Trump insults Harris in jibe-filled speech at Catholic charity dinner
Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the Al Smith charity dinner in New York in person, appearing via a pre-recorded video sketch, instead. Her jokes didn’t appear to land with the audience.
The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and traditionally candidates from both parties have attended.
Trump’s jokes were crude but seemed to be well received by those in attendance.
Trump mocked transgender people, aiming a jibe at vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz.
He also took aim at migrants and New York, saying he had to wrap up his speech so New York can “turn the room into an illegal migrant shelter”.
Regarding Harris’ absence, he posted on his Truth Social network:
Just found out that Lyin’ Kamala is doing a video message tonight instead of being at the Al Smith Dinner. She shouldn’t be allowed to do a video message.
Kamala should be there like almost every other Presidential Candidate in their History, except Walter Mondale, who lost 49-1. They didn’t give me the option of a video message, nor would I have done it. This is very disrespectful to everyone involved. She should be here, or lose the Catholic Vote!”
Key events
Evidence in Trump election subversion case to be unsealed today – report
The federal judge handling Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to subverting the 2020 election has allowed a new batch of evidence against the former president to be made public today, the Washington Post reports.
The evidence underpins a brief filed by special counsel Jack Smith that argues Trump’s conduct is not covered by a recent supreme court ruling that gave presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts. Here’s more from the Post on what we can expect to see when the evidence is released:
In a five-page order Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said Trump had failed to address the legal system’s presumption in favor of public access to criminal court proceedings, and rejected the former president’s assertion that it could appear the court was trying to impact the election by making public potentially unflattering material about Trump in an appendix to Smith’s brief.
“If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute — or appear to be — election interference,” Chutkan wrote. “The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests.”
Trump’s attorneys earlier Thursday had asked Chutkan to postpone the release of the material, much of which was expected to be redacted, until nine days after the Nov. 5 election. That would fall after the former president is set to file his own blockbuster brief of up to 180 pages with its own appendix of sources arguing why he should not still face trial after the Supreme Court’s July ruling establishing that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts.
While Trump argued that release of the materials would poison the jury pool, Chutkan said that both sides’ filings ultimately would be available to potential jurors, any taint could be rooted out in jury selection, and Trump was free to make his own legal arguments in court and to the public.
While Donald Trump is believed to have made gains among Black and Hispanic voters, a new poll shows the Kamala Harris continues to lead among the former group, the Guardian’s Anna Betts reports:
A new poll has revealed that Kamala Harris continues to lead Donald Trump among Black likely voters in battleground states.
The poll, conducted by Howard University’s Initiative on Public Opinion from 2 October to 8 October, surveyed 981 Black likely voters in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The results show that 84% of respondents said they planned to vote for the vice-president, while only 8% said they would support Trump for president in November, and another 8% remained undecided.
The survey also identified the most important issues for the respondents, with “democracy/voting rights/elections’” ranked as a top priority, followed by the economy and abortion rights.
We’ll hear more from Donald Trump at 7pm today, when he holds a rally in Detroit.
That’s the largest city in swing state Michigan, and a Democratic stronghold. Don’t be surprised if he presses his case to the city’s large African American population, a demographic where the Trump campaign is trying to make inroads, that they would be better off voting for him.
Kamala Harris, meanwhile, will also be in Michigan. She rallies in Grand Rapids at 2.30pm, then has another event in the state capital Lansing at 5.25pm, and a final event in suburban Detroit’s Oakland county at 8.10pm. Busy day!
Trump campaign considering holding town hall with Nikki Haley – report
Donald Trump’s campaign is pondering arranging a town hall with Nikki Haley, his former UN ambassador turned rival for the Republican nomination, who has since endorsed his candidacy, the Bulwark reports.
The joint appearance, which could be held with conservative commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News, is a bid to shore up his standing with women voters, who polls indicate are less enthusiastic about returning Trump to the White House than are men. Haley and Trump were at-times bitter rivals in the GOP primaries earlier this year, but she later endorsed him during a speech at the Republican national convention in July.
