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Trump blasts Harris over Hitler comparison, rips his former chief of staff: ‘LOWLIFE’

Former President Donald Trump hit back at remarks made by Vice President Harris on Wednesday in which she compared the Republican presidential nominee to Adolf Hitler while referencing comments made by a former Marine general who served under the Trump administration.

During a press conference Wednesday at the official vice presidential residence in Washington, Harris amplified the claim of former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who said Trump wanted ‘Hitler’s generals.’ 

Harris said her GOP opponent is ‘unhinged’ and seeks ‘unchecked power.’

‘It is clear from John Kelly’s words that Donald Trump is someone who, I quote, ‘certainly falls into the general definition of fascists,’ who in fact vowed to be a dictator on day one and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas,’ Harris said.

Harris also took to social media on Wednesday to further push her rhetoric, comparing Trump to Hitler.

‘Donald Trump is out for unchecked power. He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution,’ Harris tweeted Wednesday. ‘He is unhinged, unstable, and given a second term, there would be no one to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses.’

Trump responded to Harris’ remarks while also attacking Kelly’s reputation.

‘Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred! This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb,’ Trump wrote. ‘The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness because he became JELLO with time! The story about the Soldiers was A LIE, as are numerous other stories he told.

‘Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH,’ he added. ‘John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON! His wife once told me, at Camp David, John admires you tremendously, and when he leaves the Military, he will only speak well of you. I said, Thank you!’

Trump’s campaign provided a statement to Fox News Digital on the matter.

‘Kamala Harris is a stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles. That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproved,’ Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said. ‘The fact is that Kamala’s dangerous rhetoric is directly to blame for the multiple assassination attempts against President Trump, and she continues to stoke the flames of violence all in the name of politics. She is despicable, and her grotesque behavior proves she is wholly unfit for office.’ 

Billionaire Elon Musk commented about Harris’ post on X, saying, ‘Major incitement to violence against @realDonaldTrump.’

Kelly, a retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, told the New York Times and The Atlantic that the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist, and while in office, Trump suggested Hitler ‘did some good things.’

Earlier in the day, Trump called Kelly a ‘total degenerate’ who has ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’

Trump also took digs at Harris earlier in the day.

‘Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh,’ he wrote. ‘Christians around the World will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States. When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan.’

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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Harris doubles down on ‘fascist’ comments at start of CNN town hall: ‘unstable’

Vice President Kamala Harris doubled down in her comparison of former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, saying at a CNN town hall that she believes Trump is a ‘fascist.’ 

‘Yes, I do, yes, I do,’ Harris told moderator Anderson Cooper when asked if she believes Trump is a ‘fascist.’ 

Later in the discussion, Harris said Trump would ask US military leaders to be more like Hitler’s. She also accused the former President of admiring dictators like Kim Jong-Un.

Harris joined CNN for a town hall event Wednesday evening, speaking to Pennsylvania voters outside of Philadelphia. The town hall event kicked off at 9 pm on Wednesday from Chester Township, which is located less than 20 miles outside of Philadelphia.

Cooper asked Harris about her social media post earlier Wednesday that compared Trump to Adolf Hitler at the start of the debate. Harris doubled down that she believes Trump is ‘unstable,’ but did not directly compare him to Hitler. 

‘I do believe that Donald Trump is unstable, increasingly unstable and unfit to serve. And I don’t necessarily think that everyone has heard what you and I have heard repeatedly, which is the people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office, all Republicans, by the way, who served in his administration, his former chief of staff, his national security adviser, former secretary of defense and his vice president have all called him unfit and dangerous,’ Harris said. 

Harris said on X earlier Wednesday that ‘Trump is out for unchecked power’ and similar to the Nazi Germany dictator.  

‘He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution,’ Harris posted. ‘He is unhinged, unstable, and given a second term, there would be no one to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses.’

Harris went on during the town hall to cite former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who claimed to the media on Tuesday that Trump wanted ‘Hitler’s generals.’

‘And then today we learned that John Kelly, a four-star Marine general who is his longest serving chief of staff, gave an interview recently, in the last two weeks of this election, talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is. And I think one has to think about why would someone who served with him, who is not political, a four-star Marine general, why is he telling the American people now? And frankly, I think of it as is: He’s just putting out a 911 call to the American people, understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House,’ she said. 

