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      Gov. Josh Shapiro has a reputation for getting things done in Pennsylvania – but not necessarily things all Democrats like

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      Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s place on the short list of potential Democratic vice presidential nominees has vaulted him to a national profile. That’s not surprising to someone like me who follows Pennsylvania politics closely.

      Shapiro is no stranger to both the modern realities of Trumpism in the Republican Party and the nitty-gritty work of legislating across the aisle. An important part of his rise is his “get shit done” mentality, the phrase he readily uses to describe his approach to politics.

      Who is Josh Shapiro? And what might his experience with building consensus in the swing state of Pennsylvania mean in the current veepstakes?

      Early political ambitions

      Shapiro is the consummate politician. He worked as a staffer for several members of Congress before outhustling his competition to earn his own seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

      While in the House, Shapiro built a reputation as a pragmatic reformer and bipartisan operator. He was known for his ambition but also for his engagement with policy.

      His most famous consensus-building act was being at the center of bipartisan negotiations in 2007 that resulted in Republican state Rep. Denny O’Brien becoming speaker of the house, even though the Democrats had won a single-seat majority in the chamber.

      O’Brien repaid the favor in 2022 when he, along with eight other prominent Republican figures, backed Shapiro for governor over his Republican rival.

      As a state representative, Shapiro sponsored an unsuccessful amendment to the state constitution that would have changed Pennsylvania’s partisan judicial elections to a merit appointment system, which echoes the current push from the Biden administration for U.S. Supreme Court reforms.

      And he led a bipartisan effort in 2009 to reinstate hate crimes protections for sexual orientation, gender identity and disability after the state’s Commonwealth Court struck down those protections.

      Notably, this push failed and has become a perennial debate in Pennsylvania, most recently after the murder of transgender teen Pauly Likens Jr.

      County commissioner to attorney general

      Shapiro left the Pennsylvania House in 2012 after winning a seat on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. The three-member board is essentially the legislature for the county, and Shapiro’s election shifted it from Republican to Democratic control.

      His record of “getting shit done” continued as a county commissioner, and he drew praise from the lone Republican commissioner, Bruce Castor, for being “the best county commissioner I ever knew” and “very good at arriving at consensus.”

      Leveraging his success and a statewide profile, Shapiro then successfully won two terms, in 2016 and 2020, as Pennsylvania’s attorney general – a position widely considered a steppingstone to the governor’s mansion.

      As attorney general, Shapiro was involved in the high-profile investigation of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church as well as the prosecution of Penn State’s former football coach Jerry Sandusky for the same, and former Penn State President Graham Spanier for covering it up.

      He later became the face of the legal fight against the Trump campaign’s claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020.

      An anti-MAGA candidate

      Shapiro ran for Pennsylvania governor in 2022. The Democratic Party cleared the field for him, and he continued to assume the anti-MAGA mantle in his race against Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano.

      Mastriano was a key figure in Republican denial of the election results in the 2020 race and proved to be a very weak candidate. In fact, Republican donors largely gave up on Mastriano’s campaign.

      In the current veepstakes, some commentators have pointed to Shapiro’s landslide victory in 2022 as a liability. They argue that he has not been tested or vetted enough for a national campaign by running in a tough race.

      But during his first two years as governor, Shapiro has held true to his consensus-building persona.

      He coordinated the effort to repair a vital bridge on Interstate 95 near Philadelphia in just 12 days, after its collapse from a truck fire rendered the vital highway impassable.

      He also appointed Republican Al Schmidt to oversee Pennsylvania’s election system as secretary of state. Shapiro’s argument that “running an election should be a nonpartisan exercise” was another rejection of the election denialism that emerged in the state in 2020.

      About-face on school vouchers

      Shapiro’s work toward consensus building has at times caused problems for him within his own party.

      For example, in 2023, Shapiro appeared to be cruising to an on-time bipartisan state budget. This is something his Democratic predecessor Tom Wolf struggled with.

      However, an offer to the Republicans controlling the Pennsylvania Senate – a $100 million school voucher program – angered his allies in the House, narrowly controlled by Democrats.

      Shapiro pulled his support, using his line-item veto power to strike the voucher program from the budget after Senate Republicans had passed it.

      This move understandably angered Republicans and diminished the chances for other compromises needed on both a spending bill for higher education and the enabling legislation needed to spend the money from the budget.

      As a result, state spending, including critical education and human services funding, was delayed for 5½ months until the final budget negotiations were concluded and enabling legislation was passed.

