(CHICAGO) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will have his big moment at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, where he will deliver the keynote speech and accept the party’s nomination for vice president.
Walz has been in the national spotlight for just two weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris announced him as her running mate pick earlier this month. With his prime-time speech at the DNC, Walz plans to introduce himself to America, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.
In his remarks, the Midwesterner plans to share his biography — from growing up in a small town in Nebraska to working as a high school social studies teacher and football coach before he was elected to Congress in 2006. The convention plans to showcase his impact as an educator in a video earlier in the night featuring five of his former students, according to the campaign.
Another former student of his, Ben Ingman, will nominate Walz along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, according to the campaign. Walz coached Ingman in basketball and track in the seventh grade, the campaign said.
Walz’s time as a football coach has become a major part of the image the Harris campaign is painting of him, handing out signs that read “COACH!” at rallies since he joined the ticket.
Walz will also talk about his military service, which has come under scrutiny following his selection at Harris’ running mate.
Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard at the age of 17 and retired 24 years later, prior to running for Congress. Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has alleged Walz is guilty of “stolen valor” for the way the Democrat has referred to his service. On the campaign trail, Walz has fiercely defended his service, saying at a rally last week that he is “damn proud” of his military record.
Earlier in Wednesday’s programming, the DNC will play a short video highlighting his service in the National Guard and his commitment to improving the lives of veterans, according to the campaign. The video will include remarks from Sgt. Al Bonnifield, who served with Walz in the Minnesota National Guard, and Cpl. Mike McLaughlin, an Iraq war veteran who worked with Walz when he was in Congress on the “Forever GI” bill, which expanded veterans’ education benefits, according to the campaign.
In his DNC speech, Walz also plans to address what he will bring to the White House and what Harris will do for working families, according to the campaign.
It is unclear if Walz will bring up reproductive rights. The father of two has often talked on the campaign trail about his and his wife Gwen’s fertility struggle. He has connected their experience to the bans on in vitro fertilization (IVF) put in place this past spring in Alabama and attacking Republicans over reproductive rights restrictions. He has frequently talked about their fertility journey generally, referring to IVF and treatments “like it.”
In new comments this week, Gwen Walz revealed for the first time publicly that the fertility treatment they used was intrauterine insemination, or IUI — not IVF, as had been broadly assumed.
The detail that Gwen Walz did not use IVF, but rather a different treatment, quickly led to another attack from Vance, who said that the governor “lied” and should know the difference, having been involved in the process.
In response, the Harris campaign called Vance’s attack “just another example of how cruel and out of touch Donald Trump and JD Vance are when it comes to women’s healthcare.”
Gwen Walz did address their fertility journey in a biographical video released by the Harris-Walz campaign earlier Wednesday.
“Of all the things he’s done, Tim loves being a dad,” she said. “We struggled to have kids and fertility treatments made it possible. There’s a reason our daughter is named Hope.”
Gwen Walz also highlighted the governor’s time in the military.
“His dad served during the Korean War and that meant a lot to Tim,” she said. “And so he enlisted right after his 17th birthday and served 24 years in the National Guard, rising to command sergeant major.”
The video also touched on his years as a public school teacher, coach and founding faculty adviser to a gay-straight alliance.
“His focus has always been helping working people like those he grew up with,” she said.
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Will McDuffie and Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
(CHICAGO) — When then-Sen. Barack Obama took the stage on Aug. 28, 2008, to accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not mention the historic nature of his run. While he gave a nod to his midwestern middle-class upbringing and his Kenyan roots, the man who became the first Black president of the United States urged voters to unite and declared that the campaign was not about him.
“I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you,” Obama said.
Fifteen years later, when Obama took the DNC stage on Tuesday night, he delivered a resounding endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president, Obama struck a similar tone. He did not explicitly discuss Harris’ racial identity as a Black and South Asian woman or her gender identity like Hillary Clinton did on Monday night when the former Democratic nominee passed the torch to Harris with a reference to breaking the “glass ceiling.”
“Kamala Harris won’t be focused on her problems – she’ll be focused on yours,” Obama said.
Harris, who embarked on a historic run of her own, would become the first female president and second president of color if elected in the 2024 general election.
She has spoken with pride about her Jamaican and Indian heritage, and when she ran for president in 2020, her campaign logo was modeled after that of Shirley Chisholm – the first Black woman to run for president – and when she addressed the DNC as vice presidential nominee, she paid tribute to the women of color in politics who came before her.
It is unclear if Harris will focus on her historic run when she delivers her own acceptance speech at the DNC on Thursday. But according to experts who study race, politics and the White House, Harris has so far not made her identity a central part of her 2024 campaign like Clinton did in 2016 and like Harris did in 2020 and has instead, taken a page out of the playbook that propelled the first Black president to the White House.
“[Like Obama], Harris is letting other people talk about her identity. So you’re putting out the surrogates,” Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University who studies Black women in politics, told ABC News. “She’s not shying away from her identity, but she’s not centering this entire race and campaign on her identity.”
