With less than a week to go in the US presidential election race, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are making their final pitches to voters.
The Democratic presidential nominee was forced to respond to Joe Biden inadvertently whipping up a conservative media storm by seemingly calling Trump’s supporters “garbage” in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s already-notorious Madison Square Garden joke about Puerto Rico.
The White House and the president himself maintain that he did not.
Harris told reporters on Wednesday that she “strongly” disagrees with any criticism of the public based on their voting intentions.
Trump also addressed the president’s comments: “He called them garbage and they mean it.”
In a bizarre moment, the Republican posed in a garbage truck dressed as a sanitation worker before a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, answering questions about the original slur and attempting to distance himself from Hinchcliffe in the hope of pinning it all on the Harris campaign.
Trump later told a rally crowd he would protect women “whether the women like it or not”.
The latest swing state polling meanwhile puts Harris narrowly ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Jimmy Kimmel roasts Trump’s ‘confusing’ garbage truck stunt
“Shouldn’t they have put him in the back of that?” the host quipped.
“The garbage goes in the back”.
James Liddell has more on a gift for late-night.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 11:10
Trump claims he could have beaten George Washington in 2020 but for Covid-19 outbreak
Fox News aired more of the Republican nominee’s dungeon-shot interview with Sean Hannity last night, which found him claiming a fictional Trump-Lincoln ticket could have seen off Big George four years but for that pesky pandemic.
He also offered this flagrant lie about the reception Beyonce got in her native Houston, Texas, last Friday as she campaigned for Harris, insisting the crowd were devastated that she didn’t sing.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 10:50
Where are the candidates campaigning on Thursday?
Here’s where the main players will be today, with just five days to go.
- Donald Trump will spend Halloween casting his sinister shadow over Albuquerque, New Mexico, Henderson, Nevada, and Glendale, Azirona, with the even ghastlier Tucker Carlson joining him for that last one.
- Kamala Harris will be in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada, before holding another “When We Vote, We Win” rally in Phoenix, Arizona. Her guests will be Jennifer Lopez and the Mexican pop-rock band Maná in Vegas and Los Tigres del Norte in Phoenix, pointed selections in light of garbage-gate.
- Tim Walz will meanwhile be in Harrisburg and Erie, Pennsylvania, before moving on to Detroit, Michigan.
- Byron Donalds, the Florida Representative, will be leading a Team Trump bus tour in Atlanta, Georgia.
Here’s more on J Lo joining the Harris train in response to Tony Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico slur from Rhian Lubin.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 10:30
Harris shuts down pro-Palestinian protester
The Democrat was also in Wisconsin yesterday and was interrupted during her address in Madison by an activist demanding an end to US support for Israel’s military intervention in Gaza.
Unruffled, the Vice President broke off to silence the heckler, which she did politely but firmly, winning a rapturous reception from the crowd.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 10:10
Kamala Harris leads Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan in latest polling
The latest swing state polling puts Harris narrowly ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan – but the two are tied in Pennsylvania.
The so-called blue wall states are Harris’s most viable, but not only, path to an Electoral College victory after Tuesday’s election.
Here’s more from Gustaf Kilander.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 09:50
Trump vows to ‘protect’ women ‘whether the women like it or not’
When the Republican presidential nominee finally took the stage in Green Bay, he was still glorying in his garbage man stunt and wearing the vest, which made him look even more like a haunted pumpkin than usual.
But then it was all business as usual, bragging about Madison Square Garden, berating the Wisconsinites who had bothered to show up to support him, raving about BLT sandwiches and lying about immigration and American history before doing his weird double jerk dance to The Village People and heading for the exit.
There was no question what the line of the night was, however…
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 09:30
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 09:10
Donald Trump prolongs uproar over Puerto Rico slur by posing in garbage truck
Donald Trump got off his private plane in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday evening and, donning a bright orange high-visibility safety vest, got into a garbage truck in a desperate attempt to troll Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
With Election Day looming, both the Republican and Democratic candidates are hoping to leverage the racist comments made against Puerto Rico at Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called the US territory “a floating island of garbage”, potentially alienating millions of Latino voters.
Working hard to dissociate himself from the controversy, Trump has leapt on a gaffe President Biden made on Tuesday in which he responded to the bad taste joke by suggesting the only “garbage” he could see were Trump supporters trashing their fellow citizens.
Trump’s publicity stunt truck in Wisconsin – which he struggled to get into – was emblazoned with his campaign logo and the former president clearly enjoyed leaning out of its window (recalling his recent McDonald’s drive-thru photo-op) to ask the press: “How do you like my garbage truck?”
He then, inevitably, denied knowing anything about Hinchcliffe before being sped around the runway tarmac in circles for no good reason.
Vivek Ramaswamy also got in on the act on his behalf and his supporters appear to have delighted at it as a last-minute Halloween costume idea.
Here’s Oliver O’Connell’s report.
Joe Sommerlad31 October 2024 08:50
Musk ordered to court over potentially illegal $1m election giveaway
Elon Musk has been ordered to appear in a Philadelphia courtroom after the city’s top prosecutor accused the world’s wealthiest person of illegally awarding $1 million to registered voters in the state.
That post “immediately triggered an avalanche of posts from Musk’s followers,” including “antisemitic attacks” against the district attorney and threats of violence, attorneys for Krasner’s office told a judge on Wednesday in a push for additional security at an upcoming court hearing.
Oliver O’Connell31 October 2024 08:00
Harris boosted by major union voter drives in final election push
As she heads to Reno, Nevada on Thursday for what is likely to be her last visit to the state as a candidate, the vice president’s campaign is leaning hard on support from organized labor in the Rust Belt to shore up her strength there.
Oliver O’Connell31 October 2024 07:30