Kamala Harris joined in Georgia by Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen and other celebrity guests as Donald Trump stews over immigration in Las Vegas

Kamala Harris held a start-studded rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday at which she was joined on stage before a packed crowd by Barack Obama, Samuel L Jackson, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry and Bruce Springsteen, the latter serenading her supporters and denouncing Donald Trump as an “American tyrant”.

The 44th president was on particular form, ridiculing the Republican as a “loony” while also stressing the danger he represents, as pointed out by his own former generals, while also mocking him for last weekend’s McDonald’s stunt in Pennsylvania.

Harris’s campaign has meanwhile revealed that she will be unable to appear on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast before the election but, on Friday, she will appear alongside pop superstar Beyonce in Houston, Texas, as she focuses on the future of reproductive rights.

At his own rally in Las Vegas, Trump falsely claimed that the Vice President had “absolutely bombed” in Georgia, before spewing fresh bile about his opponent and immigrants and lying about how many people had attended his stage-managed McDonald’s shift, laughably insisting 29,000 people had been there.

He had earlier called America “a garbage can for the world” in Arizona, another first.

Trump claims Harris ‘absolutely bombed’ in Georgia, inflates McDonald’s crowd size and issues fresh Springfield lie

He went on to spew fresh bile about his opponent and immigrants and lie about how many people had attended his stage-managed McDonald’s shift, laughably insisting 29,000 people had been there.

Incredibly, he also offered a brand new lie about poor old beleaguered Springfield, Ohio, scene of his slur about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs.

Now, he says, the town’s hospitals are overflowing with people who don’t speak English, as screeching a racist dog whistle as you could hope to hear.

Political rock stars, entertainment celebrities team up with Harris on campaign trail

From Springsteen to Beyoncé, big stars hit campaign trail in closing stretch

CLARKSTON, GA. — Vice President Harris teamed up on the campaign trail for the first time Friday evening with arguably the most popular Democratic Party politician: former President Obama.

While Obama has been stumping in the key swing states the past couple weeks on behalf of the vice president, he joined her on the stage as they aimed to energize supporters in the crucial southeastern battleground of Georgia to cast their ballots in early voting.

The event came with just 12 days to go until Election Day in Harris’ margin-of-error battle with former President Trump in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House.

Former President Barack Obama gestures to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris after introducing her to speak during a campaign rally for Harris on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, in Clarkston, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

After Obama introduced the Democratic presidential nominee in front of a crowd of over 20,000 people packed into a local football stadium, Harris pointed to her longtime friendship with the former president and said “your friendship and your faith in me and in our campaign means the world.”

Political rock stars, entertainment celebrities team up with Harris on campaign trail

But it wasn’t just political rock stars that teamed up with Harris.

Rock legend Bruce Springsteen, whom Harris called an “American icon” and who has been supporting Democratic presidential candidates for two decades, performed three songs at Friday evening’s rally.

Bruce Springsteen performs at a campaign rally supporting Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, in Clarkston, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

“Kamala Harris. She’s running to be the 47th President of the United States. Donald Trump is running to be an American tyrant. He does not understand this country, its history or what it means to be deeply American,” Springsteen argued.

Also speaking at the vice president’s rally in suburban Atlanta were actor, filmmaker and playwright Tyler Perry, film director, producer, screenwriter and actor Spike Lee, and actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Spike Lee rallies the the crowd at a Kamala Harris, Barack Obama event near Atlanta, GA. October 24th (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

While Harris was in Georgia, legendary musician James Taylor was scheduled to perform at a rally in neighboring North Carolina – another key battleground – headlined by Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Taylor was scheduled to perform at the DNC but was bumped due to timing issues.

Last weekend, Harris rallied supporters at a get-out-the-vote event in Atlanta with pop singer and star Usher. Hours earlier at a campaign event in Detroit on the city’s first day of early voting, the vice president teamed up with Motor City native rapper Lizzo.

Musician Usher attends a rally for Kamala Harris, the Democrat presidential nominee, in Atlanta on Oct. 19, 2024. (Getty Images)

Another Detroit-born star, rapper, songwriter and music producer Eminem, joined Obama at a Tuesday rally in the battleground state’s largest city to get-out-the-vote for Harris.

Former President Obama cheers on Eminem after introducing him to the stage to speak while campaigning for Kamala Harris at Huntington Place in Detroit on Oct. 22, 2024. (Ryan Garza/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

And the vice president will reportedly be joined at a rally in Houston on Friday by Beyoncé, who is considered a cultural icon. Beyoncé’s hit song “Freedom” has been adopted by the vice president as her campaign trail anthem.

While she hasn’t joined Harris at a campaign event, singer and songwriting superstar Taylor Swift endorsed the vice president last month on the evening of the only debate between Harris and Trump.

Asked about the star power at her events, Harris said on Thursday, “I think it just shows the breadth and depth of the support that we have and also the enthusiasm that a lot of people are bringing to the campaign and feel about our campaign.”

