US election 2024 LIVE updates: Kamala Harris endorsed by Nancy Pelosi after Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race

Thanks for joining us this morning, that’s all from the blog for today. Here’s a recap of everything we know:

• President Joe Biden rang into a press conference before Vice President Kamala Harris spoke – speaking for the first time since announcing he would not run in the presidential race. Biden acknowledged the announcement would have come as a great surprise, but believes the team made the right choice.
• Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to Biden, saying “it is so good to hear our president’s voice”, in response, Biden’s voice echoes from the call, saying: “I’m watching you kid, I love you”.
• Harris used the rest of her speech to attack Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying he would lead a country of “chaos, fear and hate”.
• Republican vice president nominee J.D. Vance accuses Harris of lying about Biden’s abilities at a rally in Virginia, saying “Harris is actually even more extreme than Biden”.
• President Joe Biden is set to return to the White House on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
• An Associated Press survey taken in the aftermath of President Biden’s decision to drop his bid for reelection found Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee.
• In a statement on becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, Harris she was “proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee”.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.Credit: AP

It’s a process that usually takes months, even years. Harris has only about two months before early voting starts.

Even if the campaign is something of a start-up, Harris does have a leg up. That’s thanks to the existing Biden campaign infrastructure that she will inherit.

Vice President Kamala Harris.Credit: Getty Images

In 2020, Biden announced Harris as his running mate on August 11. To meet that same date, Harris would, in theory, have less than three weeks to make her own choice.

She had previously agreed to debate Vance on August 13, although the two candidates never settled on terms. But Harris could also stretch her vice presidential pick to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which starts August 19.

Unlike in 2020, Harris will not be able to engage in the same extensive vetting process as Biden’s team with its interviews and research. It’s unclear where Harris is in this process, but vice presidential candidates usually exist to help balance out the top of the ticket and help rally major voting blocs.

Potential running mates so far include Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, Arizona Mark Kelly senator, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois senator J.B. Pritzker and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

AP, Reuters

Vice President Kamala Harris has released a statement on becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, saying she looks forward to taking her case directly to the American people.

When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.

I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.

This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.

Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.

Vice President Kamala Harris.Credit: AP

Steering from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said her agency failed in its mission to protect former president Donald Trump, as lawmakers of both major political parties demanded her resignation over security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at a campaign rally.

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.Credit: AP

During a highly contentious congressional hearing, Cheatle was berated for hours by Republicans and Democrats, repeatedly angering representatives by evading questions about the investigation during the first hearing over the July 13 assassination attempt.

Cheatle called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, vowing to “move heaven and earth” to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure there’s no repeat of it.

“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” she told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

Read the full story here.

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump, according to an Associated Press survey taken in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his bid for reelection.

Harris, who was endorsed by Biden minutes after he announced he would not accept the Democratic nomination, worked to quickly lock up the support of her party’s donors, elected officials and other leaders.

Vice President Kamala Harris.Credit: Getty Images

However, the Associated Press is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee.

That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats hold a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.

The AP survey is only an indication that she has the backing of more than the 1976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot.

But it also finds she’s the overwhelming choice of her party to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, as no other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by AP.

By Monday night, Harris had the support of at least 2214 delegates, according to the AP tally, enough to win the nomination on the first ballot.

US President Joe Biden’s decision to end his campaign for reelection brings a new element of uncertainty for Ukraine, which is struggling to fend off Russian military advances even as it worries about the future of American support.

The prospect of victory for former president Donald Trump, the Republican contender, has long concerned Kyiv, with fears he would choke off support and force Ukraine to sue for peace on terms that favour Russia.

The Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022, leading to more than two years of war.

Republican presidential candidate former president Donald Trump.Credit: AP

But while the Democrats hope Biden’s decision to drop out and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris will inject energy into their campaign, it’s unclear whether it makes Trump’s defeat more likely.

Officials in Moscow, widely thought to favour Trump, were noncommittal. Kyiv resident Yulia Loginova said she found it impossible to predict how Biden’s departure would affect Ukraine.

“I don’t know, honestly,” she said. “Surprises every day. But he did the right thing.”

Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said Biden’s withdrawal “changes the narrative of the campaign”, but it’s too soon to say how much it will alter the dynamic of the presidential election.

