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      RFK Jr to reportedly drop out of race by end of week – live

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      We reported earlier that independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign announced that he will make an address to the nation on Friday about “his path forward”.ABC News is now reporting that Kennedy plans to drop out of the race by the end of the week.It comes after Kennedy’s running mate, the Silicon Valley attorney Nicole Shanahan, said the pair were considering abandoning their campaign in order to help the election of Donald Trump.Kennedy was a member of the Democratic party and attempted to run as its nominee before choosing to stand as an independent.At an event hosted by Politico, Kamala Harris’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon was asked about how Robert F Kennedy’s reported intention to end his presidential bid would affect the race.One of the biggest questions of this year’s election is whether Kennedy is syphoning support from voters who would otherwise back Harris, or Donald Trump, and we may get a better idea of the answer to that if he ends his campaign.Either way, O’Malley Dillon told Politico she did not think it would be a big deal:
      We are very confident that the vice president is going to win whether she’s running against one candidate or multiple candidates. I don’t think it’s really going to interfere with the race too much.
      Nancy Pelosi delighted a well-heeled crowd at the University Club of Chicago on Wednesday afternoon, sharing anecdotes about her extraordinary career arc that she described as “housewife, House member, House Speaker.”Now considered one of the most powerful House speakers in modern political history, Pelosi said she faced doubts as she climbed the ranks in Congress from male colleagues who admonished her to wait her turn.“I became interested in running [for leadership] because we kept losing the elections, 94, 96, 98 and then it was 2000 I thought, ‘I’m so tired of losing … for the children,’” she said, using a Pelosism, that everything she does is “for the children.”When she made her decision to run for Democratic leadership known, Pelosi said she was immediately met with skepticism, especially among her male colleagues. “Who said she could run?” Pelosi recalled them saying. Their incredulity only encouraged her further.“Light my fire, why don’t you, poor babies?” Pelosi said, drawing laughs. In an aside to the audience, she emphasized that she was telling a story that occured “this century.”Pelosi continued, 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?’”The Uncommitted movement continues to press for the Democratic convention to allow a Palestinian to address delegates.Earlier in the day, the movement said it approved of a reported decision to allow the family of an Israeli hostage to address the convention, but said a Palestinian voice should also be heard:Here’s more about their quest to get Democratic leaders to allow them to speak from the convention stage:Two of Donald Trump’s surrogates will hold a press conference tomorrow in Chicago to criticize Kamala Harris’s record on handling immigration and other issues, hours before she is to deliver the closing address at the Democratic national convention.The Trump campaign has not had much of a presence in the city as Democrats have gathered to celebrate Harris’s entry into the race. That will change tomorrow when Vivek Ramaswamy and Carlos Trujillo, a former Trump administration official, address reporters from the Trump Hotel & Tower downtown.Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, is tonight’s keynote speaker, and will deliver a speech focused on telling American voters about his life and career, the Biden-Harris campaign said.“In his remarks at the Democratic national convention, Governor Tim Walz will introduce himself to the American people. He will highlight the values that he learned growing up in a small town in Nebraska, which shaped his service in the national guard, as a teacher, football coach, member of Congress, and governor, and that he will bring to the White House. Governor Walz will lay out what Vice-President Harris will do for working families and call on the American people to work together to elect Kamala Harris president,” according to the campaign.Musicians John Legend and Sheila E will introduce Walz, who will be nominated by Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ingman, a former student of the governor.Gaza solidarity protesters interrupted an environment and climate crisis council meeting at the convention on Wednesday, chanting “free, free Palestine”.“If you want to show some political courage, go and interrupt one of Donald Trump’s rallies,” responded Maryland representative Jamie Raskin, who was speaking. “We’re organizing against Trump, we’re organizing against the reactionary autocrats, plutocrats and kleptocrats.”“Anybody who interferes with that is objectively helping Donald Trump and Tim Walz,” Raskin continued, mistakenly naming Harris’s vice-presidential pick instead of Trump’s. “So cut it out,” he added before the protestors were escorted away.Some climate groups, however, are pushing for the Harris campaign to stop supporting Israel’s deadly war in Gaza by backing an arms embargo. Among them is the Sunrise Movement, the influential youth-led environmental justice group who spearheaded the push for a Green New Deal.“Young people want a livable world for our generation and generations. We want everyone to have clean air and water and safe homes,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, a Sunrise Movement spokesperson. “Everyone must have those rights and freedoms, including Palestinians.”Those of us who have shown up early to the United Center in Chicago (such as your live blogger) are getting a sneak peek at one of the night’s musical guests: Stevie Wonder.He’s sound-checking his 1972 hit Higher Ground, and was earlier at the podium rehearsing some remarks. Wonder has with him backing dancers, as well as a bassist, guitar player and someone who looks to be playing turntables. He is, of course, playing piano.Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is reportedly planning to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and considering throwing his support behind Donald Trump, was asked by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl about Trump calling the climate crisis “a hoax”.Here’s how Kennedy responded:Kennedy spent decades working as an environmental lawyer who sued polluters and founded a large non-profit focused on protecting clean water. Trump has long questioned human-made global warming, including calling it “mythical”, “nonexistent” or “an expensive hoax”, or suggesting that the climate could “change back again”.Pink is expected to take to the stage on Thursday for a closing-night performance at the Democratic national convention, CNN is reporting.The award-winning singer-songwriter will perform on Thursday evening before Kamala Harris’s speech, according to the outlet.As we reported earlier, John Legend will be performing tonight before Tim Walz’s remarks.Donald Trump Jr said he “loved the idea” of having Robert F Kennedy Jr appointed to a role in a potential Trump administration so that he can take a government agency and “blow it up”.The Republican presidential candidate’s son, in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck reported by the Hill, said:
      I loved the idea, love the idea of giving him some sort of role in some sort of major three-letter entity or whatever it may be and let him blow it up.
      He added that he believes Kennedy is “a smart guy” and that “he’s actually got very good views on certain things”. Trump said:
      I think that’s what we need. And so, I think that kind of unity, even where there may be certain disagreements on certain things, I think he could be a really great asset for that.
      The former House speaker Nancy Pelosi demurred and deflected when asked by the Democratic strategist David Axelrod to share how difficult it was to have “that conversation” with the president.Pelosi, who pushed subtly but forcefully in public and private for the president to step aside, said it was ultimately Joe Biden’s decision to make but one that ultimately set the party on a path to winning that they had not been on when he led the ticket.“A great sacrifice was made here,” she said. But the rupture between Biden and Pelosi, two devout Catholics who have known each other for decades has been hard on her, she said. “I’ve cried over this. I’m sad about this,” she said.Her highest priority then and now was to win – and not just the White House, but the House and the Senate. She said the prospect of a second Trump term was too dangerous.“Thank God I was the speaker on January 6, last time,” she said, suggesting the assault on the US Capitol would have been far worse if Republicans had been in charge that day. She said:
      You have to make the decision to win, and you have to make every decision in favor of winning.
      Donald Trump, in an interview yesterday, said he would “certainly” be open to appointing Robert F Kennedy Jr to a role in his administration, if the independent presidential candidate drops out of the race and backs him.“I like him, and I respect him,” Trump told CNN after a campaign stop in Michigan on Tuesday.
      He’s a brilliant guy. He’s a very smart guy. I’ve known him for a very long time. I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out, but if he is thinking about getting out, certainly I’d be open to it.
      Trump said he would “love that endorsement, because I’ve always liked” Kennedy.Asked if he would consider appointing Kennedy to a role in his administration if he wins in November, Trump replied:
      I probably would, if something like that would happen. He’s a very different kind of a guy – a very smart guy. And, yeah, I would be honored by that endorsement, certainly.
      Robert F Kennedy Jr is leaning toward endorsing Donald Trump but the decision is not yet finalized and could still change, ABC News is reporting, citing sources.Kennedy’s hope is in part to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the DNC, one source told the outlet.Kennedy told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that he would not confirm or deny reports that he is endorsing Trump, adding: “We are not talking about any of that.”Robert F Kennedy Jr, who will address the nation about “his path forward” on Friday, has held “advanced discussions” with Donald Trump and his campaign team about dropping out of the race and endorsing the Republican presidential nominee, the Washington Post is reporting, citing multiple sources. More

