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      Man arrested near Donald Trump’s California rally with loaded guns, police say

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      A man armed with guns and false press and VIP passes was apprehended by authorities at a campaign rally in California on Saturday being held by Donald Trump.The suspect, identified as Las Vegas resident Vem Miller, was intercepted by police at a checkpoint about a half-mile from an entrance to the rally in Coachella Valley, California, soon before it began, police said Sunday.Police said Miller was carrying a loaded shotgun, handgun and high-capacity magazine and is believed to be a member of a rightwing anti-government organization.Miller was booked for possessing a loaded firearm and a high capacity magazine – and was released after posting $5,000 bail, police records show.“The incident did not impact the safety of former president Trump or attendees of the event,” the Riverside county sheriff’s office said in a press release.The Secret Service put out a statement saying it was apprised of the arrest: “The incident did not impact protective operations. The Secret Service extends its gratitude to the deputies and local partners who assisted in safeguarding last night’s events.”The US Attorney’s Los Angeles office, in a statement on Sunday, also said Trump was not in danger, citing the US Secret Service. The statement added that while no federal arrest had been made, an investigation was ongoing.Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco said he believed at a press conference on Sunday that Miller was plotting to kill Trump, but acknowledged that was “speculation”. “What we do know is he showed up with multiple passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with a fake license plate and loaded firearms,” the sheriff said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.The suspect later told US media that he was a Trump supporter who bought the guns for his own safety and notified police at a checkpoint that they were in the trunk of his car. “These accusations are complete bullshit,” Miller said. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody.”He said he was surprised by his arrest, and had been detained for about eight hours.Miller holds a UCLA master’s degree, and in 2022 ran for Nevada state assembly. Bianco said Miller considers himself a so-called sovereign citizen, a group of people who do not believe they are subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them.Bianco said Miller’s identity card was enough to raise suspicion with local rally security. “They were different enough to cause the deputies alarm,” he said, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise.Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July, when a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In September, another man was charged with trying to assassinate Trump after Secret Service agents discovered him hiding with a rifle near Trump’s Palm Beach golf course. He has since pleaded not guilty.Bianco said US Secret Service officials said his department went “above and beyond” in their efforts to protect Trump and others who attended the rally.Bianco also said the FBI is questioning another man after bomb-detecting dogs “repeatedly” identified him as possibly dangerous. That man was not allowed in the rally, Bianco said.Miller is scheduled to appear at the Indio Larson justice center on 2 January 2025, according to the Riverside county sheriff’s department inmate database.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Trump addresses Latino voters at Las Vegas event as Harris releases medical report – live

