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Trump unveils ‘Operation Aurora’ to deport gang members and calls for death penalty for migrants that kill: Live

Donald Trump holds rally in Aurora, Colorado, which he claims has been taken over by Venezuelan gangs

Trump disparages Detroit in speech to city’s business leaders

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During a rally in Aurora, Colorado, former President Donald Trump called for the death penalty “for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”

The comments came after he announced that he would institute a federal “Operation Aurora” to “expedite the removals of the savage gangs.”

“I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” he added.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the law hands the government detention and deportation power which poses “an alarming risk of abuse and rights violations in both wartime and peacetime.”

Trump said he would use the law “to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.”

The rally took place after Trump disparaged the entire city of Detroit, Michigan, on Thursday, warning that the whole country could end up “a mess” like the Motor City if his Democratic rival wins November’s election, a pitch unlikely to endear him to local voters that has already inspired a major backlash.

Former president Barack Obama meanwhile delivered an impassioned speech denouncing the Republican’s character and mocking his “constant attempts to sell you stuff”, from gold sneakers to branded Bibles, during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, championing Harris’s bid for the presidency.

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Trump pushes claim rejected by police that Aurora apartment complexes has been taken over by gangs

Trump said during his Friday rally in Aurora that he was in the city to “call the attention of the world ... to one of the most egregious betrayals that any leader in any nation has ever inflicted on its own people.”

“We are being led by stupid people, we cannot take it anymore,” he added.

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World,” the former president argued.

“From prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to pray upon innocent American citizens,” he added. “That's what they're doing. And in no place is it more evident than right here. Because in Aurora, multiple apartment complexes have been taken over by the savage Venezuela prison gang known as Tren de Aragua.”

Police in the Denver suburb have rejected the claim that apartment complexes have been taken over.

Gustaf Kilander11 October 2024 20:58
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Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates

Vice President Kamala Harris will go head-to-head with Donald Trump in less than a month as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.

With just weeks to go, a new poll now finds Trump leading in multiple swing states, with margins mostly too close to call between the two candidates.

But Trump may be losing his grip on older generations of voters, with the latest New York Times polls showing the two candidates split by a hairline — and Harris ahead by 3 points.

Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? Latest poll updates from the 2024 election

Here’s what the latest polls say about the 2024 presidential election, from The Independent’s data correspondent

Alicja Hagopian11 October 2024 20:30
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Live: Harris campaigns in Arizona as election day nears

The Independent11 October 2024 20:25
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Trump campaign uses mug shots of gang members as backdrop during Colorado event

The Trump campaign is using mugshots of gang members arrested in Aurora as a backdrop for his speech in the city on Friday afternoon.

Jose Miguel Reyes-Perez and Juan Carlos Mejia-Espana were two of 10 members identified by the Aurora Police Department last month, according to TND. Their mugshots were seen on stage behind Trump’s podium on Friday.

Police said they arrested Reyes-Perez earlier this year for aggravated assault, menacing, and vehicle theft.

Meija-Espana was detained following an alleged domestic dispute involving a weapon.

Gustaf Kilander11 October 2024 20:25
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The polls are clear: Kamala Harris’s honeymoon period is over

Where will the 2024 election be decided?

In short, everywhere.

A new batch of polls came out this week, with a little less than one month to go in the presidential election. Kamala Harris’s “honeymoon” surge is now officially over.

Donald Trump is on the rise. A new Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan this week showed him leading in the latter two; RealClearPolitics’s polling average now has him ahead for the first time in months in the state of Michigan, a state which spurned Hillary Clinton in 2016 but flipped back to Democratic control in 2020.

But what’s really clear — what Quinnipiac’s poll and every other survey of the race indicates this week — is how close the race is in every state. No candidate has a lead higher than the low single digits in more than a half dozen states, all of which will play a significant role in the Electoral College.

The polls are clear: Kamala Harris’s honeymoon period is over

In a half-dozen swing states, a razor-thin margin separates Trump and Harris. It’s anyone’s ballgame.

