• Donald Trump claimed that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. The US army accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.

• Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Republican senator John McCain, condemned Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery last week as a “violation”. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for a political campaign, he told CNN.

• Fred Trump III, the nephew of Donald Trump, said the Republican presidential nominee “just doesn’t give a shit” about members of the US military. “He just doesn’t. Donald believes in Donald,” he told MSNBC.

• Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday. The Harris campaign said Trump’s comments “makes it clear that he believes he is above the law”.

• The Harris campaign launched the “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour aimed at advocating for women’s reproductive rights starting today in Palm Beach, Florida. The second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, the Minnesota first lady, Gwen Walz, the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and the Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez are among those who will be on the tour.

• The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee will transfer $25m to support down-ballot candidates.

• Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.

• The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case to rule on his motion to vacate his conviction, and not wait until a federal judge considers a separate motion filed by Trump last week to move the case into federal court.

• Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.

• Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he will not be voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the November election. Toomey said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but that he could not bring himself to support the Republican presidential candidate, citing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

• Robert F Kennedy Jr was asked if he would be vice-president under Donald Trump hours after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July, it has been revealed. Kennedy reportedly rejected the suggestion from Calley Means, an entrepreneur who sometimes advised him on chronic diseases and was acting as an intermediary, according to the New York Times.

Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Republican senator John McCain, has condemned Donald Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery last week as a “violation”.

Jimmy McCain, who has served in the military for 17 years, told CNN that he changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Kamala Harris in November.

“It just blows me away,” he said. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for a political campaign, he said.

I just think that for anyone who’s done a lot of time in their uniform, they just understand that inherently – that it’s not about you there. It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country.

Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Trump wrote:

There was no conflict or “fighting” at Arlington National Cemetery last week. It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad.

The US army accused the Trump campaign of turning a wreath-laying ceremony on 26 August to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity.

The army also accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.

An army spokesperson said a female Arlington national cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” during an argument with Trump aides over photos and filming on the grounds for partisan, political or fundraising purposes. A spokesperson for the military said the episode was “unfortunate”, and it was “also unfortunate” that the cemetery “employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked”. The employee is not pressing charges.

Ed Pilkington

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, has warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.

In an interview with Punchbowl News conducted at the Democratic national convention in August but published on Monday, Schumer accused McConnell of enabling Donald Trump’s remaking of US politics and the judiciary.

By helping to shift the supreme court sharply to the right through the former president’s three appointments to the top judicial bench, McConnell had played a part in abolishing the federal right to an abortion in the ruling ending Roe v Wade, and much more, Schumer contended. He said:

Not just on Roe, but on issue after issue where they’re so far out of touch with the American people … Even when McConnell thought Trump was wrong, he went along with (Trump) too many times.

He concluded that McConnell’s “role in history, in my opinion, will go down poorly”.

Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he will not be voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the November election.

Toomey, in an interview on CNBC, said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but that he could not bring himself to support the Republican presidential candidate, citing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Toomey said:

When you lose an election and you try to overturn the results so that you can stay in power, you lose me. You lose me at that point.

“It is an acceptable position for me to say that neither of these candidates can be my choice for president,” he added.

Donald Trump and election denialist allies at Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other Maga stalwarts are spreading conspiracy theories about election fraud in order to lay the groundwork for charging the election was rigged if Trump loses, warn election experts and some veteran Republicans.

The consequences of the strategy could be dire. John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, who spoke at the Democratic national convention in August in support of Kamala Harris’s campaign for the presidency, said that former president Trump and his allies “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”, if Trump loses. He added:

They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to foment insurrection if he loses the election.

Twin drives by Trump and Maga allies echo some falsehoods from 2020 about fraud due to voting machines and drop boxes, but now promote Trump’s conspiratorial attacks on federal and state prosecutors who filed criminal charges against him for trying to subvert his loss in 2020, and push baseless claims that noncitizens are poised to vote in large numbers.

Turning Point USA, for instance, has touted a multimillion-dollar drive to get out more votes for Trump in key swing states, while holding a few big rallies for Trump where bogus claims are still being made that the 2020 election was rigged, and new fears are being raised about potential fraud this year.

Read the full story here: Trump and allies plant seeds for ‘chaos and discord’ if he loses, experts warn

Kamala Harris’s campaign said in a statement after Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election that his comments were evidence that the Republican former president believed he was “above the law”.

On Monday, a Harris campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, said Trump’s comments were another example of the “chaos, fear, and division” Americans experienced under him.

Everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail – from ‘terminating’ the constitution, to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’ – makes it clear that he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not.

Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday.

Trump told the host Mark Levin:

It’s so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it? You get indicted and your poll numbers go up.

Trump faces federal charges in Washington DC for his alleged actions to subvert the 2020 election results, and is separately charged in Georgia with racketeering over an alleged scheme to overturn the state’s election results.