Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Nicky Woolf (now), Scott Bixby and Tom McCarthy (earlier)

Trump campaign hit with restraining order over voter intimidation fears – as it happened

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
The presidential campaign has reached a fever pitch as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and their surrogates sweep through battleground states. Photograph: Reuters

Here's where things stand

On the eve of the final friday before the presidential election, the candidates are focusing their attention on key swing states.

  • Clinton held a get-out-the-vote rally in Cleveland, Ohio, alongside Beyonce, Jay Z, and Chance the Rapper
  • Trump spoke to a packed crowd in a hockey arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania
  • At his rally, he said that Obama had screamed at a protester, when in fact Obama had told his crowd not to boo the man at a rally in North Carolina
  • The Wall Street Journal revealed that the National Enquirer paid $150,000 for a story about an affair between Trump and a Playboy model just to kill the story to protect his campaign
  • The Associated Press revealed that Melania Trump worked illegally as a model in the US before obtaining her work visa
  • Earlier, a judge in Ohio issued a temporary restraining order against members of the Trump campaign to prevent them from intimidating voters at polling-places
  • Earlier, Trump campaigned in Wilmington, Ohio and Clinton in Detroit, Michigan

“Let’s send an unmistakeable message that love. Trumps. Hate,” Clinton finishes.

“This is what America is, my friends,” Clinton says. “We have a woman who is an inspiration to so many others - I thank Beyonce for standing up and showing the world we are strongest when we look out for each other, and I thank Jay for addressing in his music some of the biggest challenges in this country.”

I want to be a president who helps everyone fulfil their potential, and I cannot do that until on tuesday we decide what kind of country we want to be

Updated

Hillary Clinton takes the stage in Cleveland

She is introduced by Jay Z, and stands between them on stage, holding hands with Beyonce. “Thank you,” she says, her voice hoarse. “Hello Cleveland. What an incredible show.”

That comment has some history. NPR reports:

Every presidential election cycle since 1992, the magazine has published a cookie recipe from the candidates’ wives. The latest recipes were released Thursday morning, of course with a twist this year: Since Hillary Clinton is the first female nominee of a major party, it was her husband, Bill, who was asked to furnish a cookie recipe, along with Melania Trump.

The Clintons don’t exactly win points for creativity this year. The campaign submitted the “Clinton Family’s Chocolate Chip Cookies” — a reprise of Hillary Clinton’s earlier oatmeal chocolate chip submissions. And Melania Trump’s submission: “Melania Trump’s Star Cookies.” Family Circle readers will vote on the recipes in a poll on the magazine’s website.

But this isn’t so much a story about cookies as it is a story about Hillary Clinton. Back in 1992, Hillary Clinton was something of an oddity, a political spouse with her own high-powered career, who hadn’t set it aside to stand by her husband when Bill Clinton became governor of Arkansas. Her career became an issue in the Democratic primary. There were questions about whether then-Gov. Bill Clinton had funneled state business into her law firm.

When asked about her career in a press gaggle, Clinton responded, “You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. And I tried very, very hard to be as careful as possible, and that’s all that I can tell you.”

Updated

Some video of Beyonce’s arrival in Cleveland:

Updated

“There was a time a woman’s opinion did not matter,” Beyonce says. “Less than 100 years ago women did not have the right to vote. Look how far we’ve come from having no vote to being on the brink of making history by electing the first woman president.”

“I’m with her,” she concludes.

Beyonce takes the stage in Cleveland wearing an enormous hat. “This is history,” she says. “Thank you so much for being here tonight.”

Documents obtained by The Associated Press from 20 years ago show that Melania Trump was paid for 10 modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 before she had legal permission to work in the country, the Associated Press reports.

The documents provide the most detailed accounting yet of Mrs. Trump’s first months in the U.S. She has said she followed all immigration laws as she moved from Slovenia to New York in August 1996 and obtained a work visa about seven weeks later.

The documents show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, before she would have been legally allowed to be paid.

It is highly unlikely that the discovery will affect the citizenship status of Mrs. Trump. She has been a citizen since July 2006.

The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui is on the scene in Cleveland.

A rapturous crowd packed into the Wolfstein Center for a star studded get out the vote concert headlined by Jay-Z, she reports.

The cheers of thousands of jubilant fans reverberated around the stadium as Jay-Z performed hits such as “Dirt off my Shoulder” and “Run This Town,” joined later onstage by Big Sean.

Chance the Rapper followed the act, declaring he was there “to celebrate our next and first woman president in the history of the United States of America.”

Beyoncé was expected to perform soon and was photographed along with her husband and Hillary Clinton backstage.

Hillary Clinton is bringing out the celebrity big guns this evening in Cleveland, in a big final push to win Ohio on Tuesday. Here she is with Beyonce and Jay Z:

She currently lags behind Trump in the state, according to the RCP polling average, which puts Trump 2.7 points ahead at 46.7 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent.

Chance the Rapper is playing now.

At Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio, Jay Z has just finished. Hillary Clinton is due to speak soon.

While he was on stage, the Clinton campaign released an announcement that she would be returning to Cleveland to campaign - this time with LeBron James.

The campaign pointed to an op-ed last month, in which James wrote: “Hillary has always been a champion for children and their futures. For over 40 years, she’s been working to improve public schools, expand access to health care, support children’s hospitals, and so much more.”

Meanwhile:

An interesting tweet from CNN’s Jake Tapper:

GQ magazine asked a bunch of pro-Trump trolls what they thought about Melania’s idea, announced in a speech yesterday, to fight cyberbullying if she became First Lady.

A representative response:

Once all the cucks flee back to whatever hole they crawled out from there’ll be nothing to cyber bully about.”

You can read the whole piece here.