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      Speaking at a Pennsylvania rally earlier today, JD Vance again refused to say Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. The news came the same day The New York Times released an hourlong interview with Vance, wherein Vance refused five times to say the former president lost the election.“As I said in that interview, and I’m gonna say to you right now, I think the election of 2020 had serious problems,” Vance said.Trump’s roundtable in Las Vegas has concluded and he’s en route to a second event this evening in Coachella, California. Attendees waiting in near 100F temperatures are telling the Associated Press that they don’t expect Trump to win their state but were excited to see him all the same.The AP notes that while Trump may not win California, he’ll likely be able to drum up significant financial support in the state. Photos with the former president in Coachella were priced at $25,000, which comes with special seating for two. A “VIP Experience” was priced at $5,000.Kamala Harris is en route to North Carolina, where she’ll speak with Black churchgoers and aid in disaster relief efforts. Before her departure, she told reporters a bit about her decision to release her medical report this morning, saying it was in part to pressure Trump to do the same.“I think that it’s obvious that his team, at least, does not want the American people to see everything about who he is,” Harris told reporters before boarding a plane to North Carolina, says Reuters.The Hill reports much of the same:Speaking in Las Vegas this afternoon, Trump focused his remarks on immigration and inflation, arguing that the economic policies of the Biden-Harris administration have disadvantaged Latino families. The former president attempted to strike a tone of respect with members of the Latino roundtable, emphasizing their contributions to the US economy, as compared with the non-citizens he’s denounced at length in recent speeches.“I’ve had such great support from the Hispanic community, and from the Black community. The highest level ever. And there are those that say, we’ll end up breaking the 50% mark,” Trump said.According to a September Pew Research Center report, a majority of Latino-registered voters (57%) say they would vote for Kamala Harris and 39% would vote for Trump. Meanwhile, a recent New York Times/Siena Poll and an August Pew Research Center survey showed that more than three-fourths of Black voters have said they would vote for Harris.The roundtable is ongoing, with Trump about to hear from local Latino business-owners.Trump’s roundtable in Las Vegas has begun, with what appears to be a fairly small crowd. His campaign is more widely touting its event in Coachella this evening with a series of music festival-inspired ads on social media.Former Texas representative Mayra Flores has begun the Las Vegas event by introducing the other guests in attendance, which include Bob Unanue, CEO of Goya Foods, and Sam Brown, a military officer currently running for one of Nevada’s senate seats. Trump has yet to begin speaking.Ex-president Barack Obama will campaign in Detroit later this month for Kamala Harris. The Detroit News reports that Obama will visit the state on 22 October. The announcement of his visit comes just days after Donald Trump insulted the manufacturing hub while campaining there.Obama has begun campaigning for Harris in the final weeks before the 2024 election, hoping to drum up support in swing states. He made his first appearance on behalf of the nominee in Pittsburgh this week.Donald Trump will appear at a roundtable with Latino voters in Las Vegas shortly. We’ll be following along and will share any major takeaways with you – according to his campaign, Trump is expected to focus on inflation and his ”no tax on tips” policy.Meanwhile, JD Vance has been campaigning in Pennsylvania, where Trump’s running mate answered questions from reporters in front of a crowd of supporters.The New York Times published an hour-long interview with JD Vance this morning, covering the vice-presidential nominee’s stance on abortion rights, immigration, the economy and the 2020 election. Vance spoke at length about his Catholic faith and views on reproductive rights, refused to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and committed to a peaceful transfer of power – were Donald Trump to win the 2024 election. He also walked back his criticism of “childless cat ladies” before saying he thought it was “bizarre” and “sociopathic” not to have children because of fears around climate change.Our latest polling shows Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck, with Trump gaining ground on Harris in crucial swing states.Robert Tait reports: “the Guardian’s 10-day polling average tracker showed the vice-president and Democratic nominee with a two-point nationwide lead, 48% to 46%, over her Republican opponent as of 10 October – tellingly, down from a 4% advantage she registered two weeks ago.”Harris enjoys just three, fractional leads in Nevada and Michigan, and a slim one-point advantage in Pennsylvania. Trump has wafer-thin leads in the five remaining swing states – Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.Despite Donald Trump’s claims that immigrants are taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs”, government data shows that immigrant labor has grown the economy and promoted new opportunities for native-born workers, the Associated Press reports. Mass deportations like those Trump has advocated for could cost taxpayers up to a trillion dollars, economists say.Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, told the AP that, because native-born workers and non-citizens often have different language and skill sets, immigrant workers take jobs that citizens are often unwilling to fill, like agriculture and food-production roles. He also added that “we have many more vacancies than workers in this type of manual labor. In fact, we need many more of them to fill these roles.”Ethan Lewis, an economist at Dartmouth College, added: “There is a vast amount of research on the labor market impact of immigration in the US, most of which concludes the impact on less-skilled workers is fairly small and, if anything, jobs for US-born workers might by created rather than ‘taken’ by immigrants.”Since the non-citizen labor force makes up roughly 4% of US GDP annually, Peri estimates that mass deportation would result in a roughly $1tn loss.At a private dinner with several billionaire donors in September, Donald Trump expressed frustration that Republicans had not raised more money for his campaign, the New York Times reports.The likes of hedge fund manager Paul Singer, investment banker Warren Stephens, businessman Joe Ricketts and former education secretary Betsy DeVos were all in attendance at the Trump Tower soiree, where Trump conveyed his annoyance that his campaign had not drawn larger donations – despite tax policies he said were favorable to the wealthy.In the less than three months that she’s been in the presidential race, Kamala Harris has raised $1bn. That’s allowed her to focus on campaigning in the final weeks of the race, while Trump continues attending fundraisers. In July, August and September, the vice-president raised twice as much as Trump.Back in Washington, Christian nationalists are gathering on the National Mall today to fast and pray, and denounce gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth.The Guardian’s Alice Herman has the story:Less than a month before the presidential election, multilevel marketing professional-turned-Christian “apostle” Jenny Donnelly is summoning women to the National Mall to fast, pray and uphold “the Lord’s authority over the election process and our nation’s leadership”.It’s the first of a series of Christian nationalist gatherings in DC to rally believers to the Capitol ahead of the 2024 election.The pro-Trump influencer has billed the event as a rallying call for mothers concerned about changing gender norms in modern America, gathering women under pink and blue banners emblazoned with the anti-trans hashtag #DontMessWithOurKids. In her promotional materials, Donnelly casts the event at the Capitol as an opportunity for women to stand their ground and play a pivotal role in changing the cultural and political trajectory of the US.In the wake of recent reporting that Donald Trump sent Covid-19 tests to Russia at the height of the pandemic – and Kamala Harris’s criticism of that move – the Kremlin said today that Harris’s description of Vladimir Putin as a “murderous dictator” shows how politicians in Washington are seeking to impose their views on the world, Reuters reports.“The lofty political establishment of the United States of America, to all appearances, is infused with such a political culture,” Russian news agencies have quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling a television interviewer.“This is probably the quintessence of the very model of international relations that they are trying to foist on the entire world, a model that most in the world are beginning to like less and less.”Tensions with Russia have been high in recent years, between the war in Ukraine and Russian election interference in 2016.Kamala Harris will travel to North Carolina for campaign events in Raleigh and Greenville today and tomorrow, according to her campaign.This evening, she will visit with local Black elected faith and community leaders in Raleigh, while also participating in a volunteer hurricane relief supply drive. Tomorrow, she’ll attend a church service in Greenville, just days after launching her campaign’s “Souls to the Polls” effort to turn out Black churchgoers.After campaigning in Las Vegas this afternoon, Trump will make a stop in Coachella, California. An agricultural town in southern California, Coachella is best known for hosting an internationally acclaimed arts and music festival.It’s not the first place many people expected Trump to campaign, but the Coachella Valley’s large community of migrant farm workers make it ripe for the former president to continue the anti-immigrant message he ramped up in Aurora, Colorado yesterday. Although Trump is unlikely to flip long-blue California, the rally will present an opportunity for him to rail against the state’s Democratic leadership – as he did in Aurora, Colorado, yesterday.Tim Walz is trading the campaign trail for the prairies of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, this morning as he kicks off pheasant-hunting season there.The vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota governor has dramatically shifted his stance on gun rights over the years – going from garnering an A rating from the NRA to straight F’s as his children asked him to back gun-violence protections in the wake of several campus mass shootings.The Harris-Walz campaign has called for an assault weapons ban, while walking a fine line among gun owners in the United States. Both Harris and Walz have emphasized that they themselves are gun owners, with Harris saying on 60 Minutes this week that she owns a Glock.The biggest headline circulating this morning is Kamala Harris’s medical report, which declares her fit for the presidency. For a closer look, here’s the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas:A senior aide to Harris, 59, said the vice-president’s advisers viewed the publication of the health report and medical history as an opportunity to call attention to questions about the Republican White House nominee Donald Trump’s physical fitness and mental acuity. The 78-year-old Trump has also not released any information about his health, though he would be the oldest president elected if Americans give him a second term in the Oval Office.The report – in the form of a two-page letter from the vice-president’s physician, Joshua Simmons – described Harris as being in “excellent health” and asserted that her medical history was notable for seasonal allergies and hives. Harris manages those conditions with over-the-counter medications such as Allegra, Atrovent nasal spray and Pataday eye drops, and she has also been on allergen immunotherapy for three years, the letter said.Otherwise, Harris is mildly nearsighted and wears corrective contact lenses as a result, had abdominal surgery when she was three years old and has a maternal history of colon cancer. “She has no personal history of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiac disease, pulmonary disease, neurological disorders, cancer or osteoporosis,” said the letter from Simmons, who added that the vice-president’s most recent physical examination in April was “unremarkable”.The statement on Harris’s health came on Saturday as Trump has become increasingly incoherent at campaign rallies, something the Guardian US reported on earlier in October. He has been slurring, stumbling over his words, hurling expletives – and showing signs of cognitive decline consistent with someone approaching his 80s, according to medical experts.Good morning and thanks for joining us this Saturday. With election day just over three weeks away, we’ll be covering the latest developments as they happen.Here’s a quick summary of the latest news from yesterday and where things stand today:

      At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, yesterday, former president Donald Trump announced “Operation Aurora”, a plan to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act if he is re-elected. The law allows the president to detain and deport non‑citizens in times of a declared war or presidentially proclaimed “invasion”.

      Meanwhile, speaking in Scottsdale, Arizona, Kamala Harris said she would create “a bipartisan council of advisers” if elected president. She’s drawn remarkable support over the past two and a half months from establishment Republicans, most notably Liz and Dick Cheney.

      Also yesterday, Vogue magazine released its newest issue, featuring Harris on the cover. The photograph of the vice-president stood in stark contrast to Harris’s first appearance on the magazine’s cover three years ago – an image that was widely criticized as unserious and disrespectful.

      This morning, Harris released a report on her medical history – in contrast to her opponent who has repeatedly promised and then refused to do the same. The report concludes that Harris “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency”.

      And Trump is scheduled to speak this afternoon at a Hispanic roundtable in Las Vegas. He’s expected to return to the anti-immigrant message that has defined his campaign.

      In a change of scenery, Tim Walz is taking a break from the campaign trail today to kick of Minnesota’s pheasant hunting season. He’s spending the day at the Governor’s Pheasant Opener – reiterating the Minnesota governor’s reputation as a hunter despite his firm stance on gun violence regulations.
      Let’s watch what happens. More

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      Winning over Trump voters could be key for Arizona Democrat in Senate race

