Election 2024 live updates: Trump and Harris campaign in battleground state Pennsylvania as Election Day looms

Rather, the 49-year-old dual US-Canadian citizen, who was arrested Saturday with a loaded handgun, shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine in the parking area of a Trump rally in Coachella, California, is “but an artist,” he told The Independent.

Miller, a onetime journalist who has worked as a music video director and now runs a website called the America Happens Network — which features conspiracy-minded videos about 9/11 being “an inside job” and the “so-called” Covid-19 pandemic — said he “was certainly not there to cause any harm to anybody.”

At a news conference on Sunday, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco called Miller a “lunatic” with “fringe” views, and claimed his arrest may have headed off a third assassination attempt. But Trump was never in any danger at Saturday’s rally, the Secret Service, FBI, and US Attorney’s Office said in a joint statement.

An extended musical break and some patter from Trump as the medics handle the situation.

”Sir, she’s on her feet and walking out,” Kristi Noem tells the former president, referring to the second person who fainted. “Let’s encourage her,” Trump tells the crowd. “Let her know well be praying for her.”

He says both people are in “good shape”, before joking: “Would anyone else like to faint? Please raise your hand.”

Then he asks the town hall staff to put on Pavarotti’s version of Ave Maria, lamenting that the previous version played had no vocals.

At one point, a bar chart showing border crossings at the US-Mexico frontier appears on the projector. It’s a familiar prop: Trump has claimed that turning his head to look at the chart during the assassination attempt back in July “probably saved my life”, and that he loves it “more than I even love the police”.

“There it is! That’s my favourite piece of paper anywhere in the world. I sleep with it every night. I kiss it, I kiss it.”

As the crowd watches the medics work, someone puts Ave Maria on the venue stereo, giving the proceedings an eerie and reverent air.

“Eyyy! Eyyyyy! Great! We love that man. We love that man,” says Trump as the music plays, apparently responding to some sign of recovery from off-camera. “It’s so beautiful though, right? Listen to that [music]. It’s nice. He’s going to be okay. Right?”

Then the town hall resumes. But within a minute or two, people start pointing over to the other side of the venue, shouting “Medic! Medic!” Looks like someone else needs help. Ave Maria begins again.

The town hall pauses for a while so that someone in the crowd can receive medical attention.

“Take your time, doctor. Take your time. Thank you very much,” Trump says. “We always have great doctors in the audience.”

After a long pause while he and Kristi Noem look offstage at what’s happening, Trump : “Look at the quality of care we have. It’s incredible, when you think. First responders – our first responders are amazing, in the way they can do things so beautifully and quickly.” People in the audience wave their hats in saute.

A while later, Trump admits: “That looks a little bad… don’t worry, we’ll extend for a little time. WE just want to make sure they’re fine. This is a little bit of a tough one, I think.”

Then the crowd breaks into a spontaneous song – sounds like a hymn (maybe Abide With Me?). Hopefully the person is okay.

Second question is from Angelina, a Black woman in a blended family, who says she was raised among Philadelphia Democrats but is now being hurt by inflation.

“We’re going to do a lot of things,” says Trump, then pivots to talking about immigration.

During his answer, Trump wrongly claimed that we have recently seen the worst period of inflation in US history – although he qualified that this was just, like, his opinion, man.

“Such damage has been done – In my opinion, the biggest inflation in the history of our country,” he said. “They didn’t include a lot of the bad numbers.”

In fact that title goes to March and April of 1980, according to CNN, when the rate of inflation hit 14.6 per cent.

After a brief intro speech lamenting the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump’s Q&A begins.

The first question is from a man named Reed. “I believe you’re a Navy SEAL, correct?” asks moderator Kristi Noem. No: he’s a single father and Iraq war veteran who “dreams of owning a home”, which he says interest rates under Biden and Harris have made “impossible”.

Trump says it’s too expensive to build a home due to regulatory red tape. But most of all, he says, he’ll bring interest rates down. He says he’ll do this by unleashing fossil fuel extraction – “drill, baby drill!” – to lower energy prices.

“It’s going to be beautiful. You’re going to have a house. Just wait a little while. Give me a little while. Let me get in,” he concluded.

“One year from January 20, we will have your energy prices cut in half all over the country.”

In an essay for Women’s Health magazine published on Monday, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz outlined her and Governor Tim Walz’s struggles with fertility.

She urged voters to back Vice President Kamala Harris to protect reproductive rights, arguing that former President Donald Trump will put in place a “nationwide abortion ban” if he returns to the White House.

“We were fortunate to have access to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where we began fertility treatments,” Walz wrote. “I was prescribed Clomid, among other treatments we tried, which is a medication that increases the hormones that stimulate egg production in your ovaries and can help you get pregnant. I’d also have to take special shots before an intrauterine insemination procedure that would increase my chances of pregnancy and successful fertilization.”

Noem lead cheers of “We love Trump! We love Trump!” She tells the audience: “He’s listening to you right now. He hears you!” Loud cheering.

Then comes Donald Trump, wading through his crowd of supporters and mounting the stage in suburban Philadelphia.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is now speaking to introduce Donald Trump in suburban Philly.

“Let’s face it, Kamala Harris sucks,” she says, to general cheers. “She sucks.”

She’s particularly proud, she says, of her resistance to Covid-19 lockdowns and other pandemic mitigation strategies such as mask mandates, saying that she never defined “essential business” because she didn’t believe the government had the right to determine what that meant.