The Latest: Both presidential candidates making appearances to fire up core supporters

Both major presidential candidates are making appearances Thursday meant to fire up their core supporters. Vice President Kamala Harris is participating in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey, who has endorsed Harris and spoke at the Democratic convention in August. Donald Trump will be in Washington to address a “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America” evening event with Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who founded the Las Vegas Sands casino and was one of the Republican Party’s largest donors.

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Here’s the latest:

As CNN published a report that Trump ally and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, Harris’ campaign reminded voters of the gubernatorial nominee’s linkages to Trump.

In one X post, Harris’ campaign played video clips of Trump praising Robinson - including calling him “better than Martin Luther King” - over headlines from CNN’s reporting.

Another showed Robinson and Trump standing side-by-side giving Trump’s signature thumbs up pose, with the campaign adding a corresponding emoji to the post.

CNN reported Thursday that Robinson, who would become North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

Robinson has stumped in North Carolina with Trump several times and spoke at this summer’s Republican National Convention. But he wasn’t with Vance as the GOP vice presidential nominee campaigned in Raleigh on Wednesday, and Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to a question seeking comment as to whether he would appear with the presidential nominee on Saturday in Wilmington.

Election officials in Wisconsin are asking the state’s liberal-controlled Supreme Court to decide whether independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name should stay on the presidential ballot without waiting for an appellate ruling.

Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Donald Trump. He’s been trying to get his name off ballots in key battleground states like Wisconsin. A Dane County judge ruled Monday that state law mandates candidates must remain on the ballot unless they die. Kennedy has filed an appeal with the 2nd District Court of Appeals.

Attorneys for the Wisconsin Election Commission asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to take the case directly. They argued that the case needs a fast, final resolution since clerks have started sending absentee ballots to voters.

The state that handed former President Donald Trump one of his narrowest losses four years ago is immersed in election controversies even before the first ballots of this year’s presidential race are cast.

The turmoil springs from a revamp of the state election board that gave Trump allies a majority. They have been making changes to election rules that have raised alarms among Democrats and others.

Georgia Republicans say they are just trying to ensure the accuracy of the vote this November. Democrats say the GOP’s tactics are laying the groundwork for another attempt to overturn the will of the voters should Trump once again lose a close election.

President Joe Biden said Thursday the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates was “an important signal” that inflation has eased as he poked at Donald Trump’s economic policies as a failure in the past and sure to “fail again” if revived.

“Lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “It’s a declaration of progress, to signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”

The Democratic president emphasized that there was more work left to do, but he used his speech to burnish his economic legacy even as he criticized Trump, his Republican predecessor who is running for another term.

“Trickle down down economics failed,” Biden said. “He’s promising again trickle down economics. It will fail again.”

The hospitality union UNITE HERE says it has knocked on more than 1 million doors on behalf of Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy, saying that it expects to reach 3.5 million voters in 10 states by Election Day.

Gwen Mills, the union’s president, said the ground game has been more aggressive than in 2016 and 2020 campaigns. She said the process started earlier than in previous elections and more of her members are taking longer leaves of absence from their jobs to contact potential voters. The union has roughly 300,000 members and 1,800 of them are active in canvassing for the vice president.

Harris is relying on aggressive union outreach to help drive turnout in a close race against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

The Teamsters union snubbed Harris on Wednesday by declining to endorse either major presidential candidate. But the United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers and the umbrella organization AFL-CIO are all working for Harris.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott announced Thursday morning that he’s leading a bill meant to provide protections to presidential and vice presidential candidates and spouses at the same level of protection provided to the sitting president.

Scott introduced this bill with 11 other Republican senators, and he said in an interview that he’s been texting back and forth with Trump. He said that from these conversations, he understands that Trump is “committed to winning the race and committed to fighting.”

In this interview, he said that his bill would push these protections for Trump as a major presidential candidate, but he clarified that his bill wouldn’t apply to former presidents, including former President Barack Obama or President Joe Biden after November.

Scott also said he supported the state investigation on the assassination attempt and believes that federal prosecutors needed to be more transparent about details to avoid misinformation.

“Here’s a guy that’s now twice, in what 64 days, somebody tried to kill him,” Scott said. “This is not normal, and we’ve got to figure this out.”

Donald Trump is no longer planning to visit a Polish-American shrine in Pennsylvania Sunday where he would have crossed paths with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

That’s according to a person familiar with Trump’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the trip, which had not been formally announced. It’s unclear why the change was made, but Trump will be in Pennsylvania Monday for a pair of campaign events in the critical battleground state.

Duda’s office has said he will attend a Roman Catholic Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa followed by the unveiling of a monument to the anti-communist Solidarity movement.

He’ll be in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly happening in New York.

Trump’s campaign is making its argument that Hispanic voters are better suited to pick the GOP nominee over Harris this November.

During a call held with reporters Thursday to mark National Hispanic Heritage Month, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Harris “has tried to undo” Trump’s achievements that benefit Hispanic Americans and that the “world was just a safer and more stable place” under the Republican president’s administration.

Rubio cited Harris’ co-sponsorship while in the U.S. Senate of a bill aimed at making it easier for the Cuban military to benefit and profit from American tourism and “making all kinds of concessions to Venezuela.”

Trump’s campaign held the call to mark National Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual tradition that showcases the diversity and culture of Hispanic people. The month is celebrated each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Rubio and former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado gave remarks on the call in both English and Spanish.

Immigration wasn’t a focus of Thursday’s call, but it has been a major line of contrast between Harris and Trump. Speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference on Wednesday, Harris criticized Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally, questioning whether he would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry it out.

Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if he’s elected in November but has offered no details on how such an operation would work.

Vice President Kamala Harris is stepping up her efforts to win over voters who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, enlisting prominent members of the faith to make the case in pivotal Arizona that Donald Trump does not align with the church’s values.

Her state campaign announced on Thursday an advisory committee to formalize the outreach to current and former members of the church, widely known as the Mormon church.

With nearly 450,000 church members in Arizona, about 6% of the state’s population, Latter-day Saints and former church members could prove critical in what will likely be an extremely close race.

Latter-day Saints have traditionally voted Republican and are likely to remain part of the GOP coalition. Clustered in solidly Republican states, they have long been a major force in GOP primaries and local politics across the West, but they have not held much sway in national elections. In 2020, about 7 in 10 Mormon voters nationally supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast, while about one-quarter backed Democrat Joe Biden.

Leaders of a Democratic protest vote movement against the Israel-Hamas war said Thursday that they would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ’ presidential bid but strongly urged their supporters to vote against Donald Trump in November.

The “Uncommitted” movement drew hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries earlier this year in protest of President Joe Biden ’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The group’s leaders urged the administration to change its policy on the conflict, warning that some Democratic voters might otherwise abstain from voting in November, particularly in swing state Michigan.

Despite months of discussions with top Democratic officials, discontent within the protest-vote ranks only grew after the Democratic National Convention when they were denied a speaker on stage and other demands weren’t met.

Harris’ “unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” movement leaders said in a statement.

Group leaders also made clear in their statement that they strongly opposed supporters voting for Trump or a third-party candidate who “could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency.” Instead, they urged voters to register “anti-Trump votes and vote up and down the ballot.”