Zelenskyy says he and Trump share ‘common view’ that Ukraine war must end – US politics live | US elections 2024

Lauren Gambino

Harris arrives in Tucson, heading to the border down of Douglas

Kamala Harris has arrived in Tucson, Arizona, ahead of a visit to the border town of Douglas, which is about a two-hour drive south east.

During her remarks later this afternoon, Harris is expected to call for tougher actions that would keep the border closed to asylum seekers attempting to cross between legal ports of entry.

According to a campaign official, she intends to call for making it harder to lift the emergency order by requiring the average number of border crossings to fall below the current level of 1,500 before the rule can be lifted.

During her visit, Harris will meet with border patrol agents and tour the US Customs and Border Protection’s Raul H Castro port of entry, between Douglas and Agua Prieta, Mexico. According to a campaign official, she will receive briefings on the port of entry and efforts to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who flew with Harris from Washington on Air Force Two, and state attorney general Kris Mayes will join the vice-president.

At Trump’s Michigan rally, some supporters leave before the former president is done speaking

According to multiple news outlets, some Trump supporters at the former president’s rally in Walker, Michigan, left the event early, as Trump was still speaking.

An NBC News reporter posted video of supporters walking out:

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Trump addressed the early exits in his speech, claiming that “those leaving early were headed backstage to take photos”. That “may be true of some of them, but the crowd behind the press riser had already thinned out well before he made that remark”, reporter Michael Gold noted.

More on the Arizona border town that Harris will visit today

This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live US politics coverage from Los Angeles. While Trump is holding campaign events in Michigan, Kamala Harris is headed to Arizona to visit the US border, as Trump and other Republicans have been criticizing her for not doing since she became the Democratic presidential nominee.

The Associated Press has more context on the town Harris is visiting:

Douglas, where Harris will appear, is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security.

The town of 16,000 people has strong ties to its much larger neighbor, Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a busy port of entry that’s slated for a long-sought upgrade. Many locals are as concerned with making legal border crossings more efficient as they are with combatting illegal ones.

Here’s a look at where things stand:

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has spoken after his meeting in New York with Donald Trump and says the two men had a “very productive” talk. He said the two “thoroughly reviewed” the situation in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion more than two and a half years ago, Reuters reports.

• In a video address on Friday, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, spoke of the indictment of three Iranian nationals for their role in a “wide-ranging hacking campaign sponsored by the government of Iran”. Wray said: “These individuals, employees of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeted a US political campaign, current and former US officials, and members of the American media, all in an attempt to sow discord and undermine our democracy.”

• Later this afternoon, Kamala Harris will arrive in Arizona for election campaign events. She’s currently en route from Washington DC to Tucson. Shortly after landing in Tucson, the US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president will make her way to the US-Mexico border.

• Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are tied among voters in North Carolina, a new poll shows. The CNN poll released today and conducted from 20 to 25 September, shows Harris and Trump both receiving 48% of the support among likely voters in North Carolina.

• The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, pleaded not guilty to corruption charges when he appeared in court in Manhattan. He denies federal bribery and fraud charges. The mayor’s arraignment began just after noon local time at a federal courthouse in New York. It is the first time that a sitting mayor of the city has been charged with crimes.

JD Vance is scheduled speak at an event on Saturday hosted by a self-declared prophet who believes Kamala Harris practices witchcraft.

The Guardian’s Alice Herman reports:

JD Vance will speak at an event on Saturday hosted by the self-styled prophet and political extremist Lance Wallnau, who has claimed Kamala Harris practices witchcraft and has written that the US is headed toward bloody internal conflict.

The campaign announced earlier this week that the Republican vice-presidential candidate will participate in a “town hall” as part of the Courage tour, a traveling pro-Trump tent revival, during a stop in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

Wallnau, who hosts the tour and broadcasts its speakers on his online show – drawing hundreds in-person and sometimes tens of thousands virtually – is a proponent of the “seven mountains” mandate, which commands Christians to seek leadership in seven key areas of society – the church, the education system, the family, the media, the arts, business and government.

For the full story, click here:

Here is a courtroom sketch of New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, during his arraignment on Friday morning:

Adams has been federally charged with bribery, wire fraud and illegal acceptance of foreign donations. He has pleaded not guilty.

In a video address on Friday, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, spoke of the indictment of three Iranian nationals for their role in a “wide-ranging hacking campaign sponsored by the government of Iran”.

Wray said:

These individuals, employees of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeted a US political campaign, current and former US officials, and members of the American media, all in an attempt to sow discord and undermine our democracy.

He added that the individuals impersonated US government officials via fake personas.

Wray continued:

What we’re talking about here – attempts by a hostile foreign government to steal campaign information from one presidential candidate and then shop it around both to that candidate’s opponent and the media. And while there’s no indication that any of the recipients of the stolen campaign information actually replied, Iran’s intent was clear – to sow discord and shape the outcome of our elections.

In a warning to Iran, Wray said:

If you try to attack our infrastructure or commit violence against our citizens, we’re going to disrupt you. And as long as you keep attempting to flout the rule of law, you’re going to keep running into the FBI.

If you’re keeping an eye on the other big news in the US today, so are we. We’re liveblogging the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as, still a very dangerous storm, it roars through North Carolina. At least 20 people have been reported dead since the hurricane made landfall in Florida late last night and, now a tropical depression, it is leaving a trail of destruction and bringing major storm hazards to a huge area. Flooding is particularly acute across parts of the south-east, from Tennessee to Georgia. You can follow Helene news as it happens, here.

And in New York, as well as Donald Trump meeting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the United Nations general assembly amid protests. We’ve been blogging that and covering the sudden escalation of conflict in Lebanon, too.

Netanyahu had not long finished speaking before fresh airstrikes were delivered by Israeli military forces against Lebanon on the outskirts of the capital, Beirut, in Israel’s latest wave of counterattacks on militant group Hezbollah.

Iran, which backs Hezbollah, called the latest explosions, which targeted Hezbollah’s Lebanese headquarters, a “dangerous gamechanging escalation”, according to Reuters just now. The US said it was not given a heads-up by Israel before the latest explosions. International leaders have been putting on pressure at the UN this week for de-escalation and ceasefires by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza. We have all these developments in our global Middle East live blog, here.

In what appeared to be a slightly awkward moment between Donald Trump and Voldymyr Zelenskyy after their meeting, the former president said, “We have a good relationship,” adding: “I also have a very good relationship with President [Vladimir] Putin.”

“If we win, I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly,” Trump said, referring to the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

Zelenskyy, who stood alongside Trump, then interjected and said, “I hope we have more good relations with us,” gesturing between him and Trump.

In 2019, Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine as he put pressure on Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, which ultimately resulted in Trump’s impeachment.

The two men have had a fraught relationship, with Trump saying earlier this week at a campaign event in North Carolina: “The president of Ukraine is in our country. He is making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me … We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskyy.”

Zelenskyy says he and Trump share ‘common view’ on Ukraine war

Joanna Walters

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has spoken after his meeting in New York with Donald Trump and says the two men had a “very productive” talk.

He said the two “thoroughly reviewed” the situation in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion more than two and a half years ago, Reuters reports.

We share the common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must prevail.

It’s unclear if he and Trump reached a genuine consensus behind the scenes. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has been making magic-wand type claims that if he wins the White House he’ll have a peace agreement that all sides will like very quickly.

But he has previously talked in terms that implied he would allow Russia to prevail over what it has already claimed.

Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival for the White House, warned yesterday after meeting with Zelenskyy that he should not accept “proposals of surrender”, without mentioning Trump but clearly signaling in his direction.