President Donald Trump spoke with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other leaders in separate calls Monday, in an attempt to stop the “bloodbath” of the war in Ukraine.

But the president’s outreach was inconclusive, and there was little sign of a breakthrough. Russia and Ukraine would hold direct talks on a ceasefire “immediately,” Trump said afterward in a post on his social network Truth Social, but it was unclear what form those talks would take or when they would happen. The Vatican, Trump said, has expressed interest in hosting the negotiations.

“The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” he said.

Trump’s call with Putin lasted more than two hours and “was very informative and very open,” Putin told Russian state media.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Monday afternoon, Trump said he had asked Putin to meet with him, but did not say whether Putin had agreed.

Trump said little about his conversation with Zelenskyy, with whom he spoke first, other than to say that he had informed Zelenskyy and the leaders of other NATO countries of the negotiations. White House officials declined to offer any further details.

Trump spoke with Zelenskyy twice on Monday, according to Zelenskyy, once one-on-one, before Trump’s call with Putin, and again during a conference call with the Ukrainian and NATO leaders.

“I reaffirmed to President Trump that Ukraine is ready for a full and unconditional ceasefire,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions,” he wrote. “Pressure on Russia will push it toward real peace — this is obvious to everyone around the world.”

In a Monday interview with NBC News in Rome, where he was received by Pope Leo XIV, Vice President JD Vance said, “We talked about a couple of what I would call the president’s major peace initiatives with the pope. We talked a lot about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. We talked a lot about the Russia-Ukraine situation. It’s hard to predict the future, but I do think that, not just the pope, but the entire Vatican, has expressed a desire to be, you know, really helpful, and to work together on facilitating, hopefully, a peace deal coming together. Can’t predict the future, but that was very meaningful, and I think will hopefully bear fruit for the country.”

Meanwhile, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said before the call that Russia “highly values” and is “grateful to the American side.” In a briefing with journalists, he said that if the U.S. can “help to achieve our goals through peaceful means, then this is indeed preferable.”

Peskov was also asked about the chance of Trump and Putin meeting in person, a possibility the American president floated on Friday.

“It will largely depend on what they themselves decide,” Peskov said. The meeting “needs to be worked out” by the two leaders in terms of dates and other details, he added.

Ahead of the much anticipated Trump-Putin call, leaders from Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they spoke Sunday with Trump. The British government said in a statement that it was urging “Putin to take peace talks seriously.”

Those leaders “also discussed the use of sanctions if Russia failed to engage seriously in a ceasefire and peace talks,” the statement said — something Trump has previously threatened.

A house heavily damaged by a Russian drone strike, outside Kyiv on Sunday. Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

“Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on X.

Trump has been widely criticized for appearing to offer concessions to Russia while demanding sacrifices from Ukraine. Those voices were joined last week by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, who gave details of why she stepped down last month.

“The policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia,” she wrote in an opinion piece Friday for the Detroit Free Press.

“Peace at any price is not peace at all ― it is appeasement,” she said, adding that “we must show leadership in the face of aggression, not weakness or complicity.”

While the diplomatic activity carries on, the violence in Ukraine continues. Russia has continued its near-nightly drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian civilians, more than three years after it launched a full-scale invasion and tried to seize Kyiv.

On Sunday, Russia shelled residential neighborhoods of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kherson, killing a 75-year-old woman and injuring two other people, the city council posted on the Telegram messaging site.

As well as being widely blamed for launching an unprovoked war, Russia is condemned across the West for the highly repressive and authoritarian state fashioned by Putin’s Kremlin.

On Monday, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office labeled one of those critics, Amnesty International, as an “undesirable organization” and effectively banned it. The authority accused the London-based human rights watchdog of being “Russophobic,” trying to prolong the war, wanting to “justify the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis” and its staffers of supporting “extremist organizations.”

Trump, who has often spoken warmly of Putin, rarely if ever mentions these human rights concerns.

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday that he would be speaking with Putin at 10 a.m. Monday with the purpose of “stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week.” NBC News has not independently verified the numbers that Trump cited.

Trump and Putin shake hands before a meeting in Helsinki in 2018. Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images file

Apparently referring both to his planned call with Putin and his slated talks with Zelenskyy and other European leaders, Trump added that “hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”

Despite promising on multiple occasions to end the war in 24 hours of taking office, Trump has since found the reality much different since beginning his second term.

U.S.-brokered negotiations saw Russia and Ukrainian delegations meet in person in Istanbul last week for the first time since the early days of the war.