John Bowden11 October 2024 20:00
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Maryland’s Senate race was friendly — until it really, really wasn’t

The conversation between Angela Alsobrooks and her opponent Larry Hogan started off cordial, even friendly on Thursday evening.

It was a vibe that lasted for all of about thirty seconds.

Within moments of the debate hosted by NBC’s Chuck Todd kicking off on Maryland Public Television (MPT), the two candidates had dropped the cordiality and were trading accusations of dishonesty. That’s a sign of not just the passionate state of politics in 2024, but the stakes on the line in Maryland, where Hogan’s candidacy puts a formerly safe Democratic seat in the US Senate in real contention for the first time in many years.

Maryland’s Senate race was friendly — until it really, really wasn’t

Abortion bill veto and gun control were top issues as Larry Hogan and Angela Alsobrooks — previously cordial and respectful with each other — drew blood in a crucial debate

John Bowden11 October 2024 19:30
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Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says

Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.

Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of the then-president’s supporters, Woodward writes that Milley insisted on securing a meeting with the then-newly-minted attorney general, Merrick Garland, to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.

Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’

General Mark Milley expressed his concerns about Trump to author Bob Woodward in March 2023

Andrew Feinberg11 October 2024 19:00
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Trump, trailing badly with women, goes after ‘The View’ host in latest rant

Donald Trump is watching Kamala Harris’s post-debate media blitz. He’s watching, and he’s not happy about it.

And as the former president struggles to mend his own self-inflicted wounds, Harris has taken on an energetic campaign schedule. The vice president has held multiple rallies and smaller events, while also hitting the interview circuit to reach wider audiences. Trump, meanwhile, has remained on the trail as well, with multiple events on his weekly calendar.

As the former president plays to the crowds of supporters at his rallies, however, he clearly has his mind on the larger audiences Harris is reaching with appearances on 60 Minutes, The View and even the Spotify podcast Call Her Daddy.

On Wednesday, at a rally in Pennsylvania, he highlighted some of his opponent’s media tour onstage, playing a clip of Harris’s interview with The View. Sunny Hostin, who asked Harris what she would have done differently than Joe Biden over the last four years had she been president, was a target of ridicule.

Trump, trailing badly with women, goes after ‘The View’ host in his latest rant

Trump attacks female interviewers, again, as Kamala Harris leads among women

John Bowden11 October 2024 18:30
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Trump ally Roger Stone suggests sending ‘armed guards’ to voting stations in undercover video

Newly surfaced video footage reveals former Donald Trump adviser and longtime ally Roger Stone suggesting the deployment of Trump-backed “armed guards” at vote counting areas.

The notorious self-styled GOP “dirty trickster” was secretly recorded responding to a question about how Democrats can be stopped from “stealing” the election while mingling with attendees at his Jacksonville, Florida, event: ‘A Night with Roger Stone.’

“We have to fight it out on a state-by-state basis, but you have to be ready,” Stone can be heard replying in the undercover recording first given to Rolling Stone by documentarian Lauren Windsor.

Trump ally Roger Stone suggests sending ‘armed guards’ to voting stations

Self-styled GOP ‘dirty trickster’ who coined the ‘Stop the Steal’ slogan also said that former attorney general Bill Barr should be imprisoned

James Liddell11 October 2024 18:00
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Trump expected to go on anti-immigrant rant during Colorado rally

Donald Trump is expected to go on an anti-immigrant rant as he visits Aurora, Colorado on Friday for a rally.

The Republican has claimed the Denver suburb has become overrun by immigrants and turned it into a “war zone,” suggestions that have been rejected by local officials.

“Aurora, Colorado has become a ‘war zone’ due to the influx of violent Venezuelan prison gang members from Tren de Aragua,” the Trump campaign said in a statement as the rally was announced.

During the debate on September 10, Trump said that members of the Tren de Aragua had taken control of a number of apartment buildings in the suburb, claims that have been denied by city leaders.

“They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently,” Trump said at the time. “These are the people that she and Biden let into our country.”

The rally is set to begin at 3pm ET at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.

Gustaf Kilander11 October 2024 17:38

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