US election live updates: Donald Trump to slap Mexico with tariffs, Kamala Harris brings out Gaga and Oprah

Vice President Kamala Harris has been lifted by a massive wave of celebrity endorsements across her 100+ day election campaign and that shows no sign of stopping.

In Las Vegas, Christina Aguilera, Los Tigres Del Norte and Sofi Tukker will perform and Eva Longoria will give a speech at a Get Out and Vote in the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Katy Perry, D-Nice, Andra Day, DJ Cassidy, Fat Joe, Freeway and Just Blaze, DJ Jazzy Jeff, The Roots, Jazmine Sullivan and Adam Blackstone are supporting Ms Harris at two rallies in Pennsylvania.

La Original Banda El Limón will perform at a Get Out and Vote event in Arizona.

Tim Walz is heading to Detroit, Michigan where the Detroit Youth Choir, Jon Bon Jovi and The War and Treaty will perform.

The vice presidential candidate will then head to Milwaukee Wisconsin for a rally with a performance by Eric Benét.

Fantasia Barrino, James Taylor, Remi Wolf, and Sugarland will perform in Raleigh, North Carolina

2 Chainz, F.L.Y, Joy of Jesse & Joy, Keyshia Cole, KP The Great, Morehouse House of Funk Marching Band, Pastor Troy and Tamar Braxton are supporting an event in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pamela Smith, Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC has issued a “clear” warning ahead of election day.

“Let me be clear, there will be no tolerance for violence in our city,” she said at a media conference on Monday afternoon local time.

“We are ready to handle different scenarios and we have officers in place.”

Ms Smith said there would be no tolerance for violence, destruction of property or threats to the integrity of the election process.

There are currently “no credible threats” of planned violence, however, there is obvious concern in the area.

A large amount of fencing has already been erected in the Capital, including around the vice president’s residence.

“We’re just one day from the most important day,” Former President Donald Trump said at a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania.

“I don’t want your money. I just want your vote. So get out and bring your vote,” he added.

Mr Trump told the crowd if he wins Pennsylvania “we win the whole damn election”.

The state’s Electoral College offers 19 points in the race for 270 and is usually needed in a candidate’s journey to secure the presidency.

However, winning Pennsylvania doesn’t even guarantee becoming president.

As former President Donald Trump took to the stage in Rayleigh, North Carolina for the final day of rallies, he announced he would slap Mexico with a 25 per cent tariff on all goods if they did not assist in funding his controversial and unfinished wall.

“Congrats, North Carolina, you’re the first ones to hear this,” he said.

“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll go up to 50 per cent. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll go to 75,” he added.

During Mr Trump’s presidency, his administration completed around 730km of the 1,600km wall.

A US presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of election day.

Vice President Kamala Harris is spending all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome.

The Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas including Allentown and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

Republican nominee Donald Trump is doing four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh.

The former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Former president Donald Trump headlined a rally a week ago featuring a comedian’s remark that Puerto Rico is an “island of garbage.”

On Thursday, Trump insisted he had previously won New Mexico, a state he lost twice by big margins.

On Friday, he suggested a Republican adversary should have “guns trained on her face.” And the following day, he unleashed a profane speech saying women have to be protected “at home in suburbia.”

With Election Day looming, Trump’s near-daily pattern of making provocative or inflammatory remarks threatens to undermine his campaign’s message that a Trump presidency would restore an orderly, controlled leadership to the nation.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has sought to deploy the image of an unpredictable, volatile Trump to remind voters that his previous term was frequently marked by drama and conflict.

With a small but crucial group of voters still trying to make up their minds at the 11th hour, the drumbeat of incendiary moments could turn off those concerned about four more years of potential chaos, Democrats say.

​​Read the full article by Meryl Kornfield & Matt Viser for The Washington Post here​​.

​​

​​

Whichever way the US election falls, it’s difficult to see an outcome that doesn’t result in an America more deeply divided than ever before.

Should Kamala Harris win, expect immediate chaos.

