Trump defends New York rally widely condemned for racist remarks as a ‘love fest’

During his speech on Tuesday, former president Donald Trump described his New York rally, which has been widely condemned for racist remarks, as a “love fest”.

“I don’t think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden …” Trump told a crowd at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “The love in that room, it was breathtaking.”

“Politicans that have been doing this for a long time said there’s never been an event so beautiful, it was like a love fest, an absolute love fest, and it was my honor to be involved.”

Donald Trump falsely said Democrats had staged a “coup” to force Joe Biden to drop his re-election bid, as his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, planned a rally in Washington, DC, that will remind voters of the violent attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

At an event at his Florida estate, his accusation that Democrats had unfairly forced Biden out of the race recalled Trump’s false claims that he had lost the 2020 election due to fraud, Reuters reports.

They stole the presidency of the United States. You can call it a coup, you can call it whatever. But they stole it. The way they took that away from him was not right,” Trump said.

US President Joe Biden pauses as he concludes his address to the nation about his decision to not seek reelection, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 24, 2024.
US President Joe Biden pauses as he concludes his address to the nation about his decision to not seek reelection, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 24, 2024. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images

Harris is due to hold a rally this evening at the Ellipse, a park near the White House where on January 6, 2021, Trump once again urged supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the US Capitol, where lawmakers were due to certify his loss.

Four people died in the ensuing riot, and one police officer who defended the Capitol died the following day. Trump has said if he is re-elected he would pardon the more than 1,500 participants who have been charged with crimes.

Harris will call on Americans tonight to “turn the page” on Trump while stressing her plans to lower costs and make the economy work for middle-class Americans, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters.
This combination picture shows Trump supporters storming the US Capitol on the afternoon of 6 January 2021, and then-president Donald Trump arriving for a speech at the ellipse near the White House that morning, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and go to the US Capitol to try to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.
This combination picture shows Trump supporters storming the US Capitol on the afternoon of 6 January 2021, and then-president Donald Trump arriving for a speech at the ellipse near the White House that morning, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and go to the US Capitol to try to overturn his loss to Joe Biden. Composite: AFP, Getty Images
Summary

Hello, US election live blog readers, it’s a packed day on the campaign trail for all the candidates, with just a week left before election day next Tuesday. We’ll bring you the news as it happens.

Here’s where things stand:

Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former Republican president George W Bush and granddaughter of former president George HW Bush, has revealed that she is campaigning for vice-president Kamala Harris. In an interview with People Magazine, Pierce Bush said that she is “hopeful” that Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will “move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”

Donald Trump held a press conference at his Florida residence and described the marathon New York rally that he held at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan two days ago – which has been widely condemned for racist remarks from speakers – as a “love fest”. He said: “The love in that room, it was breathtaking.”

JD Vance, the GOP vice presidential candidate, has been rallying in Saginaw in the swing state of Michigan, 100 miles north of Detroit, and criticized opposing politicians calling Trump a fascist in the last week. That includes Harris, whom Vance, a US Senator from Ohio, called unqualified to be president.

The White House announced that Joe Biden will travel to his childhood home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania for political engagements on Saturday, 2 November. The US president has campaigned often in the city as a way of reminding the electorate of his working class roots and pro-union politics.

Rapper 50 Cent said that he turned down a $3m offer to perform at Trump’s controversial rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, according to Variety magazine. Deadline also reported that 50 Cent also confirmed that he was also offered money to perform at the Republic National Convention in the summer, but turned it down because he prefers to stay away from party politics.

New polling has found that Trump’s support among young Black men has decreased since August, while Harris’s has grown. A new NAACP survey, conducted between Oct. 11-17, found that 21% of Black men under 50 years old said they would for the former president, down from 27% in August. Harris’s support among this group jumped from 51% to 59 % over that same time frame, the researchers said.

Steve Bannon, the longtime Trump Maga ally, is back on air hosting his podcast after being released from prison this morning. He served a four-month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena related to the investigation into the 6 January, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Trump who were intent on overturning his loss to Biden in the 2020 election.

Most Americans are prepared to accept the election results as legitimate, according to a new ABC/Ipsos poll released today. And more than 48.6m Americans have reportedly voted early in this year’s presidential election.

Chris Stein

Kamala Harris and her allies have lately stepped up their accusations that Donald Trump is a fascist.

