials in Ohio – including Republicans – have repeatedly said the story is untrue.At a town hall hosted by Univision, an undecided Latino Republican voter from Arizona, a battleground state, asked Trump whether he truly believed that immigrants were eating pets.“I was just saying what was reported. All I do is report,” Trump replied during the event held in Miami. “I was there, I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look.”Trump added that “newspapers” had also reported on the claim, without naming any or providing any details.Here is more of that exchange on Iran earlier.Baier asked Harris,“Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?”She said, “Iran”.Baier said, “A number of experts thought you would say China…But you said Iran. If that’s the case, what do you say to critics who look at the actions of your administration and say you’re not acting like Iran is the number one threat?”Harris said, “Well, I will tell you most recently, whether it was in April or in October, and then several hours on each occasion that Iran posed a threat to Israel, I was there. Most recently in the Situation Room, in the most recent attack, working with the heads of our military in doing what America must always do to defend and to support Israel in its requirement to defend itself and to give American support to be able to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself against attack, including from Iran and Iran’s terrorist proxies in the region.”Here is Harris calling out Fox News’s Bret Baier for playing a clip of Trump that was “not what [Trump] has been saying about the enemy from within”:US vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down for an interview on Wednesday evening with Fox News host Bret Baier.The interview was combative, with Harris, towards the end, speaking over Baier as asked him to interview her “grounded in full assessment of the facts”, and called him out for playing clips that she said were not relevant to what they were discussing.

      Harris was asked about the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle a surge in illegal immigration at the southern border, and laid the blame on Republicans for failing to pass a border bill.

      Harris was asked to defend the administration’s early decision to reverse some of Republican rival Donald Trump’s restrictive policies, and to respond to a mother who testified in Congress about the loss of her child at the hands of an illegal immigrant. “I’m so sorry for her loss, but let’s talk about what is happening right now,” Harris said.

      Harris said Trump told Republicans to reject a bipartisan immigration bill because “he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.” The interview was part of a direct appeal by Harris on Wednesday to Republican voters in this year’s US presidential election, as she highlighted Republican support for her campaign in a battleground county in Pennsylvania before appearing on conservative-leaning Fox News.

      Harris was asked in the Fox News interview about her recent comment that there was “not a thing” she would change about the actions of the Biden administration, responding: “let me be very clear, my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” but she did not elaborate. Earlier, in Bucks County, outside of Philadelphia, Harris emphasised Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss four years ago, when he lost the White House to current President Joe Biden.

      Harris said Trump’s actions violated the US Constitution and, if given the chance, he will violate it again. “He refused to accept the will of the people and the results of a free and fair election. He sent a mob, an armed mob, to the United States Capitol, where they violently assaulted police officers, law enforcement officials and threatened the life of his own vice president,” Harris said.

      “No matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said.

      Harris was asked “Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?” She said Iran. She has worked with the heads of the military to do what America must always do, which is to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself from attack, “including from Iran and Iran’s territist proxies in the region. And my commitment to that is unwaivering”. The screen showed a graphic listing “Iran oil revenue”.

      Harris talked over Baier, continuing her answer about the Middle East as he tried to press her. He stopped speaking. She said, “I would like that we have a conversation that is grounded in the facts”. “Yes ma’am,” he said.

      “Madam vice-president they’re wrapping me very hard here, I hope you got to say what you wanted about President Trump,” Baier said. Harris said she has a lot more to say about Trump. She invited people to visit her website. Baier interrupted her again, she talked over him, listing the policies that would be found on her website.
      Former Democrat congressman Harold Ford Junior, on Fox news, says that Harris should be proud of her performance tonight, and that it shows that there are benefits to coming on Fox.“Tonight was a sign and a signal to the country about why we need more debates between candidates,” he says.He says Harris “Has to be pleased with how she performed this evening”.Brit Hume, Fox political analyst, says Harris was strong in some ways, but avoided answering other questions, including how she will differ from Biden.He says partisans will be pleased with her performance, they’ll say “Yay, Kamala,” he says.“But if people have doubts about her I don’t think she cleared them up”.Fox news presenters have said, variously, that Harris was strong on some answers, thin on others, and that other answers “won’t pass the smell test” – that last comment from Fox news host Dana Perino.She was praised for coming on Fox and allowing herself to “think on her toes” in a tough interview, rather than the interviews until now, which a Fox host said had been soft.The screen shows a graphic listing “Iran oil revenue”.Harris is talking over Baier. He stops. She says, “I would like that we have a conversation that is grounded in the facts”.“Yes ma’am,” he says.“Madam vice-president they’re rapping me very hard here, I hope you got to say what you wanted about President Trump,” he says.Harris says she has a lot more to say about Trump. She invites people to visit her website. Baier interrupts her, she talks over him, listing the policies that would be found on her website.Harris is asked about the Middle East and the threat posed by Iran.She says she has worked with the heads of the military to do what America must always do, which is to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself from attack, “including from Iran and Iran’s territist proxies in the region. And my commitment to that is unwaivering”. More

