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Tag: Government and politics

  • Hunter Biden was hired by Romanian businessman trying to ‘influence’ US agencies, prosecutors say

    Hunter Biden was hired by Romanian businessman trying to ‘influence’ US agencies, prosecutors say

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was hired by a Romanian businessman accused of corruption who was trying to “influence U.S. government policy” during Joe Biden’s term as vice president, prosecutors said in court papers Wednesday.

    Special counsel David Weiss’ team said Hunter Biden’s business associate will testify at the upcoming federal tax trial of the president’s son about the arrangement with the executive, Gabriel Popoviciu, who was facing criminal investigation at the time in Romania.

    The allegations are likely to bring a fresh wave of criticism of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which have been the center of Republicans’ investigations into the president’s family. Hunter Biden has blasted Republican inquiries into his family’s business affairs as politically motivated, and has insisted he never involved his father in his business.

    An attorney for Hunter Biden didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

    Prosecutors plan to introduce evidence that Hunter Biden and his business associate “received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,” according to the filing. Popoviciu wanted U.S. government agencies to probe the Romanian bribery investigation he was facing in the hopes that would end his legal trouble, according to prosecutors.

    Popoviciu is identified only in court papers as G.P., but the details line up with information released in the congressional investigation and media reporting about Hunter Biden’s legal work in Romania.

    Popoviciu was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 after being convicted of real estate fraud. He denied any wrongdoing. An attorney who previously represented Popoviciu didn’t immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday.

    Prosecutors say Hunter Biden agreed with his business associate to help Popoviciu fight the criminal charges against him. But prosecutors say they were concerned that “lobbying work might cause political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured in a way that “concealed the true nature of the work” for Popoviciu, prosecutors allege.

    Hunter Biden’s business associate and Popoviciu signed an agreement to make it look like Popoviciu’s payments were for “management services to real estate prosperities in Romania.” However, prosecutors said, “That was not actually what G.P. was paying for.”

    In fact, Popoviciu and Hunter’s business associate agreed that they would be paid for their work to “attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation,” prosecutors said. Hunter Biden’s business associate was paid more than $3 million, which was split with Hunter and another business partner, prosecutors say.

    The claims were made in court papers as prosecutors responded to a request by Hunter Biden’s legal team to bar from his upcoming trial any reference to allegations of improper political influence that have dogged the president’s son for years. While Republicans’ investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that the president acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or his previous office as vice president.

    Hunter Biden’s lawyers have said in court papers that he has been “the target of politically motivated attacks and conspiracy theories” about his foreign business dealings. But they noted he “has never been charged with any crime relating to these unfounded allegations, and the Special Counsel should thus be precluded from even raising such issues at trial.”

    Hunter Biden’s trial set to begin next month in Los Angeles centers on charges that he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years during a period in which he has acknowledged struggling with a drug addiction.

    Prosecutors say they won’t introduce any evidence that Hunter Biden was directly paid by a foreign government “or evidence that the defendant received compensation for actions taken by his father that impacted national or international politics.”

    Still, prosecutors say what Hunter Biden agreed to do for Popoviciu is relevant at trial because it “demonstrates his state and mind and intent” during the years he’s accused of failing to pay his taxes.

    “It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars” in the agreement with his business associate, prosecutors wrote.

    The tax trial comes months after Hunter Biden was convicted of three felony charges over the purchase of a gun in 2018. Prosecutors argued that the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

    He could face up to 25 years in prison at sentencing set for Nov. 13 in Wilmington, Delaware, but as a first-time offender he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.

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  • Student loan forgiveness may be on the way for roughly 25 million borrowers. Here’s what to know

    Student loan forgiveness may be on the way for roughly 25 million borrowers. Here’s what to know

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    U.S. President Joe Biden speaks as he announces a new plan for federal student loan relief during a visit to Madison Area Technical College Truax Campus, in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S, April 8, 2024. 

    Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

    The Biden administration is sending emails to tens of millions of borrowers this week about its new plans to cancel student debt.

    “We want to make you aware of this potential relief,” the U.S. Department of Education writes in the email, which CNBC reviewed.

    The Department of Education estimates that at least 25 million borrowers could qualify.

    Who will be eligible?

    The same day the Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s first attempt at sweeping student loan forgiveness, Biden announced that the White House would try to deliver the relief another way.

    With the hope that this aid package survives the inevitable next round of legal challenges, the Education Department revised its forgiveness plan to be more targeted.

    More from Personal Finance:
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    IRS issues final rules for inherited IRAs
    How kids from rich families learn about money

    In its email to borrowers, the department lists four categories of eligibility.

    Those are:

    1. Borrowers who owe more than they did at the start of repayment.
    2. Those who entered repayment on their undergraduate loans on or before July 1, 2005, or, if they have graduate loans, on or before July 1, 2000.
    3. People who are already eligible for student loan forgiveness under one of the government’s existing programs but just haven’t yet applied.
    4. Students from “low-financial value” programs.

    Is there anything I need to do?

    Those who want to be included in the relief do not need to do anything, the Education Department said. No application will be needed.

    However, if, for some reason, a borrower wants to opt out of the debt forgiveness, they must do so by Aug. 30 with their loan servicer.

    When could I see the relief?

    The Education Department is expected to publish its final rule on the debt relief sometime in October. Once that happens, it will likely move to cancel people’s loans quickly to get ahead of lawsuits, said Luke Herrine, an assistant professor of law at the University of Alabama.

    “It is often harder to undo something rather than prevent its being done, both administratively and legally,” Herrine said.

    “And if the administration doesn’t wait, it forces opponents to put together a lawsuit quickly and without full information,” Herrine said.

    Yet opponents of the relief may already be prepared to fight it, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

    “Most likely a lawsuit will be filed the day the rule is final, seeking a temporary injunction to prevent the Biden administration from forgiving loans” while the legal battle plays out, Kantrowitz said.

    In that case, borrowers may be stuck waiting for news on the relief for months or longer. The case may even go to the Supreme Court again, where it is uncertain if it would survive.

    Will I owe taxes on any forgiven debt?

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  • Wisconsin Republicans ask voters to take away governor’s power to spend federal money

    Wisconsin Republicans ask voters to take away governor’s power to spend federal money

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    Wisconsin Republicans are asking voters to take away the governor’s power to unilaterally spend federal money, a reaction to the billions of dollars that flowed into the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was free to spend most of that money as he pleased, directing most of it toward small businesses and economic development, angering Republicans who argued the Legislature should have oversight.

    That’s what would happen under a pair of related constitutional amendments up for voter approval in the Aug. 13 primary election. The changes would apply to Evers and all future governors and cover any federal money to the state that comes without specific spending requirements, often in response to disasters or other emergencies.

    Democrats and other opponents are mobilizing against the amendments, calling them a legislative power grab that would hamstring governors’ ability to quickly respond to a future natural disaster, economic crisis or health emergency.

    If the amendments pass, Wisconsin’s government “will become even more dysfunctional,” said Julie Keown-Bomar, executive director of Wisconsin Farmers Union.

    “Wisconsinites are so weary of riding the partisan crazy train, but it is crucial that we show up at the polls and vote ‘no’ on these changes as they will only make us go further off the rails,” she said in a statement.

    But Republicans and other backers say it’s a necessary check on the governor’s current power, which they say is too broad.

    The changes increase “accountability, efficiency, and transparency,” Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein, a co-sponsor of the initiative, said at a legislative hearing.

    The two questions, which were proposed as a single amendment and then separated on the ballot, passed the GOP-controlled Legislature twice as required by law. Voter approval is needed before they would be added to the state constitution. The governor has no veto power over constitutional amendments.

    Early, in-person absentee voting for the Aug. 13 election begins Tuesday across the state and goes through Aug. 11. Locations and times for early voting vary.

    Wisconsin Republicans have increasingly turned to voters to approve constitutional amendments as a way to get around Evers’ vetoes. Midway through his second term, Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in Wisconsin history.

    In April, voters approved amendments to bar the use of private money to run elections and reaffirm that only election officials can work the polls. In November, an amendment on the ballot seeks to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in local elections.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    Republicans put this question on the August primary ballot, the first time a constitutional amendment has been placed in that election where turnout is much lower than in November.

    The effort to curb the governor’s spending power also comes amid ongoing fights between Republicans and Evers over the extent of legislative authority. Evers in July won a case in the Wisconsin Supreme Court that challenged the power the GOP-controlled Legislature’s budget committee had over conservation program spending.

    Wisconsin governors were given the power to decide how to spend federal money by the Legislature in 1931, during the Great Depression, according to a report from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

    “Times have changed and the influx of federal dollars calls for a different approach,” Republican Rep. Robert Wittke, who sponsored the amendment, said at a public hearing.

    It was a power that was questioned during the Great Recession in 2008, another time when the state received a large influx of federal aid.

    But calls for change intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government handed Wisconsin $5.7 billion in aid between March 2020 and June 2022 in federal coronavirus relief. Only $1.1 billion came with restrictions on how it could be spent.

