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    Nancy Pelosi thanks Biden at convention and says Harris will ‘take us to new heights’

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    Democrats rose to their feet when Nancy Pelosi walked on stage at the United Center in Chicago for the Democratic national convention. They applauded, and then applauded louder. Pelosi waved before quieting the room.The former House speaker began by expressing her gratitude to Joe Biden, calling his term “one of the most successful presidencies of modern times”. even though she had pushed subtly but forcefully for the president to step aside.“Thank you, Joe,” she said, before turning to Kamala Harris, a fellow California Democrat who Pelosi proclaimed was “ready to take us to new heights”.Pelosi may have retired as House Democratic leader, but the convention has proven – if proof were needed – that the veteran congresswoman remains one of the most consequentially and uniquely influential power brokers in the party who can make – or break – a US president.Earlier on Wednesday, Pelosi, now House speaker emerita, was reluctant to reveal details of her conversation with Biden just over a month ago, during the deeply agonizing period before he decided to abandon his re-election bid and endorse Harris.Speaking at the University Club of Chicago, in a room paneled with stained glass, Pelosi insisted that the monumental decision was Biden’s alone to make. But pressed by Democratic strategist David Axelrod, she conceded that she believed it “essential” Democrats deny Donald Trump a second term. The cost was denying Biden one, too.“I wanted very much to protect his legacy,” she said. But her highest priority was to win the election – and not just the White House, but the House and the Senate.“A great sacrifice was made here,” said Pelosi, who will seek another term – her 20th – in November’s elections.The former speaker appeared uncomfortable with the insinuation that she was a central figure in pushing Biden to end his re-election campaign, a decision that has transformed the presidential race. Harris’s ascent has electrified Democrats and unified the party behind the new presidential ticket, which includes her running mate, Tim Walz, a former Minnesota congressman who Pelosi had also advocated for.“You have to make the decision to win, and you have to make every decision in favor of winning,” she said.Biden has denied that any one person had pushed him out of the race. Speaking to reporters on Monday, after delivering what amounted to a farewell speech at the Democratic convention, he said: “No one influenced my decision. No one knew it was coming.”Pelosi and Biden, devout Catholics who have known each other for decades, have not spoken since he ended his campaign. The rupture has weighed on Pelosi, she said. “I’ve cried over this. I’m sad about this,” she said.During his remarks in Chicago, Biden said: “All this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down, it’s not true.”Pelosi, the daughter of a longtime Baltimore mayor and student of the city’s brass knuckle politics, shared anecdotes from her new book, The Art of Power, about her extraordinary career arc that she described as: “housewife, House member, House Speaker.”She was the first – and so far only – female speaker of the House, and was the highest ranking woman in US politics until Harris was elected to serve as the nation’s first female vice-president.“You have to be able to take a punch, you have to be able to throw a punch … for the children,” she said, a Pelosi-ism that drew laughs from the packed audience.Asked by Axelrod whether Harris should emphasize the history-making possibility of her candidacy, Pelosi said breaking what Hillary Clinton once called the “highest hardest” glass ceiling in US politics was important, but not a political message.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe prospect of Harris becoming the first woman president “brings tears to my eyes” Pelosi said, but it doesn’t necessarily bring “votes to the ballot box”.“It’s icing on the cake,” she said. “But it ain’t the cake.”Now considered one of the most powerful House speakers in modern political history, Pelosi said it wasn’t her ambition to become a member of the party leadership when she first arrived in Washington.“I became interested in running because we kept losing the elections, 94, 96, 98 and then it was 2000 I thought: ‘I’m so tired of losing,” she said.Soon after, when she made her decision to run known, Pelosi said she was met with incredulity by male colleagues, who admonished her to wait her turn.“Who said she could run?” Pelosi recalled them saying. She was told there was a “pecking order” and she wasn’t in it.“They said: ‘These people have been waiting a long time,” Pelosi recounted. “So I said: ‘Was it over 200 years?’”Democratic convention highlights:

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    Here are the rising stars and politicians to watch this week

