Kamala Harris: ‘We are joyful warriors’
“We are joyful warriors,” Kamala Harris said, in apparent reference to Tim Walz’s comment yesterday that she has brought “joy” back to the campaign trail.
She added:
“Because we know that while fighting for a brighter future may be hard work, hard work is good work …
We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for America’s families so that they have a chance, not just to get by, but to get ahead. Because while our economy is doing well by many measures, prices for everyday things like groceries, are still too high. You know it, and I know it.”
Key events
Harris campaign in Wisconsin draws over 12,000 people, campaign says
Earlier today, we reported on the long lines of people waiting to attend a Harris Walz campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a key swing state.
CBS News is reporting that “over 12,000 people” attended.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance also held a press conference in Eau Claire today.
A CBS campaign reporter summed up the day of dueling Republican and Democratic midwest press conferences with this photo:
Harris campaign raises $36m in the day after announcing Walz as her running mate.
In the 24 hours after Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her vice-presidential pick, the campaign raised $36m, it told reporters.
In July, the campaign raised a total of $310m, ABC News reported. (Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race on 21 July, a Sunday, and endorsed Harris as his replacement.)
Harris/Walz campaign setting up in this airport hangar in Detroit for rally tonight. They’re heading here from WI.
Harris campaign says it raised $36 million in the 24 hours since the running mate announcement. campaign said it raised $310 million in July pic.twitter.com/XVWqQcV1Qg— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) August 7, 2024
Yesterday, the Harris campaign announced it had raised $20m in the first hours since Walz was announced as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate, CBS News reported.
Update: In the first 24 hours since Governor Walz was announced as Vice President Harris’ running mate, Team Harris-Walz has raised $36 million dollars. https://t.co/ywlQzLqYhl
— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) August 7, 2024
Interim summary
Here’s a look at where things stand:
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Kamala Harris and Tim Walz took the stage in front of a roaring crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday afternoon. “It can’t be said seriously enough, so much is on the line and compounded with everything else that we knew was on the line,” said Harris. Walz echoed similar sentiments, saying: “This election is all about asking that question, which direction will this country go in? Donald Trump knows the direction he wants to take it.”
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Slightly before Harris and Walz’s rally, JD Vance held his own rally, also in Eau Claire. He spoke to his background and how his mother is now in recovery from the opioid addiction that affected his whole childhood. He also blamed Harris for not securing the border toughly enough.
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In response to a question on whether he thinks it matters that Harris chose Walz, Vance replied: “What does Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz say about her? Well, I think it says one, she’s leaning into the defund the police radicalism of the last few years. Two, she’s leaning into the open borders policies of last year … And then the final point that I’d say is it says that she bent the knee to the Hamas caucus of the Democrat party.”
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In an endorsement post on Twitter/X, Barack Obama wrote of Walz: “Governor Walz doesn’t just have the experience to be vice president, he has the values and the integrity to make us proud. And as we saw last night, @KamalaHarris and @Tim_Walz make a great team.”
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During his campaign in Shelby Township, Michigan, JD Vance defended Donald Trump’s attacks on Harris’s biracial identity. He said: “I was not bothered at all by what President Trump said. I didn’t take it as an attack on Kamala Harris’s biracial background at all.”
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JD Vance continued to stick to Trump and Republicans’ attack line questioning Harris’s biracial identity, saying: “Donald Trump said something very simple, totally inoffensive but frankly obviously true to me which is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon. She’s a fake …”
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Trump called into Fox & Friends this morning, for half an hour of softball questions teeing up invective about Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Democrats’ supposed antisemitism and other matters. On whether he will debate Harris, Trump said: “We’ll be debating I guess in the pretty near future, it’s going to be announced fairly soon, but we’ll be debating her.”
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Cori Bush lost her Democratic primary after pro-Israel pressure groups spent millions of dollars to unseat her over criticisms of Israel’s war on Gaza. St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated Missouri’s first Black female member of Congress with about 51% of the vote. Bush, a member of the progressive “Squad”, took about 46%.
