August 15, 2024, presidential campaign news

Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, August 15, in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Former President Donald Trump said that he feels like he is “entitled” to make personal attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I’m very angry at her that she’d weaponize the justice system against me and other people, very angry at her,” Trump said at a news conference in New Jersey on Thursday. “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”

Trump’s answer comes as CNN reported some allies have privately expressed serious concerns about the former president’s recent inability to stay on message and discuss policy.

The former president reiterated that it is important he win the presidency and shot back that Harris has lodged personal attacks against him: “She actually called me weird.”

On Wednesday, Trump’s running mate JD Vance defended Trump in response to a question about personal attacks. Vance said the former president has “earned the right” to run the campaign he desires. He said the reason why people like Trump is because he’s “unfiltered and he lets the American people see who he is.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz released a new campaign video on Thursday, August 15.

Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sought to portray themselves as the “underdog” in the presidential race in a taped conversation released by the campaign on Thursday.

The conversation, which took place while the two were in Michigan for a campaign rally last week, featured Harris and Walz discussing their backgrounds, families, favorite food and music, while also expressing their shared vision for the campaign.

Harris and Walz leaned into his experience as a football coach to draw analogies for how they see the race.

Later in the conversation, Walz contrasted their campaign’s optimistic message with former President Donald Trump’s campaign message, which he said is “exploiting the differences” between people. He again framed their campaign as behind in the race.

A CNN polling average of five head-to-head surveys released in August found Harris and Trump locked in a close race with no clear leader in the contest. 

Taco talk: Harris and Walz also shared details of their personal lives outside of politics, including a discussion on tacos that highlighted some differences between the California native and her Minnesotan running mate. The video began mid-conversation as Walz told Harris he likes “white guy tacos.” 

When Walz said he does not put any flavoring on his tacos, Harris made an exclamation of surprise, before laughing along with others in the room.

“They said to be careful and let her know this, that black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota,” Walz replied.

Republican presidential nominee and 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.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday referenced a conversation he shared with Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk on Monday, streamed online on audio only.

Throughout the conversation, Musk asked Trump softball questions that allowed the former president to stick to his talking points, including on immigration and the economy. He repeated parts of his campaign stump speech and was not challenged by Musk on any of his false claims.

Their conversation covered a broad array of topics — including lengthy portions on energy policy, climate change and the threat of nuclear warfare; immigration, with Trump promising the “largest deportation in the history of this country”; federal government spending, with Musk proposing a commission to look for ways to make cuts; and more.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his claim, which he has made in speech after speech, that the US left $85 billion worth of military equipment to the Taliban when President Joe Biden pulled American troops out of Afghanistan in 2021. 

Facts First: Trump’s $85 billion figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of the roughly $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew. 

As other fact-checkers have previously explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. A minority of this funding was for equipment. 

The economy is one of the top voter issuers this election, so it’s no wonder why former President Donald Trump dedicated a lot of his press conference Thursday to talking about it. There’s just one problem: It’s not entirely clear where the numbers he’s citing come from or what period they refer to.

For instance, “Kamala’s price hikes,” he said, are costing the typical American household $28,000. CNN was not able to immediately verify the source of his statement that he claimed comes from “government numbers.” It’s also unclear when that $28,000, if true, was incurred by households. For example, was it over the course of the Biden-Harris administration? Just over the past year?

Trump also added to the confusion saying inflation costing “the average American family $1,100 every single month.”

Much like in his economic pitch to Americans on Wednesday, former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump on Thursday said he would drive prices down quickly if he’s elected for a second term.

If only it were that easy.

Consumer price inflation, or the rate of change in prices, is expected of a healthy, growing economy. The Federal Reserve, which is tasked with stabilizing prices, targets inflation to be at a 2% annual rate over the long term.

That’s seen as a manageable pace of price increases that nudges people to spend their money. On the other hand, if prices are declining outright, known as deflation, then that can be disastrous because it disincentivizes people from spending, which makes up the vast majority of the US economy. If you expect prices to drop in the future, why spend now when you can spend less in the coming months?

Deflation usually occurs during a steep economic downturn, which is what happened for a few months during the Great Recession. It’s a symptom of an ailing economy.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, August 15.

Former President Trump falsely claimed that mortgage rates have shot up to 10% after they were 2% when he left office.

Mortgage rates did start 2021 at a record low, with the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage falling to 2.65%, according to Freddie Mac.

Trump, however, did not provide important context around that historic number: The economy was still weakened and recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Federal

Reserve cut its benchmark federal funds rate to practically 0% to help prop up the economy.

Current 30-year mortgage rates are not at 10%, nor have they approached that in recent years. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 7.79% in October 2023, a 23-year high. As of Thursday, that average rate was 6.49%. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives a keynote speech during the Bitcoin 2024 conference at Music City Center on July 26, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is canceling his planned campaign events in Chicago during the week of the Democratic National Convention next week and instead will testify in court defending his ballot access in Pennsylvania and New York, a campaign spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

Kennedy is currently appealing a decision in New York that blocked his ballot access in that state, following a trial in which he testified in person. Kennedy is also facing a legal challenge in Pennsylvania over his residency, an issue at the heart of the New York ballot access case.

