ABC news reports that Harris will not agree to debate Trump on Fox on 4 September – citing a campaign official, Selina Wang, ABC’s senior White House correspondent, says that the campaign says “future debates are contingent on Trump showing up to @ABC debate on Sept 10th”.
.@VP Harris will not agree to the September 4th Fox debate, campaign official tells me. Says future debates are contingent on Trump showing up to @ABC debate on Sept 10th
— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) August 8, 2024
Willing to have convos before Sept 10 about debates after that date
So ABC will have 1st Harris/Trump debate
The Cook Political Report, an elections analysis newsletter, has shifted its ratings for Arizona, Georgia and Nevada towards Harris –from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-up” – the Hill reports:
All three states had been considered “lean Republican” in early July, while President Biden was still in the race and falling further behind Trump both on the national level and in the key battleground states. But with polls showing Harris getting back within the margin of error of Trump, or in some cases slightly ahead, the three swing states have been moved to be a “toss Up.”
‘For the first time in a long time, Democrats are united and energized, while Republicans are on their heels. Unforced errors from both Trump and his vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance have shifted the media spotlight from Biden’s age to Trump’s liabilities,’ Cook Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter wrote in a post explaining the decision.
‘In other words, the presidential contest has moved from one that was Trump’s to lose to a much more competitive contest,’ she continued.
“Do not pretend to be something that you’re not,” Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Wednesday as he campaigned in Michigan. “I’d be ashamed if I was saying that I lied about my military service like you did.”
Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating high school, serving four years as a combat correspondent, a type of military journalist, and deploying to Iraq in that capacity in 2005.
Neither Trump nor Harris has served in the US military. Trump received a series of deferments during Vietnam, including one attained with a physician’s letter stating that he suffered from bone spurs in his feet.
The Harris campaign statement said Walz “would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country” and “thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”
Republicans have also questioned Walz’s military record by saying he didn’t serve in a combat zone. AP has looked into it:
Earlier this week Harris’ campaign circulated on X a 2018 clip of Walz speaking out against gun violence, and saying, “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” That comment suggests that Walz portrayed himself as someone who spent time in a combat zone.
According to the Nebraska Army National Guard, Walz enlisted in April 1981 — just two days after his 17th birthday — and entered service as an infantryman, completing a 12-week Army infantry basic training course before graduating from high school.
While attending the University of Houston in 1985, he was reclassified as a field artillery cannoneer as a member of the Texas Army National Guard, later serving as an instructor with the Arkansas Army National Guard.
In 1987, Walz returned to Nebraska’s Guard detachment, continuing field artillery assignments while he completed a college degree. By 1996, he transferred to the Minnesota Army National Guard. In 2003, he deployed to Italy in a support position of active military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But he was not in a combat zone himself.
Updated
And going back to Trump’s press conference earlier, in which he said the crowd at his speech on 6 January 2021 was comparable to the crowd that gathered for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
Here is a response from Jonathan Eig, who wrote a biography of King published last year:
Um, Donald, please see me after class. https://t.co/F0oIpbQEqA
— Jonathan Eig (@jonathaneig) August 8, 2024
This post was amended to correct the date of Trump’s speech.
Updated
Republicans are questioning Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s military record. AP has taken a look:
Walz served a total of 24 years in various units and jobs in the Army National Guard. But it’s his retirement in 2005 that’s prompting criticism from some Republicans who are suggesting he abandoned his team to pursue a campaign for Congress.
As he ramped up for a congressional bid in 2005, Walz’s campaign in March issued a statement saying he still planned to run despite a possible mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to Iraq. According to the Guard, Walz retired from service in May of that year.
In August 2005, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit. The unit mobilized in October of that year before it deployed to Iraq in March 2006.
There is no evidence that Walz timed his departure with the intent of avoiding deployment. But the fact remains that he left ahead of his unit’s departure. In a statement, the Harris campaign pushed back on GOP characterizations of Walz’s service, and also noted that he advocated for veterans once he was elected to the US House.
After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform – and as Vice President of the United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families,” the campaign said.
In diplomacy news: California’s governor flew in for the young bears’ debut. Throngs of media gathered inside the zoo, while the city of San Diego warned of traffic jams ahead of the much-anticipated event on Thursday.
The San Diego zoo rolled out the red carpet for the first public showing of its newest residents: two giant pandas, the first to enter the US in two decades.
For years, the Chinese government has loaned pandas to zoos around the world in a practice called “panda diplomacy”.
