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Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Kamala Harris made the first public speech of her presidential campaign, promising to unite Democrats during a visit to the vital swing state of Wisconsin, and comparing Donald Trump to the sorts of criminals she used to prosecute in California. Earlier in the day, the two most powerful Democrats in Congress, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, announced their endorsements of the vice-president, underscoring the glide path Harris appears to be on to become the party’s presidential nominee.
Donald Trump has said he wants to debate Kamala Harris despite speculation that he was seeking a way out. Trump had been due to face Joe Biden on 10 September but, after the president’s withdrawal, cast doubt on whether he would still take part.
In a statement, the Harris campaign noted that they had raised $100m in donations in the 36 hours since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, adding: “Baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them.”
Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the US Congress, and US military support for the war, calling Netanyahu a “war criminal” presiding over a “rightwing extremist government”. Sanders delivered his remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday as Congress expects Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. The speech comes after an underwhelming arrival to the US, just after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from November’s elections.
Comments Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance made in 2021 questioning Harris’s leadership because she did not have biological children have resurfaced, testing the young conservative senator in his early days campaigning as part of the Republicans’ presidential ticket.
US Capitol Police arrested Jewish activists protesting against US military support for Israel inside a congressional building on Tuesday, a day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver a speech to Congress. The protesters, organized by activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, wore red T-shirts bearing the phrases “not in our name” and “Jews say stop arming Israel.” Some carried banners reading “ceasefire now” and “let Gaza live.” The activist group said over 250 protesters were arrested and 400 people took part in the demonstration. Police said around 200 people were arrested.
Secret Service officials are reported to be encouraging Donald Trump’s campaign to stop holding outdoor rallies in the wake of the 13 July assassination attempt on the former president at a fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania. The move, reported by the Washington Post, comes as Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday following a combative grilling before a congressional committee by both Democrats and Republicans over apparent security failures before an attempt on Trump’s life by a 20-year-old gunman.
The president will meet with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visits Washington DC, and the pair will also sit down with the families of American hostages taken by Hamas. Harris will attend neither event.
The House will vote on setting up a bipartisan panel to investigate the Trump assassination attempt, its Republican and Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.
Biden condemned an Ohio state senator who warned of “a civil war to save the country” as he introduced Trump’s running mate JD Vance yesterday. The state senator apologized.
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, joined Republicans in approving of Cheatle’s decision to resign, while also saying the Trump rally shooting proves assault weapons must be banned.
Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator convicted on charges related to accepting bribes, will reportedly resign his Senate seat in August.
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Kamala Harris’s outspoken stance on the Gaza war hints at a possible shift from Joe Biden’s Israel policy as she eyes the Democratic presidential nomination - as Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to find out this week, AFP reports.
The US vice president will be conspicuously absent from the Israeli leader’s address to the US Congress on Wednesday, in what analysts said was a clear signal about her concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza.
The 59-year-old has never contradicted Biden on Israel. Time and again, however, she has been the US administration official most loudly calling for a ceasefire in the conflict.
With Biden’s shock exit from the White House race, Harris has a chance to make a “clean slate” on an issue where there has been a risk of alienating a swathe of Democratic voters ahead of November’s election, said Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group.
“The Israel-Gaza issue is the one where there is the most daylight between Biden and Harris, and I think there’s going to be people inside her camp that are going to push her to make that difference explicit,” he told AFP.
Police arrest hundreds of protestors at US Capitol
Back now to the anti-war protests that happened at Capitol Hill earlier today. At least 200 protestors have been arrested, according to police and organisers, who have given different numbers.
US Capitol Police arrested Jewish activists protesting against US military support for Israel inside a congressional building on Tuesday, a day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver a speech to Congress.
The protesters, organized by activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, wore red T-shirts bearing the phrases “not in our name” and “Jews say stop arming Israel.” Some carried banners reading “ceasefire now” and “let Gaza live.”
Protests are planned to coincide with Netanyahu’s visit, in which he will meet President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The activist group said over 250 protesters were arrested and 400 people took part in the demonstration.
Police said around 200 people were arrested.
“We told the people, who legally entered, to stop or they would be arrested. They did not stop,” the police said in a statement.
“Demonstrating inside the Congressional Buildings is against the law.”
Here is video of Sanders’s speech:
Full story: Bernie Sanders condemns speech to Congress by ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the US Congress, calling him a “war criminal” presiding over a “rightwing extremist government”.
Sanders delivered his remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday as Congress expects Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. The speech comes after an underwhelming arrival to the US, just after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from November’s elections.
“Tomorrow will be unique in bringing Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress,” said Sanders on Tuesday. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.”
Sanders said of Netanyahu: “He should not be welcome in the United States Congress.”
Several Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech on Wednesday.
The rally site in Butler where the attempted assassination took place had clear sightlines to the stage far beyond its security perimeter, including the roof from which suspected shooter Thomas Matthews Crooks fired off an estimated seven rounds before being fatally shot by Secret Service snipers.
It has since been reported that Crooks was able to scout out the rally site with a drone and had been identified as “suspicious” an hour before the event. The presidential protection agency had assigned security of the roof to local law enforcement and had been notified of a suspicious person minutes before the shooting took place.
Former White House physician Ronny Jackson, now a Texas representative, said at the weekend that the bullet that grazed Trump’s ear came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head”.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, appointed Ronald Rowe, deputy director of the Secret Service, to serve as the acting director until a permanent replacement is chosen.
The Trump campaign, which may have favored outdoor venues until the shooting because of their larger crowd capacity, is not currently planning further outdoor events and instead is looking to book indoor venues, including basketball arenas, according to the outlet.
During a rally in an arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, Trump appeared to lament that some supporters had been left outside. The Republican candidate is also known for exaggerating crowd estimates, dating back at least to his inauguration in 2017.
Since launching his first presidential bid, Trump has held hundreds of outdoor rallies that have become like festivals for his most ardent supporters, featuring tailgate parties and vendors hawking Trump memorabilia and campaign merchandise.
According to the Post, Trump advisers had told the Secret Service the 2024 re-election campaign was planning to hold large events, and would need increased protection and assets. But the agency is believed to have turned down the requests, citing a lack of resources.
If Trump now holds rallies in more secure locations, such as sports arenas, they will prove more expensive to the campaign.
Secret Service officials are reported to be encouraging Donald Trump’s campaign to stop holding outdoor rallies in the wake of the 13 July assassination attempt on the former president at a fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The move, reported by the Washington Post, comes as Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday following a combative grilling before a congressional committee by both Democrats and Republicans over apparent security failures before an attempt on Trump’s life by a 20-year-old gunman.
In a resignation letter, Cheatle said she’d made the “difficult” decision to leave the agency “with a heavy heart” and acknowledged that the agency “fell short” of its mission “to protect our nation’s leaders”, referring to the Butler rally.
The intent is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place,” Musk told Peterson. “I wouldn’t say that I’m for example MAGA,” he added, referring to the Trump catch phrase. “I think America is great. I’m more M-A-G, make America greater.”
He said it would promote “Freedom. Freedom to operate, meaning the least amount of government intervention possible.”
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The claim is “simply not true,” Musk told Jordan Peterson. “I am not donating $45m a month to Trump.”
“Now what I have done is that I have created a Pac or super pac or whatever you want to call it,” he said. It is called the America Pac.
It is a political organisation that can receive funding, that funding can then be used to help with political campaigns, he said.
It is unclear how much he is donating to the Super Pac.
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The New York Times reports meanwhile that, “Two Republican operatives who played senior roles helping the presidential campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have taken on leadership roles,” at the Pac.
“The aides, Generra Peck, who initially managed the DeSantis campaign, and Phil Cox, a former head of the Republican Governors Association who ran the DeSantis political operation in the years before his run, are quietly guiding the group, America PAC, according to three people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly,” the times reports.
“Mr. Musk, who recently endorsed former President Donald J. Trump and is a friend of Mr. Lonsdale, has described himself as having “created” the group and is expected to donate, but the amount remains unclear.”
Musk backs away from reported plans to give $45m a month to Trump super Pac
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said in a post on X that he never said he was donating $45 million a month to Republican Donald Trump.
Earlier this month, Musk said he planed to give $45m a month to a Super Pac focused on electing Donald Trump, starting in July, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Today, after denying the claim on Jordan Peterson’s show, Musk replied to a Tweet claiming, “Elon Musk never said that he was donating $45M/month to Trump – that was a totally fake WSJ article”, saying, “Yeah”.
Elon Musk never said that he was donating $45M/month to Trump – that was a totally fake WSJ article.
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 24, 2024
He just created a Super PAC focused on supporting candidates who favor a meritocracy and personal freedom, but funding to date has been far below that.
pic.twitter.com/RQEsJkHnqr
To another Tweet he replied:
“Yeah, it’s ridiculous. I am making some donations to America PAC, but at a much lower level and the key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom.”
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After about a half-hour of clapping and chanting, officers from the US Capitol Police issued several warnings, then began arresting protesters — binding their hands with zip ties and leading them away one-by-one.
“I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors and I know what a Holocaust looks like,” said Jane Hirschmann, a native of Saugerties, New York, who drove down for the protest along with her two daughters — both of whom were arrested. “When we say ‘Never Again,’ we mean never for anybody.”
The demonstrators focused much of their ire on the Biden administration, demanding that the president immediately cease all arms shipments to Israel.
“We’re not focusing on Netanyahu. He’s just a symptom,” Hirschmann said. “But how can (Biden) be calling for a cease-fire when he’s sending them bombs and planes?”
As of 8pm Tuesday night, the Capitol Police said they did not have a final tally of the number of people arrested. But JVP claimed in a statement that 400 people, “including over a dozen rabbis,” had been arrested.
More now about the anti-war protests on Capitol hill, via AP:
Protesters against the Gaza war staged a sit-in at a congressional office building Tuesday ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, with Capitol Police making multiple arrests.
Netanyahu arrived in Washington Monday for a visit that includes meetings with President Joe Biden and a Wednesday speech before a joint session of Congress. Dozens of protesters rallied outside his hotel Monday evening, and on Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of demonstrators staged a flashmob-style protest in the Cannon Building, which houses offices of House of Representatives members.
Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, protesters wearing red T-shirts that read “Not In Our Name” took over the building’s rotunda, sitting on the floor, unfurling signs and chanting “Let Gaza Live!”
The complaint, earlier reported by the New York Times, also argued that Harris taking over Biden’s remaining campaign funds amounted to an excessive unlawful contribution given that “Biden for President” was not an authorized committee for the Harris campaign.
“If Mr Biden will not seek the Democratic party’s nomination, then he will never participate in the general election and all general election contributions received by Biden for President are excessive and must be disposed of,” the complaint said.
Trump’s strategy, according to people familiar with the matter, has included opening new legal battles to try to prevent Harris from accessing Biden’s funds, although the complaint on Tuesday stopped short of a lawsuit.
Warrington made that explicit request to the FEC in the complaint, asking the agency to enjoin the transfer. And if the FEC were to deem the transfer unlawful, the complaint said, it would ask the FEC to consider issuing a fine or making a criminal referral to the US justice department.
The Harris campaign has viewed the FEC complaint as a spurious legal effort to throw sand in their gears, noting that the Biden-Harris committees have always been authorized committees for either Biden or Harris, according to a person familiar with the thinking.