Trump finishes speaking in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and leaves the stage to a campaign favorite, You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones, a song that this campaign cycle has comprehensively ruined for all political journalists.

Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Jay Z is playing at a concert with Hillary Clinton:

You can watch the concert live here:

Jay Z plays in Cleveland in support of Hillary Clinton

“We will cancel every illegal Obama executive order, protect religious liberty, rebuild our military and take care of our veterans,” Trump says, running through his campaign pledges.

Then he turns to the murder of two policemen in New York today. “And it goes on, and on, and on,” he says. “You’re the man!” someone shouts from the crowd. Trump pledges to protect the second amendment.

“We just cannot have four more years of Obama. It’s ISIS running rampant, it’s no borders, it’s bad jobs,” Trump is saying. “Can you imagine?”

Donald Trump walks onto stage at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Donald Trump walks onto stage at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“We have no choice but to take ISIS out, we have to, because they’re chopping off heads,” Trump says.

“Now Mosul - we had Mosul. It was all done. But then Clinton and Obama did that crazy get-out, they got out the wrong way,” Trump says.

“Who benefits by us getting Mosul? Iran,” Trump says.

“Hillary supports completely open borders, and there goes your country,” Trump says. He says that illegal immigrants, when caught, will be jailed.

“First five years, then ten years. They won’t be coming back again, believe me.”

“Who is going to pay for the wall?” Trump asks, turning to border security. “Mexico!” the crowd joyfully chants. He says “we’ll have better relationships with Mexico, better relationships with China” under his presidency.

Trump says “The protesters, we just found out from Wikileaks, are paid 1,500 dollars to go into our rallies and be violent.” It’s an allegation that he’s made before, and seems to be closest to a James O’Keefe video purporting to show that some activist groups incited violence, but may have been selectively edited.

“People living in the inner-cities have been treated unfairly,” Trump says. “They’re unsafe - they get shot going to the store for a loaf of bread.”

“And I say: give me a chance. I will fix it. I actually go: what do you have to lose,” Trump says. “It will be a great thing. We have to fix it. We’re gonna fix the inner cities.”

He says that “to be a rich nation we must also be a safe nation.” He says that Clinton wants “a 550% increase in the number of Syrian refugees on top of the thousands and thousands under president Obama.” He says that brings “a generation of radical islamic terrorism” which infiltrates the country.

Rone finishes speaking, hugs Trump. It is a touching moment. “Whoa boy,” Trump says. “I didn’t expect that.” He says he is dedicating the evening to Riley. “Hard to go back to the economy after that, right?”

Outside the arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where Trump is speaking:

Inside, Riley Rone’s mother is speaking. She says that after her son died, a motorcycle group donated a brick with Riley’s name on it to be used in “the wall”.

“Who won the debates, by the way, who won the debates,” Trump asks the crowd, hitting out at Clinton for her debate-prep. “I mean, how much do you need to learn,” he adds.

Next, he brings the parents of Riley Rone, a young supporter of his who died in an accident. “I love you more than you love me,” Trump tells the audience.

“Riley! Riley!” the crowd chants.

“America has lost, not 700, not 7,000, has lost 70,000 factories since China entered the world trade organization,” Trump says, blaming NAFTA and the Clintons.

Now Trump hits out at Obama. “He’s out campaigning all the time. He should go back to the oval office and work.”

Obama is, indeed, out campaigning - he’s in Charlotte, North Carolina speaking at the same time as Trump is in Pennsylvania.

“Lock her up! Lock her up!” the crowd chants, as Trump talks about the FBI, who he says have “re-opened their criminal investigation” into Clinton.

“I hear we set a new record for this building,” Trump continues. “And by the way, I didn’t have to bring J-Lo or Jay Z or anyone, it’s just me.”

“In four days we are going to win the great state of Pennsylvania and we are going to win back the White House,” Trump opens, to cheers from the packed crowd.

He muses briefly about how he went to school in the state, then immediately pivots to talk about Obamacare.

He says that under his healthcare plan, “it’s gonna cost less and you’re gonna get really good stuff, let me tell you.”

Donald Trump takes the stage

He is speaking to a packed crowd at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

He was introduced by his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, as well as RNC chair Reince Priebus, who said that America is in a “fight for freedom”.

At one point, when the crowd was chanting “CNN sucks”, Conway shushed them. “Be nice,” she said. That’s a first at one of these events.

While we wait for Trump in Pennsylvania, Obama is in Charlotte, North Carolina campaigning for Hillary Clinton:

A new poll from ABC News and the Washington Post puts Clinton in the lead:

A local North Carolina Republican headquarters was spray-painted with an anti-Donald Trump message early on Friday, the second time in a month that a party office in the state has been defaced, reports Reuters.

A vandal sprayed the door and walls of the Alamance County Republican Party headquarters in Burlington with the words “Fuck Trump” and painted over the word “Republican” on a sign at the office at about 2 a.m. local time, according to Chris Verdeck, assistant police chief in the city.

No arrests have been made in the incident, which was caught on surveillance video footage, Verdeck said in a phone interview. The vandalism in Burlington, which is located about 20 miles east of Greensboro, occurred four days before the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday.

You can read the whole piece here.

Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Wilmington, Ohio
Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Wilmington, Ohio Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

A Democratic elector in Washington state said Friday he won’t vote for Hillary Clinton even if she wins the popular vote in his state on Election Day, adding a degree of suspense when the Electoral College affirms the election results next month, reports the Associated Press.

Robert Satiacum, a member of Washington’s Puyallup Tribe, supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. He said he believes Clinton is a “criminal” who doesn’t care enough about American Indians and “she’s done nothing but flip back and forth.”

He said he has wrestled with what to do, but feels that neither Clinton nor Republican Donald Trump can lead the country.

“She will not get my vote, period,” he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Americans vote for the president, but they’re really casting votes for each state’s electors, who will decide the next president on Dec. 19.

