Kamala Harris has won enough votes from Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president.
The announcement was made by Jamie Harrison, the chair of the Democratic national committee, during a call with supporters.
The online voting process ends on Monday, but Harris has crossed the threshold to have the majority of delegates’ votes.
The vice president, in a Harris for President campaign call, said:
I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
Speculation about the Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro has been whipped into a frenzy after Cherelle Parker, the mayor of Philadelphia, tweeted a video in support of “@KamalaHarris for president and @JoshShapiroPA for VP!”
Some have argued that the video was created to celebrate a yet-to-be-made announcement that Shapiro, an early frontrunner to be Harris’s running mate, has been formally invited to complete the Democratic ticket.
But a member of Parker’s staff told the New York Times that the video was released as a show of support for Shapiro, who the mayor hopes will be chosen, not as a celebration.
Elon Musk’s political action committee has been using user data to help Donald Trump win the presidential election in November, according to a CNBC investigation published on 2 August.
According to reporter Brian Schwartz, ads from the America Pac, a group co-founded by Musk in spring, show a young man lying in bed, getting a text with a video of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. When the young man replies asking how he can help he’s met with a link to the America Pac.
If the person who visits the Pac’s site is from a battleground state like Michigan, Arizona or Nevada, instead of being directed to a voter registration page for their state, they are directed to a page where they fill in personal information like their address and phone number.
So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation,” Schwartz writes. “The combination of owning a social media company that gives him an enormous platform to push his political views, and creating a PAC with effectively unlimited resources, has made Musk, for the first time, a major force in an American presidential election.
Read the entirety of Schwartz’s article here.
Here’s more from Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, who described Donald Trump’s attacks on Kamala Harris’s racial identity as “shameful”.
Shapiro, speaking after an event in Cheney, said:
I think it’s offensive. And it is more of the same from Donald Trump. He attacks other people based on what they look like, or who they pray to, who they love, the way they were raised. He tries to divide Americans, because quite frankly, he struggles with uplifting all Americans.
The criminal case charging Donald Trump with plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat resumed after a nearly eight-month pause on Friday, after a supreme court opinion last month narrowed the scope of the prosecution.
The case has been formally sent back to the US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, who is expected to decide in the coming weeks which aspects of the indictment constitute official acts and which do not.
Last month in a significant victory for Trump, the court ruled that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity for official actions taken as president.
Judge Chutkan will have to decide how to apply the high court’s opinion to the remainder of the case.
That includes whether key allegations in the case – including that Trump badgered his vice-president, Mike Pence, to reject the official counting of electoral votes showing that he had lost the election – can remain part of the prosecution or must be discarded, according to AP.
The Secret Service takes “full responsibility” for the events that led up to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last month, the acting director of the agency said on Friday.
In a press conference in Washington, Ronald Rowe, who replaced Kimberly Cheatle after she stood down from her position as director of the service after Trump was shot, said: “This was a failure.”
He said agents should have had better cover of the vantage points, from where a 20-year-old gunman ended up firing shots at the former president while he spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month.
The gunman, Thomas Crooks, fired several shots from a rifle after positioning himself on a warehouse roof that Rowe admitted “was not far” from the stage where Trump was speaking. Crooks was killed by government counter-snipers. Rowe said agents should have had “eyes” on that position beforehand.
“We should have had better coverage on that roof line,” he said.
The agency is conducting an internal investigation and Rowe said disciplinary action would be taken if necessary, and procedures will be changed.
The sentencing for Hunter Biden’s firearms case, in which he was found guilty of three felonies, has been set for 13 November – just eight days after the November election.
Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, is the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a felony. He was found guilty by a jury in Wilmington, Delaware of lying on a gun application form when buying a Colt Cobra 38 Special revolver in 2018 by not disclosing his drug addiction, and then illegally owning the gun for 11 days, before his then girlfriend, the widow of his late brother Beau, threw it in a garbage bin.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and fines of $750,000, although such punishments are rare for first time offenders.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has described the moment she secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president as “historic” in a “critical” election year with “sky-high stakes”.
Harris has unified the party and generated “unprecedented enthusiasm from across the broad and diverse coalition that sent her and President Biden to the White House,” a statement from the campaign said, adding:
Today’s milestone comes on the heels of a groundbreaking $310 million July fundraising haul – the best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history, with two-thirds coming from first-time donors.
Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison has released the following statement after Kamala Harris secured enough votes to win the Democratic presidential nomination:
In the span of just a few weeks, Vice-President Kamala Harris continues to break records – and today is no different. With historic momentum and a groundswell of support, Vice-President Harris has officially met the threshold, securing a majority of the delegates she needs to receive the Democratic nomination on Monday.
With the support of more than 50% of all delegates just one day into voting, vice president Harris has the overwhelming backing of the Democratic party and will lead us united in our mission to defeat Donald Trump in November.
But I want to be clear – there is still time for delegates to cast their ballots. I encourage every single delegate across the country to meet this moment and cast their ballot so that we head into our convention in Chicago with a show of force as a united Democratic party.”
