Biden not confident of peaceful 2024 election amid Trump’s ‘dangerous’ rhetoric; Harris praises unions at rally: Live

President made surprise first appearance in White House briefing room to answer questions about today’s jobs report, November’s election, and prospects for Middle East peace

Kamala Harris calls Liz Cheney endorsement ‘profound honor’

President Joe Biden said he did not know if November’s election would be “peaceful” given Donald Trump’s “dangerous” rhetoric, in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room

However, the president told reporters that he is confident the election will be “free and fair”.

Biden was also asked if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was delaying a diplomatic agreement regarding the Gaza conflict to influence the election. He said that no administration has helped Israel more than he has and Netanyahu should remember that.

The president also mocked MAGA Republicans for calling today’s positive jobs numbers “fake” and when asked if he had reconsidered dropping out of the presidential race, joked: “I’m back in.”

On the campaign trail, Trump and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp surveyed damage from Hurricane Helene on Friday afternoon. The two have been estranged since the governor refused to help the former president find more voters in his state in the 2020 election.

Trump will be joined by tech billionaire Elon Musk at his Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of his attempted assassination on July 13.

Kamala Harris is campaigning in Michigan focusing on labor and the economy having scored high-profile endorsements from Liz Cheney and Bruce Springsteen.

Key Points

• Biden says he can’t guarantee election will be peaceful but is confident it will be fair
• Trump attacks ‘Low IQ War Hawk’ Cheney over Harris support
• Where are Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigning today?
• New jobs numbers are very good news for Harris and Biden
• Polls: Who’s ahead in Georgia and Michigan as Trump and Harris visit key states?
• Elon Musk to join Donald Trump as he returns to scene of assassination attempt in Pennsylvania

[4 October 2024 11:50 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump’s hurricane relief claims draw backlash: ‘Professional conservatives know this is a lie’

The likes of Stephanie Ruhle and Chris Hayes have been picking up on the Republican presidential nominee’s breathtaking string of lies in Saginaw yesterday when he baselessly accused the Biden administration of embezzling FEMA funding to bankroll a non-existent influx of illegal immigrants to steal the election for Kamala Harris in November, which is simply not something that’s happening.

“Professional conservatives”, you say?

This is how Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are covering it.

[4 October 2024 11:30 · Joe Sommerlad]

Cheney to be joined by three female former Trump aides at her next Harris event

Liz Cheney will be part of another campaign event for Kamala Harris next week, this time a “fireside chat” in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also featuring Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews, former Trump administration aides all, CNN reports.

Cheney, Hutchinson and Matthews have formally endorsed Harris but Griffin, a co-host on ABC’s The View, has yet to do so, but often backs the Democrat’s point of view on that show.

The October 9 event will be hosted by activist group Democracy First in one of the all-important “collar counties” outside Philadelphia in an absolutely vital swing state.

A source told CNN the quartet will “offer a warning about the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy and the rule of law,” making the case about “the need for independents, moderates, and Republicans to stop him from getting back in office.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin (The View/ABC)

[4 October 2024 10:50 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump responds to Melania standing up for abortion access

Asked during an interview with Fox News’s Bill Melugin yesterday about his wife Melania’s decision to champion women’s rights in her new memoir, Trump had this to say:

“We spoke about it. And I said, you have to write what you believe. I’m not going to tell what you to do. You have to write what you believe.

“She’s very beloved.

“But I said you have to stick with your heart. I’ve said that to everybody, you have to go with your heart.”

Here’s Katie Hawkinson on the rather less breezy reaction to the first lady’s stance from anti-abortion conservatives, who have called her “wrong” and even “disgusting”.

[4 October 2024 10:30 · Joe Sommerlad]

Watch: Trump reverts to election lies and pet themes at Michigan rally

The Republican presidential nominee was in Saginaw yesterday where he very much played the hits, repeating his lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, and his false claims that the Biden administration is not helping victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

Just a day after Jack Smith’s latest damning court filing on his 2020 election interference plot, Trump was back insisting the vote was “rigged” and, interestingly, appeared to have a problem drawing a crowd, which he will not like seeing pointed out.

