As Florida grapples with the effects of Hurricane Milton, presidential campaigning remained in full swing in battleground states across the U.S. on Thursday
Vice President Kamala Harris attended a Univision town hall in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon. She will then go to an evening rally in Phoenix while remaining in close contact with the White House and monitoring federal disaster response efforts, her campaign said.
Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, spoke at the Economic Club of Detroit, where he complained about the federal response to Hurricane Helene as he seeks to gain a political advantage from the tropical weather.
Even amid the hurricane, however, both the Harris and Trump campaigns are using their travel strategically, trying to increase support with key voting blocs who could decide an election expected to be exceedingly close.
Former President Barack Obama also hit the campaign trail on Thursday night, making his first appearance for Harris at a rally in Pittsburgh. That begins what the Harris campaign says will be a series of campaign stops Obama will make on the vice president’s behalf.
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Here’s the latest:
Obama laces into Tump at Pennslyvania rally
Obama skewered Trump throughout his speech, portraying his White House successor as a bully, a punchline and someone who gives speeches “like Fidel Castro.”
He joked about some of the products Trump has tried to sell during his third White House campaign, including $399 gold sneakers, a $100,000 watch and his “God Bless the USA” Bible for $59.99, remarking, “You could not make this stuff up.”
At one point, he mocked Trump’s answer in his debate with Harris last month that he only had “concepts of a plan” to replace Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, something he had long pledged to do.
“Donald Trump spent his entire presidency trying to tear it down,” Obama said. “And by the way, he couldn’t even do that right.”
Obama rallies Black men for Harris in Pennslyvania
Obama paid a visit to a campaign field office in Pittsburgh on Thursday evening to thank volunteers for their work getting out the vote for Democrats. While there, he said he wanted to “speak some truths,” particularly to Black men, after getting reports on the ground that there was lower enthusiasm for Harris than there was when he was running.
“Part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said.
The former president said Trump’s penchant for putting people down was not real strength.
“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable,” Obama said.
Arizona voters fired up for Harris
"This is bomb!” said Harris supporter Keith Edmondson as he waited for Harris to arrive.
The 63-year-old retiree from the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert said he was feeling optimistic about Harris’ chances in Maricopa County as early voting got underway this week. One sign: the lack of Trump yard signs. Edmondson said in 2020 he remembered many more Trump signs than he says he is seeing this year.
But there is one voting group he said he is concerned with, young Black men.
Edmondson, who is Black, said he is currently trying to convince his three grandsons to vote for Harris even though their father (who also is Edmondson’s son) is a Trump supporter.
“There are more Black folks supporting Donald Trump than I thought,” he said. He attributes this to misinformation about Harris and her time as a prosecutor.
He says he talks to his grandsons about Harris and posts TikTok videos so they will see him supporting Harris.
He said he remembers being at Mile High Stadium in Denver the night Barack Obama won the presidency, and says this time if Harris wins it will be even more historic.
“This is a woman and a Black woman to boot,” he said.
“It’s about race. I don’t care what people say,” he said about the election.
Harris was first sitting vice president to visit Arizona native tribe
Harris was scheduled to speak at Rawhide Western Center, an old-west venue on the Gila River Indian Community reservation just outside the Phoenix suburbs.
In summer 2023, Harris was the first sitting president or vice president to visit the tribe. She was greeted by Native American dancers before speaking at a school in a small reservation town called Komatke.
Her motorcade then drove on dusty roads to a remote construction site where crews were a building water pipeline with money from the infrastructure bill signed by Biden. The pipeline is part of a broader plan to conserve water from the drought-stricken Colorado River, a crucial source of drinking water for the fast-growing Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.
Arizona has 22 federally recognized Native American tribes, and people who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native make up 5% of the state’s population. Indian Country has been a crucial part of the Democratic coalition in the swing state going back to Janet Napolitano’s victory in the 2002 race for governor.
At Thursday's Harris rally in the state, Native American leaders noted the influence of its voting bloc.
“The Native vote has never been more important because it will and it can make a difference in the state of Wisconsin, in Nevada, in North Carolina, in Michigan and right here in this great state of Arizona. What I call the Native wall of voters,” Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community, told the crowd of Harris supporters as the first speaker of the night.
Harris says she can't name three virtues Trump possesses
Vice President Kamala Harris was asked to name three virtues that her opponent in next month’s election, Donald Trump, possesses — but was unable to come up with even one.