And in a statement, the Harris campaign noted that they had raised $100m in donations in the 36 hours since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, adding: “Baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them.”
Trump files complaint against Harris for taking over Biden’s campaign funds
Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Vice-President Kamala Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.
The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m.
“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.
“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”
Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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Trump says Secret Service director didn't 'have much of choice' but to resign
Donald Trump said he does not think Kimberly Cheatle “had much of a choice” but to leave her post as Secret Service director after mounting questions about an assassination attempt against the former president.
“It should have happened, I would say, within an hour, not nine days, ten days,” he said during a Newsmax interview Tuesday. “That would seem to be inevitable.”
But Trump said he still feels physically safe as the Republican nominee. “I have to feel safe. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do this stuff,” he said.
The former president said he believes his protective detail, “should have had people on that rooftop” where the gunman fired his shots, “and they should have told me that there was a problem.”
Netflix co-founder donates $7m to Harris super PAC
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has donated $7m to a super PAC that supports Vice President Kamala Harris’ run for US president, a source close to Hastings said on Tuesday.
The source was confirming a report published by The Information earlier in the day. It is the largest political donation by Hastings to a single candidate, the publication said.
Hastings congratulated Harris on Monday after she received the support of a majority of Democratic delegates to become the party nominee against Republican Donald Trump in November.
“Congrats to Kamala Harris - now it is time to win,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X.
Congrats to Kamala Harris -- now it is time to win
— Reed Hastings (@reedhastings) July 23, 2024
President Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic candidate for the 2024 election and endorsed Harris on Sunday following pressure from Democrats in Congress and donors including Hastings.
Harris’ campaign raised $81m in the 24 hours following Biden’s exit, the most for a single day in the 2024 campaign for either party.
Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997 and stepped down as CEO in 2023. He now serves as executive chairman of the Netflix board.
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State election directors from across the country voiced serious concerns to a top US Postal Service official Tuesday that the system won’t be able to handle an expected crush of mail-in ballots in the November election, the Associated Press reports.
Steven Carter, manager of election and government programs for the postal service, attempted to reassure the directors at a meeting in Minneapolis that the system’s office of inspector general (OIG) will publish an election mail report next week containing “encouraging” performance numbers for this year so far.
“The data that that we’re seeing showing improvements in the right direction,” Carter told a conference of the National Association of State Election Directors. “And I think the OIG report is especially complimentary of how we’re handling the election now.”
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In case you missed this earlier: Trump said he will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
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Back to Trump’s FEC filing:
The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reports that the filing may not be resolved before election day.
Not all campaign finance legal experts share [Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington’s] view – some believe the Harris team is on legally safe ground – and it’s unclear what the FEC will decide. But the Trump team is looking to grind the gears in the transition from Mr Biden to Ms Harris in any way they can.
Mr Trump’s advisers had made clear they would seek to legally block Mr Biden from transferring funds to Ms Harris, suggesting a lawsuit was likely. Instead, they are filing a complaint with the FEC, which may not be resolved before election day.”
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Sanders ends his speech by saying Netanyahu’s “rightwing extremist government should not receive another nickel from US taxpayers”.
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The US has provided Israel with tens of billions of dollars of military aid, says Sanders.
Here is a recent story on US weapons funding for Israel:
“Madam President let us remember and understand that the Israel of today is not the Israel of the past,” says Sanders.
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These are not only acts of extreme cruelty, but they are violations of US and international law.
“They are war crimes,” says Sanders. And Netanyahu has enacted them.
When Netanyahu speaks tomorrow, he hopes that people present will think “for just one second” about what Sanders has detailed.
“All this death and destruction is not just the unfortunate byproduct of a brutal war. Revenge and destruction are the explicit policy of Netanyahu’s extremist government,” he says.
“There is very little clean water. Many roads are impassable and there is virtually no electricity,” Sanders says.
Gaza had 12 universities, every single one has been bombed.
Many many children have lost their arms and their legs, he says. The healthcare system has been “systematically obliterated”, he says.
The WHO has recorded more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare facilities, he says.
The tiniest children and their mothers suffer as a result, he says.
It’s not just the displacement of 1.9 million people, not just the destruction of housing, educational infrastructure, the annihilation of the hospital system, he says.
As a result of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid, people in Gaza are now starving to death.
“So remember when people stand up and applaud [Netanyahu tomorrow]” women and children are starving to death.
More than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition, he says. “Remember the starving children that he has created,” he says, when Netanyahu is speaking.
Childhood malnutrition creates lifelong problems, he says.
I would ask my colleagues to stop for a moment and think of the psychological damage, he says.
He asks senators to imagine being five years old, or 10 years old, and seeing relatives killed, or having to search for water and food.
“Carrying your little belongings through streets running with sewage,” he says, and filled with rubble.
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Sanders denounces upcoming Netanyahu Congress address
Israel’s war on Gaza has “trampled on international law, on American law, and on basic human values”, Sanders says.
He is addressing the Senate ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming Congress address tomorrow.
Kamala Harris will not be presiding over Netanyahu’s address because she will be campaigning, a decision some have interpreted as evidence of her views on Israel’s actions on Gaza.
One of the worst disasters in modern history has been “aided and abetted” by the US, Sanders says.
“Let us be clear as to what has been going on in Gaza right now.”
At least 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, he says. Sixty percent are women and children. The toll is believed to be much higher, he says, because thousands are believed to be buried under rubble. Ninety percent of the population has been driven from their homes.
In some cases they have been displaced four or five times, he says.
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Bernie Sanders speaks in Senate on Netanyahu's upcoming Congress address
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is speaking now in the US Senate about Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress tomorrow.
“It will be unique,” Sanders says, “because it will be the first time a war criminal has been invited to do so.”
It will make it impossible for the US to lecture any country on earth about human rights and dignity, he says.
The Israeli prime minister has been credibly accused of war crimes, he says.
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The FEC complaint, which is unlikely to work, is filed against Kamala Harris as well as Joe Biden, Biden for President (aka Harris for President) and Keana Spencer, as treasurer “for flagrantly violating the Act by making and receiving an excessive contribution of nearly one hundred million dollars, and for filing fraudulent forms with the Commission purporting to repurpose one candidate’s principal campaign committee for the use of another candidate”.
The Kamala Harris campaign raised an astonishing $100m in 36 hours, breaking records and raising more than the Biden campaign had raised in months. Harris has inherited the Biden campaign funds, too, as well as his staff.
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Trump campaign accuses Harris of '$91.5m heist' of Biden campaign cash in FEC complaint
The Guardian is reviewing FEC filing by the Trump campaign, which begins by alleging that “Kamala Harris is seeking to perpetrate a $91.5 million dollar heist of Joe Biden’s leftover campaign cash—a brazen money grab that would constitute the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended (the ‘Act’).”
Daniel Weiner, former FEC counsel and head of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government program, told Forbes that it was “perfectly legal for [Harris] to use the campaign funds” and that the law was clear on the matter.
More shortly.
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Iowa judge rules state's abortion law will take effect Monday
An Iowa judge has ruled the state’s strict abortion law will take effect Monday, preventing most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
The law passed last year, but a judge had blocked it from being enforced. The Iowa supreme court reiterated in June that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state and ordered the hold to be lifted. That translated into Monday’s district court judge’s decision ordering the law to into effect next Monday at 8.00am CT.
Lawyers representing abortion providers asked Judge Jeffrey Farrell for notice before allowing the law to take hold, saying a buffer period was needed to provide continuity of services. Iowa requires pregnant women to wait 24 hours for an abortion after getting an initial consultation. Abortion had been legal in the state up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion access stands to be a major issue in the 2024 election. Kamala Harris has said “everything is at stake” with reproductive health in November’s election and has traveled across the country to draw attention to the issue, including in Des Moines roughly a year ago after the stricter law initially passed.
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“We are not actually saying no to Kamala Harris,” BLM leader Shalomyah Bowers told Reuters in an interview. “We are saying yes to process. We’re saying yes to having Black people be able to have the ability to weigh in.”
He noted that the statement represents the views of many stakeholders in BLM’s Global Network, but that individual chapters of the group are autonomous and may have a different view.
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison said on Monday that the party will deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August.
“The process has been fair. It’s been open. It’s been transparent,” Harrison said in a Today Show interview that aired Tuesday morning.
“But if anybody is thinking about running, you’re running against the sitting vice-president, who, along with Joe Biden, has worked really hard going across this country building relationships and is probably the most qualified person to be on this ballot.”
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Black Lives Matter demanded on Tuesday that the Democratic National Committee immediately host an informal, virtual snap primary across the country prior to the Democratic convention in August, just hours after Kamala Harris secured enough delegates for the nomination, Reuters reports.
In a statement, Black Lives Matter (BLM) called on Democratic party leaders to allow public participation in the nomination of the presidential candidate, instead of leaving it to the party delegates.
“The current political landscape is unprecedented, with President Biden stepping aside in a manner never seen before. This moment calls for decisive action to protect the integrity of our democracy and the voices of Black voters,” BLM said.
The statement by Black Lives Matter, a decentralized political and racial justice movement that helped lead the global protests over police violence in 2020, interrupted a steady drumbeat of left-leaning voices and groups that have vowed to support the vice-president after Joe Biden endorsed her on Sunday.
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Here is more from our report at the time on how the gunman was able to fly a drone over the event site the day Trump was due to speak:
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump a week ago, was able to fly a camera-equipped drone over the fairgrounds near Butler, Pennsylvania, shortly before the former president was set to speak there, according to news reports.
The latest disclosure about security lapses that preceded the shooting comes as a more complete picture of Crooks’ preparations is emerging, though it still lacks any definitive motive for the 20-year-old’s actions that led to Trump being grazed by a bullet, the shooting death of former fire chief Corey Comperatore and the critical wounding of two rally-goers.
The Wall Street Journal, which cited law enforcement officials, said Crooks flew the drone on a programmed flight path earlier on the day of the shootings – 13 July – on a predetermined path over the event site.
Later in the day, the would-be assassin fired at least six rounds from a semi-automatic rifle from the roof of the American Glass Research building roughly 150 yards from where Trump was speaking. Soon after, Crooks was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper with a single bullet to the head.
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Back to that report that the Trump campaign has been advised not to hold large outdoor rallies – and has none planned, according to unnamed sources who spoke to the Washington Post.
Large outdoor rallies have been a defining feature of Trump’s campaigns. They have been held in parking lots, football stadiums, airports and fairgrounds.
“They usually include large rosters of speakers before Trump takes the stage, with crowds sometimes enduring the heat or the cold for many hours. The crowd sometimes departs before Trump, who is regularly late, finishes speaking,” the report says.
Part of the reason behind the advice may be that outdoor venues are easier to access prior to an event.
The person who attempted to assassinate Trump had flown a drone over the field adjacent to the outdoor venue where it was held:
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2021 clip of Vance criticising Harris for being 'childless' resurfaces online
Comments Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance made in 2021 questioning Harris’s leadership because she did not have biological children have resurfaced, testing the young conservative senator in his early days campaigning as part of the Republicans’ presidential ticket.
During Vance’s bid for the Senate from Ohio, he said in a Fox News interview that “we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats,” and referred to them as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He said that included Harris, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat.
“How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” Vance asked. Harris became stepmother to two teenagers when she married entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014. And Buttigieg announced he and his husband adopted infant twins in September 2021, more than a month before Vance made those comments.
