Harris revealed this week that she owns a Glock — a weapon that is restricted for purchase in California amid a court battle over the state’s gun laws.
“I have a Glock, and — I’ve had it for quite some time,” she said in an interview that aired Monday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “My background is in law enforcement.” She added that she has fired the weapon at a shooting range.
A Harris campaign aide said in a statement to NBC News that it is the same gun that she mentioned owning in 2019 during her previous run for president and that it “is in a secure location in her home in California.”
Reporting from Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro confirmed to NBC News today that he spoke with tech mogul Elon Musk on Sunday — but said politics never came up.
NBC News reported yesterday that Musk called Shapiro while he was at the Pittsburgh Steelers-Dallas Cowboys game in Pittsburgh over the weekend. The two were connected by Thomas Tull, a Hollywood producer-turned-investor, in whose box Musk was sitting.
+2
Vance and Walz had one thing in common during their campaign events in Tucson today: Neither brought up the fact that Arizona’s polls are now open for early voting.
Both candidates did post to X to spread awareness that today is the first day of early voting in the state. Vance encouraged supporters to vote early.
The state can also begin tallying early ballots today.
But in their speeches, the vice presidential contenders focused on issues including the border, gun violence and women’s rights.
The Harris campaign livestreamed Walz’s rally in Tucson, Arizona, on the gaming platform Twitch today in an attempt to make inroads into nontraditional ways to campaign on social media.
A campaign official said the livestream got around 65,600 views, an increase of 450% from the campaign’s last livestream on the platform. The video also generated 14% follower growth, the official said.
Twitch is a social media platform that focuses on livestreaming.
Get ready for Trump’s blue state extravaganza.
With less than four weeks until Election Day, Trump is scheduled to hold rallies in staunchly Democratic states he has virtually no chance of winning. It’s an unorthodox strategy campaign advisers say is designed to focus on areas where Democratic policies have failed, but it will also keep him away from the small handful of swing states almost certain to determine the election.
Over the next month, the former president has events scheduled in Colorado, California, Illinois and New York. Biden won those states by an average of 20 points in 2020, with his 13-point Colorado win the closest margin. Colorado is the only one of those states to vote for a Republican nominee for president this millennium, backing George W. Bush in 2004.
Reporting from Tucson, Arizona
Susan Rice, who was national security adviser during the Obama administration and domestic policy adviser for Biden, attended tonight’s rally for Walz in Tucson.
She was in the audience with her husband, dressed in a campaign T-shirt and sporting a green “Kamala” button.
Rice suggested yesterday that Trump may have committed a crime by reportedly having numerous conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin after he left office.
Rice called it “another apparent Trump crime” and referred to the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from communicating with foreign leaders “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”
An Afghan man arrested on charges of planning a terrorist attack on Election Day worked as a security guard in Afghanistan for the CIA, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested Monday in Oklahoma and accused of plotting to kill Americans with an assault rifle on behalf of ISIS. Court documents said he had contributed to an ISIS charity in March and accessed online ISIS propaganda, but they did not say whether he was radicalized before or after he came to the U.S. in 2021. A senior law enforcement official said the FBI is still investigating that question.
The CIA declined to comment.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., appeared alongside former Trump White House aides Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews, the first time all four Trump critics had gathered for a public event.
Asked whether the Republican Party will split in two after the election, Cheney said she’s unsure how the party comes back from what it has experienced, saying Trump and others have used hurricane response as a political tool.
“They’re intentionally spreading lies that could well cost people their lives,” she said. “It’s not unlike the lies that we saw, the behavior that we saw, on Jan. 6th,” Cheney said, referring to the false information Trump and his allies spread about hurricane relief.
Farah, Hutchinson and Matthews described how they decided to resign from their White House jobs after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“He used those conspiracy theories … to inspire a mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6. And I was in the West Wing that day, and I sat there and watched as adviser after adviser went into the Oval Office dining room to beg and plead with him,” Matthews said.
Farah said Trump “is the person of the lowest moral character that I’ve ever worked for.”
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Trump referred tonight to the arrest of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who was charged this week with conspiring to execute a terrorist attack on behalf of the Islamic State terrorist group on Election Day.
“It was reported that Kamala Harris brought in a totally unvetted refugee from Afghanistan who is now arrested for plotting an ISIS terror attack on the United States during our election. This is the people we brought in,” Trump said in Reading, Pennsylvania. “Got thousands of them. This is one. Kamala completely abandoned her duty to law-abiding Americans and spent the last four years importing criminals, unvetted refugees and terrorists into our country.”
A charging document unsealed yesterday indicates that Tawhedi entered the U.S. on a Special Immigrant Visa “and is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigrant proceedings.”