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      Elon Musk gives $75m to pro-Trump group, putting him among the largest Republican donors

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      Elon Musk gave around $75m to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures show, underscoring how the billionaire has become crucial to the Republican candidate’s efforts to win the US presidential election.America PAC, which is focused on turning out voters in the closely contested states battleground states that could decide the election, spent around $72m of that in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.That is more than any other pro-Trump Super Pac focused on turning out voters. The Trump campaign is broadly reliant on outside groups for canvassing voters, meaning the Super Pac founded by Musk – the world’s richest man – plays an outsized role in the razor-thin election between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.Musk, the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, was the sole donor to the group in that period.On Wednesday, he said in a post on X that he will be “giving a series of talks” throughout Pennsylvania, less than two weeks after his appearance with Trump in the state. Musk said people needed to sign a petition on his America PAC website to attend his talks from “tomorrow night through Monday.”Pennsylvania is considered a crucial state for both Trump and Harris in the race for the White House.Musk, who has said he has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the past, has taken a sharp turn to the right this election. He endorsed Trump in July and appeared with him at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.Musk’s donations to America PAC propel him into the exclusive club of Republican mega donors, a list that also includes banking heir Timothy Mellon and casino billionaire Miriam Adelson.However, it was reported earlier this month that Musk has secretly funded a conservative political group for years, well before his public embrace of Trump.America PAC declined to comment on the Musk donations. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.America PAC is focused on encouraging Americans who like Trump but don’t always vote to cast ballots this cycle, a high-risk, labor-intensive strategy by the Trump campaign.The group, which started its work later in the election than other Pacs, has encountered some problems with hiring and its contractors. Since July, it has fired two major contractors it has hired to knock on doors.It has also struggled to hire door knockers in several battleground states in part because by the time the Pac became operational many other canvassing groups had already staffed up, a half-dozen sources briefed on the issues told Reuters.The group had about $4m left on hand by the end of September, the filings show.Separate filings earlier on Tuesday showed that Miriam Adelson, the casino magnate, donated $95m to another pro-Trump Super Pac, Preserve America PAC, in the same period. More

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      Hurricane Milton has left two worlds in its wake. Elon Musk lives in one of them. The other is called reality | Marina Hyde

