Kamala Harris says she has ‘not yet’ chosen her running mate – live | US elections 2024

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Harris says she has ‘not yet’ chosen her running mate

Kamala Harris was asked if she had chosen her running mate yet while boarding a plane to Atlanta, Georgia.

Harris replied:

Not yet.

As Vice President Kamala Harris boards AF2 for a campaign rally with Megan Thee Stallion in Atlanta Tuesday, reporters on the tarmac asked if she’s chosen her own running mate.

“Not yet,” she said, per pooler @Emilylgoodin. pic.twitter.com/3Oknel9nQw

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) July 30, 2024

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Key events

Rachel Leingang

Rachel Leingang

The departure of Paul Dans as the leader of Project 2025 could indicate the project’s work is winding down or at least will not be taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public.

Dans, a Donald Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel management.

Although Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation, claimed the change was always intended and followed a set timeline, the move underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for weeks attempted to distance himself from it.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said:

We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.

At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project, “I don’t know what the hell it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy ideas, albeit with far more detail.

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Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said he has “total confidence” in Kamala Harris’s running mate choice.

Asked whether he would support Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, as Harris’s running mate, Schumer said:

I have total confidence that Vice President Harris will choose a great vice-presidential candidate.

Asked whether he was concerned about the prospect of a special election in Arizona, CNN reports that Schumer replied:

I have complete faith in Vice President Harris’ choice.

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Anna Betts

Not even a day after audio of JD Vance telling donors that Kamala Harris was a threat and a “sucker punch” was leaked to the Washington Post, Vance continued to make headlines on Tuesday, as a previously unseen video of Vance was published by the Harris 2024 campaign.

In the video, Vance can be seen telling an interviewer that not having “kids in your life” makes “people more sociopathic” and makes the US a little bit “less mentally stable”.

This comes as Vance continues to face backlash over comments he made in 2021 that recently resurfaced where he criticized the vice-president and other Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives”.

On Monday evening, Donald Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham of Fox News and defended Vance’s comments, telling the host that his vice-presidential candidate was simply trying to show how much he values family life.

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Anna Betts

Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, made headlines again on Monday evening, after an audio recording of Vance speaking privately to donors on Saturday about Kamala Harris was leaked to the Washington Post.

Vance reporedtly told donors that Harris was a threat and “a bit of a political sucker punch” to the Trump Vance campaign.

Vance also reportedly said:

The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden, because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger. And Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did.

The comments contradict Donald Trump’s own statements on Harris since Biden withdrew from the race, as he has told reporters that he did not think switching out Biden for Harris “would make much difference”, adding: “I would define her in a very similar [way] that I define him.”

Even Vance himself has told reporters that there was in effect no difference in running against Biden versus Harris.

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The Trump campaign has responded to the news of Project 2025 director Paul Dans’ departure. In a statement, it said:

President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way.

Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.

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The work of Project 2025 will continue despite its director, Paul Dans, stepping down from his role, Politico reported, citing a source.

The report adds that the source said “the goal of Project 2025 was always to have their work done by the time of the Republican National Convention which ended in late July”.

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Here’s more on the news that Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, has stepped down from his role at the Heritage Foundation.

Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative thinktank, has confirmed that Dans is leaving his post.

Dans “built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years” but is now “moving up to the front where the fight remains”, Roberts said in a statement.

Under Paul Dans’ leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people.

Dans informed staff at the thinktank this week of his decision to step down, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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Josh Shapiro, who is considered to be among the leading contenders for Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, said the vice-president “will make the best decision for her and her country”.

The Pennsylvania governor was asked about the significance of having a Jewish vice-presidential nominee amid Israel’s war with Hamas, NBC News reports. Shapiro replied:

It is a deeply personal decision for the vice-president to make, who she wants to run with, who she wants to govern with and who can help best move America forward. I think there are so many people within the Democratic party who are extraordinary people, extraordinary public servants, and she will make the best decision for her and her country.

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Martin Pengelly

Martin Pengelly

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump released dueling campaign ads on Tuesday, as the reshaped presidential election began to grind into gear with 98 days to go.

The vice-president’s ad, Fearless, was her first since she became the de facto Democratic nominee, after Joe Biden halted his re-election campaign and endorsed her. “Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said.

To give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act. But we are not going back.

The former president’s ad, I Don’t Understand, used a snippet of Harris answering a question about immigration policy to bolster a hardline message about drugs, crime, terrorism and the southern border.

Showing footage of her dancing, Trump’s ad called Harris “failed, weak, dangerously liberal”.

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Harris says she has ‘not yet’ chosen her running mate

Kamala Harris was asked if she had chosen her running mate yet while boarding a plane to Atlanta, Georgia.

Harris replied:

Not yet.

As Vice President Kamala Harris boards AF2 for a campaign rally with Megan Thee Stallion in Atlanta Tuesday, reporters on the tarmac asked if she’s chosen her own running mate.

“Not yet,” she said, per pooler @Emilylgoodin. pic.twitter.com/3Oknel9nQw

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) July 30, 2024

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Head of Project 2025 steps down – reports

Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 presidential transition project, has stepped down from his role, according to reports.

The move comes after pressure from the Trump campaign leadership, and an ongoing power rift over staffing control for a potential second Trump administration, the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberg writes.

NEWS: Project 2025 director Paul Dans has stepped down at Heritage Foundation after pressure from Trump campaign leadership, ongoing power rift over staffing control for potential second Trump admin, per internal email. This suggests Project 2025 will likely shut down. Story TK.

— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) July 30, 2024

Semafor’s Kadia Goba reports that this does not mean that Project 2025 is shutting down.

