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      JD Vance asserts faith in Trump after admitting he once ‘didn’t fully believe’

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      JD Vance has admitted he once doubted Donald Trump’s abilities to be US president but insists he was won over by the policies and track record of a man he previously decried as “America’s Hitler” and “cultural heroin”.The Republican vice-presidential nominee obliquely referred to his former hostility at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as he attempted to blame Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, for the policies of the Biden administration at the same time as accusing her of preparing to steal Trump’s ideological clothes.His concession of past skepticism came after he accused Trump’s critics of wrongly forecasting his failure in office.“The same people who screwed this country up for 30 years said President Donald Trump would fail. Remember that?” Vance said. “But I remember, I was myself – I didn’t fully believe in the promises of Donald Trump. He persuaded me because he did such a good job.”He said Trump’s presidency was characterised by low petrol prices, affordable housing and rising wages, while inflation – which has become a political Achilles heel of Joe Biden’s presidency and, potentially, of Harris’s candidacy – was a non-issue.Vance’s brief allusion to his anti-Trump past follows widespread accusations of flip-flopping on his previous views on the former president and 2024 Republican nominee. Trump announced Vance – a first-term senator from Ohio – as his running mate at last month’s party convention in Milwaukee.The announcement drew widespread scrutiny of a litany of critical past comments by Vance, who described himself in 2016 as “a never Trump guy”, adding: “I never liked him.”In his speech, Vance threw the flip-flop accusation back at Harris, who has been accused of ditching previous leftwing stances when she campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 2020. “I’m not sure that this is a woman who knows what she actually believes she is,” he said. “If you think about it, she’s just a cog in the wheel of a very corrupt system.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGoing further, he accused Harris of trying to steal Trump’s most successful policies, including his advocacy of a crackdown on illegal immigration at the southern US border.“I read a story this morning that her advisers are considering just copying all of Donald Trump’s policies,” Vance told supporters. “In fact, I’ve heard that for her debate in just a couple of weeks, she’s going to put on a navy suit, a long red tie, and adopt the slogan, ‘Make America great again’ [Trump’s signature slogan].” More

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      Trump raising money by selling pieces of suit he wore in Biden debate

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      Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is selling a new collection of digital trading cards, and that supporters who buy 15 or more cards will receive a physical card adorned with a piece of the suit he wore for the presidential debate against Joe Biden in June.The announcement was made on Tuesday in a video posted on Truth Social.The cards, named the America First collection, features 50 new images of Trump, including him dancing, holding bitcoins and more.The digital cards cost $99 each, he said, and supporters who purchase 15 or more (at a cost of $1,485 or more) will receive the physical card.“People are calling it the knock-out suit,” Trump said in the video, adding: “I don’t know about that but that’s what they’re calling it.”He continued: “We’ll cut up the knock-out suit, and you’re going to get a piece of it and we’ll be randomly autographing five of them, a true collector’s item, this is something to give your family, your kids, your grandchildren.”Supporters who buy 75 digital cards, at a cost $7,425, will get to attend a gala dinner with the former president at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, Trump said.“You know they call me the crypto-president,” Trump said. “I don’t know if that’s true or not but a lot of people are saying that, so don’t miss out, go to collecttrumpcards.com … and collect your piece of American history.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, the former president has released and sold digital trading cards in the past.In 2022, Trump introduced his first collection of digital trading cards, which included a picture of himself in a superhero costume. The cards sold out in less than a day, netting $4.5m (£3.39m) in sales.This is also not the first time Trump has sold parts of one of his suits. Last year, Trump began selling small cuts of the suit he wore when he was arrested and had his mugshot taken in an Atlanta jail. To receive a piece of that suit, supporters had to buy 47 digital trading cards, adding up to $4,653.The former Apprentice host also monetized the mugshot taken in the Atlanta jail last August, and sold it on coffee mugs, T-shirts and more items. More

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      RFK Jr faces call for investigation into claim he chainsawed whale’s head off

