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      Trump marks 7 October anniversary and criticizes ‘weak’ Biden and Harris

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      Donald Trump marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which he called “one of the darkest days in all of history”, with a commemoration for victims and hostages at his golf resort in Miami on Monday night, but swiftly turned the event into an attack on Kamala Harris.He also repeated a previous claim that the attack on Israel would never have happened if he was still in the White House.Blaming Harris and Joe Biden for the “weakness” he said gave Hamas the confidence to launch the attack, the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd of about 300 supporters, mostly from the Jewish community, that a wave of anti-Israel sentiment which he said was sweeping the US, and wider world, could be blamed on their administration.“Almost as shocking as 7 October itself is the outbreak of antisemitism that we have all seen in its wake,” he said.“The anti-Jewish hatred has returned … and within the ranks of the Democratic party in particular. The Republican party has not been infected by this horrible disease, and won’t be as long as I’m in charge.”The attacks, which left 1,200 people dead and an additional 250 taken hostage by Hamas, provided “a moment in horrible history”, he said.“It seemed as if the gates of hell had sprung open and unleashed their horrors unto the world. We never thought we’d see it … and a lot of that has to do with leadership of this country.”After claiming the attacks would not have taken place had he been elected to a second term, Trump said he would restore the closeness with Israel he insisted the US had lost, despite Biden and Harris both expressing support for the country’s right to defend itself.“If, and when, they say, when I’m president, the US will once again be stronger and closer [to Israel] than it ever was. But we have to win the election,” he said.“What is needed is more than ever unwavering American leadership. The dawn of new, more harmonious Middle East is finally within our reach. I will not allow the Jewish state to be threatened with destruction. I will not allow another Holocaust of the Jewish people. I will not allow a jihad to be waged on America or our allies, and I will support Israel’s right to win its war.”Trump’s fire and brimstone delivery was at odds with remarks earlier in the day from Harris, his Democratic opponent in November, who paid tribute to those who lost their lives, but also spoke of ensuring Israel had what it needed to defend itself.Biden expressed sorrow for suffering on all sides of the conflict in the Middle East, and in a statement condemned a “vicious surge in antisemitism in America” since the attacks.Trump’s address began more than two hours later than billed. He joked about a bumpy flight from New York, and his concern for Florida from Hurricane Milton, a category 5 storm predicted to slam into the state on Wednesday.His supporters, some wearing yarmulkes with the former president’s name embroidered on them, cheered as he took the stage of the ballroom at Trump National in Doral.He spoke against a backdrop of six American and Israeli flags, and images of the almost 1,200 victims, including 46 Americans, killed by Hamas one year ago. A succession of speakers and guests, including two Holocaust survivors, Jewish religious leaders and Republican politicians, lit remembrance candles as they took the stage.Along one wall, rows of candles sat in front of photographs of the dozens of people taken hostage. Each name was marked by the word “kidnapped” in capital letters.View image in fullscreenTrump has presented himself as Israel’s strongest, most outspoken defender, but has also drawn criticism for his previous comments. A year ago, in the days following the terrorist attack on the Nova music festival, he called Hezbollah, the Lebanese group closely allied to Hamas, “very smart”, and Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant “a jerk”.Speaking at an event in Florida last October, Trump said Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not prepared, and that Israel’s enemies were “smart, and, boy, are they vicious”.The White House condemned his comments as “dangerous and unhinged”.Trump also raised eyebrows last month when he claimed he was “the most popular person in Israel”, and bemoaned a lack of support from Jewish voters after polls showed him below 40% with them.Insisting he had been “the best president by far” for Israel, he said: “Based on what I did … I should be at 100%.” Trump did not repeat the boast on Monday.Some supporters in the audience in Miami were pleased to hear Trump speaking forcefully in defense of Israel.“Kamala Harris will stand for Hamas. She is no friend of Israel,” Ben Fisher, a Miami resident, said. “Donald Trump speaks the way a strong leader should. He knows if your country is attacked you cannot let that go, if it’s the attack on the festival or the missiles from Tehran.”Harris spoke earlier in the day at the vice-presidential residence, promising that if elected next month she would “always ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself”.Unlike Trump, she resisted the opportunity to make political remarks, focusing instead on victims by telling the story of two Americans who died, and naming each of the seven Americans taken by Hamas to Gaza, four of whom are still believed to be alive. More