    What to know about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz More

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      ‘She makes us proud’: Harris raises over $12m in California as Pelosi welcomes her home

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      Kamala Harris returned home to the San Francisco Bay area for a Sunday fundraiser that drew top California Democrats and captured more than $12m for the conclusion of a swing state tour by the vice-president and her running mate, Tim Walz.Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California governor Gavin Newsom attended the event in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel, where nearly 700 people had purchased tickets that cost at least $3,300 and as much as $500,000.“This is a good day when we welcome Kamala Harris back home to California,” Pelosi said of the former US senator, attorney general and district attorney from the state.“She makes us all so proud. She brings us so much joy. She gives us so much hope,” Pelosi said at the fundraiser. She went on to describe Harris as a person of “great strength” and someone who is “politically very astute”.Harris and Walz, the Minnesota governor, have just finished a tour of multiple political swing states, packing rallies with thousands of people and building on the momentum that has propelled her since she took over at the top of the Democratic ticket.Pelosi, the longtime lawmaker and Washington power broker, is credited with helping usher Joe Biden out of the presidential race.The president, 81, stepped aside last month after a poor debate performance against Donald Trump sparked turmoil within the Democratic party and concerns that he could not beat the former president nor complete a second four-year term.Pelosi’s comments in a television interview suggesting that Biden had not yet decided whether to step aside were viewed as giving an opening to worried Democratic lawmakers to urge him to leave even as Biden said he was staying.Pelosi has praised Biden’s achievements while criticizing his former campaign. On Sunday she connected Harris, 59, to the accomplishments of Biden’s administration.“She knows the issues. She knows the strategy. She has gotten an enormous amount done working with Joe Biden,” Pelosi said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris acknowledged the enthusiasm but cautioned against getting caught up in it.“We can take nothing for granted in this critical moment,” she said, after thanking Pelosi for her friendship and support. “There is so much about the future of our country that has relied on leaders like Nancy Pelosi that have the grit, the determination, the brilliance to know what’s possible and to make it so,” Harris said.“The energy is undeniable,” Harris said of her campaign. “Yes, the crowds are large.”Her campaign hauled in $36m in the 24 hours following Walz’s selection as running mate and raised $310m in July, according to a campaign spokesperson.Harris, making her own case against Trump, said that if Trump got back into office, he would sign a national ban on abortion into law and warned that California would not be immune. Trump has sought to distance himself from Republican efforts to ban abortion, saying it should be up to individual states.Harris noted that some states’ laws don’t include exceptions for rape and incest, and said it’s “immoral”. “When this issue has been on the ballot, the American people have voted for freedom,” Harris said. More

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      Nancy Pelosi continues to exercise ultimate power over Democrats