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      His independent White House campaign has fizzled, but the flow of bizarre stories of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s unorthodox handling of the carcasses of wild mammals has experienced no similar suspension.An environmental group is calling for a federal investigation into the former presidential candidate for an episode in which he allegedly severed the head of a washed-up whale with a chainsaw – and drove home with it strapped to his car’s roof.The episode has parallels with another extraordinary tale reported earlier in August in which Kennedy confessed to dumping a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park and attempted to make it look like the animal was killed by a bicyclist.The latest grisly revelation, about the whale head, is not particularly new – it stems from a 2012 interview Kennedy’s daughter Kick gave to Town & Country magazine, in which she talks about a visit to other family members of the political dynasty in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, more than two decades prior.But the story’s re-emergence, following the bear tale and other off-the-wall declarations – including claims that part of RFK Jr’s brain was eaten by worms and that he had an apparent fondness for barbecued dog – has angered activists at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. The group previously denounced Kennedy’s candidacy and endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president.In a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) this week, Brett Hartl, the organization’s government affairs director and chief political strategist, demanded an inquiry.“Mr Kennedy’s apparent transport of the marine mammal skull from Massachusetts to New York, and therefore across state lines, also represented a felony violation of the Lacey Act, one of the earliest wildlife conservation laws enacted by [the] United States in 1900,” he wrote, adding that it was also illegal to possess part of any animal protected by the endangered species act.“Normally, an unverified anecdote would not provide sufficient evidence as the basis for conducting an investigation. The [bear] story made it seem like this was normal behavior for him, so he may also possess additional illegally collected wildlife parts.”The former Kennedy campaign’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. And Noaa has yet to publicly acknowledge receipt of Hartl’s letter.The somewhat unpleasant recounting by Kick Kennedy – granddaughter of Robert F Kennedy, the assassinated former US attorney general and Kennedy Jr’s father – remains the only documented account of the whale incident.Describing her father’s fascination with animal skulls and skeletons as “eccentric environmentalism”, she tells how the whale washed up on a beach near Hyannis Port and he sped to the scene.“[He] ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York,” she said.“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day to day stuff for us.”Hartl, on X, called RFK Jr an “environmental criminal”. In his group’s denouncement of his candidacy, it said “his conspiracy theories go against the science-based foundation of all environmental protections”, and that he was no different from Donald Trump in terms of policy priorities “driven by what will benefit Big Oil and the greedy corporations that fund them”.Kennedy announced he was suspending his presidential campaign last Friday and immediately endorsed Trump. More

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      Kamala Harris’s rise has energized many Asian Americans. Could these ‘unmeasured’ voters swing battleground states?

