August 13, 2024, presidential campaign news

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democratic vice presidential candidate, speaks at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Convention in Los Angeles, on Tuesday, August 13.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz highlighted his union ties while pitching Vice President Kamala Harris and himself to the largest government workers union in the country on Tuesday, noting the rarity of a former teachers’ union member appearing on a major party presidential ticket. 

Walz, a former public school teacher, touted Harris’ record in helping organized labor and his own support of unions as governor, saying Harris as president will sign two labor-friendly bills, PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, while drawing a sharp contrast with former President Donald Trump, who he called a “scab.” 

Walz also slammed Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, for not supporting organized labor while in Congress. 

“I’ll tell you his running mate, I don’t know if that was a value add to this campaign or not, but he’s one of four senators, four, that has never cast a vote on a pro-worker bill in his life. Not once. A stopped clock’s right twice a day. This guy can’t get it right once, not once for workers,” he said.

Walz pointed to Project 2025, the presidential transition project organized by Republican allies from which the Trump campaign has sought to distance itself, as evidence that Trump will “eliminate AFSCME and all public sector unions” and roll back child labor laws. 

Nearly two years after Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, the billionaire is leveraging its power as a source of real-time news for millions of users to try to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

Social media platforms have played a role in past elections: campaigns have used them to build support, foreign actors have used them in efforts to interfere in election outcomes and the industry was criticized in 2020 for restricting access to reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop. And some tech leaders have spoken out about their preferred candidate for the White House. But the major platforms themselves, and especially their owners, typically do not try to affect how users will vote, save for ensuring people have basic, accurate information about voting and removing influence operations that seek to covertly manipulate people.

Musk, by contrast, has turned the platform he purchased for $44 billion into his own personal, political messaging machine, seeking to influence his more than 190 million followers and, in some cases, sharing false claims from the very top.

Musk announced his official endorsement for Trump in a post last month that received 2.3 million likes. And on Monday, he hosted Trump for a friendly, 2-plus-hour livestreamedconversation on X, in which he allowed the former president to make at least 20 false claims about everything from crime and immigration to tax cuts, without pushback.

Trump used the conversation to fundraise, with his campaign team posting on X ahead of the event that “we’re asking YOU to make this President Trump’s BIGGEST FUNDRAISING DAY EVER!” X used the opportunity to send a notification – which featured Trump’s profile photo – to users encouraging them to buy a subscription to the platform.

CNN has reached out to X and the Trump campaign for comment.

Read more about how Musk is using X to support Trump here.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, defended his military record during remarks in Los Angeles on Tuesday, saying he is “damn proud” of his service in the Army National Guard.

Speaking to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union convention, Walz addressed attacks from Republicans, including GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who have claimed he misrepresented his military record and falsely suggested he evaded an overseas deployment.

Some context: Walz’s defense of his record comes after Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign acknowledged Saturday he “misspoke” during a 2018 campaign event when he said he handled assault weapons “in war.” After the Harris campaign shared a video of the 2018 remarks last week, Vance, who served in the Marine Corps, accused Walz of “stolen valor.”

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Vance defended his attacks on Walz by arguing he is criticizing Walz’s statements about his record, rather than his actions while serving.

Missouri voters will be deciding the future of abortion in their state through a statewide constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would remove the state’s current ban on abortion.

The ballot initiative would still allow abortion to be restricted after fetal viability except to protect the life or health of the mother, according to a Tuesday news release from Missouri Secretary of State John Ashcroft.

Missouri’s law currently bans abortions except in medical emergencies.

This initiative coincides with similar measures that will appear on various state ballots, including Florida, Nevada, Arizona, New York and others. Similar constitutional amendments have been successful on other ballots around the country in Republican-dominated states, including Kansas and Ohio.

Rachel Sweet, the campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, an organization that gathered signatures to place the initiative on the ballot, called the move “a major step forward for our campaign and for Missourians.”

Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz speaks at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Convention in Los Angeles, on Tuesday, August 13.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during a campaign event in 2018 praised a Muslim cleric and leader in the Muslim community who has spread antisemitic content on Facebook, according to video newly revealed by the Washington Examiner. 

The video features Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, speaking at an event hosted by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota during his first gubernatorial campaign, according to the Washington Examiner. In the video, Walz praises Imam Asad Zaman, executive director of the organization hosting the event, as a “master teacher” and briefly touches on their shared history. 

