US election live: Obama says ‘you can count on Kamala’ at Philadelphia rally as Trump rails against immigrants in Georgia
Key events
There are nearly a million Puerto Ricans living in swing states, according to Politico. Because they live on the US mainland, they are eligible to vote next week.
Almost half a million live in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.
The Archbishop of the Puerto Rico Archdiocese, Roberto O. González Nieves, has called on Trump to personally apologise for the racist anti-Puerto Rican remarks made at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York, Politico reports.
Sanders addresses voter concerns about Gaza in new video
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has released a video addressing voter concerns about the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
In it, he seeks to address a comment and question he says he has heard repeatedly: “I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?”
In the video, Sanders says that his best answer is, in part, “Even on this issue, Donald Trump and his rightwing friends are worse. In the senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The president and vice-president both support getting as much humanitarian aid as possible into Gaza as soon as possible.”
He then repeats comments made by Trump, including saying that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has is” doing a good job” and that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beach-front property for development.
“After Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy towards Netanyahu,” Sanders says.
“And let me be clear. We will have in my view a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump […] but let me also say this, and I deal with this every day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue in this election.”
Sanders then talks about threats to abortion and to addressing climate change.
Here is the full video:
I’ve been all over the country in the last month.
And I get asked the same question, over and over again:
“I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?”
Here is my answer: pic.twitter.com/r4fzWz8yXF
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 28, 2024
Summary
It’s been an evening of intense overlapping rallies across the US, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump make their final pitch to swing state voters in a race that still appears to be incredibly close. Some key updates from this evening’s political rallies:
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In Atlanta, on a day his campaign is facing furious backlash for a comedian’s racist remarks about Puerto Rico and Latinos at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally the night before, Donald Trump returned to attacking immigrants and once again pledged to carry out the biggest mass deportation in US history. He blamed immigrants for raping and murdering American women and girls.
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Trump repeatedly compared migrants and asylum-seekers to an invading army. “The United States is now an occupied country,” he said. “November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We are going to get these criminals out.”
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In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kamala Harris struck a characteristically more optimistic and unifying tone: “We’re not about the enemy within. We know we’re all in this together.” She also highlighted the frustrations of younger voters.
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More than a dozen Gaza solidarity protesters briefly interrupted Harris’s speech. “Stop the genocide!” one yelled. Another was carrying a sign reading “Abandon Harris.”
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In Philadelphia, Barack Obama joined Bruce Springsteen to rally support for Harris, describing her as an empathetic and experienced leader, and one who would work for the people, not for herself. Mostly, Obama spent his speech ripping into Trump, including mocking the Trump-branded Bibles the candidate is selling arguing that the good economy during Trump’s first term was the result of his own eight years in office.
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In the face of ongoing backlash to the Washington Post’s billionaire owner blocking the paper’s editorial board from endorsing Harris, Jeff Bezos himself has written a note in the newspaper explaining why he thinks newspaper political endorsements are a bad idea.
Jeff Bezos is now explaining his non-endorsement decision
Amid massive backlash and a reported 200,000 cancelled subscriptions to the Washington Post, the paper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, has published an explanation of his decision. You can read it here.
The first reactions have not been very positive, as some on social media are noting.
The comments on Jeff Bezos’s oped are BRUTAL.
“So you clearly reasoned this decision out carefully, which means Will Lewis, your Publisher and CEO, was lying when he said it wasn’t your decision and he made the decision himself without your input.” pic.twitter.com/JDnnbAPhDL
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) October 29, 2024
More coverage here:
Republicans ask supreme court to weigh in on ballot-counting in Pennsylvania
An important update from Reuters:
Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block a judicial decision from Pennsylvania requiring the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters who make mistakes on their mail-in ballots, potentially affecting thousands of votes in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Pennsylvania asked the justices to put on hold the Oct. 23 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling in favor of two Butler County voters who sought to have their provisional ballots counted after their mail-in ballots were rejected during that state’s primary election for lacking secrecy envelopes…
If the justices are not inclined to pause the state court’s ruling in its entirety, the Republicans asked for an order segregating the provisional ballots at issue in the case, which potentially would give the U.S. Supreme Court time to review the legal dispute after the election.
The Harris campaign said there were 21,000 attendees at the rally she and Tim Walz held this evening in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to the White House pool reporter.
Barack Obama has wrapped up his remarks in Philadelphia, in a rally urging people to vote for Kamala Harris, and framing the election as a referendum of “who we are, and what we stand for”.