The fuzzy ambassadors have long been a symbol of the US-China friendship, ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National zoo in Washington DC in 1972. As relations soured between the two countries, China stopped renewing panda loans to US zoos. But last year, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said he was “ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation” and pledged to reduce tensions between the two countries.
Only four other giant pandas currently reside in the United States, all at the zoo in Atlanta. The Smithsonian’s National zoo will receive a new pair of pandas by the end of the year after its last bears returned to China last November. As part of the loan agreement, US zoos typically pay $1m a year toward China’s wildfire conservation efforts, and all cubs born in the US must return to China by age four.
And a response from the Harris campaign – via MSNBC:
The Harris campaign responds to Trump's criticisms: "If Donald Trump is so concerned about the success of VP Harris' campaign blitz, he could, you know, get out there on the campaign trail."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 8, 2024
Here is the press pool report from the Harris campaign – Politico’s Eugene Daniels has the honours today – where the Democratic candidate stopped on the tarmac to take questions from journalists. Harris has so far –an that is a short so far – avoided taking many questions from journalists, and has not yet sat down to an extended interview. But she says that she wants to do one before the end of the month. She also said that she is “beyond trying to speculate about how [Trump] thinks”:
The VP walked over to the pool and took a few questions.
On debate with Trump: “Well, I’m glad that he’s finally agreed to a debate on September 10.”
On Republican attacks on Walz record: “Listen, I praise anyone who has presented themselves to serve our country. And I think that we all should.”
On why Trump originally backed out of debate: “I am beyond trying to speculate about how he thinks.”
On being open to more debates: “I am happy to have that conversation about an additional debate, or after September 10, for sure.”
On a sit-down interview : “I’ve talked to my team. I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.”
This is Helen Sullivan taking over our live US politics coverage for the next while. Stay tuned for the latest.
Today so far
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz addressed the United Auto Workers union in Detroit on Thursday. “Let the collective come together around a common experience, which at its core is about dignity and the dignity of labor,” Harris said while Walz said, “I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket and couldn’t be prouder to stand with UAW.”
ABC News has confirmed that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will debate each other on September 10. Both Harris and Trump have confirmed they will attend the debate.
Donald Trump said he is “very happy” to run the election against Kamala Harris instead of Joe Biden. “We call her the first loser,” Trump said because Harris dropped out of her first presidential campaign early in the cycle, in 2019 before the 2020 primary season began.
Nancy Pelosi has said she will need to come to terms with the role she played in Joe Biden dropping out of his re-election campaign – while also saying it was all in service of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House, her new “life goal.” She said that having a part in the change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket for 2024 was chiefly about ensuring the best prospects that Trump and the Republicans won’t win this November.
Hillary Clinton was all over X today in support of the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Democratic ticket for the White House, defending Walz’s military record. She mocked Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance for posing with Air Force Two as if he will one day fly in it as the veep, with Clinton reminding people of his anti-choice stance on reproductive rights.
Donald Trump praised Walz’s handling of the mass protests and some riots that followed the murder of George Floyd by police in his state in 2020, while the-then president was on a phone call with state governors, according to a resurfaced audio clip. This contradicts Trump now slamming Walz for a weak response.
Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump by six points, 53% to 47%, among likely voters, according to a new poll by Marquette Law School. Among registered voters, 52% said Harris is the choice for president while Trump is the choice of 48%.
Harris and Walz’s campaign has released a new Latino-focused ad in English and Spanish called “Determination.” The one-minute ad, which aims to target Latino voters, centers on Harris’s track record as a prosecutor, state attorney general, senator and vice president.
Since launching her campaign, Harris has turned to the ideas of freedom and individual liberties – concepts long associated with the rhetoric of the conservative movement – and turned them back on Trump and the modern Republican party. In Harris’s campaign rallies so far, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights and, in this speech, labor rights form the basis of freedom.
“Even if you’re not a member of a union, you better thank unions. I’m here to say thank you, thank you, thank you to the sisters and brothers of UAW for all you are and all we will do over these next 89 days,” said Harris at the UAW earlier today.
During her speech, the vice-president referred to a political “perversion” of the Republican party, “where there’s a suggestion that somehow strength is about making people feel small, making people feel alone, but isn’t that the very opposite of what we know, unions know, to be strong? It’s about the collective. It’s about knowing that no one should ever be made to fight alone.”
Trump put out a dizzying number of falsehoods at his press conference earlier. Here are just a few:
1) He said the crowd at his speech on January 6, 2021 was comparable to the crowd that gathered for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. An estimated 10,000 people attended Trump’s speech. About a quarter of a million gathered to hear King speak.