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr to drop out of presidential race by end of week – report

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr is set to drop his maverick campaign for president, it has been reported, amid speculation that the independent and environmental lawyer will throw his support behind Donald Trump.The ABC network, citing “sources familiar with the decision”, reported that Kennedy would formally leave the race on Friday. The report followed an announcement on his campaign website that he would make a statement that day “about the present historical moment and his path forward” in Phoenix that would be live-streamed on X and other social media.Speculation that Kennedy could abandon his presidential bid intensified after his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, revealed on a podcast on Tuesday he was considering that option – and considering endorsing Trump, the Republican nominee. Shanahan suggested Kennedy’s continued candidacy risked diverting support away from Trump, thereby helping to elect Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.Her comments were immediately welcomed by Trump, who told CNN that Kennedy – who he denounced as recently as April as a “Democrat plant” and a “radical left liberal” – was “a brilliant guy”.“I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out, but if he is thinking about getting out, certainly I’d be open to it,” said Trump, who, perhaps not coincidentally, is also due to speak in the Phoenix area on Friday, at a campaign rally.In truth, the pair seem to have been in contact for weeks amid an apparent rapprochement.A leaked recording of a telephone call between them emerged last month during the Republican national convention – just days after Trump survived an assassination attempt – when the former president solicited Kennedy’s support and the two discussed the possibility of Kennedy joining a future administration.Trump also appeared to endorse some of the anti-vaccine theories, for which Kennedy has become noted, during the call.In an interview with NBC News, JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, acknowledged there had been a stream of “communication” between the two campaigns.“I haven’t spoken to RFK personally, but I know there’s been a lot of communication back and forth between RFK … [and] this campaign,” he said. “Our argument to RFK, and I’ll make it right now, because, of course, he hasn’t dropped out yet, is, look: if you want a Democratic party that protected American workers and stood for strong borders, maybe disagreed with Republicans on things like tax policy, that party doesn’t exist any more.”Kennedy initially sought the Democratic nomination before abandoning that attempt to launch an independent campaign.His presidential bid has been hit by a spate of damaging stories that have undermined his efforts to present himself as a serious figure.An allegation surfaced in a Vanity Fair article that he had groped a family babysitter, to which Kennedy responded not with a denial, but by saying: “I am not a church boy.”He added: “I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”A further embarrassing disclosure was unearthed by the New Yorker, which described how Kennedy once left the carcass of a dead bear cub in Central Park and placed a bicycle next to it to make it look like an accident.Kennedy pre-empted the article by posting a video on X of him admitting the episode in a conversation with Roseanne Barr, as the pair sat in a spacious kitchen.The campaign has also run into money troubles in recent weeks, as Kennedy’s poll standing has dropped. It reportedly ended July $3.5m in debt, while Shanahan – who has contributed her own funds to it – was recently given a $1m refund. More

