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With just a week left in the 2024 US presidential election cycle, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are making their final pitches to voters across the country, particularly the battleground states.
The vice president delivered a “closing argument” at the Ellipse in Washington DC, the site of his notorious “fight like hell” speech on January 6, 2021.
In her remarks before a crowd of 75,000 people, Harris said American patriots “did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives” only to “see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant”, referring to her political opponent.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to face fallout from his controversial rally on Sunday at New York’s Madison Square Garden, during which comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Speaking in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Trump told supporters that “no president has ever done more for Puerto Rico.”
At a separate event earlier in the day he described the rally at MSG as “an absolute love-fest.”
Harris campaign says 75,000 people at Ellipse speech… 22,000 more than Trump’s Jan 6 crowd
If its own early estimate is to be believed, the Harris event drew about 22,000 more people than the Trump speech, whose crowd was estimated by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot to be about 53,000 people.
Josh Marcus has the details.
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 01:20
Watch: Michelle Obama stops speech to call for help for audience member
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 01:18
Biden denounces attacks on Puerto Rico
President Joe Biden tonight participated in a Zoom call with Latinos and denounced attacks on Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
In somewhat rambling remarks, Biden said the “only garbage” he saw was intolerance of Trump supporters who believed what was said on stage when a comedian called the US territory a “floating island of garbage”.
The White House claims that this is their transcript of Biden’s comments: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates: “The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage.’”
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 01:00
Trump already spreading false claims about voter fraud in Pennsylvania
As Election Day nears, Donald Trump has shared false and exaggerated claims about the integrity of the vote in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
In a Truth Social post on Monday evening, Trump claimed multiple counties in Pennsylvania were experiencing major potential fraud, outpacing the facts on the ground.
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 01:00
Watch: Trump again complains Michelle Obama was ‘very nasty to me’
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:52
Trump has a long history of being blatantly offensive. Was a joke at his MSG rally finally too far?
Donald Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City was meant to be a show of strength for the former president ahead of election week.
But the event became a disaster before Trump took to the stage. Early-in-the-night comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” set off a cascade of negative reactions that rapidly spun out of control.
Alex Woodward examines how, despite Trump’s long history of blatantly offensive remarks, this joke might have been one step too far:
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:45
Full story: Harris urges Americans to ‘turn the page’ on ‘divisive’ Trump
With one week remaining until the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday urged Americans to “turn the page” from Donald Trump, calling the ex-president “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” and not at all focused on their needs as she stood within sight of the White House to make her campaign’s “closing argument” against the ex-president.
Standing on a stage at the Ellipse, where Trump exhorted a riotous mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol nearly four years ago, Harris noted what Trump had done in the very place where she was standing and reminded the crowd of roughly 75,000 supporters that Trump was “the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago, and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election — an election that he knew he lost.”
Andrew Feinberg reports for The Independent from Washington, DC.
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:36
Watch: Harris says American patriots did not struggle for us to ‘submit to will of another petty tyrant’
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:27
In pictures: Kamala Harris delivers closing argument speech at Ellipse in Washington, DC
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:25
Harris: ‘We are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators’
“We are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.”
Oliver O’Connell30 October 2024 00:16