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      ‘It’s going to be tight’: Tim Walz rallies Pennsylvanians for final stretch in Biden’s home town

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      Tim Walz delivered a rousing pep talk in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Friday, encouraging supporters to do everything they can in the next 11 days to elect Kamala Harris as president.Addressing hundreds of voters at the Scranton Cultural Center, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee compared the final days of the neck-and-neck presidential race between Harris and Donald Trump to the fourth quarter of a football game, leaning on his background as a former high school teacher and coach.“It’s going to be tight. It’s the fourth quarter. We have got the best team on the field,” Walz said. “We have got to do this one inch at a time, one yard at a time, one door at a time, one call at a time, one dollar at a time, one vote at a time.”The rally came as polls show a deadlocked race between Harris and Trump, despite hundreds of millions of dollars having been spent in the battleground states. According to the Guardian’s poll tracker, Harris now leads Trump by less than 1 point in Pennsylvania, which could serve as the tipping point state in the electoral college.Walz, the governor of Minnesota, warned supporters in Scranton against the “dangerous complacency” of downplaying the threat that Trump represents to the country.“We are running like everything is on the line because everything is on the line. It is. We feel it. You know it,” Walz said. “[Trump] is telling you what he is going to do, and none of it is good.”Walz specifically reiterated Harris’s message from her CNN town hall on Wednesday, during which she said that Trump’s former advisers were sending a “911 call” to the nation. In an Atlantic article published this week, John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, recounted that the then president expressed a wish for “the kind of generals that Hitler had”. (Trump’s campaign has denied Kelly’s claim.)Walz told voters in Scranton: “Maybe Donald forgot that Hitler and his generals were on the other side of this thing, and it was the sons of Minnesota and Pennsylvania that were carrying the stars and stripes, that kicked his ass and saved this world from fascism.”After cultivating a persona as a “joyful warrior”, Walz has turned increasingly punchy in the final stretch of the presidential race. In Wisconsin on Tuesday, Walz described Elon Musk, who recently appeared alongside Trump at a campaign rally, as a “dipshit”, and the governor repeated the insult on Friday.“I used a midwestern euphemism. I said that he was prancing and dancing around like a dipshit. That is exactly what it was,” Walz said, prompting cheers from the crowd.On a more positive note, Walz took a moment to express his appreciation for Joe Biden, who was born in Scranton and remains a popular figure in the city.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This country owes a huge debt to you and a huge debt to Joe Biden,” Walz said. “[Presidents] have always put this country above themselves, no matter the cost to their personal ambitions or what happened to them. Joe Biden has secured his place in history by upholding that tradition.”The Scranton crowd erupted into cheers of “Joe!” as Walz spoke. Michael McNulty, a 47-year-old voter from Scranton, lives down the street from Biden’s childhood home and expressed his gratitude for the president but said he felt invigorated by the Harris-Walz ticket.“I think there’s a real sense of optimism and hope here. It’s not just against Trump,” McNulty, wearing a Harris-Walz camo hat, said after the Scranton rally. “They’re sharing a vision for the future of the country that is one I want to live in. It’s one that I want to raise my children in and that I’m really proud to go out and contribute to make happen.”Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.2 points in 2020, four years after Trump carried the state by 0.7 points. Although polls show a tied race, McNulty is confident that Harris will win the Keystone state this time around.“We’re going to push this over the finish line here for the Harris-Walz ticket,” he said. “PA is going to deliver, and we’re going to have Madame President.” More

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      Obama and Walz excoriate Trump at Wisconsin rally in early voting push

