Obama to endorse Harris nomination soon – report
The former US president Barack Obama is expected to add his endorsement soon for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee for president in the 2024 election, according to the latest report.
Obama was America’s first Black president when he was elected to office in 2008 in a historic victory for the Democrats, and his endorsement is crucial for the US vice-president who is now attempting to become America’s first female president and first woman of color to occupy the White House.
Obama privately has fully supported Harris’s candidacy and has been in regular contact with her, a report by NBC said, citing people familiar with the discussions.
Aides to Obama and Harris also have discussed arranging for the two of them to appear together on the campaign trail, though no date has been set,” the report said and Reuters has reported.
With no one stepping up to challenge Harris for the nomination, she won the backing of party delegates on Monday, a day after Joe Biden announced that he was dropping his re-election bid, following which he gave a speech to the nation on Monday night from the Oval Office.
The Obama Foundation, the former president’s charitable organization, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, the news wire further reported.
Key events
Helen Sullivan
The Harris for President campaign has launched its first official video, less than a week after US President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race.
The ad caps a week during which Harris also broke funding records and quickly clinched enough delegate support to become the presumptive nominee in an election that is now just over 100 days away.
Harris memes are everywhere – but will tweets and TikToks turn into votes?
Dani Anguiano
“kamala IS brat,” pop star Charli xcx declared on Sunday, a reference to her new album released last month that has launched countless memes declaring it the season of the brat. A brat, in the British singer’s own words, is “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.
Brat was having a moment, Kamala was having hers, and the two came together in cultural union via a tidal wave of posts – largely from younger Americans – like videos with the pop star’s music over clips of the vice-president’s frequently shared coconut tree remarks.
Harris’s campaign quickly embraced the memes, adopting a lime green Twitter/X background in the same aesthetic of the Brat album. The internet went wild.
Now the question is what it might mean for Harris’s chances come November. Will tweets and TikToks turn into votes?
Republican attacks on Harris to get ‘as ugly and bigoted as they can’
David Smith
For Barack Obama there was “birtherism” and a name they said sounded like a specific Middle East terrorist. For Hillary Clinton there was “Lock her up” and merchandise that said, “Trump that bitch”, “Hillary sucks but not like Monica” and “Life’s a bitch: don’t vote for one.”
Rightwing playbooks deployed in past election campaigns are being dusted off for an all-out assault against Vice-President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee aiming to become the first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to be US president.
“It’s obvious that the Republicans are going to play the race and gender card, which we’ve seen already in some of the attacks on social media,” said Tara Setmayer, a Black woman who is co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee. “It may be catnip for their Maga base but it will be a turnoff for the moderate voters in the battleground states that will determine this election.”
Harris’s sudden ascent after 81-year-old Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election has upended the race for the White House, giving Democrats a much-needed jolt of energy and instantly turned the tables on Republicans on the question of age: Donald Trump, 78, is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.
Having built a campaign against Biden, Republicans are hastily recalibrating and racing to define Harris, 59, before she can define herself. They intend to tie her to Biden’s immigration policy, which they say is to blame for a sharp increase last year in the number of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally.
A second line of attack will revolve around the economy. Public opinion polls consistently show Americans are unhappy with high food and fuel costs as well as interest rates that have made buying a home less affordable.
Read on here:
Away from DC, Kamala Harris delivered on Wednesday what has become the core of her stump speech to more than 6,000 members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated.
Harris’s 15-minute address at the Black sorority’s biannual meeting in Indianapolis outlined what she described as some of the key accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration: eliminating some student loan debt – a mention met with resounding cheers – capping the cost of insulin, expanding lower-cost and no-cost healthcare to new mothers in 46 states, cutting child poverty in half and removing medical debt from the calculus behind credit scores.
She spoke of unfinished work that she would take on as president, including making childcare and eldercare more affordable, securing universal paid maternity leave and signing into law a bill that would restore and protect the right to abortion, which was eliminated by the conservative-dominated supreme court in 2022.
Harris also described her likely opponent’s plank as a set of grim, retrogressive ideas, which are detailed in the nearly 1,000-page policy treatise known as Project 2025. Donald Trump has denied any connection to the document, but several of its chief architects served in his first administration. What’s more, elements of the policy were included in the 2024 Republican party platform, as well as in speeches from this month’s Republican national convention.
“I believe that we face the choice between two different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, the other focused on the past,” Harris said on Wednesday. “And with your support, I am fighting for our nation’s future.”
Read Janell Ross’s full report here:
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was filled with combative remarks, as well as claims about the war in Gaza, now almost in its tenth month.
My colleague Ruth Michaelson has factchecked some of those claims here:
Andrew Roth
On his third day in Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu finally got the attention he so desperately wanted in the US capital.