Special Immigrant Visas are given to Afghans who worked with the U.S. in Afghanistan after they pass vetting by the Department of Homeland Security. The charging document says he came to the U.S. on Sept. 9, 2021 —less than a month after U.S. forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
An Afghan refugee group and two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told NBC News that the charging document is incorrect and that while Tawhedi had a pending application for the Special Immigrant Visa, he never obtained it and was in the U.S. on humanitarian parole.
Biden administration officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Justice Department have declined to tell NBC News how Tawhedi reached the U.S., for whom he worked, who vetted him and who recommended him for parole.
It was not immediately clear whether he was evacuated in the chaos of the withdrawal — when many Afghans got through the process with minimal or no vetting — or whether he had been trying for years to get the special visa and had gone through more scrutiny.
In a statement that did not address his case specifically, DHS said: “Afghan evacuees who sought to enter the United States were subject to multi layered screening and vetting against intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism information. If new information emerges after arrival, appropriate action is taken.”
Trump fired off criticisms of the media personalities who recently interviewed Harris during her media blitz, saying at a rally tonight that he once liked Howard Stern but has since “dropped him like a dog.”
“We need a free and fair press badly, desperately,” Trump said in Reading, Pennsylvania. “I watched the way they asked questions of Kamala yesterday. Howard Stern, he’s a weak guy. He’s weak.”
“Howard, I knew him very well. I was on his show many times. I used to think he was good. And then I dropped him. I dropped him like a dog,” he added.
Trump also said he watched “that stupid ‘View’ where you have these really dumb people.” He claimed co-host Whoopi Goldberg once told him before his career in politics: “You’re so great. If you ever ran for president, you’d win.”
At a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania tonight, Trump referred to Biden’s facing a classified documents probe, claiming he was “essentially convicted” but did not have to stand trial because “he’s incompetent” — despite Biden not being charged in the case.
Robert Hur, the special counsel tasked with overseeing Biden’s handling of classified documents after he left office as vice president, declined to prosecute Biden. In a scathing report explaining his decision, Hur described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” who would be likely to present similarly to a jury at trial.
Reporting from Phoenix, Arizona
Tempe, Arizona, police reported a third gunfire incident at a Democratic Party-coordinated campaign office for Harris. As in the two previous incidents, no one was injured.
The police department said the latest incident occurred at 12:21 a.m. local time Sunday. The office was hit by “BB Gun and firearm rounds,” just as it had been in the two previous incidents — on Sept. 16 and Sept. 23 — at around the same time at night.
Police said the shooter was driving a silver Toyota Highlander during the incident. They’re offering up to a $1,000 reward for information that could lead to an arrest or an indictment.
Harris spoke with the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, today “about ongoing preparations for Hurricane Milton,” a White House official said.
“The Vice President discussed federal efforts to prepare for the storm, including the prepositioning of rescue teams and other resources,” the official said. “More than 8,000 Federal personnel are on the ground across the Southeast, including in Florida, to continue Hurricane Helene recovery efforts and respond to the impacts of Hurricane Milton.”
Harris will stay in touch with Florida officials over the next several days, the official said.
The call was in her official capacity as vice president, not as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., talked to NBC News about border politics, the presidential campaign and accusations that he’s campaigning as more of a moderate than his record would suggest. He also talks about why he wants to keep his divorce records sealed, arguing that his family deserves privacy.
Trump said in an all-caps post on Truth Social tonight that “there will be no rematch” with Harris, referring to a potential second debate.
Trump argued that he felt he won the debates against Biden in June and against Harris in September. He also pointed to early voting that’s underway in some states. “It is very late in the process, voting has already begun,” he said.
Trump participated in two October debates in 2016 and one in 2020.
CNN wants Trump and Harris to agree to its Oct. 23 debate — or disagree — by noon tomorrow.
In a new statement, a spokesperson said the network sent invitations to both candidates on Sept. 21 but is “placing a deadline for a formal response from both campaigns for this Thursday, October 10 at 12pm ET to participate.”
The Harris campaign accepted the invitation last month. But Trump has not committed to the debate, and he has said there “will be no third debate,” a reference to Trump’s June debate against Biden on CNN.
Vance criticized Harris tonight over a comment she made during her media blitz this week when she initially said she wouldn’t have done anything differently from Biden in the past four years.
“It just drives home how everything that has been tried and found wanting over the last 3½ years. She’s offering to double down on it,” Vance said at a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona.
The criticism came in response to Harris’ remark in an interview on ABC’s “The View” that aired yesterday that “there is not a thing that comes to mind” when she was asked whether she would have done anything differently from Biden. She later said that if she’s elected, she would differ from Biden by asking a Republican to serve in her Cabinet.
Reporting from Washington, D.C.
As Biden delivered a stark warning today about the dangerous hurricane barreling toward Florida, he shot down misinformation about the storm, including one particular conspiracy theory propagated by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather, we’re controlling the weather. It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop,” Biden said in televised remarks at the White House.