However, the demands of the two sides remain far apart, with Russia saying it will only agree to a truce if Ukraine effectively surrenders. Ukraine has said these demands are unacceptable.

Plenty of warm words, few concrete commitments

Gary O’Donoghue

Chief North America correspondent

Image source, Reuters

The two hour phone call produced plenty of warm words but little by way of concrete commitments.

So, no 30-day ceasefire at this stage; no announcement of a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin; no new deadlines; no indication of the promised negotiations being at the highest level, and no indication that Russia is prepared to make any concessions to its longstanding demands.

Perhaps the most telling phrase from Washington was when President Trump said the conditions for an end to the war will be negotiated between the two parties – Ukraine and Russia.

This from the man who has always insisted he is the only person who can bring about an end to the conflict.

Washington has, for some time now, been more than hinting that its patience is wearing out and that the administration could simply walk away from the situation.

For Ukraine, that could be disastrous, particularly if it was coupled with an end to military, humanitarian and intelligence assistance.

European leaders are still firmly behind President Zelensky, but without US muscle and money, their efforts may not be sufficient to sustain Ukraine’s resistance.

We’re now ending our live coverage of today’s talks on peace in Ukraine but you can keep up to date with all the latest updates in our news story.

Thanks for joining us.

What did US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin talk about in their third call? The two have interpreted the conversation differently. But Ukraine likely wasn’t the only topic.

Trump and Putin spoke for two hours on Monday evening.

“I believe it went very well,” Trump posted on X. “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” he wrote.

He added that the conditions would be negotiated between the two parties.

Trump also highlighted that “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree.”

“There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED,” Trump wrote.

“Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its country,” he added.

‘Memorandum’ on peace accord

Putin’s reaction, on the other hand, was much more sober. He called the talks “frank, informative and very useful.”

He said that Russia too was in favor of a peaceful solution and he was prepared to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum” on a possible future peace accord.

However, Putin did not elaborate on what such a memorandum could look like.

“In terms of tone and content, these two reactions differed radically from one another,” Alexandra Filippenko, an independent political analyst based in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, told DW. In her view, the conversation itself did not achieve anything. “They agreed, as is so often the case, to continue agreeing,” she said.

Putin wants to remove ‘root causes’ of war

Filipenko added that it was worth noting that Putin had once more spoken of the need to eliminate the “root causes” of the war. This meant that Ukraine should renounce its aspirations for NATO membership and recognize the regions annexed by Russia as being Russian territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already rejected these demands as being unacceptable.

Compared to 2022, Putin has not “moved an inch” from his positions,” Filipenko said.

On the contrary, the Kremlin leader had “consolidated his position” and there was “no breakthrough to speak of here at all.”

Mikhail Komin, a Russian political scientist and non-visiting fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), which has its headquarters in Washington, described the reactions of Putin and Trump as a “roaring void.”

They both know that they are incapable of convincing each other of their arguments, he explained. “What did the two of them discuss for two hours anyway?” he wondered.

It was the third phone call between US President Donald Trump and the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin since the beginning of Trump’s second term. Image: ASSOCIATED PRESS/picture alliance

He speculated that the call had focused less on how to end the war in Ukraine and more on other topics, mainly bilateral economic relations between Russia and the US.

He continued that this did not bode well for Ukraine and its European allies, “as Vladimir Putin’s plan to stall negotiations is working.”

He said that this plan consisted of two points: Firstly, not to provoke Trump in order to prevent him from supporting Ukraine more. This could involve additional sanctions against Russia for instance or larger arms supplies for Ukraine.

“The Kremlin wants Trump to at least remain neutral,” Komin said, adding that this was succeeding.

The second part of Putin’s strategy, Komin said, was not to agree to anything, to reject everything, not to compromise and to continue the attack on Ukraine.

“The Kremlin sees no reason to end the war now because, in its opinion, things on the front are developing in Russia’s favor,” Komin said. He added that there was no talk of Russia’s global isolation.

“In this respect, the memorandum with Ukraine, which Putin would be ready to sign is just a kind of declaration of intent,” criticized Filippenko, calling the paper “useless because it does not commit to anything.”

The war in Ukraine continues to cause untold damage Image: Valentyn Ogirenko/REUTERS

A Trump show for US voters?

“Trump’s enthusiastic reaction to the phone call with Putin is more of a show for his own voters at home,” Filippenko told DW. She thought the future of the Ukraine talks was in the hands of the US State Department and particularly Congress, as it could decide on new sanctions to penalize Russia.

