July 27, 2024, presidential campaign news

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Former President Donald Trump, left, arrives in St. Cloud Minnesota for a campaign rally and Vice President Kamala Harris, right, arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after attending a campaign event in Massachusetts, both on July 27.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris hit the campaign trail Saturday, continuing to attack each other and drawing a contrast between their visions for the country.

Appearing at a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Harris pushed back against the former president’s attacks, saying that he was “resorting to some wild lies about my record” and that some of what he and his running mate JD Vance were saying was “just plain weird.”

The presumptive Democratic nominee also made her freedom-focused pitch to voters – highlighting reproductive health and gun violence – and argued that her campaign was the “underdog” in the race.

Meanwhile, Trump’s first appearance Saturday was at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville, where he appeared to refer to the Biden administration’s Department of Justice – which has seized significant bitcoin assets – as a “fascist regime.” He also made the case that a Harris administration would be “vicious” to bitcoin investors.

At a Minnesota rally Saturday night, both Trump and Vance sharpened their attacks against Harris, focusing on her previous role as San Francisco district attorney to slam her record on the border, economy and crime. 

Later in the rally, Trump repeatedly slammed Harris’ political record, saying she “destroyed San Francisco” as district attorney. “A crazy liberal like Kamala Harris gets in, the American dream is dead,” he said.

Trump also painted Harris as worse than President Joe Biden, saying, “She’s terrible. She’s worse … than he is.”

He added later: “He’s losing. Then, they took him out of the fight, and they put in a new fighter. We have a new victim now, Kamala, we have a new victim. We have a brand-new victim. And honestly, she’s a radical left-wing person.” 

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on July 27.

Former President Donald Trump painted his new chief rival, Kamala Harris, as worse than President Joe Biden at a Saturday night rally, calling her “the most incompetent, unpopular and far-left vice president in American history.”

Moments into his remarks in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Trump again blamed a deadly rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights earlier in the day on the “incompetent Biden-Harris administration.”

He then quickly pivoted to Harris, calling her the “border czar,” as Republicans have been hammering the presumptive Democratic nominee over how she has handled her task of stemming the root causes of migration. “She’s terrible. She’s worse … she’s worse than he is,” Trump said of Harris and Biden.

Trump compared Biden to a fighter who was “badly beaten” and taken out of the fight.

Trump continued upon earlier remarks by his running mate, JD Vance, as he slammed Harris’ political record, saying that she “destroyed San Francisco” as county district attorney. 

“A crazy liberal like Kamala Harris gets in, the American dream is dead,” Trump said.

Trump went after Harris on topics that included abortion, gun policy, climate change, entitlement programs and inflation. In a less substantive dig, he also mocked Harris’ laugh, claiming that the media was trying to portray her as a “Margaret Thatcher,” referring to the late British prime minister, but that “it’s not gonna happen,” because “Margaret Thatcher didn’t laugh like that.”

Though Trump still did partake in his usual mocking of Biden, including by imitating the president playing golf, he acknowledged that the hits weren’t as effective now that Biden had dropped out of the race.

Trump also drew a contrast between himself and Harris by recalling the racial justice protests in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis, while Kamala Harris sided with the arsonists and rioters and raised money to bail out the criminals,” he said, referring to a 2020 tweet from Harris encouraging donations to bail out protesters. The fund, in addition to other charitable bail groups, later came under fire after some defendants who were bailed out were arrested for alleged acts of violence. 

The Harris campaign released a statement shortly after Trump’s speech concluded, blasting the Republican nominee as “a bitter, unhinged, 78-year-old convicted felon.”

Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Trump “kept clinging to his lies about the 2020 election he lost being ‘rigged,’ rambled about his former opponent and golfing, and made excuses for why he’s afraid to debate Vice President Harris.”

Republican Presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St Cloud, Minnesota on July 27. 

Former President Donald Trump targeted his new chief political rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, on Saturday, claiming that the presumptive Democratic nominee wanted to “flood our country with refugees from the Hamas-controlled terrorist epicenter … Gaza, the Gaza Strip.”

“She wants to deposit thousands of jihadist sympathizers in Minnesota. You know that. You already have enough. I mean, how the hell do you have these congresspeople elected … Ilhan Omar,” he said at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Omar was one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress in 2018. Born in Somalia, she and her family fled civil war and sought asylum in the United States in 1995. Omar became an American citizen in 2000 at the age of 17.