Reporting from Scranton, Pennsylvania
Trump rallied a raucous crowd in Scranton, Pennsylvania, today as he seeks to halt Harris’ gains in the polls on handling the economy, launching a wave of insults at her and painting a dark vision of the future if he loses the election.
Trump lashed out at Harris by calling her “a horrible person,” “a liar,” a “radical left Marxist” and “not a smart person,” often drawing jeers and boos as his supporters fed off his energy.
The campaign arm for House Democrats is holding a high-dollar fundraiser tonight featuring some big names as they continue their efforts to take back the majority. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., will hold a conversation with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and talk show host David Letterman in New York City, a source familiar with the event planning told NBC News.
The event is expected to raise $2 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The battle between Republicans and Democrats for control of the House is highly competitive, and it is playing out in several states that will not be competitive in the presidential election. As a result, the House campaigns are being forced to raise their own resources and sell their messages in swing districts in states like New York and California.
Jeffries has made fundraising a priority. In August, the DCCC raised $22.3 million and the Jeffries-aligned super PAC, the House Majority PAC, outraised its GOP counterpart, the Congressional Leadership Fund, for the first time in the third quarter of an election cycle. The DCCC ended August having raised $250 million over the cycle.
Letterman has been very active in boosting Democrats this year. He announced his endorsement of Biden in July and had planned to hold a fundraiser for him. He backed Harris after Biden dropped out and instead held a fundraiser for her.
Walz, in his capacity as governor of Minnesota, has approved an executive order directing the Minnesota National Guard to provide emergency assistance to Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton. Thirteen airmen from the Minnesota National Guard are on their way to the storm zone today, his office said in a news release.
Minnesota National Guard soldiers have also transported over 30,000 pounds of cargo, including water, food, medicine, survival equipment and relief supplies, to areas that were hit hard by Hurricane Helene, the release said.
“Sometime this afternoon, Hurricane Milton is going to come ashore, and those are Americans, those are our neighbors, those are our family members, those are our friends,” Walz said today at an event in Chandler, Arizona. “And the commitment to stop the politicking and to unify, to be there, is absolutely critical.”
+2
Harris‘ presidential campaign operation crossed the $1 billion fundraising threshold in September, two months after she took over as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, according to two people familiar with the numbers.
The figure includes money raised by the campaign committee itself and by a campaign-affiliated joint fundraising committee that also collects cash for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
The staggering pace suggests Harris has been able to sustain enthusiasm among donors, large and small, as the campaign enters the stretch run before the Nov. 5 election. But it comes amid a historic onslaught of outside spending from super PACs and other groups that has the Harris campaign concerned — particularly about direct mail, in which Republicans have opened a steep advantage in recent months, and on the ground, with groups like Elon Musk’s super PAC and others working to turn out voters for Trump.
Walz skewered Trump at an event in Chandler, Arizona, this afternoon as he discussed Hurricane Milton, claiming that when Trump was in office he had asked residents how they voted before he determined whether to provide disaster relief.
“When we have people coming out and saying that before decisions were made on about determining aid, former President Trump asked to see how those people voted — never in our life would we ask that,” Walz said. “Never in our lifetime would we ask that.”
Walz appeared to be referring to a recent Politico report that said that when Trump was president he hesitated to authorize disaster aid to areas where there were large numbers of Trump opponents and gave preference to regions that were known to be pro-Trump.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ann Ferlic Ashford — a former Democratic congressional candidate whose late husband Brad Ashford represented Nebraska’s 2nd District for one term before being defeated by Republican Don Bacon — is appearing in a new ad emphasizing her endorsement of Bacon.
“Both my husband, Brad, and I were political opponents of Don Bacon. Now, I’m endorsing Don because character always counts more than party,” Ashford says in the new ad, before lamenting the “lies they keep telling about Don Bacon” and praising him for bipartisan votes in Congress.
Brad Ashford won the House seat in 2014, bucking the midterm trends and defeating Republican Rep. Lee Terry in what was largely a good election year for Republicans. In 2016, Bacon beat Ashford, lost a comeback bid in the Democratic primary in 2018 before Ann Ferlic Ashford lost the 2020 Democratic primary for the seat.
Brad Ashford endorsed Bacon in the 2020 general election. He died in 2022.
According to the Nebraska Examiner, Ferlic Ashford referred to herself as a “Harris-Bacon” voter when she announced her endorsement of Bacon late last month.
+3
Abigail Williams
Daniel Barnesis reporting from the federal courthouse.
Gabe Gutierrez
Abigail Williams, Daniel Barnes, Zoë Richards and Gabe Gutierrez
Some Democrats have been calling for Trump to be prosecuted under a federal law that makes it illegal for private citizens to communicate with foreign officials amid reporting that the former president allegedly had as many as seven phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House.