However, for the time being, she did not envisage any additional pressure being exerted on Putin.

“Trump could have threatened sanctions, but instead he is talking about trade opportunities to draw Putin into peace negotiations,” Filippenko said.

“While the US president claims that he can achieve peace through trade, such tactics are not enough to impress Putin,” she added.

“Putin is absolutely certain that he will anyway conclude all the necessary agreements one way or another,” Filippenko predicted, saying that she saw little chance of peace in Ukraine in the near future.

“Now that it is clear that Putin is playing Trump, we have to do something,” she said. “Otherwise, things are looking bad for Ukraine.”

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This article was originally published in German.

Asian stocks see their worst drop in decades after Trump tariffs

Asian economies are particularly sensitive to fears that a global trade war could trigger a slowdown or even a recession in the US

This is a blow for Asia’s manufacturing hubs that count the US as a key market for exports ranging from clothes to cars.

European markets too fell in early trading, with banks and defence firms seeing the biggest drops. This follows global slumps last week after Trump announced new tariffs between 10% and 46% on most countries.

The Shanghai Composite was down more than 8% at one point, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped more than 13% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed down by 7.8% – moves that one analyst described to the BBC as a “bloodbath”.

Asia-Pacific stocks from Shanghai to Tokyo and Sydney to Hong Kong plunged on Monday by levels not seen in decades, as global markets continue to reel from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

These include wealthy allies like Japan and South Korea, which face 26% tariffs, as well as developing countries like Vietnam that are bracing for a 46% levy – Trump called the fast-growing economy one of the “worst offenders”.

Also on that unenviable list are Cambodia (49%), Thailand (36%) and China, which will face 54% tariffs in total.

Others like Singapore, New Zealand and Australia have already had a so-called baseline 10% tariff go into effect.

“Asia is bearing the brunt of the US tariff hike. While there could be some room for negotiation, a new regime of higher tariffs is here to stay,” Qian Wang, Asia Pacific chief economist at investment firm Vanguard.

Asian economies are also particularly sensitive to fears that a global trade war could trigger a slowdown or even a recession in the US, the world’s biggest economy. That, in turn, would further hurt Asian exports.

Slumps in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were exacerbated as investors caught up with the big falls seen in other markets on Friday as they were closed for public holidays.

The Shanghai Composite closed 7.3% lower and Taiwan Weighted Index lost 9.7% – its biggest drop on record.

The ASX 200 in Australia lost 4.2% and the Kospi in South Korea ended 5.6% lower.

The Hang Seng closed 13.2% lower, its biggest drop since 2008.

“Tariffs are feeding into expectations around inflation and a recession,” said Julia Lee, head of client coverage at FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group.

Goldman Sachs now forecasts there is a 45% chance the US will fall into recession in the next 12 months – up from a previous estimate of 35% – as the investment banking giant lowered its economic growth forecast for the country.

Other Wall Street firms have also revised their recession forecasts in the wake of Trump’s tariff announcement. JPMorgan now sees a 60% chance of a US and global economic downturn.

“This is negative to the global and Asia economy, especially those small open economies, both in the short term and long-term.”

Countries from Vietnam to Bangladesh have become highly reliant on the US as an export market.

Several major US brands produce goods in Vietnam, including Nike and Gap.

Bangladesh exports $8.4bn (£6.5bn) of garments a year to the US, according to the trade body, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

So Trump’s announcement last week of a 37% tariff on Bangladesh is bad news for the South Asian nation.

“Asia is likely to feel a disproportionate brunt of this turmoil because Asia sends more exports to the US than to other markets,” said Frank Lavin, former undersecretary for international trade at the US Department of Commerce.

Asia’s biggest economy, China, has also hit back with its own tariffs, deepening the global stock market turmoil on Friday.

All three major US stock indexes in fell by more than 5%, with the S&P 500 dropping almost 6%, capping the worst week for the US stock market since 2020.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 plunged almost 5% – its steepest fall in five years, while exchanges in Germany and France faced similar declines.

Ms Lee also highlighted that the global stock market rout looks set to continue: “US futures trading lower point to another hard session on Wall Street tonight.”

Global stock markets have lost trillions in value since Trump announced sweeping new 10% import taxes on goods from every country, with products from dozens of countries, including key trading partners such as China, the European Union and Vietnam, facing far higher rates.

