Key events
Hugo Lowell
With several hours to go until Trump’s scheduled speaking time at Madison Square Garden, the venue is already fully filled in the lower and mid sections. The difference today compared with some other Trump rallies is that there is seating, including for the space in front of the stage.
Overhead, the jumbotron is flashing Trump’s campaign slogans, such as “No Tax on Tips” and “Make America Wealthy Again”, but there’s also the occasional ad for people to buy Maga hats. Most people here are already wearing Maga hats so it’s unclear how many people are buying.
A day after Joe Biden visited Arizona to formally apologize for the federal government’s role in the American Indian boarding school system, Tim Walz visted the state to campaign in the capital of the Navajo Nation – a symbol of Native voters’ potential sway in the presidential election.
Wearing a turquoise necklace and horned toad pin, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate spoke yesterday alongside Arizona senator Mark Kelly as about 750 supporters held aloft signs reading “Sko Coach!” (slang for “Let’s Go Coach!”) and “Yíiyáh Man!” (Diné for “scary”) alongside a sillouette of Donald Trump.
“I understand that it is a privilege to be standing here on Navajo land,” Walz said. “I am grateful that you would see fit during the year as we talk about your vote to make Kamala Harris president of the United States, for your incredible hospitality.”
Walz also acknowledged the flags flying at half-staff in the Navajo Nation Veterans Memorial Park, where the event was held. “The Navajo Nation and the nation of the United States lost a treasure in John Kinsel Sr, one of the original Navajo Code Talkers,” Walz said, noting the code talker who died last week at the age of 107.
Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz speaking in front of the Window Rock and acknowledging the late Navajo Nation Code Talker John Kinsel Sr. pic.twitter.com/3qbEbciYWU
— Arlyssa D. Becenti (@ABecenti) October 26, 2024
Navajo Nation president Buu Nygren, who invited the Harris-Walz campaign to visit the capital of the largest tribe in the United States, also spoke at the event. “Governor Walz coming here today recognizes the voice of Native Americans and the huge impact we will have at the polls this year,” Nygren said.
Tim Walz is in Window Rock, AZ today as the Harris Walz campaign stops on Navajo Nation. While driving here, I saw Trump supporters driving in Gallup with campaign flags attached to their vehicles. Here are some photos from what I’ve seen so far at this event. pic.twitter.com/ktQdMyhYFw
— Noel Smith (@nsmithdt) October 26, 2024
Walz’s visit to the Navajo Nation comes as Kamala Harris is trailing in the polls in Arizona, a state that Biden famously won in 2020, largely due to the support of Native American voters. If Harris wins the election, making Walz her vice-president, Minnesota Lt Gov Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, would become the first Native American woman to serve as a state’s governor.
Democratic leaders have tried to make inroads among Native voters in recent weeks. On Friday, Biden traveled to the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix to apologize for the US government’s role in forcing thousands of Native American children to attend Indian boarding schools – a policy which has been widely recognized as an element of genocide. And on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Democratic National Committee announced that it had launched a “six-figure ad campaign” aimed at turning out Native American voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska. It is the party’s third Native-focused campaign this year, and “the most the DNC has ever spent on a campaign targeting Native voters”.
An array of big tech executives have spoken with Donald Trump in recent days, seeking to rekindle their relationships with the ex-president as the possibility of his return to office hangs by a narrow margin, CNN reports. In recent weeks, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Amazon’s Andy Jassy have all called Trump. Earlier this summer, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also reached out to Trump after his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“There are some that seem to be waking up to the fact that like: ‘Holy sh*t, this guy might get elected again. I don’t want to have him, his administration, going after us,’” a person close to Trump told CNN. “What he’s saying out loud, I think they hear, and they’re taking it seriously.”
As CNN reports: “Whoever is sworn in next year will immediately face decisions over whether to continue President Joe Biden’s crackdown on Big Tech.”
The Biden administration has gone after Apple and Google for violating antitrust laws in still pending lawsuits. Read more here:
Campaigning in Nevada today, Tim Walz has criticized Donald Trump’s planned rally at Madison Square Garden this evening as “a direct parallel” to a Nazi rally held at the venue in 1939. The comparison comes in the final days of a race where the Harris-Walz campaign has increasingly tried to draw attention to statements previous Trump appointees have made calling their former boss a “fascist”.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid 1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.” – Tim Walz in Henderson, NV pic.twitter.com/wQxz24YwcF
— Dylan Wells (@dylanewells) October 27, 2024
On 20 February 1939, in the lead-up to the second world war, 20,000 people attended a pro-Hitler rally at Madison Square Garden organized by the German American Bund.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid 1930s,” Walz said. “Don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”
Earlier this month, New York Democratic state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose district includes the Garden, called on the venue to cancel the rally, saying: “Allowing Trump to hold an event at MSG is equivalent to the infamous Nazis rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.”
