With both major party tickets now decided, the campaign is set to play out as a 90-day sprint, and the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt are prime fronts. Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are showing their support for organized labor by appearing at a United Auto Workers event in Detroit.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is holding a news conference Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, making his first public appearance since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee and selected Walz as her running mate.
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Here’s the Latest:
Trump attacks his present (and former) rivals
Trump began his press conference with a three-pronged attack on Harris, her new running mate Gov. Walz of Minnesota and even President Biden, who has been out of the presidential race for weeks.
Trump began the event with a statement before calling into question Harris’ legitimacy as the nominee. “We have somebody who hasn’t received one vote for president,” he said. Harris was nominated by virtual roll call by the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday.
He called Walz “a radical left man,” adding that “he has positions that it’s not even possible to believe they exist.”
And he said “the presidency was taken away” from Biden, whom Trump has spent years focusing on, even as he said he did not plan to recalibrate his campaign, in light of a new opponent.
Trump offers to debate Harris
Trump suggested he would participate in as many as three debates against Harris. He said he’s willing to appear separately on Fox, NBC and ABC, all spread across September.
The former president has been inconsistent in recent weeks about his debate preferences, and Harris has not committed to any of Trump’s more recent ideas. Trump had agreed previously to a debate against President Biden on ABC in late September but then he pulled out of that commitment and called on Harris to join him in a Fox News debate.
ABC has said it would continue its regularly scheduled event and host whichever of the candidates shows up. Trump was noncommittal when asked if he would move forward if Harris only agreed to the ABC debate.
Trump opens press conference with dark portrait of America
Trump has opened a press conference at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, his first since Vice President Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
He warned of World War III, a depression of “the 1929 variety” and a nation overrun with migrants from south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I think that our country is right now in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in, from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint,” he said, adding that President Joe Biden is the “worst president in the history of our country” and that Vice President Kamala Harris also ranks at the bottom of the people to hold the No. 2 spot.
Trump’s supporters typically hear his “America First” and “Make America Great Again” rallying cries as a fundamentally optimistic vision for fixing deep-seated problems. The question is whether more moderate voters hear the same message or are turned off by such sweeping, often-hyperbolic critiques of the country.
Harris’ husband to lead U.S. presidential delegation to Paris Olympics’ closing ceremony
Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is leading the U.S. presidential delegation to the Paris Olympics’ closing ceremony Sunday, cheering on with American athletes over the next few days and holding events such as a UNESCO roundtable to discuss combating antisemitism.
At the roundtable Thursday, Emhoff said the Biden administration is “working with Congress” to support a $2.2 million grant for UNESCO’s international program on Holocaust and genocide education.
“UNESCO plays a vital role in ensuring that Holocaust education is taught and used to combat antisemitism all around the world,” he said. “And in the wake of the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel where hostages were taken, this work has never been more urgent.”
President Joe Biden and his wife to meet with campaign staffers in Delaware
President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will meet with campaign staffers in Wilmington, Delaware on Thursday, using the time to thank them for their hard work over the past year and their continued work in support of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. That’s according to a person familiar with the president’s plans, who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans that are not yet public.
The event at a local venue in Wilmington will feature food and, naturally for Biden, ice cream.
The president exited the presidential race two weeks ago and wanted to say hello to the hundreds of staffers expected to attend.
-Josh Boak
Pelosi on Trump: ‘My goal in life was that man would never step in the White House again’
Nancy Pelosi’s influence can be seen all across the Democratic Party shakeup that in a few short, agonizing weeks has reengineered the 2024 presidential ticket and the race for the White House.
It was Pelosi who publicly encouraged President Joe Biden to make a decision about his reelection campaign when he had already insisted he had no plans to step aside. Once he exited and endorsed Kamala Harris atop the ticket, it was Pelosi who was a big fan of her future running mate, Tim Walz.
For the House speaker emerita, the upheaval is less about Biden, a friend of 40 years, and more about Republican Donald Trump, the former president she refers to as “Bozo,” “a snake-oil salesman,” “what’s his name” and the “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
“How can I say this in the nicest possible way: My goal in life was that man would never step in the White House again,” Pelosi said, slapping the table with every word.
Pelosi spoke Wednesday with reporters and columnists about her new book, “The Art of Power, My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House,” which calls for an end to political violence in the U.S.
Michigan county official endorses Harris, saying she ‘embodies the America we deserve’
Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad I. Turfe, the highest ranking Arab American official in Michigan’s largest county, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for president shortly after she gave remarks just outside Detroit on Wednesday.
Turfe told The Associated Press he spoke with Harris backstage at the event prior to his endorsement.
“Kamala Harris embodies the America we deserve – an America that stands for strength, inclusivity and unwavering commitment to justice,” Turfe said in a statement. “I wholeheartedly endorse Kamala Harris, as she represents the true spirit of our nation and the values we hold dear.”
Metro Detroit, home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the United States, has become a focal point of tension and unrest due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Harris’ speech outside Detroit was interrupted for several minutes Wednesday by a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters yelling.
Turfe also pressed the need for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, but said Harris “gives us the best chance of achieving peace in that region moving forward.”
Trump will hold a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida
The Thursday news conference would be his first public appearance since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee and selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
The former president announced the 2 p.m. EDT news conference on his Truth Social network and then posted he was eager to debate Harris. He had teased an announcement on the presidential debate earlier this week after pulling down from the scheduled ABC News debate. Trump had said he would rather the debate be on Fox News, but on Wednesday was showing willingness to reconsider ABC News.
“I will expose Kamala during the Debate the same way I exposed Crooked Joe, Hillary, and everyone else during Debates,” he said on Truth Social. “Only I think Kamala will be easier.”
Trump’s running mate JD Vance has criticized Harris for not conducting news conference or sitting down for interviews since President Joe Biden stepped aside and she launched her presidential bid. Harris sometimes answers shouted questions while boarding or leaving her plane for campaign stops.
Secretaries of state urge Elon Musk to fix AI chatbot spreading election misinformation on X
Five secretaries of state are urging Elon Musk to fix an AI chatbot on the social media platform X, saying in a letter sent Monday that it has spread election misinformation.
The top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington told Musk that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
While Grok is available only to subscribers to the premium versions of X, the misinformation was shared across multiple social media platforms and reached millions of people, according to the letter. The bogus ballot deadline information from the chatbot also referenced Alabama, Indiana, Ohio and Texas, although their secretaries of state did not sign the letter. Grok continued to repeat the false information for 10 days before it was corrected, the secretaries said.
The letter urged X to immediately fix the chatbot “to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year.” That would include directing Grok to send users to CanIVote.org, a voting information website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State, when asked about U.S. elections.
