Ukraine President Zelenskyy meets with bipartisan group of senators
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill this morning.
Upon his arrival at the Capitol, Zelenskyy said, “Good morning,” and did not respond to shouted questions from NBC News about whether he’s disappointed about not having a scheduled meeting with Trump.
Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with Biden and Harris in separate meetings later today.
Walz to attend Michigan vs. Minnesota game on Saturday
On Saturday, Walz will travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to attend the University of Michigan vs. University of Minnesota football game, the Harris campaign announced. Walz will talk to voters and students and build on the campaign’s focus on youth outreach, the campaign said.
A majority of states have added restrictive voting laws since 2020
Voters in 29 states will face new, restrictive voting laws when they cast ballots this fall, according to a new analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, which tracks changes to voting laws.
At least 63 restrictive voting laws have been enacted since 2021, the group found.
Such laws are on the books in four battleground states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina — as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
There have also been significant changes to laws to expand voter access, the group said. At least 156 expansive laws have been enacted in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Those include four battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
Melania Trump says 'weak leadership' of Biden administration has led to high costs and an 'open and dangerous' border
In her interview with “Fox & Friends,” former first lady Melania Trump said “the record speaks for itself” when asked about Harris becoming the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to exit the race in July.
She acknowledged that her husband makes “strong tweets” at times, referring to his social media posts, but said he has done “everything else great for this country. So it’s all in American people’s hands on Nov. 5.”
The former first lady criticized the Biden administration’s economic record, citing high inflation, and sought to contrast the current administration with her husband’s.
“The country is suffering, people are not able to buy usual necessities for the families,” she said. “We have wars going on around the world. Soldiers are dying. They were dying under this administration because of weak leadership.”
She added that the border is “open and dangerous” and has made it easier for fentanyl to come to the country and kill young people.
“If we compare these four years under this administration compared to four years under my husband as commander in chief, he was leading the country through peace, through strength, and the border was safer than ever before,” she said. “We didn’t have any wars. People were prospering. They had jobs, they could support their families. So I think American people need to decide what they really want.”
DSCC says it's making a multimillion-dollar investment in TV ads in Texas and Florida Senate races
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced that it is making a multimillion-dollar investment in TV ads in the Texas and Florida Senate races, which it said are aimed at holding Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida “accountable for their unpopular records and agenda.”
“Senate Democrats are expanding the map and going on offense,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s chair, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, said in a statement. “All cycle long the DSCC has been preparing to take advantage of Sens. Cruz and Scott’s damaged standings in their states — and now our efforts in Texas and Florida are accelerating.”
“Democrats have strong candidates running effective campaigns in both states, and as we escalate our communications against Sens. Cruz and Scott we will crystallize the case against them,” he added.
The DSCC said additional funding for TV ads in the battleground states will likely be added closer to the November election.
The committee had previously announced investments in digital ads in the Texas and Florida Senate races, but the latest investment signals that Democrats are turning to offensive targets to pick up seats as they face a difficult path to holding on to their razor-thin majority in the Senate.
Pro-Harris sticky notes pop up in women’s restrooms and gyms and on tampon boxes
In the weeks before Election Day, a loose-knit group of women are organizing online to blanket their communities with pro-Harris messages — not on yard signs or flyers, but on sticky notes.
The idea is simple: Take a pad of sticky notes, write messages and post them wherever women may see them — bathroom stalls, the backs of tampon boxes, bathroom mirrors, the gym.
The messages vary slightly, but a typical one reads something like: “Woman to woman: No one sees your vote at the polls. Vote Harris/Walz.”
No one really seems to know who started the trend. But women from across the country told NBC News they were inspired to borrow one another’s ideas, sharing advice and pictures of their messages for inspiration through social media, particularly on pro-Harris Facebook groups.
A Harris campaign spokesperson denied that the campaign is involved in the initiative.
Melania Trump details how she found out about the assassination attempt against her husband
Former first lady Melania Trump detailed how she found out about both assassination attempts against her husband in a rare TV interview this morning to promote her upcoming memoir, “Melania.”
“I ran to the TV, and I rewind it, and I watched it, I was only a few minutes behind, and something, I guess, took over me — so I didn’t really see live, but maybe, you know, three minutes, few minutes later,” she said on “Fox & Friends” when describing how she found out about the first assassination attempt on her husband during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“But when I saw it, it was only — nobody really knew yet, because when you see him on the floor, and you don’t know, you don’t know what really happened,” she added.
Trump said she was in New York City when she found out about the apparent second assassination attempt on her husband this month at his West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course.
“I saw it on the television, and as I saw it on television, I called again, and he was OK because Secret Service were great, the guys that they were, the team, they were fantastic,” she said.
She added that she thinks her husband’s survival from both assassination attempts are “miracles.”
“I think something was watching over him,” she said. “I think he’s, it’s almost like country really, really needs him.”
Trump went on to blame the incidents on Democratic rhetoric casting her husband as a threat to democracy. “And is it really shocking that all this egregious violence goes against my husband, especially that we hear the leaders from the opposition party and mainstream media branding him as a threat to democracy, calling him vile names,” she added. “They’re only fueling a toxic atmosphere and giving power to all of these people that they want to do harm to him. This needs to stop. This needs to stop. The country needs to unite.”
She recalled that their son, Barron Trump, was outside playing sports when news of the first assassination attempt on her husband broke before he rushed inside.
“Was very, very difficult,” she said.
Huge ad spending pours into defining Harris in the ‘blue wall’ battlegrounds
Money talks. And right now, the presidential campaigns’ dollars are talking about the “blue wall” — and about defining Harris.
More than half of every dollar spent on ads in the presidential race from Sept. 1 to Sept. 20 were spent in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — with Pennsylvania alone drawing 1 of every 4 dollars spent, according to AdImpact. Add Georgia, and it’s more than 60% of the total.
The spending illustrates how Democrats and Republicans are in broad agreement about the states in play and how one side or the other will win the election. And what those ad dollars are actually buying tells a key story about the campaign. Harris’ campaign is running an equal mix of positive and negative ads on broadcast TV, according to the tracking firm AdImpact, while Trump’s campaign is running almost exclusively negative and contrast ads — a demonstration of how focused voters and both campaigns are on defining Harris as she runs against a three-time candidate who has inspired entrenched views among American voters.
Congress funds the government but faces another shutdown threat before Christmas
Lawmakers averted a government shutdown 40 days before the election, but they’ll face another funding crunch right before the holidays and a new Congress and president take office.
Bipartisan negotiators have been trying to make progress on the 12 bills needed to fund federal agencies for the 2025 fiscal year.
Yet there’s little time to pass those bills during the lame-duck session; House members and senators are scheduled to be in Washington for only five weeks between Election Day and the end of the year, and the two chambers haven’t reached agreement on any of the dozen measures, known as appropriations bills.
A more likely scenario is that Democrats and Republicans would strike an end-of-year deal on a massive, catchall omnibus spending package or punt the issue once again with another continuing resolution, or CR, that would extend funding into the new year on a short-term basis.
Trump and Harris focused on the economy in campaign appearances less than six weeks before the election. Trump tied Harris to inflation, while Harris said Trump has a history of taking care of the rich. NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell reports.