Kamala Harris’ Veepstakes Heat Up

Happy Tuesday! After one of Kamala Harris’ campaign accounts changed its banner to a theme referencing something called a “brat summer,” there was much discussion on The Dispatch’s editorial call yesterday—and indeed, in other newsrooms—about what exactly that is. One well-informed intern explained it to us, but we’re still not sure we get it—and we’d bet good money that Harris doesn’t either. 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Democratic lawmakers continued to rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket on Monday, one day after Biden withdrew from the race. The Executive Committee of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC)—a group that represents 57 state Democratic Party chapters—endorsed Harris on Sunday, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was widely considered a potential alternative to Harris atop the ticket, endorsed the vice president’s White House bid and announced she would co-chair Harris’ campaign, adding that she is uninterested in becoming the new vice presidential nominee. Other potential rivals—including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and others—have also endorsed Harris’ presidential campaign, as did former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most coveted endorsements in the party. “With immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future, I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Pelosi said. “I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.” An Associated Press survey of Democratic National Convention delegates found last night that Harris had secured enough support to officially become her party’s nominee next month.
• Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee on Monday to answer lawmakers’ questions about the agency’s mishandling of security at the Butler County, Pennsylvania, event earlier this month where a would-be assassin shot former President Donald Trump and killed a rally participant. Cheatle, who has thus far ignored bipartisan calls for her resignation in the aftermath of the shooting, frustrated committee members with testimony that many of them found incomplete. She acknowledged that the attack on Trump was “the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades” and that the Secret Service had been informed several times about a potentially suspicious person spotted before the rally. However, she dodged questions about whether there were agents covering the roof where the shooter fired. Though the Secret Service admitted over the weekend that it had denied some requests for additional security from Trump’s detail at times during the campaign, Cheatle said there were no requests for extra support at the Butler event. Her obfuscations renewed bipartisan calls for her resignation, including from the committee’s chair, GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, and ranking member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” the pair wrote after the hearing. 
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. on Monday ahead of a planned address to Congress on Wednesday. President Joe Biden was still in Delaware recovering from COVID-19 upon Netanyahu’s arrival, though he is slated to meet with his Israeli counterpart this week, as is Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris will not preside over Netanyahu’s address to Congress, instead addressing a black sorority in Indianapolis. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will sit on the dais with House Speaker Mike Johnson. Netanyahu has also reportedly requested to meet with former President Donald Trump, though Trump has not responded. J.D. Vance will not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday, with a Trump campaign aide saying he has “duties to fulfill as the Republican nominee for Vice President.”
• A Russian court sentenced Evan Gershkovich—the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia since his arrest on evidence-free espionage charges 15 months ago—to 16 years imprisonment in an unidentified penal colony prison system on Friday, following a trial described by State Department spokesman Vedant Patel as a “fake, sham legal process.” “We have been clear from the start that Evan has done nothing wrong and never should have been arrested in the first place,” the U.S. embassy in Russia said in a statement. “His case is not about evidence, procedural norms, or the rule of law. It is about the Kremlin using American citizens to achieve its political objectives.” It’s possible his conviction and sentencing could clear the way for a prisoner exchange.
• Meanwhile, on the same day, Alsu Kurmasheva—a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and a dual U.S.-Russia citizen—was sentenced to six-and-a-half years imprisonment after a secret trial that convicted Kurmasheva of “spreading false information” regarding Russia’s military. Kurmasheva was first arrested in October 2023 after visiting Russia to care for her mother. “This secret trial and conviction make a mockery of justice,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement. “The only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors.” 
• President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, dropped his lawsuit against Fox News—a mere three weeks after filing it—according to a dismissal request his legal team filed on Sunday. Though neither the president’s son nor his legal team offered a reason for the lawsuit’s withdrawal, the notice was filed the same day the president ended his reelection bid. Biden had sued the cable news network over a miniseries aired on its streaming platform in 2022 that featured nude images of the younger Biden, a violation of New York’s so-called “revenge porn” law, the lawsuit argued. However, in response to the lawsuit, Fox News contended its content is protected under the First Amendment.
• Leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee on Monday called on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify as the logistical fallout from Friday’s worldwide IT outages—caused by a flawed anti-malware update by the cybersecurity firm—continued into this week. Kurtz has not yet confirmed whether he’ll testify. The debacle saw some 7,000 U.S. flights canceled in total over the weekend after an error in the update crashed 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices, and Delta Air Lines canceled more than 800 flights scheduled for Monday. While the IT outage was accidental, CrowdStrike warned of cybersecurity risks in the recovery process: On Saturday, the company identified a malicious file presented as a recovery update by likely hackers.

Dems Fall in Line Behind Harris 

To exist on the internet in the last 48 hours is to be inundated with clips from the hit HBO series Veep. This weekend’s political events—which reflected one of the show’s main plotlines—seemed to be conclusive evidence, once and for all, that it is the reigning fictionalization of Washington, D.C. (Especially after West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin floated the bonkers idea this weekend that Democrats should nominate Republican Sen. Mitt Romney to replace President Joe Biden.)