They were aided last week by his former chief of staff John Kelly saying publicly that he believes his ex-boss met the definition of a politician who believes in the governing philosophy typically associated with the Nazis.

In Saginaw, Michigan on Tuesday, JD Vance accused Democrats of being disrespectful with that accusation, comparing it to the experience of a World War II veteran who had led the pledge of allegiance earlier in the event.

“Rather than persuade their fellow Americans, they’ve decided that they’re going to call their fellow Americans Nazis and fascists. And I think it’s disgusting … and a person who would close out her campaign by running and attacking her fellow Americans has no business leading the greatest nation on Earth,” Vance said.

“It occurs to me that when they attack us as Nazis, it’s so disgraceful because there are people in this room right now who have grandparents, who have parents, or who they themselves fought in World War II.”

In an interview with People Magazine, Pierce Bush said that she is “hopeful” that Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will “move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”

She added that over the weekend, she campaigned in Pennsylvania for the Harris-Walz campaign.

“It was inspiring to join friends and meet voters with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend,” she said.

A woman in Minnesota has been charged with three felonies for allegedly attempting to submit a mail in ballot for her recently deceased mother, according to the Associated Press.

The probable cause statement reported by AP revealed that during an interview with a sheriff’s lieutenant, the woman admitted to filling out her mother’s ballot after her death and that her mother was an “ardent” Trump supporter who had wanted to vote for him before she died.

The Star Tribune also reported that the woman signed her late mother’s signature on two absentee ballots.
Trump defends Madison Square Garden rally as ‘love fest’

During his speech on Tuesday, former president Donald Trump described his New York rally, which has been widely condemned for racist remarks, as a “love fest”.

“Politicans that have been doing this for a long time said there’s never been an event so beautiful, it was like a love fest, an absolute love fest, and it was my honor to be involved.”

Chris Stein

Joe Biden has been underwater in public opinion polls for most of his presidency, a problem that came to a head in his disastrous debate against Donald Trump in June, which set off a chain of events that led to Kamala Harris taking his place atop the Democratic ticket.

JD Vance’s message to voters in Saginaw today – he’s focusing most of his time talking about Harris and not her running mate Tim Walz, who he debated earlier this month – is that Harris and Biden are substantively the same – and the vice-president has nothing new to offer.

“I think the fact that so many of our fellow citizens are telling us they’re worse off, and they’re telling us that because they are, that explains why Kamala Harris is going around running as far away as she can from the policies of Joe Biden” Vance said.

He continued, “in fact, you know, between her copying Donald Trump’s policies and her pretending that she doesn’t even know who Joe Biden is, I’m half convinced that tomorrow on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris is going to show up in a long red tie and a red Maga hat, realizing that the American people just haven’t had it anymore.”

Vance mocked Harris, saying: “She’s copying all of Donald Trump’s policy, she might as well copy [his] style too. You know, just complete the bit Kamala. It’s not working so far. Just lean into it a little bit more.”

Chris Stein

Poll after poll has shown that Americans feel the country is on the wrong path, and are looking for change. Speaking in Saginaw today, JD Vance sought to convince voters in the seat of a county that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 then Joe Biden four years later that the Democratic vice-president would not transform the country in the ways that they want:

“As much as Kamala Harris pretends that she is the candidate of change, she is the sitting vice president, she signed off, she bragged about being the last person in the room after the disastrous policies the last four years were made” Vance said.

He continued: “You cannot, Kamala Harris, pretend that you had nothing to do with the Biden administration when you are the sitting vice president. You can’t pretend you had nothing to do with the trillions of dollars in new spending when you cast the tie-breaking vote on trillions of dollars in new spending, you cannot pretend to be the candidate of change when your party has been running the show for the last four years, and the American people have suffered because of it.”

Chris Stein

JD Vance was never involved with “The Apprentice”, the reality show that made Donald Trump even more of a household name before he entered politics.

But in his speeches, the Ohio senator and vice-presidential nominee has adopted Trump’s “you’re fired” catchphrase from the show.

During his remarks on Tuesday in Michigan, Vance said:

I think in seven days, the great state of Michigan is going to tell Kamala Harris, we don’t want any more [of] your word salad. We don’t even want any more of your broken policies. You are fired. Go back to California, where [you] already belong. We want a real president who fights for the American people.

Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are all swing states that helped put Trump in the White House eight years ago, but which Joe Biden reconquered in 2020. This year, polls show voters in all three are essentially evenly divided between Trump and Harris.

Chris Stein

JD Vance continued on with one of several attacks he would make on the Democratic vice-president over the course of his speech.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life where, when you ask Kamala Harris what she wants to do for the American people, ask specifically Kamala Harris, how do you plan to fix the inflation that your policies have caused, how do you plan to make it more affordable for our fellow citizens to be able to buy groceries, for example? How are you going to fix the very problems that your policies created? She’ll say, Well, I grew up in a middle class family” Vance said.

He continued “and when you ask her, you know about the terrible chaos at the southern border, or the chaos that we have all over the globe, how are you going to address the problems that your policies cause? She’ll say, well, you know, when I worked at McDonald’s, I was really good at making the hash browns. And I don’t know if I even buy that.”

Chris Stein

JD Vance just took the stage here at a city recreation center in Saginaw, Michigan, where he explained to the crowd why he believes Kamala Harris is not qualified to lead the country.

“We all agree, in this room, that politics is a little absurd from time to time, and sometimes we ought to poke fun at the absurdity of our political process. But you know what’s the most absurd thing about American politics in 2024? That a person like Kamala Harris thinks she can actually lead the United States of America,” the Ohio senator told the crowd as he campaigns in one of the “Blue Wall” swing states that Republicans are hoping to win this year.

The White House has announced that president Joe Biden will travel to his childhood home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania for political engagements on Saturday, 2 November.

Biden last visited Scranton in September to attend the funeral of one of his childhood friends.

Vice-president Kamala Harris’s campaign will become the first political campaign to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere.

The news was first reported on Tuesday by 8 News Now in Las Vegas, which added that the ads will coincide with Harris’s visit to Las Vegas on Thursday.

The campaign hopes the imagery will reach millions of voters in Nevada and online, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign told the outlet.

Josh Marcus Blank, who does communications for the Harris campaign also posted the news on Tuesday.
Trump addresses crowd at Mar-a-Lago

Trump is now speaking to a crowd at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

The former president opened his remarks by referring to a story out of Pennsylvania this week where hundreds of ballot applications are being investigated for potential fraud.

Trump then quickly moved on to attacking vice-president Kamala Harris and is now discussing the issue of immigration in the United States.

Trump so far not addressed the controversial remarks made by a comedian at the Trump rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where Puerto Rico was described as a “floating island of garbage.”

American rapper 50 Cent said that he turned down a $3m offer to perform at Donald Trump’s controversial rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, according to Variety.

In an interview on Tuesday morning on “The Breakfast Club” host DJ Envy asked the rapper whether it’s true that Trump offered him money to endorse him, to which he responded yes, adding “I got a call, but they wanted me [for] Sunday.”

“They offered three million dollars to do it,” 50 Cent added.

Deadline also reported that 50 Cent also confirmed that he was also offered money to perform at the Republic National Convention, but turned it down because he prefers to stay away from politics.
Curtis JacksonRapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson performs at the start of his “Final Lap Tour” at Hamburg’s Barclays Arena, in Germany, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.
Curtis Jackson
Rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson performs at the start of his “Final Lap Tour” at Hamburg’s Barclays Arena, in Germany,

As we wait for former president Donald Trump to take the stage for his press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida – where he is more than an hour behind schedule – a new poll of voters in Michigan was released today showing how Trump and Kamala Harris are neck and neck in the key battleground state.

The survey, conducted by Emerson College Polling/RealClearWorld between October 25-27, found that among Michigan voters 49% support Trump, while 48% support Harris.

2% were undecided and 1% plan on voting for a third party.

“With one week until Election Day, the race remains a toss-up,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
Harris support among young Black men grows as Trump’s dips, poll suggests

New polling has found that Donald Trump’s support among young Black men has decreased since August, while Kamala Harris’s has grown.

A new NAACP survey, conducted between Oct. 11-17, found that 21% of Black men under 50 years old said they would for the former president, down from 27% in August.

Harris’s support among this group jumped from 51% to 59 % over that same time frame, the researchers said.

Today, during a press briefing, the NAACP unveiled its final pre-election round of polling results outlining shifting attitudes and issue priorities of millions of Black voters.