      Moderate and bipartisan bona fides

      Shapiro has also proven pragmatic on other issues that are central to Pennsylvania politics, but which may not be well accepted by more liberal Democrats in other states.

      For example, he backed away from his predecessor’s attempt to have Pennsylvania join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon cap-and-trade system in the Northeast. Shapiro has long been skeptical of the initiative and its potential effect on union jobs in one of the top natural gas-producing states in the country.

      Shapiro’s support for private school vouchers wasn’t popular with his party in Pennsylvania and also won’t be with national Democrats.

      Shapiro has also been at the forefront of several controversies roiling the Democratic Party more broadly. He condemned as “shameful and unacceptable” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill’s disastrous testimony before a U.S. House committee investigating campus protests over the Israeli war in Gaza. On the left, the Republican-led committee’s work was largely seen as an attack on higher education.

      More broadly, Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a staunch supporter of Israel at a time when the war in Gaza is roiling the Democratic Party.

      If on the ticket, however, Shapiro will not be running in a partisan primary but a general election. That means that all of these stances could help bolster his moderate and bipartisan bona fides nationally.

      Harris-Shapiro political chemistry?

      In the end, political scientists will say the hype around choosing a swing-state politician – even a popular one like Shapiro – is unlikely to make any difference in the outcome of the election.

      But when it comes to Harris selecting her running mate, Shapiro checks two important boxes. Most importantly, he appears to meet the requirement of do no harm to the ticket. As has been seen in recent days with concern among some Republicans over Trump’s choice of U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as a running mate, a presidential candidate does not want a partner who will potentially drag down the ticket.

      Properly vetting and selecting the right candidate who is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency is another important optic in choosing a running mate. Shapiro would seem a safe choice from this perspective, although campaigns often bring out flaws candidates miss.

      The pair also came up in politics together. They share a history as state attorneys general, with Shapiro coming into office in 2017 as Harris moved from California attorney general to the U.S. Senate. But they first met in 2006 at a bipartisan seminar for future political leaders, sponsored by the nonpartisan Aspen Institute.

      Moreover, Shapiro endorsed Harris in her presidential run in 2019.

      Read more of our stories about Philadelphia. More

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      How Kamala Harris can lose the cop’s badge and still look tough | Judith Levine