Nonetheless, Haley has lately noted that she still has her differences with Trump. Here’s what the Bulwark reports:
Since then, however, Haley and Trump have not appeared together. And she hinted that tensions still linger on her new SiriusXM satellite radio show last month.
“I don’t agree with Trump 100 percent of the time,” Haley said.
“I have not forgotten what he said about me. I’ve not forgotten what he said about my husband or his, you know, deployment time or his military service. I haven’t forgotten about his or his campaign’s tactics from, you know, putting a bird cage outside our hotel room to calling me ‘bird brain,’” Haley said on her show, adding that she’s still for Trump because she thinks he “will make the country better.”
Those comments garnered some attention in Trump’s orbit. One confidant of the ex-president privately joked that talk like that is usually taboo in his circles because “if you’re with him 99 percent of the time, you’re a fucking traitor in Trump’s eyes.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier says he made “a mistake” when he failed to include a clip of Donald Trump referring to the “enemy from within” about his rivals during an interview with Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
Baier showed a clip that came from a town hall broadcast earlier in the day via Fox News’s “The Faulkner Focus”, in which Trump said he is “not threatening anybody.”
“That clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy from within. … That’s not what you just showed,” Harris said to the Fox News anchor.
“You didn’t show that, and here is the bottom line: He has repeated it multiple times, and you and I both know that, and you and I both know he has talked about turning the military on the American people.”
Baier said on “Special Report” on Thursday that he “did make a mistake” when it came to clips shown in the interview.
Trump brushed off concerns from President Biden about Election Day not being peaceful, saying, “the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country.”
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within,” Trump said. “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics.”
Vice-president Kamala Harris appeared at the Al Smith charity dinner, a bi-partisan fundraising event traditionally attended by presidential candidates to trade lighthearted jokes at each other, via a pre-recorded video link.
Actress and former SNL cast member Molly Shannon appeared in the sketch, playing her fictional Catholic school pupil character Mary Katherine Gallagher.
Harris asked for advice; Shannon-as-Gallahgher suggests she doesn’t lie, as it is a sin. Harris replies you shouldn’t lie, especially, about “thy neighbour’s election results”.
She would never insult Catholics, Harris said – taking another jibe at Trump: “That would be like insulting Detroiters when you’re in Detroit.”
Harris’ sketch received a lukewarm reception by those in attendance at the dinner.
“As I watched that I couldn’t help but think now I know how my kids felt when I face-timed into a piano recital they were at,” Jim Gaffigan, the comedian who hosted the dinner, said.
The crowd cheered – not hugely enthusiastically, but more than just politely – following Harris’s appearance.
Electioneering places a cost burden on local police forces. As the candidates descend on Michigan, a key battleground state in the upcoming election, local forces scramble to provide support to the Secret Service and other agencies.
The Detroit Free Press reports that by late last month, Kent County, home of Grand Rapids, had incurred more than $300,000 in expenses.
Assistant County Administrator Lori Latham said:
We anticipate additional expenses as we expect more visits leading up to the election.
Although we do not have a dedicated fund for these unforeseen costs, we use overtime and contingency funds to manage such unexpected expenditures.
Bob Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, said some areas feel the burden more than others:
The degree of the burden sometimes depends on the size of the city and their experience with it,” Stevenson said. “You take a town like Dearborn or Detroit or Battle Creek.
They have lots of people, they can probably divert a lot of their working people for that short period of time, and it’s not a problem. But you take some of the smaller cities, not only are they already short staffed, but now you’ve got to somehow come up with people.”
Security concerns have been the theme of this campaign, with two attempts on Trump’s life taking place in less than three months.
Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing for her first campaign appearances with Barack and Michelle Obama this month in Georgia and Michigan.
The Associated Press reports that the vice president will appear with Barack Obama in Georgia on October 24, and with Michelle Obama in Michigan on October 26.
The Obamas endorsed Harris in July and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.
The rally is being hosted by When We All Vote, a nonpartisan civic engagement organisation founded my Michelle Obama to encourage people to engage with politics.
Trump insults Harris in jibe-filled speech at Catholic charity dinner
Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the Al Smith charity dinner in New York in person, appearing via a pre-recorded video sketch, instead. Her jokes didn’t appear to land with the audience.
