The rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which starts at 5 p.m., will also be the first in which vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance joins Trump on the stage following his nomination at the Republican National Convention this week.
Reports say there is a heightened local and state police presence at the event, but the crowds waiting to see the former president and his running mate do not appear to be concerned about safety.
Michigan’s 15 Electoral College votes make it a key battleground region for the campaign. Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it to President Joe Biden in 2020.
Recent polls have Trump ahead of Biden by as much as 3 points in a matchup in the key swing state. When compared head-to-head, Trump polls ahead by 5 points against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Israeli fighter jets conducted an airstrike on Yemen Saturday following a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv Thursday, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
The Houthi Islamist militant group backed by Iran has increased attacks recently against Israel and other Western targets, reportedly acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
Saturday morning’s strike marks Israel’s first direct attack on Yemen, more than 1,000 miles away.
“[Israeli Defense Force] warplanes recently attacked military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the Hodeida port area in Yemen, in response to the hundreds of attacks against the State of Israel in recent months,” said a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces.
Israeli Prime Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke on Friday with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to inform him of the response to Thursday’s drone strike, which resulted in several Israelis being wounded and one fatality.
Israeli and U.S. military officials spoke multiple times on Saturday ahead of the strike.
The Yemeni television network Al-Masirah, run by the Houthi movement, reported the strikes were directed against oil facilities in the port area of Hodeidah, with some fatalities.
Houthis in Yemen ramped up attacks on Western ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden following the Israeli invasion of Gaza after the Hamas terrorist attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
An official for the IDF told reporters on Saturday that Israel “has nothing against the citizens of Yemen” and does not want a regional war but added that the attack on Tel Aviv “crossed all the red lines” and merited a response.
Harris’s 2019 campaign against candidate Biden and a crowded Democratic field ended within 10 months, well before the Iowa caucuses, after a string of poor leadership, cash flow, and connection problems.
Harris has disavowed the internal push for her to take over the 2024 campaign, but her vice presidency has given her a prime position to widen her reach both with voters and party insiders to make her next attempt more successful.
Prominent Democrats pushing for Biden to exit the race, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, cite that Harris is a strong candidate to beat former President Donald Trump, but fear that naming her outright at the convention next month would turn off key voters in November.
Even with this tacit support from party elites, the question remains whether a Harris campaign can imagine what could be, unburdened by what has been.
Here are the strengths and weaknesses of a Harris campaign.
Authenticity
Harris has always struggled on the national stage with likeability, but being out front on several issues on the campaign trail for Biden has given her a chance to rectify this weakness.
Harris has visited Michigan, a key swing state, four times in 2024 and seven times since taking the Vice Presidency. She has also visited the purple state of Pennsylvania six times this year, making 16 separate trips to the Keystone State since taking office in 2021. Whereas in 2020, she needed to spend time establishing a national presence, now she has one solidified and relationships built.
On the campaign trail, she has also visited North Carolina and Arizona several times this year amid contentious debates on abortion.
Yet, Harris’s speaking foibles and recycled idioms have garnered as much attention as Biden’s during his tenure as vice president. Her laugh has also been the target of critique, even for those supporting her policy positions.
Some commentators noticed in 2019 that Harris’s mixed-race background may contribute to her public image problem.
Harris’s shared black and Indian American identity and her so-called “San Francisco values” were assets in her California races but may have set her behind in a national election.
Indeed, although Harris was thought to be the heir to former President Barack Obama’s legacy as the first black president, Harris failed to gain the support of black voters during the 2020 primary season, with Biden receiving most of the appreciation from the black community.
Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for an Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote Town Hall, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti)
Campaign Structure
Harris may be able to overcome some of these lofty image problems with a fresh cast of characters around her now, compared to her inner circle she worked with in 2019.
Campaign strategist Juan Rodriguez, who started off in school board elections in 2003, was Harris’s leading man during her Senate race in 2016 and had a starring role in her first presidential campaign.
More than 50 former members of the Harris 2019 campaign told the New York Times in 2020 that leadership under Rodriguez and Harris was chaotic, with staff split into factions competing against one another more ardently than against Democrat challengers.
At the time, then Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus said Harris was an exceptional candidate, but Rodriguez served her poorly and should be fired.
Since ascending to the Vice Presidency, Harris has surrounded herself with other advisors, including Lorraine Voles, who was communications director for former Vice Pres. Al Gore and former Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Biden “Brawler-in-Chief” Anita Dunn has also been working closely with Harris since June 2023 to rebrand the Vice President’s image ahead of the Biden-Harris campaign.
Dunn is one of Biden’s closest political strategists and was the brainchild of the phrase “Dark Brandon,” making her a critical player in the meme wars taking over politics for younger voters.
Issues
Biden’s advisers gave Harris a competitive advantage by making her the face of the Administration’s push for abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Harris has been the main voice on reproductive health topics, including abortion, contraception, and IVF, in the lead up to the November election, giving her both an edge on a policy issue and more face time with the public.
Following the debate between Trump and Biden, CNN’s Anderson Cooper gave Harris a platform to communicate with voters about the role of abortion rights in the next election, signaling that abortion is her strongest issue.
