August 11, 2024, presidential campaign news

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

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to travel to Chicago for campaign events and interviews during this month’s Democratic National Convention, a campaign spokesperson told CNN on Sunday. 

Kennedy is slated to hold multiple campaign events in the Chicago area the same week Democrats will converge on the city in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear told CNN.

The Chicago appearances will mark his campaign’s first public events since early July, when Kennedy attended an agriculture roundtable in Maine. Since then, he has made public appearances at conferences or events organized by outside groups. 

Kennedy was initially scheduled to campaign in Wisconsin ahead of the Republican National Committee in Milwaukee last month, but his campaign canceled his appearances at the last minute. Kennedy did travel to Wisconsin that week for private meetings, including with former President Donald Trump. 

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, on August 7.

Donald Trump falsely claimed in a series of social media posts Sunday that “nobody” attended Vice President Kamala Harris’ Michigan rally last week — and said his Democratic rival should be “disqualified” over a “fake crowd picture.”

The former president appeared to have fallen for a far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved by photos and videos captured by attendees and media showing thousands of supporters at the event at an airport hangar near Detroit.

Trump, who regularly draws large crowds of his own, has long been fixated on audience size, with his speeches often filled with exaggerated boasts about the turnout.

The former president, on his social media website Truth Social, made the fabricated claim that Harris had been “turned in” by an airport maintenance worker who “noticed the fake crowd picture.”

He then said Harris should be “disqualified” from the 2024 election “because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”

However, photos and videos of the event — including videos captured with CNN’s cameras — reflect a sizable audience for Harris’ Wednesday event. The crowd filled a large hangar and spilled onto the sprawling tarmac where Air Force Two had stopped. Two large risers and many rows of chairs were outside, as well as several giant screens for the outdoor crowd that couldn’t see the rally stage.

Read more about Trump’s false claims here.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Vice President Kamala Harris and compared the election to the Olympics during remarks at a San Francisco campaign fundraiser Sunday.

Pelosi, who spoke before Harris and received a standing ovation upon walking to the lectern, began her remarks by saying, “Isn’t this a day to take pride in our candidate for president?”

The powerful California Democrat made an analogy between elections and the Olympics, noting that the difference between gold, silver and bronze can come down to seconds. “Elections are that close,” she said, according to reporters in the room.

Harris “makes us all so proud,” Pelosi added, describing the vice president as a person of “great strength” and someone who is “politically very astute.”

CNN has previously reported that the former speaker privately told President Joe Biden that polling showed he could not beat former President Donald Trump and that his run could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning back the House. Pelosi said last week she has not spoken to Biden, a longtime ally, since he dropped out of the race.

The event in San Francisco, which Harris’ campaign said brought in more than $12 million, featured a number of other high-profile attendees, including:

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on August 10.

Vice President Kamala Harris told donors in San Francisco on Sunday that the real work of her campaign was yet to come, following a blitz of rallies in battleground states,

The Democratic presidential nominee told the crowd of 700 donors that she’s “never been one to really believe in the polls, whether they’re up or they’re down.” 

As she reflected on her five-city battleground tour, which concluded Saturday in Las Vegas, Harris shared some “notes from the field” with her audience.

Americans “don’t want to go back,” she said, noting how some rally attendees have chanted “Not going back!” at her events.

And while she called the energy surrounding her campaign “undeniable,” she emphasized the importance of maintaining voters’ enthusiasm.

“The press and our opponents like to focus on our crowd size, and, yes, the crowds are large,” she said, adding it was more important that rally attendees are signing up for volunteer shifts.

“It’s really been a good couple weeks, but we have a lot of work to do,” Harris said to laughs.

Harris’ campaign said the San Francisco event brought in more than $12 million.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance speaks during a press conference on August 7, in Shelby Township, Michigan.

Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance is defending former President Donald Trump’s attacks on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, falsely claiming Walz has “supported taking children from their parents if the parents don’t consent to gender reassignment,” which Vance described as “kidnapping” in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

As CNN has reported, Walz in 2023 signed an executive order that directed Minnesota agencies to do whatever they could to protect and support Minnesotans seeking gender-affirming health care services.

Walz also signed “trans refuge” legislation that safeguarded access to such care. Part of the law states, “A court of this state has temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state” and “has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.”