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      How a Michael Portillo BBC film inspired a US push for nitrogen-gas executions

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      Shortly after Alabama last week carried out its second-ever execution using nitrogen gas, state officials took credit for pioneering what they see as a breakthrough approach to the death penalty – even though it has sparked outrage and revulsion among critics.But the idea to execute inmates in the US with nitrogen was actually set in motion by a rebellious and ultra-conservative lawmaker in Oklahoma, and surprisingly involves a former British Conservative MP turned television personality, Michael Portillo.Both promised such executions would be free of the complications that had plagued lethal injections and that sentenced prisoners would drift off painlessly to sleep – though witnesses to both executions have described a very different process.Nitrogen executions were first legislated in 2015 by Oklahoma, a US state boasts the highest execution rate per capita and a long history of death penalty innovation, having also been the first to introduce the lethal injection in 1977.The story of its most recent innovation in execution methods involves a documentary hosted by Portillo. After a career in British politics, where he was once seen as a darling of the Conservative right, Portillo reinvented himself as a television presenter. He later became famous for shows on the BBC such as Great British Railway Journeys.But in a bizarre collision of worlds, it was his film How to Kill a Human Being, broadcast by the BBC in 2008, that helped persuade the Republican representative Mike Christian and a high-school friend of his to pursue a bill writing nitrogen executions into law. So convinced were they by Portillo’s film and findings that they screened it at the Oklahoma capitol in September 2014.“I remember it being quite disturbing,” said Emily Virgin, a Democratic representative present at the time who voted against the nitrogen bill Christian later authored. In 2015, it passed 85 to 10 in the Oklahoma house and unanimously in the Senate.View image in fullscreenThe bill had been a while in the making. By 2014, states across the country were struggling to enforce capital punishment. Anti-death penalty advocates had successfully lobbied drug companies to stop supplying them with lethal injection drugs and many states were forced to improvise. Some attempted to get their drugs via illegal backchannels while others sought out substitute compounds, but both contributed to a string of botched and messy executions.In April 2014, things came to a head. Oklahoma’s supreme court issued a stay on the execution of death-row inmate Clayton Lockett over issues of secrecy around its lethal injection drugs. Incensed by the move, Christian, who was also a former state trooper, drafted a resolution to impeach the five justices who had supported the stay and was quoted in newspapers around the country for saying of Lockett’s execution: “I realize this may sound harsh but as a father and former lawman, I really don’t care if it’s by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, guillotine or being fed to the lions.”The stay was soon overturned by Oklahoma’s governor, and Lockett’s execution went ahead. The executioners tried for almost an hour to establish an intravenous line before inadvertently injecting the drugs into the tissue around his groin. Witnesses saw him writhing in a pool of blood and according to an inquiry by the Oklahoma department of public safety the execution took 41 minutes, during which his heart rate dropped to six beats per minute.Months later, Christian was back with another plan. He had gathered more than a dozen or so Oklahoma legislators and public officials for a judiciary committee meeting at the Oklahoma capitol to make the case for something new.“We knew there was a problem after the Lockett execution,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting. “In 1977 we became the first state to adopt lethal injection. My wishes are in 2015 we abolish, possibly, lethal injection and we go to this new innovative method, which is death by nitrogen hypoxia.” Then, on a television in the meeting room, he screened Portillo’s BBC documentary.At the start of the 50-minute film, Portillo sets out to discover the “perfect killing device” for carrying out humane executions. After touring labs and meeting with experts across the US and Europe, he finds that all the methods known to the west – including the firing squad, electric chair, cyanide chamber, and hanging – are flawed. But, he concludes: “I think hypoxia is the solution.”View image in fullscreenThe term hypoxia simply describes when the body’s cells receive insufficient oxygen to function and can be induced in many ways. In the film, Portillo attempts to experience hypoxia at a Dutch air force training facility, where he sits in an altitude chamber that simulates oxygen-thin air. Satisfied that the experience was painless, he seeks out a more practical way to starve somebody of oxygen and meets a veterinarian who tells him that if a human were forced to breathe just pure nitrogen they would lose consciousness “within 15 seconds” and die “within a minute”.