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      “America, the path that led me here in recent weeks, was no doubt … unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys. My mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own … traveling from India to California, with an unshakeable dream.”With these words, Vice-President Kamala Harris began her acceptance speech on the final night of an epic convention, embracing the unprecedented means by which she had arrived at the Democratic presidential nomination, and elevating her identity as the daughter of an immigrant mother from India.For those of us who had never imagined that in our lifetimes we might have an Asian American president, this was a staggering moment – not least because the discourse leading up to this convention had been so badly derailed by Donald Trump’s bizarre questioning of Harris’s biracial identity. In the wake of Trump’s allegation that Harris had “only promoted her Indian heritage” in the past, until she had decided to “turn Black”, there was whispered concern from some corners of the Asian community that Harris might be forced to downplay her mother’s ancestry while reaffirming her father’s Caribbean roots.The concern was unnecessary. Like most people of multiracial background, Harris has always been both/and, not either/or, celebrating both her Black and Asian birthrights with equal pride – and in the run-up to the convention, Black and Asian Americans have celebrated along with her.An internet-shattering Black Women for Harris Zoom call drew 44,000 attendees and raised $1.5m in three hours. Three days later, a South Asian Women for Harris online rally, headlined by the US representative Pramila Jayapal and the actor/producer Mindy Kaling gathered a crowd of 9,000 and equaled its predecessor’s $1.5m in the same span. It paved the way for a cascade of other Asian American events, packed with energetic and enthusiastic participants such as the actor and comedian Ken Jeong, who exhorted at the online AANHPI Men for Kamala event: “This is our time – this is our moment!”The excitement that Jeong and many fellow Asian Americans are feeling over Harris’s rise has been unmeasured. I mean that both metaphorically and literally, because when it comes to the major entities tracking the state of the election, the polls aren’t measuring it.For decades, there’s been a term used for Asian Americans in the electoral process, and it begins with O. (No, not “Oriental”, though, yes, that too.) The term is “Other”, as in the miscellaneous bin into which pollsters cast any non-white, non-Black, and non-Latino person in their data samples, turning us into unidentified trimmings from the Democratic donkey or Republican elephant – enigmatic bulk filler for the political sausage.View image in fullscreenLumping us into the undifferentiated Other might have made some sense when Asian Americans were a tiny fraction of the population and an even smaller one of the electorate – say, in 1980, when Asians made up 1.5% of the US population, about 3.7 million people, and represented roughly a million registered voters.But that was then; this is now. Asian Americans, who have consistently been the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the US over the past half-century of census tallies, now make up 6.2% of the population, or 21 million people, at least 15 million of whom are eligible to vote. That’s bigger than the national voting-eligible populations were for Latino or Black Americans in 1980, when both groups were already being broken out in voter surveys and targeted by campaigns. And in battleground states like Pennsylvania (769% growth since 1980, to 612,567) and Georgia (2,246% growth since 1980, to 610,257), the Asian population has soared, making us critical swing voters in those critical swing states. In fact, an analysis by the electoral consultant TargetSmart suggests that the entire victory margin for Joe Biden in 2020 in such states may have come from the surging Asian American vote.Yet still today, even with the growing influence of an Asian American Democratic presidential nominee, in many major polls, Asian Americans remain “othered”.Pollsters are quick to blame language issues (although three-quarters of Asian Americans speak proficient English, about the same rate of fluency as in the Latino population), difficulty in finding willing respondents, and a lack of culturally sensitive surveys and data tools. The reality is that, with proper investment and effort, all of these challenges can be readily addressed. The fact that they largely haven’t been comes down to a single awkward truth: Asian Americans have never in US history been seen as salient to this nation’s political discourse.Of course, it’s an uphill battle to be seen as “politically relevant” when you’re part of the only group that’s ever been explicitly excluded from this country based on race. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited non-resident Chinese from entering the US, and 35 years later, that ban was expanded to an “Asiatic Barred Zone” that included nearly all of Asia. This exclusion was a prelude to outright hostility. Throughout the 20th century, the US would find itself in conflict with Asians, waging military campaigns against enemy forces in Japan in the 40s, Korea in the 50s, and Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, and then engaging in ugly trade wars against a resurgent Japan in the 70s and 80s and a fast-rising China in the 90s and 2000s.Given that for most of this nation’s modern history, Asians have been excluded as undesirables or vilified as enemies, it’s hardly surprising that even after the Hart-Celler Act swung open the US’s doors to immigration in 1965, many newcomers kept their distance from politics and other professions in the spotlight – such as journalism and entertainment – and advised their offspring to do the same. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, they said. Better to be silent than scrutinized and found wanting. Better to be invisible than targeted. Those of us who pursued such professions often did so over the skepticism or condemnation of our parents.That wasn’t the case for Kamala Harris, whose Jamaican father and Tamil Indian mother raised her within Oakland’s Black activist community and seeded her with a passion for service through the example of her maternal grandfather, PV Gopalan, a lifelong civil administrator who oversaw refugee relief in Zambia and served as joint secretary to the government of India during the 1960s. Together, they encouraged her from childhood on to step into the harsh glare of public scrutiny, and to embrace politics as a career.View image in fullscreenAnd Harris’s example has resonated widely, including among others who have made similar decisions to take on jobs that make them socially visible.At the recent Asian American Journalists Association convention in Austin, Texas, Aisha Sultan, an opinion columnist for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, shared how Harris’s ascension had “given her hope in very dark times”.“All of us Asian American journalists who had to break into predominantly white spaces, we know what she had to go through to get here,” she said. “So we know it’s possible, and now I’m absolutely going to manifest this. I’m not going to accept anything other than President Harris.”Sultan’s excitement was echoed by the former ABC news producer Waliya Lari, now communications director for Pillars Fund, a non-profit that seeks to build visibility for Muslim Americans. “The day after Harris became the nominee, I got very emotional,” she said. “I was thrilled to be able to tell my girls: ‘Look at that. That’s someone just like you.’ They say you can’t be what you can’t see. Well, now they’re seeing it.”Because for those of us who have been American all along but often haven’t been perceived as such, the elevation of an Asian American president means that pollsters, political campaigns and policymakers alike will need to acknowledge that we’re Other no longer. And as Ken Jeong says, this is our moment – because the first wave in a rising tide of younger voters is finally ready and eager to see an Asian American in the Oval Office. As data pulled from the Asian American Foundation’s Staatus Index survey shows, while just 34% of Americans 65 and older and 42% of those aged 45-64 are “very comfortable” with an Asian American in the White House, a majority of those aged 16-44 say they’re ready for that to happen, and have been since Harris was elected vice-president.You can’t be what you can’t see. But it isn’t just about seeing, it’s about being seen – and for the first time, on the biggest of possible stages, in the brightest of possible spotlights, we’re finally being seen. More

