Liz Cheney: ‘Vote your conscience … vote him out’
Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans ⦠Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president ⦠who cares about the rule of law?
Cheney says: âEveryone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.â She adds:
I could have just said Iâm going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that ⦠I have decided, and I am very proud, and Iâm honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris ⦠As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash sheâd face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: âYou can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody ⦠Vote him out.â
Key events
Arizona GOP official who refused to certify election pleads guilty
Rachel Leingang
A Republican county supervisor in rural Arizona who refused to certify the 2022 midterm election has agreed to a plea deal, becoming the first person criminally sanctioned for refusing to certify an election since 2020.
Peggy Judd, a Republican supervisor in Cochise county, Arizona, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for failing or refusing to perform an official duty by an election officer. She will serve an unsupervised probation of at least 90 days and pay a maximum $500 fine, Arizonaâs Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, said in a press release announcing the plea deal on Monday.
Judd, who is still in office, will preside over the presidential election next month and be required to certify its results. The attorney generalâs office said in court on Monday that the probation term lasted through the 2024 certification and that if Judd again refused, she would be in violation of her probation and would face up to 30 days in jail for the violation, the local outlet Capitol Media Services reported.
More here:
Judges reject Republican challenges to overseas ballots
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina have ruled against two Republican lawsuits today seeking to challenge the legitimacy of ballots from Americans overseas, NPR reports.
A state judge in Michigan dismissed a recent Republican National Committee legal complaint that alleged certain overseas voters from the state were not eligible to cast ballots. The Michigan judge said the law âbars this 11th hour attempt to disenfranchise these electorsâ and that Republicans were seeking to challenge language from the state secretary of stateâs office that is âconsistent with federal and state law, and the Michigan constitutionâ.
And a North Carolina judge rejected a ârequest for the court to order that returned ballots of some overseas voters be set aside and not counted until the votersâ eligibility can be confirmedâ, NPR reported. That judge said there was âabsolutely no evidenceâ that anyone had taken advantage of the overseas rules and cast a fraudulent ballot.
From 2023 through September 2024, the RNC and its affiliates have filed or been involved in 72 election lawsuits, a major legal blitz that experts say is designed to sow doubt about the results if Trump loses. More background on those cases here:
Fact-checking Donald Trump’s hurricane claims
Donald Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene and the federal governmentâs response while campaigning in North Carolina today.
The former president falsely suggested, once again, that federal money meant for hurricane relief was âspent ⦠on illegal migrantsâ. There is no basis for the claim that disaster funding was reallocated to services related to immigration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the major US immigration agencies. But money allocated for a program to help migrants is separate and unrelated to disaster response funds.
Trump also falsely implied that the Democrats were spending money on undocumented people so that they could âvote in the electionâ, reiterating his frequently cited baseless claim about election fraud.
He also claimed Femaâs money is âall goneâ. But this is false, CNN noted, as the federal agency told the network last week that its disaster relief fund had roughly $8.5bn remaining.
More here:
As Kamala Harrisâs Michigan rally with Liz Cheney comes to a close, moderator Maria Shriver asks the vice-president how she copes with the stress of the race and what her message is to voters who are struggling with anxiety over the election.
Harris says, âI wake up in the middle of the night usually these days ⦠but I work out every morning. I think thatâs really important [for] mind, body and spirit ⦠I try to eat well. I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband every day ⦠My family grounds me in every way.â
The vice-president adds:
We cannot despair ⦠Every individual has the power to make a decision about what this will be ⦠so letâs not feel powerless. I get the overwhelming nature of this all makes us feel powerless ⦠Thatâs not our character as American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment.â
Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman now campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, outlines Trumpâs threats on foreign policy:
He heaps praise on the worldâs most evil people, while he attacks with venom his political opponents here at home ⦠If you look at where the Republican party is today, thereâs been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants â¦
Donât think that Congress can stop him ⦠all he has to do is what heâs doing and say, I wonât fulfill our Nato treaty obligations, and Nato begins to unravel.
Liz Cheney, campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, criticizes commentators who assert that the vice-president isnât ready to be president:
She is supremely qualified to be president of the United States. There sometimes are some men who suggest that sheâs not, but if you look at her qualifications, thereâs no question that sheâs somebody that I know I can count on, who will put the good of this country first.
Cheney also emphasizes her conservative credentials while explaining her support for Harris: âThe very first campaign I ever volunteered in was for President Gerald Ford ⦠and ever since then, I have been voting for Republicans. Iâve never voted for a Democrat.â
Liz Cheney: ‘Vote your conscience … vote him out’
Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans ⦠Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president ⦠who cares about the rule of law?
Cheney says: âEveryone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.â She adds:
I could have just said Iâm going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that ⦠I have decided, and I am very proud, and Iâm honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris ⦠As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash sheâd face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: âYou can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody ⦠Vote him out.â
Maria Shriver hosts discussion with Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney
Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, has taken the stage at Kamala Harrisâs campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Liz Cheney.
Shriver starts off by making a pitch for bipartisanship, saying: âI served as a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration in California. So I get this bipartisan thing. Iâve seen it up close. And now Iâm a proud independent ⦠People of both parties used to get along really well.â
Harris and Cheney to appear together again for town hall event
Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.
Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
Iâm a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. Thatâs not quite true â the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
Theyâre great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didnât only endorse me, saying Iâm the greatest president thereâs ever been ⦠What about George Washington? No, youâre better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, youâre better, they said, Iâm tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is âcognitively impairedâ.
But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.
The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Muskâs SpaceX rockets land.
He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. âI forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say heâs cognitively impaired because he put heâs cognitively impaired,â Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.
âYou know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,â he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
Iâll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. Iâd say about 92% couple of good ones. Thatâs a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.