Democrats have suggested that Trump may be in violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from communicating with foreign leaders “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”
Asked by NBC News about the calls, which were reported in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’re not aware of those calls.”
She added, “If true, it is concerning.”
Trump, who once called on his Justice Department to prosecute John Kerry for Logan Act violations, is unlikely to face charges under the seldom used 1799 law, which has only been used in two cases that did not yield convictions, according to the Congressional Research Service. (Kerry was not charged.)
Legal scholars have raised questions about the law’s constitutionality over the years, perhaps another reason prosecutors have been reluctant to use the statute in the modern era. The law has never faced a First Amendment challenge, and at least one federal judge has written (in 1964) that the law might be unconstitutionally vague. Bringing charges against anyone, let alone a former president, for Logan Act violations would almost certainly end with the Supreme Court reviewing the constitutionality of the law.
Despite the law never amounting to a successful conviction, there is a long history of people accusing their political adversaries of violating the Logan Act.
Following her interview on CNN, Harris called into The Weather Channel, speaking with a reporter on the ground in Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall.
Asked to address Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has accused Harris of politicizing the storm, Harris said, “This is not a time for us to just point fingers at each other as Americans. It’s really not.”
She added, “Anybody who considers themselves to be a leader should really be in the business right now of giving people a sense of confidence that we’re working together … on behalf of the people of our country.”
Harris also called on leaders to hang up their partisan hats for the duration of the hurricane, telling the reporter that she welcomes “every and anyone to work with me and for us to be able to work together. I don’t care who you voted for in the last election or who you’re voting for in the next election.”
Reporting from PHEONIX, Arizona
While both campaigning in Maricopa County yesterday and today, Gov. Tim Walz and the second gentleman Doug Emhoff met this morning for coffee with their children at Otro Cafe in Phoenix.
Hope Walz and Cole Emhoff were in attendance, along with Cole’s wife, Greenley. They ordered coffee and pastries before sitting down together on the first day of early voting here in Arizona.
Following a joint briefing on the hurricane, Harris on CNN blasted Republican leaders who have spread conspiracy theories about FEMA, a federal organization that helps hurricane victims with evacuation and resources during emergency.
“[Local officials] are doing an extraordinary job in trying to combat the misinformation. I’m talking about sheriffs, I’m talking about mayors, I’m talking about local officials,” the vice president told the network on Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t even know their party affiliation, by the way. But leaders on the ground who know it is not in the best interest of the people living in those areas … to be afraid of seeking help.”
Though Harris didn’t address any Republicans by name, she said it was “dangerous” and “unconscionable, frankly, that anyone who would consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those people would not receive the aid to which they are entitled.”
“We know the desperation and the fear” of the people evacuating, she added. “The last thing they deserve is to have a so-called leader make them more scared.”
In remarks at a storm briefing on Hurricane Milton and response efforts to Hurricane Helene, Biden slammed Trump for spreading misinformation on disaster relief for people affected by Helene.
“The last few weeks, there’s been a reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies that are disturbing people,” Biden said. “It’s undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has not already been taken and will continue to be taken. It’s harmful who need help the most. There’s simply no place for this to happen.”
Biden said Trump “has led the onslaught of lies” that are “simply not true.” The president cited false claims of properties of hurricane victims being confiscated, victims being limited to $750 in cash for disaster relief, and FEMA disaster funds being distributed to migrants who entered the country illegally.
“What a ridiculous thing to say, it’s not true,” Biden said.
The president also called out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump ally, for pushing “bizarre” claims insinuating that government officials control the weather.
“It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s got to stop,” Biden said.
+2
PHOENIX — Arizona starts its first day of early voting Wednesday and ends it with a pivotal moment in its battleground Senate race, as Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego are set to face off in their first and only debate for the seat left open by retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Like the presidential contest, the Senate race offers deep contrasts in a state that’s been divided neatly in half for years. And despite the uncertainty in the close race for the White House, both Senate candidates are more than happy to associate themselves with the top of their ticket.
Gallego, a veteran, son of immigrants and five-term member of the House, is challenging Lake, a pro-Trump former newscaster who narrowly lost the 2022 governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs.
In an interview with NBC News after a Sunday night town hall with veterans in Scottsdale, Gallego said it helps sharing the ticket with someone like Harris rather than Biden, who dropped out of the race in July.
“It is, honestly, night and day, in terms of what I’m hearing from people,” Gallego said on how Harris is perceived compared to Biden.
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Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, according to the White House, following Iran’s missile attack on Israel last week.
The call, which Harris also joined, was the first time Biden and Netanyahu spoke since Aug. 21 as their relationship has been strained over how Israel has handled the fallout of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
Separately, Trump spoke to the Israeli prime minister following the missile attacks from Iran on Israel, according to two Trump campaign officials.
Israel was able to prevent fatalities during the attack, which involved 180 missiles fired from Iran, because of its aerial defense system.
