President Obama pledged his support for Kamala Harris on Friday, filling the last major gap in Harris’s attempt to unite Democrats in a dramatic presidential race, while Donald Trump announced he would revisit the site where he was nearly assassinated.
The encouragement for the vice president from both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama came after the 78-year-old Trump called on his supporters in social media posts to “fight, fight, fight!”
Trump is scrambling to turn an election that he thought was going against 81-year-old incumbent President Joe Biden, whose mental acuity has sparked widespread concerns. Now Trump is the oldest presidential candidate in history, facing off against an energetic successor who is 20 years younger than him.
Last week, Trump was on a roll, receiving a hero’s welcome at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee and being formally nominated.
This came a week after a gunman narrowly missed him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. President Trump vowed on Friday to hold another “big and amazing” rally in the town to mark the extraordinary incident, but did not give a date.
But Harris, who entered the race after Biden’s abrupt withdrawal last Sunday following weeks of falling poll numbers and growing health concerns, has gotten off to a swift and surprisingly strong start.
For Harris, the Obamas’ public endorsement was a welcome boost.
The power couple, some of the most respected in the Democratic establishment, waited until all the other heavy hitters had come forward, then finally made their move in a video released early Friday morning that showed Harris taking their calls.
“Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend, Kamala Harris, to tell her we think she’d be a great president of the United States,” President Barack Obama announced on X.
Harris, who is seeking to become the first woman to become U.S. president, is tasked with quickly building a campaign to take on an opponent who has been on the campaign trail almost constantly since defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But while Trump has a strong base and a head start, Harris is surging ahead: Polls that had shown Biden steadily losing ground against Trump now show Harris in a very close race.
US Olympic icon Allyson Felix also gave her glowing approval, telling AFP in Paris on Friday that a black woman winning the White House was “monumental”.
Harris, who served as California’s top prosecutor and senator before being elected as the nation’s first female vice president and first Black and South Asian vice president, highlighted Trump’s conviction and called what she said on Thursday was a Republican attack on “hard-won freedoms” in American society.
And at just 59, she undermines the age narrative that Trump relied on as his campaign message to defeat Biden.
Following the changes, President Trump launched a scathing attack on Harris, calling her a “far-left lunatic” and falsely claiming that she supports the “execution” of newborn babies.
Democrats jumped on the campaign’s announcement late Thursday to question whether Trump would debate Harris.
The second televised debate between Trump and Biden was scheduled for September 10. It was expected that the plan would remain in place, with Harris appearing in Biden’s place, but Trump spokesman Steven Chang said it would be “inappropriate” to schedule a debate when Harris has not yet officially become the Democratic nominee.
Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary and a key supporter of Harris’ campaign, mocked Trump.
“This shows he’s afraid. This shows he knows that if they’re on stage together it’s not going to end well for him,” he said on MSNBC on Friday. “Bold rhetoric is this man’s trademark, but in this instance he’s shown an extraordinary level of vulnerability.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, continues to come under fire from Democrats after revelations surfaced in which he dismissed Harris and other leading Democrats as “childless catwomen” who want to make the country “miserable.”
On Friday, he refused to apologize, saying only that he had been “sarcastically” and that he believes the Democratic Party remains “anti-family.”
