Kamala Harris

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      Kamala Harris wins enough delegate votes for Democratic nomination

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      Kamala Harris on Friday said she was “honored” to have secured enough votes from delegates to become the Democratic presidential nominee, making her the first Black woman and person of south Asian heritage to lead a major party ticket.Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, announced that the vice-president had earned the majority of delegates’ votes to become the party’s nominee to challenge Donald Trump in November, though her nomination would not be official until Monday, the end of the virtual roll-call vote.“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee,” Harris said during an online meeting of supporters that was broadcast live. Her ascent from running mate to party nominee caps a volatile few weeks in US politics that saw the party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, end his bid for re-election following a disastrous debate performance that ignited a storm of calls from elected Democrats, donors and activists to step aside.“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,” Harrison said in a statement. “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.”In the video call, Harrison said the speed at which the party had coalesced around Harris was “unprecedented” and vowed the party would “rally around Vice-President Kamala Harris and demonstrate the strength of our party” at its convention in Chicago.Before Biden dropped out, the party had opted to hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate him before the convention due to concerns about meeting a ballot deadline in Ohio. Harris will formally accept the nomination in person at the party’s convention, held from 19 to 22 August. Republicans formally nominated Trump to be their presidential nominee for a third consecutive time at the party’s convention in Milwaukee last month, just days after the former president survived an assassination attempt. At the convention he unveiled his choice for running mate, the hard-right Ohio senator JD Vance.Harris is expected to announce her running mate next week, after a lightning-fast vetting process. The vice-president is expected to interview a list of potential contenders over the weekend. Among the leading Democrats are the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, the Kentucky governor, Andy Beshear, the Arizona senator Mark Kelly and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.Earlier on Friday, Harris’s campaign announced that it had raised $310m last month, a stunning amount that was fueled in part by a surge in donations from women and young voters. The campaign said two-thirds of the haul came from first-time donors. It raised more than $200m during Harris’s first week as a presidential candidate, meaning most of the haul came after her elevation to the top of the ticket.In a tweet on Friday, Biden said he “couldn’t be prouder” of Harris, whose selection as his vice-president he called “one of the best decisions I’ve made”.“Let’s win,” he wrote. 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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      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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      US reacts to major prisoner swap with Russia: ‘feat of diplomacy’ and ‘joyous’

