Uncertainty reigns entering the final full week of the 2024 campaign with Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump locked in a fiercely competitive presidential contest.
What happens in the coming days will be pivotal in deciding the winner of next week’s election.
Trump on Sunday (local time) held a rally at Madison Square Garden where several speakers made racist and crude remarks, including comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.”
Shortly after those remarks, Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Bad Bunny endorsed Harris.
Trump is holding a rally in Atlanta on Monday evening while Harris is making several campaign stops in Michigan, including a rally with singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers
Trump rebukes Nazi comparisons and calls Harris ‘a fascist’
Trump dismissed claims that he or his supporters were comparable to Nazis.
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump told the crowd assembled at Georgia Tech. “Now the way they talk is so disgusting and just horrible.”
After his Sunday evening rally at Madison Square Garden drew widespread criticism from opponents for crude and racist remarks from several speakers, the event drew comparisons to a 1939 Nazi rally in the same venue.
“My father — I had a great father, tough guy. He used to always say, never use the word Nazi. Never use that word.”
He criticised Harris for “using the f-word.”
Following comments from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly saying the former president met the definition of a fascist, Harris said she agreed with the assessment.
Trump said of Harris: “She’s a fascist, okay? She’s a fascist.”
Maggie Rogers: ‘In these next 8 days, you can fight back against the fear of Donald Trump’
Rogers performed five songs, including Love You For A Long Time, Back In My Body and Don’t Forget Me at Harris’ rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“As I’m standing here with you today, I can’t ignore the headlines I have been seeing on my phone any longer,” Rogers said.
“It is terrifying. … I don’t always know what to do with that feeling but there is something to me that is greater than fear, and that is action. … Voting is the key to the future.”
“In these next eight days, you can fight back against the fear of Donald Trump and everything he creates. You can take action against his darkness, you can choose the light,” she added.
Rogers is an ardent abortion rights supporter.
After the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade, she wrote online that “abortion is healthcare.” She also invited a series of non-profits, including Planned Parenthood, to organise outside her most recent tour.
Rogers is the latest musical guest to appear with Harris, who welcomed Beyoncé to a rally in Houston on Friday.
Trump lashes out at Michelle Obama
Taking the stage at his Atlanta rally, the former president quickly took aim at the former first lady.
“You know who’s nasty? Michelle Obama,” Trump says at his Atlanta rally. “That was a big mistake that she made.”
“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” Trump said, claiming that she had “opened a little bit of something,” without further explanation.
Obama spoke at a political rally with Harris over the weekend.
She will headline an Atlanta rally for her nonpartisan voter engagement group on Tuesday.
The theme of Trump’s Atlanta rally: protecting women
The Trump campaign zeroes in on supporting and protecting women with its own spin, focusing on the threats potentially facing American women — and how Trump would defend them.
The message stands in contrast to how Democrats discuss women’s issues, which often first highlight topics like abortion.
Two close aides to the former president, attorney Alina Habba and the campaign’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, spoke at the start of the rally.
Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump confidante, rallied the crowd by promising how Trump would protect American women from violent criminals and illegal immigration.
The Trump campaign also released an ad featuring an endorsement from the mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was killed by two suspected gang members who were in the country illegally.
Stephen Miller stirs crowd with nativist rhetoric
Trump adviser Stephen Miller, one of the architects of the former president’s immigration policies, is stirring a Trump rally crowd in Atlanta by blasting Harris as solely responsible for an “open border” that he says led directly to murders of US citizens.
Under Harris, he says, “It is a certainty that American wives, American daughters … that American blood will be spilled … that American children will have their whole future ripped away from them.”
Vance calls Madison Square Garden rally ‘a celebration of America’
Sen. JD Vance defended the Trump campaign’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday after critics condemned the racist remarks of some speakers and equated the event to the 1939 neo-Nazi rally that took place in the same venue.
“It was a celebration of America,” Vance said during a political rally in Wausau, WI.
He dismissed claims that the event was racist or featured discriminatory language.
“They decided to compare us to literal Nazis for gathering in Madison Square Garden and celebrating the United States of America. These are the same people, of course, who call us racists for wanting to secure the southern border,” Vance told a crowd.
“They’re the same people who have no plans, no ideas and no solutions,” Vance said, urging the crowd to vote for Trump and himself and “reject … ridiculous name-calling over actual governance.”
Emhoff says he and Harris are committed to battling antisemitism
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff says voters have a choice of whether to empower the voices fighting antisemitism or those fomenting it — declaring that he and Kamala are committed to “extinguishing this epidemic of hate.”
Delivering remarks on antisemitism in America Monday in Pittsburgh, a day after the anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre, Emhoff says, “There is a fire in this country, and we either pour water on it or we pour gasoline on it.”
“One thing we know about antisemitism is that whenever chaos and cruelty are given a green light, Jew-hatred has historically not far behind,” Emhoff says.
“And that matters so much today because Donald Trump is nothing if not an agent of chaos and cruelty.”
Emhoff credits his wife for urging him to “use my voice” on the issue and says she has an “unwavering” commitment to support Israel. “Kamala feels it in her kishkes.”
He contrasted her commitment with Trump, who according to former aides has praised Nazis.
Harris says Trump ‘doesn’t understand the importance of unions, at all’
Harris made the comment while standing before a few union members at a training facility in the key Michigan county.
“He gives a lot of talk about what he cares about, but on the issues, specifically for what is good for unions and union labor, he has been awful.”
Harris specifically called out the way Trump filled the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that enforced labour laws in the United States, with anti-union figures, a frequent attack levied against Trump by union members.
She also hit Trump for lauding ally Elon Musk, the businessman and owner of the social media platform X, for discussing firing striking workers.
“You’re here, he’s not,” a worker said to Harris after her critiques of Trump.
Union workers are important in a series of key swing states.
While Democrats have long enjoyed the support of union leadership, Trump has improved Republican’s standing with rank-and-file union workers in both 2016 and 2020.
Trump returns to a defining location on the 2024 campaign trail
Trump’s Atlanta rally this evening is being held at McCamish Pavilion, across the street from the CNN studios where Trump and President Biden had their campaign-defining debate just four months ago.
McCamish housed thousands of credentialed media that night, along with the “spin room” floor where surrogates come to insist their candidate won.
The spin room turned out to be no contest that night, though, after Biden’s whispering, disjointed performance highlighted the 81-year-old president’s age and led ultimately to him dropping out of the race.
Trump’s top aides were on McCamish floor that night crowing about what happened on the debate stage and predicting a romp over Biden, only to have Democrats opt instead for nominating Vice President Harris.
Trump praises Christians but negs them as not ‘very solid voters’
Trump talked about his experience with faith and fatherhood at the National Faith Advisory Board summit.
Trump recounted his upbringing in New York, saying that he at times enjoyed religious ceremonies but broadly sidestepped questions of his own faith.
Trump praised conservative Christians as a key part of his administration and said that a revamped office of faith would have a direct line into the Oval Office.
He also promised to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which bars 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisations from supporting or opposing political candidates.
“I shouldn’t scold anyone, but Christians aren’t known for being very solid voters,” Trump said to the crowd.
“We have to save religion in this country. No, honestly religion is under threat,” he warned.
Democrats hope to dissuade Puerto Ricans from backing Trump
Democrats are sharing and condemning the racist comment made by a comedian at Trump’s New York rally.
They’re hoping to dissuade Puerto Ricans nationwide from voting for the former president, but the impact could be particularly potent in Pennsylvania.
The Census Bureau has found Puerto Ricans are the largest detailed Hispanic group in the commonwealth. A study by the University of California-Los Angeles put the figure above 470,000 as of 2018.