Republicans and their guests in the House chamber stamped their feet and whistled as a joint session was gaveled into order, while the Democrat lawmakers who chose not to boycott someone whom colleagues had called a “war criminal” looked on in sullen silence. In a 56-minute speech punctuated with 50 rounds of applause, the Israeli prime minister dashed hopes of a quick end to the war in Gaza and dispensed red meat to the Republican faithful, blasting anti-war protest culture and vowing to fight until “total victory”.
For two days, Netanyahu had mostly been ignored at the Watergate hotel, passed over for the spectacle of a US political cycle averaging a West Wing season finale a week. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race amid rumours of his cognitive decline, endorsing the vice-president, Kamala Harris, weeks before the convention and reinvigorating the Democratic party overnight. A bullet had grazed Donald Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt just 11 days ago, sparking comparisons to the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus Christ. America has been living decades in just weeks; was there even room on the cable TV schedule for Netanyahu to deliver another incendiary speech?
But the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, had put Netanyahu on the schedule on 24 July and neither the US political tumult nor Biden’s bout of Covid-19, nor a requested international criminal court warrant accusing him of “crimes against humanity” would deter Israel’s prime minister from coming to Washington to make his case before Congress for a record fourth time (once more than Winston Churchill).
So when he had his moment, Netanyahu stood up to give a speech filled with verve but absolutely devoid of details: when and how Israel’s war in Gaza would come to an end and the 120 remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October would be brought home.
Read on here:
Biden and Netanyahu to hold talks
Joe Biden will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu later today as the Israeli prime minister seeks to shore up US support for the ongoing war in Gaza.
Biden will also meet with families of Israelis taken hostage in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu gave a speech – arranged weeks ago and instigated by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson – to US Congress.
This was met with protests inside and out of the building, with Democrats declining to attend and thousands protesting in the streets.
With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.
Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.
“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection, adding “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!” Capitol police deployed pepper spray at protesters they claimed had crossed the police line.
In a roughly 10-minute speech, Biden pointed to the threat that he says Donald Trump poses to democracy in the US.
“When Ben Franklin was asked,” Biden said, “as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or a Republic, Franklin’s response was: a republic, if you can keep it.”
“Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands,” Biden said.
Here are my colleague Coral Murphy Marcos’s key takeaways from that speech:
Analysis: Biden’s address was a moving piece of political theatre and a rebuke of Trump
David Smith
There was 6 January 2021, and a violent coup attempt by a president desperately trying to cling to power. Then there was 24 July 2024, and a president explaining why he was giving up the most powerful job in the world.
Joe Biden’s address on Wednesday night was a moving piece of political theatre, the start of a farewell tour by “a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings” who entered politics in 1972 and made it all the way to the Oval Office. For diehard Democrats it was a case of: if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
The speech was also a rebuke of his predecessor Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses in both word and deed. Although he never mentioned his predecessor by name, Biden laid out two radically different visions of the US presidency set to clash again in November.
Last Sunday the 46th president bowed to a chorus of fellow Democrats questioning his age and mental acuity and announced that he would drop out of the presidential election. On Wednesday, recovered from the coronavirus, the 81-year-old made his first public remarks to explain why.
Speaking against the backdrop of window, two flags, gold curtains and family photos including his late son Beau, Biden began by citing the Oval Office portraits of former presidents Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
“I revere this office but I love my country more,” he said. “It’s been the honour of my life to serve as your president. But in the defence of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title.”
It was a definitive rebuke of Trump, a man who has slapped his name on countless buildings and for whom the title is everything. Backed by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, the Republican nominee is intent on an expansion of presidential power. But by giving power away – in what Hillary Clinton described “as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime” – Biden demonstrated he will always be the bigger man.
Senior Democrats praise Biden after address to nation
Welcome back to our live US political coverage.
Senior Democrats have rallied round Joe Biden after the president, in an address to the nation, set out in detail his reasons for stepping down as a candidate in November’s election.
Biden delivered a reflective and hopeful message about the need to begin a new chapter in America’s story.
I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing – nothing – can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices – yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.
You can read our full report on that address here:
After his speech, senior Democrats including Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom took to social media to show their support and gratitude.
Harris posted:
President @JoeBiden has profound compassion for the people of our country.
We are all deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation.
Thank you, Mr. President. https://t.co/JSfI2npB0E
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 25, 2024
Other messages included:
Tonight, we saw President Joe Biden – one of America’s most consequential presidents – show that he is not only on the right side of history, but on the right side of the future.
America has been blessed by the wisdom and magnificent leadership of President Joe Biden as he has…
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 25, 2024
“This sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me, it’s about you. Your families. Your futures.”
Tonight’s address reminded me once again why I am so proud to serve under the leadership of a deeply good man who is also a great American president.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) July 25, 2024
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