“If it makes the Democrats more likely to win, then Ukraine’s happy,” he said. “I don’t think a Harris administration would be that different from a Biden administration.”

AP

After weeks of pressure, US President Joe Biden has finally withdrawn from the 2024 election race. He then moved swiftly to endorse his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run in his place.

But who is Harris? And what does she stand for?

North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin joins The Morning Edition podcast from Washington to talk about Harris’ rise from district attorney to a senator remembered for her questioning of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and her advocacy for women’s reproductive rights.

You can listen to the episode in full in the player below.

President Joe Biden is set to return to the White House on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

Since the 81-year-old contracted COVID on Wednesday, Biden has been isolating at his house at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

Reuters reports that Biden is due to return to the White House on Tuesday afternoon US time.

President Joe Biden.Credit: AP

International editor for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Peter Hartcher has written his analysis of President Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the presidential race.

The leaders of the US Democratic Party have pulled off quite a feat. After publicly assailing their leader for three weeks, they’ve coerced Joe Biden into surrendering his status as the party’s nominee for the presidential election.

By forcing Biden out, the Democrat leadership has made Vice President Kamala Harris the heir apparent. They’ve opened the way for the candidate they wanted.

She’s already the highest-ranked female elected official in the country’s history. Now she will campaign to be America’s first female president. With a Tamil Indian mother and an Afro-Jamaican father, she would be the first Asian-American and first female Afro-American presidential candidate for a major party.

She’s not yet the official nominee, but she is all but certain to clinch the title at or before the August 19 Democrat convention in Chicago. She holds strong qualifications for the title.

Yes, she’s vice president of the United States. Yes, Biden has endorsed her, and the convention delegates who will make the decision were chosen for their loyalty to Biden. But what makes her candidacy compelling is that “for the Democrats to deny that nomination to a black woman would alienate two of the pillars of the Democratic Party’s public support”, a veteran Democrat insider explains to me.

“Whether Harris is the best candidate or would make the best president is irrelevant. I don’t think anyone else has a chance of beating Trump because blacks and women would be so furious if she is denied the nomination that they would not come out in the numbers that are needed to help the Democrats win,” they say.

So she’s the candidate the Democratic Party cannot deny. But have the party elites replaced Biden with a candidate that the American voters want? Not on the evidence.

Read the full analysis here.

If you’re trying to get up to speed on Vice President Kamala Harris’ swift emergence as the Democrats’ possible nominee this fall, you really need to know your memes.

From “brat summer” to “coconut tree”, it’s been a timeline full of Harris-related memes for many people since President Joe Biden exited the 2024 presidential race on Sunday.

Taking to the internet to pledge their support for her candidacy, Harris’ backers, much of the time, are crafting new spins on previous online organisms that at one time had been used by Harris’ detractors to throw shade.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an NCAA championship teams celebration on the South Lawn of the White House. Credit: Getty Images

There are also celebrities getting in the mix, with some of the association seen as a tidal wave of attention on Harris’ candidacy that could help turn back American apathy for what had been a largely binary general election between Biden and GOP nominee Donald Trump.

The @KamalaHQ account bio text on X reads simply “adding context”, a reference to a much-memed speech where the vice president emphatically recalled a turn of phrase frequently used by her mother.

“She would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris recollected in 2023 at a White House ceremony, clad in a mauve suit. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

Musician Charli XCX.Credit: Invision

At the time, the somewhat existential-sounding phrase was shared many times over by critics who labelled Harris as “drunk” or “crazy.”

In the past two days, online users and politicians have latched onto the clip, sometimes sincerely and sometimes ironically, creating coconut-themed posting support of her candidacy.

Another meme called “brat summer” has come from younger celebrities aiming to help Harris by tying her to their viral and loyal social media brands.

Most notably, pop musician Charli XCX posted on X that “kamala IS brat,” a reference to her newly released album brat and its rabid summer following. The post has accumulated more than 35 million impressions on the app, and Harris’ campaign quickly set its X banner photo to the striking Shrek-green colour of the musician’s brat album cover.

Viral mashups of brat and “coconut tree” together — playing Charli’s music over clips of the Harris quip — have spread widely as well on Instagram, X and TikTok.

AP