With the US presidential election just over three weeks away, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s campaigns are heating up, making last-minute appeals to voters.
Want a quick overview of the week’s biggest political news? Look no further.
Here are five key takeaways from the past seven days and a summary of where candidates rank in the polls.
Former US President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris head to showdown on November 5 (Eduardo Muñoz, Nathan Howard/Reuters)
Election overview
23 days left until the November 5th election.
Harris has a slight lead in national polling average
As of October 11, Vice President Kamala Harris’ approval rating was 48.5 percent, up 2.5 points from former President Donald Trump’s 46 percent, according to polling firm FiveThirtyEight.
A separate average of polls by the website 270toWin found Harris again with a narrow lead, with an approval rating of 49.3%. Trump, on the other hand, has 46.5%.
Democrat Harris may be poised to flip suburban voters, one of Trump’s key demographics.
On October 10, a poll released by news agency Reuters and market research agency Ipsos found Harris leading her Republican rival among suburbanites, 47 percent to 41.
But two days later, the New York Times and Siena College released a poll showing that Harris may be slipping among black voters. She garnered 78 percent support, down from the estimated 90 percent support that fellow Democrat Joe Biden received in 2020.
A car moves through floodwaters near South Daytona, Florida, after Hurricane Milton passes on October 11. (Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)
Hurricane Milton becomes a battleground for disinformation
Hurricane Milton became a powerful Category 5 storm within three days of forming in the Gulf of Mexico, earning it the highest rank on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Such rapid development has rarely been seen. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called Milton “one of the most powerful hurricanes on record in the Atlantic Basin.”
And it was headed straight for Florida, the southernmost state in the continental United States.
But as Florida braced for the impact, politicians were bracing not just for fierce winds and storm surge, but also for a flood of disinformation.
Some parts of the southern United States are still recovering from Hurricane Helen in September, and in the weeks since then, President Trump has said that the Democratic-led federal government “has gone out of its way to not help people in Republican areas.” He made a series of false claims, including, ”.
The night Milton made landfall, outgoing President Joe Biden used his White House remarks about the storm to slam his former political opponent Trump.
“In recent weeks, disinformation and outright lies about what is going on have been promoted recklessly, irresponsibly and persistently,” Biden said, calling the distortions “un-American.” Ta.
“Former President Trump led this onslaught of lies,” he added.
Harris herself criticized Trump in her remarks in Las Vegas. “This is not the time for people to be playing politics,” she said, referring to Republicans.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks with podcast host Alex Cooper (Call Her Daddy/Handout via Reuters)
Trump and Harris battle with mainstream media
Harris, once criticized for not appearing in the national media, was rushed into interview after interview earlier this week as part of a recent media blitz.
That was in stark contrast to when she started her campaign. After announcing her candidacy on July 21, Harris did not give any major interviews until late August.
Still, it was a joint interview with her running mate, Tim Walz. Her first solo interview took place a few weeks later, on September 13th, on a local television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
But over the past week, Ms. Harris has increased her media appearances. Over the course of two days, she appeared on the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” radio on “The Howard Stern Show,” and television talk shows “The View” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
And her prerecorded interview with the vaunted TV news magazine “60 Minutes” also aired on Monday.
That final interview was meant to be part of the pair. 60 Minutes had also invited Donald Trump to sit in on the recording.
But host Scott Pelley announced that Trump’s team had canceled the agreed-upon interview, citing “shifting narratives” that included the possibility that Republicans would be fact-checked on air.
The friction between President Trump and “60 Minutes” did not end there. When a teaser version of Harris’ interview showed the vice president answering different questions than the long version, President Trump accused the magazine of trying to “make her look better.”
He also called on the Federal Communications Commission to “revoke the CBS license.” The statement drew a rebuke from the committee chairman, who warned that such behavior threatens freedom of speech.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris looks on during a campaign event in Chandler, Arizona, October 10 (Evelyn Hochstein/Reuters)
Harris touts her health advantage over Trump
Health and competency issues loomed large throughout much of the 2024 election, even threatening one candidate’s candidacy.
After a dismal performance in June’s debate, the 81-year-old Biden was forced to withdraw from the presidential race amid questions about his age and leadership ability. It was the culmination of months of speculation and attacks in which President Trump characterized Biden as a “weak” and “sleepy” old man.
But Trump himself, 78, faces questions about his age and mental capacity.
This week, those questions were thrust back into the spotlight. Last Sunday, the New York Times published an article analyzing President Trump’s “rambling” and increasingly long-winded speeches, suggesting that Trump’s speech patterns may reflect the effects of age. I wondered if there was.
And on Saturday, the White House released a memo touting his Democratic rival’s health.
It said Harris, 59, “has the physical and mental resilience necessary to successfully perform the duties of the presidency.”
President Trump has long touted his cognitive test scores as evidence of his ability. On Saturday, campaign spokesman Stephen Chan responded to media inquiries in a statement claiming that Harris “doesn’t have the stamina” that Trump does.
“We all conclude that he is in perfect health to be commander-in-chief,” Chan wrote of Trump.
Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada on October 11 (Fred Greaves/Reuters)
President Trump offers blueprint for anti-immigration policy
On the campaign trail this week, Trump ramped up his attacks on immigrants in the United States and continued to make false and inflammatory claims.
Immigration has been one of the defining issues of President Trump’s political career, and he has made every effort to project a hard-line image.
But critics have warned that his xenophobic rhetoric has become increasingly extreme and reflects the sentiments of white supremacists and other controversial figures.
On Monday, President Trump recorded an audio interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show in which he repeated false claims that murderers are crossing the border into the United States en masse.
“Many of them killed far more than one person and are now living happily in the United States,” Trump said. “Now they’re murderers, but I believe this. It’s in their genes. And now we have a lot of bad genes in our country.”
Republicans continued to criminalize immigrants throughout the week, particularly in Friday’s appearances.
Speaking in Aurora, Colorado, Trump vowed that if re-elected, he would spend his first days in office “removal” of “savage gangs” from overseas and would invoke the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798. . Law as a means of mass deportation.
He also called for the death penalty for immigrants who kill American citizens.
Despite President Trump’s portrayal of illegality, research shows that illegal immigrants have much lower crime rates than U.S.-born citizens.
Supporters cheer as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Coachella, California, October 12 (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Bob Woodward’s book paints an unflattering portrait
Reporter Bob Woodward holds a near-mythical status in the field of American journalism.
In 1972, he and Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein helped uncover President Richard Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal, thereby prompting his eventual resignation.
Since then, Woodward has published dozens of books purporting to show the inner machinations of American politics. His latest comments, coming in the midst of a heated presidential campaign, provided an unflattering yet revealing glimpse into Trump’s alleged relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The book, titled “War,” was released to the press on Tuesday before hitting bookstores.
On the page, an anonymous aide claimed that Trump called Putin at least seven times after leaving office. The book also claimed that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump sent Putin a virus testing machine that was in short supply.
Since then, news outlets have struggled to independently verify some of the book’s most high-profile claims. The Trump campaign then issued a full-throated rebuttal, calling Woodward an “angry little man.”
“None of these fabricated stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly insane and deranged man,” Chan, Trump’s press secretary, said in a statement.
But the book includes several prominent sources, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chief Mark Milley, who was once the highest-ranking military officer in the United States.
He tells Woodward in the book that Trump is a “fascist through and through.”