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      Democrats sue Georgia officials over election rules that could ‘invite chaos’

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      Democrats sued Georgia state election officials on Monday, alleging new rules that could allow local officials to delay certification of November’s presidential results were illegal.The lawsuit was filed in the superior court of Fulton county by local Georgia Democratic politicians, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic party of Georgia. It says the rules approved by the Republican-controlled Georgia state election board this month were intended to give individual county election officials the ability to delay or cancel the certification of votes.The lawsuit says the new rules “introduce substantial uncertainty in the post-election process and – if interpreted as their drafters have suggested – invite chaos by establishing new processes at odds with existing statutory duties”.The Georgia secretary of state’s office, which oversees the board, did not respond to requests for comment.Last week, the five-member Georgia election board, which includes three conservative members championed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, voted 3-2 to empower county election board members to investigate any discrepancies between the number of cast ballots and the number of voters in each precinct before certification.Such mismatches are not uncommon and are not typically evidence of fraud, according to voting rights advocates, who say that rule could permit individual board members to intentionally delay approval of the results.The board has also in recent weeks approved a separate rule that county election boards conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into any irregularities before certifying the results. The rule did not define “reasonable” or set a particular deadline for completing the inquiry.The Democrats’ lawsuit says it is established law that it is the responsibility of the judicial system, not individual county election officials, to resolve allegations of voter fraud.The former president has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was rigged by fraud.His infamous January 2021 phone call in which he asked Georgia’s top election official, Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to sway the outcome helped lead to Trump’s pending indictment on state charges.Voter fraud in the US is vanishingly rare, research shows.Trump faces Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, in the 5 November election. Polls show a close race, with Georgia among seven states likely to determine the outcome. More

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      Special counsel appeals dismissal of Trump classified documents case; Harris endorsed by former Republican staffers – live

