Trump, Biden to face off in first debate: US election live news

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off in Cleveland, Ohio in the first of three debates on Tuesday. The Trump campaign hopes the first showdown, which starts at 21:00 ET, will give the president a boost amid lagging polls. Mike Pence and top Senate Republicans are set to meet with Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Pence will host a debate watch party on Tuesday, while Kamala Harris attends a virtual fundraiser. Jill Biden continues her tour of northern battleground states, campaigning in Michigan with 35 days until November 3. Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the US elections. This is Joseph Stepansky. Here are the latest updates: Monday, September 28: 13:00 ET – Biden announces debate guests Biden has announced three guests for Tuesday’s Democratic debate. The guests are Kristin Urquiza, who spoke about losing her father to the coronavirus at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Gurnee Green, a small business owner from Cleveland Heights who was highlighted during the DNC, and James Evanoff Jr, aa service technician in Cleveland and United Steel Workers (USW) member. Biden’s campaign said the guests “each highlight how Donald Trump’s failures to control the virus and save the economy have hurt hard working Americans lives and livelihoods”. An employee vacuums a rug near the stage ahead of the first presidential debate between Republican candidate President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden [Julio Cortez/the Associated Press] 12:30 ET – Ex-Sanders staffers promote Biden to Latinos in Iowa, Nevada Former staffers from Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign want to harness strong support for the Vermont senator among Hispanics to bolster Joe Biden in two battleground states that could prove critical in November’s election. Nuestro PAC is launching a 30-second spot that will begin airing Thursday for two weeks in heavily Hispanic Nevada and in Iowa, another state where the growing Latino population is largely overlooked. Backed by a six-figure ad buy, the spot features Hispanic staffers of Sanders’ campaign saying they worked hard for him during the Democratic primary, “But now, we’re all for Joe Biden, because Biden’s endorsed by Bernie.” “We’re going to go into states where Bernie just dominated the Latino vote to help lift up Biden,” the group’s founder, Chuck Rocha, who headed the Sanders campaign’s Hispanic outreach, told the Associated Press. “In Iowa, going to Latinos will surprise people … but they’re there, and we won them by huge margins. And the opposite side of that equation is going into Nevada to shore him up with young Latinos.” A person holds a sign reading Latinos for Trump on the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016 12:00 ET – Amy Coney Barrett begins Capitol Hill tour Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, has begun a round of meetings with senators before her official hearings are set to begin in the Chamber on October 12. Barrett’s confirmation has set off a battle between Republicans, who say they have the support to hold a vote before the election, and Democrats, who say the next president should decide the nominee. “We look forward to a vote in the Senate in the near future to fill the seat on the Supreme Court of the United States because the American people deserve a justice like judge Amy Cohen Barrett,” Vice President Mike Pence said from the Capitol on Tuesday, flanked by Barrett and top Republicans. Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett walks up the steps of Capitol Hill in Washington with White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Vice President Mike Pence and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows [Susan Walsh/the Associated Press] 11:30 ET – Report: Trump campaign calls for ear inspection before debate The Trump campaign has called for a third party to inspect the ears of both candidate before Tuesday’s debate to check for electronic devices, according to Fox News. The report said that Trump had consented to the inspection, but Biden had not. It comes amid repeated unfounded accusations from the president that Biden will use various means, including drugs, to optimise his performance. The Commission on Presidential debate did not immediately respond to Fox’s questions concerning the request. Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak during the second presidential debate of 2016. [File: John Locher/the Associated Press] 11:00 ET – US intelligence reports warn of extremist threat around election Security officials are warning that violent domestic extremists pose a threat to the presidential election next month, amid what one official called a “witch’s brew” of rising political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns. FBI and US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos say threats by domestic extremists to election-related targets will likely increase in the run-up to the November 3 election. Those warnings so far have largely remained internal. But New Jersey’s homeland security office took the unusual step of publicly highlighting the threat in a little-noticed report on its website last week. “You have this witch’s brew that really hasn’t happened in America’s history. And if it has, it’s been decades if not centuries,” said Jared Maples, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, which published the threat assessment. 10:30 ET -Voter purge case going before Wisconsin Supreme Court The Wisconsin Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could result in the purging of about 130,000 people from voter rolls in the hotly contested battleground state. However, it wasn’t clear if the court would rule in time to affect the November 3 election that was just five weeks away. Attorneys for both sides didn’t expect a decision until after the election. The arguments come in one of several closely watched lawsuits in Wisconsin. On Sunday, a federal appeals court temporarily put on hold  a ruling that would expand the time that absentee ballots can be counted. Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, making the fight over any change to the process of voting and who is able to vote all the more significant. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">