Election 2024: Harris' VP pool narrows after Roy Cooper bows out; Trump criticizes Biden's suggested Supreme Court changes

The U.S. intelligence community believes the Kremlin will direct its propaganda efforts to support Trump over Harris in the election, an intelligence official indicated in a media call today.

The call was held by the Foreign Malign Influence Center, one of the few arms of the U.S. government devoted to countering foreign propaganda campaigns.

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Govs. Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer — both under consideration to be Harris’ running mate — held a joint rally today in the Philadelphia suburbs, where they drew contrasts between the Democrats’ new standard-bearer and Trump.

Shapiro, of Pennsylvania, and Whitmer, of Michigan, drew a crowd of more than 1,000 that included many who said they were intrigued by the idea that they could be hearing from Harris’ eventual running mate.

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When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz showed up on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week to blast Trump and Vance as “weird” — part of a recent media blitz — the line of attack quickly gained traction among Democrats.

Key among them was Harris, who days later started using the same word in her campaign messaging against the GOP ticket, including at a fundraiser in Massachusetts on Saturday.

The simple word quickly highlighted why Walz — a popular two-term Midwestern governor, former congressman, military veteran and former public school teacher — had suddenly landed on Harris’ short list of prospective running mates.

But Walz’s allies and friends and current and former colleagues say his canny folksiness is just one of the attributes that make him uniquely suited to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Amid a campaign tinged by concerns about so-called deepfakes, the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a first-of-its-kind rule to mandate disclosure of artificial intelligence-generated content in political ads, though it may not go into force before the election.

Regulators have been slow to grapple with the new technology, which allows people to use cheap and readily available AI tools to impersonate others. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel says disclosure is a critical — and, perhaps just as important, doable — first step in regulating artificially created content.

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Trump joined Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake tonight in a tele-rally on the eve of the Arizona primary.

Lake, whom Trump endorsed in the fall, is in a strong position ahead of tomorrow's contest. Trump this evening argued that her election to the Senate would help further his MAGA agenda.

Trump spent much of his time on the phone criticizing Lake’s probable general election opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. He called Gallego “ultra-left,” “a really left-winger,” a “radical Democratic extremist” and “one of the most far left” in his 7½-minute remarks. He also likened Gallego to Harris.

Trump tonight offered an explanation of his remark to supporters that they "won't have to vote anymore" if he wins in November.

"The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore because, frankly, we will have such love. If you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK. And I think everybody understood it," he said in an interview on Fox News when he was asked about his comment Friday evening, which some interpreted as his saying there won't be any elections in 2028 if he's back in office.

Trump on Friday said, "Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has informed Harris’ presidential campaign that he does not want to be under consideration in her search for a vice presidential candidate, he said today.

Cooper said in a statement tonight explaining the decision that although he was taking himself out of consideration, he still backed Harris’ presidential campaign.

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Trump said tonight that he'll "probably" debate Harris amid uncertainty about whether the two will face off.

“The answer is yes, I’ll probably end up debating,” Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired tonight.

He also said of the timing of the debate, "If you're gonna have a debate, you have to do it, I think, before the votes are cast."

Trump responded to Biden's proposal for Supreme Court reforms by suggesting Biden wanted to implement more extensive reforms than those announced in today's proposal.

“It’s a typical Biden con. He doesn’t want to give up immunity,” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired tonight, taking aim at Biden's call for a constitutional amendment that would stipulate that former presidents don’t have any immunity from federal criminal indictments, trials, convictions or sentences.

The campaign arm of House Democrats is aggressively messaging against Vance by launching a video on its social media accounts highlighting his record and comments on abortion.

The 54-second clip from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, obtained first by NBC News, compiles news reports in which Vance talks about his position on the issue, including a comment he made as a Senate candidate in January 2022, when he said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”

The DCCC clip also features vulnerable House Republicans up for re-election in November praising Vance, including Arizona’s Juan Ciscomani, Florida’s Maria Elvira Salazar and New York’s Anthony D’Esposito.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said today that he believes Harris could win the presidential election — but that to “seal the deal,” she needs to campaign on progressive issues.

“It’s not my job to tell her what to do, but I think she has a really good chance to win this election, but I think to seal the deal, you’re going to have to talk to the 60% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, people who can’t afford health care. People who are worried about raising their kids or their education,” Sanders said in an interview outside the Capitol.

One of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear‘s strengths in the race to become Harris’ running mate is that he could appeal to centrist voters as a Democrat who won re-election in a state that Trump carried by more than 20 percentage points in 2020.

Beshear won his 2023 campaign, in part, by leaning into his support for abortion rights in a state where the procedure is almost entirely banned. Yet for some reproductive rights advocates in Kentucky, Beshear has not done enough on an issue that is critical for the party nationally — which could factor into his chances of joining the presidential ticket. 

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Nearly two dozen current and former mayors in Arizona, a battleground state that borders Mexico, have endorsed Harris' presidential bid, according to her campaign.