In all but two states, the winner of the state’s popular vote gets all of the state’s electors. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the electors are required to vote for a particular candidate, but some states have penalties for so-called “faithless electors.” Satiacum faces a $1,000 fine in Washington if he doesn’t vote for Clinton, but he said he doesn’t care.

As if this election cycle couldn’t get any weirder, time to address the key question from today’s politics: is Clinton adviser John Podesta a practictioner of occult sex magic?

Wikileaks released an email forwarded by his brother Tony from summer 2015 in which Podesta was invited to a dinner party hosted by Marina Abramovic which she described as “Spirit Cooking”.

Several leaps later, Drudge Report was leading with the headline “Wiki Wiccan: Podesta Practices Occult Magic”.

Wait. What happened?

The Washington Post has done a deep dive looking at how the right-wing media made the jump to witchcraft, based on art installations Abramovic has made. They even point out that another email released by Wikileaks shows that Podesta never even attended the dinner.

Abramović’s mention of “Spirit Cooking” appears to refer to her 1996 artwork that consists of a book with recipes “that serve as evocative instructions for actions or thoughts,” according to the Museum of Modern Art’s gallery label describing it. The recipes range from the implausible to the impossible. One calls for “13,000 grams of jealousy.” Another instructs you to stand “on top of a volcano” and open your mouth “until your tongue becomes flame.” Another — the one that seems to be generating the most interest among conspiracy theorists — says to “mix fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk.”

But the right-wing blogosphere, led by Wikileaks, jumped on the blood bandwagon:

Sean Hannity, and Drudge, both picked up the story, as did the Trump-supporting Twitterverse.

So that’s why today’s Twitter has been brought to you by Wicca, in case you were wondering.

At Trump’s rally, the crowd seems fired-up. A man was just shouting “MEDIA SUCKS” at the camera crews as they wait for the Republican presidential nominee to take the stage.

The woman who accused Trump of raping her two decades ago, when she was 13, has dropped her federal lawsuit over the alleged assaults, Politico is reporting.

The accuser, identified in the suit by the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” was expected to appear at a news conference in Los Angeles Wednesday, but that appearance was abruptly canceled.

The lawyer who organized the event, Lisa Bloom, said Trump’s accuser had received threats and was too frightened to show up.

In the most recent suit, Trump’s accuser asserted that while she was exploring a modeling career in 1994, she attended a series of parties at the Manhattan home of prominent investor Jeffrey Epstein. She alleges that during those parties the real estate mogul raped her on several occasions, including one instance in which she says Trump tied her to a bed. She also claimed Epstein raped her during those parties.

The accuser’s lead attorney, Thomas Meagher of New Jersey, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He filed a one-page notice dismissing the case Friday evening in federal court in Manhattan. No explanation was given for the action.

You can read the whole story here.

Nicky Woolf here, taking over from my colleague Scott Bixby.

Donald Trump is about to take the stage at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the national anthem was just played quite exquisitely on an electric guitar. Later, Hillary Clinton is set to appear with Jay Z.

Stay with us.

New York has increased its terrorism alert status after the FBI announced that it is investigating intelligence that suggested al-Qaeda may be plotting attacks before Tuesday’s general election, according to CBS News, citing anonymous sources within the FBI.

Federal and local counterterrorism officials have gone on high alert following news of the threat.

The FBI and the NYPD have declared that they are currently assessing the credibility of the threats, which were vague and named no specific targets but reportedly mentioned New York, Texas or Virginia.

“We are already on a state of high alert for election day, so we have more state police, more national guard, more soldiers on duty than ever before,” said New York governor Andrew Cuomo in a statement. “We’re co-ordinating with the NYPD, so, there’s bad news and good news. Bad news is that New York is often a threat, the good news is that we’ve been living with this now for a decade, and we got prepared for it, and drilled for it, we take every threat seriously, so we’ll be prepared and we’ll be ready.”

Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, is tweeting about sandwiches again:

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton prepared to blitz five battleground states between them on Friday, with four days remaining until American voters will choose their next president.

Clinton began the day with a rally in Pennsylvania, a state where she holds a consistent lead over Trump, while the Republican nominee made a last-minute push in New Hampshire. Trump has surged in recent days in the Granite State, where he scored his first victory of the Republican primary contest earlier this year.

Clinton’s long-held lead in New Hampshire has collapsed in recent days. She was shown trailing Trump or tied with him in four new public polls taken in the wake of the letter from the FBI director, James Comey, informing Congress that it was possible new emails had been discovered related to the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

The news has helped ensure that a number of Republicans and libertarians previously skeptical about Trump have now rallied around the nominee. Former New Hampshire governor John Sununu predicted before Trump appeared there on Friday that the margin for the winning candidate could come down to 5,000 votes.

Clinton’s campaign announced that she would hold a rally in Manchester on Sunday, in a sign of the state’s renewed competitiveness in the final stretch. Barack Obama will campaign in the state on Clinton’s behalf the day before the election.

Although New Hampshire only provides four electoral votes, a win there would greatly aid Trump as he navigates a narrow path to victory.

Upset with how the main broadcast networks have covered your preferred candidate? Good news: One member of Congress is calling for hearings on it!

Dona’d Trump’s newest television ad, which namechecks the “global power structure” that is conspiring to deny the tycoon from becoming president, will be running in “key markets” in Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and New Mexico.

Missing from that list: Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Maine.

President Barack Obama rebuked a crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina, this afternoon as they booed a protester who interrupted his speech and waved a Donald Trump flag. Telling the audience that America is a country that respects free speech, Obama called on voters not to get distracted by the animosity of the election cycle and instead keep focused on ensuring Trump does not win.

