August 26, 2024, presidential campaign news

Our live coverage has ended. Follow the latest 2024 election news or read through the posts below.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump.

With the presidential race entering its final stretch, Vice President Kamala Harris looking to build on the momentum of last week’s Democratic National Convention and former President Donald Trump honing his lines of attack.

The two candidates are expected to go head-to-head at a debate later this month.

Here’s the latest news from Monday:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he’s been asked to serve on former President Donald Trump’s transition team following his endorsement of the Republican nominee. 

In an interview with conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson released Monday, Kennedy reiterated that he’s going to campaign on behalf of Trump, and said he’s involved in conversations about “policy issues” with Trump’s team, including conversations about potential staff for his next administration. 

 CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

The comment is the latest detail revealed about the conversations between Kennedy leading up to and following his endorsement of Trump. Prior to suspending his presidential campaign, Kennedy and Trump spoke on multiple occasions, and discussed the possibility of Kennedy dropping out of the race in exchange for a role in his administration. After he dropped out, both Kennedy and Trump suggested Kennedy would play oversee a health-related portfolio in the next Trump administration. 

Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 22.

The Israel-Hamas war is the most fraught foreign policy issue facing the country and has spurred a multitude of protests around the US since it began in October.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late July, Kamala Harris gave a forceful and notable speech about the situation in Gaza.

Harris echoed Biden’s repeated comments about the “ironclad support” and “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The country has a right to defend itself, she said, while noting, “how it does so, matters.”

The sympathy she expressed for Palestinians’ suffering was far more forceful than what Biden has said on the matter in recent months. Harris mentioned twice the “serious concern” she expressed to Netanyahu about civilian deaths in Gaza, the humanitarian situation and destruction she called “catastrophic” and “devastating.”

Harris emphasized the need to get the Israeli hostages back from Hamas captivity.

But when describing the potential ceasefire deal being negotiated, she didn’t highlight the hostage for prisoner exchange or aid to be let into Gaza. Instead, she singled out the fact that the deal stipulates the withdrawal by the Israeli military from populated areas in the first phase before withdrawing “entirely” from Gaza before “a permanent end to the hostilities.”

Harris didn’t preside over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in late July, instead choosing to stick with a prescheduled trip to a sorority event in Indiana.

Read more about what Harris has said so far on other key issues.

Donald Trump has continued his attacks against member countries of NATO, a European and North American defense alliance. At a South Carolina rally earlier this year, the former president said he would not abide by the alliance’s collective-defense clause and would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” if a member country didn’t meet spending guidelines.

The former president has also previously pledged to end the war in Ukraine, though he’s offered no details on how he would do so. “Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump said at a New Hampshire campaign event last year, adding in another speech that it would take him “no longer than one day” to settle the war if elected.

Trump further addressed his strategy of stopping the “never-ending wars” by vowing to remove “warmongers,” “frauds” and “failures in the senior ranks of our government,” and replace them with national security officials who would defend America’s interests. The former president added in a campaign video that he would stop lobbyists and government contractors from pushing senior military officials toward war.

In addition, Trump has said he would restore his “wonderful” travel ban on individuals from several majority-Muslim countries to “keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country” after Biden overturned the ban in 2021.

Kamala Harris took on the lead role of championing abortion rights for the administration after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.

In January, she started a “reproductive freedoms tour” to multiple states, including a stop in Minnesota thought to be the first by a sitting US president or vice president at an abortion clinic.

On abortion access, Harris embraced more progressive policies than Biden in the 2020 campaign, as a candidate criticizing his previous support for the Hyde Amendment, a measure that blocks federal funds from being used for most abortions.

Policy experts suggested that although Harris’ current policies on abortion and reproductive rights may not differ significantly from Biden’s, as a result of her national tour and her own focus on maternal health, she may be a stronger messenger.

Here’s what Harris has said about other key issues.

Donald Trump has promised to use the Department of Justice to attack critics and former allies. In several videos and speeches, the former president also laid out plans to gut the current justice system by firing “radical Marxist prosecutors that are destroying America.”

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said in June 2023 remarks. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

Trump said in a campaign video last year that he would reinstate a 2020 executive order to remove “rogue” bureaucrats and propose a constitutional amendment for term limits on members of Congress.

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” he said.

To address what he labeled the “disturbing” relationship between technology platforms and the government, the former president said in a January 2023 video that he would enact a seven-year cooling off period before employees at agencies such as the FBI or CIA can work for platforms that oversee mass user data.

Trump added in multiple campaign releases that he would task the Justice Department with investigating online censorship, ban federal agencies from “colluding” to censor citizens and suspend federal money to universities participating in “censorship-supporting activities.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks on stage beside Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during a campaign event at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of criticizing the man he now supports, including calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”

For years, Kennedy has repeatedly condemned Trump, referring to him as a “bully,” who appealed to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “xenophobia” and “prejudice.” Among the chief attacks Kennedy has leveled at Trump through the 2024 campaign is to accuse him of corruption for turning his administration over to corporate lobbyists and special interests and failing to “drain the swamp” as he’d promised.

