Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemns the rhetoric displayed by Trump and his allies at Madison Square Garden The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released a statement condemning the “shameful rhetoric” displayed at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday, where speakers made racist remarks about immigrants, and one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”. In the statement, the caucus called the language and rhetoric at the rally as “not only divisive but dangerous”. Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences. When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise. The statement continues: This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth. Trump, in a speech in Atlanta that is reportedly on the theme of “protecting women,” leads the crowd in more furious boos against the idea of making it easier for transgender people to transition. “You know who was nasty to me? Michelle Obama,” Trump says, to more boos to the crowd. “…Oooh, she was nasty. She shouldn’t be that way.” The former president appears to be referencing the former first lady’s speech in favor of Kamala Harris this weekend: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asks his crowd. “Nooo!” the crowd boos. “I didn’t think so,” Trump said. Trump takes stage at Atlanta rally after day of outrage over Puerto Rico remarks Donald Trump has taken the stage at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, after a day of outrage from Puerto Ricans over the remarks of a comedian at a Trump rally last night in New York City. Residents of Puerto Rico can’t vote in the presidential election, even though they are US citizens. But what they can do is use their influence with relatives who live on the mainland, and, reporting from San Juan, the Associated Press found evidence that’s already happening. Milagros Serrano, 81, has a son who lives in the swing state of Pennsylvania and said the entire family was outraged by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally in New York City last night. “He can’t be talking about Puerto Rico like that,” she said as she left for a medical appointment. “He’s the one who’s a piece of garbage.” José Acevedo, a 48-year-old health worker from San Juan, shook his head as he recalled the feelings that coursed through him when he watched the rally. “What humiliation, what discrimination!” he said early Monday as he waited to catch a public bus to work. Acevedo said he immediately texted relatives in New York, including an uncle who is a Republican and had planned to vote for Trump. Jenniffer González, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress for the pro-statehood New Progressive party and a Trump supporter, called the remarks “despicable, misguided and disgusting”. She said: “They do not represent the values of the GOP.” Up next: Kamala Harris campaigns tonight in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Donald Trump campaigns in Atlanta, Georgia; Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen rally for Harris in Philadelphia; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders rally for Harris in Wisconsin. Thousands of LA Times and Washington Post readers cancel subscriptions, reports say More than 7,000 readers have cancelled their Los Angeles Times subscriptions since news broke that the paper would not be making a presidential endorsement this year, Semafor reports. Multiple editorial board members have resigned and described how the paper’s billionaire owner, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the editorial board from making a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. Semafor’s Max Tani notes this number, which would be shocking in most weeks, pales in comparison to the reported 200,000 subscribers who have cancelled Washington Post subscriptions in response to billionaire owner Jeff Bezos blocking that paper from endorsing Kamala Harris. This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live political coverage from Los Angeles. Donald Trump faced mounting suspicion of hatching a plot to steal next week’s presidential election as Democrats and commentators focused on his references to a “little secret” at Sunday night’s tumultuous Madison Square Garden rally. The allusions initially attracted little notice amid the angry backlash provoked by racist jokes and incendiary rhetoric from a succession of warm-up speakers, including an offensive comment about Puerto Ricans that even Trump’s own campaign felt obliged to disavow. However, some observers and Democratic politicians believed the most telling remark of the night came from the Republican nominee himself after he introduced Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, on stage and alluded to a shared secret. “We gotta get the congressmen elected and we gotta get the senators elected,” Trump told the crowd, referring to the congressional elections at stake next week. “We can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House. Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret – we will tell you what it is when the race is over.” Harris says "Puerto Ricans deserve better" after racist remarks at Trump New York rally Kamala Harris’s campaign has seized on the racist remarks about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s New York rally on Sunday in a new campaign ad in which the vice-president argues “Puerto Ricans deserve better.” In the ad released on Monday, Harris also criticized Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island and killed thousands of people in 2017. “He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” she said. A report from 2021 found that the Trump administration delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after the hurricane. Donald Trump has pledged to gut the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate law, even though some of his closest allies have benefitted from it. At least seven of Trump’s associates and fundraisers – or the companies they run – have obtained incentives thanks to the climate law, Reuters first reported. The IRA increased consumer interest in clean energy loans from California-based financial technology company Mosaic, which counts Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner’s private equity fund Affinity Partners as an investor. Another IRA beneficiary was carbon capture and sequestration project Summit Carbon Solutions, in which Trump ally Harold Hamm’s fossil fuel company Continental Resources invested $250m in 2022. Though its founder Elon Musk has attacked the IRA, Tesla has also received gargantuan subsidies from the IRA. Musk is one of Trump’s most consequential boosters. Vicki Hollub, the Occidental Petroleum CEO and a major Trump donor and fundraiser, has also benefited from the IRA’s carbon capture tax credit and other subsidies. And pipeline company Energy Transfer – headed by longtime Trump supporter Kelcy Warren – participates in carbon capture and hydrogen projects boosted by IRA tax credits. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act represented the biggest green downpayment in American history. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the law. Kamala Harris took another swipe at her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, during her visit to a semiconductor plant in Michigan. She attacked the former president again for the tone and content of his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, and defended the Chips and Science Act she said he wanted to abandon: We are eight days out from an election, so I’ve got to also talk about the contrast, because my opponent spends full time talking about, just kind of diminishing who we are as America, and talking down at people, talking about that we’re the garbage can of the world. We’re not. He just recently did a radio talk show and talked about how he’d get rid of the Chips act. That was billions of dollars investing in just the kind of work that’s happening here. And you know how we did it? We created tax credits to create the incentive for the private sector to do this work. That’s good work. When he was president, he sold advanced chips to China that helped them with their agenda to modernize their military. That’s not about what’s in the best interest of America’s security and prosperity, which should be two of the highest priorities for president of the US. There is a very serious choice presented in the next eight days. And as much as anything it is a question about what is the direction of the future that we want for our country. JD Vance says Americans need to "stop getting so offended at every little thing" when asked about Puerto Rico remarks As Donald Trump’s campaign faces intense criticism over racist remarks from a speaker at the Republican candidate’s New York rally on Sunday, JD Vance has responded by saying that Americans need to “stop getting offended”. Tony Hinchcliffe, a podcaster and comedian who spoke ahead of Trump at Madison Square Garden, described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”. His comments have drawn widespread condemnation and outrage. Trump’s running mate said he had “heard about” the joke, and argued that Kamala Harris is painting the former president’s supporters as “Nazis”. “I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’s closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke. That is not the message of a winning campaign. “I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m so over it.” "I remember": singer Marc Anthony"s stinging attack on Trump rally and legacy The Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony has just posted a stinging attack on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, reminding voters how the then president “blocked billions in relief while thousands died” on the island after 2017’s Hurricane Maria. “I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember. I remember what it was like when Trump was president. I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico … About our people,” he posted on X to his 11m followers: I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico ‘dirty’ and ‘poor.’ But I was not surprised … because I ALSO remember … he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists. He’s told us what he’ll do. He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it. This election goes way beyond political parties. Now let’s remember what the United States represents and stands for. It’s our name - United. Regardless of where we’re from. I’m Marc Anthony … I remember. "Suspect vehicle" identified in ballot box arson Police say they have identified “a suspect vehicle” connected to incendiary devices that set fire to separate ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state early on Monday, the Associated Press reports. Surveillance images captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box, officials said. That fire damaged three ballots inside. Around the same time, a fire was set at a drop box in nearby Vancouver, Washington, on early Monday, and hundreds of ballots were destroyed. Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected, and were also linked to an incident on 8 October when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver. Nevada supreme court rejects Republican "postmark ballot" lawsuit The Nevada supreme court on Monday upheld the state’s post-election deadline for mail ballots lacking a postmark, CNN reported. The ruling is a rejection of a lawsuit brought by Republicans and the Trump campaign. The lawsuit challenged Nevada’s acceptance of mail ballots that are missing postmarks up to three days after an election. The supreme court, however, said the plaintiffs had failed to make a convincing case. “Notably, the RNC [Republican national committee] presented no evidence or allegations that counting mail ballots without postmarks … would be subject to voter fraud, or that the election security measures currently in place are inadequate to address its concerns regarding these ballots,” the ruling said. According to CNN, a similar case was filed by Republicans in federal court, but the US ninth circuit court of appeals is unlikely to resolve that case before next Tuesday’s election. Harris to "reassess" degree requirements for federal jobs Kamala Harris has been touring a semiconductor plant in Saginaw county, Michigan, on Monday afternoon, and talking up the Chips and Science Act. The Democratic presidential nominee said that if she wins next week’s election she will be reassessing “on day one” which federal jobs require a college degree and which ones do not. The comment, at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility in Hemlock, is both a policy proposal and a political bridge, the Associated Press news agency said, reporting her visit. One of the clearest political divides in the nation over the past few presidential cycles has been between college-educated and non-college-educated voters, with Democrats acknowledging they need to cut into Donald Trump’s support among the latter group, it said. “One of the things immediately is to reassess federal jobs, and I have already started looking at it, to look at which ones don’t require a college degree,” Harris said. “Because here is the thing: that’s not the only qualification for a qualified worker.” Earlier in her speech, Harris said: “We need to get in front of this idea that only high-skilled jobs require college degrees.” Moms for Liberty, a rightwing activist group focusing on education, launched a video ad in four battleground states on Monday targeting a Biden administration rule protecting LGBTQ+ students from gender bias. The ad, titled That’s Not Fair, features a father comforting his athlete daughter after she lost a race. “Dad, it’s not fair! I had to run against a boy! It’s not right,” the girl tells her father, who replies: “I know.” The ad will air in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. In June, a federal judge in Louisiana appointed by Donald Trump blocked the Biden administration from enforcing an education department rule extending sex discrimination protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.