Obama: “Get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote.”
“It’s not just policies that are on the ballot, it’s who we are, and what we stand for, Obama says.
“Whether this election is making you feel excited or scared, or hopeful, or frustrated, or anything in between: do not sit back. Don’t just hope for the best. Get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote. Vote for Kamala Harris as the next president. Vote for Tim Walz as the next vice-president.”
“Time again, when Donald Trump lies or cheats or shows utter disregard for our constitution when he calls service members who dies in battle losers or suckers, when he calls fellow citizens vermin, people make excuses for him.”
Trump “seems to violate pretty much every precept of the ten commandments”, Obama says, to applause.
Why would veterans, even Republican or more conservative ones, vote for “someone who does not believe in duty or honor?” Obama asks.
Why would Muslim Americans, even those upset about the current policy in the Middle East “put your faith in someone who passed a Muslim ban?” Obama asks.
For Latinos, “how can you tell yourself it’s okay as long as ‘our side wins?’”
Obama says he’s seen openness to Trump especially with some men, who seem to like “this macho, fake-macho thing.
“Real strength is about helping people who need it and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for those who can’t stand up for ourselves,” Obama says. “That is what we should want in our daughters and our sons, and that is what I want to see in the next president of the United States of America.”
In Philadelphia, Obama is doing something that has been relatively uncommon in American life: he’s talking about the toll of pandemic and how it still affects people. He’s talking now about how there are people who died during the pandemic in Pennsylvania who might have survived to be at the rally tonight if the public health response had been different. For this, he blames Trump.
“Some of these folks would be here if we had a competent response. Not somebody who was suggesting injecting bleach,” Obama said.
“Kamala Harris doesn’t have concepts of a plan, she has actual plans to make your life better,” Obama says, ripping into Trump’s now infamous remark on his healthcare plan during a debate with Kamala Harris.
From earlier: pro-Palestine protesters at the Harris rally, and her response
A group of protesters is being led out of the area after interrupting Kamala Harris.
The group is shouting about US support for Israel. pic.twitter.com/FtpU7N9iH9
— Beth LeBlanc (@DNBethLeBlanc) October 28, 2024
Kamala Harris: I hear you. On the subject of Gaza, we all want this war to end as soon as possible and get the hostages out, and I will do everything in my power to make it so. pic.twitter.com/8YjQRTiAtD
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2024
Barack Obama is saying that people remember Trump’s first term as better for the economy than the current economy. But that wasn’t Trump, Obama claims: “That was good because it was my economy!” Obama says, to cheers.
“I had spent the previous eight years cleaning up the mess that Republicans had left. Financial crisis great recession, the auto industry flat on its back and after those eight years, I handed over 75 straight months of job growth to Donald Trump, and all he did is give a tax cut to people who didn’t need it.
“He didn’t do nothing,” Obama adds.
Barack Obama is having fun in Philadelphia, clearly enjoying ripping into Trump. He’s even getting a little silly and just threw in an unexpected PG Wodehouse reference, to the series of British comic novels about Bertie Wooster and his servant, Jeeves:
“Do you think Donald Trump has ever changed a flat tire in his life? If he has a flat tire, he calls over his chauffeur. ‘Jeeves, change that tire!’” Obama says. “I don’t know if his name is actually Jeeves. But it might be. Got a fake English accent. Jeeves!”
Speaking in Philadelphia, Obama is lecturing the crowd on why people should not vote for Donald Trump, and why he sees it as outrageous that the election is still so close.
He’s talking about the racist and bigoted comments that a comedian made before Trump spoke at Madison Square Garden last night, particularly targeting Puerto Rico.
“We have to reject the kind of politics of division and hatred that we saw represented,” he said. “America is ready for a better story!”
Obama says Harris is ready for the challenge of being president. “She actually cares what people are going through. As the oldest child, she saw how the world would sometimes treat her mom: single mother, five foot tall brown woman with an accent.”
Obama is touting Harris’s record as a prosecutor, and saying that she pushed back on Obama’s own administration to make sure homeowners got more mortgage relief after the 2009 housing crisis.
“You might not agree with every decision she made. You didn’t agree with every decision I made,” Obama said, to laughs. “Here’s one thing you have to think about and you can count on with Kamala. If you elect Kamala Harris, she will see you, she will hear you, she will have you back every single day. She knows what it’s like to struggle and to work hard and to be on the outside looking in,” Obama says.
Watch Obama speak live in Philadelphia