Harris’ and Kelly’s comments come after Trump has faced two close assassination attempts amid heated rhetoric this election cycle. 

Trump hit back on his social media site Truth Social following Harris and Kelly’s remarks that Kelly ‘made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred.’

‘Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred! This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time!’ he posted. 

‘The story about the Soldiers was A LIE, as are numerous other stories he told. Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH. John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON! His wife once told me, at Camp David, John admires you tremendously, and when he leaves the Military, he will only speak well of you. I said, Thank you!’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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Harris-Trump showdown: New national poll shows who has the edge 2 weeks from Election Day

A new national poll is the latest to indicate former President Trump with an edge over Vice President Harris in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House.

Trump grabs 47% support among likely voters nationwide, with Harris at 45%, according to a Wall Street Journal survey released on Wednesday evening – on a ballot that also includes third-party and independent candidates.

That’s a switch from the Journal’s previous national survey – conducted in late August – which indicated Harris with a two point edge.

The former president’s advantage is within the new survey’s margin-of-error, which means that either Trump or the vice president could potentially be leading the race. 

The Wall Street Journal poll – of 1,500 registered voters questioned Oct. 19-22 – also shows Trump holding a three-point margin (49%-46%) over Harris in a head-to-head match up.

The survey indicates views of Harris have turned more negative since August, with her favorable rating eight points underwater and her approval rating as vice president at 42%-54%. Meanwhile, views of Trump have improved, with voters approving of his past performance in the White House by a 52%-48% margin.

The new poll follows a Fox News national survey conducted Oct. 11-14 and released last week that indicated the Republican presidential nominee with a two-point edge over the Democratic Party standard-bearer.

Many other national surveys in the field the past two weeks, including polls from CBS News, Marist, and USA Today/Suffolk University, have indicated Harris with a slight advantage over Trump. But the polls are mostly within the margin of error.

Harris replaced a faltering President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket on July 21, and instantly experienced a surge in fundraising and a rise in her poll numbers.

Harris enjoyed the edge over Trump in most national polling amid the Democratic National Convention in late August and the first and only debate between the vice president and the former president, in early September.

But many national surveys conducted in late September and October have pointed to Trump making gains at the expense of Harris.

The latest Fox News poll results [Trump with 50% support and Harris at 48%] were a reversal from last month, when the vice president had the edge.

‘Overall, the movement toward Trump is subtle but potentially consequential, especially if he is making gains among college-educated voters,’ said veteran Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, who conducts Fox News surveys with Republican Daron Shaw. ‘However, the race has been well within the margin of error for three months and the outcome will likely hinge on which side is more effective at getting their voters to the polls as opposed to persuasion.’ 

While national polls are helpful, the race for the White House is not based on the national popular vote, and instead is a battle for the states and their electoral votes.

And the latest surveys in the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 election are mostly within the margin-of-error.

The Fox News poll indicated Harris with a six-point advantage over Trump among respondents questioned in all seven battleground states.

While polls point to a race within the margins, in the dash for campaign cash – another key metric in presidential politics – Harris is the clear front-runner.

The vice president entered the final full month of the campaign with a massive financial advantage over the former president, according to the latest federal fundraising filings.

The Harris campaign hauled in $221.8 million in September, according to the filings, more than triple the $63 million brought in by the Trump campaign last month.

Harris has vastly outraised and outspent Trump the past few months, and that trend continued in September. The largest expense by the Harris campaign was for paid media – mostly to run ads.

But the vice president still enjoyed a large cash-on-hand advantage over Trump entering October.  

The Harris campaign reported $187 million in its coffers at the end of September, compared to $119 million for the Trump campaign.

The fundraising totals reported by the two major party campaigns don’t include additional money raked in by the two national party committees, other affiliated organizations – both campaigns use a slew of affiliated fundraising committees to haul in cash – or aligned super-PACs supporting Harris and Trump.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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GREG GUTFELD: Kamala Harris may be the least honest politician ever

So, back in 2007, in written testimony to Congress, DA Kamala Harris showed herself capable of some truly inspired argumentation. There was only one problem — that inspiring language wasn’t hers. See, when she wasn’t just lifting a wine glass, she was lifting all those sentences. According to the Washington Free Beacon, Kamala’s statement in support of a loan repayment plan for local prosecutors was taken almost verbatim from an Illinois DA’s opinion on the same subject that was given to the Senate months prior. 