Walz’s appearance alongside the Muslim cleric, one of several in recent years, came after Zaman had shared a link to a neo-Nazi propaganda film in 2015 portraying Adolf Hitler in a positive light. Zaman had also shared a Hamas press release in 2016 mourning the death of a Muslim politician in Bangladesh who was executed after being found guilty of war crimes.

In the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel, Zaman has shared anti-Israel posts on social media. On the day of the attacks, he expressed solidarity for Palestinians “against Israeli attacks” while sharing a statement from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota condemning “Israel’s recent unprovoked attacks.” Earlier that day, Zaman shared a post arguing “Palestine has the right to defend itself.”

In a statement to CNN, Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said that Walz and Zaman do not have a “personal relationship.” 

“The Governor and he do not have a personal relationship. Governor Walz strongly condemns Hamas terrorism,” Hitt told CNN. 

CNN has reached out to Zaman and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota for comment.  

Read more about Walz’ past appearances with Zaman here.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an episode of HBO's "Veep."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus will host a panel during the Democratic National Convention with the Democratic Governors Association to put a spotlight on female governors, the actress’ publicist confirmed to CNN.

Louis-Dreyfus – who played the first fictional female vice president of the United States on HBO’s Emmy-winning “Veep” – is a longtime Democratic supporter and has spoken out publicly on women’s issues throughout her career. (HBO, like CNN, is owned by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.)

The panel, on August 21 during the week of the DNC in Chicago, will feature the country’s eight Democratic women governors: Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek.

The “Seinfeld” star noted her excitement to moderate the panel at the DNC.

Louis-Dreyfus – who won the Emmy for outstanding lead actress six times in a row for playing Selina Meyer on “Veep” – has seen a major resurgence with viewers re-discovering the show after President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this summer as the Democratic presidential candidate.

As if life was imitating art, fans have noted the real-life similarities to the scripted show in which Louis-Dreyfus played the first female vice president who then became the first female president.

CNN’s Lisa Respers France contributed to this report.

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he participates in an interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on the social media platform X, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, August 12, in this picture obtained from social media.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday said it had raised $1 million off of the conversation former President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk had on X Spaces the night before. 

The campaign touted the reach of the interview and said 25 million X users listened to the interview from start to finish and that there were roughly 1.5 million concurrent listeners during the live stream. 

The start of the conversation was delayed by more than 40 minutes on Monday night because of technical issues, and Musk and Trump engaged in a friendly conversation in which they praised each other and Trump repeated many of his campaign talking points. The former president made at least 20 false claims during the over two-hour conversation, CNN reported.

“President Trump will do everything he can to bring his unscripted message directly to the people, something the fake news media refuses to do. While Kamala Harris enjoys the luxury of hiding from the press, President Trump accepted Elon’s invitation to have an unfiltered conversation about his America First policies with voters and people around the world,” Cheung said. 

With less than 100 days until Election Day, the GOP and Democratic presidential candidates are hitting the campaign trail this week as they look to make their pitch to voters.

Here are scheduled campaign events to look out for the rest of the week:

The Maine voter who filed a challenge objecting to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ballot access petition withdrew his objection the day before a schedule hearing on the challenge, Maine’s Secretary of State announced on Tuesday.

The voter submitted a withdrawal request on Monday to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after her office announced Monday it would hold a hearing on the objection scheduled for Wednesday.

Bellows dismissed the challenge following the withdrawal, according to the statement for her office.

A New York judge ruled Monday that Kennedy’s ballot-access petition in the state is invalid, delivering the first major blow to the independent presidential candidate’s bid for nationwide ballot access. A pro-Kamala Harris group seeking to combat third party candidates has organized challenges in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Kennedy has qualified for the ballot in 17 states thus far, making him eligible for 220 electoral votes. His campaign says it’s completed signature gathering in every state and Washington, DC.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday shared a dehumanizing anti-immigrant meme that said “Your neighborhood under Trump” with a photo of a house with an American flag, and then “Your neighborhood under Kamala” with a photo of a crowd of dozens of migrants who had recently arrived in New York City.

The account describes itself as the “Official War Room account of the 2024 Trump campaign.” The caption of the meme was, “Import the third world, Become the third world!”

