McCarthy urges Trump to ‘stop questioning’ size of Harris’s crowds
Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker, said Donald Trump should stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies and instead focus on her as a candidate.
As we reported earlier, Trump has falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane. Trump shared a photo from a conspiracy theorist’s post to his millions of followers on Truth Social, claiming that a real image of a Harris event in Detroit was a “fake image”.
“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities,” McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News today.
Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position, when it comes to: What did she do as [California] attorney general on crime? … What did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a czar?
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Kirby said the US had increased its regional force posture and shared Israel’s concerns about a possible Iranian-backed attack after Iran and Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month, Reuters reports.
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We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” he said.
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Israel has been braced for a major attack since last month when a missile killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Israel responded by killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
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A day after that operation, Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran, drawing Iranian vows of retaliation against Israel.
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We obviously don’t want to see Israel have to defend itself against another onslaught, like they did in April. But, if that’s what comes at them, we will continue to help them defend themselves,” Kirby said.
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You can follow all of the Guardian’s coverage of the region here and here.
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Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic national convention next week, the White House has confirmed.
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Biden will use his remarks at the convention to focus on the issues he “cares about”, the White House’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told CNN.
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It’s an event that he views as very important. It’s an opportunity to talk about the issues that he cares about. It’s an opportunity to talk about unity.
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Donald Trump appeared to be paying X to promote his interview with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, scheduled for tonight 8pm ET, the New York Times reported.
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The Times said:
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The hashtag #TrumpOnX landed at the top of the platform’s “Trending” section, with a disclaimer that it was promoted by Donald J. Trump — a tag that typically marks paid ad campaigns on the social media site.
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Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker, said Donald Trump should stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies and instead focus on her as a candidate.
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As we reported earlier, Trump has falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane. Trump shared a photo from a conspiracy theorist’s post to his millions of followers on Truth Social, claiming that a real image of a Harris event in Detroit was a “fake image”.
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“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities,” McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News today.
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Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position, when it comes to: What did she do as [California] attorney general on crime? … What did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a czar?
n
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Donald Trump has shared a campaign video on X, his first post on the social media platform in nearly a year, just hours before his scheduled interview with X’s owner, Elon Musk.
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2024
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Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, in August 2023 with a post showing his mugshot from his booking at Fulton county jail in Georgia.
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He was reinstated to X after the platform’s previous owners banned him following the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress.
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Time magazine has put Kamala Harris on the cover of its latest issue, with the headline “Her Moment”.
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Harris has “pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history” after smashing fundraising records, dominating TikTok and filling up stadiums in the past month, Charlotte Alter writes in the lead story.
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A contest that revolved around the cognitive decline of a geriatric President has been transformed: Joe Biden is out, Harris is in, and a second Donald Trump presidency no longer seems inevitable.
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The reintroduction of Kamala Harris https://t.co/noW5TOgawPpic.twitter.com/iLmQIhxOeF
— TIME (@TIME) August 12, 2024
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Donald Trump falsely accused Democratic nominee Kamala Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane. Trump shared a photo from a conspiracy theorist’s post to his millions of followers on Truth Social, claiming that a real image of a Harris event in Detroit was a “fake image”.
n “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 posted.
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Disinformation experts have long warned about generative artificial intelligence’s threat to the information ecosystem, both in terms of its ability to create falsified media and for people to deny reality by claiming genuine images, video or audio is actually AI.
n Trump’s post marks the highest-profile incident yet where someone has claimed a real event is AI, reflecting what researchers have called the “liar’s dividend”. That concept posits an increase in manipulated media such as deepfakes leads to general skepticism around what content is real, allowing for people like politicians to more plausibly claim authentic media is falsified.
n “Entering the ‘Nothing is true and everything is possible’ phase, as predicted,” said Renee DiResta, a disinformation expert and former researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, in a post on Threads. “The ability to plausibly cast doubt on the real is the unintended consequence of being able to generate unreality”.
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Immigration remains a top concern for voters – and one of Kamala Harris’s biggest potential vulnerabilities.
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Republicans believe this to be true, incorrectly casting her as the Biden administration’s “border czar”, even though her assignment was to deal with the root causes of migration stemming from countries thousands of miles south of the US-Mexico border.