2) He claimed that the US economy was at the brink of a depression. “Not a recession, a depression,” he said. While the stock market took a dip recently, many indicators suggest that the US economy is generally on firm footing. Today, Wall Street saw its best day of trading in two years.
3) He said “the vast majority of the country” supports him, and that his base includes “75 percent of the country”. That’s a bold claim for a former president who never won the popular vote. Polls currently indicate that about 43% of Americans currently hold a favorable view of Trump. The majority (more than 51%) have an unfavorable view.
This post was amended to correct the number of people estimated to have attended Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021.
Updated
JD Vance’s investments reveal potential contradictions between the political persona he has sought to project, his history as a venture capitalist and Peter Thiel acolyte, and his status as a hard-edged tribune of the so-called “new right”.
Companies he has invested in include a firm that carries out medical testing of therapies that may include stem cells in scientific research to tech firms with records of harvesting data. Vance and some of the people behind the various firms he is involved with also exhibit an obsession with references to the mythology around The Lord of the Rings’ fantasy world.
The revelations come in part from an analysis of his financial disclosures to the Senate ethics committee since 2022, first as a Senate candidate and then as a junior senator for Ohio. The Guardian’s reporting also drew on other public records and open source materials.
The most recent disclosure, which covers until the end of 2022, also showcases the peculiar preoccupations that Vance as an investor shared with a Thiel-adjacent network of rightwing Silicon Valley venture capitalists who later spent millions supporting Vance’s candidacy to the Senate in 2022.
Joe Lowndes, a political science professor at Hunter College and the author of several books on the American political right, said: “Vance has been a chameleon his whole life – that’s how he described himself in his autobiography.
The Cook Political Report had moved Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from “lean Republican” to “toss up” – a reflection of Harris’ momentum in the presidential race.
“For the first time in a long time, Democrats are united and energized, while Republicans are on their heels. Unforced errors from both Trump and his vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance have shifted the media spotlight from Biden’s age to Trump’s liabilities,” Cook Political Report’s Amy Walters wrote. “In other words, the presidential contest has moved from one that was Trump’s to lose to a much more competitive contest.”
Whereas Biden was trailing Trump in key swing states, Harris is tied with Trump or sometimes leading in more recent polls.
Trump falsely claimed that no one died during the January 6 riot
During Donald Trump’s rambling press conference today, the former president revived many of his go-to talking points, including falsehoods about the economy, his opponets’ policies and his own record.
But one of his most audacious claims was that no one died in the January 6 riot at the Capitol, and that there was a “peaceful transfer of power” after the 202 election.
Trump lies that "nobody was killed on January 6" and says "the people of January 6 were treated very unfairly." pic.twitter.com/kWrMrKZ8mF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 8, 2024
In fact, four Trump supporters died in the crowd.
Ashli Babbitt, 35, died after she was shot in the shoulder by a Capitol Police officer while protesters “were forcing their way toward the House Chamber where Members of Congress were sheltering in place,” according to a statement from the former Capitol Police chief Steven Sund.
Two other “Stop the Steal” died of heart attack, according to the DC medical examiners office and another of accidental overdose.
Three law enforcement officers also died after the the attack, including one who died from blunt force injuries while defending the capitol and two who died by suicide. The families of the latter two officers, along with some elected officials, sought to deem their deaths as “line of duty” – noting they suffered from trauma following the riot.
Leaders of the “uncommitted” campaign spoke with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, before a rally in Detroit on Wednesday to discuss their calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo on Israel.
Harris “shared her sympathies and expressed an openness to a meeting with the Uncommitted leaders to discuss an arms embargo”, the organization said in a statement.
But a Harris aide said on Thursday that while the vice-president did say she wanted to engage more with members of the Muslim and Palestinian communities about the Israel-Gaza war, she did not agree to discuss an arms embargo, according to Reuters.
Phil Gordon, Harris’s national security adviser, also said on Twitter/X that the vice-president did not support an embargo on Israel but “will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law”. A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign confirmed she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.
The uncommitted movement, a protest vote against Joe Biden that started during the presidential primary season to send a message to the Democratic party about the US’s role in the Israel-Gaza conflict, began in Michigan and spread to several states. In Walz’s Minnesota, it captured 20% of the Democratic votes.
