Trump and Harris go after each other’s economic plans at swing state rallies

As we’ve been reporting, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been holding rallies in swing states as they try to gain the momentum to win the US presidential election.

We’re pivoting our live coverage to a fresh page now, just click here for all the latest updates and analysis with only 11 days to go until polling day.

It has been a busy day on the campaign trail for the two main presidential candidates.

Donald Trump appeared at a rally in Tempe, Arizona and then headed up another event in Nevada not long after.

On the other side of the country, Kamala Harris has been courting voters alongside political backers like Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

On Thursday, the Secretary of State’s office in Colorado said it is monitoring a possible ballot fraud scheme in Mesa County.

The Department of State learned that at least 12 ballots appear to have been intercepted before they reached voters. These same ballots were returned to the county clerk via the postal service.

The problem was discovered during a signature verification process.

Meanwhile in Arizona, the Phoenix Police Department said it arrested a man for setting a free-standing mailbox on fire at a US Postal Office location.

Police initially said 20 ballots inside the mailbox were damaged, but the Secretary of State’s Office later said five ballots were destroyed, adding that the figure could change, ABC News reports.

Investigators identified the suspect, who admitted his actions were not politically motivated or related to the upcoming election.

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Image source, Reuters

In remarks to a packed crowd in Las Vegas, Nevada, former President Donald Trump seizes on economic angst in the state.

“We will end inflation,” he tells supporters. “And we will bring back the American Dream.”

Inflation has eased in recent months after peaking in 2022.

Trump repeats his “No tax on tips” proposal – to huge applause – which he first floated during a previous stop in Las Vegas.

He says he would also block taxes on overtime and social security payments.

An update now from the Harris-Walz campaign, which has just confirmed that the vice-president will not be appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Amid rumours that Kamala Harris would be interviewed on what is one of the biggest podcasts in the world, her rival – Donald Trump – confirmed earlier this week that he’d locked in his own appearance.

His episode will be recorded on Friday, but its release has not yet been detailed.

Speaking to MSNBC, spokesperson Ian Sams said the Harris campaign had been in touch with Rogan’s programme, but ultimately the “scheduling” did not line up.

Harris previously recorded a podcast episode with Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast – which is the second most-listened-to podcast on the planet and is geared mostly towards young women.

• Joe Rogan’s path to a once-improbable Trump interview

Image source, Getty Images

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Image source, Reuters

Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – now on stage – tells Donald Trump’s supporters in Las Vegas that he expects Democrats will regret having Kamala Harris as their nominee.

“I hope they wake up and realise that identity politics never works in America,” he says.

The remarks come at an event that has been billed as a Republican effort to reach out to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

Ahead of the rally, Turning Point founder and president, Charlie Kirk, said AAPI voters hold values that “closely align with the conservative platform but have been given too little attention by our movement”.

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing demographics in Nevada.

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Not all of Kamala Harris’s voters were tuning into her rally in Georgia earlier.

Outside the Trump rally in Las Vegas a bit earlier, a small contingent of counter-protesters had gathered outside with signs expressing support for the Harris-Walz ticket.

Don Gold, one of those individuals, told me how he sees the erosion of abortion rights as a key issue that he’s concerned about in 2024.

“I have a 4 year old and I have a 36 year old and I can’t imagine someone telling my kids what to do with their bodies,” Gold said.

Gold told me he had a heated exchange with one Trump supporter. But it was civil.

He said he hopes to leave with a better understanding of why so many Americans plan to vote for Trump.

“I want to actually talk to people and find out what it is they like about him.”

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Some surprise guests have taken the stage at the Trump campaign’s rally here in Las Vegas tonight.

Former race car driver Danica Patrick just appeared. She urges the audience to do everything they can to elect Donald Trump.

“We need to be too big to rig, right?” Patrick says, referring to Trump’s false, repeated allegations that the 2020 election was rigged.

“Let’s win it by more than anyone ever has,” she says to cheers.

We’ve still got a bit of time before the Republican nominee is expected to take the stage – not till about 22:00 EDT (03:00 BST).

But we’ve already had two more surprise guests – Goya CEO, Robert Unanue, as well as Trump loyalist Kash Patel.

