Kamala Harris sidesteps questions on Netanyahu and taxing the rich in 60 Minutes interview – US elections live
By Chris Stein (now) and Martin Belam (earlier),
7 hours ago
Kamala Harris speaks to the members of the media on a visit to Charlotte, North Carolina, in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
5.50pm BST
Supreme court to weigh transgender rights, ghost gun rule in new term
The supreme court began a new term today, where the conservative-dominated body could issue major rulings on transgender rights, rules to curb the spread of ghost guns, and a high-profile death penalty case.
The court will hear cases in the months to come, and likely issue rulings next year. There is also the chance the justices could be drawn into disputes over the November elections.
The justices will hear a case Tuesday on regulations for ghost guns, privately made weapons that are hard for police to track because they don’t have serial numbers.
The number of the firearms found at crime scenes has soared in recent years, from fewer than 4,000 in 2018 to nearly 20,000 recovered by law enforcement in 2021, according to Justice Department data.
The numbers have been declining in multiple cities since the Biden administration began requiring background checks and age verification for ghost gun kits that can be bought online.
But manufacturers and gun rights groups argue that the administration overstepped and the rule should be overturned.
The rights of transgender minors:
Perhaps the court’s most closely watched case so far this year is a fight over transgender rights.
The case over state bans on gender-affirming care comes as Republican-led states enact a variety of restrictions, including school sports participation, bathroom usage and drag shows.
The administration and Democratic-led states have extended protections for transgender people, though the Supreme Court has separately prohibited the administration from enforcing a new federal regulation that seeks to protect transgender students.
The justices will weigh a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The case does not yet have a hearing date but will likely be argued in December.
And the case of death row inmate Richard Glossip :
In the decades since Richard Glossip was sentenced to die over a 1997 murder-for-hire scheme, the case has become a rare one where prosecutors are conceding mistakes.
Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general has joined with Glossip in seeking to overturn his murder conviction and death sentence.
Despite those doubts, an Oklahoma appeals court has upheld Glossip’s conviction, and the state’s pardon and parole board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.
5.26pm BST
Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance will host a town hall in Greensboro, North Carolina on Thursday, his campaign announced.
The Ohio senator and vice-presidential aspirant appears set to continue his criticisms of the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, which has caused widespread damage to the western part of the swing state.
“Kamala Harris has completely failed the people of North Carolina. Not only has she released historic inflation and a flood of convicted illegal immigrants onto them, but she completely left North Carolinians behind in the wake of devastation post-Hurricane Helene. Harris’ failures have placed a huge burden on taxpayers, and it shows how little she cares about the well-being of Tar Heel State families,” the campaign said as it announced the event.
5.06pm BST
Florida braces as category 5 Hurricane Milton nears
Days after weathering Hurricane Helene, Florida is now in the path of Hurricane Milton, which has just been upgraded to a category 5 storm. The hurricane has the potential to become the latest crisis on Joe Biden ’s plate just weeks before the 5 November election.
Here’s the latest on the approaching storm, from the Guardian’s Anna Betts :
North Carolina’s Republican senator Thom Tillis is not happy about the Harris campaign using his words to criticize Donald Trump.
Trump and his running mate JD Vance have tried to turn Hurricane Helene’s devastation of North Carolina and other parts of the southeast into a campaign issue, by accusing the Biden administration, and Kamala Harris by extension, of ignoring the plight of those affected.
Yesterday, the Harris campaign used Tillis’s comments about the storm in a tweet:
To which Tillis responded today:
Tillis has broken with the GOP on issues like gun control and LGBTQ+ rights, leading his state party to censure him last year:
Harris sidesteps when asked if Israel's Netanyahu is a 'close ally'
In her forthcoming interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program, Kamala Harris did not quite say yes when ask asked if she would consider Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a real close ally”.
“I think, with all due respect, the better question ism do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people, and the answer to that question is yes,” the vice-president replied in an excerpt from her forthcoming interview on the popular news program.
The US relationship with Israel has grown fraught over the past year, as Joe Biden ’s efforts to encourage a ceasefire in Gaza have failed and the conflict has expended into Lebanon. The issue is particularly perilous for Democrats, who are facing a backlash from some voters, including Arab and Muslim communities in battleground state Michigan, over Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza following the 7 October attack.
Harris avoided talking about Gaza in the 60 Minutes interview, instead noting that US military aid has helped protect the country from volleys of missiles shot by Iran. Here’s the full clip:
4.01pm BST
National debt would grow more under Trump than Harris - budget watchdog
Donald Trump ’s policies would send the national debt higher than those proposed by Kamala Harris , a nonpartisan budgetary watchdog has found.
