Trump falsely claims the US just experienced its highest inflation period ever as he address PA town hall: live

During his answer, Trump wrongly claimed that we have recently seen the worst period of inflation in US history – although he qualified that this was just, like, his opinion, man.

"Such damage has been done – In my opinion, the biggest inflation in the history of our country," he said. "They didn't include a lot of the bad numbers."

In fact that title goes to March and April of 1980, according to CNN, when the rate of inflation hit 14.6 per cent.

More recently, inflation hit a peak of just over 9 per cent in July 2022. It's now back down at around 2.6 per cent, although of course that doesn’t erase the price rises we’ve already suffered through.

After a brief intro speech lamenting the US's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump's Q&A begins.

The first question is from a man named Reed. "I believe you're a Navy SEAL, correct?" asks moderator Kristi Noem. No: he's a single father and Iraq war veteran who "dreams of owning a home", which he says interest rates under Biden and Harris have made "impossible".

Trump says it's too expensive to build a home due to regulatory red tape. But most of all, he says, he'll bring interest rates down. He says he'll do this by unleashing fossil fuel extraction – "drill, baby drill!" – to lower energy prices.

"It's going to be beautiful. You're going to have a house. Just wait a little while. Give me a little while. Let me get in," he concluded.

"One year from January 20, we will have your energy prices cut in half all over the country."

In an essay for Women’s Health magazine published on Monday, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz outlined her and Governor Tim Walz’s struggles with fertility.

She urged voters to back Vice President Kamala Harris to protect reproductive rights, arguing that former President Donald Trump will put in place a “nationwide abortion ban” if he returns to the White House.

“We were fortunate to have access to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where we began fertility treatments,” Walz wrote. “I was prescribed Clomid, among other treatments we tried, which is a medication that increases the hormones that stimulate egg production in your ovaries and can help you get pregnant. I’d also have to take special shots before an intrauterine insemination procedure that would increase my chances of pregnancy and successful fertilization.”

Noem lead cheers of “We love Trump! We love Trump!” She tells the audience: “He’s listening to you right now. He hears you!” Loud cheering.

Then comes Donald Trump, wading through his crowd of supporters and mounting the stage in suburban Philadelphia.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is now speaking to introduce Donald Trump in suburban Philly.

"Let's face it, Kamala Harris sucks," she says, to general cheers. "She sucks."

She's particularly proud, she says, of her resistance to Covid-19 lockdowns and other pandemic mitigation strategies such as mask mandates, saying that she never defined "essential business" because she didn't believe the government had the right to determine what that meant.

Donald Trump’s advisors reportedly blew up at ABC executives midway through his televised debate with Kamala Harris and complained about fact-checking.

People familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that top Trump aides Chris LaCivita and Jason Miller claimed the network had breached a pre-agreed set of rules for the debate on September 10.

In recent weeks Trump has bemoaned the insistence of networks to fact-check his speeches, raising spurious allegations of corruption and bias, and even threatened to somehow revoke broadcast licenses for major networks that air critical coverage.

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Donald Trump is due to speak in a town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania – part of the Philadelphia suburbs.

Technically, according to earlier reports, he was meant to start 19 minutes ago, at 6pm Eastern Time. But he’s usually late, so we’ll be posting live updates here as soon as he begins.

Government officials were forced to flee a county in North Carolina after they received reports that an “armed militia” was prowling around in trucks “hunting” for Hurricane relief workers.

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported on an email sent out by US Forest Service officials warning relief workers that “National Guard troops had come across two trucks of men saying [they] were out hunting FEMA.”

That email resulted in aid workers being evacuated out of Rutherford County.

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President Joe Biden is reported to have instructed his National Security Council to tell Iran that any assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump would be viewed as an act of war.

Several high-level former Trump officials have received increased security following the 2020 killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savitt told Fox News Digital last month that Iran has wanted revenge for the killing.

“We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” he told the network. “We have ensured that appropriate agencies are continuously and promptly providing the former president’s security detail with evolving threat information. Additionally, President Biden has reiterated his directive that the United States Secret Service should receive every resource, capability and protective measure required to address those evolving threats to the former president.”