Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemns the rhetoric displayed by Trump and his allies at Madison Square Garden
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released a statement condemning the “shameful rhetoric” displayed at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday, where speakers made racist remarks about immigrants, and one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”.
In the statement, the caucus called the language and rhetoric at the rally as “not only divisive but dangerous”.
Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences. When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise.
The statement continues:
This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.
Key events
‘I remember’: singer Marc Anthony’s stinging attack on Trump rally and legacy
The Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony has just posted a stinging attack on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, reminding voters how the then president “blocked billions in relief while thousands died” on the island after 2017’s Hurricane Maria.
“I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember. I remember what it was like when Trump was president. I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico … About our people,” he posted on X to his 11m followers:
I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico ‘dirty’ and ‘poor.’
I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember.
I remember what it was like when Trump was president.
I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico…
About our people …I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island…
Trump blocked… pic.twitter.com/oK8LqTUDit— Marc Anthony (@MarcAnthony) October 28, 2024
But I was not surprised.. because I ALSO remember… he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists. He’s told us what he’ll do. He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it.
This election goes way beyond political parties. Now let’s remember what the United States represents and stands for. It’s our name – United. Regardless of where we’re from. I’m Marc Anthony… I remember.
‘Suspect vehicle’ identified in ballot box arson
Police say they have identified “a suspect vehicle” connected to incendiary devices that set fire to separate ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state early on Monday, the Associated Press reports.
Surveillance images captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box, officials said.
That fire damaged three ballots inside. Around the same time, a fire was set at a drop box in nearby Vancouver, Washington, on early Monday, and hundreds of ballots were destroyed.
Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected, and were also linked to an incident on 8 October when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver.
Read more:
Nevada supreme court rejects Republican ‘postmark ballot’ lawsuit
The Nevada supreme court on Monday upheld the state’s post-election deadline for mail ballots lacking a postmark, CNN reported. The ruling is a rejection of a lawsuit brought by Republicans and the Trump campaign.
The lawsuit challenged Nevada’s acceptance of mail ballots that are missing postmarks up to three days after an election. The supreme court, however, said the plaintiffs had failed to make a convincing case.
“Notably, the RNC [Republican national committee] presented no evidence or allegations that counting mail ballots without postmarks … would be subject to voter fraud, or that the election security measures currently in place are inadequate to address its concerns regarding these ballots,” the ruling said.
According to CNN, a similar case was filed by Republicans in federal court, but the US ninth circuit court of appeals is unlikely to resolve that case before next Tuesday’s election.
Harris to ‘reassess’ degree requirements for federal jobs
Kamala Harris has been touring a semiconductor plant in Saginaw county, Michigan, on Monday afternoon, and talking up the Chips and Science Act.
The Democratic presidential nominee said that if she wins next week’s election she will be reassessing “on day one” which federal jobs require a college degree and which ones do not.
The comment, at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility in Hemlock, is both a policy proposal and a political bridge, the Associated Press news agency said, reporting her visit.
One of the clearest political divides in the nation over the past few presidential cycles has been between college-educated and non-college-educated voters, with Democrats acknowledging they need to cut into Donald Trump’s support among the latter group, it said.
“One of the things immediately is to reassess federal jobs, and I have already started looking at it, to look at which ones don’t require a college degree,” Harris said. “Because here is the thing: that’s not the only qualification for a qualified worker.”
Earlier in her speech, Harris said: “We need to get in front of this idea that only high-skilled jobs require college degrees.”
Moms for Liberty, a rightwing activist group focusing on education, launched a video ad in four battleground states on Monday targeting a Biden administration rule protecting LGBTQ+ students from gender bias.
The ad, titled That’s Not Fair, features a father comforting his athlete daughter after she lost a race. “Dad, it’s not fair! I had to run against a boy! It’s not right,” the girl tells her father, who replies: “I know.”
The ad will air in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.
In June, a federal judge in Louisiana appointed by Donald Trump blocked the Biden administration from enforcing an education department rule extending sex discrimination protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
We’re learning more about Donald Trump’s plans for the final days of the presidential election campaign. He’ll be at his Florida mansion, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday morning to deliver “remarks to the press”.
That would be the same press the Republican nominee denounced as “the enemy of the people” at his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday night, and on many other occasions previously.
A statement from the Trump campaign gave no clue as to the topic, but the fact the Palm Beach event is billed as “remarks”, rather than a press conference, might suggest the former president is reluctant to take questions, especially over the New York rally that was blighted by vitriol, racism and hate from a succession of speakers.
He was most recently in Florida last week at a roundtable of Latino leaders.
Also on Monday, the campaign announced Trump will be appearing at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Wednesday afternoon. And he will host an election night watch party next Tuesday at the West Palm Beach convention center.
Bannon to be released from prison Tuesday: report
Steve Bannon will be released from prison on Tuesday, according to a report published Monday by Washington DC online media outlet Notus that says he’s “ready for retribution”.
Bannon, one of Donald Trump’s most loyal henchmen and vocal mouthpieces (save for a short period in the Maga wilderness), will be released from a low-security Connecticut prison after serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
The report says the former senior White House adviser is expected to get straight back out on the campaign trail in support of his master, including returning to host his War Room podcast that became essential listening for Trump’s Make America great again faithful.
“Expect to see a newly invigorated Stephen K Bannon, more intent than ever to take his fight to the administrative state,” Raheem Kassam, the conservative British activist told Notus.
“I would not be surprised to see him immediately hitting the campaign trail, as well as hosting his War Room show for four hours each day. Every second will count. Every word will matter.”
