Morning Report — ‘America, we are not going back’: Harris supercharges Dems

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 08/23/24 6:39 AM ET

Unity. Freedom. The future.

When Vice President Harris officially accepted her party’s nomination to boisterous cheers at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, she asked voters to rally behind her message and write “the next great chapter” of American history — all the way to the voting booth in November.

That language echoes Harris’s extraordinary recent history; she became the Democratic nominee a month ago, after President Biden decided to not run for reelection and endorsed her. On Thursday, as the first woman of color to accept a major party’s nomination for the presidency, Harris balanced calls for unity with sharp criticism of her opponent, former President Trump.

Harris cast Trump as an “unserious man” whose win in November could have “extremely serious” consequences for the country and the world. She denounced Trump’s rhetoric and policies, accusing him of preparing to erode democratic values if he returns to the Oval Office.

A former prosecutor and California attorney general, Harris leaned on her record in the courtroom and in the Senate, emphasizing that “for my entire career, I’ve only had one client, the people.” Trump’s only client, she said, has been “himself.”

NBC News: Harris wove her life story as the daughter of immigrant parents into a vision for America as she accepted the Democratic nomination.

“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she said. “A president who leads and listens. Who is realistic, practical and has common sense. And always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.”

With 74 days remaining until Election Day, Harris and her campaign want to maintain her sprint and rapid rise in the polls, in which she’s surging among Democrats and independents.

That includes appealing to the broadest swath of voters, from anti-Trump Republicans to independents and the Democratic Party’s left wing.

In a key moment, Harris offered forceful support for Israel and its right to defend itself, and called for an end to the suffering in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the convention hall throughout the week. The crowd’s loudest cheer Thursday night came when the nominee said Palestinians have the right to “dignity, freedom, security and self-determination.”

Harris and Biden have sought to advance a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. And the vice president has been part of the administration’s efforts to support Ukraine against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

Harris’s policy platform remains a list of aspirations more than detailed legislative proposals. She pledged “middle class” relief for housing costs and promised, if elected president, to revive a blocked immigration deal that Republicans opposed earlier this year. She knocked conservatives and Trump for supporting abortion bans. “Simply put, they are out of their minds,” Harris said.

She returns to Washington today while Biden remains in California through Sunday. Harris’s next campaign phase will include a Sept. 10 debate with Trump, hosted by ABC News, and Democrats’ focus on early voting in some states beginning next month.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage breaks down five key moments from Harris’s speech and the five biggest winners of this week’s Democratic convention.

Politico: “The honeymoon’s inevitably going to end”: Harris dives into a critical stretch of the election.

Other speakers on the fourth night of the Democratic convention emphasized gun safety, climate change and reproductive rights. The lineup included Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

▪ The Hill: Kinzinger hammered Trump, accusing the former president of threatening American democracy and destroying the Republican Party.

▪ The Hill: During Thursday’s convention speeches, gun control advocates and survivors of mass shootings urged federal gun reforms.

▪ The Atlantic: The asterisk on Harris’s poll numbers.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ 🌡️A year of weird and record-breaking weather: Five things to know.

▪ 💉 The Food and Drug Administration approved both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccines Thursday.

▪ 💎 A 2,492-carat diamond, the second largest unearthed in history, was discovered in Botswana by a Canadian mining company.

LEADING THE DAY

MORE IN CAMPAIGNS & POLITICS

Former President Trump, during a NewsNation interview with Ali Bradley Thursday, was enthusiastic while being coy about whether independent presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will today endorse him while suspending his own struggling third-party campaign. “Trump will be joined by a special guest” in Arizona today, his campaign team advertised.

Kennedy withdrew from the Arizona ballot Thursday.

The former president, during a campaign border tour in Arizona Thursday, said an endorsement from Kennedy would be welcome, but he told NewsNation, which is owned by Nexstar Media, that he’s leading in his contest without such a move.

A spokesperson for Kennedy this week posted on X that the son of the assassinated former senator and former attorney general will “address the nation” live on Friday to discuss his “path forward,” but offered no specifics.

