Vice President Kamala Harris said on Saturday that she would be open to debating former President Donald Trump for a second time in October, ahead of the November U.S. presidential election.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s campaign, said in a statement that Harris has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on Oct. 23. That would be less than two weeks before the election.

“I will gladly accept a second presidential debate on October 23. I hope @realDonaldTrump will join me,” Harris wrote in an X post.

It isn’t the first time the Harris camp has proposed another match. Shortly after Harris and Trump held a debate hosted by ABC News earlier this month, O’Malley Dillon said Harris was ready for round two against him. But as Harris was raising millions of dollars following the campaign, Trump declined to face her again.

In a post on the Trump Media & Technology Group’s social network, Truth Social, the Republican presidential nominee said there would be “no third debate.”

On Saturday, a Trump campaign spokesperson referred CNBC back to Trump’s Truth Social post about there being no third debate.

“She’s done one debate,” Trump said at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday. “I’ve done two. It’s too late to do another. I’d love to, in many ways, but it’s too late. The voting is cast.”

The first 2024 debate for Trump was against the current president, Joe Biden. CNN ran the event in June. But Biden struggled on the debate stage. Democratic donors expressed concerns about Biden’s prospects, and Democratic members of Congress called on Biden to end his election bid. In August, Harris accepted the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in her statement. “It is the same format and setup as the CNN debate he attended and said he won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules and ratings.”

— CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.

WATCH: Harris won the debate but didn’t move the needle on voter decisions, says Pimco’s Libby Cantrill

The nation’s wealthy opened their wallets in August with a focus on election season, donating millions to the super PACs backing Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and Democrats and Republicans throughout the country, according to monthly reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.

The largest single-contributor donations went to MAGA Inc., the super PAC backing Trump, with Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, a prolific GOP megadonor, giving $10 million to the group.

Howard Lutnick, the CEO of the financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, and Paul Singer, the president of Elliott Management, an investment management firm, both gave $5 million to MAGA Inc.

Annette Caldwell Simmons, the widow of businessman Harold Simmons, gave $2 million to MAGA Inc., while Warren Stephens, the CEO of investment bank Stephens Inc., gave $1 million.

On the Democratic side, tech entrepreneurs were the biggest donors to FF PAC, also known as Future Forward, a super PAC backing Harris’ presidential bid.

The biggest donors to the group in August were Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and his wife, Erica.

Moskovitz donated $3 million to FF PAC, while Hastings, Jeff Lawson and Erica Lawson each gave $1 million.

Hastings, who is a major backer of Democrats, was one of the biggest Democratic donors to publicly call for President Joe Biden to step aside from his re-election campaign earlier this year.

The reports out Friday only included donations from Aug. 1 through Aug. 31, the first full month that Harris was the presumptive — and later official — Democratic presidential nominee.

Super PACs like FF PAC and MAGA Inc. are havens for prolific political megadonors like Hendricks, Lutnick and Hastings because, unlike campaigns and their affiliated committees, super PACs don’t have limits on how much individuals can donate.

Further down the ballot, Club for Growth Action, a conservative super PAC that boosts GOP congressional and Senate candidates, received two major donations in August of $5 million each from Jeff Yass, the co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trading group, and Richard Uihlein, the founder of shipping supply company Uline.

Yass and Uihlein are both major GOP megadonors who have given to Club for Growth and other conservative groups for multiple election cycles.

On the Democratic side, House Majority PAC, a group that boosts Democrats running for Congress, received $600,000 in August from Amos Hostetter Jr., the co-founder of Continental Cablevision, the biggest donation to the group for this filing period.

Hostetter has a history of donating to anti-Trump groups.

Vice President Kamala Harris substantially outraised and outspent former President Donald Trump in August, ending the month with more cash to fund her final sprint to the November election, according to new filings from the Federal Election Commission.

The Harris campaign raised over $189 million in August, more than quadruple the $44 million sum that the Trump campaign brought in.

Those figures reflect fundraising specifically for the candidate’s main campaign accounts and do not include donations to the other branches of their political operations.

The Harris campaign announced earlier this month a total $361 million August haul from campaign donations joint with the Democratic National Committee and fundraising committees. That dwarfed the $130 million raised between the Trump campaign and its joint fundraising committees.

These figures do not factor in September donations, including the Harris campaign’s $47 million cash bump from nearly 600,000 donors in the 24 hours following the first and possibly only Harris-Trump debate.

The Harris campaign on Saturday accepted an invitation from CNN to hold a second debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has so far staunchly maintained that he will not do a rematch.