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      The crowd gathered in Chandler for a meet-and-greet with Ruben Gallego on a recent Saturday afternoon was an almost perfect snapshot of the voters Democrats need to win statewide in once-ruby red Arizona. There were small business owners, Latino youth activists, a retiree in a “Comma La” T-shirt, a handful of veterans, disaffected Republicans, at least one California transplant and a former Trump voter.The diverse attendance was one sign of what polls, strategists, Democrats and even some Republicans acknowledge: the race for an open Senate seat is the 44-year-old Democrat’s to lose, a surprising position for a progressive congressman in a purple state running against Trump-endorsed firebrand Kari Lake.In brief introductory remarks, Gallego shared his insights after nearly two years of campaigning across the Grand Canyon state. He bragged about the Arizona’s economic boom – a new battery manufacturing plant, the new semiconductor fab.But he acknowledged many Arizonans were “still hurting”. At a gas station in south Phoenix, Gallego said he had noticed motorists weren’t filling up their tanks all the way. He recalled his family’s own financial struggles growing up, raised alongside his three sisters by a single, immigrant mother in a cramped apartment outside of Chicago.“That’s the kind of thing that I want to bring to the US Senate: a real understanding of what people are dealing with and what we should be doing to make their life a little better,” he said, “to just breathe a little bit easier and have a chance at the American Dream.”Across town, his opponent, the former TV news anchor Lake channeled Trump, whom she has molded herself after since her foray into politics two years ago. She had called an “emergency” press conference to discuss Kamala Harris’s visit to the Arizona-Mexico border the previous day, tying Gallego – who did not accompany the vice-president – to what she described as the administration’s “abject failure” on border security.She scolded the media for not doing more to hold Gallego responsible for migration, which has fallen sharply after reaching record highs last year. She accused Gallego of being “controlled” by the drug cartels because of his long-estranged father’s criminal history.“We need to be calling out what he is about,” she said. “I want to end the cartels.”The dueling campaign events underscored the very different paths the two candidates are charting as they vie to succeed Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat turned independent leaving the chamber.As early voting begins in Arizona, polling shows Gallego with a consistent edge in a contest that could be pivotal to determining which party controls the Senate. The Democrat is trouncing Lake in fundraising, giving him more local airtime and mailbox presence. And surveys and interviews suggest he is winning a sizable, perhaps decisive, chunk of Trump voters.View image in fullscreenLake has alienated some conservatives and independents with her attacks on the Republican establishment and her embrace of election denialism, including in her own failed bid for governor in 2022, which she claims – baselessly – was stolen.But it isn’t over yet: Lake delivered a polished performance during Wednesday night’s debate with Gallego, and could pull out more attacks on her opponent in the final stretch – including his divorce records from his split with the Phoenix mayor, Kate Gallego, which may be unsealed this month. After the debate, she got a boost from the only Republican who seems to matter.“The Trump-endorsed Senate Candidate in Arizona crushed her Liberal Democrat Opponent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the debate. “Kari will help me Secure our Border, Stop Inflation, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”But Trump, who lost Arizona in 2020 by less than 11,000 votes, is able to stitch together a coalition of loyalists and independents that even his most adherent Maga acolytes – and Lake is one of them – can’t always replicate. Paul Bentz, a pollster at Arizona public affairs firm HighGround, ran a recent poll that showed the presidential race essentially deadlocked. But in the Senate contest, Gallego led Lake 51% to 41%.The survey showed both Trump and Lake losing more Republican voters than Harris or Gallego are among Democrats, but Trump is losing fewer of them – and Trump is ahead of Harris with independents, unlike Lake, who lags Gallego with the group.Billboards financed by the Arizona Republican party that boast of “team unity” don’t include Lake – instead, Trump is alongside out-of-staters like JD Vance, Elon Musk, Robert F Kennedy, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard. Lake’s campaign bus, on the other hand, is wrapped in a photo of her and Trump. “Endorsed by President Trump” is written in larger font than Lake’s own name.“The vast majority of the money and the vast majority of the effort is in supporting Trump,” Bentz said. “It does not seem to be following the rubric that we’ve seen in past elections to help the down ticket that’s building a slate of support.“It’s not vote Republican, it’s vote Trump.”Even so, Lake supporters are hoping the polling numbers – which Lake herself has said differ from what she’s seeing internally – won’t bear out. A Republican operative involved in the effort to elect conservative candidates in the state said high turnout in a presidential election year with Trump at the top of the ticket could bring Lake over the line.Lake did not respond to a request for an interview, and Gallego was not made available for an interview.Building a coalitionYears of political upheaval – Arizona has had six senators in just over a decade – and the Republican party’s Trumpian turn, has created an opening for Democrats in the land of Barry Goldwater and John McCain. Waves of new residents, many coming from more liberal parts of the country, and a suburban shift away from Republicans, has changed Arizona’s political landscape.If Gallego wins in November, he will be the first Latino to represent Arizona in the Senate while Lake would be the first Republican woman elected to serve the state in the chamber.Gallego announced his campaign for Senate in early 2023, effectively daring Sinema to stay in the race after infuriating Democrats by blocking pieces of Joe Biden’s agenda. Without a primary opponent, he had ample time to introduce himself to voters across the vast state, from the tribal lands to the borderlands and the populous Maricopa county.He has a compelling personal story, repeated in television ads that have been airing for months: the son of a Mexican and Colombian immigrant, who was raised by his mother and worked odd jobs at meat-packing plants and pizza shops to earn extra money for his family.A Harvard graduate, he enrolled in the Marine