Biden says Harris will ‘make one hell of a president’ at first joint event since he exited race – live | US elections 2024

Donald Trump claims that Kamala Harris wants to “defund the police”, despite the fact that the vice-president has distanced herself from previous remarks praising the movement following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Harris has not advocated abolishing police forces, and her spokesperson has said that “she wants to fund the police, but she wants to do the other things as well.”

Donald Trump says Kamala Harris is “far more radical than Bernie Sanders”, and says she has picked herself a running mate, Tim Walz, who is also “far more radical” than Sanders.

Harris “wants to change a free-enterprise-type country into a communist-type country”, Trump says.

He claims that as attorney general of California, Harris “destroyed” the state and that if elected, that she will do the same to the country.

Trump claims that in California “you’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950”. This is not true.

California’s Proposition 47 reclassified some felony crimes so that individuals who commit certain nonviolent drug and property crimes, including shoplifting where merchandise under $950 was stolen, would be sentenced on misdemeanor charges instead of felony charges.

A misdemeanor sentence would still lead to a person serving up to a year in county jail, according to LA Times.

Donald Trump, speaking at a news conference from his New Jersey golf club, is sticking to a very similar script as when he addressed supporters at a rally yesterday in North Carolina.

Wednesday’s rally was billed as a major address on the economy, an issue that is taking center stage in this presidential contest. Despite this, Trump said yesterday he was “not sure the economy is the most important topic” of the election.

Trump claims Kamala Harris wants “communist price controls”, calling them “the Maduro plan” in reference to Venezuela’s authoritarian socialist leader. He quotes various inflation statistics for various staples of US household diets, as well as higher car insurance premiums and fuel costs.

Donald Trump has begun speaking at his news conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he says he has “a lot of interesting” and “some very specific things” to talk about.

Trump repeats his claim that the US is a “failing nation” with a “failing economy”, and says Kamala Harris has “broke the world” and that she “destroys everything she touches”.

He goes on to accuse Harris of being Biden’s “border czar”, despite the fact that the vice-president was never made Biden’s “border czar”. The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, is the official in charge of border security.

Trump claims that Harris is going to be easier to beat than Biden, and claims that he is leading in “most of the polls”. In reality, polls are showing that Harris is ahead of Trump or at least tied with him in most of the battleground states.

The Ohio senator and the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he hoped that Robert F Kennedy Jr will drop out as an independent presidential candidate and endorse Donald Trump.

Vance, speaking to reporters on his campaign plane today, said there were “a lot of people” in Trumpworld who think Kennedy is “fundamentally running a campaign that’s helping Kamala Harris”. He added:

At this point, I certainly hope that he drops out and endorses, you know, endorses President Trump.

Kennedy is “much closer on the issues” to Trump than to Harris,” Vance argued.

From ABC News’s Hannah Demissie:

Kamala Harris’s campaign has released a new video in which she and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, describe their ticket as joyful underdogs on the path to victory.

“Our campaign is the underdog campaign,” Harris says to Walz in the 10-minute video.

And with our joy, we also have to understand that we’re still up against some forces that are trying to divide our country.

Walz compares the election to a football game, saying it’s “half-time in America”, to which Harris responds: “I’m looking at Coach Walz right now.”

The video recalls a similar one between Joe Biden and Barack Obama during the 2020 campaign, AP reported.

Secret Service approves new plan to better protect Trump outdoors – report

The film-maker Michael Moore was one of the few well-known voices on the left who predicted Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, but he’s feeling better about the chances for Kamala Harris and the Democrats this year. In an interview with the Guardian’s Edward Helmore, he explained his reasoning:

With Joe Biden looking for re-election Democrats feared they were looking at an electoral catastrophe. Now, with Biden dropping out and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, at the top of the ticket, it suddenly feels like it is Donald Trump who is staring at possible defeat.

The liberal film-maker and Democratic whisperer Michael Moore says he’s more optimistic than he has ever been since Trump stepped on to the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his first run for the presidency eight years ago.