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      I increasingly wonder why Elon Musk is bothering trying to establish himself on Mars, and not just because it looks like a complete dump up there. (Seriously, if you think that’s beautiful, I have around a hundred thousand disused quarries I’d love to show you right here on Earth.) Watching Hurricane Milton play out on Musk’s platform and elsewhere cemented the notion that the goal of being on another planet along with millions of people had already occurred. The only problem is that this whole other planet is here, sharing meatspace with what we used to call “reality”.Once upon a time, relatively recently in the scheme of things, a looming natural disaster would have felt like a fairly ineluctable fact. You couldn’t “debate” a natural disaster any more than you could disagree with gravity. There is a point, we used to say, where you really can’t argue with reality. There is a point where shit gets real. But is there, any more? Certainly that point has receded much further over a still-darkening horizon than we might even have imagined back in, say, 2016, when people were warning of attempts to destroy the very notion of shared reality. In fact, it was already receding back in 2004, when a Bush administration official (widely believed to be Karl Rove) spoke disparagingly of what they called “the reality-based community”.In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene last month, and in the days leading up to Hurricane Milton’s landfall, it was possible to see the truly grim extent of the slippage in recent years. It wasn’t just in senior politicians using phrases such as “politicising the storm”, a way of talking about a terrifyingly destructive natural phenomenon that would once have seemed like a quote from a satire, but now seems a long-unremarkable part of daily discourse. Nor was it in the widespread questioning that the storm was even a natural phenomenon at all, with huge numbers out there on the platforms declaring it to have been literally “created” and “engineered” by the other side. It was the sense that whatever happened, people had a version of reality they would be sticking to. Their views are battened down and not even a hurricane is going to shift them.“Yes they can control the weather,” explained the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (on X, of course). “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” One customary reaction to Marjorie is to remark that it’s as if she’s on another planet. I so wish she was. The problem is that she and her fellow settlers are here, walking among all the agency officials and disaster experts and emergency workers who have to deal with reality as it presents itself – and not reality as whatever rubbish advances your cause that day.But on she sails, because the civilisation of Another Planet is considerably advanced. You no longer ask if life is sustainable on this planet. It is not just sustainable – it is sustained. Not only does it have well-established communications systems, but also a rapidly spawning language where words can mean their opposites. Another Planet has a thriving media, and a social media presence actively boosted and financially incentivised by the likes of Musk – which arguably had its coming-of-age party over these past weeks. Musk himself shared what he said was a note from a SpaceX engineer falsely claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping … ” Don’t worry, only 41m people have viewed the post.In addition to oligarchs such as Musk, Another Planet has its own politicians who advance its interests, most notably Donald Trump, who has had what the polls suggest was a good storm. And don’t forget the foot soldiers. On TikTok, you could scroll through miles of fake videos of flooded Florida cities before Milton had even hit the areas purporting to be shown. After Helene last month, Fema launched a dedicated “rumour response” page. Barely two weeks on, the scale of the task has already overwhelmed defences. Rumour response pages were instantly rebranded as government cover-ups (the Jews were behind this one too, would you believe). According to an urgent dispatch from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, just 33 posts containing claims debunked by Fema, the White House and the US government had already been viewed more than 160m times before Helene hit.Meanwhile, Another Planet has harnessed sophisticated technology in the form of AI. When told an AI image she’d shared of a sobbing child in a canoe with a puppy was entirely fake, RNC committee member Amy Kremer said she didn’t care and was leaving it up because it was “emblematic”. We’re now in an era when Another Planet feels confident enough to let you behind the curtain, because you’ll still believe it anyway. Kremer butching it out is just the latest version of JD Vance’s insouciant declaration last month that, of course, he creates false stories such as pets being eaten by Haitian immigrants. He does it, he says, so that the media “actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.Maybe most worryingly, Another Planet constantly suggests it will defend itself by force if necessary. One way to fight a “weather weapon” is by making a death threat against a meteorologist. Or, indeed, multiple death threats against multiple meteorologists. Another way is call for militias to attack Fema for “withholding aid”. Another way is to threaten to shoot first responders. Again, honestly the only problem with this community is that it’s right here on Earth. I’m sure they’d say that we in the world’s reality-based community are occupying them – but it’s pretty finely balanced. Ask me again in a month, by which time it might feel as if they are occupying us.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

      A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar. On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at a political year like no other, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live More

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      Hurricanes, the Middle East, and Covid-19 tests to Putin – podcast

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      It’s less than a month before the US presidential election. Donald Trump is pushing conspiracy theories over the federal response to hurricanes battering several states, and denying he gave Covid-19 test machines to Vladimir Putin during the pandemic. Joe Biden is in talks with Benjamin Netanyahu over growing tension in the Middle East. Kamala Harris rattled through a media blitz, with some criticising her campaign strategy. And Melania Trump has written about being pro-abortion and pro-immigration in her new memoir.
      Jonathan Freedland and the veteran political strategist David Axelrod discuss what all of this means for the election

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Why are Democrats tarred as elites when the world’s richest man funds Trump? | Robert Reich

