US election live: former Trump officials to join Harris campaign at debate | US elections 2024

A new Harris-Walz campaign ad features Barack Obama mocking Donald Trump over his “weird obsession” with crowd sizes during his speech at the Democratic national convention last month.

The ad, titled “Crowd Size”, features footage from the former president’s remarks the convention in Milwaukee where he decries Trump for “whining about his problems” such as his “weird obsession with crowd sizes”.

“This weird obsession with crowd sizes … it just goes on, and on, and on,” Obama says, making a suggestive hand gesture that drew laughter from the audience.

The ad launched this morning and will air nationally and in markets that appear intentionally targeted at Trump, including on Fox News and in West Palm Beach, Florida, as well as Philadelphia, where tonight’s debate is taking place.

Joan E Greve

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will arrive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for their first (and potentially only) presidential debate.

The event will mark the first time that Harris and Trump have ever met face to face, and it comes less than two months after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race following his own fateful debate performance in June.

The change at the top of the Democratic ticket appears to have unnerved Trump and his campaign advisers, who have struggled to land attacks against Harris. The debate will present Trump with his most significant opportunity yet to negatively define Harris in voters’ minds, as polls show a neck-and-neck race in key battleground states.

For Harris, the debate could allow her to deliver on her oft-repeated promise to voters: that she will prosecute the case against Trump. Her political history – both on the debate stage and in Senate hearings – suggest she is well-positioned to make that case. But Harris is not without her vulnerabilities either.

Here are five key moments from Harris’s career that could offer a preview of her debate strategy.

Two former Trump White House officials will join Kamala Harris’s campaign in Philadelphia as surrogates for Tuesday’s presidential debate, the Harris campaign announced.

Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Donald Trump’s White House communications director, and Olivia Troye, who was homeland security adviser to Mike Pence and a top aide on the Trump White House’s coronavirus task force, will speak out against Donald Trump and for Harris ahead of the debate, the campaign said.

Announcing the campaign’s plans to bring Scaramucci and Troye to the debate, the Harris-Walz campaign’s communications director Michael Tyler said:

Listen, don’t take it from us: Take it from the ones who know Donald Trump the best and who are telling the American people exactly how unfit Trump is to serve as president. They saw firsthand the abject failure of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The White Stripes’ Jack White and Meg White have filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for what they allege is the “flagrant misappropriation” of a recording of their hit song Seven Nation Army in a campaign video.

The video that spurred the legal action was posted by Trump staffer Margo McAtee Martin on X on 29 August, but has since been deleted. It shows the Republican presidential nominee boarding a plane with the opening riff of Seven Nation Army playing in the background.

Responding via Instagram at the time, Jack White wrote:

Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others).

The singer has made good on the threat, filing a copyright infringement suit, alongside Meg White, as the White Stripes, seeking “significant monetary damages”, and listing Trump, his campaign and Martin as defendants.

The suit alleges that the campaign did not seek or obtain permission from the band to use the song, and did not respond to pre-litigation efforts to resolve the issue.

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump meet tonight for their only scheduled debate, here’s what to know:

What time is the debate?

The debate will start at 9pm Eastern Time (1am GMT) and is expected to last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks.

Where is the debate?

Tonight’s debate will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a key election battleground state. As with the previous debate between Trump and Joe Biden, there will be no audience present.

World News Tonight anchor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis will moderate the debate.

How can I watch the debate?

ABC News will carry the debate live on its broadcast network as well as its streaming platform ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Several networks have also agreed to carry the event live.

When is the next debate?

As of now, there is only one debate scheduled before the election. Tim Walz and JD Vance are due to face off at a vice-presidential debate on 1 October in New York City.

Good morning US politics readers. It was the debate that was never meant to happen. Tonight, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will meet for the first time ever when they take the stage at Philadelphia’s national constitution center for the presidential debate.

With just eight weeks until election day and recent polls showing the candidates neck-and-neck, the stakes couldn’t be higher for both Harris and Trump. Today’s debate, which will start at 9pm ET and is expected to last 90 minutes, may well be the only chance the American public have to see their Democratic and Republican presidential candidates face off against each other on what voters say are their key issues, including the economy, immigration and reproductive rights.

We will be covering the debate tonight on our live blog. In the meantime, here’s what else we’re watching:

• The Harris-Walz campaign unveiled a new ad for debate day, entitled “Crowd Size”, that features Barack Obama ridiculing Trump’s insecurities about his crowd size.

• Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025, sharply criticized the Trump campaign, revealing discontent on the right about what some see as a pivot to the center.

• Voters in Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island will cast their ballots in a slate of primary races today.

• Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor, appears before the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic this afternoon.

• Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, is in the UK for a US-UK strategic dialogue and will meet with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.