The photo, taken earlier this month, depicts dozens of migrants who had just arrived in New York City and are waiting to secure temporary housing, according to Getty Images. 

Trump regularly spews anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail and claims the US has become a “third world country” under President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

The description of the meme has been updated in the headline and post. 

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday pointed to Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support of a ban on fracking — something a Harris campaign official said last month she no longer supports. 

Harris enthusiastically supported a ban on fracking during her 2020 presidential campaign, telling CNN during a 2019 town hall, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, and starting with what we can do on Day 1 around public lands.”

Fracking is the process of using liquid to free natural gas from rock formations – and the primary mode for extracting gas for energy in battleground Pennsylvania. A Harris campaign official said last month she no longer supports a fracking ban.

Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally on Saturday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 

Trump also posted earlier in the day, “KAMALA HARRIS GOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE WAY ON HER LIFELONG POLICIES REGARDING ENERGY, HEALTHCARE, CRIME, AND BORDER. WHAT A JOKE SHE IS!!!”

Doug Ducey speaks at an event in Mesa, Arizona on August 11, 2020.

Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who faced pressure from Donald Trump to find fraud in the 2020 election, on Tuesday announced that he’s endorsing the former president for reelection and GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake, arguing that “differences aside, there is too much on the line.”

CNN reported that Trump had called Ducey after the 2020 election to discuss the results, pressuring him to find fraud in the Arizona presidential election. Trump had publicly attacked Ducey for the state’s certification of the 2020 presidential election results, in which he lost Arizona to Joe Biden by less than 11,000 votes.

Lake, a former local news anchor, ran and lost the race to fill term-limited Ducey’s governor’s seat in 2022. The Trump supporter and election denier more recently won her Senate primary last month to face off against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in one of this fall’s most important races in the battle for control of the chamber.

“Differences aside, there is too much on the line and only a Republican in the White House and a majority in the House and US Senate can ensure it,” Ducey wrote Tuesday.

Ducey added that the border must be secured, inflation tamed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made permanent, and that “America must be respected around the globe and World War III must be avoided.”

Barricade fencing set up near the United Center ahead of the Democratic National Convention, seen on Monday, August 12.

Local and federal law enforcement officials say Chicago is prepared to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention next week while ensuring the safety and security of attendees and residents alike. 

When asked about the security lapse that led to the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month, Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Derek Mayer said the department is learning all the time, but there is no comparison between the two events.

“This is a whole-of-government approach we’ve been planning for this convention for well over a year. So, we can’t compare the two,” he said.

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling also noted the yearlong training officers have embarked on with federal, state, and county partners to ensure that the event venue will be secure while promising that police resources will be present “in every single neighborhood.”

“We will not deplete resources from our neighborhoods to simply put in the area where the Democratic National Convention is being held,” said Snelling.

Snelling also emphasized the importance of allowing protesters the space and time to express their First Amendment rights but stopped short of saying there would be no arrests. Preventative measures including street closures and parking restrictions will be in place, especially near the United Center, where the convention will be held.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally on Saturday, August 10 in Las Vegas.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday continued to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to answer more questions from reporters.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pointed to Trump’s two-hour conversation with Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk. However, Musk is not a reporter and asked Trump softball questions on comfortable topics that allowed the former president to repeat his main campaign talking points.

Trump also repeated many falsehoods and his claims went unchallenged by Musk, who has endorsed and praised Trump.

The spokesperson added, “Team Kamala has now reverted back to what Team Biden was known for — a bunch of whiners and complainers with a low-energy candidate unable to engage with the press or media.”

Investigators released images from surveillance video showing the burglary suspect inside the campaign office wearing dark clothing, a dark cap and a backpack.

Investigators are sorting through a barrage of tips in their efforts to identify the suspect behind the break-in at former President Donald Trump’s campaign office in Virginia, a person familiar with the investigation told CNN.

That person said local law enforcement hasn’t found evidence yet that the incident was politically motivated.

The investigation by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is still in its initial phases. Investigators have focused on determining whether anything was stolen from the campaign office in Ashburn and whether the suspect left behind any surveillance equipment, the person told CNN.

Trump’s Virginia office is on the first floor of a quiet brick office building one hour outside of Washington, DC. A manager of that building told CNN that there wasn’t any damage from the break-in. 

