Election 2024 latest updates: Harris campaigns in the Rust Belt; Trump touring hurricane devastation
Trump said "there is a way" to eliminate federal taxes when asked by a voter in New York City last week about whether such a thing would be possible.
"You know in the old days when we were smart, when we were a smart country, in the 1890s and all, this is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was," Trump said. "It had all tariffs. It didn’t have an income tax."
Trump then hinted about his own policy plans on tariffs.
"But no, there is a way. I mean, if we, if what I’m planning comes out — it’s a great question, by the way," he said. "You’re a pretty sophisticated cat, you know?"
Trump made the comments in a visit to a barbershop in the New York City borough of the Bronx with Fox News last week, which the network aired. The former president took questions on a range of topics from the men who were getting haircuts.
Trump has frequently touted tariffs as a way to build up domestic manufacturing and related jobs, although the issue has been criticized by Harris and many economists, who say across-the-board tariffs would raise the price of imported goods and be a de facto tax on consumers.
New fundraising reports show Harris massively outraised Trump's campaign yet again last month as the two campaigns barrel toward Election Day.
The Democratic campaign raised almost $222 million in September, according to federal campaign finance reports released yesterday, compared to the Trump campaign's almost $63 million. There was a similar trend in spending — $270 million for Harris' campaign and almost $78 million for Trump's campaign — and the Harris campaign closed the month with $187 million in the bank to the Trump campaign's $120 million.
The new numbers follow a trend we've seen since Harris jumped into the race. But remember, the best-funded candidates won the 2020 presidency but lost in 2016.
Trump is set to speak at an event in two weeks put on by Clay Clark, the co-founder of the Christian nationalist, conspiracy theory-promoting "ReAwaken America Tour," Trump's campaign confirmed.
“In many ways it will feel like the ReAwaken Tour,” Clark told NBC News. He noted that other faith leaders will address the event, as well as Michael Flynn and Ben Carson.
Flynn is the co-founder of the "ReAwaken America Tour" with Clark.
Flynn has prominently promoted QAnon’s vast reach of dangerous conspiracy theories but also a “spiritual warfare” that the United States is domestically engaged in. Trump has asserted that he’s “bringing [Flynn] back” for the next administration.
The "ReAwaken America Tour" has made stops around the country. Trump has never spoken in person on the tour. However, Eric Trump has addressed the group, and Trump spoke at one event through a speakerphone cellphone conversation with Flynn in May 2023.
Trump, at the end of his presidency, pardoned Flynn, who pleaded guilty to federal charges of lying to the FBI over his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the transition period ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
During an interview with WPXI, an NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, Trump said he supports abortion bans being "longer than six weeks" and bragged that he has "done a great job of this for the people" despite championing the Supreme Court decision that led to those six-week bans in the first place.
"I think it’s got to be longer than six weeks, personally, and as you know I’ve done a great job of this for the people," he said. "They wanted to get it back to the states, they wanted a vote of the people. All Democrats wanted it, all Republicans wanted it, everybody."
Trump added that he is a "believer in the exceptions — life of the mother, rape and incest."
The overwhelmingly majority of Democratic voters have opposed the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In an NBC News poll taken on the anniversary of the ruling, 92%t of Democratic and 65% of Republican voters said they disapproved of the court's decision.
The June 2022 ruling has led to more than a dozen states with near-total bans on abortion. Trump has touted the decision, which the three justices he appointed voted for.
The interview was taped last night and is set to air later today.
The Democratic National Committee is launching a new ad today highlighting former Ku Klux Klan leader David’s Duke recent endorsement of third-party candidate Jill Stein.
The DNC has warned that the Green Party nominee will be a “spoiler candidate” in some swing states, like she was in 2016 for Hillary Clinton.
The spot, entitled “Company They Keep,” is set to air in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and on cable channels nationwide, according to a DNC official who first shared the details with NBC News.
When Duke backed Stein last week, he said he was considering what was “good for white people, Europeans” and ultimately called it one of the “most important statements” he has made politically.
Stein’s campaign disavowed the endorsement and called Duke “trash.”
"We had no idea about this and are very, very not interested in David Duke’s endorsement,” Stein’s campaign manager told NBC.
“You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep,” the ad states. “Longtime Klan leader David Duke, endorsed her. And like Trump, she’s cozied up to Vladimir Putin. Jill Stein. Look at her friends because a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
A Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Russian social media efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election included some messaging in support of Stein.
“Jill Stein, David Duke, and Vladimir Putin may make odd bedfellows, but they all have one common goal — to beat Vice President Harris and put Donald Trump back in the White House,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement to NBC. "This time, Trump and his MAGA allies are openly boosting her. Don’t be played for a fool by a former KKK leader and a Russian dictator — a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
Stein has previously called it a “badge of honor” to be partially blamed for Trump’s 2016 win.
Trump, for his part, said this summer of Stein: “I like her very much.”
With two weeks left until Election Day, Trump spent the weekend in Pennsylvania, raising eyebrows with a vulgar aside about the late Arnold Palmer and using an expletive to refer to Harris. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for "TODAY."
More updates on the election soonest.