Roughly 80% of her testimony was copied word for word from that old guy over there — Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois, who, by the way, is a Republican. Holy s***. That’s like me stealing jokes from Jimmy Kimmel. I’d never do that, not because he’s my competition, but because he has cancer of the funny bone. But that’s not the only time she committed stolen verbiage. While she was California AG, she published a report on sex trafficking in her state. In that, she copied a fictional, fictional example of the type of call received by the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which told the story of how a woman in D.C. was saved from forced prostitution. 

But in a report, Harris never said the story was fake. Instead, she changed the location to San Fran to get credit for a rescue that never actually happened. There are other examples, but this is at least the second time Harris has been caught in a blatant act of plagiarism. She’s the literary version of a smash and grabber. Remember Kamala, anything under 900 words and you won’t get charged.

The language is exactly the same line after line. Harris even kept the typos and grammar errors. She didn’t even try to make her theft look like her own. I mean, maybe it’s because she loves rap, and she considers it more like sampling. But it’s weird, you know, that none of this is surprising, perhaps because her only concrete policy proposal, no taxes on tips, she stole from another Republican, her opponent. So, in light of the fact that nothing Kamala says gives you any idea of what she believes, is it any surprise that less than two weeks out from Election Day, even Rachel Levine is asking, who the hell is this woman? 

Now, all of this comes on the heels of a report that Kamala lifted entire sections of her policy book, Smart on Crime. Who knew she was actually talking about herself stealing? Even The New York Times, which initially rush to defend her, finally had to admit her thievery. But the real point isn’t Kamala’s serial plagiarism, it’s how in the past this would end a campaign. It would lead every newscast. This would be the October surprise. I mean, this is way worse than what sunk Joe Biden in ’87 when he was caught stealing speeches from a British leader. And worse, it was this guy he stole it from.

PICTURE OF MR BEAN

But also, Harris has no core principles or any non-core principles. Her head is as empty as her husband’s balls after nanny season. There is a nanny season… she grew up in a middle-class family that was pretty well-off. She’s an American that spent her formative years in Canada. And she’s going to save democracy after she plotted a coup against her boss. I don’t even know what Doug sees in her since she won’t put him down for a nap. In fact, she might be the least honest politician ever. Listen to her on the Biden decline cover-up.

NBC NEWS REPORTER: Can you say that you were honest with the American people about what you saw in those moments with President Biden as you were with him again and again repeatedly in that time?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Of course. Joe Biden is an extremely accomplished, experienced and and capable.

REPORTER: You never saw anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors with him?

KAMALA HARRIS: It was a bad debate.

REPORTER: Can the American people trust you in these moments, even when it’s maybe uncomfortable for Americans to have… To level with Americans in that way?

KAMALA HARRIS: I speak with not only sincerity, but with a real firsthand account of watching him do this work. I have no reluctance in saying that.

Our apologies, that should have come with bongos.

VIDEO OF KAMALA HARRIS SPEAKING WITH BONGOS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND

It always makes more sense. Incredible. But like the conveyor belt at the manure factory, the load of crap keeps coming. Listen to her on transgender laws.

REPORTER: Do you believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender affirming care in this country?

KAMALA HARRIS: I believe we should follow the law. I mean, I think you’re probably pointing to the fact that Donald Trump’s campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars… 

REPORTER: They’re trying to define you on this. I’m asking you to define yourself, though. Just broadly speaking, what is your value? Do you believe they should have that access?

KAMALA HARRIS: I believe that people, as the law states, even on this issue about federal law.

What horse****. The reporter even set up the question as a pro-trans layup and she still threw a brick, as if she actually has no impact on the law. And remember, there are other laws she doesn’t follow, like the 25th Amendment.

You know, you thought Biden was an empty vessel? He’s got nothing on this broad. Fact is, we really don’t know what this woman stands for. Maybe that’s the point.

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Trump campaign’s closing message to voters: ‘Harris broke it, Trump will fix it’

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign is giving its closing message to voters: Vice President Harris ‘broke it’ and former President Trump ‘will fix it,’ officials told Fox News Digital as they previewed their strategy for the final stretch. 

Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with Trump campaign officials about the former president’s strategy to rally supporters to the ballot box on Nov. 5, or before, by focusing heavily on the economy and the crisis at the southern border.

