Election 2024 live: Obama slams Trump’s ‘racist, sexist, bigoted’ MSG rally one week from Election Day

In the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen spoke on Harris’s behalf in Philadelphia on Monday evening.

The 44th president took aim at his Republican successor’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York on Sunday where comedian Tony Hinchcliffe drew fire for a racist joke, commenting: “The man holds this rally and the warm up speakers were peddling the most racist, sexist, bigoted stereotypes.

“One guy called Puerto Rico an ’island of garbage.’ These are fellow citizens he’s talking about… If somebody doesn’t respect you, you should not vote for them.”

He also cautioned Arab Americans against voting for Trump as a protest over the Biden administration’s failure to stop the war in Gaza while The Boss played the hits and again branded Trump “an American tyrant” in waiting.

Steve Bannon has been released from federal prison one week away from Election Day, according to reports.

Bannon was being held at FCI Danbury in Connecticut and was met earlier at the facility this morning by his daughter Maureen, CNN reports.

He is reportedly expected to resume his podcast later today.

Here’s the very latest from Rhian Lubin.

Last night’s gathering in the south began with this preposterous entrance form Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, a serial underachiever basking in the glow of her own narcissism:

When her client got up to speak, he opened with the aforementioned attack on Michelle Obama before bragging that he could indeed have locked up Hillary after taking office in 2017, again lied about not using a teleprompter despite having one positioned right next to him as he said, denied being a Nazi (one week before a presidential election), warned of a coming Second World War before being corrected, insisted it was Harris that is the true fascist and launched into a bizarre fantasy about Marjorie Taylor Greene meeting a fiery death in car accident.

From there, he pivoted to his usual slew of horrible immigration lies, called Harris a “a low IQ individual” again, warned his audience that their children would be drafted into the US military for an unspecified war if she won and then badly misspoke as he attempted to call her a “train wreck”.

Here’s Io Dodds again on Trump attempting to walk back the idea that he is a vindictive authoritarian, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Donald Trump has ominously warned Michelle Obama that she made a “big mistake” by being “nasty” to him at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday evening.

Speaking at the Georgia Institute of Technology last night, the former president adopted a gleeful and ironical tone as he warned the former first lady that she had “opened up a little bit of a box”.

“You now who was nasty to me? Michelle Obama,” said Trump, prompting a loud chorus of boos, jeers and shouts from his audience. “She was really – ooooooh.

“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” he went on, despite having spent years accusing her husband of secretly being born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to be a US president.

“Oooooh! She opened up a little bit of a box. She opened up a little bit of something,” said Trump.

“She was nasty, whooo. Shouldn;t be that way. That was a big mistake she made. With your support on November 5 we will achieve success that no one can imagine.”

Trump’s comments came in response to a speech by Michelle Obama in Michigan on Saturday, where she accused him of “gross incompetence”, “erratic behavior” and “obvious mental decline”.

From there, a chant of “Lock her up!” erupted, just like in 2016, although this time the target was Kamala Harris, not Hillary Clinton.

We’ll have much more from Atlanta shortly but here’s Io Dodds on the Republican’s ominous threat against the former first lady.

By midday on Monday the number had climbed to more than 200k – representing approximately 8 percent of the paper’s paid circulation, according to NPR.

In addition to the disgruntled former subscribers, a wave of columnists have resigned in the wake of the decision.

Here’s my full story on Donald Trump’s comments about Michelle Obama earlier today at his rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anglo-American commentator Mehdi Hasan got into a fierce exchange with Republican former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin on Piers Morgan’s talk show tonight.

During a discussion about energy production and energy independence under Joe Biden vs Donald Trump, Palin claimed that “on day one” Biden had stopped building new oil pipelines and banned drilling on federal land.

Hasan muttered “that’s not true”, prompting Palin to lambast him as a liar.

There then followed several minutes of people talking over each other at high volume, culminating in Palin declaring “you’re an obnoxious ass!”

Hasan responded by calling Palin a “racist”, citing her history of controversial comments about Barack Obama – such as reportedly claiming that he was “not one of us” at a 2008 rally or lauding Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth certificate.

Two incidents of ballot boxes being set on fire early Monday morning in Portland, Oregon, and nearby Vancouver, Washington, appear to be linked, my colleague Josh Marcus reports.

An identical black Volvo sedan was spotted at both crime scenes, and an “incendiary device” used in Portland was “similar in nature” to what happened in Vancouver, police said.

They added that the circumstances matched an October 8 attempt to set fire to another ballot box in Vancouver.

“We don’t know the motive behind these acts,” Portland Police Bureau Assistant Chief Amanda McMillan said in a statement on Monday.

“We do know acts like this are targeted and they’re intentional and we’re concerned about that intentional act trying to impact the election process. We’re dedicated to stopping this kind of behavior.”

Read Josh’s full story here.