Corps, and was deployed to Iraq as part of a unit that saw some of the heaviest casualties of the war. On the trail, he often recalls how combat training kicked in on January 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Photos from the day showed Gallego directing his colleagues how to put on gas masks and helping them evacuate the chamber.By contrast, Bentz said Lake hasn’t spent much time trying to reintroduce herself to voters, perhaps confident that they know her from TV or from her 2022 bid. For more than a year following her defeat, Lake was in the news for her fruitless attempts to overturn the results. She was sued for defamation by the Republican election official, after he claimed she upended his life with her false accusations that he rigged the election against her. She ultimately declined to defend her statements in the case.During the debate, Lake repeatedly accused Gallego of undergoing an “extreme makeover” to blot out his progressive record in the House and cultivate a more moderate appeal. But Lake has struggled to paint Gallego as too far left.The Congressman has tacked more toward the ideological center in the past year, particularly on immigration. In a state where activists remember him marching for immigrant rights after a Republican-led crackdown on undocumented workers, he is now touting his support for a border security bill that would limit asylum and provide more resources to hire border agents.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBecky Wyatt, who hosted Gallego at Fuse Flex Space, the co-working space she just opened weeks before, called the choice in November a “no-brainer”.“There’s just such a character flaw difference between the two Senate candidates,” Wyatt said.This year, Lake has attempted to mend fences. The state’s former Republican governor, Doug Ducey, set aside their feud and endorsed her bid for Senate earlier this summer. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a hardline conservative seeking to replace Mitch McConnell as party leader, appeared as her surrogate after the debate.But her harsh words toward McCain Republicans still linger. During her campaign for governor, she told this subset of Republicans to “get the hell out” and claimed she “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine”.Gibson McKay, a Republican lobbyist, was an aide to McCain. He donated thousands of dollars to Lake’s gubernatorial campaign, but her comments on his former boss soured him. He’s now one of the Trump-Gallego crossover voters who would be needed for both the former president and Democratic congressman to win the state.View image in fullscreen“John McCain was my friend. She can play that game with her Turning Point friends, and she’ll never have my support because of that,” he said. “It’s mean, it’s ugly, and it’s what’s tearing down on the fabric of American politics.”He’s friends – “a friend friend, not like a political friend” – with Gallego and his name was on a fundraiser for the congressman this year. A conservative, he aligns more with Lake on policy, but a few factors, including his personal friendship with Gallego, played into his decision to back the Democrat this cycle. He also believes Gallego is more authentic than Lake, just as he believes Trump is more authentic than Harris.McKay’s support for Gallego hasn’t gone over well with some of his Republican friends. McKay is an elected precinct committeeman, the foot-soldiers of political activism. Republicans in his legislative district censured him for supporting the Democrat, and there was an effort afoot to try to remove his duties in his elected role.McKay says he hasn’t seen evidence Lake is trying to make peace, and it wouldn’t ring true if she tried it. Earlier this year, McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, rejected the idea, saying: “No peace, bitch. We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it.”Debate gives Lake a boostOn Wednesday, Lake and Gallego met on stage for their only televised debate this cycle. From the jump, Lake, comfortable in front of the camera after decades anchoring the television news, attacked Gallego over immigration, her strongest issue.She claimed a red-eye flight out of Phoenix’s airport “looks like a migrant encampment” because migrants first come to Arizona before shipping out elsewhere.Gallego, stiff and sticking to talking points, pushed Lake on abortion and her shifting positions. (She had previously expressed support for Arizona’s pre-statehood abortion ban before the Supreme Court upheld the law, sparking a massive backlash. She backed the state GOP’s effort to repeal the law and reinstate a 15-week ban. Gallego has said he would support a federal law restoring Roe, which protects abortion until the point of fetal viability, roughly about 22 weeks of pregnancy.)The two issues typically top lists of importance for voters in Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico. An abortion ballot measure to increase access to the procedure beyond the current 15-week ban is also before voters in November, probably buoying turnout and expected to pass easily.Lake stumbled a bit on her reproductive health care responses, erroneously calling in-vitro fertilization “UVF” – it is abbreviated IVF – while repeatedly pointing out she was a woman who had many women in her family and attempting to pivot.“I’m astounded that he actually knows the difference between a woman and a man,” she cracked at one point, “because I thought there were, what, 147 different genders. I do care about women’s rights.”Lake also made it personal: she called Gallego a sexual harasser and brought up family ties to drug cartels, a charge Gallego ignored. He previously grew emotional while addressing the claims in a press conference, saying he’d worked his entire life to get away from his father’s misdeeds.Gallego repeatedly raised Lake’s refusal to accept her defeat in the 2022 race for Arizona governor. He called her dangerous, noting how her election lies led one election official to need private security because of increased threats.The debate ended with Gallego sharing his personal story, his biggest asset on the campaign trail. “I’m a very lucky man,” he said to the camera in a closing statement. “I’m just lucky to be born in the best country in this world. And by all counts, I shouldn’t even be here. My mom raised us alone, and with a real belief in the American dream, and a real want to succeed, I got to where I am.”Given the final word, Lake promised that as a senator she would usher in a “strong, secure border” and “strong Trump economy”. Then she echoed her opponent.“If there’s any kiddos watching, I don’t want you to worry,” Lake concluded. “I want you to dream really big. I want you to know that we’re going to turn this country around, and your American dream will become reality.” More