“It turns out a canister of gas, a tube and a mask can be the perfect killing machine. It’s as simple as that,” says Portillo.On the day his film was screened for Oklahoma officials in 2014, some six years after it first aired in 2008, Christian brought along with him a part-time professor of political science at Oklahoma’s East Central University, Michael Copeland, who was also a high-school friend and had been involved in his election campaign.“People that aren’t familiar with the legislative process might think that state governments like Oklahoma have a bunch of experts on their payroll to advise them, but that’s not really what happens. Members can go out and they dispatch people that work at colleges,” said Copeland when asked about his involvement.He and some peers at the university produced a 14-page research paper which found that the use of nitrogen would not require the participation of a “licensed medical professional”, nor the “cooperation of the offender being executed”.“It’s such a simple procedure, it would be hard to do it wrong,” said Copeland when asked about the specifics of a nitrogen execution. “You won’t find one person who is for the death penalty in general but thinks that this method is somehow complicated, or you won’t be able to implement it correctly.”Another person present at the meeting was David Cincotta, legal counsel to the Oklahoma department of corrections at the time. “The details provided in the research that had been done were not close to what would be required to defend the method in court,” he said when asked about the material presented.Christian was part of a highly conservative rebel faction of Republicans in Oklahoma who were further to the right than the mainstream Republicans, according to Virgin. One of his friends in that group was Senator Randy Terrill, who in 2013 was sentenced to a year in prison for bribing a Democratic candidate to withdraw from a Senate election so that Christian could have her otherwise unwinnable seat. Their mutual friend Copeland testified in support of Terrill during his trial.Before that, the group pursued a controversial bill calling for the installation of a monument of the Ten Commandments outside the Oklahoma capitol. And when Christian ran in 2017 for the Oklahoma county sheriff’s office, documents emerged indicating that in 1999 he was reprimanded for toasting to the death of a judge who had ruled against a lawsuit seeking to have the Confederate flag returned to the state capitol. The group that brought the suit was an Oklahoma division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.View image in fullscreenWhen asked why Oklahoma passed its nitrogen bill in 2015 but never followed through on developing and finalizing a protocol, Copeland said: “Nobody wants to be the first. You don’t want to be the one who gets blamed if something goes wrong.”But just a few states over in Alabama, Republican senator Trip Pittman caught wind of the Oklahoma bill and figured nitrogen might cure the execution woes they were facing in his own state, so he authored his own. “Misery loves company,” he said. “Oklahoma had passed the bill and they had done the research.”Fortunately for Pittman, a dogged attorney in the Alabama attorney general’s office by the name of Lauren Simpson was ready to step up, and wasn’t scared to do the legal work necessary to get nitrogen executions over the line. But she didn’t come out unscathed. In a rare and humiliating move, in 2021 she was fined for misleading the courts over whether Alabama’s death row inmates were properly briefed on how and when they could choose between lethal injection and nitrogen. Simpson declined to comment on her involvement, citing a lack of permission from her office.The Alabama protocol she had a hand in developing sees a firefighter-style gas mask attached to the prisoner’s face, which is then filled with a stream of pure nitrogen, thus depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die.The smoothness of Alabama’s two nitrogen-gas executions has been widely disputed by their few witnesses. While the state has claimed they were “textbook,” others have described them as more violent than some botched lethal injections.“Despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state lawyers, and biased media, the State proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective,” said Alabama’s attorney general Steve Marshall, minutes after the second execution last week.Yet in both nitrogen executions almost all witnesses spoke of jerking against restraints and gasps for air over several minutes. A prison official involved in the first execution, carried out in January, later acknowledged in a sworn statement that it took “longer than I had expected.”In a statement to the Guardian, Copeland disputed that Alabama’s executions had gone wrong, saying: “There was some movement during the procedure, which could be interpreted as either conscious struggling or the involuntary movements typically exhibited by people who are dying.”“The death penalty is never going to be something pleasant,” he said. “Nobody wants to die.” More

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      in US Politics

      In the US, rats could soon have better birth control access than women | Arwa Mahdawi