    Most of the money was used for small business and local government recovery grants, buying emergency health supplies and paying health care providers to offset the costs of the pandemic.

    Republicans pushed for more oversight, but Evers vetoed a GOP bill in 2021 that would have required the governor to submit a plan to the Legislature’s budget committee for approval.

    Republican increased the pressure for change following the release of a nonpartisan audit in 2022 that found Evers wasn’t transparent about how he decided where to direct the money.

    One amendment specifies the Legislature can’t delegate its power to decide how money is spent. The second prohibits the governor from spending federal money without legislative approval.

    If approved, the Legislature could pass rules governing how federal money would be handled. That would give them the ability to change the rules based on who is serving as governor or the purpose of the federal money.

    For example, the Legislature could allow governors to spend disaster relief money with no approval, but require that other money go before lawmakers first.

    Opposing the measures are voting rights groups, the Wisconsin Democratic Party and a host of other liberal organizations, including those who fought to overturn Republican-drawn legislative maps, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice.

    Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying group, and the Badger Institute, a conservative think tank, were the only groups that registered in support in the Legislature.

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  • Even on quiet summer weekends, huge news stories spread to millions more swiftly than ever before

    Even on quiet summer weekends, huge news stories spread to millions more swiftly than ever before

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    James Peeler’s phone blew up with messages as he drove home from church in Texas. Reading a book on her couch in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Wendy Schweiger spied something on Facebook. After finishing a late-night swim in the Baltic Sea off Finland, Matti Niiranen clicked on a CNN livestream.

    Each learned that President Joe Biden had abandoned his re-election bid minutes after he dropped a statement online without warning on a summer Sunday.

    Eight days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, it marked the second straight July weekend that a seismic American story broke at a time most people weren’t paying attention to the news. Biden’s announcement was a startling example of how fast and how far word spreads in today’s always-connected world.

    “It seemed like a third of the nation knew it instantly,” said longtime news executive Bill Wheatley, “and they told another third.”

    News travels fast, as they say

    Wheatley, now retired and summering in Maine, had sat down to check his email and absent-mindedly refreshed the CNN.com home site on his computer. If he didn’t learn the news that way, text messages from friends would have alerted him soon after.

    At 1:46 p.m. Eastern Time, the moment Biden posted his announcement on X, an estimated 215,000 people happened to be logged on to one of 124 major U.S. news websites. Fifteen minutes later, those sites had 893,000 readers, according to Chartbeat.

    On apnews.com, 3,580 people entered the site during the 1:46 p.m. minute. Nearly an hour later, at 2:43 p.m., The Associated Press’ online news destination site hit the afternoon’s peak of 18,936 new visitors. CNN.com and its news app saw its usage quintuple within 20 minutes of the news breaking, the network said.

    Television networks broke into regular programming for the story between 1:50 and 2:04 p.m. During the relatively quiet quarter-hour before 2 p.m., a total of 2.69 million people were watching either CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. The audience on those three networks swelled to 6.84 million between 2 and 4 p.m. Eastern. Add ABC and CBS, which also had special coverage in those hours, and there were at least 9.27 million following the story on television.

    How did everybody get there so quickly? As Wheatley suggested, word of mouth played a big role. To his credit, Peeler said he didn’t open his text messages until stopping his car.

    Many people also have alerts set up on their phone.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    “Our phones are constantly chirping at us and we have them with us all the time,” said Brian Ott, a media and communications professor at Missouri State University and author of “The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage.”

    Ott and his wife were traveling in Belgrade, Serbia, and, with the time difference, had gone to bed on Sunday night before Biden made his announcement. Ott found out the next morning when he checked news sites online and told his wife when she woke up.

    “Oh, I already know,” she responded. She had logged on to X when she got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

    Since then, as he has moved on to Italy, visiting Rome and Florence, Ott said everyone he’s run into who hears he speaks English has wanted to talk to him about Biden.

    “My sense is that the compulsion is the same for everyone,” he said. “In our digital world, information is capital, and everyone wants to demonstrate their capital.”

    Finding out in various ways

    At his summer house in Pyharanta, Finland, Niiranen has taken a keen interest in U.S. politics, which the semiretired writer said dates to his time as an exchange student in Michigan. He had gone for a swim after 10 p.m. on Sunday, since daylight lingers longer there.

    Niiranen had read speculation that Biden might drop out, so when he sat down on his deck after getting out of the water, he checked the CNN stream and found that was the case.

    “Interesting election you have there!” he said. “I’ll be watching it.”

    Visiting family in Canaan, New Hampshire, Tracy Jasnowski was having a mostly unplugged week because of spotty internet service. Once a day, adults and children alike retreated with their devices to a spot on the lawn where the service is more consistent. That’s when she found out.

    “Honestly, I thought I might vomit,” she said. “I was shocked. I was cast adrift. I had no idea that would happen.”

    Even if she hadn’t learned it then, Jasnowski said she quickly got text messages from friends. And when her father woke up from his nap, he turned on Fox News.

    A generation or two earlier, people would have to be watching TV or listening to the radio to hear a special report about momentous news, said Wheatley, a former executive at NBC News. Then people would spread it by telling friends or family. Now with social media, text alerts and websites available at a click, news moves “much, much faster.”

    “The next logical question,” he said, “is how accurate is it?”

    Get it first, but first get it right

    It’s a mantra drummed into young journalists: Get the news fast but, more importantly, get it right. A mistake on a major, breaking story can derail a career. This month’s big stories illustrated the pressure that comes with the need for speed.

    Almost immediately after Biden’s announcement, it became a major part of the story journalists were filing that he hadn’t endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to succeed him. He did within a half hour, but that’s an eternity for those who want to raise questions or float conspiracy theories.

    Similarly, video of the Trump rally where shots were fired appeared instantly on television screens. But most initial news reports were extremely cautious, sticking to what was known: Trump was hurried off the stage by Secret Service agents. Blood was visible. There was a noise that sounded like gunshots.

    That, in turn, led some to criticize journalists for being too wary, too reluctant to call it an assassination attempt. Yet not all facts are quickly known; nearly two weeks later, at a congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray said it still wasn’t fully clear whether Trump had been hit by a bullet or shrapnel. The next day, the FBI announced it had concluded it was a bullet.

    In other words, it’s common that there’s more to a story than meets the eye, and the frenzy of initial breaking news requires strong adherence to the facts available at the moment, no matter what becomes clear later.

    When Peeler arrived at his destination in Texas last week and checked on what his friends had texted him about Biden, he called up the websites of local TV network affiliates. In Pennsylvania, Schweiger turned immediately to the AP and The New York Times online.

    Both were grateful they had someplace they considered reliable to learn the facts.

    “I operate under the assumption that news is 24 hours, and that you always have people that can be pressed into service for anything at any time,” Schweiger said.

    ___

    David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Online reports falsely claim Biden suffered a ‘medical emergency’ on Air Force One

    FACT FOCUS: Online reports falsely claim Biden suffered a ‘medical emergency’ on Air Force One

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    False reports that President Joe Biden had a “medical emergency” while traveling back to Delaware on Friday after a campaign stop in Wisconsin, spread widely on social media on Friday. They were without merit.

    Here’s a look at the facts.

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    CLAIM: President Joe Biden had a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One on Friday.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There were no signs of a medical emergency on the flight, according to an Associated Press reporter who was traveling with Biden. Air Force One arrived at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, at 7:22 p.m. The president exited the plane on his own, saluted and spoke with an officer at the base of the stairs and took a question from a reporter before leaving the airport.

    THE FACTS: As Biden returned to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, after a campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday social media users falsely claimed that the president had suffered a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One.

    Air Force One landed in New Castle, Delaware, at 7:22 p.m. about the same time posts started spreading about Biden’s alleged medical emergency.

    “I just received a tip from an anonymous source,” reads one X post. “My source says that Joe Biden is currently experiencing a medical emergency on Air Force One as I type this. No further details are known.”

    Another X post states: “Joe Biden is reportedly having a medical emergency on Air Force One right now. Press access has been removed.” It had received approximately 15,000 likes and 10,900 shares as of Saturday morning.

    The posts presented no evidence that such an event occurred. Press access was not removed.

    Video shows Biden walking down the steps of Air Force One in Delaware, speaking with an officer, answering a reporter’s question about whether he would watch a highly anticipated interview he did with ABC News’ George Stephanopolous and getting into a car, all without issue.

    There were no signs of an emergency aboard Air Force One and the press was not denied access to the plane at any point, according to an AP reporter who was traveling on Air Force One with Biden during the flight from Wisconsin to Delaware. The reporter added that press was able to move about the plane as usual and that a door separating press from Biden’s top staff was open for most of the flight.

    White House spokesperson Andrew Bates called the claim “100% false” in an X post on Friday night.