The 21 mayors endorsing Harris include several who represent the state's border communities, including Nogales Mayor Jorge Maldonado, Somerton Mayor Gerardo Anaya, Bisbee Mayor Ken Budge and San Luis Mayor Nieves Riedel.

Anaya said in a statement that he trusted Harris to "meet the needs of border cities and towns without taking advantage of us for her own political gain, like her opponent.” 

Whitmer said in an interview on MSNBC today that she's staying in Michigan to finish her term and that she's not part of the Harris vetting for a vice presidential nominee.

"I have communicated with everyone, including the campaign, that I’ve made a commitment to serve out my term as governor in Michigan," Whitmer said. "I can be an excellent ally to a President Harris, and I can be a great co-chair of the Harris campaign from my place as governor. So I’m not a part of the vetting."

Michigan is a key battleground state in the presidential election. Whitmer's second term ends in 2026, and she can no longer run again because she's term-limited.

For the first time on the record, Rep. Ruben Gallego committed to debating his likely GOP opponent for Arizona’s Senate seat, Kari Lake, in a pull-aside with NBC News. The commitment comes just one day before the Arizona primary election, where Gallego is running unopposed for the Democrats and Lake is the heavy favorite in the GOP primary.

“Unlike her, where she didn’t debate her opponent, we will gladly debate Kari Lake,” said Gallego, noting Lake opted not to debate her GOP primary challenger, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.  

Lake has called Gallego names like “swamp rat” and “deadbeat dad.” Gallego said he’s up for the fight. “She could have as many choice words as she wants. I focus on having the words and communicating to Arizonans every day, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters,” Gallego said. 

In response, Lake told NBC News that "I look forward to watching Ruben justify his radical positions in person instead of simply lying about them in TV ads."

Gallego’s commitment to debate Lake stands in contrast to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who opted not to debate Lake in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race. Hobbs told NBC's "Meet the Press Now" at the time that Lake is "much more interested in creating a spectacle and having the spotlight than actually having a substantive discussion about the issues."

Iowa’s strict abortion law went into effect Monday, immediately prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

Iowa’s Republican leaders have been seeking the law for years and gained momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Iowa Supreme Court also issued a ruling that year saying there was no constitutional right to abortion in the state.

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Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota doubled down on his criticism of Trump as weird in an interview yesterday on CNN.

He noted that he believes discussion of Trump as “potentially going to end constitutional liberties” is a “real possibility,” though it gives Trump “way too much power.”

“Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind,” Walz said. “And I thought we just gave him way too much credit.”

The Harris campaign says it had a "historic" weekend of action in Nevada, a state Democrats won in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

The campaign said that more than 1,000 volunteers in total participated in more than 50 events, an effort the campaign said was meant to reach 50,000 voters, "marking the largest weekend of voter and volunteer engagement for the campaign to date."

Several Democratic lawmakers participated in events in Nevada, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida and Dina Titus of Nevada. Planned Parenthood Action Fund CEO and President Alexis McGill Johnson also took part in the weekend's activities.

Conservative activist Leonard Leo slammed Biden’s call for Supreme Court reforms today, arguing it’s an effort by Democrats to “destroy a court" they're at odds with.

“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence,” Leo said in a statement. “It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with.”

Leo argued that if Biden and Democrats were “truly serious” about ethics reform on the high court, they would also call for bans on “gifts and hospitality of any kind to any public official in any branch of government,” starting with members of Congress.

“They would close all of the loopholes that allow Members to travel on private jets to fancy hotels and restaurants,” he said. “With respect to judges, they would include the things where influence peddling is most present and dangerous—and that’s when the liberal Justices rub shoulders with influencers at places like law schools, bar associations, progressive think tanks and their conferences, and other groups and events funded by Left-wing billionaires, where they support real vested interests in the work of the Court.”

In a new video, Harris rebuked the Iowa abortion law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which went into effect today, decrying it as a “Trump abortion ban.”

“So today, Iowa put in place a Trump abortion ban, which makes Iowa the 22nd state in our country to have a Trump abortion ban. And this ban is going to take effect before many women even know they’re pregnant,” Harris says in the video. “And what this means is that 1 in 3 women of reproductive age in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban.”

Harris urged the public to vote in November and vowed to sign reproductive rights protections into law if elected.

Trump endorsed two candidates in Arizona’s competitive Republican primary for the state’s 8th Congressional District in a Truth Social post Saturday night. Trump previously endorsed only ardent election denier Abe Hamadeh but opted to double his endorsements and also support Blake Masters in the primary.

“We have a very important Republican Primary Election on Tuesday for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, with two spectacular America First Candidates,” Trump wrote. “Both Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh have my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Congressman of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.”

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., slammed Biden's Supreme Court overhaul plan, arguing that it would "tilt the balance of power" and erode the rule of law.

"This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume," he said in a statement.

Johnson said that the proposal won't pass the GOP-controlled House.  

“It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Court’s recent decisions," he said. "This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.” 

Trump has agreed to participate in a victim interview with the FBI focused on his attempted assassination, a bureau official told reporters today.

