Donald Trump preparing for debate with help from Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard: Sources

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is denying he praised Adolf Hitler as having done “some good things,” as his former chief of staff and retired Marine general John Kelly was reported to have said this week.

“Never said it,” Trump said, answering reporter questions as he campaigned in battleground Nevada on Thursday.

Kelly told The New York Times in an extensive interview that Trump spoke positively of Hitler while in office. Kelly expressed overall concern that Trump would act more like a dictator if elected to another four years in the White House and said, in his view, the former president fit the definition of a “fascist.”

“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'” Kelly said of Trump.

Kelly’s comments came after The Atlantic reported that Trump once said he wanted generals like Hitler had.

Trump also denied saying the comments attributed to him in The Atlantic story.

“No, I never said that. I never said that. It’s a rag that’s made-up stories before. He’s done it before,” Trump said.

“Right before the election. It’s just a failing magazine,” Trump continued.

Vice President Kamala Harris and other top Democrats have seized on the reporting as they ramp up their criticisms of Trump as a threat to democracy in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign.

Harris pointed to Kelly’s comments as she campaigned alongside former President Barack Obama in Georgia on Thursday night.

“Take a moment to think about what that means, that Trump said, quote, ‘Hitler did some good things,’ and that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler’s, who would be loyal to Trump and not to America’s Constitution,” Harris said.

Obama also hit Trump over the reported remarks.

“The interesting thing is, he acts so crazy, and it’s become so common, that people no longer take it seriously,” Obama said of Trump. “I’m here to explain to you just because he acts goofy does not mean his presidency wouldn’t be dangerous.”

“Now, I happen to know John Kelly and Mark Milley,” Obama added (Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). “They served under me when I was commander in chief. These are serious people … They are people who have never in the past even talked about politics because they believe that the military should be above politics,” he said. “But the reason they’re speaking up is because they have seen that in Donald Trump’s mind, the military does not exist to serve the Constitution or the American people.”

During a pull-aside interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump lashed out at Harris for calling him a “fascist,” saying “everyone knows that’s not true.”

“I’ve never seen anybody so inept at speaking. I mean, I thought she her performance was horrible,” he said about Harris’ CNN town hall appearance.

“But she did call me a fascist, and everyone knows that’s not true. They call me everything until, you know, something sticks,” he said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — As we head into the final full week of campaigning before Election Day, the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll shows Kamala Harris with a slight 51-47% lead over Donald Trump among likely voters nationally — but the polls in the battleground states remain essentially deadlocked within the margin of error.

Fallout continues over racist comments made at Trump’s big rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden and Harris is preparing for her “closing argument” Tuesday night on the Ellipse near the Capitol and White House in Washington.

More than 41 million Americans have voted early

As of 5:45 a.m. ET on Monday, more than 41 million Americans have voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Of the 41,989,199 total early votes, 21,111,171 were cast in person and 21,338,290 were balloted returned by mail.

On Monday, voters in Washington, D.C., can start casting their ballots early, in person. Almost all of the states that offer in-person early voting have begun offering it by now.

-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim

Michelle Obama uses op-ed to reiterate message imploring men to support women’s reproductive health

The former first lady repeated her passionate message on women’s health being at stake this election in an op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday,

The op-ed featured excerpted remarks from her rally in Michigan on Saturday in which she blasted Trump’s record on the issue in comparison to Harris’, and made an appeal to men to support the women in their lives. The rally marked her first campaign appearance since her speech at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

“I am asking you, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” she said. “Please do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through, who don’t fully grasp the broad-reaching health implications that their misguided policies will have on our health outcomes.”

Despite her stated aversion to partisan politics, the former first lady is ramping up her involvement in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign. She will headline a rally on Tuesday in battleground Georgia.

Harris counters dark and racist comments at Trump’s MSG rally

Harris is countering the dark and racist comments made by speakers at Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden, while the former president’s campaign tries to distance itself from the comedian who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Harris will stump in two critical counties in the battleground state of Michigan to kick off the final full week of campaigning. First, she will visit Corning’s manufacturing facility in Saginaw before getting a tour at a union training facility in Macomb County.