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      On 5 October, at Donald Trump’s second rally of the 2024 election in Butler, Pennsylvania, he enthusiastically introduced Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, who is plunking down millions of dollars to help the former president.Musk urged the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” – echoing words Trump uttered after the attack on his life there. Musk then shouted: “President Trump must win to preserve the constitution!” and he “must win to preserve democracy in America!” Musk ended his rant with the dark prediction: “If they don’t [vote], this will be the last election.”Musk has established himself as the quintessential robber baron of the United States’s second Gilded Age.In mid-August, during a conversation between Musk and Trump on Twitter/X, Trump praised Musk for firing workers who went on strike. “You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said. “You walk in and say: ‘You want to quit?’ … They go on strike and you say: ‘That’s OK. You’re all gone.’” Musk responded, “Yeah,” and laughed.More than a century ago, in the US’s first Gilded Age, the idea that someone running for president would feature at a rally the richest person in the country, let alone the world, would have been absurd. At that time, even Republican candidates sought to distance themselves from the robber barons.Kamala Harris is waging a strong campaign but it could be even stronger if she wielded more anti-corporate and more anti-robber-baron economic populism.As in the first Gilded Age, the most powerful force in US politics today is anti-establishment fury at a rigged system.But because Democrats – with the notable exceptions of Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Bob Casey, and Sherrod Brown – have not embraced economic populism, the only version of populism available to angry voters has been the Republican’s cultural one, which is utterly fake.During the first Gilded Age, economic populism predominated because millions of Americans saw that wealth and power concentrated at the top was undermining US democracy and stacking the economic deck.In 1910, Teddy Roosevelt thundered his warning that “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power” could destroy US democracy. Roosevelt’s answer was to tax wealth. The estate tax was eventually enacted in 1916, and the capital gains tax in 1922.In the 1912 presidential campaign, Woodrow Wilson promised “a crusade against powers that have governed us … that have limited our development … that have determined our lives … that have set us in a straitjacket to do as they please”. The struggle to break up the giant trusts would be, in Wilson’s words, a “second struggle for emancipation”.Wilson signed into law the Clayton Antitrust Act, which strengthened antitrust laws and protected unions. He also established the Federal Trade Commission to root out “unfair acts and practices in commerce”, and created the first permanent national income tax.Years later, Teddy Roosevelt’s fifth-cousin, Franklin D Roosevelt, attacked corporate and financial power by giving workers the right to unionize, the 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, and social security. FDR instituted a high marginal income tax on the wealthy – those making more than $5m a year were taxed up to 75% – and he regulated finance.Accepting renomination for president in 1936, FDR spoke of the need to redeem US democracy from the despotism of concentrated economic power. He warned the nation against the “economic royalists” who had pressed the whole of society into service.On the eve of his 1936 re-election, he told the American people that big business and finance were determined to unseat him: “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”But by the 1950s, the Democratic party had given up on economic populism. Gone from their presidential campaigns were tales of greedy businessmen, unscrupulous financiers and monopolistic corporations.There no longer seemed any need. Postwar prosperity had created the largest middle class in the history of the world and reduced the gap between rich and poor. By the mid-1950s, a third of all private-sector employees were unionized, and blue-collar workers were receiving generous wage and benefit increases regularly.Keynesianism had become a widely accepted antidote to economic downturns – substituting the management of aggregate demand for class antagonism. Even Richard Nixon purportedly claimed: “We’re all Keynesians now.”There was a second reason for the Democrats’ increasing unease with populism. The civil rights struggle and the Vietnam war had spawned an anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian New Left that distrusted government as much if not more than it distrusted Wall Street and big business.The New Left viewed the war as a symbol of all that was rotten in the US, including the Democratic establishment that waged it. The Democratic establishment viewed the anti-war New Left as entitled children, who focused on personal expression and idealism rather than labor activism and the alleviation of poverty.That split was dramatically revealed during the violent protests at the 1968 Democratic national convention in Chicago. It lived on: a half-century later, it could be seen in Bernie Sanders’ candidacy in the 2016 primaries and the struggle within the Democratic party between his populists and Hillary Clinton’s mainstream Democrats.The Republican party, meanwhile, embraced cultural populism. In Ronald Reagan’s view, Washington insiders and arrogant bureaucrats stifled the economy and hobbled individual achievement. Cultural elites coddled the poor, including “welfare queens”, Reagan’s racist dog-whistle.Reagan’s cultural critique took hold of the Republican party. In the 2004 presidential election, Republicans framed Democrats as an effete group of “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing [and] Hollywood-loving” people out of touch with the real America.By the 2020s, Republicans saw the culture wars as the central struggle of American public life. Trump has blamed the country’s problems on immigrants, Democrats, socialists, the mainstream media, the “deep state” (including the FBI, justice department, prosecutors, and unfriendly judges), “coastal elites”, and, wherever possible (and usually indirectly), women and people of color.Republican cultural populism is bogus. The biggest change over the last four decades – the change lurking behind the insecurities and resentments of the working middle class, the change that animates America’s second Gilded Age – has had nothing to do with identity politics, “woke”-ism, critical race theory, transgender kids, immigration, or any other Republican cultural bogeymen.It’s the giant upward shift in the distribution of income and wealth; in the power and status that accompany it; and the injuries to pride, status, and self-esteem suffered by those who have lost it.The Democrats’ failure to critique this shift and adapt economic populism has made the Republicans’ fake cultural populism dominant by default.Why haven’t Democrats embraced economic populism? Because for too long they’ve drunk from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans – big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.“Business has to deal with us whether they like it or not, because we’re the majority,” crowed the Democratic representative Tony Coelho, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 1980s when Democrats assumed they’d continue to run the House for years.Coelho’s Democrats soon achieved a rough parity with Republicans in contributions from corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers, but it proved a Faustian bargain.Now, Trump boasts the support of the richest man in the world, who’s viciously anti-union, even as Trump pretends to be the “voice” of working America – and the Democrats don’t even challenge the hypocrisy.As I said, Harris is waging a good campaign. But she and many of her fellow Democrats could be more vocal about how ultra-wealthy individuals and giant corporations are undermining and corrupting America.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Giggling Elon Musk revisits ‘joke’ about Kamala Harris assassination