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      The fight for rat-productive rightsEric Adams, we recently learned, seems to have spent the bulk of his time as mayor of New York trying to wangle criminally cheap business class tickets from Turkish Airlines. But while Adams may have made history by becoming the first sitting mayor of New York to be indicted on federal corruption charges, the fact that he has a slightly wonky moral compass is old news. Even before being appointed mayor, there were questions about Adam’s truthfulness, including a long-running debate about whether the swagger-obsessed candidate lived in Brooklyn, as he insisted he did, or New Jersey.Still, let’s give the mayor his due, shall we? It would be unfair to say he’s spent the entirety of his time in high office trying to live the high life. Adams, who appointed New York City’s first “rat tsar” last year, has also spent a lot of time thinking about the city’s rodent problem. “I don’t think there’s been a mayor in history that says how much he hates rats,” he grandly proclaimed during New York City’s inaugural Rat Summit in September. “I dislike rats.” Adams added that he was confident New York could “look forward to a new paradigm in urban rat management”.Wheelie bins are part of that exciting new paradigm in urban rat management. There was much mirth on social media over the summer when it transpired that New York City had paid McKinsey over a million dollars to figure out whether it might be a good idea to put loose rubbish in a bin. (Or, in management consultant speech, “containerize” it.) Now the brainiacs in Adams’s orbit have come up with an exciting new paradigm shift: the city council recently greenlit pilot schemes to deploy ContraPest, a type of rodent birth control.The irony that New York is investing in rodent contraceptives at a time when women’s access to reproductive services across the US is under fire hasn’t gone unnoticed. Social media has been filled with wry observations along the lines of “it’s easier to get reproductive rights as a rodent in New York than it is for a woman to get reproductive rights in most of the country”.Because pedants never take a day off I will note that quip isn’t strictly true. At least for the moment it isn’t. But if Donald Trump wins the election and the extremists backing him have their way then it might very well be true that rats will soon have better access to birth control in the US than women. Over the past few years, rightwingers have started to speak more openly about the possibility of banning birth control. In 2022, for example, an Idaho Republican leader suggested he’d consider banning certain forms of birth control, including the morning-after pill. Around the same time the governor of Mississippi refused to rule out future contraception bans during an interview on NBC.This isn’t just all talk. Over the years the right has managed to undermine access to birth control in a number of alarming ways. In 2022, for example, an appeals court ruled that federally funded family planning centers in Texas must receive parental consent before prescribing birth control to teenagers. (Previously federal courts had found that the national title X program guaranteed minors the right to access birth control without parental involvement.) Then, this summer Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have recognized a legal right to contraception.Perhaps most importantly, anti-abortion activists have also been doggedly trying to argue that certain birth control methods, such as Plan B and certain intrauterine devices (IUDs), are abortifacients because they may prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs. While it’s unlikely that we’ll see any sort of direct push to outlaw access to contraceptives, expect to see anti-abortion laws sneakily widen to restrict access to birth control. As advocates have noted, Roe was not toppled in a day–and access to contraceptives won’t be overturned imminently. But anti-abortion extremists have made clear what their endgame is. And when these people tell you who they are, you’d better believe them.‘I’ve never worn trousers up a mountain, and I never will’I find cycling in a dress awkward. Meanwhile, Cecilia Llusco, one of Bolivia’s first female Indigenous mountain climbers, scales icy peaks in a pollera: a traditional voluminous floral skirt. Don’t miss this wonderful Guardian feature on the Cholita climbers of Bolivia–it has some incredible photographs.Melania Trump wants you to know she is passionately pro-choiceIn her new memoir the former first lady writes, “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body.” Good question Melania! Ever tried asking your husband that? Speaking of which, Melania’s decision to speak out about abortion rights a month before the election feels part of a calculated strategy by the Trump campaign to soften its rhetoric on abortion.Prominent Palestinian journalist Wafa Aludaini killed in an Israeli airstrikeWafa was killed alongside her husband, her five-year-old daughter and her seven-month-old son. As Reporters Without Borders recently noted: “At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza, there will soon be no-one left to keep you informed.”India’s government thinks criminalizing marital rape would be “excessively harsh”One in 25 women in India have faced sexual violence from their husbands, the BBC reports. And, of course, nothing happens to most of these men because marital rape is not a criminal offence in India. For years now, campaigners have been petitioning India’s supreme court to try and change this but have faced enormous resistance from the government, religious groups, and men’s rights activists. An affidavait submitted by India’s Interior Ministry on Thursday argued criminalizing marital rape “may seriously impact the conjugal relationship and may lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage.” It also said that while a man “does not have any fundamental right to violate the consent of his wife” including marital rape under anti-rape laws would be “excessively harsh” and “disproportionate”.Mexico’s first woman president announces reforms to battle gender discriminationOn her second full day in office, Claudia Sheinbaum said her government had proposed reforms to broaden women’s rights, including a constitutional guarantee of equal pay for equal work.EU court rules gender and nationality enough to grant Afghan women asylumAn important ruling by the European court of justice recognizes Afghan women as a persecuted group.The week in podtriarchyIn 2012 Melania Trump famously posted a photo of a smiling beluga whale with the caption “what is she thinking?” Despite the fact that entire podcast episodes have been devoted to this question, we still don’t know. Scientists have recently discovered, however, that bottlenose dolphins ‘smile’ at each other to communicate during social play. The open-mouth expression is meant to signal fun and avoid conflict. So, in other words, dolphins have better social skills than many politicians. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden issues terse words to Netanyahu over peace deal and election influence