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      Trump intensifies nativist message with sweeping proposal to deport immigrants

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      Donald Trump intensified his politics of nativism and xenophobia on Friday by announcing a sweeping plan to deport Venezuelans he claimed have “infected” a once-peaceful city in Colorado.The Republican presidential nominee held a campaign rally in Aurora on a stage adorned with posters displaying mugshots of people in prison-orange uniforms with descriptions including “illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela”.Trump told the crowd: “I’m announcing today that, upon taking office, we will have an ‘Operation Aurora’ at the federal level to expedite the removals of these savage gangs.” He pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any non-citizen from a country that the US is at war with.“We will send elite squads of Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], border patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country,” he continued as the crowd roared approval.If they return to the US, Trump said, they will serve an automatic 10 years in prison without parole. “I’m hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer. With your vote, we will achieve complete and total victory over these sadistic monsters. It’s going to go very quickly,” he said.The rally represented a detour for Trump, since Colorado is not a battleground state and looks certain to vote for his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. But recent events offered him an opportunity to exploit a swirl of local rumours to push his anti-immigrant message.Aurora, a city of about 340,000 people near Denver, hit headlines in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan immigrants. Trump amplified the story and falsely portrayed the city as overrun by members of the Venezeulan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA.Authorities say the incident happened in a single block and the area is again safe, noting that the local crime rate is actually declining. Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump’s claims “grossly exaggerated” and insisted: “The narrative is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.”TDA traces its origins back more than a decade to a notorious prison. In July, the Biden administration issued a sanction against the gang, placing it alongside MS-13 from El Salvador and the mafia-styled Camorra from Italy on a list of transnational criminal organisations, and offering $12m in rewards for the arrests of three leaders.At Friday’s rally, Trump played a series of news clips, accompanied by dramatic music, describing TDA’s crimes and the murder of US citizens by undocumented immigrants, as well as some seemingly evasive answers by Harris, the vice-president, whom Trump branded a “criminal” and the “worst border tsar” in the country’s history.“My message today is very simple,” he said. “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become president of the United States.”The former president promised that 5 November, when the election is held, will be “liberation day”, prompting chants of “USA! USA!” from the crowd.“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered. These towns have been conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country and we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast. Gonna get them the hell out of our country,” he said.Trump added later: “We’re talking a lot about Venezuela, because Aurora is really infected by Venezuela, but they’re coming from all countries.”The remark recalled past dehumanising language in which Trump claimed undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and, earlier this week, suggested that those suspected in homicide cases “have bad genes”.View image in fullscreenIn similar fashion on Friday, Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins, pointed to the posters on stage as he addressed the crowd before Trump’s appearance.“Look at all these photos around me,” Miller said. “Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you were raised with? Are these the neighbors that you want in your city?” The crowd roared “no” in reply.The ex-president has long made immigration his signature issue and promised to stage the biggest deportation operation in US history if he returns to the White House. In recent months, he has targeted specific smaller communities that have seen significant arrivals of immigrants, with tensions flaring locally over resources and some longtime residents expressing misgivings about sudden demographic changes.More than 40,000 immigrants have arrived in the Denver metro area over the past two years, including many Venezuelan families fleeing poverty and violence. But Colorado’s Democratic leaders accuse Trump and other Republicans of overstating problems in Aurora.Representative Jason Crow told the Associated Press: “What is occurring is minimal and isolated. And to be clear, it’s never acceptable, right? We never say any level is acceptable. But it’s not a surge. It’s not a change. There is no takeover of any part of this city, of any apartment complex. It has not happened. It is a lie.”Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, also have spread falsehoods about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they said Haitian immigrants had been stealing and eating pets. The disinformation campaign led to bomb threats, school closures and forced evacuations.Trump has said he would revoke the temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the US because of widespread poverty and violence in their home nation.Democrats have condemned Trump for tanking a border security bill negotiated in the Senate by both parties because it could have neutralised immigration as an issue. Harris told a Univision town hall in Nevada on Thursday: “He would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.” More

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      Trump campaign asks for more security amid fears of Iran assassination attempt

