Trump rounds out Sun Belt campaign sweep with Tucker Carlson as Harris appears with J Lo in Vegas: Live

Good morning!

Donald Trump got off his private plane in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday evening and, donning a bright orange high-visibility safety vest, got into a garbage truck in a desperate attempt to troll Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

With Election Day looming, both the Republican and Democratic candidates are hoping to leverage the racist comments made against Puerto Rico at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called the US territory “a floating island of garbage”, potentially alienating millions of Latino voters.

Working hard to dissociate himself from the controversy, Trump has leapt on a gaffe President Biden made on Tuesday in which he responded to the bad taste joke by suggesting the only “garbage” he could see were Trump supporters trashing their fellow citizens.

Trump’s publicity stunt truck in Wisconsin – which he struggled to get into – was emblazoned with his campaign logo and the former president clearly enjoyed leaning out of its window (recalling his recent McDonald’s drive-thru photo-op) to ask the press: “How do you like my garbage truck?”

He then, inevitably, denied knowing anything about Hinchcliffe before being sped around the runway tarmac in circles for no good reason.

Vivek Ramaswamy also got in on the act on his behalf and his supporters appear to have delighted at it as a last-minute Halloween costume idea.

Here’s Oliver O’Connell’s report.

Elon Musk has been ordered to appear in a Philadelphia courtroom after the city’s top prosecutor accused the world’s wealthiest person of illegally awarding $1 million to registered voters in the state.

The same day Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and his political action committee this week, the billionaire shared a post on X — the social media platform he owns — that claimed Krasner “knows it’s not illegal but wants a leftist judge to stop it before Election Day.”

That post “immediately triggered an avalanche of posts from Musk’s followers,” including “antisemitic attacks” against the district attorney and threats of violence, attorneys for Krasner’s office told a judge on Wednesday in a push for additional security at an upcoming court hearing.

Alex Woodward reports.

Vice President Kamala Harris is charging towards election day in full turnout mode, delivering her “closing argument” in a massive rally on the Ellipse while making last-ditch appeals in key battleground states.

As she heads to Reno, Nevada on Thursday for what is likely to be her last visit to the state as a candidate, the vice president’s campaign is leaning hard on support from organized labor in the Rust Belt to shore up her strength there.

John Bowden reports.

Reggaeton star Nicky Jam has rescinded his support for Donald Trump following the racist remarks made about Puerto Rico at the former president’s recent New York City rally.

The “Hasta el Amanecer” singer, 43, who in September campaigned alongside Trump at his Nevada rally, took to Instagram to retract his endorsement.

Inga Parkel has the story.

Josseli Barnica was suffering from a deadly infection from a miscarriage while at the hospital in Houston — but doctors had to wait to treat her due to the state’s abortion ban that limited how much care they could provide her as her baby maintained a heartbeat.

“They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” her husband told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

Kelly Rissman has the story.

Eric Garcia writes:

With less than a week to go, campaigns have inundated any state or district with a competitive election with television ads to make their closing argument. This can be especially aggravating, especially after a long day of work where the average voter might just want to watch some mindless reality television or some football.

But in truth, campaigns needs to run ads there to meet voters where they are. This might be why we are seeing more ostentatious ads this election cycle than ever before.

While in her speeches, Vice President Kamala Harris has focused on the danger of Donald Trump’s rhetoric — even going so far as to call him a “petty tyrant” — most of her ads have gone all-in on the economy.

Meanwhile, Republicans, led by Trump, have done a slew of anti-transgender ads, focusing largely on the issue of transgender women in men’s sports.

Continue reading...

In the latest CNN polls of several battleground states, Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin - but the two are tied in Pennsylvania.

The so-called blue wall states are Harris’s most viable, but not only, path to an Electoral College victory after Tuesday’s election.

Gustaf Kilander looks at the numbers.