Both candidates have pitched themselves to voters are responsible stewards of the nation’s economy and the government’s spending, while simultaneously proposing expensive new policies. Harris has focused on efforts to fight poverty, making housing more affordable and improve health care, while Trump has floated lowering taxes and spending more on border security and the military.
An analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds that Trump’s policies would send the federal debt climbing by as much as $15.2t through 2035, and as little $1.4t. Over the same period, Harris’s policies could send it up by as much as $8.1t, or nothing at all:
The project comes as the US deals with a yawning budget deficit and a high debt-to-GDP ratio, which have been fueled by long-term expenditures such as paying for Social Security and Medicare, and short-term emergency responses, such as the stimulus measures approved to offset the impact of Covid-19.
3.39pm BST
Kamala Harris’s media blitz has not gone unnoticed by the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump and his allies have lately tried to make Hurricane Helene’s devastation of a swath of the southeastern United States – including battleground states North Carolina and Georgia – into a political issue. This morning, his campaign juxtaposed Harris’s comments in her interview with podcast Call Her Daddy with images of the damage:
3.18pm BST
The supreme court today also rejected an attempt by an Alabama fertility clinic to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit that was at the center of a state high court ruling earlier this year that led to IVF access being briefly curtailed in the state, Reuters reports .
Here’s more:
The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Monday a bid by an Alabama fertility clinic to avoid a wrongful death claim in a civil lawsuit over the destruction of a couple’s frozen embryo in a case that has caused concern over the legal landscape for in vitro fertilization.
The justices denied an appeal by the Mobile-based Center for Reproductive Medicine of a ruling by Alabama’s top court allowing the suit by Felicia Burdick-Aysenne and Scott Aysenne to proceed after deciding that frozen embryos are considered children under state law. The clinic has called the ruling a violation of its constitutional right to due process.
The couple sued the Center for Reproductive Medicine and the hospital housing the clinic in 2021 for wrongful death and negligence after a patient at the hospital gained unauthorized access to the cryogenic embryo storage area and removed several embryos, dropping them on the floor, including the couple’s one remaining embryo.
The Republican-controlled Alabama Supreme Court in February ruled in the case that under an Alabama law called the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, “unborn children are ‘children,’” even outside the womb, allowing the lawsuit seeking monetary damages from the clinic to move forward.
The decision prompted IVF providers in Alabama to suspend treatments, while many health advocates and Democratic officials across the United States held up the decision as offered further evidence that reproductive rights are under assault in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision rolling back abortion rights.
IVF, which helps couples experiencing infertility issues, is a procedure in which eggs are removed from a woman’s ovary and combined with sperm in a laboratory dish to form embryos. The embryos can be frozen for future implantation.
2.59pm BST
Supreme court maintains ban on emergency abortions that violate Texas law
The supreme court has upheld a ruling that will prevent abortions from being performed in some emergency circumstances in the state, the Associated Press reports .
Texas is the most populous state in the country with an abortion ban, and the Biden administration had sued to ensure abortions are available for women suffering medical emergencies, citing a separate supreme court ruling from earlier this year in a case involving Idaho’s abortion ban.
Here’s how the court weighed in on Texas’s law, from the AP:
The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans.
Without detailing their reasoning, the justices kept in place a lower court order that said hospitals cannot be required to provide pregnancy terminations that would violate Texas law.
The Biden administration had asked the justices to throw out the lower court order, arguing that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues.
The administration also cited a Texas Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. The administration said it brings Texas in line with federal law and means the lower court ruling is not necessary.
Texas asked the justices to leave the order in place, saying the state Supreme Court ruling meant Texas law, unlike Idaho’s, does have an exception for the health of a pregnant patient and there’s no conflict between federal and state law.
Doctors have said the law remains dangerously vague after a medical board refused to specify exactly which conditions qualify for the exception.
There has been a spike in complaints that pregnant women in medical distress have been turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict laws against abortion.
2.40pm BST
Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, is also doing his own media blitz.
Her campaign says Walz will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight, and also do an interview with a major US podcast, though they did not say which one. An interview the Minnesota governor gave to 60 Minutes will also air this evening.
He will campaign in Reno, Nevada and Arizona, on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, where will do interviews with local media and Hispanic outlets.