Harris’s announcement of Walz as her running mate on Tuesday was met with celebration and even hope by many different parts of the Democratic electorate. But those in the uncommitted movement are still weighing their response, and hoping for a presidential campaign that will comprehensively address the mounting death toll in Gaza.
“[Walz] is not someone who has been pro-Palestine in any way. That’s really important here. But he is also someone who’s shown a willingness to change on different issues,” said Asma Mohammed, the campaign manager for Vote Uncommitted Minnesota, and one of 35 delegates nationwide representing the uncommitted movement.
Kamala Harris has finished her address to the UAW, saying:
“ I’m here to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the sisters and brothers of UAW for all you are and all we will do on these next 89 days. God bless you.”
“You know, when you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for. We know what we stand for, and we stand for the people, and we stand for the dignity of work, and we stand for freedom,” said Kamala Harris.
“We stand for justice. We stand for equality, and so we will fight for all of it. And the bottom line about UAW is that I also know, and I’ll say to all the friends watching, look, even if you’re not a member of the union, you better thank unions,” she added.
Harris and Walz campaign in Michigan
“Let the collective come together around a common experience, which at its core is about dignity and the dignity of labor, and then let the people come together to negotiate so you make the balance, and then the outcome will be fair,” said Kamala Harris.
“And isn’t that what we’re talking about in this year election? We’re saying we just want fairness. We want dignity for all people. We want to recognize the right all people have to freedom and liberty to make choices, especially those that are about heart and home and not have their government telling them what to do,” she added.
Updated
Kamala Harris has taken the stage.
“I understand the concept and the noble concept behind collective bargaining. And here it is…fairness. It’s about saying, ‘Hey, in a negotiation, don’t we all believe the outcome should be fair?’ I mean, who could disagree with that?” Harris said.
The outcome should be fair. It should be fair, right? But when you’re talking about the individual and a big company, and you’re applying that one individual to negotiate against a big company, how’s that outcome going to be fair?,” she added.
“You know, things work really well in life and really well with your neighbors and really well in communities when you mind your own damn business, things work better. Stay out of our business. Stay out of our business,” said Tim Walz.
“He’s not fighting for you. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t care about your family. And his running mate is just as dangerous and backward as he is,” he added.
“So this is very simple, you know it, and it’s going to take a heck of a lot of hard work, but this election is a simple choice, what direction and what’s our country going to look like? What direction are we going?” said Tim Walz.
“You know what we’ve said, If Donald Trump’s going to take it backwards, he’s going to, we aren’t going back. We’re not going back,” he added.
Updated
Tim Walz has now taken the stage.
“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket and couldn’t be prouder to stand with UAW,” said Walz.
“You got two people up here that were on the picket line of striking UAW members, that’s a place Donald Trump will never be,” said Shawn Fain.
“You know, anyone can be your friend when the sun’s shining, things are going great, but you find out who your friends are when things get tough. And you know…when we look at tough times, we’ve been at tough times, we see who chose to stand with us and who chose to sit on the sideline to do nothing,” he added.
“This is not a time to sit back and hope for the best. This is our generation-defining moment. Everything is at stake,” Fain continued.
“You know, Donald Trump calls me stupid and you know why? Because he thinks auto workers are stupid, but we’re not stupid. We don’t fall for Trump’s alternative facts, or what we all call lies,” said Shawn Fain.
“This isn’t about opinions. This election is not about party politics. All we have to do is look at these candidates in their own words and actions. That’s all the facts we need, and that paints a very clear picture of which side the candidates are on,” he added.
He went on to note Trump’s absence during UAW’s strikes in recent years, saying Trump was “missing in action.”
“The man’s a con-man,” Fain added.
UAW president: Harris and Walz are 'one of us'
UAW president Shawn Fain is currently addressing the room.
“I think you already know this, but what’s at stake in this election? It’s very simple, everything is at stake. It’s about a choice of whether we continue forward or whether we go backwards,” he said.
“Kamala Harris is one of us. Governor Tim Walz is one of us. You know, they’re working class people. They have working class roots. They know struggle They know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck,” he added.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have just taken the stage in Detroit, Michigan where they are set to deliver remarks to the United Auto Workers union.
Harris and Walz entered the union hall to a crowd of cheering supporters.
ABC News confirms Harris and Trump debate on Sept 10
ABC News has confirmed that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will debate each other on September 10.
Both Harris and Trump have confirmed they will attend the debate.
ABC News will host qualifying presidential candidates to debate on September 10 on @ABC.