The sheriff’s office received a call Sunday night about a burglary at the campaign office, which also serves as the headquarters of the Virginia 10th District Republican Committee. The sheriff’s office has released images from surveillance video showing the suspect wearing dark clothing and a cap and carrying a backpack. 

Investigators are using facial recognition technology to try to identify the suspect and are working to understand his motive, the source said. Thomas Julia, a spokesperson for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, said investigators have received “tons” of tips about the break-in but declined to comment further.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been sued by the United Auto Workers union.

The United Auto Workers union on Tuesday filed federal labor charges against former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk for threatening to intimidate workers who go on strike.

During Trump’s interview on X Monday night with Musk, who is also the principal owner of the social media platform, the pair discussed a potential role for Musk in Trump’s administration should he get reelected. Trump called Musk “the cutter,” and praised Musk for his anti-union stances.

“I look at what you do, you walk in and you just say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t mention the name of the company – but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. Every one of you is gone,” Trump said.

Musk could be heard laughing and replying “yeah.”

The UAW, which recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, filed separate charges against Trump and Musk Monday to the National Labor Relations Board.

The charges claim the former president and the Tesla CEO had “interfered with, restrained or coerced employees” who were exercising their right to organize against the company, “suggesting he would fire employees engaged in protected concerted activity, including striking.”

Read more about the charges here.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday complained about news coverage of the conversation he and Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk had on the platform Monday night.

The virtual event kicked off after a more than 40-minute delay because of technical difficulties. 

Trump is saying the servers crashed “because of the tremendous volume” but Musk claimed a distributed denial-of-service attack had overwhelmed the company’s servers. It is unclear what the technical issue was.

“DDOS,” or distributed denial of service, is a common attack method in which hackers flood a site with phony traffic to overwhelm its systems and attempt to knock it offline.

Early Tuesday, however, Musk also blamed mistakes by X’s staff for the snafu that prevented people from joining the stream in a post on the platform. Musk didn’t specify what kind of mistakes he believed X staffers made or how a DDOS attack would have targeted a specific stream but not brought down the rest of the X platform, which remained operational during the Trump stream meltdown.

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde speaks on stage on the second day of the Republican National Convention on July 16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Republican Senate Candidate Eric Hovde downplayed the impact that the momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign may have on down-ballot races in battleground Wisconsin.

Hovde, who is favored to win the GOP primary to face Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, called the energy surrounding Harris, “temporary enthusiasm.”

Harris campaigned last week in western Wisconsin with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“I think everybody on the Democratic side was very depressed about realizing how bad Joe Biden was from a mental capacity standpoint. So of course, you’re going to get that kind of bump. But look, I feel there’s enormous amount of energy on the Republican side,” he said, pointing to real issues that Americans are struggling with related to consumer credit and loans and food and housing costs.

Asked by CNN about the potential impact on his race if former President Donald Trump, who has already endorsed him, continues to slip in the polls in the battleground state, Hovde answered, “my race from day one has been about running for the US Senate and my race. I appreciate President Trump’s support, and I’m supportive of his campaign.”

The Wisconsin businessman, who has trailed Baldwin in statewide polling, said he’s “not getting caught up in the polls at all,” pointing to how Trump won the state in 2016 after appearing to be behind Hillary Clinton.

GOP Rep. Larry Bucshon of Indiana dismissed concerns about whether Project 2025 will impact the election or heavily influence voters – pointing to the former President Donald Trump’s disavowal of the set of conservative policy proposals. 

Project 2025 is a 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. It has attracted significant media attention, with plans listed under the “Mandate for Leadership” section including banning pornography, reversing federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, excluding the morning-after pill and men’s contraceptives from coverage mandated under the Affordable Care Act and making it harder for transgender adults to transition,

The project has featured prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris’ stump speeches as she has made the case against another Trump presidency

“I don’t think it’ll have an effect at all, honestly. I think, though, I think the Democrats will continue to use it, but I don’t think that will have a substantial impact,” Buschson told reporters.

In this March 2023 photo, Sen. Ben Ray Luján speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján defended vice presidential candidate Tim Walz after the Harris campaign acknowledged the Minnesota governor misspoke when he said he had carried weapons “in war.” Luján said the upfront approach contrasts with the Republican candidates, former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Luján said Walz’s admission highlights the difference “between their side and our side,” and he noted “there should be no mistake about his service to our country as well.”