Trump said that Omar has become a “major voice in Congress” and that “she’s a sick woman, and she’s destroying your state.”

“She’s hurting our country. And we shouldn’t be electing people like that,” Trump said, before making baseless claims that the congresswoman wants to make the Midwest similar to the Middle East.  

Trump and his allies have previously faced criticism for waging racist attacks against Omar, including for falsely implying in 2020 that the US congresswoman was not American.

Trump also on Saturday reiterated his vow to restore a travel ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries and practices that tamp down on refugee resettlement.

“We’re not gonna have terrorists in our country. It’s no wonder the Democrat Party and their thugs are so desperate to stop us. They know that we are the only ones who can stop them,” he said.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Saturday sharpened his attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, focusing on her “San Francisco liberal” record on the border, economy and crime. 

During a fiery speech at President Donald Trump’s rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Vance used Harris’ 2020 primary run against her, arguing that Democrats rejected her then and would reject her again in November.  

Vance also claimed the media “told us that Joe Biden was Abraham Lincoln. And now the media tells us that Kamala Harris is Martin Luther King Jr.”

“We all know, she’s not MLK, just as Joe Biden was not Abraham Lincoln. We know that she is a card-carrying member of the San Francisco lunatic fringe,” Vance said of Harris, who previously served as the California city’s district attorney.

Repeatedly referring to the vice president as “the border czar,” Vance said if Harris wins, she will not only “give jobs to illegal aliens,” but will provide them “free health care, free tuition, all paid for at your expense.”

Harris’ immigration work in the Biden administration has become a central line of attack from Republicans. The vice president’s work, however, focused on long-term diplomatic efforts, while the Department of Homeland Security remained responsible for overseeing border security.

Vance also defended his and Trump’s loyalty to the country, seemingly in response to Harris saying he “will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country” following his selection as running mate.

Former President Donald Trump hosted a Saturday fundraiser that was attended by a Republican bitcoin advocate who has endorsed conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Trump posed for a photo alongside Bruce Fenton, a former New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate and vocal cryptocurrency investor, at the fundraiser, which took place ahead of Trump’s remarks at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville.

“I told him I believe God is on his side,” Fenton said in a post on X sharing his photo with Trump.

Fenton, who served as New Hampshire co-chair for Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign, previously questioned the 9/11 Commission’s explanation for what happened on September 11.

In one social media post, Fenton falsely suggested a building on the World Trade Center complex collapsed “for no reason.” He labeled the official government account of September 11 “laughable” and called the relative lack of video of the plane hitting the Pentagon “extremely suspicious” in other posts.

Fenton also drew headlines for calling Israel “an apartheid state” last year while working for Ramaswamy’s GOP primary campaign. Ramaswamy publicly distanced himself from Fenton’s comments at the time.

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on July 24.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ platform will likely be in the same vein as that of President Joe Biden, whom she has supported for the past four years.

But Harris is expected to put her own stamp and style on matters ranging from abortion to the economy to immigration.

Here’s where Harris stands on key issues.

Abortion: Harris took on the lead role of championing abortion rights for the administration after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. Policy experts suggested that although Harris’ policies on abortion and reproductive rights may not differ significantly from Biden’s, as a result of her national “reproductive freedoms tour” and her own focus on maternal health, she may be a stronger messenger.

Climate: Biden has been the most pro-climate president in history, and climate advocates find Harris to be an exciting candidate in her own right. Harris has been a champion on climate and environmental justice for decades. If elected, one of the biggest climate goals Harris would have to craft early in her administration is how much the US would reduce its climate pollution by 2035 — a requirement of the Paris climate agreement.

Read more on Harris’ views here.

Donald Trump appeared to refer the Biden administration’s Justice Department as a “fascist regime” as the former president laid out his plan to create a national bitcoin stockpile by redirecting bitcoin seized by the US government.

The Department of Justice has seized significant bitcoin assets during both the Biden and Trump administrations. In 2020, while Trump was president, the US seized $2 million worth of cryptocurrency from terrorist groups in the Middle East. Later that year, the DOJ seized more than $1 billion in bitcoin linked to Silk Road, the underground criminal market place founded by Ross Ulbricht, who is now serving a life sentence.

Trump has repeatedly promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence, and he reiterated that promise during his remarks in Nashville.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a bitcoin convention in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 27.

Former President Donald Trump made a series of cryptocurrency-friendly policy commitments during remarks at a bitcoin convention Saturday, including promising to fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and creating a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile.”