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      Joe cried, Kamala cried and so did I. Can this be the Democrats putting on a better show than Trump ever did? | Emma Brockes

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      “He looks perkier,” said my nine-year-old, passing the screen as I watched footage of Joe Biden speaking on the first day of the Democratic national convention in Chicago. The president did, indeed, look perkier, borne aloft by the gratitude of 23,000 people in the hall and the millions beyond it for the fact he is no longer seeking re-election. By itself, this moment would have lifted the occasion above the norm. But the Democratic convention this year is so uniquely dramatic, so unprecedented in US history, that it rivals and possibly outstrips even President Obama’s nomination in 2008. And Biden’s heart-wrenching appearance was just the beginning.“When we fight, we win,” said Kamala Harris in her opening speech on Monday and there it was, that strange moment of realisation that what she was saying might actually be true. Strange because it’s the kind of thing Democrats always say and that, in recent years, has been accompanied by a terrible wah-wah downward arpeggio on the trombone. Limp, disorganised, outshone by Donald Trump; that had been the campaign to date. The speed of the turnaround and the sheer force of the narrative that now propels Harris forwards, has unleashed a psychic energy so strong that on stage in Chicago it practically gave off sparks. Democrats have the scent of blood in their nostrils and thank God, they’re finally chasing it.Watching footage from the first two days, I kept thinking of Joan Didion’s biting piece about the 1988 presidential race, in which she remarked on the emptiness of staged political events. Reporters, she observed, like to cover a presidential campaign because “it has balloons”. You know what she means, which only makes the genuine emotion witnessed in Chicago this week all the more thrilling. So rare is it for balloon-based political events to do anything other than bore or depress, that when one does, it lets loose not only a primary giddiness, but a second-tier hysteria triggered by incredulity at the presence of the first.And so it was here, in the form of wave after wave of what felt like history. President Biden, smiling, rueful, apparently much more cogent now that the need to perform has been removed, and deeply touching in his ability to do that rarest of things, act for the collective good at his own expense. The alleviation of anxiety in the audience even allowed for the return of some of that old Biden charisma. It was emotional! Friends on the east coast stayed up late watching, and cried. I cried! Harris, in the audience, had tears in her eyes, and Biden himself was emotional as he was led off stage by his daughter. The political obituaries in the US press the next day were elegiac, sentimental, all the things that would’ve been undone had he stayed in the race. Evan Osnos in the New Yorker called Biden “a man whose career describes a half century of American history”, and that was the feeling – a real “thank you for your service” moment.Biden left it to younger Democrats really to go after Trump, and boy, did they. On the first day, congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas called Trump “a 78-year-old lifelong predator, fraudster and cheat” who “cosies up to his role model, Vladimir Putin”. On the second night, Michelle Obama, after the years-long failure of her mantra “when they go low, we go high”, came up with an absolute corker, referring to Trump as the beneficiary of “the affirmative action of generational wealth”.She gave high praise to working mothers – the kind of “unglamorous” labour that holds the country together – while her husband got a huge laugh off Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes”. It was a throwback to the good old days of humour and levity in a party long mired in depression and panic. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?” said Michelle and the crowd erupted.What struck you about all this was the way in which it seized for Democrats a dynamic that has lately been the reserve of Republicans. Trump’s success is a side-effect of his pure entertainment value and the fact he is “disruptive” in a way that, for large numbers of his followers, is simply a fun thing to be part of. Now that same sense of drama and disruption animates the other side. People at the convention chanted “USA!” while Hillary Clinton – for whom this moment must be bittersweet – graciously talked up Harris and generational unity came in via the rallying cries of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Bernie Bros.No successful production can do without at least a little hokiness, and here it was in the form of Doug Emhoff, in line to be the first “second gentleman”, should his wife win the White House, on stage doing his lovable dork act. Emhoff, with much aw shucks self-mockery, even described the first time he rang Harris to set up a blind date. It felt like a flex: look at this married couple who actually love one another compared with those estranged freaks on the other side.There were notes of caution and warnings against complacency. The stakes are so much higher now that we know who Trump is, and that, like a squirrel cornered in an attic, his desperation if elected is liable to lead to attack. But there was, this week, also a sense of let us enjoy the sense of glamour, and excitement, and youth, and – yes, hope – of this moment before we get to the terror of the next few months and the actual election.