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      When you’ve lost Nancy Pelosi, you might as well clear out your desk.Amid all the chaos and whiplash in US politics over the past few weeks, one law remained constant: Pelosi is uniquely influential and has the power to make or break careers – even those of American presidents.The former House speaker did more than anyone else to re-engineer the race for the White House, breathing new life into her Democratic party and sending Donald Trump’s Republicans into a tailspin.Pelosi, 84, publicly encouraged 81-year-old Joe Biden to make a decision about his re-election campaign when he had already insisted he had no plans to step aside. Once he did drop out and endorse Kamala Harris, Pelosi scored another victory when former congressman Tim Walz was named as running mate.If Biden, a friend of Pelosi for 40 years, nurses a grudge about being shoved aside after his jarring debate performance, she might quote The Godfather: “It’s not personal … it’s strictly business.” The California congresswoman insists that her number one priority is ensuring her old nemesis Trump never returns to the White House.“I don’t think that President Biden would have stepped back without Nancy Pelosi’s influence,” said Susan Page, author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. “He had made it clear that he didn’t want to. He had, in fact, announced that he was going to stay in the race.”Despite that, when Pelosi appeared on the MSNBC network’s Morning Joe programme – of which Biden is known to be regular viewer – she implied the matter was far from closed. “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”Pelosi denies that her intervention on Morning Joe was part of a grand plan to force Biden’s hand. But in an interview with the New Yorker this week, she did state with unusual candour: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen.”Pelosi also rejected reports that she had been working the phones to mastermind a pressure campaign against the president. “I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.”Still, Pelosi’s private conversations with Biden himself appear to have been crucial in assessing the risk of losing not only the White House but also Congress, which she cares about deeply.Page, who is Washington bureau chief of USA Today, continued: “Nancy Pelosi is more comfortable with the exercise of power than anyone I’ve ever covered and that was exhibited when she called Biden himself and had that tough conversation about whether he had a real prospect to win.”Finally Biden gave in and announced that he would not seek reelection, much to the relief of his party. He and Pelosi have not spoken since. When Page, interviewing Pelosi this week for USA Today, asked if the episode has affected her relationship with Biden, the former speaker replied: “You’d have to ask him.”Pelosi reportedly spoke to Harris, a fellow San Francisco Democrat, by phone within hours of Biden exiting the race and endorsed her the following day with “immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future”. The rest of the Democratic party quickly fell into line, avoiding a messy internal contest for the nomination.Some, however, caution against overestimating Pelosi’s influence.Elaine Kamarck, a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee and former White House official, said: “She’s pretty powerful, but I don’t think this is all about Nancy Pelosi. This is about the state party chairman in 50 states in the United States. It’s about 4,000 delegates who all came to the same conclusion. It’s about the House members. It’s a lot about congressman [James] Clyburn.“Put it this way: there’s way too much being made of one person. The entire party came to this conclusion on their own. We simply ran out of time. It was ridiculous to assume that there was going to be a national campaign for delegates mounted with two months to go. That was never going to happen. Nobody got into the race; nobody even whispering about getting into the race. This was the logical conclusion and as many people said, ‘Well, this is after all what we have vice-presidents for.’”When it came to choosing Harris’s own potential vice-president, Pelosi has said she thought any of the contenders would have been strong choices. But she made no secret of her enthusiasm for former House members to counter the way that, in her view, presidents tend to be more deferential to the Senate. Walz was a member of the House from 2007 to 2019 before becoming governor of Minnesota.Page commented: “She is famously loyal to people who have served in the House of Representatives because that has always been her place. She has huge regard for the House and disregard for the Senate, among other places with which she is often battling. When Walz was in the House, he was one of her majority makers. He served in a district that Democrats wouldn’t necessarily be expected to win and so that made him especially important to her.”Pelosi, whose husband Paul was attacked by a hammer-wielding assailant in their San Francisco home in 2022, is now House speaker emerita but will seek another term – her 20th – in November’s elections. The events of this tumultuous summer have underlined her status as the most powerful woman in American history, an accolade that might soon pass to Harris. What makes her so effective?Page said: “She listens more than she talks and that was true in this case as well. She listened to Democratic members of Congress who had concerns about Biden. She didn’t, I don’t think, try to marshal them; she was a hub that they knew they could call and talk to about that.“She’s also completely fearless. She’s a tough interview because she doesn’t care if you like her and she doesn’t care what you want to know. She knows what she cares about, what she wants to say, and that’s what she’s going to say. Some of the vulnerabilities that many politicians have, she doesn’t have.“That’s one reason she didn’t really aspire to the presidency and probably would have had trouble getting there. She was made for being a legislative leader, working behind the scenes, and that’s what she’s done in a way that’s been pretty historic.”This week, Pelosi spoke with reporters and columnists about her new book The Art of Power, My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House. According to an Associated Press account, she repeatedly declined to detail her conversations with Biden during the difficult transition.“At some point, I will come to terms with my, to peace, with my own role in this,” she said. “I think that part of all of our goals in this was to preserve his legacy, a fabulous legacy, that would go right down the drain if Bozo got elected to the White House.”Asked if her book title was an intended dig at Trump’s The Art of the Deal, Pelosi replied: “Nothing that I do has anything to do with him, except his downfall.” More

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      Pelosi has ‘never been that impressed’ with Biden’s political operation