Trump said if reelected he would redirect bitcoin seized by the US Department of Justice into what he called “a permanent national asset to benefit all Americans,” one of a number of promises he made to cryptocurrency investors at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville.

Trump repeated the promise to fire the SEC chair “on Day 1,” earning a standing ovation, to which the former president quipped: “I didn’t know he was that unpopular.”

Trump also promised to “immediately” establish a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council,” which he said would provide “transparent regulatory guidance” for the cryptocurrency sector.  

The Republican nominee also warned that bitcoin investors in the audience will be “crushed” if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected.

Some background: For a time, Trump would have made for an unlikely headliner at a cryptocurrency confab. As president, he declared bitcoin “not money” and criticized it as “highly volatile and based on thin air.”

“We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019. “It is called the United States Dollar!”

But Saturday marked the culmination of a total reversal on the issue during the former president’s latest White House bid. Despite cryptocurrency’s troubling recent history and his own past reservations, Trump has fully embraced the hype and hopes of the nascent industry. His campaign now accepts bitcoin donations — and has collected about $4 million worth, a source with knowledge of his fundraising said. 

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee attends a bill enrollment signing ceremony for the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 17, 2021.

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Houston on Thursday to attend funeral services for Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died earlier this month after a battle with pancreatic cancer, Harris’ office confirmed to CNN.

The news was first reported by NBC News. 

Following the Democratic congresswoman’s death, Harris issued a statement describing her as “a tenacious advocate for justice, a tireless fighter for the people of Houston and the people of America, and a dear friend for many years.”

The vice president said she bonded with Jackson over the years, giving Harris the “opportunity to work closely with her on many issues and to observe her leadership firsthand.” The two were also both members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s first historically Black sorority.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt on Saturday defended vice presidential nominee JD Vance amid the backlash he’s faced this week for previous comments. 

Rubio was on the shortlist of candidates Trump was considering to be his running mate before he picked Vance, an Ohio senator.

Minutes after Rubio’s post, Schmitt chimed in as well, using similar language to defend Vance. 

Vance has faced backlash, including from actor Jennifer Aniston, over recently resurfaced comments he made in 2021 about “childless cat ladies.”

In a 2021 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s former Fox News show, Vance, who was then a candidate for the Ohio Senate, told Carlson that the US was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

Vance on Friday tried to defend those comments, saying his criticism was directed at the Democratic Party for becoming “anti-family” — not at those who don’t or can’t have children.

Vice President Kamala Harris praised the power of young people and pledged to earn their vote in prerecorded remarks Saturday to a summit held by Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z organizing group.

In her remarks, Harris also talked about her “Fight for Our Freedoms” college tour, during which she convened young leaders to hear about the issues that mattered to them.

Harris’ campaign team began conducting outreach to several youth grassroots organizations shortly after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race last week. Some of Harris’ campaign staff, including Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director, were expected to attend the Voters of Tomorrow Summit in Atlanta, where hundreds of youth activists, content creators and grassroots organizations gathered to discuss the November election.

US Capitol building is seen from the base of the Washington Monument as the sun sets over the National Mall on March 16, in Washington, DC.

Democrats’ substitution of Vice President Kamala Harris for President Joe Biden on the ballot in November obviously resets the presidential race.

It could also have a major impact on House and Senate races. Both chambers of Congress are narrowly divided; Republicans hold a slim advantage in the House and Democrats narrowly control the Senate. Either chamber could go either way in November.

I went to Simone Pathe, a senior Washington editor for CNN Politics and the author of an occasional series, “The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip.” Read the most recent version here.

Does Harris change the Senate equation?

WOLF: The presidential race got a total reset when President Biden dropped out. Does that reset anything in the battle for the Senate?

PATHE: The extent to which the change at the top of the ticket shifts Senate races will be one of the most interesting things to watch over the coming months.

Remember that a big part of the pressure on Biden to step aside was the warning from Democratic lawmakers about his drag on down-ballot races. So now the big question is whether the Democratic brand itself is toxic or whether that was a particular vulnerability attached to Biden.

It’s still early days of this new political reality, but there are some early signals of how Harris as the nominee could be giving Democratic incumbents a sense of relief.

Read more here on the state of play for the House and Senate and how the shake-up in the presidential race might change things.

Former President Donald Trump condemned a deadly rocket attack in northern Israel on Saturday, calling it “terrible” while insisting it “never would have happened” under his administration.

“You probably heard that Israel was just attacked, very severely attacked,” Trump said at the beginning of his remarks at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville.

