Al Smith dinner to play recorded message from Harris as she skips charity event
The Al Smith charity dinner in New York City will play a recorded message from Harris tonight in lieu of the vice president’s attendance at the event for Catholic charities, according to Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese of New York.
Harris’ campaign said she declined the invitation to attend the dinner — the first time a presidential candidate has done so in decades — because of conflicting events in the final weeks of the campaign. Trump, who will give remarks, criticized Harris’ decision, writing in a Truth Social post last month that “it’s sad but not surprising” that she chose not to attend.
The event, which typically features humorous remarks from the candidates, will be hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, with comedian Jim Gaffigan is serving as the night’s emcee.
Trump is hosting a series of town halls in an effort to win over Hispanic and women voters — during one of which he elaborated on his policies on abortion and in vitro fertilization, calling himself “the father of IVF.” NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
Trump to hold rally in Greenville, North Carolina
Trump will head to the battleground state of North Carolina on Monday for a rally in Greenville. The event will be held on the campus of East Carolina University, just a short drive from where Harris held a rally at a church Sunday.
In the release, the campaign said the rally will focus on the economy and inflation, saying “Kamala Harris has abandoned North Carolina families, leaving them to struggle under the crushing weight of inflation and skyrocketing costs.”
In new ad, Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego spotlights Republican city councilwoman who’s supporting him
Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego, of Arizona, released a new campaign ad today that will air on TV that spotlights a Republican city councilwoman who has decided to support him over Republican Kari Lake for Senate.
“I grew up as conservative as it gets. Lifelong Republican, still am, but I cannot vote for Kari Lake. She doesn’t want to solve problems. She wants power. I’m supporting Ruben Gallego,” Mesa City Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury says in the ad.
She continues, “We should look for candidates who demonstrate integrity, passion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation. I don’t need to be a Democrat to know that he has the character to lead Arizona forward.”
Democratic candidates, including Harris herself, have been platforming Republicans who are supporting them over Republicans.
New ad mocks GOP House candidate’s ‘fake wife and kids’
A Democratic super PAC has put out an ad making fun of Derrick Anderson, a Republican running for Congress in Virginia, for a campaign photo that made it look like he was married with kids.
“Derrick Anderson was caught using a fake wife and kids for his campaign,” the ad by the House Majority PAC begins, as an actor playing Anderson returns home to cardboard cutouts of a family. It then shows him throwing a frisbee to one of the cardboard kids and sitting down to dinner with the cutouts, and accuses him of trying to hide that he’s “an extreme MAGA politician.”
The New York Times first reported on the campaign pictures — one of which shows him standing in front of a house with a woman and her three daughters and another of which shows them eating at a dining table — last month.
Anderson, whose biography on his campaign website says, “He lives in Spotsylvania County with his dog, Ranger, a Dalmatian,” has said he was simply photographed with constituents who are longtime friends. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ad.
Anderson’s Democratic opponent, Eugene Vindman, used the pictures as a line of attack in their debate earlier this month, according to Virginia Public Radio, saying, “If you are going to lie about something as fundamental, portray yourself as a family man so people like you, how can you be trusted on more serious topics?”
Anderson countered that it was “unbelievable” that Vindman brought the picture up. “You talk about distracting from the issues. Good grief folks, you can’t have anything that’s more distracting about the issues,” Anderson said.
Walz to appear on ‘The View’ and ‘The Daily Show’ on Monday
Walz will appear on ABC’s “The View” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” on Monday while in New York City, a campaign official said.
The appearances continue the Minnesota governor’s media blitz in the final weeks of the campaign. Walz recently made appearances on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Good Morning America,” and CBS News’ “60 minutes.”
Harris also appeared on “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired last week, and on “The View” two weeks ago, where she announced her plan to expand Medicare to at-home care.
Walz’s appearances Monday were first reported by Variety.
Rapper Common to join Walz at Winston-Salem rally
On the campaign trail today in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Walz will be joined by artist and activist Common who has endorsed Harris.
“Together, Governor Walz and Common will speak directly to North Carolinians about the power of their voice and their vote and encourage voters across the state to get to the polls and cast their vote ahead of the November 5th election,” the campaign said in a release.
Common has been a voice for the importance of voting and performed at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Harris to target young voters in Wisconsin
Harris is starting her day in Milwaukee, where she will stop at a business class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
While on campus, the vice president will also meet with students and “talk about her plan to build an Opportunity Economy that supports entrepreneurship and small business growth,” the campaign said, noting her plan to expand the small-business tax deduction from $5,000 to $50,000.
After her stop at the Milwaukee campus, she will hold a rally at University of Wisconsin-La-Crosse followed by another in Green Bay near Lambeau Field with Wisconsin leaders.
It’s Harris’ sixth visit to the state since becoming the presidential nominee, the campaign said.
