This blog is now closed. You can read our on that interview story here.
In addition to this live blogger, conservative commentator Glenn Beck is among those unable to listen to Donald Trump’s interview with Elon Musk:
The interview was supposed to start five minutes ago, but instead, all we are seeing is a gray box with the words “Details not available”.
Continue reading...Ex-president attacks migrants and denounces Kamala Harris in discussion delayed by technical glitch
Donald Trump sat down with billionaire Elon Musk on Monday for a rambling and vitriolic interview that revisited many of the former president’s most divisive talking points.
The interview on X, which is owned by Musk, got off to an inauspicious start, with technical issues that initially prevented many users from watching the conversation. Musk blamed the delay on a “massive” cyber-attack, but the cause of the glitch was not entirely clear.
Continue reading...Musk blames cyber-attack as conversation is delayed, resembling glitchy launch of Ron DeSantis’s campaign
As a high-profile conversation between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was about to begin, users of X, formerly Twitter, were confronted with the message: “This Space is not available.”
Spaces, X’s livestreaming audio feature, was the chosen forum for the dialogue, but it wasn’t working. Clicking on the link to the broadcast, hosted by Trump’s dormant @RealDonaldTrump account, froze the site and rendered it unusable. Tweeters said they couldn’t dial in; some said their browsers had crashed.
Continue reading...Family call for $3m in licensing fees stemming from Trump’s frequent use of the Hayes-penned Sam & Dave track Hold On, I’m Comin’
The family of late soul and funk singer Isaac Hayes has ordered Donald Trump to stop using the Hayes-penned song Hold On, I’m Comin’ at campaign rallies.
A letter sent to Trump and his campaign team, shared by Hayes’s son Isaac Hayes III, threatens Trump with legal action if he continues to use the 1966 Sam & Dave song, written by Hayes and David Porter. It alleges copyright infringement, and also demands $3m in licensing fees incurred from the use of the song between 2022 and 2024.
Continue reading...Vice-president returns to San Francisco for event attended by ex-House speaker Pelosi and governor Gavin Newsom
Kamala Harris returned home to the San Francisco Bay area for a Sunday fundraiser that drew top California Democrats and captured more than $12m for the conclusion of a swing state tour by the vice-president and her running mate, Tim Walz.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California governor Gavin Newsom attended the event in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel, where nearly 700 people had purchased tickets that cost at least $3,300 and as much as $500,000.
Continue reading...In interview, president says if Trump wins a second term it would be ‘a genuine danger to American security’
Joe Biden has said it was his “obligation to the country” to drop out of the 2024 presidential election and prevent what he said would be “a genuine danger to American security” if Donald Trump won a second term of office.
The US president gave his reasoning for stepping aside in at-times an emotional interview with CBS News on Sunday, his first since quitting the race in July. He explained that losing the confidence of senior House and Senate Democrats, who feared his unpopularity would hurt them at the polls in November, had weighed on his mind.
Continue reading...Microsoft appears to confirm that alleged hackers with ties to Iran sent email from ‘account of a former senior adviser’
Donald Trump said that only “publicly available information” had been stolen by a hack of his campaign for the presidency as he pinned the dramatic theft on the Iranian government.
The news of an alleged hack emerged amid reports from the news website Politico that it had begun getting emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the Trump campaign, including a vetting dossier on his running mate JD Vance.
Continue reading...Buoyant Democratic duo, energized by recent polling data, hope to win over voters in critical states such as Nevada
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wrapped up their first week together on the campaign trail with a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, as the Democratic party seeks to further galvanize its base and win over undecided voters in battleground states such as Nevada.
In what was the vice-president and Minnesota governor’s fifth rally in five days, the pair hoped to continue building on the renewed wave of enthusiasm and engagement among some voters and organizers since Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race amid growing concerns over his cognitive health and entrenched support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Continue reading...Spokesperson Steven Cheung accuses ‘foreign sources hostile to the United States’ of leaking internal documents
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday it had been hacked.
Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement about the alleged hack, following reports from Politico that it had begun receiving emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the campaign.
Continue reading...Singer jabs at ex-president for playing My Heart Will Go On at campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana on Friday
Celine Dion, the Canadian pop icon, has rebuked and mocked the Donald Trump campaign for unauthorized use of her hit song about the sinking Titanic as a musical interlude during a recent rally.
Dion, beloved by millions of people for her tear-jerking ballads, issued a strong and somewhat tongue-in-cheek statement on Saturday, a day after Trump played a video clip of My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic at a campaign event in Bozeman, Montana.
Continue reading...Crucial states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan are now leaning Democratic according to a NYT/Siena poll
A major new poll puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states, signaling a dramatic reversal in momentum for the Democratic party with three months to go until the election.