But is this a winning strategy?
‘Not more of the same’
Since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris last month, there has been a surge in “enthusiasm” for the Democratic ticket that crossed “generational boundaries,” according to Leah Wright Rigueur, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, who studies race and the American presidency. This shift in energy was evidenced by the $310 million fundraising haul that her campaign raised in July alone, Rigueur said.
This surge in enthusiasm is reflected in an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released on Sunday, which found that 50% overall say they’d be enthusiastic or satisfied if Harris were elected, compared with 36% who said that about Biden in early 2023.
According to Rigueur, the shift in “energy” is not merely a reflection of voters being excited about the historic nature of Harris’ run, but also indicative of the dissatisfaction with another matchup between Biden and former President Donald Trump – “a race between two really old white guys.”
“I think there is a real kind of excitement about the possibility of what Kamala Harris’ presidency represents,” Rigueur told ABC News. “And I think it’s also fair to say that it’s not simply that she is a woman or that she is Black or that she is Indian that is driving this enthusiasm, but instead the sensibility that … she’s refreshing; that she is new; that she is young, and that she’s not more of the same.”
But on the other hand, Brown said that like Obama, Harris has to strike a “balance” because in working to build the “rainbow coalition” she needs – one that includes independents and Trump-leaning voters – Harris is also navigating racism and the reality that some Americans are “not comfortable” with having a woman of color as president.
While “not more of the same” appeals to some voters, Brown said that for others, “it could be alienating.” This, according to Brown, is part of what informs why Harris has been focused on policy in her wider pitch to battleground state voters and has not centered the conversation around her own identity.
In her stump speeches and campaign ads so far, Harris has touted her middle-class roots – much like Obama did in 2008 – in an effort to connect with voters and make the case that she knows what it’s like to work hard, Brown said.
“She grew up in a middle-class home. She was the daughter of a working mom and she worked at McDonald’s while she got her degree,” a Harris ad that touts her goals to lower health care costs and make housing more affordable says. “Being president is about who you fight for and she’s fighting for people like you.”
According to Rigueur, Harris’ strategy to focus on policy and the people, instead of the candidate, is guided by an understanding that there “is a burgeoning of a movement that sees Kamala Harris as its vehicle, not its endgame.”
“There is something novel about Kamala Harris, and it’s something that she has chosen not to emphasize in her campaign,” Rigueur said. “And I actually think that’s a smart decision [that] she’s chosen not to emphasize it, and she doesn’t need to emphasize it because it’s so apparent – it is the elephant in the room.”
‘The Obama effect’
According to Rigueur, Harris is also navigating a political landscape where “the Obama effect” is at play, where there is “an emotional difference” between new generations who grew up with a Black president, “as opposed to, say, my grandmother, who never thought that she would live to see a Black man become President of the United States.”
“I think this comes out too, in attitudes towards what people think about [when it comes to] change and progress,” Rigueur said.
Brown echoed this notion.
“People put their hopes and dreams, I think, unrealistically, on Obama, because there just wasn’t a large civic understanding about how politics works,” she said. “Just the symbolism of having the first Black president was enough for many people that they didn’t question or look into his policy preferences. And I think the difference today is, yeah, people, know.”
And this is what Brown, who is conducting research at the 2024 DNC this week, found through interviews with protesters about how they feel about a Harris presidency and whether her racial or gender identity is something that inspires them.
Brown said she was “surprised” by how many young people of color expressed that they “don’t care” about Harris’ identity and are instead concerned with her politics, particularly her stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
“There’s a large number of people I’ve been surveying – talking to, here – who really disdain these boxes, right? They don’t want to, you know, identify as voting for a woman because they are a woman, and they want to talk about policy,” Brown said.
According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Sunday, 38% of Americans say that having a woman serve as president would be a good thing for the country, far more than the 14% who see it as a bad thing. The rest, 47%, say it makes no difference.
The poll also found that support from Black people has swung by 12 points in Harris’ direction, from +60 for Biden in July to +72 for Harris now. But Brown said having a Black candidate is not enough – particularly in a post-Obama world.
“Black voters want more,” she said, adding that Harris’ strategy has shifted and she is “going down a different path” in 2024 than she did during her 2020 presidential campaign by making more efforts to speak authentically to Black voters.
“Being in communities with Black people like going to HBCUs, showing up at these Black civil rights organizing spaces, talking about black maternal health,” she added. “Some of these things are showing it’s not that I’m Black, but I actually am part of these communities.”
(MOSCOW) — Ukrainian forces have yet to set up defensive lines as they continue their operation into the Kursk region of Russia, a U.S. official told ABC News on Wednesday.
While this might reflect Ukrainian confidence in further success for the offensive, there is concern among some American officials that failure to dig in soon could leave its troops vulnerable to a coming Russian counterattack.