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      Elon Musk has said it would be “pointless” to try to kill Kamala Harris weeks after a pressure campaign led to him to delete a social media post expressing surprise that no one had tried to assassinate the vice-president or Joe Biden.The Tesla and Space X entrepreneur re-entered the murky waters of political assassinations in a web video interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson which Musk then posted on the X platform that he owns.Referencing the original comment at the beginning of the one hour and 48 minute exchange, Musk tells Carlson: “I made a joke, which I realised – I deleted – which is like: nobody’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala because it’s pointless. What do you achieve?”Both men dissolved into laughter, with Carlson responding: “It’s deep and true though.”“Just buy another puppet,” Musk continues, before adding: “Nobody’s tried to kill Joe Biden. It’d be pointless.”“Totally,” agrees Carlson.Invited to elaborate on the post, Musk goes on: “Some people interpreted it as though I was calling for people to assassinate her, but I was like … Does it seem strange that no one’s even bothered? Nobody tries to assassinate a puppet … She’s safe.”“That’s hilarious,” Carlson deadpans, as his guest laughs at his own joke.Authorities have notably made multiple arrests of individuals who have made death threats against Harris and Biden. A Virginia man was arrested in August and charged with making threats against the vice-president.Musk’s original comment on X was posted in the immediate aftermath of a suspected second assassination attempt on Donald Trump last month. On 15 September, a man was arrested after a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun sticking out of bushes at the former president’s golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. A suspect, Ryan Routh, has since been charged with trying to kill Trump. He denies the charges.“And no one’s even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” Musk wrote after the incident, with a emoji symbolising puzzlement attached.Musk, a vocal and committed supporter of Trump’s campaign to re-enter the White House, later deleted the post amid an angry backlash and comments from the Secret Service that it was “aware” of it.“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏,” he later wrote in explanation.“Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”The interviewer then laughed uproariously after suggesting to his guest: “If he [Trump] loses man … you’re fucked, dude.”Musk bantered back: “I’m fucked. If he loses, I’m fucked.”To the sound of general background laughter and Carlson’s obvious delight, the tech billionaire continued: “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be. Will I see my children, I don’t know.”Musk’s latest assassination comments came just days after he appeared on stage with Trump last weekend at the same site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a would-be assassin tried to kill the ex-president on 13 July. In that instance, Trump’s ear was grazed with a bullet and a rally-goer was shot dead before the perpetrator himself was killed by a Secret Service agent.Trump was endorsed by Musk moments after that attempt. He later said he would appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if he became president again.The Secret Service – which stepped up its security protection for Trump following criticism of its failure to prevent the first assassination attempt – has said it is familiar with Musk’s latest comments, according to the Washington Post. More

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      ‘Every day is a new conspiracy’: behind Trump’s ironclad grip on rightwing media