4.8M borrowers — including 1M in public service — have had student debt forgiven, Biden admin says
The Biden administration announced a milestone today in its effort to cancel Americans’ student debt: It has provided relief to more than 1 million borrowers who work in public service.
Through the Education Department’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, the administration approved about $4.5 million in additional student loan relief for more than 60,000 borrowers, bringing the total relief through that program to $74 million for more than 1 million people.
That brings the total amount of student debt relief under the administration to $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers over the nearly four years Biden has been in office, the department said.
The Education Department said that before Biden’s presidency, only 7,000 public servants had ever received student debt relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. The program was previously “riddled by dysfunction,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement, adding that “countless public servants were trapped making payments on debts that should have been forgiven.”
Independent review finds systemic Secret Service failures enabled first Trump assassination attempt
An independent, bipartisan review identified “numerous mistakes” by the U.S. Secret Service and “specific failures and breakdowns” that enabled the assassination attempt that injured Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
The panel, made up of four former senior law enforcement and government officials, also warned of another catastrophic security lapse if the Secret Service does not immediately undertake “fundamental reform.”
“The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static,” the panel wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the organization.
“The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission,” the members added. “Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.”
Trump asks Judge Chutkan to further delay the unsealing of evidence filed by Jack Smith on immunity
Trump asked Judge Tanya Chutkan in a motion today to again postpone the unsealing of special counsel Jack Smith’s immunity appendix, a collection of evidence filed in conjunction with Smith’s brief on presidential immunity.
The appendix is expected to be heavily redacted and probably won’t contain much new information.
In his motion, Trump asked Chutkan — who ordered the unsealing of the appendix last week but stayed the order for seven days at Trump’s request — to extend her stay until Trump files his own immunity brief and appendix.
Trump’s filing is due Nov. 14.
In his request to delay the unsealing of the appendix, Trump repeated many of the same arguments he’s previously made against its unsealing, including election interference, poisoning the jury pool and DOJ’s “quiet period” policy.
Ron DeSantis, using the levers of state government, ramps up efforts to defeat Florida abortion-rights ballot measure
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and allies in his administration have undertaken a robust effort to build opposition to an amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution and undo a pinnacle piece of legislation he signed into law.
In recent weeks, one state agency launched a website attacking the ballot measure, another state agency threatened local television stations that had run an ad supporting it, and an election police unit created by DeSantis started investigating claims of fraud in the signature-gathering process for it months after it was approved for the ballot.
After a challenging year in which his presidential campaign flamed out and several school board candidates he backed lost primaries, Democrats and Republicans in the state see the heavy-handed moves as part of an effort by DeSantis, once a rising star in the GOP, to re-exert his political authority in the state and nationally.
“There is little doubt the governor has political skin in the game here. He got a boost politically after his hurricane response, but his standing politically is not what it once was after his loss on the national level and a less-than-ideal primary for candidates he backed,” said a veteran Florida Republican who previously worked for DeSantis, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If he loses on the amendments, it will be another big blow. I don’t think it, like, ends his political career or anything, but it’s a continuation of a string of political losses for someone who for years did not have many.”
Harris maintains strong lead among Black swing-state voters in a new poll
Harris still has a wide lead over Trump among Black voters in battleground states, according to a new poll, which shows a key slice of undecided Black voters still poised to make a decision about the presidential election.
The findings, from a Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion poll of 981 likely Black voters in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — show that 84% of likely Black voters will support Harris in November and 8% say they’ll support Trump. Another 8% are undecided.
The results are largely within the margin of error of the previous edition of the survey from September, though they show a small slip for Trump. The September poll showed Harris at 82% (2 points lower than now), Trump’s support at 12% (4 points higher), and 6% undecided or in favor of another candidate.
As many as 66% of Black voters report being very excited to vote for president in November, including 35% who are still undecided about whom they’ll vote for. While an overwhelming majority of Black voters overall plan to support Harris, the data shows a small shift among independents from a month ago.
Democrats are throwing everything at MAGA Rep. Scott Perry. This time, they think it might work.
CAMP HILL, Pa. — Democrats have long tried to oust Rep. Scott Perry, the former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus and a staunch Trump ally, in this Pennsylvania swing district. But this time, they think they have a real shot with their candidate, Janelle Stelson.
At first glance, Stelson appears to be taking a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach. She has ripped Perry for backing restrictions on abortion. She blamed him for Washington’s failure to solve the border crisis. She has hammered Perry, a six-term MAGA congressman, for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results, labeling him one of the “primary fomenters” of the Jan. 6 attack. And she has called out Perry for voting against bipartisan bills, including those to award medals to police officers who defended the Capitol that day, to help homeless veterans find housing and to expand health benefits for war veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
But Stelson, a former TV reporter and anchor who has been telling stories here in the Harrisburg area for nearly four decades, is weaving those threads together into a scathing narrative about Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th District.