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      Nancy Pelosi has “never been that impressed” with Joe Biden’s “political operation”, the former US House speaker said, discussing a judgment that helped her conclude the president could not beat Donald Trump and should step aside.“They won the White House [in 2020]. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for [Biden’s withdrawal] to happen,” Pelosi told the New Yorker, in an interview published on Thursday.On 21 July, in a historic moment, the 81-year-old president finally heeded those who said he was too old to beat Trump and serve a full second term.Stepping aside as the Democratic nominee, Biden endorsed his 59-year-old vice-president, Kamala Harris, a move that transformed the election, placing Trump under pressure.Pelosi was widely reported to have played a key role in the switch.She told the New Yorker: “The president has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with [Biden]. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all.“I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.”Pelosi said her goal was simple: “That Donald Trump would never set foot in the White House again.”Now 84, Pelosi is in her 19th term in the House. Having been speaker between 2007 and 2011 and 2019 and 2023, she remains vastly influential.Pelosi spoke to the New Yorker to promote her new memoir, The Art of Power. Last week, the Guardian first reported Pelosi’s descriptions of how she grew increasingly concerned about Trump’s mental fitness for office, even before his defeat by Biden and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress.Pelosi told the New Yorker she hoped her role in ending Biden’s presidency would not destroy her relationship with a man three years younger but elected as a senator in 1972, 14 years before Pelosi won her seat in the House.“I hope so,” she said. “I pray so. I cry so.”She said she had lost sleep over the situation. Asked if she thought Biden was angry with her, she said: “I don’t know. We haven’t had a conversation. But … ”Pelosi said she thought Biden was “in a good state”, praising as “masterful” his handling of a large-scale prisoner swap with Russia which concluded last week.But Biden’s legacy “will go right down the drain if what’s-his-name ever [returns to] the White House”, Pelosi said, adding: “One of the reasons I ran again [in 2022] was to make sure that Donald Trump never stepped foot in the White House again.“He is a danger to our democracy … he’s a danger to the air our children breathe, the water they drink, their safety in terms of gun-violence prevention. Freedom of choice, the size, the timing of your family – all that.”Asked if she had met Trump since her time as speaker, Pelosi said she had not.“Oh, my God, what a horrible thought,” she said. “He knows he’s an impostor. He knows he shouldn’t be president of the United States.” More

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      Nancy Pelosi reveals struggle with guilt after husband’s attack: ‘I was the target’

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      The former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has revealed that she has been struggling with guilt ever since a man wielding a hammer invaded her home and gave her husband a near fatal beating that had been meant for her ahead of the fall 2022 elections.“He was looking for me. Imagine the guilt of all of that,” the California Democratic congresswoman said in an interview aired on CBS News Sunday Morning, which contained some of her most extensive remarks to date about the attack that badly injured Paul Pelosi. “It’s just a horrible thing.