On Thursday, Former President Donald Trump, speaking of migration under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, repeated his claim that more than 20 million people have entered the country and that many of them are from prisons and mental health facilities.  

Facts First: Trump’s “20 million” figure is false, a major exaggeration. The total number of “encounters” nationwide from February 2021 through June 2024, at both legal ports of entry and in between those ports, was about 10 million — and an “encounter” does not mean a person was let into the country; some people encountered are promptly sent away. In addition, there is no basis for Trump’s claim that “many” of these migrants have come in from jails, prisons or mental health facilities. 

Even if you added the estimated number of Biden-era “gotaways” (people who evaded the Border Patrol to enter illegally), which House Republicans said in May was nearly two million, “the totals would still be vastly smaller than 15, 16 or 18 million,” Michelle Mittelstadt, spokesperson for the Migration Policy Institute think tank, said in late June after Trump used those figures. 

The “encounters” figures can’t be described as figures of people successfully entering the US. Some encounters involve people who are deemed inadmissible at legal ports and are refused permission to enter. Also, the same person can be “encountered” multiple times if they keep returning to the border to try again — which is what happened in many cases under Biden when the Title 42 rapid-expulsion authority invoked by Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic was in place into May 2023. 

In 2023, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung cited one source for Trump’s claim about prisons being emptied for migration purposes — the Breitbart article that has not been corroborated. Even if Venezuela in particular had indeed freed prisoners to allow people to try to migrate to the US, that would be insufficient proof for Trump’s claim that some substantial number of Biden-era migrants are from prisons.

Former President Donald Trump claimed in his Thursday news conference that there was no inflation during his presidency. 

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Inflation was low during his presidency, but not nothing. 

The Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation, rose about 8% during Trump’s four years in office. In January 2021, his final partial month in office, it increased 1.4% from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that there has been “record inflation” under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. The current inflation rate, 2.9% in July, is nowhere near the all-time US record of 23.7%, set in 1920. Trump could fairly say that the inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but even that rate was nowhere near the all-time high, and it has since plummeted. 

Former President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed as President Joe Biden’s “border czar” and that she was in charge of the border.  

Facts First: This is false. Harris was never made Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is inaccurate and was never the official in charge of the border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the official in charge of border security. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the United States. 

Some Republicans have scoffed at assertions that Harris was never the “border czar,” noting on social media that news articles sometimes described Harris as such. But those articles were wrong. Various news outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the first half of 2021 that the White House emphasized that Harris had not been put in charge of border security as a whole, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had instead been handed a diplomatic task related to Central American countries. 

A White House “fact sheet” in July 2021 said: “On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order that called for the development of a Root Causes Strategy. Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”

Biden’s own comments at a March 2021 event announcing the assignment were slightly more muddled, but he said he had asked Harris to lead “our diplomatic effort” to address factors causing migration in the three “Northern Triangle” countries (he also mentioned Mexico that day). Biden listed factors in these countries he thought had led to migration and said that “if you deal with the problems in-country, it benefits everyone.” And Harris’ comments that day were focused squarely on “root causes.”

Republicans can fairly say that even “root causes” work is a border-related task. But calling her “border czar” goes too far.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, August 15.

Speaking in front of a table of packaged foods, former President Donald Trump used his Thursday press conference to draw attention to food inflation.

“Grocery prices have skyrocketed,” Trump said, referring to since President Biden took office in January 2021. Compared to then, Americans paid 21% more for their groceries last month, according to Consumer Price Index data.

But price pressures are fading.

Grocery prices rose at an annual pace of 1.1% last month, according to the latest CPI data released Wednesday. That’s a huge improvement from last July, when grocery prices were rising at an annual pace of 3.6%.

But prices are growing at a very fast pace for some individual items. For instance, frozen beverages and eggs cost more than 19% in July compared to a year ago. Hot dog prices are also up nearly 10% for the year ended in July.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, August 15.

Former President Donald Trump is once again claiming that voters are now faring worse since he left office in 2020.

Trump is speaking at a news conference in New Jersey following his remarks yesterday on the economy. On both sides of the podium, various grocery items are on display behind the former president. He said the cost of items like food and car insurance has increased.

He attacked President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and tried to connect it to Harris, pointing to her role and record as the vice president, painting her as “radical left.”

Trump claimed that Harris’ economic policies “have totally failed and caused really a catastrophe for our country.”

Edible stagecraft: The food surrounding Trump, including sausages and other perishables, has been sitting out in the mid-80-degree weather and attracting flies, which occasionally landed on the former president.