But on Friday, Kennedy was full of praise for Trump, saying that while he and the former president “don’t agree on everything,” they do share similar isolationist views on US foreign policy, government censorship, and the need to address chronic disease in America.

“Don’t you want a president who’s gonna protect America’s freedom? And is gonna protect us from totalitarianism?” Kennedy said at a Trump campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, as part of his endorsement.

For his part, Trump has a history of disparaging Kennedy, calling him “the dumbest member of the Kennedy clan” and “Democratic plant” and “radical left liberal,” in posts on Truth Social.

But on Friday, Trump had only nice things to say about Kennedy, calling him “an incredible champion for so many of these values that we all share.” Never one to forget a slight though, Trump did note on Friday that Kennedy “also went after me a couple of times, I didn’t like it.”

A Kennedy campaign spokesperson did not return CNN’s request for comment.

Read more about RFK Jr.’s history of attacking Trump

Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 22.

Vice President Kamala Harris will schedule a sit-down interview by the end of the month, according to a senior campaign adviser.

“The vice president’s been taking questions from reporters who are covering her on the campaign trail,” Ian Sams also told CNN.

This comes amid mounting pressure and criticism against Harris for not participating in a sit-down interview or news conference since being named the Democratic nominee. Harris campaign officials have previously said that she would participate in an interview by the end of August.

On the September ABC debate, Sams said that as far as the Harris campaign is concerned the disagreement over the microphones is essentially “over.” This comes after former President Donald Trump said earlier today that he would rather have the microphones always on for both candidates during the debate despite his campaign pushing to keep the same rules as the last presidential debate.

Kamala Harris’ campaign on Monday launched a new ad focused on the economy as the vice president continues to make her pitch to voters that bringing down costs will be a top priority if elected.

The ad, titled “Everyday,” highlights Harris’ economic agenda, which she unveiled earlier this month in North Carolina, including her plans for affordable housing and tax relief for more than 100 million middle-class and lower-income Americans.

The ad is part of a $150 million August paid media buy and will run on national cable TV and locally across battleground states. This is the second economic-focused ad the campaign released in the days following the Democratic National Convention. On Friday, the campaign unveiled “Opportunity,” in which Harris called for “an opportunity economy” to enable all Americans to have a chance to get a car loan, buy a home and start a business.

Donald Trump speaks during the National Guard Association at Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan, on August 26.

Former President Donald Trump keeps displaying a chart that includes a significant lie. And he keeps citing that deceptive chart to deliver his own lie about immigration trends in his last year in office.

The chart – the one Trump had fortunately turned his head to look at when a gunman tried to kill him at a campaign rally in July – is a bar chart about the monthly number of official encounters with migrants at the southern border. It features a large red arrow pointing to a month with a particularly small bar. And it says in red text beside that arrow: “TRUMP LEAVES OFFICE. LOWEST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN RECORDED HISTORY!”

The monthly bars get bigger right after that, insinuating that illegal immigration suddenly began rising from a Trump record low when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn in. And on numerous occasions, including in his recent public conversation with billionaire supporter Elon Musk, Trump has declared that the chart shows that the record low was set in his very last week in office.

“You see the arrow on the bottom, the red arrow on the bottom, that’s the lowest point. That was the week I left office. Look what happened after I left office. Look at that,” Trump said at a rally earlier this month in Montana.

“If you look at the arrow on the bottom, that’s the lowest level, the one on the bottom, heavy red arrow – that’s the lowest level of illegal immigrants ever to come into our country in recorded history, right there, right there. And that was my last week in office. And then you see what happened after I left. Look at the rest,” Trump said in his speech at the Republican National Convention in July.

But that’s not true.

Read more of our fact check on Trump’s chart

Tim Walz speaks at the United Center during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on August 21.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will deliver remarks at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston on Wednesday, addressing a major labor group with close ties to President Joe Biden that has yet to make an endorsement in this year’s presidential election.

Walz will speak Wednesday morning, his second solo campaign event after he addressed the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union’s convention in Los Angeles earlier this month, as part of the campaign’s effort to use Walz, a former public school teacher and union member, to appeal to labor groups. 

IAFF was the first major labor organization to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2020 presidential cycle when it endorsed Biden in 2019. But the union has not officially made an endorsement in this election.

The Arizona Police Association, whose president appeared with former President Donald Trump at his campaign rally last week, on Monday endorsed Democratic Senate nominee Ruben Gallego over his Republican opponent Kari Lake. 

Campaigning in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, Trump invited Harris up on stage with him, turning over the mic to Harris so he could announce an endorsement of the former president’s reelection bid. After several minutes of Harris speaking, the crowd appeared to get restless and Trump could be heard telling Harris, “You gotta go.”

At the conclusion of his remarks, Harris said the Arizona Police Association was proud to endorse Trump for president.

