Rick Larsen

The spouses, children and siblings of U.S. House members are traveling around the world on trips paid for by special interest groups

WASHINGTON — The presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump intensified in the days following their first, and likely only, debate, as both hit swing states with just over 50 days until the election.The Harris campaign rode a wave of momentum to the week’s end, cutting ads featuring debate clips and kicking off an “aggressive” blitz of battleground states that it dubbed the “New Way Forward” tour.Trump and Republican Party officials meanwhile filed what they described as “election integrity” lawsuits this week targeting voter registration and absentee ballots in Nevada and Michigan.While numerous polls showed Harris outperformed the former president at Tuesday’s debate, Trump continued to tout his performance at a press conference Friday and chastised a reporter for suggesting some Republicans thought he gave a poor showing.“We’ve gotten great praise for the debate,” he said, adding “You know, look, you come from Fox (News), you shouldn’t play the same game as everybody else.”He has refused to debate Harris again.Trump repeats lies about migrantsTrump spoke for roughly an hour and took a dozen questions at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles where he promised, if elected, “to start with Springfield and Aurora” when he carries out the “largest deportation in the history of our country.”Trump has repeated baseless rumors that Venezuelan gangs overtook an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. In an unforgettable moment during Tuesday’s debate he claimed Haitian migrants are eating domesticated pets in Springfield, Ohio — a lie that circulated among the right on social media, including from his running mate, Ohio’s junior U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.Hundreds of thousands of Haitians live in the U.S. legally under temporary protected status after the nearby Caribbean nation was rocked by a violent government collapse this spring.When asked by a reporter Friday if he felt any concern for the Ohio community that has been thrust into the national spotlight and is now the target of bomb threats, Trump said no.“The real threat is what’s happening at our borders,” he snapped back.Trump also lobbed similar attacks at a Thursday night rally in Tucson, Arizona, describing a small western Pennsylvania town of Charleroi as “not so beautiful now” because Haitian migrants moved in.In reality, Charleroi has suffered population loss and blight for decades following the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s.Harris campaigns in North Carolina, PennsylvaniaPrior to the debate, a national New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump with a slight edge over Harris.“We are the underdog, let’s be clear about that,” Harris told a roaring crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina Thursday night. “And so we have hard work ahead of us, but we like hard work.”Harris held back-to-back campaign rallies Thursday night in North Carolina’s Raleigh and Greensboro that together drew 25,000, according to campaign figures.The vice president headed to the battleground state of Pennsylvania Friday, where she first visited Classic Elements, a bookshop and cafe in the ruby-red Johnstown area before a nighttime rally in Wilkes-Barre.The commonwealth’s junior U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and wife Gisele accompanied Harris to the small business, where she told about a dozen patrons, “You’ve created a space that is a safe space, where people are welcome and know that they’re encouraged to be with each other and feel a sense of belonging,” according to reporters traveling with her.“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said. “And ultimately I feel very strongly that you’ve got to earn every vote and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here and we’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”Harris garnered the coveted endorsement from mega pop star and Pennsylvania native Taylor Swift immediately after the debate.Both Trump and Harris at 9/11 ceremonyBy week’s end the vice president added to her list of Republican endorsements, when the Bush-era Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced his support. Gonzalez, who served under former president George W. Bush, wrote Thursday in Politico that Trump poses “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”Tuesday’s debate was immediately followed by the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Harris joined President Joe Biden at multiple ceremonies.Trump also attended events in New York City and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, accompanied by far-right activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. He defended her at his press conference Friday, calling her a “free spirit.”Several Republicans have criticized Loomer in recent days.North Dakota Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. North Dakota Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Amy Dalrymple for questions: [email protected]. Follow North Dakota Monitor on Facebook and X.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said Saturday it plans to challenge the plea deal reversal in court.

A federal judge said that Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy has not been officially dismissed because the former New York City mayor has refused to pay administrative expenses — even though he seems to have the funds to do so.In July, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said he would dismiss the bankruptcy case at the request of Giuliani and two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Giuliani had initially declared bankruptcy after a court ordered him to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million for defamation.In a five-page order on Thursday, Lane noted that the order to dismiss the case had not been entered into the court record because Giuliani claimed he could not afford to pay related administrative expenses."The administrative expenses in question are the fees for the financial advisors retained by the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors," the judge's Thursday order said. "What little we know about the Debtor's financial situation makes his stance here more troubling.""Even assuming that the Debtor does not have the funds on hand to immediately pay these bankruptcy expenses, he certainly has considerable assets upon which he can draw to pay such expenses," Lane continued. "It is undisputed that he owns two apartments of considerable value."Giuliani's New York apartment was said to be worth $5.6 million, and his Florida apartment was valued at approximately $3.5 million.EXCLUSIVE: Trump ‘secretary of retribution’ won't discuss his ‘target list’ at RNCLane explained that the "most obvious path forward" would be to hold hearings to determine Giuliani's financial conditions and possibly force him to testify."[T]here may come a point when dismissal is no longer an option because the Debtor is unwilling to pay these administrative expenses, a necessary requirement under the law for dismissal of the case," Thursday's order said. "Under such circumstances, the Court may be forced to reevaluate the alternative of a Chapter 11 trustee to supervise the administration of the Debtor's financial affairs and to promptly liquidate assets such as the New York apartment as appropriate."Lane gave Giuliani and his creditors until July 31 to submit proposals for a path forward.

A GOP strategist unleashed an attack on Kamala Harris that was dripping in sarcasm Thursday after losing his cool over positive media coverage of the Democratic Party’s presumed presidential candidate.Doug Heye was on CNN as the vice president finished a rally speech in Houston. As his co-guest, Democratic Party strategist Maria Cordona, finished praising the candidate’s performance, Heye got flustered.Raising his voice, he said, “Everything we heard is 'Oh my god, Kamala Harris is the greatest thing ever. She's the greatest cook that we've ever had near the Oval Office. She knows more about wine than anybody other than maybe Thomas Jefferson. Everything she does is amazing.'“So we should just cancel the election because clearly she's going to win by 25 points?”He then tried to bring the CNN panel back from what he saw as rose-colored adoration.ALSO READ: ‘Creepy weirdos’: Senator fears Trump WH staff would destroy government from ‘inside’“The reality is, i'm not going to get in Donald Trump's head, don't want to be there, don't know what's in there. But he sees the same polling that we do," he said.“Kamala Harris is marginally less unpopular than Joe Biden. She's not winning in the polls. Maybe that changes in a week or two, or six or eight, but at this point, Donald Trump is still winning despite this barrage of nothing but positive press for Kamala Harris and has been marinated in the public's mind.”Cardona had set him off by suggesting that Trump was “going through a mental meltdown” because of his opponent's popularity.“Not just that she is incredibly accomplished as DA, AG, senator, VP,” she said, “but the fact that she is also very attractive. I mean, I have to say it.“...In addition to that, she's not only a woman, she's a woman of African American Asian descent, daughter of immigrants, Jamaican descent.I mean, it's it's this sort of cauldron of all of the things that Trump has nightmares about every single night.”Watch the video below or click the link here.