A bit earlier this evening, while Donald Trump was holding his first rally of the night in Arizona, he reiterated his plans to deport a million immigrants if elected.

He then shared a clip of his rally in Tempe on Truth Social, making that promise once more.

“The United States is now an occupied country,” he wrote. “November 5th, 2024 will be called Liberation Day.”

Experts, however, say such a promise is much easier said than done – and that there are significant legal and practical challenges to expelling so many people.

Immigration advocates have also warned that the human cost of deportations would be significant too, with families torn apart and raids taking place in communities and workplaces across the US.

• The BBC spoke with experts about this policy and explored both the legal and logistical challenges it would pose

How would Harris tackle price gouging?published at 01:53 British Summer Time 25 October

01:53 BST 25 October

By Ben Chu, policy and analysis correspondent

We’ve just heard Kamala Harris talk about championing the middle-class at her rally in Georgia. And during her CNN town hall event on Wednesday, she was also asked by an undecided voter in Pennsylvania what she would do to tackle the price of things like groceries.

She said she would introduce a national ban on price gouging, to “stop companies taking advantage of the desperation… of the American consumer and jacking up prices”.

Harris’s plan – according to her campaign team – would only apply to “essential goods during emergencies or times of crisis”.

So, it is unclear what – if anything – it would do to bring prices down when there aren’t emergencies, something she was challenged about by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

And 37 US states already have laws prohibiting price gouging after local states of emergency have been declared.

• BBC Verify has been looking in detail at the Harris plan on price gouging

Cai Pigliucci
Reporting from Georgia

Kamala Harris has lingered after her speech, still surrounded by a crowd of supporters hoping to get a moment with the vice president.

The cheers throughout the night have sounded like roars in this open air stadium in Clarkston, Georgia.

The Harris campaign tells the BBC there were 23,000 people in here tonight. In a campaign season full of references to crowd size, that’s certainly a pretty big turnout.

Former president Barack Obama fired up the crowd – with many people coming out to specifically see him.

Despite the campaign being only a few months old, Harris’s campaign looks more and more like a well-oiled machine drawing star-studded openers and endorsements.

Supporters here tonight told us they are voting for her because of her stances on reproductive rights and the economy – and to prevent a second Trump presidency.

This event in battleground state Georgia was key for Harris, with more than 2 million votes already cast in the state, and election day just over a week away.

Image source, get

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has also been at a rally this evening – over in Michigan, another one of the key swing states in this election.

Asked by a reporter about Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly – who has made headlines in recent days for saying his former boss had “fascist” tendencies – Vance responded by calling him a “disgruntled ex-employee” with an axe to grind.

“John Kelly was fired by Donald Trump and he’s pissed off about it and he won’t stop talking about it,” Vance said.

“I think everything that John Kelly said is not true,” he said, claiming there were witnesses who contradict some of his allegations.

• The BBC’s North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher explains why both it’s not uncommon for candidates to go negative in the last weeks of campaign

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from Georgia

Image source, Reuters

Back in Georgia, Kamala Harris is getting big applause lines out of her campaign slogan “we are not going back” and her decrying of abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest as “immoral”.

She tells young people they are “impatient for change” after dealing with climate change and school shootings.

“Our future is so good with you at the helm!” she says, drawing applause.

But Obama’s a tough act to follow – and while the enthusiasm for Harris is certainly high, it doesn’t reach the seismic levels that Obama’s speech registered in the stadium.

Some people, likely trying to beat traffic, have tried to sneak out during her speech.

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Moving away from Georgia for a moment and heading back over to Nevada, we caught up with some more Trump supporters – this time, from outside the swing state.

Heather Splawn brought her three sons – ages 3, 5, and 8 – from the greater Houston area to attend.

A devout Christian, Splawn says her concerns about public education in the US loom large.

“I actually pulled my kids out of public school and decided to home-school them four years ago,” she tells me.

She says that home-schooling has given her the freedom to “to show them what’s going on in this world”.

Splawn’s mother, Susan Booth, also joined the family at the event.

Booth says she is frustrated by the impact of higher costs on younger people.

“I have two girls and I see both of their families struggling,” says Booth.