‘Kamala Harris for the last four years has wrecked the economy and the border,’ Trump campaign senior advisor Tim Murtaugh told Fox News Digital. ‘Donald Trump will fix both of them.’ 

Murtaugh said that ‘the beauty of this election cycle is that everybody who is going to vote has lived through the Trump years and the Harris years.’

‘They have experienced both administrations. When Trump was president, the economy was fantastic, inflation was nonexistent, the border was secure, and the world was at peace,’ Murtaugh said. ‘By contrast, under Harris’ leadership, the economy is in shambles, inflation is still sky-high, our border has been erased, and the world, at large, is on fire.’

Trump has relentlessly hammered home that message in stop after stop as he crisscrosses the country campaigning in the final weeks of the cycle, something his campaign believes has given him momentum over the vice president who they say has largely shifted her message to attacking the former president.

‘Trump is talking about solving problems for Americans while Kamala Harris is focused exclusively on attacking him,’ a campaign official told Fox News Digital.

Harris on Tuesday accused Trump of seeking ‘unchecked power’ and being ‘unhinged and unstable.’

But the Trump campaign said the former president is ‘asking people to vote for something, while she is asking for people to vote against something.’ 

‘He is selling optimism and positive messages to fix the problems she and President Biden created,’ a campaign official said. 

The latest Fox News Poll shows Trump ahead of Harris 50% to 48% nationally.

‘Donald Trump is leading all the battleground states, and the momentum and polling averages continue to move in his direction,’ Murtaugh said, citing national trends.

Campaign officials pointed to ads being run in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by vulnerable incumbent Democrats who have sought to distance themselves from Harris.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is running an ad in the Keystone State highlighting how he ‘bucked Biden’ and ‘sided with’ Trump while painting the Democrat senator as an ‘independent.’ The ad features a Republican woman and her Democrat husband and does not once mention Harris. 

Similar ads featuring Trump are running in Wisconsin for Sen. Tammy Baldwin and in Michigan for Sen. Elissa Slotkin.

‘Democrat Senate candidates are spending Democrat donor money promoting Donald Trump in the Blue Wall battleground states,’ an official said.

And the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll also showed Trump leading by a margin with a key group: Latino voters. Trump is leading Harris by 11 percentage points in that critical voting bloc. 

‘But the polls are only theoretical election results and polls don’t win races. Actual votes win elections, and that’s why we’re continuing to accelerate,’ Murtaugh added. ‘And we’ll run through the tape on Election Day.’ 

The Trump campaign said it is confident they have the ‘momentum.’

‘President Trump will be relentless and tireless,’ an official told Fox News Digital. ‘He’ll be barnstorming the country — rinse and repeat — over and over and over again until Election Day.’ 

Trump held events in battleground Georgia on Tuesday, holding a massive rally with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, country music singer Jason Aldean and former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines.

Trump this week made a campaign stop at a McDonald’s location in Pennsylvania to mock Harris for claiming that she once worked at the fast-food chain.

‘The McDonald’s trip was an encapsulation of his positive message,’ an official said. ‘He is a cheerful, optimistic guy who knows he can fix it. And what was the Harris campaign’s reaction? They mocked it.’ 

The Harris campaign blasted that campaign stop as a ‘staged photo-op,’ saying Trump ‘doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living’ and that the vice president ‘has a record of standing up for workers and taking on bad actors who rip people off, and she’ll do the same as President.’

The next scheduled stops for Trump include major campaign rallies in Tempe, Arizona; Las Vegas; Traverse City, Michigan; Novi, Michigan; State College, Pennsylvania; and then a massive rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Campaign officials said the former president will continue to engage with the press and sit for major media interviews. On Friday, Trump will be interviewed for the Joe Rogan podcast. Rogan has 17 million subscribers on YouTube and 14 million on Spotify. 

And his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will also continue engaging with the media and has already held major campaign events this week in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. In the coming days, Vance will be in Waterford, Michigan, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

But Trump campaign surrogates are also hosting major events, including Donald Trump Jr. campaigning in battleground states; a Trump campaign bus tour; and Women for Trump visiting areas damaged by recent hurricanes.

Even Dr. Phil and RFK Jr. are joining forces to host a ‘Make America Healthy Again’ event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

And Trump campaign officials expressed the importance of early voting and are encouraging their supporters to ‘vote by any way they possibly can.’ 