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      The White House celebrated a “feat of diplomacy” on Thursday after a major prisoner swap between Russia and the west that included the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan, among others.Both are US citizens accused by Russian authorities of espionage, charges they and the US government have denied, and a possible exchange had been mooted for months.The exchange on Thursday occurred at Ankara airport in Turkey, and involved people held in seven different countries including the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus. The Turkish presidency said 10 prisoners were relocated to Russia, 13 prisoners to Germany and three to the US.Among the prisoners returning to Russia was the assassin Vadim Krasikov, who had been held in a German prison since 2019 for murdering a Chechen exile in Berlin in broad daylight.Joe Biden said in a statement immediately following the news that the three American citizens and one American green card holder were “unjustly” imprisoned in Russia – in addition to Gershkovich and Whelan, the other two are Alsu Kurmasheva, a US-Russian journalist, and Vladimir Kara-Murza – “was a feat of diplomacy”.“All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia – including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”Biden added he was grateful to the allies of the US who “stood with us throughout tough, complex negotiations to achieve this outcome”.He 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.”Shortly afterward, Biden delivered remarks from the White House, surrounded by family members of the freed prisoners.“This is a very good afternoon,” the president said, adding that he and the family members had been able to speak to the released prisoners on the phone.He also asked the room to sing happy birthday to 12-year-old Miriam, daughter of Kurmasheva, who he said is turning 13 on Friday.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.Trump has frequently voiced admiration for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and said in May on his social media site, Truth Social, that if he won the November election, Gershkovich would be “released almost immediately after the election, but definitely before I assume office”, adding that Putin would “do that for me, but not for anyone else”.Kamala Harris, the vice-president and frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, echoed Biden’s words on Thursday and added: “I will not stop working until every American who is wrongfully detained or held hostage is brought home.”On Thursday, White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Biden and Harris would welcome the released US citizens at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, and that Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva were expected to arrive on US soil on Thursday night.Emma Tucker, the editor of the Wall Street Journal, described the event as a “joyous day” for friends, family and colleagues of Gershkovich, and the “the millions of well-wishers in the US and around the world who stood with Evan and defended the free press”.Current and former US government officials and press freedom groups similarly rejoiced at the news.Barack Obama described the exchange as a “tremendous diplomatic achievement” and noted the “skill and persistence” of Biden, Harris and US allies.Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, welcomed the news but said “it does not change the fact that Russia continues to suppress a free press”. Reporters Without Borders said they were “relieved” but said more than 40 other journalists remain detained in Russia.On Thursday afternoon, Trump criticized the swap on Truth Social, calling it a “bad” deal. “So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia? How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash?” he asked.Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said that no money was exchanged. He said no sanctions were loosened to facilitate the deal.The swap comes a year and a half after the Biden administration secured the release of US basketball star Brittney Griner in late 2022, who had been held in Russian jail for almost 10 months on drug charges and was freed in exchange for the arms dealer Viktor Bout. At the time, Biden expressed regret that the deal did not include Whelan, who had been detained since 2018.Earlier in 2022, the Biden administration also secured the release of former US marine Trevor Reed, who was arrested in 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted an officer while being driven by police to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. Reed was released in exchange for a convicted Russian drug trafficker who was serving a long prison sentence in the US. More

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      Who is Mark Kelly, the potential vice-presidential pick from Arizona?