As politicians mark the third anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the service members killed, the White House said nothing will ever be enough to repay families for the sacrifice and loss. 

Former President Donald Trump laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery while President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released paper statements on Monday.

He continued: “And that’s why the president, the vice president, the first lady, the second gentleman have been working so hard their entire time in office to make sure that we meet, as President (Joe) Biden said, that sacred obligation to our troops, our veterans and their families.”

Kirby also defended the president against criticism from some, including the families, over his handling of the crisis.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to find a commander in chief of the United States of America and our military who doesn’t — who better understands what grief is like, what mourning is like, what sorrow is like, what frustration is like, than Joe Biden,” Kirby said. 

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Monday that the target NATO has set that each member country should spend a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense is “too little.” 

Some context: Trump has long complained about the amount other countries in NATO spend on defense compared with the United States.

Earlier this year, Trump drew backlash when he said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense. It was a stunning admission that if reelected, Trump would not abide by the collective defense clause that is at the heart of the alliance.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in June that 20 of the alliance’s 32 members are expected to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense this year.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday marked the three-year anniversary of the killing of 13 service members during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan by vowing to demand the resignations of all officials involved if he is reelected. The comments came as the Republican nominee worked to draw contrasts between how he and Vice President Kamala Harris would serve as commander-in-chief.

“They took the soldiers out first and they had a field day at our expense and our reputation. We will never forget those brave warriors who made the supreme sacrifice for our country,” he said, lamenting the tragedy at an event for the National Guard Association in Michigan.

Trump said if he’s elected he’ll ask for the resignations of “every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity” to be on his desk by noon on Inauguration Day. 

Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance also promised accountability during a call held by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee to mark the anniversary of the 2021 suicide attack outside the Kabul airport.

“I aim to be the kind of vice president that honors the sacrifice of the people who wear the uniform, and I know that when President Trump is back in the Oval Office, we are going to get to the bottom of this, and the people who screwed this up are going to suffer some consequences,” Vance said. 

Speaking directly to the families of some of the service members who died joined the call, Vance said the administration “will make the people who did this face some accountability, face some firings. And we are going to learn why this happened.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is seen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 22.

The dramatic change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket unleashed a flood of donations to the campaign account Kamala Harris inherited from Joe Biden, swamping even Donald Trump’s strongest fundraising days, a CNN analysis of newly filed campaign reports shows.

Over the three-day period in July that covered Biden’s withdrawal from the White House race and the rapid consolidation of Democratic support for his vice president, Harris’ principal campaign committee took in more than double what Trump’s campaign account reported collecting in the three days surrounding his felony conviction in New York, according to the review of contributions that total more than $200 this cycle.

The donor enthusiasm for Harris’ surprise candidacy has quickly eroded the cash advantage Trump once held.

The Harris campaign had previously announced collecting a whopping $310 million in July through its joint fundraising efforts with aligned Democratic Party committees – far exceeding the nearly $139 million that the Trump political operation said it had brought in last month.

The CNN review examined sums raised by each candidate’s main campaign committee – a valuable resource in politics because those committees by law must receive discounts on television advertising, giving candidate-controlled money a greater impact than donations to parties and outside groups.

Harris’ campaign said Sunday that it had raised $540 million since she launched her presidential bid just over a month ago.

Read more on the newly filed campaign reports here.

Georgia Democrats and voting rights advocates are calling on the governor to investigate three Republicans on the state election board after they used their partisan majority to pass a series of controversial election rules changes ahead of the general election in November. Critics say the new rules could be used to delay certifying the results of the upcoming presidential election. 

Speaking from the state capitol on Monday, Georgia Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath repeated calls made by other Georgia lawmakers for Gov. Brian Kemp to take disciplinary action against the board. McBath called the latest rules changes “restrictions on ballot access,” claiming it would make it harder for communities of color to vote.

Last week, Democratic state Sen. Nabilah Islam-Parkesfiled a formal state ethics complaint alleging election board members Janelle King, Rick Jeffares and Dr. Janice Johnston broke state law in pushing the rules changes so close to the general election.

Some background: Earlier this month, Georgia’s State Election Board approved an ambiguous new rule saying that counties will now have the opportunity for a “reasonable inquiry” to ensure tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate before local election officials certify the results.

Certification is the official confirmation of voting results. It is a mandatory part of the voting process as a final check to verify the results with the secretary of state’s office.

Typically, the five-member state election board is tasked with ministerial duties ahead of the election, but recently arrived partisan appointees have pushed the limits of the board’s power. 

One of the board’s staunchest critics, Georgia state Rep. Sam Park, argued that Georgia law grants Kemp the authority to investigate and remove election board members if they violated the law. It was not immediately clear if Kemp had the authority to remove members. The board’s chair, Independent John Fervier, was appointed to lead the board by Kemp earlier this year.

CNN reached out to a spokesman for Kemp but has not heard back.

