Harris takes 3 point lead over Trump in top national poll as media blitz continues with Colbert: Live updates

Colorado and California are both reliably Democrat-voting states but that’s not stopping Donald Trump from holding campaign rallies in both states this week.

The former president announced he will visit Aurora, Colorado on Friday despite polling 11 points behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the state. Then he will rally in Coachella, California on Saturday even though he has virtually no chance of winning California.

Ariana Baio takes a look at what’s happening.

Sheila Flynn writes:

The teasers for the memoir were sleek, enigmatic and reflective of the image held world-over of Melania Trump herself – a woman oft photographed but always inscrutable at the side of America’s most controversial man.

She acknowledges as much in the author’s note preceding the eponymous Melania, dangling the promise of a glimpse into her mind and everyday reality, writing that she hopes “to show you the woman behind the public persona, to illuminate the values and experiences that have shaped me, and to offer insights into the complexities of life in the public eye.

“As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to set the record straight and to provide the actual account of my experiences,” she continues.

Read on to see what she had to say...

During an October debate, Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy took a shot at his Democratic opponent, Sen. Jon Tester, for ” eating lobbyist steak ″ while the Republican fought in Afghanistan.

But Sheehy himself had a taste for red meat and lobbying, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press. He combined the two in pursuit of government contracts that allowed his aerial firefighting company to rapidly expand over the past decade.

“I hope you enjoyed the steakhouse,” Sheehy wrote to Ryan Osmundson, the state Budget Director after a November 2021 meeting in Martinsdale, Montana.

Continue reading...

John Bowden writes:

Call it Donald Trump’s attempt at manufacturing an October Surprise.

The release of a memoir from Melania Trump with less than a month left in the presidential election cycle feels like the epitome of a Hail Mary. An obvious, direct appeal to the one demographic — women — among whom her husband is bleeding support the most. A call to return to the fold aimed at conservative women turned off by the ugliness of Trump’s campaign and the battle over abortion rights, which has become a weight around the former president’s neck.

The only question is why anyone thinks this will matter, given the infrequency of her public statements and appearances.

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Maryland’s close Senate race is growing increasingly tense as the race enters its final month and polls show the two candidates within single digits of each other.

The battle for retiring Senator Ben Cardin’s seat in the deep-blue state has been close for months, but both parties are showing more and more signs of valuing the race’s importance in the ending stretch.

John Bowden reports.

Nearly half of the people convicted of the same crimes as Donald Trump in New York state receive prison time, a new analysis finds.

Forty-two percent of people convicted of falsifying business records in New York in the last decade were sentenced to time in jail or prison, a new study from The New York Times found. In Manhattan specifically, that number is closer to one-third, the outlet’s analysis showed.

Katie Hawkinson reports.

Asked what she would say to women on the fence about voting for Donald Trump, former first lady Melania Trump manages not to mention reproductive rights in her reply.

There was no follow up question.

Melania Trump has joined The Five, live on Fox News for an in-studio interview.

When asked about the 2024 election she said of the Harris campaign: “When they call him that he’s a threat to democracy, let’s ask ourselves who is a threat to democracy — they are ongoing with lawfare with the former president as well as trying to get him off the ballots as well as silence him .... it’s a toxic atmosphere.”

The Trump White House put restraints on the FBI’s investigation into claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation process, according to a report from the office of a Democratic senator.

Then-President Donald Trump said the FBI would have “free rein” to investigate the allegations and that the agency was “talking to everybody.”

Gustaf Kilander reports on what happened next.