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      Mark Kelly’s resume stands out in the sea of lawyers that dominate Washington.The Arizona senator was a US navy pilot who served multiple deployments. He was on Celebrity Jeopardy. He is a steadfast partner to his wife, former US representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt at a public event in Tucson in 2011 and has worked alongside Kelly to limit guns since.Oh, and he’s been to space multiple times because he was an astronaut, along with his twin brother, Scott. He even wrote a children’s book about it, called Mousetronaut.“An astronaut! Who doesn’t like astronauts, except for Flat Earthers, right? But they’re very small in quantity,” Arizona pollster Mike Noble said. “So, outside of Flat Earthers, I’m trying to think of what’s more American than astronauts. Astronaut takes everybody. I’ve been to space, what have you done?”Kelly is on Kamala Harris’s shortlist for vice-president, and his background certainly helps make his case.He first ran for office in 2020, winning a special election against Republican Martha McSally to take a Senate seat. He won again in 2024 in the regular Senate election against Blake Masters, a well-funded Peter Thiel acolyte.To win the Senate seat in a purple state, Kelly has struck a centrist tone and proven himself a prolific fundraiser. He hasn’t inspired the intra-party ire that Arizona’s other senator , now-independent Kyrsten Sinema, has. He polls at the top of Arizona politicians for favorability.His presence on the presidential ticket could help Harris’s prospects in Arizona, where Trump is polling ahead, though the benefit of a VP pick may be greater in other swing states where she’s closer to Trump in the polls. Kelly could also help her improve how she’s viewed on immigration issues.Harris is expected to choose a running mate in the coming days, then blitz through battleground states with them.Kelly has a couple vulnerabilities, but the biggest drawback is what Democrats stand to lose – his Senate seat, in a swing state, at a time when the balance of the Senate is in contention.Arizonans have endured a series of special elections, expensive and exhausting endeavors, for Senate seats since the late Senator John McCain’s death. Kelly’s vacancy would require another one, “giving the state a Senate election every even year from 2016 through 2030”, the Washington Examiner pointed out. The cycle has made Senate elections, with their longer six-year terms, more akin to congressional races, with their two-year terms. If Kelly becomes the vice-president, Arizona’s Democratic governor would appoint a Democratic successor, then a special election for the seat would be called in 2026.If the state’s Republican party decides to end its lean into hard-right Maga politics, Republicans could win it back. Democrats face a widening gap in voter registration compared to Republicans and independents. But the current Senate race, in which Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, faces Trump favorite Kari Lake, shows Gallego with the lead – a sign that the Republican candidates often remain out of step with the broader electorate there.Still, Democrats in Arizona are excited by the prospect of one of their own on a presidential ticket. The Arizona Democratic party’s executive board issued a letter formally endorsing Kelly as a VP, praising his work in the Senate and saying Kelly and Harris would “build a winning coalition” to beat Trump.“The road to the White House runs through Arizona in this election,” the board’s letter said. “We are united behind Vice-President Kamala Harris and Senator Kelly because our democracy is on the line.”Kelly hasn’t been as ubiquitous on TV or the campaign trail as the other Democratic contenders lately, and he’s not a bombastic debater ready to lob insults at the other side. He isn’t an attack dog like vice-presidents often can be. He isn’t as tested in the trenches – he hasn’t had to address much controversy or endure combative interviews, Noble said, but he has a great relationship with Harris.Kelly has praised Harris on social media in recent days. In one video posted this week, he shows footage driving a Jeep through the Arizona desert juxtaposed with rockets flying into space.“I’ve been on a lot of missions, but never once did I do it alone. I always had a really good team behind me, and that’s what @KamalaHarris, @RubenGallego, and Democrats are going to need to win in November,” he wrote.After Biden stepped aside, Kelly said he “couldn’t be more confident that Vice President @KamalaHarris is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future”, giving her his full support.Kelly could use his proximity to the US-Mexico border to counter some of the right’s push to brand Harris as a “border czar”. In a TV appearance this week, he attacked Trump and Republicans over the demise of a bipartisan Senate border bill. That bill aligned more with Republicans than with Democrats, he said.“On their side of the field, we realized, we’ve got to get operational control over the border. I realized this, Kamala Harris realizes this, and this legislation was going to do that,” he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “And our goal here was to get this legislation passed and then start working on comprehensive immigration reform. But this was stopped dead in its tracks by Donald Trump because he wanted to have this as an election issue. Like a lot of other Republicans, they don’t actually want to solve this problem.”If he’s chosen as running mate, some of his past liabilities could come back to haunt him. Perhaps the biggest line of attack he faced in his Senate races revolved around a space balloon company he co-founded and its ties to China. An odd turn slinging vitamins in China could come up, too.The right is also likely to hit him on his record advocating for gun control alongside his wife and her group, Giffords. After the shooting of elementary school kids in Uvalde, Texas, he said, “it’s fucking nuts not to do anything about this”.His personal story showcasing the toll of gun violence should eclipse this attack, Noble said. “That crosses party lines.”Another liability was foreclosed this week after he said he was in favor of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a pro-union bill that he previously had not signed on to support.It’s a “huge honor” to have an Arizona Democrat on the list for the presidential ticket, said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic consultant in Arizona. “We’ve tried many, many times at this point, with Barry Goldwater and John McCain. Maybe it’ll take a Democrat to get there.”The last time an Arizona Democratic elected official ended up in a presidential administration – when Janet Napolitano left the governor’s office after she was tapped by Barack Obama to be Homeland security secretary – was more than 20 years ago.After Napolitano’s exit, Republicans held the governor’s office until Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, won it back in 2022 – a sign of the potential difficulty in maintaining power if Kelly heads to DC.“As much as they love to see Mark Kelly promoted to a position that important for our country, there is fear that the seat could be lost,” Pearson said. More

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      Harris campaign has enlivened voters, say Black organizers: ‘The energy is palpable’