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Three weeks into her presidential campaign, Harris is attempting to reclaim the narrative. At a rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, Harris went on the offensive and delivered her first major pitch to border-state voters.
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She emphasized her record as attorney general of the border state of California, telling supporters that she went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human smugglers.
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“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said. “So I know what I’m talking about.”
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Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and Kamala Harris’s running mate, will hold his first solo campaign event in Los Angeles on Tuesday where he will deliver remarks to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 2024 convention.
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Later that day, Walz will deliver remarks at a campaign reception in Newport Beach, California, the campaign said.
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On Wednesday, he will speak at a campaign reception in Denver and then later that day, in Boston.
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On Thursday, he will speak at campaign reception in Newport, Rhode Island, and Southampton, New York.
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Donald Trump plans to sue the US justice department for $100m for executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve classified government documents, according to a report.
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The former president’s lawyers intend to sue the department for its conduct during the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago on 8 August 2022, amid the federal investigation into his alleged retention of classified records, Fox News reported on Monday.
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Trump’s legal team will argue that the DoJ was engaged in a “clear intent to engage in political persecution” when it searched his property, the report says. It quotes Trump attorney Daniel Epstein as saying:
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n
What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself – he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law and believe that you should hold the government accountable when it wrongs you.
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Donald Trump will sit down with Elon Musk for an interview tonight, nearly a month after the tech billionaire and owner of X officially endorsed the Republican presidential candidate.
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Trump will participate in the interview on X, scheduled for 8pm ET on Monday, from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida while Musk will be in Austin, Texas.
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According to Musk, the interview will be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!”
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Live conversation on 𝕏 with @realDonaldTrump & me at 8pm ET tomorrow
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024
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This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!
If you have specific questions & comments, post them under the chat.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024
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Following Musk’s takeover of X, formerly Twitter, he restored Trump’s account, which was suspended by the platform’s former owners following the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress by his supporters.
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Good morning US politics readers. More Americans trust Kamala Harris with the US economy than they do Donald Trump, according to a new poll that suggests the former president losing the advantage he had over Joe Biden.
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The poll, conducted by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan, found that 42% of voters trust Harris on economic issues – one percentage point ahead of Trump.
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The survey “marks a sharp change in voter sentiment following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the White House race” last month, the Financial Times reported. While Trump’s numbers were unchanged from last month’s poll results, Harris’s standing was a seven percentage point improvement compared with Biden’s numbers in July.
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But three weeks into her presidential campaign, Harris has yet to unveil her economic policy platform, and Democrats are warning the Democratic presidential candidate and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz,that they must solidify their economic message before Republicans bring it back to the forefront of the campaign. On Saturday, Harris said she would be releasing an official economic policy platform in the coming days. She told reporters:
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n
It’ll be focused on the economy and what we need to do to bring down costs and also strengthen the economy.
n
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Here’s what else we’re watching today:
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The Senate and House are out.
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8pm ET. Donald Trump will sit down for a conversation with the tech billionaire and owner of X,Elon Musk, who has become a vocal supporter of the Republican presidential nominee.
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US politics recap
Here’s a look at where things stand:
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Donald Trump will sit down with Elon Musk for an interview tonight, nearly a month after the tech billionaire and owner of X officially endorsed the Republican presidential candidate. Trump shared a campaign video on X, his first post on the social media platform in nearly a year, just hours before his scheduled interview with Musk. Trump appears to be paying X to promote the Musk interview.
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In an open letter, the EU commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk that he must abide by European hate speech laws in his interview with Trump this evening. Musk responded with characteristic maturity and the Trump campaign told the EU regulators to “mind their own business”.
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Time magazine has put Kamala Harris on the cover of its latest issue, with the headline “Her Moment”. Harris has “pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history” after smashing fundraising records, dominating TikTok and filling up stadiums in the past month, Charlotte Alter writes in the lead story.
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Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic national convention next week, the White House has confirmed. The Democratic National Committee has also announced its first ad campaign since Harris selected Walz as her running mate.
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Donald Trump falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane.Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker, saidTrump should stop questioning the size ofHarris’s crowds and instead focus on her as a candidate.
