Harris and Trump take a detour from swing states to campaign in Texas

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Welcome to the "News Hour."

  With just 11 days to go, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump veered away from battleground territory and into the deep red state of Texas.

• Amna Nawaz:

  A lineup of presidents and pop stars joins Harris on the trail, but we begin tonight with Trump, who recently escalated his rhetoric even in this final stretch of the race.

  Laura Barron-Lopez begins our coverage.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Donald Trump's tour through the Lone Star State ended in Austin, the former president continuing his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

  Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We're like a dumping ground. What Kamala Harris has done on our border is cruel, it's vile, and it's absolutely heartless. We're like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people that they don't want.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  In nearby Houston…

  Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: Well, it's good to be in Texas.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Kamala Harris responded.

• Kamala Harris:

  He really belittles our country. This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit. And this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  After his remarks, Trump sat down with podcaster Joe Rogan. Their conversation will be uploaded to streaming services later tonight.

  It all comes on the heels of a resurfaced sexual assault allegation, one of more than a dozen made against Trump. This week, Stacey Williams, a former "Sports Illustrated" model, told her account on camera for the first time that Trump groped her in the early 1990s. Williams said it happened inside Trump Tower while Jeffrey Epstein looked on.

  She explained her decision to come forward on CNN last night.

• Stacey Williams, Trump Accuser:

  I felt a wave of shame and I just couldn't think about it, face it, talk about it for a very long time. I put it in a little box inside of me, turned the key, locked it.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  The Trump campaign denied the allegations, calling them fake.

  Meanwhile, Trump's V.P. pick, Senator J.D. Vance, campaigned several states away in North Carolina.

• Samuel L. Jackson, Actor:

  We are not going back. You're damn right.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Last night in Clarkston, Georgia, the stars were out for Kamala Harris.

  (Music)

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, warmed up the crowd before the vice president took the stage hand in hand with former President Barack Obama.

  Harris again drew contrasts between herself and Trump.

• Kamala Harris:

  Just imagine the Oval Office in three months. Picture it in your mind. It's either Donald Trump in there, stewing, stewing over his enemies list, or me working for you, checking off my to-do list.

  (Cheering)

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Outside the rally, Georgia voters agreed. Decency is on the ballot.

• Marcus Blanding, Georgia Resident:

  She stands for morals. I just can't see myself voting for someone who does not — is not a good representation of morality for my children.

• Jer-Lyn Benjamin, Georgia Resident:

  The only thing that he knows is to lash out and deflect and call her names, because he has no policy.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Harris' running mate, Governor Tim Walz, spent his day appealing to voters in a critical swing state, Pennsylvania.

  Harris and Walz are riding the momentum of the campaign's latest fund-raising haul. In the first half of October, Harris raked in $97 million, compared to Trump's $16 million. In that same period, Harris outspent Trump by some $67 million, a big gap in campaign funds, but, in the polls, the numbers couldn't be closer.

  The final national poll by The New York Times and Siena College has Harris and Trump in a dead heat for the popular vote, 48 percent to 48 percent. Tonight, Trump heads to battleground Michigan for a rally in Traverse City, and Harris stays in Houston, where she will highlight her policies on reproductive rights, and join forces with perhaps the most famous Texan of all time, Beyonce.

  For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And there is late word tonight that Chinese hackers targeted the cell phones of former President Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, as well as the Harris campaign, officials familiar tell the "PBS News Hour."

  But these sources say they do not believe the hack is exclusively election-related and is instead part of a broad Chinese campaign targeting America's telecommunications firms. It's not clear what data may have been taken.

  For its part, the Chinese Embassy called this disinformation and malicious speculation.

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