Trump claims ‘no conflict’ during Arlington national cemetery visit – as it happened

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Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.

With days until her first debate with Donald Trump, Harris is aiming to draw a contrast with her Republican opponent’s calls for a lower corporate tax rate, the Washington Post reported, citing sources.

This is a stark choice in front of us, and I’m confident that as voters start to get more engaged in this upcoming election, that they’ll see Kamala Harris’s agenda is about making their lives better, and Donald Trump’s about making Donald Trump’s life better.

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John McCain’s son says he will vote Democrat as he slams Trump Arlington visit

Jimmy McCain, a national guard lieutenant, says he can’t ‘overlook’ Trump’s criticism of his late father

The son of the late Republican senator John McCain – whose war record was disparaged by Donald Trump – has added his voice to criticism of the former president’s controversial Arlington cemetery visit, accusing him of violating a sacred burial site for political purposes.

First Lieutenant Jimmy McCain, an intelligence officer in the 158th infantry regiment of the national guard, said Trump’s behaviour at the cemetery – America’s most revered burial ground for fallen military personnel and military heroes – was in line with previous acts of disrespect.

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Trump and allies plant seeds for ‘chaos and discord’ if he loses, experts warn

Spread of conspiracy theories seeks to foment early election doubts in case Trump loses, some Republicans say

Donald Trump and election denialist allies at Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other Maga stalwarts are spreading conspiracy theories about election fraud in order to lay the groundwork for charging the election was rigged if Trump loses, warn election experts and some veteran Republicans.

The consequences of the strategy could be dire. John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa Arizona who spoke at the Democratic national convention in August in support of Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign for the presidency, said that former president Trump and his allies “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”, if Trump loses.

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Trump shares posts of Gold Star families praising cemetery visit and criticizing Harris

Soldiers’ relatives hit out at vice-president after she said Trump ‘disrespected sacred ground’ for a political stunt

Donald Trump shared statements from the relatives of 13 soldiers killed during the chaotic US evacuation from Kabul as they hit out at Kamala Harris after she criticized the former president’s involvement in a ceremony honoring the service members.

The dispute over the ceremony at Arlington national cemetery, during which Trump campaign aides allegedly shoved a cemetery worker so they could film Trump laying a wreath, contravening rules against political activity at the site, escalated after the vice-president said Saturday that Trump “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt”.

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Senior adviser rejects rumors of shake-up in Trump campaign leadership

Corey Lewandowski says management will remain despite reports of ex-president ‘feeling superstitious and nostalgic’

Trump campaign senior official Corey Lewandowski has rejected rumors of shake-up in the management of the former president’s election bid, saying the operation’s leadership will not change.

Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager who recently joined the 2024 team, told Fox News Sunday that campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita will remain at the top.

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Democrats seize on Trump cemetery photo op ‘disgrace’ as election issue

Politicians and veterans say episode was on par with ex-president’s history of disrespecting service in armed forces

Democrats are trying to turn Donald Trump’s clash with staff at Arlington National Cemetery, the hallowed final resting place of America’s war dead, into a broader election issue by highlighting it as an example of his history of disrespecting military veterans.

Congressional Democrats with military records and liberal-leaning veterans groups say the episode is consistent with past instances of the Republican presidential nominee flagrantly denigrating service in the armed forces.

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2024 US presidential polls: Harris taps into near-record levels of enthusiasm

Find out who’s up and who’s down in the latest US presidential election opinion polls

Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race has given a shot in the arm to Democratic voters, who are now expressing near-record enthusiasm levels, fresh polling data shows.

While the figures from Gallup indicate rising enthusiasm among all voters – including Republicans – over the past five months, comparative figures show a much steeper increase among Democrats – indicating that Harris’s replacement of Joe Biden as presidential candidate is the likely driving factor.

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US army confirms Arlington cemetery worker ‘pushed aside’ by Trump staff

Strongest official criticism yet over altercation with ex-president’s staff during photo op at military cemetery

US army officials issued a strongly worded rebuke of Donald Trump’s campaign on Thursday as they confirmed a worker at Arlington national cemetery was “abruptly pushed aside” during an altercation with members of the former president’s staff.

The statement was the strongest official criticism yet of Trump’s controversial visit in which he gave a thumbs-up over graves as a photo opportunity and there was an alleged physical assault by two of his staffers on the army official. It came as outrage continued to mount from veterans and families of some of the service members buried there.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Trump staffers reported over altercation at Arlington cemetery during photo op

Officials at military cemetery say two campaign members ‘verbally abused and pushed’ a representative

Officials at Arlington national cemetery have filed a report over the behavior of members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff who reportedly shoved and verbally abused an employee during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate.

The officials confirmed that a confrontation took place at the Virginia cemetery on Monday after the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US servicemen and -women killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

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JD Vance attacks childless teachers in newly resurfaced remarks

Republican vice-presidential candidate criticizes ‘leaders on the left’ and Randi Weingarten in 2021 clip

JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate and US senator from Ohio, attacked teachers who do not have children in newly resurfaced remarks from 2021.

In the resurfaced clip, Vance, who was speaking at a forum held by the Center for Christian Virtue, attacks “leaders on the left” and Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, for not having children.