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More Americans trust Kamala Harris with the US economy than they do Donald Trump, according to a new poll that suggests the former president losing the advantage he had over Joe Biden. The poll found that 42% of voters trust Harris on economic issues – one percentage point ahead of Trump.
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Donald Trump plans to sue the US justice department for $100m for executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve classified government documents. The former president’s lawyers intend to sue the department for its conduct during the FBI’s raid on 8 August 2022, amid the federal investigation into his alleged retention of classified records.
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Newly leaked training videos confirm how the staffing initiative of Project 2025 is gearing up for a major effort to replace non-partisan civil servants with conservative loyalists, and is being led by many former Trump administration officials. Of the 36 featured speakers, 29 previously worked forTrump in some capacity.
The Guardian is launching a separate liveblog for tonight’s interview with Elon Musk and Trump. Follow along here:
A Trump campaign spokesman told EU regulators to “mind their own business” in response to a letter urging Elon Musk to abide by hate speech and disinformation regulations in his interview with Trump scheduled for this evening.
“Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do,” Steven Cheung wrote on X. “They know that a President Trump victory means America will no longer be ripped off because he will smartly utilize tariffs and renegotiated trade deals that puts America First. Let us be very clear: the European Union is an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”
The European Union should mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.
Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do. They know that a… https://t.co/imnczrEkmh
— Steven Cheung (@TheStevenCheung) August 12, 2024
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The European Union should mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.
Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do. They know that a… https://t.co/imnczrEkmh
— Steven Cheung (@TheStevenCheung) August 12, 2024
The Trump campaigned shared the same statement with supporters by email this afternoon.
The Digital Services Act, which the EU adopted in 2022, requires large social networks, like X, to aggressively police disinformation and hate speech, or face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover.
In an open letter, EU commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk today that Musk must abide by European hate speech laws in his interview with Trump this evening.
Because the interview will be available to EU users, Breton said, Musk must comply with regulations under the Digital Services Act to stop the “amplification of harmful content”.
With great audience comes greater responsibility #DSA
As there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in 🇪🇺 in connection with events with major audience around the world, I sent this letter to @elonmusk
📧⤵️ pic.twitter.com/P1IgxdPLzn
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) August 12, 2024
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With great audience comes greater responsibility #DSA
As there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in 🇪🇺 in connection with events with major audience around the world, I sent this letter to @elonmusk
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) August 12, 2024
“DSA obligations apply without exceptions or discrimination to the moderation of the whole user community and content of X (including yourself as a user with over 190 million followers) which is accessible to EU users and should be fulfilled in line with the risk-based approach of the DSA, which requires greater due diligence in case of a foreseeable increase of the risk profile,” Breton wrote.
In response, Musk shared a meme that was as mature as only Musk can be:
To be honest, I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme, but I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible! https://t.co/jL0GDW5QUxpic.twitter.com/XhUxCSGFNP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024
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Musk has recently faced pushback from EU regulators, who ruled last month that X breached the DSA in its use of blue checkmarks. In response, Musk threatened to sue.
Read more about it here:
A pro-Trump Super Pac will fund $100m in TV ads, starting next week as the Democratic national convention kicks off. The Maga, Inc Super Pac is planning to air commercials calling Harris a “soft-on-crime radical who is too dangerous for the White House”, the organization’s top strategists, David Lee and Chris Grant, write in the memo, which Politico first reported. The ads will air in seven Rust belt and Sun belt states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
The memo also announced that the leader of Maga, Inc, Taylor Budowich, is leaving the Super Pac to join the Trump campaign.
The news comes as conservative groups try to ramp up funding for Trump, following Harris’s recent record-setting fundraising. Last month, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that he had founded the America Pac to raise additional funds for Trump.
Read more here:
Here are some campaign images from the weekend that you might not have seen. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were in the swing state of Nevada on Saturday.
What was that about crowds?
Donald Trump campaigned in Montana on Friday night.
The Pentagon said yesterday that defense secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the deployment of a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and for the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region.
But a US official told Reuters the Lincoln carrier strike group was currently close to the South China Sea and would likely take more than a week to reach the Middle East.
Oil prices jumped by more than 3% on Monday, rising for a fifth consecutive session on expectations of a widening Middle Eastern conflict that could tighten global crude supplies.