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      Kamala Harris has struggled to establish a clear political identity, and much of the trouble comes from her record as a prosecutor in California. In 2004, as San Francisco district attorney, she declined to seek the death penalty for a man convicted of killing a police officer (he received a life sentence). Ten years later, when the state supreme court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional, Harris, then the state attorney general, appealed against the decision.As California attorney general – a position she held from 2011 to 2017 – Harris launched reforms such as the program to prevent recidivism among young first-time nonviolent drug offenders. The program, Back on Track, offered individual support and job training and replaced jail time with community service – a “revolutionary” idea at the time, noted Mother Jones editorial director and veteran Harris-watcher Jamilah King. Yet Harris’s office opposed the release of non-violent offenders from California prisons, in defiance of a court order to reduce overcrowding.Harris made some downright retrograde decisions as well, such as defending wrongful convictions won through proven official misconduct and, most famously, supporting legislation to fine, even lock up, parents of habitually truant students.She tried to please both sides by calling herself a “progressive prosecutor”. During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, she ran to the left of Joe Biden on most criminal justice issues, including solitary confinement and marijuana legalization. The anti-policing and prison abolitionist communities were not persuaded, however. Journalist and law professor Lara Bazelon wrote a damning op-ed headlined “Kamala Harris was not a ‘progressive prosecutor’.” Activists launched the hashtag #KamalaIsACop. Yet in 2024, even as such mistrust lingers, Republicans are painting their opponent as a “defund-the-police” radical masquerading as a cop.Now the Harris campaign feels it’s found a winner: “Prosecutor versus felon” portrays the Democrat as a tough seeker of justice, experienced in vanquishing Donald Trump’s “type”– sexual “predators”, business fraudsters, tax cheats. “Prosecutor had a ‘cop’ connotation to it when she initially ran,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told the Atlantic. “It does not now. It has a connotation of standing up, taking on powerful interests – being strong, being effective – so it’s a very different frame.”For voters worried that Democrats are too soft on crime, the image may be compelling. But for others whose support Harris needs, a prosecutor is always a cop, and a cop is not the good guy. How can she own her record honorably and show critics that she can do better?Harris can reframe her stances on criminal justice according to the principles of restorative justice – and use that frame to define the contrast between herself and Trump.Restorative justice (RJ) is a practice that facilitates communication between people who’ve been harmed and those responsible for the harm. The goals are accountability and repair. The harm-doer takes responsibility for his acts. The RJ “circle” decides how he can repair the harm. If he does so honestly, he is welcomed back into the community whose values and rules he has transgressed.Accountability, RJ contends, is more effective than punishment. The defendant’s role – and the defense attorney’s job – in court is to deny guilt, even if he’s guilty. Punishment often reinforces that denial and stirs resentment, especially if it’s excessive, as it commonly is in the US.As California attorney general, Harris has said, her job was to enforce the law – to convict and punish – even when she didn’t endorse it. But as senator, when she had a chance to make better laws, she did – or tried to. In 2019, before a primary debate, she unveiled a 14-page plan to overhaul the criminal justice system, including ending the death penalty and solitary confinement. In 2020, she co-sponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would have lowered the standard of proof in police misconduct cases and restrict no-knock searches and chokeholds, the precursors of many police shootings. The bill did not pass, but Harris continues to promote it.Last week, she released a statement condemning the killing of Sonya Massey in her home by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy after she contacted the police for help. The statement called on Congress to pass the Floyd Act and concluded: “We must come together to achieve meaningful reforms that advance the safety of all communities.”Restorative justice aims for safe communities, too – not more policing – a distinction Harris has come to embrace. She’s not going to defund the police. But she has spoken up for redirecting a portion of their budgets to things that enhance public safety, like education.Trump’s idea of justice is the antithesis of restorative. His answer to conflict is vengeance. “I am your justice,” he declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March. “And for those who have been wronged and betrayed” – himself most persecuted of all – “I am your retribution.” This statement was preceded and followed by lies, the central tactic of his MO, along with denying wrongdoing, evading responsibility, defaulting on debts, and projecting his flaws on to others – all also antithetical to RJ, whose bedrock is good faith.In response to the constant malfeasance, Harris plays the prosecutor, whose task, she recently told CNN, is “presenting and reminding folks about the empirical evidence that shows us exactly how we arrived at this point”. Trump, she added, “can’t hide” from the facts.But the crimes of Trumpism are not Trump’s alone, and the harm it has done is bigger than his personal law-breaking. Here again, the language of RJ is useful: it speaks of harm, not crime. By tweaking her image from crime-fighter to harm-repairer, Harris can define justice and injustice capaciously.After all, some things that are illegal, such as voluntary sex work, are not harmful, and not everything harmful is illegal. Trump paid a porn star to keep quiet about their sexual encounter and covered up the payments to enhance his electoral prospects. That’s a crime. Then he appointed three US supreme court justices, which was legal, even though they’ve caused exponentially greater harm than the $130,000 payoff. Trump cheated on his taxes, a felony. Then he pushed through a massive tax cut for the rich, which has increased economic inequality and beggared the public sector: all legal.RJ’s more radical cousin, transformative justice, contends that it’s not enough to hold individuals accountable. You have to change the systems that enable, condone, and promote harm, from lax gun laws to corporate giveaways to abortion bans.I for one can’t wait to see the ex-president held accountable for trying to burn the ballots of millions of citizens. But convicting Trump of treason is just day one. Released from the narrow ambit of law enforcer, more powerful than the single lawmaker, President Harris could work to restore truth to politics, repair the harms of inequity, and move toward social and economic justice, which includes public safety. She could defend democracy – not just be the good cop to Trump’s bad cop.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books More

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      ‘We have to be voting biblically’: the Courage Tour rallies Christians to get Trump in office