“I have a lot of respect for him, and I think he has a lot of respect for me,” Trump said. “If he endorses, that would be an honor for me. It would be my great honor if he wants to endorse me. I have good respect for him. Smart guy, little different, but very smart, and we will take his endorsement.”

The former president said he had not spoken with Kennedy about a possible future Trump administration position “yet. We’ll see.” For weeks, Kennedy’s campaign has floated his interest in a Cabinet post.

PHOENIX RISING? Trump plans a rally today in Glendale, Ariz., and may have Kennedy join him on stage. The opponent of vaccines, whose relatives endorsed Harris during convention programming Wednesday, may have several goals in mind, including trying to hijack some news coverage following the Democrats’ convention in Chicago and leverage for future ambitions inside government. Kennedy is a lawyer.

It’s unclear a Trump-Kennedy alliance would siphon many votes from Harris and Walz.

The Wall Street Journal: Polls show Kennedy’s exit as a presidential candidate could benefit Trump with a potentially significant boost amid a tight race.

Kennedy’s campaign decision is unlikely to change the presidential race dramatically, The New York Times reports.

The Washington Post’s political analyst Philip Bump writes that because of Kennedy’s single-digit support in polls, it’s hard to know how many votes he could deliver to the GOP nominee. Some voters might decide to stay home.

A poll over the weekend from The Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos found that Harris had a 3-point edge over Trump among registered voters when Kennedy was included in the survey — and a 4-point edge without Kennedy as a candidate. The Post survey included a small number of Kennedy supporters but they were more likely to view Harris favorably (29 percent) than Trump (15 percent). They were also more likely to view Trump as strongly unfavorable.

▪ The Hill: RFK Jr.’s possible alliance with Trump could roil the election.

▪ The Hill: An Arizona man was arrested Thursday in Arizona after allegedly threatening to kill Trump.

▪ The Hill: “We are in danger here,” Trump said while being whisked away during an exclusive NewsNation interview in Arizona.

Former GOP presidential adviser Karl Rove speculated on Fox News about Kennedy’s potential to benefit the Trump contest in battleground states Georgia and Arizona. “It could help,” he said.

2024 Roundup

▪ Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp began to patch up long simmering differences with Trump during a Thursday appearance on Fox News, where he said the focus needed to be on victory for his party. “We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House. We need to retake the Senate. We need to hold the House,” Kemp said.

▪ The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote Thursday partially reinstated an Arizona voting law that strengthens proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting at the request of the Republican National Committee.

▪ The group Muslim Women for Harris-Walz disbanded Wednesday after the campaign denied a request for a Palestinian speaker during the Chicago convention.

▪ Second gentleman Doug Emhoff used a slideshow on social media Thursday to wish his wife, the vice president, a happy 10th anniversary.

▪ Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), 72, told Punchbowl News he will seek reelection — but only once.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House and Senate are out until after Labor Day.

The president is in Santa Ynez, Calif., with first lady Jill Biden until Sunday. Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m.

The vice president will depart Chicago for Washington, D.C.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will speak today during the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Moran, Wyo.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | Vice President Harris has unveiled a general policy platform during her presidential campaign, which includes proposed tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

HARRIS-WALZ POLICIES

What do the Democratic nominees envision? The vice president’s acceptance speech Thursday did little to flesh out specifics about policies, but Time pulled together background on Harris’s “middle-class” views, as did The New York Times. Other news outlets drill down into her positions and priorities. And The Washington Post fact-checked statements from Harris’s acceptance speech.

Filibuster bluster? If Democrats retain their majority after November, the Senate will have the votes necessary to “change the rules” and make voting rights legislation a top priority, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday, a reference to carving out an exception to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. “One of the first things I want to do, should we have the presidency and keep the majority, is change the rules and enact both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Act,” Schumer said during a panel discussion in Chicago. The idea depends on many longshots and conservatives would object all the way to the Supreme Court. Schumer may be optimistic, but Senate Democrats this cycle face tough competition in Ohio, Montana and Nevada. A West Virginia seat held by retiring Democrat Joe Manchin will flip to Republicans.