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      Black grassroots organizers who played a critical role in mobilizing voters in the last presidential election say they are seeing an uptick in interest in their groups and a jolt of energy after Kamala Harris took Joe Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic ticket.“I hear nothing but enthusiasm,” said Helen Butler, a longtime voting rights organizer who runs the nonpartisan Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda. “More people are calling to volunteer. The young people are saying, ‘What can we do?’ All of our activities are nonpartisan. So we’re training them to just talk about civic engagement and why public policy matters.”The observations from organizers come as the Harris campaign has intensified its momentum in the race. It solidified the support of the Democratic party, earned enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee and has seen colossal fundraising numbers.Harris’s campaign says it has raised more than $100m, including a staggering $81m in the first 24 hours after Joe Biden left the race. That total was accrued from more than 500,000 grassroots donors who gave for the first time in the 2024 cycle, the campaign said.Grassroots groups played a critical role in 2020, mobilizing nonwhite voters – who tend to support Democrats – at record levels. Overall, turnout in the 2020 election was at its highest since 1900.Initial polls show Harris in a neck-and-neck race with Donald Trump, but there are indications of significant shifts in the race. A CNN poll released last week found that 50% of Harris backers said their support of her was more pro-Harris than anti-Trump. In a June CNN poll, just 37% of Biden’s supporters said their support was about backing the president rather than being against Trump.“It does change the energy, and to a certain extent, it changes the messages,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, which is supportive of Harris’s candidacy. “The full toolbox is open. We can go anti-Trump, or we can go pro-Kamala, or we can talk about some aspects of her record more, and the administration more, so it just expands the tools that we have at our disposal.”The first week of Harris’s candidacy has been bolstered by a groundswell of support. 44,000 people joined a Zoom call led by Black women on Sunday evening in the first hours after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, which raised more than $1.5m. A call the next evening hosted by Black men reported 53,000 participants and raised more than $1.3m. A call hosted by white women Thursday evening had more than 160,000 people on it and reportedly raised $8.5m. A similar south Asian women call for Harris had more than 10,000 people and raised more than $300,000. A “white dudes for Harris” call on Monday raised around $4m.“I think the energy is palpable,” said Angela Lang, an organizer with Black Leaders Organizing Communities (Bloc) in Milwaukee. She said that many on her team had said they would support Harris, while others were waiting to see how she reconciled her record as a prosecutor.“I think folks understand that people are allowed to change and evolve. We’ve seen other presidential candidates change and evolve their stances on gay marriage, for example, so I think folks are curious to see how she reconciles that,” she said. “But I don’t know if [her record will] be that big of a factor in the grand scheme of things, because I think the urgency of a second Trump presidency outweighs it for some folks.”That’s not to say that it will be a cakewalk for Harris. Those who helped organize the “uncommitted” vote in the primary in protest of the Biden administration’s position on the war in Gaza have warned that the vice president needs to earn their vote.Albright predicted that this campaign would be much different for Harris than her presidential primary – when she entered the race as a top tier contender and then flamed out before the Iowa primary.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Some of it was just about the overall positioning that you had during the primary. You had the clearly progressive candidates talking about Medicare for All and other really progressive policies, and then you had those that were viewed as being more moderate, including Kamala Harris and Joe Biden,” he said. “I think what we’ve seen now over the past four years is that some of those concerns that we had about how progressive either one of them would have been were proven to not be valid.”Both Lang and Albright have gotten a chance to speak personally with Harris and see how she approaches issues.Albright has met with her several times to discuss the push for federal voting rights legislation – one of the key issues that was in Harris’s portfolio as vice-president.“We’ve obviously been impressed by her leadership and the sincerity that she [has], the dedication that she takes to some of these issues,” he said.Lang said that she briefly spoke to Harris in 2021 in Milwaukee when she had a chance to take a picture with her. She said she used the brief interaction to speak about the need to fix lead pipes in Milwaukee and emphasize that it was a social justice issue since exposure to lead has been linked to behavioral and emotional issues in children.“It didn’t feel like she was blowing me off or she was just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, to agree,” Lang said. “She immediately connected the dots and felt just as passionate as I did.” More