Harris endorsed by former Republican staffers; Trump open to unmuted debate microphones – US elections live | US elections 2024

More than 200 former Republican staffers who worked for former president George W Bush, and senators John McCain and Mitt Romney, have signed a letter endorsing vice-president Kamala Harris for president.

The letter, obtained and published by USA Today reads in part:

Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.

At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.

Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies.

We can’t let that happen.

When endorsing Donald Trump for president, Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman who is also an Iraq war veteran, told the crowd at the National Guard Association’s conference that she believes that Trump has a better understanding of the “grave responsibility” that a president bears “for every single one of our lives.”

Gabbard praised the former president and said that during his first term, Trump “exercised the courage that we expect from our Commander in Chief,” and exhausted “all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace.”

Tulsi Gabbard has just formally endorsed former president Donald Trump for president.

Gabbard left the Democratic party in 2022, after her 2020 run for president and it was recently reported that she has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s presidential debate against Kamala Harris.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, has just been introduced on stage by former president Donald Trump at the National Guard Association of the United States Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

“She’s a special person” Trump said of Gabbard. “She’s got great common sense, great spirit, she loves our country and she loves the people in this room.”

Donald Trump is about to appear at the National Guard Association of the United States Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Trump’s presidential bid at the event, CNN reported earlier today, citing a source.

Donald Trump has appeared to undercut his campaign’s position on a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris by declaring he would prefer to have the microphones on when it was not their turn to speak.

• Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that he’d “rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted” amid a reported impasse between the Kamala Harris and Trump campaigns over the conditions of next month’s debate.

• Trump, in a Truth Social post on Sunday, threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate with Harris, hurling a trademark “fake news” slur at ABC News.

• Kamala Harris’s campaign said it has now raised $540m for its election battle against Trump. The campaign said it saw a surge of donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, accepted their nominations.

• Elizabeth Warren said on Sunday that “American women are not stupid” enough to believe JD Vance’s promise that Trump would veto any nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress if Trump is elected again to the Oval Office.

• Kerry Kennedy, the sister of Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Sunday she was “disgusted” by his decision to drop out and endorse Trump’s presidential bid. Max Kennedy, her brother, also condemned his sibling’s endorsement of Trump.

• Joe Biden and Kamala Harris issued statements on Monday marking the third anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Donald Trump visited Arlington national cemetery in Virginia on Monday to take part in a wreath laying ceremony as he seeks to tie Harris to the chaotic US pullout and attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 American soldiers.

• Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid today at his event in Detroit, Michigan, according to a report.

• A judge in Arizona will hear arguments on Monday in the “fake electors” case involving a scheme by Republican allies of Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state during the 2020 presidential election.

Elizabeth Warren said “American women are not stupid” enough to believe JD Vance’s promise that Donald Trump would veto any nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress if the Republican presidential ticket wins November’s election.

Warren said on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press:

American women are not stupid, and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country.

She added that she suspects conservative activists could use the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law which bans mailing abortion-related materials, to enforce a federal ban on abortion if the former president clinches a second presidency with Vance as his running mate. She said it would not be all that “hard to accomplish” with “the right person [in] the Department of Justice and one of their extremist judges out in the world”.

“Understand this: today 30% of all women live in states that effectively ban abortion,” Warren said, referring to how 14 US states have enacted near-total bans on the procedure since the 2022 US supreme court ruling that eliminated federal abortion rights.

Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House – it won’t be 30%. It’ll be 100%.

Max Kennedy, the brother of Robert F Kennedy Jr, also condemned his sibling’s decision to suspend his independent presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump.

In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Max Kennedy said: “Trump was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully” that his father, the former US senator and attorney general Robert F Kennedy, stood against before he was assassinated in 1968 as he pursued the Democratic presidential nomination.

Max Kennedy predicted his father would have admired Kamala Harris because she was a former prosecutor as well. “Her career, like his, has been all about decency, dignity, equality, democracy and justice for all,” Max Kennedy wrote.

I’m heartbroken over my brother Bobby’s endorsement of Donald Trump. Robert F Kennedy’s life was dedicated to promoting the safety, security and happiness of the American people.”

Donald Trump said he would rather keep microphones on during a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris next month, despite his campaign team pushing to keep the same rules as in a previous debate with Joe Biden, when participants’ microphones were turned off when it was not their turn to speak.

Asked if he would want the microphone unmuted between exchanges, Trump said it “doesn’t matter to me”, adding:

I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted. I didn’t like it the last time, but it worked out fine.

According to a Politico report, negotiations between the Trump and Harris campaigns over the 10 September ABC News debate broke down over the turning off of the participants’ microphones when it was not their turn to speak.

The report said that the Harris campaign is demanding that the microphones be left “hot” at all times, while Trump’s campaign has insisted Harris was reneging on terms agreed for the debate by the Biden campaign when it accepted the 10 September date.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid today at his event in Detroit, Michigan, CNN is reporting, citing a source.

Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, had been floated as a potential Trump vice-presidential pick. The former Democrat fell out with her party after standing in the 2020 presidential primaries after being smeared by Hillary Clinton as a “Russian asset”. That generated a lawsuit in which Gabbard alleged that Clinton’s suggestion she was the Democratic candidate favored by Russia was “retribution” for Gabbard backing Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary.

Gabbard has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris, although Trump has since threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate.

Actor Billy Baldwin dismissed Robert F Kennedy Jr as a former friend on Sunday while accusing him of betraying his values and selling his political soul after the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump last week.

“We were friends,” Baldwin wrote in a lengthy post on X.

I loved his politics. His speeches inspired me. We were neighbors. Our kids were friends. We carpooled the kids to school for a few years.

But now the actor said he has “completely” disavowed and dissociated from Kennedy.

Baldwin described Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump as “not only a betrayal of the values and traditions of the Kennedy family” but also an act of “political cowardice”.

The rebuke from Baldwin adds to the wave of blowback against Kennedy for his support of the former president.