US elections dwell: Harris to reply questions from undecided voters; Trump is the ‘definition of fascist’, says ex-chief of employees

Over the weekend, Elon Musk pledged to present away $1m a day to registered voters in battleground states within the US who signal a petition by his America Pac in assist of the primary and second amendments. He awarded the primary prize, a novelty verify the scale of a kitchen island, at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday and the second on Sunday in Pittsburgh. He says he’ll maintain doing it till the election on 5 November. The stunt is doubtlessly unlawful, consultants say.

After endorsing Donald Trump in July, Musk shortly based America Pac and funded it with $75m. For the previous a number of weeks, he’s been making a number of in-person marketing campaign appearances per day, focusing particularly on Pennsylvania, a swing state.

However, what does Musk need from all this politicking? My US colleague, Blake Montgomery, delves into this within the beneath explainer:

Along with worrying that the election can be rigged, now folks in Saginaw county are nervous that violence will accompany it.

Vanessa Guerra is resigned to questions from Donald Trump’s supporters in regards to the some ways by which American voters think about subsequent month’s presidential election is perhaps rigged in opposition to him.

However extra just lately the Saginaw county clerk, who’s overseeing the poll in a extremely contested patch of central Michigan, has confronted a brand new line of questioning at conferences referred to as to reassure distrustful voters.

“I did a presentation last week and, as usual, we had a lot of questions about the validity of election results. But now they’re also asking: Is it going to be safe to go to the polls on election day? Is something going to happen? That’s something new,” stated Guerra.

Probably the most consequential US presidential election of latest instances can also be more likely to be essentially the most disputed, notably if the outcomes are as shut as opinion polls recommend.

Republican officers are gearing up to stall and overturn the depend if it goes in opposition to Trump. In the meantime, the previous US president has warned of a massacre if he loses once more subsequent month, which voters have purpose to take critically within the wake of the January 6 storming of the US Capitol after he misplaced the final election.

Trump’s continued insistence that the 2020 vote was rigged in opposition to him – together with at a rally in Saginaw earlier this month – and that Democrats are plotting to steal subsequent month’s election, has left its mark.

In Michigan, a key swing state that Trump received by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016 after which misplaced to Joe Biden 4 years later, one in 5 folks say they don’t have confidence that votes can be counted precisely.

Throughout the US, simply 8% of Trump supporters say they’ve a substantial amount of confidence there can be a good election and solely 16% are very assured that their very own vote can be counted precisely, in keeping with YouGov. Kamala Harris’s supporters are way more trusting, with 72% having a substantial amount of confidence within the conduct of the election, though that also leaves massive numbers of Democrats additionally questioning the method.

Labour get together rejects declare its activists campaigning for Democrats have damaged US electoral legislation

Andrew Sparrow

The Labour get together has put out an announcement rejecting allegations that it broke US election legislation as a result of activists and employees members have been volunteering to assist the Democrats.

A Labour spokesperson stated:

It’s common observe for campaigners of all political persuasions from around the globe to volunteer in US elections.

The place Labour activists participate, they accomplish that at their very own expense, in accordance with the legal guidelines and guidelines.”

On the primary day of early voting in Wisconsin, Tim Walz referred to as Elon Musk a “dipshit” whereas Barack Obama stated of Donald Trump: “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this.”

Each have been talking at a rally in Madison, a rising Democratic get together stronghold, to encourage early voting and warn of the perils of a second Trump presidency. Obama went on to marketing campaign for Kamala Harris in Detroit on Tuesday night, alongside rapper Eminem, in an effort to drum up assist in Michigan the place polls recommend Harris and Trump are in a digital impasse.

The Democratic vice-presidential candidate ripped into Trump ally and Silicon Valley billionaire Musk, warning that he may very well be charged with regulating his personal companies if Trump have been elected. Musk has additionally promised the possibility to win $1m to voters in swing states who signal a petition linked to efforts to return Trump to energy.

Walz additionally slammed Trump, who this week served meals at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, accusing him of “cosplaying” as a working-class particular person and noting that the restaurant had closed to accommodate the presidential candidate. “It was a stunt,” stated Walz. “Fake orders for fake customers.”

“He is not the 2016 Donald Trump,” stated Walz, describing Trump’s promise to prosecute his political enemies. “He’s talking about sending the military against people who don’t support him. He’s naming names.”

Obama, who received in Wisconsin in 2008 and 2012, urged his Madison viewers to get to the polls and spent a lot of his speech attacking Trump.

“I wouldn’t be offended if you just walk out right now and go vote,” he stated.

“When he’s not complaining, he’s trying to sell you stuff,” he added, referring to Trump, who has raised funds by promoting gold-colored sneakers, bibles and $100,000 watches. “Who does that? You’re running for president, and you’re hawking merchandise.”