    Other posts claimed that the press did not see Biden when the presidential motorcade arrived at his home Friday night and that his campaign had canceled upcoming events as a result of the supposed emergency.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    A press pool was in Biden’s motorcade when he was dropped off at his Wilmington home, according to the AP reporter who was traveling with the president. The reporter said journalists did not see him enter the house, but they routinely do not see him enter his Wilmington home because it is set back from the street and it is typical to only see the motorcade going through the gates leading to the house.

    Biden had no public events planned for Saturday. He was scheduled to speak at a National Education Association convention on Sunday, but canceled after the union’s staff announced a strike on Friday.

    “President Biden is a fierce supporter of unions and he won’t cross a picket line,” his campaign said in a statement. “The President is still planning to travel to Pennsylvania this weekend.”

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    Associated Press reporters Colleen Long and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Minutes after Trump shooting, misinformation started flying. Here are the facts

    Minutes after Trump shooting, misinformation started flying. Here are the facts

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Within minutes of the gunfire, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump spawned a vast sea of claims — some outlandish, others contradictory — reflecting the frightening uncertainties of the moment as well as America’s fevered, polarized political climate.

    The cloudburst of speculation and conjecture as Americans turned to the internet for news about the shooting is the latest sign of how social media has emerged as a dominant source of information — and misinformation — for many, and a contributor to the distrust and turbulence now driving American politics.

    Mentions of Trump on social media soared up to 17 times the average daily amount in the hours after the shooting, according to PeakMetrics, a cyber firm that tracks online narratives. Many of those mentions were expressions of sympathy for Trump or calls for unity. But many others made unfounded, fantastical claims.

    “We saw things like ‘The Chinese were behind it,’ or ‘ Antifa was behind it,’ or ‘the Biden administration did it.’ We also saw a claim that the RNC was behind it,’” said Paul Bartel, senior intelligence analyst at PeakMetrics. “Everyone is just speculating. No one really knows what’s going on. They go online to try to figure it out.”

    Here’s a look at the claims that surfaced online following the shooting:

    Claims of an inside job or false flag are unsubstantiated

    Many of the more specious claims that surfaced immediately after the shooting sought to blame Trump or his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden, for the attack.

    Some voices on the left quickly proclaimed the shooting to be a false flag concocted by Trump, while some Trump supporters suggested the Secret Service intentionally failed to protect Trump on the White House’s orders.

    The Secret Service on Sunday pushed back on claims circulating on social media that Trump’s campaign had asked for greater security before Saturday’s rally and was told no.

    “This is absolutely false,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote Sunday on X. “In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”

    Videos of the shooting were quickly dissected in partisan echo chambers and Trump supporters and detractors looked for evidence to support their beliefs. Videos showing Secret Service agents moving audience members away from Trump before the shooting were offered as evidence that it was an inside job. Images of Trump’s defiantly raised fist were used to make the opposite claim — that the whole event was staged by Trump.

    “How did the USSS allow him to stop and pose for a photo opp if there was real danger??” wrote one user, using the abbreviation for the U.S. Secret Service.

    Social media bots helped amplify the false claims on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, according to an analysis by the Israeli tech firm Cyabra, which found that a full 45% of the accounts using hashtags like #fakeassassination and #stagedshooting were inauthentic.

    An image created using artificial intelligence — depicting a smiling Trump moments after the shooting — was also making the rounds, Cyabra found.

    Moments like this are ‘cannon fodder’ for extremists

    Conspiracy theories quickly emerged online that misidentified the suspected shooter, blamed other people without evidence and espoused hate speech, including virulent antisemitism.

    “Moments like this are cannon fodder for extremists online, because typically they will react with great confidence to whatever has happened without any real evidence” said Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “People will fall into spirals and will advance their own ideologies and their own conclusions.”

    Before authorities identified the suspect, photos of two different people circulated widely online falsely identifying them as the shooter.

    In all the speculation and conjecture, others were trying to exploit the event financially. On X on Sunday morning, an account named Proud Patriots urged Trump supporters to purchase their assassination-attempt themed merchandise.

    “First they jail him, now they try to end him,” reads the ad for the commemorative Trump Assassination Attempt Trading Card. “Stand Strong & Show Your Support!”

    Republicans cast blame on Biden

    After the shooting, some Republicans blamed Biden for the shooting, arguing sustained criticisms of Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

    Ware said that comment from Biden was “violent rhetoric” that is “raising the stakes,” especially when combined with Biden’s existential words about the election. But he said it was important not to make conclusions about the shooter’s motive until we know more information. Biden’s remarks were part of a broader approach to turn scrutiny on Trump, with no explicit call to violence.

    Trump’s own incendiary words have been criticized in the past for encouraging violence. His lies about the 2020 election and his call for supporters to “fight like hell” preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which led to his second impeachment on charges of incitement of insurrection. Trump also mocked the hammer attack that left 80-year-old Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former House speaker, with a fractured skull.

    Surveys find that Americans overwhelmingly reject violence as a way to settle political differences, but overheated rhetoric from candidates and social media can motivate a small minority of people to act, said Sean Westwood, a political scientist who directs the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth College.

    Westwood said he worries that Saturday’s shooting could spur others to consider violence as a tactic.

    “There is a real risk that this spirals,” he said. “Even if someone doesn’t personally support violence, if they think the other side does, and they witness an attempted political assassination, there is a real risk that this could lead to escalation.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Trump proposes strategic national crypto stockpile: ‘Never sell your bitcoin’

    Trump proposes strategic national crypto stockpile: ‘Never sell your bitcoin’

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    Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking at a campaign rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20, 2024.

    Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

    NASHVILLE — Former President Donald Trump said that if he were returned to the White House, he would ensure that the federal government never sells off its bitcoin holdings. But he stopped short of proposing a formal federal reserve of digital currency.

    “For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said during his keynote speech at this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, the biggest bitcoin conference of the year.

    The former president’s remarks came as the race to capture the votes and the campaign cash of America’s frontline fintech adopters takes center stage in the 2024 presidential contest.

    “This afternoon I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world and we’ll get it done,” Trump said.

    But Trump’s pledge to simply maintain the U.S. government’s current bitcoin holdings was a less radical pitch to the crypto crowd relative to other proposals at the conference.

    Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance, during his Friday Bitcoin Conference speech promised to launch a reserve of 4 million bitcoin, starting with the bitcoin holdings that the U.S. government already has stockpiled from criminal seizures. Kennedy said he would mandate the government purchase 550 bitcoin a day until the reserve reached 4 million.

    Shortly after Trump’s speech, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy., read out her own legislative proposal to amass an official U.S. federal reserve of 1 million bitcoin over five years.

    “It will be held for a minimum of 20 years and can be used for one purpose: Reduce our debt,” Lummis said.

    The price of bitcoin briefly dipped during Trump’s speech, but recovered and was up slightly for the day, as of 5:15 p.m. E.T.

    Throughout his remarks, the former president worked to draw contrasts between the Republican Party’s growing embrace of crypto versus the hardline regulatory approach that has characterized the Biden administration.

    “The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong and it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said. “Let me tell you if they win this election, every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious. They will be ruthless. They will do things that you wouldn’t believe.”

    Trump went on to list a series of crypto-friendly promises to a crowd of cheering bitcoin supporters, promising to dismantle what he called the “anti-crypto crusade” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

    “On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said, referencing the Biden-appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto regulation.

    The president does not have the power to fire appointed commissioners. Even if Trump were to appoint a new SEC chairman, Gensler would remain a commissioner on the independent agency.

    The former president also pledged to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”

    “The rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” Trump said.

    The Republican presidential nominee also held an accompanying fundraiser in Nashville, with tickets topping out at $844,600. In June, BTC Inc. CEO David Bailey, who organized the conference, pledged to raise $100 million and turn out more than 5,000,000 voters for the Trump re-election effort, as the bitcoin sector increasingly turns to the Trump camp for support.

    Trump taking the main stage to directly address the bitcoin community is the latest in a months-long campaign to appeal to the crypto contingent, including accepting donations in virtual tokens, pledging to end President Joe Biden’s “war on crypto,” and advocating that all future bitcoin be made in America. It is also quite the about-face by the Republican presidential nominee.

    Trump very publicly dismissed bitcoin when he was in the White House. In July 2019, he said he was “not a fan” of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He said that tokens aren’t money, that their value was “based on thin air,” and warned that unregulated crypto assets could help facilitate the drug trade, among “other illegal activity.”

    “Bitcoin just seems like a scam,” he told Fox in a phone interview in 2021. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

    “I want the dollar to be the currency of the world, that’s what I’ve always said,” continued Trump in his conversation with Fox.

    But five years, a lost presidential election, and millions of dollars from the crypto lobby later, the Republican presidential nominee sung the praises of the digital currency at the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville, which kicked off on Thursday.

    “Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty and independence from government coercion and control,” Trump said during his keynote speech.

    Trump’s shift on bitcoin comes as the Republican Party pledges to lift the red tape of the Biden-Harris administration, working to turn crypto regulation into a voting issue for November, especially as inflation consistently ranks as a top voter priority in polls.

    As crypto lobbyists and supporters become more of a presence in Washington, it raises questions on whether the Democratic Party will dig into the hardline regulatory approach of the past several years or ease its position.