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Democrats use AI in effort to stay ahead with Latino and Black voters

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      Latino and Black-led Democratic and progressive organizations are mobilizing to come up with novel uses of AI to reach voters of color.On Discord, a social messaging app that connects gamers, it’s taking the form of a smiling chatbot powered by artificial intelligence that evokes Pixar’s animated robot Wall-E. When you click, a conversation opens up that says: “This is the very beginning of your legendary conversation with Vote-E.”You can ask election related questions such as “How do I register to vote?” or when North Carolina’s voter registration deadline is – and the answers are almost instantaneous.Vote-E is an experiment in how to crack one of the toughest problems for Democrats – reaching voters of color, especially younger ones, using platforms where they actually spend time, and persuading them to vote for Democrats. And it comes at a transformative, but uncertain time for the party, with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, who must use existing infrastructure to beat Donald Trump.NextGen America, which built Vote-E and is one of the nation’s largest youth voter organizations, says it allows young men to access the bot from Discord chats and Twitch streams of Latino and Black gaming influencers.“We’re seeing voter turnout gaps between Black men and women and Latino men and women,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, NextGen America’s president, noting that while there’s a focus on connecting with young people on college campuses, not everyone is there. The chatbot is active in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina.It’s just one example of progressive groups of color experimenting with artificial intelligence which wasn’t on their radar four years ago: AI chatbots are now also recruiting Latino voters from WhatsApp and Black voters from Facebook Messenger; they’re using natural language processing to record voter interactions with canvassers and identify shared concerns; and even using it to index and identify friendly Spanish-language sites to place an ad touting Democrats’ clean energy plan.With the election mere months away, the challenge facing Democrats remains how to galvanize younger voters and voters of color.While more Latinos turned out in 2020 than ever before, Hispanics still lag behind white, Black, and Asian and Pacific Islander voters as a proportion of their population of eligible voters, according to Catalist, a progressive data hub, which noted this is true across communities of color, “where non-voting rates are substantially higher”.Héctor Sánchez Barba, the president and chief executive of Mi Familia Vota, told companies he was less interested in their diversity dollars than in their budgets and expertise in the realm of data, research, and innovation. It’s why he recruited Denise Cook, a Cuban American former enterprise software architect who spent 16 years at IBM to join MFV as its chief data and innovation officer. She leads an all-Latina team, which created its own chatbot and uses AI to have human-sounding, bilingual conversations with Latino voters on platforms like WhatsApp.Canvassers with the group ask for permission to record conversations with voters on their mobile phones or tablets. Those interactions are then turned into data using natural language processing, a type of AI. This way, MFV is able to quickly summarize voter priorities and figure out if it is speaking about the economy, reproductive rights or climate optimally to voters.“We need this kind of brainpower when we’re fighting the biggest enemy our community has ever had,” Sánchez Barba said of Trump. “This is about using the most important technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, for good and to save our democracy.”Many leaders of color said they are mindful of pitfalls around AI but open to harnessing its power and testing possible strategies. Larry Huynh, the president of the American Association of Political Consultants and the founder of Trilogy Interactive, is so interested in incorporating AI into political campaigns that he followed leaders in other industries by creating an internal taskforce at his company.He believes campaigns should follow the lead of brands, which use AI voiceovers of celebrities and public figures, to have their natural mouth movements seamlessly disseminate campaign messages. Huynh’s research has found AI voices tailored to their target audience – young male speaker, young male voter, say – appear to be more persuasive.One example he gave is of an allied group creating a video of the candidate – now Harris – speaking perfect Spanish in her own voice aimed at Arizona or Nevada voters.“If it’s well-delivered and it doesn’t seem odd or off, some voters could appreciate that communication in their predominant language,” he said.Putting out a wholly AI-made Harris, however, would be highly scrutinized both from within the party and by Republicans. Harris is already a target of deepfakes that put words in her mouth as well as ones meant to sexualize and demean her. Yet another deepfake of her, even a positive one, could strike the wrong chord. A Trump has said she used AI to fake a huge rally crowd. The photo of her campaign stop was real, though. Concerns over disinformation have only been heightened by the spread of AI-generated images of Trump getting arrested in New York and an AI robocall that mimicked Biden’s voice telling New Hampshire voters not to cast a ballot.Still, progressive groups are charging forward. Poder Latinx, an advocacy group committed to building Latino political power, created an ad touting the clean energy plan from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. It was timed to coincide with the popular Copa América soccer tournament last month. Partnering with Mundial Media, the group was able to serve the ad to US Latinos reading Spanish-language news sites in places like Arizona. Mundial Media’s Cadmus AI engine crawled the sites and indexed their keywords to make sure the soccer-themed clean energy ad would fit in with the content on the pages.Yadira Sanchez, the co-founder of Poder Latinx, was happy with how the campaign reached voters, over-delivering impressions and click-thru rates from Latinos, including finding a 64% Hispanic male audience.“We know that the best connection is voter to voter contact. This technology is complementing the on-the-ground canvassing we are already using,” she said. “Technology, AI in particular, is great to reach younger, more online voters.“But AI may not be viewed as safe enough for initiatives that require serious resources to scale up in time for November. And there are concerns it could freak out voters in the wrong context.In focus groups in Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia this year, Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPac, found “hesitation” from Black voters around AI.“There’s a concern people have with what they’re seeing and where it’s coming from exactly,” she said, noting voters “don’t know what to trust and are suspicious and skeptical of everything.”Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, a group that advocates for Black Americans and has a $25m program for 2024, has met with Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, alongside senior staff at Meta, Google and OpenAI, to call for commitments on how AI will be used around election tools, which he says aren’t ready for primetime.“Imagine if there were no regulations for cars and it was all about who could get their new vehicle to market fastest?” he said, citing Musk’s Tesla, which has recalled its latest model four times. “It’s Tesla on steroids. At least cars get recalled, but there is no infrastructure or body that recalls tech.”Quentin James, founder and president of The Collective Pac, a group that works to elect Black Democrats and is using the Facebook Messenger chatbot to get registration information from voters, stressed that deepfakes or ads where one campaign is using the likeness of their opponent to mislead voters should be shut down immediately.Still, he said, Democrats must be willing to use the tools at their disposal to beat Trump, because the other side will be looking at them as well.“I don’t know if FEC law can catch up to this in a few months, so we should use it to our advantage,” he said. “There’s no way we can control what happens with technology in this short time period.” More