Donald Trump has given every indication that he will not accept a loss. He has already made allegations of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, the largest of the crucial swing states, laying the groundwork for a potential challenge should the count go against him.

It’s left the world bracing for more January 6-style upheaval, though authorities quietly fear the greater threat will come from lone wolf actors, rather than an organised uprising.

Would a president Harris possess the considerable strength of character and leadership skills required to quell civil unrest and heal resultant fractures should that scenario arise? Her performance to date would indicate she does not.

A second Trump presidency represents a greater unknown. Undoubtedly, he would be more emboldened and more unpredictable a second time around.

That would have immense ramifications for the entire world, including Australia.

Trump has already promised to impose enormous tariffs on goods from China, our largest trading partner. The flow-on effect to our own economy will be significant.

Even if Australia manages to escape direct assault from Trump’s isolationist America First economic agenda, as a country with an open economy, we can expect to suffer heavy consequences should other nations fire back with retaliatory tariffs, putting a harness on global free trade.

And of course, there’s the fact that Trump is an unabashed demagogue with authoritarian tendencies and little respect for rules and laws, who has made no secret of his plan to use the office of the president to punish his enemies.

It would be disingenuous however to present the candidates’ character flaws as comparable. Harris is an uninspiring option, and a poor communicator, occasionally bordering on incoherent. However, she operates within the realm of normality. The same can’t be said of Trump.

​Read The Nightly’s full editorial here​.

Political opinion polls are so ropey at the moment it’s impossible to gauge who will move into the White House.

If Donald Trump does get up, you can be sure that some journalists will say it’s a failure of democracy.

Poppycock.

A Trump presidency will not be a failure of democracy; it will be a product of democracy.

And democracy is a product of mathematics.

It won’t be simple mathematics because of the thoroughly confusing American electoral college (Google it if you dare) but the arithmetic won’t lie.

If the numbers go Trump’s way, the left needs to have a hard look at itself because if you are outwitted by a porn star-shagging bankrupted convicted felon then something is very wrong with your message.

Your tactics clearly need to be tweaked.

Here’s a bit of free advice to the progressives: slow down and stop yelling at us.

They need to put out ideas that make the rest of us feel a little uncomfortable and force us to, if not walk a mile in another person’s shoes, at least think about trying the shoes on.

Social progress takes time. Progressives need to get their head around that.

Read Ben Harvey’s full opinion piece here.

The Nightly correspondent Max Corstorphan is on the ground in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he says large sections of the community won’t be voting and would rather talk about sport.

He reports:

In one of the most important swing states of the 2024 US presidential election, most locals are celebrating a one-point win this weekend — but not in the race to the White House.

The State has a population of almost 11 million people, and nearly 4 million have already voted. However many others simply are “not voting”, instead putting their effort into turning up for sporting games and music in the city.

​​Read the full story here​​.

Uncertainty about the outcome of the hotly-contested US presidential election saw financial markets begin the week on a cautious note.

Shares in Asia subdued while the dollar eased slightly ahead of a busy week headlined by the US presidential race.

The week will also provide investors with global monetary policy catalysts with rate decisions from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England (BoE), the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Riksbank and Norges Bank.

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) standing committee meets from Monday to Friday and will be closely watched for further details of a raft of stimulus measures that were announced recently.

Trading was thinned in Asia on Monday with Japan out for a holiday, but MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.7 per cent, recovering from its fall to a five-week low on Friday.

US stock futures though lost ground, with Nasdaq futures falling 0.11 per cent, while S&P 500 futures eased 0.14 per cent.

The dollar was on the back foot, with the euro last 0.4 per cent higher at $US1.0877 ($A1.6496). The yen jumped 0.7 per cent to 151.88 per dollar.

Dealers said the dip in the dollar might be linked to a well-respected poll that showed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris taking a surprise three-point lead in Iowa, thanks largely to her popularity with female voters.

Analysts believe Trump’s policies on immigration, tax cuts and tariffs would put upward pressure on inflation, bond yields and the dollar, while Harris was seen as the continuity candidate.

-- By Rae Wee, Reuters

Read more from Reuters here.