— ABC News (@ABC) August 8, 2024
Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both confirmed they will attend the ABC debate. https://t.co/DEBOGC2ovO pic.twitter.com/t0KAWpcYOY
During his news conference in Mar-a-Lago a few minutes ago, Donald Trump, who in recent weeks has refused to debate Harris on the originally scheduled network, said that he has agreed to ABC News’ offer to debate the vice president.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said:
“We have spoken to the heads of the network and it’s all been confirmed other than some fairly minor details – audience, some location, which city would we put it into but all things that would be settled very easily.”
Updated
Harris and Walz to address United Auto Workers union in Detroit
As Donald Trump continues delivering remarks at his press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are gearing up to address the United Auto Workers union in Detroit, Michigan.
Harris and Walz’s address will mark their second campaign event in Detroit in two days.
Last week, the UAW issued its endorsement of Harris, with its president Shawn Fain saying that she has a “proven track record of delivering for the working class.”
Updated
In a bizzare tangent, Donald Trump said he was “very protective of” Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.
Trump, who has accused Clinton of being “unbalanced,” “unstable,” “dangerous,” as well as a “pathological” liar and the “devil,” in addition to having routinely threatened to jail her, said:
“You know, with Hillary Clinton, I could have done things to her that would have made your head spin. I thought it was a very bad thing, take the wife of a president of the United States and put her in jail, and then I see the way they treat me. That’s the way it goes. But I was very protective of her.
Nobody would understand that, but I was, I think my people understand it. They used to say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’ and I’d say, ‘Just relax, please. We won the election.’”
Trump calls Harris "barely competent"
Donald Trump says he is “very happy” to run the election against Kamala Harris instead of Joe Biden.
“We call her the first loser,” Trump said because Harris dropped out of her first presidential campaign early in the cycle, in 2019 before the 2020 primary season began. “She never made it to Iowa,” he said, adding that her campaign was “nasty” because of the way she debated against Biden and criticized him for not supporting busing to implement school desegregation.
Trump then said Biden regrets picking Harris as his vice president. There is no evidence to suggest either that this is true or that Trump knows Biden’s mind on this.
He said Harris “has not done an interview.” It is true that Harris has not done a media interview since being endorsed by Joe Biden to take over the top of the Democratic ticket and then becoming the presumptive nominee. He added: “She cannot do an interview. She is barely competent.”
“She could not pass a bar exam,” Trump said of Harris, who was the attorney general for California before becoming a US Senator and then vice president. If she becomes president he said: “It’s going to be a great failure, it’s going to be a failure the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Trump added, of Harris: “She is not smart enough to do a news conference.”
Updated
Donald Trump is talking very aggressively at a press conference he called at his Mar-a-Lago home and resort in Florida, which got underway a few moments ago.
The former president and Republican nominee for president this November began with a monologue warning of apocalyptic type prospects for America under Joe Biden now and a prospective presidency for Kamala Harris.
Right now he is speaking at length about the size of his crowds at rallies in relation to rallies for Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
Earlier he said the US is on the brink of a 1929 style economic depression.
“Not a recession, a depression,” he said.
He said the US is in “the most dangerous” situation in its history, with the threat of World War III looming. There is no evidence of this. “We are in great danger of World War III,” he just said.
And he said of migration that in countries “all over the world prisons are being emptied out into our country.” He said migrants are coming to the US “from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions and insane institutions, which are mental institutions on steroids.” This is not true.
He has been greeting some press queries with, simply: “What a stupid question.”
Updated
Trump touts debate dates, says 'other side' has yet to agree
Donald Trump is holding a press conference and, prior to taking questions from reporters, the former president and current Republican nominee for the White House this November has been giving a dystopian-style mini speech.
During it, he said he has agreements from TV networks for three debates against Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee – on Fox on September 4, on NBC on September 10 and on ABC on September 25.
Trump said details about audience and locations have to be agreed – as do the Harris campaign.
“I hope she agrees,” he said.
Harris and Trump previously had a disagreement about debating, with Harris saying he should honor for September 10 on ABC that had been scheduled before Joe Biden passed the torch to her at the top of the Democratic party ticket for the election. Trump had said he would debate her on Fox.
Updated
Nancy Pelosi was reluctant to tell reporters details of the role she played in the drama that led to Joe Biden stepping aside from his re-election campaign in favor of Kamala Harris, after his dire performance in the first presidential debate of the election against Donald Trump last month.
But she did not deny she had a role. She had also advised him not to stoop to debating Trump, the Associated Press reports.
