Trump to be joined by family of firefighter killed in rally shooting when he returns to Butler
Donald Trump will return tomorrow to the Pennsylvania town where a gunman tried to assassinate him this summer, bringing with him a host of elected officials and the family of a man who was killed by the gunman.
The Trump campaign released a list of attendees for Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “on the very same ground where he took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.
The wife, daughters and sisters of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed that day, will be in attendance, as will various people who attended the first rally or served as first responders.
JD Vance, the vice-presidential nominee, and Elon Musk, the owner of X, will also be there, as will be numerous congressmen, local elected officials, sheriffs and Republican party officials.
Key events
Guardian readers gave us their thoughts on Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, casting JD Vance as a “slick talker” and Tim Walz as “sincere”.
One supporter of the Harris-Walz ticket said Walz was “polite and sometimes to a fault”, refusing to jump in with outrage at Vance’s comments and instead sticking to his accomplishments as Minnesota governor and the Harris campaign’s talking points.
In general, voters said the debate was more civil and policy-focused than they were used to, including from presidential candidates.
Harris to campaign in Michigan
Kamala Harris will campaign in Michigan today, appearing first in Detroit and then in Flint. Her remarks in Detroit are scheduled to begin at 1.50pm ET.
Harris was last in Michigan, a vital swing state, on 19 September for a streamed event with Oprah Winfrey.
The mayor of Flint, Sheldon A Neeley, wrote an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press endorsing Harris today, saying: “I urge all of you to listen to her message, hear her vision and consider what she can do for you and for America.”
Trump to be joined by family of firefighter killed in rally shooting when he returns to Butler
Donald Trump will return tomorrow to the Pennsylvania town where a gunman tried to assassinate him this summer, bringing with him a host of elected officials and the family of a man who was killed by the gunman.
The Trump campaign released a list of attendees for Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “on the very same ground where he took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.
The wife, daughters and sisters of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed that day, will be in attendance, as will various people who attended the first rally or served as first responders.
JD Vance, the vice-presidential nominee, and Elon Musk, the owner of X, will also be there, as will be numerous congressmen, local elected officials, sheriffs and Republican party officials.
Two groups, the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund and the House Majority Pac, have launched a $10m paid media campaign aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next month.
Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House, and Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to take back control of the chamber.
One of the new ads accuses Brandon Williams, a New York Republican representative facing a tough re-election race after the state’s redistricting process, of being “dangerously wrong on abortion”.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, framed the ad buy as a necessary investment to ensure a “gun sense majority” in the House.
“We know a majority of voters across the country support common sense gun safety laws, but in order to keep making progress in Washington we need to flip the House to a gun sense majority,” Feinblatt said.
“We’re proud to partner with House Majority Pac to ensure voters in key districts know which candidates will fight hard to keep schools, law enforcement and our communities safe from gun violence – and which candidates are putting them at risk by standing in the way.”
Joe Biden celebrated the latest jobs report as a positive sign for the direction of the US economy, even as he implored Congress to do more to help American families struggling to get by.
“With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” Biden said in a statement. “Under my administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new businesses have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling.”
The jobs report comes as a majority of Americans (61%) believe inflation is increasing despite actually falling significantly from its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, a recent Harris-Guardian poll found.
“Make no mistake: we have more to do to lower costs and expand opportunity,” Biden said. “Congress should pass our plan to build millions of new homes, expand prescription drug price caps, empower workers and protect the right to organize, and cut taxes for hardworking families.”
US adds more than 250,000 jobs in September, defying fears of slowdown
The latest US jobs report showed the country added 254,000 jobs last month, defying fears of a hiring slowdown, the Guardian’s Callum Jones reports:
Job creation unexpectedly accelerated in September, while the headline unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in August.
Economists had expected a non-farm payrolls reading of just 132,500 for September, after a cooler summer of employment growth.
Hiring instead rose sharply from recent months. In August employers added 159,000 jobs, and in July they added 144,000.
Both estimates for July and August were revised higher by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday – adding 72,000 more jobs than previously reported – highlighting the strength of the labor market.
As November’s presidential election edges closer, the US economy is a key issue for voters. Earlier this week, a Harris Poll for the Guardian found that Kamala Harris’s economic policies proved more popular than those put forward by Donald Trump in a blind test.
