Harris says ‘Trump must never again’ be president at campaign event with more than 100 Republicans – US elections live

Kamala Harris is really fired up and not pulling her punches on this stage in Pennsylvania this afternoon, alongside Republicans including former members of congress.

“I have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution…and I have never wavered from upholding that oath. And this is a profound difference between Donald Trump and me. He who violated the oath…and…if given the chance will violate it again,” Harris said.

She then stated to loud cheers: “Donald Trump lost the 2020 election” but then he refused to accept the result.

Moments later she said that she believes Trump seeks “unchecked power” and she cited former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, in as much as he “is saying no-one has ever been as dangerous to our country as Donald Trump.”

She added: “Anyone who tramples on our democratic values as Donald Trump has, anyone who has called for, quote, the termination of the Constitution of the United States as Donald Trump has must never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States. Never again, never again.”

Kamala Harris is leaning on US history and her location to emphasize the significance of this bipartisan event under way in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania.

She is talking about how George Washington won a huge victory in the revolutionary war with a surprise attack in nearby Trenton after crossing the icy Delaware River with his troops and ultimately went on to help establish the United States with a constitution that upholds “free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power”, Harris said.

“These principles have sustained our nation for over two centuries because generations of Americans … have cherished them, upheld them and defended them,” she said.

“Now the baton is in our hands so I’m joined today by more than 100 Republican leaders from across Pennsylvania and across our country who are supporting my candidacy for president of the United States and I’m deeply honored to have their support,” she said.

Harris added: “At stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for.”

Later this afternoon, Kamala Harris will speak alongside Republican foes of Donald Trump in a Pennsylvania county that will be crucial in deciding which presidential candidate wins the state.

At the rally in Bucks county, outside Philadelphia, the Democratic vice-president will be joined by former members of congress Adam Kinzinger, Denver Riggleman and Barbara Comstock, former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and around 100 other Republicans who are expected to warn against sending Trump back to the White House.

A senior Harris campaign official said that in her speech, held in a park not far from where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware river during the Revolutionary War, the vice-president will accuse Trump of violating his oath of office by attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Her visit comes after in-person early voting began on Tuesday in Bucks county.

The speech appears set to be similar to one Joe Biden gave earlier this year in a different part of the Philadelphia suburbs, where he cast Trump as a threat to democracy, hoping to energize a presidential campaign that never quite caught on with voters. Here’s a look back at that:

Campaigning in Pennsylvania, JD Vance whipped up the crowd by casting Kamala Harris as an inept interviewer who is in for a shock when she sits down with Fox News interviewer Bret Baier this evening.

“I don’t know if you all saw, but, you know, there’s a big, big night for Kamala Harris tonight, because she’s got probably the hardest interview that she’s ever done,” Vance said during a rally in the town of Williamsport.

“Now, of course, it is major, major news, because Kamala Harris doesn’t really do interviews at all, and if she does do interviews, they’re a softball interview. Have you seen some of Kamala Harris’s interviews? I wouldn’t recommend it. You lose about 20 IQ points if you watch Kamala Harris give an answer to a question about public policy.”

The speech continued with Vance insulting and discrediting Harris, while promoting the policies he and Donald Trump would implement if they win the White House.

Harris did indeed spend much of the first weeks of her campaign avoiding the press, but has since been on something of a media blitz. Here’s more on the change in tactics:

Jimmy Carter’s son has said that his father, who just turned 100, hoped to live long enough to cast his ballot for Kamala Harris. The Democratic former president may have gotten his wish.

The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports that the Carter Center announced that Carter has cast his presidential election ballot. Though it did not say who he voted for, Carter typically votes Democrat. Here’s more:

Republicans have filed a slew of lawsuits that appear to be aimed at seeding doubt about the outcome of the 2024 race in the event of a Donald Trump loss. This comes nearly four years after an aggressive legal effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections.

From 2023 until September of this year, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and local affiliates have filed or are involved in at least 72 cases, according to an analysis by Democracy Docket, a left-leaning voting rights news platform founded by the Democratic lawyer Marc Elias. At the same point during the 2022 midterm election, Republicans had filed 41 lawsuits.

There’s nothing unusual about an explosion of litigation over election rules ahead of a presidential election. But experts say what stands out this year isn’t the volume of the cases but their subject matter.

Many of the lawsuits are based on a theory that states are not adequately maintaining their voter rolls and that there could be scores of ineligible voters, including non-citizens, on them. They make weak legal claims, election experts say, and instead appear to be more of a public relations effort to motivate Republican voters and echo Trump’s falsehoods about voting.

Read the full report here.

Joanna Walters

Here are some more powerful scenes from the memorial service in Washington, DC this afternoon for Ethel Kennedy, the political activist and widow of Bobby Kennedy.

By the book:

The Pelosis. Paul Pelosi was savagely beaten by an intruder who broke into the family home in San Francisco in 2022 aiming to find Nancy Pelosi and do her harm. She was in Washington at the time. She spoke about the traumatic event in an interview with the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast this week.

Campaign chat?

Joanna Walters

The funeral service for Ethel Kennedy is getting underway at the Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle in Washington, DC and Joe Biden is going to deliver the eulogy. Former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi are also attending and will deliver remarks.

Kennedy died last week at the age of 96 just days after suffering a stroke. She was the widow of Senator Robert F Kennedy and raised their 11 children after he was assassinated in 1968 while running for president, and she remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter. Here is the Guardian’s obituary.

Many Kennedy family members are attending the memorial and there will also be remarks from Martin Luther King III, a descendent of civil rights leader Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Stevie Wonder is due to perform at the service.

Biden became the first second US president to be a Catholic and the first since John F Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

In a Fox News town hall, Donald Trump called himself “the father of IVF” and said he and others in the Republican party support the fertility treatment – even though his congressional allies have blocked federal legislation to guarantee its availability. Kamala Harris said her opponent’s comments were “quite bizarre”, while her campaign held a press conference where victims of the migrant family separation policy implemented under Trump’s presidency testified about the harm they endured. Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith argued that Trump was responsible for the January 6 attack in a new filing, as he seeks to get his prosecution in the election subversion case back on track.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Trump also proposed doing away with sanctuary cities by executive order, though an earlier attempt when he was president failed.

• Michelle Obama will on 29 October headline a rally in Georgia aimed at turning out young voters, while Barack Obama will next week campaign for Harris in Michigan as early voting begins.

• Harris will this evening appear on the conservative Fox News network for an interview with anchor Bret Baier.