This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

The Justice Department is arguing to revive its classified documents case against former President Donald Trump with a vigorous defense of special prosecutors, in the first formal filing since Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the criminal case last month.

The new brief, which special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed Monday to the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals in Atlanta, argues that Cannon’s decision to end the Trump case, because she believed the prosecutors’ office lacked Constitutional authority, was “novel” and “lack[ed] merit.”

In her ruling, Cannon decided the Justice Department didn’t have the ability to appoint or fund special prosecutors like Smith.

Smith’s team also cast the decision from Cannon as not just affecting other special counsel prosecutions – of which there are several ongoing in other courts, against Trump and others — but also as potentially affecting the power of leaders across the federal government.

“The district court’s rationale would likewise raise questions about hundreds of appointments throughout the Executive Branch, including in the Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, and Labor,” the prosecutors added.

More on the case: Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump the same day the Republican National Convention opened on July 15. Cannon said the appointment of Smith violated the Constitution. She did not rule on whether Trump’s behavior was legal.

Trump was indicted in June 2023 by a federal grand jury in Miami for taking classified national defense documents from the White House after he left office and resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve the materials. Both Trump and his aide Walt Nauta have pleaded not guilty.

This is one of four criminal cases Trump faces while running again president.

Donald Trump stands is seen with the United States Space Force flag as it is presented at the White House in 2020.

Former President Donald Trump vowed on Monday to create a Space National Guard if reelected, expanding on his signature achievement of creating the United States Space Force during his first term.

He told the service members, “I agree with your leadership. You want this very badly, but I agree that the time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the US Space Force,” saying he would sign “historic legislation” to establish the unit

In December 2019, Trump signed national defense legislation that designated the US Air Force Space Command as the US Space Force, the first new service since the US Air Force came into being in 1947.

He said the Space Force has been “very, very important” to the country’s defense, saying, “We were getting just destroyed in space, and now we’re leading.”

“Russia and China were killing us because we had, we didn’t really have a focus on it, and once you did that, we have a focus. And now we’re leading in space throughout the armed forces,” he said.

Trump said the US will make a “historic investment in building a US military for the 21st century, investing heavily in drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, hypersonics.”

Donald Trump speaks in Howell, Michigan, on August 20.

Former President Donald Trump said on Monday he would rather have the microphones always on for both candidates during the presidential debate, despite his campaign pushing to keep the same rules as the last presidential debate, when mics were muted except when it was the candidate’s turn to speak.

At an event in Michigan, Trump again touched on the debate, suggesting there was still some uncertainty about whether it would take place.

The former president said the Texas National Guard members he visited with during a trip to the southern border last Thanksgiving were doing the job Harris “refused to do.”

What the Harris campaign is saying: The Harris campaign believes the debate issue is “resolved” following Trump’s comments, a spokesperson said Monday.

Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said during an appearance on MSNBC that the former president “doesn’t care — doesn’t matter to him whether or not the mics are hot, and frankly, that he would prefer if they were hot. So I think this issue is resolved.”

Tyler offered a caveat: “Unless Donald Trump allows his handlers to overrule him, we’ll have a fulsome debate between the two candidates with live microphones, where both candidates will be able to lay out their vision for where they want to take this country.”

CNN previously reported that Trump’s campaign was casting fresh doubt on whether a September 10 debate will take place on ABC amid a dispute over the rules.

This post has been updated with comments from Trump about the southern border. CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo and Ali Main contributed to this report.

Donald Trump looks on as former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard speaks at the National Guard Association of the United States General Conference on Monday in Detroit.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who now identifies as an independent, endorsed former President Donald Trump on Monday.

She told service members at the National Guard Association of the United States’ 146th General Conference & Exhibition that Trump “understands the grave responsibility that a president and commander in chief bears for every single one of our lives.”

Gabbard said she believes Trump’s first task in office will be to “walk us back from the brink of war.”

Gabbard, who is a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, served in the Hawaii Army National Guard for 17 years. She said she also joined Trump earlier today at Arlington National Cemetery on the third anniversary of the attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 US military service members. 

The former Hawaii congresswoman has been helping Trump with debate prep ahead of the planned face-off with Harris on September 10.

As the congressional task force investigating the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump is on scene in Butler, Pennsylvania, for a fact-finding visit, a group of conservative congressmen held a counterprogramming event on their efforts to investigate the assassination attempt. 

Mills pushed for serious consequences — including criminal charges — against those they deem to be responsible for the assassination attempt. 

“This is not an ‘I’m sorry, I’ll resign, I’m finished,’” he said. “This is a get accountability to pursue either purposeful intent or criminal gross negligence.” 

In addition to the lawmakers, participants also include Dan Bongino, Former United States Secret Service Special Agent, Erik Prince, Former United States Navy SEAL Officer, and Ben Shaffer, Washington Regional SWAT Operator.

A smuggler scales the border wall from Sonora, Mexico, as photographed from Ruby, Arizona, on June 26.

