Vance to head to Hamptons for high-dollar fundraiser next weekend
(WASHINGTON) — Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is set to attend a high-dollar fundraiser in the Hamptons next weekend, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by ABC News.
The event is set to be hosted by a number of big-name Trump donors, including billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Omeed Malik, the president of the investment firm 1789 Capital.
Trump’s former secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, is also listed as a host for the fundraiser, which is billed as an “afternoon event with next Vice President of the United States.”
The fundraiser is set to be held in Southampton, New York, next Sunday, the invite said. Tickets to the roundtable event cost $25,000, with an “attendee” ticket going for $5,000. Inclusion in the host committee costs $50,000 per person, the invite said.
A person familiar with the event said it is expected to raise somewhere in the millions.
Notably, the event is also set to be cohosted by two former George W. Bush appointees. Cliff Sobel was the ambassador to the Netherlands under Bush, as well as ambassador to Brazil under the Bush and Obama administrations. Jeffrey served as Under Secretary, Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs after being nominated by Bush in 2007.
The event comes as both Trump and Vance have been on an aggressive fundraising blitz in recent weeks, with under three months to go until the election. Vance has been crisscrossing the country, raising money in California, Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Minnesota.
Trump’s fundraiser at the home of billionaire financier Howard Lutnick’s home in Bridgehampton, New York, earlier this month was similarly backed by wealthy allies including Malik, Paulson and Richard Kurtz. Lutnick said that event brought in $15 million for the campaign and the Republican Party.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee’s joint fundraising operation together raised a total of $138.7 million in the month of July — an uptick from their June fundraising total — and entered August with $327 million in cash on hand, the campaign said.
It trailed the $310 million the Harris campaign said it raised in July, as they entered August with $377 million cash on hand. That haul was buoyed by the $200 million the campaign said it raised within a week of President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.
It’s unclear how much the operation had raised before Harris took over the campaign. The money was raised by the Biden and Harris campaigns, the Democratic National Committee, and their joint fundraising committees.
(WASHINGTON) — An alleged private message from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni to the leader of First Liberty Institute, which describes itself as the nation’s largest religious liberty organization, has triggered a wave of criticism from top Democrats, including a new call for the justice to recuse himself from future cases involving that organization.
First Liberty frequently petitions the high court and is behind a number of landmark conservative victories, including those protecting the ability of public school teachers to pray on the job; helping families obtain state funding to attend religious schools; and, forcing private employers to be more accommodating of religious observance.
On a late July conference call with supporters, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica, First Liberty CEO Kelly Shackelford is heard reading aloud an email from Ginni Thomas cheering on the group’s efforts to oppose a White House push to legislate Supreme Court term limits and an enforceable ethics code, prompted in part by controversy last year over her husband’s previously undisclosed financial ties and luxury travel with a GOP billionaire.
“YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES,” Ginni Thomas apparently wrote to First Liberty head Kelly Shackelford, according to ProPublica. “CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
Critics said the message suggests Clarence and Ginni Thomas are beholden to First Liberty and benefit directly from its advocacy.
“The reported comments by Ginni Thomas are deeply problematic,” said Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a statement Monday. “She’s testified before Congress that she and Justice Thomas do not discuss each other’s work. That defense now rings hollow. Whether she’s inflating her knowledge of judges’ views on ethics reform or telling the truth, her apparent comments on behalf of judicial officers create a clear appearance of impropriety for Justice Thomas.”
Durbin, who has previously called on Thomas to sit out cases stemming from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because of his wife’s activism, newly demanded the senior conservative justice also recuse himself from future cases involving First Liberty.
The couple did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The justice has previously declined to address Democrats’ demands for recusal. First Liberty Institute does not currently have an active case under consideration by the Supreme Court.
Ginni Thomas and the couple’s Republican allies believe Justice Thomas has been the target of a left-wing smear campaign aimed at undermining the conservative-majority court’s credibility. They oppose changes to the Supreme Court’s structure and function and insist the institution must remain insulated from lawmaker meddling.
“People in the progressive, extreme left, upset by just a few cases,” want to change the Court to “really destroy the court, the Supreme Court,” Shackelford says in the recording.
Two members of the court this summer — Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — publicly came out in favor of adopting an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the ethics code. Chief Justice John Roberts opposes such a step on constitutional grounds but said publicly last year the matter should be studied. His position has not changed.
“The path forward is clear: Chief Justice Roberts can use his existing power to implement binding ethics reforms,” Durbin said. “Until he does, I will continue pushing to pass our [Supreme Court Ethics, Reform and Transparency] Act and deliver the ethics reforms that the American people—and our democracy—demand.”