▪ Housing: Harris is calling for the construction of 3 million new housing units in her first four years in office. She’s also proposing a $40 billion fund to help local governments find solutions to the lack of housing supply, and a new first-time homebuyer credit of $25,000.

▪ Inflation & “price gouging”: Harris wants to enact the first federal law against price gouging by food suppliers and grocery stores to bring down the cost of living. But many economists say they are skeptical the policy would lead to lower food costs for consumers.

▪ Taxes: Harris this week quietly rolled out her most detailed, far-ranging proposal yet: nearly $5 trillion in tax increases over a decade. No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their federal taxes rise under the plan.

▪ Federal debt: Harris has said little about the $35 trillion federal debt, but the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that her full suite of ideas would increase deficits by $1.7 trillion over the coming decade.

▪ Medical debt: Harris wants to forgive medical debt for millions of Americans.

▪ Abortion: Harris has said she would fight to protect abortion rights, which would mean working with Congress to codify federal protections such as those that existed under Roe v. Wade.

▪ Crime: The Democratic nominee’s central pitch to voters has been her record as a prosecutor who has put away “predators, fraudsters and cheaters.”

▪ Fracking & energy: Harris will not seek to ban fracking if she becomes president, campaign officials have confirmed, a reversal from her 2019 presidential campaign.

▪ Immigration: Harris promises to fight for “strong border security,” going after Trump for killing immigration legislation, which would have curtailed asylum and promising to sign such a bill into law if elected.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Cristian Hernandez | Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been accused of seeking to pull off a power grab after the government-controlled supreme court endorsed his disputed election win.

INTERNATIONAL

THE APPARENT COLLAPSE of a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal is spurring fears that a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East is just around the corner. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to the region this week to push a deal over the finish line, but he left without any major agreement in place and with Israel and Hamas still at odds on major issues. Disagreements over Israel’s future military presence in Gaza and over Palestinian prisoner releases are obstructing the deal, Reuters reports.

The negotiations were likely the biggest factor holding Iran back from retaliating against Israel for the death of a Hamas leader in Tehran. Now, Iran may decide to strike, while the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group could also launch an attack from Lebanon (The Hill).

The Hill: China said it was “gravely concerned” after The New York Times reported that Biden had secretly shifted the U.S. nuclear strategy to focus on countering Beijing.

VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT Nicolás Maduro has been accused of seeking to pull off a power grab after the government-controlled Supreme Court endorsed his disputed claim to have won the presidential election. The court’s decision sealed institutional backing for the ruling party as the disputed contest fades from headlines. Since the vote and deadly anti-government protests that followed, Maduro’s administration has conducted what the opposition and human rights groups have characterized as a crackdown on dissent (The Guardian and Reuters).

ABC News: The Latin American effort to mediate Venezuela’s standoff loses steam as Maduro consolidates his rule.

OPINION

■ Harris plants her flag in Chicago: The future is now, by Eugene Robinson, columnist, The Washington Post.

■ Defining “freedom” down at the DNC, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to Morning Report Quiz winners! This week’s puzzle probed personal and family detailsabout the presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Here are the talented trivia masters who went 4/4 (plus *bonus point recipients): *John van Santen, *Amy Rider, Kathleen Kovalik, *Rick Schmidtke, *Linda L. Field, Joe Atchue, *Jaina Mehta Buck, *Stan Wasser, *Mary Anne McEnery, Richard E. Baznik, Lynn Gardner, Gale Whitehurst, Ned Sauthoff, Jack Barshay, *Terry Pflaumer, Elizabeth Prystas, *Carmine Petracca, *Steve James, Jose A. Ramos, *Carol B. Webster, *Savannah Petracca and Ned Sauthoff.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff on Tuesday hailed his wife’s culinary talents, especially when she makes brisket.

Trump told a news outlet this week that his youngest son, Barron, will soon attend college in New York.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance met his wife at Yale Law School. *Bonus point: The couple’s nickname among fellow students was “Judusha,” a combination of “JD,” “Usha” and “judicial,” according to The New York Times.

On Tuesday, Harris greeted her running mate on stage in Milwaukee as “Coach Walz,” referring to the Minnesota governor’s years of experience as a high school football coach.

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