It was Pelosi who publicly encouraged Biden to make a decision about his reelection campaign when he had already insisted he had no plans to step aside. Once he exited and endorsed Kamala Harris atop the ticket, it was Pelosi who was a big fan of her future running mate, Tim Walz, AP writes.
Over and again, Pelosi declined to detail her conversations with Biden during this tumultuous period, or if the conversations happened at all. The two have not spoken since he bowed out of the race.
At some point, I will come to terms with my, to peace, with my own role in this. I think that part of all of our goals in this was to preserve his legacy, a fabulous legacy, that would go right down the drain if Bozo got elected to the White House,” she said.
Pelosi said it was not her intention to put Biden on the spot when she showed up on his favorite morning news program in early July, after his dismal debate with Trump, and suggested he make a decision about his reelection bid.
Biden had just written a letter to Congress, insisting he was pressing on after a number of rank-and-file Democrats started saying publicly he should bow out of the race. It was not well received, she said.
I was really asking for a better campaign,” she said, fearing Democrats could lose the Senate as well as the White House, and fail to regain the House.
Of trying to dissuade Biden from debating Trump, after he wouldn’t even debate his own Republican primary challengers, she said:
I just thought it’d be like doggy-doo and you’re going to get it on your shoe and you’re all going to smell like him.”
Updated
Pelosi says life "goal" is to prevent Trump regaining White House
Nancy Pelosi has said she will need to come to terms with the role she played in Joe Biden dropping out of his re-election campaign – while also saying it was all in service of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House, her new “life goal”.
The former Speaker of the House, sitting California congresswoman and almost immortally powerful Democratic party grandee talked to reporters a little earlier.
She said that having a part in the change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket for 2024 was chiefly about ensuring the best prospects that Trump and the Republicans won’t win this November.
She said about Trump:
How can I say this in the nicest possible way: My goal in life was that man would never step in the White House again,” the Associated Press reports.
Pelosi refers to Trump, variously, as Bozo, a snake-oil salesman, whatisname and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the news agency noted. She was talking about her new book The Art of Power, My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, which the Guardian scooped last week. Read on….
Updated
Interim summary
Hello, US politics blog readers, it’s a lively day for news and there is more to come, so stay with us and we’ll bring you the developments as they happen. Donald Trump is due to hold a press conference at 2pm ET.
Here’s where things stand:
Hillary Clinton is all over X today in support of the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Democratic ticket for the White House, defending Walz’s military record. She mocked Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance for posing with Air Force Two as if he’ll one day fly in it as the veep, with Clinton reminding people of his anti-choice stance on reproductive rights.
Donald Trump praised Walz’s handling of the mass protests and some riots that followed the murder of George Floyd by police in his state in 2020, while the-then president was on a phone call with state governors, according to a resurfaced audio clip. This contradicts Trump now slamming Walz for a weak response.
Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump by six points, 53% to 47%, among likely voters, according to a new poll by Marquette Law School. Among registered voters, 52% said Harris is the choice for president while Trump is the choice of 48%.
Harris and Walz’s campaign has released a new Latino-focused ad in English and Spanish called “Determination.” The one-minute ad, which aims to target Latino voters, centers on Harris’s track record as a prosecutor, state attorney general, senator and vice president.
The Democratic duo are continuing their campaign blitz today with a scheduled address at an United Auto Workers event in Detroit, following an energized rally in the city last night. Harris’s scheduled address before the UAW comes amid the union’s endorsement of her and Walz.
Updated
Hillary Clinton is speaking out in defense of Tim Walz who has come under fire from Republicans over his 24-year military record in the army national guard.
Writing on Thursday in response to Republican accusations that Walz retired in 2005 to avoid being deployed to Iraq, Clinton said:
Republicans are re-running an old tactic and trying to smear a veteran who’s also a Democrat.
Please pass this on to counter their lies:
Tim Walz submitted his retirement request to the U.S. Army National Guard months prior to notification of his unit’s deployment.
Republicans are re-running an old tactic and trying to smear a veteran who's also a Democrat.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 8, 2024
Please pass this on to counter their lies:
Tim Walz submitted his retirement request to the U.S. Army National Guard months prior to notification of his unit's deployment. https://t.co/IdZmwES6hG
In response to the Republicans for Harris coalition launched across the country this week, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign released the following statement on Thursday:
“As part of the launch, dozens of Republican leaders – including former elected officials and members of Donald Trump’s own administration – held events across the battlegrounds to endorse Vice President Harris and rally fellow Republicans to defeat Trump.