Vance’s comments in the interview came in response to ABC’s Jonathan Karl highlighting Trump’s false claim that Walz had signed legislation that would let the state kidnap children.

“Tim Walz gets on his high horse about, ‘Mind your own damn business.’ One way of minding your own damn business,” Vance said, “is to not try to take my children away from me if I have different world views than you.” 

Karl noted that Walz “has not signed a law allowing a state to kidnap children to change their gender identity.”

“What I just explained to you, I would describe as kidnapping,” Vance said. “He has absolutely done this stuff.” 

“That’s crazy, c’mon,” Karl said. “It’s not what he’s done.”

CNN has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Boxes of Mifepristone are seen at Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, on April 9.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance said in multiple interviews that aired Sunday that a Trump administration would not use the FDA to block access to the abortion drug mifepristone and that individual states should make decisions on abortion policy.

Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash that if he was reelected, former President Donald Trump would not seek to block the drug. However, Vance said the former president would “let states make the decision on abortion policy” — a position he acknowledged would lead to a patchwork of policies, including blue states with fewer restrictions and red states with more.

In another interview that aired Sunday, CBS’ Margaret Brennan pointed out to Vance that it was only after Roe v. Wade was overturned that the Supreme Court took up the case challenging the FDA’s approach to regulating mifepristone. In June, the court ultimately ruled that the doctors and anti-abortion groups behind the lawsuit did not have standing to sue. 

“When states and voters in those states make decisions, we of course want the states and the federal government to respect those decisions. And that’s what President Trump has said … We need to get out of the culture war side of the abortion issue,” Vance said on “Face the Nation.” “We need to let the states decide their specific abortion policy.” 

Brennan noted that Vance, as a senator, signed a letter to the Justice Department demanding it shut down all mail-order abortion operations under the Comstock Act. 

“We just want the FDA to make sure that doctors are prescribing this in a safe way. That’s all that we ever said, and I believe that that is how President Trump feels about this is, again, you want the states to make these determinations,” Vance said.

Voting machines are seen during the Georgia presidential primary elections in Atlanta on March 12.

The five-member state election board in Georgia last week passed controversial new rules less than 90 days before Election Day, which critics say could potentially delay certification of the election results if a county’s election board chooses to do so.

Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are crucial for both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes.

Here’s what to know about the rules that were approved by the board this week that will reshape election protocols in the Peach State:

Read more about these changes and others and how they came about here.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance said he would like to see the child tax credit expanded to $5,000 per child. 

“I think we’d love to see it at a higher dollar value, and I think President (Donald) Trump and I have proposed that,” Vance told CBS’ Face the Nation in an interview airing Sunday. “I’d love to see a child tax credit that’s $5,000 per child, but you of course have to work with Congress to see how possible and viable that is.”

Vance said he wants a “broad-based family policy and a broad-based Child Tax Credit,” arguing it shouldn’t be based on income. 

“You don’t want a different policy for higher-income families. You just want to have a pro-family child tax credit,” Vance continued.

Vance said he opposes “one model of child care,” and that the credit should also apply to grandparents who raise grandchildren, as his did, as well as to single parents. 

Pressed on whether the credit should apply to same-sex couples, Vance said, “All families would be included, of course.”

Vance also claimed that “the child tax credit has languished thanks to the Biden administration because (Vice President Kamala) Harris has failed to show fundamental leadership.” He has previously falsely claimed that Harris is calling to end the child tax credit. She has actually called for years to increase it.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan tax package that would have temporarily expanded the child tax credit, which Vance described in the CBS interview as a “show vote.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance should “put your money where your mouth is” on supporting children and families following his past “childless cat lady” comments

Vance, in his 2021 criticism of “childless” Democrats running the country, specifically mentioned Harris, who is a stepmother, and Buttigieg, who would soon afterward adopt children with his husband.

In a CNN interview that aired Sunday, Vance said, “of course” he acknowledges the families of Harris and Buttigieg and argued his comments were taken out of context.

Buttigieg countered that Vance only acknowledged his family’s legitimacy because “I think he kind of felt shamed into it.”

During his 2022 Senate run in Ohio, Vance said he would’ve voted “no” on the Respect for Marriage Act, the landmark federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples signed by President Joe Biden.

“I don’t know exactly what his vision of us not having a family looks like, but I know that it’s not pro-family for me,” Buttigieg said.

CNN has reached out to Vance’s campaign for comment.