In a meeting with one of America’s most powerful unions in September at its Washington headquarters, Vice President Kamala Harris said she’d protect union jobs and workers’ livelihoods better than Donald Trump.

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But leaders of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, long staunchly allied with her Democratic Party, appeared unconvinced. When Harris argued that her Republican rival was no champion of the working class, the union bosses grilled her, questioning whether she and President Joe Biden had done enough for union workers, according to a Teamster leader who recounted the Sept. 16 meeting to Reuters. Within days, the union publicly embarrassed Harris by declining to endorse a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1996.

In the wake of Harris’ loss of the 2024 presidential election, her tense exchange with union leaders underscores a critical failure of her campaign: connecting with working-class voters anxious about the economy and high prices.

Following Biden’s dramatic withdrawal just months before Election Day, Harris threw her campaign together as if it were an airplane being built while in flight, her advisers told reporters. The 60-year-old former prosecutor and U.S. senator pressed a case that Trump was a threat to democracy and women’s rights, while promoting a populist economic platform and reproductive freedoms.

Her entrance upended a race that her party had looked set to lose. She made history as the first woman of color at the top of a major party ticket. She triggered a surge in enthusiasm, broke fundraising records – raising $1 billion in less than three months – and drew endorsements from celebrities ranging from pop star Taylor Swift to actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But Harris’ campaign ultimately failed to overcome deep-seated voter concerns about inflation and immigration – twin issues that opinion polls showed favored Trump. Her loss underscores a profound shift in American politics over the past decade as blue-collar voters have turned increasingly Republican – a trend Trump appears to have accelerated.

Harris also struggled to counter another Trump-era trend: a torrent of misinformation unprecedented in modern U.S. elections. An avalanche of misrepresentations and falsehoods about her record was spread by the former president and amplified on right-wing websites and media, including conspiracy theories on issues ranging from migrant crime to voter fraud.

When asked by Reuters during the race about misinformation amplified by Trump, his campaign officials typically either repeated the falsehoods or did not respond to requests for comment.

By late Wednesday, Trump had won 294 electoral votes to Harris’ 223, with several states yet to be counted. In her concession speech, she told supporters, many of them in tears, not to give up even in their disappointment. “Sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win,” she said.

This account of how Harris lost is based on Reuters interviews with Harris campaign staffers, White House officials, Democratic Party advisors and close allies.

It was always going to be a heavy lift. The U.S. has only elected one president – Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 – who wasn’t a white man. As the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris had risen higher in the country’s leadership than any other woman.

President Joe Biden and Harris walk to deliver remarks on gun violence at the White House in September. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

The only other woman to get as close as she did – Hillary Clinton, defeated by Trump in 2016 – staked her candidacy in part on becoming the first female president. In the wake of Clinton’s loss, Harris resisted putting her identity at the center of her campaign, said close aides and advisors. Instead, she tried to galvanize voters on issues that mattered to women and Black voters in the election – from abortion rights to middle-class tax cuts and housing affordability.

But those messages struggled to break through at a time when many voters were fixated on rising consumer prices during the first three years of the Biden administration.

“Despite fairly strong economic growth, especially after a major global pandemic, most Americans weren’t feeling like they were getting ahead economically,” said Melissa Deckman, a political scientist and chief executive of Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan research firm. “The Harris campaign did not necessarily do a good job of explaining how her policies would help the middle class, or at least that message wasn’t really resonating with a lot of voters.”

The economy proved to be a much bigger concern among voters than reproductive rights, with 31% of voters saying the economy mattered most in deciding how to vote compared with 14% who cited abortion. The election also saw a large gender gap. Harris won 54% of women voters in the country, while Trump won 44%, the preliminary exit polls showed.

The Harris and Trump campaigns and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said early on Wednesday to a roaring crowd of supporters at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.

ELECTORAL GOLD

The election was punctuated by dramatic twists, including two assassination attempts against Trump and the stunning decision by Biden to abandon his re-election bid on July 21.

Democrats coalesced behind Harris with astonishing speed, locking up her party’s nomination within two weeks , excited by her potential to flip the generational argument on Trump. Two decades her senior, Trump had successfully cast the 81-year-old Biden as a frail and confused old man. She would turn that on its head, many Democrats hoped.

Harris speaks to a child holding a picture of herself and Harris during a campaign rally in Houston, Texas, in October. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Some Democratic strategists questioned the wisdom of one of her first big decisions: picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as running mate over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a deft speaker with proven political strength in a must-win state. Her campaign had hoped the gun-owning Walz, a liberal policy champion and plain-speaking National Guardsman from the Midwest, would help her win over rural white voters.

