Donald Trump placed in it Kamala Harris and other Democrats on Thursday in a sharp and at times bitter speech as he headlined Al Smith’s annual charity dinner in New York. The Republican candidate repeatedly criticized his rival in the Democratic campaign for her decision to skip the event — a break from presidential election tradition as she prioritized campaigning in the swing state of Wisconsin, rather than New York, a safely Democratic state . Harris recorded a video that was played instead.

Trump questioned the mental fitness of Harris and the president, Joe Bidencommented on the second gentleman Doug Emhoff‘s extramarital affair during his previous marriage, and made jokes about transgender people. The dinner was hosted by comedian Jim Gaffigan, who portrays the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Tim Walzon Saturday Night Live.

Harrisin her pre-recorded remarks — which featured comedian and actor Molly Shannon, who reprized her long-running Saturday Night Live character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward Catholic high school student — Trump for lying, a sin, about the results of the 2020 election, and comments he made in Michigan saying that mocking Catholics in the video “would be like criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”

Here’s what else happened on Thursday:

Kamala Harris election news

• A poll has found Harris still leading Trump among likely black voters in battleground states. The poll, conducted by Howard University’s Initiative on Public Opinion from Oct. 2 to Oct. 8, surveyed 981 Black voters in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The results show that 84% of respondents said they planned to vote for the vice president, while only 8% said they would support Trump for president in November, and another 8% remained undecided.

• With three weeks to go, Harris is spending most of her days trying to shore up support in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. as she tries to prevent a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s collapse there eight years ago. Her schedule reflects the Democratic candidate’s focus on her most likely path to victory over Trump. Harris visited Milwaukee Thursday seeking support from college-age voters. She stopped by a business class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and held a student meeting at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, ending the day with a meeting in Green Bay.

• The Democratic governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin embarked on a quickly organized bus trip this week, rolling across the fall landscape to highlight the urgency of the matter for Harris in must-win states where some Democrats worry she is struggling. Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro and Tony Evers came to Flint Thursday afternoon, accompanied by national Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison.

• Harris and Walz go to church Sunday in the battleground states of Georgia and Michigan. Harris will also sit down for an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton that will air Sunday night on his MSNBC program, according to a Harris campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the schedule that have not yet been officially announced.

Donald Trump election news

• Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly preparing a blacklist of potential officials to be excluded from a future administrationwith special emphasis on those associated with the radical Project 2025 plan to overhaul the US government. According to Politico, the former president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., is leading the effort to compile the list of banned staffers, citing a former official in the first Trump administration.

• Trump was accompanied at the Al Smith event by his wife Melania, who has not often been on the campaign trail. The white-tie dinner raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and traditionally offers candidates from both parties a chance to trade lighthearted jabs, make fun of themselves and show that they can get along — or at least do as if – for one evening in the night. the last part of the elections.

• Gaffigan was referring to allegations that the Trump Organization discriminated against black tenants in its buildings in the 1970s. “If Vice President Harris wins this election, not only would she be the first female president, but a Black woman would occupy the White House, a former Trump residence,” Gaffigan said. “You clearly wouldn’t rent to her. I mean, that would never happen anyway. Maybe if Doug would sign it.”

• Elsewhere on the campaign trail, a Nevada man was arrested with guns at a security checkpoint outside a Trump rally in the Southern California desert has filed a lawsuit accusing the sheriff of falsely characterizing his arrest as a thwarted murder attempt for the sheriff’s personal gain.

• Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance falsely told a reporter on Wednesday that there were “serious problems” in the 2020 election and suggested that then-president Donald Trump had not actually lost the race. “Did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words I would use,” Vance said in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. “But look, I really don’t care if you agree or disagree with me on this issue.”

Other election news:

• Democratic U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Republican challenger Sam Brown On Thursday night, they painted each other as extremists in the presidential state where elections could determine control of both the White House and Senate. The election pits Rosen, a first-term senator seen as a political consensus builder, against Brown, a retired Army captain who bears scars from battlefield injuries and is endorsed by Trump.

• Senior Democrats in US cities are preparing to defend their communities in the event of Donald Trump’s return to the White House after the former president repeatedly threatened that he would use presidential powers to take control of major urban centers. Trump has proposed deploying the military in major cities largely run by Democrats to tackle protesters or crush criminal gangs. He has threatened to send large numbers of federal immigration agents to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

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