Donald Trump threatened in a Truth Social post over the weekend that he would jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” during this year’s election.

In an attempt to sow doubt about the integrity of November’s election, Trump wrote:

WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.

He indicated that lawyers, political operatives, donors, voters and election officials could all be targeted with prosecution.

Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.

Trump later posted the message to X.

Hugo Lowell

Donald Trump’s campaign is most concerned going into the debate against Kamala Harris with the former president’s mood, afraid that the mercurial Trump could engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the situation.

The campaign’s internal refrain is whether they get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump”, the people said, as they count down the days to perhaps the final presidential debate this cycle.

Tuesday night’s televised debate is widely seen as a crux moment in the rebooted 2024 campaign. Since Joe Biden dropped out of the race after a campaign-killing debate performance crystalized fears over his age and mental acuity, Harris has turned the race on its head.

But Harris’s upward trajectory appears to have crested and Trump’s advisers have been looking at the debate as their best chance to retake the momentum after weeks of being humped out of the news cycle. Their hope, the people said, is to get the Trump who was fast on his feet during the debate against Biden.

Read the full story here: Advisers worry whether ‘happy Trump’ or ‘angry Trump’ will show up to debate

Lauren Gambino

The leaders of two major left-leaning women’s organizations said the issue of reproductive rights would offer the “starkest possible contrast” between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump at Tuesday night’s debate.

On a Monday call with reporters, Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund and Jessica Mackler, president of Emily’s List, argued that Harris was the party’s most powerful messenger on abortion and has the track record as a prosecutor, senator and vice-president to press the case on the debate stage.

The issue is likely to be raised in the debate on ABC News. They said viewers should expect Harris to challenge Trump on the “false notion” that he would not move to further restrict abortion and other reproductive rights. Mackler said:

He continues to lie to voters and distract from his record.

Trump appointed the three supreme court justices who were decisive in overturning Roe v Wade. Trump’s campaign said he would not sign a federal abortion ban but had previously entertained the idea of a 15-week ban.

Abortion is Harris’s strongest issue, but there are signs Trump’s waffling on his position has muddied the waters.

A national poll of likely voters by The New York Times and Siena College found that nearly half of independent voters say they did not think the former president would sign into law a national abortion ban.

Trump was “the one who got us into this mess”, Mackler said, adding that Harris was the only candidate who will “get us out of it”.

Kamala Harris has warned that Donald Trump is “probably going to speak a lot of untruths” during their debate tomorrow night, and that her Republican opponent will likely revert to personal attacks, pointing to the “playbook” he used with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go,” Harris said in an interview with Rickey Smiley that aired this morning.

We should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth. And we should be prepared for the fact that he is probably going to speak a lot of untruths.

“I think he’s going to lie,” Harris added.

He has a playbook that he has used in the past, be it, you know, his attacks on President Obama or Hillary Clinton. So we should expect that some of that might come out.

Robert Tait

The report from the House foreign affairs committee released today castigating the Biden administration for the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal mentions Kamala Harris’s name 251 times.

By contrast, a 115-page interim report issued by the committee’s Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, on the committee’s investigation in 2022 name-checked Harris just twice.

Democrats seized on the contrast, accusing McCaul of inflating Harris’s part in the incident simply because she had replaced Biden as the party’s presidential nominee.

Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to exploit the withdrawal for election purposes while overlooking the fact that the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, took the original decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan when he was president. Gregory Meeks, the Democrats’ ranking member on the committee wrote in a 59-page rebuttal to McCaul’s report:

Republicans now claim [Harris] was the architect of the US withdrawal though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the Committee’s interview transcripts.

House clashes over Harris’s role in 2021 Afghanistan troop withdrawal

Robert Tait

Partisan divisions over the chaotic 2021 pullout of western forces from Afghanistan have burst into the open ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia after a Republican-led congressional report attempted to implicate Kamala Harris in the episode.

A 250-page report from the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee castigated the Biden administration for failing to anticipate the Taliban’s rapid takeover and neglecting to prepare for the orderly departure of non-combatant personnel.

The report, written by the committee’s Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, zeroes in on the supposed role played by the vice-president, although no evidence has emerged that she was directly involved in the decisions leading to one of the most damaging foreign policy chapters of Joe Biden’s presidency. The report states:

Vice President Kamala Harris was the last person in the room when President Biden made the decision to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan; a fact she boasted about shortly after President Biden issued his go-to-zero order.

