Today in one sentence: The Supreme Court refused to require doctors in Texas to perform certain emergency abortions; the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to take calls from Biden or Harris as Hurricane Milton "explosively" intensified into a Category 5 storm headed for the Tampa Bay region; and Trump accused undocumented immigrants of having “bad genes,” suggesting that immigrants are predisposed to murder.

1/ The Supreme Court refused to require doctors in Texas to perform certain emergency abortions, rejecting a Biden administration appeal that federal law requires access to emergency abortion care even in states that restrict the procedure. The court’s decision leaves in place a lower court’s ruling that hospitals can’t be required to perform emergency abortions in violation of the state’s abortion ban. Texas Senate Bill 8, passed in September 2021, effectively banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy with few exceptions. The strict abortion law has led to nearly 10,000 more births than expected over a nine-month period and infant deaths in the state have increased by nearly 13%. (Washington Post / Associated Press / NBC News / Axios / Bloomberg)

  • JD Vance said that a second Trump administration would attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. “On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance said. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view.” (RealClearPolitics / The Hill)

2/ The Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban.The ruling came a week after a judge found that Georgia unconstitutionally prohibits abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy – before many women realize they’re pregnant – because “liberty in Georgia includes in its […] bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.” The State Supreme Court, however, left in place the lower court’s ruling that blocked a separate provision of the law that allowed state prosecutors to obtain the medical records of women who’ve had abortions. (New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News / Politico / CNN / Washington Post)

3/ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to take calls from Biden or Harris as Hurricane Milton “explosively” intensified into a Category 5 storm headed for the Tampa Bay region. Despite evacuation orders and warning residents to brace for a “ferocious” storm, DeSantis said Harris’ call “seemed political” so “we didn’t answer.” And, after Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 27, DeSantis told the federal government “we have it handled” in reference to storm cleanup. “It’s up to him if he wants to respond to us or not,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, noting that Biden and Harris were “reaching out to offer up assistance provided to your constituents, the people who live in your state, to make sure we are doing everything that we need to do from a federal response, and we’re reaching out, offering our support, that’s for the governor.” (NBC News / ABC News / CNN / Associated Press / New York Times / Politico / Axios)

  • Six days of Trump lies about the Hurricane Helene response. (CNN)

4/ Trump accused undocumented immigrants of having “bad genes,” suggesting that immigrants are predisposed to murder. In a radio interview, Trump distorted facts on immigration and crime to attack Kamala Harris and falsely claim she was “allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know now a murder, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” The White House condemned Trump’s statement for “echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists.” Last year, Trump repeatedly used language once used by Adolf Hitler to baselessly claim that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Meanwhile, the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally at the southern border fell 75% in September from a year ago – reaching the lowest point of Biden’s administration. U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 54,000 apprehensions of migrants who crossed into the country between legal entry points along the border with Mexico in September – the lowest level since fiscal 2020 when the Trump administration reported roughly 400,000 encounters and apprehensions when the Covid-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions led to a sharp decrease in migration to the U.S. southern border. (Politico / CNN / Associated Press / USA Today / CBS News)

  • 📅 The WTFJHT Calendar: Now until then.

  • 📺 Oct. 8: Trump town hall
    📺 Oct. 10: Harris town hall
    ⛔️ Oct. 14: Indigenous Peoples’ Day – No WTFJHT.
    📺 Oct. 23: [Proposed] Presidential debate.
    🗳️ Nov. 5: Election Day.
    ⚖️ Nov. 26: Trump is sentenced.
  • ✅ Get election ready: Register to vote, update your address, or request an absentee ballot at Vote.org, TurboVote.org, RocktheVote.org, or VoteFromAbroad.org.

  • 📈 Election Polling Tracker

  • Harris +3.0 points (New York Times)
    Harris +2.6 points (538)
    Harris +3.0 points (Nate Silver)
    Harris +3.4 points (The Economist)
    Harris +2.1 points (RealClearPolitics)
    Trump +1.6 points (Election Betting Odds)

  • 🔮 Election Forecast Tracker

  • Harris wins 55 times out of 100. Trump wins 45 times out of 100. (538)
    Harris wins 55 times out of 100. Trump wins 45 times out of 100. (Nate Silver)
    Harris wins 50 times out of 100. Trump wins 50 times out of 100. (The Economist)
Four years ago today: Day 1357: "I feel great."