Presidential Election of 2024

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      Ella Emhoff Speaks at Democratic National Convention

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      Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke onstage at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday evening, alongside Meena Harris, Ms. Harris’s niece, and Helena Hudlin, Ms. Harris’s goddaughter whose mother introduced Ms. Emhoff’s father, Doug Emhoff, to Ms. Harris over a decade ago.“Kamala came into my life when I was 14, famously a very easy time for a teenager,” Ms. Emhoff said. “Like a lot of young people, I didn’t always understand what I was feeling, but no matter what, Kamala was there for me. She was patient caring and always took me seriously. She’s never stopped listening to me and she’s not going to stop listening to all of us.”She also described her stepmother’s focus on fighting for health, environmental and social justice. “She isn’t alone, we’re all in this fight together,” Ms. Emhoff, 25, said.Ms. Emhoff and her family have been fixtures at this week’s events. Her brother, Cole Emhoff, introduced their father before his speech on Tuesday evening. Their mother, the film producer Kerstin Emhoff, has also been in attendance. (The couple divorced in 2009; Ms. Harris and Mr. Emhoff married in 2014.) In his speech, Mr. Emhoff proudly described his “big, beautiful blended family.” Before Ms. Emhoff took the stage, Ms. Harris’s grandnieces, with some help from the actor Kerry Washington, taught the crowd how to properly pronounce Ms. Harris’s name. “Comma-la!”Ms. Emhoff had discussed her father’s speech on Instagram earlier in the week, writing “if you saw me cry on tv NO YOU DIDNT.” She continued, “Just kidding I was crying like a little baby.”In the post, she included a photo of herself kissing her purse for the evening: a black leather bag with a fake chocolate chip cookie affixed to the front from the designer Puppets and Puppets that she paired with a plaid suit from Thom Browne.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Members of ‘Central Park 5’ Say Trump Is Too Dangerous for Second Term

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      Not long after the rape and beating of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989, Donald J. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads about the case, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.The five Black and Latino teenagers accused in the attack — Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray, known as the Central Park Five — served years in prison before being cleared in 2002 by DNA evidence and the confession of another man.But Mr. Trump has refused to apologize.At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday night, four of the five men — who now prefer to be called the Exonerated Five — said that what Mr. Trump did to them was devastating and proves that he is too callous and dangerous to serve a second term as president.The men, excluding Mr. McCray, who was not present, offered vigorous endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz.Mr. Wise, who served more than 13 years in prison, the longest term among the group, told the convention crowd that the men’s youth had been stolen from them and they faced the screams of adults as they entered court each day because of Mr. Trump’s actions.“He called us animals. He spent $85,000 on a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for our execution,” Mr. Wise said. “We were innocent kids, but we served a total of 41 years in prison.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Convention Insider: The Unexpected Reappearance of John Edwards

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      Of all the curious characters spotted bouncing around inside the Democrats’ big tent this week — the influencers, the ex-Trump White House press secretary, Lil Jon — the most curious of all might have been John Edwards.He was hanging at a bar in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood early Wednesday evening, hours before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota would accept his party’s nomination as vice president. “I wanted to see what was going on!” Mr. Edwards, 71, exclaimed. “Especially this year.” He’s been out of the loop, west or otherwise, for a long while now. He was once the Democratic Party’s golden boy — a baby-faced senator from North Carolina, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and then a presidential contender himself. It all started to fall apart in 2008. He withdrew from the Democratic primaries. An extramarital affair came to light. The other woman was a videographer paid by his campaign. There was a secret child. A terminally ill wife at home. A campaign finance scandal. Bunny Mellon, the widow of the banking heir Paul Mellon, was involved. It was messy. And then Mr. Edwards went away.When was the last time he was even at a Democratic convention?“Two thousand and uh…” his voice trailed off as he screwed up his face, pretending to think. “God, I wish you hadn’t asked me that, this is a memory test,” he laughed. “I think the last time I went was when I was the vice-presidential candidate. 2004.” (It was in Boston that year.)He said the Democratic National Committee sent him an invitation to attend this year — “which was really nice, very respectful” — and even offered to provide him with a car and driver. (Request for comment from the D.N.C. went unreturned.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Coach Walz’ Leads a Democratic Pep Rally

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      The vice-presidential nominee’s prime-time debut offered football analogies and an alternative to Trumpian masculinity.The United Center arena in Chicago is the home of basketball’s Bulls and hockey’s Blackhawks. But you would be forgiven, Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, for thinking it was a football stadium — or rather, a locker room.“I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this,” said Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and Kamala Harris’s running mate. “But I have given a lot of pep talks.”This was what Mr. Walz, a former high school football coach, gave, delivering a cheerfully combative speech in front of a sea of “COACH WALZ” signs. But his style, his biography and the production that the convention built around him also gave the Democrats something more.To a campaign headed by a woman and backed prominently by female validaters — Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and on Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey — Mr. Walz contributed an idea of masculinity that contrasted with Donald Trump’s performative, pro-wrestling-influenced machismo. He answered Mr. Trump’s coarse bluster with his own version of locker-room talk. He counterprogrammed Mr. Trump’s endless production of “The Apprentice” with a reboot of “Friday Night Lights.”Mr. Walz was introduced by Benjamin C. Ingman, a former student whom he coached in seventh-grade track, and preceded onstage by grown members of the football team he helped coach, stuffed into their high school jerseys.There was enough dad energy onstage to power a nuclear submarine.Not all coaches are men, but there are few pop-culture archetypes more male-coded. There’s the coach as paternalistic strongman — the my-way-or-the-highway leader whom you obey or you’re off the team. There’s the coach as icon — the Vince Lombardis and Tom Landrys whom fans hold equal to political leaders, or greater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      JD Vance’s ‘Never Trump Guy’ Comment Becomes a Viral TikTok Remix