One day after Biden relinquished his claim to the Democratic nomination for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he endorsed, is the runaway favorite to succeed him at the top of the ticket. Now the question becomes: Who will be the Kamala to her Joe?

As we reported yesterday, Democrats overwhelmingly coalesced around Harris in a matter of hours after Biden endorsed her upon withdrawing from the race on Sunday. Support for her among Democrats only grew on Monday, as she received perhaps the most coveted endorsement of all—from former House Speaker and all-around kingmaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. “Today, it is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Pelosi—who herself has been compared online in recent days to a bene gesserit from the Dune series—said in a statement. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political.” Pelosi had reportedly favored a more open process for selecting a nominee after Biden withdrew, making her endorsement of Harris far from a sure thing.

And while Harris’ place at the top of the ticket is itself not yet a sure thing, the Associated Press reported Monday that she has locked down a sufficient number of the 4,000 Democratic delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot. No one has challenged her for the nod, either. Indeed, the stable of Democratic governors perhaps best placed to do so have instead lined up to endorse her, one by one. In the first 24 hours since Biden withdrew, Harris reportedly raised more than $80 million—a presidential donation record—and seems set to hold her first campaign event later today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Republicans just held their own convention.

Though Harris doesn’t officially have the Democratic nomination yet—and the Dispatch Politics crew detailed exactly how she could secure it in Monday’s edition—she has certainly behaved like it is all hers. On Monday, she brought on former Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon to run her own campaign, completing her plug-and-play operation that now includes Biden’s HQ in Wilmington, Delaware. “I was a courtroom prosecutor,” she told staffers during a visit there Monday. “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Polling from Morning Consult in the aftermath of Biden’s decision to withdraw—results that should be taken with a grain of salt at this early stage—showed Harris running closer to former President Donald Trump than her boss had been. Harris is polling at 45 percent to Trump’s 47, compared to the 6-point lead Trump had over Biden in the same poll just last week.

Biden, for his part, had been out of the public eye entirely since Wednesday, recovering from COVID-19 at his home in Rehoboth, Delaware. His doctor said Monday that the president had finished his 10th round of the antiviral Paxlovid drug and that “his symptoms have almost resolved completely.” On Monday, in his first public remarks since dropping out, Biden called into a meeting with Harris and his former campaign staff, praising his vice president and promising to campaign for her. “I know yesterday’s news was surprising and it was hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Embrace her, she’s the best.” At one point during Harris’ remarks to staffers, Biden interjected over the phone: “I’m watchin’ you kid, I’m watchin’ you kid. I love ya.”

With Harris seemingly on the fast track to the nomination, her own “veepstakes” are already well underway. Conventional political wisdom has long held that the bottom of the ticket matters little to the outcome of an election, but the events of the last two days may provide a decent rebuttal to that argument. As early as Sunday afternoon, the Harris team had leaked the names of four potential candidates: Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. 

The potential picks have a few things in common: They’re all white men, for one. Shapiro, Cooper, and Kelly all hail from need-to-win swing states that seemed likely to slip away with Biden at the top of the ticket. Beshear is a second-term Democratic governor in ruby-red Kentucky, making him something of a unicorn and a relative moderate compared to Harris—though policy has not been central in public discussions of who’s likely to complete the ticket.

But those four aren’t the only Democratic politicians whose names are being floated. Among other potential contenders are Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Jared Polis of Colorado—as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. All have endorsed Harris.

They’re not all perfect fits for the job, though. Pritzker, though flush with cash, is from a blue state that doesn’t do much to expand the ticket’s potential reach. Newsom is from Harris’ own state, which also makes him ineligible to run on the same ticket as Harris, according to the Twelfth Amendment.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a popular governor in a key battleground state, waited longer than some other potential contenders to endorse Harris, fueling 24 hours of rumors that she was planning on mounting a challenge. Instead, she went hard in the other direction, saying she would co-chair the campaign committee and refuse to take the VP job if it were offered. “I am not leaving Michigan,” she said Monday. “I am proud to be the governor of Michigan. I have been consistent. I know everyone is always suspicious and asking this question over and over again. … I am not going anywhere.” Moore also said he wasn’t interested in being VP. 

When asked Monday whether he’d spoken to Harris about being her running mate, Shapiro didn’t deny the premise of the question. He said the choice before Harris was “deeply personal”—but it’s it’s also obviously deeply strategic. Shapiro beat his Republican opponent, Doug Mastriano, by 15 points in the 2022 gubernatorial race and outperformed Biden in the state when he ran for attorney general in 2020. The RealClearPolitics polling average in Pennsylvania had the president trailing Trump in the state—one Biden won in 2020—by 4.5 points.

Several of the potential contenders seemed to be proactively campaigning for the nod. Beshear and Cooper were both on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday morning, singing Harris’ praises and playing coy about their desire to be her running mate.