JD Vance says women who haven’t given birth like Kamala Harris are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” and have “no direct stake” in America. pic.twitter.com/3DJY3pQTGe
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 22, 2024
The clip has started to spread online, with Hillary Clinton sharing it in a Tuesday post on X and adding sarcastically “what a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn’t hate women having freedoms.”
What a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn't hate women having freedoms. https://t.co/aa9UJaM8CU
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 23, 2024
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Secret Service advises Trump not to hold large outdoor rallies – report
Hi, this is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live US politics coverage.
The Washington Post is reporting that the Secret Service has “encouraged” Trump to stop holding large outdoor rallies or other large events outdoors.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Washington Post said: “For upcoming events, Trump’s team is scouting indoor venues, such as basketball arenas and other large spaces where thousands of people can fit, people familiar with the request said. The campaign is not currently planning any large outdoor events, a person close to Trump said.”
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Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to stop the rolling Biden’s of campaign funds to Harris.
The New York Times first reported the news. The complaint had been anticipated – but is unlikely to work.
Daniel Weiner, former FEC counsel and head of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government program, told Forbes that it was “perfectly legal for [Harris] to use the campaign funds” and that the law was clear on the matter.
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Two local law enforcement officers went to look for the shooter who targeted Donald Trump at his Pennsylvania rally before the assassination attempt, raising questions about whether a key post was left unattended.
The AP reports:
Two local law enforcement officers stationed in the complex of buildings where a gunman opened fire at former President Donald Trump left to go search for the man before the shooting, the head of Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday, raising questions about whether a key post was left unattended as the shooter climbed onto a roof.
Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris told a congressional committee that two Butler County Emergency Services Unit officers were stationed at a second-floor window in the complex of buildings that form AGR International Inc. They spotted Thomas Matthew Crooks acting suspiciously on the ground and left their post to go look for him along with other law enforcement officers, he said.
Paris said he didn’t know whether officers would have been able to see Crooks climbing onto the roof of an adjacent building had they remained at the window. A video taken by a lawmaker who visited the shooting site on Monday shows a second-story window of the building had a clear view of the roof where Crooks opened fire; it was unclear if the video showed the window where the officers had been stationed.
The Pennsylvania State Police commissioner’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee provides new insight into security preparations for the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, but raises further questions about law enforcement’s decisions before Crooks opened fire.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund has also endorsed Harris.
Let's be real: This election is the fight of our lives, for our lives. There's no better presidential candidate for such a time as this than @kamalaharris. @PPact trusts her to help us build a future where access to health care, including abortion, isn't a privilege, but a right. pic.twitter.com/AvbkbT5Hsr
— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) July 23, 2024
This comes as no surprise – Harris has been an effective messenger on reproductive rights for the Biden campaign and was the first sitting vice-president to visit an abortion clinic. Other major abortion rights groups have also endorsed the vice-president.
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A coalition of gun safety groups has endorsed Harris for president.
Gun safety advocacy groups including Brady and Team Enough, Community Justice Action Fund, Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and its grassroots networks Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, Giffords, Newtown Action Alliance and Jr Newtown Action Alliance are now backing Harris.
“Vice President Kamala Harris has helped lead the strongest gun safety administration in American history and will continue to build upon that transformative progress as the first-ever Black and Asian American woman president of the United States,” Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, said in a statement. . “Throughout her career in public service, vice president Harris has been a powerful force in the fight for our freedoms — including the freedom to live free from the threat of gun violence. Gun extremists have a dream ticket with Trump and Vance, and our volunteers stand ready to do everything in our power to elect vice president Harris back into the White House.”
It is noteworthy that many the top contenders for Harris’s running mate also have significant, personal experience with gun violence. Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who has been asked to submit personal information in a vice-presidential vetting process, is married to Gabby Giffords, a prominent gun control activist who founded a namesake advocacy group after she survived an assassination attempt. Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, whose name has also been circulating as a possible vice-presidential candidate, lost a close friend in an April 2023 mass shooting in Louisville.
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Spirits were sky-high at the vice-president’s first rally
At Kamala Harris’s first rally as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee – a campaign stop at a suburban Milwaukee high school – spirits in the crowded auditorium were high.
“Oh my God, I think this is something long overdue – and she will do great,” said Pat Bridges, a 65-year-old retiree who attended the event on Tuesday.
The timing and location of the rally, which drew enthusiastic Harris supporters from across Wisconsin, was significant. Last week, thousands of Republicans from across the country descended on the Fiserv Forum, just eight miles away, for the Republican national convention, a week in which Republicans also appeared unified around their candidate, although they presented a vastly different vision for the country.
“We needed to reinvigorate the ticket,” said Mary Beth Driscoll, who attended the event with a friend. “And we have done that.”
The rally took on special significance for many in the crowd, given Harris’s already historic position as a Black woman and a presumptive nominee for president from either party.
“Seeing Kamala here … my granddaughter will know she can be whatever she wants, and do whatever she wants,” said Bridges, who is Black, and attended the rally with her young granddaughter.
Janette Braverman, who served as the first Black county supervisor from Ozaukee county, Wisconsin, before stepping down in 2022, said the excitement in the room was palpable – and stronger than past Biden events. “It was time” for Harris to take over the Democratic presidential ticket, said Braverman. “I was concerned for Biden’s health. And [Kamala] has been ready.”
“I’m extremely excited – I’m thrilled,” said Phoebe Williams, an attorney who arrived early at the rally to find seating up close. “As an African American lawyer, to see another woman African American lawyer ascend to the top is just thrilling.”
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a Democratic party megadonor who had called for Joe Biden to step down from the presidential campaign, is backing Kamala Harris.
Hastings has given $7m to a super Pac supporting Harris’s candidacy, according to the Information – which he has said is his largest donation ever to a single candidate.
This month, Hastings was one of the first major Democratic donors to call for Biden to end his 2024 campaign, following the president’s disastrous debate performance. Back then, he told the New York Times Biden “needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous”.
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As Kamala Harris begins her campaign for president, she is already facing many questions over the administration’s continued support for Israel.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed more than 39,000, according to the Gaza health ministry. Harris, who some perceive as more empathetic than Biden toward the plight of people in Gaza, will face mounting pressure to break with Biden in his policies toward Israel.
In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Lily Greenberg Call, a former special assistant to the chief of staff at the Department of Interior, implored the vice-president to chart a new path:
I resigned because of Joe Biden’s disastrous policy on Gaza, providing the financial and diplomatic support for the Israeli military to massacre, starve and forcibly expel countless Palestinians in Gaza. As a staffer in the administration, I heard reports that Harris and her staff pushed the US president to adopt a policy on Gaza that was both more humane and in alignment with international law, but were rebuffed. I saw the Harris … [become] the first senior administration official calling for a ceasefire, even as I was disappointed that it was only for six weeks. This was reportedly an effort by Biden’s team to water down her speech. It is shameful that Biden refused to listen to Harris – or the majority of Americans for that matter. Now that Biden has stepped aside, she has the opportunity to chart her own path on Israel and Palestine.
Harris will not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress, but is planning to meet with him privately at the White House, according to multiple reports.
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At the Capitol, hundreds of protestors led by Jewish Voice for Peace are demonstrating against US support for Israel among its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
According to the organization, arrests are being made.
Hundreds of protestors gathered today at the Capitol Hill Cannon Rotunda, to coincide with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to DC. He is scheduled to addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.
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The Republican representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee has introduced articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris for high crimes and misdemeanors.
GOP Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) just introduced articles of impeachment against VP Kamala Harris for high crimes and misdemeanors pic.twitter.com/M5xtvcR2M2
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) July 23, 2024
The articles blame Harris for a crisis at the southern border, claiming that she had failed her duties as “border czar”.
The deeply political effort is unlikely to get very far. Harris was never a “border czar” – that’s a misleading label that Republican critics applied to her. Harris was never put in charge of overseeing border or immigration policy. Rather, she was tasked with handling diplomatic efforts to address the root causes driving a surge of migration to the US –namely, poverty and instability in central America.
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Harris hits out at Trump in Wisconsin, while polls give mixed verdict on voter support: a look back at today's news
Kamala Harris made the first public speech of her presidential campaign, promising to unite Democrats during a visit to the vital swing state of Wisconsin, and comparing Donald Trump to the sorts of criminals she used to prosecute in California. Earlier in the day, the two most powerful Democrats in Congress, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, announced their endorsements of the vice-president, underscoring the glide path Harris appears to be on to become the party’s presidential nominee.
But for all the enthusiasm among Democrats, we still do not know if voters are on board. Two new surveys indicate Harris is tied or slightly behind Trump among voters nationally, though one shows her with a small lead. Meanwhile, the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned following a widely criticized appearance before a congressional committee, and Biden said he would appoint a replacement “soon”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The president will meet with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visits Washington DC, and the pair will also sit down with the families of American hostages taken by Hamas. Harris will attend neither event.
The House will vote on setting up a bipartisan panel to investigate the Trump assassination attempt, its Republican and Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.
Biden condemned an Ohio state senator who warned of “a civil war to save the country” as he introduced Trump’s running mate JD Vance yesterday. The state senator apologized.
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, joined Republicans in approving of Cheatle’s decision to resign, while also saying the Trump rally shooting proves assault weapons must be banned.
Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator convicted on charges related to accepting bribes, will reportedly resign his Senate seat in August.
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In a call with reporters aimed at hammering Kamala Harris over border security and immigration, Donald Trump said:
She’s the same as Biden but much more radical. She’s a radical left person and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it. She’s far more radical than he is. She wants open borders. She wants things that nobody wants. You take a look at the electric car mandate, everything.
The former president added: “What you should do is take a look at San Francisco now compared to before she became the district attorney, and you’ll see what you’ll do to our country. So I think she should be easier than Biden because he was slightly more mainstream, but not much.”
Trump says he wants to debate Harris
Donald Trump has said he wants to debate Kamala Harris despite speculation that he was seeking a way out.
Trump had been due to face Joe Biden on 10 September but, after the president’s withdrawal, cast doubt on whether he would still take part.
In a press call with reporters on Tuesday, the former president was asked if he committed to at least one more debate. “Oh, yes, absolutely, I’d want to,” he said. “I think it’s important. I’m not thrilled about ABC because they’re truly fake news.
“I watched last night. They’re actually trying to make a hero out of Joe Biden when he was the worst president in history and they were doing things like, with Kamala, like, what a wonderful thing it is that she is running.”
Trump added: “She is not the candidate that they should have. I know it. We all know it. So, I’m not thrilled with ABC. I guess they commit but I have at least equal say and I don’t like the idea of ABC. I would be willing to do more than one debate, actually.”
NextGen Pac, which is part of the US’s largest youth vote organisation, NextGen America, endorsed Kamala Harris on Tuesday in a statement posted on their website.
Throughout her time as Vice President, and during her time in Congress, Vice President Harris has demonstrated a commitment to fighting for the issues most important to young people. From protecting abortion access and care, to supporting climate justice, economic justice, voting rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, Vice President Harris represents the diversity, vision, and values of young Americans.
Young people remain committed to turning out in force and defeating MAGA extremism and the existential threat of Trump’s Project 2025, and we are proud to join Vice President Harris in this fight. NextGen PAC is energized and ready to continue mobilizing young people for Kamala Harris, driving forward our shared vision for an America that stands for equality, opportunity, and justice for all.