    “Every presidential candidate needs to understand, digital asset, pro-innovation voters are here to stay,” Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel of North Carolina told CNBC in an interview, adding that crypto regulation should not become a “partisan political football.”

    “I want to keep this as a bipartisan issue. I don’t want Donald Trump to politicize this issue,” Rep. Nickel said.

    Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., echoed Rep. Nickel’s sentiment, saying that crypto should not turn into a partisan talking point but will require regulation like any technology.

    “I don’t really see why it’s partisan. Being against bitcoin is like being against cell phones. It’s like being against AI. It’s like being against laptops,” Khanna told CNBC. “It’s a technology. Have thoughtful regulation on the technology, but it’s a technology that has appreciated from about $10,000 to $80,000.”

    Reps. Khanna and Nickel were two of the only Democrats to attend the Bitcoin Conference.

    Bitcoin 2024 conference organizers say they were briefly in talks to have Vice President Kamala Harris appear at the conference, though she ultimately declined. But billionaire businessman Mark Cuban posted on X that the Harris campaign had reached out with questions about crypto, so it appears the vice president is looking into this space and potentially figuring out where her policies, if elected president, could land.

    “I think we’re going to hear from Vice President Harris soon on this. And I’m very optimistic we’re gonna get a reset. And that I think, will matter in a major way,” Rep. Nickel said. “This issue isn’t going anywhere. And we’ve got to make sure we continue to embrace this in bipartisan way.”

    Harris’ team has already begun to reach out to people close to crypto companies to set up meetings, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

    Bitcoin surges as namesake conference welcomes Donald Trump to Nashville

    Trump’s 180 on bitcoin

    The recent thaw in Trump’s sentiment for the digital asset space has coincided with a sudden influx of interest and cash from the country’s top tech talent.

    He has raised more than $4 million in a mix of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether, the U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin USDC, and various memecoins, with contributors hailing from 12 states, including a few battlegrounds. 

    Crypto billionaire twins and venture investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss led the charge, each contributing 15.57 bitcoin, or just over $1 million at the time of their donation, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission — though they received a partial refund, because contributions surpassed the $844,600 limit.

    There are a number of other venture capitalists who are pro-crypto, and they’ve pledged millions to the Trump campaign, as well.

    Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told employees of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that they plan to make significant donations to political action committees supporting  Trump’s campaign. The partners of Sequoia Capital are backing Trump, as is venture investor David Sacks, who helped the former president raise $12 million at a fundraiser he hosted in his San Francisco home. The chief legal officers for centralized crypto exchange Coinbase and blockchain giant Ripple were both there.

    These members of the tech elite are also heavily contributing to pro-crypto super PACs like Fairshake, which has raised more than $200 million dollars to elect pro-crypto candidates up and down the ballot, and on both sides of the aisle.

    But reporting from NBC News finds that the vice president’s team is looking to win over support from some of big tech’s undecided donors, many of whom remained on the sidelines while President Joe Biden remained in the race. Their tune may be changing now that the vice president is the de facto nominee for the party.

    It helps that Harris has a long track record in California. 

    She has been fundraising in the tech community for years, including from those working at Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple.

    “The pivot that has occurred in the last three days is dramatic,” Steve Westly, a venture capitalist and one-time gubernatorial candidate for California, told NBC News. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a surge of enthusiasm in any campaign I’ve been involved with.” 

    This comes as Trump’s running mate for vice president, JD Vance, is set to hold a fundraiser of his own in Palo Alto on Monday. 

    — CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.

    Bitcoin 2024 conference underway: Here's what to know

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  • Harris makes a pre-taped appearance on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ to urge Americans to vote

    Harris makes a pre-taped appearance on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ to urge Americans to vote

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris crashed the season finale of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” urging Americans to vote in an appearance that was taped before President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.

    The episode caps the series’ ninth season and is streaming Friday on Paramount+. It opens with an announcer saying that programing is being interrupted for an “extra special ‘Drag Race’ viewing party.”

    The scene cuts to the Democratic vice president smiling broadly and saying into the camera, “Hi, everyone. It’s Kamala Harris. Each day, we’re seeing our rights and freedoms under attack, including the right of everyone to be who they are, love who they love — openly and with pride.”

    Clad in a purple suit that nicely complements the hot-pink couch where she’s seated with actor Cheyenne Jackson and surrounded by other celebrities and stars from the show, Harris continues: “So, as we fight back against these attacks, no one is alone.”

    “We are all in this together, and your vote is your power, so please make sure your voice is heard this November and register to vote,” the vice president concludes.

    That prompts Jackson to proclaim, “Can I get an amen?” and Harris and others happily cry, “Amen!” The vice president, like many on the set, holds up her hands in a gesture of praise before adding, “Now on with the show.”

    Harris and others then clap to RuPaul’s song “A Little Bit of Love,” as some of the assembled hoist placards promoting the website vote.gov. Harris laughs along as one sign is mistakenly held upside down. RuPaul, the show’s host, does not appear in the clip.

    Harris, a former U.S. senator from California, is not the first Democratic politician to appear on the show, which is based in Los Angeles. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a guest judge in 2020.

    Biden announced he was leaving the presidential race and endorsing Harris last weekend. The vice president has since stepped up her campaign and travel schedule.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

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  • FCC pursues new rules for AI in political ads, but changes may not take effect before the election

    FCC pursues new rules for AI in political ads, but changes may not take effect before the election

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission has advanced a proposal that would require political advertisers to disclose their use of artificial intelligence in broadcast television and radio ads, though it is unclear whether new regulations may be in place before the November presidential election.

    The proposed rules announced Thursday could add a layer of transparency in political campaigning that some tech watchdogs have called for to help inform voters about lifelike and misleading AI-generated media in ads.

    “There’s too much potential for AI to manipulate voices and images in political advertising to do nothing,” the agency’s chairwoman, Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, said Thursday in a news release. “If a candidate or issue campaign used AI to create an ad, the public has a right to know.”

    But the FCC’s action is part of a federal turf war over the regulation of AI in politics. The move has faced pushback from the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, who previously accused the FCC of stepping on his own agency’s authority and has warned of a possible legal challenge.

    Political candidates and parties in the United States and around the world already have experimented with rapidly advancing generative AI tools, though some have voluntarily disclosed their use of the technology. Others have weaponized the technology to mislead voters.

    The FCC is proposing requiring broadcasters to ask political advertisers whether their content was created using AI tools, such as text-to-image creators or voice-cloning software. The agency also aims to require broadcasters to make an on-air announcement when AI-generated content is used in a political ad and include a notice disclosing the use of AI in their online political files.

    The commission acknowledges it would not have authority over streaming, leaving the growing political advertising industry on digital and streaming platforms unregulated at the federal level.

    After the commission’s 3-2 vote, the proposal will move into a 30-day public comment period, followed by a 15-day reply period. Commissioners are then expected to finalize and pass a rule. It is unclear whether there is time for it to go into effect before a presidential election that is just over three months away.

    Jonathan Uriarte, a spokesperson for Rosenworcel, said the chairwoman “intends to follow the regulatory process but she has been clear that the time to act is now.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
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    After Rosenworcel announced her proposed rule in May, FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Republican, sent her a letter cautioning her against the move.

    “I am concerned that parts of your proposal would fall within the exclusive jurisdiction” of the FEC and would “directly conflict with existing law and regulations, and sow chaos among political campaigns for the upcoming election,” he wrote.

    If the FCC moves forward, it could create “irreconcilable conflicts” between the agencies that may end up in federal court, he said in the letter.

    A Republican commissioner at the FCC, Brendan Carr, has agreed with Cooksey and voted against the proposal. In a statement Thursday, Carr argued the move was illegal and problematic so close to a presidential election, with the regulations likely to take effect after early voting has already begun in many places.

    “Far from promoting transparency, the FCC’s proposed rules would mire voters in confusion, create a patchwork of inconsistent rules, and encourage monied, partisan interests to weaponize the law for electoral advantage,” Carr wrote.

    But the FEC’s vice chair, Democrat Ellen Weintraub, has supported the proposal, saying in a June letter to Rosenworcel that “no one agency currently has the jurisdiction or capacity to address every aspect of this large and complicated issue.”

    Cooksey said in a statement Thursday that the FCC should “abandon this misguided proposal.”

    “Every American should be disturbed that the Democrat-controlled FCC is pushing ahead with its radical plan to change the rules on political ads mere weeks before the general election,” he said. “Not only would these vague rules intrude on the Federal Election Commission’s jurisdiction, but they would sow chaos among political campaigns and confuse voters before they head to the polls.”

    The FCC maintains it has authority to regulate on the issue under the 1934 Communications Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

    Robert Weissman, co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, said he supports the FCC’s proposed rule as the U.S. is “barreling toward elections which may be distorted, or even decided, by political deepfakes.”

    Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, commended the FCC, saying in an emailed statement that “it is vital that our federal agencies work to ensure that voters are able to discern fact from fiction.”