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      By 9am on Monday, hundreds of worshipers who had gathered under a tent in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, were already on their feet. Praiseful music bumped from enormous speakers. The temperature was pushing 90F (32C).The congregants had gathered in north-western Wisconsin for the Courage Tour, a travelling tent revival featuring a lineup of charismatic preachers and self-styled prophets promising healing, and delivering a political message: register to vote. Watch, or work, the polls. And help deliver the 2024 election to Donald Trump.Serving as a voter registration drive and hub for recruiting poll workers, it was no mistake that the Courage Tour came to Wisconsin just three months ahead of the presidential election in November. The tour had already visited three other swing states: Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.Heavy-hitting Maga organizations – including America First Policy Institute, TPUSA Faith and America First Works – had a presence outside the tent. Inside, headlining the event was Lance Wallnau, a prominent figure in the New Apostolic Reformation – a movement on the right that embraces modern-day apostles, aims to establish Christian dominion over society and politics and has grown in influence since Trump was elected president in 2016.“‘Pray for your rulers,’ that’s about as far as we got in the Bible,” said Wallnau, setting the tone for the day, which would feature a series of sermons focused on the ideal role of Christians in government and society. “I think what’s happened is over time, we began to realize you cannot trust that government like you thought you could trust, and you can’t trust the media to tell you what’s really happening,” he exclaimed.What followed in Wallnau’s morning sermon were a series of greatest hits of the Maga right: January 6 (not an insurrection), the 2020 election (marred by fraud) and Covid-19 (a Chinese bioweapon).Many of the attendees had learned of the event from Eau Claire’s Oasis church – a Pentecostal church whose congregants were already familiar with the movement’s goal to turn believers into activists with a religious mission.“This is wonderful,” said Cyndi Lund, an Oasis churchgoer who attended the four-day event. “I teach a class on biblical citizenship – the Lord put in my heart that we have to be voting biblically, and if nothing else, we have a duty in America to vote.”According to the preachers who sermonized on Monday, the correct biblical worldview is a deeply conservative one. The speakers repeatedly stated their opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion, ideas that were elaborated on in pamphlets passed around the crowd and on three large screens facing the audience. (“Tolerance IS NOT A commandment,” read one poster, propped up in front of the pro-Trump Turning Point USA stall outside the tent.)After Wallnau spoke, Bill Federer, an evangelist who has written more than thirty books weighing in on US history from an anti-communist and rightwing perspective, offered a brief and often intensely inaccurate, intellectual history of the US and Europe. During his talk, Federer dropped references to the villains of his historiography – among them Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, the German philosopher Hegel and, “a little closer to home”, the political theorist of the New Left, Saul Alinsky. The crowd, apparently already versed in Federer’s intellectual universe, groaned and booed when Federer mentioned Alinsky.Federer also railed on “globalists”, tapping into the longstanding antisemitic idea of a shadowy cabal led by wealthy Jewish people who dictate world events.“Globalists,” Federer said, “are giving money to LGBTQ activists to get involved with politics.”It would be up to God-fearing Christians with a biblical worldview to push back against “wokeism”, by influencing what New Apostolic Reformers refer to as the “seven mountains” of society: religion, family, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and, most important at the Courage Tour, government.The stakes, emphasized many of the speakers, couldn’t be overstated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What we’re up against aren’t people,” said Mercedes Sparks, speaking on the topic of the secularization of US life. “These are spirits.” Sparks made clear her explicit goal – shared by the other speakers on the tour – of bringing Christianity into politics and government. But despite invoking an intense form of Christian nationalism, the speakers at the Courage Tour repeatedly decried the label as a smear.“This whole idea of Christian nationalism, it’s kind of interesting, right?” said Sparks, who claimed the term amounts to a form of persecution against Christian Americans. “This term that’s being thrown around, that I really think is designed to shame Christians into not voting and not being engaged like any other group that makes up America.”By the end of the day, the speakers had warmed up the crowd for the afternoon’s natural conclusion: a call to get involved.Joshua Caleb, a speaker at the event who described himself as a former Republican opposition researcher, called on attendees to join his organization, The Lion of Judah – a group which, according to its website, aims to unleash “the ROAR of Christian Voters across America” and urges members to “fight the fraud” by becoming election workers. Event organizers handed out flyers provided by the Trump-aligned America First Works and the evangelical group Faith and Freedom, urging pastors to help their congregants get registered to vote before the November election.Not all attendees were prepared for the speakers’ political, and often dire, message.“It’s too intense for me,” said Kahmara Kelly, who is 20 years old and recently joined the Oasis church. “My body just doesn’t like the tension that could come with it, and the conflict, so I just try avoiding politics.” At times, Kelly left the tent for a breath of air.“Not gonna lie, I was ready to just walk away,” Kelly added. More

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      ‘It’s not a theoretical proposition’: the ‘war game’ imagining a coup in the US