Israeli forces pressed on with operations near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis today amid an international push for a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and prevent a slide into a wider regional conflict with Iran and its proxies.
Meanwhile, Reuters also reports, British prime minister Keir Starmer held a call with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian today, asking him to refrain from attacking Israel and saying that war was not in anyone’s interest, the prime minister’s office said. Starmer called on Iran to stop its “destabilizing actions”.
US prepares for attacks by Iran in Middle East
The US has prepared for what could be significant attacks by Iran or its proxies in the Middle East as soon as this week, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said today.
Kirby said the US had increased its regional force posture and shared Israel’s concerns about a possible Iranian-backed attack after Iran and Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month, Reuters reports.
We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” he said.
Israel has been braced for a major attack since last month when a missile killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Israel responded by killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
A day after that operation, Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran, drawing Iranian vows of retaliation against Israel.
We obviously don’t want to see Israel have to defend itself against another onslaught, like they did in April. But, if that’s what comes at them, we will continue to help them defend themselves,” Kirby said.
You can follow all of the Guardian’s coverage of the region here and here.
Biden to speak at Democratic national convention, White House confirms
Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic national convention next week, the White House has confirmed.
Biden will use his remarks at the convention to focus on the issues he “cares about”, the White House’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told CNN.
It’s an event that he views as very important. It’s an opportunity to talk about the issues that he cares about. It’s an opportunity to talk about unity.
Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks on the opening night of the Democratic national convention next Monday alongside the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, according to a report.
Former president Barack Obama is down to speak on Tuesday, and former president Bill Clinton is scheduled for Wednesday, NBC is reporting, citing sources. One of the sources told the outlet that the schedule was still tentative.
Kamala Harris is to deliver an acceptance speech on Thursday, and her running mate, Tim Walz, is to speak Wednesday, as is customary.
NEW: Tentative schedule for DNC speakers, per two sources to me @Yamiche:
President Biden- Monday
Hillary Clinton – Monday
Former President Obama – Tuesday
Former President Bill Clinton – Wednesday
(Obvs Kamala Harris Thursday and Walz Wednesday as per custom)…
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 12, 2024
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NEW: Tentative schedule for DNC speakers, per two sources to me @Yamiche:
President Biden- Monday
Hillary Clinton – Monday
Former President Obama – Tuesday
Former President Bill Clinton – Wednesday
(Obvs Kamala Harris Thursday and Walz Wednesday as per custom)…— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 12, 2024
Trump appears to be paying X to promote Musk interview
Donald Trump appeared to be paying X to promote his interview with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, scheduled for tonight 8pm ET, the New York Times reported.
The Times said:
The hashtag #TrumpOnX landed at the top of the platform’s “Trending” section, with a disclaimer that it was promoted by Donald J. Trump — a tag that typically marks paid ad campaigns on the social media site.
As we reported earlier, the former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy said Donald Trump should stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies and instead focus on her as a candidate.
Here’s the clip from McCarthy’s interview on Fox News, where he urged Trump to “start questioning [Harris’s] positions”, highlighting several of the Democratic presidential candidate’s policy positions that have shifted over the years.
“This is a perfect person to run against,” McCarthy said.
You thought John Kerry was a flip-flopper? She is the biggest flip-flop, with the most extreme positions, and you got a short time frame to do it. So don’t sit back, get out there and start making the case and use her own words to do it.
"You've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of [Kamala Harris'] crowds and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime."
— Kevin McCarthy's message to Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/QD68RUT3yj
— The Recount (@therecount) August 12, 2024
nn”}}”>
“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of [Kamala Harris’] crowds and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime.”
— Kevin McCarthy’s message to Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/QD68RUT3yj
— The Recount (@therecount) August 12, 2024
Debbie Dingell, the Democratic congresswoman for Michigan, has dismissed Donald Trump’s false claims that crowds at Kamala Harris’s campaign in her state were generated by artificial intelligence.
“Sorry, Donald Trump, you’re wrong again,” Dingell, who attended the Michigan rally and spoke before Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, went on, told MSNBC. She added:
I was really there. And I haven’t seen that large a crowd in a long time, and it was great to feel the energy, the enthusiasm.