Obama chides rally audience for booing Trump supporter

Hillary Clinton campaigns in Detroit, Michigan

Watch it here:

Updated

Report: DNC told FBI that it may have been bugged

The Democratic National Committee informed the FBI that it suspected that its national headquarters had been bugged by parties unknown, according to a Mother Jones report citing two anonymous members of the DNC.

The potential bugging, a callback to the Watergate break-in, was discovered during a security sweep of the party’s national headquarters in Washington, DC, where a radio signal discovered near the office of the party’s chair “indicated there might be a listening device outside the office,” Mother Jones reports.

“We were told that this was something that could pick up calls from cell phones,” a DNC official told Mother Jones. “The guys who did the sweep said it was a strong indication.”

“As a general policy, we don’t talk about such efforts,” another DNC official told Mother Jones, but “we are the oldest political party in this country, and we are under constant attack from Russia and/or maybe others.”

DNC spokesman Adam Hodge told Mother Jones that the party would not comment on security concerns.

“The DNC is not going to comment on stories about its security,” Hodge said. “In all security matters, we cooperate fully with the appropriate law enforcement agencies and take all necessary steps to protect the committee and the safety and security of our staff.”

Donald Trump, on emails:

Some of those emails are so bad, they’re beyond classified.

Speaking at an airplane hanger in Wilmington, Ohio, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed to “win the great state of Ohio, and we are going to win back the White House!”

Telling the audience that his campaign is about “restoring honesty to government,” Trump falsely alleged that the FBI has “multiple open investigations” into opponent Hillary Clinton, but that the system has a way of “flushing itself out.”

“Hillary is now facing major problems with perjury,” Trump said, incorrectly, calling Clinton the Justice Department’s “angel.”

“Hillary has engaged in a criminal massive enterprise,” Trump continued, “like probably nobody ever before.”

Donald Trump campaigns in Wilmington, Ohio

Watch it live here:

A coalition of young people and minority constituencies are helping Hillary Clinton build a “firewall” against Donald Trump key states, the campaign said this afternoon as the race tightens in the final days of the election.

Campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters on a conference call that early voter turnout in Florida, North Carolina and Nevada is showing positive signs for the campaign. In these battleground states, the campaign is working to cement a lead that Trump is “incapable of overcoming”.

Robby Mook.
Robby Mook. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

“If he hasn’t banked his base by this point, he’s going to have an even taller task in these last few days before the election, without a ground game to turn those voters out,” Mook said on the call.

Mook said Clinton is winning support from what they call the “Hillary coalition”: millennials, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and college-educated white women.

Mook said turnout among Latinos is up 120% in Florida, and with five days left already outpacing the overall turnout in 2012. The African American turnout there is up by 22% from 2012 despite overall figures showing a slump in black turnout rates nationally. In North Carolina, African American turnout lagged behind 2012 figures, though the number of Latinos voting early rose from the last election, the campaign said.

In Nevada, Mook said more than 40% of registered voters have already cast ballots and that turnout among Latinos and Asian Americans is outpacing 2012. There he said Trump is underperforming Republican nominee Mitt Romney was in 2012. “Trump is going to need to outperform Romney on Election Day in all three of states to be successful,” he said.

The campaign’s strategy has been to target unlikely voters in an effort of building up an early lead in these states. Mook said Trump would have to improve on Romney’s 2012 performance in order to win there.

Mook again stated that the campaign believes “this will be the highest turnout election we’ve ever had,” which he interpreted as a positive sign for Democrats.

Judge issues restraining order against Trump campaign over voter-harassment fears

An Ohio judge has issued a temporary restraining order against members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to prevent them from intimidating voters in the Buckeye State after the filing of a lawsuit that alleged Trump’s campaign, in cahoots with a GOP operative and his political action committee, were conspiring to suppress minority votes in the state.

US District Judge James Gwin ruled in a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party that any members of Trump’s campaign or affiliated with Roger Stone’s Pac would face contempt-of-court charges, according to Cleveland.com.

The order will be written in a party-neutral manner, Gwin said in his ruling.

“It wouldn’t be any attempt to particularly identify as somebody being a Trump supporter or not,” Gwin said.

The lawsuit, filed on Sunday, claimed that Trump’s comments in Akron on August 22 - “You’ve got to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote. And when I say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?” - were a tacit bid to convince his supporters to suppress minority turnout.

John Podesta, on the Bridgegate convictions:

Rather than just... talking about cleaning up the swamp, he might start by draining his own swamp and asking Mr. Christie to resign as the head of his transition.

How could you reclaim a meme that’s been appropriated by white supremacists? That’s the challenge faced by Pepe the Frog’s creator Matt Furie.

Furie has launched the #SavePepe campaign in an attempt to transform the cartoon frog from a symbol of hate used by racist Donald Trump supporters to a symbol of peace. He’s urging people to flood the internet with their own “peaceful or nice” versions of Pepe to claw the character back from the alt-right.

“We are in uncharted territory right now,” said Furie, an artist and author of children’s books as well as a Hillary Clinton supporter, “But I have to take some responsibility for him because he’s like my kid or something.”

Furie created Pepe back in 2005 as one of four anthropomorphic characters in a comic book called Boy’s Club to amuse his friends at work.

“The frog was just a chilled-out frog who likes to eat snacks and talk on the phone, smoke weed,” he said. “All the characters are an extension of different parts of my personality, but particularly Pepe. He has these heavy eyelids and laid-back nature that I think I have.”

Pepe first became a meme in around 2008. People were lifting frames from the comic book, particularly one where Pepe has pulled his pants all the way down to pee and says “feels good, man” and another where Pepe is consoling himself about his lack of success with women, saying “at least I have time for a pizza on a bagel” and adding their own captions. “Then the Sad Frog took off,” said Furie, referencing a meme that flipped “feels good man” on its head.