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      On 6 January 2025, US democracy stands at a crossroads. Congress must certify the results of an election that the loser refuses to concede. The Capitol is besieged by a wave of protesters who believe the election was stolen. Some of them are armed and determined to seize power for their leader. Similar groups have amassed at state capitols around the country. And a portion of the DC National Guardsmen – as well as a portion of the US military, including a handful of high-ranking officials – are on their side.This is a fictional scenario, played out in a “war game” simulation with real government and military officials in a mock situation room. But according to a new documentary capturing the role-playing exercise, such a crisis of authority – and the fracturing of the military along partisan lines – is a very real possibility in the politically polarized US, one that we should prepare for. “It’s not a theoretical proposition,” said Jesse Moss (Boys State, Girls State), a co-director of War Game, now playing in US theaters. “Even a very small sliver of the US active duty military that chooses to side with, say, a defeated candidate in a national election, could destabilize our country and put our democracy in jeopardy.”War Game, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, observes the six-hour event held at a Washington DC hotel room in January 2023. The simulation, developed by the Vet Voice Foundation, is one of several role-playing exercises developed in response to the events of January 6, to help military and government officials prepare for another worst-case scenario. How will the US government react if it happens again? And what if the president can’t count on the support of the military? Nearly one in five January defendants had a military background. In May 2021, 124 retired general and admirals signed an open letter propagating the lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. As Benjamin Radd, a game producer who viscerally recalls living through the breakdown of institutional authority in 1979 Iran, puts it: “Think about the unthinkable.”While other exercises, such as those recently led by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Democracy Futures Project, focus specifically on role-playing responses to a second Trump presidency, War Game mostly doesn’t name the elephant in the room, examining instead the forces and potentials of political extremism in the US. The distance – using footage of January 6, but not naming the names – allowed for some renewed urgency and clarity. “Sometimes it’s impossible to see something that’s right in front of you,” said Tony Gerber, the film’s other co-director. “And you have to find new ways to show people that thing, because there’s this sort of intentional blindness to see that thing that’s right there.”The exercise participants, a bipartisan group of military and cabinet officials from the last five presidential administrations, must respond to what is essentially a more organized version of January 6. The so-called “red cell”, developed by military veterans Kristofer Goldsmith and Chris Jones, present a multi-faceted and mutating threat on the ground and online, where the situation room – comprised of mock president-elect Hotham (former Montana governor Steve Bullock) and his team of advisers – must also fight an information game. Jones and Goldsmith, both experts on domestic extremist movements who understand veterans’ disillusionment with the government’s status quo, based their mock insurgency group, the Order of Columbus, on Trump’s Maga movement, the conspiracy quasi-religion known as QAnon and far-right paramilitary groups involved in the Capitol attack, such as the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers.Participants – including former senator Heidi Heitkamp, retired major general of the Maryland national guard Linda Singh, Lt Gen (Ret) Jeffrey Buchanan, former senator Doug Jones and Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump – must decide how to combat a metastasizing threat, complete with mock news coverage, speeches and social media posts egging insurgents to follow their “real” leader. They must contend with a video from a high-ranking general, based on the former Trump official and Stop the Steal rally speaker Michael Flynn, calling on the military to disobey the commander in chief. With the DC Guardsmen compromised, should they mobilize other national guards? Should the federal government get involved in coup attempts at state capitols? How much force is too much? And when, if ever, should the president invoke the Insurrection Act, considered the game’s nuclear option, which allows the executive to deploy the US military on its own citizens? (Though the film-makers had total editorial control, they ran potential security issues by Vet Voice: “We didn’t want to give any insurrectionists a handbook to stage a coup,” said Moss.)That last decision is particularly resonant, given the law’s potential for great destruction in the wrong hands. The film’s one mention of Donald Trump by name comes in footage from the Congressional January 6 hearings, in which Jason van Tatenhove, a former member of the Oath Keepers, confirmed that the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, urged then president Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, promising that veterans would support him. “Regardless of the outcome of this election, that act is a power the president has, and it’s a power that’s worth thinking about,” said Moss.View image in fullscreen“This film doesn’t lose its meaning and its relevance with this election,” Gerber added. “A problem like this doesn’t metastasize overnight. This has been cooking and growing and coming to fruition for years. And we as a nation have to ask ourselves, how did we get here?”To that end, the film attempts to “understand, with empathy, how a young man or a young woman coming home after serving overseas could be radicalized”, said Gerber. In cutaways from the real-time exercise, Goldsmith, Jones and game designer Janessa Goldbeck movingly discuss the real threat of extremism in the military, particularly for veterans struggling to reintegrate into society after service, in wars based on government lies or obfuscation, in a country where fewer and fewer civilians have personal ties to the armed forces. They’ve witnessed it, in themselves or in loved ones. “I do understand the insurgents,” says Goldsmith in the film. “I understand what led them down that path. Because I was there after I got home from Iraq.”For participants in the game, the exercise offered a rattling six hours of both anxiety and the empowerment of preparation. The simulation had “real intentional utility”, said Moss, in that it produced a report shared with policymakers, but also as way to excise fear, anger and shock over what happened four years ago this January, over what is still dividing the country. “These divisions, these fears, this extremism – it’s not over there. It’s right here. It’s within our country. It’s within our family,” said Moss. The film provides “a kind of catharsis to deal with the traumas that we carry, and to think about, in hopefully a constructive way, where we might be going”.