Trump cited early indications from Israeli officials that blamed the attack on the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has rejected the accusation.

The former president, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, frequently says on the campaign trail that Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel wouldn’t have happened if he were president.

At least 11 people, including children, were killed when multiple rockets hit a village in the Golan Heights on Saturday in what Israel described as the deadliest attack against it since October 7. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire across the border for almost 10 months, and regional leaders have been warning the conflict is reaching a boiling point.

The White House on Saturday also condemned the attack, saying in a statement, “Our hearts go out to the families of those who lost loved ones today, and we are praying for a speedy recovery for those who have been injured.”

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks at an event in Portland on July 24.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff shared personal stories of both his and his wife’s families at a Saturday festival in Wisconsin for Hmong Americans, a significant minority population in the battleground state.

Emhoff told the story of Harris’ late mother, breast cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated to the US from India and whom the vice president often speaks about passionately on the campaign trail.

The Hmong population is the largest Asian American ethnic group in Wisconsin, according to 2020 census data. Many Hmong people found refuge in the US during the Vietnam War and other violence in the region.

Emhoff said Harris’ vision for the country is “a future where everyone has a place.”

Emhoff was joined by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, allies of Harris who appeared with her in Milwaukee at her first campaign event after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris fought back Saturday against former President Donald Trump’s new attacks against her, saying that he is pushing “wild lies” and that some of his statements are “just plain weird.”

Her remarks came at a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where she also made her freedom-focused pitch to voters — highlighting reproductive health and gun violence — and argued her campaign is the “underdog” in the race.

Harris made her freedom-focused pitch to voters at the event — highlighting reproductive health and gun violence — and argued her campaign is the “underdog” in the race. In one notable moment, she seemed to allude to President Joe Biden’s comments on passing the torch to a younger generation.

She continued by reiterating her call for gun safety measures, including universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban. And in a part of her speech that led to the loudest cheers, Harris attacked Trump on reproductive health care.

“We who believe in reproductive freedom will stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans,” she said. “We trust women to make decisions about their own bodies.”

Harris also argued her campaign is the “underdog,” describing the recent surge in financial support and volunteers since Biden ended his reelection bid as “momentum” building. 

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign on Saturday released a video attacking Vice President Kamala Harris for what it’s calling “her soft on crime policies” — specifically highlighting a 2020 tweet in which Harris encouraged donations to a fund that bailed out protesters in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund is one of several US charities dedicated to helping low-income defendants post bail that boomed in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. However, the fund — in addition to other charitable bail groups — later came under fire after some defendants it bailed out were later arrested for alleged acts of violence. 

The video, which will be shown Saturday night during Trump’s rally with his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, opens with a photo of Harris’ June 2020 tweet. 

“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” the tweet says.

The narrator goes on to list some of the defendants the fund helped post bail for who later went on to be arrested again for alleged crimes including assault, rape, kidnapping and attempted murder. 

Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa called the Trump campaign’s claim “a desperate lie from a desperate campaign that can’t change the facts.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a Biden-Harris campaign and DNC press conference on July 17, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, one of the elected leaders being considered as Vice President Kamala Harris’ potential running mate, rallied with supporters in St. Paul Saturday afternoon and marveled at the developments over the last week in politics.

At a news conference following the event, the governor said he was “honored to be in the conversation” about potentially being Harris’ running mate, but that ultimately it is her decision to make.

“This is the vice president’s pick and I’ll tell you what, I trust her judgement,” Walz said. “I trust how she picks. And so it’s an exciting time, I think, for the country, and you are hearing a lot of voices out there talking about Democratic policies.”  

Walz went on to blast Republicans as “weird” and “a threat democracy.”

Elon Musk attends the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 on June 19, in Cannes, France.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign criticized Elon Musk on Saturday after the billionaire Tesla CEO and X owner shared a video with doctored or fake audio of Harris purportedly describing herself as the “ultimate DEI hire.”

Musk re-shared the video — originally posted by a separate X account, which labeled it as a parody — for his more than 190 million followers on Friday, with the caption, “This is amazing.” The video had been viewed more than 73 million times by Saturday morning, according to data from X.

“I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” a voice falsely purporting to be Harris says in the video. It goes on to describe Harris and Biden as “puppet(s)” of the “deep state.” 

CNN ran the fake Harris audio through an AI detection tool on Saturday, which found there was “substantial evidence” the voice had been generated using AI.