Walz had generated buzz before Harris picked him by branding Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, as “weird” on national television in July, winning Democratic hearts and media attention. Later, though, Walz gained unwelcome attention for misstatements of his biography, including his military service, and for an uneven debate performance against Vance.

Walz and Vance didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Still, the Harris campaign believed her signature issues – reproductive rights and Trump’s divisiveness – would energize a coalition of women, Black voters, young Americans, independents and “Never Trump” Republicans, sweeping her to the White House.

Well before the race began, Harris emerged as a spokesperson for abortion rights. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 officially reversed Roe v. Wade, declaring the constitutional right to abortion no longer existed, the setback for women’s reproductive rights created an unexpected opening for Harris.

The ruling catapulted her from the political periphery into the heart of America’s culture wars. Opinion polls showed most Americans disapproved of the court’s decision – and Harris became the face of an issue that Democratic strategists saw as electoral gold.

Harris speaks about abortion rights at a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, in September. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

For the first time in Biden’s presidency, he handed a decisive issue entirely to his vice president. She went on the road, speaking forcefully on a subject that played an outsized role in helping Democrats stave off an expected bloodbath in the 2022 congressional elections. After the midterms, with the Democrats having held the Senate and swung to a slight minority in the House of Representatives, Harris was now seen as a viable future leader in the party.

Still, even after Biden stepped aside, concerns lingered among some top White House aides over the former San Francisco district attorney’s political skills – including a perception that she hadn’t made a mark as VP, her short-lived campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination and her limited experience courting conservative voters in battleground states. Some also questioned whether she could overcome the long history of racial and gender discrimination in the U.S.

Despite fairly strong economic growth, especially after a major global pandemic, most Americans weren’t feeling like they were getting ahead economically. Melissa Deckman, political scientist and chief executive of Public Religion Research Institute

After securing the nomination, Harris initially put many of those concerns to rest. She revitalized a beleaguered Democratic campaign, attracting record-high funding and a groundswell of support . She soon moved ahead of Trump in the polls , a sign she was sparking enthusiasm among voters, particularly among women. Trump had previously been seen as the frontrunner, partly based on his perceived strength on the economy after several years of high inflation under Biden.

She aced her first big test – a Sept. 10 televised debate against Trump.

As Harris’s team prepared for what would be her only in-person face-off with Trump, they focused on ways to unnerve the former president and draw attention to his frequent falsehoods on policies, according to several aides involved in the preparations. Harris holed up in Pittsburgh with advisers and conducted mock debates for the prime-time showdown, the aides said.

The strategy paid off. Harris appeared to get under her rival’s skin during the debate. She pressed Trump on the economy, Ukraine, healthcare, the January 2021 Capitol riots and abortion, leaving him rattled and struggling to respond.

Harris listens as she debates former President Donald Trump in September. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Fundraising spiked: Her campaign said it raised $47 million in the 24 hours after the debate. Most voters thought Harris had won, polls showed. Trump shot down offers for another debate, claiming he’d already beaten her.

On the campaign trail, Harris mocked Trump’s debate performance, including his comment that he had “concepts of a plan” to replace a federal health care law. As she gained in polls, Harris’ campaign believed she was opening up states that had been out of reach for Biden, including North Carolina, where the president had his narrowest loss against Trump in 2020 and where she was drawing even in the polls with Trump.

‘IT COULD COST US THE ELECTION’

North Carolina was the scene of her next big test, the late September Hurricane Helene, one of the deadliest storms to hit the U.S. in the last 50 years. The storm shifted focus from messages at the foundation of Harris’ campaign to the handling of the disaster by the Biden-Harris administration.

It hit just as her lead was narrowing. Trump went on the attack, criticizing the Democratic administration’s response to the disaster and tying it to his strongest issue, immigration. As the death toll rose and swathes of North Carolina lay devastated, Trump amplified and spread falsehoods, including a claim that Harris spent disaster-assistance money on housing illegal migrants.

In response to a recent request for comment by Reuters about false claims about how disaster funds were being used, the Trump campaign repeated accusations that money had been spent on housing migrants in the country illegally.

Harris cut short a campaign swing and flew to Washington on Sept. 30 for a briefing on Biden’s emergency response. On her plane, three staffers sat on the floor, ripping apart briefing books, replacing the pages with new notes, a Reuters reporter witnessed.