The poll nevertheless highlighted economic pessimism on both sides of the aisle, with almost half of respondents wrongly stating that the US was in recession.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
The Arizona Teamsters endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential race, joining more than 20 other local Teamsters units that have backed the Democrat after the union’s international arm declined to issue an endorsement last month.
Harris won unanimous support from the Arizona Teamsters’ executive board, the group said in a statement.
“This November the stakes are high,” the group said. “We need strong leadership that will support labor and ensure we keep our seat at the table. We will continue to hold our elected officials accountable, protecting Teamster members and their families.”
The news comes one day after another major union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, announced it would refrain from issuing an endorsement in the presidential race. The IAFF executive board voted, by a margin of 1.2%, against endorsing a candidate, the group said.
The snub from the IAFF was noteworthy given that the union was one of the first major groups to back Joe Biden’s presidential bid back in 2020.
Jeffries says embattled NYC mayor Adams should not resign
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries does not believe that the New York mayor, Eric Adams, should resign from his post, despite the city leader’s recent indictment on bribery and fraud charges.
“My view is that Mayor Adams, like every other New Yorker and every other American, is entitled to the presumption of innocence and entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers who will ultimately determine his fate within the legal system,” Jeffries told NBC News last night.
“At the same time, it’s important for Mayor Adams to articulate to New Yorkers in a compelling way a plan and a path forward to ensure that the city is continuing to function and run in a manner that meets the needs of everyday New Yorkers and in a manner that New York City, which we believe is the greatest city in the world, deserves.”
A number of prominent New York Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Adams to resign given the charges against him, but the mayor has refused to do so.
“This is a great moment to step up and show all New Yorkers, who are going through complexities in their lives, how you remained focused on your agenda and that’s what I’m going to do,” Adams said on Sunday after a visit to a church in the Bronx.
He added: “I’m going to step up. I’m not going to resign – I’m going to reign.”
As Republicans try to expand their narrow majority in the House next month, the Cook Political Report has moved five midwestern races in Democrats’ direction.
According to Cook’s Erin Covey, two of Iowa’s Republican-held House seats, in the state’s first and third congressional districts, are now considered “toss-ups”. Before today, Cook gave the districts’ Republican incumbents, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, an advantage in their races.
“[Nunn’s] district is dominated by Des Moines and its expanding suburbs (Dallas County, outside of Des Moines, is the fastest growing county in the state), and is home to a growing number of white college-educated voters who’ve continued to move away from the GOP. Private polling conducted by both parties over the past month now shows [Kamala] Harris carrying this district,” Covey writes.
“It took Miller-Meeks four attempts to finally win [her] southeastern Iowa district, scraping by with a six-vote win in 2020. But though she won reelection in Iowa’s 1st District by a decent seven-point margin over Democrat Christina Bohannan in 2022, it looks like she’s in much more jeopardy against Bohannan this year.”
Covey also moved one House seat in Illinois and another in Indiana from “Lean Democrat” to “Likely Democrat”. Meanwhile, Republican congressman Ryan Zinke might be facing some trouble in Montana’s first district, where the race is now rated “Lean Republican” instead of “Likely Republican”.
“Monica Tranel, an environmental lawyer and former Olympic rower, came surprisingly close to defeating Zinke last cycle,” Covey writes. “Though Trump carried it by seven points in 2020, Zinke only beat Tranel by three points after barely getting through the Republican primary.”
House Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to retake the majority, which would almost certainly elevate the chamber’s current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, to the speakership.
Marjorie Taylor Greene says ‘they’ control weather as Helene death toll reaches 125
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right congresswoman of Georgia, is once again facing criticism for peddling a baseless – and just plan bizarre – claim about the weather.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The eyebrow-raising comment came as the death toll from Hurricane Helene rose to 215, after the storm tore through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee last week. Greene had previously shared a map of the hurricane’s devastation overlaid with an electoral map to seemingly draw a (very questionable) connection between the two.
Hakeem Jeffries should be the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Enjoy your weekend campaigning everybody. https://t.co/5NqVhCIy27
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) October 4, 2024
Greene did not specify who “they” were in her tweet, but she has a controversial history when it comes to weather claims. In 2018, Greene suggested California wildfires were caused by a laser beam from space that was connected to the Rothschild family, which has frequently been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat of Hawaii, said of Greene’s tweet: “[House Democratic leader] Hakeem Jeffries should be the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Enjoy your weekend campaigning everybody.”
