Trump takes stage in Arizona with RFK Jr as he endorses ex-president: Live updates

Donald Trump’s behavior in recent weeks has reportedly raised concerns in his camp that he could be suffering from PTSD, as he is said to be replaying the clip of the assassination attempt “over and over again.”

One close Republican ally recently told Vanity Fair that he “may actually legit have PTSD.”

The Independent’s Rhian Lubin spoke to some experts to find out.

In an election that’s seen competing claims from each campaign the other isn’t really drawing big crowds, today’s rally in Arizona will be hard to argue with.

The Trump campaign appeared to fill most of the arena in Glendale.

Trump’s Arizona rally had a lot of drama: a surprise guest, some major false claims, and an endorsement that could sway the direction of the 2024 election.

Members of the Kennedy family are disgusted that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is endorsing Donald Trump.

They weighed in today on social media to show their dismay.

Donald Trump is falsley claiming Kamala Harris lost more than 300,000 migrant children, most of whom ended up dead or sex slaves.

“She allowed them to be trafficked into our country,” Trump said. “Many of them are in sex slavery or dead, probably mostly dead.”

Trump is exaggerating here.

The former president is refering to a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, which found that between 2019 and 2023, ICE was “not able to account” for all the locations of 32,000 unaccompanied minors who had been settled in the U.S. after exiting immigration detention while they awaited next steps, and more than 291,000 of the kids were not placed into removal proceedings because ICE had never served them notices to appear or scheduled a court date for them.

What Trump declined to mention was that this period involved two of his own years in office.

Here’s our full report on what the IG report actually says.

Does Donald Trump…miss Joe Biden?

The former president has complained on multiple occasions today in Arizona about how he’s now facing Kamala Harris instead of the Democratic incumbent.

“I was up 18 points, they said, ‘Joe, you can’t win, you’re getting out of the race,’” Trump said.

The former president accused Democrats of carrying out an “unconstitutional coup” to elevate Harris.

“She’s the only person ever to get a nomination of the party without getting one vote,” Trump said. “Hey, maybe she’s smarter than we think. You know you could look at it that way.”

Donald Trump is again claiming he isn’t familiar with Project 2025, telling the crowd in Arizona he doesn’t know “what the hell” the far-right model agenda even is.

Here’s more of our reporting on Project 2025, which makes Trump’s claim on the subject very hard to believe.

Both Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have been impacted by political assassinations in their lifetimes, the former with a recent shooting attempt on the campaign trail, and the latter with the infamous assassinations of his father and uncle.

Onstage in Arizona, Trump said “in honor of Bobby” he would be releasing the remaining JFK assassination records as part of a commission investigating presidential assassinations.

What exactly unites RFK Jr. and Donald Trump?

The independent candidate, speaking to the crowd in Glendale, said it came down to health issues and foreign policy.

“Our children are the unhealthiest, sickest in the world. Don’t you want healthy children? Don’t you want the chemicals out of our food?” Kennedy asked the crowd.

“That’s what President Trump told me that he wanted,” he added, arguing Trump will tackle corporate influence over regulations on food.

“He also told me he wanted to end the grip of the neocons on U.S. foreign policy,” Kennedy continued. “He said he didn’t want any more $200bn wars in Ukraine that we could use that money back here in the United States.”