Updated at 2.42pm BST
2.22pm BST
Harris plans interviews with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and The View
Kamala Harris ’s media blitz will take her to New York City tomorrow, where the vice-president will appear on three high-profile programs with an eye towards boosting her candidacy ahead of the 5 November election.
Harris plans to talk with Howard Stern , a one-time shock jock who has remade himself as an in-depth interviewer, her campaign said. Also on her itinerary is an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose host has long delighted in pointing out the absurdities of US politics, particularly on the right.
Harris will finally appear on The View, much as Joe Biden did two weeks ago, and put her policies before the talkshow’s daytime viewership.
Updated at 2.42pm BST
2.02pm BST
Harris questioned on how she'll get tax rise for the rich through Congress
Kamala Harris may be doing more media interviews in the final weeks before the 5 November election, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is saying all that much.
CBS this morning released a portion of her interview on their high-profile broadcast news staple, 60 Minutes. It shows Harris telling correspondent Bill Whitaker that she supports higher taxes on the wealthy (as does Joe Biden and most Democrats in Congress), but sidestepping a question on how she’ll get such a plan through Congress. From CBS:
VICE-PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, one of the things is I’m gonna make sure that the richest among us who can afford it pay their fair share in taxes. It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations.
VICE-PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And I plan on making that fair.
BILL WHITAKER: But we’re dealing with the real world here.
VICE-PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: But the real world includes–
BILL WHITAKER: How are you gonna get this through Congress?
VICE-PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: You know, when you talk quietly with a lot of folks in Congress, they know exactly what I’m talking about ‘cause their constituents know exactly what I’m talking about. Their constituents are those firefighters and teachers and nurses.
Whitaker is getting at a real issue of concern for Democrats. While they may be able to claw back the majority in the House of Representatives from the GOP in November, their ability to maintain control of the Senate hinges on the re-election of two senators from red states, a tough task that they may not be able to pull off. Should they fail but Harris take the White House, she would be the first president since 1989 to be inaugurated without her party in control of Congress, and in this era of heightened partisanship, that may prove fatal for her prospects of passing any significant legislation in the first two years of her term.
Perhaps Harris will elaborate on what she would do in this situation when the full 60 Minutes interview airs tonight at 8pm.
Updated at 6.01pm BST
1.41pm BST
House speaker Mike Johnson raised eyebrows yesterday when in an interview on ABC News he described being asked what the result of the last presidential election was as a “gotcha game”.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Johnson if he could say “unequivocally that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Trump lost”.
Johnson would only reply “this is the game that is always played by mainstream media with mainstream Republicans. It’s a gotcha game. We’re not going to talk about what happened in 2020. I’m not going to engage in it. We’re not talking about that. I’m not going to play the game.”
Updated at 1.48pm BST
1.20pm BST
Biden, Harris and Trump to mark 7 October anniversary
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are among the global leaders commemorating the anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel today, as is Donald Trump .
At 11.45am ET, the president will hold a ceremony at the White House, where he’ll conduct a yahrzeit candle lighting alongside an unnamed rabbi. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will at 4pm plant a tree on the grounds of the vice-president’s residence in honor of the lives lost in the attack. Harris will also give a speech.
Trump will mark the occasion with two events: a visit to the grave of Menachem Mendel Schneerson in New York City, then a speech at his golf club in Doral, Florida later on, Politico reports .
We have a live blog covering the latest on the global commemorations of the attack, as well as the spiraling crisis in the Middle East. You can find it here:
Nate Cohn at the New York Times has also had a look at the latest polling figures , and has come to the conclusion that polling averages show “ Kamala Harris and Donald Trump essentially tied across the seven battleground states considered likeliest to decide the presidency, with neither ahead by enough to count as even a modest favorite”.
Updated at 12.57pm BST
12.48pm BST
Joe Biden has a light schedule for today. At 11.45am, along with the first lady, he is expected to participate in a candle lighting event at the White House to mark the one-year anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel. After his regular briefing he is then expected to be briefed on his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton.
Updated at 12.50pm BST
12.30pm BST
Sidney Blumenthal , former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has written a lengthy piece for the Guardian today arguing that Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake but a deliberate ploy.
A report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s report, released on Monday, suggests that both candidates in the election are making promises that will increase US debt, but that it is Donald Trump’s proposals that are more expensive.
The national debt would soar by trillions of dollars more regardless of who wins the election, further compounding the country’s fiscal problems. Kamala Harris’ plan would boost the debt by $3.5tn over the next decade, while Trump’s platform would cause it to spike by $7.5tn. The watchdog group’s analysis is the latest in a series of reviews of the candidates’ plans, which generally find that Trump’s proposals would have a bigger impact on the national debt than those of Harris.