A new line of attack: Republicans have used the term “DEI,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion policies, to attack Harris and imply she rose to her status as the presumptive Democratic nominee on the basis of her race and gender.

Critics say that amounts to a racist dog whistle, including Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, who told CNN’s Jim Acosta this week that Republicans were using the “DEI” line as a “racial slur.”

Combating misinformation: Bipartisan concern over AI-generated election interference has prompted a patchwork of laws across the country, as state lawmakers seek to blunt the impact of misinformation and keep deepfakes from overwhelming voters.

More than a dozen Republican and Democrat-led states have enacted legislation this year to regulate the use of deepfakes – realistic fake video, audio and other content created with AI – in campaigns. The laws come amid warnings from the Department of Homeland Security over the ability for deepfakes to mislead voters.

CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed reporting to this post.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is sharply criticizing former President Donald Trump’s speech at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit on Friday night.

Harris spokesperson James Singer issued a statement on what the campaign called “Trump’s strange speech.”

“America can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris offers a vision for America’s future focused on freedom, opportunity, and security,” the spokesperson added.

The statement comes after Trump called Harris a “bum,” complained about President Joe Biden withdrawing from the race, and told Christians at the conservative event that they “won’t have to vote anymore” if they get him reelected this November, because the country will be “fixed” after four years.

Former President Donald Trump speaks in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 26.

Former President Donald Trump sought to appeal to Christian voters, who he claimed tend to vote in low numbers, at a conservative Christian event on Friday, telling attendees they “won’t have to vote anymore” if they just get him reelected this November.

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on his Friday remarks.

The former president claimed at the event that, “Christians are a group that’s known not to vote very much.”

“You have to go out at least this election, and just get us into that beautiful White House,” he said. “You have tremendous power, you just don’t know that.”

Trump campaign comments: Asked for clarification on Trump’s remarks and what would be “fixed” under his presidency, campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “President Trump was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”

Previous statements: The former president’s appeal echos similar comments he has made during his reelection campaign, including last month when he said “I don’t care” whether Christian voters cast a ballot at all in the 2028 presidential election. 

“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years, you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care,” he said at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in June.

This post has been updated with a statement from Trump’s campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns for president in West Allis, Wisconsin, on July 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris, whose warp-speed campaign launch has upended the 2024 race, is less than two weeks away from naming her running mate.

That’s the timeline the presumptive Democratic nominee has given to a team of lawyers and advisers who are conducting one of the most accelerated vice presidential searches in modern American history, people familiar with the process tell CNN, with a goal of announcing a nominee before August 7.

The truncated process means that nearly four years after Harris answered the call from Joe Biden to be his running mate — on August 11, 2020 — she intends to shape a Democratic ticket of her own.

Who is under consideration: Democrats close to the process say the roster of leading contenders being vetted still includes North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has developed a close relationship with Harris and has also been previously vetted and confirmed by the Senate, is also under consideration, along with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, sources say.

Read the bios for those candidates and more potential contenders here.

Former President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Saturday that he will continue to hold outdoor rallies after surviving the assassination attempt at his event in Butler, Pennsylvania, this month.

CNN previously reported that the US Secret Service has urged the Trump campaign against holding outdoor rallies because of the security risk they pose.

On Friday, Trump announced he would be doing another rally in Butler. Senior advisers said plans for that rally were still under discussion.

The Secret Service declined to substantively comment Saturday when asked about Trump continuing to hold outdoor rallies.

“Ensuring the safety and security of our protectees is our highest priority. In the interest of maintaining operational integrity, we are not able to comment on specifics of our protective means or methods,” Anthony Guglielmi, the agency’s chief of communications, told CNN in a statement.

This post has been updated with a response from the Secret Service.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention in Houston, Texas on July 25.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in Arizona says it will be opening a new field office in south Tucson, as the presumptive Democratic nominee tries to court Latino voters. 

The campaign already has an office in the Midtown neighborhood, and now plans to open their south Tucson office in the coming days.

The less-than-week old Harris campaign inherited the dozen Biden campaign offices across the battleground state, with more than 80 full-time staff staying on.

“Southern Arizona is the way to win Arizona, and the way into the White House. So southern Arizona has the enthusiasm and the votes to be able to win Arizona for Vice President Harris,” Romero said during Friday night’s event.

For a time, Donald Trump would have made for an unlikely headliner at a cryptocurrency confab.

