Donald Trump rules out another TV duel with Kamala Harris. Barack Obama enters the election campaign on Thursday. All information in the news blog.
6:41 a.m.: US Democrat Kamala Harris and her allies have raised $1 billion in donations since the start of her presidential campaign, according to an insider. The sum also includes money from the Democratic National Committee, a person with knowledge of the matter told the Reuters news agency. The sum is a sign of donors’ enthusiasm for Harris ahead of the vote on November 5th.
4 a.m.: During a campaign appearance in the hotly contested US state of Pennsylvania, Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump promised his supporters “energy independence” if elected. At the same time, the former head of state misrepresented the balance of US fossil fuel production at his rally on Wednesday in the city of Scranton, where US President Joe Biden grew up. “We will have energy independence and energy dominance, just as we have before “We’ve only had four short years,” Trump said.
“Four years ago we were energy independent,” the Republican continued. “Can you believe that we now get our energy from Venezuela?” On the first day of his presidency, he will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to “frack, frac, frac” and “drill.”
During Trump’s time in office, the United States exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported, but was never truly independent of foreign energy. Imports from Russia in particular rose sharply. Under incumbent President Biden, the country has broken records in the production of oil, natural gas and renewable energy, according to the US Energy Agency EIA.
3.30 a.m.: In the race for voters’ favor, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced tax cuts for US citizens abroad. “I support an end to double taxation of Americans abroad,” he said in a campaign statement. He left it open how he wants to implement this policy. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Trump’s plans. According to the US Treasury Department, around 4.4 million US citizens currently live abroad, of which around 2.8 million are eligible to vote.
3 a.m.: Donald Trump rejects another TV debate with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris before the US presidential election. “There will be no second half,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday. Trump justified his cancellation by saying that it was now too late for another debate in the election process. Just a few hours earlier, the television channel “Fox News” had invited the two presidential candidates to a possible second exchange of blows on October 24th or 27th. Trump and Harris had already met in a first television discussion on September 10th.
Trump’s cancellation comes at a time when polls show a neck-and-neck race between the two candidates. Fox News said in a statement that a rematch would be “an opportunity for each candidate to present their closing arguments.”
5:14 p.m.: Former US President Barack Obama will join Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ election campaign on Thursday. Obama wants to make his first appearance in Pittsburgh, in the state of Pennsylvania, which is particularly important for the election, and will hold further rallies in the weeks leading up to the election on November 5th.
The 63-year-old still enjoys high respect and influence in the Democratic Party. Obama, who was elected the first black president in US history in 2008, could use his appearances to mobilize black and young voters in particular for the Democratic Party. Harris and her Republican opponent Donald Trump are neck and neck in the polls.
2:42 a.m.: According to the Justice Department, a 27-year-old Afghan man has been arrested in the United States over a suspected plan to carry out an attack on the day of the US presidential election. The Justice Department “thwarted the man’s plan to acquire semi-automatic weapons and carry out a violent attack” on behalf of the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) “on US soil on Election Day,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Tuesday. The USA will elect a new president on November 5th.