Obama: Donald Trump 'is unfit to serve as president' – campaign live

Has the Washington Post blacklist been lifted? The paper’s Dana Milbank was actually allowed to attend a Donald Trump rally in Loudon County today:

Hillary Clinton has responded to Donald trump’s assertion that he’s “always wanted” to receive a Purple Heart, which is awarded to members of the American military who are killed or wounded in the line of duty:

Donald Trump, speaking in Loudon County, can’t decide whether or not he wants a crying baby in the same room as himself.

“Don’t worry about that baby - I love babies,” Trump said, to the mother of a baby that started crying during his stump speech. “I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around, like, don’t worry about it, you know? It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”

The audience laughed and clapped politely.

Later, when the baby continued crying, however, Trump was a little rougher.

“Actually, I was only kidding - you can get the baby out of here,” Trump said firmly. “That’s alright, don’t worry. I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s okay. People don’t understand. That’s okay.”

Here’s the video of Donald Trump declaring that he has “always wanted” to receive a Purple Heart:

Trump declared that the Purple Heart was authentic, but the veteran who gave it to him told NBC that it was a copy.

Donald Trump, apparently steamed that Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised nearly three times what his did in the month of July, tells the crowd in Ashburn that Clinton “raised like 50 or 60 million [dollars], and 20 people gave it. I’m gonna get a list of those twenty people - I wanna find out how many I know.”

That number appears to be pulled out of the clear blue sky. According to Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, 54% of the the Democratic nominee’s donations came from new donors, with an average donation for the month of $44, compared to what Trump tells the audience was a $61 average for his own campaign’s donations in July - although he said it was $69 at an event last night.

“I know the game better than anybody, and the game is played that way. They own her.”

“We have tremendous crowds of people outside - would anybody like to give up your seat?” Donald Trump asks the crowd, which boos in the negative. “We’re gonna have to start using, I think, the basketball arenas, don’t you think?”

Trump shows off a Purple Heart, a military decoration given to those injured in combat, given to him by a veteran before the speech.

“That’s, like, big stuff - I always wanted to get the Purple Heart,” Trump says. “This was much easier.”

The New York Times published a story this morning detailing the opaque nature of Trump’s statements about his numerous draft deferments during the Vietnam war - feel free to take a look.

On the heels of Donald Trump thanking Paul Ryan’s primary opponent for his “kind words”:

Speaking with Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, Donald Trump proposed spending “at least double” the $275 billion opponent Hillary Clinton has pledged to spend on American infrastructure, before suggesting that “we’ll get a fund” to pay for it.

“I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need more than that,” Trump said. “We have bridges that are falling down. I don’t know if you’ve seen the warning charts, but we have many, many bridges that are in dangers of falling, and-”

“Where does that money come from?” Varney interrupted. “If that’s the number you’re talking about, where do you get that money from?”

“We’re going to go out with a fund - we’ll get a fund,” Trump responded airily. “We’ll make a phenomenal deal with the low interest rates, and we’re going to have to rebuild our infrastructure. We have no choice.”

When twice asked who would put money into that fund, Trump suggested that “people, investors” would put money into the fund. “The citizens would put money into the fund. And we will rebuild our infrastructure with that fund and it will be a great investment and it’s going to put a lot of people to work.

Video: The mother of a US airman was booed at a campaign rally held by Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence last night when she asked about Donald Trump’s recent attacks on the Muslim American parents of a decorated soldier killed in Iraq.

Catherine Byrne asked Pence how he could tolerate Trump’s “disrespect” towards military families. Pence attempted quiet the crowd by saying: “It’s alright, that’s what freedom looks like and that’s what freedom sounds like.”

Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s campaign liveblog.

New York congressman Richard Hanna has become the first sitting Republican member of Congress to come out in support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, writing in an op-ed published in the Syracuse Post-Standard that unlike Donald Trump, “she stands and has stood for causes bigger than herself for a lifetime”.

“While I disagree with her on many issues, I will vote for Mrs. Clinton,” Hanna wrote. “I will be hopeful and resolute in my belief that being a good American who loves his country is far more important than parties or winning and losing.”

Hanna, who refused to endorse Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee and has previously declared that he could never vote for him, wrote in the editorial that although he had long since resigned himself to seeing Trump as anathema to “kindness, honesty, dignity, compassion and respect”, his most recent feud with the parents of an army captain killed in the line of duty have crystallized the view that “it is not enough to simply denounce his comments: He is unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country”.

“Where do we draw the line?” Hanna asked his fellow Republicans. “I thought it would have been when he alleged that U.S. Sen. John McCain was not a war hero because he was caught. Or the countless other insults he’s proudly lobbed from behind the Republican presidential podium.”

Hanna concluded by exhorting his compatriots in the Republican party to look beyond “attempts to run the table in two- and four-year cycles that produce few results”, and instead “live to win or lose another day with a real candidate”.

“Our response to the public’s anger and the need to rebuild requires complex solutions, experience, knowledge and balance,” Hanna said. “Not bumper sticker slogans that pander to our disappointment, fear and hate.”

But Trump’s five-days-and-counting feud with the Khan family may not be the political death knell that some have speculated it to be – Trump’s candidacy has, after all, survived racist comments about federal judges, personal attacks on McCain’s status as a war hero and a multi-day war of words with the pope – but barely more than a week since the Republican national convention concluded, Trump is adrift within his own party.

Having been denounced by House speaker Paul Ryan, McCain, esteemed members of the military and chided even by his running mate, Trump has refused to back down from controversial comments directed at the family of Cpt Humayun Khan. Instead, Trump appears to be attempting to divert attention from Khan’s family by labelling rival Hillary Clinton “the devil”, praising Ryan’s primary opponent and suggesting that women who are sexually harassed at work simply find new jobs.

In the meantime, there are 98 days to go until election day – the same number of millions raised by the Trump campaign up to June, including cash from Super Pacs. That’s $277m less than Hillary Clinton.

Where the candidates are today:

• Clinton, whose post-convention polling bounce has been as pronounced as Trump’s collapse, has no scheduled public events today, but running mate Tim Kaine is hosting an organizing event in Daytona Beach, Florida, at 1pm ET. We expect to hear plenty of Spanish from the famously fluent El Senador, as campaign materials released in advance described him.
  
• Trump will hold a rally at Briar Woods high school in Ashburn, Virginia, at 11am ET. The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui will both be in attendance.
• Indiana governor Mike Pence will be holding a town hall at Fox Tucson theater in Tucson, Arizona, at 2pm MT (4pm ET) and will later be holding a town hall at the Phoenix convention center at 7pm MT (9pm ET).

Caught up? Good – on with the show ...