At the end of her town hall for Spanish-language network Univision in Las Vegas on Thursday, audience member Teresa Djedjro, 48 and originally born in Mexico, asked Harris to, “Please give me three virtues that Trump has.”
Harris laughed and thanked her for the question before saying, “I know that the vast majority of us has so much more in common than what separates us.” Then she made clear that is not the case for herself and the former president, saying Trump’s approach to politics, “pains me” while singling out his ”us versus them” approach.
Read more here.
Harris supporters brace heat for Arizona rally
Harris supporters stood in line to get inside her rally Thursday night at the Rawhide Western Town and Event Center outside of Phoenix.
With temperatures hovering around 105 — an unusual heatwave in October — many people were fanning themselves, drinking water and standing under a few palo verde trees as they waited to get through security. Once indoors, volunteers were handing out water because while cooler in the pavilion, it was still warm.
Harris rips Trump for his criticism of federal storm response
Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump for his attacks on the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton and suggested he was wrongly trying to turn the deadly storms to his political advantage.
Attending a town hall sponsored by Univision in Las Vegas, Harris was asked about complaints that federal officials have bungled disaster recovery efforts. She responded, “In this crisis — like in so many issues that affect the people of our country — I think it so important that leadership recognizes the dignity” to which people are entitled.
“I have to stress that this is not a time for people to play politics,” Harris added.
Those comments came after the former president spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, offering sympathy to people affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the latter of which came ashore in Florida Wednesday night.
Hundreds await Obama's first rally appearance for Harris
PITTSBURGH — Hundreds of people began filing into a University of Pittsburgh athletic venue Thursday night where former President Barack Obama was scheduled to make his first campaign rally appearance for Harris. Many in the crowd were decked out in Harris campaign T-shirts, though a handful were also wearing shirts that harkened back to Obama’s past campaigns, including the iconic “HOPE” image associated with his 2008.
Obama’s famous campaign rallying cry “Yes, We Can” was refashioned for Tuesday night’s event, with “Yes, She Can,” beaming on a screen over the crowd. A man wearing a papier-mache mask of Harris running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was greeting attendees.
Sherry Werner, a 60-year-old who works at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, was among those wearing her support for Harris with a button pinned to her sweater.
“Who doesn’t love Obama?” Werner asked. She pointed to the long line of people streaming in.
“I’m excited because that’s what Allegheny County needs, is him to promote Harris and Walz, just really to get the momentum going and to get those blue votes out,” she said.
Glenda Ellison, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher and Democrat from Pittsburgh, said she is feeling “a little nervous” about the election but “prayerful that it’s going to turn out in our favor.”
Ellison said she sees Obama as a spokesperson with a large following who can hopefully sway voters that might be on the fence about voting for Harris.
“As a former president, and also as a Black president, I think that is something that might connect with the African American community, the fact that we do have our Black president supporting another Black candidate,” said Ellison, who is Black.
Trump confuses the budget deficit with trade imbalances
DETROIT — Donald Trump seemed to not understand the difference between the budget deficit and trade imbalances, conflating the two different economic measures as essentially being the same thing.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Detroit on Thursday afternoon, Trump noted that the federal government has nearly $36 trillion in total debt, a byproduct of the annual borrowing needed to cover the gap between tax revenues and government spending. But the former president then seemed to indicate that the debt was a byproduct of the trade deficit with China, which is a separate issue that reflects the difference between how much a country exports and how much it imports.
“We have $36 trillion in debt,” Trump said. “For years and years and years, we’ve been accumulating. We’d have these deficits that are monstrous. We had 5,6,7 $800 billion deficit with China.”
Trump falsely claims his administration had ‘the highest job numbers’
DETROIT — On Thursday, former President Donald Trump said, “we had the highest job numbers in my administration,” but that isn’t true any longer.
The unemployment rate fell slightly lower under President Joe Biden — to 3.4% early last year, the lowest in a half-century, below 3.5% before the pandemic under Trump.
The Labor Department also measures the proportion of Americans with jobs, which is now at the highest in more than two decades for Americans in their prime working years. Economists look at that age group — 25 through 54 — because it filters out students and retirees.
Biden wants Congress to approve disaster relief funds as quickly as possible
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says he wants Congress to act as quickly as possible to approve more disaster response funding — but stopped short of saying he’d order lawmakers to return from recess early.
Speaking to reporters at the White House about the federal response to Hurricane Milton’s destruction, Biden singled out urgent funding needed by the Small Business Administration, which offers low-cost loans to businesses damaged in storms.