Trump seems pleased with the array, at one point remarking on “what a nice job” his campaign had done putting it together. He also said he might take some of the food “back to my cottage.”

This post has been updated with more details on the scene at Trump’s event in New Jersey.

Sen. JD Vance speaks at VFW Post 92 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday he hopes Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drops out and endorses Donald Trump, mentioning how many in the former president’s orbit believe his continued campaign is beneficial to Vice President Kamala Harris.

However, Vance said that he would not “trade important jobs in the government” for Kennedy’s endorsement, as it would be unethical.

Vance also argued Kennedy is “much closer on the issues” to Trump than to Harris, including on foreign policy and what he called “medical freedom.”

Kennedy said Thursday morning on X that he has “no plans” to endorse Harris and that he cannot reconcile “Harris’s Democratic Party” with his values.

“I hope he gets out. I hope he endorses President Trump. I have no idea what he’ll do,” Vance said.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks from Prince George’s County, Maryland on Thursday, sharing the stage for the first joint public event since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race and threw his support behind Harris.

Introducing Biden for the first time since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket, Harris offered effusive praise for Biden, telling a raucous crowd, “I could speak all afternoon about the person I’m standing on this stage with – our extraordinary president Joe Biden.” 

Throughout Harris’ remarks, the crowd erupted in chants of “Thank you, Joe,” which continued after Biden took the stage following Harris’ introduction.

Here are highlights from the speech:

Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 in Wayne, Michigan on August 8.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to call for a federal ban on price gouging to lower grocery prices and everyday costs for Americans in her first economic policy speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.

The proposal is part of Harris’ efforts to prevent corporations in the food and grocery industries from hiking prices on consumers and is one component of a larger plan she will roll out to tackle high costs and inflation, according to the Harris campaign.

As part of her first 100 days in office, the vice president’s campaign said she would implement a plan to keep costs down. This plan includes authorizing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate and implement harsh penalties on companies that violate the federal ban, resources that can detect price-fixing, and more support for small businesses to potentially grow into competitors of large companies.

Harris’ policy speech comes as the economy remains a critical issue for voters. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released last week found that Americans trust former President Donald Trump over Harris to handle the economy – but opinions were closely split, with 51% saying Trump would be better at handling the economy while 48% said Harris.

Read the full story.

A new Pew Research Center poll finds no clear leader nationally in the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, amid “clear signs that Harris has energized Democratic voters.”

In Pew’s latest poll, 46% of registered voters support Harris, 45% support Trump, and 7% support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a shift from Pew’s July polling, when Trump held a 4-point edge over President Joe Biden.

Similarly sized majorities of both Harris supporters and Trump supporters now say they’re strong backers of their chosen candidate (64% of Trump supporters and 62% of Harris supporters say this). In July there was more of a gap: just 43% of Biden supporters said they supported their chosen candidate strongly, compared with 63% of Trump supporters.

The poll finds most of Harris’ gains coming at the expense of Kennedy. The vast majority of Biden’s former supporters now support Harris (97%) and Trump also has retained most of his July supporters (95%). But just 39% of voters who supported Kennedy in July still say they’re backing him, Pew finds, with 39% now backing Harris, and 20% now backing Trump. The poll did not test a head-to-head version of the race without Kennedy included.

Pew finds that Harris has improved on Biden’s performance with voters in a number of key subgroups, with Trump’s support remaining largely stable since July:

The Pew Research Center poll surveyed 7,569 registered voters on Aug. 5-11, using a nationally representative online panel. Results from the full sample have a margin of sampling error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.

As the economic policy positions of the Harris-Walz ticket start to come into view, they’re increasingly converging with those of her Republican opponents: Donald Trump and JD Vance. 

Over the weekend, Vance told CBS News he would support expanding the Child Tax Credit to $5,000 per child, while acknowledging a difficult road to secure support on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans earlier this month blocked an expansion of the child tax credit. 

Harris’ allies say she continues to support a larger child tax credit, which earlier this year she suggested should return to the amount temporary established under the American Rescue Plan of up to $3,600 per child under 6 and $3,000 for children between 6 and 17. The Harris campaign declined to say where her position on the CTC would eventually land. 

Two sources close to Harris suggested that, while she would lay out a set of new economic proposals during her remarks on Friday, they would be “additive” to what the Biden administration has done thus far, not wholesale revisions of those policies. But with Harris holding more centrist views than the party’s left flank that drove much of the early Biden agenda, the sources suggested that seemingly proposals to lower costs through government programs could be coupled with tax cuts elsewhere. 

To be sure, Harris over the weekend proposed eliminating tips on wages during a rally in Las Vegas, where one-third of workers are employed by the leisure and hospitality industry. That policy was first floated by Trump during a rally in the same location back in June, marking the second time in a week that the opposing political parties have found themselves on common policy footing. 

Former President Donald Trump posted a new TikTok, also shared on Truth Social, in which he mispronounced Vice President Kamala Harris’ first name as “Camila” while bashing her on the economy. 