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Republicans accuse Kamala Harris of flip-flopping on border wall policy

Vice-president once called the border wall ‘un-American’ but now is trying to revive an immigration deal that funds it

Republicans have accused Kamala Harris of a policy flip-flop after she embraced an immigration crackdown that would involve expanding the controversial US southern border wall, which she once called “un-American” and “a medieval vanity project”.

Harris committed to reviving a bipartisan immigration deal that collapsed in the Senate earlier year at last week’s Democratic national convention.

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Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard endorses Donald Trump in 2024 presidential race

Former 2020 Democratic candidate backs the Republican nominee and accuses Harris of ‘abuse of power’

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has endorsed the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in the US presidential election.

Gabbard, who served in the military in Iraq, ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020. She quit the party two years later and has become a fixture at conservative conferences and in rightwing media.

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Democrats sue Georgia officials over election rules that could ‘invite chaos’

Lawsuit alleges new rules that could let local state boards delay certification of presidential election are illegal

Democrats sued Georgia state election officials on Monday, alleging new rules that could allow local officials to delay certification of November’s presidential results were illegal.

The lawsuit was filed in the superior court of Fulton county by local Georgia Democratic politicians, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic party of Georgia. It says the rules approved by the Republican-controlled Georgia state election board this month were intended to give individual county election officials the ability to delay or cancel the certification of votes.

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Special counsel appeals dismissal of Trump classified documents case; Harris endorsed by former Republican staffers – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the 2024 US election, you can read our full coverage here.

Donald Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery in Virginia today comes after comments earlier this month that the Presidential Medal of Freedom – a civilian award – was “better than the Medal of Honor given to service members.

Trump was talking about giving Miriam Adelson, a wealthy Republican donor, the Medal of Freedom, which he said was “actually much better” than the Medal of Honor “because everyone (who) gets the congressional medal of honor, that’s soldiers,” adding:

They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.

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Donald Trump threatens to pull out of 10 September presidential debate

Republican nominee calls ABC ‘fake news’ and sows further doubt over appearance at debate with Kamala Harris

Donald Trump has expressed doubt that he will participate in a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris next month, hurling a trademark “fake news” slur at the network that had agreed to host it.

The former president and Republican nominee threatened to pull out of the 10 September meeting with Harris, the vice-president and Democratic nominee for November’s election, in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday night.

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‘Georgia’s ours to lose’: Trump and Harris camps zero in on swing states

Amid close race, Harris to go on tour in Georgia as Trump surrogate insists state’s governor will back ex-president

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump brace themselves for what promises to be an ugly and bruising sprint to the finishing line in November, both presidential candidates’ campaigns are turning their sights back on the handful of desperately close swing states where the battle is likely to be decided.

Georgia is coming into view as a critical battleground for both leaders as they struggle to gain voters’ attention in an epochal election. On Wednesday, the vice-president will travel from the White House to southern Georgia to hold her first campaign event in the state with her recently anointed running mate and former high school football coach, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

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Tactical ad breaks and lies: rightwing coverage of DNC is exactly as expected

Hard-right hosts resurrect racist Obama birther conspiracy theory and lament Democrats’ treatment of Joe Biden

As the Democratic party enjoys the afterglow of an exuberant national convention, the rightwing media has settled on consistent counter-programming: complaining about “joy”, hyping up pro-Palestinian protests and expressing a newfound concern for the treatment of Joe Biden.

The coverage, which has at times avoided the more pointed Democratic criticisms of Trump by cutting to ad breaks, has also including the criticism of women both for smiling too much and not smiling enough, and the coining of a new name for Barack Obama: “Barack-Stabber”.

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Trump accepts RFK Jr endorsement and vows to release JFK assassination files

Ex-president takes stage with Kennedy in Arizona, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid

Hours after being endorsed by the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump said he would release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F Kennedy” if he were elected president in November, as part of a proposed new commission on presidential assassination attempts, including the one that targeted him.

Speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Trump also pledged that, if elected, he would “establish a panel of top experts” that would work with Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, to investigate childhood health problems. The 13 July assassination attempt on Trump is already being officially investigated, including by the Secret Service and the FBI.

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Man accused of threatening to kill Trump arrested in Arizona

Ronald Syvrud, 66, taken into custody over alleged social media threat as Trump pays visit to border state

An Arizona man who was wanted after threatening over social media to kill Donald Trump was arrested on Thursday, the Cochise county sheriff’s office said.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, was in Cochise county on Thursday when he visited the US border with Mexico as part of his campaign.

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RFK Jr voters on ‘frustrating’ suspension of campaign: ‘He’s playing politics’

Kennedy supporters bitterly disappointed as independent props up two-party system by endorsing Donald Trump

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the arguable black sheep of one of America’s biggest families in politics, has suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump – and it has rocked some of his supporters.

On Facebook, where Kennedy groups have amassed thousands of members across the country, some expressed bitter disappointment. In their view, Kennedy was a way to buck, and even break, the two-party system in the US – and while the end of his campaign hurt, backing one of the major party candidates was seen as far worse.

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