August 11, 2024, presidential campaign news | CNN Politics (2024)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to travel to Chicago for campaign events and interviews during this month’s Democratic National Convention, a campaign spokesperson told CNN on Sunday.

Kennedy is slated to hold multiple campaign events in the Chicago area the same week Democrats will converge on the city in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear told CNN.

The Chicago appearances will mark his campaign’s first public events since early July, when Kennedy attended an agriculture roundtable in Maine. Since then, he has made public appearances at conferences or events organized by outside groups.

Kennedy was initially scheduled to campaign in Wisconsin ahead of the Republican National Committee in Milwaukee last month, but his campaign canceled his appearances at the last minute. Kennedy did travel to Wisconsin that week for private meetings, including with former President Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, on August 7.

Donald Trump falsely claimed in a series of social media posts Sunday that“nobody” attendedVice President Kamala Harris’ Michigan rally last week — and said his Democratic rival should be “disqualified”over a “fake crowd picture.”

The former president appeared to have fallen for a far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved by photos and videos captured by attendees and media showing thousands of supporters at the event at an airport hangar near Detroit.

Trump, who regularly draws large crowds of his own, has long beenfixated onaudiencesize, with hisspeeches often filled with exaggerated boastsabout the turnout.

The former president, on his social media website Truth Social, made the fabricated claim that Harris had been “turned in” by an airport maintenance worker who “noticed the fake crowd picture.”

He then said Harris should be “disqualified” from the 2024 election “because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”

However, photos and videos of the event — including videos captured with CNN’s cameras — reflect a sizable audience for Harris’ Wednesday event.The crowd filled a large hangar and spilled onto the sprawling tarmac where Air Force Two had stopped. Two large risers and many rows of chairs were outside, as well as several giant screens for the outdoor crowd that couldn’t see the rally stage.

Read more about Trump’s false claims here.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Vice President Kamala Harris and compared the election to the Olympics during remarks at a San Francisco campaign fundraiser Sunday.

Pelosi, who spoke before Harris and received a standing ovation upon walking to the lectern, began her remarks by saying, “Isn’t this a day to take pride in our candidate for president?”

The powerful California Democrat made an analogy between elections and the Olympics, noting that the difference between gold, silver and bronze can come down to seconds. “Elections are that close,” she said, according to reporters in the room.

Harris “makes us all so proud,” Pelosi added, describing the vice president as a person of “great strength” and someone who is “politically very astute.”

CNN has previously reported that the former speaker privately told President Joe Biden that polling showed he could not beat former President Donald Trump and that his run could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning back the House. Pelosi said last week she has not spoken to Biden, a longtime ally, since he dropped out of the race.

The event in San Francisco, which Harris’ campaign said brought in more than $12 million, featured a number of other high-profile attendees, including:

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on August 10.

Vice President Kamala Harris told donors in San Francisco on Sunday that the real work of her campaign was yet to come, following a blitz of rallies in battleground states,

The Democratic presidential nominee told the crowd of 700 donors that she’s “never been one to really believe in the polls, whether they’re up or they’re down.”

As she reflected on her five-city battleground tour, which concluded Saturday in Las Vegas, Harris shared some “notes from the field” with her audience.

Americans “don’t want to go back,” she said, noting how some rally attendees have chanted “Not going back!” at her events.

And while she called the energy surrounding her campaign “undeniable,” she emphasized the importance of maintaining voters’ enthusiasm.

“The press and our opponents like to focus on our crowd size, and, yes, the crowds are large,” she said, adding it was more important that rally attendees are signing up for volunteer shifts.

“It’s really been a good couple weeks, but we have a lot of work to do,” Harris said to laughs.

Harris’ campaign said the San Francisco event brought in more than $12 million.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance speaks during a press conference on August 7, in Shelby Township, Michigan.

Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance is defending former President Donald Trump’s attacks on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, falsely claiming Walz has “supported taking children from their parents if the parents don’t consent to gender reassignment,” which Vance described as “kidnapping” in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

As CNN has reported, Walz in 2023 signed anexecutive orderthat directed Minnesota agencies to do whatever they could to protect and support Minnesotans seeking gender-affirming health care services.

Walz also signed“trans refuge”legislation thatsafeguarded access to such care. Part of thelaw states, “A court of this state has temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state” and “has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.”

Vance’s comments in the interview came in response to ABC’s Jonathan Karl highlighting Trump’s false claim that Walz had signed legislation that would let the state kidnap children.

“Tim Walz gets on his high horse about, ‘Mind your own damn business.’ One way of minding your own damn business,” Vance said, “is to not try to take my children away from me if I have different world views than you.”

Karl noted that Walz “has not signed a law allowing a state to kidnap children to change their gender identity.”

“What I just explained to you, I would describe as kidnapping,” Vance said. “He has absolutely done this stuff.”

