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      Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir

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      Melania Trump made an extraordinary declaration in an eagerly awaited memoir to be published a month from election day: she is a passionate supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body – including the right to abortion.“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign in which Donald Trump’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”Melania Trump has rarely expressed political views in public. The book, which reveals the former first lady to be so firmly out of step with most of her own party, Melania, will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.View image in fullscreenHer decision to include a full-throated expression of support for abortion rights is remarkable not just given her proximity to a Republican candidate running on an anti-abortion platform, but also given the severe deterioration of women’s reproductive rights under Donald Trump and the GOP.In 2022, in the supreme court case Dobbs v Jackson, three justices installed when Donald Trump was president voted to strike down Roe v Wade, the ruling which had protected federal abortion rights since 1973. Republican-run states have since instituted draconian abortion bans.Donald Trump has tried to both take credit for the Dobbs decision – long the central aim of evangelical and conservative Catholic donors and voters – and avoid the fury it has stoked, saying abortion rights should be decided by the states.But Democrats have scored a succession of election wins by campaigning on the issue, even in conservative states, and threats to reproductive rights, among them threats to fertility treatments including IVF, are proving problematic for Republicans up and down this year’s ticket.Amid a blizzard of statements opponents deem misogynistic and regressive, JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for vice-president, has indicated he would support a national abortion ban – a move it seems his boss’s wife would be against.Donald Trump himself recently got into a tangle over whether he would vote in November to protect abortion rights in Florida, a ballot his wife will also cast given their residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. He eventually said he would vote no. Judging by her own words, Melania Trump appears likely to vote yes.Her memoir is slim, long on descriptions of her youth in Slovenia, life as a model in New York and love for the man whose third wife she became, correspondingly short on policy discussion. But Donald Trump provides a blurb, praising his wife’s “commitment to excellence … insightful perspective … [and] entrepreneurial achievements”.Before discussing abortion, Melania Trump says she disagreed with her husband on some aspects of immigration policy, not least as an immigrant herself.“Occasional political disagreements between me and my husband,” she says, are “part of our relationship, but I believed in addressing them privately rather than publicly challenging him.”And yet, later in her book, she states views on abortion and reproductive rights diametrically opposed to those of her husband and his party.“I have always believed it is critical for people to take care of themselves first,” Melania Trump writes of her support for abortion rights. “It’s a very straightforward concept; in fact, we are all born with a set of fundamental rights, including the right to enjoy our lives. We are all entitled to maintain a gratifying and dignified existence.“This common-sense approach applies to a woman’s natural right to make decisions about her own body and health.”Melania Trump says her beliefs about abortion rights spring from “a core set of principles”, at the heart of which sits “individual liberty” and “personal freedom”, on which there is “no room for negotiation”.After outlining her support on such grounds for abortion rights, she details “legitimate reasons for a woman to choose to have an abortion”, including danger to the life of the mother, rape or incest, often exceptions under state bans, and also “a congenital birth defect, plus severe medical conditions”.Saying “timing matters”, Melania Trump also defends the right to abortion later in pregnancy.She writes: “It is important to note that historically, most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother. These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor. As a community, we should embrace these common-sense standards. Again, timing matters.”More than 90% of US abortions occur at or before 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the CDC. Less than 1% of abortions take place at or after 21 weeks.On the campaign trail, Republicans have blatantly mischaracterized Democrats’ positions on abortion. Last month, debating Kamala Harris, Donald Trump falsely said his Democratic opponent’s “vice-presidential pick … says that abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. [Tim Walz] also says: ‘Execution after birth’ – execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born – is OK.”He was factchecked: it is not legal in any state to kill a baby after birth.On the page, Melania Trump issues a distinctly un-Trumpian appeal for empathy.“Many women opt for abortions due to personal medical concerns,” she writes. “These situations with significant moral implications weigh heavily on the woman and her family and deserve our empathy. Consider, for example, the complexity inherent in the decision of whether the mother should risk her own life to give birth.”Recent reporting has highlighted cases of women who have died in states where abortion has been banned.She goes on to appeal for compassion.“When confronted with an unexpected pregnancy, young women frequently experience feelings of isolation and significant stress. I, like most Americans, am in favor of the requirement that juveniles obtain parental consent before undergoing an abortion. I realize this may not always be possible. Our next generation must be provided with knowledge, security, safety, and solace, and the cultural stigma associated with abortion must be lifted,” writes the former first lady.Finally, Melania Trump offers an expression of solidarity with protesters for reproductive rights.“The slogan ‘My Body, My Choice’ is typically associated with women activists and those who align with the pro-choice side of the debate,” she writes. “But if you really think about it, ‘My Body, My Choice’ applies to both sides – a woman’s right to make an independent decision involving her own body, including the right to choose life. Personal freedom.” More

