Election 2024 live updates: Vance defends Trump’s ‘enemies within’ comments; Harris reaches out to Black voters in Philadelphia

Former president Donald Trump will have a rally in New York on Sunday, and Kamala Harris is making several stops in Philadelphia. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris is making several stops in Philadelphia on Sunday to meet voters, including at a Black church and a barbershop. Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who appeared on several Sunday shows, defended Donald Trump’s comments about using the military against Americans. Trump is scheduled to host a rally on Sunday afternoon in the 19,500-seat Madison Square Garden in New York. Speakers will include supporters such as Elon Musk, Rudy Giuliani and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

WashingtonPost staff
Trump, Harris target voters with dueling ads during Eagles-Bengals game

Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are making a last-minute push to target voters with dueling advertisements to air during Sunday’s football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Could the Trump-Musk bromance force a NASA pivot to Mars?

NASA has long declared that it intends to send astronauts to Mars, but not right away. First comes landing on the moon, again. Mars remains on the back burner.

That’s not daring enough for Elon Musk, or for his thousands of SpaceX employees who wear “Occupy Mars” T-shirts while cheering the company’s rocket launches. Musk has said on his social media site, X, that it is possible SpaceX will send people to Mars in just four years — and he’s getting a thumbs up from Donald Trump.

This is an excerpt from a full story.
This purple swath of Maine could determine control of Congress

WILTON, Maine — In an increasingly polarized country, Maine’s massive 2nd Congressional District — the largest east of the Mississippi River — is a rare expanse of purple. Stretching from the coast to the Canadian border, it is one of a small number of districts that voted for Trump in 2020 but is represented by a Democrat in Congress.

In November’s election, the district is not just unusual, but unusually consequential.

Donald Trump fans are trickling into Madison Square Garden ahead of his rally here. Police have closed many blocks to traffic, and a handful of protesters are gathered with signs calling Trump a Nazi and saying the GOP presidential nominee should be in prison. Someone is blasting an upbeat song built around the phrase “Donald Trump’s a convicted felon.”

Others nearby are mingling in Trump gear; pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson is in the crowd.
Elon Musk says Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was not a violent insurrection

Return to menu

Naomi Nix avatar

Billionaire Elon Musk defended former president Donald Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and argued the violent mob was not trying to overthrow the government.

Musk said during a town hall in Pennsylvania on Saturday night that the media is wrong to characterize the rioters who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers were convening to certify the 2020 election results as “some sort of violent insurrection.”

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Long before he became one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign surrogates, South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California, according to former business associates, court records and company documents obtained by The Washington Post.

This is an excerpt from a full story.
Vance defends Trump on using U.S. military against Americans

In a contentious CNN interview, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Donald Trump would use the military against Americans who riot and oppose his policies, defining them as “left-wing lunatics.” In the past month, Trump has repeatedly vowed to pursue “the enemy within,” identifying Democratic leaders in Congress as part of this group.
Harris and Walz plan to visit all 7 battleground states in coming days

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz plan to barnstorm all seven battleground states over the next several days in a get-out-the-vote effort in the final days of the 2024 election. The campaign said the plans include:

Monday: Walz will stop in Manitowoc and Waukesha, Wisconsin, before joining Harris for a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an event that will include a performance by the singer Maggie Rogers.
Vance, concurring with Trump, says Democrats are greater threat than foreign adversaries

Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance contended that Democrats such as former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Vice President Kamala Harris are not as easy to handle as foreign adversaries, backing up former president Donald Trump’s assertion that political foes are “the enemy from within.”

According to an excerpt from NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Vance said Trump did mean to say that political opponents pose a greater threat to the country than foreign enemies.
Harris talks increasingly about her faith but walks a careful line

As Kamala Harris runs for president, she increasingly invokes her spiritual upbringing in ways that suggest it is a quiet but integral part of who she is. Like many parts of her biography, the vice president has an eclectic background when it comes to religion that is both an embodiment of a changing America and a reflection of her unusual path.

Her faith has not always been central to her message on the campaign trail, but it has come up more frequently during recent interview.

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he would be loyal to Donald Trump or the Constitution — a choice former vice president Mike Pence said he had to make on Jan. 6, 2021 — JD Vance said he’d be loyal to the Constitution but denied there was any conflict between the two. When host Kristen Welker twice pressed, “Over Trump?” Vance pivoted quickly to inflation.
Analysis: In ‘swingiest’ Pennsylvania county, Democrats rely on anti-Trump fervor

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris have a very distinct issue they have focused on here.

“I hate him,” Mary Ellen Paglione, 70, said, unprompted, as she walked down her driveway.

“I never vote for the idiot,” John Redding, 68, a retired General Motors warehouse worker, said. “I grew up with the idiot. He used to go on Howard Stern when Howard Stern wanted to become the shock jock.”

JD Vance declined to call Russian President Vladimir Putin an “enemy,” referring to him instead as an “adversary” and a “competitor.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Vance said that while he doesn’t “condone” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will be necessary to negotiate with Russia to end the war. He added that he considers China the “biggest threat” to the United States.
Michelle Obama implores men to support Harris to protect women’s health

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Former first lady Michelle Obama delivered an impassioned plea Saturday to voters, particularly men, about the risks that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses to women’s health, warning that lives young and old are at stake this election.

“I’m asking y’all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously,” she said. “Please do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue of what we’re going through.”

This is an excerpt from a full story.
The new dark money: How influencers get paid big bucks to court your vote

Political campaigns and their surrogates are pouring millions of dollars into social media influencers with scant regulatory oversight or public transparency, as they embrace a marketing tactic that has revolutionized the U.S. economy.

This is an excerpt from a full story.
How Trump talks: Abrupt shifts, profane insults, confusing sentences

Donald Trump debuted a name for his idiosyncratic, digressive speaking style this summer: “the weave.”

The Republican presidential nominee, now 78, was frustrated with news coverage describing his speeches as rambling and speculating about cognitive decline, according to people who have talked with him, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.