The vice president will cap the day with a rally with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, in Ann Arbor. The rally will feature a concert by musician Maggie Rogers.

Trump will be in Georgia to deliver remarks at National Faith Advisory Board in Powder Springs before a 6 p.m. ET rally in Atlanta.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The Republican Nebraska lawmaker who effectively helped kill an 11th-hour push to make the winner of the state receive all of the Electoral College votes on Election Day — a move that would have likely benefited former President Donald Trump in a tight race with Vice President Kamala Harris — told ABC News Prime Anchor Linsey Davis that effort “did not seem fair.”

“I’m always willing to listen to people and try to find a compromise, but also try to understand why they’re voting yes … But this just did not seem fair. If we’re going to go ahead and change [the rules] in the state of Nebraska, I think we should do it mid-term. I think we should do it two years before the presidential election,” Nebraska State Sen. Mike McDonnell told Davis on Tuesday of the timing around a potential law change.

The potential winner-take-all electoral change would have been pivotal if the Republican-leaning state then allocated all of its five electoral votes solely to Trump if he won statewide, instead of dividing them with Harris if she won in one of Nebraska’s three congressional districts. Nebraska gives three Electoral College votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district.

Earlier this week, McDonnell, who was one of three state Republican holdouts that Gov. Jim Pillen needed to break an expected filibuster in a special legislative session, said he would not support the change before November. This announcement effectively killed the winner-take-all push.

Instead, McDonnell said he believed the legislature should take up the issue in next year’s legislative session, which tentatively starts the first week of January 2025.

“We do listen, as Nebraskans, and sometimes people say, oh, ‘Nebraska nice,’ that means, you know, you’re kind of weak — and it’s not. We work hard and we play by the rules and we’re just asking everyone to come in, work hard in Omaha, the 2nd Congressional District, and play by the rules,” McDonnell said Tuesday.

McDonnell mentioned that he had been opposed previously to “winner-take-all” in the state since he ran for legislature starting in 2016.

Pressed by Davis if anyone or anything could make him change his decision, McDonnell was resolute: “No. I’ve tried to listen and I always will listen. I think the rest of the country should follow us and look at the unicameral [Nebraska Legislature] and look at getting rid of the winner-take-all.”

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen later released a statement Tuesday confirming he has “no plans” to call a special session before the November general election.

Trump on Monday thanked Pillen for attempting to “simplify the complexity” of the state’s electoral map, while attacking McDonnell for opposing it, calling him a “Grandstander.”

“Unfortunately, a Democrat turned Republican(?) State Senator named Mike McDonnell decided, for no reason whatsoever, to get in the way of a great Republican, common sense, victory. Just another ‘Grandstander!'” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Meanwhile, Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, while speaking at a New York fundraiser on Monday night, celebrated McDonnell’s decision, saying that the race would be close because the “Electoral College is the way it is,” before stating, “Thank God for that one guy in Omaha” — a reference to McDonnell.

Asked to respond to Trump’s comments, McDonnell said, “Well, today’s the first day I’ve talked to the media and I’m always willing to get, as I said, over the last eight years, serving in the legislature – willing to talk to people and listen.”

And asked about Walz’s comments and if Harris and Trump should make campaign stops in Omaha — as well as if his own decision may have changed the outcome of the election — McDonnell stayed away from making any predictions, but invited them both to Omaha.

“I’m inviting both Vice President Harris and President Trump. Come to Omaha. Come have a debate here! There’s still 42 days. Listen to the people. Talk to the people and answer the questions,” McDonnell said.

McDonnell emphasized that most — if not all — of the feedback he had gotten about the issue had been civil.

“We know it’s a very important issue. It’s a passionate issue, and people are passionate about it … 90% of them have been professional and polite,” McDonnell told Davis.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.