Live updates: Trump-Harris election news | CNN Politics

Some Americans have already started casting their ballots in states with early voting, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump continue to push toward Election Day.

While policy proposals have featured heavily on the campaign trail, other headlines have also spread widely on social media.

Here are some of those viral stories you might have missed this week:

“Your mics are cut”

Vice presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz faced off Tuesday in their first and only debate. In the middle of a heated exchange on immigration, Vance and Walz started talking over each other. CBS News’ Margaret Brennan, one of the two debate moderators, tried to regain control several times.

Then she said, “The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut,” as the candidates could be faintly heard talking in the background. Ahead of the debate, CBS News said it reserved the right to turn off the candidates’ mics during the showdown.

A clip of the moment was posted on CBS’ TikTok account — drawing more than 3 million views and more than 319,000 likes. CNN also posted a clip on its TikTok account and got 1.8 million views.

Political impressions out in full force

“Saturday Night Live” returned last week — and so did the star-studded political impressions, garnering millions of views online. The cold open featured Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff and James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, among others.

“Donald Trump is stuck in the past. But it’s like what I say to my husband, Doug, when he leaves his phone at the Chilis: We are not going back,” Rudolph said as she impersonated Harris. Samberg as Emhoff later came out to the song “Teach Me How to Dougie.”

The sketch received more than 8 million views and 179,000 likes on SNL’s YouTube account.

Comedians on TikTok are also jumping in on the action. Comedian Allison Reese, who is no stranger to viral fame for her Harris impressions, got more than 174,000 likes and 1.2 million views for a TikTok of her Harris persona reacting to the vice presidential debate. On the other side of the impression ticket, comedian Austin Nasso, known for his viral video impersonations of Trump, garnered more than 32,000 likes and 390,000 views for a video posted Monday.

Melania Trump’s comments about abortion rights

Former first lady Melania Trump suggested a break with her husband over abortion rights in her new memoir and social media video.

In a video posted to X on Thursday morning, the former first lady said that she believes there is “no room for compromise” when it comes to a woman’s “individual freedom.” The video followed a story from The Guardian on excerpts from her forthcoming book in which she says that “restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.”

In the first five hours after it posted, the video got more than 473,000 views on X. “Melania Trump” was trending on Thursday afternoon, with more than 35,000 posts about her circling the platform — many also mentioned the CNN story about her book publisher requesting a quarter of a million dollars for an interview. As of Friday afternoon, the video had surged to about 4.3 million views.

Donald Trump regularly takes credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which eliminated federal protections for abortion and led to the enactment of severe restrictions on the procedure in mostly Republican-led states.