Trump rallies in swing state North Carolina
Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.
Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.
“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”
Key events
Harris and Cheney to appear together again for town hall event
Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.
Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. That’s not quite true – the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
They’re great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didn’t only endorse me, saying I’m the greatest president there’s ever been … What about George Washington? No, you’re better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, you’re better, they said, I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is “cognitively impaired”.
But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.
The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets land.
He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. “I forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say he’s cognitively impaired because he put he’s cognitively impaired,” Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.
“You know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,” he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
I’ll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. I’d say about 92% couple of good ones. That’s a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.
Trump is now onstage in Greenville, North Carolina, where he’s been whipping up the crowd with his usual attacks on Kamala Harris.
Earlier in the day, he took note of Harris’s campaigning alongside Liz Cheney. On Truth Social, Trump implied that Arab voters – significant communities of which live in Michigan, a battleground state – are unlikely to look kindly on the vice-president associating with the daughter of Dick Cheney, who, as vice-president under George W Bush, was an architect of the US invasion of Iraq:
Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with “dumb as a rock” War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) October 21, 2024
Arab voters are indeed a source of concern for Democrats, though mostly over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Stephen Starr:
Trump rallies in swing state North Carolina
Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.
Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.
“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”
Anna Betts
The former president then invited Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has helped relief efforts in the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene devastated the area just over three weeks ago, to speak.
At the podium, Smith thanked Trump for coming to the area.
“The biggest fear that western North Carolina is sitting on right now, at least in the communities we’ve talked to, is being forgotten,” Smith said.
“To have you here and have an opportunity to have this conversation at a national level, will keep western North Carolina on the map, and not leave the communities holding the bag on the back end of this, so we’re very grateful that you’ve shown up,” Smith said to the former president.
Anna Betts
Trump continued his remarks by accusing the federal government of leaving North Carolinians “helpless and abandoned” after Hurricane Helene.
“In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government, and yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government, unfortunately,” Trump said.
“Citizens poured into western North Carolina from all over the country, bringing food, water, fuel, medical aid, even helicopters.”
“Nothing is more inspiring than to see the American spirit triumph over adversity with the most selfless acts of generosity and love” he added.
Trump again attacks Hurricane Helene response in North Carolina visit
Anna Betts
Donald Trump held a press conference in western North Carolina, where he surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and attacked the federal government’s recovery efforts.
“Driving up here you see the kind of destruction, actually incredible” he said. “The power of nature, nothing you can do about it but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good.”
“I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you and the American people are with you all the way” Trump said. “We are going to continue to be with you, we will see what happens with the election and on January 20th I think you are going to have a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.”
Trump also addressed those who had lost family members and loved ones to the storm. “To everyone who has lost a loved one … we ask God to give you comfort and peace,” he said.
“It’s been a terrible ordeal and this area was hit about as hard as anyone has ever seen….the communities were ravaged and destroyed, we are praying for you and we will not forget about you.”
Trump’s repeated criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Helene comes as the director of Fema condemned the former president and his supporters for spreading misinformation about the hurricane and the response by the federal disaster agency, which, the director said, has hampered the government’s ability to get people the help they need.
Joanna Walters
Donald Trump has long drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five, a group of men who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted for a crime and who earlier today sued him.
After the jogger’s assault, he spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, Reuters reports.
Trump in 2019 stood by his prior comments about the Central Park Five, and declined to apologize.
The Guardian adds that at the debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump said of the men: “They pled guilty…They killed a person, ultimately.”
The five then-boys, who were tried as adults, actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court.
Yusef Salaam watched the debate in Philadelphia, afterwards telling the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are right now, full-circle moment, being able to be participants in this great democracy on the cusp of everything really powerfully supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m ready for it.”
Central Park Five sue Trump
Joanna Walters
The five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park have sued Donald Trump for defamation over statements he made at last month’s US presidential debate, Reuters reported.
Known widely as the Central Park Five, the defendants spent between five and 13 years in prison before they were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and the confession of another person.
Trump falsely said at the September 10 debate with presidential rival Kamala Harris that the Central Park Five had killed a person and pleaded guilty.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called Trump’s statements “demonstrably false.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called the case “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s remarks “cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.” The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.
The day so far
Kamala Harris is on tour of the three Great Lakes swing states with Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who broke with her party over their support for Donald Trump. In their first event together in a Philadelphia suburb, Harris warned voters to take Trump seriously, while Cheney said she came around to backing the Democrats because she does not think the former president will stand up for American allies. They will appear together in metro Detroit and then Milwaukee before the day is through. Meanwhile, Tim Walz was on daytime talk staple “The View”, where he said that Trump’s comments about deploying the national guard against his political enemies was a sign that he planned to bend the country’s “constitutional guardrails”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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The White House proposed an expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow women to access birth control without a prescription.
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Harris has scheduled an interview with NBC News from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday.
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A new poll found Trump may have lost his edge among voters when it comes to handling the economy, while Harris is viewed more favorably overall.
Kamala Harris’s push for the support of Republican voters won her the support of the daughter of Gerald Ford, the late Republican former president who served from 1974 to 1977.
Susan Ford Bales’s endorsement is perhaps most consequential in Michigan, the ex-president’s home and also a swing state coveted by both candidates. The Detroit News has Bales’s statement:
Susan Ford Bales, daughter of Republican former President Gerald Ford, endorses Democrat Kamala Harris, according to the Harris campaign: pic.twitter.com/Lyqip1IFlR
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) October 21, 2024
As they wrapped up their joint event in Pennsylvania, Liz Cheney was asked to give something of a closing argument to her fellow Republicans for why they should support Kamala Harris.
The former congresswoman said:
I think that in this election, and especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny from Donald Trump and JD Vance. And we have the chance in this race to elect somebody who, you know is going to defend the rule of law.
You know, vice-president Harris is going to defend our constitution. We have the chance to remind people that we are a good country. We are a good and honorable people. We are a great nation and in this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know vice-president Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be here.
Thus concluded the first of three joint events the pair will do today. They now fly to Michigan for an event in the Detroit suburbs, followed by another in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
All three states are part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of swing states along the Great Lakes where voters traditionally back the party, but where polls show Harris is locked in a tight race against Donald Trump.