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      On the first day of early voting in Wisconsin, Tim Walz called Elon Musk a “dipshit” while Barack Obama said of Donald Trump: “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this.”Both were speaking at a rally in Madison, a growing Democratic party stronghold, to encourage early voting and warn of the perils of a second Trump presidency. Obama went on to campaign for Kamala Harris in Detroit on Tuesday evening, alongside rapper Eminem, in an effort to drum up support in Michigan where polls suggest Harris and Trump are in a virtual deadlock.The Democratic vice-presidential candidate ripped into Trump ally and Silicon Valley billionaire Musk, warning that he could be charged with regulating his own businesses if Trump were elected. Musk has also promised the chance to win $1m to voters in swing states who sign a petition linked to efforts to return Trump to power.Walz also slammed Trump, who this week served meals at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, accusing him of “cosplaying” as a working-class person and noting that the restaurant had closed to accommodate the presidential candidate. “It was a stunt,” said Walz. “Fake orders for fake customers.”“He is not the 2016 Donald Trump,” said Walz, describing Trump’s promise to prosecute his political enemies. “He’s talking about sending the military against people who don’t support him. He’s naming names.”Obama, who won in Wisconsin in 2008 and 2012, urged his Madison audience to get to the polls and spent much of his speech attacking Trump.“I wouldn’t be offended if you just walk out right now and go vote,” he said.“When he’s not complaining, he’s trying to sell you stuff,” he added, referring to Trump, who has raised funds by selling gold-colored sneakers, bibles and $100,000 watches. “Who does that? You’re running for president, and you’re hawking merchandise.”He compared Trump’s meandering rhetorical style with that of Fidel Castro, the former Cuban head of state who was known to deliver hours-long speeches.“He calls himself the father of IVF. I have no idea what that means – you don’t either,” said Obama, casting Trump’s rambling speeches and sometimes confounding remarks as a sign of mental deterioration.“You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this,” said Obama. “But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”Obama also acknowledged that while his signature healthcare bill, the Affordable Care Act, did not fix American healthcare, its passage meant people with pre-existing conditions are more able to access health insurance.He spoke about efforts by his administration to implement a pandemic-preparedness plan and accused Trump of abandoning the effort, resulting in more Covid-19 deaths.“Most of you know somebody whose life was touched,” said Obama, urging voters who are fed up with politics to participate in the November election anyway.Before Walz and Obama spoke, Madison mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, Representative Mark Pocan, Governor Tony Evers and Senator Tammy Baldwin – herself up for re-election on 5 November – encouraged voters to return their absentee ballots or vote absentee in person.“Don’t take the risk of forgetting to vote– vote early,” said Pocan. “With the Packers game on the Sunday afternoon before the election, you can have a two-day hangover and not worry about missing the vote.”More than 18 million people in the US have voted early so far in the 2024 election, with a little more than 326,000 of those coming from Wisconsin as of 21 October, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. Those numbers will increase dramatically now that Wisconsin’s early voting period has begun.Since the 2020 election, when Trump cast doubts on the integrity of absentee voting amid the Covid-19 pandemic, early voting has been a source of consternation in the Republican party. After Trump lost the 2020 election and Republicans failed to generate a red wave during the 2022 midterm elections, GOP leaders have sought to encourage their base to cast ballots before election day.Trump, who discouraged absentee voting before the 2020 election, has struggled to stay on message about early voting, alternately urging supporters to vote early and casting aspersions on the voting method – sometimes during the same speech.With polls showing Harris and Trump in a dead heat across the swing states, including Wisconsin, the last-minute push to turn out voters could determine the outcome of the election. In 2020, Joe Biden won in Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes; in 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin with a similarly slim majority. With 10 votes in the electoral college, Wisconsin will play a critical role in determining the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.Deb and Rod Merritt, a retired couple from Sauk county, Wisconsin, who attended the rally on Tuesday, said the pressure of Wisconsin’s close margins and the extra time afforded by retirement drove them to volunteer for the Harris campaign.“I’m definitely nervous,” said Deb Merritt, who said knocking on doors in the bellwether county – Sauk county voters have aligned with the winner repeatedly in presidential elections – was gratifying.“We saw a few [undecided voters], mostly leaning Democrat,” said Rod Merritt. “Some people would say: ‘I’m voting for Kamala and my husband was for Trump, but he’s not going to vote.”In both 2016 and 2020, Trump performed better in Wisconsin than polling suggested.“We don’t know if that’s going to happen again this time, or which direction it’ll be or how big the error will be, but we have to expect that we need to overshoot to be able to win by a hair,” Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic party chair, told the Guardian. “For anyone who’s knocking on doors, if you think for a second you’ve got it in the bag, then go and sign up for another volunteer shift to drive it even higher.”In Detroit, an energetic Obama performed part of an Eminem rap when he took the stage and then praised Harris as “a leader who has spent her life fighting on behalf of people who need a voice, need a champion – somebody who was raised in the middle class”. Reviving earlier jabs against Trump, he noted Harris “did not pretend to work at McDonald’s when it was closed”, but actually held a fast-food job in college to help with her expenses.For his Michigan audience, Obama recounted the chaos Trump helped cause in the state after the 2020 election: “Because Donald Trump was willing to spread lies about voter fraud in Michigan, protesters came down, banged on the windows, shouting, ‘Let us in. Stop the count.’ Poll workers inside being intimidated … all because Donald Trump couldn’t accept losing.” More