“He, in no way, shape or form, represents Republicans anymore — he’s so extreme,” Stelson, a former Republican herself, said in an interview at Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill, just across the Susquehanna River from the State Capitol.
Harris to crisscross Wisconsin today
Harris will make multiple campaign stops across Wisconsin today, speaking in Milwaukee, La Crosse and Green Bay.
Today is Harris’ sixth visit to Wisconsin since she launched her presidential bid, her campaign said. She’ll be joined by Mark Cuban while campaigning in the state, a campaign official said.
Also today, Walz will campaign in North Carolina with former President Bill Clinton. It’s the first day of early voting in the swing state.
As North Carolina begins voting, hurricane devastation complicates casting of ballots
and
NEWLAND, N.C. — The violent water smashed into the fellowship hall, pushing a propane tank through a wall, encasing the structure in mud and devastating the church in this mountain community just over a month before the hotly contested presidential race draws to a close.
“This is a flood like we’ve never had,” said Larry Jones, a deacon at Minneapolis Baptist Church, one of the polling places in rural Avery County ravaged by the remnants of Hurricane Helene last month. The site is one of several in the county unable to open in time for the election.
Three days after the storm, Jones and his wife managed to hike up to his elderly mother-in-law’s house by wading through mud up to their knees. The roads and bridges were blocked. He made it to his church a few days later and has been organizing volunteer efforts ever since. “It’s been a full-time job,” he said.
Helene’s crushing aftermath is colliding with another political storm today as in-person early voting begins in North Carolina, one of several battlegrounds expected to play outsize roles in the election. In a swing state where turnout is critical, some roads are still barely passable. Door-knocking seems impractical, and political town halls are suddenly not a top priority in a region initially desperate for food and water.
Democrats are nervous — and Kamala Harris may be OK with that
Democrats are notoriously quick to worry and slow to appease.
President Joe Biden spent months trying to assuage the rising panic within his party until it eventually consumed him, and he dropped his re-election bid. The anxiety abated for a bit when Harris replaced him on the ticket and her poll numbers spiked.
With Harris’ numbers stagnant now for weeks, many Democrats are once again fretting that the election is slipping away and that Trump may yet regain power.
Harris appears to be OK with the collective jitters, recognizing that if Democrats fear they might lose, they’re more apt to show up at the polls and help her win. She likes to tell her supporters she’s running as if she’s behind.
But she faces a new round of internal criticism as party activists complain that she isn’t doing enough rallies after having objected for weeks that she wasn’t doing enough interviews.
Trump’s legal team tried to keep Stormy Daniels quiet ahead of 2024 election, MSNBC reports
Trump offered a financial incentive to adult film star Stormy Daniels this summer if she agreed to keep quiet about Trump — including about the relationship that became the center of the hush money payments that ended up the subject of a New York criminal trial — ahead of this November’s election, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported yesterday.
Daniels delivered blockbuster testimony earlier this year about hush money payments she received from Trump ahead of the 2016 election, in which she was paid to remain silent about an affair between the two, a relationship he has denied. The jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payments.
In a case separate from the hush money trial, Daniels was ordered to pay for Trump’s legal fees after she lost a defamation suit she filed against him. About two months after the hush money trial, Trump’s lawyer told Daniels’ representative that the former president would agree to a lower payment if she agreed not to make any disparaging comments about Trump.
“We disagree that a payment of $620,000 would be in full satisfaction of the three judgments,” Trump’s lawyers said in a July letter obtained by Maddow from Daniels’ lawyer.
“However, we can agree to settle these matters for $620,000, provided that your client agrees in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with President Trump, or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his businesses and/or any affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for President,” the letter continued.
Daniels’ lawyer declined the proposal, Maddow reported. Daniels’ lawyer told MSNBC that they ultimately settled on $627,500 but she did not agree to remain silent.
Trump to attend Al Smith dinner in New York today
Trump is set to attend the annual Al Smith dinner in New York tonight, a charity dinner often attended by major politicians. Harris is campaigning in Wisconsin and will not attend, becoming the first presidential nominee to skip the dinner in decades.
Vance will campaign in the swing state of Pennsylvania, speaking at an event in Pittsburgh.
Mark Cuban to campaign for Harris today
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban will campaign for Harris in the crucial swing states Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan, a Harris campaign official said.
Cuban will campaign with Harris in Wisconsin later today, followed by a town hall in Arizona on Saturday and a campaign event with second gentleman Doug Emhoff in Michigan on Sunday, the official said.
Cuban “has underscored how Vice President Harris’ new way forward agenda is pro-business and would spur economic growth that helps build up the middle class,” according to the campaign.
Cuban, who has been outspoken for Harris, said in an MSNBC interview yesterday that “there’s really no good reason to vote for Donald Trump as the businesses candidate,” pointing to stability’s being vital for business leaders.
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