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      Donald Trump’s team has asked for officials to provide him with a dramatic array of military protections as the presidential campaign wraps, including travel in military aircraft and vehicles, according to reports.Trump’s campaign has also requested ramped-up flight restrictions around his residences and rallies, and “ballistic glass pre-positioned in seven battleground states” for his team’s use, the Washington Post reported, citing internal emails and sources familiar with the requests. The New York Times first reported on these requests.The demands were both “extraordinary and unprecedented”, the Post noted, as not a single recent presidential nominee has been shuttled in military aircraft before an election. A source told the Times that these sorts of high-level, classified military resources are used solely for sitting presidents.Trump’s asks followed intelligence provided to his campaign staff that Iran is seeking to assassinate him and after his team expressed worry about drones and missiles targeting him. Trump was shot during a failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on 13 July, and a man was arrested in an alleged assassination attempt on 15 September; neither gunman is believed to have had Iranian ties.Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager, reportedly emailed Secret Service head Ronald L Rowe Jr in recent days, expressing displeasure with the agency’s handling of safety. Wiles claimed in a missive that Trump had had to cancel a campaign rally at the last minute due to a “lack of personnel”, resulting in him being placed in a small room with journalists.Wiles claimed that campaign planning efforts were being stifled over threats, and said that Trump intended to host many additional events as the race nears its end. She further said that officials had not managed to give thorough enough plans to keep Trump safe.Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican representative and Trump supporter, also wrote to the Secret Service requesting military aircraft for Trump, or ramped-up safeguards for his private airplane, the Post said.Asked about reports that Trump’s campaign had requested additional safety measures such as military assets, the Secret Service said in a statement that Trump was receiving “the highest levels of protection”.“Assistance from the Department of Defense is regularly provided for the former president’s protection, to include explosive ordnance disposal, canine units and airlift transportation,” said Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesperson.Guglielmi also said the Secret Service was placing short-term flight restrictions “over the former president’s residence and when he travels”, and “additionally, the former president is receiving the highest level of technical security assets which include unmanned aerial vehicles, counter unmanned aerial surveillance systems, ballistics and other advanced technology systems”.Kamala Harris, Trump’s presidential rival, is provided protection from the US marines as vice-president. She travels on Air Force Two, which is a military plane.The Trump campaign has already begun taking increased precautions with traveling. This has included sometimes splitting his motorcade, and placing him in airplanes that do not bear his name.Sources told the Post that some of Trump’s counselors believe, despite a dearth of evidence, that the two attempts on his life were Iran-backed.A Pakistani man was charged in August with allegedly wanting to hire assassins to kill an unidentified US politician. The man has ties to Iran, per reports.US intelligence officials said in September that Iranian hackers stole information from Trump’s campaign and sent it to media outlets, as well as Joe Biden’s one-time campaign. Documents unsealed in September alleged that three Iranian nationals had participated in a broad, multiyear hacking effort against Trump that also targeted one of his lawyers, one-time CIA members and an ex-US ambassador, the Post said.Additional campaign officials have been apprised that they too were targeted by Iranian hackers, per the newspaper. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.When asked about the reports during a White House press conference on Friday, Biden said that he had told his administration to provide Trump “all that he needs”.“I’ve told the department to give him every single thing he needs,” the president said. Biden also said that when it comes to security, Trump should be treated “as [if] he were a sitting president”.“Give all that he needs, if it fits within that category, that’s fine,” Biden said. “But if it doesn’t, he shouldn’t.”Biden did offer a humorous quip when asked about Trump’s requests. “As long as he doesn’t ask for F-15s,” Biden said – before following up with: “No, I’m being facetious.” More

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      Roger Stone calls for ‘armed guards’ at polling spots in leaked video

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      The longtime Donald Trump ally and friend Roger Stone said Republicans should send “armed guards” to the polls in November to ensure a Trump victory, according to video footage by an undercover journalist.The video, first published by Rolling Stone, shows an embittered Stone, still angry about the 2020 election and ready to fight in 2024. Stone described the former US president’s legal strategy of constant litigation to purge voter rolls in swing states.“We gotta fight it out on a state-by-state basis,” said Stone. “We’re already in court in Wisconsin, we’re already in court in Florida.”When the journalist, posing as a member of a rightwing voter turnout organization, pressed Stone for details on efforts to make sure Trump wins in 2024, Stone told him that the campaign has to “be ready”.“When they throw us out of Detroit, you go get a court order, you come in with your own armed guards, and you dispute it,” said Stone. In Detroit in 2020, there was a chaotic scene at a ballot counting center when GOP vote challengers pounded on the walls of the center and demanded to be let in.Filmed at an August event in Jacksonville, Florida, called A Night with Roger Stone, the footage also reveals Stone’s lasting anger toward former attorney general Bill Barr, who he calls “a traitorous piece of human garbage”.While in office, Barr acted as a staunch Trump ally, even pushing for a lighter sentence for Stone, when the operative was found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in connection with a congressional inquiry into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Barr lost favor with the former president when he declined to publicly back Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, drawing outrage from Trump’s closest allies.“Once we get back in, he has to go to prison,” Stone exclaimed. “He has to go to prison, he’s a criminal.”Stone’s apparent lust for legal retribution echoes Trump’s own vow, which he has stated repeatedly to the press and at his rallies, to prosecute his political opponents. It is a promise that Trump could more likely make good on, given the supreme court’s rulings this year to expand the powers of the president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe journalist in the video was posing as someone involved with Lion of Judah, a rightwing effort to recruit election-skeptical Christians to enlist as poll workers in swing states in order to collect evidence of voter fraud.Joshua Standifer, who leads Lion of Judah, describes the effort as a “Trojan horse” strategy to get Christians in “key positions of influence in government like Election Workers”. In the video, Stone appeared unfamiliar with Standifer or his work. More

