Trump to be joined by family of firefighter killed in rally shooting when he returns to Butler
Donald Trump will return tomorrow to the Pennsylvania town where a gunman tried to assassinate him this summer, bringing with him a host of elected officials and the family of a man who was killed by the gunman.
The Trump campaign released a list of attendees for Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “on the very same ground where he took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.
The wife, daughters and sisters of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed that day, will be in attendance, as will various people who attended the first rally or served as first responders.
JD Vance, the vice-presidential nominee, and Elon Musk, the owner of X, will also be there, as will be numerous congressmen, local elected officials, sheriffs and Republican party officials.
Key events
Midday summary…
Here’s what’s happened so far today:
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Kamala Harris will campaign this afternoon in Michigan, starting in Detroit and then going to Flint, as she swings through the swing state. The United Auto Workers put out a statement attacking Trump ahead of Harris’s visit.
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Donald Trump announced that his return to Butler, Pennsylvania, tomorrow to rally after the assassination attempt there will include the family of the man killed by the gunman, as well as a host of other rally attendees, first responders and elected officials.
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In other Trump news: he is mad that Harris keeps bringing up Project 2025, people leave his rallies because they are long and they have things to do, and that the Oklahoma superintendent wants to put bibles in schools – potentially the Trump-endorsed bibles.
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The September jobs report was unexpectedly strong, defying fears of an economic slowdown. The country added 254,000 jobs last month.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman, wrote an X post that alleged some unnamed entity was controlling the weather. “Yes they can control the weather,” she said in a post. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” No word on who “they” refers to.
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The dock workers strike is over, for now, which is welcome news to the Biden administration.
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The former president Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail for Harris starting next week.
People leave Trump rallies early in droves for various reasons, exacerbated by the fact the Trump often starts speaking late and speaks longer than people can pay attention to, the Washington Post found.
The Post talked to people at rallies across the country to see why they were taking off while Trump was still talking. Many of them wait in line for hours, then wait for even longer as Trump is delayed, then have personal obligations or are simply over it.
“Some said they wanted to beat traffic or had work the next day,” the Post reported. “Others complained about sound quality. One man wanted to go home to his French bulldog. Another needed to get home to his daughter. A third had a Yorkie with him that started acting out. A fourth man said his phone died.”
That some Trump rally attendees leave early has been a sore spot for the former president. The contention that people are leaving while he’s speaking came up during the presidential debate, with Kamala Harris saying people leave early because of “exhaustion and boredom”.
One voter said she was undecided until she attended a Trump rally alongside her aunt, a Harris supporter, seemingly following Harris’s entreaty during the debate for people to attend or watch a Trump rally to see what he was all about.
Anastasia Bennett, 22, attended a Las Vegas rally, where Trump showed up late. “It was the insults and just being an hour late,” she said, adding that she would be voting for Harris.
The Oklahoma state superintendent wants to put Bibles in schools – and those Bibles could end up being the Trump-branded variety.
Ryan Walters has gained national attention for several moves he’s made in office and comments on the role of religion in schools. The Bibles-in-schools effort comes amid a rise in Christian nationalism and as books are banned by some school boards in red-leaning areas around the country.
The state would need 55,000 Bibles, so a public bid was put out to detail the kind of Bible it is looking for, with specifics for what version of the Bible and that it contains US founding documents like the pledge of allegiance and Bill of Rights.
Reporters at Oklahoma Watch found that one Bible seems to fit the bill: the God Bless the USA Bible, which is endorsed by Trump. Trump gets money for purchases of this Bible, which costs $60 a pop. Another Bible, the $90 We the People Bible, could meet the parameters and also is endorsed by Trump.
On Truth Social this morning, Donald Trump is hitting out at Kamala Harris for making Project 2025, the conservative manifesto, a theme of her campaign. The project, fronted by the Heritage Foundation, has been a drag on Trump, despite its goal of institutionalizing Trumpism.
Trump called Harris “Lyin’ Kamala” and said she continues to try to tie him to the project. “Lyin’ Kamala has been informed, legally, that I have, and had, nothing to do with it, NEVER READ IT, NEVER SAW IT, but her ads continue, full blast.”
