Kamala Harris rallies new campaign to fight against Trump after Biden’s endorsement
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — Vice President Kamala Harris officially accepted President Joe Biden’s endorsement and held an event at her campaign office headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware on Monday.
“It is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win,” Harris said after taking a moment to thank her predecessor for his “bold and visionary leadership.”
Biden, who had just finished giving remarks of his own to campaign staffers after stepping down from the race Sunday afternoon, told the team that although he is no longer on the ticket, he’s not going anywhere.
“I want you to know, I won’t be on a ticket, but I’m still going to be fully, fully engaged. I’ve got six months left of my presidency. I’m determined to get as much done as I possibly can both foreign policy and domestic policy,” Biden said.
The president continued, promising to “always have their back.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I want you to know you’ve always had my back. I promise you. I will always have your back,” he said.
Harris picked up the baton where Biden dropped it off, heavily going after former President Donald Trump. Her new campaign has begun framing the race as a fight between a prosecutor — Harris served as California Attorney General — and a criminal.
“As many of you know, before I was elected as Vice President, before I was elected as a United States senator, I was the elected attorney general, as I’ve mentioned, to California. Before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris said. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters, who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”
“And in this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his,” she said.
Voters have told ABC News that this election feels like it’s more of a vote against Trump than for Biden. Harris told staffers it’s more than “us versus Trump.”
“This campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump,” she said. “Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of the country… one focused on the future, the other focused on the past. Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights.”
Staffers were told Sunday night that they would keep their jobs, and on Monday, it was announced that former campaign co-chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon would stay on to run the campaign.
Harris ended her remarks by fervently telling staffers that this team was perfectly poised to win in November: “When we fight, we win!”
(CHICAGO) — As the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago, four Illinois voters spoke with ABC News about what issues are most important to them leading up to the 2024 election.
Seated around a table at Green Door Tavern, one of the city’s oldest, they discussed how they view the state of the economy, immigration and health care. A recent ABC News poll found those three issues ranked high in importance for U.S. adults this cycle, with 89% of respondents listing the economy as their top issue.
For Edgar Diaz, a 43-year-old Chicago resident and moderate voter, a top concern was the cost of living.
“I believe that the middle-working class were the engine of the economy but when we have millions of folks that are unable to afford health care, housing, child care, I mean that holds back our economy,” he said. “So I want to make sure that those are addressed, and that our folks that are working to achieve that, that their voices are heard, that they’re that they’re supported, and also making sure that you know their their work is valued for this economy as well too.”
Diaz said he believed Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will protect workers, and it was a major reason why he plans to vote for them in this race.
Valerie Jencks, a Democrat who is also supporting the Harris-Walz ticket, agreed with Diaz that workers are the backbone of the country and should be taken care of.
“We have gotten to this place where we’re labeling and categorizing so many different things, and it’s these people against these people. And if I give something over here, then I’m taking away something over here. And that simply is not the case,” she said.
“We need to get back to recognizing that we are one country with a variety of people and a variety of needs,” Jencks continued. “Helping everybody with health care is not socialism. Providing everybody with housing is not socialism. What we’re talking about is providing for the basic needs of human beings who are members of one country, and preserving that and the issues that support those ideas are absolutely fundamentally what I believe in.”
David Spada, a conservative Republican who will back his party’s candidates this cycle, jumped in to question government resources spent on immigrants coming to the country while many Americans struggle financially.
“But how is it fair that people are coming to this country getting free health care, whereas people who work hard and have jobs and can’t afford health insurance have to basically struggle and have enormous doctor bills?” he said.
A lively exchange ensued between the voters on immigration, which Spada said he believed was a top issue for most Americans along with the economy and safety.
Grace Walters, 25, said she will likely support Harris and Walz in November because of their willingness to address constituent concerns and adapt their political stances.
While Walters expressed disagreement with their approach to international issues, specifically the Israel-Gaza war and military aid for Israel, she said they are more aligned on other key issues for her.
“But as far as things like same-sex marriage protection and abortion rights and a woman’s right to choose and all of those things, I think the only people that I see really talking about that and caring about that are Harris and Walz,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden, as he returned to the White House on Monday to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure an agreement.
Ahead of the Situation Room meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and the negotiating team, Biden was asked if by a reporter, “Do you think it’s time Prime Minister Netanyahu to do more on this issue, do you think he’s doing enough?”
“No,” Biden replied, emphatically.
The president was also asked if he was planning to present a “final” proposed hostage deal to Israel and Hamas this week after months of tense negotiations have failed to reach to reach an agreement.
“We’re very close to that,” he said.
According to senior administration officials, President Biden is considering presenting Israel and Hamas a final proposal for a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza but nothing is definitive.
If the deal falls apart, there is a chance it could lead to the end of the U.S.-led negotiations, according to one of the officials.
Another senior official said that they all have a “sense of urgency and believe this negotiation needs to come to a close.”
Biden is deliberating whether the parties should continue hashing out the deal and its technical details, or if the U.S. should present a new proposal that bridges the gaps.
“President Biden expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable,” the White House said in a statement after the meeting.
“During the meeting, President Biden and Vice President Harris received an update from the U.S. negotiation team on the status of the bridging proposal outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt,” the White House said. “They discussed next steps in the ongoing effort to secure the release of hostages, including continuing consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt.”
As Biden returned to Washington to speak with his team, protests were unfolding in Tel Aviv calling for Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire and hostage-release deal with Hamas after six Israeli hostages were found dead in Gaza.
Netanyahu on Sunday said efforts to free hostages are ongoing and blamed Hamas for refusing “to conduct real negotiations.”
“He who murders hostages does not want a deal,” Netanyahu said in a recorded statement as he faced pressure to address Israelis.
Hamas, meanwhile, said it was Israel who “evading reaching a ceasefire agreement.”
Ninety-seven Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including seven Americans, three of whom are confirmed to be dead.
On Monday, the funeral procession is being held for Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem. The 23-year-old was at a music festival in south Israel celebrating his birthday on Oct. 7 when he was taken hostage by Hamas.
President Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” after Israel Defense Forces recovered the six killed hostages, including Goldberg-Polin.
“I have gotten to know his parents, Jon and Rachel. They have been courageous, wise, and steadfast, even as they have endured the unimaginable,” Biden said. “They have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express.”
ABC News’ Victoria Beaulé contributed to this report.
(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.”