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      US elections live: Obama ridicules Trump’s boasts on economy as Walz dismisses Republican nominee’s McDonald’s ‘stunt’

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      Barack Obama is hitting on a key issue for voters: the economy.“Don’t have nostalgia for what his economy was. Because it was mine,” Obama said.Polls show voters tend to favor Trump on the economy, yearning for the time, early in Trump’s presidency, pre-pandemic, when housing and grocery costs were lower.“I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that Republicans left,” Obama said.Scrutiny is growing about the Montana aerial firefighting company once led by Tim Sheehy, the former Navy Seal and Republican Senate candidate who could oust the Democrat incumbent Jon Tester in next month’s election.According to NBC News, Sheehy’s Bridger Aerospace, a company he founded in 2013, negotiated a deal with Gallatin county in eastern Montana to use its pristine credit rating to raise $160m in bonds. The county was meant to benefit from Bridger’s plans to hire more workers and build two new aircraft hangers.But the company used most of the money, or $134m, from the 2022 bond issue to pay back previous investment from Blackstone, a New York-based investment giant.Bridger’s finances have been complicated by the fact that there were fewer wildfires to fight this year and thus less revenue for Bridger. As of Tuesday, the National Interagency Fire Center reported 42,603 wildfires nationwide this year compared to the 10-year average of 48,689 for the same period.In financial filings for the quarterly period that ended 30 June 2024, Bridger said it had “a substantial amount of debt” and that failure to service that debt “could prolong the substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern”.A victory for Sheehy in November could hand Republicans control of the Senate, making his connections to Bridger a vital topic as voters head to the polls.Election day is exactly two weeks away. And today has been a frenzy of campaign activity.

      Eminem reportedly set to introduce Barack Obama when he appears in Detroit tonight, and Bruce Springsteen to headline two concerts as part of a series that will hit every swing state.

      Obama also campaign with Tim Walz in Wisconsin.

      JD Vance dodged a question about whether he would strip migrants with legal authorization of their status, at an event in Arizona.

      Donald Trump will be in in North Carolina, where Walz is holdind a second event this evening.

      Trump held a round table with Latino leaders but took his time in getting to issues of importance to the voting bloc.

      Harris will campaign in Houston on Friday, with an eye towards picking up Texas’s Senate seat and highlighting how abortion bans have affected women in the Republican bastion.

