Trump refuses to commit to accepting 2024 election result if he loses – live updates

Biden to make unscheduled speech from White House

The White House just announced that Joe Biden will imminently deliver remarks, but the topic was not specified.

The speech was not previously scheduled. We will let you know what the president has to say.

Donald Trump’s rally in Wisconsin yesterday was part of a brief campaign trip through two swing states that will be crucial to deciding the November elections. The Guardian’s David Smith documented the former president’s appearance in Michigan farm country:

At a remote rural airport in Michigan, an outsized plane touched down as music from Tom Cruise’s film Top Gun boomed from loudspeakers. Late afternoon sunshine gleamed off five giant golden letters on the plane’s side – “TRUMP” – and its Rolls-Royce engines. A crowd bedecked in red roared as the plane rolled to a standstill behind a blue “TRUMP” lectern.

A door opened and men in dark glasses and dark suits from what Donald Trump would call “central casting” made their way down the stairs. “Trump! Trump!” the audience chanted, raising hundreds of camera phones in eager anticipation. Great Balls of Fire, Macho Man and YMCA blared. Finally, the former and would-be future president emerged, clapping and fist-pumping to the sound of whoops and cheers and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.

How different the warm embrace from Trump’s recent experience as a defendant on criminal trial in a chilly, dingy courtroom in New York. On those days, threatened with prison, he looks old, vulnerable and small. Back on the election campaign trail, it is all about hypermasculine energy and bigness – big plane, big crowds, big promises and big lies.

Trump had spent Tuesday in the now grimly familiar routine of the courtroom, where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. But the the court does not sit on Wednesday, freeing him to get a fresh shot of adulation from his fan base.

Trump declines to address Wisconsin abortion ban in swing state appearance

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Donald Trump for his thoughts on Wisconsin’s abortion ban, which is being challenged before the state supreme court, where liberal justices recently gained a majority.

The former president declined to comment, and generally avoided the issue in his rally in Waukesha, instead repeating that he thought it should be up to states to regulate the procedure, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Trump had a major role in the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, which paved the way for states to outlaw the procedure entirely, but has since fueled a string of Democratic victories in state and federal elections. He appointed three of the conservative judges who signed on to that ruling, but has since tried to avoid campaigning forcefully on the issue of abortion.

Yesterday, Kamala Harris traveled to Florida to decry a strict abortion ban that went into effect there, and warned voters not to believe Trump’s insistence that he was not interested in passing a federal law cutting off access to the procedure. Here’s a recap of her speech:

Trump refuses to commit to accepting election loss and repeats 2020 lies in swing state Wisconsin rally

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday, Donald Trump had the day off from his trial in New York City on charges related to falsifying business records, and held a rally in Wisconsin, a swing state crucial to his presidential election chances. After a speech spent attacking Joe Biden over his handling of border security and inflation, Trump gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he falsely insisted that he won Wisconsin in 2020 (he did not) and “other locations”, and refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s vote. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” the former president said. The comments were yet another indication that Americans should be prepared for a rocky election aftermath, should Trump lose in November to Biden. After the Democrat defeated him in 2020, Trump spent weeks attempting various plots to prevent Biden from taking power, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Of course, there’s the chance that Trump could indeed win election again, as he did in 2016 – polls currently show a tight race with Biden, including in Wisconsin.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• Trump is back in Manhattan as his trial resumes with testimony from Keith Davidson, a lawyer for adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who is at the heart of the allegations against the former president. We have a live blog covering everything that goes on in the courtroom.

• Police moved in against protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles as colleges nationwide grapple with anti-Israel demonstrations. Follow our live blog for more on this developing story.

• Biden is heading to North Carolina to pay his respects to the four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant earlier this week, then will speak about his economic policies in the city of Wilmington at 4.30pm ET.