    Congress has not passed laws directing the agencies on how they should regulate AI in politics. Some Republican senators have circulated legislation intending to block the Democratic-led FCC from issuing its new rules. Meanwhile, the FEC is considering its own petition on regulating deepfakes in political ads.

    In the absence of federal action, more than one-third of states have created their own laws regulating the use of AI in campaigns and elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

    In February, the FCC ruled that robocalls containing AI-generated voices are illegal, a step that empowered the commission to fine companies that use AI voices in their calls or block the service providers that carry them.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • ‘Gen Z feels the Kamalove’: Youth-led progressive groups hope Harris will energize young voters

    ‘Gen Z feels the Kamalove’: Youth-led progressive groups hope Harris will energize young voters

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    CHICAGO (AP) — “ Brats for Harris.” “ We need a Kamalanomenon. ” “ Gen Z feels the Kamalove.”

    In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that’s voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic Party.

    Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.

    Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.

    “This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.”

    As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are delivering messages aimed at younger voters who could prove decisive in some of the most hotly contested states.

    Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.

    “We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, highlighting her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and action to combat climate change.

    Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta, and she praised young voters across the country for their response to the vice president’s elevation to likely nominee.

    “As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, citing new voter registrations, small donations from young voters and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, derided Harris as an “incompetent” and a “far left” vice president. He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.

    “With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square and I will also protect other religions.”

    John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”

    In many ways, it was the first time many young people felt heard and felt like their actions could have an impact on politics, he and several young leaders said.

    “It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”

    About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter of the group saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.

    That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and from CNN that were conducted after Biden dropped out, suggest that Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.

    Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.

    Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations such as the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.

    College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and to change course on the war in Gaza and have “worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer. But they received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.

    A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, Muralitharan said, adding that she may also be able to change course and distance herself from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.

    “The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”

    Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.

    “Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

    Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

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    ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — As the presidential campaign enters a critical final 100 day stretch, Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, rallied supporters on Saturday in a state that hasn’t backed a GOP candidate for the White House since 1972.

    The rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was designed as a sign of the campaign’s bullishness about its prospects across the Midwest, particularly when President Joe Biden was showing signs of weakness ahead of his decision to exit the campaign. Trump, who won Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to lose them four years later, has increasingly focused on Minnesota as a state where he’d like to put Democrats on defense.

    The rally is something of a gamble, potentially forcing the likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats to devote resources in a state they would likely otherwise ignore. But it could also be a risk for Trump if he spends time in places that might prove to be a reach with Harris leading the ticket when he could otherwise focus on maintaining his support in more traditional battlegrounds.

    Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half to cheering crowds holding signs supporting police and calling for the deportation of migrants in the country illegally. He continued a pattern of escalating attacks against Harris on immigration and crime.

    He called her a “crazy liberal” and accused her of wanting to “defund the police,” while he said by contrast, he wants to “overfund the police.”

    “She has no clue, she’s evil,” Trump said, suggesting Harris had failed at her tasks related to the border as vice president. “Kamala Harris’ deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying for her to be president.”

    Trump called out Harris for a 2020 post she made after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police. The post had encouraged people to help protesters by donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which had been working on reforming the bail system and posted criminal bail for people as part of a campaign to address inequities in the system.

    Though Harris did not contribute to the fund herself, her tweet was among those from celebrities and high-profile people that helped donations flow into the cash-strapped nonprofit, helping it quickly raise $34 million. In the immediate aftermath of the protests and unrest, the group actually spent little bailing out protesters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, called Trump’s attack line “a desperate lie from a desperate campaign” that can’t change the fact that its candidate has been convicted of multiple felonies.

    Trump also knocked Harris as an “absolute radical” on abortion, seemingly sensing an opening to attack her on the issue after she has become the Biden administration’s most vocal proponent of abortion rights. He wrongly suggested Harris wants abortion “right up until birth and after birth.” Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

    Yet the former president also recycled much of his past material targeting Biden, showing how his campaign has sought to keep Biden’s pitfalls fresh in voters’ minds even after the president has ended his candidacy and endorsed Harris.

    Trump’s remarks followed a spirited speech from Vance, in which he leaned heavily into issues that animate the GOP base, particularly security at the U.S.-Mexico border and crime. He also took a broadside against the news media, arguing that journalists were comparing the first Black woman and person of south Asian descent to lead a major party ticket to Martin Luther King, Jr.

    In May, Trump headlined a GOP fundraiser in St. Paul, where he boasted he could win the state and made explicit appeals to the iron-mining range in northeast Minnesota, where he hopes a heavy population of blue-collar and union workers will shift to Republicans after years of being solidly Democratic.

    Appealing to that population has also helped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz land on the list of about a dozen Democrats who are being vetted to potentially be Harris’ running mate.

    Walz posted on the social platform X on Friday poking fun at Trump’s visit to his state.

    “Donald Trump is coming back to the State of Hockey tomorrow for the hat trick,” Walz wrote. “He lost Minnesota in ’16, ’20, and he’ll lose it again in ’24.”

    Saturday’s rally took place at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, a 5,159-seat hockey arena. After surviving the July 13 assassination attempt on him at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump has only had events at indoor venues. But he said in a post on his social media network Saturday that he will schedule outdoor stops and the “SECRET SERVICE HAS AGREED TO SUBSTANTIALLY STEP UP THEIR OPERATION.”

    Secret Service officials would not say whether the agency had agreed to expand operations at Trump’s campaign events or had any concerns about him potentially resuming outdoor gatherings. “Ensuring the safety and security of our protectees is our highest priority,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Saturday. “In the interest of maintaining operational integrity, we are not able to comment on specifics of our protective means or methods.”

    Earlier Saturday, Trump spoke at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, laying out a plan to embrace cryptocurrency if elected and promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and a “bitcoin superpower.”

    Trump didn’t always support cryptocurrency but has changed his attitude toward the digital tokens in recent years and in May, his campaign started accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

    Also Saturday, Harris ramped up her campaign for president with her first fundraiser since becoming the Democrats’ likely White House nominee.

    The event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday was expected to raise more than $1.4 million, her campaign announced, from an audience of hundreds at the Colonial Theatre. That would be $1 million-plus more than the original goal set for the event before Biden dropped out of the race.

    ___

    Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Brian Slodysko in Washington and Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Trump Bitcoin Conference fundraiser tickets top out at $844,600 for Nashville soiree

    Trump Bitcoin Conference fundraiser tickets top out at $844,600 for Nashville soiree

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    Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., June 22, 2024. 

    Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

    Former President Donald Trump will headline a campaign fundraiser in Nashville on the sidelines of the Bitcoin Conference, where the top ticket is going for $844,600 per person.

    According to an invitation shared with CNBC, the July 27 event will coincide with Trump’s expected keynote speech at the conference, the country’s biggest gathering of cryptocurrency fans.

    The top-tier tickets, which include a seat at a roundtable with Trump, are priced at the maximum donation amount permitted for individuals to give to Trump and the Republican party’s largest joint fundraising committee, known as the Trump 47 Committee.

    A next level down includes a photo with the former president at $60,000 per person or $100,000 per couple, according to the invitation.

    Trump signed on to headline the Music City Center gathering shortly before he survived an attempted assassination on July 13.

    A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his Nashville appearances.

    In recent months, Trump has positioned himself as the pro-crypto candidate for president, a reversal from his previous stance during his time in the White House.

    In April, Trump launched his latest non-fungible token collection on the solana blockchain in April and has been making increasingly bullish comments on crypto since then.

    The Trump campaign team is accepting digital currency donations, and he has personally pledged to defend the rights of those who choose to self-custody their coins, meaning that they don’t rely on a centralized entity like Coinbase to hold their tokens and instead, do it themselves in personal crypto wallets, which are sometimes outside the reach of the Internal Revenue Service.

    Trump also vowed at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington in May to keep Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and “her goons” away from bitcoin holders.

    Meanwhile, following a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with about a dozen bitcoin mining executives who pledged cash and votes to him, Trump declared that all future bitcoin will be minted in the U.S., should he return to the White House.

    On Monday, the Republican presidential nominee named Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate — a move viewed by many as a net win for the crypto sector. Vance has advocated for looser regulation of crypto and disclosed in 2022 that he personally holds bitcoin.

    It comes in stark contrast to the Biden White House, which has taken a consistently skeptical approach to crypto regulation. Under Biden, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dialed up actions on the sector.

    In the absence of hard-and-fast rules from Congress, the U.S. has proven to be one of the most active enforcers of penalties and legal challenges against crypto companies.

    Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

    This election cycle, the crypto contingent has become a key pipeline for cash — and votes.

    One day after Trump named Vance to his ticket, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told employees of Andreessen Horowitz that they plan to make significant donations to political action committees supporting Trump’s campaign.

    “They’ve sued I think over 30 of our companies,” Horowitz said on an episode of “The Ben & Marc Show,” which features the a16z co-founders.

    “They’re losing almost all these lawsuits, but the problem is that when you’re a startup, you don’t have the money to fight the U.S. government. And so they’re kind of nuking the industry in that way,” he said.