The senator also commented on Monday’s conversation that Elon Musk conducted with Trump on X, which he said demonstrates why Trump will not be reelected.  

“The more that Elon Musk interviews the former president, the less that I have to talk about the previous president, ‘cause they’re going to do all the talking for us, and then to show the American people why the former president will not be president of the United States ever again,” he said.

In the four weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out and upended the 2024 presidential race, both parties have unleashed a flood of advertising, blitzing national airwaves and battleground states with total of nearly $300 million in spending, including TV and digital ads.

During that crucial stretch, including reservations through this Sunday — four weeks since Biden withdrew, from July 21 to August 18 — Democrats have outspent Republicans by about $173 million to about $119 million, according to AdImpact data.

Seven battleground states have been the focus of more than $212 of that ad spending, and Pennsylvania leads all others by a wide margin, accounting for $70.6 million of the total.

And across those seven key battleground states over the four-week stretch since Biden dropped out, Republicans lead Democrats in ad spending, by about $109 million to $99 million.

Here’s the breakdown of ad spend in other states:

Rev. Gregory Lewis, left, of Milwaukee, drops his ballot in the ballot box while early voting at the Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building on North Broadway in Milwaukee on Tuesday, July 30.

Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota, and Wisconsin will hold their primaries for congressional and statewide offices on Tuesday. 

Here are some of the key races to watch for:

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Chavis community center on March 26 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will deliver her first policy speech “focused on her plan to lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price-gouging” in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to Harris-Walz campaign senior spokesperson Kevin Munoz.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Harris said the rollout of her policy platform will “be focused on the economy and what we need to do to bring down costs and also strengthen the economy.”

The world’s richest man and its once-and-possibly future most-powerful man agreed on almost everything.

Tech titan Elon Musk threw open his X platform on Monday night, offering Donald Trump a pipeline free of fact checks for his falsehoods, conspiracy theories and extremism as he tries to slow the rise of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

The chat represented yet another extraordinary chapter in a presidential campaign that has defied logic with its stunning twists in recent weeks, including an assassination attempt against Trump and President Joe Biden’s ending of his reelection bid.

The former president has been floundering, struggling to cope with the new Democratic nominee’s soaring start. At times, during their expansive chat, Musk seemed to be using the power of his profile and platform to coach Trump on how to mount a better argument against Harris.

“She’s a believer in being radical left,” Trump said at one point of a Democratic foe who has erased his polling advantage in only three weeks as a candidate. And the former president, who attempted to overturn an election he lost, baselessly claimed that Biden had been illegally ousted to make way for Harris.

Musk agreed with Trump that Harris was a radical leftist and flattered his guest by implying that he was strong and his Democratic opponents were weak. He referred to America’s enemies and said:

Musk has already endorsed Trump, and he was leaving no doubt on Monday night that he wants to see him win a second term. “You are the path to prosperity. And I think Kamala is the opposite,” he told Trump.

Read the full story.

Former President Donald Trump speaks as he participates in an interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on the social media platform X, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 12 in this picture obtained from social media.

Advisers to former President Donald Trump celebrated his conversation with X owner and billionaire Elon Musk, touting the viewership.

Following the interview on Monday night, Musk claimed it reached 1 billion views.

“Combined views of the conversation with @realDonaldTrump and subsequent discussion by other accounts now ~1 billion,” Musk said on X.

Trump’s advisers have said talks like Monday’s are meant to reach nontraditional voters — specifically first-time voters and low propensity voters who don’t engage in politics in a typical fashion, but who the campaign believes they can draw out to vote for Trump in November.

However, some allies to the former president question the decision for him to sit for unscripted, and often off message, conversations, like the one on Monday with Musk.

“Did he get a lot of views, yes, but did he focus on policy issues? Not really,” one source close to Trump said.

In recent days, allies have both privately and publicly lamented Trump’s inability or unwillingness to focus on the issues they believe will help him win the election — immigration, inflation and crime, instead of personal attacks and conspiracy theories.

As a venture capitalist, JD Vance repeatedly touted his guiding principles for investing in a company: A business should not only turn a profit, it should also help American communities.

That’s why, he said, he invested in AppHarvest, a startup that promised a high-tech future for farming and for the workers of Eastern Kentucky. Over a four-year span, Vance was an early investor, board member and public pitchman for the indoor-agriculture company.