“It just started to have a life of its own. All these versions of Pepe having different personalities – smug, sad or really violent and weird,” said Furie, citing a “scatological and weirdly graphic” version known as Poo Poo Pee Pee Pepe [NSFW].

Pepe’s success was international, and he won major followings in China and Korea. “Pepe transcends all these kind of sociological boundaries. He’s just a cartoon frog that’s sad and people can relate to that.”

That all changed on 12 September, when Hillary Clinton posted an explainer about Pepe the Frog becoming a racist hate symbol. Over the previous few weeks, Pepe had been appropriated by the alt-right and was being used as a mascot for white supremacy by some Trump supporters. Two weeks later, Pepe was added to the Anti-Defamation League’s database of hate symbols, joining the swastika, the triangular Klan symbol and other iconography associated with racism.

Finishing a barn-burner of a speech in Fayetteville, North Carolina, President Barack Obama framed the upcoming general election as an opportunity for those who have supported him over the past eight years to help cement his legacy.

“It isn’t that often where in your life you’ve got a chance to move history,” Obama said. “It’s not that often where you have the chance to bend the arc of history in the direction of justice. It’s not that often where you know you can make a difference. This is one of those moments.”

“You have a chance to shape history! Don’t let that slip away! Don’t fall for the easy cynicism that tells you, ‘politics doesn’t matter, my vote doesn’t matter,’” Obama continued.

“If you’ve been marching for criminal justice reform, that’s great, but you need to vote!” he said, in a call-and-response riff. “If you care about making sure our veterans get treated fairly, that’s great, but you need to vote!”

“If you vote, we’ll win North Carolina. And if we win North Carolina, Hillary Clinton will be president,” Obama concluded. “Understand the stakes here - my name’s not on the ballot, but everything we’ve worked for is on the ballot! Justice is on the ballot! Equality is on the ballot! Jobs are on the ballot! Healthcare’s on the ballot! Criminal justice reform’s on the ballot! Democracy’s on the ballot! I need you to vote!”

“Don’t choose fear - choose hope.”

President Barack Obama, on voter suppression:

Right now, Donald Trump is calling on his supporters to monitor ‘certain areas’ on Election Day. I don’t know what ‘certain areas’ he’s talking about. But you do.

President Barack Obama, on government dysfunction:

Come on! You can’t do that! That ain’t right! Not only is it not right, but it ain’t right!

President Obama: Hillary Clinton 'made me a better president'

Speaking on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in Fayetteville, North Carolina, President Barack Obama told a large college-aged audience that unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton doesn’t need Lithuania pointed out on a map - and that she made him a better president.

“She made me a better president,” Obama said.

“When things don’t go her way, she doesn’t whine. she doesn’t complain, she doesn’t blame somebody else, she doesn’t say the game is rigged - she just works harder, comes back stronger, gets up when she gets knocked down, dusts herself, and keeps on going.”

“She will be a strong and a steady president,” Obama continued.

Speaking in North Carolina, President Barack Obama framed Donald Trump as “uniquely unqualified” to hold the office of the presidency, pointing out that Trump’s rhetoric and behavior runs counter to lessons that any parent teaches their children.

“Nobody’s higher than you, but nobody’s lower than you. You don’t lift yourselves higher by putting somebody else down,” Obama said, citing qualities he has instilled in his own daughters. “We can’t have a president who, ever day, seems to violate those basic values. The problem is that he’s done it so much that it’s become almost normal. It’s like suddenly reality TV has entered into the race for the presidency.”

“It’s not even Survivor or The Bachelorette - it’s like some Love and Hip-Hop stuff!”

The largely African-American audience laughed loudly at that one.

“Come on, man!”

“We can’t be thinking, somehow, that just because he agrees with you on some policy issue, or just because you’re frustrated with government that it’s okay to display the kind of behavior that he displays!” Obama said. “Who you are, what you are does not change once you become president. It will magnify who you are. You have more power, so as a consequence, folks will enable you to be more who you are. It will shine a spotlight on who you are.”

“If you accept the support of Klan sympathizers, if you don’t denounce them right away because you’re not sure, well, then that’s what you’re gonna do when you’re in office,” Obama continued. “Yes, I am a proud Democrat, but we’re not Democrats or Republicans first - we’re children of God first. We are Americans first. We are human beings first. I’ve got Republican friends who don’t think or act the way Donald Trump is acting, and as a consequence, they’re not voting for him.”

“This is somebody different - uniquely unqualified to do the job,” Obama said. “But you know something, North Carolina? You are all uniquely qualified to make sure he doesn’t get the job!”

Calling Donald Trump “uniquely unqualified” and “temperamentally unfit” to be president of the United States, President Barack Obama was interrupted by a deafening “Hillary!” chant after an elderly veteran appeared to protest during his address.

After a few minutes of din, during which the president put on his best substitute-teacher hat to calm the crowd down.

“You’ve got an older gentleman who is supporting his candidate - he’s not doin’ nothin’. You don’t have to worry about him,” Obama said. “We live in a country that respects free speech.”

“Don’t boo - vote!”

President Barack Obama, campaigning on Hillary Clinton’s behalf at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, tells the audience of college-aged voters that “we’ve got some business to do.”

“The good news is that you don’t have to wait ’til election day to vote!” Obama said. “You have until tomorrow to register and vote at any one-stop location in your county - and there’s one less than a half-mile away from here.”

Obama framed the election in four days as a referendum that will decide the future of his legacy as president - one that Clinton would protect and expand.

“There is only one candidate in this race in 2016 who has devoted her life to helping to build that better America, and that’s the next president of the United States: Hillary Rodham Clinton!”

“But we can’t take it for granted - we can’t be complacent,” Obama continued. “All the progress that we’ve made these last eight years goes out the window if we don’t win this election. So we’ve got to work our hearts out this week, these last four days, as if our future depends on it. Because our future depends on it!”