    Fairshake, a super PAC backed by crypto’s top companies is now one of the top-spending PACs in this election cycle. Of the $160 million in total contributions it has raised, 94% can be traced back to just four companies: Ripple, Andreesen Horowitz, Coinbase and Jump Crypto.

    In early June in San Francisco, technologists, crypto executives, and venture capitalists paid up to $300,000 per ticket to join a Trump fundraiser that ultimately raised more than $12 million.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Biden’s pause as he left a star-studded LA fundraiser becomes a target for opponents

    FACT FOCUS: Biden’s pause as he left a star-studded LA fundraiser becomes a target for opponents

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    Video from a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles for President Joe Biden on Saturday is circulating on social media with claims that he froze up onstage as he exited the event.

    “Biden froze again last night and had to get escorted out by Obama,” reads one post on X that had received approximately 22,000 likes and 5,600 shares as of Monday. “Is this normal?”

    Members of his campaign and administration say the Democratic president stopped to take in cheers and applause as he left a sit-down with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel that helped raise more than $30 million for his reelection campaign. A spokesperson for Kimmel echoed this view.

    President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    The video is the most recent in a series of clips taken at public events, some of them edited, that are being used to suggest Biden is mentally and physically unfit for office.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Biden froze onstage during his fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be led away by Obama.

    THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he exited the stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.

    Former President Donald Trump shared a video on his social media platform Truth Social that showed a grainy version of Biden stopping and looking out into the audience as he departed. “Is this really who you want to be your president?” Trump asked in the post.

    Image

    President Joe Biden blows a kiss as he arrives for a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    Separate footage from the event provided to The Associated Press by Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer shows the president waving, pointing, clapping and giving the thumbs-up to the audience alongside Obama while Kimmel waits off to the side. Biden then stands still for about seven seconds looking out at the crowd. He starts moving again when Obama briefly takes his arm and puts his hand on his back as the pair walks offstage.

    White House spokesperson Andrew Bates described the moment as “the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds.” Singer attributed the negative characterizations as a distraction tactic from those who “are so scared of losing to Joe Biden, they’ll make anything up to distract from the fact that their candidate for president, Donald Trump, has been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, committed financial fraud, and only cares about himself.”

    In response to a question at a press briefing on Monday about videos that have been edited to make Biden appear frail or confused, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called such footage “cheap fakes video” that are “done in bad faith.” She added that they demonstrate “everything that we need to know about how desperate, how desperate Republicans are here.”

    A source who helped organize, and attended, the fundraiser told the AP that there was nothing noteworthy about this moment and that Obama wanted to be “chummy” by walking offstage with Biden.

    Lewis Kay, a spokesperson for Kimmel, called the claims spreading online “nonsense.”

    “Attendees in the front were shouting at him, and President Biden was trying to hear them,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “It’s as simple as that.”

    The fundraiser took in a record $30 million-plus, according to Biden’s campaign. George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage at the event. During their interview with Kimmel, Biden and Obama both stressed the need to defeat Trump in a race that’s expected to be exceedingly close.

    ___

    This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • Elon Musk plans to give $45 million a month to pro-Trump super PAC, WSJ reports

    Elon Musk plans to give $45 million a month to pro-Trump super PAC, WSJ reports

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    Elon Musk attends ‘Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in Conversation with Elon Musk’ session during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 – Day Three on June 19, 2024 in Cannes, France. 

    Marc Piasecki | Getty Images

    Elon Musk has said he is planning to pledge about $45 million a month to a newly formed super PAC backing former President Donald Trump‘s White House bid, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

    Musk had not given any money to that group, called America PAC, as of the end of June, according to a quarterly financial filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Monday evening.

    It is unclear if he has donated in July. Emails to Musk’s associates were not immediately returned late Monday.

    But the super PAC, which was formed in late May, has received contributions from other high-profile entrepreneurs, including Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and crypto billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the filing showed.

    Lonsdale donated $1 million to America PAC through Lonsdale Enterprises, an entity linked to the eponymous tech investor, multiple outlets reported.

    The Winklevoss twins each donated $250,000 to the super PAC, the FEC filing showed.

    Lonsdale could not immediately be reached for comment.

    America PAC brought in $8.8 million and spent $7.8 million between its inception and the end of June, leaving it with just under $1 million in cash on hand, according to the FEC filing.

    Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and one of the world’s richest people, officially endorsed Trump on Saturday, minutes after the Republican presidential nominee survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.

    The report of Musk’s pledge to help Trump defeat President Joe Biden came on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump secured enough delegates to officially become the GOP nominee.

    Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

    — CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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  • Dimon and other Wall Street CEOs react to Trump assassination attempt: ‘Deeply saddened’ by violence

    Dimon and other Wall Street CEOs react to Trump assassination attempt: ‘Deeply saddened’ by violence

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    The leaders of Wall Street’s most powerful firms are speaking out to condemn the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.

    JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told employees Sunday that he and his management team were “deeply saddened by the political violence” and attempt on Trump’s life. The shooting killed one bystander and injured two more.

    “We must all stand firmly together against any acts of hate, intimidation or violence that seek to undermine our democracy or inflict harm,” Dimon said in the memo. “It is only through constructive dialogue that we can tackle our nation’s toughest challenges.”

    Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon addressed the matter at the start of an earnings call Monday morning, calling the attempted assassination a “horrible act of violence.”

    “We are grateful that he is safe and also want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of those who were tragically killed and severely injured,” Solomon said. “It is a sad moment for our country. There’s no place in our politics for violence.”

    The shooting on Saturday shocked a nation gearing up for a contentious November election. Wall Street firms don’t officially endorse political candidates since they have to deal with both Republican and Democrat officials, though their executives and employees often donate to campaigns.

    Watch CNBC's full interview with BlackRock chairman and CEO Larry Fink

    BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday that the weekend events were “a tragedy.”

    “It is a statement of America today, though. We need to create hope. All of us have a responsibility, every political candidate, every leader, every pastor, minister, rabbi, we all have a responsibility of bringing our community together to bring hope,” Fink said.

    BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said Sunday in an email that it ran an advertisement in 2022 in which the suspected shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, appears briefly in the background along with other students of Bethel Park High School in Pennsylvania.

    “We will make all video footage available to the appropriate authorities, and we have removed the video from circulation out of respect for the victims,” BlackRock said in a statement.

    Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan also addressed employees over the weekend.

    “We are deeply saddened for the family of the rally attendee who died at the event,” Moynihan said in the staff email. “Our thoughts are with former President Donald Trump, all those injured, and their families.”

    — CNBC’s Jim Forkin contributed to this report.

    Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

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  • ‘It’s sick’: Biden condemns violence after Trump injured in shooting at campaign rally

    ‘It’s sick’: Biden condemns violence after Trump injured in shooting at campaign rally

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    President Joe Biden delivered remarks on Saturday evening after former President Donald Trump was injured and rushed offstage when gunshots were fired at his political rally.

    “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden said in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

    “It’s sick,” Biden said. “It’s sick.”

    “It’s one of the reasons we have to unite this country,” the president said. “We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”

    Biden said he hoped to speak with Trump shortly, adding, “apparently he’s been doing well.”

    Political violence is “just unheard of, it’s just not appropriate, and everybody, everybody must condemn it,” he said.

    President Joe Biden speaks after his Republican opponent Donald Trump was injured following a shooting at an election rally in Pennsylvania, at the Rehoboth Beach Police Department, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, July 13, 2024.

    Samuel Corum | Afp | Getty Images

    Asked if he believed the shooting was an assassination attempt against Trump, Biden said he had “an opinion” but wanted to gather more facts before making additional comments.

    Trump’s campaign said shortly after the incident that he is “fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility.” Trump was seen with blood on his face and ear as he was evacuated by Secret Service.

    The U.S. Secret Service said, “the former President is safe,” and that there is an active investigation into the apparent shooting.

    In a written statement earlier Saturday evening, Biden, who is running for reelection against Trump, said that he was glad to hear Trump is “safe and doing well.”

    “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information,” Biden said in the statement.

    “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it,” the president said.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    The statement and Biden’s remarks followed an outpouring of support for Trump from his political allies and opponents alike, who roundly condemned political violence in all forms.

    Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures with a bloodied face as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 13, 2024. 

    Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

    Both of Trump’s presidential predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, had already shared their relief that Trump appeared not to be seriously injured.

    “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” Obama said in a statement on X. “Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.”

    Bush said that he and former first lady Laura Bush “are grateful that President Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life.”

    Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in a 2011 assassination attempt and has since become a gun control activist, wrote, “Political violence is terrifying. I know.

    “I’m holding former president Trump, and all those affected by today’s indefensible act of violence in my heart. Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable—never,” Giffords wrote.

    Vice President Kamala Harris in a statement said that she and second gentleman Doug Emhoff “are relieved that [Trump] is not seriously injured.”

    “Violence such as this has no place in our nation. We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence,” Harris said.

