Trump appears in town hall hosted by Sean Hannity – as it happened | US elections 2024

CBS reports that Cheney’s endorsement of Harris has been confirmed by Cheney’s spokesperson:

Liz Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney, who was president under George W Bush, is often described as Republican party royalty – and is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump.

She was chair of the January 6 committee, and has described Trump as “unstable” and “depraved”, according to the New York Times.

But it was uncertain whether she would endorse Harris, or stop just short of that. At an event at Duke University on Wednesday evening, she said that she would be voting for Harris.

On Monday this week, 200 Republicans who worked for President George W Bush and the former presidential candidates Senators Mitt Romney and John McCain, released an open letter in support of Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz.

The letter warned that there was more to fear from Trump than a repeat of his first term because he is now bound up with the authoritarian plan to impose rightwing control across the entire US government, including non-partisan federal agencies, known as Project 2025.

ABC, which will host the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on 10 September next week, has released the rules for the debate, which will air live.

Both Trump and Harris have accepted the rules, according to a release just sent out by the network.

They include:

• The debate will be 90 minutes with two commercial breaks.

• The two seated moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, will be the only people asking questions.

• A coin flip was held virtually on Tuesday, 3 September, to determine podium placement and order of closing statements; former President Donald Trump won the coin toss and chose to select the order of statements. The former president will offer the last closing statement, and the vice-president Harris selected the right podium position on screen (stage left).

• No opening statements; closing statements will be two minutes per candidate.

• Candidates will stand behind podiums for the duration of the debate.

• Props or prewritten notes are not allowed onstage.

• No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.

• Candidates will have two-minute answers to questions, two-minute rebuttals, and one extra minute for follow-ups, clarifications, or responses.

• Candidates’ microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak and muted when the time belongs to another candidate.

• Candidates will not be permitted to ask questions of each other.

• Campaign staff may not interact with candidates during commercial breaks.

• Moderators will seek to enforce timing agreements and ensure a civilized discussion.

• There will be no audience in the room.

• Kamala Harris’s campaign has accepted rules for the upcoming debate with Donald Trump. The rules for the 10 September debate of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will include muting microphones, which had previously been a source of disagreement between the campaigns.

• A Republican-led House committee sent a subpoena to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walzseeking documents and communications related to a vast fraud scheme conducted by a non-profit that used pandemic relief funds meant for feeding kids.

• At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Kamala Harris laid out her economic vision for America, which includes providing low- and no-interest loans to small businesses, ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, and proposing a smaller increase on the capital gains tax, she said.

• The Biden administration accused Russia of using the state-backed media outlet RT to “direct disinformation and propaganda” targeted at American voters and meant to influence November’s US presidential elections.

The former US representative Liz Cheney, described by the New York Times as “one-time member of GOP royalty”, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president during an event at Duke University, saying, “Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

Cheney has repeatedly pledged to stop Trump from becoming president again.

This is Helen Sullivan taking over our live US politics coverage.

The Guardian’s Callum Jones reports that Donald Trump’s tiny social media empire has seen its extraordinary stock market rally wiped out by a steep sell-off.

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, closed below $17 on Wednesday, reversing all their gains since the company’s rapid rise took hold in January.

The former president has been prohibited by a lock-up agreement from starting to sell shares in the firm until late September. While his majority stake in the firm is still worth some $2bn on paper, its value has fallen dramatically from $4.9bn in March.

As a business, TMTG is not growing rapidly. It generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings, and lost $58.2m.

Nor is Truth Social growing rapidly as a platform. While TMTG has not disclosed the size of its user base, the research firm Similarweb estimated that in March it had 7.7m visits – while X, formerly Twitter, had 6.1bn. That same month, however, TMTG was valued at almost $10bn on the stock market.

The former president is potentially on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of penalties following two civil trials, taking a significant chunk out of his personal fortune. Trump Media has, however, previously insisted that there is no “conceivable sign anywhere” that Trump plans to sell shares in TMTG.

Kamala Harris’ campaign has accepted rules for the upcoming debate with Donald Trump.

The rules for the 10 September debate of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will include muting microphones, a source told Reuters.

The campaigns had disagreed over whether microphones should be shut off when it isn’t a candidate’s turn to speak. Harris’ campaign had previously advocated for live microphones, arguing that it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates”.

Here’s footage of Kamala Harris’s remarks on the Georgia school shooting from earlier today:

Tim Walz and the Harris campaign have trolled JD Vance over the GOP vice-presidential nominee’s awkward encounter at a doughnut shop:

The Democratic vice-presidential candidate said: “Look at me, I have no problem picking out donuts.”

The remark is a reference to Vance’s recent visit to a doughnut shop during which the GOP candidate stumbled while ordering, saying he’d get “whatever makes sense”.

Tina Smith, a US senator from Minnesota, has also weighed in:

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will travel to Ground Zero in New York to commemorate the September 11 attacksthe White House has just announced.

The president and vice-president will also visit the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, officials said in a press release. Donald Trump is also reportedly considering a stop at the 9/11 memorial in New York on the anniversary, according to the New York Times.