For context, Republicans are trying to hold onto a narrow majority in the House this November.
Biden and Harris welcome end to port strike
Joe Biden welcomed the tentative deal to end the east coast port strike and called it a “critical” step towards a “strong contract” for dock workers who had kept US ports open and supply chains running during the Covid pandemic.
In a statement released by the White House, the president said:
I want to applaud the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports.
Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract. I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic. And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table.
I want to thank the union workers, the carriers, and the port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding. Collective bargaining works, and it is critical to building a stronger economy from the middle out and the bottom up.
Kamala Harris released a statement, saying she wants “to applaud all involved for their efforts”.
The vice-president added that this “represents the power of collective bargaining. As I have said, this is about fairness – and our economy works best when workers share in record profits. Dockworkers deserve a fair share for their hard work getting essential goods out to communities across America.”
Dock workers’ deal to end strike heads off misery for US economy
Dock workers announced late on Thursday that they had agreed a deal with port operators to end a three-day strike that threatened to cause crippling disruption to supply chains.
In welcome news for the Harris-Walz campaign, the International Longshoremen’s Association announced that the union agreed to a tentative deal with the United States Maritime Alliance on wages and will extend the contract through January 2025. Work would resume immediately, the union said.
The tentative agreement is for a wage hike of around 62%, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Both sides said in a statement that they would return to the bargaining table to negotiate all outstanding issues in January.
The strike had threatened to disrupt trade just weeks ahead of the election – and at a time when Democrats need good news on the economy.
As the Guardian’s David Smith wrote earlier this week, the first dockworkers’ strike since 1977 could have snarled supply chains and caused shortages and higher prices if it had stretched on for more than a few weeks. That would have been a political gift to Trump, whose polling lead on the economy has been eroded by Harris. Both are vying for trade union support.
Before the strike deal was announced, Trump tried to make hay of the stoppage, claiming at a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, that there would be no strikes if he is re-elected president.
An executive representing ports where tens of thousands of workers went on strike this week made a series of critical and crude remarks about Joe Biden, tied Kamala Harris to concerns about over-taxation, and appeared to endorse a rightwing conspiracy theory.
David Adam, chairman and chief executive of the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), attacked prominent Democrats in a string of social media posts uncovered by the Guardian.
A month ago, when a LinkedIn user suggested that “everything Biden has touched in the past is turning to shit!”, Adam replied: “The runny kind … ”
It was part of a discussion about how Biden’s student-debt relief plan was being held up in the courts. In another comment on the thread, Adam wrote: “If ya can’t get an American Democrat to pay what they borrrowed [sic], how you gonna get a California illegal immigrant to pay back their $150K loan the CA Dems are offering?”
Just a few weeks ago, Adam commented on a meme that claimed the US has a 48% fuel tax, which was debunked in 2022 by Politifact, when the same post was shared in Canada with the same claim.
He seemed to suggest responsibility lay with the Biden administration and Harris, however, writing: “Someone ask Kamala to explain why this is such and is she gonna fix it?!”
USMX did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Adam’s posts.
Republican former election clerk jailed for nine years of voter meddling in Colorado
A local elections official who became a hero to election deniers was sentenced to nine years in prison on Thursday for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome.
Tina Peters allowed a man affiliated with the pillow salesman and election-lie trafficker Mike Lindell to misuse a security card to access the Mesa county election system.
Jurors found Peters guilty in August, convicting her of seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges.
Maya Yang
Donald Trump pledged to bring back drilling in the Alaska arctic wildlife refuge if he becomes president.
Trump said:
We would have supplied the entire Asian continent. We would have supplied Asia. We would have supplied everybody. But we’ll have it redone very quickly … I actually got it approved in Congress as part of … the biggest tax cuts in history for this country. I got that approved in Congress. We got ANWR [Alaska national wildlife refuge] so they didn’t kill it in Congress, and I don’t think they ever could. So we’ll get it back very quickly. It’s going to be back very fast.
Trump added:
And it would have been great for Alaska but it would have also … been great for our country but we’ll have it approved very quickly.
In 2021, Trump’s administration auctioned off portions of the ANWR to oil drillers but failed to attract many bidders.
Melissa Hellmann
In a final push to engage Muslim voters ahead of the election, Tim Walz joined Muslim advocacy group Emgage Action’s Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward summit the day after the vice-presidential debate.