President Barack Obama campaigns for Hillary Clinton in North Carolina

Watch it here live:

Moments before President Barack Obama is due to make a campaign appearance on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in North Carolina:

Here’s a live stream of Barack Obama’s upcoming event for Hillary Clinton in Fayetteville, NC:

Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, the former NYC mayor, said on Fox this morning that he knew in advance of a new FBI inquiry announced last week into emails relating to Hillary Clinton:

Read Spencer Ackerman’s piece from Thursday, “The FBI is Trumpland”:

Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.

Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.

How a third party 'protest' vote could matter

Another day closer to the presidential election, another slew of surveys – most of them showing that Hillary Clinton is in the lead. But the size of the Democratic candidate’s advantage varies considerably from poll to poll, partly because some questionnaires ask voters to consider the fact that there are more than two presidential nominees.

Green party candidate Jill Stein is on the ballot in 45 states and voters in another three states can choose to write her name in. And the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is on the ballot in 50 states.

Progressives who are feeling turned off by Clinton and/or Donald Trump, the two most unpopular candidates in decades, might be considering a protest vote for one of these other parties (“protest” in the sense that third-party candidates have a less than 0.1% chance of winning). With just four days to go until the election, they might be wondering who will be hindered more by a protest vote – Democrat Clinton or Republican Trump?

As with all of the articles I have written so far about polling data, the answer is a very unsexy “it depends”. The impact of protest votes varies throughout the country.

Read further:

Trump and Clinton in homestretch sprint

Donald Trump is making a last-minute push in New Hampshire, where he has surged in polls in recent days and where he scored his first victory of the Republican primary contest earlier this year. Here’s a report on the state of the race by Ben Jacobs in Atkinson, New Hampshire, and Sabrina Siddiqui in Pittsburgh:

Former New Hampshire governor John Sununu predicted before Trump appeared there on Friday that the margin for the winning candidate could come down to 5,000 votes.

Don Skerry, Walter Rollins and Mark Smith are draped in flags as they recite the pledge of allegiance at Trump’s New Hampshire rally Friday.
Don Skerry, Walter Rollins and Mark Smith are draped in flags as they recite the pledge of allegiance at Trump’s New Hampshire rally Friday. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Clinton’s campaign announced that she would hold a rally in Manchester on Sunday, in a sign of the state’s renewed competitiveness in the final stretch. Barack Obama will campaign in the state on Clinton’s behalf the day before the election.

Clinton embarked on a packed itinerary Friday, with plans to hit three battlegrounds in one day. The Democratic nominee began with a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where thousands formed a line that snaked around the stadium of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city’s football team.

She was introduced there by Mark Cuban, the influential businessman and investor who hails from Pittsburgh and has been a prominent backer of Clinton’s. Cuban has repeatedly taunted Trump while stumping for Clinton, and continued to take shots at the Republican nominee in his remarks on Friday.

A campaign rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A campaign rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

“You cannot be president of the United States if you don’t know when to shut up,” Cuban said.

He then led a call and response with the crowd, posing questions of Trump that ranged from his trustworthiness to his wealth.

“Do you think he cares more about you or his bank account?” Cuban said.

“Bank account!” they chanted back.

Upon taking the stage to a raucous crowd, Clinton sought to contrast her economic agenda with that of Trump. She struck familiar themes about her opponent stiffing his own workers, while touting her plans to introduce 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, enact equal pay for women, raise the minimum wage and expand access to affordable childcare.

Her closing argument was not simply policy-driven, however, leaning heavily on Trump’s volatile persona and what that would mean for the country under his stewardship.

“Think about what it would mean to entrust the nuclear codes to someone with a very thin skin, who lashes out at anyone who challenges him,” Clinton said, prompting audience members to break into shouts of “No!”

“Imagine how easily it could be that Donald Trump would feel insulted and start a real war, not just a Twitter war, at 3 o’clock in the morning.”

From Pittsburgh, she was scheduled to move on to Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio, the latter of which was billed as a get out the vote concert with rapper Jay-Z. Aides aboard Clinton’s press plane downplayed rumors that Beyonce would join her husband at the event, saying only there would be special guests at the highly-anticipated event.

Clinton was accompanied on Friday by a heavier staff presence, with at least eight top aides spotted boarding her plane.

Updated

The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui lends Clinton an ear:

(Ben’s kidding. We think.)

We’re sick of Cuban’s acronym. How can Trump close in Pennsylvania?

Updated

Cuban is doing an acronym with Trump’s name with the word “Trust.”
Each letter of Trump’s name stands for something bad that defines the candidate, in Cuban’s conceit.

Oh that’s why they brought Cuban to Pittsburgh – he’s from the P-burgh suburb of Squirrel Hill, he says.

Update:

T – Talk

R – Ripoff

U – Us. “This is our chance to stand up and tell the world that we believe.”

[That’s how far we are.]

Updated

Here comes Mark Cuban in Pittsburgh. Scroll back a block for the feed.

“You cannot be president of the United States if you don’t know when to shut up.”

If you’d rather watch Pennsylvania Democratic senate candidate Katie McGinty than Donald Trump, here’s the live video feed on Clinton’s rally in Pittsburgh:

With Trump in New Hampshire: spokeswoman Hope Hicks, paid CNN commentator Corey Lewandowski, and current campaign manager Kellyanne Conway:

Here’s Donald Trump now onstage in Atkinson, New Hampshire. He’s currently riffing on John Podesta’s email.

Take it from CNN’s Dan Merica:

Christie on Bridgegate verdict: 'I will set the record straight'

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has issued a statement on the Bridgegate verdict in which he once again claims “I had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments, and had no role in authorizing them,” and in which he promises to “set the record straight in the coming days.”

