With simply over three weeks till the US presidential election, the campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are going into overdrive, with last-minute appeals to voters.
Want a fast breakdown of the week’s largest political information? Look no additional.
We’ll deliver you in control with 5 key takeaways from the previous seven days and an summary of the place the candidates stand within the polls.
Elections at a look
There are 23 days left till the November 5 elections.
- Nationwide ballot averages present Harris with a slight lead
As of Oct. 11, ballot aggregator FiveThirtyEight reveals Vice President Kamala Harris up 2.5 factors, with 48.5 p.c help, in comparison with former President Donald Trump’s 46 p.c.
One other polling common, from the web site 270toWin, reveals Harris once more with a marginal lead, with 49.3 p.c help. In the meantime, Trump has 46.5 p.c.
Harris, the Democrat, might be poised to flip one among Trump’s key demographics: suburban voters.
On October 10, information company Reuters and market analysis ballot Ipsos launched a ballot displaying Harris main her Republican rival 47 p.c to 41 p.c amongst suburbanites.
However two days later, The New York Instances and Siena School launched a ballot indicating Harris could also be dropping floor amongst black voters. He garnered 78 p.c help, a drop from the estimated 90 p.c help his fellow Democrat, Joe Biden, garnered in 2020.
Hurricane Milton turns into a battleground towards misinformation
Inside three days of forming within the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Milton had turn into a strong Class 5 storm, incomes the best ranking on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Such fast growth has not often been seen. The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration referred to as Milton “one of the crucial intense hurricanes ever recorded within the Atlantic basin.”
And it was heading immediately towards Florida, the southernmost state within the contiguous United States.
However as Florida braced for influence, politicians braced not just for excessive winds and storm surge, but additionally for an avalanche of misinformation.
Components of the southern United States have been nonetheless recovering from September’s Hurricane Helene, and within the weeks since, Trump had made a sequence of false claims, together with that the Democratic-led federal authorities was “doing every little thing potential to not assist folks in republican areas.” ”.
The night time Milton made landfall, outgoing President Joe Biden responded, utilizing his White Home feedback concerning the storm to assault Trump, his former political rival.
“Over the previous few weeks, there was reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of misinformation and outright lies about what is going on,” Biden mentioned, calling the distortions “un-American.”
“Former President Trump has led this avalanche of lies,” he added.
Harris herself criticized Trump in statements in Las Vegas. “This isn’t a time for folks to play politics,” he mentioned, referring to the Republican.
Trump and Harris argue with the principle media
Harris, as soon as criticized for not showing on the nationwide media circuit, moved rapidly from one interview to the following earlier this week, a part of a latest media blitz.
It was a stark distinction to the beginning of his marketing campaign. After asserting her candidacy on July 21, Harris didn’t seem in any main interviews till late August.
And even then, it was a joint interview along with his working mate, Tim Walz. His first solo interview got here a few weeks later, on September 13, with an area tv station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
However final week, Harris elevated the frequency of her media appearances. Within the house of two days, he appeared on the Name Her Daddy podcast, on the radio with The Howard Stern Present, and on tv with discuss present appearances on The View and The Late Present with Stephen Colbert.
And his pre-recorded interview with the acclaimed tv information journal 60 Minutes additionally aired on Monday.
That final interview was meant to be a part of a pair: 60 Minutes had additionally invited Donald Trump to take a seat down for a taping.
However host Scott Pelley introduced that Trump’s staff had backed out of the agreed-upon interview, citing “altering explanations,” together with that the Republican might be verified on air.
The friction between Trump and 60 Minutes didn’t finish there. When a teaser model of Harris’ interview confirmed the vp answering a query otherwise than she did within the longer model, Trump accused the journal of making an attempt to “make her look higher.”
He additionally referred to as on the Federal Communications Fee to “REMOVE CBS’ LICENSE.” The feedback earned a rebuke from the fee’s president, who warned that such motion would threaten freedom of expression.
Harris touts well being as a bonus over Trump
For a lot of the 2024 election, problems with well being and competence have loomed giant, even dooming one candidate’s candidacy to failure.
After a dismal efficiency within the June debate, Biden, 81, was pressured to drop out of the presidential race amid questions on his age and skill to guide. It was the fruits of months of hypothesis and assaults, as Trump criticized Biden as a “weak” and “sleepy” previous man.
However at 78, Trump himself has confronted questions on his age and psychological capability.
These questions got here into focus once more this week. Final Sunday, The New York Instances revealed an article analyzing Trump’s “rambling” and more and more wordy speeches, questioning whether or not his speech patterns mirrored the toll of age.
After which, on Saturday, the White Home launched a memo touting the well being of its Democratic rival.
Harris, 59, mentioned, “possesses the bodily and psychological stamina essential to efficiently execute the duties of the Presidency.”
Trump has lengthy touted his efficiency on cognitive checks as proof of his talents. On Saturday, her marketing campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to media scrutiny with a press release, arguing that Harris “does not have the stamina” of Trump.
“Everybody has concluded that he’s in excellent and glorious well being to be Commander in Chief,” Cheung wrote of Trump.
Trump presents a plan for his anti-immigrant agenda
Throughout this week’s election marketing campaign, Trump escalated his assaults on immigrants in the USA, persevering with a streak of false and inflammatory claims.
Immigration has been one of many defining problems with Trump’s political profession, and he has gone to nice lengths to challenge a hardline picture.
However critics warn that his nativist rhetoric has turn into more and more excessive, echoing the emotions of white supremacists and different controversial figures.
On Monday, Trump recorded an audio interview with the Hugh Hewitt Present, the place he repeated false claims that killers have been crossing the border into the USA en masse.
“Lots of them murdered a couple of individual and now stay fortunately in the USA,” Trump mentioned. “Now that I am a killer, I imagine this: It is in your genes. And proper now we have now quite a lot of unhealthy genes in our nation.”
The Republican continued to spotlight the specter of immigrants as criminals in appearances all through the week, particularly on Friday.
Talking in Aurora, Colorado, Trump promised that, if re-elected, he would use his first days in workplace to “expedite the elimination” of “savage bands” from overseas, in addition to to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a regulation in occasions of warfare. regulation, as a device for mass deportation.
He additionally referred to as for the demise penalty for immigrants who killed Americans.
Regardless of Trump’s descriptions of lawlessness, research have proven that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lot decrease charges than American-born residents.
Bob Woodward’s e book paints an unflattering portrait
Reporter Bob Woodward has an virtually legendary standing within the sphere of American journalism.
In 1972, he and his Washington Put up colleague Carl Bernstein helped reveal President Richard Nixon’s function within the Watergate scandal, precipitating the politician’s eventual resignation.
Since then, Woodward has revealed dozens of books purporting to indicate the inside machinations of American politics. His newest speech, which landed proper in the course of the heated presidential race, supplied an unflattering view of Trump’s alleged relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Titled Battle, the e book was launched to the media on Tuesday earlier than hitting bookstore cabinets.
On its pages, an nameless aide alleged that Trump referred to as Putin at the very least seven occasions since he left workplace. The e book additionally claimed that, on the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump despatched Putin virus testing machines that have been in brief provide.
Since then, media shops have struggled to independently confirm a number of the e book’s most headline-grabbing claims. And Trump’s staff fully refuted them, calling Woodward an “offended little man.”
“None of those tales concocted by Bob Woodward are true and they’re the work of a very demented and disturbed man,” Cheung, Trump’s spokesperson, wrote in a press release.
However the e book does include some high-profile named sources, together with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees Mark Milley, who was as soon as the highest-ranking navy officer in the USA.
He tells Woodward within the e book that Trump is “fascist to the core.”