‘Whether they vote by mail, vote early in person, vote on Election Day, we want them to make a plan to vote,’ an official said. ‘We need people to show up. And we are getting to the point where persuasion is almost over, and now we are getting to turnout.’ 

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Harris, though, is expected to deliver what’s being described as a major ‘closing argument’ address next Tuesday – one week until Election Day – on the Ellipse, which is just south of the White House and north of the National Mall. The Harris campaign spotlighted that then-President Trump headlined a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse on Jan 6, 2021.

Her campaign this week also announced a new concert series featuring Bruce Springsteen and former President Obama, while the Democratic National Committee launched a new Taylor Swift-themed, get-out-the-vote campaign for young voters. 

As for President Biden, he’s largely stayed off the campaign trail as Harris alternates between promising to continue the policies and vision of the Biden-Harris administration while also promising to bring ‘a new way forward.’ 

But on Tuesday, Biden weighed in. 

‘We got to lock him up,’ Biden said of Trump. However, the president quickly added, ‘Politically lock him up, lock him out. That’s what we have to do.’ 

A Trump campaign official reacted, telling Fox News Digital that ‘for four years, it has been clear to the American people that the Biden-Harris administration has been using the weight of the federal government to go after Donald Trump and his supporters.’ 

The official added, ‘Two weeks before the election, Joe Biden finally confirmed it.’

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House GOP celebrates ‘big win’ after preventing creation of new global advertising coalition

The House Judiciary Committee celebrated a ‘big win’ this week after a Japanese company said it would not pursue a plan that would reorganize or create a new version of an advertising association that allegedly engaged in censorship and boycotts of conservative media companies. 

‘Following the Committee’s inquiry into Dentsu potentially creating the new ‘GARM,’ Dentsu expresses to the committee that it WILL NOT pursue the ‘Dentsu Coalition’ initiative,’ the committee said. ‘They will not pursue any other effort with similar aims.’ 

The committee touted it as a ‘BIG WIN!’ in a post on X.

The committee first began investigating the World Federation of Advertisers and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative. Dentsu was a founding member. 

The committee found ‘collusive activity’ of GARM, and it was ultimately disbanded. 

When operational, GARM was an association of advertisers, advertising agencies, online platforms and advertising tech companies that publicly said they were creating standards for media advertising. But privately, the House Judiciary Committee revealed, GARM was discussing ways to ensure conservative news outlets and platforms could not receive advertising dollars and were engaged in boycotts of conservative voices and Twitter once it became ‘X’ under the ownership of Elon Musk. 

Musk and video-sharing platform Rumble ultimately sued GARM for illegally boycotting companies, including X. Shortly after, it was disbanded. 

The House Judiciary Committee this month sent a letter to Japanese company Dentsu as part of its oversight of the adequacy and enforcement of U.S. antitrust laws. 

The committee then learned Dentsu was beginning the process of starting a new coalition — the Dentsu Coalition — of the world’s largest marketers with ‘striking similarities to GARM.’ The Dentsu Coalition was expected to be ‘aimed at fostering substantial and sustainable investments in credible news.’

Dentsu, though, replied this week, vowing to stop its reorganization.

‘Dentsu appreciates the opportunity to allay any concerns that the recently announced research project with The 614 Group gives rise to any anticompetitive issues, constitutes any kind of effort to revive the now-disbanded Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), or was intended to do anything other than promote all forms of journalism,’ general counsel of Dentsu, Susan Zoch, wrote to committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. 

‘Recognizing the confusion that has surfaced surrounding the initiative, Dentsu has elected not to pursue the initiative referred to as the ‘Dentsu Coalition’ and further not to pursue any effort with similar aims,’ Zoch said. 

Zoch said the ‘goal’ of researching the new project was to ‘provide insights for advertisers and the full spectrum of the news industry on how best to optimize their ad spend in news and the potential for increased ad spend in news.’ 

‘From Dentsu’s perspective, the success of the initiative depended on the support (financially or otherwise) of all stakeholders in news — advertisers and all facets of the publishing industry,’ Zoch wrote. 

‘To be clear, Dentsu did not intend or understand that the initiative would replace or succeed GARM,’ she continued, saying public reporting on its initiative was ‘mischaracterized.’

