Election live updates: Obama and Springsteen rally for Harris; Trump heads back to swing state after MSG
Harris campaign plans to visit all seven battleground states while Trump campaign is leaning on allies to help rally support
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With just eight days left in the 2024 presidential election cycle, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are making their final push to voters across the U.S., especially in battleground states.
One of the Harris campaign’s tactics is leaning on popular musicians to perform at “Get Out the Vote” rallies to reach a larger voter base. Musician Bruce Springsteen is expected to appear alongside former President Barack Obama in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Monday.
Meanwhile, Harris will campaign in Ann Arbor Michigan, featuring singer Maggie Rogers.
Trump is expected to hold a rally in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday evening after hosting a blockbuster campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday.
The Republican nominee stands little chance of winning his home state on November 5 but was nevertheless joined by an army of MAGA cheerleaders, including his running mate JD Vance, billionaire Elon Musk, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and wrestler Hulk Hogan.
President Joe Biden called the rally “embarrassing” after casting his ballot on Monday.
Trump supports limitation of free speech rights in the US, says American flag burners should be jailed for a year
Donald Trump suggested a bill that would see individuals who burn the American flag put in jail for a year.
The burning of the flag is a protected means of protest, and to criminalize it would be to limit Americans’ free speech rights — rights that people like Trump and his new buddy, Elon Musk, frequently claim they champion.
Trump jokes he’s not “100 percent sure” his father is in heaven before insisting that he is a “good person"
Donald Trump joked that he wasn’t “100 percent sure” that his father was in heaven, but said if he was he’d be looking down and wondering why people were trying to put him in prison.
“I’m a good person,” Trump insisted.
Trump claims that Kamala Harris has never worked at McDonald’s, and that’s why he went to “work” at one in staged photo shoot
Trump claimed that Kamala Harris “lied” about working at McDonald’s when she was younger, and he said that’s why he went to “work” at a McDonald’s for a day.
In reality, Trump held a fry basket in a staged photo op event at a McDonald’s location that shut down for the day to facilitate the event.
Trump says he has a “little secret” he thinks will help Republicans keep the House
Donald Trump hinted that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson have a “little secret” that he thinks will help Republicans keep the House, but said he would not reveal what it is until after the election.
Trump spends several minutes gushing about Elon Musk and his rocket ships, says he’ll let RFK Jr “go wild” on everything but oil and gas industry
Donald Trump spent several minutes rambling about Elon Musk and how impressed he was by a Space X rocket. He claimed Musk’s “dark MAGA” hat was the top selling MAGA hat the week after he debuted it.
He then said he was going to let Robert F Kennedy “go wild” on health, but said he was going to keep him away from the “liquid gold” — the oil and gas industry.
Trump then praised former First Lady Melania Trump for having the “best-selling book in the universe,” and admitted that he was worried about what she might write about him in the book.
He continued praising his family, including his youngest son Barron, who he called the “king of the internet.”
Ricky Martin, Republican lawmakers push back against MAGA podcaster’s racist remarks about Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin told Americans to vote for Kamala Harris after Tony Hinchcliffe, a MAGA podcaster who opened Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made vulgar and racist comments about Latinos.
“This is what they think of us,” he wrote in Spanish to his 18.6 million Instragram followers. “Vote for @kamalaharris.”
He wasn’t the only one upset by the podcaster’s remarks; two Republican lawmakers who represent Latinos also pushed back on his comments.
Representative Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting member of Congress and a Republican, called the comments “despicable, ill-advised and disgusting.”
She went on to say that there was “no place for such abominable and racist comments like those.”
Senator Rick Scott and Representative Maria Salazar also criticized the remarks in a statement.
“This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values,” Salazar wrote. “Puerto Rico sent 48,000+ soldiers to Vietnam, with over 345 Purple Hearts awarded. This bravery deserves respect.”
Melania Trump makes shock appearance at her husband’s Madison Square Garden rally
Melania Trump took the stage at her husband’s New York City rally to “Paradise City” by Guns n’ Roses, then launched into a bleak, but misguided, diatribe about how bad things are in the Big Apple — and the rest of the country.
GnR frontman Axl Rose has spoken out against Donald Trump’s use of the band’s songs, without permission, at his public appearances.
“Hello Madison Square Garden!” the former first lady began, calling the metropolis “the world’s undisputed capital of industry, where titans of finance, fashion, and entertainment convene.” New York is an “unforgiving” city, Melania went on, apparently empathizing with the audience about how “our lives are complicated, even during the best of times.”
READ MORE:
Melania Trump makes shock appearance at her husband’s Madison Square Garden rally
The former first lady launched into a bleak diatribe about New York that the facts do not support
Trump says Kamala Harris is “merely a vessel” for the “radical left machine,” once again warns about “enemy from within"
Donald Trump has once again invoked the phrase “enemy from within” to describe a nameless, unknown group of political opponents who he claims secretly runs the Democratic Party.
He said that Vice President Kamala Harris was “merely a vessel” of the “radical left machine.”
Harris was largely opposed by progressive voters — a group that is generally considered further left than mainstream Democrats — during her presidential primary campaign, and spent much of her professional life as a prosecutor.
Trump says we’re “very close to World War III,” absurdly suggests draft would be reintroduced under Harris
Donald Trump claimed that the US was “very close to World War III,” and said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel would not have occurred if he had been president.
“All those people would be alive,” Trump claimed.
He then pivoted to inflation, claiming there would have been no inflation under his presidency. He said inflation was caused in part by government overspending on the “Green New Scam” — referencing the Green New Deal — which is incorrect.
Trump then insinuated that Kamala Harris would lead the US into another war, and baselessly suggested that the draft might be reintroduced under her leadership.
There is no evidence to believe that the draft will be reintroduced.
Trump said that he “got along” with the world leaders, and claimed he told Russian President Vladimir Putin “don’t go in” to Ukraine.
Trump lies about federal hurricane response
Donald Trump is blatant lying to the crowd at Madison Square Garden. He claimed thee was “nobody” doing hurricane relief work in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
Trump said that the federal government could not help in North Carolina because it spent all of its disaster relief funds flying illegal immigrants into the US on “jets.”
FEMA has been active in North Carolina following the hurriance, and no FEMA disaster relief funds were used to fly migrants into the US or house them at the southern border. Trump is repeating a long-debunked lie that he and other Republicans have been pushing since Hurricane Helene.
He claimed the response to Hurricane Helene was worse than the response to Hurricane Katrina.
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