      The US economy is poised for stronger growth than many wealthy nations, the IMF said in forecasts released today.
      Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Joe Biden appeared alongside Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. to discuss his administration’s work on lowering prescription drug prices.But the president also took a chance to issue a warning that Trump and Vance were extreme. “This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said, referencing Strom Thurmond, the late senator from South Carolina who famously conducted the longest speaking filibuster in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. But Thurmond later moderated his stance/“People change, but these guys just keep getting worse,” Biden of the party now. “Get to the vote. Because the nation’s democracy depends on it.”He shared an embrace with Sanders.At an early voting pop-up location at the University of Minnesota, hundreds of students waited in line to cast ballots on Tuesday – a sign of youth enthusiasm for the presidential election.The early voting location at the campus’ Weisman Art Museum, a one-day on-campus polling place for any Minneapolis voter, was a first-time occasion made possible by recent changes in state law to allow for pop-up polling places to help voters who can be harder to reach, like college students.“We brought the polls to them,” said Riley Hetland, a sophomore and undergraduate student government civic engagement director who helped plan the event. Hetland said the group has been going to classrooms and hosting tables around campus for weeks to get people registered to vote and help them make a plan to cast ballots. So far, they have gotten 12,000 voters to pledge to vote, double their goal of 6,000.Madelyn Ekstrand finished her class for the day and waited about an hour, all told, to cast her ballot. The 21-year-old senior said abortion access and climate change were important to her, so she was voting for Harris. She thought she’d vote early to get it done, but didn’t realize how popular the choice would be – she was glad it was so busy.“I’m happy to see people my age getting out and voting and being proactive and not waiting till the last second,” she said.The ruling upholds another order by a Fulton county judge, who invalidated last-minute rules made by Georgia’s state election board this year.The rules, which were approved by Trump-aligned members of the board, would have required all ballots to be counted by hand on election night – a feat that would probably yield results that are far less accurate than a count done by ballot scanners. The changes would also have allowed officials investigate discrepancies in vote totals and conduct “reasonable inquiries” into irregularities, without clarifying what such an inquiry entailed.The unanimous ruling by the conservative-majority supreme court did not touch on the legality of the seven rules – rather, it dismissed a request to hold a decision issued by a lower-court judge.It’s an arresting split screen: Barack Obama, in Madison, tells voters that when Trump and Vance are pressed to elaborate on their policies, “they’ll fall back on one answer: blame immigrants”.“He wants you to believe that if you let him round up whoever he wants and ships them out, all your problems will be solved,” Obama says.Meanwhile, in Arizona, JD Vance dodges a question about whether he would strip immigrants of their legal status.Barack Obama is hitting on a key issue for voters: the economy.“Don’t have nostalgia for what his economy was. Because it was mine,” Obama said.Polls show voters tend to favor Trump on the economy, yearning for the time, early in Trump’s presidency, pre-pandemic, when housing and grocery costs were lower.“I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that Republicans left,” Obama said.Tim Walz has wrapped up his speech, after introducing Barack Obama.The Democratic former president apologized for being late, saying he had an issue with his plane that forced him to drive to Madison from Chicago.“So we board the plane … and then the pilot comes in and says: ‘Sir, there’s a pile of oil leaking out of the back of the plane.’ Now, I do not know anything about planes, except for the fact that it should not leak oil. So we had a nice road trip instead, and I am glad I made it,” Obama said.Tim Walz encouraged the crowd not to grow sanguine about the possibility of a second Trump term, saying the Republican could retaliate against him if he returns to the White House.“Here’s another reason that the stakes are so high in this election, something that I don’t think many of us have seen. You hear some version of this from the people in your life, neighbors, relatives, brothers, in some cases, who said, look, we made it through the first Trump term, we’ll get through a second. This Donald Trump … is far more dangerous … He is not the 2016 Donald Trump. This is a brand-new version,” Walz said.He elaborated on why he believes that:
      As Kamala says, he is a very unserious person, but the consequences of putting him back in office are deadly serious. He’s talking about sending the military against people who don’t support him. He’s naming names. Look, I recognize I’m going to be at the top of that list. You think he’s stopping with me? He’s talking about you. He’s talking about using the United States military to go after people who disagree with his idiotic ideas, his unpatriotic ideas, his traitorous ideas. And he’s talking about using the military. He talks about the enemy from within.
      After Donald Trump recently called Kamala Harris a “shit vice-president”, Tim Walz just used similar language to describe Elon Musk’s enthusiastic campaigning for the former president.Musk bounded on stage and briefly got airborne at a Trump rally in the Pennsylvania town where the former president nearly lost his life in an assassination attempt in July.Here’s what Walz had to say about that:
      So look, Elon is on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dipshit on these things. You know it. Think about it … that guy is literally the richest man in the world spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election.
      Now, look, they’re saying the quiet parts out loud now, because Donald Trump has already promised that he would put Elon in charge of government regulations that oversee the businesses that Elon runs.
      That’s a hell of a buy. He could spend billions to make more than $10bn on the back end. So in other words, Donald Trump, in front of the eyes of the American public, is promising corruption. That’s what he’s promising you. And you know what? I don’t believe, I don’t believe he keeps many promises, but he’ll keep that one.
      Tim Walz then took Donald Trump to task for the staged campaign event he held at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s over the weekend, saying the appearance amounted to a “stunt”.“He went to a McDonald’s and dressed up as the drive-thru worker. They found him an apron his size and put it on him. And I was thinking, it is possible he mixed up his weekends and thought that it was Halloween already. He’s been forgetting things lately, as you might have noticed,” Walz said.Pressing the attack, the Minnesota governor continued:
      That restaurant, that restaurant wasn’t even open. It was a stunt – fake orders for fake customers. They even staged the drive thru. We know that they won’t let you walk through the damn drive thru. We knew that. They saw that happening.
      But look, everything about this guy is fake. Everything he does is fake. Next, he’s going to be telling you he’s a cop or a construction worker because he dances to the Village People, so he knows the YMCA. And I’ll tell you this: so that five minutes he stood next to the deep fryer, I’ll guarantee you that’s the hardest that guy’s ever worked in his life. And that’s not a joke.
      Tim Walz laid into Donald Trump for the meandering tone of his recent speeches and for declining to debate Kamala Harris for a second time.“It takes stamina to run for president. It takes stamina to be president, and Donald Trump does not have stamina,” Walz began. “He has been rambling more than the normal rambling.”Noting that Trump has lately taken to describing his speaking style as “the weave”, Walz said: “We know there’s only one weave that you know anything about, and it is not this. It is not this … He’s ducks debates, but you can’t blame him. When you get your ass whipped that hard, you don’t come back for seconds.”After the customary playing of Beyoncé’s Freedom – the song used at just about every Harris campaign event – Tim Walz strolled on stage.He shouted out all the Democrats who introduced him, as well as the rally attendees: “But each of you, huge thank-you. Took time out of your busy lives, you came here, you came here because you believe in the promise of America and you believe in the democracy. Thank you.”Next up was Tammy Baldwin, the state Democratic senator who is locked in an increasingly tight re-election battle against Republican Eric Hovde.Like Tony Evers before her on the lineup, Baldwin centered her appeal to voters on her support for abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act.“Just a little bragging here: I wrote the provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26 and I will never stop fighting until all Americans have the quality, affordable healthcare that they need and deserve,” she said.Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, one of the early speakers at the Walz-Obama rally in Madison, didn’t hold back when describing what a second Donald Trump presidency would mean.“We know Trump and Vance will try to pass a national abortion ban, roll back access to birth control, emergency contraception and even fertility treatments. We know that they’re going to repeal the Affordable Care Act and deny coverage to folks like me and so many others here in the audience, and people you care about who have a pre-existing condition,” he said.The governor continued:
      What Trump said about that – he’s got the concept of a plan. Now you take that concept for a plan and go pay a bill, it ain’t going to work. And they’re going to give more tax breaks for the ultra-rich and the big corporations instead of helping working families get ahead. And we know that a second Trump term would mean unchecked power with no guardrails to hold them back. That’s just bullshit. More