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      In the last few months, Donald Trump has done interviews with rightwing Twitch streamer Adin Ross and a host of podcasters, including Dr Phil, comedian Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman, and YouTuber Logan Paul – part of what the Atlantic has dubbed Trump’s “red-pill podcast tour”.He’s posted incessantly on his own social media platform, Truth Social. He did a live space on Twitter/X with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. He talked with Fox’s Laura Ingraham and called into Fox & Friends and spoke to other Fox hosts and personalities.His media strategy aligns with the current state of the rightwing media landscape: Fox is still a dominant source, but for the most Maga-adherent, it’s not Trumpy enough, despite some of its hosts embracing election denialism around the 2020 US election. Instead, there’s increasing fragmentation thanks to influencers and lesser-known outlets built around Trumpism.This is the first election since Tucker Carlson, once Fox’s loudest voice in a primetime spot, was reportedly fired by the network, and his solo ventures so far haven’t taken on the prominence he had on TV. It’s also the first election since longtime Republican heavyweight Rush Limbaugh died. These big changes have left holes in rightwing media, which were filled by an increasing cadre of influencers, content creators and smaller outlets.Adrianna Munoz, a 58-year-old from Queens, New York, who attended a Trump rally earlier this year in the Bronx, told the Guardian that she mostly gets news from YouTube, X and conservative commentators she follows, such as Tim Pool and Benny Johnson.“I used to watch TV news every morning – network news and the local news channel in New York,” she said. “Now I don’t. They sold out. They don’t tell you the truth. I don’t want to hear that rubbish.”Trump’s grip on rightwing media is ironclad, said Julie Millican, the vice-president of Media Matters, a progressive center that tracks conservative media. In the past, the Republican party and its candidates would follow what rightwing media did and align its policies that way – but now, the media follows Trump, she said.“If you don’t capitulate to what Trump and his enablers and his supporters are looking for, then they’ll shut you out,” Millican said. Since his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his influence has only increased, and “now he has a stronger control over the entire media ecosystem than he did previously”, she added.As rightwing outlets rise, the stories they cover differ more from what’s on mainstream news, furthering the bubbles a divided United States lives within. While in years past, you’d find different takes on the day’s news in left- and right-leaning outlets, you’ll now find stories that exist solely on rightwing media, Millican said.“It’s like every day is a new conspiracy or a new attack, and it’s just hard to even keep up on it anymore,” she said. “Half the time, when you listen to somebody who consumes nothing but rightwing media, you have no idea what they’re talking about.”TV news and rightwing websitesTraffic to news websites, including rightwing sites, is down compared with 2020. Howard Polskin, who tracks conservative media on his site The Righting, said a few factors play into the decrease. Facebook and other Meta social media de-emphasize news content now, sending less traffic to news outlets. And 2020 had several major news events colliding: a pandemic that kept people online more, nationwide protests over racial justice and a hotly contested election.Polskin tracks monthly visits to rightwing sites and produces traffic reports. The top 10 for August 2024: Fox, Outkick (a sports and commentary site owned by Fox), Newsmax, Epoch Times, National Review, Washington Times, Daily Wire, TheBlaze, Washington Examiner and Daily Caller. Gateway Pundit is not far behind, and InfoWars, the once-maligned site headed by bankrupted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is in the top 20.View image in fullscreenNo single star has taken the place that Carlson or Limbaugh once held. Some conservatives told the Guardian they stopped watching Fox as often after Carlson left or because the network isn’t Maga enough. Fox agreed to pay $787m to settle a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over defamation claims for spreading lies about the voting machine company’s role the 2020 election. Carlson abruptly left the network shortly after the settlement, and he has claimed his firing came as a result of the settlement. Fox denies that his removal had anything to do with the Dominion case.Frank Lipsett, a 63-year-old from the south Bronx who works as a residential housing superintendent, said he watches Fox because it’s “the most honest and most informative outlet, though I’m not saying they are perfect”.Like many on the right, he has stopped reading mainstream newspapers because “they are not telling the truth.” He said he sometimes reads the New York Post, a rightwing tabloid paper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the same owner as Fox.Another paper, Epoch Times, a far-right and anti-China outlet associated with the Falun Gong religion, continues to rank highly among conservative news outlets despite a justice department lawsuit that alleges it operates as a money laundering and cryptocurrency scam. Its stories are often shared by rightwing politicians or influencers. “Their cultural impact and political impact seems much smaller than the distribution,” Polskin said.Carlene, a 58-year-old from the Upper East Side who attended the Trump rally in the Bronx, said she gets news from the Epoch Times, Daily Wire and X and sometimes tunes into CNN and MSNBC to get the other side.