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      in US Politics

      Can Kamala Harris help Joe Biden win the US presidency?

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      Kamala Harris is the first Indian American and the first black woman to run for US vice-president on a major party ticket. Lauren Gambino discusses why, as Joe Biden’s running mate, Harris is in prime position to go one step further

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      This episode first aired on Today in Focus, the Guardian’s global daily news podcast. Usually the Democratic party’s convention is a big event in the election cycle, as representatives across the country meet to officially endorse their presidential nominations. This year it is all happening online, but Joe Biden’s announcement that his running mate would be Kamala Harris has energised activists – and brought swift attacks from Donald Trump. Harris is the first Indian American and the first black woman to run for US vice-president on a major party ticket. Lauren Gambino tells Mythili Rao that Harris has a fascinating backstory and that her political ideology is not easy to pigeonhole. More

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      in Elections

      Michelle Obama’s speech draws few Republican responses – but Trump can’t resist

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      Michelle Obama

      Obama delivered the climactic speech on the first night of the Democratic convention, and Trump responded with snark
      Obama’s rebuke and anti-Trump Republicans: key takeaways

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      Michelle Obama: the former first lady’s DNC speech in full – video

      In her keynote speech to the Democratic national convention on Monday night, Michelle Obama reprised a message from the 2016 campaign in which she urged Democrats not to take Donald Trump up on his insults and mockery.
      “When they go low,” she said, “we go high.”
      On Tuesday morning, Trump duly went low, attacking Obama after she said he “is clearly in over his head” as president.
      “Somebody please explain to Michelle Obama that Donald J Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama,” Trump tweeted. “Biden was merely an afterthought.”
      Trump went on to accuse Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the former vice-president whom Democrats will officially nominate for president this week, of “treason”, then attacked Michelle again during a White House ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
      “She was over her head,” the president said, “and frankly, she should’ve made the speech live, which she didn’t do, she taped it. And it was not only taped, it was taped a long time ago, because she had the wrong [coronavirus] deaths and she didn’t even mention the vice-presidential candidate” – Kamala Harris, named by Joe Biden last week.
      Trump also complained about the former first lady receiving “fawning reviews” and said he thought her speech was “extremely divisive”.
      Obama delivered the climactic address on the first night of a four-day convention produced in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but playing out almost exclusively online, with speakers and entertainers filling two hours of live-streamed content each night.
      Trump was one of few Republicans to respond to the former first lady, whose reappearance on the national stage was greeted enthusiastically by Democrats. Obama’s husband is scheduled to address the convention on Wednesday.
      “Michelle Obama as anchor can make any relay team a gold-medal winner, but the [Democratic National Committee] did a lot of work for Joe Biden tonight,” tweeted David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Barack Obama.
      “Not everything worked, which figures, given the magnitude of the virtual format they’re trying. But much of it did. Solid first night.”
      In an unprecedented election season mostly devoid of campaign rallies, handshakes and selfies with the candidate, the Democrats were preparing for a second night of what might be the biggest experiment of all: moving an event meant to display the density of the party’s enthusiasm into the diffuse online world.
      Following Eva Longoria on Monday night, the actor Tracee Ellis Ross, star of Girlfriends and Black-ish, was slated to emcee proceedings on Tuesday. The official schedule included a unique “keynote address” by 16 rising stars of the party, including the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
      The political star power was to grow through Tuesday evening, with speeches by the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry to be followed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former president Bill Clinton and Dr Jill Biden, the nominee’s wife.
      Biden planned to speak from a classroom at a high school in Delaware where she formerly taught English. Officials said she would highlight her husband’s commitment to education and community, as well as his decency.
      Michelle Obama, wearing a necklace spelling out V-O-T-E, touched on those themes in her speech while making the case against Trump.
      “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”
      The last line was an echo of a recent Trump statement about the confirmed death toll in the US from coronavirus-related disease, which has surpassed 170,000.
      “We’ve got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it,” Obama said.

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      in Elections

      St Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters to speak at Republican convention

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      Republicans

      Patricia and Mark McCloskey said they feared for their safety
      Couple charged over June incident involving BLM protesters

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      0:17

      White couple point guns at protesters marching for police reform in Missouri – video

      Donald Trump has confirmed he will address the Republican convention next week from the White House, a controversial choice.
      But it is not the only one. As the Democratic convention proceeds with calls for an end to racial divides, news of another Republican convention speech by a couple who became infamous for taking a stand outside another grand house may attract further debate.
      In a racially charged incident in late June, Patricia and Mark McCloskey, who are white, were pictured outside their mansion in St Louis, pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters heading for the mayor’s house nearby.
      Mark McCloskey held an assault rifle, Patricia McCloskey a handgun. The couple, both lawyers, said they feared for their own safety and were defending their home.
      “I didn’t care what color they were,” Mark McCloskey told CNN, of the protesters. “I didn’t care what their motivation was. I was frightened. I was assaulted.”
      Charged with unlawful use of a weapon, the McCloskeys duly became a cause célèbre on the political right. Donald Trump tweeted support; Mike Parson, the Republican governor of Missouri, called the charge “outrageous”; and senior figures including Missouri senator Josh Hawley demanded a civil rights investigation.
      The prosecutor in the case, Kim Gardner, is the first African American circuit attorney in St Louis history. Speaking to the Washington Post, she said she received death threats.
      “This is a modern-day night ride, and everybody knows it,” Gardner said, referring to Ku Klux Klan tactics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. “And for a president to participate in it … is scary.”
      The Post first reported that the McCloskeys will speak to Republicans as they gather, like Democrats largely online thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, to re-nominate Trump for president.
      The hard-right Breitbart News website reported that Nick Sandmann, a student who sued media outlets after footage of a confrontation with a Native American activist went viral, and Andrew Pollack, the father of Meadow Pollack, who was killed in the Parkland school shooting, will also address the convention.
      South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, who recently gave Trump a model of Mount Rushmore with his head added next to those of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, will speak too.
      So will Nikki Haley – an Indian American former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations who many expect to run for the nomination in 2024 – and Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate.
      Vice-president Mike Pence will speak from Fort McHenry in Baltimore, a patriotic site celebrated in the US national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.
      Trump’s decision to speak from the White House has attracted controversy. As the US Office of Special Counsel said this month, the president is exempt under the Hatch Act, which limits political activities while on federal duty. But his staff is not.

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