“I was the target.”Pelosi was in Washington DC when a man named David DePape broke into her San Francisco home through the back door in the early hours of 28 October 2022. Less than two weeks before that year’s federal midterm elections, DePape planned to kidnap the then-speaker, question her and post footage of the purported interrogation online. DePape was motivated by a far-right conspiracy theory falsely claiming Donald Trump is locked in secret, mortal combat with a cabal of elite Democratic pedophiles trying to take out the Republican former president.But instead DePape only encountered Paul Pelosi – aged 82 at the time – in his bedroom. Holding a hammer and zip ties, DePape demanded: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”Paul Pelosi managed to call the police for help. Before officers arrived, DePape used the hammer to repeatedly batter Paul Pelosi in the head and knock him unconscious.Pelosi needed surgery for a fractured skull as well as injuries to his arm and hands. In addition to having a metal plate placed in his head, Pelosi has since grappled with dizziness, balance problems and permanent nerve damage in his left hand, according to a letter filed in federal court.Juries convicted DePape on both state and federal charges connected to the violent home intrusion. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.In her new book, The Art of Power, Pelosi explained how her daughter – documentary film-maker Alexandra Pelosi – told her, “You have to give … up … everything in your public life” following the break-in.But Pelosi told CBS that her family did not blame her as much as “certain elements of the Republican party who had been demonizing” her for years.She seemingly alluded to a speech Trump delivered at the California Republican party’s convention last September during which he mockingly asked: “How’s [Pelosi’s] husband doing by the way? Anybody know?”“The sad thing about my husband’s assault was that they just made a joke of it – they thought it was funny, and people laughed,” said Pelosi, whose book is scheduled for a Tuesday release.The feelings of guilt that Pelosi described on Sunday in her conversation with CBS’s Lesley Stahl are common among people whose loved ones experience a traumatic situation, whether or not they are public figures, according to experts.Pelosi, 84, joined Congress in 1987. She served two four-year stints as House speaker, beginning in 2007 and 2019.One of her party’s most influential voices on Capitol Hill, Pelosi reportedly played a key role in passing on messages to Joe Biden about their fellow Democrats’ concerns over his ability to retain the Oval Office in November.The president ultimately quit his re-election campaign on 21 July, making way for his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee to face Trump in November’s race for the White House.As of Sunday, polls suggested the lead that Trump had built against Biden in vital swing states had vanished, and he and Harris were locked in a close contest that many believe could decide the future of American democracy.Pelosi on Sunday declined to answer when asked if it was true that Biden was furious at her over the looming end of his presidency. She also declared “No, I wasn’t a leader of any pressure” campaign for Biden to step down.“He knows that I love him very much,” Pelosi said to Stahl. “Let me say the things that I didn’t do. I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person. I could always say to him: ‘I never called anybody.’“What I’m saying is – I had confidence that the president would make the proper choice for our country, whatever that would be. And I said, … ‘Whatever that is, we’ll go with.’” 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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      Doctors told Pelosi of concern for Trump’s mental health, ex-speaker says in book