The new FEC filings depict a steady surge of donor enthusiasm for Harris, even as the initial hype of Democrats’ July candidate swap tempered. The entire Harris political operation raised $310 million in July after President Joe Biden ended his candidacy and endorsed her to take over the Democratic ticket.

Harris has also flipped the donation gap to Democrats’ favor, erasing the fundraising lead Trump and Republicans had before Biden dropped out.

Since then, the Harris campaign has been outspending Trump with an advertising blitz across television and digital platforms, along with along with other campaign expenses.

Harris and the DNC jointly spent $258 million in August, well above the $121 million that Trump and the RNC disbursed, according to FEC filings.

“As we enter the final stretch of this election, we’re making sure every hard-earned dollar goes to winning over the voters who will decide this election,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a press release earlier this month.

Heading into the final sprint of the presidential race, the Harris team ended August with $404 million in cash on hand, outpacing the $295 million war chest reported by Trump’s operation.

The Trump campaign assured that its donations will carry it through the rest of the race.

“The Trump-Vance campaign has momentum for the final stretch of the race,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement. “These fundraising numbers from August are a reflection of that movement.”

A major exchange-traded fund and mutual fund manager finds the winning gold trade isn’t talked about as much as the artificial intelligence trade — but maybe it should be.

VanEck CEO Jan van Eck thinks the best investment this year is “the hedge against political cycles.” To him, that means investing in gold. 

“It is quietly the best performing asset this year,” Van Eck told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” from the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach on Monday.

Gold hit another record on Friday, its 37th record this year. As of Friday’s market close, it is up 28% since the start of the year.

Van Eck, whose firm runs the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, expects foreign investments in bullion will continue to give the commodity a boost. It should also help in lifting gold miners higher, which started the year lagging the commodity. But as of Friday, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF has started to outperform, up 31% this year.

“I think you own both because the miners, if they catch up at all, it’s going to rip,” he said.

As for the AI trade, van Eck says it’s “amazing” how investors refuse to give up on it.

“It’s like part of people’s model portfolios, or core portfolios, is to have this tactical overweight to semis. And some of our biggest clients actually bought on the dip over the last week or two,” the VanEck CEO said.

Last month, his firm launched the VanEck Fabless Semiconductor ETF. It’s a companion to its VanEck Semiconductor ETF that excludes companies that run their own foundries, such as Intel.

FactSet reports the new ETF’s top holdings as Nvidia, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices as of Friday.

“Why spend billions of dollars on building the chips if you don’t have to?” van Eck said. “Nvidia doesn’t build its own chips. So that’s another kind of investment strategy.”

Since launching on Aug. 28, the VanEck Fabless Semiconductor ETF is up a half percent.

Disclaimer

Former President Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance’s unfounded claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio weaken the Republican Party’s border message, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine wrote in an op-ed published Friday.

“The Biden administration’s failure to control the southern border is a very important issue that Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance are talking about and one that the American people are rightfully deeply concerned about,” DeWine, a Republican, wrote in the New York Times.

“But their verbal attacks against these Haitians — who are legally present in the United States — dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument about the border,” he said.

The perception that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have failed to stem the tide of asylum seekers ant the souther border has long been a key message for Republicans up and down the ballot, not just for Trump’s reelection campaign.

Trump’s latest immigration claims thrust Springfield, Ohio into the national spotlight, after he and Vance — who represents Ohio in the Senate — promoted unfounded rumors that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating city resident’s pets.

DeWine and local officials have repeatedly denied the claims.

“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield,” DeWine, who was born in Springfield, wrote Friday.

“This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”

In the days since Trump and Vance promoted the unfounded rumors — which the Trump campaign knew were false, according to the Wall Street Journal — dozens of bomb threats have led to Springfield city schools to be evacuated and closed.

DeWine on Monday announced that Ohio state police would begin conducting sweeps of city schools every morning and night. The threats, which officials have found to all be hoaxes, have also targeted city government buildings and a local hospital.

William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, told NBC News that the Republican vice-presidential nominee “is glad” that Dewine supports the Trump-Vance campaign, but Vance and DeWine are “not always going to agree on every issue.”

In his op-ed, DeWine emphasized the role Haitian immigrants played in reviving Springfield’s economy, which he said experienced “tough times” in the 1980s and 90s.

“Now, however, Springfield is having a resurgence in manufacturing and job creation. Some of that is thanks to the dramatic influx of Haitian migrants who have arrived in the city over the past three years to fill jobs.”

“They are there legally. They are there to work.”

Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s first official trip to the United States aims to push the United Arab Emirates-U.S. relationship to a new “geo-economic phase” centered on economic growth and innovation, top officials said ahead of a meeting of the two leaders in Washington, D.C., on Monday. 

“The purpose of the visit is really from an Emirati perspective, it’s investing in our future … through an economic lens,” Anwar Gargash, the Emirati leader’s most senior diplomatic advisor, told reporters during a briefing in Dubai on Thursday. 

The agenda for Sheikh Mohammed’s meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will include discussions on major regional challenges like the war in Gaza, but Gargash said the primary objective is economic realignment, as the UAE seeks to push the relationship beyond the traditional focus of regional conflict, oil and defense.

“We are more in a geo-economic phase,” Gargash said, suggesting that the Emirati president would seek to expand economic and security cooperation, but also key areas like artificial intelligence, renewable energy, climate and space.

“The two leaders will highlight a half century trajectory of UAE-U.S. partnership in trade, investment and security,” the Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, posted on X ahead of the visit. “Few countries are moving as fast on advanced technologies and artificial intelligence — and as closely in sync with the U.S. — as the UAE,” he added.

The UAE has remained a key strategic defense and security partner to Washington, playing host to the American air base in Al Dhafra, while working as a key partner alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq. The UAE also participated in the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, as well as operations against al-Qaeda and groups affiliated with the organization throughout the region. The UAE has also played a key role in conflicts around the region, including in Libya, Sudan and Yemen.

“We see that we are laying a map for what we are thinking in the next 20 years,” Gargash said, adding that the strategic ties have now shifted to what he called “a 360 degree relationship.”

The meeting of the two leaders also comes as the ongoing conflict in Gaza continues to cause a major humanitarian crisis and upend regional stability. The latest wave of Israeli attacks against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and news that Iran is helping the Houthi rebels in Yemen to target and down U.S. Reaper drones has added to complications over a cease-fire, ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the upcoming American election on Nov. 5.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that Wednesday’s larger-than-expected interest rate cut may have a limited effect on the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, because the decision’s impacts will ripple into the economy slowly.

“The things that we do really affect economic conditions for the most part with a lag,” Powell said at his press conference, responding to a reporter’s question about timing of the long-awaited rate cut, just 48 days before the Nov. 5 election.

The Fed on Wednesday announced its decision to cut interest rates by an aggressive 50 basis points, or half a percentage point, its first cut since March 2020, marking a milestone in the U.S. economy’s post-pandemic recovery.

Though the cut comes in the final sprint of the Trump-Harris race, Powell said the Fed made its decision with a focus on consumer interests and without “any other filters.”

“This is my fourth presidential election at the Fed, and it’s always the same,” Powell said. “We’re always going into this meeting in particular and asking what’s the right thing to do for the people we serve.”

Despite the Fed’s effort to separate its highly anticipated decision from the political backdrop, the rate cut turned into a political football soon after the announcement.

The Biden administration took the rate cut announcement as a victory lap for the president’s economic agenda.

“We just reached an important moment: Inflation and interest rates are falling while the economy remains strong,” President Joe Biden wrote in an X post following the announcement. “The critics said it couldn’t happen — but our policies are lowering costs and creating jobs.”

The Harris campaign used the rate cut as an opportunity to double down on the Democratic presidential nominee’s economic platform.

“While this announcement is welcome news for Americans who have borne the brunt of high prices, my focus is on the work ahead to keep bringing prices down,” Harris wrote in a statement Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Trump turned the rate cut into a line of attack against the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record. He also suggested that the Fed could have been politically motivated.

“I guess it shows you the economy is very bad to cut it by that much, assuming they’re not just playing politics,” Trump said at a surprise visit to a bitcoin-themed bar in New York. “It was a big cut.”

During his first term, Trump routinely criticized Powell, bucking a tradition of the White House abstaining from commenting on Fed actions to help the institution maintain its political independence. As he campaigns for a second term, Trump has said he believes the president should get official input in Fed decision-making.

Harris and Trump are both working to pitch themselves as the best candidate for the health of the U.S. economy, as voters repeatedly rank the high cost of living as their top issue in national polls.

In the wake of the pandemic, inflation shot up to a 40-year high, making grocery bills, housing, gas and other day-to-day living costs more expensive for American consumers. To cool down the economy, the Fed began hiking interest rates in March 2022, further squeezing consumer budgets.

That economic pain turned high prices into a top voter priority this election cycle and as a result, a major focus for both the Democratic and Republican campaigns.