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      Special counsel Jack Smith, in a court filing on Monday, urged a federal appeals court to revive the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of retaining classified documents after it was dismissed by US district court judge Aileen Cannon last month.“Congress has bestowed on the Attorney General, like the heads of many Executive Departments, broad authority to structure the agency he leads to carry out the responsibilities imposed on him by law,” Smith’s team wrote.
      The district court’s contrary view conflicts with an otherwise unbroken course of decisions, including by the Supreme Court, that the Attorney General has such authority, and it is at odds with widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government.
      Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan congresswoman and leading progressive Democrat, criticized the Democratic national convention for denying a speaking slot for a Palestinian American on the main stage last week.Tlaib, who is the sole Palestinian American member of Congress, told Zeteo in a statement:
      It’s hard not to feel invisible as a Palestinian-American. Our trauma and pain feel unseen and ignored by both parties. One party uses our identity as a slur, and the other refuses to hear from us. Where is the shared humanity? Ignoring us won’t stop the genocide.
      The uncommitted national movement, who represent hundreds of thousands of anti-war protest votes from the primary season, staged a multi-day sit-in protest outside the United Center in Chicago where the Democratic convention was being held, after the DNC told the group it would not get a speaker on the main stage.The family of the Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, spoke on the convention stage on Wednesday, which the uncommitted movement supported.Tlaib, who did not attend the convention, said the lineup showed that the DNC “made it clear with their speakers that they value Israeli children more than Palestinian children.”Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who endorsed Donald Trump on Monday, served in the military in Iraq and ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020.Gabbard quit the Democratic party two years later and has become a fixture at conservative conferences and in rightwing media.Addressing a National Guard Association conference in Detroit, Michigan, where the former president was speaking, Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in Congress and is a former vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, accused Kamala Harris of retaliating against political opponents, undermining civil liberties and weaponising the US’s institutions against both Trump and herself.Recently Gabbard has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s televised presidential debate against Harris. In 2020 she took Harris to taskon the debate stage over her record as a prosecutor – a clip that still circulates in rightwing media.Her announcement comes a day after Robert F Kennedy Jr, scion of a Democratic dynasty, suspended his own White House bid and threw his weight behind Trump. Elon Musk, who describes himself as “historically a moderate Democrat”, is also backing Trump.The judge overseeing the Arizona “fake electors” case involving a scheme by Republican allies of Donald Trump to overturn his loss in the state during the 2020 presidential election has set a trial date of 5 January 2026.Trump allies including the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani will stand trial on charges they conspired to subvert Arizona’s presidential election results.If you type in NeverWalz.com in your browser, the page that appears probably doesn’t look like what you expected from a webpage donning a slogan against Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the current vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic party.“Trump is a convicted felon. Let’s vote for adults,” the webpage reads. “Try being joyful instead of an asshole.”After just a few seconds on the webpage, users are automatically redirected to KamalaHarris.com, the official website for Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.The slogan “Never Walz” is indeed anti-Walz, and was seen recently plastered on a booth set up by an group against Walzt, Action 4 Liberty, at the Minnesota state fair. The group was seen handing out fliers and selling merchandise that criticizes Walz.But, it appears that the group did not secure a website domain for the “Never Walz” slogan, leaving it available for someone else to buy and use.As of Monday, the website domain NeverWalz.com is being used to criticize Donald Trump and then quickly redirects viewers to the Harris campaign website.The Arizona Police Association (APA) announced its endorsement of Democrat Ruben Gallego in the state’s Senate race, despite backing Republican Kari Lake in her gubernatorial bid last cycle.Gallego “understands the complexities of modern policing in American society today”, the group’s president Justin Harris said in a statement posted to Twitter/X.
      The APA does not take our endorsements lightly; we recognize the importance of having a U.S. senator that can bring people together to improve society for all. We believe congressman Gallego will be that U.S. Senator.