Here’s Edward Helmore with more on the 1939 rally:
Ramon Antonio Vargas
Dan Osborn told ABC News on Sunday that he hopes to kick off a “national movement” if his run for a US senate seat in Nebraska as an independent candidate topples Republican incumbent Deb Fischer.
Describing himself as “frustrated” with US politics’ two-party system, Osborn has a slight edge – 47.8% to 46.4% – over Fischer, according to a polling index from the Hill/Decision Desk HQ. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has shifted the contest toward Osborn, moving it from a solidly Republican race to one that now only leans in that direction, as the Hill noted.
Osborn has gotten to this point while refusing all party endorsements, even as Democrats have supported his first-time candidacy. He has also effectively portrayed the two-term Fischer as someone beholden to so many interests that in one campaign ad Osborn argued that she should wear sponsorship patches like racecar drivers do.
“I think this is the start of something special,” Osborn said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “People are ready for it. And I want to be a part of it.”
Fischer’s backers include the Republican White House nominee Donald Trump, who won all five of Nebraska’s electoral college votes when he captured the presidency in 2016 and then took four as Joe Biden defeated him in 2020. The cornhusker state’s two US senators and three US House representatives are all Republicans, making Osborn’s credible challenge against Fischer that much more notable.
Democrats and Republicans are, respectively, trying to defend 23 and 11 US Senate seats during the 5 November presidential election. And as ABC also noted, if he wins, Osborn could help decide which party controls the chamber depending with whom he chooses to caucus.
Osborn is a Navy veteran and former union president who led a strike against the cereal giant Kellog’s in 2021.
Harris campaign slowballs Biden’s offers to campaign – report
In the final days of the 2024 election, Kamala Harris’s campaign has slowballed Joe Biden’s offers to campaign for his vice-president, Axios reports.
“President Biden wants to campaign for Vice President Harris in the last days before the election,” the outlet writes. “Harris’ campaign keeps responding: We’ll get back to you, three people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.”
Although it’s grateful for Biden’s service, Harris’s team is wary of aligning her with the increasingly unpopular president. “He’s a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward,” a person familiar with the situation told Axios.
Yesterday, Biden began campaigning for Harris on his own, attending union events in Pittsburgh. There, he reportedly called Republican White House nominee Donald Trump “a loser as a candidate and … a loser as a man”, among other remarks.
Biden also called said the choice between Trump and Harris in the 5 November election was one of “decency versus lack of decency”.
Members of the president’s team told Axios they believe Harris’s campaign is underestimating the current president’s appeal among white, working-class communities in the state where he was born.
Ed Pilkington
Epic scenes outside Madison Square Garden in New York where thousands of Maga supporters have descended to hear the former president speak this evening.
Hours before Trump is scheduled on stage the streets of midtown Manhattan are packed. The main line of attendees, standing 20-wide, are filling an entire block of 33rd Street.
In line at the Trump Madison Square Garden rally in Manhattan. Six hours to go til Trump speaks and I’m already swamped in a vast crowd pic.twitter.com/8cP7gqEvaL
— Ed Pilkington (@Edpilkington) October 27, 2024
Periodically they chant “USA! USA!” and “Let’s Go Trump!”. Supporters are carrying placards saying “Pardon Trump Now” and “Never Surrender”.
A man paraded up and down the line carrying a sign saying “Fuck Kamala. We ain’t voting for that hoe (sic)”.
Later, an imitator of the North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, walked the line giving a regal wave.
A group of four women from Queens had travelled into Manhattan early, sitting for hours on camping chairs. Lori, who didn’t want to give her last name, said she was passionate about Trump because of “crime, inflation, the border, lack of respect”.
What did she mean by lack of respect? “If you have a different political opinion you shouldn’t be demonized.”
Lori said friends of hers in New York now shunned her after she became a Trump supporter. “You can’t be mean to people,” she said.
But what about Trump, who regularly demeaned and belittled his rivals? “He’s not mean, he’s joking. It’s like a nervous twitch,” she said.
Joan E Greve
Donald Trump will also air a campaign ad during the Philadelphia Eagles’ game today, competing with Kamala Harris’s new ad aimed at turning out Pennsylvania voters.
According to the Trump campaign, the two-minute ad will air during the third quarter of the Eagles’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals, which gets under way at 1pm ET.
The ad, entitled Never Quit, features the voices of Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Trump’s two elder sons.
“President Trump is literally putting his life on the line. and he’s willing to risk it all because he loves this country,” White says in the ad.
The dueling campaign ads come as polls suggest a neck-and-neck race in Pennsylvania, which could serve as the tipping point state in the electoral college.
Following her appearance at a predominantly Black church in Philadelphia this morning, Kamala Harris has just visited Philly Cuts, a barbershop not far from the west Philadelphia church.
From a barbershop chair, Harris answered questions from several young Black men, including about student loan debt, in a conversation moderated by Pennsylvania state representative Jordan Harris.
Here’s the Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence with more about Harris’s strategy of campaigning at barbershops:
Lauren Gambino
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are blazing into the final full week before the election with plans to visit all seven battleground states in four days.
The final sprint will be anchored by an address on the Ellipse near the White House on Tuesday where she will deliver what her campaign has described as the candidate’s “closing argument”.
Along the way, Harris and Walz will be joined by musical artists and celebrities, the campaign said, including Maggie Rogers, Maná, Gracie Abrams, Los Tigres del Norte, Mumford & Sons, Remi Wolf, and The National’s Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner. Harris’s team argues that their star power can help mobilize and motivate voters who have yet to cast ballots and possibly even reach Americans who have tuned out.
Harris is in Pennsylvania today while Trump holds a rally at Madison Square garden in New York. On Monday she will head back to Michigan, overlapping with Walz who will also be in Wisconsin. On Tuesday, she will speak in Washington DC while Walz heads to Georgia. On Wednesday, they will both travel to North Carolina while she stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Then on Thursday she heads west to Arizona and Nevada while he returns to the midwest.
Buckle up!
As Kamala Harris campaigns across Philadelphia today, her campaign has released a new ad scheduled to air this afternoon during the Eagles’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The campaign has also released a second ad geared at Pittsburgh Steelers fans, which will air during the team’s game tomorrow night.
At a rally in Kalamazoo, Michigan last night, former first lady Michelle Obama made a strong appeal to men that reproductive justice matters for them too. Here’s Lauren Gambino with more:
Directing her comments to the “men who love us”, Obama asked them to consider the harm that is done when a government “keeps revoking the basic care from its women”.
Earlier this month, Barack Obama delivered a stern message for Black men in his first campaign event for Harris, telling them to drop the “excuses” and support her. Michelle Obama tried a different tack – asking American men to listen to women this election.
Obama’s appeal reflected the gaping gender divide between the candidates, with women powering Harris and men turning to Trump. She acknowledged the challenges facing the country, and conceded that progress could be too slow, but she argued that sitting out or voting third-party was not the answer.
Read the full story here:
Following the news that the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times will not endorse a presidential candidate this year, the New York Times opinion section has published a full page image reminding readers that it endorsed Kamala Harris last month.
“Donald Trump says he will prosecute his enemies, order mass deportations, use soldiers against citizens, abandon allies, play politics with disasters. Believe him,” the full page endorsement reads.
Earlier this week, our own editorial page strongly endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Here’s our editor Betsy Reed with more on media ownership and democracy:
In a second morning show appearance this morning, JD Vance refused to call Russia an “enemy” and again called John Kelly a “disgruntled ex-employee”. Speaking on Meet the Press, Vance said Russian president Vladimir Putin was “clearly an adversary” but “we have to be smart about diplomacy”, and criticized the former Trump administration officials who have called the ex-president a fascist.
WATCH: @JDVance says Putin is “clearly an adversary,” but the U.S. has to be “smart about diplomacy.” @kwelkernbc: “You’re not willing to go so far as to call him an enemy?”
“Well, we’re not in a war with him, and I don’t want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” pic.twitter.com/2NAhkpo3Nm
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 27, 2024
Vance also said that a Trump-Vance administration would “stay in NATO” and explained that Donald Trump’s earlier comments on eliminating a federal income tax earlier this week were an “aspirational goal”.
In an appearance on Meet the Press this morning, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said that while he doesn’t like to use words like “fascist”, Trump has a “strong tendency toward authoritarianism.”
“This is a guy who provoked an insurrection in January, January 6, 2021, to prevent, for the first time in American history, a peaceful transfer of power,” he said.
WATCH: Kamala Harris has called Donald Trump a “fascist.”