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      Trial of Arizona officials who refused to certify 2022 election delayed until next year

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      The criminal trial of two rural Arizona county supervisors who initially refused to certify election results in 2022 will not occur before this year’s elections after it was again delayed.Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, two of the three supervisors in the Republican-led Cochise county, face charges of conspiracy and interfering with an election officer, brought by the Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes.The trial has been pushed back multiple times and is now set for 30 January 2025, the court docket shows. The delay was mutually agreed upon, the attorney general’s office said.Despite the county’s typically low profile, the trial is being watched nationally as elections experts anticipate a potential wave of local officials refusing to certify results if Trump loses. The red county, set on the US-Mexico border, has a population of about 125,000.Charges like those against Crosby and Judd should send a message to many of those who would consider taking similar actions, democracy advocates say.“The fact that two supervisors who failed to certify results on time in the past are facing criminal charges does serve as a deterrent to other officials who might be considering obstructing the certification process in Arizona this year,” said Travis Bruner, the Arizona state policy advocate at Protect Democracy. “And I think that deterrent exists, even though the trial isn’t going to occur before the election.”Cochise county became a hotbed for election denialism after the 2020 election, as did the rest of Arizona, because Trump lost the state in an upset for Republicans. Crosby and Judd first tried to conduct a full hand count of ballots in their county in the 2022 midterms, a move which was deemed illegal. The quest for a hand count included support from Republican state lawmakers.Crosby and Judd then refused to certify the election until a court ordered them to do so, and even then, Crosby still did not vote to approve it. These actions have added costs to county taxpayers and gripped local meetings for many months.In US elections, local elections officials oversee the counting of ballots, often referred to as the canvass. County supervisors, like those in Cochise, then sign off on those results in what’s known as a certification. Think of the supervisors in these instances as scorekeepers, Bruner said. The supervisor’s role is to acknowledge the count, not act as a referee. This function is mandatory, not discretionary, he said.In anticipation of potential certification battles after election day this year, pro-democracy groups have emphasized the illegality of such refusals and the role the courts play in enforcing laws on certification. Whether a wave of certification delays or refusals actually occurs depends in large part on who wins the election, and the degree of the pressure campaign that comes afterward.These efforts likely won’t hinder the ultimate election results because courts will step in to require certification, but they can cause delay, allowing for disinformation to swirl and and sow doubt in elections, Bruner said.“What we’re seeing in Arizona and across the country is really that conspiracy theorists and folks who want to subvert election results, if they don’t like the results, have targeted the certification process as a place to sort of place their doubt in elections and try to change the results of elections that they don’t like,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA recent report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that 35 local elected officials across eight states had previously refused to certify election results and could be in a position to do so again this year.Crosby and Judd are two of them. Supporters of the two had previously told them they would cover their legal expenses, and an anonymous donor paid an initial $10,000 legal retainer. Crosby has sought donations on a crowdfunding site to help cover his legal expenses, as has Judd, though she’s brought in less money. Judd has said promises of funding never came to fruition because she was “small beans”.Crosby and Judd have not made any indication that they intend to stall certification again this year, and there has not been a local effort to install hand counts, though some in the county still want them. The primary election this year in Cochise didn’t see any disruptions.“They have been quieter recently as this court case has been playing out,” Bruner said. “You haven’t seen public statements from either of them suggesting that they would refuse to certify this time.”Judd is not running for re-election, but Crosby is. Democrats have seen more interest in their candidates for supervisor and recorder roles this year than in previous cycles, including from national groups that have given endorsements to boost their profiles. Theresa Walsh, a retired army colonel who is challenging Crosby in November, lists one policy statement on her website – election integrity.“Since the elections of 2020, many in our State and Cochise County have said that votes weren’t counted or weren’t correctly counted, that election results were tainted, changing the outcome of races,” her statement says. “As I learned as a pre-law student, you can’t just say it, you have to prove it. And that hasn’t happened. Because it didn’t happen. We have election integrity, we have systems we can trust.” More