“Russia didn’t take it very serious at first,” the U.S. official said. On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. had seen only a “small number” of Russian forces heading to Kursk.
But the U.S. now sees a significant second wave of Russian troops preparing to reinforce the region, coming from positions in both Ukraine and Russia, according to the official, who said some units could arrive within days, with the majority of reinforcements expected within two weeks.
It could be a costly tradeoff for Ukraine to seek incremental gains in the region at the expense of shoring up its defenses, according to Mark Cancian, former Marine colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“They should draw the most defensible line inside this enclave and dig in … and then try to hold that,” Cancian said.
This advice is in line with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s stated goal of creating a “buffer zone” inside Russia.
“When you’re on the attack, you tend to take more casualties,” Cancian said. “And it would be fine if that opens up the front for some follow-on movement, but that’s doesn’t appear to be what’s going on. It looks like they’re just sort of plodding forward.”
Despite the danger posed by incoming Russian forces, and risks of being overextended, having foreword units cut off, or leaving other areas of the front undermanned, experts say Ukraine’s initiative in Kursk has already succeeded in forcing Russia to make hard decisions about how to allocate its finite resources; in boosting confidence in the Ukrainian military both domestically and with key allies; and in obtaining territory that could be used as bargaining leverage later on.
The Kremlin was by all accounts taken off guard by Ukraine’s incursion, but Kyiv might itself have been surprised by its quick gains.
“It was initially intended for psychological purposes, similar to the Doolittle Raid after Pearl Harbor, but it has evolved based on its success,” said Mick Mulroy, an ABC News contributor who served as a CIA paramilitary officer and deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Ukrainian forces have now been in the Kursk region for more than two weeks.
“Over the next couple days, we’ll see what the Ukrainians do and whether they keep this strategy of just nibbling away, whether they go on to the defensive, whether they try to make a big attack, which I think is unlikely, but not impossible,” Cancian said.
(CHICAGO) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is set to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night where she will throw her support behind Vice President Kamala Harris — after appearing to play a significant role in President Joe Biden’s exit from the top of the Democratic ticket.
She’ll back Tim Walz, making his acceptance speech on Day 3 of the Democrats’ gathering, knowing him from his time as a congressman before he became Minnesota’s governor.
Pelosi, who last month endorsed Harris to be the party’s nominee for president, did not publicly call on Biden to withdraw from the race. Instead, Pelosi, in a July 10 interview, declined to directly answer when asked if Biden had her support in his reelection bid after his ruinous debate performance.
At the time, Biden had already committed to running for reelection, writing in a statement congressional Democrats days earlier that he was “firmly committed” to staying in the race.
Her comments blunted any progress Biden was trying to make persuading congressional Democrats that he was up for the job. And Pelosi’s ambiguous public comments instead created space for rank-and-file Democrats to pressure the president to drop out.
She and other leading members of the Democratic Party raised concerns that his staying in the race could have a negative impact on Democratic candidates down-ballot.
Ultimately, those pressures helped lead Biden to leave the 2024 race just a few weeks later.
Despite turning over the reins of the Democratic caucus to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in 2023, Pelosi still has significant influence over members given her unmatched fundraising prowess that’s shaped Democratic politics and candidates for decades.
As the first woman to serve as speaker of the House, she has said her support for Harris is “official, personal and political.”
“Officially, I have seen Kamala Harris’s strength and courage as a champion for working families, notably fighting for a woman’s right to choose,” Pelosi said in her endorsement of Harris. “Personally, I have known Kamala Harris for decades as rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service. Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute – and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”
(CHICAGO) — When Kentucky state Rep. Rachel Roberts was first running for her seat, she was advised to not use a word common in political campaigns: “values.”
Roberts, now the only Democrat representing northern Kentucky in the state legislature, was running in a 2020 special election in competitive region of the state just outside of Cincinnati at a time when Republicans had a stranglehold on rhetoric on “freedom,” “patriotism” and the American flag.
“I’d get hammered,” Roberts said she was told. “The Republicans would say Democrats aren’t the party of values.”
Walking around the Democratic National Committee this week, things couldn’t be more different.
The word “freedom” is on seemingly on the lips of every attendee and speaker — and the name of Beyonce’s hit song and now-campaign anthem. Audience chants of “USA!” puncture speakers’ remarks as they wave signs saying the same. Camo hats bearing the names of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pockmark the crowd. And musician Jason Isbell performed the country hit song “Something More Than Free.”
The convention marks a culmination of decades of Democratic efforts to take back patriotism after years of Republicans owning messaging around “freedom” and the American flag.
For years, the party lamented the domination Republicans held on symbols of patriotism, a monopoly that started in during the Reagan presidency and that Democrats couldn’t break.
“You had a Republican Party that in the 80s and 90s, seized the freedom mantle using guns. The Second Amendment was America’s first freedom,” said Jim Kessler, the co-founder of Third Way, a center-left think tank. “Right to life was a version of freedom, too.” Where Democrats supported freedom was a license to behave poorly, like burning a flag.”