While Trump and Vance continue to turn off independent and Republican voters, Team Harris-Walz has made clear that there’s a home in our campaign for Republican voters who care deeply about the future of our democracy, standing strong with our allies against foreign adversaries, and working across the aisle to get things done for the American people.”
In a new tweet on Thursday ahead of her address with workers from the United Auto Workers union in Detroit, Michigan Kamala Harris wrote:
“This campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. Our campaign is about fighting for the future.”
This campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 8, 2024
Our campaign is about fighting for the future. pic.twitter.com/nPBq8Cn2cy
Since launching her campaign trail and choosing Tim Walz as her running mate, Harris and her team have been framing herself and Walz as “joyful warriors” in contrast to Trump and JD Vance, both of whom have been decried as “weird” by Democrats including Walz.
Martin Pengelly has more for the Guardian on Donald Trump’s previous praises towards Tim Walz during the 2020 George Floyd racial justice protests:
Walz told Politico he and Trump had many calls in 2020. A source close to Walz told the Guardian the episode Trump described actually happened in April, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, after Trump posted incendiary tweets about state public health measures and more than a month before the George Floyd protests and riots.
In the call with governors on 1 June, the AP and ABC reported, Trump also told Walz, regarding the riots, “I don’t blame you. I blame the mayor”, a reference to Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis.
Trump added: “Tim, you called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked [the rioters] out so fast, it was like bowling pins.”
That was of a piece with Trump’s incendiary tone in a 29 May tweet, in which he said: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
For the full story, click here:
Trump 'very happy' with Walz' handling of George Floyd protests - resurfaced audio
In a resurfaced audio clip from 2020, Donald Trump praised Tim Walz’s handling of the George Floyd protests while on a phone call with governors.
Speaking on the call, Trump said, “What they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,” in apparent reference to the national guard that Walz deployed following the protests.
He went on to add, “I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim… You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast, it was like bowling pins.”
The resurfaced audio of Trump’s praises contradicts Republicans’ new attack line against Walz as many accuse him worsening the situation.
On Wednesday, JD Vance said that Walz “allowed rioters to burn down" businesses while House majority leader Steve Scalise said that Walz “let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground in 2020.”
In response to JD Vance’s post on X of him walking on the tarmac on Wednesday alongside people who appear to be his aides and security detail – which he captioned as “This Entourage reboot is going to be awesome,” Hillary Clinton wrote:
“This entourage is on its way to block women from crossing state borders for health care.”
This entourage is on its way to block women from crossing state borders for health care pic.twitter.com/H92QGZdYkF
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 8, 2024
In 2022, JD Vance called for a “federal response” to block women from travelling for abortions, as well as pushed the baseless taking point that George Soros-funded planes were transporting Black women across state lines for the procedure.
With Tim Walz being thrust into the national spotlight, his handling of George Floyd’s killing by police is coming back into view.
The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:
For his handling of George Floyd’s killing by police, Tim Walz has largely been commended by progressives both nationwide and on the local level. The vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota governor’s role in the 2020 case has come back into view since being selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate on Monday.
Many have credited Walz for tapping Keith Ellison, the attorney general, to prosecute the case, which resulted in an unlikely conviction of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of Floyd while on duty. Former officers J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were later convicted for violating Floyd’s civil rights.
“At the time, the Hennepin county attorney [Mike Freeman] was someone who the community did not have any trust in being able to try the case effectively,” said Elianne Farhat, executive director of the political advocacy group TakeAction Minnesota. “So the community and George Floyd’s family raised the demand that the case be moved to the attorney general. What we saw is that [Ellison] and his team led a powerful case and those police officers were ultimately held accountable.”
For the full story, click here:
The Italian rightwing newspaper Il Tempo has come under fire for racism after featuring an image on its front page of Kamala Harris wearing a Native American feathered headdress alongside the headline: “The challenge against Donald, hunt for the white man.”
The headline was in reference to Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, and intended to depict Harris as picking a white man to try and win over support from Donald Trump voters.
The front page was slammed as racist by critics, who also pointed out that Harris is not of Native American origin.
Francesco Strazzari, a professor of international relations at Sant’Anna University in Pisa, wrote on X: “How racial tropes work: ignorance runs so deep that Italy’s rightwing newspaper Il Tempo ignores that that Kamala Harris’ mother was from Madras, India,” and not Native American.