A day before Trump is scheduled to visit Detroit to deliver remarks about his economic agenda, the Democratic National Committee is flying a banner over the Detroit Tigers home playoff game today at Comerica Park that reads: “Trump is an anti-union scab. Vote Kamala!”
“Detroit workers lived through the consequences of Trump’s catastrophic policies and have made a comeback under the Biden-Harris administration,” DNC spokesperson Stephanie Justice said in a statement.
She referred to Trump as an “anti-union scab who weakened the rights of workers, and he’ll push them to the bottom of his priority list once again to give handouts to his billionaire friends.”
The Democrats have sought to paint Trump as anti-union throughout the campaign, pointing to his policies as president and remarks he made to Elon Musk in August praising the SpaceX founder’s firing of striking workers.
The Harris-Walz campaign launched “Hombres con Harris,” an effort to expand the campaign’s outreach to Latino men in battleground states across the country.
The initiative comes as Walz is scheduled to join Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for an open Senate seat in the state, and actor Jaime Camil for a campaign event in Chandler this afternoon.
Other events for the initiative includes stops in Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Nogales in Arizona; Sparks, Reno and Las Vegas in Nevada; Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.
Each stop is set to feature members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, digital creators and celebrities including Aaron Dominguez, Guillermo Diaz, Nick Gonzales, Al Madrigal and more, the campaign said in a news release.
“At Latino-owned small businesses, sports bars, carnes asadas, union halls, and other community centered venues, the travel blitz will be focused on meeting Latino men where they are, in environments to discuss the issues that matter most to them and mobilize them to reach out to other Latino men, encouraging them to vote for Kamala Harris,” the campaign said.
Attendees at the events will discuss key issues to Latino communities, including health care, lower costs and an economy that gives people the opportunity to succeed, the campaign said.
Harris warned in a statement released by the White House this morning against price gouging and fraud during Hurricane Milton and in the wake of Hurricane Helene as states continue to recover from the destruction.
The Biden administration is monitoring for allegations of price gouging and fraud and will hold people accountable for taking advantage of the natural disasters, Harris said.
“I have seen firsthand the devastating impact of price gouging during an emergency,” Harris said. “As Attorney General of California during devastating wildfires that displaced thousands of residents, I took on those attempting to take advantage of the situation by raising hotel prices. As Senator, I worked to stop price gouging during the pandemic.”
The vice president has been proactive in weighing in on current events as she tries to emulate the position of the president ahead of the presidential election.
“Those evacuating before Hurricane Milton or recovering from Hurricane Helene should not be subject to illegal price gouging or fraud — at the pump, airport, or hotel counter,” she said.
Biden called on airlines and other companies yesterday not to engage in price gouging.
Trump bashed Harris’ plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans last night, telling Newsmax, “You don’t tax the rich.”
“You don’t tax the rich, because the rich are going to — look the rich pay most of the tax in the country. First of all, you know, people hate to say it, they hate to hear it, but you take a certain very small percentage and most of the tax is paid by the rich,” Trump said, predicting the wealthy would leave the country to avoid paying higher tax bills.
“The problem that she has is, she’s going to the communist method. Take all incentive,” Trump said, claiming — as he did when he was running against Biden in 2020 — that the country would enter a financial depression if he loses.
Trump was the first major presidential candidate in decades not to make his tax information public after he first clinched the Republican nomination in 2016. The then-Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee released six years of his tax returns in 2022, which showed he paid relatively little in federal taxes in the years before and during his presidency.
Trump criticized Democrats for releasing the information, but said at the time the returns “show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”
GOP Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida lashed out at his fellow Republican colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, on X this morning, implying that she should have her “head examined” after suggesting people can control the weather.
Giménez represents Florida’s 28th Congressional District, which covers the Florida Keys and many of Miami’s suburbs. His comment comes as his state is preparing for Hurricane Milton, a dangerous Category 4 storm expected to hit the west coast of Florida tonight.
“[NEWS] FLASH —> Humans cannot create or control hurricanes,” Giménez wrote on X. “Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined.”
He was responding to Greene’s post on X from Oct. 3 in which she peddled a conspiracy theory, suggesting people, whom she identifies only as “they,” can control the weather.
“It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” she wrote. NBC News has reached out to Greene’s office for comment.
+3
Trump heads to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania today, delivering remarks in Scranton at 3 p.m. and a campaign rally in Reading at 7 p.m.
Vance will hold a rally in Tucson, Arizona, at 3 p.m. ET, setting up split-screen appearances between him and Walz, who’s holding a rally there tonight. Vance will also deliver remarks at a CPAC town hall in Mesa at 5:30 p.m. ET
During an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Harris accused Trump’s campaign of spreading misinformation on hurricane relief. She added, “Have you no empathy, man?” and insisted that a “leader means lifting people up.”