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      Joe Biden had terse words at the White House on Friday for Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he didn’t know whether the Israeli prime minister was holding up a peace deal in the Middle East – where Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza and on a military offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon – in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. He added: “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know – but I’m not counting on that.”The US president made a surprise and rare appearance in the west wing briefing room and answered reporters’ questions there for the first time in his presidency.He was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Chris Murphy, a Democratic US senator of Connecticut, who said on CNN this week that he was concerned Netanyahu had little interest in a peace deal in part because of American politics.The two leaders have long managed a complicated relationship, but they are running out of space to maneuver as their views on the Israel-Gaza war diverge and their political futures hang in the balance.Biden has pushed for months for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza – and the president and his aides boosted the idea repeatedly that they were close to success – but a ceasefire has not materialized. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, has engaged in shuttle diplomacy to Israel and to peace talks via intermediaries, but to no avail and, in some cases, Netanyahu has publicly resisted the prospect while US and Israeli officials continue to talk in private about eking out a deal.Meanwhile, Israel has recently pressed forward on two fronts, pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah and conducting strikes in Gaza. And it has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack this week, as the region braced for further escalation.Biden said there had been no decision yet on what type of response there would be toward Iran, though there has been talk about Israel striking Iran’s oilfields: “I think if I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields.”Biden pushed back against the idea that he was seeking a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss the response to Iran. He wasn’t, he said.“I’m assuming when they make a decision on how they’re going to respond, we will then have a discussion,” he said.Netanyahu has grown increasingly resistant to Biden’s efforts. Biden has in turn publicly held up delivery of heavy bombs to Israel and increasingly voiced concerns over an all-out war in the Middle East and yet has never acquiesced to political calls at home or internationally for a halt on US arms sales to Israel.“I don’t believe there’s going to be an all-out war,” Biden said on Thursday evening. “I think we can avoid it. But there’s a lot to do yet.”Biden has remained consistent in his support for Israel in the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas attacks in Israel. Since then, with few exceptions, Biden has supported ongoing and enhanced US arms transfers to Israel while merely cautioning the Israelis to be careful to avoid civilian casualties.Biden has also ordered the US military to step up its profile in the region to protect Israel from attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran itself. In April, and again earlier this week, the US was a leading player in shooting down missiles fired by Iran into Israel.On Thursday, Biden said the US was “discussing” with Israel the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil infrastructure.His off-the-cuff remark, which immediately sent oil prices soaring, did not make clear whether his administration was holding internal discussions or talking directly to Israel, nor did he clarify what his attitude was to such an attack.Asked to clarify those comments, Biden told reporters on Friday: “Look, the Israelis have not concluded what they’re going to do in terms of a strike. That’s under discussion.”Kamala Harris also has not taken a different stance on arms sales but has spoken more assertively for months to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and has decried civilian killings in Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Man charged with threatening judge in Florida district that heard Trump case

