Trump says he'd fire special counsel; Harris to rally with Springsteen, Obama, and Beyoncé; latest Pa. polls

The Bucks County Board of Elections has asked state and federal law enforcement to investigate a fake video that circulated on social media Wednesday afternoon falsely suggesting county election workers were destroying ballots.

In a joint statement members of the board slammed the fake video as a dangerous spread of misinformation. The board said it reported the video to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, and the Pennsylvania Department of State.

In a statement a spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said they had investigated the video and concluded it was fake. The office, the spokesman said, was in touch with the FBI to determine the source of the video.

A pair of third-party Philadelphia City Council members are appearing in ads that aim to boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for president with the goal of mobilizing voters in the city who are less likely to vote.

The progressive Working Families Party is spending upwards of six figures on the digital ads, which feature Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke, according to the group. In the ads, the Council members tout Harris’ economic plans, such as her support of a $6,000 child tax credit, and criticize former President Donald Trump.

“People like Donald Trump, people like Elon Musk, those types, they don’t care about us,” O’Rourke says in one of the ads. “They don’t care about workers. They don’t care about families. They care about themselves.”

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock lives in Georgia, a critical battleground state, but he’s been on a swing through Pennsylvania over the last several days to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.

On Thursday, Warnock stopped by a Harris campaign office in Brewerytown and spoke to a few dozen campaign staff members and volunteers as they head into the final stretch of campaigning. He was joined by the actor Michael Ealy, who is best known for his roles in Barbershop and the Fast and Furious franchise.

Warnock, who was flanked by a trio of Black Philadelphia elected officials, acknowledged that there’s been a great deal of public discourse around Black men, whom some polls have showed have drifted toward former President Donald Trump.

Elon Musk will continue his Pennsylvania tour on Saturday with a stop in Lancaster County, his America PAC announced Thursday.

Musk's remarks begin at 7 p.m. at a location that America PAC has not yet announced.

Musk, the man behind Tesla, SpaceX, and X — and the world's richest individual — has zig-zagged the Keystone State this month, holding town hall events to shore up support for former president Donald Trump in the final weeks of the race.

In the final full week before Election Day, former President Donald Trump will be in Allentown on Tuesday for a rally.

Trump’s visit marks his second trip to Lehigh County this year. Once steel-country, the Lehigh Valley — home to Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton — is a notably politically divided area that has proved to be a crucial territory in presidential elections. Northampton County, one area in the Lehigh Valley, is one of two Pennsylvania counties that swung from former President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 and then to President Joe Biden in 2020.

Trump and his surrogates will continue to spend time in Pennsylvania and other battleground states as the election looms near. The former president is scheduled to hold a rally in State College on Saturday.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she doesn’t see evidence of a gender gap, as illustrated in polls, when she campaigns around the country.

“It's not what I see in terms of my rallies, in terms of the interactions I'm having with people in communities and on the ground,” Harris said at the Warwick Hotel, wrapping up a campaign visit here on Thursday. 

“What I am seeing is in equal measure, men and women talking about their concerns about the future of our democracy, talking about the fact that they want a president who leads with optimism and takes on the challenges that we face, whether it be grocery prices or investing in small businesses or home ownership.”

The Philadelphia Eagles will rally and march at Philadelphia City Hall with PA Youth Vote on Tuesday, Oct. 29, for National Vote Early Day, one week before the election.

Eagles players, cheerleaders, and Swoop the mascot will join PA Youth Vote organizers and about 600 high school student voters to highlight the importance of youth voting.

Applications for mail ballots must be in by 5 p.m. that day, and ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. Nov. 5, which is Election Day.

Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, will campaign in North Carolina on Thursday alongside musician James Taylor.

Taylor, a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates, will perform with his wife, Kim, and son, Henry, the Harris-Walz campaign announced.

The focus of the event, the campaign added, will be encouraging voters in the state to vote early, ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.

Former President Donald Trump's campaign is hosting a door-knocking event in Bucks County this weekend with U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

The event comes on the penultimate Saturday before Election Day in purple Bucks County, where both campaigns have been frequently visiting in an effort to court as many of voters as possible in the electorally crucial county.

Vice President Kamala Harris was in Washington Crossing for a rally on Oct. 16 to push her “country over party” message.

Music superstar Beyoncé will join Vice President Kamala Harris on stage at a rally in Houston on Friday, according to the Washington Post and the Associated Press.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harris has been using Beyoncé's song "Freedom" throughout her campaign, including ahead of her appearance at the Democratic National convention in Chicago in August.

Following Kamala Harris’ town hall in Delaware County Wednesday, some of the undecided voters told CNN’s John King they made up their mind to back the vice president against former President Donald Trump.

“If I had to pick right now, I would pick her,” said Lauren Holden, who said she voted for Trump in 2020.

King spoke with Holden and four other undecided voters from Pennsylvania who asked Harris a question during Wednesday’s event. Three of the five told the veteran CNN anchor and election analyst they had decided to back Harris. Every vote is important in Pennsylvania, where Harris and Trump are virtually tied in recent polls.

Former president Donald Trump said Thursday that he would “fire” special counsel Jack Smith on his first day back in the White House if he is elected again, making clear that he would push to drop a pair of federal cases against him.

In an interview Thursday morning with conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what he would do if he had to choose between firing Smith or pardoning himself at the start of a second term.

“Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. … I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said of Smith, who is leading the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the hoarding of classified documents.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remain locked in a close race to win Pennsylvania, according to polling modeling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

Trump's current polling average is 47.8%. This means based on an estimated average of recent polls, 47.8% of surveyed Pennsylvanians expressed support for him.

Harris is receiving 47.6% in FiveThirtyEight's estimates. That gives Trump a lead in the polls by 0.2%, though the margin is close enough that they are virtually tied.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she thinks former President Donald Trump is a fascist during a CNN town hall in Aston, Delaware County, Wednesday night.

That came following the New York Times’ publication of damning statements by John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, including that the former president meets the definition of a fascist.

Asked by moderator Anderson Cooper whether she thinks Trump is a fascist, Harris said, “Yes I do.”

FLINT, Mich. — Josh Shapiro knows it’s wild to talk about Benjamin Franklin as one of his predecessors, both men having served as governor of Pennsylvania.

“I know it sounds crazy to say, but it’s true,” Shapiro said to a small crowd of supporters in an event space tucked away at the indoor Flint Farmers’ Market last week.

That doesn’t stop the Democratic governor from hearkening back to the founding father in many of his stump speeches — now given around the country — reciting a famous conversation outside Independence Hall following the Constitutional Convention, in which a friend of George Washington’s asked Franklin whether America would be a monarchy or a republic.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Thursday will focus on the South, while former President Donald Trump’s campaign heads southwest.

Harris will appear Thursday at a Get Out the Vote rally in Atlanta, where she will be joined by former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, according to her campaign. 

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is slated to appear Thursday in North Carolina, where he will make campaign stops in Greenville and Wilmington.