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      In early 2019, at a memorial service for a prominent psychiatrist, a succession of “doctors and other mental health professionals” told Nancy Pelosi they were “deeply concerned that there was something seriously wrong” with Donald Trump, “and that his mental and psychological health was in decline”.“I’m not a doctor,” the former speaker writes in an eagerly awaited memoir, “but I did find his behaviors difficult to understand.”Pelosi’s book, The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Pelosi was speaker between 2007 and 2011, and between 2019 and 2023, the latter spell coinciding with Trump’s chaotic presidency. Her memoir comes out amid a tumultuous 2024 presidential campaign, in which Trump is the Republican nominee for a third successive election.Questions about Trump’s fitness for office form a thread through the book. At 78, Trump is the oldest candidate ever, his campaign-trail utterances studied for frequent mistakes, his speeches are often rambling and marked by bizarre references.Trump’s volcanic behavior and disregard for societal norms also stoke such questions, not least because he left office having been impeached twice, the second time for inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol attack; has been convicted on 34 criminal charges and faces 54 more; has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in civil cases including one concerning a rape claim a judge called “substantially true”; and has promised if re-elected to govern as “a dictator” on “day one”.On the page, Pelosi says she did not solicit statements about Trump’s mental health from attendees at the memorial for Dr David Hamburg, “a distinguished psychiatrist who … served as the president of the Carnegie Corporation, where he had been a great voice for international peace”, and who died in April 2019.Elsewhere in The Art of Power, however, the former speaker is not shy of stating her views about Trump’s mental health, calling him “imbalanced” and “unhinged”.By 6 January 2021, Pelosi writes, “I knew Donald Trump’s mental imbalance. I had seen it up close. His denial and then delays when the Covid pandemic struck, his penchant for repeatedly stomping out of meetings, his foul mouth, his pounding on tables, his temper tantrums, his disrespect for our nation’s patriots, and his total separation from reality and actual events. His repeated, ridiculous insistence that he was the greatest of all time.”She describes how subordinates including Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, indulged improper behavior, allowing Trump to “surreptitiously listen” to private meetings with congressional leaders, eventually prompting Pelosi to ban all cellphones from her meeting rooms on Capitol Hill.Pelosi also describes getting calls from Trump, often late at night, including one in which she says Trump insisted missile strikes on Syria he had just ordered were Barack Obama’s fault, eventually prompting Pelosi to tell him: “It’s midnight. I think you should go to sleep.”Pelosi devotes attention to the events of 6 January 2021, when she and other congressional leaders were hurried from a mob who meant them harm, then spent hours trying to get Trump to call them off.Much of Pelosi’s account is familiar, thanks to the work of the House January 6 committee, which she created, and of her own daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, a documentarian who was filming her mother that day.“People still ask me how I remained so calm,” Pelosi writes, of the hours when Congress was under attack, she and other leaders were evacuated to Fort McNair, and Vice-President Mike Pence was in hiding as the mob chanted about hanging him.“My answer is that I was already deeply aware of how dangerous Donald Trump was.“He continues to be dangerous. If his family and staff truly understood his disregard for both the fundamentals of the law and for basic rules, and if they had reckoned with his personal instability over not winning the [2020] election, they should have staged an intervention. Whether because of willful blindness, money, prestige, or greed, they didn’t – and America has paid a steep price.”Saying she had quickly realised she had “more respect for the office of president of the United States than Trump”, Pelosi says “it was clear to me from the start that he was an imposter – and that on some level, he knew it”.Still she is not done. After describing how electoral college votes were eventually counted and Joe Biden’s victory confirmed, she says she “and many others wanted a consequence for the deranged, unhinged man who was still president of the United States”.That led to an impeachment and a second failed Senate trial, after the Republican leader there, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, made a historic miscalculation: that Trump did not require conviction and barring from office, as he was politically finished.Pelosi describes another failed effort to remove Trump from office, on grounds of being unfit.“Following January 6,” she writes, “the Democratic leadership discussed asking the vice-president to invoke the 25th amendment to the constitution, which allows for the vice-president and a majority of cabinet members to certify that a president is unable to discharge the duties of the office.”She and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, “placed a call to Vice-President Pence about this possibility”.Elsewhere, Pelosi writes that she admires Pence for his actions on January 6, when he refused to be spirited from the Capitol despite having to hide from a murderous mob sent by his own president, then ultimately presided over certification of election results.But when it came to the 25th amendment, Pence let Pelosi down.“The vice-president’s office kept us on hold for 20 minutes,” Pelosi writes, adding that “thankfully” she was at home at the time, “so I could also empty the dishwasher and put in a load of laundry.“Ultimately, Vice-President Pence never got on the phone with us or returned our call.” More