Sen. @BernieSanders says he doesn’t “like using those words but clearly he has a strong, strong tendency toward authoritarianism. … You can describe him as a fascist.” pic.twitter.com/VZJq50EDro
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 27, 2024
Sanders also spoke about Elon Musk’s alleged contacts with Russian president Vladimir Putin (“What really interests me is if … Trump were to win, whether it would be Elon Musk running the government and Trump working for him or the other way around.”) and the war in Gaza (“Trump is even worse on this issue. … While I disagree with Biden and Harris — they are still better.”).
In a separate appearance on ABC, billionaire and Democratic supporter Mark Cuban echoed Sanders, saying Trump “absolutely” has “fascist tendencies”.
Harris addresses Black voters at Philadelphia church: ‘God’s power doesn’t just work for us, it also works within us.’
Campaigning in Philadelphia today, Kamala Harris has started her day by delivering remarks at the Church of Christian Compassion, a Black church in west Philadelphia.
Speaking about the Apostle Paul, Harris said, “Paul understood something profound. I believe, pastor, that God’s power doesn’t just work for us, it also works within us.”
“What feeds my spirit — I see faith in action all over. Everywhere I go,” she told attendees. “I see a nation determined to turn the page on hatred.”
After her remarks, the pastor told congregants that there would be a bus outside to take people to the polls, CNN reports. “There are 20 buses at places of faith all over the city of Philadelphia,” he added.
📍West Philly
VP Harris gave remarks during service at the Church of Christian Compassion
“We have 9 days until we decide the future of this nation. What feeds my spirit — I see faith in action all over. Everywhere I go.”
“I see a nation determined to turn the page on hatred.” pic.twitter.com/Ktrdp7BG3m
— aaron navarro (@aaronlarnavarro) October 27, 2024
JD Vance defends Trump against fascism claims on morning talk shows
In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, JD Vance and host Jake Tapper had a heated exchange over statements former Trump administration officials have made calling the ex-president a fascist.
“So all those 10 people, including the former vice president Mike Pence, all of these people have this horribly damaged worldview, and they’re all just going after Donald Trump because they want to send people into war? That’s really your argument?” Tapper said.
“Absolutely,” Vance answered. “Absolutely that’s my argument.”
“These aren’t conservative Republicans who are concerned about Donald Trump? They’re not? That’s not right?” Tapper asked.
“All of these people, Jake, they came into office thinking that they could control Donald Trump. That when he said he wanted peace in the world–”
“Mike Pence thought he could control Donald Trump?”
“Yes, he did. And when he found out, when he found out that he couldn’t, they all turned on Donald Trump, and a lot of them got fired.”
Good morning, Cecilia Nowell here today bringing you the latest news of the 2024 election as it happens. As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to make their closing arguments, Harris is heading today to Philadelphia to campaign “neighborhood-to-neighborhood” while Trump gears up for a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Here are some of the other headlines we’re tracking:
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JD Vance and Liz Cheney spoke on CNN’s State of the Union this morning about recent comments from former Donald Trump staffers that the ex-president has authoritarian tendencies. Vance denounced the former Trump officials as bitter about being fired, while Cheney criticized Vance for his own past comments on Trump: “I think what we just watched is what it looks like when someone has got to go through just unbelievable contortions to try to find a way to defend the person that JD Vance himself called ‘America’s Hitler.’”
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In an interview that aired this morning on CBS, Kamala Harris described her choice to deliver her closing argument speech at The Ellipse, a park near the White House, on Tuesday – one week before the election. “I’m doing it there because I think it’s very important for the American people to see and think about who will be occupying that space on Jan. 20th,” she said.
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Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, is on ABC’s “The Week” this morning also discussing comments from past Trump administration officials calling the ex-president a fascist. “How about a little self-reflection about the job you did before you criticize others,” he said.”
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Michelle Obama joined Kamala Harris for a rally yesterday focused on reproductive freedom in Kalamazoo, Michigan (or as Obama called it, “Kamala-zoo”). The former first lady and the vice-president emphasized the stakes for abortion and reproductive healthcare if Donald Trump is re-elected. Earlier in the day, Harris spoke with reproductive healthcare providers at a clinic in Portage, Michigan.
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On the first day of early voting in Michigan, Donald Trump also held a rally in Michigan. At an event in Novi, the ex-president was joined on stage by several imams and other leaders of the state’s large Muslim and Arab American community, who denounced Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.
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Later in the evening, Trump spoke at a second event in State College, Pennsylvania, where he again promised to ban sanctuary cities and launch a massive deportation program all while unleashing more personal attacks against Harris.
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The Washington Post’s and Los Angeles Times’ decisions not to endorse a presidential candidate has sparked furor (and a slew of resignations) among the papers’ staff.