Upon being asked for his reaction to JD Vance comparing him to a “really bad impression of [Barack] Obama”, Pennsylvania’s governor Josh Shapiro, who is reported to be one of Kamala Harris’s top contenders for vice-president, said:
Barack Obama was probably our most gifted orator of my time, so that’s kind of a weird insult …
I’ll say this about JD Vance: it’s really hard being honest with the American people when you’re not being honest with yourself. He is the most inorganic candidate I think I have ever seen …
This guy is not exactly off to a good start. It is clear that Trump really has buyer’s remorse. So, if he wants to sling insults in my direction, which I’m not even sure is an insult, let him do it. Bring it on. I’ll be ready for whatever JD Vance throws my direction.”
After securing enough votes to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Kamala Harris took to X, saying: “This campaign is about people coming together.”
I am honored to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. I will officially accept the nomination next week.
This campaign is about people coming together, fueled by love of country, to fight for the best of who we are.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has accused Donald Trump of being “too scared to debate” after the former president questioned why he should participate in a debate.
Trump, in an interview with Fox Business, was asked if he regretted debating Joe Biden in June. Trump replied:
If I didn’t do the debate, they’d say, ‘Oh, Trump’s you know, not doing the debate.’ It’s the same thing they’ll say now. I mean, right now I say, why should I do a debate? I’m leading in the polls, and everybody knows her. Everybody knows me.
In response, the Harris campaign’s co-chair, Cedric Richmond, said:
Donald Trump needs to man up. He’s got no problem spreading lies and hateful garbage at his rallies or in interviews with right-wing commentators. But he’s apparently too scared to do it standing across the stage from the Vice President of the United States.
He added:
Since he talks the talk, he should walk the walk and – as Vice President Harris said earlier this week – say it to her face on September 10. She’ll be there waiting to see if he’ll show up.
Kamala Harris told supporters that “we are going to win this election” and that it will “take all of us”.
“We believe in the promise of America, the promise of freedom, opportunity and justice, not just for some, but for all,” she said.
We each face the question: what kind of country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate? The beauty of our democracy is that we each, every one of us has the power to answer that question.
Kamala Harris noted that it was the “tireless” work of the Democratic party’s delegates, state leaders and staff that was “pivotal in making this moment possible”.
“Your dedication cannot be overstated,” she said.
We love our country, we believe in the promise of America, and that’s what this campaign is about.
Harris said she would officially accept the party’s nomination next week once the voting process ends, but that she was “happy” that she has enough delegates to secure it.
Later this month, we will gather in Chicago, united as one party, where we’re going to have an opportunity to celebrate this historic moment together.
Kamala Harris thanked the Democratic National Committee chair, Jaime Harrison, after he announced that she had secure enough votes from delegates to become the party’s nominee for president.
Harris said she was “excited” for the future, but that the party has got “a lot of work to get there”. “It’s good work, we like hard work,” she told supporters in a call.
This is a “people-powered campaign”, Harris said, as she acknowledged that she would not have reached this point without the party’s support and trust, for which she said she was “deeply grateful”.
Kamala Harris has won enough votes from Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination for president.
The announcement was made by Jamie Harrison, the chair of the Democratic national committee, during a call with supporters.
The online voting process ends on Monday, but Harris has crossed the threshold to have the majority of delegates’ votes.
The vice president, in a Harris for President campaign call, said:
I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
The mayor of a Louisiana city near the state’s border with Texas abruptly resigned from her post days before authorities jailed her on suspicion of raping a boy while she served in office.
Misty Roberts became the first woman to be elected as mayor of DeRidder in 2018, and she was well into her second term in the position when she handed in her resignation – with immediate effect – to the local city council on Saturday.
The letter did not provide a reason for Roberts’s decision. But the day before, Louisiana state police had begun investigating an allegation that Roberts engaged in “sexual relations” with a minor who was too young to be able to legally provide consent, according to a news release from the agency.
Investigators said they interviewed the alleged victim as well as one other child. Both confirmed Roberts “had sexual intercourse with one juvenile victim while employed as mayor”, the state police statement said.
Read the full story here: Louisiana mayor arrested on child rape accusations after abrupt resignation
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, in the Punchbowl News interview, was asked whether he was disappointed in the selection of the Ohio senator JD Vance as the Republican party’s vice-presidential nominee.
“It’s not my job to tell the president who he ought to run,” McConnell replied, adding:
With regard to Sen. Vance … yeah, we have a different point of view.
Without directly criticizing Donald Trump or Vance, McConnell said the foreign policy doctrine Vance and others in his party believe in is “nonsense”, adding:
I mean, even the slogans are what they were in the 30s – ‘America First’.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has compared Joe Biden’s proposed supreme court reforms to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
McConnell, in an interview with Punchbowl News published this morning, accused Biden of trying to undermine the high court.
That’s what some people were trying to do January 6 – to break the system of handing an administration from one to the next. We can have our arguments, but we ought to not try to break the rules.
Biden earlier this week unveiled a series of sweeping changes to the supreme court, including the introduction of term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.
In response, McConnell said the term limits proposed will end up “dead on arrival” in Congress.
Kamala Harris’s campaign said that they will be hosting a call with “some special guests” at 12.34pm ET.
The call will be livestreamed on the Democratic National Committee’s YouTube page.
It remains to be seen if Harris herself will tune into the call, as well as who the special guests will be.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
