White House warns supreme court has allowed Texas to deny women abortions in emergencies
At the ongoing White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the supreme court has effectively allowed Texas to deny women abortions even in emergencies, by refusing to take up a Biden administration lawsuit against the state today.
“Today we saw the supreme court decision and what it means that women in Texas could still be denied critical emergency medical care, because of the state’s dangerous and extreme abortion bans,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have seen and have heard the horrific stories of women being denied the care they need because of these laws.”
Jean-Pierre also noted that a Georgia court had allowed the state’s abortion ban to go back into effect, and said:
All of these laws were made possible when the former president handicapped three Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v Wade. They are creating chaos and confusion for women and doctors.
The administration has been clear that all patients, including women experiencing pregnancy loss and other pregnancy related emergency, must be able to access the emergency medical care they need, and that is required by federal law. The stories we hear of women being denied care they need in emergency situation [are] completely unacceptable.
Key events
Harris says she would not sit down with only Putin to discuss Ukraine
Asked if she would sit down with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Harris replies: “Not bilaterally. Without Ukraine? No.”
But she punted on a question about Ukraine’s request for Nato membership. Despite receiving assistance from the US and the western military alliance, Ukraine is not a Nato member.
“Those are all issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point,” she said. “Right now, we are supporting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
She then turned on Trump’s records: “Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, ‘oh, he can end it on day one.’ You know what that is? It’s about surrender.”
Harris declines to say Netanyahu is a “real close ally” in 60 minutes interview
Lauren Gambino
The interview is under way. As reported in previews, it begins with a question on the spiraling situation in the Middle East, a clip that was released in advance of the sit-down. She declined to say whether Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a real close ally”.
“I think, with all due respect, the better question is do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people, and the answer to that question is yes,” the vice-president replied in an excerpt from her forthcoming interview on the popular news program.”
The interview then turns to the economy. Harris is pressed to say how she would pay for her economic agenda, which she has mostly unveiled in broad strokes. She talked about the importance of making billionaires and big corporations “pay their fair share.”
“It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations,” she said.
“I am a devout public servant, you know that, I’m also a capitalist,” she added. “And I know the limitations of government.”
Lauren Gambino
Kamala Harris’s “60 Minutes” election special has begun with a lengthy explanation of the effort by CBS to secure an interview with Donald Trump.
Scott Pelley, one of the show’s correspondents who was supposed to interview Trump, detailed the back-and-forth with the Trump campaign to secure the interview that he said was due to take place on Thursday last week. But he said Trump canceled the sit down.
Pelley said the campaign provided “shifting explanations” for pulling out of the interview, including that he did not want to be “factchecked” and that he “needed an apology” for a 2020 interview related to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“Trump has said his opponent doesn’t do interviews because she can’t handle them. He had previously declined another debate with Harris,” Pelley said. “So tonight may have been the largest audience for the candidates between now and Election Day.”
Whitaker asks if the US has a real close ally in prime minister Netanyahu, to which Harris says, “I think, with all due respect, the better question is do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people. And the answer to that question is yes.”
During the interview, CBS’s Bill Whitaker will ask Kamala Harris about the crisis in the Middle East. Harris sidesteps a question about US support for Israel, and in particular, Netanyahu.
Here is that exchange:
Bill Whitaker: The events of the past few weeks have pushed us to the brink, if-if not into an all-out regional war in the Middle East. What can the U.S. do at this point to stop this from spinning out of control?
Vice-president Kamala Harris: Well, let’s start with 7 October. 1,200 people were massacred, 250 hostages were taken, including Americans, women were brutally raped, and as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end.
Bill Whitaker: We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet prime minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a ceasefire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over prime minister Netanyahu?
Vice-president Kamala Harris: The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.
Bill Whitaker: But it seems that prime minister Netanyahu is not listening.
Vice-president Kamala Harris: We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.
Trump has not yet spoken, but the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe is at the event in Florida and will report on anything noteworthy that he says when he does.
Meanwhile Kamala Harris’s pre-taped interview with 60 Minutes is due to air in two minutes’ time. We’ll bring that to you live as it airs.
Kamala Harris’s interview with 60 Minutes will air in 20 minutes’ time. We’ll bring you news and analysis from that live.
People around the world marked the anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks on Monday, and devastating conflict that has followed.
Vigils paid tribute to the 1200 victims of the Hamas attacks, and the hostages in Gaza, and protests called for an end to the Israeli offensive, which has killed nearly 42,000 people, more than half of them women and children, and injured tens of thousands.
US President Joe Biden participated in a Jewish ceremony to remember the victims of the attack, and UK prime minister Keir Starmer called for an end to the escalating regional violence. The events came as Israel launched a wave of strikes on southern Lebanon, where it claims it has been targeting Hezbollah in recent weeks, leading to fears of a broader war:
As we wait for Trump to speak at an event on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, here are the biggest days to watch out for the next few months. There are no major events scheduled until election day, just a month of campaigning from the candidates.
5 November: Election Day. It could take days for the election result to be known, especially if it is close and mail-in ballots are a factor.
26 November: Trump, the first sitting or former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, is due to be sentenced in a Manhattan hush money case where he was found guilty of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star. Trump has denied wrongdoing. Sentencing was originally due to take place on Sept. 18.
17 December: Electors, who together form the Electoral College, meet in their respective states and the District of Columbia to select the president and vice-president.
25 December: The electoral votes must be received by this date by the president of the Senate – a role held by the vice-president, now Harris – and the archivist.
6 January 2025: The vice-president presides over the Electoral College vote count at a joint session of Congress, announces the results and declares who has been elected.
Ahead of the count on 6 January 2021, then-President Trump lambasted his vice-president, Mike Pence, for refusing to try to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.