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      Pressure mounts on Biden as tally of Democrats urging withdrawal passes 30

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      A beleaguered Joe Biden entered potentially the most decisive weekend of his 50-year political career on Friday as the growing list of Democratic members of Congress calling on him to step aside surpassed 30.Biden is recovering from Covid-19 in self-isolation at his home in Delaware and reportedly feeling “angry and betrayed” by allies and speculation mounted that he might be preparing to announce his withdrawal from the race.Advisers were reported to be discussing the details, timing and setting of a possible withdrawal announcement, and a mood of resignation before Biden’s departure was said to be rampant among his campaign staff.With six in 10 Democratic voters telling an AP-Norc Centre for Public Affairs Research poll released on Friday that Kamala Harris would make a good president, allies of the vice-president were making discreet preparations for her to assume the top of the presidential ticket, courting donors and crafting a new message to be used in the event she becomes the candidate.A rare glimmer of light for Biden came in a letter on Thursday signed by more than 1,400 Black female supporters, who argued that he should remain the candidate, and that any attempt to change the ticket would “circumvent the will of millions of voters who participated in a democratic process” in the primaries. Another public statement of support on Thursday came from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, who during an Instagram live stream on Thursday urged Democrats to reconsider their efforts to push Biden out.On Friday, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who has become one of the Biden’s most vocal progressive supporters since the debate fiasco, also urged support for Biden.The Congressional Hispanic caucus’s campaign arm also announced on Friday that it was endorsing Biden, which is no surprise given the group’s opposition to Trump but noteworthy at a moment when the president is fighting for his political life. “Another Trump presidency would be disastrous to the Latino community across the country. Make no mistake, Latinos nationwide will bear the brunt of the consequences of a second Trump presidency,” the group’s chairwoman, Linda Sánchez, said.But with more than 30 Democrats in Congress, including the leading California representative Adam Schiff, having now called on Biden to step down, the president was said to be angry at senior figures in the party for encouraging the discontent. Chief among them is Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who has tried to persuade Biden of his declining poll numbers, as well as Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, who Biden reportedly feels have undermined him through their conspicuous silence.After weeks of defiantly stating that he will remain the Democratic nominee, despite concerns about his age and mental acuity in the wake of last month’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump, some media outlets were reporting that Biden was reconsidering his position. “Reality is setting in,” a source close to Biden told the New York Times, adding that it would not be surprising if Biden announced his withdrawal soon to allow Harris to take the nomination.“I don’t see how [Biden] can outmanoeuvre the sustained attacks,” Politico quoted a Democratic figure close to the White House as saying. “It feels like the ending is near.”Biden’s resolve had reportedly been shaken by a combination of the intensive machinations of Pelosi, fresh poll data from swing states showing his path to an electoral college victory narrowing, and a boycott by key donors, the latest of whom reportedly was the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and billionaire Michael Moritz.Pelosi, long one of his most important allies, is said to have used her knowledge of polling data and the political map to persuade him that his position is weak.Biden has repeatedly insisted that he has polling evidence showing he could win, relying on data from his aide Mike Donilon. But when he made the argument to Pelosi in a recent phone call, she told him to “put Donilon on the phone” so she could counter it with her own polling and implying that the president was not being kept informed, the New York Times reported.Public pressure intensified further on Thursday when the Senate Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico became the second and third to publicly urge Biden to step aside. Many more than the 30-plus congressional Democrats who have publicly called for his withdrawal have done so in private.Four House members – Jared Huffman of California, Marc Veasey of Texas, Chuy Garcia of Illinois, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin – issued the plea jointly Friday.“We believe the most responsible and patriotic thing you can do in this moment is to step aside as our nominee while continuing to lead our party from the White House,” they wrote to Biden. “Mr President, you have always put our country and our values first. We call on you to do it once again, so that we can come together and save the country we love.”Three further separate calls were made by Zoe Lofgren of California, a close Pelosi ally, Sean Casten of Illinois, and Greg Landsman of Ohio, whose seat is one of the Republicans’ top targets in November’s election.Allies of Pelosi depicted her as exercising sensitivity towards Biden – by recognising his achievements as president, long record of political service and the fact that he has Covid – while subtly using gentle persuasion.“She’s like a magician,” one source told the Hill. “She’s extraordinarily intentional. She’s trying hard to keep the balance and helping him reach a decision by gently pulling, never pushing.”That cut little ice with Biden’s allies, one of whom compared his fate to Julius Caesar.“People who have known this man for 30, 40 years are stabbing this man in the front and the back,” a senior campaign and administration aide told Politico. “They are JULIUS CAESAR-ing this man.”Biden himself was reported to share such sentiments, telling aides that he feels “hurt and betrayed” at how the party’s leading figures – who he has previously derided as “elites” – have tried to push him out.One Biden ally told NBC News that the party leaders now trying to force him from the ticket were to blame for Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.“Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump? In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, [Chuck] Schumer [the Democratic Senate majority leader] pushed Biden aside in favour of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now,” the source said.“Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?”Biden’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, continued to stress that Biden had “work to do” but said the campaign did not have its “head in the sand”.“For every person that has said that they are concerned, we’ve had another person that’s seen him and they’ve said you are our guy and we want to be with you,” she said, emphasizing that Biden’s campaign trail appearances have been reassuring to the campaign. “The more and more people that see Joe Biden out there post-debate they are reassured.”Such defiance seemed increasingly rare inside the Biden campaign, however, with CNN reporting that some staff had undergone a “quiet quit” process. “I don’t think you can find a person who is off the record saying he should stay in,” one told the network. “There’s a growing sense that it’s game over.”

