Hannity appears on stage at Trump rally, despite vowing he wouldn't

Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity made a cameo appearance on stage Monday night at President Donald Trump's final midterm rally, going back on the pledge he had made hours earlier not to appear on stage with the president.

After interviewing Trump live for his show, Hannity was called on stage by the president to raucous applause from the Cape Girardeau, Mo., crowd. The Fox News host promptly pointed to the press assembled in the back of the room, labeling them “fake news.” Hannity later said he was unaware he would be invited on stage, but spoke briefly about the president’s accomplishments and repeated Trump’s 2020 reelection slogan, “promises made, promises kept.”

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Earlier Monday, Hannity specified on Twitter that “I will be doing a live show from Cape Girardeau and interviewing President Trump before the rally. To be clear, I will not be on stage campaigning with the President. I am covering [the] final rally for my show. Something I have done in every election in the past.”

While Hannity has traveled to Trump rallies plenty of times to host his show on site and interview the president, questions about Hannity’s role at the Missouri rally stem from the White House itself. In an email sent out about the rally, the White House billed Hannity as a “special guest” along with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and musician Lee Greenwood.

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, whose show the president has regularly praised, was also called by Trump up to the stage, where she urged the crowd to vote for Republicans.

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Trump, in introducing the two personalities, said Hannity was someone who is “very special” and had “been with us from the beginning” and called Pirro a woman who “treats us very, very well.”

Hannity’s close relationship with Trump has put him under the microscope of media watchers who have accused Fox News of being too friendly with the White House. Trump frequently tweets about shows on the network, sometimes appearing to tweet commentary real-time, and Monday he told Hannity that he never misses the primetime show’s opening monologue.

According to a pool report Monday night, Hannity fist-bumped Bill Shine, the former president of Fox who is now White House communications director.

Hannity’s friendship with Trump has previously gotten him in trouble with his employer for pushing the limits of his role as an opinion commentator. He was also reprimanded by Fox in 2016 after he appeared in a campaign video endorsing Trump.

A spokesperson for Fox News did not immediately return a request for comment.

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US mid-terms: Polls open for Trump's 'referendum'

Polls in the US have just opened in the first handful of states on the east coast, as Americans prepare to vote in the first national elections since Donald Trump captured the White House in 2016.

By the time most Australians wake, there will have some of the early exit polls, giving a better idea of trends emerging.

The first signs will come from key congressional races on the east coast in suburban Virginia, New Jersey, Florida and New York, however this will likely be a long day.

If the Republicans hold onto those east coast seats the Democrats will put their hopes in seats in Texas, Arizona, California and Washington.

Polls in most states close between 6pm and 8pm (local time) with official results expected in the hours after that.

Donald Trump urges supporters to get out and vote in the midterm elections. (AAP)

The president is looking increasingly desperate and stoking these divisions, particularly on immigration, in the lead up to the polls. (AP)

By the time the sun goes down in Australia, there should have a good idea of what the future holds for the US, Australia and the western world.

The first national elections since Mr Trump entered the White House will be a referendum on the polarising Republican president and his hardline policies, and a test of whether Democrats can turn the energy of the liberal anti-Trump resistance into victories at the ballot box.

"Everything we have achieved is at stake tomorrow," Mr Trump told supporters on Monday night in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at one of his three rallies to stoke turnout on the last day before the election.

All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, 35 US Senate seats and 36 governorships are up for grabs on Tuesday.

Democrats are favoured by election forecasters to pick up the minimum of 23 House seats they need for a majority, which would enable them to stymie the president's legislative agenda and investigate his administration.

Republicans are expected to retain their slight majority in the US Senate, currently at two seats, which would let them retain the power to approve US Supreme Court and other judicial nominations on straight party-line votes.

“I’m not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket,” Mr Trump told supporters in Mississippi. (EPA )

Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis speaks to supporters next to his wife Casey and the US President Donald J. Trump. (EPA)

In a last-minute controversy, NBC, Fox News and Facebook on Monday pulled an ad by Trump's campaign that critics had labelled racist.

The 30-second spot featured courtroom video of an illegal immigrant from Mexico convicted in the 2014 killings of two police officers, juxtaposed with scenes of migrants headed through Mexico.

Critics, including members of Mr Trump's own party, had condemned it as racially divisive. CNN already had refused to run the ad, saying it was "racist."

Voter turnout could be the highest for a midterm election in 50 years, experts predicted.

During a six-day blitz to wrap up the campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly raised fears about immigrants, issuing harsh warnings about a caravan of Central American migrants moving through Mexico toward the US border.

The president is looking increasingly desperate and stoking these divisions, particularly on immigration, in the lead up to the polls. (AP)

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Trump imposes ‘unprecedented sanctions’ as Europe scrambles to save Iran deal

November 6, 2018 at 1:20 pm

The US hit Iran with “unprecedented sanctions” yesterday by adding an additional 700 organisations and individuals to its list of entities facing an embargo. The move, which is aimed at pressuring Iran to curb its nuclear programme, brings the total number of entities facing the wrath of America to 900.

The list includes 50 Iranian banks, 200 individuals and shipping vessels tied to Iran’s shipping and energy sector, as well as the national airline, Iran Air, and more than 65 of its aircraft.

Speaking of the fresh sanctions, promised by US President Donald Trump after withdrawing from the nuclear deal singed by former President Barack Obama in 2015 Steven Mnuchin, US treasury secretary, said yesterday: “Today, the US is executing on the final actions to withdraw [from] the Obama administration’s fatally flawed Iran deal.”

Denouncing Iran as a destabilising force, Mnuchin added, “this is part of a maximum unprecedented economic pressure campaign that the US is waging against the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.”

 Israel’s Netanyahu: Sanctions on Iran will contribute to ‘regional stability’ 

However eight countries have been granted a temporary exemption for six months despite US warning previously that it would be harder for Iran’s oil importers to get a waiver. The exemption will allow China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Greece and Turkey, to continue trading with Iran as normal.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that more than 20 countries have already cut their oil imports from Iran, reducing purchases by more than one million barrels per day. State department officials expressed American desire to bring Iran’s oil export, which makes up 80 per cent of its revenue, to zero in the coming months.

The Trump administration’s intensifying effort to strangle Iran’s economy, critics say, marks a gamble as it divides the US from traditional allies in Europe and casts uncertainty into oil markets. It is also likely to deepen humanitarian suffering inside the Islamic Republic and undercut moderates in Tehran who might be open to working with the US.

Iran Nuclear Deal or Trump protecting Israel – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

It’s traditional ally, Europe is still in talks over how to establish a payments channel that allows European companies to continue trading with Tehran without being penalised by the US.

Yesterday the Financial Times reported that plans by European diplomats to establish a special channel to safeguard non-US trade with Iran would not be ready in time.

Tehran has claimed a diplomatic victory against the US with Europe still pressing hard to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal and taking steps to establish a payments channel to bypass the sanctions. But this has faced a set back with the FT reporting that the international financial messaging system based in Belgium, saying that it would comply with the restored US sanctions and suspend “certain Iranian banks’” access to its cross border-payment network.

Despite this, Iran remains confident that it will be the US who comes out worse. “Today, Iran is able to sell its oil and it will sell,” President of Iran Hassan Rouhani said. “We are in the economic war situation. We are confronting a bullying enemy. We have to stand to win.”

Yesterday Iranian parliament’s speaker, Ali Larijani, echoed Rouhani’s remarks with a defiant message to the US in which he insisted that Trump’s reign will experience an inglorious end just like Saddam Hussain.

Iran official to Trump: Your end will be like Saddam Hussein