Here’s the statement in full:

On January 9, 2014, I apologized to the people of New Jersey for the conduct exhibited by some members of my Administration who showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and for the people we serve. Those people were terminated by me and today, the jury affirms that decision by also holding them responsible for their own conduct.

Like so many people in New Jersey, I’m saddened by this case and I’m saddened about the choices made by Bill Baroni, Bridget Kelly and David Wildstein. Today’s verdict does not change this for me.

But let me be clear once again, I had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments, and had no role in authorizing them. No believable evidence was presented to contradict that fact. Anything said to the contrary over the past six weeks in court is simply untrue.

As a former federal prosecutor, I have respected these proceedings and refused to comment on the daily testimony from the trial. I will set the record straight in the coming days regarding the lies that were told by the media and in the courtroom.

In which journalist Brian Williams asks journalist Mark Halperin, who has produced some aggressively non-confrontational coverage of Donald Trump (see below), about what color the sky is in Trumpland, and Halperin loses the struggle to maintain anodyne TV face:

The Trump campaign has issued a statement in the name of Dr Darrell Scott, a Cleveland pastor, criticizing Hillary Clinton’s planned appearance at a rally tonight with Jay-Z (and Beyoncé? maybe?).

“For all of her talk about fighting for kids, [Clinton] has no problem sharing a stage with someone who glamorizes acts of violence and having pushed drugs in our local communities,” Scott’s statement says. (Read more about him and his controversial support for Trump.)

The line of criticism is reminiscent of the Trump surrogate who last month read Beyoncé lyrics on CNN in an effort to... well just watch:

The lyrics are from the song Formation:

When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster (cause I slay)

When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster (we gon slay)

If he hit it right, I might take him on a flight on my chopper (I slay)

Drop him off at the mall, let him buy some J’s, let him shop up (’cause I slay)

Formation

Poll workers share their experiences (and we'd like to hear from you!)

Ahead of election day, we’ve been asking those who have volunteered to work the polls to get in touch and tell us about their experiences and thoughts about participating. Responses have arrived from first-time volunteers and poll worker veterans alike, with a common theme throughout: They’ve heard Donald Trump’s warnings of a “rigged” election, and want to share their two cents. (Curious about the difference between a poll worker and a poll monitor? Learn more, here.)

I’ve been an election officer in Delaware for six election cycles, a total of 16 primaries, national, or local elections. We have never denied a person the right to vote; we want people to vote... We’ve never been informed that a voter’s ballot was deemed irregular, suspect, or invalid. That’s zero out of almost 20,000.

—Robert, 67, Delaware

My poll-worker training class was filled with well-intentioned and attentive people. But there is a lot to learn in that 4 hours and from what I can tell, significant room in our voting system for human error... My class was packed, around 50 people, and many trainees were lost or behind. It would’ve been impossible for the trainer to make sure everyone was following. Overall, it was heartening to see so many people interested in the election process, but disappointing to see how antiquated, underfunded, and messy our process truly is.

—Sophia, 23, New York

I have a full-time position, but am happy to give up 14 hours of my time on Election Day to the cause of civic participation... I am, however, extremely uneasy with Trump’s rhetoric encouraging unlicensed “poll watchers.” I took poll worker training at the county courthouse last week, where we were given the run-down on legal and illegal forms of poll watching and how to deal with it if we experience the latter form... We were told in training that Kansas polling locations until Jan. 2017 prohibit the carrying of firearms, and that any who carry them can be forced to leave immediately. I know, however, that I will not be volunteering to tell someone with a gun to leave the premises.

—Warren, 30, Kansas

Are you planning to volunteer as a poll worker? There’s still time to get in touch: Share your thoughts about the experience, here, and your response could be included in our ongoing election coverage.

House speaker Paul Ryan is going to bat for incumbent senate Republican Ron Johnson in Wisconsin today. If they can find the light switch.

Oh why not, let’s loop it again.

Will Christie hit the campaign trail in New Hampshire tomorrow?

Whether or not Trump has expanded his base, he sure hasn’t expanded the list of people willing to appear with him on a stage – that’s four former governors, a former mayor, that southern senator and Ben Carson. Plus one son.

What if Chris Christie had been Donald Trump’s running mate?

Though Pence is a public face of the ticket, Christie has been part of Trump’s circle in a way Pence never has. Christie was one of the first high-profile Republicans to publicly back Trump’s candidacy, advised him on debate strategy, campaign strategy, personnel strategy, rounded up lobbyists and donors, took charge of his transition team...

The Guardian’s David Smith wrote in September:

Christie has not been charged over the bridge imbroglio, but questions linger over how much he knew and it dealt a major blow to his own presidential hopes. In a Republican primary debate last December, when Christie said he would order US forces to shoot down Russian aircraft over Syria, rival Rand Paul shot back: “When we think about the judgment of someone who might want world war three, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don’t like their friends.”

Now the timing of the trial is a headache that Trump, already mired in numerous controversies, could do without in the last stretch of the presidential election.

“I have known and liked Chris for 15 years,” Trump told the Times in September, as the trial just concluded heated up. “After his recent run for president, he called me to say that he would like to endorse me in that he sees a movement like he has never seen before. I was greatly honored, accepted his endorsement, and he has been a spectacular advocate ever since.”

Updated

Bridgegate: guilty on all counts

Testimony in the Bridgegate trial indicated that Christie, the New Jersey governor, knew about the bridge lane closures at the time, which he has denied. It’s not clear what legal jeopardy he may be in, if any. But two of his closest allies (formerly) were just convicted on criminal charges in federal court.

March.
March. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

Updated

Will Farrell works to get out the millennial vote. (For Clinton.)

Bridgegate verdict coming

A jury has reached a verdict in the criminal trial of former Chris Christie allies Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni. We’ll pass it on when we have it. Christie is heading up Donald Trump’s White House transition team, should he need one.