      Lauren Gambino contributed reporting More

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      Pelosi condemned for suggesting pro-Palestinian activists have ties to Russia

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      Supporters of a ceasefire in Gaza condemned comments made by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi as “downright authoritarian” after the California Democrat suggested, without offering evidence, that pro-Palestinian activists may have ties to Russia and president Vladimir Putin.In an interview on Sunday, Pelosi called on the FBI to investigate protesters involved in the progressive movement pressuring the Biden administration to support a ceasefire in Gaza.“For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr Putin’s message,” Pelosi said during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.”Pressed for clarity on whether she believed the activists were “Russian plants”, Pelosi replied: “Seeds or plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that.”The interview sparked a furious backlash among activists and anti-war protesters, who pointed to polling that shows strong shares of Democrats support calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and agree with the claim that Israel is committing a “genocide” against the Palestinian people.Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the remarks an “unsubstantiated smear” that “echo a time in our nation when opponents of the Vietnam war were accused of being communist sympathizers and subjected to FBI harassment”.“Her comments once again show the negative impact of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by those supporting Israeli apartheid,” Awad said in a statement. “Instead of baselessly smearing those Americans as Russian collaborators, former House Speaker Pelosi and other political leaders should respect the will of the American people by calling for an end to the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza.”Since the outbreak of war in October, Joe Biden has faced a groundswell of opposition to his policy in Gaza. Prominent Jewish, progressive and anti-war groups are among the many organizations involved in the ceasefire movement. In recent weeks, activists have interrupted major campaign events, including a speech on reproductive rights in Virginia where he was interrupted at least a dozen times.Biden has resisted calls to back an immediate ceasefire, even as his administration works to secure a temporary pause to the bloodshed in exchange for the release of nearly 100 hostages taken in the 7 October attack on Israel. The mounting Palestinian death toll, now estimated to have surpassed 26,000, and widespread suffering in Gaza, have infuriated key parts of his Democratic base.Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, who supports a ceasefire and has been closely monitoring the US response to the war in Gaza, said Pelosi’s remarks amounted to an “unacceptable disinformation being spread by the most powerful Democratic party leaders”.“Democrats are most successful when they represent a broad coalition, but the party leadership has sabotaged itself by vigorously attacking the majority of their own Democratic voters who oppose the war,” he said.Pelosi, who led House Democrats for 20 years and served twice as House speaker, is apparently the first and most high profile US official to publicly accuse Russia of supporting pro-Palestinian activists in an effort to exacerbate divisions among Democrats over Israel’s war in Gaza.Pelosi made the comments in response to a question about whether opposition to Biden’s handling of the conflict could hurt the president’s re-election prospects in November.In a statement following Pelosi’s appearance on CNN, a spokesperson emphasized that the former speaker believes the “focus” should remain on strategies to end the suffering of the people in Gaza and secure release of the hostages held by Hamas.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe spokesperson continued: “Speaker Pelosi has always supported and defended the right of all Americans to make their views known through peaceful protest. Informed by three decades on the House Intelligence Committee, Speaker Pelosi is acutely aware of how foreign adversaries meddle in American politics to sow division and impact our elections, and she wants to see further investigation ahead of the 2024 election.”Brianna Wu, who created a pac to support progressive candidates called Rebellion, wrote on social media that Pelosi’s comments were inartful, but tracked with recent efforts by Russia to interfere in a US election.“Information warfare doesn’t invent new divisions. It finds existing divisions and exacerbates them,” Wu wrote. “Since Putin wants Trump to win, he will obviously be funding efforts to split the Democratic Party. Israel/Palestine is proving to be very effective at this.”Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that dissatisfaction with Biden’s approach to the Israel-Gaza war may jeopardize his support among Arab Americans in a swing state that could determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a sizable Arab American population that helped seal Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, shared the results of a November poll that showed broad support for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza.“So, based on Nancy Pelosi’s remarks, 76% of Democrats / 49% of Republicans / 61% of Americans are potentially paid operatives of Russia who are pushing Putin’s message of calling for a ceasefire??” he wrote.Hammoud, who last week joined a group of Arab and Muslim leaders in refusing to meet with Biden’s reelection campaign manager to discuss the administration’s approach to the war, concluded: “The Democratic party leadership is in disarray.” More