Young people will help elect the first woman president, we will defeat Donald Trump, and we will ensure that the voices of young Americans remain at the forefront of our democracy. Together, we stand ready to make history.
According to their website, NextGen Pac endorses candidates with “proven progressive records who will fight for a better future for younger generations”.
In March, NextGen Pac, along with several other groups representing young people, announced their support for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, the Associated Press reported.
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Kamala Harris is 22 years younger than Joe Biden, who ultimately was pushed to end his re-election campaign after concerns among Democrats that he was too old to continue serving became insurmountable.
While it remains to be seen if Harris is any more popular with voters than Biden, her recent speeches have been far more coherent than the president’s, who often struggled to forcefully communicate his message.
Just compare this moment from Harris’s just-concluded speech in Milwaukee:
Vice Pres. Kamala Harris says she took on "predators," "fraudsters" and "cheaters" in her roles as California attorney general and a courtroom prosecutor.
— ABC News (@ABC) July 23, 2024
Harris then referenced Donald Trump, calling out his "type." https://t.co/i50BJzEzZL pic.twitter.com/CHgqLnEuug
To Biden’s speech last week to a convention of the NAACP civil rights group in Las Vegas:
Harris tells rally: 'When we fight, we win'
Harris concluded by getting the room ready to put in the work necessary to help her win Wisconsin – and reiterating a message from when Joe Biden was running, that this election is a choice between two different futures of the United States.
“Ultimately, in this election, we each face a question: what kind of country do we want to live in?” the vice-president asked.
“And to your point, do we want to live in a country freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate? And here’s the beauty of this moment, we each have the power answer that question. The power is with the people. We each have the power to answer that question, and in the next 105 days, then we have work to do. We have doors to knock on, we have phone calls to make, we have voters to register, and we have an election to win.”
Harris concluded by saying:
So, Wisconsin, today, I ask you, are you ready to get to work? Do we believe in freedom, do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America, and are we ready to fight for it, and when we fight, we win?
Amid roars of the crowd, the vice-president said: “God bless you, God bless the United States,” and left the stage.
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Harris hits Trump over Project 2025 as crowd chants 'we are not going back'
Harris then shifted to bashing Trump over his ties to Project 2025.
That’s the blueprint for a remaking of the US government authored by rightwing groups that are staffed by people who worked in Trump’s administration. Though the former president says that he has nothing to do with the plan, many of his policies line up with it.
“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class,” Harris said, adding: “We got to take this seriously. And can you believe they put that thing in writing?”
“Read it – it’s 900 pages,” she continued:
But here’s the thing, when you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back then to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions. Remember what that was like, children with asthma, women who survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, and we are not going back.
At that, the crowd began chanting, “we are not going back!”
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Harking back to her time as prosecutor, Harris says, 'I know Donald Trump's type'
With that out of the way, Kamala Harris began launching verbal salvos at Donald Trump, comparing him to the criminals and wrongdoers she used to meet in the courtroom.
“Before I was elected vice-president, before I was elected United States senator, I was elected attorney general of the state of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then,” Harris said.
“And in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
The crowd loved that line, and Harris kept at it:
And in this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.
As attorney general of California, I took on one of our country’s largest for-profit colleges that was scamming students. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students. As a prosecutor, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Well, Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse.
As attorney general of California, I took on the big Wall Street banks and held them accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts.
Let’s also make no mistake, this campaign is not just about … Donald Trump. This campaign is about who we fight for. This is about who we fight for.
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Harris calls serving as vice-president under Biden 'one of the greatest honors of my life' and pledges to 'unite our party'
Kamala Harris then spoke glowingly of her service as his vice-president, while noting that even though she has the delegates necessary to win the Democratic nomination, she will focus on uniting the party around her candidacy.
“It has truly been one of the greatest honors of my life serve as vice-president to our president, Joe Biden,” Harris said.
“Joe’s legacy of accomplishment over his entire career and over the past three and a half years is unmatched in modern history in one term. Think about it, in one term as president, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms in office.”
She then acknowledged that she was on the path to becoming the Democratic standard bearer, but still has work to do:
It is my great honor to have Joe Biden’s endorsement in this race.
So, Wisconsin, I am told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.
And I am so very honored, and I pledge to you, I will spend the coming weeks continuing to unite our party, so that we are ready to win in November. So, friends, we have 105 days until election day. In that time, we’ve got some work to do, but we’re not afraid of hard work. We like hard work, don’t we? And we will win this election.
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Harris kicked off her remarks by reminding everyone that “the path to the White House goes to Wisconsin”.
In close elections – which may well be how November plays out – Wisconsin has acted as the “tipping point” state, giving the victor the electoral votes they need to win outright.
It’s also very closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Back in Milwaukee, Kamala Harris has just taken the stage.
The crowd is cheering continuously, and chanting what sounds like “Kamala! Kamala!”
Benjamin Netanyahu is a far less controversial figure among Republicans, and Donald Trump just announced that he will be meeting the Israeli prime minister at his south Florida resort:
Looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. During my first term, we had Peace and Stability in the Region, even signing the historic Abraham Accords - And we will have it again. Just as I have said in discussions with President Zelensky and other World Leaders in recent weeks, my PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH Agenda will demonstrate to the World that these horrible, deadly Wars, and violent Conflicts must end. Millions are dying, and Kamala Harris is in no way capable of stopping it.
Biden, Netanyahu to meet families of American hostages taken by Hamas
Joe Biden will meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, and the two leaders will then talk with the families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas during the 7 October attack.
It is unclear if Kamala Harris will meet Netanyahu during his visit. She is scheduled to speak at the convention of a historically Black sorority in Indianapolis on Thursday, and will not preside over the chamber when Netanyahu addresses Congress on Wednesday.
Biden, meanwhile, has just made his first public appearance since bowing out of the presidential race. He is heading back to Washington DC, after recovering from Covid-19 in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware:
Netanyahu is deeply controversial among some Democrats over his handling of war in Gaza, and his visit to Washington DC poses a test for Harris, the Guardian’s Andrew Roth reports:
New poll shows Harris with small lead over Trump
Another poll of Kamala Harris’s support has been released, with this one showing the vice-president with a slight lead over Donald Trump.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted on Monday and Tuesday – following Joe Biden’s departure from the race – showed her with 44% support nationally, above Trump’s 42%.
A previous survey taken before Biden suspended his campaign showed Harris tied with Trump at 44% support, which was within the poll’s margin of error.
Harris to deliver first campaign speech in swing state Wisconsin
Kamala Harris has made it to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she is minutes away from delivering the first speech of her just-launched presidential campaign.
She is being introduced by Tony Evers, Democratic governor of the state that is seen as vital to her chances of winning the White House.
“Vice-president Kamala Harris is ready to lead from day one,” Evers said. “She’s already proven herself to be a tenacious leader, district attorney, attorney general and US senator. And, as our vice-president, Kamala has vigorously defended our democracy, fought hard, very hard, to protect our freedoms that we hold dear and work tirelessly to do the right thing, and deliver for us.”
Priorities USA, one of the largest liberal Super Pacs, said Kamala Harris is already running stronger than Joe Biden with core constituencies, putting Democrats in an “improved position” to win the White House.
Before Biden bowed out of the race, the Democrats were trailing their 2020 support levels with Black voters by eight points and Latino voters by nine points.
“Those deficits are [now] half of what they were last week,” Nick Ahamed, deputy executive director of Priorities USA, told reporters on Tuesday.
There are also signs Harris is energzing young voters, who have reported unusually high levels of disillusionment with the election. Following Biden’s endorsement of Harris, Priorities said the group recorded a notable uptick in the share of young people who said they intended to vote in November.
“It’s going to be a close, hard-fought election,” he added. “That continues to be true.”
He said the Democrats path has not changed and continues to run through the five battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia.
Harris’s strongest issue over Trump is abortion, while Trump holds an advantage over her on inflation and immigration – though she outperforms Biden on both of those issues.
Ahamed said the voters Democrats need to reach are disproportionately on YouTube and streaming services, not TikTok, despite the outsized attention the app receives.
“We believe that elections are won and lost online, and that the work that needs to be done to consolidate the base behind Vice-President Harris has to be done online,” he said.
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In a statement posted on X, Melinda French Gates endorsed the vice-president, Kamala Harris, for president in the 2024 election.
We need a leader who will stand up for reproductive freedom. A leader who understands that supporting caregivers leads to healthier families and a stronger economy. A leader who knows that when women have their full power in society, we all thrive.
I am supporting Vice President Kamala Harris because she is that leader.
There is so much riding on the election in November. We need a leader who will stand up for reproductive freedom. A leader who understands that supporting caregivers leads to healthier families and a stronger economy. A leader who knows that when women have their full power in…
— Melinda French Gates (@melindagates) July 23, 2024
The endorsement comes as French Gates announced earlier this year that she would be donating $1bn over the next two years to individuals and organizations working on behalf of women and families globally, including on reproductive rights in the US, according to the Associated Press.
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After weeks of infighting and mounting calls for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Democratic leaders seemed visibly relieved to move forward with Kamala Harris as the presumptive nominee.
At the press conference today, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, sounded jubilant as he and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, endorsed Harris’s campaign, following in the steps of many other congressional Democrats who have already done the same.
“Democrats are moving forward stronger and more united than ever before,” Schumer said.
In just the last 36 hours, I have seen a surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party uniting behind Vice-President Harris.
Schumer said he intended to meet with Harris “soon”, but he deflected a question about whether he had directly asked Biden to drop out of the race.
Reports indicated that Schumer had traveled to Delaware to meet with Biden and share some alarming polling about Democrats’ odds of taking full control of Congress with the president at the top of the ticket. Schumer said:
What I would say is that the president has done an amazing, amazing job as president, one of the best we’ve ever had. And he put his country first and made the right decision.
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Bob Menendez to resign Senate seat – reports
Senator Bob Menendez will resign effective 20 August, according to multiple reports.
The Democratic senator for New Jersey was convicted earlier this month on 16 charges, including accepting bribes of cash, gold and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen, and acting as an overseas agent for Egypt.
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Kamala Harris is a “commonsense leader” who knows how to deliver real results for hardworking American taxpayers, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said.
Jeffries described Harris as a “courageous” and “compassionate” leader who has worked hard throughout her entire career to keep communities safe, and who will build an affordable economy that makes life better for everyday Americans.
Kamala Harris will fight for our freedom. Kamala Harris will fight for our families. Kamala Harris will fight for our future.
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The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, at the joint press conference with Chuck Schumer, said Joe Biden will go down in US history as “one of the most consequential presidents of all time”.
Jeffries said Biden is a “heroic American” because he made the “selfless” decision to pass the torch to Kamala Harris, who he says has “excited and energized” the House Democratic caucus, the Democratic party and the nation.
Harris has earned the nomination “from the grassroots up, not the top down”, Jeffries said.
She is ready. She is willing. She is able to energetically and emphatically lead America into the future.
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Biden tests negative for Covid, says physician
Joe Biden has tested negative for Covid-19 and his symptoms have “resolved”, the White House physician Kevin O’Connor said.
A letter shared by the White House reads:
The President’s symptoms have resolved. Over the course of his infection, he never manifested a fever, and his vital signs remained normal, to include pulse oximetry. His lungs remained clear.
The president “continues to perform all of his presidential duties” and will “continue to be monitored for any recurrence of illness”, his physician said.