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      Walz says Vance was ‘gaslighting’ public about Trump’s record in debate

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      The day after the only vice-presidential debate this year, Democrat Tim Walz called his Republican challenger, JD Vance, a “slick talker” who was trying to rewrite history and gaslight people about Donald Trump’s record.During a rally in York, Pennsylvania, Walz made his first public comments on the debate, which polls show was essentially a tie between the two vice-presidential candidates. The Minnesota governor was on a tour through the swing state on Wednesday.Walz said the two men “had a civil but spirited debate” and that he didn’t underestimate Vance’s debate skills.But, he added: “You can’t rewrite history and trying to mislead us about Donald Trump’s record. That’s gaslighting. That’s gaslighting, on the economy, reproductive freedom, housing, gun violence.”He brought up the question he posed to Vance during the debate about whether Trump lost the 2020 election. The Republican vice-presidential nominee dodged, saying he was focused on the future, which Walz called “a damning non-answer”.Every American should be able to answer that question simply, Walz said on Wednesday. He noted, as he did on the debate stage, that Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president in his first term, isn’t on the ticket this year because he stood up for the election results in defiance of Trump.View image in fullscreen“With that damning non-answer, Senator Vance made it clear he will always make a different choice than Mike Pence made,” Walz said on Wednesday. “And as I said then, and I will say now, that should be absolutely disqualifying if you’re asking to be the vice-president.”He also dinged Vance for claiming Trump saved the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, when “he spent his entire presidency trying to eliminate it.”Walz said that he saw the debate as a way to speak directly to the American people as they decide whether to entrust him and Kamala Harris with the White House. Vance, on the other hand, “was speaking to an audience of one”, Walz said, referring to Trump.“Campaigns are supposed to be about giving a vision. And last night, you saw two very different visions for the future this country,” he said. More

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      Underwhelming Walz and a more presentable Vance: the VP debate – podcast

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      Joan E Greve and Leah Wright Rigueur discuss JD Vance and Tim Walz’s clash on the debate stage in New York City on Tuesday night. Although Walz gave a solid performance, it was described as underwhelming, while Vance attempted to reset his image and get on the front foot. Will this debate have moved the needle at all? And as the situation in the Middle East escalates, where do Trump and Harris stand on foreign policy?

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

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      JD Vance is trying hard not to be weird – and it’s making him seem more menacing still | Emma Brockes