Trump suggested in a post on Truth Social this morning that CBS News broke the law in its “60 Minutes” interview with Harris, which aired in an election special Monday night.
The former president claimed that the show’s producers “sliced and diced” Harris’ answers to their questions “over and over again,” though there’s no evidence that they did so.
He said it seemed to be “all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the ‘News Division,’ which must be licensed, to make her look ‘more Presidential,’ or a least, better.”
“It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation,” he continued. “This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable — It will always remain with this once storied brand. I have never heard of such a thing being done in ‘News.’ It is the very definition of FAKE NEWS! The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY! This is an open and shut case, and must be investigated, starting today!”
It’s unclear exactly what would have been considered a campaign finance violation. NBC News reached out to the Trump campaign for clarification. NBC News has also reached out to CBS News for comment.
Trump’s campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt called last night for CBS to release an unedited transcript of the interview with Harris, saying in a statement that it was “deceptively edited to lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.”
Harris’ interview was part of the same election special in which Trump was invited to participate in a separate interview but ultimately pulled out. CBS host Scott Pelley said that the Trump campaign gave “shifting explanations” for pulling out of the interview, including that CBS wanted to fact-check the interview and that Trump needed an apology for an interview CBS did with him in 2020.
Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who represents parts of western North Carolina impacted by Hurricane Helene, called out “outrageous rumors” pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., suggesting that government officials control the weather.
“Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” Greene wrote in a post on X last week after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of southeastern states.
In a statement yesterday, Edwards condemned “an uptick in untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay” about response efforts in the aftermath of the hurricane, without naming Greene.
“While it is true, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Helene has had its shortfalls, I’m here to dispel the outrageous rumors that have been circulated online,” he said. “Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock. Nobody can control the weather.”
Edwards noted that Charles Konrad, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Climate Center, has confirmed that it is impossible for someone to geoengineer a hurricane.
“Current geoengineering technology can serve as a large-scale intervention to mitigate the negative consequences of naturally occurring weather phenomena, but it cannot be used to create or manipulate hurricanes,” he said.
NBC News has reached out to Greene’s office for comment.
Trump will host a rally at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan on Oct. 27 per a campaign official. This will kick off an “arena tour” for the former president. The campaign intends to host “major arena rallies” in battleground states in the final push, per the official.
The campaign has long floated the idea of a Madison Square Garden rally. Trump is set to campaign in two other nonswing states this week: Coachella, California and Aurora, Colorado.
Harris and Biden will receive a briefing on preparations for Hurricane Milton and updates on recovery efforts from the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the southeastern part of the country at noon.
Walz participates in a veterans and military families event with Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego and Jim McCain, son of late Republican Sen. John McCain, in Chandler, Arizona, at 2 p.m. ET. Gallego is the Democratic nominee in the Arizona Senate race this year.
The Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee will also participate in an event with Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis and other tribal leaders in the Greater Phoenix area, Arizona at 3:30 p.m. ET and deliver remarks at a campaign rally in the Tucson area at 6:30 p.m. ET.
The political arm of Everytown for Gun Safety plans to spend $9 million to boost Democratic candidates in state legislative contests in five states, the group’s first investment in such races this election cycle.
The investment, first reported by NBC News, will be directed primarily toward digital and TV ads in state House and Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Partisan control of at least one legislative chamber in each of those states is up for grabs in November, with the fate of a litany of hot-button issues — including gun safety — on the line along with it.
The announcement is part of Everytown’s broader $45 million spending plans up and down the ballot.
Harris is zeroing in on a monumental task that could make or break her prospects in the final month before Election Day: wiping out Trump’s persisting advantage among voters on whom they trust to handle the economy.
While Harris has gained ground on stewardship of the economy, Trump still leads in most surveys about the issue, which frequently ranks as the top concern for voters. The Harris campaign and Democratic allies believe she must erode that advantage and at least fight it to a draw.
“With four weeks to go, we’re going to be laser-focused on this and be talking about this,” a Harris aide said.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said Harris and her team will spend the final stretch of the campaign presenting her as the candidate fighting for the middle class, citing her upbringing and agenda, while portraying Trump as caring more about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans like himself and hitting his plan for aggressive tariffs as a de facto middle-class tax hike.
One of the more remarkable aspects about the current political era is how closely contested control of all parts of the federal government is these days.
It’s not just the presidency that’s on a knife’s edge — so is the House, and even the Senate is highly competitive, though a GOP takeover this cycle is looking closer and closer to inevitable.
We could see all three change party control in the same election cycle, without their all ending up in the hands of the same party — an outcome that would be quite astonishing and unprecedented. And yet, as unusual as that would be, in another way, it would be sort of par for the course, considering how polarized and closely divided we are as a country.
Trump did send coronavirus testing devices to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin confirmed yesterday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg News in a written statement that “we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic.”