      War Game is out now in New York and will expand to other cities on 9 August, with a UK date to be announced More

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      Is this the end of Project 2025? – podcast

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      This week, Paul Dans, the leader of the controversial Project 2025, resigned and signalled in a company email that work on it was ‘winding down’. The project had become a manifesto of rightwing policies that would serve as a guide for the next Republican president. However, there is a significant stumbling block: Donald Trump wants nothing to do with it.
      Joan E Greve and Rachel Leingang discuss whether this marks the beginning of the end of Project 2025

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Harris says campaign ‘is about two different visions for our nation’; Trump faces criticism from Republicans for VP race comments – live

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      Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events so far:

      Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports. On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and rransportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.

      The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports. The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.

      Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports. In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.

      In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote: “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.” She went on to add, “Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past. We’re not going back.”

      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president. The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.

      A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case. The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.

      New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Christopher Sununu, has called on fellow Republicans to “stop the trash talk” in a new New York Times op-ed. Sununu, who has won four elections in New Hampshire, wrote on Thursday: “The path to victory in November is not won through character attacks or personal insults.”
      We’re now pausing our live coverage of the US election campaign. You can read all our latest US elections coverage here:And if you want to stay up to date via your email inbox, you can sign up to our free election newsletter, The Stakes, here:Joe Biden has declared the prisoner swap between Russia and the US a “feat of diplomacy”. His statement followed the releases of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan. Both are US citizens accused of espionage by Russian authorities. Gershkovich and Whelan were freed in exchange for people held across seven different countries.The president said:
      This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon. Our alliances make Americans safer.
      As my colleague Anna Betts reported: “The swap is likely to be considered a political coup for Biden in the waning months of his presidency, and a blow to Donald Trump, who has claimed on the 2024 campaign trail that he would free Gershkovich if re-elected.”Read more of Anna’s story on Biden’s reaction to the release and what it took to get this deal done here.Away from the US election campaign, Kamala Harris’s office has released a readout of her call with Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexei Navalny, after Russia released 16 people in a prisoner exchange.Harris told Navalnaya she welcomed the release and would continue to stand with people fighting for freedom in Russia and elsewhere in the world. She also praised the courage of Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s work after he died in a Russian penal colony in February.Russia recently issued an arrest warrant for Navalnaya, imposing a two-month detention order on grounds that she participated in an “extremist” group.Earlier today, Navalnaya welcomed the prisoner exchange and said “every released political prisoner is a huge victory and a reason to celebrate”.But, she stressed: “We still have to fight for: Daniel Kholodny, Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser, Igor Sergunin. We will do everything we can to secure their release. Freedom for all political prisoners!”You can read about the latest developments on that story here:Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events so far:

      Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports. On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and rransportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.

      The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports. The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.

      Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports. In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.

      In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote: “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.” She went on to add, “Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past. We’re not going back.”

      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president. The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.

      A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case. The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.