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Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, seconded Chuck Schumer’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.
I’m proud to strongly endorse Kamala Harris to be the 47th President of the United States of America. We’re gonna hold the Senate, we’re gonna win the House, we’re going to elect Kamala Harris.
Jeffries steps up and seconds Schumer’s endorsement of Harris.
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) July 23, 2024
“I'm proud to strongly endorse Kamala Harris to be the 47th President of the United States of America. We're gonna hold the Senate, we're gonna win the House, we're going to elect Kamala Harris.” pic.twitter.com/pYgaWuL1KM
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, paid tribute to Joe Biden, who he said had “showed the world what a great man he is, his true patriotism, his profound sense of decency”.
Biden’s “selfless” decision not to seek the Democratic presidential nomination “was not an easy decision”, Schumer says, but it “put our country, our party and our future first”.
At his core, he is an honorable man, a family man, a man of deep faith. We love him. We truly do.
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Democrats are moving forward “stronger and more united than ever before”, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, tells reporters as he endorses Kamala Harris.
Schumer says he has seen a “surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party” in the last 36 hours, and that that enthusiasm is “contagious” among Democrats, with contributions pouring in “in ways even beyond our expectations”.
Harris has a “tremendous” record to run on, Schumer says, as he notes that “now begins the next chapter in our quest to make sure Donald Trump does not become president”.
Today, with one voice, we speak about the dangers he presents to working families, to our country and to our democracy. We see very clearly how nervous the Republicans are about our new nominee.
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Top congressional Democrats endorse Harris
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has begun speaking at the joint press conference with the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
The Democratic party and the country are “brimming with excitement, enthusiasm, unity”, Schumer says.
He says Kamala Harris has done a “truly impressive job” securing the majority of delegates needed to win the Democratic party’s nomination, and that the vast majority of his senators “quickly and enthusiastically” endorsed her.
We are here today to throw our support behind Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Schumer endorses Harris and seems truly giddy about Dems’ new circumstances.
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) July 23, 2024
“Now that the process has played out, from the grassroots bottom up, we are here today to throw our support behind vice president Kamala Harris.” pic.twitter.com/aXzxSvXc4Z
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The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, praised Kamala Harris on Tuesday in Washington, describing the vice-president as a “leading voice for American foreign policy”.
What I’ve observed is someone who asks, time and again, the penetrating questions, who cuts to the chase, and is intensely focused on the interests of the American people.
My observation is she’s a very strong, very effective and deeply respected voice for our country around the world. When she speaks, she speaks on behalf of the United States.
Blinken also stated that Joe Biden, who endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee for president over the weekend, remained engaged on issues such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
Reporters are backed to the gills here at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s headquarters ahead of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ remarks.
Despite the last-minute alert about the press conference, reporters rushed from Capitol Hill to the DSCC to cover the expected endorsement of Kamala Harris, which would be crucial in helping her consolidate congressional supporters.
Schumer and Jeffries expected to endorse Harris in press conference
I’m here at the Washington headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, are scheduled to speak in just a few minutes.
Schumer and Jeffries are expected to endorse Kamala Harris after the vice-president earned the support of enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
A number of congressional Democrats have already endorsed Harris.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries will soon address reporters here at the DSCC headquarters, with an endorsement of Kamala Harris expected. pic.twitter.com/65zIVz9VCU
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) July 23, 2024
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Two Democratic state governors, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and the Arizona senator Mark Kelly have emerged as early favourites to be Kamala Harris’s running mate after being asked to submit personal information in a vice-presidential vetting process.
The trio are understood to be among 10 Democrats – nearly all of them elected officials – identified by a vetting team led by the former attorney general Eric Holder. Holder’s law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, has been charged with the responsibility of scrutinising the personal finances, public statements and family histories of likely candidates.
Shapiro, Cooper and Kelly have endorsed Harris to replace Joe Biden as the presidential nominee in November.
The vetting process, which normally takes months, will be accelerated to conclude before the start of the Democratic national convention, which opens in Chicago on 19 August.
While Shapiro, Cooper and Kelly are the only three to be publicly identified, speculation has also surrounded several others, including Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, and the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
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Gavin Newsom reportedly not interest in vice-presidential post
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, who has endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, is reportedly not interested in being Harris’s running mate.
“From his perspective, he has the best job in the world,” Newsom’s adviser Nathan Click told NBC News, adding:
He looks forward to supporting VP Harris and whomever she picks as her running mate.
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Deputy Secret Service director appointed acting director after Cheatle resignation
The deputy director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, has been appointed to serve as acting director of the agency after Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation earlier today.
A statement from the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, reads:
A 24-year veteran of the Secret Service, [Rowe] previously served as the agency’s Assistant Director for the Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs, Deputy Assistant Director for the Office of Protective Operations, and in other leadership positions.
I appreciate his willingness to lead the Secret Service at this incredibly challenging moment, as the agency works to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on July 13 and cooperate with ongoing investigations and Congressional oversight.
Cheatle’s resignation on Tuesday came a day after a contentious House hearing in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
Cheatle, who had served as Secret Service director since August 2022, had called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.
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The White House has dismissed claims that Joe Biden is unfit to continue as president and that he should resign from office.
JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, said on Saturday that Biden should “resign now” and that “if you can’t run, you can’t serve”.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s press secretary, said Vance’s claim was “ridiculous” and that Biden was “ready to continue to lead this country”. Speaking on The View, she said:
The president decided to not run for re-election. That’s it. That’s all he decided on. He wants to continue to do the work – three and a half years of unprecedented, historic work.
Karine Jean-Pierre dismisses claims that President Biden is not fit to finish his term:
— The Recount (@therecount) July 23, 2024
"I think that's ridiculous. ... The president decided to not run for reelection. That's it. ... He wants to continue to do the work, three and a half years of unprecedented, historic work." pic.twitter.com/KDkeseK8Xu
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The day so far
Kamala Harris continues to consolidate the support of Democrats, and will reportedly soon gain the endorsements of two of the biggest names out there: the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. They have a joint press conference scheduled for 1pm, where they are said to plan to announce their backing of the vice-president, who yesterday gained the delegates necessary to win the Democratic nomination. But for all the enthusiasm among Democratic leaders in Washington DC for Harris, polls indicate voters aren’t on board quite yet. Two new surveys indicate Harris is tied or slightly behind Donald Trump among voters nationally – though it is a closer race than it was with Joe Biden. Meanwhile, the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned following a widely criticized appearance before a congressional committee, and Biden said he would appoint a replacement “soon”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The House will vote on setting up a bipartisan panel to investigate the Trump assassination attempt, its Republican and Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.
Biden condemned an Ohio state senator who warned of “a civil war to save the country” as he introduced Trump’s running mate JD Vance yesterday. The state senator apologized.
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, joined Republicans in approving of Cheatle’s decision to resign, while also saying the Trump rally shooting proves assault weapons must be banned.
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Top congressional Democrats to endorse Harris – report
The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, and his counterpart in the House, the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, will endorse Kamala Harris at a press conference at 1pm, Politico reports.
While many Democratic lawmakers have jumped on board with Harris’s bid for the presidency following Joe Biden’s decision to step down, Schumer and Jeffries have yet to do so. Three people familiar with their plans say they will make the announcement at a rare joint appearance at the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington DC this afternoon.
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Top Democrats are meanwhile digesting the historic upheaval on the presidential ticket, after Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and Kamala Harris swiftly took his place.
The decision has left in an awkward spot lawmakers who stridently defended Biden, even after his disastrous performance at his debate against Donald Trump last month. Among that group is the senator Chris Coons of Biden’s home state Delaware, who told ABC Biden was the “only” Democrat able to beat Trump.
In an interview with CNN today, Coons walked back that comment, and announced his support for Harris: “I would welcome a chance to revise and extend those remarks, because underlying that was my confidence that the record that President Biden and Vice-President Harris have built over the last three and a half years is the strongest legislative record of any first-term presidency in my lifetime.”
He continued:
And Kamala Harris was right beside Joe Biden every step of the way as they strengthened Nato, as they came up with creative and powerful combinations of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, as they got to the president’s desk legislative accomplishments that reduce the price of prescription drugs, that invested in the fight against climate change, that made our communities safer with strong gun safety legislation.
I will say that on every one of those core points, Vice-President Harris will continue, will get the job done, and, Donald Trump, the former president, will roll it back.
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Jamie Raskin is the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, and yesterday joined the Republican committee chair, James Comer – with whom he seldom agrees – in calling for Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation as director of the Secret Service.
But Raskin also said the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, underscored the continued danger of assault weapons in America, and called on Congress to pass legislation banning them. In a statement after Cheatle stepped down from her role, Raskin reiterated that position. Here’s more:
Yesterday’s Oversight Committee hearing identified two urgent priorities in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and the accompanying mass shooting. The first was the need for Director Cheatle to step down and give new leadership at the Secret Service the opportunity to swiftly address this crisis, rebuild the trust of Congress and the American people, and guarantee security to protectees. We accomplished that today.
The other urgent need was to ban assault weapons to protect the rest of us from mass shootings like the one that took place in Butler. As I made clear during yesterday’s hearing, a weapon that can be used to commit a mass shooting at an event under the full protection of the Secret Service and state and local police is a danger to schoolchildren, Walmart shoppers and congregants in church, synagogue and mosque services. As a weapon of war, the AR-15 has no legitimate place in our society. Congress must act now.
Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair, agreed that Cheatle’s departure was “the right decision”:
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Biden to address nation from Oval Office on Wednesday evening
Joe Biden will make his first speech since ending his bid for re-election from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, Reuters reports.
The speech, scheduled for 8pm ET, will detail “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people”, the president said, according to Reuters.
The president is scheduled to return to the White House today from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he has been recovering after coming down with Covid-19 last week.
Republican House speaker Johnson says Secret Service director's resignation 'overdue'
In reaction to Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation, the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said it was overdue, and promised to continue investigating the security failures that allowed the assassination attempt on Donald Trump:
Director Cheatle answered our calls to resign. Good. ⁰⁰Now our task force will quickly and thoroughly investigate the assassination attempt on President Trump and hold those responsible accountable. pic.twitter.com/s1tAVm35DQ
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) July 23, 2024
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Biden says he will appoint new Secret Service director 'soon'
In a brief statement, Joe Biden thanked Kimberly Cheatle for her tenure as director of the Secret Service, and said he would soon appoint her replacement.
“Jill and I are grateful to Director Kim Cheatle for her decades of public service. She has selflessly dedicated and risked her life to protect our nation throughout her career in the United States Secret Service. We especially thank her for answering the call to lead the Secret Service during our Administration and we are grateful for her service to our family,” the president said.
He continued:
As a leader, it takes honor, courage, and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service.
The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13 continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions. We all know what happened that day can never happen again. As we move forward, I wish Kim all the best, and I will plan to appoint a new Director soon.
James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, said the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, “instilled no confidence” when she appeared before his committee yesterday.
“The Oversight Committee’s hearing resulted in Director Cheatle’s resignation and there will be more accountability to come. The Secret Service has a no-fail mission yet it failed historically on Director Cheatle’s watch. At yesterday’s Oversight Committee hearing, Director Cheatle instilled no confidence that she has the ability to ensure the Secret Service can meet its protective mission,” Comer said.
“Egregious security failures leading up to and at the Butler, Pennsylvania campaign rally resulted in the assassination attempt of President Trump, the murder of an innocent victim, and harm to others in the crowd. While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward. We will continue our oversight of the Secret Service in support of the House Task Force to deliver transparency, accountability, and solutions to ensure this never happens again.”
That last sentence is a reference to the bipartisan taskforce the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have proposed creating to investigate the assassination attempt.
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As news broke that the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, had resigned amid criticism of her handling of Donald Trump’s security, the former president wrote this, on Truth Social:
The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!
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Secret Service director resigns amid criticism of Trump security handling
The Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, has resigned, the Associated Press reports, following a bipartisan furor over whether her agency had adequately protected Donald Trump in the lead-up to the assassination attempt against him.
Cheatle stepped down one day after making a disastrous appearance before the House oversight committee, where lawmakers from both parties signaled frustration with her inability to answer many questions about the shooting that wounded Trump, killed an attender at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania and wounded two others.
At the hearing’s conclusion, the committee’s top Democrat joined with its Republican chair to ask for Cheatle’s resignation:
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CNN data analyst Harry Enten comes to a similar conclusion about the state of the presidential race, as Kamala Harris takes over the Democratic ticket.
Donald Trump remains a strong candidate because his favorability is notably high, he says. However, a significant share of voters have no opinion of Harris yet – potentially an opportunity for her to grow her support:
Beating Trump won't be easy. His favorable rating is higher now than it has ever been (per two polls taken over the weekend).
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) July 23, 2024
Harris may poll better than Biden did against Trump, but Trump is running 5 points ahead nationally against her than he finished against Biden in 2020. pic.twitter.com/cnOtUKtWXe
'Harris enters the fray with numbers similar to President Biden', new poll finds
Another poll taken partly after Joe Biden suspended his re-election campaign has found a tied race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Quinnipiac University reports 49% of registered voters nationally support Trump and 47% back Harris – basically a tie, since the finding is within the margin of error. The poll was conducted from Friday of last week through Sunday.
As Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy puts it:
The dramatic reset at the top of the Democratic ticket does little to move the race as vice-president Harris enters the fray with numbers similar to president Biden.
Perhaps the poll’s biggest finding is that independents prefer Trump overall. He has 55% support from the critical group, compared to 41% for Harris.
Biden condemns political violence after Ohio state senator's 'civil war' comment
Joe Biden has once again condemned political violence after an Ohio state senator warned of “a civil war to save the country” as he spoke ahead of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, at a rally yesterday:
Folks, calls to violence threaten our democracy’s foundation.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 23, 2024
You can’t love your country only when you win.
Let’s solve our problems with ballots and elect @KamalaHarris as the next President of the United States of America.pic.twitter.com/wfREMvAyNo
The senator, George Lang, has since apologized for his remarks:
My statement below on comments made earlier today: pic.twitter.com/44UziIPjSa
— State Senator George Lang (@LangForOhio) July 22, 2024
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Kamala Harris is today heading to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the largest city in a swing state that has played a pivotal role in handing both Joe Biden and Donald Trump the presidency.
It also hosted the Republican national convention last week, during which Trump once again accepted the party’s nomination for president, and debuted Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate.
According to the vice-president’s schedule, she will depart Washington DC at 10.40am ET, and hold her event in Milwaukee at 2.05pm – which we plan to cover live.
She’ll return to the capital later in the afternoon.
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Today is merely the second full day of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, but she already has the delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination, and has raised tens of millions of dollars. As the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports, the task before her now is to reintroduce herself to the voters who will decide the election:
Kamala Harris enters the second full day of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday in an almost unassailable position, following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw almost every senior party figure championing her candidacy.
The rapid pace at which the vice-president racked up endorsements was matched by an avalanche of donations to the newly branded Harris for President campaign, which had already inherited Joe Biden’s $96m when he abandoned his re-election effort on Sunday.
More than $81m poured into campaign coffers in its first day, a spokesperson said on Monday, calling it the largest single-day haul of any presidential candidate in history and with most of the money coming from grassroots donors making their first contributions of the election cycle.
Campaign officials, however, were equally as enthused by the succession of heavyweight Democrats who voiced their support for Harris, notably Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker who called the vice-president “brilliantly astute” and “rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service”.
The election gurus at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics have a similar take on Kamala Harris’s effect on the presidential race.
They had previously forecast a very tough road for Joe Biden seeking re-election, with Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as toss-ups, and Minnesota and New Hampshire – two states where Biden and other Democrats have triumphed in recent elections – as merely leaning Democratic.
They don’t forecast any major changes to that dynamic with Harris now set to be on ballots in Biden’s place, but note she has the opportunity to re-engage with Democratic voters in a way the president could not:
The new race probably does not start as a 50-50 proposition – Trump remains favored to a small but hardly overwhelming degree, and there’s a lot of uncertainty (and no useful recent historical precedent) for the presidential race changing in such a dramatic way this late in the political calendar. We had become very skeptical of Biden’s ability to pull this race back into true Toss-up status; Harris likely has a better chance to do so, though she’s not guaranteed to.
The argument for Harris’s upside is that she helps restore lagging Democratic enthusiasm and gives voters a new option in a race where many have long desired one, and we completely understand why so many Democrats urged Biden to step aside. Democrats seem thrilled and invigorated by having a more active candidate. But there are of course unknowns and obstacles too.
One of those is the possibility that Harris will be seen as too liberal by voters, and Trump more moderate – despite his policies lining up quite closely with the rightwing Project 2025:
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Poll shows Harris performing better than Biden against Trump – but Republican still has the edge
Morning Consult is out with one of the first polls taken since Joe Biden ended his re-election bid, and shows Kamala Harris with more support in her matchup against Donald Trump than the president had.
The Republican nonetheless has the edge, but it’s a smaller one than when Biden was on the ballot. In its survey taken following Biden’s exit from the race, Morning Consult found that Trump has 47% support to Harris’s 45%, a gap of only two percentage points. Biden trailed Trump by six percentage points in an earlier poll.
Harris’s campaign appears to have given Democrats a spark of enthusiasm, with 27% saying they are “much more motivated” to participate in the political process, compared to 24% for Republicans. The three-percentage point gap between the two parties is comparable to the gap in the 2020 election, Morning Consult notes.
And for those wondering if Harris is the best candidate Democrats can pick, the polls found she performs best against Trump of the 10 candidate surveyed.
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House Republicans, Democrats set up taskforce to investigate Trump assassination
The House of Representatives is creating a bipartisan taskforce to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
The taskforce will be composed of seven Republicans and six Democrats, and investigate what went wrong at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, how to prevent it from happening again, and “to ensure accountability”, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said in a joint statement.
“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking. In response to bipartisan demands for answers, we are announcing a House Task Force made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats to thoroughly investigate the matter,” Johnson and Jeffries said.
“The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again.”
The House will vote on creating the taskforce later this week.
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Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, has called Kamala Harris’s reported decision to skip Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday a “sign of the pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist bias” of the Democratic party.
Harris was already scheduled to attend an event for the Zeta Phi Beta sorority in Indianapolis before the Israeli prime minister’s address date was set, Politico reported.
Posting on X, Gingrich wrote:
Vice President Harris refusing to meet with President Netanyahu is a clear sign of the pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist bias which increasingly permeates the Democratic Party.
I watched speakers attack anti-semitism and speakers supporting Israel in the Republican Convention. Both would have caused a huge fight at the Democratic Convention. VP Harris will increasingly show her true colors as a San Francisco radical.
Vice President Harris refusing to meet with President Netanyahu is a clear sign of the pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist bias which increasingly permeates the Democratic Party. I watched speakers attack anti-semitism and speakers supporting Israel in the Republican Convention. Both would…
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) July 22, 2024
Harris is to meet Netanyahu this week separate from the Israeli prime minister’s meeting with Joe Biden (see post at 12.28).
A Harris aide said she will stress to Netanyahu that it is time for the Gaza conflict to end in a way where “Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom, and self-determination.”
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Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to meet on Thursday, a US official has told the Associated Press. Kamala Harris will meet with Netanyahu separately. It remains uncertain if he will meet with Donald Trump.
Biden is expected to focus on working out what it will take to secure a hostage-release and ceasefire deal in the coming weeks.
The US president reportedly called in to a meeting of campaign staffers on Monday, telling them, “I think we’re on the verge” of ending the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu told his Cabinet last month that there had been a “dramatic drop” in US weapons deliveries for Israel’s war in Gaza, underling a strain in the relationship with Washington.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration said it would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel, despite mounting calls by Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups to limit weapons supplies. It said it would continue to hold back on supplying 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.
However, Amnesty International USA has said that US-supplied weapons provided to Israel have already been used in serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with US law and policy.
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Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has surged in the 24 hours since announcing her candidacy, with 28,000 volunteers signing up to help with organisational efforts, the vice president’s campaign has said.
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison has vowed that the party would deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August. A virtual nominating process before the national convention in Chicago, beginning on 19 August, is still needed.
Oliver Milman is an environment reporter for Guardian US
Kamala Harris has a strong record on the environment that will provide a vivid contrast with Donald Trump, who has vowed to rescind climate change policies should he return to the White House, according to green advocates who have welcomed the prospect of a Harris presidency.
“We are confident that she is ready to carry forward President Biden’s historic legacy and set a new high bar for climate ambition in America,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen, one of a raft of green groups, including Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, the NRDC Action Fund, and Climate Power, that has now endorsed the leading contender for the Democratic nomination.
Harris, as vice-president, cast the tie-breaking vote to pass Joe Biden’s landmark legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which unleashes hundreds of billions of dollars into building clean energy and electric car capacity. Biden, in his Sunday letter confirming he will drop his bid to be re-elected president, called the bill “the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world”.
You can read the full story here:
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, sent talking points to their members in competitive races warning of the difficulties of trying to define a presidential candidate in such a short amount of time before the November election.
“Republicans have never had less time to define the presidential nominee of our opponents,” the memo said, according to a copy seen by Punchbowl News. “Because of that, it is vital that our entire conference is on message and working together to present Kamala Harris as an extreme San Francisco progressive who is out of step with the American people.”
During her visit to Wisconsin today (see post at 10.14), Kamala Harris is to be joined by major elected officials in the state, including governor Tony Evers, senator Tammy Baldwin, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, attorney general Josh Kaul, secretary of state Sarah Godlewski and Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler, as well as state labor leaders.
House Democrats and Republicans will meet separately today for the first time since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on 13 July and Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race on Sunday, Chad Pergram, the senior congressional correspondent for Fox News, has posted on X. He said there will be a House hearing today on the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
House Dems & GOPers meet separately today for first time since the Trump shooting and Biden’s decision to withdraw. Senate back in session for 1st time since both events as well
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 23, 2024
Kamala Harris to visit battleground state of Wisconsin in first rally since launching presidential campaign
Kamala Harris is travelling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today where she will hold her first campaign rally since she launched her presidential campaign on Sunday with Joe Biden’s endorsement. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes in the 2020 election, and recent polling had suggested a tight race between Biden and Donald Trump in the battleground state again.
Tuesday’s visit was scheduled before Biden ended his campaign, but took on new resonance as Harris prepared to take up the mantle of her party against Trump, who is scrambling to pivot his campaign against the vice-president.
According to Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler, 89 of Wisconsin’s 95 delegates, including senator Tammy Baldwin and governor Tony Evers, had already pledged their support for Harris as of yesterday afternoon.
After confirming the state Democratic Party had officially backed Harris for the nomination, Wikler was quoted by Wisconsin Public Radio as saying:
And in hearing from elected officials across the state of Wisconsin, hearing from Democratic Party activists, hearing from donors, there is a surge of focus, of enthusiasm – a kind of flowering of the kind of unity that we’re going to need to defeat Donald Trump.
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As we have already reported, Kamala Harris has earned enough delegates to become the likely Democratic party nominee, after California delegates voted unanimously to endorse her.
Several state delegations met on Monday evening to confirm their support for the vice president, including Texas and her home state of California. By Monday night, Harris had the support of more than the 1,976 delegates she needs to win on a first ballot, according to a tally by the Associated Press. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP.
California state Democratic chairman, Rusty Hicks, said 75% to 80% of the state’s delegation were on a call on Tuesday, all supporting Harris.
“I’ve not heard anyone mentioning or calling for any other candidate,” Hicks said, adding “tonight’s vote was a momentous one”.
Hicks had urged delegates to quickly line up behind Harris and had circulated an online form to submit endorsements.
Jill Biden to lead presidential delegation to Paris Olympics, White House confirms
Daniel Boffey is the Guardian’s chief reporter
The spectacle of the Olympic Games opening ceremony could be overshadowed by the human drama in the White House after it was confirmed that Jill Biden will attend the event on the Seine.
It will be a first appearance on the world stage for the president’s wife since her husband withdrew from his re-election campaign over concerns about his deteriorating health.
Rumours had swirled in Paris that the first lady could pull out of the games at the last minute with some suggesting that she might even be replaced by vice president Kamala Harris whose husband, Douglas Emhoff, is leading the delegation at the closing ceremony.
The White House, however, confirmed on Monday evening that Jill Biden would lead a delegation of seven other senior US figures at the opening ceremony, including the US ambassador to France, Denise Campbell Bauer, senators Chris Coons and Alex Padilla, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.
Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race on Sunday sets the stage to end a nearly five-decade run when either a Bush, Clinton or Biden was on the ballot for president or vice-president.
Members of the Bush and Clinton families, along with Joe Biden, have been on every presidential election ticket since 1980, when Ronald Reagan and running mate George HW Bush won.
Reagan and Bush easily won reelection in 1984 before Bush won the presidency himself in 1988.
The next four elections would feature either a Bush or Clinton on the ballot, with Bill Clinton defeating George HW Bush in 1992, before defeating Bob Dole in 1996, and George W. Bush winning elections in 2000 and 2004.
The following four elections (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020) all had Biden or Hillary Clinton on the ballot, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden winning election in the first two contests, Hillary Clinton losing to Donald Trump in 2016 and Biden defeating Trump in 2020.
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Ed Pilkington is chief reporter for Guardian US
When Joe Biden finally ends his self-imposed seclusion at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, this week he will emerge into a very different world than the one from which he isolated when diagnosed with Covid last Wednesday.
He will still be president of the United States, and as such the most powerful person on Earth. But it may not feel like that to him. His hopes of carrying on in that office died at 1.46pm ET on Sunday when he announced that he was standing down from the 2024 race.
Very little is known about Biden’s specific plans for the next six months. Given the speed at which the final demise of his campaign happened, he may not know much himself.
What we do know is that attempts by Donald Trump and his inner circle to force him out of the Oval Office now, on grounds that “if he can’t run for office, he can’t run our country”, are as half-hearted as they sound. Barring surprises, Biden will remain in the White House until noon on 20 January 2025.
You can read the full analysis piece here:
Donald Trump is due to appear on professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube show on Tuesday for a “special episode”.
In a post on X, DeChambeau said the Republican presidential nominee will appear on his Break 50 show.
Break 50 with @realDonaldTrump dropping tomorrow on my YouTube channel! On this special episode, we will be donating $10,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project for every stroke we score under par. Stay tuned 👀
— Bryson DeChambeau (@b_dechambeau) July 22, 2024
The golfer’s show will be donating $10,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project for every stroke they score under par, according to the X post.
DeChambeau said Tuesday’s episode “is about golf and giving back to our nation’s veterans, not politics”.
The post added:
A few weeks ago I reached out to both parties’ presidential campaigns and @realDonaldTrump was down for the challenge. It is an incredible honor to be able to enjoy a round of golf with any sitting or former president, and all have an open invitation to join me for a round of Break 50 anytime.
Vast majority of registered Democrats approve of Biden withdrawing from presidential race - poll
A new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 83% of Democratic registered voters surveyed approved of the US president, Joe Biden, withdrawing from the race while just 17% disapproved.
Four in ten registered Democrats said Biden exiting makes them more motivated to vote now he is out of the race, with 79% thinking the party should nominate the US vice president, Kamala Harris, as a replacement, according to the poll.
45% of those surveyed believe the party’s chances of beating Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November have improved since Biden’s announcement, though 10% say the electoral prospects have got worse for the Democrats, while 28% say it depends on who the nominee is and 17% say a change in candidate won’t make a difference.
NEW polling
— Kabir K. / kabirkhanna.bsky.social (@kabir_here) July 22, 2024
Nation's Democrats are reacting positively to Biden's decision to step aside as party nominee for president
Many say it improves chances of beating Trump this November, and majority back Harris as new nominee
More via @CBSNewsPoll here: https://t.co/rT8EHpj8Uy
1/5 pic.twitter.com/hxZemFSKUw
Democratic voters have long had doubts about Biden’s reelection bid. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in January, while the party’s nomination contest was still under way, 49% of Democrats said the 81-year-old should not run again in 2024.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has told families of the estimated 116 hostages still held in Gaza that a deal that would secure their loved ones’ release could be nearing, his office has said.
“The conditions are undoubtedly ripening. This is a good sign,” Netanyahu told the families on Monday in Washington, where he is expected to meet Joe Biden later this week after making an address to Congress.
It will be Biden’s first meeting with a foreign leader since he opted not to run for reelection and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris as his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee. Harris is to meet Netanyahu, who is under increasing pressure from much of the Israeli public to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, this week separate from Biden’s meeting.
Efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire deal, outlined by Biden in May and mediated by Egypt and Qatar, have gained momentum over the past month.
Israeli protesters are calling for a deal with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, which would free the hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting. Negotiators from Israel’s the Mossad intelligence service are expected in Qatar later this week, continuing talks that have dragged since early this year.
Democrats are urging Kamala Harris to consider choosing her potential running mate from the so-called battleground states, which this year are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“That is the first presidential decision that vice president Harris has, so she’s got a lot of good choices ahead of her,” senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters at the Capitol, according to the Hill.
He listed a number of Democratic governors as possible choices - Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, alongside transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg (who has deep ties in Michigan) and senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Here is a useful explainer on who else could be Harris’ running mate for the November election:
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Andrew Roth is in Washington for the Guardian, and has this analysis on how Kamala Harris will tread a careful path on Israel and Gaza while Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US:
For much of Monday, no meetings between Benjamin Netanyahu and either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris had been confirmed, even though the Israeli PM had already departed for the US and was scheduled on Wednesday to address a joint session of Congress at the request of the House leader, Mike Johnson.
Harris appears likely to skip that session, where she would have sat directly behind Netanyahu as the president of the Senate. She will be out of Washington for a public event at a college sorority in Indiana.
Late on Monday, an aide to Harris said that both she and Biden would sit down with Netanyahu in separate meetings at the White House and denied that her travel to Indianapolis indicated any change in her position towards Israel.
Harris backers and insiders say that she is more likely to engage in public criticism of Netanyahu than Biden and to focus attention on the civilian toll among Palestinians from the war in Gaza – even if she would maintain US military aid and other support for Israel that has been a mainstay of Biden’s foreign policy.
“The generational difference between Biden and Harris is a meaningful difference in how one looks at these issues,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group that has endorsed Harris’s presidential bid.
Read more of Andrew Roth’s analysis here: As Netanyahu arrives in Washington, Kamala Harris treads a careful path on Israel and Gaza
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Yohannes Lowe will take it from here.
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In a fascinating profile of Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles this month, the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta laid out just how deeply their strategy depended on having Biden as their opponent.
The race would be “a contrast of strength versus weakness”, Alberta wrote. “Trump … would be cast as the dauntless and forceful alpha, while Biden would be painted as the pitiable old heel … their campaign has been engineered in every way – from the voters they target to the viral memes they create – to defeat Biden.” Wiles said cheerfully: “Joe Biden is a gift.”
Now that gift has been snatched away. “Their campaign was constructed from the ground up in November 2022 to beat one man,” Hugo Lowell said. “And now their principal enemy has disappeared, and they’re trying to pivot very quickly. It’s difficult to articulate just how big a problem this is for them.”
On the other hand, he added: “They’re good at this.”
The campaign started preparing opposition research dossiers on Harris in recent weeks, Hugo reported. So did Maga Inc, a Trump-supporting political action committee run independently of the campaign. A wave of new attack ads against Harris are ready to be released in key states, including an immediate $5m (£3.9m) ad buy from Maga Inc.
They have also tested messages about Harris with voters to see what works – but any such effort is inevitably less robust than the Biden playbook was. “They spent months poll testing, strategising, and then repeating the same lines again and again,” Hugo said. “That messaging – the court cases as a partisan witch-hunt, crooked Joe Biden – is engrained. Everyone knows it.
“They don’t have those pithy messages in the electorate’s mind about Harris. When I talk to them privately, it’s all very broad brush – they will eventually settle on a few, but they haven’t figured it out yet.”
Here is where Harris stands on the issues of Gaza, immigration, abortion, and inflation:
Democrats will be hoping that Harris, if she is the nominee, will have gender in her favour among Democratic voters, particularly since Roe v Wade was overturned by a supreme court with three judges appointed by Trump, who boasted this year: “We broke Roe v Wade.”
Beginning in late 2023, Harris has embarked on a national tour to highlight the threats to reproductive rights posed by a second Trump administration – an issue that Biden has been criticized for shying away from. Biden has defended Roe v Wade, but has said he is “not big on abortion”.
“As a woman on the ticket and the first woman VP and a woman of color, and then secondly, as an AG, she is strongest when her profile is fighting and prosecuting the case. People really like her in that mode,” Celinda Lake, a Democratic party strategist and a lead pollster on the 2020 Biden campaign, told the Guardian in March. “She’s so comfortable saying the word ‘abortion’. She’s so comfortable leaning in and speaking to the repercussions.”
Trump has run against and defeated a woman before – Hillary Clinton. After Roe v Wade, more people may be motivated by the possibility of a female president who is clearly in favor of abortion rights. It will probably also motivate people who are anti-abortion to vote for Trump.
The New York Times has also taken a look at whether Harris can beat Trump where Clinton failed to do so. It reports:
In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the American presidency, the work force for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.
…
A presidential contest pitting Ms. Harris against former President Donald J. Trump would represent a rematch of sorts: Mr. Trump would again have to run against a woman who held a top administration position and served in the Senate. He defeated Mrs. Clinton in 2016 in spite of her winning the popular vote by a wide margin.
But the dynamics would be unquestionably different. Ms. Harris has neither the political legacy nor the baggage of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump, having served a turbulent term in office, is now a known quantity. Ms. Harris is Black and of South Asian descent.