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Amazon to shut down speedy brick-and-mortar delivery service

Amazon is shutting down a service that offers same-day delivery from mall and brick-and-mortar retailers, CNBC has learned.

The company has stopped any new development of the service, called Amazon Today, and will begin to wind it down, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The people asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The bulk of the program will be shut down by Dec. 2, the people said. Select retail partners will be able to continue fulfilling orders with Amazon Today through Jan. 24, 2025, Amazon told CNBC.

A small amount of employees will be laid off and provided with severance, while others will be transitioned to other positions within Amazon, the company said.

Employees who work on Amazon Today learned the news in a meeting on Monday, where some staffers were informed they would be laid off, the people said. Roughly 300 employees were working on Amazon Today, the people said.

The closure of Amazon Today is the latest example of the company’s broader cost-cutting efforts.

Since 2022, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been on a campaign to cut costs across the company in order to meet rapidly changing macro conditions. Beginning in 2022 and extending through 2024, Amazon initiated the largest layoffs in its history, cutting more than 27,000 jobs. Jassy has taken a harder line on the company’s unproven, costlier bets than his predecessor, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Jassy has axed several projects, including a telehealth service, video-calling device for kids and a roving Treasure Truck.

Launched in 2022, Amazon Today allows retailers who sell on Amazon to offer speedy delivery from their brick-and-mortar stores and shopping malls in select cities. Amazon’s contracted Flex drivers, which make deliveries using their own vehicles, fetch the packages and drop them at customers’ doorsteps within hours of when the orders were placed.

Amazon Today was part of the company’s push to get online purchases to shoppers’ doorsteps at faster speeds. Amazon continues to add more facilities focused on same-day deliveries in a bid to boost sales and compete with other companies that provide ultrafast delivery. That includes Instacart and DoorDash, which have expanded beyond food and groceries and into retail.

The company had signed up several retailers to Amazon Today, according to the program’s website. That list included Office Depot; Staples; Petco; PacSun; vitamin and dietary supplement chain GNC; and Fabletics, the athletic-wear brand owned by actress Kate Hudson.

Amazon is working with the retailers it signed up for the service to ensure a smooth transition for them, the company said. Amazon added that it continues to prioritize and invest in fast delivery.

The decision to shutter Amazon Today comes as a surprise since Amazon was in the process of onboarding other retailers, one of the people said. The company was also pitching the service to more retailers at a conference last week.

The service skewed more costly than traditional delivery routes where Flex drivers can fill their cars up with packages from an Amazon warehouse, one of the people said. Amazon Today routes, which the company calls “retail deliveries,” did not usually fill up a driver’s trunk, making the program less worthwhile for the Flex contractors.

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New Boeing CEO to give clues about company’s future, while striking workers vote on new contract

Boeing has already braced investors for a rough quarterly report. Now, new CEO Kelly Ortberg has the chance to share his vision for the troubled manufacturer, from a potential strike-ending labor agreement to a slimmed-down future.

When he takes the mic for his first earnings call as Boeing’s CEO on Wednesday, more than 32,000 striking machinists will start voting on a new, sweetened contract proposal. Results of the labor vote are expected Wednesday night.

Analysts are cautiously optimistic that the new proposal, which requires a simple majority of the vote, could pass, putting an end to the more than five-week work stoppage that has halted most of the company’s production of airplanes and added to its cash burn of about $8 billion in the first half of the year. Boeing last posted an annual profit in 2018.

“I think it’s going to be a tight vote,” Jon Holden, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751, told CNBC on Tuesday.

During Boeing’s earnings call, investors, analysts and the public could get clues from Ortberg about what Boeing will look like in the coming years as well as clearer estimates on the company’s production targets for the next year.

Executives at key Boeing suppliers GE Aerospace and RTX told investors on Tuesday that they are looking toward the work stoppage ending with a new agreement.

RTX CFO Neil Mitchill said on an earnings call that in the company’s Collins unit, commercial aircraft component sales to manufacturers will be flat this year, down from mid-single-digit growth it previously forecast.

“This outlook assumes that we’re able to restart some level of shipments to Boeing in the fourth quarter, and we see no change to the long-term structural demand” for products to plane makers, he said.

Ortberg, a longtime aerospace veteran who previously ran Rockwell Collins, took the reins at Boeing in early August. His tall order was to right the ship.