Donald Trump has made immigration and the border a central campaign issue, successfully pressuring Republicans to reject a major bipartisan border deal earlier this year and making a trip to the southern border on February 29, where he touted his previous hard-line immigration policies.

Meanwhile, Harris has quickly started to try to counter Trump’s attacks on her immigration record and outlined her policies.

Here’s a look at what Trump has proposed on the topic:

Here’s a look at where Harris stands on the topic:

While Kamala Harris has improved on President Joe Biden’s standing in many states, the shape of the crucial Senate races that will determine the majority is the same.

Democrats are facing an incredibly unfavorable map this year, defending seats in places that former President Donald Trump won by comfortable margins and presidential battlegrounds that he narrowly lost in 2020.

Here’s a snapshot of where the race for the Senate stands now:

West Virginia: West Virginia would have been tough to hold even with Joe Manchin, but without the Democrat-turned-independent senator running for reelection, Republican Gov. Jim Justice is poised to be the next senator from a state Trump is expected to carry by double digits.

Montana: Sen. Jon Tester remains the most endangered Democrat running for reelection. This is the first time he’s on the ballot at the same time as Trump. A new wild card: Montana will now also have an abortion measure on the November ballot.

Ohio: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is vulnerable because he, too, is running for reelection in a Trump state. Brown is up against Republican businessman Bernie Moreno, whom Democrats boosted in the GOP primary because they thought he’d be the weakest opponent. The car dealership owner trailed Brown even when Biden was atop the ticket. That doesn’t mean that Brown is safe.

Michigan: The race is to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, making it an open seat, which is typically harder to defend. Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a three-term congresswoman, is running statewide for the first time. She’ll face a challenging race against Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers.

Arizona: Another open-seat race Democrats are trying to defend where the border is front and center. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s departure from the race gave way to a two-way matchup between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Marine veteran, and Republican Kari Lake, a Trump ally who hasn’t let go of claims that she won the 2022 gubernatorial election.

Nevada: Sen. Jacky Rosen is running for a second term and the Harris-led ticket has strengthened her position. It’s still tough terrain for Democrats, with a transient population and demographics that may be moving away from the party. But abortion is also on the ballot in Nevada, a state where Democrats believe reproductive rights are particularly salient.

Keep reading about other key Senate races here.

An Arizona judge has set a trial date of January 5, 2026, for allies of former President Donald Trump charged for a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

At a hearing Monday, several defendants, including conservative attorney John Eastman and multiple Arizona Republicans who served as fake electors, are present in the courtroom. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bobb, who serves as the top lawyer for the RNC on election integrity, have joined the hearing virtually.

This is the first high-stakes hearing since a grand jury handed up criminal charges against the fake electors from Arizona. Trump himself was not charged.

Lawyers for the Trump allies will argue that prosecutors are seeking an overly harsh punishment to coerce defendants to cooperate.

Some more background: Arizona’s attorney general has charged the Trump allies with committing multiple felonies on the same occasion — a designation under state law that means a conviction would likely carry prison sentences rather than a lesser penalty afforded to first-time offenders.

Arizona Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen, who was appointed in 2005 by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, acknowledged that the trial date is a “moving target.”

The pivotal hearing comes just days after Trump, who has not been charged in the Arizona case but is described in court documents as “unindicted co-conspirator 1,” held a rally in the key swing state as part of his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump has avoided having to stand trial in either of the two criminal cases where he was charged for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but Monday’s hearing in Arizona underscores how many of those who sought to help the former president remain in power still face significant legal exposure as a result.

Listen more below about the significance of the hearing:

Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

Former President Donald Trump said on Monday he was “not spending a lot of time” preparing for the upcoming presidential debate that is scheduled for next month against Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The former president added, “You basically, you have to be real. You know, you can’t cram knowledge into your head, thirty years of knowledge in one week, so, you know, there’s a little debate prep but I’ve always done it more or less the same way and you have to know your subject and I think I know my subject, I think I know it better than anybody.” 

Trump and Harris are scheduled to face off during a debate hosted by ABC on September 10, but Trump and his campaign have been casting doubt on whether the debate will take place amid a dispute over the rules. 

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance will attend a fundraiser in Los Angeles next month hosted by billionaire tech investor David Sacks and his wife Jacqueline, according to a source familiar.

The September 8 fundraiser is also hosted by former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband Jeff Sprecher.

The reception is $3,300 per person with a roundtable opportunity available for giving or raising $25,000 and a photo opportunity for giving or raising $15,000.

This comes as the Trump campaign looks to ramp up fundraising after the dramatic change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket unleashed a flood of donations to the campaign account Vice President Kamala Harris inherited from President Joe Biden.

Harris’ campaign said Sunday that it had raised $540 million since she launched her presidential bid just over a month ago.

That’s a record for any campaign in history for this time span, according to Harris’ team. 