Cooper, who’s among the oldest of the potential picks at 67 and prohibited by North Carolina law from running for governor again at the end of his second term, demurred when asked whether he’d be willing to become Harris’ running mate. “I think it’s really important that we do keep the focus on her this week,” he said. “The vice presidential conversation needs to occur later. I want to make sure that Kamala Harris wins. I’m going to work for her all over this country and do what I can to make sure we stop Donald Trump.” Good thing that sounds nothing like the job of a running mate.

Beshear, for his part, offered Harris his full endorsement and took some swings at Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate. “He ain’t from here,” he said, referring to Vance’s childhood spent with family in eastern Kentucky. He went after Vance again on CNN on Monday evening. “J.D. Vance is a phony, he’s fake,” he said. “I mean, he first says that Donald Trump is like Hitler, and now he’s acting like he’s Lincoln. The problem with J.D. Vance is he has no conviction, but I guess his running mate has 34.”

If the ability to attack opponents qualifies a potential vice presidential candidate, Buttigieg has proven himself a capable sparring partner with the right, often appearing on conservative media as transportation secretary to defend the administration. Even before Biden dropped out, Buttigieg—who made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020 while mayor of South Bend, Indiana—went on Real Time with Bill Maher last week to discuss Vance, a fellow Midwesterner. “When I got to Harvard, I found a lot of people like him who would say whatever they needed to get ahead,” Buttigieg said. “Five years ago, that seemed like being the anti-Trump Republican, so that’s what he was. … Five years later, the way he gets ahead is that [Trump is] the greatest guy since sliced bread.”

It’s not clear when or how Harris will make her decision, but it’s likely to be soon. Under a draft plan released Monday by the Democratic National Committee, there could be a virtual roll-call vote of the delegates as early as next week, at which point she and a vice presidential pick would be nominated—all before the August 19 start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It’s likely almost anyone she calls will be waiting by the phone. “Look, if they do the polling and it turns out they need a 49-year-old balding gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado,” Polis said Monday, “They’ve got my number.”

Worth Your Time

• As your Morning Dispatchers look forward to the start of the Summer Olympics in Paris this Friday, The Atlantic looked back an entire century to the last Olympiad in the City of Love. As modern-day American superstars like gymnast Simone Biles and swimmer Katie Ledecky prepare to go for gold, more than 30 photographs from Paris’ 1924 turn at hosting the games provide an illuminating glimpse at how much the sporting world has changed. We particularly enjoyed the photo of the tandem cycling final and the tennis outfits that looked rather difficult to play in.
• Why did Kenyans download Zello—an app that allows mobile phones to function as walkie-talkies—to an eye-popping 40,000 devices in a one week-span last month? In Rest of World, Stephanie Wangari detailed how the normally little-used app was pivotal in organizing the anti-tax protests against Kenya’s government last month. “Zello was largely unknown in Kenya until the protests broke out, but it gained such popularity that on July 2, President William Ruto acknowledged its role in the events,” she wrote. “Kenyan protesters ‘needed to move and coordinate things quickly and that’s exactly why they used the app,’ Moses Kemibaro, CEO of Nairobi-based digital strategy firm Dotsavvy Africa, said.” One 21-year-old university graduate explained why the protesters needed reliable communication. “‘Every time police officers lobbed tear-gas at protesters, we would go in different directions, losing sight of our friends during the protests,’ said Mercy, requesting to be identified by a pseudonym as she feared police intimidation. ‘A group we had created on Zello helped us locate each other.’”

Presented Without Comment

The Hill: [GOP Rep. Nancy] Mace Tells Secret Service Director: ‘You’re Full of Sh—’

Also Presented Without Comment

New York Times: Trump Donated to Kamala Harris’s Campaigns for California Attorney General

Also Also Presented Without Comment

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, talking about voter ID at a rally in Middletown, Ohio:

Democrats say that it is racist to believe—well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I’m sure they’re gonna call that racist, too. It’s good. I love you guys.

In the Zeitgeist

Paging David French, again and again: HBO has released the latest trailer for the upcoming Dune: Prophecy television series set to come out in November. The series is a prequel to the Dune two-part movie series—based on Frank Herbert’s famous sci-fi novels of the same title—and will take place 10,000 years prior to those events. We’re sure David will say it’s “GLORIOUS.” 

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Kevin urged Democrats (🔒) to dump Kamala Harris from the presidential ticket too, the Dispatch Politics team provided a look into Harris’ attempts to shore up Democratic support for her latent presidential campaign, and Nick warned (🔒) against wishful thinking clouding analysts’ view of Harris’ chances.
• On the site: Chris explains why Republicans are immune to the kind of media pressure that led to Biden’s ouster, John Gustavsson pans Biden’s recent rent control proposal, and John Hood dives into the complexity of the intra-movement divides among conservatives—and why J.D. Vance shouldn’t be called “ultraconservative.”

Let Us Know

Do you think Kamala Harris has the Democratic nomination locked up? If so, who do you think she should pick as her running mate?