Fb web page with racist posts nonetheless seen for Republican Mark Robinson

George Chidi

Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate, recommended that individuals who can’t care for their youngsters must be sterilized, in keeping with considered one of a sequence of incendiary and racist social media posts from 2014 by way of 2019.

The commentary made in reference to Black households, which used phrases a white supremacist would discover applicable, predates his time because the state’s lieutenant governor, however a lot of it got here after his rise as a public determine on the fitting. A lot of the social media posts haven’t beforehand been reported.

“I have more respect for loyal DOGS than I do for PEOPLE who don’t take care of their children,” Robinson wrote on his Fb web page in 2014. The publish contained the hashtag “#haveyourdeadbeatsspayedandneutered”.

Robinson has been in a state of injury management for the previous couple of weeks. Final month, CNN revealed previous posts made underneath his profile on pornographic web sites, by which the conservative candidate for governor purportedly described himself as a “Black NAZI” and pined for a return to the times of slavery.

Robinson has denied making the feedback, castigated his detractors, attacked his opponent, the lawyer basic, Josh Stein, and launched a defamation lawsuit in opposition to CNN.

However the different feedback stay public on his social media web page.

“If you need a court order to tell you to take care of your children, then you probably need an operation to make sure you don’t have any more,” Robinson posted on Fb in 2016.

It was billed as a roundtable dialogue with Latino leaders, however the actuality of Donald Trump’s look at his Doral golf membership in Miami on Tuesday was a succession of adulatory monologues from his most loyal Latino supporters, interspersed with acquainted, prolonged rants from the previous president laden with grievances and insults.

Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent within the 5 November election, additionally courted Latino voters on Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo, bearing on creating financial alternative for Latino males.

Little of Trump’s dialog, such because it was, associated to points immediately affecting Latino voters, with whom Trump falsely claimed he was main within the polls regardless of vital proof on the contrary.

His remarks about immigration, for instance, have been largely restricted to baseless and often-aired claims that overseas nations, particularly Venezuela, have been opening their prisons to ship “violent gang members” and drug sellers into the US with army weapons.

And, his feedback addressed to the various enterprise homeowners and leaders current have been distinctly gentle on coverage, other than a promise to take care of the beneficiant tax cuts from his first time period in workplace.

“We gave you the biggest cut in taxes in the history of the country,” he stated. “We have a great foundation to build on so we have a lot of companies coming in very fast.”

Trump trails Harris in all battleground states amongst Latinos, a ballot for Voto Latino revealed Monday and cited by the Hill, discovered, whereas the latest AS/COA ballot tracker reveals a 56-31 desire for Harris nationally among the many 36 million eligible Latino voters.

Harris, in Tuesday’s Telemundo interview, emphasised the economic system, saying she would work to convey extra funds to group banks to assist Latino males safe small enterprise loans. “We need to construct a strong economy that supports the working class,” she stated.

“I know that Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify,” she stated in an interview in English that was translated into Spanish. “For that reason, I’m focused on seeing what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that better understand the community so we can give them that kind of loans.”

Forward of the upcoming presidential election, one massive US financial institution is supplementing its world in a single day workforce with a full buying and selling desk in New York to deal with the anticipated higher demand from purchasers, a supply on the financial institution who’s accustomed to the state of affairs has advised Reuters.

This financial institution additionally plans to regulate staffing wants as obligatory if a presidential choice is delayed.

Individually, a big retail brokerage is ensuring employees are readily available to reply to investor questions around-the-clock and is preserving tabs on social media websites reminiscent of Reddit for indicators of something surprising, an individual accustomed to the companies’ plans advised Reuters.

It has undertaken critiques of its techniques to make sure they will deal with any sudden improve in both volatility or buying and selling quantity, the particular person, who requested anonymity to talk about his firm’s plans, advised the information company.

Chris Isaacson, chief working officer at alternate operator Cboe World Markets, stated previous volatility occasions such because the pandemic, the 2020 US election and, just lately, the fallout from the yen carry commerce, have examined the corporate’s techniques.

“We build our markets to be able to handle at least two times the biggest peaks we’ve ever seen. So, we feel quite good about our resiliency and business continuity leading into the election,” he stated. Nonetheless, together with 24/7 employees, “we’ll have bolstered staff watching during the key hours here,” he stated.

A big US dealer seller is adjusting new rent coaching schedules and limiting any actions and conferences that take employees away from their telephones, a supply on the agency advised Reuters.

For Joe Hoffman, chief government officer at Mesirow Foreign money Administration in Chicago, it is going to be essential to have entry to relationship banking as it may be “really important during times of stress” when liquidity would possibly dry up on the screens.