The Trump campaign has sought to push their economic message this week and contrasts Trump’s economic policies with Harris’. 

Trump claimed in the TikTok that “credit card debt is at an all-time high and that basically the prices of things have never been like this ever before.”

“If you want to bring the prices down, if you want to have a good life, vote for Trump,” Trump said in the video, which was recorded on his plane.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said Corey Lewandowski, who was Trump’s campaign manager in 2016 before leaving in June 2016, would be joining his campaign as a senior adviser. 

Trump added that, “Others, likewise, are joining us. They’ll be announced soon!”

CNN previously reported Lewandowski would be joining Trump’s campaign. 

Trump also praised his two campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. 

“The Enthusiasm is GREAT, and the Management Team, headed up by Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, is THE BEST. Again, these 82 days will go down as the Most Important in Campaign History, and November 5th will be the Most Important Day in the History of our Country. We are a Nation in Decline, but we will soon be a Great Nation again! MAGA2024,” Trump posted.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that a Trump-Vance administration would use “every law enforcement tool” at its disposal to “get illegal immigration under control” — but he doesn’t know if the National Guard would be necessary to conduct the mass deportations former President Donald Trump has promised.

Vance said he likens questions about how the Trump administration would deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States to taking bites out of a large sandwich. In the analogy, Vance said the administration would tackle the problem one step at a time.

The first approach before deportations, Vance said, is to get “illegal immigration as close to zero as physically possible.”

“I don’t know that you need to use the National Guard, but we are going to use every law enforcement tool at our disposal to get illegal immigration under control,” Vance said.

Last weekend, Vance told ABC that mass deportations should take a “sequential approach” with “what’s achievable,” suggesting 1 million people and moving from there.

The Democratic Party committee dedicated to state legislative races on Thursday announced an additional six-figure investment in the key battleground state of Arizona, feeling that they’re closer than ever to having a Democratic trifecta in the Grand Canyon State.

Arizona Democrats need to flip two seats in both the state House and Senate to have a majority and pass their priorities, which they say are ensuring abortion rights, tackling housing affordability, investing in public education, and addressing the state’s water shortage crisis.

On a virtual call Thursday, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee highlighted eight House and four Senate candidates in Arizona that they argued “today represent the strongest opportunities to flip both chambers in one of the toughest battleground states” and announced that it would be investing more than $200,000 to support the slate of candidates. 

The DLCC said it has already invested $131,000 in Arizona for this election cycle ahead of today’s announcement.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks, during an event on Medicare drug price negotiations, in Prince George's County, Maryland, on Thursday, August 15.

President Joe Biden has stepped up to the microphones at the event in Maryland about his administration’s historic effort to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

Biden started by reflecting on the fact that he’s been trying to accomplish legislation on the issue since he was a freshman US senator in 1973.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time,” the president told the crowd.

Biden said the fight against big pharmaceutical companies is critical because Americans pay more for their medications than “any advanced nation in the world.”

Despite the long-running effort to change the policy, drug companies successfully blocked efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for years, the president said.

The president said that while a month’s supply of a drug like insulin for a diabetes patient could cost hundreds of dollars a month, now that price will be capped at $35 for Medicare recipients.

Biden said “every American” should qualify for that lowered price, and said he’ll work to ensure that during his remaining time in office. “Kamala, when she’s president, is going to make sure, if we don’t get it done,” he added.

Biden noted that Democrats passed the existing legislation without support from Republicans in Congress, and suggested the presidential election could determine whether it will remain law.

“The guy we’re running against … they’re fighting to get rid of what we just passed,” the president said.

This post has been updated with additional comments from Biden’s speech.

President Joe Biden got a warm welcome during today’s remarks at a community college in Maryland, his first joint event with Vice President Kamala Harris since he announced he was not seeking reelection.

The president and vice president walked out on the stage together.

“There’s a lot of love in this room for our president,” she said.

Harris praised Biden, saying “few leaders in our nation have done more” on many issues including health care and prescription drug costs, which is an accomplishment that Biden has touted throughout this term.

“Thank you Joe!” the crowd chanted.

Later on in her remarks, Harris said it was her “great honor” to serve with Biden, who she called an “extraordinary human being.”

Biden at the beginning of his remarks said that Harris is “going to make one hell of a president.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Maryland on Thursday.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are holding their first joint event since Biden left the 2024 presidential race last month.

During their remarks in Maryland, they are expected to tout the results of their historic Medicare drug price negotiations, as Harris prepares to pitch her vision to voters at the Democratic National Convention next week.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign declined invitations to additional September debates with Donald Trump and JD Vance in a statement on Thursday.

Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said in the statement that “the debate about debates is over.” He confirmed Harris will participate in a debate with Trump hosted by ABC on September 10 and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will participate in a debate with Vance hosted by CBS on October 1.