The measure cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2023 but has not yet received a vote by the full Senate.
While Justice Thomas signed on to the court’s ethics code in late 2023 — which says a justice must avoid the mere appearance of a conflict of interest — it does not apply to spouses, who are not forbidden from engaging in political activity as private citizens. Ginni Thomas has spent decades publicly advocating for conservative causes and was a high-profile supporter of the “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election.
Some legal scholars have pointed out that Ginni Thomas was taking a position on court-related legislation long shared — and publicly expressed — by members of the court from both ends of the ideological spectrum.
Neither the recording nor Ginni Thomas’ email has been independently obtained by ABC News.
(CHICAGO) — Oprah Winfrey, making a surprise appearance, called on Americans to choose “joy” and “common sense over nonsense” during a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night.
“What we’re going to do is elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States,” she said after taking the stage to one of the loudest receptions of the night.
Oprah laid out the 2024 election as a series of choices voters have to make, and singled out independents and undecided voters — while noting that she herself is a registered independent.
“More than anything, you know, this is true, that decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024, and just plain common sense,” she said. “Common sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect.”
She urged voters to further choose “optimism over cynicism,” “common sense over nonsense” and “the sweet promise of tomorrow over the bitter return to yesterday.”
“We won’t go back. We won’t be set back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We’re not going back!” she said, as the crowd chanted, “We’re not going back!”
Toward the end of her fired-up remarks, Oprah told the crowd, “Let us choose truth, let us choose honor and let us choose joy!” — emphasizing the word joy, a common theme for Harris and the convention.
“Because that’s the best of America. But more than anything else, let us choose freedom. Why? Because that’s the best of America. We’re all Americans. And together, let’s all choose Kamala Harris,” she said, saying the name “Kamala Harris” in her signature bellow.
The first time Oprah put her legacy brand behind a political candidate was with Barack Obama in 2008.
“That was some epic fire,” she said of the Obamas speeches last night, taking inspiration from Michelle Obama’s call on the crowd to “do something!”
Oprah did not mention Donald Trump by name but appeared to reference the former president and his running mate JD Vance.
“America is an ongoing project,” she said. “It requires commitment. It requires being open to the hard work and the hard work of democracy, and every now and then, it requires standing up to life’s bullies.”
She then brought up Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments to cheers.
“Despite what some would have you think we are not so different from our neighbors,” she said. “When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about a homeowner’s race or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No, we just try to do the best we can to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too.”
Oprah gave tribute to Tessie Prevost Williams, who died earlier this year. Williams was one of four Black girls who helped integrate New Orleans public schools in 1960.
She then tied Williams to Harris, saying Williams “paved the way for another young girl who, nine years later, became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, California.”
Harris famously reflected on her experience as a child being bused to school each day. During a spar with President Joe Biden on the debate stage on busing, Harris told him: “That little girl was me.”
(WASHINGTON) — When President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, some Democrats feared the party would lose his “Scranton Joe” appeal to Rust Belt voters. But early signs indicate Vice President Kamala Harris, the likeliest candidate to replace him, remains competitive in the key region.
Biden had particularly strong appeal to older voters and white voters without a college degree during his campaign, helping keep hopes alive of drawing an inside straight to reelection through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — three “blue wall” states that are at the heart of any Democrats’ path to victory — where those voters hold immense sway. Replacing him atop the ticket, the conventional wisdom went, threatened that hold those three key states along with them.
Harris’ coalition appears to be that of a more traditional candidate. She has brought young and racially diverse voters back into the fold more than Biden, early polls show, possibly helping her offset any drop-off with other demographics — a decrease that has not emerged substantially in those surveys.
“It’s not going to be her base of voters, but she’s not going to get crushed, and that’s all that matters,” Jim Ananich, the former Democratic leader in the Michigan state Senate, said of older, white voters. “The new rising electorate, the Black and brown community, women, younger voters, she’ll make up for it. And I’m saying this is perceived. I don’t even know if it’s a real deficit.”
“I’m not as worried about it as others may or may not be,” he added. “I can’t tell you today we’re going to win, but I don’t feel like we’re going to lose. I think the election’s up in the air.”
Fox News polls released last week showed Harris and Trump statistically tied in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, improvements from Biden’s standing in the three states.
Fox News’ Michigan poll from April showed Biden with 50% support among voters over 65 years old and 31% support among white voters without a college degree. This month, those numbers were 45% and 34%, respectively. Biden took 34% support among men and 31% among white men, with Harris boosting those numbers to 36% and 36%, respectively. Each also got 26% support among self-identified independents.