On that day, the US Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters trying to stop the count. Biden’s win was certified early the next day.
Congress has since passed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, which requires approval of one-fifth of the House and Senate to consider a challenge to a state’s results – a much higher bar than existed before, when at least one member each in the Senate and House of Representatives could together trigger a challenge.
20 January: The inauguration of the election winner and their vice-president takes place. At this ceremony, the victor and the vice-president are officially sworn into office.
Oliver Milman
Here is more on the Fema chief’s response to falsehoods spread by Treump about Hurricane Helene:
Trump has accused Joe Biden’s administration of “abandoning” people to the crisis and, baselessly, of being short of disaster relief funds due to money spent on undocumented migrants. Such claims are “frankly ridiculous” and creating a “truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear” among affected people, Criswell said.
In multiple rallies in the past week, Trump has accused Biden and Kamala Harris of favoring migrants over disaster-hit areas. “They stole the Fema money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump has said.
“Kamala spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants.” Trump added the places worst hit are “largely a Republican area so some people say they did it for that reason”.
JD Vance, Trump’s Republican running mate, echoed this theme on Monday, telling Fox News that Fema’s focus on migrants is “going to distract focus from their core job of helping American citizens in their time of need”. Last week, Stephen Miller, a far-right Trump adviser, said that “Kamala Harris turned Fema into an illegal alien resettlement agency.”
Fema does, in fact, have a housing program that offers shelter to migrants leaving detention but this is separate from its disaster relief program. “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. None,” the White House has stated.
Congress recently provided an extra $20bn for disaster relief but Biden has warned that more funding will be needed to help the long-term recovery of places increasingly assailed by powerful storms fueled by global heating.
Other conspiracy theories and erroneous claims have swirled online and in areas affected by Helene, such as the assertion that Fema will give only $750 to individuals as a loan (it is in fact a grant and can be followed by further claims for more than $40,000) or that the agency is seizing people’s land.
Trump did not make any public remarks as he paid his respects at the final resting place of a famous rabbi in New York earlier on Monday.
But he blasted Biden and Harris over their handling of the Middle East in an interview earlier, accusing the incumbent of having the “worst foreign policy of anybody in history probably.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “not listening at all” to Biden, said Trump – with the property tycoon lamenting that war-torn Gaza could one day be “better than Monaco”.
The event in Florida is starting now, though Trump is not yet speaking.
Trump’s event in Florida is so far running 30 minutes late. We will bring you any important lines from those remarks on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks by Hamas when they begin.
Oliver Milman
A slew of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene, including claims of funds diverted from storm survivors to migrants and even that Democrats somehow directed the hurricane itself, have hampered the response to one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the US, the nation’s top emergency official has warned.
Misinformation spread by Donald Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded the recovery effort for communities shattered by Helene, which tore through five states causing at least 227 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage. Many places, such as in western North Carolina, are still without a water supply, navigable roads or vital supplies.
“It’s frankly disappointing we are having to deal with this narrative, the fact there are a few leaders having a hard time telling the difference between fact and fiction is creating an impedance to our ability to actually get people the help they need,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), told MSNBC on Monday.
Here is the press pool report – by the Guardian’s own David Smith – on Kamala Harris’s comments earlier on Governor Ron DeSantis not taking her calls about Hurricane Milton.
Harris said:
Moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they’re going to put politics aside and put the people first.
People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games at this moment, in these crisis situations – these are the height of emergency situations – it is utterly irresponsible and it is selfish and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”
Earlier VPOTUS said she had just come off the phone with Fema Administrator Deanne Criswell. She commented on remarks made by Trump.
And I cannot stress enough to all the folks in Florida in the Tampa area, please listen to evacuation orders. Please listen to your local officials because I know a lot of folks out there have survived these hurricanes before; this one is going to be very, very serious and I urge you to grab whatever you need.
The other point I’d make is there’s a lot of misinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, particularly for the survivors of Helene. First of all, it’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him, it’s not about you. The reality is Fema has so many resources that are available to those who desperately need them.”
Edward Helmore
Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is reportedly refusing calls about storm recovery from Kamala Harris, more than a week after Hurricane Helene hit the state and two days before intensifying Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the south-west of the state.
Citing a DeSantis aide, NBC News reported on Monday that the Republican governor was dodging the Democratic presidential nominee’s calls because they “seemed political”.
“Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” the DeSantis aide told the outlet. DeSantis does not appear to have spoken to Joe Biden, either, to the aide’s knowledge.
The Florida governor has, however, been in touch with the Fema director, Deanne Criswell.
Last week, DeSantis said Biden had called him, but he was flying at the time so could not take the call. A source familiar with the planning for Biden’s trip to north Florida to survey Helene’s damage said that the Biden team had invited DeSantis to the event but their schedules conflicted.
The response to Hurricane Helene has become an intense political issue one month before the presidential election. The White House and local Democratic leaders have appealed for an end to misinformation about the storm and the response to it.
Summary
As we wait for Trump to begin delivering his remarks on the October 7 Hamas attack in Florida, here is where things stand:
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Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both attended events today in recognition of the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel.
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The Supreme court upheld a ruling that will prevent abortions from being performed in some emergency circumstances in Texas. The court also rejected an attempt by an Alabama fertility clinic to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit that was at the center of a state high court ruling earlier this year that led to IVF access being briefly curtailed in the state
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The Harris campaign launched a week-long media blitz, beginning yesterday with an appearance on the podcast Call Her Daddy, that will include appearances with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and The View this week.
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Florida is bracing for Hurricane Milton to make landfall. The state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has declined to speak with Harris or Joe Biden, but says the federal government has fulfilled his requests for aid.
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A report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests that both the Harris and Trump campaigns are making promises that will increase US debt, but that Trump’s proposals are more expensive.