“I watch less Fox News now after they got rid of Tucker Carlson,” she said. “It made me think Fox was just like everyone else.”For the less online Republican, talk radio shows, especially those that run the airwaves in rural areas, play a strong role in setting the conservative message. As newspapers in rural areas have shuttered, creating a crisis in local news, these radio shows are “reaching voters that aren’t tapped into the same media spaces that we often see in these large metropolises on either coast”, Tripodi said.To fill Fox’s void on TV, some conservatives have turned to Newsmax or One American News Network, which are farther to the right than Fox.“One American News Network and Newsmax did a very good job at establishing themselves as a place that would verify whatever Trump was saying,” Tripodi said.David Fiedler, a 67-year-old retiree from Rock county, Wisconsin, told the Guardian at the Republican National Committee’s Protect the Vote tour in September that he and his wife don’t watch Fox or local news, but they stream podcasts by the Daily Wire or watch Rumble, the rightwing video platform.“Our biggest news thing we watch is Newsmax,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPodcasts and influencersBeyond television and news sites, a rightwing news consumer will find a growing landscape of podcasts, YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, documentary film-makers and social media influencers all trying to build a following.“For every laid-off journalist, another Substack is born,” Polskin said. “And that just … fractionalizes the news audience even more.”The top of the podcast charts on Spotify and Apple shows a host of conservatives: Shawn Ryan, Candace Owens, Carlson, Megyn Kelly.Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator, has his own podcast, and his network, the Daily Wire, hosts some of the biggest rightwing pundits. “In terms of just influence and power in the media landscape, to me, he would be someone that’s at the top of that space,” Millican said. Polskin called Shapiro the “800lb gorilla of rightwing podcasts”.Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, is also a major player. His organization is focused on turning college-age people conservative, and he’s been on a tour around the country to college campuses in recent months, in addition to his podcast and social media presence.“He’s almost become like an establishment media figure in his own right, except you would never actually see him on Fox News – his audience tends to be pretty old,” Millican said.While he doesn’t grab a huge share of the podcast market and he’s currently in prison for defying a congressional subpoena related to the January 6 investigation, Steve Bannon has an outsize influence on the right with his War Room show. He gets big-name rightwing politicians as guests and still has Trump’s ear, but he’s never cracked the top 20 in Polskin’s ratings.“Because of him, Project 2025 got on our radar last year because he was one of the early backers in hosting people who were involved with writing it, promoting the key tenants in it,” Millican said. “Small audience, but still influential audience.”Then there are also conspiracy-based websites and social media accounts from unnamed creators, such as End Wokeness, that spread rightwing attack lines that can filter up to the mainstream.David Jansen, who attended a Trump town hall event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in August, said he watches FrankSpeech, a platform founded by pillow salesperson and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, which streams conservative content, often centered on election denialism.Social mediaAlongside the rise in rightwing influencers and outlets, social media platforms have loosened their content moderation and made changes to how they manage political content. Republican elected officials and outside legal groups have attacked platforms, government employees who interact with them and misinformation researchers, claiming a broad censorship plan is at work to limit conservative voices online.Some organizing on the right happens on closed-off apps such as Telegram, where public figures from the conservative mainstream and the far-right fringes have channels to share news and commentary.The underbelly of Telegram skews darker than other social media: the New York Times called it a “global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement”. Neo-Nazis have used the platform to coordinate their activities and have been scrambling after the app’s founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France for facilitating criminal activity on the app, Frontline reported.But rightwing organizing isn’t happening solely in far-flung corners of the internet. There is increased rumor-making and amplification on Musk’s X, including by Musk himself, who has shared a wide variety of election-related falsehoods. Trump returned to the platform last year after he was kicked off after the insurrection, but he still posts mostly on Truth Social, where he often rants in all-caps, shares clips from his rallies or reposts content from rightwing media who boost his campaign.Munoz, one of the Bronx Trump rally attendees, uses Telegram and Truth Social. Munoz loves Musk and his changes to X because “you can talk freely now”, he said. “I left Facebook and Instagram because they don’t let you talk.”Ed Pilkington and Alice Herman contributed reporting to this story More