Kamala Harris says Donald Trump’s language ‘demeans office of the presidency’
Good morning, US politics readers.
There are now only 15 days to go until voting day and the attacks traded between the two presidential candidates – Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R) – are intensifying. On Sunday, Harris celebrated her 60th birthday and gave an interview with Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC.
Sharpton asked her about Trump calling her a “shit vice-president” at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Harris, who became the first black vice-president and woman in the role after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, responded:
The American people deserve so much better. That is how I come at it. And to your point, the President of the United States must set a standard – not only for our nation but understanding the standard we as a nation must set for the world.
We representing the United States of America walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy, of rule of law and have been thought of as a role model … of what it means to be committed to certain standards, including international rules and norms, but also standards of decorum.
And what you see in my opponent, a former President of the United States, demeans the office. And I have said – and I am very clear about this – Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States. He has not earned the right … and that is why he is going to lose.
The presidential race is essentially deadlocked, both nationally and in so-called battleground states. The contest on 5 November will be decided by the slimmest of margins. In order to appeal to voters in the critical swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), both Trump and Harris are trying to appeal to moderate, swing voters and ensure their bases are enthused enough to go out and vote.
Later today, Harris will be targeting suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – holding a series of conversations with Republican Liz Cheney that will be moderated by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host Charlie Sykes.
Trump has three North Carolina stops on Monday, including a visit to see storm damage in Asheville. He beat Biden in the state by 1.3% in 2020, but the polls this year are extremely tight, giving the Democrats a rare chance of winning the state.
Key events
New finance filings show Harris campaign’s huge financial advantage in presidential race
The Harris campaign reported raising $221.8m (£170.4m) in September, compared to Trump’s campaign raising $62.7m (£48.2m), the Washington Post reported after new federal campaign finance filings showed her huge financial advantage in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
The Federal Election Commission filings, released yesterday, also showed that the Democratic National Committee raised $98.6m (£76m) last month, compared to the Republican National Committee raising $37.8m (£29m).
The Washington Post reported:
New reports filed on Tuesday showed that Harris’s primary fundraising vehicle for big-dollar donations, the Harris Victory Fund, brought in a staggering $633m (£486m) during the third quarter. That was more than four times as much as the $145m (£111m) that the victory fund’s GOP counterpart, the Trump 47 committee, brought in, according to reports filed last week.
Despite that huge spending edge and Harris’s sprawling ground game, her campaign has still struggled to significantly outpace Trump in key swing state polls. The vice president’s campaign has a much larger footprint than Trump’s, which relies on outside groups to help it turn out voters, and her advisers are worried about whether they will have enough money to secure victory. Harris’s advisers believe that the race remains close in all of the key swing states, and point to the high cost of targeting hard-to-reach and infrequent voters in seven very different states.
Harris is running a campaign that is about three times the size of Trump’s operation, spending more money on ads and having more staff, volunteers and a larger surrogate operation than her Republican opponent, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign spending.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, is making an unexpected visit to Ukraine today to reaffirm Washington’s support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he meets him later.
Austin is also expected to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov. US backing is crucial if Kyiv is to get support from other allies for proposals Zelenskyy believes are necessary to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and ahead of any peace negotiations.
There are concerns that a second Trump administration could suspend military support for Kyiv, at a time when Ukraine is in desperate need for financial support and military equipment, much of which is supplied by the US. Kamala Harris seems set to follow Joe Biden’s policy towards Ukraine, supplying Kyiv with military aid and supporting them diplomatically. She has ruled out meeting one-on-one with Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine unless leaders from Kyiv are involved.
“It’s been absolutely remarkable that Ukraine has been able to do what it’s done,” Austin told reporters.
“It’s been able to do that, of course, because of the fact that we have supported them from the very beginning, and we’ve rallied some 50 countries to be a part of that support,” he added.
Kamala Harris says Donald Trump’s language ‘demeans office of the presidency’
Good morning, US politics readers.
There are now only 15 days to go until voting day and the attacks traded between the two presidential candidates – Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R) – are intensifying. On Sunday, Harris celebrated her 60th birthday and gave an interview with Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC.
Sharpton asked her about Trump calling her a “shit vice-president” at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Harris, who became the first black vice-president and woman in the role after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, responded:
The American people deserve so much better. That is how I come at it. And to your point, the President of the United States must set a standard – not only for our nation but understanding the standard we as a nation must set for the world.
We representing the United States of America walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy, of rule of law and have been thought of as a role model … of what it means to be committed to certain standards, including international rules and norms, but also standards of decorum.
And what you see in my opponent, a former President of the United States, demeans the office. And I have said – and I am very clear about this – Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States. He has not earned the right … and that is why he is going to lose.
The presidential race is essentially deadlocked, both nationally and in so-called battleground states. The contest on 5 November will be decided by the slimmest of margins. In order to appeal to voters in the critical swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), both Trump and Harris are trying to appeal to moderate, swing voters and ensure their bases are enthused enough to go out and vote.
Later today, Harris will be targeting suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – holding a series of conversations with Republican Liz Cheney that will be moderated by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host Charlie Sykes.
Trump has three North Carolina stops on Monday, including a visit to see storm damage in Asheville. He beat Biden in the state by 1.3% in 2020, but the polls this year are extremely tight, giving the Democrats a rare chance of winning the state.