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Joanna Walters

Joanna Walters

Journalists at the White House media briefing have been hoping to draw the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, about whether Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are discussing her forthcoming choice of who will be her running mate.

Now that the US president has passed the torch for the election campaign to his vice-president, making her the presumptive presidential nominee, with the support of the rest of the top echelon of senior Democrats, who’s she talking to about the second slot on the ticket for November?

Jean-Pierre said: “The president has been in public service for more than 54 years, he was vice-president for eight years, president for 3.5 years and six more months, and I think as a leader of the Democratic party he always offers up advice, a little bit of wisdom that he has, on multiple fronts.”

In her role as White House press secretary, Jean-Pierre cannot speak on election campaign matters, so is obliged to be careful and cryptic.

She added: “That’s a role he plays, as well, with the vice-president. I’m not going to speak to the campaign …When she became vice-president herself, he offered his advice as a mentor to her, but I’m not going to go beyond that.”

Kamala Harris speaks during a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, 13 June 2023. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
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Carter Sherman

Roughly 7% of w​​omen of reproductive age in the US have attempted to induce their own abortions outside the formal healthcare system, a new study has found, up from 5% before Roe v Wade fell in 2022.

The study, published on Tuesday in the Jama medical journal, determined how many people reported ever “self-managing” their own abortion in 2021 and again in 2023 – a timeline that allowed researchers to examine how Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the supreme court case that overturned Roe, has affected self-managed abortions. People of color and LGBTQ+ people were more likely to report having ever attempted to end their own pregnancies.

“We think because it’s getting more difficult to access facility-based abortion, that self-managed abortion will increase,” said Lauren Ralph, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s a really important piece of the puzzle, as we try to understand the full impact of the Dobbs decision on people’s reproductive lives.”

Since Dobbs, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans. On Monday, Iowa became the fourth state to ban the procedure past about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. Full report here.

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Interim summary

Hello US politics blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there’s more to come, we’ll keep you up with the news as it happens. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is about to brief the gathered media in the west wing.

Here’s where everything else stands:

  • Kamala Harris and her yet-to-be-named vice-presidential running mate will travel to a series of battleground states next week, Reuters is reporting, citing sources.

  • Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, is being vetted by Kamala Harris’s campaign as a potential vice-presidential nominee pick, NBC is reporting, citing sources.

  • The Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, has told lawmakers he was “ashamed” by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Rowe, appearing before a meeting of the Senate judiciary committee and homeland security and governmental affairs committee, said he considered it indefensible that the roof used by the gunman was unsecured, during the former president’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

  • Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November. Trump, in a n interview with Fox News that aired last night, was asked to explain what he meant when he told a crowd on Friday to “get out and vote, just this time. “That statement is very simple, I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not gonna have to do it ever again’,” he said.

  • Kamala Harris’s campaign has responded to Trump’s first major ad attacking her handling of the issue of immigration.

  • Harris’s campaign has announced a $50m advertising blitz ahead of the Democratic national convention next month with a television ad that portrays the presumptive Democratic nominee as “fearless”. The 60-second ad will be the first in a series of paid media efforts ahead of the convention, which begins 19 August in Chicago.

  • A Zoom call meant to rally “white dudes” in support of Kamala Harris’s run for the White House raised more than $4m from about 190,000 participants, including numerous celebrities, according to the presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign. Showing up were a bunch of top Democrats and stars including Jeff Bridges, Mark Hammill, Mark Ruffalo, and others.

  • Harris will announce her running mate “in the next six, seven days”, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said.

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Rachel Leingang

Rachel Leingang

Republican primaries across Arizona today will test whether the far-right cadre focused on election denial still can win among their base, despite major losses in the 2022 primaries.

The state has been gripped with fights over elections for years, with candidates like Donald Trump and Kari Lake refusing to concede their respective races. These general election losses in 2020 and 2022 ended decades-long Republican dominance, delivering the governor’s office and other top spots to Democrats.

The results could foretell whether Arizonans, particularly Arizona Republicans, are ready to move on from election denialism and the far-right flank that controls the state party. And that lesson could carry into November in the swing state, which Biden narrowly won in 2020 in an upset.

Lake, who lost the governor’s race in 2022, is now running for Senate. She faces Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal county, but she is expected to win the Republican contest on Tuesday. The winner will face the Democratic representative Ruben Gallego. The seat is open after senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic party and decided not to run for re-election, making it a top race to watch nationally for control of the chamber.

Kari Lake speaks at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 16 July 2024. Photograph: Matt Martin/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
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Harris and her VP pick to tour battleground states next week – reports

Kamala Harris and her yet-to-be-named vice-presidential running mate will travel to a series of battleground states next week, Reuters is reporting, citing sources.

SCOOP: Harris and her yet-to-be named VP will hit the road next week on a battleground state tour, sources tell me and @nanditab1, signaling that the decision process is nearing a close.

— Jarrett Renshaw (@JarrettRenshaw) July 30, 2024

The exact details on which states – and when – Harris and her running mate have not yet been firmed up, CNN is also reporting.

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Michael Sainato

John Giles, the Republican mayor of Arizona’s third largest city and a previous thorn in the side of his party for endorsing Democrats, has thrown his support behind Kamala Harris for president.

Giles, who since 2014 has been mayor of Mesa near Phoenix, also rebuked Donald Trump in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic published Monday.

Our party used to stand for the belief that every Arizonan, no matter their background or circumstances, should have the freedom, opportunity and security to live out their American Dream.

“But since Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, Republicans have yet to course correct,” he continued.

The Republican party with Trump at its helm continues down the path of political extremism, away from focusing on our fundamental freedoms.

John Giles, left, speaks at the conference of mayors in Washington DC on 22 January 2020. Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
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