      New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Christopher Sununu, has called on fellow Republicans to “stop the trash talk” in a new New York Times op-ed. Sununu, who has won four elections in New Hampshire, wrote on Thursday: “The path to victory in November is not won through character attacks or personal insults.”
      Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear has canceled a stop in western Kentucky, according to his office, KFVS reports.According to his office, Beshear was supposed to visit the Jackson Purchase Distillery on Friday. With the cancellation, lieutenant governor Jacqueline Coleman will visit the distillery instead.No official reason for the cancellation was given.Beshear is widely speculated to be among the finalists for Kamala Harris’s vice-president pick.Harris is set to announce her running mate by next Tuesday.Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports.On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.According to a source speaking to NBC, Shapiro met with Harris’s vetting team on Wednesday. Harris herself was not present, the source said.NBC further reports that two sources said Kelly met with Harris’s vetting team on Tuesday afternoon and that according to his aide, Kelly was “off campus” from the Senate floor.The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports.The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.The uncommitted movement is demanding the Democratic national convention allow a representative to speak on Israel’s deadly war on Gaza.The Guardian’s Melissa Hellman reports:The Uncommitted National Movement has announced a number of demands in the run-up to the Democratic national convention later this month, part of an effort to use its voting power to influence Kamala Harris and the Democratic party’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.In a press call on Thursday, movement leaders demanded that the DNC allow Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American physician who’s worked in Gaza, to speak at the convention about the humanitarian crisis that she witnessed firsthand. They have also requested that an uncommitted delegate be given five minutes to speak at the convention, and for Kamala Harris to meet with movement leaders about their concerns.Uncommitted leaders say that hearing from Haj-Hassan will help the Democratic party and Harris make informed policy decisions on Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, according to health officials.For the full story, click here:Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports.In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.“His schedule has changed and he is no longer travelling to the Hamptons this weekend,” Bonder added.Shapiro is widely speculated to be among the finalists of Kamala Harris’s vice-president picks. Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday and is set to hold a rally in Philadelphia next week.In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote:
      “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.
      Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past.
      We’re not going back.”
      Harris’s tweet comes after the vice-president remained unfazed following Donald Trump’s comments at the NABJ conference on Wednesday in which he questioned her racial identity.Responding to Trump, Harris called his behavior the “same old show”, adding that “America deserves better.”The late singer and songwriter Johnny Cash will get a statue in the Capitol, congressional leaders announced.In an announcement posted by Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman, House speaker Mike Johnson, Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said:
      “Please join us at a ceremony commemorating the dedication of a National Statuary Hall Collection Statue in honor of Johnny Cash of Arkansas.”
      The ceremony will take place on Tuesday 24 September 2024 at 11am ET in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill.Thom Tillis, the Republican senator for North Carolina, would not say if JD Vance was the right pick to be Donald Trump’s running mate.Tillis told CNN:
      I’ve never been in a selection pool for VP, so I don’t necessarily – I’m not going to opine on that.
      Pressed on whether the Ohio senator would make a good candidate, Tillis replied:
      I know JD well. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the past couple of years. I think he’s a smart guy. I think that the Biden – or the Trump campaign picked him for a reason. I’m behind the ticket.
      JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, visited the Mexico-Arizona border on Thursday, during which he criticized the immigration policies of the Biden administration, which he repeatedly referred to as the “Harris administration”.Vance said Harris had been a “border tsar” who had failed to curb the increased rates of migrants crossing the border. He said:
      It’s unbelievable what we’re letting happen at the southern border, and it’s because Kamala Harris refuses to do her job.
      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president.The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.“Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” the Senate majority leader said in a statement.
      With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation – and a constitutional authority – to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch.
      The bill would stipulate that Congress, rather than the supreme court, has the authority to determine to whom federal criminal laws are applied.Maxwell Frost, the Democratic congressman from Florida, has criticized Donald Trump’s questioning of Kamala Harris’s racial identity.Frost, in a post on X, said “some folks said similar things about me” during his own primary race. He added:
      We need to fiercely call out this type of bigotry and ignorance.
      Joe Biden is currently speaking from the White House following the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and the former US marine Paul Whelan from Russian custody as part of a major prisoner exchange.You can watch the news conference live below:A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case.The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the former president’s trial, imposed the gag order in March, a few weeks before the trial started, after prosecutors raised concerns about Trump’s habit of attacking people involved in his cases.During the trial, he held Trump in contempt of court and fined him $10,000 for violations, and threatened to jail him if he did it again.The judge lifted some restrictions in June, freeing Trump to comment about witnesses and jurors but keeping trial prosecutors, court staffers and their families – including his own daughter – off limits until he is sentenced.In a ruling on Thursday, the state’s mid-level appellate court ruled that Merchan was correct in extending parts of the gag order until Trump is sentenced, writing that “the fair administration of justice necessarily includes sentencing”. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump is plain ‘weird’: how Kamala Harris’ meme-fied campaign is leveraging social media and Gen Z culture

      by

      Last week, presumptive US Democratic nominee Kamala Harris delivered one of the most important messages of her presidential campaign so far:

      I’ve heard that recently I’ve been on the ‘For You’ page, so I thought I would get on here myself.