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      Biden to give possible swan song at Democratic convention amid Gaza protests

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      Joe Biden will take centre stage for perhaps the last time on Monday night when he addresses the Democratic national convention in Chicago – as the US president faces a backlash over one of his most complex legacies.Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to converge in the host city to demand that the US end military aid to Israel for its ongoing war in Gaza. Activists have branded Biden “Genocide Joe” and called for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, to change course.Just over a month ago Biden had been expecting to give Thursday’s closing speech as he accepted the Democratic nomination for 2024. But his withdrawal from the race last month, and the party’s consolidation around Harris, means that Biden will speak on opening night and then set off on a holiday.The president has been reportedly working on his address with his long-time adviser Mike Donilon and chief speechwriter, Vinay Reddy. He is expected to return to a familiar theme – the defence of democracy against Donald Trump – and tout Harris as the ideal presidential candidate.Biden is likely to receive a far more electrifying welcome as an outgoing president than he ever did as a candidate. The convention will honour his half-century career in politics as senator, vice-president and president, with the first lady, Jill Biden, among those paying tribute. Harris is likely to join Biden on stage.It will be a bittersweet moment for the 81-year-old, who is still reportedly irked by the role that the senior Democratic figures Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer played in pressuring him to step aside amid questions about his mental fitness.Still, the mood among Democrats is buoyant as opinion polls show Harris leading or tied with Trump in crucial swing states. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, told CNN’s State of the Union programme that the convention would be “like a rock concert”. A-list stars are likely to inject further energy.Wiley Nickel, a congressman from North Carolina who was with Harris in Raleigh last Friday when she unveiled her economic policy agenda, said in a phone interview: “The feeling is like it was back in 2008 when I worked for President Obama. People are incredibly excited. They’re focused on the issues instead of Joe Biden’s age. When we have a campaign focused on the issues we’re going to win.”But the party is eager to avoid any repeat of their Chicago convention in 1968, when anti-Vietnam war protests and a police riot led to scenes of chaos that stunned the nation and contributed to the party’s defeat in November.The death toll in Gaza has exceeded 40,000, according to the health ministry there. The biggest protest group the Coalition to March on the DNC has planned demonstrations on Monday and Thursday to coincide with Biden and Harris’s speeches. Organisers say they expect at least 20,000 activists to demonstrate, including students who protested against the war on college campuses.The switch at the top of the ticket has given some activists pause but others contend that Harris is part of the Biden administration and so complicit. Her speech on Thursday will be watched closely for signs that she is willing to take a harder line against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.Peter Beinart, a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York, argues that Harris can distinguish herself simply be enforcing an existing law that bars the US from assisting any unit of a foreign security force that commits “gross violations” of human rights.“The premise of the Leahy law is that all lives, including those of Palestinians, are equally precious,” Beinart wrote in the New York Times. “Kamala Harris can show, finally, that a major-party nominee for president agrees.”On Sunday, there was march along Michigan Avenue against the war in Gaza and for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. The march began in late afternoon and stretched into the night. Police lined the march route and there were no signs of major conflict. At one point, anti-abortion activists staged a small counter-protest.The convention will draw an estimated 50,000 people to America’s third-biggest city including delegates, activists and journalists. Security will be tight, with street closures around the convention centre, while police have undergone de-escalation training.On the eve of the convention, Democrats released their party platform, a document of more than 90 pages presenting their policy priorities. The platform was voted on by the convention’s platform committee before Biden’s exit and repeatedly refers to his “second term”.On Monday, the convention will focus on the Biden administration’s policy accomplishments and feature former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; Tuesday will contrast Trump’s and Harris’s visions for America; Wednesday will emphasise the importance of protecting individual freedoms; Thursday is entitled “For Our Future”, underlined by Harris’s speech.Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, will spend the week counter-programming the Democratic convention with a tour of battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. More

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      Iranian group used ChatGPT to try to influence US election, OpenAI says