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      A mash-up of years-old comments by the Ohio senator with a hip-hop track is finding a broad audience. It’s part of a new genre of videos on the app.One of the hottest tracks on TikTok this summer is, unexpectedly, a 22-second Petey Pablo hip-hop beat remixed with a years-old audio clip of JD Vance — now former President Donald J. Trump’s vice-presidential pick — declaring, before his loyalties changed, that he was “a never Trump guy.”The song has been used in more than 8,500 TikTok videos since two independent music producers created it in July. Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris have seized on it, wagging their fingers and swinging their arms to it, some hoping to create its official dance. It was also reposted by @KamalaHQ, the campaign’s official TikTok account. Videos with the sound have racked up more than 40 million views overall, according to Zelf, a social video analytics company focused on TikTok.It’s a marquee example of a new genre of political memes finding an audience on the short-form video app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.Politically minded Americans are increasingly embracing TikTok to make videos and trends out of snippets of songs and speeches in this election cycle. The app — a pandemic-fueled curiosity during the last presidential election — has since exploded its user base to 170 million Americans. About half of users under 30 say they use TikTok to help them keep up with politics and political issues, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.“People are still doing dances to random songs, but now people are doing dances to remixes of rap with Kamala Harris speeches over it,” said Emma Mont, a digital creator and administrator of @OrganizerMemes, a liberal meme account.

      @casadimusic Replying to @casadimusic JD Vance is a Never Trump Guy. Kamala Harris for President #nevertrumpguy #kamalaharris #Democrat #kamalahq ♬ Never Trump Guy JD Vance House of Evo Remix – CasaDi We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Letitia James Fights to Preserve Trump’s Over $450 Million Fraud Penalty

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      Ms. James, New York’s attorney general, argued that the civil fraud judgment, which the former president has appealed, should stand. It could wipe out his cash reserves.The New York attorney general’s office late Wednesday night urged a state appellate court to uphold a more than $450 million civil fraud judgment against Donald J. Trump, arguing that the punishment was needed to protect “the integrity of the marketplace.”In a legal filing, the attorney general, Letitia James, defended a judge’s February ruling that Mr. Trump had conspired to inflate the value of his properties to receive favorable loans and other financial benefits. Mr. Trump, the attorney general’s office has argued, exaggerated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion in any given year.“Mr. Trump indisputably participated in the fraud,” Ms. James’s office wrote in response to an appeal filed last month by Mr. Trump, adding that he, his adult sons and his company had “used a variety of deceptive strategies.”The response marked the latest phase of a battle between Mr. Trump and Ms. James that has spanned the better part of five years. The appeals court will hear oral arguments on Sept. 26 and its decision could come by year-end, coinciding with the final stretch of a presidential campaign that has pitted Mr. Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris.Ms. James, a Democrat who campaigned for her office on the promise of bringing Mr. Trump to justice, began to investigate the former president in 2019 and filed the lawsuit in 2022. Since then, Mr. Trump has lost nearly every step of the way. Even before the trial, the judge overseeing the case, Arthur F. Engoron, ruled against Mr. Trump, finding that he had committed fraud by inflating his assets.The trial was held largely to determine how much Mr. Trump, his company and his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. would owe the state. Justice Engoron was the decider — there was no jury — and after 11 weeks and 40 witnesses, he ordered Mr. Trump to pay $355 million plus interest, a total of more than $450 million.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oprah Winfrey Speaks at DNC, Revealing Short Film on the American Dream

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      Night 3 of the Democratic National Convention is not lacking for stars of the small screen: Mindy Kaling is the evening’s M.C., and the “Saturday Night Live” stalwart Kenan Thompson made a cameo.But the appearance of one television icon was kept under wraps until she stepped onstage to deafening cheers from her hometown crowd: Oprah Winfrey, the talk-show host turned billionaire media mogul who built her career in Chicago.The fact that Ms. Winfrey, an inspirational figure for many women and Black voters, appeared at all represented a feat by aides to Vice President Kamala Harris.The television star had never before spoken at a national convention. Her message of uplift and optimism is a neat fit for the themes that Democrats have sought to emphasize at this week’s jamboree. And as far as political campaigns go, she has carefully picked her battles, withholding the Oprah seal of approval for all but a few candidates.In 2007, Ms. Winfrey endorsed a presidential hopeful for the first time: Barack Obama, a close friend and a compatriot from Chicago’s power circles. Ms. Winfrey hosted fund-raisers and barnstormed cities in Iowa to round up votes for Mr. Obama, who at the time seemed a long shot to win the nomination.In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign sought to capitalize on Ms. Winfrey’s popularity by lobbying her for a full-throated endorsement. It never came. Ms. Winfrey mostly stayed away from politics that year, although she did tell one morning show interviewer, “I’m with her.”In 2018, Ms. Winfrey stirred speculation that she herself might seek the White House. A speech she delivered at the Golden Globes, where she was accepting a lifetime achievement award, was shared widely for its stirring delivery and approach to grand themes like sexism and racism in America.The conversation died down after Ms. Winfrey poured cold water on the idea of a run, but it highlighted the thirst among Democrats, in the midst of Donald J. Trump’s administration, for a media-savvy contender who could wave the party flag. More