In Pennsylvania, Biden had 46% support from senior voters and 33% support from white voters without a college degree. Harris matched him among voters 65 years old and up and saw support from white voters without a degree jump to 41% since April. Biden took 40% support among men and 36% support among white men, numbers that jumped to 45% and 42% for Harris, respectively. Biden took 28% support among self-identified independents, a figure that rose to 30% for Harris.
And in Wisconsin, Biden had 49% support from senior voters and 33% support from white voters without a college degree. Those numbers rose to 51% and 40% for Harris this month, respectively. Biden took 40% support among men and 39% support among white men, while Harris took 40% and 41% support, respectively. Independent support for the Democratic ticket rose from 30% for Biden to 35% for Harris.
In all three states, Harris also improved upon Biden’s standings with younger and non-white voters.
Taken together, the early data rebuffs the idea of a drop for Harris in a critical region that carried Trump to victory in 2016 and helped spur his loss four years later.
“I’m not going to tell you, ‘oh, everything’s going to be amazing,’ no. But I also don’t know that I accept the premise that there’s a real problem there,” said J.J. Balaban, a Pennsylvania Democratic strategist.
Wisconsin Democratic strategist Ben Nuckels said some are overhyping that there is a problem.
“Honestly, I don’t know what that speculation is. She has had a tremendous momentum, she’s raising tons of money. I think that there’s maybe some beltway politicos that are making some assumptions that perhaps they shouldn’t,” Nuckels said.
Harris so far is leaving nothing to chance.
One of her first rallies after Biden dropped out was in Milwaukee, and she is anticipated to blitz several swing states next week, likely including in the upper Midwest. Her potential running mate could hail from a key Rust Belt state. And more reinforcements are on the way.
“We already have 600 staff on the ground in the blue wall, and we’re adding another 150 to that region in the first two weeks of August,” Dan Kannien, the Harris campaign’s battleground states director, told reporters Monday.
“The vice president is strong in both the blue wall and in the Sun Belt and we are running hard in both,” he added, referencing the reach of states from Arizona and Nevada to Georgia and North Carolina, where Harris is anticipated to perform better than Biden given the more diverse electorate there.
Republicans still aren’t sold.
Beyond the poll numbers, GOP strategists told ABC News that Biden’s historic appeal in the upper Midwest would be tough to beat. A son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden offered blue collar bona fides, they said, that Harris, who cut her teeth in San Francisco liberal politics, could face headwinds trying to match.
“Joe Biden’s background was tailor made for the Rust Belt, given his generation and his issue cluster and where he was from, so it’d be hard to replace him with anyone who has more of a potential for Rust Belt voters,” said veteran Pennsylvania GOP strategist Chris Nicholas. “It’d be hard to find a Democrat with more natural appeal to the Rust Belt states.”
Republicans also speculated that Harris could be enjoying a sugar high as the result of her whirlwind ascent to the top of Democrats’ ticket. But Harris and Trump are engaged in a pitched race to define her, the outcome of which could prove determinative to the vice president’s standing.
“She certainly has enthusiasm here. But I think we need to get past the shiny-new-penny stage and get into hardball politics, what her record says, what the Trump attacks will be,” said Wisconsin GOP strategist Brandon Scholz. “I don’t think you’ve even seen that scratch the surface.”
And there are still issues that offer Trump fertile ground for attacks.
Chief among them is inflation, which Trump had been hammering away on before Biden dropped out and is anticipated to continue to focus on with Harris as his opponent. Former Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., said that line of attack could prove particularly effective with the kinds of blue-collar workers who dominate the Rust Belt amid stubbornly high frustrations over inflation.
“We do have a very blue-collar populace here,” Bishop said. “She’s going to have to cater to them and prove to them why their lives are better over the past four years and try to put together some kind of plan to show that she can continue that process going forward.”
“Most people do consider their pocketbook and their family and their family budget, I think absolutely that’s an important issue. I don’t know how you can get past that,” he added.
Still, Democrats are essentially jubilant over Harris’ chances. Biden’s chances of reelection were widely perceived to have taken a near-fatal hit after his cataclysmic debate last month, and having a candidate to just make the race competitive again has Democrats feeling the wind at their backs.
“On the ground, things feel great … the momentum has completely flipped,” Nuckels said.
“All the polling showed [Biden] was down, all of it,” he added. “It was going to be a very, very difficult race, and something major needed to happen in order for him to gain that momentum back. But it was not headed in the right direction.”