It’s unclear what Trump means by Harris being “informed, legally” on this claim. Trump himself did not write or, more than likely, read the 900-plus page document, but his allies and former officials from his first administration are all over it. Its policy ideas also in many instances align with Trump’s.
Democrats have seized on the negative impression of the project, putting it in billboards and ads around the country to warn voters of the danger a second Trump term poses.
The United Automobile Workers, which endorsed Kamala Harris, put out a statement today saying Donald Trump and JD Vance are “invading Michigan and threatening” a $500m federal grant promised by the Biden administration to convert a General Motors plant into a site to make electric vehicles.
Vance, in Michigan yesterday for campaign stops, wouldn’t commit to fulfilling the grant, the Detroit News reported.
“The bottom line is that Donald Trump and JD Vance are a menace to the working class and are openly threatening to double down on Trump’s legacy of job destruction,” the UAW said.
Guardian readers gave us their thoughts on Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, casting JD Vance as a “slick talker” and Tim Walz as “sincere”.
One supporter of the Harris-Walz ticket said Walz was “polite and sometimes to a fault”, refusing to jump in with outrage at Vance’s comments and instead sticking to his accomplishments as Minnesota governor and the Harris campaign’s talking points.
In general, voters said the debate was more civil and policy-focused than they were used to, including from presidential candidates.
Harris to campaign in Michigan
Kamala Harris will campaign in Michigan today, appearing first in Detroit and then in Flint. Her remarks in Detroit are scheduled to begin at 1.50pm ET.
Harris was last in Michigan, a vital swing state, on 19 September for a streamed event with Oprah Winfrey.
The mayor of Flint, Sheldon A Neeley, wrote an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press endorsing Harris today, saying: “I urge all of you to listen to her message, hear her vision and consider what she can do for you and for America.”
Trump to be joined by family of firefighter killed in rally shooting when he returns to Butler
Donald Trump will return tomorrow to the Pennsylvania town where a gunman tried to assassinate him this summer, bringing with him a host of elected officials and the family of a man who was killed by the gunman.
The Trump campaign released a list of attendees for Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “on the very same ground where he took a bullet for democracy less than three months ago”.
The wife, daughters and sisters of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed that day, will be in attendance, as will various people who attended the first rally or served as first responders.
JD Vance, the vice-presidential nominee, and Elon Musk, the owner of X, will also be there, as will be numerous congressmen, local elected officials, sheriffs and Republican party officials.
Two groups, the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund and the House Majority Pac, have launched a $10m paid media campaign aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next month.
Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House, and Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to take back control of the chamber.
One of the new ads accuses Brandon Williams, a New York Republican representative facing a tough re-election race after the state’s redistricting process, of being “dangerously wrong on abortion”.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, framed the ad buy as a necessary investment to ensure a “gun sense majority” in the House.
“We know a majority of voters across the country support common sense gun safety laws, but in order to keep making progress in Washington we need to flip the House to a gun sense majority,” Feinblatt said.
“We’re proud to partner with House Majority Pac to ensure voters in key districts know which candidates will fight hard to keep schools, law enforcement and our communities safe from gun violence – and which candidates are putting them at risk by standing in the way.”
Joe Biden celebrated the latest jobs report as a positive sign for the direction of the US economy, even as he implored Congress to do more to help American families struggling to get by.
“With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” Biden said in a statement. “Under my administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new businesses have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling.”
The jobs report comes as a majority of Americans (61%) believe inflation is increasing despite actually falling significantly from its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, a recent Harris-Guardian poll found.
“Make no mistake: we have more to do to lower costs and expand opportunity,” Biden said. “Congress should pass our plan to build millions of new homes, expand prescription drug price caps, empower workers and protect the right to organize, and cut taxes for hardworking families.”
US adds more than 250,000 jobs in September, defying fears of slowdown
The latest US jobs report showed the country added 254,000 jobs last month, defying fears of a hiring slowdown, the Guardian’s Callum Jones reports:
Job creation unexpectedly accelerated in September, while the headline unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in August.
