Kamala Harris to hold town hall with undecided voters after Donald Trump rejects second debate offer – US politics live

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Ahead of the upcoming presidential election, one large US bank is supplementing its global overnight team with a full trading desk in New York to handle the expected greater demand from clients, a source at the bank who is familiar with the situation has told Reuters.

This bank also plans to adjust staffing needs as necessary if a presidential decision is delayed.

Separately, a large retail brokerage is making sure staff are on hand to respond to investor questions around-the-clock and is keeping tabs on social media sites such as Reddit for signs of anything unexpected, a person familiar with the firms’ plans told Reuters.

It has undertaken reviews of its systems to ensure they can cope with any sudden increase in either volatility or trading volume, the person, who requested anonymity to speak about his company’s plans, told the news agency.

Chris Isaacson, chief operating officer at exchange operator Cboe Global Markets, said past volatility events such as the pandemic, the 2020 US election and, recently, the fallout from the yen carry trade, have tested the company’s systems.

“We build our markets to be able to handle at least two times the biggest peaks we’ve ever seen. So, we feel quite good about our resiliency and business continuity leading into the election,” he said. Still, along with 24/7 staff, “we’ll have bolstered staff watching during the key hours here,” he said.

A large US broker dealer is adjusting new hire training schedules and limiting any activities and meetings that take staff away from their phones, a source at the firm told Reuters.

For Joe Hoffman, chief executive officer at Mesirow Currency Management in Chicago, it will be crucial to have access to relationship banking as it can be “really important during times of stress” when liquidity might dry up on the screens.

Brian Hyndman, CEO of Blue Ocean Technologies LLC, whose automated trading system powers overnight trading for Robinhood and dozens of other brokerage clients, said he was prepared for increased trading and volatility, but couldn’t predict in which assets, according to Reuters.

“We’ll probably have more hands on deck than in a typical overnight session to address and resolve technical issues, and more management and support staff,” said Hyndman.

Wall Street ramps up staffing as election nears

Banks, brokerages, investment managers and exchanges are adding staff to handle high trading volumes on and around election day with markets expected to become volatile as results come in, reports Reuters.

Political events can trigger wild gyrations that can force market participants to quickly unwind bets, raising market, liquidity and other risks that could pressure trading systems and market infrastructure.

With Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump neck-and-neck in many polls ahead of the 5 November vote, the prospect of no immediate winner being clear is heightening concerns among investors and traders, reports Reuters.

There is also the risk of a contested election following Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in 2020. Trump has indicated he might not accept the results of this election if he loses.

“This just means ensuring we have sufficient coverage to handle more volume and volatility, managing vacation schedules accordingly, and that we are prepared for intraday ups and downs as election news unfolds,” he said.

Market participants are trying to make sure they are not caught off guard by surges in volatility. Recent surprises have included when the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, as well as when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton later that same year.

Two weeks out from election day, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff has claimed his one-time boss “falls into the general definition of fascist”.

John Kelly, a former Marine general and presidential aide from 2017 to 2019, made the extraordinary intervention on Tuesday in a series of coordinated interviews. Speaking to the New York Times, he said the former Republican president “prefers the dictator approach to government” and is the “only president that has all but rejected what America is all about”. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, told the Times that Kelly’s accounts were “debunked stories” and that Kelly had “beclowned” himself.

Donald Trump speaks to then-chief of staff John Kelly. With two weeks until polls open in the 5 November presidential election, Kelly has claimed his onetime boss ‘falls into the general definition of fascist.’ Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Speaking to the Atlantic, Kelly recounted Trump saying he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Nazi generals showed Adolf Hitler. Trump’s campaign denied the exchange, with an adviser telling CNN:

This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this.”

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz said the reported comments about Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell”. “Folks, the guardrails are gone,” Walz told a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday. “Trump is descending into this madness.”

Barack Obama rapped Eminem’s signature hit Lose Yourself to a crowd in Detroit during a campaign rally for Kamala Harris.

He was preceded by Eminem himself, who told the crowd in his home city:

It’s important to use your voice, I’m encouraging everyone to get out and vote, please … I don’t think anyone wants an America where people are worried about retribution of what people will do if you make your opinion known. I think vice-president Harris supports a future for this country where these freedoms and many others will be protected and upheld.”

Obama opened his ensuing speech by saying: “I gotta say, I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous, but I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem,” before segueing into Lose Yourself’s opening lines: “I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting …”

He joked that he thought Eminem would be performing and he would be a guest star, adding: “Love me some Eminem.”

The former president is an avowed music fan, sharing his favourite songs twice a year in official posts on his social media. Summer 2024’s selections included songs by contemporary pop names such as Beyoncé, Tyla and Rema alongside older tracks by Nick Drake, the Supremes and cosmic jazz musician Pharoah Sanders.