The story was initially reported in “War,” a new book by veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, which reports on Trump and Biden’s relationships with foreign leaders.
The book claims that Trump secretly sent Abbott Covid testing devices to Putin when the machines were in short supply. NBC News has not been able to independently verify this.
Peskov also denied Woodward’s claim that Trump and Putin have spoken on the telephone several times since Trump left office. “No, that’s not true,” he told Russian outlet RBC.
Trump also denied the reporting in an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “He’s a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles,” Trump said of Woodward.
In an interview on “The Chuck Toddcast” released this morning, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who formerly supported Trump in 2016, criticized the former president as unfit for the job.
“He can be a realtor, he could be a TV guy, he could be whatever he wants and I don’t care,” Cuban said. “But obviously, this is a different job, and I don’t think he’s qualified for it.”
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Cuban emphasized that he tries to be “as apolitical as possible” on the issues, and is not a Democrat or a Republican, despite endorsing Harris. He said when he first got involved in the 2016 presidential race, he initially supported Trump, but “as I got to know him, realized he was not who I thought he would be.” Cuban later endorsed Clinton.
Cuban said his reason for endorsing Harris centered on his children’s futures, citing the need to grapple with climate change as one concern. Later in the interview, he circled back on Trump.
“I’m a believer character is destiny, and what I look at is how he’s done business with people,” Cuban said. “As an entrepreneur, I see what he’s done,” he said, adding, “the number of contractors he’s stiffed.”
Cuban cited in particular former longtime Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony in the New York hush money trial, in which he said the former president would short pay vendors.
“Because to me, that’s the worst thing you can say about an entrepreneur or business person — I didn’t pay my vendors — because no one’s going to want to do business with you”
“That’s who Donald Trump is,” he said. “That’s what you need to know about Donald Trump. He’s going to put his pocketbook above and beyond all other things.”
The main Democratic super PAC involved in Senate races is out with a new ad airing in the Philadelphia market criticizing Pennsylvania Republican Dave McCormick for his past statements on abortion.
The ad, part of Senate Majority PAC’s $42 million fall ad buy, begins with the narrator saying, “In 2022, this was Dave McCormick’s website, where he called himself ‘staunchly pro-life’ and said ‘life begins at conception.'”
It then cuts to McCormick saying, “I’m someone who is pro-life.”
The rest of the ad accuses McCormick of trying to hide his position and erase his website to hide his views.
The ad ends calling him, “Dishonest Dave: you just can’t trust him.”
McCormick has spoken at length about his views on abortion.
Less than a week ago, during the first Senate debate, McCormick said his stance is that abortion should be a states’ rights issue.
“I believe states should decide. Pennsylvania has a law. It’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, it was signed into law by the senator’s father,” McCormick said. “I support the three exceptions. I would not favor an abortion ban of any kind, legislation to support the national abortion ban.”
Hannah Menchoff, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC, told NBC News: “Dave McCormick can delete as many words from his website as he wants to try and run from his extreme abortion agenda — but it’s not going to work. Pennsylvanians have a right to know that Dave McCormick supported abortion bans with no exceptions for rape and incest and can’t be trusted.”
Politics
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October 9, 2024
He relished the limelight in 2016 and 2020. Now he’s refusing to debate and ducking interviews.
Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Dodge County Airport on October 6, 2024, in Juneau, Wisconsin.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Donald Trump has been running for president for nearly a decade. He has never won the popular vote because his policies are out of touch with most American voters. But throughout his permanent campaign, the scandal-plagued former president has displayed sufficient energy and aplomb to secure the Republican nomination three times in a row and to flip enough battleground states to win the Electoral College in 2016. He came close to doing so again in 2020. And he is back at it this year.
But something is very different about Trump’s 2024 campaign. The perennial candidate, who once seized every significant opportunity to promote himself, is running scared this year.
Make no mistake: Trump is still in the news, as major media outlets continue to contort themselves to present the Republican’s reelection bid as something akin to a normal campaign. He makes authoritarian pronouncements on his failing Truth Social media platform. He appears at stage-managed campaign events, even though, as Vice President Kamala Harris has noted, “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.” And he still participates in what he expects will be friendly interviews with MAGA allies.
But this week, Trump canceled what would have been his premier interview appearance of the fall campaign—a half-hour segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes that promised to afford him equal billing with Harris, the Democratic nominee who showed up for a tough but fair round of questioning. Trump’s absence was duly noted at the opening of the special edition of 60 Minutes, which aired Monday night. Correspondent Scott Pelley began the program by explaining that the back-to-back appearance by the candidates on what remains this country’s top TV news program has been a “tradition for more than half a century,” and that Trump—who spoke enthusiastically, if somewhat weirdly, with 60 Minutes in 2016, and a good deal more combatively in 2020—had initially agreed to an extended conversation with Pelley this year.