The interview with Trump would be consistent with any other interview the bureau would conduct for any victim of crime under any other circumstances, an official said.

The FBI investigation has found that attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was a “highly intelligent” man, as well as “a loner” with few friends and acquaintances outside of his family, and had a growing interest in weapons.

His motive is still not known. The FBI has conducted hundreds of interviews and requested information about his online accounts, including gaming accounts, from dozens of companies, an official said. The FBI found that the ladder Crooks purchased before the shooting was not taken to the Trump rally. Crooks did appear to have used a drone ahead of the attack, although no recorded footage was found on the drone, the FBI said.

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The National Republican Congressional Committee released a list of 26 “young guns,” candidates it’s seeking to elevate in Democratic-held districts that the party is targeting this fall.

They include former state Sen. Tom Barrett in Michigan, state Rep. Austin Theriault in Maine, former state Rep. Scott Baugh (who is 62) in southern California and Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln in northern California. It’s a signal to donors, activists and stakeholders about which districts they see as winnable.

The race for the White House entered a critical new phase as yesterday marked 100 days until the U.S. presidential election. Both Trump and Harris were on the attack at weekend campaign events around the country. NBC News’ Allie Raffa reports.

When Trump took office in 2017, he immediately issued a provocative executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries that led to chaos, confusion and a flurry of lawsuits that ended up at the Supreme Court.

If he wins the election in November, he has pledged to follow a similar course on another contentious policy proposal: ending birthright citizenship.

In May of last year, Trump released a campaign video renewing his call to end the long-standing constitutional right, saying he would sign an executive order on day one of his presidency that would ensure that children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will not be considered U.S. citizens.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the majority whip, backed Biden's call for a Supreme Court ethics overhaul today, saying if Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to institute changes, Congress should act.

Durbin and other Democrats have pushed for legislation to require the court to adhere to a code of conduct, but Republicans in the narrowly split chamber thwarted the effort.

Durbin, whose committee has investigated ethical concerns related to the actions of some of the justices, has pressed for changes at the court for years. In his statement today, he also said the court's recent ruling on presidential immunity "was wrongly decided and must be remedied."

Harris said in a statement released by the White House that she supports Biden's proposal for Supreme Court reform, arguing there is "a clear crisis of confidence" facing the high court following "numerous ethics scandals and decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent."

"That is why President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms — from imposing term limits for Justices’ active service, to requiring Justices to comply with binding ethics rules just like every other federal judge," Harris said.

She continued, "And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House. These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump choosing Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate may be “one of the best things he ever did for Democrats.”

During an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation” yesterday, Schumer slammed Vance as an “incredibly bad choice” for a running mate and argued that Trump likely regrets choosing him as his vice presidential pick.

“I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there, scratching his head, and wondering, ‘Why did I pick this guy?’” Schumer said. “The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats.”

Schumer said that based on what he knows about Trump, who is “probably sitting and watching the TV,” he has likely seen that his running mate may have “done something more extreme, more weird, more erratic.”

Biden is set to call today for an overhaul of the Supreme Court and a constitutional amendment limiting the power of his own office — reforms that might not be implemented but demonstrate his priorities in his final months in office.

Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks in the afternoon at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, calling for a constitutional amendment saying former presidents don’t have any immunity from federal criminal indictments, trials, convictions or sentencing, according to a White House official. 

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Harris’ favorability rating among adults now stands at 43%, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released yesterday.

The same group found that Harris’ favorability rating was at 35% the week earlier. The change in her favorability is outside of the poll’s margin of error.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released last week found that Harris and Trump are in a tight race, with Trump polling at 48% and Harris at 47% among likely voters. Those numbers are within the poll’s margin of error.

Harris is on track to become just the second female major-party presidential nominee. But further down the ballot, the number of women jumping into congressional races is down this year after hitting record highs in 2020 and 2022.

The trend tracks against a surge in female voter registration following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which returned abortion policy to the states in 2022. And despite the decline, the totals are still higher than they ever were before 2018, when hundreds more women than ever ran for the House of Representatives in the midterm elections during the Trump administration.

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Trump spent much of his Minnesota rally dinging Biden — even though he’s no longer Trump’s 2024 opponent.

The rally often mirrored his campaign events from before the assassination attempt and the start of Harris’ campaign.

In front of an enthusiastic crowd, Trump mocked Biden’s golf game, cognitive ability and performance at events. He criticized his former opponent’s son Hunter Biden and called the president names. Trump ridiculed how Biden walked, meandering about the stage in an effort to depict Biden being unable to exit an event.

New polls suggest that Trump and Harris are tied in several battleground states as the presidential race heats up. Both candidates spent the weekend bolstering support at events across the country. NBC News’ Aaron Gilchrist reports.

Biden will travel to Austin, Texas, today to deliver remarks honoring the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. His speech will take place at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library.

Later, Biden will travel to Houston to pay respects to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died after a battle with cancer last week.

He is scheduled to fly back to Washington tonight.