Key events
RFK Jr will ‘now throw my support to president Trump’
RFK Jr said he will “now throw my support to president Trump.”
Citing the reasons for his endorsement of Donald Trump, he said the causes “were free speech, war in Ukraine and the war on our children.”
RFK Jr on his campaign: ‘I am simply suspending it and not ending it’
“I want everyone to know that I am not terminating my campaign. I am simply suspending it and not not ending it,” RFK Jr said.
“My name will remain on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping president Trump or vice president Harris,” he added, saying, “In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name, and I’ve already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me.”
“There in Chicago, a string of Democratic speakers mentioned Donald Trump 147 times just on the first day,” RFK Jr said.
“Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate. In contrast, at the RNC convention, president Biden was mentioned only twice in four days… What most alarms me is how the Democratic party conducts its internal affairs, or runs its candidates, let alone…resort to censorship and media control, and weaponization of the federal agencies,” he added.
“Now in an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election,” RFK Jr said.
“My father and my uncle thrived in a system…open debates with fair primaries, with a regularly scheduled debate with fair primaries and with a truly independent media, untainted by government propaganda and censorship. In a system of nonpartisan courts and election boards, everything would be different,” he added.
“I want to thank all of those dedicated volunteers and congratulate the campaign staff who coordinated this enormous logistical feat,” RFK Jr said, referring to his presidential run.
“Your accomplishments were regarded as impossible. You carried me up that glass mountain. You pulled off a miracle. You achieved what all the pundits said could never be done. You have my deepest gratitude, and I’m never going to forget that, not just for what you did, for my campaign, but for the sacrifices you made because you love our country,” he added.
RFK on Democratic party: ‘It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption’
“As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically on the core values that I grew up with,” RFK Jr said.
“It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, big tech…and big money. When it abandoned democracy by cancelling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president, I left the party to run as an independent,” he continued.
“I began this journey as a Democrat, the party of my father, my uncle, the party which I pledged my own allegiance to all before I was old enough to vote,” RFK Jr said.
“I attended my first Democratic convention at the age of six in 1960 and back then, the Democrats were the champions of the constitution of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars. We were the party of labor,” he added.
RFK Jr is now live on stage.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.
RFK Jr’s campaign endorses Trump in Pennsylvania court filing on Friday – report
Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s campaign endorsed Donald Trump in a Pennsylvania court filing on Friday, the Associated Press reports.
Additionally, the independent candidate’s campaign requested that he be removed from the Pennsylvania ballot, according to the Associated Press. The move comes a day after he filed paperwork to withdraw from presidential ballots in Arizona.
RFK Jr is due to deliver an address on his widely speculated withdrawal from the presidential race in a few minutes. According to his campaign, the speech will be “about the present historical moment and his path forward.”
Cecilia Nowell
JD Vance will attend a fundraiser next month hosted by Keith Rabois, Jacob Helberg and the “Trump 47 Jewish Coalition”.
Rabois, an investor, and Helberg, an author and technology investor, are both Jewish (the two are also married). They have been critical of the Joe Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza, saying the president has not been vocally supportive enough of Israel.
In May, Helberg wrote: “If you support Israel, there’s only one choice in this election.”
On American Jewish Heritage Month, American Jews who still support Biden should have their heads examined.
If you support Israel, there’s only one choice in this election. https://t.co/uL40QFte1U
— Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg) May 9, 2024
Tickets for the 12 September dinner in Manhattan will be $100,000 or $250,000.
Robert F Kennedy Jr to hold press conference where he is widely expected to end campaign
Robert F Kennedy Jr is set to hold a press conference at 2.30pm ET, where he is expected to announce his widely speculated withdrawal from the presidential race.
According to Adrian Fontes, the Arizona secretary of state, the independent candidate has filed paperwork to withdraw from presidential ballots in the state.
In a segment on the Daily Show, host Jon Stewart pointed out the absence of a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic national convention, despite the representations of Americans from other varying communities over the course of four days, including the parents of an American Israeli hostage kidnapped by Hamas last October.
Speaking sarcastically and pointing out the apparent hypocrisy between the convention’s theme of joy and Israel’s killing of more than 40,000 Palestinians since last October, Stewart said:
They have Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, gay Americans, Jewish Americans, Palestinian Am–, oh. Well, to be fair, it was only four nights, eight hours a night. Really, it’s best not to think about the consequences of our actions over there, especially given the theme of the week.
Stewart went on to show a montage of various Democrats talking about feeling “joy” at the convention.
In response to Stewart’s segment, the uncommitted movement wrote on X: “Thank you, @JonStewart.”
This past week, the convention failed to meet uncommitted delegates’ request for a Palestinian speaker while thousands of anti-war protesters took to the Chicago streets over their disapproval of US policies on Israel’s deadly war in Gaza.
Videos on social media also appeared to show various convention attendees covering their ears as they walked past anti-war protestors chanting the names of Palestinians, including children, killed by Israeli forces across Gaza.