      The group publicly threw its support behind Donald Trump just days ago during a rally in Glendale.A messy Michigan Republican party gathering this weekend to nominate candidates for office illustrated the diminished sway of two high-profile Michigan election deniers and highlighted longstanding divisions within the party.Matthew DePerno, who faces charges for allegedly assisting in a scheme to improperly access voting machines in the wake of the 2020 election, withdrew from the race for Michigan’s top court hours before the state party convention. In a statement, DePerno said that instead of running for state supreme court, he would “use my knowledge about how elections work to get Republicans elected”.DePerno, a rightwing attorney from Kalamazoo, Michigan, was a vocal proponent of Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election in Michigan after Trump lost in 2020 to Joe Biden, appearing on rightwing media to promote the claims of widespread fraud and helping fund Arizona’s sham election audit. DePerno ran for Michigan attorney general in 2022 but lost decisively to Dana Nessel – whose office has charged him for his role in allegedly tampering with voting machines.In 2023, he lost his bid to chair the state party to Kristina Karamo – an outspoken elections conspiracy theorist who was ousted from her role earlier this year amid accusations that she had mismanaged the party’s already dwindling finances.During the convention, Karamo faced a more dramatic setback of her own when she was escorted from the venue by police officers. Karamo reportedly entered with an all-access pass, which was revoked during the convention.The US district judge Aileen Cannon threw out the classified documents case against Donald Trump last month after concluding that Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.Smith’s team appealed to the 11th US circuit court of appeals, arguing that Cannon’s decision was “at odds with widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government”.It is unclear how long the appeals court’s decision could take, but even if it overturns Cannon’s dismissal there is no chance of a trial before the November presidential election, according to AP.If elected, Trump could then appoint an attorney general who would dismiss the case.The special counsel Jack Smith has urged an appeals court to reinstate his office’s classified documents case against Donald Trump after it was dismissed by a judge last month.At least five Secret Service agents have been placed on leave after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump in July.The action is reportedly the latest consequence of the security failings surrounding the 13 July shooting, when a 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire on Trump as he spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was wounded after a bullet grazed his right ear. One rally-goer, Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting while two others were seriously injured. Crooks was later shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.The agents who were placed on leave work at the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh field office, which was responsible for coordinating security at the rally along with local law enforcement, according to Real Clear Politics, which broke the story. They include the head of the Pittsburgh office.The officers concerned are believed to have been put on administrative leave, which usually involves being taken off operational duties while still receiving a full salary. They are expected to report to the office and may be given paperwork duties.Donald Trump, in his remarks to the National Guard Association of the United States, made reference to “if there is a debate”.In a Truth Social post last night, Trump cast doubt on whether he would participate in a scheduled debate with Kamala Harris next month, claiming that the network that had agreed to host it was “biased” against him.Donald Trump, speaking to the National Guard Association of the United States, pledged to create a “Space National Guard” if he is elected back to the Oval Office.Trump said launching space force in 2019 was one of his proudest achievements in his first term, adding:
      The time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the US space force.
      More than 200 former Republican staffers who worked for former president George W Bush, and senators John McCain and Mitt Romney, have signed a letter endorsing vice-president Kamala Harris for president.The letter, obtained and published by USA Today reads in part:
      Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.
      At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.
      Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies.
      We can’t let that happen.
      When endorsing Donald Trump for president, Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman who is also an Iraq war veteran, told the crowd at the National Guard Association’s conference that she believes that Trump has a better understanding of the “grave responsibility” that a president bears “for every single one of our lives.”Gabbard praised the former president and said that during his first term, Trump “exercised the courage that we expect from our Commander in Chief,” and exhausted “all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace.”Tulsi Gabbard has just formally endorsed former president Donald Trump for president.Gabbard left the Democratic party in 2022, after her 2020 run for president and it was recently reported that she has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s presidential debate against Kamala Harris.Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, has just been introduced on stage by former president Donald Trump at the National Guard Association of the United States Conference in Detroit, Michigan.“She’s a special person” Trump said of Gabbard. “She’s got great common sense, great spirit, she loves our country and she loves the people in this room.”Donald Trump is about to appear at the National Guard Association of the United States Conference in Detroit, Michigan.Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Trump’s presidential bid at the event, CNN reported earlier today, citing a source.Donald Trump has appeared to undercut his campaign’s position on a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris by declaring he would prefer to have the microphones on when it was not their turn to speak.

      Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that he’d “rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted” amid a reported impasse between the Kamala Harris and Trump campaigns over the conditions of next month’s debate.

      Trump, in a Truth Social post on Sunday, threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate with Harris, hurling a trademark “fake news” slur at ABC News.

      Kamala Harris’s campaign said it has now raised $540m for its election battle against Trump. The campaign said it saw a surge of donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, accepted their nominations.

      Elizabeth Warren said on Sunday that “American women are not stupid” enough to believe JD Vance’s promise that Trump would veto any nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress if Trump is elected again to the Oval Office.

      Kerry Kennedy, the sister of Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Sunday she was “disgusted” by his decision to drop out and endorse Trump’s presidential bid. Max Kennedy, her brother, also condemned his sibling’s endorsement of Trump.

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris issued statements on Monday marking the third anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Donald Trump visited Arlington national cemetery in Virginia on Monday to take part in a wreath laying ceremony as he seeks to tie Harris to the chaotic US pullout and attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 American soldiers.

      Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid today at his event in Detroit, Michigan, according to a report.

      A judge in Arizona will hear arguments on Monday in the “fake electors” case involving a scheme by Republican allies of Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state during the 2020 presidential election. More

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      Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard endorses Donald Trump in 2024 presidential race

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      Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has endorsed the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in the US presidential election.Gabbard, who served in the military in Iraq, ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020. She quit the party two years later and has become a fixture at conservative conferences and in rightwing media.Addressing a National Guard Association conference in Detroit, Michigan, where Trump was speaking, Gabbard said: “This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.“This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can once again serve us as our commander-in-chief. Because I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war.”Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in Congress and is a former vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, accused the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, of retaliating against political opponents, undermining civil liberties and weaponising America’s institutions against both Trump and herself.“We as Americans must stand together to reject this anti-freedom culture of political retaliation and abuse of power,” she added.Gabbard’s announcement comes a day after Robert F Kennedy Jr, scion of a Democratic dynasty, suspended his own White House bid and threw his weight behind Trump. Elon Musk, who describes himself as “historically a moderate Democrat”, is also backing the former president.Trump, who has been portraying Harris as a leftwing extremist, told the gathering on Monday: “This fight is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. This is a fight between communism and freedom.“It’s a very serious fight. That’s why millions of traditional Democrats, including FDR Democrats, JFK Democrats, independents and old-fashioned liberals are joining our movement. Our poll numbers are great.”Trump admitted that he had not been aware that Gabbard served as a lieutenant-colonel in the army. “She’s a special person,” he added. “She’s got great common sense, great spirit. She loves our country and she loves the people in this room.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRecently Gabbard has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s televised presidential debate against Harris. In 2020 she took Harris to taskon the debate stage over her record as a prosecutor – a clip that still circulates in rightwing media.Trump, who earlier laid wreaths during a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, was marking the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 US service members during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “The humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” he said in Detroit, seeking to blame Harris and Joe Biden for the deaths.In her own statement marking the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack, Harris said she mourns the 13 service members who were killed. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones,” she added. “My heart breaks for their pain and their loss.” More

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      Anti-Walz slogan website used to troll Trump supporters: ‘Let’s vote for adults’

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      If you type in NeverWalz.com in your browser, the page that appears probably doesn’t look like what you expected from a webpage donning a slogan against Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the current vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic party.“Trump is a convicted felon. Let’s vote for adults,” the webpage reads. “Try being joyful instead of an asshole.”After just a few seconds on the webpage, users are automatically redirected to KamalaHarris.com, the official website for Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.The slogan “Never Walz” is indeed anti-Walz, and was seen recently plastered on a booth set up by an group against the vice-presidential nominee, Action 4 Liberty, at the Minnesota state fair. The group was seen handing out fliers and selling merchandise that criticizes Walz.But, it appears that the group did not secure a website domain for the “Never Walz” slogan, leaving it available for someone else to buy and use.As of Monday, the website domain NeverWalz.com is being used to criticize former president Donald Trump and then quickly redirects viewers to the Harris campaign website.The website is being shared on social media by supporters of Walz and Harris.“They forgot to buy the domain,” one X user said posting the link. “Click link for a good laugh.”Action 4 Liberty did not immediately return a request for comment. More