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      The overriding and at times darkly comic impression, watching JD Vance’s exchange with Tim Walz in the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, was that Vance’s top-line imperative was to demonstrate to America just how extravagantly not-weird he is. Nothing to see here! Just a guy with a placid expression, nice manners, a noble desire to find “common sense, bipartisan solutions”, and a lovely little quiff. His affect was so relaxed, so urbane, that at points during the debate he could have been twirling a cane and slinking around a corner like Top Cat.And while the event itself is unlikely to move the election needle, the performance of the two contenders for vice-president was a useful measure of where each campaign thinks its weaknesses lie. Both men were required to perform sincerity, a tough call in such a rehearsed and high-pressure setting, but only Vance was tasked with having to perform normality – which he did, up to a point. Walz, meanwhile, had to struggle to back up his charm with something steelier and more purposeful than relatability. Whereas a candidate for president can be all flamboyance and jazz hands, it is the role of the vice-president to be a sober voice in the room – and for 90 minutes, both men tried to out-grownup each other.The result was, to some extent, a gratifyingly low-drama exchange in which each man was lavishly courteous to the other. When Walz mentioned his son had witnessed a shooting at a community centre, Vance absolutely nailed a tone he customarily struggles with – being recognisably human – and immediately offered his sympathy. Walz, meanwhile, was conciliatory on the subject of how to prevent another school shooting and allowed that his opponent was, at least in principle, broadly against the murder of small children. For Walz, however, the debate was a harder proposition from the get-go, given just how low the expectations were for his rival.And in the first instance Walz did seem to fluff things. He is, he has said, not a natural debater, happier charming voters while buying a doughnut or holding a cat than facing someone on stage. Vance, by contrast, is absolutely the champion debater you remember from college, right down to his dead shark little eyes and his resting smug face. (Walz’s resting face ranged from gimme-a-break incredulity to full blown oh-god-we’re-all-going-to-die fright eyes, and by the end of the debate, the corners of his mouth drooped so heavily he looked like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.)Given the biases we bring to the party at this stage, I tried, for the sake of argument, to allow for the possibility that Vance’s reasonable air connotes a reasonable outlook and to see Walz’s under-energised performance through the eyes of those sympathetic to Trump. Maybe Walz’s folksy charm is a smokescreen for something more mercenary? Maybe Vance isn’t as bad as he has seemed until now? But then he got going on how restricting abortion is a way of “giving women more options” and I thought: “You creepy little putz,” and was back to square one.This is the crux of the matter with politicians such as Vance, whose job it is to put a civilised face on Trumpist extremism. In calm, measured tones he defended creating the conditions in which, denied adequate healthcare in their locality, miscarrying women die while travelling across state lines. Pleasantly, he suggested that school shootings in the US might be countered by making the “doors” and “windows” of schools “stronger”. He argued that the real victims of the US immigration crisis are the border patrol agents “who just want to be empowered to do their job”.And when Walz asked him point blank if he believed Trump lost the 2020 election, he dodged the question entirely. “I’m pretty shocked,” Walz said, and he looked it. There is something arguably weirder about presenting fanatical, life-endangering positions in the urbane tones of someone offering us all a great deal, and yet, at times during the debate, the more superficial oddness of Vance was still visible. I laughed out loud when he described Usha, his wife, as a “beautiful woman who’s an incredible mother to our three beautiful kids and also a very, very brilliant corporate litigator”. The bottom line? Vance really is creepy.He is also, of course, dangerous. There was a single, fleeting moment when I thought Vance dropped his mask, and that was 30 minutes in, when Walz mentioned Springfield, Ohio, in reference to Vance’s lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets. Walz, playing the more-gracious-than-thou game, allowed that Senator Vance is genuinely interested in solving the immigration problem, but that, “by standing with Donald Trump” he was only making it worse. It was as close to accusing the man of stark, self-interested, near-psychopathic venality as the tone of the exchange would allow. A flash of anger crossed Vance’s face before the banality of his demeanour returned.

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More

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      in US Politics

      JD Vance’s debate lines were so polished you could forget they made no sense | Moira Donegan

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      Maybe he thought the pink tie could help. JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, clearly set out to make himself seem less creepy at Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate, and a major target of this project was aimed at convincing women voters to like him. Vance, after all, has what pollsters call “high unfavorables”, which is a polite way of saying that people hate his guts.Much of this stems from Vance’s extreme and inflexible views on abortion, his hostility to childless women, and his creepy statements about families and childrearing. He had to convince women that he’s not out to hurt them or monitor their menstrual cycles; he had to try and seem kindly, empathetic, gentle. The resulting 90 minutes felt like watching a remarkably lifelike robot try to imitate normal human emotion. He smiled. He cooed. He spoke of an anonymous woman he knew whom he said was watching, and told her: “Love ya”. And occasionally, when he was fact-checked or received pushback on his falsehoods or distortions, the eyes of his stiff, fixed face flashed with an incandescent rage.A generous characterization of Vance’s performance might be to call it “slick”. Vance delivered practiced answers to questions on healthcare, abortion rights and childcare that were dense with lies and euphemism. Asked about his call for a national abortion ban, Vance insisted that what he wanted was a national “standard” – a standard, that is, to ban it at 15 weeks.He spoke in what was probably supposed to be empathetic terms about a woman he had grown up with who had told him that she felt she had had to have the abortion she got when they were younger, because it allowed her to leave her abusive relationship – without clarifying that the laws that Vance supports would have compelled that woman he purports to care about to carry her abuser’s child to term, and likely become trapped with him.He claimed that Americans didn’t “trust” Republicans on the abortion issue, but did not mention that they don’t trust Republicans because those are the ones taking their rights away.When asked about childcare, Vance spoke in eerily imprecise terms about encouraging people to choose their preferred “family model”, without specifying exactly which “model” he had in mind. He spoke of the “multiple people who could be providing family care options” but did not specify if these “people” had anything in common with each other. In media appearances throughout his career, Vance has been more explicit: he means that women will perform childcare for free – dropping out of paid work in the public sphere to do so, if necessary.Vance was confident and smiling as he delivered these lines; he had the greasy self-assurance of someone who is used to lying to people he thinks are stupider than him. He sounded every bit like the Yale Law lawyer that he is. Even when he was not degrading women’s dignity or condescending to the two female moderators, his answers were often delivered with a polish that seemed intended to conceal the fact that they made no sense.Asked about the housing crisis, for instance, he said that mass deportations – a horrific ethnic-cleansing operation proposed by the Trump campaign that would ruin communities, families and lives – would lower prices by decreasing demand. It was a kind of repeat of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, but this time it wasn’t satire. He also suggested that the government could build housing on federal lands – but neglected to mention that most of those lands are in the vast, rural, empty Mountain West, in regions with lots of tumbleweeds and absolutely no jobs.Perhaps Vance’s quintessential moment of the night came early, when he was attempting to further his smears of the Haitian immigrant community of Springfield, Ohio, whom he had previously targeted with lies that they eat pets. Vance was cut off by the moderators, but talked over them insistently. “Margaret. Margaret. Margaret. Margaret”, he said repeatedly, trying to strong-arm one of the women into letting him talk. As they corrected his misstatements, he whined to the women: “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check!”Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, reportedly told Kamala Harris when he was being vetted for the job that he does not consider himself a good debater. Going in, expectations for him were low. And indeed Walz had an uneven night, sometimes appearing flustered or nervous. An early answer on foreign policy, in particular, was confused and unconvincing. But Walz visibly gained confidence throughout the debate, issuing more forceful answers, attacking Trump and Vance’s record, and emphasizing himself, often successfully, as a homespun purveyor of goodwill and common sense.He was most convincing on what seems to be, for him, the most morally animating issues: healthcare and abortion. Walz named Amber Thurman, a woman killed by an abortion ban, as someone whose life could have been saved were it not for Trump’s policies; he spoke with passion and clarity of how Trump’s plan to reverse the Affordable Care Act would kick millions off their insurance.But perhaps Walz’s best moment came near the end of the debate, in a conversation about democracy, when he pointedly asked JD Vance to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance dodged.“That’s a damning non-answer,” Walz said. It could have summarized Vance’s whole performance.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Friendship bracelets and eyeliner: the internet reacts to the Vance-Walz debate

