Raw Story

Donald Trump is being urged by some advisers to declare victory before votes have been tallied, according to new reporting in the Guardian.

Several Trump aides think if the former president gets an early lead in critical battleground states like Pennsylvania, he should grasp it and claim the win, the Guardian reported, citing people close to Trump.

“The consensus view is that Trump has nothing to lose by claiming he has won if he has a several-hundred-thousand-vote advantage in Pennsylvania or if his internal pollsters think a victory is plausible even if the results are not fully confirmed on Tuesday night,” the report states.

The wild factor, according to the Guardian, remains the candidate himself.

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“His aides concede that if Trump decides he wants to declare, he will do as he pleases, and his travel-weary team might have little appetite and influence to dissuade him,” it states.

Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris’ team has said they already have a plan of attack if Trump makes an early announcement declaring himself the winner. According to the Guardian, Trump will hold a private watch party at his Mar-a-Logo club while his campaign’s official watch party will be held at a West Palm Beach, Florida convention center.

“Whether Trump will double down on any victory claim at the convention center party remains unclear," the Guardian said. "Trump’s aides have suggested if he does decide to announce himself as the winner, he will motorcade over from Mar-a-Lago and, if not, he might not make an appearance at all.”

A polling place in DeKalb County, Georgia is being evacuated due to another bomb threat, according to local reports.

"We're hearing of another bomb threat at a polling place in DeKalb County where the fire department is waiting for the police to clear the building," reported Atlanta News First's Brendan Keefe. "The FBI says the previous threats originated from Russian email domains."

DeKalb County is a heavily-Black community in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and a huge reservoir of Democratic votes in most Georgia elections. Polling is due to end in the state at 7 p.m. ET.

Those previous threats targeted other polling places around the Atlanta metropolitan area, also Black polling places. Some of them are set to remain open for extended hours to compensate for the disruption.

A CNN anchor called the latest exit poll "pretty amazing" after it reported about 80% of voters knew who they were going to vote before September.

David Chalian shared the results of CNN's latest exit polls Tuesday night, finding that very few voters made their decision recently. Just six percent said they had decided in the last few days or last week, and 13% said they had decided in either October or September.

To boot, 80% of supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris said they had decided to vote for her before September, with 81 percent for former President Donald Trump.

Chris Wallace told CNN hosts that, while 6% of people deciding in the last week is "not nothing" and can make a difference between "victory and defeat," the significance of the 80 percent number was major.

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"If you think of how unknown Kamala Harris was to the general electorate, the idea that 80 percent of the people had decided they were going to vote for her without really — without knowing almost anything about her," she said, adding that only 7 percent decided in September, which was after the" big debate that was generally seen as a big victory for her and not Trump."

Wallace added: "But man. 87 percent before we even got to October 1st. That's pretty amazing."

Fellow anchor Dana Bash chimed in, "That's America right now."

"It's shirts and skins," she said.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

A behind-the-scenes video that appears to be part of the documentary "The Art of the Surge: The Donald Trump Comeback," reveals a nervous Trump constantly requiring reassurance from his staff and members of his inner circle.The videos follow Trump as he races toward Election Day 2024.

Among the clips revealed by Courier Newsroom is a nervous Trump walking the debate site and trying to figure out how the time clock works.

"Well, what happens if I'm 10 seconds long? Will I be cut off?" he asks.

The clock counts down to the limit of time he has to speak. It is green until the final several seconds, when it turns yellow, and then when it hits zero, the clock turns red. Trump was baffled by this and had questions.

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"Green means I'm on?" Trump asks.

An aide had to explain that green also meant that Harris could be speaking.

"It's not an indicator if the mic is on or off," the person says.

"When the mics are off, the mics are off," Trump says.

"Yes," someone off-screen is heard saying.

"Oh, okay. Good," Trump replies.

"The way I've normally done it is I will see that I'm on and she's off," Trump continues. "But we're going to go a little less formal, right?"

He then asks if the moderators "will be directing me" or if he'll merely respond to her. Stage managers try to explain how moderators will ask questions, and he will answer them.

In the second video, Trump is seen after the debate where his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), reveals that he thinks Trump lost.

"The story they're going to try to spin is that you got all the momentum right now, and she stopped the momentum," Vance tells Trump to his face. "That's bulls--t."

"I think I killed her," Trump says behind the curtain before entering the spin room.

"I don't think that anyone gives a s--t," says Vance. "I think you killed her."

"I'm getting calls from congressmen saying this is the best debate I've ever seen," Trump claims only a few moments after leaving the debate stage.