The report used words including “domestic revolution”, and “merciless campaign of retribution on Maga critics” in connection with Bannon’s upcoming release.
He surrendered to custody on 1 July after the supreme court rejected his appeal to avoid prison time for defying multiple subpoenas surrounding the House’s 6 January insurrection investigation.
The Notus report gave an eye-opening account of Bannon’s time behind bars:
Like at most prisons, the 1,248 inmates at FCI Danbury tend to divide into racial, religious or geographic groups known as ‘cars’. According to fellow inmates, Bannon has gravitated toward the ‘white car,’ which includes mobsters serving time for fraud and similar racketeering-type behavior.
‘Your boy (B) is in the white car, sits with the Italians, the godfather type,’ said Fred Carrasco Jr, who is serving more than a decade behind bars for armed drug trafficking, noting that ‘he basically sticks to his crew [and] hangs out with one guy’ who he describes as ‘pretty tough’.
The white inmates have their own table, and Bannon is a regular there now, he added.
The Guardian’s latest Today in Focus podcast is out.
It’s a special election edition, and Ed Pilkington, chief reporter of Guardian US, shares his thoughts on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally with host Lucy Hough.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemns the rhetoric displayed by Trump and his allies at Madison Square Garden
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released a statement condemning the “shameful rhetoric” displayed at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday, where speakers made racist remarks about immigrants, and one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”.
In the statement, the caucus called the language and rhetoric at the rally as “not only divisive but dangerous”.
Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences. When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise.
The statement continues:
This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.
Concern over Trump and House speaker Johnson’s election ‘secret’
During Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last night, Trump told the crowd that he and Mike Johnson, a Republican and the current speaker of the House, had a “little secret”.
In the remarks, Trump appeared to point at Johnson, and then told the crowd: “He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.”
He continued: “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
Trump: I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the house, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over pic.twitter.com/sKXCLblyLO
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2024
It’s hard to say exactly what Trump was referring to, but on Monday morning, the Democratic representative Dan Goldman appeared on CNN and said that he suspects that Trump’s secret with Johnson is a “backup plan for when he loses”.
A new CNN poll released on Monday found that most voters think Trump will not concede if he loses the 2024 election.
Authorities are investigating ballot box fires in Oregon and Washington
Authorities say they are investigating after two ballot boxes were set on fire early on Monday morning in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.
The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in a ballot drop box at about 3.30am this morning and found that an incendiary device had been placed inside.
Vancouver officials responded to an arson at a ballot box at about 4.00am this morning, authorities there said.
When officers arrived, the box was smoking and on fire, and they located a suspicious device next to the box.
Soon after, Metro Explosive Disposal Unit members arrived and safely collected the device, and the fire was extinguished.
The FBI is continuing to investigate the incident.
According to the Associated Press, hundreds of ballots in Vancouver were destroyed, and three ballots in Portland were damaged.
Biden calls Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally ‘simply embarrassing’
Speaking outside a polling station in Delaware on Monday, President Joe Biden described Donald Trump’s rally yesterday at Madison Sqaure Garden where speakers made racist and vulgar remarks as “simply embarrassing”.
“It’s beneath any president, but that’s what we’re getting used to. That’s why this election is so important” Biden said.
“Most of the presidential scholars I’ve spoken to talk about the single most consequential thing about a president is character. Character,” Biden continued. “And he puts that in question every time he opens his mouth.”
President Joe Biden casts his early vote in Delaware
With just 8 days to go until election day,Joe Biden cast his early vote on Monday at a polling station in Delaware.
The president waited in line for about 40 minutes before casting his ballot, the Associated Press reported.
Biden then handed his identification to the election worker, who had him sign and announced: “Joseph Biden now voting.”
As Biden voted behind a black drape, some first-time voters were announced, and the room erupted in cheers for them.
Interim summary
It’s been a busy morning of election developments, with plenty of fall out from Donald Trump’s racist campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.
Here’s what we’ve been watching:
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The district attorney’s office in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down Elon Musk’s controversial $1m giveaways to voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states. The move by Larry Krasner, the city’s district attorney, follows warnings from the justice department that the handouts by the prominent Trump acolyte, and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, might violate federal election laws.
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Kamala Harris said Trump is “focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country” in her first public comments since the New York rally. The Democratic nominee said she was “proud to have the support of folks like Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and others who were supporting me before that nonsense last night at Madison Square Garden”.
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Joe Biden cast his ballot for Harris after waiting in line for 40 minutes at a polling station in Delaware. According to the Associated Press, the president also had harsh words about the Trump rally, calling it “simply embarrassing”, and said Trump calls his own character into question “every time he opens his mouth”.
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Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman, said she was “confident” that Harris would be the next president. “We are not cruel, and we aren’t evil, and we don’t elect people who are,” she told an event called An Afternoon With Liz Cheney, held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
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Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during his address to the Trump rally, said critics need to get over his comments. “These people have no sense of humor. Wild that a vice-presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist,” he said, referring to Democrat Tim Walz’s criticism.
There’s plenty more to come this afternoon. Please stick with us.
Alaska’s Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, says she’s not voting for Donald Trump in this election. But she’s not voting for Kamala Harris either.
Murkowski made the announcement in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News over the weekend, reported Monday by the Associated Press.
That Murkowski has no time for Trump is no surprise. She has said previously that she didn’t vote for him in 2016 or 2020, and was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial.
But she has not followed other rebel Republicans in announcing support for Harris. The former congresswoman Liz Cheney, for example, has campaigned with the vice-president and said she would vote for her.
“I want to vote for somebody and not against someone,” Murkowski told the Daily News, adding that she will vote for one of the six other presidential candidates on the Alaska ballot, without saying which.
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