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      A man from Illinois has been charged with making violent threats against a federal judge in the Florida district that has handled Donald Trump’s classified documents case, according to an indictment made public on Thursday.Eric James Rennert, 65, is facing five federal charges in the indictment which accuses him of communicating interstate threats and threatening to assault, kidnap and murder a federal judge.The communications also included threats to injure or kidnap members of the judge’s family, prosecutors allege.Court documents do not name the judge who received the threats but indicate they occurred in St Lucie county, Florida. US district judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the criminal case accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents, is based in that county along with another federal magistrate judge.Representatives for the US attorney’s office in Miami, which brought the indictment, and the federal court in the southern district of Florida did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The threats, which were made on three occasions in May and July, were intended to retaliate against the judge “on account of the performance of official duties”, according to the indictment.Rennert has been arrested and will be transported to Florida for his next court appearance, according to court records. He has not yet entered a plea.Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump during his presidency, and her approach to the classified documents case drew intense scrutiny. She dismissed all charges in July based on a finding that lead prosecutor and special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed to the role.Prosecutors are appealing Cannon’s ruling with the hopes of reviving the case. If they were to succeed, any trial would not take place until well after the 5 November presidential election, in which the Republican Trump faces Vice-President Kamala Harris.Cannon was also recently assigned to preside over the case of a man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump last month at his Florida golf course. A woman in Texas was sentenced to more than three years in prison in February after admitting to threatening Cannon, court records show.Federal judges have faced a rise in threats as part of an overall surge in violent rhetoric directed toward public officials in the United States. More

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      in US Politics

      Barack Obama to hit campaign trail for Kamala Harris to woo swing-state voters – US elections live

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      On Thursday evening, Kamala Harris enlisted the help of Republican former senator Liz Cheney for a campaign event in Wisconsin. The pair focused their speeches on Trump’s 2020 election lie.The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports this from the event:Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s most prominent conservative critics, appealed to the millions of undecided Americans who could decide the outcome of the 2024 election, asking them to “reject the depraved cruelty” of the former president.The daughter of Dick Cheney, the Republican former vice-president, said she had never voted for a Democrat before, but would do so “proudly” to ensure Trump never holds a position of public trust again. Her father will join her in casting his ballot for Harris.“I know that the most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution,” Cheney said, speaking from a podium adorned with the vice presidential seal. The crowd broke into a chant: “Thank you, Liz!” A large sign looming over them declared: “Country over party.”Cheney and Harris agree on little politically – only that Trump should not be allowed to serve a second term. But their union is part of an effort by the Harris campaign to win over Republican voters who, like Cheney, believe in “limited government” and “low taxes” but are repelled by Trump and his Maga movement.“No matter your political party, there is a place for you with us and in this campaign,” Harris said. “I take seriously my pledge to be a president for all Americans.”Good morning US politics readers.Former US president Barack Obama will crisscross the battleground states for Kamala Harris, with a kickoff in all-important Pennsylvania next week.According to a senior Harris campaign official, Obama will hold his first event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next Thursday, the beginning of blitz across the handful of rust belt and Sun belt states that will likely decide the 2024 election.Obama remains one of the Democrats’ most powerful surrogates, second perhaps only to his wife, Michelle Obama. His return to the campaign trail follows a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, where he cast Harris as a forward-looking figure and a natural heir to his diverse, youth-powered political coalition. Harris was one of Obama’s earliest supporters of what seemed like a long-shot presidential bid against Hillary Clinton. She knocked doors for him ahead of the Iowa caucuses in 2008. More than 15 years later, he will return the favor.With just 32 days away to the election, here’s what else is happening today:

      Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Flint, Michigan, this evening – one of the swing states critical to her winning the presidency. Her event comes a day after Donald Trump promised to make Michigan the “car capital of the world again”.

      Trump and Georgia governor Brian Kemp will visit Evans, Georgia, to receive a briefing on the devastation of Hurricane Helene. They’ll give a press conference at 3.45pm ET.

      JD Vance is in Lindale, Georgia, and will deliver remarks at 1 pm.