Brian Hyndman, CEO of Blue Ocean Applied sciences LLC, whose automated buying and selling system powers in a single day buying and selling for Robinhood and dozens of different brokerage purchasers, stated he was ready for elevated buying and selling and volatility, however couldn’t predict by which property, in keeping with Reuters.

“We’ll probably have more hands on deck than in a typical overnight session to address and resolve technical issues, and more management and support staff,” stated Hyndman.

Banks, brokerages, funding managers and exchanges are including employees to deal with excessive buying and selling volumes on and round election day with markets anticipated to grow to be risky as outcomes are available, experiences Reuters.

Political occasions can set off wild gyrations that may drive market members to shortly unwind bets, elevating market, liquidity and different dangers that might strain buying and selling techniques and market infrastructure.

With Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump neck-and-neck in lots of polls forward of the 5 November vote, the prospect of no rapid winner being clear is heightening issues amongst buyers and merchants, experiences Reuters.

There may be additionally the danger of a contested election following Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in 2020. Trump has indicated he may not settle for the outcomes of this election if he loses.

This election is seen as pivotal as Harris and Trump have markedly completely different views on coverage that might have main implications for the economic system, overseas relations, markets and world commerce.

“We are preparing here from a market standpoint, for at least a week of uncertainty, of not knowing who that president is,” stated Grant Johnsey, regional head of shopper options for Capital Markets, at Northern Belief.

“This just means ensuring we have sufficient coverage to handle more volume and volatility, managing vacation schedules accordingly, and that we are prepared for intraday ups and downs as election news unfolds,” he stated.

Market members try to verify they aren’t caught off guard by surges in volatility. Latest surprises have included when the UK voted to depart the EU in 2016, in addition to when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton later that very same yr.

Former Trump chief of employees says ex-boss is ‘definition of fascist’

Luca Ittimani

Two weeks out from election day, Donald Trump’s former chief of employees has claimed his one-time boss “falls into the general definition of fascist”.

John Kelly, a former Marine basic and presidential aide from 2017 to 2019, made the extraordinary intervention on Tuesday in a sequence of coordinated interviews. Talking to the New York Occasions, he stated the previous Republican president “prefers the dictator approach to government” and is the “only president that has all but rejected what America is all about”. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s marketing campaign, advised the Occasions that Kelly’s accounts have been “debunked stories” and that Kelly had “beclowned” himself.

Talking to the Atlantic, Kelly recounted Trump saying he wished his army personnel confirmed him the identical deference Nazi generals confirmed Adolf Hitler. Trump’s marketing campaign denied the alternate, with an adviser telling CNN:

That is completely false. President Trump by no means stated this.”

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz stated the reported feedback about Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell”. “Folks, the guardrails are gone,” Walz advised a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday. “Trump is descending into this madness.”

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

Barack Obama rapped Eminem’s signature hit Lose Your self to a crowd in Detroit throughout a marketing campaign rally for Kamala Harris.

He was preceded by Eminem himself, who advised the group in his residence metropolis:

It’s essential to make use of your voice, I’m encouraging everybody to get out and vote, please … I don’t suppose anybody desires an America the place persons are anxious about retribution of what folks will do when you make your opinion identified. I feel vice-president Harris helps a future for this nation the place these freedoms and lots of others can be protected and upheld.”

Obama opened his ensuing speech by saying: “I gotta say, I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous, but I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem,” earlier than segueing into Lose Your self’s opening traces: “I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting …”

He joked that he thought Eminem could be performing and he could be a visitor star, including: “Love me some Eminem.”

The previous president is an avowed music fan, sharing his favorite songs twice a yr in official posts on his social media. Summer season 2024’s picks included songs by up to date pop names reminiscent of Beyoncé, Tyla and Rema alongside older tracks by Nick Drake, the Supremes and cosmic jazz musician Pharoah Sanders.

Obama went on to excoriate Donald Trump in his speech, recalling how Trump expressed doubt in regards to the election ends in 2020:

As a result of Donald Trump was keen to unfold lies about voter fraud in Michigan, protesters got here down, banged on the home windows, shouting, ‘Let us in. Stop the count.’ Ballot employees inside being intimidated … all as a result of Donald Trump couldn’t settle for shedding … there’s completely no proof that this man thinks about anyone however himself.”

He questioned Trump’s psychological health for the function of president, saying:

You’d be anxious if Grandpa was performing like this. However that is coming from somebody who desires unchecked energy.”

Keir Starmer has insisted he can preserve a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s marketing campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” within the US election.

The Trump marketing campaign filed a authorized grievance in a single day in opposition to Labour officers travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

The letter, which was despatched to the US Federal Election Fee, stated that these volunteering efforts and experiences of contact between Labour and the Harris marketing campaign amounted to “illegal foreign national contributions”.

A press release on DonaldJTrump.com on Tuesday night time claimed that the “far-left” Labour get together has “inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric”.