Obama went on to excoriate Donald Trump in his speech, recalling how Trump expressed doubt about the election results in 2020:

Because Donald Trump was willing to spread lies about voter fraud in Michigan, protesters came down, banged on the windows, shouting, ‘Let us in. Stop the count.’ Poll workers inside being intimidated … all because Donald Trump couldn’t accept losing … there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself.”

He questioned Trump’s mental fitness for the role of president, saying:

You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this. But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”

Starmer insists he can have a ‘good relationship’ with Trump despite election ‘interference’ claim

Eleni Courea

Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election.

The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

The letter, which was sent to the US Federal Election Commission, said that these volunteering efforts and reports of contact between Labour and the Harris campaign amounted to “illegal foreign national contributions”.

A statement on DonaldJTrump.com on Tuesday night claimed that the “far-left” Labour party has “inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric”.

In response Starmer insisted he had a “good relationship” with Trump which would not be jeopardised by the complaint.

The prime minister said that party officials volunteering for Harris ahead of the US presidential election on 5 November were “doing it in their spare time” rather than in their capacity working for Labour.

Speaking to reporters travelling with him to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, Starmer said:

The Labour party … volunteers, have gone over pretty much every election. They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there.

That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”

Asked if the complaint risked jeopardising his relationship with Trump if he becomes president again, the UK prime minister said:

No. I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time.”

We had a good, constructive discussion and, of course as prime minister of the United Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections which are very close now.”

Harris to hold CNN town hall on Wednesday while Trump headlines rally in Georgia

US vice-president Kamala Harris will hold a town hall with undecided voters on CNN on Wednesday, after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rejected an offer to debate the Democratic nominee for a second time, reports Reuters.

Trump will headline a rally Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia with guests Tucker Carlson and Robert F Kennedy Jr, as the race for the White House counts down to less than two weeks.

Pennsylvania and Georgia are among seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency. Both candidates are likely to spend much of the rest of their campaigns in those states, trying to persuade the small sliver of voters who are still undecided to back them in the 5 November election.

Harris tried and failed to push Trump to agree to a second presidential debate on CNN after she was considered to have won the first and only presidential debate between the two candidates, which took place in September on ABC News.

Reuters reports that Hariss’s televised town hall will take place before a live audience of undecided voters from Pennsylvania in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia.

Harris held a marginal 46% to 43% lead over the former president, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

More on this story in a moment, but first, here are the latest updates:

• Surrogates campaigning for Trump and Harris are fanning out across the US this week. Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, will travel to North Carolina and Pennsylvania, while Trump’s running mate JD Vance will head to Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.

• UK prime minister Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election. The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

• Harris herself said she has no doubt that the US was ready for a female president, in an interview with NBC News’s Hallie Jackson. “I’m clearly a woman. I don’t need to point that out to anyone,” Harris said with a laugh. “The point that most people really care about is: can you do the job and, do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”.

• Harris courted Hispanic voters promoting small business loans for Latino men, in an interview with Noticias Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro. Harris pledged to drive more funds to community banks to help Latino men access small business loans. “Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify,” she said.

• Trump also pitched to Hispanic voters, holding a morning round table with Latino leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. Trump hit familiar talking points but took his time in getting to issues of importance to the voting bloc. The event concluded with a group of prominent evangelists praying as they stood around Trump with their hands on his shoulders, while he sat with his eyes closed.

• At the same event, the former president hurled a series of personal attacks at his opponent, calling Harris “lazy as hell” and “low IQ”. He was referring to Harris holding no public campaign events on Tuesday, instead recording the two interviews after a busy day of campaigning with Liz Cheney on Monday. At a later rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump continued the invective: “Does she drink? Is she on drugs?”

• Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz held a rally with former president Barack Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, where he slammed Trump’s staged campaign event at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s as a “stunt” and mocked Elon Musk for “jumping around, skipping like a dipshit” before holding another rally in Wisconsin that evening.

• Obama, meanwhile, ridiculed Trump’s boasts on the economy and cast his rambling speeches as a sign of mental deterioration. “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this,” said Obama. “But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”

• JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, dodged a question about whether he would strip immigrants with legal authorisation of their status while campaigning in Peoria, outside Phoenix, Arizona. Vance urged supporters to “work our rear ends off for the next two weeks” to turn the swing state red.

• Despite some setbacks, Republicans vowed to press ahead in bids to block some overseas ballots. Court rulings rejected Republic National Committee efforts to block some Americans living abroad from voting in North Carolina and Michigan but the party will keep up its aggressive legal campaign.

• Arab Americans slightly favour Trump over Harris, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit along with YouGov, shows a deadlock in Michigan, a key battleground state with a large Arab American population.

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