Trump then runs into Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) who reassures Trump the way the media will analyze it in the spin room will be different than the way "real voters" see the debate.

See the videos below or at the link here.

German police on Tuesday arrested eight suspected members of a right-wing extremist group that had trained for what they expected would be the collapse of state order, prosecutors said.

Hundreds of police in pre-dawn raids swooped on 20 locations linked to the militant group "Saxonian Separatists" in formerly communist eastern Germany and neighboring Poland, with locations also searched in Austria.

Federal prosecutors said the operation targeted "a militant group of 15 to 20 individuals whose ideology is characterized by racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas".

The prosecutors said the group's members, mostly young men, strongly rejected Germany's liberal democratic order and believed the government was nearing "collapse" on an unspecified "Day X".

In anticipation of that day, the militants had planned to take control of parts of their state of Saxony and potentially other east German regions.

Their plan was "to establish governmental and societal structures inspired by National Socialism" that would have sought to target "unwanted groups of people by means of ethnic cleansing".

They had conducted paramilitary training in combat gear, with a focus on "urban warfare and firearms handling" as well as marching and patrolling.

Authorities partially named the suspects, all German nationals, as alleged ringleader Joern S. and members Kurt H., Karl K., Kevin M., Hans-Georg P., Kevin R., Joerg S. and Norman T.

They were arrested in and near the cities of Leipzig and Dresden, with Joerg S., 23, detained in Poland.

Prosecutors said raids on Tuesday also targeted the premises of individuals not considered suspects in Austria, including the capital Vienna.

- 'Longing for Day X' -

News weekly Der Spiegel wrote that one of the suspects, Kurt H., is a member of the youth wing of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), and that he suffered a gunshot wound during the arrest.

Spiegel, citing unnamed security sources, said that he had reached for a rifle and police commandos fired two "warning shots".

Kurt H. collapsed with a shot wound to the jaw which was not life-threatening, and it remained unclear whether the bullet was discharged by a police gun or his own rifle, the report said.

The anti-immigration AfD is especially popular in the east of Germany and made strong gains in regional elections in the states of Thuringia and Brandenburg in September.

Prosecutors said the group "Saxonian Separatists", with the initials SS, was founded about four years ago and that its members had since then made "continuous preparations for the perceived inevitable and violent change of government".

The group had procured camouflage fatigues, combat helmets, gas masks and bullet-proof vests, prosecutors said in a statement.

More than 450 law enforcement personnel joined the operation, including state and federal police officers and commandos, in cooperation with the domestic intelligence service.

The men arrested were due to face the Federal Court of Justice in the western city of Karlsruhe on Tuesday and Wednesday with judges set to decide whether to keep them in pre-trial detention.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser thanked the security services, whom she said had "thwarted at an early stage militant plans for a coup by right-wing terrorists who were longing for a Day X to attack people and the state with armed force".

Germany has dismantled several far-right cells in recent years, including a bizarre plot led by an aristocrat who has been on trial for planning a coup.

Their plan to overthrow Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government allegedly drew inspiration from the global QAnon movement and the German Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) extremist movement that rejects the legitimacy of the modern German republic.

According to the latest report from Germany's intelligence services, the country's number of right-wing extremists considered potentially violent rose to 14,500 last year.

© Agence France-Presse

A poll showing Kamala Harris three points ahead in Iowa shocked many observers and reportedly "rattled" Donald Trump, but a veteran political reporter said that survey was no outlier.

Respected pollster J. Ann Selzer found that support for Trump, who won Iowa in each of his previous elections, had shifted seven points since September, when he led by four points, and and dropped a whopping 21 points since June, when he led president Joe Biden by 18 points.

What's more, Politico's Jonathan Martin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that another survey showed similar results.

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"I think Trump has been stung in the closing weeks of the campaign less about anything he did as president, with the exception of the three judges he put on the court that overturned Roe, but his conduct now," Martin said. "It's hard to imagine what Trump would do differently if he was trying to lose the race in the final two weeks here. He has said and done so many inflammatory things that are uniquely alienating for the voters he needs, namely women in the political center. He is alienating them every day."

"Final point on the Iowa question," Martin added. "I've heard of other private polling in Iowa that shows a number that's not terribly far away from what Selzer had, in part because the abortion ban has just gone in effect in that state, and I think that is animating women had Iowa. The question is, will that extend to Wisconsin and Michigan, states not far away. Those Iowa numbers I think are not that far off from where the race is going to land."

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTube youtu.be