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      OpenAI said on Friday it had taken down accounts of an Iranian group for using its ChatGPT chatbot to generate content meant for influencing the US presidential election and other issues.The operation, identified as Storm-2035, used ChatGPT to generate content focused on topics such as commentary on the candidates on both sides in the US elections, the conflict in Gaza and Israel’s presence at the Olympic Games and then shared it via social media accounts and websites, Open AI said.Investigation by the Microsoft-backed AI company showed ChatGPT was used for generating long-form articles and shorter social media comments.OpenAI said the operation did not appear to have achieved meaningful audience engagement.The majority of the identified social media posts received few or no likes, shares or comments and the company did not see indications of web articles being shared across social media.The accounts have been banned from using OpenAI’s services and the company continues to monitor activities for any further attempts to violate policies, it said.Earlier in August, a Microsoft threat-intelligence report said the Iranian network Storm-2035, comprising four websites masquerading as news outlets, was actively engaging US voter groups on opposing ends of the political spectrum.The engagement was being built with “polarizing messaging on issues such as the US presidential candidates, LGBTQ rights, and the Israel-Hamas conflict”, the report stated.The Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are locked in a tight race, ahead of the presidential election on 5 November.The AI firm said in May it had disrupted five covert influence operations that sought to use its models for “deceptive activity” across the internet. More

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      Trump reportedly considers endorsing expanded child tax credit after Harris unveils economic plan – live