Harris is open to an additional debate with Trump in October, a senior campaign adviser said, but the details will not be settled until the first debate is in the books. 

The statement comes after Vance said on Wednesday he accepted invitations from CBS to participate in its debate and from CNN for an additional debate in September. 

At a news conference last week, Trump agreed to participate in the ABC debate with Harris and said he’d also accepted debate invitations from Fox News and NBC for additional debates in September.

CBS News will allow other networks to simulcast its October 1 vice presidential debate between GOP Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, a network spokesperson told CNN.

The decision follows previous agreements this year from CNN and ABC to allow other networks to simulcast their respective presidential debates after the candidates bypassed the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan of “Face the Nation” will moderate the October 1 debate between Vance and Walz, the network said.

The vice presidential candidates have also been invited to a debate on CNN, which Vance has already accepted.

CNN’s 90-minute debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in June was watched by 51.3 million television viewers across 22 networks, in what was the most-watched CNN program in history. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is trying out a new attack strategy ahead of former President Donald Trump’s news conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, later today, which the campaign referred to as “another public meltdown.”

The campaign blasted out a mock media advisory arguing Trump “intends to deliver another self-obsessed rant full of his own personal grievances to distract from his toxic Project 2025 agenda, unpopular running mate, and increasing detachment from the reality of the voters who will decide this election.”

Trump’s remarks, Harris’ campaign said, “will not be artificial intelligence, but they certainly will lack intelligence.” That’s a dig at the former president after he spread a false conspiracy theory about Harris’ Detroit crowd size and claimed a photo was created with artificial intelligence.

They also hit Trump for not campaigning in battleground states, even though he hit the trail in North Carolina on Wednesday. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, held a five-day campaign blitz through key states last week.

Trump is expected to hold the news conference in Bedminster at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 14.

Donald Trump showed up in battleground North Carolina for a big speech on the economy – and one of his unhinged rallies broke out.

But amid the insults, trash talk, rage and lies, the former president blundered into the thing he’d been seeking for days: a strategy to take on Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former president took the stage Wednesday with Republican commentators pining for signs that he’d stabilized after more than three weeks of fury and disorientation after President Joe Biden pulled out of the 2024 race.

Anyone hoping for an elusive Trump pivot would have been disappointed, as they almost always are, as he branded Harris “crazy” and “not smart,” while lampooning her laugh with sexist attacks and turning up the heat of his immigration demagoguery.

Trump’s still uncontrolled bitterness that he’s no longer running against Biden stole the headlines from a speech that his campaign billed as a serious exercise devoted to the economy – the issue that voters care about most.

But his remarks, at least the scripted version of them, offered the first signs that the Trump campaign is beginning to settle on a coherent, albeit extreme and divisive, plan to react to a new general election foe. The event, therefore, offered a preview of how the race to Election Day will unfold after the Democratic National Convention next week.

The new approach, if Trump ever musters the discipline to implement it in a concentrated way, is deeply personal and designed to destroy the idea that Harris, just the second woman to head a major party presidential ticket, is competent to serve. It involves blaming her for the scourge of inflation and high grocery prices that haunted Biden’s administration, under the new title of “Kamalanomics.”

Read the full analysis.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he has agreed to the October 1 vice presidential debate on CBS that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted on Wednesday. 

Vance also said he accepted CNN’s debate invitation on September 18.

CNN has reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment.

When it comes to the rules of the vice presidential debates, Vance said his team didn’t “really didn’t ask or require much” and that he told his staff to “agree to whatever” they have to.

He said he first heard about both the CBS and CNN debates on Wednesday and that he and his team “just wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to do a real exchange of views.”

Vance added that he believes the Harris campaign is “trying to produce a movie” rather than run a political campaign. 

This post has been updated with additional details from Vance.

Vice President Kamala Harris is attempting to do something Democratic presidential hopefuls haven’t done in 16 years: win North Carolina.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny explains why the state has seen an influx of campaign focus from both parties.

In this 2018 photo, then-President Donald Trump awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Doctor Miriam Adelson at the White House in Washington, DC.

Former President Donald Trump is meeting with GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson today at his Bedminster Golf Club ahead of speaking at a “fighting antisemitism” event, according to a source familiar with the plans.

The meeting comes after the New York Times reported Trump “stunned” Adelson when he sent a tirade of text messages through an aide that accused her “of having RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only, running the group and saying her late husband wouldn’t have tolerated it,” according to the Times. 

Some background: Miriam’s late husband Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands and a major donor to Republican politicians, died in January 2021 following complications related to his cancer treatment, his company said. He was 87.

Adelson spent his fortune – pegged at $35 billion by Forbes – to become an influential behind-the-scenes-player in Washington, working to shape US policy toward Israel, help guide Republican Party strategy and lobby against threats posed to his business interests.

CNN’s Jordan Valinsky and Fredreka Schouten contributed reporting to this post. 