Now, after having been ceded to Republicans for decades “freedom” is the word bouncing off the walls of Chicago’s United Center. And Democrats are reveling in the reversal of their messaging fortunes.
“Reclaiming the flag and reclaiming freedom and democracy, I think that was a feeling broadly. But I think within the last several cycles, it became clearer how to do that in a way that had broad appeal and resonated with people,” said one Democratic strategist with ties to Harris’ team.
After decades being shut out from leaning into patriotism, Democrats said they were handed an opening by their sworn enemy — former President Donald Trump.
The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, spurred by Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results and led by his supporters, jolted the transfer of power from the former president to his successor. And the Supreme Court decision scrapping constitutional abortion protections allowed Democrats to go on offense on a culture war in which they’d long been in a defensive crouch.
All the sudden, Democrats said, democracy was teetering. Women’s bodily autonomy was at risk. And the battle for “freedom” was on.
“The Dobbs decision all of a sudden gave Democrats the opportunity for a reset button on that issue, on patriotism. And I think Donald Trump gave us the opportunity on Jan. 6 to start retaking those themes,” former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, D, said, referencing the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“The combination of Trump and January 6 and the Dobbs decision gave Democrats an opportunity to reset and say, ‘this is really what freedom means. That is not freedom, folks, that is oppression, that is autocracy. Freedom means liberty, and this is what we stand for.'”
Democrats didn’t storm the gates right away.
With President Joe Biden still as the party’s standard bearer, he and his campaign focused on a fight for democracy, while also pushing for codification of abortion protections — two issues that weren’t consistently and explicitly linked in campaign messaging.
But after the president ended his campaign and Harris rose as his replacement atop Democrats’ tickets, the messaging changed.
“Freedom” became her rallying cry — the climax of a push by Harris and the party at large.
“Democrats had been concerned about Republicans taking over these quintessentially American words for a while, ‘freedom,’ ‘liberty,'” said Jamal Simmons, Harris’ former communications director in the vice president’s office. “The Democrats were trying to figure it out. The vice president was very focused on how Democrats can recast this word.”
Now, “freedom” is being used as a catchall.
Beyond freedom to access reproductive health care and a democratic process, the message is being used by Harris to push for everything from freedom for students to go to school without being shot to freedom to “get ahead” economically and more.
“Are we fighting for freedom? That’s what I thought,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s women’s caucus. “Freedom is not drowning in medical debt. Freedom is earning the same salary as a man does for doing the same job…Freedom is about making our own decisions about our own bodies.”
To be certain, Democrats aren’t dominating the war over “freedom.”
Republicans still lean hard on patriotism, adorning their rallies and suit jacket lapels with American flags and turning Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” into a conservative hymn. And the party still is able to say it wants more funding for the military than its Democratic foes in Congress, who insist on matching boosts in Pentagon spending with rises in funds for other domestic priorities.
But for Democrats, just being in the fight for one of the most potent symbols in electoral politics is a breath of fresh air.
“I think the narrative has taken some of those words and said that they belong to Republicans, just like, apparently, red trucker hats only belong to Republicans,” Roberts, a delegate to the Democratic National Committee and now a Democratic leader in the Kentucky state House, told ABC News. “And we are demanding, no, these are universal words.”
(CHICAGO) — As the economy tops lists of voter concerns ahead of the 2024 election, some speakers at the Democratic National Convention have sought to emphasize how much the economy has improved under President Joe Biden.
When Biden took office in early 2021, the U.S. was in the midst of the “worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on Tuesday. Back then, the economy was “reeling,” said former President Barack Obama later in the night.
The claims contrast with Republican depictions of the downturn in 2020 and the ensuing recovery. Former President Donald Trump has faulted COVID-19 for derailing the nation’s economy, while saying the U.S. had recovered in some areas by the time Biden took office.
“Nobody’s ever seen an economy [like ours] pre-COVID, and then we handed over a stock market that was substantially higher than just prior to COVID,” Trump said at the Republican National Convention last month.
An accurate picture of recent economic performance defies the narratives put forward by both parties, economists told ABC News.
The economy had already emerged from the pandemic-induced recession and begun to recover by the time Biden took office, experts said. However, the U.S. remained well below pre-pandemic levels in some key measures of economic health, including employment. Biden faced the difficult task of revitalizing the economy and getting Americans back to work, they added.
“There are kudos to be given to all the different sides,” Frederick Floss, an economics professor at Buffalo State University, told ABC News. “It’s very complex.”
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the economy performed robustly by some important measures. In February 2020, the unemployment rate stood at 3.5%, matching its lowest level in more than 50 years. Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased at a solid annualized clip of 2.1% over the final three months of 2019.
The onset of the pandemic — as well as ensuing shutdowns across much of the U.S. — plunged the economy into a recession. On March 12, 2020, the S&P 500 plummeted nearly 10%, registering its worst single-day performance in more than three decades. The following month, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to almost 15%.