“It can’t be said seriously enough, so much is on the line and compounded with everything else that we knew was on the line,” said Kamala Harris.
“Donald Trump has openly vowed, if re-elected, he will be a dictator on day one, that he would weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, that he would round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country, and even quote, terminate the United States constitution.
Let us be clear, someone who suggests we should terminate the constitution of the United States should never again have a chance to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”
Kamala Harris: ‘We are joyful warriors’
“We are joyful warriors,” Kamala Harris said, in apparent reference to Tim Walz’s comment yesterday that she has brought “joy” back to the campaign trail.
She added:
“Because we know that while fighting for a brighter future may be hard work, hard work is good work …
We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for America’s families so that they have a chance, not just to get by, but to get ahead. Because while our economy is doing well by many measures, prices for everyday things like groceries, are still too high. You know it, and I know it.”
Kamala Harris has now taken the stage.
Wearing a white shirt and tan pants, Harris waved excitedly to a crowd of cheering supporters, many of whom are waving “Harris Walz” signs.
“One of the best parts of this job is going to be, I can’t wait till the debate,” Tim Walz said in response to loud cheers from the crowd.
He added:
“So look, I’ve done this enough and I know bullies and I’m not a name caller, but what I am is a teacher, I observe things. So I want to tell you what I observed, and you’ve observed … about these guys, when you see them, that it’s a very clear thing. Yes, they are creepy and weird as hell. You see it. You see it. This is not normal. This is not normal behavior.”
Walz: ‘We settle our political differences not through violence but through our votes’
“We settle our political differences not through violence but through our votes,” said Tim Walz.
He added:
“The question is pretty simple. This election is all about asking that question, which direction will this country go in? Donald Trump knows the direction he wants to take it. He wants to take us back. He wants to do the things that he saw. But be very clear.
Don’t believe him when he plays dumb. He knows exactly what he’s talking about. He knows exactly what Project 2025 will do in restricting and taking our freedoms. He knows that it rigs the economy for the super rich if he gets a chance to go back to the White House. It will be far worse than it was four years ago.”
“We’re pretty neighborly with Wisconsin. We did our friendly battles in Minnesota, just like in Wisconsin. We respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make, even if we wouldn’t make the same choices for ourselves, because we know there’s a golden rule, mind your own damn business. Mind your own damn business,” said Tim Walz.
“I don’t need you telling me about our healthcare. I don’t need you telling us who we love, and I sure the hell don’t need you telling us what books we’re going to read,” he added.
At one point, someone in the crowd appeared to cry out from the heat, to which Walz responded, “Can we get somebody to help? Somebody’s hot, somebody’s hot … Drink some water folks, it is hot out.”
The individual appeared to have swiftly been help, with Walz saying, “Thank you all for helping … We all take care of one another. This is is why we gather. Look, it’s hot. It is hot … But I have to tell you all again, in all seriousness, to come and gather like this, to talk about our freedoms, the ability to talk about what could be good, and I have to say, this idea of caring for our neighbors … and to be able to be there when you need it. It’s not about mocking.”
“We don’t shy away from challenges, but I’ll tell you what: Donald Trump, he sees the world differently than we see it,” said Tim Walz.
“He has no understanding of service because he’s too busy servicing himself … This guy weakens our country to strengthen his own hands. He mocks our laws. He sows chaos and division among the people and that’s to say nothing of the job he did as president,” he added.
Tim Walz has taken the stage in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Walz is in Wisconsin alongside Kamala Harris as part of their campaign blitz across seven states in five days.
Walz opened up by talking about his military, teaching and coaching background, saying, “My mom and dad taught me to show generosity to my neighbors and work for a common good.”