The Guardian’s Melissa Hellman reported from the event:
“As-salaam alaikum (peace be unto you) everyone and good evening,” the vice-presidential candidate greeted Muslim voters in Arabic during a virtual event Thursday evening.
“Here in Minnesota, I’ve got the privilege to represent an incredible and vibrant Muslim community,” Walz said as light streamed through a large window behind him. He shared that he and his wife, Gwen, held the first iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan, at the Minnesota governor’s residence in 2019. And last year, Walz also passed interest-free down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers to increase home ownership among Muslim Americans.
During his speech, Walz also acknowledged a collective pain among Muslim and Arab American communities due to Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October. “Our hearts are broken,” Walz said. “The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering and devastating. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed, families fleeing for safety over and over again.”
“We all know on here, this war must end and it must end now. The vice-president’s working every day to ensure that, to make sure Israel is secure, the hostages are home, the suffering in Gaza ends now. And the Palestinian people realize the right to dignity, freedom, and self determination.”
The virtual event came shortly after Emgage Action endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as president and vice-president.
Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, saying Donald Trump is “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime”.
The US rock legend appealed to Americans to reject Trump’s chaos and vote for Harris, saying the country needs “women and men with the national good guiding their hearts”.
In a video message, Springsteen said “not since the civil war has this country felt as emotionally and spiritually divided”, adding “it doesn’t have to be this way”.
He also excoriated Trump’s “disdain for the sanctity” of the US constitution, democracy, rule of law and peaceful handover of power that “should disqualify him”.
Springsteen said: “He doesn’t understand the meaning of this country, its history and what it means to be deeply American.”
Bruce Springsteen endorsed Vice President Harris, calling Donald Trump “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime.”
pic.twitter.com/NVpEtHUuN6— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 3, 2024
On Thursday evening, Kamala Harris enlisted the help of Republican former senator Liz Cheney for a campaign event in Wisconsin. The pair focused their speeches on Trump’s 2020 election lie.
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports this from the event:
Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s most prominent conservative critics, appealed to the millions of undecided Americans who could decide the outcome of the 2024 election, asking them to “reject the depraved cruelty” of the former president.
The daughter of Dick Cheney, the Republican former vice-president, said she had never voted for a Democrat before, but would do so “proudly” to ensure Trump never holds a position of public trust again. Her father will join her in casting his ballot for Harris.
“I know that the most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution,” Cheney said, speaking from a podium adorned with the vice-presidential seal. The crowd broke into a chant: “Thank you, Liz!” A large sign looming over them declared: “Country over party.”
Cheney and Harris agree on little politically – only that Trump should not be allowed to serve a second term. But their union is part of an effort by the Harris campaign to win over Republican voters who, like Cheney, believe in “limited government” and “low taxes” but are repelled by Trump and his Maga movement.
“No matter your political party, there is a place for you with us and in this campaign,” Harris said. “I take seriously my pledge to be a president for all Americans.”
Barack Obama to hit campaign trail for Kamala Harris in effort to woo swing-state voters
Good morning US politics readers.
Former US president Barack Obama will crisscross the battleground states for Kamala Harris, with a kickoff in all-important Pennsylvania next week.
According to a senior Harris campaign official, Obama will hold his first event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next Thursday, the beginning of blitz across the handful of rust belt and Sun belt states that will likely decide the 2024 election.
Obama remains one of the Democrats’ most powerful surrogates, second perhaps only to his wife, Michelle Obama. His return to the campaign trail follows a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, where he cast Harris as a forward-looking figure and a natural heir to his diverse, youth-powered political coalition. Harris was one of Obama’s earliest supporters of what seemed like a long-shot presidential bid against Hillary Clinton. She knocked doors for him ahead of the Iowa caucuses in 2008. More than 15 years later, he will return the favor.
With just 32 days away to the election, here’s what else is happening today:
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Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Flint, Michigan, this evening – one of the swing states critical to her winning the presidency. Her event comes a day after Donald Trump promised to make Michigan the “car capital of the world again”.
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Trump and Georgia governor Brian Kemp will visit Evans, Georgia, to receive a briefing on the devastation of Hurricane Helene. They’ll give a press conference at 3.45pm ET.
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JD Vance is in Lindale, Georgia, and will deliver remarks at 1 pm.
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Trump hosts a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at 7 pm.