The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and traditionally candidates from both parties have attended.
Trump’s jokes were crude but seemed to be well received by those in attendance.
Trump mocked transgender people, aiming a jibe at vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz.
He also took aim at migrants and New York, saying he had to wrap up his speech so New York can “turn the room into an illegal migrant shelter”.
Regarding Harris’ absence, he posted on his Truth Social network:
Just found out that Lyin’ Kamala is doing a video message tonight instead of being at the Al Smith Dinner. She shouldn’t be allowed to do a video message.
Kamala should be there like almost every other Presidential Candidate in their History, except Walter Mondale, who lost 49-1. They didn’t give me the option of a video message, nor would I have done it. This is very disrespectful to everyone involved. She should be here, or lose the Catholic Vote!”
Germany honours Biden for restoring ‘Europe’s hope in the trans-Atlantic alliance’
Germany have awarded US President Joe Biden the highest class of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work improving the German-American friendship and the transatlantic alliance.
He was presented the award by Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Steinmeier said the friendship with the US is “and will always be existentially important” for Germany, but there have always been “times of proximity and greater distance.”
”Even recently, just a handful of years ago, the distance had grown so wide that we almost lost each other,” Steinmeier said, alluding to tense relations during Trump’s earlier presidency.
He said Biden “restored Europe’s hope in the trans-Atlantic alliance literally overnight.”
“In the months to come, I hope that Europeans remember: America is indispensable for us,” he added. “And I hope that Americans remember: Your allies are indispensable for you. We are more than just ‘other countries’ in the world — we are partners, we are friends.”
Trump accuses Zelenskyy of helping to start war in extraordinary attack
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the run-up to the US election as Donald Trump has claimed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped to start his country’s war with Russia.
The Republican presidential candidate’s extraordinary criticism – the war started when Russia invaded Ukrainian sovereign territory – comes as Joe Biden arrives in Europe for closed-door discussions with allies with Ukraine high on the agenda.
As Reuters reports, Trump’s comments indicate he is likely to radically shift US policy toward Russia if he wins the 5 November election.
The Republican former president has frequently criticized Zelenskyy on the campaign trail, repeatedly calling him “the greatest salesman on Earth” for having solicited and received billions of dollars of US military aid since the war broke out in 2022.
Trump has also slammed the Ukrainian leader for failing to seek peace with Moscow, and he has suggested Ukraine may have to cede some of its land to Russia to make a peace deal, a concession Kyiv considers unacceptable.
Trump’s comments on the PBD Podcast on Thursday with Patrick Bet-David went a step further than his previous criticism. He said Zelenskyy was to blame not just for failing to end the war, but for helping start it. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser,” Trump said.
Meanwhile on Friday, Biden will seek to cement cooperation with key European partners on issues from the Ukraine war to conflict in the Middle East during a swift swansong trip to Berlin.
“We’re wheels down in Berlin,” Biden wrote in a post on X overnight. “Ready to greet old friends and strengthen our close alliance as we stand together for freedom and against tyranny around the world.”
We’re wheels down in Berlin.
Ready to greet old friends and strengthen our close alliance as we stand together for freedom and against tyranny around the world. pic.twitter.com/zaTFtTOFMT
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 18, 2024
More on this shortly. In other developments:
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Donald Trump laid into Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday in a pointed and at times bitter speech as he headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner in New York. The Republican nominee repeatedly criticised his Democratic campaign rival over her decision to skip the event. She sent a video instead.
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Billionaire Elon Musk launched five nights of campaign events in Pennsylvania in support of Trump’s campaign last night. “This election, I think, is going to decide the fate of America and, along with the fate of America, the fate of Western civilization,” he said at a town hall event in Folsom, on the outskirts of Philadelphia. He also reportedly pushed the debunked narrative that voting machines had been used in a plot to rig the 2020 election.
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Harris and Trump will both be scouring for votes in Michigan on Friday as they try to lock down support in this key political battleground. Harris is scheduled to begin her day in Grand Rapids before holding events in Lansing and Oakland County, which is northwest of Detroit. Trump has his own event in Oakland County in the afternoon before holding a rally in Detroit in the evening.