We were also treated to baseless threats of a Second Great Depression, his old riff about people not being able to watch TV because it’s not windy out (nine years later and he STILL doesn’t understand the principle of battery power storage).

There was also more praise for Elon Musk and further unwise talk about his delight in stiffing contractors.

[4 October 2024 10:10 · Joe Sommerlad]

Bruce Springsteen endorses Harris and calls Trump ‘most dangerous candidate’ in his lifetime

The rock legend has formally endorsed Kamala Harris for president in an Instagram video, adding that Donald Trump’s “disdain” for the US Constitution should “disqualify him from the office of president ever again.”

The superstar, 75, is a longtime Democrat who has backed Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the past.

He warned in his post that Trump is “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime”.

Kevin EG Perry has more from The Boss.

[4 October 2024 09:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump attacks ‘Low IQ War Hawk’ Cheney over Harris support

This was the Republican nominee’s inevitable, angry response to the former Wyoming representative’s appearance with Harris in Ripon – you know that if she’d endorsed him, he’d be out there posting about how wonderful she is.

[4 October 2024 09:10 · Joe Sommerlad]

Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney campaign in birthplace of Republican Party

The Democratic presidential nominee spent Thursday visiting Ripon, Wisconsin, where political meetings in 1854 led to the formation of what became the Republican Party as she attempted to remind her opposition of its pre-Trump principles in the company of anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney.

In an unprecedented joint appearance with the former House GOP conference chair, Harris said upholding the US Constitution should be a “basic requirement” for seeking and holding the highest office in the United States.

And, citing Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election four years ago, she warned that her rival “must never again, stand behind the seal of the President of the United States.”

Cheney, who recalled how she’d first voted for a Republican presidential candidate when she cast a ballot for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election, told the crowd in Ripon that, this year, she is “proudly casting [her] vote” for Harris because the Vice President is “standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation’s history” and “working to unite reasonable people from all across the political spectrum.”

Here’s Andrew Feinberg with a full report.

[4 October 2024 08:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

Elon Musk to join Donald Trump as he returns to scene of assassination attempt in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump will be joined by tech billionaire Elon Musk at his Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of his attempted assassination on July 13 when a gunman’s bullet struck the politician’s ear.

Musk announced his appearance on X, responding to a Trump post about the event by saying: “I will be there to support!”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO called the Republican presidential nominee “tough” and officially endorsed him after he survived the attempt on his life earlier this summer, cementing Musk’s shift towards right-wing politics.

The October 5 rally will be held at the same ground where Trump was hit and a rallygoer was killed by shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, before he in turn was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

In September, the former president survived a second attempt on his life when another would-be gunman hid undetected for nearly 12 hours at one of his Florida golf clubs.

Here’s our report.

[4 October 2024 07:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

The politics of Hurricane Helene prove tricky

Eric Garcia writes:

Rick Scott is one of the most conservative voices in the Senate. He has tussled with Joe Biden over Social Security and Medicare. A major supporter of Donald Trump, he even traveled to New York during Trump’s criminal trial.

But on Thursday, as Biden touched down in Florida to assess the damage of Hurricane Helene, Scott greeted Biden. And it’s not the only time he’s done so. Last year, after Hurricane Idalia ravaged the state, he did the same — while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was running for president at the time, elected not to meet with Biden at all.

Continue reading...

[4 October 2024 06:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

Trump laughed at Sidney Powell over ‘crazy’ election conspiracy, court filing shows

Donald Trump laughed at his former attorney Sidney Powell over her “crazy” 2020 election conspiracies and compared them to something from Star Trek, according to the new legal filing submitted by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s federal election interference case.

New details about the inner workings of Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election were revealed in the bombshell document, unsealed on Wednesday, including how even the former president thought Powell had appeared “unhinged” at a now infamous November 2020 press conference.

Rhian Lubin has the story.