“I think, in terms of the SBA, it’s pretty right at the edge right now,” Biden said. “And I think the Congress should be coming back and moving on emergency needs immediately.”
But asked directly if he was ordering Congress to return early, Biden was noncommittal, saying only, “I think Congress should move as rapidly as they can.”
The president also said during his briefing that there were four confirmed deaths associated with Milton. That appeared to contradict Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas who said during an earlier White House briefing that he joined virtually: “We have reports that at least ten individuals have lost their lives.”
Asked to clarify, Mayorkas said the situation was still fluid but that, “Our understanding is that those fatalities were caused by the tornados” associated with Milton.
Trump complains about the federal response to natural disasters
DETROIT — Donald Trump again complained about the federal response to natural disasters that have damaged much of the Southeast as he seeks to gain a political advantage from the tropical weather.
While speaking at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday, Trump sent a message to people affected by Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene. He praised Republican governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina but suggested the federal response had been lacking, particularly in North Carolina, where he alleged the government after Helene had “not done what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” said Trump, who has for several days promoted falsehoods about the response of President Joe Biden and emergency management officials.
Biden slams Trump for spreading misinformation about hurricane response efforts
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is again criticizing his predecessor, Donald Trump, for spreading misinformation about the federal government’s hurricane response efforts, declaring “Get a life, man.”
Addressing reporters Thursday about Hurricane Milton’s destruction, Biden said he wouldn’t call Trump directly. But asked what his message would be for Trump, Biden squared his shoulders and more directly faced the camera.
“Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life man,” Biden said. “Help these people.”
The White House, and Biden personally, have spent days decrying Trump for making false claims about disaster response, including that federal funding is being diverted for use on people in the country illegally and that such assistance is capped at $750.
Trump announces that his daughter Tiffany is pregnant
DETROIT — Donald Trump announced on Thursday that one of his two daughters, Tiffany Trump, is expecting her first baby with husband Michael Boulos.
The former president delivered the news as he gave a speech at the Economic Club of Detroit and thanked Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos.
Tiffany Trump, 30, is the daughter of Donald Trump and actor Marla Maples.
Massad Boulos is a Lebanese-born businessman who has been helping Trump with the influential Arab American community in the swing state of Michigan.
Harris agrees to CNN town hall after Trump rules out another debate
Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to CNN town hall on Oct. 23 in Pennsylvania, her campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a Thursday statement.
It comes after former President Donald Trump ruled out another debate with Harris after their first head-to-head contest last month. Harris had called for Trump to face her once more before polls close.
“Donald Trump’s refusal to join Vice President Harris on the debate stage again is a disservice to the American people, O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. "They deserve to see the candidates side-by-side one more time before casting their ballots for one last look at their vastly different visions for America. After backing out of 60 Minutes and doing 27 straight interviews with conservative media, unfortunately it is clear Trump would rather cocoon himself in safe spaces and avoid real questions about his harmful plans and failed divisive leadership.”
Trump says CBS should lose its broadcast license due to ‘60 Minutes’ editing
Donald Trump says CBS should lose its broadcast license over the way “60 Minutes” edited its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this week.
Trump, in a post on his social media site, accused the network of perpetrating a “giant Fake News Scam” after different CBS shows, “60 Minutes” and “Face the Nation,” depicted Harris giving different answers, an apparent result of editing.
“TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference,” Trump railed. “She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact.”
CBS has not responded to questions about the apparent discrepancies.
This is not the first time Trump has threatened to go after a network’s license.
He has said ABC deserved to lose theirs after they moderated his debate with Harris, and has previously threatened NBC and CNN for reporting he didn’t like.
UAW chief calls Trump the ‘job-killer-in-chief’
The Harris campaign openly challenged Trump’s economic record ahead of the Republican nominee’s Thursday speech in Detroit, part of a broader effort to chip away at the former president’s credibility.
On a call with reporters organized by the campaign, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, called Trump the “job-killer-in-chief.” Despite Trump’s promises to bring back factory jobs, Fain said, “The reality is Trump never brought back squat.”
Back in 2000, Michigan had nearly 900,000 factory jobs. That number nearly halved after the 2008 financial crisis, only to then slowly recover 633,900 jobs in 2018. But factory work in Michigan began to slump in 2019 and then plunged during the pandemic, all during Trump’s term. Labor Department data show that manufacturing work in the state still hasn’t fully recovered with there being 604,800 jobs in the sector as of August.
The Associated Press