“That’s crazy, c’mon,” Karl said. “It’s not what he’s done.”

CNN has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Boxes of Mifepristone are seen at Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, on April 9.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance said in multiple interviews that aired Sunday that a Trump administration would not use the FDA to block access to the abortion drug mifepristone and that individual states should make decisions on abortion policy.

Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash that if he was reelected, former President Donald Trump would not seek to block the drug. However, Vance said the former president would “let states make the decision on abortion policy” — a position he acknowledged would lead to a patchwork of policies, including blue states with fewer restrictions and red states with more.

In another interview that aired Sunday, CBS’ Margaret Brennan pointed out to Vance that it was only after Roe v. Wade was overturned that the Supreme Court took up the case challenging the FDA’s approach to regulating mifepristone. In June, the courtultimately ruledthat the doctors and anti-abortion groups behind the lawsuit did not have standing to sue.

“When states and voters in those states make decisions, we of course want the states and the federal government to respect those decisions. And that’s what President Trump has said … We need to get out of the culture war side of the abortion issue,” Vance said on “Face the Nation.” “We need to let the states decide their specific abortion policy.”

Brennan noted that Vance, as a senator, signed a letter to the Justice Department demanding it shut down all mail-order abortion operations under the Comstock Act.

“We just want the FDA to make sure that doctors are prescribing this in a safe way. That’s all that we ever said, and I believe that that is how President Trump feels about this is, again, you want the states to make these determinations,” Vance said.

Voting machines are seen during the Georgia presidential primary elections in Atlanta on March 12.

The five-member state election board in Georgia last weekpassed controversial new rules less than 90 days before Election Day, which critics say could potentially delay certification of the election results if a county’s election board chooses to do so.

Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are crucial for both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes.

Here’s what to know about the rules that were approved by the board this week that will reshape election protocols in the Peach State:

Read more about these changes and others and how they came about here.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance said he would like to see the child tax credit expanded to $5,000 per child.

“I think we’d love to see it at a higher dollar value, and I think President (Donald) Trump and I have proposed that,” Vance told CBS’ Face the Nation in an interview airing Sunday. “I’d love to see a child tax credit that’s $5,000 per child, but you of course have to work with Congress to see how possible and viable that is.”

Vance said he wants a “broad-based family policy and a broad-based Child Tax Credit,” arguing it shouldn’t be based on income.

“You don’t want a different policy for higher-income families. You just want to have a pro-family child tax credit,” Vance continued.

Vance said he opposes “one model of child care,” and that the credit should also apply to grandparents who raise grandchildren, as his did, as well as to single parents.

Pressed on whether the credit should apply to same-sex couples, Vance said, “All families would be included, of course.”

Vance also claimed that “the child tax credit has languished thanks to the Biden administration because (Vice President Kamala) Harris has failed to show fundamental leadership.” Hehas previously falsely claimedthat Harris is calling to end the child tax credit. She has actually called for years to increase it.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan tax package that would have temporarily expanded the child tax credit, which Vance described in the CBS interview as a “show vote.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance should “put your money where your mouth is” on supporting children and families following his past “childless cat lady” comments

Vance, in his 2021 criticism of “childless” Democrats running the country, specifically mentioned Harris, who is a stepmother, and Buttigieg, who would soon afterward adopt children with his husband.

In a CNN interview that aired Sunday, Vance said, “of course” he acknowledges the families of Harris and Buttigieg and argued his comments were taken out of context.

Buttigieg countered that Vance only acknowledged his family’s legitimacy because “I think he kind of felt shamed into it.”

During his 2022 Senate run in Ohio, Vance said he would’ve voted “no” on the Respect for Marriage Act, the landmark federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples signed by President Joe Biden.

“I don’t know exactly what his vision of us not having a family looks like, but I know that it’s not pro-family for me,” Buttigieg said.

CNN has reached out to Vance’s campaign for comment.

Rep. Jason Crow speaks during a House hearing on June 3, in Washington, DC.

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow defendedDemocratic vice presidential candidate and fellow veteran Gov. Tim Walz on Sunday amid criticism from Republicans over his military record.

Crow, who has served combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he has a “special place in his heart for fellow privates,” noting that Walz enlisted as a private, just like Crow, and “worked his way up” from the bottom.

Walz has recently faced scrutiny over his military service record with critics, including Sen. JD Vance, accusing Walz of embellishing his military experience. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, but his retirement in 2005 has prompted criticism from some Republicans who suggest he did so to avoid deploying to Iraq.

Asked about reports that some National Guardsmen say they felt left behind by Walz, Crow pushed back, saying “overwhelmingly the people that served with Tim Walz said that he served with distinction,” while noting that military units are “like families.”

“And they don’t always get along, people have personal grievances, people are angry with each other and it’s very sad to see that,” Crow said.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance talks to local law enforcement and border patrol officials as he tours the US border wall in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, on August 1.