In Georgia, Obama isn’t holding backpublished at 00:51 British Summer Time 25 October

00:51 BST 25 October

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from Georgia

Image source, Reuters

We’ve been seeing a far sharper version of Barack Obama in 2024, and this rally is no exception.

Obama swept into office on a message of unity and, as America’s first black president, maintained a moderate and cerebral tone during his historic two terms. He was so controlled that famous comedy duo Key and Peele created a sketch about “Obama’s anger translator”, external – a hot-headed spokesperson who vocalised the outrage Obama himself couldn’t publicly express.

Now, Obama is acting as a sort of anger translator for Harris, lobbing harsh attacks at Trump on behalf of his candidate.

He tells the crowd in Georgia that Trump has “not stopped whining about his problems”.

“When he’s not complaining, when he’s not sending crazy tweets, he’s trying to sell you stuff,” Obama says, noting Trump’s branded sneakers and Bibles.

He calls Trump’s lengthy speeches “word salad”. It’s been a pattern since he first emerged back on the national stage this summer.

At the DNC, he questioned the size of Trump’s crowds, making a hand gesture that suggested he wasn’t just talking about rally attendance.

And then at his first official rally in Pennsylvania, he asked the crowd whether they thought Trump had ever changed diapers and slammed the former president’s character.

In Michigan this week, he went viral for reciting the lyrics to Lose Yourself by Eminem that go thusly: “He’s nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready/to drop bombs…”

Lily Jamali
Reporting from Nevada

Former President Donald Trump is due in Las Vegas, Nevada, this evening at a rally sponsored by the conservative group Turning Point Action.

Hundreds of people showed up at the venue hours early to attend. Several Trump supporters told us concerns about the economy are what drew them to tonight’s rally.

One of those supporters, Las Vegas resident Yolanda Anderson, who runs a hair styling business, tells us higher costs fuelled by inflation have forced her to raise her prices.

“Of course, that takes my clients other places,” she says.

Inflation has cooled in recent months after peaking in 2022, external. But prices are still higher than they were just a few years ago.

Even so, she considers herself lucky.

“There’s people that have nothing coming in,” Anderson says.

Nevada’s unemployment rate, external – at 5.5% in August – is the highest in the nation.

Away from tonight’s rallies – a fake video is being circulated online showing someone purportedly opening and destroying mail-in ballots marked with votes for Donald Trump in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

In a statement, the Bucks County Board of Elections said: “This video is fake.”

The board listed a series of issues that show the video to be inauthentic: the colour of the envelope is the wrong shade of green, the paper is the wrong quality and the envelopes lack a return address.

It also said that, under state laws, no mail-in or absentee ballots will be opened and counted until election day.

“This type of behaviour is meant to sow division and distrust in our election systems, and makes a mockery of the people working incredibly hard to ensure a free and fair election is carried out,” the bipartisan board said.

“The Board of Elections unequivocally condemns this purposeful spreading of dangerous disinformation. We will not be distracted from the job the voters of Bucks County have entrusted to us.”

Pennsylvania is one of the key battleground states that could swing the election.

Samira Hussain
Reporting from Georgia

Bruce Springsteen has taken to the stage here in Georgia – he’s performing ahead of the keynote speeches.

Image source, Samira Hussain/BBC

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from Georgia

Kamala Harris is holding this rally in DeKalb County, a reliable Democratic stronghold that encompasses parts of Atlanta and its suburbs.

It’s a sign that she’s trying to activate her loyal base in the final days – rather than going to the state’s more “purple” or swing counties.

The audience of thousands is predominantly black, a powerful and critical voting bloc for Democrats in Georgia that Harris must turn out by large margins if she’s going to win the state.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from Georgia

Meanwhile, the speakers here in Clarkston are hitting Kamala Harris’s talking points in the final stretch of the campaign.

They’re attacking Donald Trump over national abortion rights and they are calling him unfit to be president once more.

US Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, is picking up on Harris’s newest attack – in which she amplified the remarks of Trump’s ex-chief of staff, John Kelly, who said in a recent interview that Trump had fascist tendencies.

“This man is no-good, bad news, and it’s up to us to stop him,” Ossoff says of Trump.