Boeing’s new CEO, Robert ‘Kelly’ Ortberg.Boeing via AFP – Getty Images

The year began with a terrifying midair door plug blowout on one of Boeing’s new 737 Max planes after it left the factory without key bolts reinstalled. The near-catastrophe occurred just as the company’s leaders were hoping to have regained the trust of regulators years after two deadly crashes killed 346 people, the first of them six years ago this month.

Instead, Boeing’s rebuilding year is getting pushed to 2025, and Ortberg has hinted at big changes ahead, promising employees and the public greater focus at the 108-year-old company. Earlier this month, he said Boeing will slash 10% of its global workforce, about 170,000 people.

“We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face and realistic about the time it will take to achieve key milestones on the path to recovery,” he told employees in an Oct. 11 message. “We also need to focus our resources on performing and innovating in the areas that are core to who we are, rather than spreading ourselves across too many efforts that can often result in underperformance and underinvestment.”

When Ortberg speaks at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, investors will be on the lookout for clues about what a smaller Boeing could look like, and which programs or assets could be on the chopping block.

“We believe [Boeing] is poised for further restructuring as the company looks to potentially divest parts of the portfolio and continues to focus on strengthening its supply chain,” said RBC analyst Ken Herbert in a note Sunday.

Boeing said earlier this month that it will post a nearly $10-per-share loss for the third quarter and report charges of about $5 billion in its defense and commercial businesses, where problems have spanned from manufacturing defects on passenger planes to problems with a refueling tanker and the delay of two 747s that will serve as new Air Force One jets.

As it bleeds cash, Boeing last week revealed plans to raise as much as $25 billion in debt or equity or a combination of both.

Ratings agencies warned in recent weeks that Boeing could lose its investment-grade rating and the company is planning to increase liquidity.

The results of the union vote will come out hours after the earnings call. Meanwhile, the strike is costing Boeing $1 billion a month, according to S&P Global Ratings estimates.

Workers had complained that an earlier proposal wasn’t enough to combat the skyrocketing cost of living in the Seattle area over the past 16 years since the last contract was signed. In that time, high-paying jobs at technology companies flooded the area, driving up the cost of homes, the union said.

The union rejected a previously sweetened offer that Boeing called its “best and final.” The new proposal includes 35% raises, compared with the original tentative agreement’s 25%, as well as a $7,000 signing bonus, additional 401(k) contributions and other improvements.

Boeing also said it remains committed to building its next jetliner in the Puget Sound area, a major sticking point with workers who saw Boeing move 787 Dreamliner production to a nonunion factory in South Carolina.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su met with both parties earlier this month to work toward a deal.

Holden said the latest proposed wage increases are the highest the union has negotiated.

The union had originally sought wage increases of more than 40%. Many workers had also wanted a reinstatement of a pension.

“Sometimes, that’s how bargaining goes,” Holden said Tuesday. “You set your sights high, you set lofty goals to try to press further and further to expand what you can provide for your members. You never get everything you want, but we did very well and it was the responsible decision to put this in front of our membership.”

The aerospace industry, which is heavily reliant on Boeing’s success, is appealing directly to President Joe Biden to help put an end to the strike.

Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which makes fuselages for the 737, last week said it would temporarily furlough 700 workers but said it could resort to layoffs or more furloughs if the strike goes on. Meanwhile, Boeing has cut back orders for suppliers on several programs to save cash.

“Because the aerospace supply chain is vast and interconnected, the ramifications of this strike extend beyond a single company, affecting countless suppliers across the nation,” the Aerospace Industries Association wrote in a letter to Biden. “We urge you to continue engaging with all stakeholders involved to seek a prompt and equitable resolution as soon as possible before the effects become even more pronounced.”

— CNBC’s Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.

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Business

Warren Buffett — worried about impersonators — says he doesn’t endorse candidates or investments

Warren Buffett is worried about a rise in impersonators looking to capitalize on his name by purporting to be him recommending an investment product or political candidate on social media. So much so that Berkshire Hathaway made the rare move of adding a statement on the matter to the front page of its website.

The statement reads:

“In light of the increased usage of social media, there have been numerous fraudulent claims regarding Mr. Buffett’s endorsement of investment products as well as his endorsement and support of political candidates. Mr. Buffett does not currently and will not prospectively endorse investment products or endorse and support political candidates.”