Economists had expected a non-farm payrolls reading of just 132,500 for September, after a cooler summer of employment growth.
Hiring instead rose sharply from recent months. In August employers added 159,000 jobs, and in July they added 144,000.
Both estimates for July and August were revised higher by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday – adding 72,000 more jobs than previously reported – highlighting the strength of the labor market.
As November’s presidential election edges closer, the US economy is a key issue for voters. Earlier this week, a Harris Poll for the Guardian found that Kamala Harris’s economic policies proved more popular than those put forward by Donald Trump in a blind test.
The poll nevertheless highlighted economic pessimism on both sides of the aisle, with almost half of respondents wrongly stating that the US was in recession.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
The Arizona Teamsters endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential race, joining more than 20 other local Teamsters units that have backed the Democrat after the union’s international arm declined to issue an endorsement last month.
Harris won unanimous support from the Arizona Teamsters’ executive board, the group said in a statement.
“This November the stakes are high,” the group said. “We need strong leadership that will support labor and ensure we keep our seat at the table. We will continue to hold our elected officials accountable, protecting Teamster members and their families.”
The news comes one day after another major union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, announced it would refrain from issuing an endorsement in the presidential race. The IAFF executive board voted, by a margin of 1.2%, against endorsing a candidate, the group said.
The snub from the IAFF was noteworthy given that the union was one of the first major groups to back Joe Biden’s presidential bid back in 2020.
Jeffries says embattled NYC mayor Adams should not resign
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries does not believe that the New York mayor, Eric Adams, should resign from his post, despite the city leader’s recent indictment on bribery and fraud charges.
“My view is that Mayor Adams, like every other New Yorker and every other American, is entitled to the presumption of innocence and entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers who will ultimately determine his fate within the legal system,” Jeffries told NBC News last night.
“At the same time, it’s important for Mayor Adams to articulate to New Yorkers in a compelling way a plan and a path forward to ensure that the city is continuing to function and run in a manner that meets the needs of everyday New Yorkers and in a manner that New York City, which we believe is the greatest city in the world, deserves.”
A number of prominent New York Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Adams to resign given the charges against him, but the mayor has refused to do so.
“This is a great moment to step up and show all New Yorkers, who are going through complexities in their lives, how you remained focused on your agenda and that’s what I’m going to do,” Adams said on Sunday after a visit to a church in the Bronx.
He added: “I’m going to step up. I’m not going to resign – I’m going to reign.”
As Republicans try to expand their narrow majority in the House next month, the Cook Political Report has moved five midwestern races in Democrats’ direction.
According to Cook’s Erin Covey, two of Iowa’s Republican-held House seats, in the state’s first and third congressional districts, are now considered “toss-ups”. Before today, Cook gave the districts’ Republican incumbents, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, an advantage in their races.
“[Nunn’s] district is dominated by Des Moines and its expanding suburbs (Dallas County, outside of Des Moines, is the fastest growing county in the state), and is home to a growing number of white college-educated voters who’ve continued to move away from the GOP. Private polling conducted by both parties over the past month now shows [Kamala] Harris carrying this district,” Covey writes.
“It took Miller-Meeks four attempts to finally win [her] southeastern Iowa district, scraping by with a six-vote win in 2020. But though she won reelection in Iowa’s 1st District by a decent seven-point margin over Democrat Christina Bohannan in 2022, it looks like she’s in much more jeopardy against Bohannan this year.”
Covey also moved one House seat in Illinois and another in Indiana from “Lean Democrat” to “Likely Democrat”. Meanwhile, Republican congressman Ryan Zinke might be facing some trouble in Montana’s first district, where the race is now rated “Lean Republican” instead of “Likely Republican”.
“Monica Tranel, an environmental lawyer and former Olympic rower, came surprisingly close to defeating Zinke last cycle,” Covey writes. “Though Trump carried it by seven points in 2020, Zinke only beat Tranel by three points after barely getting through the Republican primary.”
House Democrats only need to win five more seats than they did in 2022 to retake the majority, which would almost certainly elevate the chamber’s current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, to the speakership.