In March 2020, Trump signed into law a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package, including direct payments of $1,200 and expanded unemployment insurance, among other measures. Months later, in December, Trump enacted a second $900 billion round of government support.
Over the period, much of the economy reopened and business activity returned to something resembling normal.
In turn, economic growth soared over the second half of 2020. The unemployment rate fell to 6.7% by the end of the year, nearly double pre-pandemic levels but well below the peak reached right after the outbreak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 ended the year at record highs.
The COVID-induced recession lasted two months in the spring of 2020, the shortest U.S. recession ever recorded, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-profit organization that serves as the recognized authority on economic downturns.
Economists disagreed over the extent to which Trump deserves credit for the initial recovery, saying it resulted from a mix of federal support that he had enacted as well as the withdrawal of restrictions imposed by state and local governments.
“It was a very short-lived recession,” Matias Vernengo, a professor of economics at Bucknell University, told ABC News. “That obviously happened under the Trump administration.
Jesse Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, added: “It’s faster than we’ve ever seen in any previous crisis but no other recession has had that form where we locked everybody up. It’s much easier to get it back when demand is still there.”
Despite its improvement over the latter part of 2020, the economy remained far from healthy when Biden took office, especially on the all-important issue of employment, economists said.
The U.S. lost 21.9 million jobs in March and April of 2020, U.S. government data showed. At the outset of the following year, the economy still stood about 10 million jobs short. In addition, pandemic-induced bottlenecks continued to snarl supply chains, restricting economic output worldwide.
“A fair statement is that the economy at the end of 2020 had recovered substantially but there were still millions of job losses that the economy hadn’t recovered from,” Dennis Hoffman, an economist at Arizona State University, told ABC News.
Rothstein, of the University of California, Berkeley, said the economy remained in peril at the outset of the Biden administration in early 2021.”I think calling it an economic crisis is totally fair,” Rothstein said.
Still, Rothstein added: “We did some right things in 2020 and we did some right things after 2020.”
In March 2021, Biden signed a $1.9 billion economic stimulus package of his own, including another round of $1,400 direct payments as well as an expansion of the child tax credit. The following year, Biden enacted the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act and the $280 billion CHIPS and Sciences Act.
Over the course of the Biden administration, the labor market expanded at a rapid pace while economic growth quickened. By 2022, the economy had recovered all of the jobs lost during the pandemic. In January 2023, the unemployment rate fell even lower than where it stood pre-pandemic.
Economists who spoke with ABC News credited Biden-backed government stimulus for the reemergence of U.S. economic strength, but they differed over whether the spending had contributed to a severe bout of inflation experienced during that period.
“We were able to recover as an economy and job creation has been pretty remarkable,” said Hoffman, of Arizona State University. “That became a very successful program — it also brought inflation.”
Jason Furman, a professor at Harvard University and former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, estimated that Biden’s American Rescue Plan added between 1 percentage point and 4 percentage points to the inflation rate in 2021, Roll Call reported. Michael Strain, of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, estimated that the legislation added 3 percentage points to inflation.
Vernengo, of Bucknell University, disagreed, attributing the bout of inflation to an imbalance of supply and demand that arose in the aftermath of the pandemic. “Inflation has more or less vanished,” Vernengo said, saying the moderation of prices indicates that the problem owed primarily to a temporary economic shock.
Price increases have cooled significantly from a peak of more than 9%, but inflation remains nearly a percentage point higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2%.
Vernengo, of Bucknell University, said both major parties have offered up misleading accounts of the 2020 economic downturn and the recovery that took hold afterward. “The story is somewhere in the middle,” Vernengo said.
(CHICAGO) — Former director of communications for Trump’s transition team, Bryan Lanza, and former Senator Heidi Heitkamp spoke with ABC News about their opinions regarding Vice President Kamala Harris and her presidential campaign.
Lanza said that Harris has not had to answer for the various policy changes she’s made over the last 4 to 6 years, which he says leaves her answers ambiguous while making her solutions seem suitable for everyone. He also stated that Harris has significantly benefited from what he calls a “sugar high” of the media pumping her up and that the Democrats have just been so relieved that it’s no longer Joe Biden on the ticket.
Heitkamp disagreed with Lanza and rebutted by saying that when Harris talks about day care, paid family leave, affordable education and affordable housing — they are each her own ideas. The former North Dakota senator also accused the Republican Party of whining when they talk about the Harris campaign as being borne of canceling a taxpayer-funded primary.
Heitkamp and Lanza debated on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
ABC NEWS: Joining us now is former senator and ABC News contributor Heidi Heitkamp and former Trump communications adviser Bryan Lanza. Thank you both so much for joining us.
Let’s start with you, Heidi. We’re talking about the momentum, really, Kamala Harris has going into the convention. What do you feel that she’s on solid ground about? And what do you think she still has work to do on?