The campaign saw a surge of grassroots donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention, raking in $82 million. The hour following Harris’ speech on the final night of the convention was the campaign’s best fundraising hour since launch day.

Harris’ supercharged Democratic fundraising in July helped erase what had been an emerging cash advantage for Trump, federal filings from last week showed.

CNN’s Ebony Davis contributed reporting to this post. 

Former President Donald Trump, left, and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suspended his presidential campaign with a confusing message to voters: He will take himself off the ballot in certain key states, but is encouraging supporters to vote for him in safe red and blue states so that he can feature in a “contingent election” if former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris tie.

In the battleground states, Kennedy said he’s supporting Trump.

Could Kennedy feature in a “contingent election?” No.

He could not participate unless he won electoral votes, which does not seem mathematically possible. Perhaps he’s envisioning an elector going rogue and supporting him in defiance of voters, but Kennedy did not share details of his thinking.

With two presidential candidates fighting over 538 Electoral College votes, a tie scenario is more than possible. It’s surprising there has only been one tied election so far, in 1800, between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

That tie resulted from a failure of coordination by Democratic-Republicans, but it led to the nation’s first “contingent election,” decided in the House of Representatives.

Could a tie happen this year?

Yes. While a tie is not a likely outcome, it is something to be ready for. Here is one plausible scenario for the 2024 election: If Harris wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada and a single electoral vote in Nebraska, all of which Joe Biden won in 2020, but she loses Pennsylvania and Georgia, there’s a tie, 269-269. The website 270 to Win also has more tied-election scenarios. Visualize your own 269-269 scenario with CNN’s interactive election map.

What happens if there’s a tie?

A “contingent election.” According to the 12th Amendment, if no candidate gets a majority of the Electoral College votes, the new Congress, which would have just been sworn in on January 3, chooses the president. The Senate would choose the vice president.

Read more about how a contingent election would work

On the third anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, posted a message on X honoring of the memories 13 American service members who died in the 2021 suicide attack outside the Kabul airport.

Vance has been fiercely critical of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.

“President Joe Biden got us out of Afghanistan in the most disgraceful way, and of course, Kamala Harris was right there every step of the way,” Vance said earlier this month at a VFW in Pennsylvania.

“Because they tried to shut the airport before they got everybody out – one of the most catastrophic mistakes in the history of the US military, totally unforced error from Kamala Harris and a total failure of leadership – we lost 13 brave service members that we didn’t need to lose.”

Earlier this morning, former President Donald Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to honor the fallen service members.

Donald Trump speaks on stage during a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

Eight years of insults, incitement and affronts to the rule of law have proved that Donald Trump won’t be tamed.

Yet some of his supporters are still pleading for the criminally convicted and twice-impeached ex-president to rein in his wildest impulses or risk losing the 2024 election.

Hoping to sharpen Trump’s focus, his campaign is setting him up with a new menu of policy speeches, town halls and rallies in battleground states as he struggles to find traction in the transformed race against Kamala Harris, CNN has reported.

This week, Trump will swing through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the critical “blue wall” states that hold the key to November’s election. The adjusted strategy follows the success of the Democratic National Convention last week and Harris’ disciplined start to her optimistic campaign, which threatens Trump’s White House comeback bidmore than the one President Joe Biden shelved amid concerns about his age. 

Trump’s stepped-up pace reflects the new urgency of the compressed sprint until November’s election and is designed to reposition the ex-president before his debate showdown with Harris on September 10.

Read the full analysis.

The economy is the focus of a wave of new campaign ads hitting airwaves in the presidential race this week, as the Trump and Harris campaigns and their allies deliver contrasting messaging about warning signs and opportunities. 

One of the new ads from the Trump campaign, which began airing this morning in Arizona, stitches together clips of Vice President Kamala Harris voicing concerns about rising prices, juxtaposed with clips of Harris saying that “Bidenomics is working” — a biting spot aimed at linking Harris to voter disapproval of Biden’s handling of the economy.

“Everyday prices are too high food, rent, gas back to school clothes,” Harris says in the opening clips. “That is called: Bidenomics,” Harris says in a subsequent clip.

The Harris campaign, meanwhile, also began airing a new ad over the weekend, first in Georgia, that similarly focused on economic messaging, echoing Harris’ pitch for an “opportunity economy.”

“Here’s a few things. I believe middle class families like the one I grew up in, they want common sense solutions. You want lower prices and lower taxes. I believe you want to just not get by, but you want to get ahead. We must create an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to get a car loan, buy a home, start a business,” Harris says, speaking straight to camera.

And at the end of the ad, Harris says, “But most of all, that instead of being focused on the politics of the past, we need to be thinking about the future” — a message that Harris and her allies have increasingly featured in their ads, as they look to capitalize on voters’ desire for change and avoid any disadvantages of incumbency.

Donald Trump is seen participating in a wreath laying ceremony in Arlington on Monday.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on the third anniversary of the attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 US military service members. 