Political consultant Corey Lewandowski is interviewed by media at the Fiserv Forum as preparations are underway for the Republican National Convention on July 14, in Milwaukee.

Former President Donald Trump is expected to make new additions to his campaign imminently, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, including the addition of his first 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. It was not immediately clear what his role would be.

Lewandowski served as Trump’s campaign manager from June of 2015 until he was fired a year later amid a series of negative stories and replaced with Paul Manafort.  

Sources stressed the campaign team, co-managed by Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, would not be replaced, but that Lewandowski would be brought on to help navigate the changed political landscape.

“As we head into the home stretch of this election, we are continuing to add to our impressive campaign team,” Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement to CNN. “Corey Lewandowski, Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh are all veterans of prior Trump campaigns and their unmatched experience will help President Trump prosecute the case against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the most radical ticket in American history.”

Some context: The additions come after a change at the top of the Democratic ticket has brought a burst of enthusiasm and a boost in the polls for his new rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Earlier this month, the campaign brought on another long time Trump ally, Taylor Budowich, as a senior adviser to the campaign. Budowich has been the head of the super PAC, MAGA, Inc., for the last two years.

Trump’s campaign has downplayed Harris’s significance, arguing that despite the change in the dynamics of the race, the “fundamentals” of the campaign have remained the same.

But allies of the former President have grown increasingly agitated in recent weeks, as they’ve watched Trump unleash a torrent of mean-spirited missives, race-baiting insults and conspiratorial broadsides that even they acknowledge have been unproductive. Some have privately expressed serious concern that the former president’s recent inability to stay on message has wasted an early opportunity to blunt the momentum of his new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Privately, they’ve complained at the state of the campaign—arguing that things need to change.

When Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz first ran for Congress in 2006, his campaign repeatedly made false statements about the details of his 1995 arrest for drunk and reckless driving.

According to court and police records connected to the incident, Walz admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was pulled over for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone in Nebraska. Walz was then transported by a state trooper to a local hospital for a blood test, showing he had a blood alcohol level of .128, well above the state’s legal limit of 0.1 at the time.

But in 2006, his campaign repeatedly told the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard. The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail that night.

None of that was true.

A CNN KFile review of statements made by the Walz campaign at the time reveals numerous discrepancies between how the campaign described the events and the facts of what actually took place that night.

Read more about Walz’s DWI arrest.

One month ago, battleground North Carolina was slipping away from Democrats. Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, the state is competitive once again.

“Folks were feeling so downtrodden and they just didn’t feel like we could win again,” said Gena Singleton, a longtime party activist and leader of the Burke County Democrats. “All of a sudden, we were on the upswing and people want to be a part of it.”

Few states have offered Democratic presidential hopefuls the number of disappointments the Tar Heel state has in recent cycles. It has been 16 years since Barack Obama delivered a North Carolina surprise in 2008 – the first and only time a Democratic candidate for the White House has carried the state in nearly five decades.

The question now is whether Harris will be able to drive up turnout in urban and fast-growing suburban areas in the state, particularly around Wake County’s Raleigh and Mecklenburg County’s Charlotte. Of the 836,000 voters the state has added since 2012, more than a third are in those two counties, which continue to add new residents every day. Biden took both four years ago by about a 2-to-1 margin.

Even before Biden dropped out, Democrats viewed North Carolina as their best offensive opportunity. In 2020, Trump beat Biden by about 74,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast. The margin of victory of 1.3 points – less than half his spread four years earlier – was the narrowest of any state Trump won.

“I think a lot of people are tired of him,” Barrette, who grew up in a family of Republicans but has become a loyal Democrat, said of Trump. “They really want somebody else and the Democrats are offering that this year. People are noticing and they’re willing to give Kamala Harris a chance.”

Former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign event at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, August 14.

Former president Donald Trump’s attorneys are asking the judge in his New York hush money case to postpone his sentencing until after the presidential election in November, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Trump’s sentencing is currently scheduled for September 18.

Here’s a look at the three other cases Trump is facing.

A CNN Poll of Polls average of general election polling continues to find no clear leader between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, with Harris holding 50% support and Trump 49% support in an average of recent polls testing the head-to-head matchup.

The latest Poll of Polls incorporates five head-to-head surveys released in August, all of which show a race within the margin of error. This marks the first time a Poll of Polls this year shows a numeric advantage for the Democratic candidate, but both the average and the individual polls comprising it continue to indicate a very close race.

The latest update to the average incorporates a Fox News poll released Wednesday evening that finds the state of the race little changed from July, with the Trump ticket taking 50% to the Harris ticket’s 49%. Echoing other recent polling, Fox does find a shift in enthusiasm metrics, with an equal 68% of both Harris and Trump supporters now saying they’re extremely motivated to vote. Last month, 66% of Trump backers and 61% of Biden backers called themselves extremely motivated.