HEITKAMP: Well, she’s going to have a lot of work to do because you can’t just build on kind of this change in the hey, I wouldn’t say sugar high, but the kind of momentum that you had. I think you already see it plateauing somewhat.
And so she’s got to come out. She’s got to energize young people, which I think she can do because young people have been pretty discouraged. They look at a ticket between Joe Biden and President Trump and they go, ‘you know, they don’t look like me. They don’t know my problems.’ They see her and they really see someone I think that they’re interested in learning more about. And if she can energize young people, suburban women, I think she’s on the way to victory. But that’s, that’s not a given.
ABC NEWS: And Bryan, same question to you. What do you think is working and where do you think that she has work to do still when it comes to convincing maybe some of those Nikki Haley supporters or independents who might still be on the fence?
LANZA: Well, thank you for having me. And, you know, clearly where it’s working is not answering any questions. She doesn’t have to answer the various policy changes that she’s made over the last 4 to 6 years and not have an answer that sort of makes her ambiguous and makes her solution for everybody. But you saw on Friday when she rolled out, you know, some of her economic policies and she talked about, you know, price controls.
You know, that sort of drew some criticism from some very liberal newspapers and even drew some criticism from Nancy Pelosi, who said she’d like Kamala Harris to govern from the center.
So I think she’s benefited a lot from, I’ll call it, a sugar high of the media sort of pumping up Kamala Harris. And the Democrats just been so relieved that it’s not Joe Biden on the ticket anymore. But as with all sugar highs, they all crash. And we’re starting to see the crash now as she talks more and more about policy, which she can’t defend because she’s been a part of this administration that has been, has stood by during record inflation, record illegal immigration, two wars and possibly a third.
I mean, the world is on fire and it was under their watch.
ABC NEWS: Heidi, I just want to put his response right to you. Heard him there. He says sugar high comes first and then, and then you crash.
HEITKAMP: Yeah, I don’t believe that. I think that when you look at what she’s been able to accomplish so far, I think they thought the steam was going to go out of this momentum a lot earlier. And it hasn’t. And I think, you know, I’m going to just take issue with this idea that she’s been speaking to concerns of the American people.
When she’s talking about day care, when she’s talking about paid family leave, she’s talking about making education affordable, housing affordable. Those are all ideas that she has, you know, she has poll tested — they are true. And they have someone who isn’t talking about this at all.
ABC NEWS: And Bryan, Republicans have been very critical of this passing of the torch from Biden to Harris. How do you think that this will play out for voters who think that President Biden was forced out by members of his own party?
LANZA: Clearly he was, and from my perspective, I love the fact that the primaries don’t have to exist at the presidential level anymore. It’s a political operative I’ve found rather annoying, hard to predict, and a tremendous waste of resources.
So I think with the Democrats breaking the seal and canceling out 14 million votes, you’re canceling a taxpayer-funded primary. I think that sets a precedent for less primaries going forward, not more. And so I think they, you know, passing the torch sort of thing. They’ve been successful at it, you know, not having to address the 14 million people who voted millions of dollars of taxpayers that instituted the election and come out to 1,800 phone calls to get it, to get the nomination.
But I think that the, the sort of the end of their argument about threat to democracy. So it cost them a very valuable talking point that they had, but they ultimately got here and, you know, good for her. She unified her party. But by that, I mean, it wasn’t because 14 million people voted. They vacated 14 million people’s votes to get her here.
ABC NEWS: Heidi, I really do have questions for you. But it’s more interesting to get your reaction to Bryan because I see you reacting, shaking your head as he’s talking.
HEITKAMP: I hope Bryan encourages the entire Republican Party to only talk about this switcheroo as some kind of threat to democracy, as opposed to something that needed to happen in order to present the candidate that the public wanted to see. And so the more they complain about this, it’s just whining.
They now have a race between Kamala Harris, who their principal at once upon a time said would be easier to defeat than Joe Biden. So why not be happy about it? As Republicans, they know better. They know that Kamala Harris is is, has already surged in the polls. This race, which was in a very dire condition for the Democratic Party, now is dead even. And she has momentum behind her. And so keep complaining. Keep talking about it because it’s not going to win any votes.
ABC NEWS: Bryan, I’ll give you 15 seconds; Final word here.
LANZA: You know I’m not complaining. You asked the question, but, listen, from our standpoint, once this question, once the election gets back to the issues that matter, inflation, immigration, the wars, it’s clearly, it’s clear that President Trump has the advantage.
There’s a reason Joe Biden is not on the ballot today because he wasn’t able to sell success on those particular issues. And Kamala has less ability to sell that success. Sell that, especially with her sort of liberal San Francisco values and these dangerous liberal policies that she helped introduce on Friday.
ABC NEWS: Bryan Lanza, Heidi Heitkamp, thank you both so much. Good conversation. We appreciate the back and forth. All right. Give both perspectives and opinions on here. We appreciate it.
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to drop out of the presidential race by the end of this week, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News.