Trump was joined by some family members of the fallen service members. The former president regularly attacks the Biden administration — and now specifically Vice President Kamala Harris — over the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. 

Trump on Monday also visited a Vietnamese shopping center with Virginia Senate GOP nominee Hung Cao, who would be the first Vietnamese American senator if elected.

Trump praised Cao and said he thinks the Republican nominee has “got a very good chance of winning the Senate.”

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed reporting to this post.

This post has been updated with more reporting on Trump’s events in Virginia.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are commemorating three years since a terrorist bomb killed 13 American service members outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

“These 13 Americans—and the many more that were wounded—were patriots in the highest sense. Some were born the year the war in Afghanistan started,” Biden said in a statement after listing the fallen service members’ names. 

Harris also named the 13 American service members killed outside the Kabul airport in a statement, calling them “heroes” and “devoted patriots” as she reiterated her support for Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Biden, she said, “made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war.”

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump will be at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia this morning to commemorate the date, a source familiar tells CNN. The withdrawal has become one of his key talking points against the current administration.

More context: Biden has faced criticism for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Family members of the fallen spoke at the Republican National Convention earlier this summer, criticizing Biden for never publicly naming their loved ones.

In Harris’ statement, she also previewed her own presidential message: “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people and the homeland.”

What Trump is saying: The former president criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal, which he has also done previously.

“This is the third anniversary of the BOTCHED Afghanistan withdrawal, the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country. Gross Incompetence - 13 DEAD American soldiers, hundreds of people wounded and dead, AMERICANS and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT LEFT BEHIND. You don’t take our soldiers out first, you take them out LAST, when all else is successfully done,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

A judge in Arizona will hear arguments on Monday that may determine whether several allies of former President Donald Trump could likely face prison sentences if they are convicted for participating in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

This will be the first high-stakes hearing since a grand jury handed up criminal charges against the fake electors from Arizona and several Trump allies — including the former president’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Christina Bobb, who currently serves as the Republican National Committee’s top lawyer on election integrity — earlier this year.

Lawyers for the Trump allies will argue that prosecutors are seeking an overly harsh punishment to coerce defendants to cooperate.

The charges: Arizona’s attorney general has charged the Trump allies with committing multiple felonies on the same occasion — a designation under state law that means a conviction would likely carry prison sentences rather than a lesser penalty afforded to first-time offenders.

The judge: Arizona Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen, who was appointed in 2005 by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, will hear arguments from both sides during Monday’s hearing and his decision will ultimately define the stakes of the case going forward.

More on the case: Prosecutors will also push back on claims that they failed to provide sufficient evidence connecting some of the defendants to an alleged conspiracy during secret grand jury proceedings.

The pivotal hearing comes just days after Trump, who has not been charged in the Arizona case but is described in court documents as “unindicted co-conspirator 1,” held a rally in the key swing state as part of his 2024 presidential campaign.

Read more about today’s hearing in Arizona.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have picked their running mates and held nominating conventions to rally their parties. They have limited time to convince the few undecided voters and make sure everyone in key battleground states gets to the polls.

While we don’t know specifically what will happen between now andElection Day — or what could come after, when the country’s unique Electoral College process gets going — but we do have some idea of what to expect:

The campaigns of former President Donald Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris have reached somewhat of an impasse over debate rules ahead of the September 10 debate on ABC, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.

Trump’s team, according to the source, would like for the microphones to be muted while the other is not supposed to be speaking, as was the case during the first debate with President Joe Biden. The Harris campaign is requesting that ABC and other networks seeking to host a potential October debate keep microphones on, according to a senior campaign official, marking a change from the June debate when the then-Biden campaign wanted microphones muted except when it was a candidate’s turn to speak.

“We have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates’ mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,” Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement.

Trump’s campaign has argued that when they agreed to the ABC debate with Harris at the top of the ticket, they were agreeing to the same guidelines of the previous debate.

The Harris campaign maintains that the muted mics are the only remaining dispute, and while they wouldn’t mind opening statements, they have not insisted on it.

In a social media post Sunday night, Trump questioned whether or not he should participate in the ABC debate, criticizing the network’s coverage including what he called a “Panel of Trump Haters,” asking, “why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?”

The microphone rules dispute was first reported by Politico.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in 2017.

Until now, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has held his fire about his stint in the Trump White House.

McMaster served with distinction in key American conflicts of the past decades: the Gulf War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, but as McMaster recounts in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” in some ways, his most challenging tour as a soldier was his last one: serving as the national security adviser to a notoriously mercurial president.

In his blistering, insightful account of his time in the Trump White House, McMaster describes meetings in the Oval Office as “exercises in competitive sycophancy” during which Donald Trump’s advisers would flatter the president by saying stuff like, “Your instincts are always right” or, “No one has ever been treated so badly by the press.” Meanwhile, Trump would say “outlandish” things like, “Why don’t we just bomb the drugs?” in Mexico or, “Why don’t we take out the whole North Korean Army during one of their parades?”