“It’s not just a good investment opportunity, it’s a great business that’s making a big difference in the world,” Vance proclaimed in a Fox Business interview on the day the company went public in February 2021.

Last year, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, AppHarvest declared bankruptcy.

The rise and fall of the company, and Vance’s role in it, cuts against his image as a champion for the working class — an image that helped catapult him to the top of the Republican ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate.

A CNN review of public documents, and interviews with a dozen former workers, shows that AppHarvest not only failed as a business after pursuing rapid growth, but also provided a grim job experience for many of the working-class Kentuckians Vance has vowed to help.

AppHarvest employees said they were forced to work in grueling conditions inside the company’s greenhouse, where temperatures often soared into the triple digits. Complaints filed with the US Department of Labor and a Kentucky regulator between 2020 and 2023 show that workers alleged they were given insufficient water breaks and weren’t provided adequate safety gear. Some workers said they suffered heat exhaustion or injuries, though state inspectors did not find violations.

Read more about the allegations here.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican millionaire banker Eric Hovde.

Tuesday’s Senate primary in Wisconsin is set to formalize a matchup that has been in general election mode for months, as the parties contest one of the most competitive 2024 Senate races.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is seeking her third term in the perennial battleground state, and she’s likely to face off against Eric Hovde, a Republican businessman with the backing of the national party, who has poured at least $13 million from his personal fortune into his bid, according to the latest FEC data available.

Already, the race has seen nearly $66 million in ad spending, with Democrats outspending Republicans by about $40 million to $26 million. Both sides have been active early, flooding the airwaves with ads promoting each candidate and attacking their rival.

One of the ads promotes Baldwin’s work on legislation to lower health care costs. Another launched last week highlights her work on legislation to provide health care to veterans suffering from exposure to toxic burn pits, an effort that has been highlighted by several vulnerable Democratic incumbents in their campaign ads.

Baldwin and her allies, meanwhile, have also been on offense, running waves of aggressive attack spots branding Hovde as a carpetbagger, criticizing his rhetoric, and slamming his policy positions.

On the other side, Hovde has put his millions to work, airing ads that seek to introduce him to Wisconsin voters, touting his connections to the state as he looks to blunt Democratic criticism while laying out a conservative vision with a focus on economic issues and immigration.

Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who owns X, spoke for more than two hours on the social media platform on Monday night.

The former president fielded friendly questions that steered him toward campaign talking points, while slamming Vice President Kamala Harris’ stances on the economy and immigration.

Here are some highlights:

Most of the falsehoods Donald Trump uttered in his conversation with Elon Musk on X on Monday were claims that have been repeatedly debunked before, some for years.

Inflation: Trump said, “I think we have the worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years. They say it’s 48 years, I don’t believe it.”

Facts First: Trump framed this as an opinion, but it’s baseless – wrong in two different ways. First, even when the inflation rate hit its Biden-era peak of 9.1% in June 2022, that 9.1% rate was the highest since 1981 – between 40 and 41 years prior, certainly not “100 years” and not even “48 years.” Second, inflation has declined sharply since the June 2022 peak, and the most recent available rate at the time he spoke, for July 2024, was 3.2% – a rate that, the Biden presidency aside, was exceeded as recently as 2011.

Harris and prisoners: Trump claimed “(Harris) wants to release all the prisoners that are in detention, and some of these guys are really bad. That just came out today.”

Facts First: This is false. There is no basis for the claim that Harris “wants to release all the prisoners that are in detention.” Trump appeared to be referring to news stories in conservative media that reported that Harris had said in 2019, while unsuccessfully running in the Democratic presidential primary, that she wanted to close privately-run immigration detention centers. 

Migration numbers: Trump claimed that, under Biden and Harris, “you have millions of people coming in a month.”

Facts First: This is false. There has not been any month under the Biden-Harris administration where even close to “millions” of people entered the country illegally. In the peak month during this administration for what the government calls border “encounters,” December 2023, there were 370,890 encounters. Even if you factor in so-called “gotaways,” people who evaded the Border Patrol to sneak into the country, there is no basis for the claim that “millions” of people are entering in a single month.

Trump’s tax cuts: Trump repeated his claim that his signature tax cuts, in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, were “the largest tax cut” ever provided.