The chairman and CEO of Berkshire elaborated to CNBC’s Becky Quick, saying: “I’m worried about people impersonating me and that’s why we put that on the Berkshire Web site. Nobody should believe anybody saying I’m telling them how to invest or how to vote.”

Buffett’s statement comes during a tense political season with a deadlocked presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump that’s divided big names on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley like Elon Musk, Bill Ackman and Mark Cuban. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Bill Gates is privately supporting Harris with a $50 million donation to a nonprofit backing her candidacy.

There’s also a broader concern about so-called deep fakes, using artificial intelligence to impersonate influential people for commercial gain or other uses with the image or videos looking closer and closer to reality because of advancements in the technology. For those familiar with the investment legend’s viewpoints, any endorsement by Buffett of an investing product or cryptocurrency would be met with skepticism since he famously shuns bitcoin and largely recommends that regular investors buy low-cost index funds.

But Buffett wants to make sure everyone knows he would never do something like that. His actions were triggered in part by a fake political endorsement on Meta’s Instagram that was brought to his attention.

“I don’t even know how to get on Instagram,” he told CNBC, adding he wanted to make sure people realize “anything they see with my image or my voice, it just ain’t me.”

— With reporting by Becky Quick and Lacy O’Toole.

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World News

India and China have struck a deal that could ease tension along its disputed border

India and China have reached an agreement on military disengagement along their disputed border, New Delhi said, a step toward reducing frictions between the nuclear-armed neighbors that comes as both countries’ leaders arrive in Russia for a summit.

India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday said the agreement on military patrolling in certain areas brought the situation back to where it was in 2020 prior to a deadly border clash that year, thus completing the “disengagement process” with China.

Beijing later confirmed on Tuesday that the two sides had “reached a solution” following “close communication on relevant issues of the China-India border through diplomatic and military channels.”

The announcement has been widely seen as setting the stage for potential talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who each headed Tuesday to Kazan in southwestern Russia for a summit of BRICS nations.

Both foreign ministries declined to comment on whether the two leaders would hold formal one-on-one talks in Kazan.

Neither side released full details of the agreement or details of how it would be carried out in the contentious, high-altitude region that has long been a source of friction between New Delhi and Beijing.

Both India and China maintain a significant military presence along their 2,100-mile (3,379-kilometer) de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has never been clearly defined and has remained a source of friction since a bloody war between the two countries in 1962.

The clash four years ago along the disputed border between Indian Ladakh and Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin brought the first known fatalities in more than four decades – with at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers killed.

In a rare face-to-face meeting at last year’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg, Xi and Modi agreed to “intensify efforts” to deescalate tensions at the contested border.Chinese and Indian negotiators held the 31st round of border talks in late August.

While an agreement on further disengagement on the border appears poised to be a significant step in what has been a sore point among other frictions in the China-India relationship, observers said more details were needed to understand the scope of the arrangement and what concessions may have been made.

‘A positive development’

The violence in 2020 was followed by a process of disengagement and border talks, but friction points have remained, including areas where both sides previously patrolled but have since become so-called buffer zones.

Within India, the situation had also raised questions over whether the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was using the buffer zones to further push back the areas within which Indian forces can patrol. India’s Ministry of Defense has previously denied the loss of any territory during the standoff.

Speaking about the new agreement at an event hosted by Indian broadcaster NDTV Monday, India’s Minister of External Affairs described how after the 2020 clash the two sides had “blocked” each other in certain areas.

“What has happened is, we have reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling … the understanding, to my knowledge, is that we will be able to do the patrolling which we were doing in 2020,” Jaishankar said.

“It is a positive development. I would say it is a product of a very patient and very persevering diplomacy,” he said, adding that the consequences of the agreement on the two nations’ relationship had yet to be seen.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday said Beijing “positively evaluates” the “solution” reached and would “work with India to implement the above solution,” without providing further details. Lin’s comments were made during a regularly scheduled media briefing.

It’s not clear why the two sides did not release a joint statement on the issue, and observers say the governments need to release more details of the arrangement before it can be fully evaluated.

Manoj Kewalramani, who heads Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution research center in the Indian city of Bangalore, said a restoration of patrolling rights would be a “significant starting point” for normalization.

However, even with that restoration, there are other steps that would need to be taken in a long process along the disputed border.

“There are many other issues of de-induction and de-mobilization of troops on both sides; infrastructure that has been built, etc. These issues will take time,” he said.

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