“But, unfortunately, last week, Trump canceled,” Pelley revealed. Why? “The campaign offered shifting explanations,” said Pelley. “First, it complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020” with veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, in which she interrupted one of the candidate’s more outrageous attempts to spread misinformation on national television.
So, in the end, viewers watched Harris doing exactly what we expect of a presidential candidate—and a president. She sat down for a serious interview with a journalist who asked probing questions and demanded frank answers. Meanwhile, Trump hid out after he got caught lying about crowd sizes at a Sunday rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, where he was swarmed by flies.
The former president was still under cover on Tuesday, as Harris took more questions on The View, The Howard Stern Show, and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The Republican candidate’s only planned appearance was a stage-managed “town hall” event with “Trump Transition Team” members Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
Trump will be back on the road late in the week for more rallies—including a genuinely unexplainable event at Calhoun Ranch in Coachella, California, a state that gave him only 34 percent of the vote in 2020 and where he is not expected to do any better this year. (Lest anyone imagine that the former president might be targeting a base of supporters in California’s Riverside County, a Desert Sun headline from 2020 puts that fantasy to rest: “Biden carried every Coachella Valley city in the 2020 election.” In the city of Coachella itself, the vote was Biden 7,948, Trump 2,008, a 4-to-1 margin for the Democrat.)
While Trump is preparing to maroon himself in the desert, Harris has continued to agitate for a second debate with her Republican rival—a traditional fall event for candidates of the two major parties since 1976.
But Trump has been refusing the invitation. Why? That’s not hard to figure out. The universal assessment from the first televised clash between Trump and Harris in September was that she cleaned his clock. “Harris won the debate—and it wasn’t close,” declared Politico, while USA Today explained, “Who won the debate? Harris’ forceful performance rattles a defensive Trump.”
After trouncing Trump on stage in Philadelphia, Harris immediately asked for more debates. Trump immediately declined.
Since then, Harris has consistently led in polling averages. She now has a national advantage in the Real Clear Politics survey of recent polls that’s roughly twice the size of what she had on debate night.
With that said, the race remains close in a number of battleground states. So Harris is ramping up her policy-focused campaigning—with the launch of a plan for the most significant expansion of Medicare since the program was launched six decades ago. In addition to covering home healthcare costs, Harris wants to extend Medicare to cover hearing and vision expenses, along lines previously proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). An enthusiastic Sanders, who will be campaigning for Harris in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the coming days says, “Kamala Harris’s plan to expand Medicare to cover home health care is an important step forward. Let’s get it done.” For her part, Harris will be explaining the ambitious plan at rallies across the country—including a major event Friday in the senior-rich swing state of Arizona.
And Trump? He’ll be in Coachella, where the forecast calls for temperatures in excess of 100 and heavy Democratic voting.
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In the coming election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights are on the ballot. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are scheming to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision across all levels of government if he should win.
We’ve already seen events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism—throughout it all, The Nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers have sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, unpacked the shallow right-wing populist appeals of J.D. Vance, and debated the pathway for a Democratic victory in November.
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The Editors of The Nation
John Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance spoke at Detroit’s Eastern Market Tuesday, where he criticized the Biden administration’s investments in manufacturing as “table scraps.” More than a dozen people at the event, which drew “about 300” attendees in total, wore T-shirts that said “Auto Workers for Trump 2024,” according to Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger. In conversations during and after Vance’s remarks, however, Mauger discovered that at least six of them were … not actually auto workers.
It’s a small revelation in the grand scheme of election-season scandals, but the optics matter here. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are battling for the hearts and minds of manufacturing workers in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Harris, for her part, has touted the growth of factory construction and investment under the Biden administration, writing on Tuesday that the creation of manufacturing jobs “will be a priority for my administration.” Trump, meanwhile, has characterized the state of the sector as a “horror show,” in which “our country was stripped of jobs and wealth and our companies were sold off to foreign countries.”
In the midst of all this back-and-forth, the allegiances of Michigan’s nearly 300,000 auto workers have emerged as a particular prize. Harris recently visited a union hall near Ford’s Michigan Assembly plant, and Trump is scheduled to speak at a Detroit Economic Club event tomorrow. During his rally Tuesday, Vance also joked that he is “going to be in Michigan like 30 times.”
Major unions—including the United Auto Workers, which represents thousands of Detroit-area workers—have already endorsed Harris. The union’s internal polling also shows that “most of its members support Democratic candidates,” The Washington Post reported.
Still, Republicans have made significant inroads with working-class and union voters. And at least one high-profile Republican in Michigan defended the faux autoworkers in Detroit. “Fascinating reporting!” wrote Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, in a response to Mauger’s story on X. “I’ve worn a Blacks For Trump t-shirt a couple of times myself, I’m not black. I’ve got a Log Cabin Republicans sign in my house, I’m not gay.”
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