Facts First: Trump is wrong. Analyses have found that his tax cut law was not the largest in history, either in percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Multiple lies: Trump also made false and misleading claims about global warming, the Biden administration and Trump’s legal cases, the situation before Right to Try, military equipment and Afghanistan, China’s purchases of Iranian oil, Iran and funding for “terror” groups, Europe trade, Ukraine aid, the 2020 election, deportations to Central America, migration and “the Congo,” Venezuela, and crime.

Read the full list of fact checks.

Kamala Harris has quickly erased several of the advantages Donald Trump enjoyed over Joe Biden when it comes to the key personal attributes voters prize in a president. But the most formidable personal quality voters see in the former president – his perceived strength – still looms as a critical obstacle Harris must overcome to win the White House.

Voters have long viewed Trump as a strong leader, capable of keeping them safe, and as they grew more skeptical about Biden’s physical and mental capacity, Trump’s advantage grew to towering proportions this year.

But Harris’ energy and strong, confident speaking style at her boisterous rallies over just the past three weeks ago have stirred optimism among Democrats that she can reset the debate over strength and neutralize, or at least reduce, Trump’s traditional edge on that measure.

Harris will need to rebut an intensifying Republican effort to portray her as weak. That offensive is likely to center on issues relating to Americans’ physical security, including crime, immigration and national defense.

The two sides are already hotly contesting the terrain of strength. Spokespeople for the Trump campaign routinely describe Harris as weak; the principal super PAC backing Trump recently released an ad describing her positions on criminal justice issues as “dangerously liberal.” In an interview on Fox News, Trump implied that Harris’ gender made her too soft to stand up to other world leaders. “She’ll be so easy for them. She’ll be like a play toy,” Trump insisted. “They’re gonna walk all over her.”

Harris, in turn, is airing an ad in swing states that touts her credentials on the two issues Republicans are most determined to use against her. “Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime,” the ad begins, before concluding: “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”

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Former President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a primetime address on Tuesday of next week’s Democratic Convention, according to two people familiar with the planning. 

That makes for three presidents that delegates will hear from during their gathering in Chicago: Obama, former President Bill Clinton and President Joe Biden, who will speak on the first night of the proceedings on Monday. 

Planning for the convention was still underway and speaking slots could change, sources said.

Biden’s address is still in the works, according to a source, but will obviously be a markedly different address than he would have expected to deliver three weeks ago, when he was still the Democratic standard bearer.

Law enforcement officers are investigating a break-in late Sunday at former President Donald Trump’s campaign office in Ashburn, Virginia, in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said it was called around 9 p.m. Sunday for a burglary at the office, which is being leased by the Trump campaign and also operates as the headquarters of the Virginia 10th District Republican Committee.

Investigators say they have surveillance video showing the burglary suspect inside the campaign office wearing dark clothing, a dark cap and a backpack.

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

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Donald Trump’s campaign, which has whiffed in its early attacks on Kamala Harris’ new presidential campaign, will grapple this week for a more effective foothold after the vice president transformed an election of stunning surprises.

The ex-president has deployed some of his most trusted political tools — targeting racial identity, creating alternative realities, flinging insults and gaslighting. On Sunday he spread a new false conspiracy theory over the size of Harris’ rally crowd in Michigan last week.

But his efforts to bring down his new adversary and her policy of ignoring his provocations have so far highlighted his own liabilities more than hers and emphasized the way Harris could offer a new choice for voters.

When the ex-president called Harris “dumb” at a Montana rally Friday night or falsely claimed last month that she “happened to turn Black,” he may have delighted his base voters. But those kinds of comments risk alienating women and swing-state voters, as well as reversing the gains he has made among minorities that he’d proudly highlighted for months.

Trump’s campaign was also forced on Saturday to deny a report in The New York Times that he’d privately referred to Harris as a “b*tch” as he bemoaned her momentum.

Trump’s undisciplined news conference last week and a weekend of venting also suggest that the Republican nominee is far from coming to terms with the shift in a race that seemed to be heading in his direction three weeks ago when bullish Republicans left their convention predicting a landslide.

But a swing-state tour by Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, conjured euphoria not experienced by Democrats in years. It left Trump fuming that his victory in his debate with President Joe Biden only led to a new battle — one he’s more in danger of losing.

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