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Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance saidmass deportationsof undocumented immigrants in the United States, promised in a potential second Trump administration, should start with “what’s achievable,” proposing an initial goal of a million deportations.

“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, ‘Well, how do you deport 18 million people?’ Let’s start with 1 million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” Vance said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The first thing you have to do is stop the bleeding,” Vance continued. “Stop the open border. Get Kamala Harris out of there and actually reimplement the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, rebuild or finish Donald Trump’s border wall.”

“You take a sequential approach to it. You are gonna have to deport some people. If you’re not willing to deport a lot of people, you’re not willing to have a border,” he said.

Trump hastold Time magazinehe would target 15 million to 20 million people in the United States who are undocumented.

At one point in the “This Week” interview, ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Vance, “Are people going to knock on doors and ask people for their papers? I mean, what are you going to do?”

GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance said talking to someone doesn’t mean you “endorse their views,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s 2022 dinner with White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

In an interview aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Vance said he likes how Trump “will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody, doesn’t mean you endorse their views.”

His remarks come after Fuentes leveled racist attacks last month against Vance’s wife Usha.

“Look, if these guys want attack me, or attack my views, my policy views, my personality, come after me, but don’t attack my wife, she’s out of your league,” he said.

On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Vance said he “of course” disavows Fuentes, whom he described as a “total loser,” according to atranscript released before the interview aired Sunday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks in Triangle, Virginia, on April 22.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Sunday refrained from criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ policy reversals, instead saying that the Democratic presidential nominee “has to run her campaign.”

“I’m sure she is … talking to all kinds of people to come up with an agenda that will lead to victory in November,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Harris and Sanders have expressed differing positions on issues such as “Medicare for All,” certain elements of immigration policy and fracking.

Sanders said he believed “the contrast is very clear” when comparing Harris’ policies with those of former president Donald Trump, but stressed that his policy ideas, including the expansion of Medicare, poll very well.

Vice President Kamala Harris waves to supporters at a campaign rally on August 9, in Glendale, Arizona.

Vice President Kamala Harris is capitalizing on the power of strong imagery to sustain the momentum surrounding her candidacy in hopes of building a cultural movement for the Democratic ticket in ways that long eludedPresident Joe Biden.

Harris is taking a page out of the former president’s own playbook — and drawing his ire in the process.

The surge in interest in her campaign has led to a rapid scaling-up of Harris’ infrastructure. Merchandise has exploded online. Harris’ crowds are filled with supporters wearing shirts, buttons and hats of all varieties — a scene far more comparable to a Trump rally than a Biden one.

Large crowds of supporters have already greeted Harris in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada. In Wisconsin last week, some supporters abandoned their cars on the roadside a mile from the event site and walked the rest of the distance.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz quipped Friday night, praising the audience at a packed rally outside Phoenix.

Getting Trump’s attention: Harris’ large crowds are now a pivotal part of the new plan to defeat Trump.

On Sunday, Trump falsely claimed that Harris had “nobody” waiting for her at her Detroit airport hangar rally—which was attended by thousands—and that photos of the crowd in front of Air Force Two and at other speeches were created using artificial intelligence.

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump said on social media. “She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches.”

At a Thursday news conference, Trump said, “I have 10 times, 20 times, 30 times the crowd size, and they never say the crowd was big.”

This post was updated with additional information.

Read more about Harris’ strategy for the Oval Office here.

Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wave as they depart Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on August 7.

President Joe Biden will “do whatever Kamala thinks I can do to help most” to get Vice President Kamala Harris elected to the Oval Office.

In a CBS News interview that aired Sunday, Biden said he will be on the campaign trail for Harris in multiple states, including putting together a “tour of Pennsylvania” with the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, who had been among the top contenders to be Harris’ vice presidential pick.

Biden said he talks to Harris “frequently,” and that he thinks the Harris-Walz pair is “a hell of a team.”

Pete Buttigieg speaks with CNN on Sunday, August 11.

Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary and a former Naval Reserve officer, said that Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz does not need to further correct the record on his military career after GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance again criticized the Democratic governor over the weekend.

A Harris campaign spokesperson told CNN on Saturday that Walz “misspoke” in a newly resurfaced video from 2018 in which he said he handled assault weapons “in war.” Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring to run for Congress in 2005. He deployed with his unit to Italy in 2003 in support of the US war effort in Afghanistan but did not deploy to a combat zone as part of his service.

“Remember, you can retire at 20 years. Tim Walz served for 24. And the fact that they have to go back to find a clip from 2018 to find the one time that he slipped up when he talks about the weapons of war that he carried and said something instead about carrying a weapon in war — it’s kind of an exception that proves the rule, in terms of how hard you have to look to find Tim Walz saying anything that isn’t precise and accurate,” said Buttigieg, who served six years as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves including a six-month deployment to Afghanistan.