      She wasn’t speaking to a typical crowd of supporters at a campaign rally, or to journalists at a White House press conference – but to an audience of 20 million TikTok users.

      Following President Joe Biden’s dismal debate performance in early June, Harris has ignited an explosion of memes and viral content online.

      And with fewer than 100 days until Americans cast their vote, it’s clear her campaign is trying to speak the digital language of Gen Z and harness youth-dominated social media platforms to gain traction with young voters.

      Coconut trees and a ‘brat summer’

      Harris is no stranger to viral moments. In her past three years as Biden’s vice president, she has been relentlessly mocked and meme-fied online for her so-called “word salads” and overuse of trademark phrases.

      In recent weeks, however, her digital footprint has taken on a life of its own. Harris’s passionate online fandom is dubbed the “K-Hive” in a nod to the name of Beyoncé’s dedicated fanbase, the “BeyHive”.

      The K-Hive is embracing Harris’s personality and political style in a wave of viral videos inspired by Gen Z trends and cultural touch points.

      Let’s take Harris’s coconut tree comment as an example. Last year at a White House event in May, the vice president jokingly said, quoting her mother, “you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”

      “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

      This now-viral quote has resurfaced and spawned endless online content. Many online users (and particularly young people) are referencing the quote in their posts, describing themselves as “coconut pilled” and lining their social media bios with coconut emojis.

      The clip of Harris speaking has been stitched and reposted thousands of times by TikTok users, remixed to the music of iconic Gen Z artists such as Chappell Roan and even used as a soundtrack to a viral dance associated with Charli XCX’s song, Apple.

      Harris’ campaign appears to be leaning into the joke, with the bio of the official Kamala HQ TikTok and X accounts now being just two words: “Providing context.”

      Even the header image of Kamala’s X account (pictured at the top of this article) is a reference to British pop singer Charli XCX’s recently released album Brat. According to the singer – who sent the internet into a frenzy when she tweeted “kamala IS brat” last week — the archetypal brat is

      just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile.

      You’d be forgiven for thinking these might be undesirable traits for a presidential candidate. But by leaning into the “brat summer” brand and tapping into trending audios, Harris’s campaign is leveraging youth culture to position herself as a relevant and contemporary candidate for Gen Z.

      Young social media users have largely embraced Harris’s chaotic and excitable energy. In a way, the very personality quirks that Republicans have tried to construe as baggage to take Harris down have emerged as one her greatest assets in connecting with younger voters.

      Injecting new life into the Democrats’ campaign

      In recent months, poll after poll found young Americans were switching off from a redux of the Trump–Biden matchup.

      While Biden was still in the race, polling showed an overwhelming 82% of voters below age 30 thought he was too old to be an effective president – more than any other age group.

      Harris could not strike a stronger contrast with Biden in her public persona. With her relative youth and engagement with meme culture, she has injected fresh life into the presidential race and the Democrats’ campaign platform.

      Since entering the race, Harris has reinvigorated young Americans – a key Democratic voter base Biden was struggling to hold onto.

      In the 48 hours after Biden stepped aside and formally endorsed Harris, almost 40,000 people registered to vote. This is the largest spike reported this election cycle. Most of these newly registered voters (83%) were aged 18–34.

      Harris has also raked in celebrity endorsements from massive pop culture names, including rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who performed at her first presidential campaign rally in Atlanta – coining the slogan “Hotties for Harris”. Other star endorsements have come from rapper Quavo, pop singer Olivia Rodrigo and actor Kerry Washington, to name a few.

      From online popularity to the polls

      Harris’ campaign is harnessing social media to drill down on campaign messages in a way that might appeal to young audiences online.

      In tweets and interviews, Democrats are branding Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as “weird” for their views on issues such as abortion access and women’s rights. They are adopting the bite-sized, quick-witted humour that defines Gen Z to mount policy attacks.

      Beyond making the case against Trump, Harris is also positioning herself as a younger candidate with a vision for the future. For instance, her first presidential campaign ad strikes an optimistic tone set to the soundtrack of Beyoncé’s song Freedom, as Harris embraces the rallying cry of “we choose freedom”.

      It’s this future-focused messaging that Harris’s camp hopes will appeal to younger voters — and an angle Biden struggled to articulate, given his age and deteriorating public speaking skills.

      That said, the real test for Harris will be whether she can convert this groundswell of momentum into votes come election day in November. More