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

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

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      US presidential election updates: Trump goes to McDonald’s while Harris delivers 60th birthday sermon

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      Donald Trump visited a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania on Sunday, working the drive-thru and manning the fryer while he answered questions from reporters. The former president took a moment to boast about his time in office and sarcastically congratulated Kamala Harris on her 60th birthday. “Maybe I’ll get her some fries,” Trump said.The visit was meant to be a jab at opponent Harris, who worked at the fast food chain while at college. Trump has frequently called that experience into question, without providing any evidence.Harris celebrated her birthday at two churches in Georgia, continuing her campaign’s “souls to the polls” push to reach Black voters through religious communities.The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, visited churches in Michigan and Minnesota while Donald Trump and backer Elon Musk held separate town halls in Pennsylvania. Both campaigns are focused on rallying support from voters in the battleground states, 16 days before an election that polls suggest is still on a knife-edge.Here’s what else happened on Sunday:Kamala Harris election news

      Kamala Harris celebrated her 60th birthday visiting two community churches in Georgia. The first congregation sang Happy Birthday as Harris took the stage, while Stevie Wonder joined Harris and sang Bob Marley’s Redemption Song at the second visit.

      Harris spoke about how religious experiences in her youth in Oakland, California, influenced her politics, addressing the congregation of the New Birth Missionary Baptist church in Atlanta. Drawing on the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke, the vice-president argued for policies that embrace compassion. “What kind of country do we want to live in – a country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, compassion and justice? … When we come across our brothers and sisters in need, let us, as the Good Samaritan did, see, in the face of a stranger, a neighbour.”

      Walz, attending a church service in Saginaw, Michigan, slammed Trump for selling branded Bibles. “We understand in our faith, the Bible is to be read and followed and absorbed. It’s not to be branded and sold for $59,” Walz said, telling the crowd he felt “pretty uncomfortable with this idea”.

      Harris is not planning to campaign with Joe Biden ahead of the election. The decision was mutual, anonymous Harris campaign and White House officials told NBC News. The president will instead help Harris by leveraging his longtime political relationships. “The most important role he can play is doing his job as president,” a White House official said.

      Harris sat down with the Rev Al Sharpton in a one-on-one interview in Atlanta on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, where she discussed the latest polling suggesting a slide in her support from Black men. “This narrative about what kind of support we are receiving from Black men that is just not panning out in reality,” she said. “I must earn the vote of everyone regardless of their race or gender.”
      Donald Trump election news

      Trump doubled down on his dangerous rhetoric labelling Democrats as “enemies from within” during an interview with Howard Kurtz on Fox News, broadcast on Sunday. The former president said that “radical left lunatics … the enemy from within … should be very easily handled, if necessary, by the national guard, or if really necessary, by the military”, before specifically denouncing representatives Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Similar comments made by Trump in the past weeks have sparked concern and raised fears of an authoritarian crackdown if he were to become president again.

      Trump repeated his statement that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was a “day of love” during the same interview with Fox News. Asked whether he was comfortable calling January 6 a “day of love”, Trump responded: “They came down to protest a rigged election … you have the right to protest in this country.” Earlier he had said “there was a beauty to it and a love to it”, repeating comments he made at a recent town hall in Miami.

      Trump held a town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, his second rally in the battleground state this weekend. The former ESPN anchor Sage Steele moderated as Trump took questions from the audience. Asked whether he would protect social security and Medicare benefits, Trump listed his priorities as “no tax on social security for our seniors, that’s a big deal … no tax on tips [and] no tax on overtime”.
      Elsewhere on the campaign trail

      Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X, hosted a town hall in Pittsburgh in support of Trump. In a short speech, Musk repeated false and fear-mongering claims, telling those attending that “the constitution is literally under attack”. Musk also discussed his aims to expedite government procedures and his promised role as “secretary of cost cutting” in a second Trump administration. “I’d like to say it’s a hard job, but it’s not,” he said.

      Musk also issued his second check for a million dollars to a signatory to his petition that encourages Republicans in key states to register to vote. The tech mogul, who is worth an estimated $247bn, on Saturday pledged to give $1m each day to someone who signs a petition backing the first and second amendments.
      Read more about the 2024 US election:

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      Do Democrats have a ‘men’ problem? – podcast

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      The Harris campaign, which has been praised for how it has managed to reach out to women, is now having to balance their attention and pitch some policies that would appeal to men.
      But is it too little too late? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and Gloria Oladipo, a breaking news reporter for Guardian US, about why men could decide this year’s election and why both campaigns might be taking them for granted

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know 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