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JD Vance and Tim Walz.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance continued his attacks on Democratic rival Tim Walz, contending that the Minnesota governor is “lying about his own record” of military service.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bashthat aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Vance criticized the Minnesota governor for once claiming to have carried weapons “in war” (a Harris campaign spokesperson on Saturdaysaid Walz misspoke) and for failing to correct descriptions of him in the past as having served in combat.

Walz and Vance are both military veterans, unlike their running mates.

Vance served four years in the Marine Corps as an enlisted combat correspondent, in public affairs, and deployed once to Iraq for roughly six months, according to his military record. He left service in September 2007 as a corporal.

Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring to run for Congress in 2005, a campaign during which he faced similar accusations about how he described his service. He deployed with his unit to Italy in 2003 in support of the US war effort in Afghanistan but did not deploy to a combat zone as part of his service.

Read more about Vance’s interview on CNN here.

Former President Donald Trump walks toward the stage at a rally in Bozeman, Montana, on August 9.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday said his two fundraisers in Montana and Wyoming this weekend raised $28 million for his campaign.

“Great visit to Montana and Wyoming, where I am leading BIG,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “… Anyway, the two day visit raised $28,000,000 for our very successful Presidential Campaign. Thank you to a truly beautiful part of the World!”

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden had banked on June’s presidential debate turning around a race that was slipping away from him.

Now, Donald Trump may be laying a similar bet after reversing himself byagreeing to debate on ABCnext month as his new Democratic opponent enjoys surging momentum.

Trump clearly doesn’t believe he’ll suffer the kind of debacle that ended Biden’s campaign, but his decision — and call for another two debates on NBC and Fox, which Vice President Kamala Harris has not agreed to — tells an emerging truth about the election.

After a barnstorming week for Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Trump suddenly looks like old news — a crushing new experience for an ex-president who prides himself on driving the narrative.

A huge test for both candidates: The build-up to the debate on September 10, assuming it goes ahead, will be intense, and the truncated nature of the new campaign means it could create another historic pivot point on the dwindling road to the White House.

Already, Trump is playing his idiosyncratic expectations game of denigrating the skills of his opponent, who could be the first Black woman and South Asian president. At a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort Thursday, he compared Harris unfavorably with Biden, who he’d long argued lacked the mental acuity to serve. “She’s actually not as smart as he is. I don’t think he’s very smart either, by the way. I’m not a big fan of his brain,” Trump said.

The clash also looms as an extreme test for Harris. The vice president has a mixed record in debates — she performed strongly in such events early in her failed 2020 presidential campaign. But at others, she struggled. And her most unflattering moments in office have come when she’s been asked to explain her positions or answer tough questions in major interviews.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is pictured at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on August 6.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “misspoke” in a newly resurfaced video from 2018 in which he said he handled assault weapons “in war,” a Harris campaign spokesperson told CNN on Saturday.

Walz’s military record has been heavily scrutinized by Republicans, including GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, in the days after being tapped as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on Monday. Vance has accused Walz of “stolen valor,” pointing to a video from 2018 circulated by the Harris campaign this week of Walz referring to weapons “that I carried in war” while explaining his support for an assault weapons ban.

“We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war,” Walz saidin the video.

Lauren Hitt, a Harris campaign spokesperson, said in a statement the governor misspoke in the clip.

“Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” Hitt said in the statement.

Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years, most recently in the Minnesota National Guard, before retiring to run for Congress in 2005. He deployed with his unit to Italy in 2003 in support of the US war effort in Afghanistan, but did not deploy to a combat zone as part of his service.

Vice President Kamala Harris greets supporters at a high school in West Allis, Wisconsin, in July. It was her first campaign event as a presidential candidate.

Vice President Kamala Harris, quoting her mother, told a group of newly sworn-in commissioners for a White House initiative for Hispanics that their work on education and economic opportunity would be done in the context of their communities.

It went viral. First, as a criticism of Harris on right-wing social media accounts, including @RNCResearch, the rapid response account of the Republican National Committee. But slowly, then all at once — around the time she became the presumptive Democratic nominee — it was co-opted by her supporters, who remixed and reposted the meme and catapulted Harris onto the “for you page” for TikTok users across the country and globe.

For years as vice president, Harris has been quietly laying the digital groundwork behind the scenes — meeting with young voters, social media influencers and several grassroots organizations. Now, with less than 90 days until the November election, the Harris campaign has made subtle shifts to capitalize on the momentum around her candidacy — and translate her growing social media following into votes.

Since President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed his vice president for the Democratic nomination 20 days ago, the Harris campaign’s digital structure and strategy have largely stayed the same, sources say. But there have been subtle shifts to better reflect the younger nominee at the top of the ticket.

Read more here on Harris’ viral social media posts.