Describing himself and Donald Trump amid Democrats including Tim Walz calling GOP leaders “weird”, JD Vance said:
“I think that what makes Donald Trump and I good candidates and a good team … is that we’re normal guys who want to make this country great again, and we want Americans to be able to live the American dream …
And what’s going to happen is the American people aren’t going to care about it because they don’t care about some tagline written by a social media intern. They care about which president and which vice-president is going to make their country better and their lives more safe and more secure. Donald Trump and I are proud to carry that message forward for the next 93 days.”
In response to a question on whether he thinks it matters that Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz, JD Vance replied:
“What does Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz say about her? Well, I think it says one, she’s leaning into the defund the police radicalism of the last few years. Two, she’s leaning into the open borders policies of last year … And then the final point that I’d say is it says that she bent the knee to the Hamas caucus of the Democrat party.”
JD Vance, who earlier today said that he was “not bothered at all” by Donald Trump’s attacks on Harris’s biracial identity, went on to repeat the Republican attack line that Harris skipped Josh Shapiro as her running mate because of his Jewish identity.
He said:
“The amount of rage that you heard from the far left saying Kamala Harris can’t pick this guy because he’s Jewish is disgraceful. I want my kids to grow up in a country where they can be whatever they want to be, and people aren’t attacking them for their ethnic heritage … It’s not just what these people said about Shapiro. It’s the way that the Harris administration and the Harris campaign refused to push back against it. I think it’s a real scandal.”
Joanna Walters
JD Vance is going to take questions from the media at his event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, when he wraps up his remarks at his Republican campaign event at Wollard International, an aviation ground equipment manufacturer.
Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 election has been speaking about the smuggling of fentanyl across the US-Mexico border and blaming the Biden administration’s immigration policies for a lack of security to curb the trade.
He also spoke to his background where his mother is now in recovery from the opioid addiction that affected his whole childhood. He blamed Kamala Harris for not securing the border toughly enough.
And he also slammed high inflation.
“Every single thing that Americans need to buy … has become more expensive because of Kamala Harris,” he said, of the woman now at the top of the Democratic ticket in the presidential election.
From the looks on the faces of the workers arranged behind Vance as he’s speaking, they are not electrified by his remarks.
Joanna Walters
JD Vance has now taken the podium at his event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Donald Trump’s running mate just joked about his flight landing around the same time as Kamala Harris’s.
He joked that Air Force Two would soon be his to occupy.
He also said Harris “should be ashamed of herself” for not doing any interviews with reporters since she took over the top of the Democratic ticket for the presidential election.
Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are about to speak at an open-air rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
We’ll bring you the news from that event, where they are currently playing Bob Marley’s Sun Is Shining to the crowd. Those waiting at the rival JD Vance event heard James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. Signaling much?
The pool of reporters traveling with the US vice-president reported that the disembarkation from Air Force Two in Wisconsin was a bit delayed.
“JD Vance’s plane could be seen taxiing in the distance shortly after we landed.”
Here’s a clip:
Joanna Walters
While live political events are running late, here is some fresh news about the right-wing playbook Project 2025, via the Associated Press.
As Project 2025 hits turmoil, the head of the influential, far-right Heritage Foundation is postponing the release of his potentially fiery new book until after the November presidential election, the AP reports.
Kevin Roberts, who took over Project 2025 as part of a leadership shake-up amid blowback over its recommendations for a potential Donald Trump White House, said Wednesday he is focused on defeating presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump’s running mate JD Vancepenned the forward to Roberts’ book.
There’s a time for writing, reading, and book tours — and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country. That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election,” said Roberts, the president of Heritage Action who has been mentioned as a potential chief of staff in a Trump White House, in a statement.
The Real Clear Politics news site first reported the decision.
Orchestrated by Heritage, Project 2025 is an ultra-conservative blueprint for the next Republican White House, with startling proposals that include firing large swaths of the federal government workforce and disassembling longstanding agencies, including the Justice Department. Trump has said the outside group doesn’t speak for his campaign, but many of his most trusted former White House officials are architects of the plan and are preparing for a second Trump administration.
Read the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang on Project 2025.