    Not every reaction was nonpartisan.

    Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a vocal critic of Biden who reportedly recently donated to a pro-Trump super PAC, wrote on X within an hour of the shooting: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

    This is developing news. Please check back for updates.

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  • France’s Macron wanted to leave his mark on Europe — he may have just ruined his legacy

    France’s Macron wanted to leave his mark on Europe — he may have just ruined his legacy

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    French President Emmanuel Macron on a campaign poster back in 2022.

    Sebastien Salom-gomis | Afp | Getty Images

    French President Emmanuel Macron’s failed snap election gamble is likely to take a large toll on his political ambitions and legacy, analysts say — and to weaken the power and influence he has sought to build in Europe in recent years.

    The final round of a snap parliamentary election in France last weekend — called by Macron after his center-right party was trounced in recent European Parliament elections — led to a surprise win for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, thwarting an expected victory for the far-right National Rally party.

    Center-right Macron, who will remain in office until 2027, now faces the prospect of having to work with a coalition or technocratic government — and a prime minister — of a different political ilk, likely from the left-wing NFF. This is set to make governing France, the passing of legislation and reforms, potentially difficult.

    Not only did Macron’s high-stakes gamble with the snap poll not pay off, analysts note, but the French head of state has damaged his political standing and legacy in Europe, where he has sought a key leadership role.

    “In terms of his legacy, he will be in for a real political fight,” Tina Fordham, founder of Fordham Global Foresight, told CNBC on Monday.

    “Macron remains the towering figure and kingmaker. It will be him who chooses the prime minister, it’ll be Macron that travels to Washington for the 75th [anniversary] NATO summit this week, but those who are suggesting that his gamble paid off [are wrong],” Fordham said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

    “Yes, he was able to keep the far right from first place but they’ve increased their seat share — and now he has to deal with this unruly left and this unruly right,” she added.

    “I’m afraid it probably does [weaken him on a global stage] at a time which is unfortunate for the cohesion of the European Union,” she added.

    Macron looked to be the EU’s leader

    Since taking office in 2017 after the departure of his former boss, then-Socialist President Francois Hollande, Macron has tried to position himself at the center of Europe’s political decision-making — particularly since the departure of the European Union’s most central leader, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in 2021.

    Macron has pushed for closer political and economic integration in the EU, promoting the concept of European sovereignty, economic security and competitiveness, as well as pushing for a more integrated and autonomous European defense strategy that advocates for a “true, European army.”

    He’s credited with creating the European Political Community, bringing leaders from across 50 states in the region to discuss shared challenges and to coordinate joint responses. Macron has also been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, putting pressure on a seemingly more reluctant Germany — and on fellow NATO members — when it came to the supply of Western weapons to Kyiv for it to fight back against Russia.

    He even pitched the possibility of French troops helping on the ground, albeit controversially, going beyond other allies’ pledges.

    French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy react after signing an agreement, February 16, 2024 at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. 

    Pool | Via Reuters

    Only time will tell what France’s political makeup will be in the coming months, but the country is likely to experience weeks of political wrangling and potential deadlock as the left-wing faction angles itself to lead a new government, and to place one of its own politicians as prime minister.

    Although the decision lies in Macron’s hands, he is likely to come under pressure to select a PM from the left-wing bloc, given it won the largest number of seats in the vote. He might even come under pressure to select Hollande, who ran for the NFP and stands as a strong candidate.

    For now, Macron has rejected his current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation and on Monday asked him to stay in the post “to ensure the country’s stability.”

    Political instability in France, the euro zone’s second-largest economy after Germany, does not come at a good time in the global political cycle, Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz, told CNBC on Monday. Subran stressed that it was vital that Macron was aligned with the future prime minister.

    “France is not that weak now, but it is not very good because we are in a state-craft situation with the U.S. and China and imagine what could happen in November if [Republican presidential candidate Donald] Trump gets reelected — we’re going to be tested and tested again and again,” Subran told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed in Paris.

    “I think it’s going to be really important that Macron secures the alignment with his prime minister before he says anything in Brussels or Strasbourg,“ Subran said. “He’ll have to make sure there’s a paper-thin divide between he and his prime minister when it comes to international issues like Russia, trade, industrial policies and working toward more flexible fiscal policies for France and for the other member countries in Europe.”

    When it comes to Macron’s position in Europe, Subran said it would now “be hard for him to lecture and to sow the seeds of grand projects for Europe when he’s going to be weak domestically.”

    “If [National Rally figurehead Marine] Le Pen races to power in 2027, it’s going to be a very tainted legacy,” he added.

    Mixed legacy

    While Macron is likely to be praised in some quarters for his pro-European, pro-business and pro-trade approach in office, his legacy at home may be more mixed after this snap election — a decision seen by many as a strategic miscalculation, brought about by Macron’s perceived lack of understanding of voter sentiment and, some say, his perceived arrogance.

    It’s a criticism he’s often faced, as well as accusations of failing to understand the everyday concerns of many French citizens, particularly those living outside the main urban centers.

    Mass protest movements such as the “Yellow Vest” action that emerged in 2018 were largely fueled by anger among large sectors of the population at rising fuel and living costs and economic inequality, and what they perceived to be an out-of-touch, elitist political establishment.

    A police vehicle sprays water cannon at protesters during an anti-government demonstration in Paris on January 26, 2019.

    NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

    The rise of the far-right National Rally party is also symptomatic of voter concerns, rightly or wrongly, over immigration and what many supporters see as the erosion of French identity and culture.

    His decision in June to call a snap election after his centrist Renaissance party was trounced in the European Parliament elections, was widely seen as a high-stakes gamble. It hasn’t paid off, and France’s uncertain political outlook will likely perturb France’s European partners, one French political scientist told CNBC.

    “Imagine the EU and international partners and allies of France. What must they think of that [decision to call a snap election]?” Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, said ahead of the final round of the election on Sunday.

    “They must think, ‘what an amateur. What a mistake. What a mess.’ And it is a mess, which is now affecting us all. Because if France isn’t able to be a reliable partner in the EU when it comes to big issues of the world … people will not forget that it was Macron who created the situation in the first place.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron reviews troops that will take part in the Bastille Day parade, July 2, 2024 in Paris, France. 

    Aurelien Morissard | Via Reuters

    He told CNBC that, in France, most people believed that Macron had, in plain English, brought about a big political mess.

    “Everyone in France today, absolutely everyone — I’m yet to hear or meet someone who says it was a great idea — everyone says it’s a major cock-up. It was an unnecessary gamble which badly, very badly, backfired. He didn’t have an absolute majority before the dissolution [of parliament, the National Assembly] but his party was the main party in the National Assembly … so why did he have to dissolve parliament? Only he knows why he did that.”

    “On a scale of political blunders. I would probably give it a 10 out of 10,” Marlière said.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

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  • French stocks rise 0.5% after left-wing coalition clinches surprise election win

    French stocks rise 0.5% after left-wing coalition clinches surprise election win

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    LONDON — French stocks moved higher on Monday as markets reacted to a surprise win for the left in the country’s parliamentary election.

    The CAC 40 erased earlier losses to rise 0.5% by 10:00 a.m. London time (5 a.m. ET). The euro was flat against the dollar, and trading in bond markets was also relatively muted.

    The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was steady, while Germany’s DAX was 0.43% higher and the FTSE MIB was up around 1%. The pan-European STOXX 600 was 0.3% in the green.

    France’s left-wing New Popular Front won the largest number of seats in this weekend’s parliamentary elections, scuppering an expected surge for the far-right. However, the coalition failed to secure an absolute majority, early data showed, leaving markets digesting the possibility of a hung parliament.

    François Digard, head of French equity research at Kepler Cheuvreux, said a hung parliament was what the market was expecting.

    “You have a hung parliament as expected so last week, the market has played this out … It was just expected to be more right-wing and at the end it is left-wing,” he told CNBC on Monday.

    Deutsche Bank strategists added that markets will be suspicious of the New Popular Front’s “fiscally aggressive” spending and taxation plans.

    “Last night the far-left were already talking about wealth taxes and increases on taxes on corporates which won’t be market-friendly. However trying to build a government that has any kind of stability looks a very high bar this morning. Political paralysis for the next 12 months seems the most likely outcome,” they added.

    It comes after a general election in Britain last week, in which the opposition Labour Party win a landslide victory, unseating the Conservatives after 14 years.

    In corporate news, soft drinks maker Britvic has agreed a takeover bid of £3.3 billion ($4.2 billion) from Carlsberg, at an offer of 1,290 pence per Britvic share. This was an improved bid from Carlsberg which first offered 1,200 pence per share but was rejected.

    There are no major corporate earnings due out on Monday. It’s also quiet on the data front, with just German trade data due.

    In Asia-Pacific, stocks were mixed Monday. In the United States, futures ticked lower as investors looked ahead to inflation data for hints on this year’s market rally and the next steps by the Federal Reserve. The June consumer price index is due Thursday, with producer price index data due Friday.