In the Fox poll, 63% of Harris supporters and 77% of Trump supporters say their choice is primarily motivated by support for their chosen candidate, rather than as a vote against their opponent.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Libertarian National Convention on May 24 in Washington, DC. 

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he has no plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in response to reports his campaign approached the Harris campaign about a role in her administration in exchange for an endorsement. 

In a lengthy social media post on X, Kennedy attacked Harris and the Democratic Party, whom he has frequently criticized since leaving the party to run as an independent last year.

The post comes after multiple outlets, including CNN, reported that Harris’ campaign did not take up the Kennedy campaign’s offer to meet to discuss the possibility of Kennedy serving in a potential Harris administration should she win, in exchange for him endorsing her.

Kennedy and former President Donald Trump met in person in Milwaukee, where they discussed Kennedy potentially endorsing Trump in exchange for a role in his administration.

Voters in some battleground states will find it easier to cast ballots this year than in previous presidential elections — while in other pivotal states, voters will face new obstacles, according to a report released Thursday by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

Many of the changes to states’ election rules are focused on the protocols for mail ballots, with some states creating new limits on access to ballot drop boxes and tightening various deadlines in the process. Other states have sought to lower barriers to mail voting.

Among the closely watched states that have made voting harder since 2020, according to the Brennan Center’s analysis, are North Carolina and Florida.

North Carolina: A 2023 law moving up the state’s deadline for when mail ballots must be received by election officials would have affected 11,600 ballots, the Brennan Center said, had the law been in place in 2020. Previously, mail ballots received up to three days after the election could be accepted, but the new law — enacted by the GOP legislature over the veto of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper — makes 7:30 p.m. on Election Day the receipt deadline. Additionally, a requirement that photo ID be shown in order to vote in North Carolina will be in effect for the first time in a presidential election.

Florida: Voters will face new obstacles for casting mail ballots due to a 2021 law that constrained the use of ballot drop boxes and limited the assistance voters can receive from others, among other new regulations.

Read more details from the report on voting in battleground states.

Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina on Thursday said he and President Joe Biden talked as the president was leaving the race and that he is in a “good place.”

CNN reported on Thursday that Biden is still smarting from the push to end his reelection bid and has not spoken with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who played a key role in the effort to convince Biden to step aside, since his decision to abandon his candidacy. The president has made clear to those close to him that he was particularly unhappy with her.

Sources stopped short of using the word “grudge” – but said Biden would not soon forget those who appeared to be most active in pushing him aside.

Discussing his understanding of Biden’s mood right now, Clyburn told CNN’s John Berman, “he’s in a good mood. I’d suspect that he is not happy with some of the public statements and public actions that were taken in this whole issue, but I noticed on yesterday that he joked about inviting people to the White House because he’s looking for a job.”

He added, “I think he is in a real good place because Joe Biden knows that he’s book ending a tremendous record here that no president of the United States could ever match.”

When asked about former President Donald Trump’s comments at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black,” Clyburn said Trump is a “slow learner.”

Clyburn also praised Harris, saying “this lady has a great record” and “I do believe she is going to be successful in this campaign.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about the impact of "Bidenomics" at Sycamore and Oak retail village in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC, on August 4, 2023.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance with President Joe Biden on Thursday to tout efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs offers an early preview of how she plans to navigate his unpopular economic record, according to people familiar with her plans.

Harris is caught in something of a political bind. While individual parts of Biden’s record are popular, he is broadly seen by voters as performing poorly on the economy.

For that reason, aides don’t expect Harris to carry the banner of “Bidenomics,” lumping everything together in a manner that has proven unsuccessful from a messaging perspective.

Instead, her approach will be more focused on individuals and their economic needs.

She is expected to highlight areas of Biden’s record that enjoy broad support among voters, while advocating for a raft of additional policies that would lower the costs of healthcare, food and housing.

That includes lowering the cost of medicines, the main focus of Thursday’s event in Maryland. Polls have shown steps like capping the price of insulin and cutting the cost of Medicare drugs are popular. 

Advisers say Harris’ vision for the economy doesn’t deviate in major ways from Biden’s, and the economic speech she plans to deliver Friday will track closely with many of the priorities of the current administration.

The difference, people familiar with her plans say, will be in emphasis. For example, she plans to hone in on price gouging during her speech Friday, calling for a federal ban on the practice. She’ll also aggressively call out companies for setting excessing prices.

She is expected to also lay out plans for housing and drug prices — with an emphasis on how they would affect middle class Americans, and Americans with children.

Rep. Jim Clyburn speaks before Vice President Kamala Harris at South Carolina State University during a campaign event in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on February 2.

A day after former President Donald Trump launched attacks insulting Vice President Kamala Harris’ laugh and intelligence, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn — a staunch Harris ally — rebuked Trump’s rhetoric, calling it “the sounds of a desperate man.”

Clyburn told CNN that Harris has a “great record,” adding that “she is studiously prepared for this job.”