As president, Trump declared bitcoin “not money” and criticized it as “highly volatile and based on thin air.” He cautioned that crypto assets helped facilitate illegal underground markets.

But on Saturday, Trump will address the cryptocurrency industry’s largest annual gathering in Nashville — not as a cynic, but as one of its best-known supporters. It marks the culmination of a total reversal on the issue during the former president’s latest White House bid.

Despite cryptocurrency’s troubling recent history and his own past reservations, Trump has fully embraced the hype and hopes of the nascent industry. His campaign now accepts bitcoin donations, and has collected about $4 million worth, a source with knowledge of his fundraising said. He has also attacked the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the industry as a “war on crypto,” without acknowledging the massive fraud schemes that have shattered public confidence in digital currencies. And he has vowed as president to make it easier for cryptocurrency mining companies to operate in the United States.

“Otherwise, the other countries are going to have it,” Trump said earlier this month in Wisconsin.

The industry, in turn, has embraced Trump. Its leaders and investors have donated millions of dollars to his campaign and aligned political committees. They are cheerleaders for his candidacy to their sizable online audiences and are now providing him a platform to speak directly to 20,000 of their most engaged followers expected at this year’s Bitcoin Conference.

Read more here on cryptocurrency’s largest annual gathering in Nashville.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

ABC News is continuing preparations for an upcoming presidential debate, despite former President Donald Trump saying he won’t consider participating in a debate until the Democratic Party formally chooses its nominee. 

“Full steam ahead,” an ABC network source told CNN on Friday.

Despite ABC’s preparations for the debate, set to be moderated by anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, the network’s plan could still be upended like so many other institutions and traditions this year.  

Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, later told reporters she had agreed to the September 10 debate and accused Trump of “backpedaling.” 

Even before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, the campaigns did away with the independent Commission on Presidential Debates, which had arranged the debates for decades, instead agreeing to debates directly arranged by television networks.

A person familiar with the matter said Friday that NBC is “in ongoing discussion with the campaigns,” but it’s unclear whether that involves plans for a debate, or other events like town halls with the candidates.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a Turning Point USA Believers Summit conference at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida on July 26.

Former president Donald Trump unleashed a stump speech against Vice President Harris Friday, referring to her as “a bum,” questioning her support for Israel and claiming she would pack the US Supreme Court and defund the police. 

Trump mocked President Joe Biden for changing his mind about stepping out of the race and shifted his focus to his likely new opponent, Harris.

“Together, four months from now we are going to defeat Kamala Harris, who a short time ago strongly fought to defund the police and the radical left Democrat Party,” he said.

Read a fact check on some of Trump’s initial attacks on Harris here.

Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University n Radford, Virginia on July 22.

Defending prior comments about childless adults that have resurfaced and faced backlash this week, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said his criticism was directed at the Democratic Party for becoming “anti-family” — not at those who don’t or can’t have children.

“This is not about criticizing people who, for various reasons, didn’t have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child,” Vance said.

Directly responding to his comment in 2021 on Fox News that the country is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies,” Vance said he was being sarcastic and the substance of what he said has been lost.

“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats. I’ve got nothing against dogs. I’ve got one dog,” Vance said. “People are focusing so much on the sarcasm, and not on the substance of what I actually said and the substance of what I said, Megan, I’m sorry. It’s true. It is true that we become anti-family. It is true that the left has become anti-child.”

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida on July 26.

Former President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, the first such meeting between the two men since Trump left the White House more than three years ago.

The meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was requested by Netanyahu, sources familiar with the planning told CNN. It comes on the heels of the prime minister’s address to Congress and meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House.

Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, conveyed a forcefulness on civilian suffering and ending the war following her time with the prime minister.

Netanyahu said Friday that he hoped Harris’ comments would not make a ceasefire deal harder to reach.

Trump said Harris was “disrespectful to Israel” in her remarks to reporters after her meeting with Netanyahu.

“I think her remarks were disrespectful,” Trump told CNN’s Kristen Holmes on Friday. “They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don’t know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them.”

Ahead of Netanyahu’s remarks, Harris’ office rejected on Friday the suggestion originally from a senior Israeli official that the vice president’s remarks could have made a ceasefire deal harder to reach.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” a Harris aide told CNN, in response to a senior Israeli official being quoted in The Times of Israel.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered the same message in their private meetings to Prime Minister Netanyahu: it is time to get the ceasefire and hostage deal done,” the aide to the vice president told reporters, adding that Harris’ meeting with Netanyahu was “serious and collegial.”