While he can’t match the surrogate star power that Harris enjoys, Trump has also attracted some well-known celebrities at his events.

The latest, country singer Jason Aldean, took the stage at Trump’s rally on Wednesday evening in Duluth, Georgia. The singer, a longtime supporter of Trump, sat with the former president at the Republican National Convention in July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump greets country music singer Jason Aldean at the Republican National Convention, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The former president also enjoys the backing of other celebrities, including Telsa founder and multibillionaire Elon Musk, hip-hop star, rapper and fashion designer Kanye West, singer Kid Rock, actors Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammar, former NFL star quarterback Brett Favre, former Indy racer Danica Patrick, and celebrity chef Paula Deen.

While celebrity endorsements can grab plenty of media attention and add excitement to campaign rallies, it’s questionable how much they move the needle in terms of bringing a new wave of support to a candidate.

Veteran Republican strategist David Kochel noted that using celebrities has “been a big part of the playbook for a long time,” especially with Democrat presidential candidates.

But he argued that they rarely “move people” or “move the message.”

Mel Gibson backs Trump for president, says Harris has ‘the IQ of a fence post’

The ‘Braveheart’ star panned the Democratic nominee’s ‘miserable record’

Actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson revealed he’s backing former President Trump in the 2024 election and took a swipe at the intelligence of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Video obtained by TMZ shows the “Braveheart” star being asked about the presidential race during an exchange at LAX.

“I don’t think it’s gonna surprise anyone who I vote for,” Gibson said.

After the cameraman asked whether Trump was a “bad guess,” Gibson replied “I think that’s a pretty good guess.”

Actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson says it’s a “very good guess” to say he’s supporting former President Trump in the upcoming election. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

The “Lethal Weapon” icon was then asked what he thought “the world would be like” with Trump serving a second term in the Oval Office.

“I know what it’ll be like if we let her in,” Gibson said, referring to Harris. “That ain’t good.”

“A miserable track record, an appalling track record, no policies to speak of, and she’s got the IQ of a fence post,” he added.

 

Gibson panned Vice President Kamala Harris over her “miserable record” and said she “has the IQ of a fence post.” (AP/Matt Rourke)

Gibson’s political alliance is not a total surprise. The “Hacksaw Ridge” director was spotted chatting with the former president at a UFC fight in Las Vegas last year.

While much of Hollywood has been rallying behind Harris’ candidacy, Trump has also drawn some big-name supporters, including actors Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight and Zachary Levi, music stars Kid Rock and Jason Aldean, wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, professional race car driver Danica Patrick, and football players Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.

US election experts worry about Republican poll watchers in swing states

SANFORD, North Carolina, Oct 24 (Reuters) – “Be aggressive,” Jim Womack, a local Republican Party chair in North Carolina, told the grid of faces who joined the Zoom training session for volunteers to monitor voting on Nov. 5. “The more assertive and aggressive you are in watching and reporting, the better the quality of the election.”
During the two-hour session, conducted from a Republican Party office featuring a placard of an AR-15 rifle and photos of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Womack, 69, an army veteran and a retired information systems engineer, instructed 40 volunteers on how to spot “nefarious activity.” He mentioned a local clergyman who accompanied dozens of Latino parishioners to a voting site “like a shepherd leading a sheep.”

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States – despite Trump’s false claim, supported by a majority of Republicans in Congress, that the 2020 election was stolen.
U.S. election security officials have said the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.” A months-long analysis by the Associated Press found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud in the six battleground states challenged by Trump.

With less than two weeks to go until the Nov. 5 election, officials in Lee County in the battleground state of North Carolina told Reuters they are concerned that training sessions like Womack’s, with its call for aggressive scrutiny of the voting process, could lead to disruptions at the polls. The Lee County officials say they are adopting new safeguards to prevent poll workers from feeling intimidated.

Womack said that election officials should welcome his North Carolina Election Integrity Team as additional eyes and ears to ensure a fair election. NCEIT has close links to the Republican Party.

Reuters observed an Oct. 16 NCEIT training session and obtained previously unreported transcripts of NCEIT planning calls, which raised the prospect of noncitizen voting.

Reuters also spoke to 10 election officials, former election officials and voter rights advocates who expressed concerns that some poll watchers could disrupt, delay and undermine confidence in the election, and potentially lay the groundwork to overturn the result if Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wins.

“The playbook seems to be to cast doubt, sow chaos at every possible opportunity, so that if you lose you then have laid the foundation in the minds of your followers and supporters to justify additional action,” said Tammy Patrick, a former election official who now works at the National Association of Election Administrators, a nonpartisan group of state election directors.

HOW TO SPOT AN ‘ILLEGAL’

Poll watchers, who monitor the casting and counting of ballots at polling stations, have been a feature of the American electoral system for decades.

The Democratic Party plans to field its own observers at polling places, including those in Lee County. The Democratic National Committee and the Harris campaign said they are mobilizing thousands of volunteers in voter protection teams across key states, but declined to give further details.