Sources tell ABC News that Kennedy plans to endorse Donald Trump — but when asked directly by ABC News if he will be endorsing the former president, Kennedy said, “I will not confirm or deny that.”
“We are not talking about any of that,” he said.
Sources cautioned the decision is not yet finalized and could still change, with one source adding that Kennedy’s hope is, in part, to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the Democratic National Convention.
One possible scenario being discussed is for Kennedy to appear on stage with Trump at an event in Phoenix on Friday, though the sources cautioned that Kennedy’s thinking could always change and sources close to Trump say no plan for Friday is finalized.
Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox, emailed senior staff on Wednesday morning thanking them for their hard work — but indicated a decision on the way forward had not been made, a source familiar with the email told ABC News.
“There are a couple potential paths forward, not only two, and I can bear witness to the care, examination that Bobby has invested in the consideration of each,” Fox wrote, according to the source.
A spokesperson for Kennedy posted on X that Kennedy will “address the nation” live on Friday to discuss his “path forward,” but offered no specifics.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy told ABC News regarding the Democratic convention and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, “I think it was a coronation, it’s not democracy. Nobody voted. Who chose Kamala? It wasn’t voters.”
He also complained about the way his campaign has been treated.
“She went in four weeks from being the worst liability for Democratic Party to the second coming of Christ without giving one interview, without showing up for a debate, without a single policy that anyone thinks isn’t ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not democracy.”
(CHICAGO) — After the excitement sparked by the Obamas Tuesday night, Democrats will try to keep to momentum going when vice presidential nominee Tim Walz headlines the third night of speakers.
He’ll be joined earlier by another former president — Bill Clinton — as well as Nancy Pelosi and Pete Buttigieg.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Video shows Harris reacting to roll call Tuesday night from backstage at rally
From backstage at her Milwaukee rally Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris watched California Gov. Gavin Newsom cast his state’s votes during Tuesday night’s ceremonial roll call.
“California, we proudly cast our 482 votes for the next president, Kamala Harris,” Newsom can be heard saying in the video, posted by the Harris campaign.
Harris appeared overcome with emotion watching the moment.
“Congratulations,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was standing next to Harris, told the vice president before exchanging a hug.
-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow
Booker, Moore, Shapiro and more expected to speak Wednesday night
Sen. Cory Booker, and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania are expected to take the stage Wednesday night before Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s Wednesday prime-time address, according to DNC Executive Director Alex Hornbrook.
Former Trump staffer Olivia Troye will also give remarks, Hornbrook told reporters.
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd
Harris’ campaign has raised around $500M since becoming Democratic candidate: Source
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has raised about $500 million since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, according to a source familiar.
New campaign disclosure filings once again show the Harris campaign and the DNC’s cash on hand advantage over the Trump campaign and the RNC following a major fundraising boost the Democrats saw after Vice President Kamala Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket last month.
The Harris campaign and the DNC together raised $248 million in July, out-raising The Trump campaign and the RNC, which raised $78 million, disclosures show.
The Harris campaign and the DNC entered August with $285 million in cash on hand, compared to the Trump campaign and the RNC having $250 million in cash on hand entering August.
Harris and the DNC’s latest money advantage comes after Trump and the RNC showed fundraising prowess the past few months and quickly eclipsed the cash on hand edge that Biden and the DNC previously had going into the general election.
The latest filings only show partial figures released by the campaigns and the national party committees’ figures – with full figures from the joint fundraising committees scheduled to be released in October.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Tim Walz takes the convention stage
Amid lingering buzz generated by passionate speeches from Michelle and Barack Obama – vice presidential nominee Tim Walz will be the keynote speaker tonight.
The man Kamala Harris calls “Coach” will likely stress what he calls the politics of “joy” while also taking swipes at Donald Trump.
The theme tonight is “A Fight for our Freedoms.”
Other notable speakers tonight include figures beloved by Democrats – former President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
(CHICAGO) —Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday unveiled her economic platform, her first major policy rollout since becoming the Democratic nominee.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday held a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he said he’s “entitled” to insult his Democratic opponent because he doesn’t respect her and attacked her record on the economy.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Bulletproof glass shields Trump at North Carolina rally
Former President Donald Trump spoke behind bulletproof glass at his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday as new security measures are being put in place after the assassination attempt against the former president.
Trump was surrounded by the glass barriers as he addressed supporters in Asheboro. The event marked his first outdoor rally since the shooting on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which Trump and two others were injured and one person was killed.
-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler
RFK Jr. planning to leave 2024 race: Sources
Robert Kennedy Jr. is planning to drop out of the race by the end of this week, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News.
Sources say that Kennedy is leaning toward endorsing former President Donald Trump, though the sources cautioned the decision is not yet finalized and could still change. One source added that the hope is, in part, to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the DNC.
Kennedy is set to address the nation on Friday, his campaign said earlier Wednesday.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Will McDuffie, Olivia Rubin, John Santucci and Katherine Faulders
RFK Jr. to address nation Friday about ‘path forward’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will “address the nation” live Friday to discuss his “path forward,” his press secretary posted on X Wednesday.