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      Two of social media’s most talked-about characters faced off during the vice-presidential debate. On one side: the folksy, avuncular, pet-loving Minnesota governor, Tim Walz. On the other: the Ohio senator JD Vance, whose campaign trail gaffes – awkwardly ordering doughnuts, railing against “childless cat ladies” – are top-tier meme fodder. Whatever happened on the debate stage or in the spin rooms, the most widely viewed analysis lives on social media.Right from the start, viewers and commentators noticed the difference between Walz and Vance’s debating styles. During the first question about the unfolding crisis in the Middle East, Walz came off as nervous, fumbling over talking points. Vance tried to avoid the question. Because why talk about Iran when you can remind folks you wrote the New York Times bestseller Hillbilly Elegy?“Weird science”, a reference to the 1985 John Hughes teen sci-fi flick, became one of the night’s earliest catchphrases, after Vance evoked it in reference to the climate crisis. Perhaps not the best choice of words for someone whose opponent has described as “weird” many times on the campaign trail – much to the delight of younger voters.Vance’s appearance reignited one of the most persistent conspiracy theories of this election: does the Ohio senator wear eyeliner? His wife, Usha Vance, has shot down these rumors, telling the Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman: “They’re all natural.” Even still, Twitter/X users delighted in comparing Vance’s debate night look to emo musicians or a teenage Miley Cyrus. Still, one person was impressed with Vance’s appearance: the former state representative and convicted felon George Santos, who tweeted: “Can anyone confirm Vance is on Ozempic? He’s looking thin and good!”And what about Walz? Eagle-eyed viewers spotted a friendship bracelet on the governor’s wrist. Some wondered if it was a nod to Taylor Swift, who has endorsed Kamala Harris and counts the accessory as part of her brand. The Harris campaign sells a similar style for $20. Maybe he’s ordered one.The debate moderators got time in the spotlight, too. When CBS News’s Margaret Brennan tried to move on from a question about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, Vance would not let her, instead trying to talk about a specific emergency visa. As he kept speaking over her, Brennan let out a strained: “Thank you senator for describing the legal process.” On X, many women noted Brennan’s tired delivery – relatable for those who have been spoken over or mansplained to at work.Vance also whined when moderators corrected a comment on immigration. “You said you wouldn’t fact-check me,” he groaned, as if he were angry at journalists for doing their job. Viewers at home noted the absurdity of his statement. But the conservative commentator Megyn Kelly incredulously tweeted: “F you CBS – how DARE YOU.” Meanwhile over on Truth Social, Donald Trump dismissively called the anchors “young ladies” who were “extremely biased” during his play-by-play of the debate.One of Walz biggest flubs of the night came during a question on gun control, when the governor said: “I’ve been friends with school shooters.” A slip of the tongue, but conservative social media accounts latched on to such a bonkers statement, and one of the strangest lines of the night.By the end of the night, Walz regained his friendly delivery for his planned closing statement, thanking Americans who had skipped out on watching Dancing with the Stars to view the debate, and bragging about Harris’s coalition of supporters, “from Bernie Sanders, to Dick Cheney, to Taylor Swift” – quite the lineup.As the night ended, many on social media wondered who the debate was for. Most of the people watching together online know exactly how they’ll be casting their ballots in November. One of the most compelling reasons to tune in to such a circus: to understand the next day’s memes. At least, as the moderators reminded before signing off, this was the final debate of the election season – the last time we have to go through this. More