      Trump hosts a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at 7 pm. More

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      in Elections

      Trump January 6 case: five key points in the latest filing against former president

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      In a court filing unsealed on Wednesday, federal prosecutors argue that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution over the January 6 riots because he acted in a private capacity, and took advice from private advisers.The indictment seeks to make this case – that Trump acted in his private capacity, rather than his official one – because of a US supreme court ruling in July that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions taken as president.It also reveals further details about Trump’s alleged mood and actions (or lack of action) on the day, building on evidence that was provided in earlier briefs.In response to the new filing, the Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the brief “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional”. On Truth Social, Trump, writing in all-caps, called it “complete and total election interference.”Here are some key points made in the filing:‘Fundamentally a private’ schemeThe new court filing, in which Trump is referred to as “the defendant”, alleges that Trump’s plan that day was “fundamentally a private one”, and therefore not related to his duties as president but instead as a candidate for office.It reads: “The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.“He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.”The filing looks back to election day for Trump’s use of private advisers: “As election day turned to November 4, the contest was too close to project a winner, and in discussions about what the defendant should say publicly regarding the election, senior advisors suggested that the defendant should show restraint while counting continued. Two private advisors, however, advocated a different course: [name redacted] and [name redacted] suggested that the defendant just declare victory. And at about 2.20am, the defendant gave televised remarks to a crowd of his campaign supporters in which he falsely claimed, without evidence or specificity, that there had been fraud in the election and that he had won.”On 4 January, the filing says, a White House counsel was excluded from a meeting during which Trump sought to pressure Pence to help overturn the election result. Only a private attorney was present, the filing says: “It is hard to imagine stronger evidence” than this that Trump’s conduct was private.A presidential candidate alone in a dining room with Twitter and Fox NewsTrump’s day on 6 January started at 1am, with a tweet pressuring Pence to obstruct the certification of the results. Seven hours later, at 8.17am, Trump tweeted about it again. Shortly before his speech at the Ellipse, Trump called Pence and again pressured him to “induce him to act unlawfully in the upcoming session”, where Pence would be certifying the election results. Pence refused.At this point, according to the filing, Trump “decided to re-insert into his campaign speech at the Ellipse remarks targeting Pence for his refusal to misuse his role in the certification”.Trump gave his speech, and at 1pm, the certification process began at the Capitol.Trump, meanwhile, “settled in the dining room off of the Oval Office. He spent the afternoon there reviewing Twitter on his phone, while the dining room television played Fox News’ contemporaneous coverage of events at the Capitol.”It was from the dining room that Trump watched a crowd of his supporters march towards the Capitol. He had been there less than an hour when, at “approximately 2.24pm, Fox News reported that a police officer may have been injured and that ‘protestors … have made their way inside the Capitol.’“At 2.24pm, Trump tweeted, writing, ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!’”The filing reads: “The content of the 2.24pm tweet was not a message sent to address a matter of public concern and ease unrest; it was the message of an angry candidate upon the realization that he would lose power.”A minute later, the Secret Service evacuated Pence to a secure location.Trump, when told Pence had been evacuated, said: ‘So what?’The filing states that Trump said: “So what?” after being told that Pence had subsequently been taken to a secure location.The indictment notes that the government does not intend to use the exchange at trial. It argues, however, that the tweet itself was “unofficial”.The filing states that Pence “tried to encourage” Trump “as a friend” when news networks forecast a Biden win on 7 November. This again goes to the assertion that Trump acted in a private capacity.Pence allegedly told Trump: “You took a dying political party and gave it a new lease on life”.‘Fight like hell’ regardless The filing states Trump was overheard telling family members, amid his efforts to overturn the election results: “It doesn’t matter if you lose … you have to fight like hell.”“At one point long after the defendant had begun spreading false fraud claims, [name redacted] a White House staffer traveling with the defendant, overheard him tell family members: ‘It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.’”Trump knew his claims were falseThe filing states: “The evidence demonstrates that the defendant knew his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisors – acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity – told them they were not true.”Among these advisers was a person referred to as P9, a White House staffer who had been one of several attorneys who represented Trump in his first impeachment trial in the Senate in 2019 and 2020, according to the filing.In one private conversation, “when P9 reiterated to the defendant that [name redacted] would be unable to prove his false fraud allegations in court, the defendant responded, ‘The details don’t matter.’”P9 at one point after the election told Trump “that the campaign was looking into his fraud claims, and had even hired external experts to do so, but could find no support for them.
      He told the defendant that if the Campaign took these claims to court, they would get slaughtered, because the claims are all ‘bullshit’.” More