The campaign did not immediately offer any more specifics.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris headed to Milwaukee rally tonight
Democratic candidate for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to speak at a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday, according to her campaign.
Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential running mate, will be in attendance, the campaign confirmed. Also expected at the event are Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, members of the Milwaukee Bucks franchise, including Khris Middleton and President Peter Feigin, and labor leaders.
Harris and Waltz appeared at the DNC in Chicago on Monday night, where Harris surprised delegates by taking the stage early in the night for a brief speech.
Tuesday’s rally, which is being held at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, is aimed at energizing Wisconsin voters, the campaign said.
Iran denies involvement in attempts to hack Trump, Biden campaigns
Iran is denying reports it was involved in attempts to hack the presidential campaigns of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, the latter of which while he was still in the race.
In a statement, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, said that reports of attempted hacking, which came from Google and Microsoft, are “unsubstantiated.”
“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing. As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election,” the statement read. “Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly.”
-ABC News’ Pierre Thomas
7:32 AM EDT Bernie Sanders to speak at DNC on ‘lowering health care costs’
Lowering health care costs will be a central theme at the Democratic National Convention this week, campaign and convention officials said on Monday, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), confirmed as one notable program speaker set to focus upon the issue — specifically on “lowering Rx drug prices” and “taking on Big Pharma.”
Speakers throughout the week like Sanders, California Rep. Robert Garcia, Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will highlight the support of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for strengthening the Affordable Care Act, convention officials shared first with ABC News.
In a Friday speech setting out a string of economic proposals, Harris pledged to “lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.” She also said she’d “demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn and more to host DNC
Actors Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn, Mindy Kaling and commentator Ana Navarro will serve as hosts at the Democratic National Convention this week, convention officials confirmed to ABC News.
Each will host one night of the four-day convention, starting the programming with opening remarks and reappearing onstage throughout the night.
Goldwyn will host Monday night, Navarro on Tuesday and Kaling on Wednesday. Washington will host on Thursday, the night Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepts her nomination.
CNN first reported this news.
Harris and Walz debut new campaign buses and kick off tour ahead of DNC
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz debuted their new campaign buses Sunday and kicked off a bus tour of southwestern Pennsylvania ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention.
Upon their arrival on Air Force Two, a few hundred supporters greeted Harris, Walz and their spouses at a hangar where the new were buses parked.
Supporters told ABC News they were thrilled by Harris’ candidacy, with one saying she had not felt this excited about politics in years. Some said they had never volunteered for a campaign before signing up to work on Harris’.
“I was excited about Biden, but I am a million times more excited about Kamala,” Nicole Molinaro, a Pittsburgh-area mom, said. “I think that we need her leadership. We need her intelligence. We need her progressive, you know, stance. I think we need her experience. We need everything about Kamala.”
Another supporter, Edward Freel, said he was unsure about Harris at first, “but then, as I started listening better and following her, [I thought] this woman is going to be good for this country.”
Trump campaign releases counterprogramming schedule for DNC week
During the week of the DNC, Former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance will be out on the campaign trail, holding events in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
Trump allies — including Sens. Ron Johnson and Rick Scott, and Rep. Byron Donalds — will travel to Chicago to host press conferences every day of the convention. The Trump team will also give a press conference on Thursday ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris accepting the Democratic party’s nomination.
“As they meet Americans where they are in battleground states across the country, President Trump and Senator Vance will remind voters that under their leadership, we can end inflation, protect our communities from violent criminals, secure the border, and Make America Great Again,” Trump Campaign Senior Advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Michelle Obama to speak at DNC this week
Former first lady Michelle Obama will speak at the DNC in Chicago this week, ABC News has confirmed with her office.
Her appearance, first reported by Essence Magazine, will be among a lineup of prominent Democratic leaders who are rallying in support of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Former President Barack Obama is also scheduled to speak at the DNC.
According to a source familiar with the planning, Michelle Obama will speak on Tuesday — the same day as the former president.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will help Trump prepare for presidential debate
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will assist Trump in preparing for his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“[Trump] does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisors and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage,” Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement to ABC News, confirming a development first reported by The New York Times.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and a one-time Democratic presidential candidate during the 2020 election, gained brief momentum during her presidential run after challenging Harris on the debate stage on topics like criminal prosecutions.
Since leaving the Democratic Party, Gabbard has been gaining traction among Trump supporters, and more recently she has appeared on Fox and other conservative news outlets attacking Harris.
– ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Soo Rin Kim, Kelsey Walsh, and Lalee Ibssa
Election 2024 updates: ABC News Harris-Trump debate to be held in Philadelphia
The first debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump will be held by ABC News at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
The Sept. 10 debate will be moderated by ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis.
It will air live at 9:00 p.m. ET on the network and on its 24/7 streaming network ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