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      in Elections

      Mayor in Wisconsin removes ballot drop box as tensions rise over voting method

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      A Wisconsin mayor removed a ballot drop box from outside city hall and relocated it indoors last week – a performance that underscores the tensions and misinformation that surround election administration and the topic of ballot drop boxes in the state.Doug Diny, who donned a workperson’s hat and gloves to move the drop box, claimed he did so because he was worried the box, which had not yet been fully installed and did not have any ballots in it, could have been tossed in the river. The city has since re-installed the dropbox outside the Wausau municipal building.Since 2020, the use of ballot drop boxes – secured boxes where voters can return absentee ballots – has been a fixture of debate over the administration of elections in Wisconsin.With Covid-19 surging during the 2020 presidential election, about 60% of voters cast ballots early or by mail. By 2021, there were 570 ballot drop boxes in place across the state, according to the Wisconsin elections commission.In 2022, after conservative groups filed suit to ban the use of the drop boxes, the Wisconsin supreme court – then ruled by a conservative majority – outlawed the voting method. In July, a year after voters elected a liberal judge to the court and reversed the ideological balance of the court, the state supreme court overturned its previous decision. With just four months to go before the 2024 election, election clerks across the state were free to introduce drop boxes at their discretion.The ruling has not cooled tensions over the use of the secured voting boxes. With unfounded fears that US elections are vulnerable to fraud still swirling years after Donald Trump spread the lie that the 2020 election was rife with irregularities, the re-introduction of drop boxes in Wisconsin has repeatedly spurred controversy.In Dodge county, Wisconsin, the political outlet WisPolitics first reported that some municipal clerks who sought to bring back drop boxes reversed course after the county’s Republican sheriff urged them not to use drop boxes, claiming they could cause the perception of fraud.In Brookfield, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, residents rallied for a ballot drop box to be installed for the 2024 November elections. But after the municipal clerk, whose office oversees election administration, turned the decision about drop boxes over to common council, the council voted not to offer residents that option. Mike Hallquist, a local official in Brookfield who voted in favor of installing a drop box in the city, said that while “state law definitely provides the clerk their ability to make that decision,” he was comfortable weighing in “because it was at the request of the clerk”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde has even weighed in on the topic of drop boxes, calling on poll watchers to monitor drop boxes in majority-Democratic cities in a recording obtained by the Washington Post. Hovde reportedly asked: “Who’s watching to see how many illegal ballots are being stuffed?” The suggestion that ballot drop boxes would likely be “stuffed” with fake ballots echoes the debunked claim that circulated after the 2020 election that people had fraudulently cast ballots using drop boxes in swing states.It was in this fraught environment that Diny made a show of relocating an absentee drop box – a stunt that garnered instant headlines and outcry from voting rights groups in the state. Diny, who was not available for comment, has vowed to bring the issue before Wausau’s city council – although city council members almost certainly lack the legal standing to make such a decision unilaterally, and the city clerk, who does have the authority, remains in support of the dropbox.In an email to the Guardian, the Wausau city council president, Lisa Rasmussen, forcefully rejected Diny’s actions and emphasized that the Wisconsin elections commission and the Wisconsin supreme court give election clerks the discretion to use drop boxes – not local government.“Elected officials do not have the authority to make those choices. So, if the mayor opts to ask the council to decide something they have no authority to consider, it is likely all for show,” wrote Rasmussen. “I also remain hopeful that there is a measure of accountability for those actions since this type of thing could happen in any town and it is just not appropriate.”Diny is currently under investigation by the Portage county sheriff to determine if he violated the law in relocating the drop box. More