“This isn’t just a sugar-high or what [recovering] heroin addicts call a pink cloud,” Moore says. “It was so depressing for so many weeks and then it was instantly not depressing. I am hopeful now but it’s ours to blow – and we have a history of blowing it.”

Moore, 70, has in recent years become something of an electoral sage. He predicted Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, in part because of the sense of political-cultural superiority Democrats emanated and because he had noticed that the campaign was fearful of inspiring Maga supporters. He predicted, too, that Democrats would buck the trend and be fine in the 2022 midterms.

In this election cycle he is in some ways in line with the pollster Nate Silver, who recently said: “The strategy of the Harris campaign should be to triangulate the strategy of Hillary 2016, the Harris 2020 primary campaign, and Biden 2024, and do the exact opposite.”

But Moore says he understands why Democrats are nervous that the Harris-Walz ticket could come apart, though it shows no current signs of doing so, particularly if Harris gets tarred with Biden’s unpopular “Bidenomics” or responsibility for his full-throated support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Speaking of press conferences, Donald Trump has one planned for 4.30pm, and the Harris campaign is trying to make the most of it.

They’ve sent out a sarcastic advisory to reporters, which you can read below, letting them know that the former president is primed to “ramble incoherently” in a location that is “not a battleground state”. Indeed, the venue is to be Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Here’s more:

“Tune in for the same old thing,” the campaign of Trump’s Democratic rival advises.

This will be the second time the former president has taken questions from reporters in as many weeks. The last time he did so, Trump said all sorts of things, including that he has spoken to crowds bigger than those attracted by Martin Luther King Jr:

Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, seems eager to debate Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz.

Earlier today, the Ohio senator accepted Walz’s offer of a debate on 1 October, while also proposing a matchup on 18 September. The Harris campaign indicated hours later that Walz will only do the debate scheduled for October.

At a campaign event in Pennsylvania this morning, Vance discussed why he was so interested in debating the Minnesota governor:

This is also the second day in a row that Vance has ended a speech by taking questions from reporters in attendance, which a little unorthodox and also an attempt to contrast himself from Harris, who has not done interviews or press conferences since launching her presidential bid.

House Republicans accuse Biden of ‘price fixing’ with law to lower prescription drug costs

The White House estimated that 2,300 people attended Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s speech in the Washington DC suburb of Largo, Maryland.

Among the introductory speakers was the state’s governor, Wes Moore, who is seen as an up-and-coming Democrat. The crowd seemed to be aware of that, chanting “48” when he was onstage.

Biden is the 46th president, and Harris is the Democratic nominee to become the 47th president, but the race for the 48th president is, at this most early stage, wide open.

Joe Biden wrapped up his remarks with a nod to the fact that his 52-year career in politics will soon come to an end.

“I thank God that in the last three months I’m president of the United States, I was able to finally get done what I tried to get done when I was a young senator,” Biden said.

Before he left the stage, Kamala Harris came back out. The two clasped hands and held them up, then walked off.

Biden seems to be in a feisty mood today.

He continued to savage Republicans, bringing up Project 2025, the rightwing plan to remake the US government that many former Trump officials are involved in.

“We’re not backing down and get this, you may have heard about the Maga Republican Project 2025,” Biden said.

“They want to repeal Medicare’s power to negotiate drug prices … let me tell you what our Project 2025 is: beat the hell out of them.”

Biden calls Republican nominee ‘Donald Dump’

Biden says Harris will ‘make one hell of a president’

Harris then made way for Biden to take the stage, saying that the president would talk about the results of the Medicare price negotiations.

“In the two years since, we’ve been using this new power to lower the price of life-saving medications. And, now, to announce the result of those negotiations. It is my eternal and great, great, great honor, I have to tell you, to serve with this most extraordinary human being and American and leader, our president, Joe Biden,” Harris said.

The pair hugged, and then Biden began his speech.