The report’s front page carries a picture of Harris prominently displayed below that of Biden, and above an image of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, who played a more prominent role in the withdrawal.

Ten retired top US military officials have announced their endorsement of Kamala Harris in a letter warning that Donald Trump is “a danger to our national security and democracy”.

The statement by the bipartisan group National Security Leaders for America, first obtained by Axios, is signed by retired Adm Steve Abbot, who served as deputy homeland security adviser to George W Bush, Gen Lloyd W Newton and Gen Larry R Ellis, who has never previously endorsed a political candidate.

Harris is “the best – and only – presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief”, the letter says, adding that the Democratic vice-president “has demonstrated her ability to take on the most difficult national security challenges in the Situation Room and on the international stage”.

Trump, meanwhile, “does not understand selfless service and sacrifice, and he should never be allowed to again serve as commander-in-chief of the greatest fighting force in the world”, the group writes.

The release of the letter coincides with the release of a new Harris campaign ad featuring former Trump officials warning of the threat a second Trump presidency could pose to the country.

Donald Trump has confirmed he will vote in support of a ballot measure in Florida that would legalize recreational marijuana.

“I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Sunday night.

As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.

He added that as president, he would support the passage of similar laws in other states “that work so well for their citizens”.

Trump, as a resident Floridian, will be able to cast a vote on the state’s amendment 3 in November, which would allow adults over 21 to legally buy and use marijuana without a medical card.

Trump’s support contrasts with Florida’s governor and fellow Republican, Ron DeSantis, who has been a vocal opponent of the ballot measure.

Lauren Gambino

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.

In the bitterly contested race for the White House, abortion remains a glaring vulnerability for the Republican nominee. Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, said:

You know it’s an important issue because Trump is trying to change his position.

As a candidate, Trump has held conflicting positions on abortion, alternately boasting that he appointed three of the nine supreme court justices whose votes were decisive in overturning Roe, while complaining that Republican extremism on the issue has cost his party at the ballot box.

​He recently appeared to endorse a ballot measure to expand abortion rights in his adopted home state of Florida, only to announce one day later – after sparking backlash among prominent conservative groups – that he would vote against it. He has also previously hinted at support for a 15-week federal ban only to insist that the issue should be left to the states. His campaign has said Trump would not sign a national abortion ban as president.

Over the weekend, the Harris campaign also released thee new TV ads targeting Donald Trump on abortion ahead of Tuesday’s debate that includes comments from the Republican nominee claiming credit for helping overturn Roe v Wade.

The 30-second ad has includes a clip of Trump saying in 2016 that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who seek abortions. It then has a clip of him earlier this year saying: “For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated and I did it and I’m proud to have done it.”

Trump “wants to go further, with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women’s pregnancies”, the narrator says.

The ad will appear on broadcast and cable networks in seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin – and in Nebraska’s competitive second congressional district, according to the Harris campaign.

Another ad discusses the impact of the Alabama supreme court’s ruling that frozen embryos are “children” on a woman’s efforts to conceive.

Good morning US politics readers. The Harris campaign is set to air a new TV ad featuring former officials in Donald’s Trump administration warning about the threat he poses to the country, in what looks like an attempt to goad the former president ahead of tomorrow’s debate.

The minute-long spot, entitled “The Best People”, will run on Fox News as well as in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Philadelphia on Tuesday to coincide with the presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris. It will continue to play throughout the week, according to the Harris campaign.

The ad features Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, former defense secretary Mark Esper, former national security adviser John Bolton and retired Gen Mark Milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The ad reads:

Take it from the people who knew him best: Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can’t let him lead our country again.

The ad came after endorsements by some high-profile Republicans for Harris last week, including the former vice-president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney, a former representative of Wyoming, as well as Jim McCain, the son of the late senator and 2008 presidential nominee John McCain.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

• Kamala Harris is in Pittsburgh preparing for her debate tomorrow. She is expected to travel to Philadelphia in the late afternoon.

• Congress is back. The House rules committee is set to take up Speaker Mike Johnson’s six-month stopgap funding bill, which would extend government funding through 28 March.

• Joe Biden will be in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon for 9/11 events this week. He will welcome the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to the White House on Friday.