Despite its extreme rarity, Trump and his fellow Republicans have made allegations of noncitizen voting a key part of preparations for legal challenges if Trump loses on Nov. 5.

“Non citizen Illegal Migrants are getting the right to vote, being pushed by crooked Democrat Politicians,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in July.

NCEIT addressed noncitizen voting in two planning calls, according to the transcripts obtained by Reuters. In July, a participant raised the subject of how to spot an “illegal” and suggested that a person who can’t speak English probably doesn’t have the right to vote.

One participant in an NCEIT planning call in May said she makes signs for polling locations in different languages, including in “African,” stating only U.S. citizens can vote. She called her signs “psyop,” shorthand for psychological operations aimed at influencing people’s behavior.

Womack said that he doesn’t recall that conversation and does not agree with the assertion. “These live calls are conversations and we get lots of inquiries,” he said. He added that NCEIT strives to educate and train participants in accordance with the law, and sometimes has to correct invalid statements and assertions on the calls.

But he said that NCEIT’s “antenna are up about the influx of Hispanics, and they’re accidentally being registered to vote.”

Patrick Gannon, public information director for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said there was no evidence of noncitizens trying to affect the election in any way.

NCEIT would challenge any voter it believed was ineligible, Womack said. He also told trainees to be polite and said that NCEIT does not “condone voter suppression or intimidation of any kind.”

Item 1 of 3 North Carolina Election Integrity Team president Jim Womack conducts an online training session for volunteers to monitor voting as election observers, at the Republican Party headquarters for Lee County, in Sanford, North Carolina, U.S. October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

[1/3]North Carolina Election Integrity Team president Jim Womack conducts an online training session for volunteers to monitor voting as election observers, at the Republican Party headquarters for Lee County, in Sanford, North Carolina, U.S. October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Some voter rights advocates said the training could lead to unfair targeting of Black or Latino voters.

“We’re concerned that rhetoric about noncitizens voting will be used to say there was some sort of irregularity and try to prevent the election results from being certified,” said Katelin Kaiser, policy director at watchdog group Democracy North Carolina.

WATCHING THE WATCHERS

Womack does not accept the evidence that election fraud is very rare. While he said he does not use the word “stolen” to describe the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, he insists the election was “manipulated by Big Tech, Big Government, and Big Media.”

“The vast majority of the operations seeking to shape the election, or I should say, not shape, to exploit vulnerabilities in the law and to commit fraud in the election are coming from the left,” Womack told Reuters in an interview. “There’s no doubt about it,” he added.

NCEIT is affiliated to the Election Integrity Network, an organization run by Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who played a key role in trying to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. In 2020, Mitchell was on the call when Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state.

Christina Norton, the director of the Republican Party’s election integrity unit, joins a weekly Friday morning call hosted by Mitchell’s EIN group, according to Womack, who also attends.

Mitchell and Norton did not respond to Reuters when asked for comment.

The Republican National Committee says it has trained tens of thousands of volunteer poll watchers, instructing them to call an RNC hotline to report suspected irregularities. RNC poll watchers who do not act within the law will be dismissed, the party says on its website.

An official familiar with the operations of the RNC’s Election Integrity Unit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the RNC has no relationship with groups such as NCEIT that train poll watchers. The official said RNC poll watcher efforts are independent from those groups.

BLURRED LINES

In Lee County, which Trump won comfortably in 2020 and 2016, the lines are blurred. Womack is himself the Republican Party chair. He said NCEIT sends its list of poll watchers to both parties for possible inclusion in their efforts.

“To me, it seems like they’re trying to gather data that they could put together to then create doubt in the election,” said Lee County Elections board Chairwoman Susan Feindel, a Democrat. “All I want is to have a free and fair election and to be left alone so that we can do our jobs.”

Lee County election officials say they have taken precautions to guard against what they see as overly aggressive behavior by some poll observers who have been trained by NCEIT.

After state legislation last year allowed observers to move more freely around polling stations, Lee County officials said they ordered curtains for the booths. They also purchased screen protectors to cover voting machines and privacy sleeves to cover ballots.

In the 2022 midterm congressional elections, the North Carolina election board registered 21 incidents regarding poll watchers, including 12 of voter intimidation, eight of election official intimidation and one of voter interference. Their records do not specify who trained those poll watchers.

In the primaries earlier that year, Womack followed an election worker who was transporting ballot boxes to the board of elections office, according to an incident report reviewed by Reuters.

Womack was not charged with wrongdoing. He told Reuters he had wanted to ensure that the ballots were delivered safely to the board of elections office. He does not view his actions as intimidation.

Since then, Lee County Elections Director Jane Rae Fawcett has asked local police to be on stand-by at the end of polling, in case election officials need additional security as they transport ballots.

The concerns about overly aggressive poll watchers are not limited to North Carolina.

“My main concern is voter intimidation by poll watchers, as well as intimidating election workers and getting into their faces, generally slowing them down and creating disruptions,” said Andrew Garber, a lawyer and elections expert with New York University’s non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice.