US politics recap
Here’s a look at where things stand:
Donald Trump will sit down with Elon Musk for an interview tonight, nearly a month after the tech billionaire and owner of X officially endorsed the Republican presidential candidate. Trump shared a campaign video on X, his first post on the social media platform in nearly a year, just hours before his scheduled interview with Musk. Trump appears to be paying X to promote the Musk interview.
In an open letter, the EU commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk that he must abide by European hate speech laws in his interview with Trump this evening. Musk responded with characteristic maturity and the Trump campaign told the EU regulators to “mind their own business”.
Time magazine has put Kamala Harris on the cover of its latest issue, with the headline “Her Moment”. Harris has “pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history” after smashing fundraising records, dominating TikTok and filling up stadiums in the past month, Charlotte Alter writes in the lead story.
Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic national convention next week, the White House has confirmed. The Democratic National Committee has also announced its first ad campaign since Harris selected Walz as her running mate.
Donald Trump falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane. Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker, said Trump should stop questioning the size of Harris’s crowds and instead focus on her as a candidate.
More Americans trust Kamala Harris with the US economy than they do Donald Trump, according to a new poll that suggests the former president losing the advantage he had over Joe Biden. The poll found that 42% of voters trust Harris on economic issues – one percentage point ahead of Trump.
Donald Trump plans to sue the US justice department for $100m for executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve classified government documents. The former president’s lawyers intend to sue the department for its conduct during the FBI’s raid on 8 August 2022, amid the federal investigation into his alleged retention of classified records.
Newly leaked training videos confirm how the staffing initiative of Project 2025 is gearing up for a major effort to replace non-partisan civil servants with conservative loyalists, and is being led by many former Trump administration officials. Of the 36 featured speakers, 29 previously worked for Trump in some capacity.
The Guardian is launching a separate liveblog for tonight’s interview with Elon Musk and Trump. Follow along here:
A Trump campaign spokesman told EU regulators to “mind their own business” in response to a letter urging Elon Musk to abide by hate speech and disinformation regulations in his interview with Trump scheduled for this evening.
“Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do,” Steven Cheung wrote on X. “They know that a President Trump victory means America will no longer be ripped off because he will smartly utilize tariffs and renegotiated trade deals that puts America First. Let us be very clear: the European Union is an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”
The European Union should mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.
— Steven Cheung (@TheStevenCheung) August 12, 2024
Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do. They know that a… https://t.co/imnczrEkmh
The Trump campaigned shared the same statement with supporters by email this afternoon.
The Digital Services Act, which the EU adopted in 2022, requires large social networks, like X, to aggressively police disinformation and hate speech, or face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover.
Updated