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      Middle East escalation, hurricane and strikes could cause Harris triple trouble

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      “100” was spelled out in giant numbers on the White House north lawn on Tuesday. It was a birthday tribute to the former US president Jimmy Carter, who served only one term after being buffeted by external events such as high inflation and a hostage crisis in Iran.The current occupant of the White House, Joe Biden, must know the feeling as he fights three fires at once. Iran has launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, six US states are still reeling from Hurricane Helene, and ports from Maine to Texas shut down as about 45,000 dockworkers went on strike.Unlike Carter, Biden already knows his fate: he is not seeking reelection next month. But what remains uncertain is whether the trio of troubles will drag down his vice-president and would-be successor, Kamala Harris. Certainly her rival, Donald Trump, smells an opportunity to tar her with the same brush of chaos.“The World is on fire and spiraling out of control,” he said in a written statement. “We have no leadership, no one running the Country. We have a non-existent President in Joe Biden, and a completely absent Vice President, Kamala Harris, who is too busy fundraising in San Francisco.”Will it stick? No one can be sure. Democrats must again be breathing a sigh of relief that they jettisoned Biden after his miserable debate performance in June. The president steeped in foreign policy is running at one catastrophe a year: the botched Afghanistan withdrawal of 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the deadly Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.He has tried and failed to wield influence over the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Gaza. Last week Biden told reporters about a plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon and seemed to think Netanyahu was on board; a day later, a massive Israeli airstrike killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. It looked like a case study in presidential impotence and the limits of American power.Now, after the Iranian missile assault, Israel has vowed to retaliate and Republicans are ready to pounce. Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, told Fox News: “You look at the time under Trump, there were no wars, there were no conflicts, and the reason is at least our allies knew where we stood. With Biden and Harris, they never know where we stand.”This talking point – a world in disarray under Biden, in contrast to years of glorious peace under Trump – should come with plenty of caveats, not least Trump’s decision to tear up the Iran nuclear deal and strike a deal to end the war in Afghanistan. It is also harder to make now that Biden has made way for Harris.The vice-president has spent her candidacy pursuing a Goldilocks principle: not too hot on Biden, not too cold on Biden, but displaying just-right loyalty. She heaps praise on the president and delivered an address at the Democratic national convention that channelled Biden on US leadership in the world. But she is also the candidate of “turn the page” and “a new way forward” who will never let the phrase “Bidenomics” pass her lips again.Current events are again testing where Harris the vice-president ends and Harris the candidate begins. Activists on the left are eager for any hint that she will give Palestinians a more sympathetic ear and take a harder line on Netanyahu. The Uncommitted National Movement has declined to endorse her, citing her unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy.At the White House press briefing, one reporter was eager to know what her engagement had been like during the Iranian attack on Israel. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, was at pains to say that Harris had joined the president in the situation room.“She was there,” Jean-Pierre said. “She was alongside him in getting that update, and she many times has been in the room or, as you just said, has called in when it’s come to really important, critical national security issues.”Later Harris herself made an unplanned public appearance to address the Middle East escalation – reaffirming her commander-in-chief credentials in a way she would not have felt obliged to do four months ago. She took care to note that she had been in the situation room and promised: “My commitment to the security of Israel is unwavering.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSimilarly, both candidates are racing to put their stamp on Hurricane Helene, which crashed ashore in Florida last Thursday with a wind field stretching 350 miles from its centre. It has killed at least 150 people and wiped out hundreds of homes and businesses. The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, described it as being of “an historic magnitude”.Trump travelled to Georgia on Monday and falsely claimed that Biden had not spoken to its governor, Brian Kemp. Harris will travel to Georgia on Wednesday and to North Carolina in the coming days. The stakes are high: administrations have long been haunted by the failed response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.But it is the third crisis that could have the biggest electoral impact of all. The first dockworkers’ strike since 1977 could snarl supply chains and cause shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks. That would be a political gift to Trump, whose polling lead on the economy has been eroded by Harris. Both are vying for trade union support.Trump, who has previously praised Elon Musk for firing workers who go on strike, said in a statement: “The situation should have never come to this and, had I been President, it would not have … Americans who thrived under President Trump can’t even get by because of Kamala Harris – this strike is a direct result of her actions.”All this and it was still only 1 October. The only surprise now would be if there are no more October surprises to come. More