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      Trump is considering endorsing an expanded $5,000 child tax credit for parents of all income levels, an official at his campaign told Semafor.“President Trump will consider a significant expansion of the child tax credit that applies to American families,” a Trump campaign official told Semafor. “President Trump respects and listens to his running mate Senator Vance.”The news comes just hours after Harris announced her own plan for a $6,000 child tax credit, and days after Vance proposed a $5,000 child tax credit during a CBS News interview.Cornel West will not appear on Michigan’s presidential ballot this fall, election officials told the Washington Post today. The independent presidential candidate’s ballot access was denied over notary issues, the state’s director of elections said in a letter.“The charges regarding procedural errors in our filings, such as notarization specifics, are trivial technicalities being weaponized to distract from substantive policy debates,” West’s adviser Edwin DeJesus said in a statement to the Post. “We are confident that these accusations will be seen for what they are – frivolous and unfounded attempts to stifle opposition and debate.”West’s campaign says it will appeal the decision, but must do so in five days as it did not previously respond to a notification from election officials in July.Engaging with young voters. Very mindful. Very demure. Very cutesy. Just hours after VP hopeful Tim Walz joined TikTok, the White House is joining in on attempts to connect with gen-Z voters by playing along with the latest meme sweeping social platforms.For more on the origins of the meme, read Alaina Demopoulos’s postmortem of brat summer:The White House has released a new statement from Joe Biden on the Middle East.In it, Biden states: “Earlier today, I received an update from my negotiating team on the ground in Doha and directed them to put forward the comprehensive bridging proposal presented today, which offers the basis for coming to a final agreement on a ceasefire and hostage release deal. I spoke separately with Amir Sheikh Tamim and President Sisi to review the significant progress made in Doha over the past two days of talks, and they expressed the strong support of Qatar and Egypt for the US proposal as co-mediators in this process. Our teams will remain on the ground to continue technical work over the coming days, and senior officials will convene again in Cairo before the end of the week. They will report to me regularly. I am sending Secretary Blinken to Israel to reaffirm my iron-clad support for Israel’s security, continue our intensive efforts to conclude this agreement and to underscore that with the comprehensive ceasefire and hostage release deal now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.”For more on the status of ceasefire negotiations, read Jason Burke’s and Bethan McKernan’s reporting:For those following along, JD Vance has landed in Cincinnati after an earlier midair emergency forced his plane to return to the Milwaukee airport.According to the New York Times, which had a reporter onboard the flight, the plane sat on the Milwaukee tarmac for about an hour before continuing on its way to Cincinnati.In an apparent response to Kamala Harris’s speech in North Carolina today, Trump has taken to Truth Social.The former president writes: “Kamala Harris wants to raise your taxes and make you pay for free healthcare and free housing in luxury hotels for her millions of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, our Veterans are sleeping on the streets and Kamala’s running mate, Weirdo Tim Walz, voted against my VA Mission Act that made healthcare more affordable and accessible for our Nation’s Heroes! Kamala and Walz will put Criminals, Terrorists, and Illegal Aliens FIRST. I will always put law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic AMERICANS First!”For more on the steps Harris proposed to fight child poverty, housing instability and inflation, check out George Chidi’s report:In lighter news, you may have seen the author Malcolm Harris’s tweet earlier this week that he accidentally acquired a Project 2025 swag bag.The Washington Post caught up with the Marxist journalist, who apparently was visited by police after posting on X:After seeing Harris’s tweets, a woman who describes herself on LinkedIn as a Project 2025 staffer called the police and filed a complaint for theft, according to a police report obtained by the Post.The cliff notes? Harris ultimately returned the duffle bag to the Heritage Foundation himself.Tim Walz has joined TikTok, or as he prefers to say, “TimTok”. The Minnesota governor’s first post features his dog Scout at a dog park along the banks of the Mississippi.In under a month, the Harris-Walz campagin has reignited gen-Z enthusiasm for the 2024 election, largely through memes and videos shared on TikTok, Instagram and other social platforms. Scout featured prominently in one post that began circulating in gen Z and millennial circles as Harris considered VP candidates earlier this month:Although Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok, or force its Chinese owners to sell it, Democrats have flocked to the app in recent months to drum up support from younger voters.Trump is considering endorsing an expanded $5,000 child tax credit for parents of all income levels, an official at his campaign told Semafor.“President Trump will consider a significant expansion of the child tax credit that applies to American families,” a Trump campaign official told Semafor. “President Trump respects and listens to his running mate Senator Vance.”The news comes just hours after Harris announced her own plan for a $6,000 child tax credit, and days after Vance proposed a $5,000 child tax credit during a CBS News interview.Another plank of Kamala Harris’s economic platform was a promise to lower housing costs by expanding the housing supply.Here’s the moment where she announced it, in her just-concluded speech in Raleigh, North Carolina:Joe Biden had sought to increase the supply of affordable housing with his ill-fated Build Back Better plan, but that did not make it through Congress.Last month, shortly before he dropped out of the presidential race, the president proposed capping annual rent increases for some landlords at 5%. But, as is the case with much of his agenda, Congress would need to pass a new law to make that happen, and the Republicans controlling the House have shown no interest in doing so.A charter plane carrying JD Vance, dubbed Trump Force Two, made an emergency landing in Milwaukee after a malfunction with its door, CNN reports. Then plane then took back off and continued its flight:Vance earlier in the day held a campaign event at a police union office in the city.The GOP is teeing up their counterattack to Kamala Harris’s economic proposals.Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump’s campaign announced that JD Vance will deliver remarks on the economy on Monday in Philadelphia, where he’ll undoubtedly criticize the vice-president. And on X this afternoon, Republican congressman Mike Collins accused Harris of, essentially, trying to “buy votes”:As she wrapped up her speech, Kamala Harris debuted a proposal to bring back a tax credit that was credited with dramatically reducing child poverty in the single year it was in effect, and expanding it further.The expanded child tax credit cut poverty for children by about half in 2021, but expired the following year, when negotiations over renewing it broke down. Harris told voters that she would bring back the credit, and make it even more generous:
      As President, I’ll not only restore that tax cut, but expand it. We will provide $6,000 in tax relief to families during the first year of a child’s life. Now, think what that means. Think what that means. That is a vital, vital year of critical development of a child, and the cost can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else.
      She argued that she could reduce the federal budget deficit while implementing this plan, though did not quite say how, instead hitting Donald Trump over his policies towards lowering taxes:
      And we will do this while reducing the deficit. Compare my plan with what Donald Trump intends to do, he plans to give billionaires massive tax cuts year after year, and he plans to cut corporate taxes by over a trillion dollars, even as they pull in record profits. And that’s on top of the $2tn tax cut he already signed into law when he was president, which, by the way, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans and corporations and exploded the national deficit.
      You know, I think that if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.
      And then Harris came at Donald Trump with a tried-and-true attack used by Democrats everywhere, by warning that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act.There’s lots to say about the law, which polling from health policy research firm KFF indicates is generally popular, but which most Republicans continue to oppose. But here’s one thing to keep in mind: it was first passed in 2010, which means there are lots of voters out there who never experienced what the American health insurance system was like before its changes took effect.Harris warned the crowd that repealing the law “would take us back to a time when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions”, she said, adding that 45 million Americans rely on the law for health coverage.At that point, the crowd began chanting, “We’re not going back!”Donald Trump has made levying new tariffs on foreign imports a key part of his platform, but Kamala Harris is warning the crowd in North Carolina that the idea amounts to “a national sales tax” on everyday goods.“He wants to impose what is, in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. That will devastate Americans. It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs. A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication. And, you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year,” the vice-president said.“At this moment when everyday prices are too high, he will make them even higher.” More

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      Kamala Harris has made a dream start. But it’s too early to count out Donald Trump | Jonathan Freedland