In response Starmer insisted he had a “good relationship” with Trump which might not be jeopardised by the grievance.

The prime minister stated that get together officers volunteering for Harris forward of the US presidential election on 5 November have been “doing it in their spare time” fairly than of their capability working for Labour.

Talking to reporters travelling with him to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, Starmer stated:

The Labour get together … volunteers, have gone over just about each election. They’re doing it of their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I feel with different volunteers over there.

That’s what they’ve achieved in earlier elections, that’s what they’re doing on this election and that’s actually easy.”

Requested if the grievance risked jeopardising his relationship with Trump if he turns into president once more, the UK prime minister stated:

No. I hung out in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my goal in doing that was to be sure that between the 2 of us we established a great relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time.”

We had a great, constructive dialogue and, in fact as prime minister of the UK I’ll work with whoever the American folks return as their president of their elections that are very shut now.”

US vice-president Kamala Harris will maintain a city corridor with undecided voters on CNN on Wednesday, after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rejected a suggestion to debate the Democratic nominee for a second time, experiences Reuters.

Trump will headline a rally Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia with company Tucker Carlson and Robert F Kennedy Jr, because the race for the White Home counts all the way down to lower than two weeks.

Pennsylvania and Georgia are amongst seven battleground states that can determine who wins the presidency. Each candidates are more likely to spend a lot of the remainder of their campaigns in these states, attempting to steer the small sliver of voters who’re nonetheless undecided to again them within the 5 November election.

Harris tried and didn’t push Trump to comply with a second presidential debate on CNN after she was thought of to have received the primary and solely presidential debate between the 2 candidates, which occurred in September on ABC Information.

Reuters experiences that Hariss’s televised city corridor will happen earlier than a dwell viewers of undecided voters from Pennsylvania in Delaware County, exterior Philadelphia.

Harris held a marginal 46% to 43% lead over the previous president, in keeping with a latest Reuters/Ipsos ballot.

Extra on this story in a second, however first, listed below are the most recent updates:

• Surrogates campaigning for Trump and Harris are fanning out throughout the US this week. Harris’s vice-presidential decide, Tim Walz, will journey to North Carolina and Pennsylvania, whereas Trump’s operating mate JD Vance will head to Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.

• UK prime minister Keir Starmer has insisted he can preserve a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s marketing campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” within the US election. The Trump marketing campaign filed a authorized grievance in a single day in opposition to Labour officers travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

• Harris herself stated she has little question that the US was prepared for a feminine president, in an interview with NBC Information’s Hallie Jackson. “I’m clearly a woman. I don’t need to point that out to anyone,” Harris stated with fun. “The point that most people really care about is: can you do the job and, do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”.

• Harris courted Hispanic voters selling small enterprise loans for Latino males, in an interview with Noticias Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro. Harris pledged to drive extra funds to group banks to assist Latino males entry small enterprise loans. “Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify,” she stated.

• Trump additionally pitched to Hispanic voters, holding a morning spherical desk with Latino leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. Trump hit acquainted speaking factors however took his time in attending to problems with significance to the voting bloc. The occasion concluded with a gaggle of outstanding evangelists praying as they stood round Trump with their fingers on his shoulders, whereas he sat along with his eyes closed.

• On the similar occasion, the previous president hurled a sequence of private assaults at his opponent, calling Harris “lazy as hell” and “low IQ”. He was referring to Harris holding no public marketing campaign occasions on Tuesday, as a substitute recording the 2 interviews after a busy day of campaigning with Liz Cheney on Monday. At a later rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump continued the invective: “Does she drink? Is she on drugs?”

• Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz held a rally with former president Barack Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, the place he slammed Trump’s staged marketing campaign occasion at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s as a “stunt” and mocked Elon Musk for “jumping around, skipping like a dipshit” earlier than holding one other rally in Wisconsin that night.

• Obama, in the meantime, ridiculed Trump’s boasts on the economic system and solid his rambling speeches as an indication of psychological deterioration. “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this,” stated Obama. “But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”

• JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, dodged a query about whether or not he would strip immigrants with authorized authorisation of their standing whereas campaigning in Peoria, exterior Phoenix, Arizona. Vance urged supporters to “work our rear ends off for the next two weeks” to show the swing state purple.

• Regardless of some setbacks, Republicans vowed to press forward in bids to dam some abroad ballots. Court docket rulings rejected Republic Nationwide Committee efforts to dam some Individuals dwelling overseas from voting in North Carolina and Michigan however the get together will sustain its aggressive authorized marketing campaign.

• Arab Individuals barely favour Trump over Harris, in keeping with a brand new ballot. The survey, carried out by the Arab Information Analysis and Research Unit together with YouGov, reveals a impasse in Michigan, a key battleground state with a big Arab American inhabitants.