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      ‘People are giving, sharing’: Augusta comes together as Kamala Harris surveys damage

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      As Kamala Harris descended on Wednesday into Augusta, she met a city contemplating how much of their lives have been unmade by Hurricane Helene.“I am here to personally take a look at the devastation,” Harris said after receiving a briefing by emergency response leaders in Georgia. “It’s particularly devastating in terms of loss of life that this community has experienced, the loss of normalcy, and the loss of critical resources.”The Augusta area hasn’t quite drawn the national attention given to western North Carolina, with its washed-out roads and severe flooding. Augusta is still marginally functional. Hurricane Helene shaved the land here with a dull razor. The damage resembles a tornado strike more than a hurricane, said Leroy Redfield, describing pockets of destruction that make what survived all the more remarkable.“Driving in, in a mile you’ll see at least 20 broken power poles,” he said. “I mean broken in half.” Redfield has taken to watching in the morning to see where new poles go up; that’s where the power is going next.Most people here have been without power since Friday morning. Some had been unable to leave their homes for days, as tall poplar, live oak and cedar trees littered the streets. Uprooted trees line every major road. Trees along Augusta’s downtown strip lie on their sides, torn out of the sidewalk straight through four inches of concrete.View image in fullscreenAnd yet, just as Harris was offering her assessment of the damage a few blocks away, Sherman Gartrell was tossing lemon pepper wings in a food truck next to a toppled tree on Broad Street, feeding people for free as they came. A furniture store owner on Broad Street had paid for him to come down from Athens and help, Gartrell said.Broad Street still had power, though most places could only take cash because internet service outages had rendered credit card processing useless. Water was out. Most things were out, frankly. And yet, somehow, the street still had some bustle because everything everywhere else seemed to still be some flavor of broke.“We’ve found that people down south, they still do the right thing,” said Melanie Lumpkin of Augusta. Wednesday was the first she had been able to venture out of her neighborhood, she said. “People are giving, you know, sharing. We were at a store, and the guy needed $2 in cash, and every single person in line immediately reached for their wallet. People are sharing gas and food and bringing their neighbors cooked meats.”Lumpkin has a tree visiting her attic, and two more that took out her carport and shed. Augusta’s aggressive humidity has already caused mildew and rot in the house. Water is spotty; power is nonexistent. She’s insured, but the first quote to get the trees off of her home came in at $60,000, Lumpkin said.It’s too soon to assess whether the state and federal emergency response has been effective, her son Will Lumpkin said. “Augusta is really coming together, but at the same time, there’s still a long way to go. “I don’t think we were prepared. This isn’t going to be months. For this, it will be years.”But Mary Katherine Gorlich said this could have been much worse. “This would have been very different with someone else in the White House,” Gorlich said. The army veteran said she loved Augusta but had been considering her options overseas in the wake of a possible Joe Biden loss before Harris’s ascent.View image in fullscreenRepublican voters were aware that Donald Trump had visited Georgia recently. Nonetheless, most voters may be locked in at this point, even with a hurricane reshaping their lives.“Nobody’s changing,” said John Oates, taking refuge in an Augusta hotel while the power is out. “Nobody’s changing their mind.”The politics of catastrophe have yet to reveal themselves in Augusta. But the Lumpkins are worried that Augusta’s racially fractious local government will end up relegating Augusta to last place on the repair list.The White House appears to be taking some measures to short-circuit local and regional competition for relief.“The president and I have been paying close attention from the beginning to what we need to do to make sure federal resources hit the ground as quickly as possible, and that includes what was necessary to make sure that we provided direct federal assistance,” Harris said.“We are at our best when we work together and coordinate resources, coordinate our communications to maximum effect.”People living in one of the counties under an emergency order are eligible for a $750 Fema payment to offset losses. Upfront funds can be used to help with essential items like food, water, baby formula and other emergency supplies. Funds may also be available to repair storm-related damage to homes and personal property, as well as assistance to find a temporary place to stay.Fema personnel have been going door to door to assess people’s needs and help them apply, Harris said. More