On Thursday, defense lawyers had moved for a mistrial. The Asbury Park Press describes the charges:

Kelly and Baroni are fighting charges they worked together to close access lanes to the [George Washington] bridge to punish Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, for not endorsing Christie for re-election in 2013. Baroni was the deputy executive director of the Port Authority and Kelly was a deputy chief of staff to Christie at the time. A second agency official, David Wildstein, has pleaded guilty.

Updated

Anthony Baxter follows up his 2011 documentary You’ve Been Trumped with the sequel, You’ve Been Trumped Too, about Donald Trump’s battle with Aberdeenshire residents over his golf course. The film follows what has happened to elderly widow Molly Forbes after Trump’s building workers cut off her water supply. Here’s some footage:

You’ve Been Trumped Too: Anthony Baxter’s film on Trump

Four days. Not five. Four. Hopping her plane in White Plains, NY.
Four days. Not five. Four. Hopping her plane in White Plains, NY. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump Jr. at Ahern Manufacturing in Las Vegas Thursday evening. Nice jumper!
Donald Trump Jr. at Ahern Manufacturing in Las Vegas Thursday evening. Nice jumper! Photograph: David Becker/Getty Images
In this photo taken on November 3, 2016, a monkey kisses a cardboard cutout of Trump during a selection intended to predict the result of the US election, at a park in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province. A Chinese monkey described as the “king of prophets” has tipped Donald Trump for the US presidency, a tourism park said, after the creature successfully predicted the winner of football’s European Championship final earlier this year.
In this photo taken on November 3, 2016, a monkey kisses a cardboard cutout of Trump during a selection intended to predict the result of the US election, at a park in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province. A Chinese monkey described as the “king of prophets” has tipped Donald Trump for the US presidency, a tourism park said, after the creature successfully predicted the winner of football’s European Championship final earlier this year. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Rear Admiral Deborah Loewer, a lifelong Republican who was director of the White House situation room on September 11, has cut a new add endorsing Hillary Clinton.

“I can tell you firsthand, in a crisis, the president needs to be disciplined, even-tempered and steady,” Loewer says. “I see all those traits in Hillary Clinton, and none of them in Donald Trump.”

Situation Room.

Dallas Mavericks owner and bona fide verified billionaire Mark Cuban will introduce Clinton in Pittsburgh at her first rally of the day, the campaign advises:

Cuban, who regularly taunts Trump on Twitter for being, Cuban asserts, a crappy businessman, was a guest of Clinton’s at the final debate. He’s going to fly with Clinton to Michigan after the Pennsylvania event, the campaign says.

At around 1am ET last night, Jon Ralston reached his final tally of early voting in Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) for the day. He says, as he has been for a week, that Democrats have built a firewall in early voting in the state that Trump won’t likely be able to climb on election day:

Update: make that 61,000:

Ralston recorded this analysis when the firewall was 5,000 votes shorter:

Updated

How a top Obama strategist explains the Hillary Clinton campaign’s late-stage moves to safeguard territory that looked inviolable a couple weeks ago, in a Politico piece titled What if everyone’s wrong?:

You’re more nervous if you’re playing Russian roulette than flipping a coin.

Next week’s New Yorker.

Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Today’s Friday and the election’s on Tuesday. That’s soon. You read it here first.

Donald Trump is not giving up on Pennsylvania. His last event of the work week is scheduled to take place in Hershey, in Dauphin County, which Barack Obama won by six points in 2012 – better than his statewide average. Pennsylvania is a big prize. It awards 20 electoral votes – gives them every time to the Democrats, in fact, going back six elections. It would be a great win for Trump. But he appears to be losing there. We don’t know what his internal polling says. Here’s what the publicly available polling says:

The last bajillion polls in Pennsylvania.
The last bajillion polls in Pennsylvania. Photograph: RCP

Earlier Friday, Trump will head to Atkinson, New Hampshire, where polls released on Thursday had him looking good. He also will campaign outside Cincinnati in Ohio.

Hillary Clinton will hold rallies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (she’s not taking Pennsylvania for granted) and in Detroit, Michigan, today before heading to Cleveland for a Jay Z concert that also will feature, we think, Beyoncé.

Speaking of Beyoncé, this is weird!

Barack Obama has two rallies planned for Clinton in North Carolina. Bernie Sanders is to speak three times in Iowa and once in Omaha, Nebraska, where Clinton just might pick up an electoral vote. Tim Kaine is in Florida, Bill Clinton is in Colorado and Chelsea Clinton is in New Hampshire.

Let’s catch up with the Trump sons. Donald Trump Jr is in Phoenix, Arizona, and in New Mexico today, while Eric Trump is running the leather off his shoes in Michigan, hitting something like seven cities. Run, Eric, run!

A hint of polling

Clinton stumps with Sanders, Pharrell Williams

On Thursday evening Clinton was joined in Raleigh by former rival, Bernie Sanders and the singer Pharrell Williams.

The trio appeared before a raucous crowd of about 5,200 people at an outdoor amphitheater, where Sanders drew an especially strong response from the largely young crowd, who broke into chants of “Bernie”.

The Democratic nominee largely let her surrogates argue for her, underscoring the Vermont senator’s continued popularity among a demographic with which Clinton has struggled.

“This is not a personality contest,” Sanders implored voters. “We’re not voting for high school president. We’re voting for the most powerful leader in the world.”

Sanders told the crowd that Trump represented an unacceptable option, and that the “cornerstone” of his campaign was bigotry.

“We are not going back to a bigoted society,” Sanders said. “We’re not going to allow Trump or anyone else to divide us up.”

Pharrell Williams and Bernie Sanders join Hillary Clinton in North Carolina

Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.

😳

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.