The disaster, which killed more than 200 people, marked a shift in the race, as misinformation around the administration’s response and Trump’s hardline rhetoric on immigration gained traction. The baseless claims included that the government covered-up deaths, confiscated charitable donations and diverted disaster funds to help immigrants. Harris’ campaign struggled to address both the false claims and voters’ concerns about an uptick in illegal border crossings during Biden’s presidency.

One jurisdiction that illustrated the risks for Harris was Buncombe County, a North Carolina Democratic stronghold of about 280,000 people hammered by the storm. In its aftermath, Democrats stopped targeting potentially persuadable Republican voters there because of concerns they had become too hostile amid the misinformation, Kathie Kline, Buncombe County Democratic chair, told Reuters. In the end, Trump won the state.

As the race tightened through October, and polls indicated a toss-up, alarm spread among Democratic strategists.

They focused on shoring up the so-called Blue Wall of Democratic states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Eight years ago, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton, he breached the Blue Wall by winning all three states, each by less than a percentage point. In 2020, Biden won them back. Holding the Blue Wall now was Harris’ best path to the White House, the strategists reasoned. But they had a problem: Michigan and the Gaza War.

Pro-Palestinian uncommitted delegates walk into the Democratic National Convention in August. REUTERS/Vincent Alban

Michigan’s large population of Arab Americans and Muslims helped cement Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. Trump turned off many of these voters in his first term, in part by banning immigration to the U.S. from a number of Muslim countries early in his tenure.

In the race’s final stretch, Muslim and Arab-American voters told Reuters they were disappointed Harris did not distance herself more from Biden’s unwavering support of Israel during the Gaza war. In the final weeks, Trump aggressively courted their vote. Many said they would sit out the election or vote Republican.

Harris staffers knew that disillusioned Muslim and Arab-American Democrats were a risk. “It could cost us the election,” said a senior Michigan operative for Harris in July.

The campaign ultimately concluded it was impossible to fully win back those voters. To offset their loss, campaign officials said they focused in the final weeks on marshaling enough support from union workers and Black voters in Detroit, the nation’s largest Black-majority city.

ECONOMIC THREATS

But few issues threatened Harris like inflation

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Her campaign had hoped the economic recovery from the pandemic would be a winning issue. Growth is markedly more robust in the U.S. than in other major industrial nations. Stock-market indexes are near record highs.

Instead, the issue eroded Democratic support throughout much of 2024 as union workers and non-college-educated white voters broke for Trump, polls showed. Sharp increases in housing and food costs frustrated voters, overshadowing a strong job market. Trump blamed Harris for the spike during her and Biden’s time in office.

While most unions have long supported Democratic candidates , rank-and-file workers in recent years have moved behind Trump, proving a decisive factor in his victory. There were some positive signs for Harris. The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions, saw a surge in female members supporting Harris and willing to volunteer for her, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told Reuters.

In the final weeks of the race, Harris’ momentum appeared to have stalled, with polls showing her edge over Trump narrowing . By mid-October, the race was a dead heat in crucial states.

A pronounced gap in polling between men and women had emerged, too. While Harris cut away at the Republicans’ longstanding edge with white voters overall by gaining ground with white women, Trump appeared to be boosting his advantage with men.

Harris shifted strategy in an attempt to win over more men and Republicans . The campaign dispatched running mate Walz on a tour in mid-October to reach male voters. Harris also held campaign events with former lawmaker Liz Cheney, one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics and one of the most prominent conservatives to endorse the Democrat. Days later, Trump suggested Cheney should face gunfire in combat, drawing outrage among Democrats and pundits.

Harris speaks on the National Mall in front of the White House in Washington. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The vice president also sharpened her attacks on Trump. In an Oct. 29 speech billed as her closing argument, Harris warned of the dangers of another Trump presidency . He was “unstable” and sought “unchecked power,” she told a rally held at the spot in Washington where Trump addressed his supporters before they attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. With a well-lit White House behind her, she cast herself as a defender of democracy, unity and freedom.

She also sought to reassure voters about the cost of living. Trump’s proposals to raise tariffs would amount to “a 20% national sales tax” on imported goods, she said. She vowed to “protect hard-working Americans who aren’t always seen or heard.”

In the end, not enough of those Americans believed her.

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Additional reporting: Andrea Shalal, Jeff Mason; Photo editing: Corinne Perkins; Art direction: Jillian Kumagai; Edited by Heather Timmons, Cassell Bryan-Low and Jason Szep

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