If Harris takes up the mantle for the Democratic party, one of her first major decisions as a candidate will be choosing a running mate. Harris has not indicated who she would consider, but here are some of the names Democrats are floating, so far, as possible vice-presidential candidates:
Here is Biden calling into campaign headquarters and urging staffers to “embrace” his vice-president, Kamala Harris. Biden, who is isolating with Covid-19 at his Delaware home, vowed he is “not going anywhere” and said he will be “out on the road” for Harris:
If you’re just tuning in: Shortly after securing the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that she is looking forward to formally accepting the nomination while also making her case against a second Donald Trump presidency.
“Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top,” Harris said.
The 2024 election is about two different visions for America’s future, Harris said.
“Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights,” she said. “I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.”
It took 32 hours from Biden’s announcement that he would step aside to Kamala securing support from enough delegates. In that time she also raised record funding – possibly matching the total raised by the Biden campaign in months, though the most recent figure is $81m dollars, $15m shy of Biden’s total – which Harris has also inherited.
Tatum Watkins, a 19-year-old college student from southwest Iowa and a delegate to the DNC, told the AP she appreciates as a young woman that Harris is speaking out on issues like reproductive rights and is “far closer” in age to a whole new generation of voters.
“She is very much leaning into what’s popular right now,” Watkins said. “I’ve seen already her branding is what I can best describe as brat summer.”
Watkins said that has energized and excited her and other young Iowans, making what will be her first experience voting in a presidential election “even better.”
CNN commentator Van Jones says he thinks that if the Republicans focus on race in their attacks on Harris, they will lose the Black men they have worked so hard to attract to the party:
“DEI hire?”: @VanJones68 and @bomani_jones react to rhetoric from the right as Kamala Harris enters the race. pic.twitter.com/ruj94yP4au
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 23, 2024
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients on Monday urged aides to keep their heads down and remain focused on the work that remains, AP reports. He listed lowering housing and health care costs, implementing the administration’s key legislative achievements, and safeguarding democracy as among Biden’s top priorities for the final months of the administration.
The message is being echoed throughout the administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told senior State Department officials that Biden wants his team to remain laser focused on carrying out his foreign policy agenda. Blinken noted that there is still “one-eighth” of Biden’s term to go, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Biden, who is scheduled to meet with Israel’s Netanyahu later this week, said during his call to campaign staff that he was focused on getting a cease-fire agreement and expressed optimism that a deal was close.
“I’ll be working really closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians to try to work out how we can get the Gaza war to end and Middle East peace and get all those hostages home,” Biden told campaign staff. “I think we’re on the verge of being able to do that.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, said that a cease-fire deal appears closer than it has been through the conflict.
Though Harris has technically toed Biden’s line on Gaza, she is viewed as being more forceful when it comes to criticising Israel, and expressing empathy for Palestinians. When she delivered a speech in March in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, her comments on Gaza were followed by sustained applause.
“People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act,” she said. “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire.” She added, after stopping for the applause, “for six weeks”.
In the presidential primaries, more than 101,000 Michigan Democrats, about 13% of those who voted, cast ballots for “uncommitted”, after campaigning by anti-war organizers, winning two delegates to the Democratic national convention and awakening a modern anti-war movement that forced the president’s attention to Gaza.
Harris will not preside over the chamber when when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.
According to an aide, she will meet with Netanyahu at the White House at some point this week. On Wednesday, Harris is scheduled to be in Indianapolis to moderate a conversation with the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Inc, one of the nation’s oldest Black sororities.
The @VP will meet with Netanyahu at the White House this week, per an aide. She is scheduled to be in Indianapolis on Wednesday to moderate a conversation with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.’s Grand Boulé, when Netanyahu addresses Congress.
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) July 22, 2024
Harris’s absence during Netanyahu’s controversial address underlines the mounting tension between the Biden administration and the right-wing prime minister, as the death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza surpasses 39,000.
The vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, would typically preside over the chamber on such occasions, sitting on the House rostrum next to the Speaker as she has done previously for addresses by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
The aide emphasized that Harris’s absence should not be interpreted as a snub or change in her commitment to Israel’s security, but represented a scheduling conflict.
During her meeting with Netanyahu this week, the vice president is expected to discuss Israel’s security, as well as to again condemn the 7 October attack and the acts of sexual violence that have occured while stressing her concern for the humanitariain situtaion in Gaza.
CNN reports that Beyoncé has given Harris her approval for the campaign to use the singer’s song Freedom as its official tune.
Citing a source close to Harris CNN says, “Beyoncé, who is known for maintaining strict clearance guidelines around her music, gave quick approval to Harris’ campaign when they sought permission to use “Freedom” on Monday — just hours before she walked out to the song, the source added.”
Harris walked into a campaign staff event to the song, which played as she ended her speech.
Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, endorsed Harris on Sunday, CNN reports.
In case you missed this earlier: CNN senior political commentator Van Jones says that Harris has “gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours”.
“What’s happening on TikTok is extraordinary,” he says. “All of the things that were cringey about Kamala: her laugh, the coconut tree comment, being unburdened by – all those weird things that she said, she’s gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours as a whole generation has taken all that content and remixed it in all these incredible content videos.”
“She’s gone from cringe to cool in 24 hours” @VanJones68 tells me there’s been a rapid change in the past 24 hours among the TikTok generation and their embrace of VP Kamala Harris since she started her presidential bid. pic.twitter.com/l4IoYpqcnS
— Pamela Brown (@PamelaBrownCNN) July 22, 2024
He says that TikTok might be for Harris this year what Twitter was for Trump in 2016.
The hottest takes tonight with @VanJones68 @Alyssafarah @DougHeye @bomani_jones. Stick around for the end 👀👀 pic.twitter.com/rqxahP9huJ
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 23, 2024
ActBlue data shows donations record beaten for second day
According to a tracker of donations to ActBlue, the liberal political action committee, compiled by data journalist Ryan Murphy using ActBlue’s donations ticker, the 24 hours to midnight on 22 July have beat the record set the 24 hours before that:
Per the ActBlue tracker, yesterday's record haul of $66,647,930 has slipped to #2 on the all-time list after today's $66,766,920 haul (w/another 15 minutes to go).https://t.co/ipDuYBZMzF pic.twitter.com/jApVPWefP7
— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) July 23, 2024
While not all of these donations are to the Democrats, Harris announcing her intention to run is undoubtedly responsible for the bulk of the more than $130m that appears to have been raised in two days.
Donations were coming in at a rate of $3m an hour from 9am to 10pm on Monday:
Final Monday ActBlue tally: $67,221,729, with contributions coming in at a rate of at least $3 million per hour between 9AM and 10PM. pic.twitter.com/nUVwgkW8G5
— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) July 23, 2024
Updated
The latest figures from the Associated Press show Harris with more than 2,500 delegates, well over the 1,976 needed to win a vote in the coming weeks.
Delegates could still, technically, change their minds but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey and only 54 delegates said they were undecided.
Harris offered a sense of how she plans to attack Trump on Monday, referring to her past of pursuing “predators” and “fraudsters” as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.
“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said of her rival, a convicted felon who was found liable for sexual assault in civil court.
Other courts have found fraud was committed in his business, charitable foundation and private university.
Wisconsin is among a trio of Rust-Belt states that include Michigan and Pennsylvania widely considered as must-wins for any candidate, and where Biden was lagging Trump.
Harris to deliver first campaign event since announcing candidacy on Tuesday
Harris will campaign in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday for the first time as a presidential candidate.
The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy. Last week, Milwaukee was host to Trump, JD Vance and the RNC.
The Wisconsin trip offers another opportunity for the 59-year-old former California prosecutor to reset the Democrats’ campaign and make the case that she is best positioned to beat Trump. Harris is scheduled to deliver remarks at a political event in Milwaukee at 1.05pm CDT (6.05pm GMT).
Updated
Meanwhile Biden plans to return to the White House on Tuesday afternoon, though has no public events scheduled.
He has aid that he will address the nation later this week.
President Joe Biden’s “symptoms have almost resolved completely” from Covid, according to his physician, as the president on Monday remained out of public view for the fifth straight day.
Biden called into the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters of his former campaign during a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris, whose bid for the White House has been endorsed by Biden. The president sought to pep up the staff, urging them to give “every bit” of their “heart and soul” to Harris. Biden also vowed to be “out on the road” campaigning for his vice president.
“If I didn’t have Covid, I’d be standing there with you,” said Biden, whose voice sounded a gravelly, according to AP.
Harris statement on becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee
Late on Monday night, less than 36 hours after Joe Biden announced that he was stepping aside, the Harris campaign has released a statement confirming that she has received the support needed to become the Democratic party’s nominee (though a reminder, has not yet been nominated) and that she looks forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
Here is the full statement:
When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.
This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.
Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the 2024 US election with me, Helen Sullivan.
Kamala Harris confirmed late on Monday night that she had received the support needed to become the Democratic party’s nominee, and said that she looks forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
Less than 36 hours after Biden announced that he was stepping aside, Harris earned enough delegates to become the likely Democratic party nominee, after California delegates voted unanimously to endorse her.
She also broke fundraising records, with $81m raised in 24 hours – $15m short of what Biden has raised over months of his campaign so far.
Nancy Pelosi made the motion to endorse Harris for president at a virtual meeting of California’s DNC delegation on Monday evening, a spokesperson confirmed, and delegates voted unanimously for Harris.
By Monday night, Harris had the support of at least 2,471 delegates, according to an AP tally of delegates, more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP.
Delegates could still change their minds before 7 August, but nobody else received any votes in the AP survey, for example, and just 57 delegates said they were undecided.
Here are the other key recent developments:
In a speech to campaign staffers on Monday, Harris said that building up the middle class would be a defining goal of my presidency’. She will work to build a country “where every person has affordable healthcare, where every worker is paid fairly, and where every senior can retire with dignity,” she said. “All of this is to say, building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said.
She also spoke about abortion, attacked Trump’s economic policies, and appeared to choose a campaign song: Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’. Speaking to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris turned to Donald Trump’s economic and social welfare policies, saying, “We are not going back”. Trump would put Social Security and Medicare “on the chopping block”, she said, turning healthcare into something that was only for the wealthy.
America’s freedom was fought for by its founders, framers, abolitionists, suffragettes, freedom riders, farm workers, she said. “And now I say, team, the baton is in our hands. We, who believe in the sacred freedom to vote. We who are committed to fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence. And that’s why we will work to pass universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban.”
Harris’ campaign aims to wrap up her presidential nomination by Wednesday and secure a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates needed to win, Reuters reports, citing four unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
A survey by the Associated Press has found that Harris has the support of more than half of the delegates she’ll need to take President Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic ticket. Over 1,000 pledged delegates told The Associated Press or announced that they plan to support Harris in a forthcoming vote to pick a new White House nominee.
Biden will return to the White House on Tuesday and is expected to address the nation later this week. President Joe Biden’s “symptoms have almost resolved completely” from Covid-19, according to his physician, as the president on Monday remained out of public view for the fifth straight day.
The leader of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, Senate aides have told Reuters, as Harris will be traveling outside Washington.
Bernie Sanders has still refrained from endorsing Harris, though he said he thinks she will be the nominee, and stands a chance of winning the election with a big vote.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said on Monday the Democratic party will deliver a presidential nominee by 7 August and is committed to an “open and fair” nominating process.
Updated