McMaster wasn’t going to make the same mistake after Trump tapped him to be his national security adviser in February 2017. He writes, “I knew that to fulfill my duty, I would have to tell Trump what he didn’t want to hear.” This helps explain why McMaster lasted just over a year in the job. (Disclosure: I have known McMaster professionally since 2010, when he ran an anti-corruption task force in Afghanistan.)

McMaster’s book, which focuses on Trump’s tenure as commander in chief, comes at a particularly timely moment, just as many Americans start to really consider whether Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would make a better commander in chief.

McMaster provides unique detail on Trump’s approach to foreign policy and — similarly to his successor in the national security adviser role, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, who wrote scathingly about the former president in a book published in 2020 — his account is likely to do little to reassure US allies about the prospects of a second Trump term.

Read more about McMaster’s thoughts on Trump here.

Former President Donald Trump will be at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia this morning to commemorate the third anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, a source familiar tells CNN. 

The withdrawal has become one of his key talking points against the current administration. He is expected to be joined by some members of the families of the fallen soldiers. 

Tulsi Gabbard, the former representative from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democrat, is expected to formally endorse former President Donald Trump’s third presidential bid today at his event in Detroit, Michigan, a source with knowledge of the matter tells CNN.

The endorsement is not surprising given that Gabbard, now an independent, has been helping Trump with debate prep ahead of the September 10 face-off with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Former President Donald Trump points to supporters at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

While former President Donald Trump campaigns in two “blue wall” states this week, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will visit another key battleground.

Trump will deliver remarks on the economy in Potterville, Michigan, on Thursday, according to his campaign. The former president will also host a town hall that evening in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Trump “will meet with Wisconsinites to listen to their concerns and share his promising agenda: to make America affordable again,” his campaign said.

On Wednesday, Harris and Walz will kick off a bus tour in Georgia, concluding with a rally in the Savannah area on Thursday, according to their campaign.

Few battlegrounds will be more closely watched than Georgia — where President Joe Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes four years ago — for signs of how voters respond to campaign outreach.

Former President Donald Trump takes the stage at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

Fresh off a week of daily counterprogramming events and an effort to steal the spotlight from his new opponent, Donald Trump and his campaign are seeking to harness that pace in the lead-up to November — with plans to aggressively ramp up the former president’s schedule, hone his debate skills and cultivate a new ground-game strategy tied to the early voting states, sources familiar with the strategy shift told CNN.

Through November, Trump is expected to hold “several events each week, if not daily,” one adviser said, while another predicted the former president will regularly visit two states in a day.

While Trump was always expected to escalate his campaign activity after the conventions, the heightened pace goes well beyond previous preparations and is a direct response to the enthusiasm spike from Democrats since Harris replaced Biden atop their ticket, sources familiar with the plans told CNN. Trump’s schedule this week is a clear example.

On Monday, the former president will address the National Guard Association’s conference in Detroit; on Thursday, he will travel to Michigan for a speech on the economy before participating in a town hall in Wisconsin that evening. On Friday, he will hold a rally in Pennsylvania, then head to Washington, DC, to speak atthe “Joyful Warriors” summit, held by the conservative Moms for Liberty group.

Trump’s accelerated schedule also follows a trying stretch of his campaign. The former president’s erratic response to the change in opponent set off a wave of discussions about the strategy for the new reality. Close allies cautioned Trump to focus on policy over personal attacks and urged him to get in front of voters more often.

Moving forward, Trump will focus on battlegrounds where mail-in ballots will soon go out and early voting locations will first open, including in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as states tilting toward one party or the other, such as Minnesota and Florida. The Trump campaign also plans to bolster its teams on the ground in those states, as well as to deploy surrogates to hold get-out-the-vote events.

Read more here

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are looking to maintain their momentum as they prepare to hit the campaign trail again following an excitement-filled Democratic National Convention last week.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump — bracing for more unfavorable polling news — is seeking to curb Harris’ stride while also on the trail this week with his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who took swings at their rivals Sunday.

Here’s the latest campaign news:

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are joined by their spouses onstage on the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, August 22. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign said Sunday that it had raised $540 million since she launched her presidential bid just over a month ago.

That’s a record for any campaign in history for this time span, according to Harris’ team. 

The campaign saw a surge of grassroots donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention, raking in $82 million. The hour following Harris’ speech on the final night of the convention was the campaign’s best fundraising hour since launch day.

Harris’ team said a third of last week’s donations were from first-time contributors, two-thirds of whom were women. Teaching and nursing continue to be among the most common occupations for donors, the campaign said.

The campaign also had its biggest week of organizing, with nearly 200,000 volunteers signing up for shifts since Monday.  

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will kick off a bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, their first time campaigning in the state together, underscoring the campaign’s focus on the key battleground. The vice president is also set to host a rally in Savannah on Thursday to “speak directly to Georgians about the stakes of this election.”