Updated at 1.26pm BST
11.36am BST
Harris told failure to connect with blue-collar workers could hurt Michigan and Pennsylvania chances
Kamala Harris has been warned that her bid to win the key battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania risks being undermined by her failure to connect with unionized blue-collar workers in the same way that Joe Biden historically has done.
Jonathan Kott , a Democratic strategist and former Senate aide told the Hill website that the current president is a tough act for Harris to follow in that regard.
“Joe Biden is the most pro-union president ever,” he said. “He was the only president to be on a union picket line, he’s so over-the-top pro-union.”
Another Democratic strategist, Ray Zaccaro , told the website : “Biden has had a special relationship with labor throughout his entire career. I don’t think there’s anything particularly lacking in Harris’s position on labor, but there probably are some stylistic and relationship differences for her to overcome.”
Zaccaro warned: “There is a movement within the labor world that is more aligned with Maga, protectionism, nationalist identity,” adding that some union voters increasingly support “some of the messaging that the Trump campaign is putting out”.
Updated at 3.45pm BST
11.15am BST
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has told residents of the state they have a couple of days to prepare before Hurricane Milton hits. He said: “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point.”
“You have time to prepare – all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” DeSantis said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”
AP reports DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.
Updated at 1.26pm BST
10.53am BST
Speaking at his rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, last night, former president Donald Trump said he was looking for a “mandate” victory in Nove mber’s election. The current polling is tight, suggesting that the outcome is unlikely to deliver that for either candidate.
CNN’s senior data reporter Harry Enten most recent round-up on the state of polling in the key swing states that will decide the election suggests that Kamala Harris has the edge in the Great Lake battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, while Trump is looking stronger in the southern sunbelt states.
However, Enten notes that all of the leads of one or two points in these states are “well within the margin of error and too close to call”.
As it stands he suggests Harris would end up with “276 electoral votes, slightly more than the 270 she needs to win”, but he said if the polls have underestimated Trump’s support – as they did in 2020 – then he could romp home. Likewise, if the polls are underestimating Democratic party support – as they did in 2022 – then she could even reach as many as 319 electoral votes. In a nutshell, all bets are off.
Updated at 1.26pm BST
10.49am BST
Kamala Harris seeks to gain election edge over Donald Trump with media blitz
Kamala Harris has begun what has been described as a week-long media blitz with an appearance on Sunday night on the podcast Call Her Daddy.
During the interview with Alex Cooper , Harris addressed topics including abortion, reproductive healthcare, housing and student debt relief.
Harris said Trump’s repeated claim that Democrats support abortion “after birth” is a “lie”, and that it was insulting to claim that women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to have an abortion.
She also rebuked Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders , who had suggested Harris “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she doesn’t have children.
“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris said, adding: “We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both.”
Harris said economic conditions hinder people having a family, and suggested her aim to build 3m new homes by the end of her first term would assist with that.
Harris said: “I think that most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not based on who you beat down. The real measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”
Cooper has made a point of also asking Trump on to the show if he wants to appear.
Updated at 1.26pm BST
10.49am BST
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to our rolling coverage of the 2024 US presidential election campaign. Today both vice-president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump will attend ceremonies to mark the one year anniversary of the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas. Harris is expected to speak at an event at the White House, while Trump will be appearing at a Florida golf course. Joe Biden will also mark the occasion with an event at the White House.
Here are the headlines …
Polling continues to show that November’s election is too close to call.
Kamala Harris appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast on Sunday, discussing abortion, reproductive healthcare, housing and student debt relief.
Tim Walz said during an appearance on Fox News that Donald Trump’s agenda would destroy the US economy.
Donald Trump held a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin.
JD Vance has suggested a second Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood.
The supreme court begins sitting again this week with the regulation of ghost guns and transgender rights on their agenda.
Florida is gearing up for what could be the biggest evacuations since 2017 as Hurricane Milton strengthens.
It's no coincidence that the bulk of MAGAREPUBLICANS COME FROM THE SOUTH AND MIDWEST. THE HOTBEDS OF RACIST HOMOPHOBIC BIAS. REDNECK COUNTRY AND GOOD OL' BOY NETWORK.
Stephen Huber
23m ago
She shouldn't, It's exactly what mainstream working class AMERICA WANTS TO KNOW
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