📍Chicago Illinois | DNC attendees covered their ears the same way they cover their eyes when it comes to the genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Z8MXoMWimN
— WearThePeace (@WearThePeaceCo) August 22, 2024
Cecilia Nowell
At a press conference today, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson called the city’s performance hosting the Democratic national convention a success for policing. He said:
If the 1968 convention went down in history as the example of police brutality, then the 2024 convention will go down as the example of constitutional policing.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the convention this week to protest the Democratic party’s support for Israel in the Gaza war.
According to the National Lawyers Guild, which deployed legal observers to monitor policing during the protests, close to 90 protesters were arrested over the course of the week, 14 earlier in the week and 72, including two journalists, during a demonstration outside the Israeli consulate on Tuesday. At least four protesters were hospitalized following their arrests, the Intercept reports.
“The repressive police response to a Palestine solidarity protest at the Israeli consulate seemed pre-planned and designed to stifle free expression during the Democratic national convention,” said Ben Meyer of the Guild’s Chicago chapter.
Assurances that the city would respect people’s first amendment rights during the convention rings hollow next to this brazenly aggressive approach to free expression.
Chicago notably hosted the Democratic national convention in 1968, when protesters demonstrating against the Vietnam war also gathered outside the convention and were teargassed, beaten and arrested en masse.
Joe Biden asked Benjamin Netanyahu during a call on Wednesday to pull Israeli troops back from part of the Egypt-Gaza border as part of an initial phase of a ceasefire deal so that talks could continue, according to a report.
The US president asked Israel’s prime minister to agree to withdraw the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from a small part of the Philadelphi corridor during the implementation of the first phase of the deal, Axios is reporting, citing Israeli officials.
Netanyahu partially accepted Biden’s request and agreed to give up one Israeli position along the border, they told the outlet.
It comes as John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesperson, described the latest Gaza talks as having been “constructive”. Kirby told reporters on Friday:
We’re in Cairo. They’re in Cairo. We need Hamas to participate, and we need to get down to the brass tacks of locking in these details. And that’s what we’re focused on here in the next, coming days here over the course of the weekend.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator for Massachusetts, reflected on the roaring standing ovation she received from the crowd before her speech at the convention on Thursday.
Warren was visibly emotional before her speech, during which she gave an emphatic endorsement of Kamala Harris, whom she painted as a strong figure who “gets it” and will defend the rights and economic interests of Americans.
Elizabeth Warren on Morning Joe this morning was still emotional about the huge ovation she got yesterday at the DNC. It was one of my favorite moments from the convention and there are so many to choose from. pic.twitter.com/AEcjT75SXR
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 23, 2024
James Comey, the former FBI director, has posted to X to say that Kamala Harris “made me feel like it’s finally morning in America”, adding:
Everyone who cares about the rule of law and America’s indispensable role in the world should vote for Harris and [Tim] Walz. I will.
Kamala Harris made me feel like it’s finally morning in America. Everyone who cares about the rule of law and America’s indispensable role in the world should vote for Harris and Walz. I will.
— James Comey (@Comey) August 23, 2024
Comey, who led the FBI during the Obama administration before being fired by Donald Trump just months into his presidency, endorsed Joe Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary.
Cecilia Nowell
In separate appearances on Fox News on Thursday, Donald Trump and Georgia governor Brian Kemp set their long-held distaste for each other aside, with Kemp endorsing Trump and Trump calling Kemp “very nice”.
“We’ve got to win from the top of the ticket on down,” Kemp said, speaking in response to Kamala Harris’s nomination at the Democratic national convention last night. “We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House.”
Responding to Kemp’s endorsement later that evening, Trump told the network: “I think we’re going to have a very good relationship with Brian Kemp.”
Later, the former president posted on Truth Social:
Thank you to #BrianKempGA for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country. I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump and Kemp have feuded since 2020, when Kemp refused to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results. The former president lost the state of Georgia by a narrow margin of about 12,000 votes.
This year alone, the two have continued at each other’s throats, with Kemp saying he cast a blank ballot rather than vote for Trump in the Republican primary election and Trump calling Kemp a “bad guy” at a rally just three weeks ago.
For more on the legacy of Georgia’s continued election deniers, read Sam Levine’s latest:
Donald Trump said it was “possible” he would meet with Robert F Kennedy Jr amid reports that the independent presidential candidate plans to drop out of the race and endorse Trump.
Kennedy is scheduled to deliver a public address this afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona. Meanwhile, Trump is scheduled to speak at an event in Glendale, Arizona, where he will be joined by a “special guest”, according to his campaign.
“I have no idea if he’s going to endorse me,” Trump told Fox News late last night.
I know he’s got a news conference, we happen to be in the same state, Arizona, we’ll be in the same state, but in quite different parts of the state. But it’s possible we will be meeting tomorrow and we’ll be discussing it.
As we reported earlier, Kennedy is reported to be facing pushback from wife, Cheryl Hines, over rumored plans to throw his support behind Trump.