Clyburn described Harris’ campaign as “taking off like a rocket ship since becoming the presumptive nominee,” attributing the growing support behind her candidacy to her record as vice president.

He said that vice presidents “develop a record for the public to see, and they let the public know that if given the opportunity, what you have seen in my record is the kind of approach you will see me give to governing.”

The South Carolina Democrat also addressed Trump’s recent controversial comments that Harris “happened to turn Black” at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists.

“If he did not know that she was Black, he is a slow learner,” Clyburn said, adding that she attended an historically Black university and was a member of an historically Black sorority.

Vice President Kamala Harris introduces President Joe Biden during an event about their administration's work to regulate artificial intelligence in the East Room of the White House on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC.

President Joe Biden is still smarting from having been forced to abandon his reelection campaign more than three weeks ago and has made clear to those close to him that he was particularly unhappy with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with whom he has not spoken since his decision to abandon his candidacy.

Sources stopped short of using the word “grudge” – but said Biden would not soon forget those who appeared to be most active in pushing him aside. While he has appreciated the warm embrace of Democrats following his decision, there have also been moments of eye-rolling after public tributes from certain party members who most actively tried to push him from the race.

The process that led him to exit the campaign left the president alternately embittered and relieved, according to people familiar with his mindset, who say Biden is still processing the events that led to his ouster as the Democratic standard bearer even as he firmly believes that he made the right choice. Another source familiar with the matter said that Biden was unhappy at the time, but “is not spending time ruminating” about it.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates disputed the characterization that Biden was still dwelling on his unhappiness with Pelosi, saying it was “not accurate” and that the president’s attention is “on the future, not the past.”

While the 81-year-old president holds some regrets about how it unfolded, Biden is now also enlivened by the opportunity to burnish his legacy without having to run a bruising campaign against former President Donald Trump.

Read more about Biden’s focus on his legacy here.

If you’re wondering where the presidential candidates will be on Thursday, here’s where you can expect to hear from them.

The vice-presidential candidates will also make appearances at various events throughout the day.

Our reporters will bring you the latest right here.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears in Brooklyn, New York on May 1.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign reached out to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to arrange a meeting about a possible role in her administration if he drops out of the race and endorses her, a Kennedy campaign official and a Democratic official told CNN.

The Washington Post first reported the outreach.

The approach from Kennedy’s team occurred last week, and no meeting between the two candidates materialized, the Kennedy campaign official told CNN.

The effort to meet comes weeks after Kennedy and Trump met in person during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the two discussed a potential role for Kennedy in the Trump’s administration in exchange for an endorsement.

Kennedy campaign staff also attempted to reach out to intermediaries for Ron Klain, former White House chief of staff for President Biden, but those efforts were fruitless, the Kennedy campaign official said.

While Kennedy continues to make progress on ballot access, arrange campaign events and make media appearances, the Kennedy campaign official told CNN he remains open to dropping out of the race if he believes he can serve the country another way.

Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear said in a statement to CNN that Kennedy “is willing to meet with leaders of both parties to discuss the possibility of a unity government.”

CNN has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Democrats have strongly combatted Kennedy’s campaign since the beginning of the year through ads labeling Kennedy a “spoiler” and highlighting his ties to GOP megadonor Timothy Mellon, who has contributed to an outside group backing Kennedy and a separate group backing Trump. The Democratic National Committee and a super PAC ran by Democratic allies have filed objections to Kennedy’s ballot access in several states.

“No one has any intention of negotiating with a MAGA-funded fringe candidate who has sought out a job with Donald Trump in exchange for an endorsement,” DNC spokesperson Matt Corridoni said in a statement to CNN.  

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks today “on the progress they are making to lower costs for the American people,” according to the White House.

The event, at Prince George’s County Community College in Maryland, will be their first public joint appearance since Biden withdrew from the presidential race last month.

Kamala Harris may be done with Medicare for All, but Medicare for All — with a new nudge from former President Donald Trump — isn’t done with her.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday attacked Harris over her past support of a single-payer, government-run health care system long championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Medicare for All gained broad support among progressive Democrats, especially those with eyes on the White House, before and during the early stages of the party’s 2020 presidential primary.

Harris’ team said recently that she no longer backs the plan, which fell out of vogue with Democrats as Joe Biden surged to the nomination four years ago as one of the few candidates to vocally oppose it. Instead, he campaigned on improving and expanding the Affordable Care Act, which he has focused on during his term and Harris has supported as his vice president.

But Harris has not addressed the question herself, touting the Biden administration’s record while trying to avoid any relitigation of the years-old fight, and putting out word now only through campaign aides. Now, Trump is reviving the debate as he seeks to paint Harris as both a radical liberal and a flip flopper.

The Trump camp’s focus on Medicare for All is emerging as the centerpiece of a wider strategy to use Harris’ 2020 primary positions against her now, less than 90 days before the general election.

Read more about Harris’ previous stance on Medicare for All.