USA 2024: -39, Harris / Trump, uncertainty “confuses ideas”

Kamala Harris is widening her national lead over Donald Trump: in an Ipsos poll for Reuters, the Democrat has 47% of the voting intentions and the Republican 40% (a couple of weeks ago, the same poll had her ahead by five points).

Other polls give Harris and Trump statistically square – i.e. within the margin of error – and the New York Times average of polls gives Harris two points ahead.

At the level of the Great Voters, which are the decisive ones, the race remains extremely uncertain: the swing States, where the balance of power between Harris and Trump is seesaw, “so uncertain as to confuse ideas“, writes Jess Bidgood in the New York Times, will be decisive.

These days, Harris is busy intervening where she is perceived to be weaker than Trump: on economics – yesterday she spoke about it in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, describing her programmes as the ones of a “pragmatic, pro-business capitalist” – and on immigration – tomorrow she will be at the border with Mexico, where the measures adopted by the Biden administration in the spring are functioning, with a drastic reduction in the migrants flow -.

At a Wall Street fundraiser on Tuesday, Harris had opened up about collaborating with cryptocurrency companies, with which Trump seems to have a better relationship so far. “We will encourage – Harris pledged – innovative technologies like artificial intelligence and digital assets, while protecting investors and consumers”.

USA 2024: Biden’s comeback and the Zelensky factor

In an interview on the Abc talk show The View, President Joe Biden attacked Trump, who “does not believe in democracy” and does not have “a saving vision” of himself and humanity. While Biden said he was calm about his decision to step down, he also remained confident that he would have prevailed over Trump: “He’s a loser, I would have defeated him”.

At the UN General Assembly in New York, the president emerged from the shadow cone in which he had fallen, whereby he only made it to the journals when he was photographed, as he happened to be, wearing a Trump hat.

In addition to delivering his farewell speech in front of the Assembly on Tuesday, Biden called and ran events on Ukraine, yesterday, and on the fight against drugs, particularly fentanyl, and today he receives Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, who will also see Vice-President Harris.

Trump, on the other hand, may not meet Zelensky, after again saying he is a “great friend” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to sources in his campaign, the former president may change his travel plans after being informed by US intelligence that Iran is trying to make an attempt on his life.

US 2024: Hillary warns Kamala about October surprise

Hillary Clinton warns the Democrats, Kamala Harris in particular, about “an October surprise that could damage their race” for the White House, without specifying what it might be. Hillary was speaking on the margins of a Clinton Global Initiative event in New York.

Some US presidential elections have been decided in the month of October by what has been called the ‘October Surprise’, starting in 1864, when a Unionist victory against the Confederates in the Civil War proved to be decisive for the re-election of Abraham Lincoln.

More recently, Jimmy Carter failed to secure the release of the hostages in Iran in October 1980 – they were only freed in January 1981, coinciding with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in the White House -.

In 2016, Hillary was damaged by FBI director Bill Comey’s controversial decision to reopen the case of emails sent from a private account when she was Secretary of State, only to close it a few days later. In 2020, Republicans hoped for the impact of the discovery of a computer belonging to Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, which may have contained embarrassing information, but which did not change the inertia of the election.

USA 2024: CNN, Melania campaigns for herself more than her husband and gets paid

For a rare appearance at a political event, former First Lady Melania Trump was paid $237,000, but it is unclear who wrote the cheque. This was reported by CNN, noting that this is highly unusual for a candidate’s wife.

Melania has spoken in recent months at two fundraising events of the Log Cabins Republicans organisation, a group that campaigns for gay rights, and for the April event hosted at Trump Tower she was paid. The fee was then listed under the ‘for a speech’ label in Donald Trump’s latest financial statement, which gives no indication of where the funds came from.

Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN that the group did not pay to have Melania speaking.

Before the other fundraising event in July, again according to Cnn, a donor was allegedly approached with a request for such a payment, but it is unclear whether or not Melania was compensated. Cnn’s source said the request would be attached by Ric Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and Trump fellow, who would assist the former first lady in other financial ventures.

Trump’s financial statement reveals that Melania earned over $330,000 for a licensing deal on the sale of ‘non-fungible tokens’. The former first lady is about to publish a memoir, which she is promoting with a series of video clips in which she comments on, among other things, the attempt to assassinate her husband in Pennsylvania, the outcome of the 2020 vote and her past as a nude model. The promotion of the book also includes an interview on Fox.