Special counsel filings reveal allegations of Trump’s ‘increasingly desperate efforts’ to overturn 2020 election: Live

Vice President Kamala Harris issued the following statement on the International Longshoremen’s Association strike:

“This strike is about fairness. Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown. The Longshoremen, who play a vital role transporting essential goods across America, deserve a fair share of these record profits.

“Donald Trump, on the other hand, wants to pull us back to a time before workers had the freedom to organize. As President, he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers, he appointed union busters to the NLRB - and just recently, he said striking workers should be fired.

“Donald Trump makes empty promise after empty promise to American workers, but never delivers. He thinks our economy should only work for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who actually build them. As President, I will have workers’ backs and finally pass the PRO Act. And I will fight for an opportunity economy - where every person has the chance not just to get by but to get ahead.”

The Harris-Walz campaign is calling out Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance for his shifting stance on abortion.

During last night’s debate, the Ohio senator said: “I never supported a national ban [on abortion].”

However, the vice president’s campaign posted a page from what appears to be Vance’s Senate campaign website prominently titled: “END ABORTION.”

The campaign says it has since been deleted.

Rhian Lubin and Alex Woodward took a look at the truth behind Vance’s claim.

Donald Trump’s allies running for Senate in must-win states, and several swing states, are polling far behind the GOP presidential nominee, a warning for Mitch McConnell and other Republican leadership fighting to take control of the upper chamber of Congress.

Polling averages collected by Axios show potentially make-or-break gaps between Trump and his allies, signaling that even a close Trump victory in crucial swing states will not guarantee a victory for the candidates he endorsed.

That could mean voters are looking to split their tickets this fall — backing Trump in the presidential race and Democrats in down-ballot races.

Alex Woodward has the latest.

Over the past four years, President Joe Biden has jetted off to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires and tropical storms. It’s not a role that Kamala Harris has played as vice president.

But on Wednesday, they will both fan out across the Southeast to grapple with the damage from Hurricane Helene, seeking to demonstrate commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response. Biden is heading to North Carolina and South Carolina, while Harris is going to Georgia.

Harris’ stop will also serve as a political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She’s trying to step into the role for which Biden is best known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her campaign for president.

She last visited scenes of natural disasters as a California senator, including when she went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when she walked through charred wreckage in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire in 2018.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager and former state director in her Senate office, said the vice president uses her experience consoling victims as a courtroom prosecutor to connect with people after tragedies.

She said the trip to Georgia was a chance for Harris “to continue to show her leadership and her ability to get things done, versus Donald Trump and JD Vance who want to dismantle the basic services and the role that the government should play.”

In an appearance on CNN on Wednesday lunchtime, Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi said of the vice presidential debate: “You saw the difference between truth and trust, in terms of Walz, and con and slick, in terms of [Vance] ... they not only want to have a federal ban on abortion, they want to close the Department of Education to educate those children.”

Watch below:

Donald Trump is facing backlash for downplaying the traumatic brain injuries suffered by 109 US service members after an Iranian ballistic missile attack in 2020.

The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks at a campaign press event on Tuesday after a reporter asked him if he should have been “tougher” on Iran during his time in the White House following the attack that left troops injured.

“First of all, injured, what does injured mean?” Trump replied. “You mean because they had a headache?”

Ariana Baio reports on the former president’s shocking remarks.

The latest polling by The Cook Political Report also looks at one of the most important and enduring political questions for Donald Trump — can he ever expand his appeal, or does he really have a hard “ceiling” of support.

In 2016 and 2020, Trump was unable to break 49 per cent of the vote in some of the most important swing states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona.

The September Cook poll gives some credence to the theory that his support is fixed. Since May, Trump’s overall share of the vote has barely budged (47-48 per cent), even as Harris has been able to improve on Biden’s share by five points (44-49 per cent).

Moreover, a fixed percentage of voters – 32-35 per cent – are “all-in” for Trump; they like him and his leadership traits, while a fixed percentage of voters – anywhere from 45-49 per cent – dislike Trump both personally and policy-wise.

However, if you combine the percentage of voters who are all-in on Trump with the 17-22 per cent who dislike him personally but approve of his policies, there is a pathway for Trump to break through his ceiling.

While the conventional wisdom suggests that the “like his policies/don’t like his style” voter is more likely to be a middle-aged conservative white male, the data finds this type of voter to be disproportionately Latino (26 per cent) and specifically a Latino man (28 per cent).

Most importantly, over half of the “policy not personality” voters are undecided on how to vote or say they are supporting a third-party candidate. In other words, if Trump were able to keep focused on a policy-based message, it would give him a significant advantage with those voters who are still up for grabs.

Donald Trump Jr clashed with Kaitlan Collins about his father previously being compared to Adolf Hitler – before the CNN journalist reminded him that JD Vance once did the very same thing.

On Tuesday night, the Ohio senator and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced off for their first – and likely only – debate ahead of the election, broadcast live from CBS News’s New York City studio.

As the candidates exchanged barbs, Trump’s eldest son Don Jr waited in the wings in the spin room where he encountered Collins.

James Liddell has the story.

The Kamala Harris and Tim Walz campaign has seized on JD Vance’s “damning non-answer” concerning whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election at last night’s vice presidential debate with a new ad focused on the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Watch it here:

Donald Trump has his largest lead over Kamala Harris, 51 per cent to 42 per cent on the issue of border and immigration, according to the latest polling by The Cook Political Report. However, that is a five-point drop from his 53 per cent to 39 per cent lead over Harris in August. This drop comes even as the Trump campaign and its allies have run attack ads that put the blame for the surge of migrants at the southern border, and the crimes some of them have committed, at Harris’ feet.

The southern border is no longer as overwhelmed with the surge of migrants, and as such is no longer in the center of media coverage, which is likely helping Harris. Illegal crossings have dropped dramatically since June, when President Joe Biden’s executive action restricting asylum claims went into effect.

However, voters in border states like Arizona (+13) and Nevada (+12) continue to give Trump a significant advantage on the issue. But in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Trump’s lead on the issue has been halved.