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  • Judge Aileen Cannon grants Trump’s request to pause some deadlines in classified documents case amid immunity questions

    Judge Aileen Cannon grants Trump’s request to pause some deadlines in classified documents case amid immunity questions

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    Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 27, 2024.

    Marco Bello | Reuters

    U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Saturday granted former President Donald Trump’s request for further briefing on the issue of presidential immunity in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and delayed certain deadlines.

    Cannon’s order marks the latest fallout from the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision on Monday, which ruled that Trump has immunity from prosecution for some conduct as president in the federal election interference case.

    In the order, Cannon afforded special counsel Jack Smith the right, but not the obligation, to file a submission on the use of classified information at trial. At the same time, she paused two upcoming deadlines for Trump and his co-defendants.

    Smith’s brief is now due on July 18, and a reply from Trump’s team is due on July 21.

    Neither Trump’s lawyers nor the Department of Justice immediately responded to a request for comment Saturday afternoon.

    There is no trial date in sight in the classified documents case. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

    The latest development comes after Trump’s attorneys on Friday asked Cannon to pause court proceedings and consider how the Supreme Court’s ruling affects the case. Trump’s team in February had also filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on immunity grounds.

    Saturday’s order also makes Trump’s team busier — at least in the short term — as it attempts to minimize or outright dismiss two of the three other criminal cases pending against him.

    Through an order earlier this week, Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s criminal hush money trial earlier this year, stayed Trump’s July 11 sentencing hearing to allow for briefing on Trump’s motion to set aside the verdict in that trial.

    Trump’s brief, which is expected to focus on evidence involving his official acts admitted during the trial to prove his knowledge and intent, is due on July 11. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s response is due on July 24.

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  • ‘A kind of civil war’: Divided France on alert for unrest amid political earthquake

    ‘A kind of civil war’: Divided France on alert for unrest amid political earthquake

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    Demonstrators take part in a rally against the far right following the announcement of the results of the first round of the French parliamentary elections at Place de la Republique in Paris on June 30, 2024.

    Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

    “We’re scared of what might happen,” Amel, 34, told CNBC ahead of the final round of voting in France’s snap election this weekend.

    The vote is being closely watched by all quarters of French society to see if the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) builds on its initial win in the first round of voting, or whether centrist and leftwing parties have been able to thwart the party’s chances of entering government.

    “It’s a very, very tense time. And it’s the first time that the far right is winning at the first turn [the first round of the ballot]. So it’s a very big deal,” Amel, a therapist who said she will vote for the leftwing New Popular Front, added.

    “We are very anxious and we are trying to get everyone to vote, trying to tell people who don’t vote to go and vote, and to try to convince people who vote for the extreme right that they are not a good answer [to France’s problems].”

    France’s far-right RN rejects the “extremist” label, saying it stands up for French values, culture and citizens at a time when many are fed up with France’s political establishment that’s been led by President Emmanuel Macron since 2017.

    But RN’s opponents and critics warn France is on the brink of a political catastrophe if an overtly anti-immigration, nationalist and euroskeptic party wins a majority in this snap election called by Macron after his party lost heavily against the hard-right in European Parliament elections in June. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has said French voters now have a “moral duty” to halt the party’s advance.

    For young, left-leaning voters like Amel, RN’s surge in voter polls, and the fact it won the most votes in the first round of the election last weekend, are worrying developments that make them fear for France’s societal cohesion.

    “I am worried about the country’s future. I think it’s getting worse and worse,” Amel, who preferred to only give her first name due to the sensitive nature of the situation, said. “It’s going be like a kind of civil war. I hope it will not reach that, but people will just not mix anymore and will be scared of each other. And this is very scary.”

    The snap election has thrown the country’s political polarization into sharp relief as polls ahead of the final round of voting on Sunday imply a deeply divided nation.

    The first round of the election resulted in the far-right RN winning 33% of the vote, with the leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) garnering 28% and the coalition of parties supporting Macron (Ensemble, or Together) winning 20% of the vote.

    Left wing supporters react as the results of the first round of French parliamentary elections are announced in Nantes, western France on June 30, 2024. 

    Sebastien Salom-gomis | Afp | Getty Images

    Since the results of the first ballot, parties on the center-right and left have gone all-out to prevent RN’s advance in the second ballot, aiming to prevent a parliamentary majority for the party at all costs. Joining forces in a so-called “Republican Front,” centrists and leftwing parties have withdrawn candidates in many constituencies where one of their candidates was better placed to beat the RN.

    By offering voters a starker choice and fewer options, the anti far-right front hopes that the electorate will vote for the non-RN candidate. Whether it will work remains to be seen and analysts point out that French voters might not take kindly to being directed how to vote, or who to vote for.

    The elections are a ‘mess’

    The final result on Sunday evening — the outcome of a snap election Macron did not need to call — will show just how hard it could be to find a consensus in national politics and government going forward.

    How the nation will react to the result is also uncertain. France is no stranger to civil unrest given the widespread “Yellow Vest” anti-government movement of recent years, and street protests since the first round of voting on June 30.

    France’s Interior Ministry appears to be preparing for more trouble after Sunday’s poll, reportedly ready to deploy around 30,000 officers across France on Sunday night amid fears of violence after polls close. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is reported to have said 5,000 police would be on duty in Paris and its surrounding areas to “ensure that the radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause mayhem.”

    France’s police force has, at times, been accused of being heavy-handed with demonstrators during previous periods of unrest, firing water cannon and tear gas at “yellow vest” demonstrators in 2019.

    Tension rises as demonstrators gather in Place de la Republique, to protest against the rising right-wing movement after the Rassemblement National’s victory in the first round of early general elections in Paris, France on June 30, 2024.

    Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

    A member of the gendarmerie, France’s military force in charge of law enforcement and public order, told CNBC that the “French elections are a mess” and that the “public divide has rarely been so flagrant in France.”

    “People’s opinions are becoming more and more divided and this is felt in everyday life,” the gendarme, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of his job, told CNBC.

    The officer — a father of three who’s in his 40s, and a right-leaning voter — said the polarization in French society was “very worrying, but unfortunately normal with the ‘diversity’ of our society.”

    “More and more people with different values and educations are being forced to co-exist, and this clearly doesn’t work,” the officer, who works in Bordeaux in southwestern France, said.

    “I am worried about the country’s future, because we are too generous to people who aren’t willing to integrate and contribute to our society, this can not last.”

    The police officer said he expected civil unrest after the vote, whichever party gained the most votes.

    “There will be civil unrest whoever is elected, this is France and the people speak their mind.”

    Civil unrest possible

    Political experts agree that the current febrile atmosphere of French politics, and antagonism between the main bodies of voters, are the ingredients for further civil unrest.

    “You’ve got here all the recipe for a super-polarized political scene and that, of course, translates into civil society as a whole,” Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, told CNBC.

    “If you’ve got only 33-34% of people voting for the far-right it means the rest is wary of that, or completely opposed to it, so that will translate on every level of politics — institutional politics, party politics, the National Assembly, but also in society. You will have a very polarized society in which younger people, ethnic minorities, women, and in particular feminists, would be very worried,” he said.

    Marlière did not discount the possibility of violence on the streets if a far-right party was elected to government. “We’re not there yet. But if there are very unpopular, very antagonizing and very hostile policies to some groups, there will be demonstrations on a scale that you have unrest in the street,” he said.

    Unknown entity

    Like other hard-right parties in Europe, the National Rally has tapped into voter insecurities regarding crime, immigration, national identity and economic insecurity. RN’s 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella has told voters he will “restore order,” curb immigration and tackle delinquency but he and party figurehead Marine Le Pen have rowed back on some of their more strident promises and rhetoric, back-pedaling over taking France out of NATO, for example, and moderating the party’s traditionally pro-Russian stance.

    Bardella said he would still support the sending of arms to Ukraine but not the deployment of ground troops, as Macron suggested was a possibility.

    Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at the final rally before the June 9 European Parliament election, held at Le Dôme de Paris – Palais des Sports, on June 2, 2024.

    Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

    It’s uncertain how many of National Rally’s policies would be enacted even if the party made it into government. The “Republican Front” also appears confident ahead of the second round of voting that its strategy to hurt the RN’s vote share is working.

    An opinion poll published by Ifop on July 3 suggested voters might tend toward a centrist pro-Macron or leftwing candidate rather than the RN candidate if that is the choice they are presented with on the ballot paper on Sunday. If the choice was between a far-left and far-right candidate, however, the picture was more nuanced, showing a split vote.

    Ipsos: Voters never intended to give Rassemblement National absolute majority in first round elections

    Analysts predict that RN is less likely to be able to achieve an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, but is still likely to gather the most votes, creating a hung parliament scenario and headache for Macron and uncertainty for France’s political and economic outlook.

    “The political landscape is in turmoil and can’t really work any longer, at least not by the old rules,” Ipsos analyst Mathieu Doiret told CNBC Thursday.

    “We are in a situation so far from our traditions and political habitus that it’s very difficult to adapt to this new situation for every stakeholder.”

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