The vice-president leads the ex-president by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46%, among almost 2,000 likely voters across the three states, according to new surveys by the New York Times and Siena College.
Continue reading...Local police said they told Secret Service the building the 20-year-old opened fire from needed to be secured
In the chaotic aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last month, a local police officer told a fellow officer he had warned the Secret Service days earlier that the building where the 20-year-old gunman opened fire needed to be secured.
“I [bleep] told them they needed to post guys [bleep] over here,” the officer said in police body-camera footage released by the Butler township police department, with expletives bleeped out. “I told them that [bleeped expletive] Tuesday.”
Continue reading...This blog now closed. You can find the latest US politics coverage here.
Ahead of her and Tim Walz’s campaign in Arizona later today, Kamala Harris wrote on X:
“We are running a campaign on behalf of all Americans.
It is great to be in Arizona with governor Tim Walz.”
Continue reading...Democratic party’s presumptive nominee 2.1 points over Trump in FiveThirtyEight’s national average
Kamala Harris continues to gain strength in the US presidential election, as polls nationally and in battleground states show her building leads or catching Donald Trump.
On Friday morning, FiveThirtyEight, a leading polling analysis site, puts Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for president, up by 2.1 points over her Republican rival in its national average.
Continue reading...ABC confirms US presidential candidates will face off for the first time on 10 September. Plus: the return of panda diplomacy
Good morning.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off for the first time on 10 September in a highly anticipated televised debate on ABC, the network confirmed Thursday, as Harris continues to gain momentum, leaving the Trump campaign scrambling.
What did Trump say at the press conference? Trump attacked Harris and falsely claimed that no one was killed in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. He grew heated over comparing crowd sizes, and claimed he wanted to do three debates. Earlier, Trump had suggested he would back out of the 10 September debate that had previously been set with Joe Biden before Biden stepped down from his re-election campaign.
What do the polls say? While Biden had been trailing Trump in key swing states, Harris has made gains, particularly after announcing the Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. An Ipsos poll published on Thursday found Harris ahead of Trump by 42% to 37%, compared to a 22-23 July Reuters/Ipsos survey, which showed her up 37% to 34% over Trump.
How has the Trump campaign been reacting to the rise of Harris? Concerns have created fractures inside Trumpworld, with some Maga allies criticizing Trump’s political advisers who are working to paint Harris as more progressive than she is and launch “Willie Horton” attacks from the old Republican playbook that suggest she is directly responsible for crimes some migrants committed.
How many people have died from Tropical Storm Debby? At least seven people have died from the storm, which made first landfall early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Debby made a second landfall in South Carolina early on Thursday, and more flooding is expected in North and South Carolina before the storm clears those states.
Continue reading...Concerns have caused fractures to appear inside Trumpworld, with some Maga allies criticizing advisers
Donald Trump’s campaign recognizes that it could lose in November if the election is decided on “vibes” and “energy”, according to people close to the former president, as Kamala Harris continues to ride waves of momentum with her newly announced running mate Tim Walz.
The concern has also started to open fractures inside Trumpworld, with some Maga allies criticizing Trump’s political advisers for running a campaign that may be too structurally deficient to stand up a ground game in swing states.
Continue reading...Harris campaigns with Walz in Detroit; ABC News confirms Trump and Harris will debate on 10 September
In a new tweet on Thursday ahead of her address with workers from the United Auto Workers union in Detroit, Michigan Kamala Harris wrote:
“This campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. Our campaign is about fighting for the future.”
Continue reading...Former House speaker on how she concluded the president couldn’t beat Trump and should step aside
Nancy Pelosi has “never been that impressed” with Joe Biden’s “political operation”, the former US House speaker said, discussing a judgment that helped her conclude the president could not beat Donald Trump and should step aside.
“They won the White House [in 2020]. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for [Biden’s withdrawal] to happen,” Pelosi told the New Yorker, in an interview published on Thursday.
Continue reading...President says in CBS News clip that Trump ‘means what he says’ about ‘a bloodbath for the country’ if he loses election
Joe Biden has said he is not confident there will be a peaceful transfer of power after the November presidential election.
“If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all. I mean, if Trump loses, I’m not confident at all,” the president said in an interview with CBS News that is due to air in full this Sunday.
Reuters contributed reporting
Continue reading...Trump tells Fox News that he announced Walz was a ‘good person’ to dissuade protesters from surrounding his house
Donald Trump claimed to have saved Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, from rightwing protesters in 2020 during unrest in Minnesota after the police murder of George Floyd, a statement that appears to contradict Walz’s own descriptions of calls between the two politicians.
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Trump said, without offering evidence or specific dates or times, that he publicly announced Walz was “a good person” in order to dissuade protesters from surrounding Walz’s house.
Continue reading...