How racial tropes work: ignorance runs so deep that Italy’s rightwing newspaper Il Tempo ignores that Kamala Harris’s mother was from Madras, India. Kamala is portrayed on frontpage as Native Indian under the title ‘white manhunt’. pic.twitter.com/ADvZSlazyB
— francesco strazzari (@franxstrax) August 7, 2024
Tommaso Cerno, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, defended the front page, saying the headdress was chosen as a “symbol par excellence of all America’s minorities.” He accused Italy’s left of incorrectly accusing him of confusing Harris’ ethnicity. “Total idiocy!” he said in a video posted on X.
Harris leading Trump by 6% among likely voters - poll
Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump by 6 points, 53% to 47%, among likely voters, according to a new poll by Marquette Law School.
Among registered voters, 52% said Harris is the choice for president while Trump is the choice of 48%.
Moreover, since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris is seen favorably by 47% and unfavorably by 50% of registered voters, while 3% say they haven’t heard enough, according to the survey.
The survey was conducted July 24-Aug. 1, 2024, interviewing 879 registered voters nationwide, with a margin of error of +/-4.1 percentage points, Marquette University Law School said, adding that for likely voters, the sample size is 683 with a margin of error of +/-4.7 percentage points.
Just within the last two hours, Donald Trump has fired off six posts on Truth Social, each one angrier than the last.
In addition to accusing Kamala Harris of refusing to do interviews “because her team realizes she is unable to answer questions,” Trump vowed to “expose Kamala during the debate the same way I exposed Crooked Joe, Hillary, and everyone else during debates.”
Trump then lamented about media coverage of the size of his rallies, saying:
“If Kamala has 1,000 people at a Rally, the Press goes ‘crazy,’ and talks about how ‘big’ it was - And she pays for her ‘Crowd.’ When I have a Rally, and 100,000 people show up, the Fake News doesn’t talk about it, THEY REFUSE TO MENTION CROWD SIZE. The Fake News is the Enemy of the People!”
Writing in capitalised letters, Trump also said that this election is about the “ECONOMY, INFLATION, OPEN BORDER (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION), RESPECT FOR OUR NATION, PREVENTING WORLD WAR III AND A 1929 STYLE DEPRESSION.”
Harris-Walz campaign releases new Latino-focused ad called 'Determination'
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign has released a new Latino-focused ad in English and Spanish called “Determination.”
The one-minute ad, which aims to target Latino voters, centers on Harris’s track record as a prosecutor, state attorney general, senator and vice president.
Multiple voiceovers in the ad say:
“When you’re raised by an immigrant mother, you learn what’s possible with determination. And determination is how Kamala Harris went from working in McDonald’s to prosecutor, state attorney general, US senator and our vice president in only one generation.”
Describing the ad, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said:
“This ad buy also sends a clear signal that vice president Harris and governor Walz are leveraging the historic outpouring of grassroots support we’ve seen, and using it to earn the support of the Latino vote. Because it’s determination that will win this election.”
This ad is part of a historic, two-week, seven-figure paid media blitz targeting Latino voters — a testament to Team Harris-Walz’s commitment to earning the Latino vote, the campaign said.
“Determination” will run on TV, radio, and digital platforms in English and Spanish in battleground states with an emphasis on high-viewership events that skew toward Latino voters, including the Olympic Games, Major League Baseball games, game shows, high-ranked telenovelas, and La Liga de Fútbol and Leagues Cup matches, it added.
Updated
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to continue campaign blitz with UAW event in Detroit
Good morning,
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are continuing their campaign blitz today with a scheduled address at an United Auto Workers event in Detroit following an energized rally in the city on Wednesday night.
Harris’s scheduled address before the UAW comes amid the union’s endorsement of her and Walz. Last week, the UAW president, Shawn Fain, hailed Harris’s record of “delivering for the working class” and in response to Harris’s pick of Walz as her running mate earlier this week, Fain said Walz is “one of us”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been firing off a series of posts on Truth Social this morning, one of which includes him announcing a press conference at 2pm ET in Mar-a-Lago – probably to lambast Harris and Walz over their progressive policies.
With Harris’s campaign gaining momentum across the country – much to Trump’s ire, a new survey by Marquette University Law School showed that among likely voters, Harris leads Trump 53% to 47%, or 6 points.
Here are other developments in US politics:
Joe Biden is set to call Hawaii governor Josh Green at 12.30pm ET to mark one year since the deadly Maui wildfires.
Far-right online attacks against Walz are focusing on a conspiracy theory that he changed Minnesota’s flag to mimic Somalia’s.
Updated