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      Everything is going right for her and wrong for him. Kamala Harris has the encouraging poll numbers and, more precious still, the momentum. Donald Trump has the serial errors, the maudlin introspection and wobbling campaign team. In less than three weeks, the Democrats have pulled off one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in US political history, replacing a candidate who was shuffling towards near-certain defeat with one apparently soaring towards possible victory. And yet, even as Harris speaks of bringing the joy, contained within is a lurking danger – a peril that should be all too familiar.The sources of joy are not mysterious. Democrats are heading to Chicago for a convention that will feel like a party but was set to be a wake. Before 21 July, they were tied to Joe Biden, a man whose presidency has proved far more consequential than most predicted but who was on course to lose and lose badly in November. His passing of the baton to his number two has gone better than anyone had any right to expect.All but seamlessly, the campaign has switched over – equivalent to rebuilding a plane in mid-air, say seasoned election hands – and the candidate herself has taken to the task with unexpected ease. Twenty years younger and a whole lot more vigorous than her opponent, she has turned what had been Trump’s most potent weapon against Biden – age – against Trump himself. He is now the candidate of the past, she the face of the future. Never mind that Harris is a senior member of the present administration, she has shaken off the burden of incumbency – currently a negative in most democracies across the world – and cast herself as the turn-the-page option, aided by a powerful slogan: “We’re not going back.”The evidence that it’s working is in the headline poll numbers, which show her edging ahead in the very battleground states where Biden had been trailing. Almost overnight, she is winning back the voters who propelled Biden to victory in 2020 but were drifting away from him in 2024: young, Black and Hispanic Americans. Drawing big crowds, inspiring a thousand social-media memes, she is generating something Democrats have not seen since the first Barack Obama campaign of 2008: excitement.All this is having an equal and opposite effect on Trump. The better her numbers or crowds get, the more gloomy and rattled he becomes, consoling himself with the delusion that photos of Harris’s massive audiences are AI fakes. The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser depicts Trump as bereft, missing Biden as he pines for the return of the man he knew how to run against. That contest was simple: it was strong v weak, with Biden’s age doing the work.But now Trump faces Harris, and he can’t quite work out how to take her on. He can’t fix on a nickname, he can’t settle on a target. His team wants him to run on immigration and inflation – both Democratic vulnerabilities – but he keeps returning to the terrain he knows best: culture wars and race baiting. Just as he once falsely claimed that Obama was not born in the US, Trump initially offered his theory that only late in life did Harris happen “to turn Black”. He also regularly describes the vice-president as a “low IQ individual”, a phrase he has long applied to Black female politicians. His base may like this talk, but it repels everyone else.An illustration of the unsettling effect Harris is having on Trump came in the mutual back-scratch he conducted with X magnate Elon Musk this week. “She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live,” Trump said about a drawing of Harris on the cover of Time magazine. “She looked very much like our great first lady, Melania,” he added, referring to his wife. Along with any listener to that exchange, Trump doesn’t know where to put himself.Because he is knocked off balance, he keeps stumbling. The Musk encounter was a case in point. After the embarrassment of a tech breakdown that led to a start delayed by 40-plus minutes, Trump rambled for two hours, straying into baffling tangents and frankly weird claims. One example: “global warming” is no threat, because rising sea levels mean “more oceanfront property”. (The real danger, he said, is the warmth of nuclear weapons.) What’s more, Trump seemed to speak with a heavy lisp throughout. None of this might matter much in itself, but it shows that Trump is beginning to get some of the same scrutiny of his cognitive and physical capacities that drove Biden to step aside. Put simply, age is now his problem.So this race is going exactly the way Harris would want it to go. Trump is lashing out at allies and, always a sign of a troubled campaign, shaking up his team. He is saddled with a running mate whose back catalogue would make a Gilead commander blush, while he paints an ever-darkening picture of a US in decline, a nation riddled with crime and overrun by scary invaders. All the while, she is beaming about a brighter tomorrow. As the Republican sage Mike Murphy puts it, “He’s doing Voldemort and she’s doing Ted Lasso.”Where, then, is the danger? First, the polling is not quite as rosy as Democrats want it to be. Dig further into the numbers and you see that, despite everything, Donald Trump is more popular now than he was at this same, mid-August point in either 2020 or 2016. His approval rating currently stands at 44%. In August 2016, a paltry 33% of Americans had a positive view of him – but he went on to win.What’s more, in each of the three crucial battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, Harris is ahead by only four points, according to the latest survey. That’s welcome progress, to be sure, but it’s not enough when you recall that Trump put on nine points between August and November in those states in 2016 and closed the gap to a photo-finish in 2020.Harris may be more charismatic than either of the Democratic standard-bearers in those earlier contests, but she has vulnerabilities of her own. She is clearly a figure of the “coastal elites”: a wealthy Californian, she has no equivalent of the Scranton Joe persona available to Biden. Both she and her running mate, the Minnesota governor Tim Walz, have a history of progressive positions that anyone with a memory knows Republicans can twist into a caricature of leftwing radicalism. True, Walz’s vibe is cuddly midwestern dad – and there’s good evidence that, these days, a politician’s vibe matters more than their record – but there’s still a job to do. It’s almost a universal truth of contemporary politics that any party not of the right has to go much further than it would like to reassure voters in the centre. (Just ask Keir Starmer.) By that measure, the Democratic nominee may still have some distance to travel.Above all, and paradoxically, it’s Harris’s astonishing early success that contains risk. It has encouraged Democrats to believe that, in ditching Biden, the hard work has already been done, that the menace of a second Trump presidency has been averted. But this remains a perilously close contest in a sharply divided nation. As we have seen twice in recent years, Republicans enjoy a structural advantage in the electoral college that means that a Democrat can win the popular vote by a resounding margin – and still lose.So, yes, Harris has made a dream start. Trump is flailing. But it is far, far too early to celebrate. In the autumn, Americans will take their traditional second look at the two candidates. There will be TV debates and the hard yards of getting voters not to share memes on TikTok but off the couch and to the polling booth. This race is far from over – and if the last, turbulent decade has taught us anything, it’s that it is always too soon to count out Donald Trump.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More