Harris’s messaging on abortion has also helped her in her polling rankings with women, with 50% of female voters supporting Harris over Trump in a head-to-head contest. Nearly 80% of black female voters also support Harris.
But Harris may struggle to connect with the base on other issues, including other aspects of healthcare.
Part of Harris’s undoing on the issues in 2019 was also the sharp criticism of her Medicare-for-All plan from fellow Democrats.
Unlike a full single-payer system supported by strong progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Harris’s so-called Kamalacare allowed some room for a private insurance market, which proved unpopular with the base.
Harris also struggled with quantifying the cost of the sprawling healthcare overhaul. The implementation of the plan also would have taken over a decade, well beyond if she had two successful terms.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event in Greensboro, N.C., Thursday, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Cash flow
Harris suspended her campaign well before any of the other candidates in the primary due largely to a lack of campaign funds.
“I’m not a billionaire,” Harris stated in a Medium post in early December 2019. “I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.”
But those cash flow problems from 2019 seem to have evaporated as major Democratic donors urge for Harris to take the helm.
As many as 75 Democratic donors reportedly gathered over Zoom earlier this month to discuss a pathway forward following Biden’s poor debate performance against Trump.
Harris also reportedly spoke with donors on Friday, according to a Biden campaign official, but her role on the call was to encourage them to continue to support the sitting president for re-election.
New Challenges
Although Harris had to defend her record as California Attorney General and Senator five years ago, she now must also face the new challenge of contending with her record as Vice President.
Harris greatly fumbled with her role as the so-called “border czar,” a moniker given after Biden handed her the responsibility of dealing with immigration issues.
The Vice President was widely criticized following an interview in 2021 with Lester Holt, saying she would go to the border “at some point.” Harris later defended her lack of a border visit by saying she had not ever been to Europe.
With about 57% of Republicans saying immigration is the No. 1 problem facing the nation, her legacy as border czar would likely become a highlight of Trump campaign criticism should she rise to the top of the ticket.
Harris would also need to address the degree to which she and others in Biden’s inner circle have hidden his cognitive decline that ultimately may prove to be her opening for the presidency.
Transportation Secretary and former Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg slammed Republican Vice President nominee J.D. Vance for his prior statements against former President Donald Trump.
On the air with Bill Maher on Friday, Buttigieg implied that Vance is more of an opportunist than a reformed Trump-loyalist despite being in Trump’s good graces since he won his Senate race in 2022.
Citing their shared midwest roots, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, criticized Vance as a person “who would say whatever they needed to to get ahead.”
“Five years ago, that seemed like being the anti-Trump Republican, so that’s what he talked about,” Buttigieg said.
The 39-year-old senator from Ohio rose to national prominence in 2016 following the publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy,” which had strong themes of the slow demise of Appalachian culture.
In the early stages of his political career, Vance was a strong critic of Trump, calling him a “total fraud,” a “moral disaster,” and “America’s Hitler.”
Vance, during this period, also referred to Trump and the cult of personality surrounding the current Republican nominee as an “opioid,” a phrase on which Buttigieg pounced.
Buttigieg called the opioid comment from Vance “kind of a weird thing to say about a person” to uproarious laughter from Maher’s audience.
“But I mean, for somebody whose identity is that they’re connected to Appalachia, which has an opioid crisis, that really is the darkest thing you could possibly say about Donald Trump,” said Buttigieg.
Although not referenced by Buttigieg or Maher, Vance’s personal history with his mother’s drug addiction, a main thread in his memoir, also adds weight to the criticism.
Maher also asked Vance about Vance’s supporter and primary financial backer, the founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel.
Thiel, like Buttigieg, married his longtime partner, and Maher highlighted that Vance is opposed to gay marriage.
Buttigeig said Thiel’s and other Silicon Valley billionaires’s backing of a Trump-Vance ticket is “not that complicated.”
“These are very rich men who have decided to go back to the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men,” said Buttigieg. “That’s kind of what you’re getting with J.D.”
Buttigieg compared Vance’s flip-flop to that of former Vice President Mike Pence, who Buttigieg characterized as compromising his Evangelical values to support Trump, “who was mixed up with a port star.”
The Transportation Secretary added that although Pence got his “four glorious years” as vice president, “it ended on the west front of the Capitol with Trump supporters proposing that he be hanged for using the one shred of integrity he still had to stand up to an attempt to overthrow the government.”
“So I guess maybe not as a politician, but as a human being. What I’ll say is that I hope things work out a little bit better for J.D. Vance,” Buttigieg said.
According to a report in Politico, four people familiar with private discussions involving Pelosi earlier this month say that she and several other members of the California delegation discussed the political disadvantages of having party elites noncompetitively name Harris as the next party nominee.
These discussions reportedly took place during a July 10 meeting of the California delegation, just shy of two weeks after Biden’s poor debate performance when faced with Trump.
However, the discussions did not involve Harris’s weakness as a candidate. Rather, they emphasized that an uncompetitive selection process would chill voter support in November.
Pelosi, along with current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have played a large role behind the scenes in encouraging members of their party to publicly call for Biden to drop out of the race.
The former House Speaker said in an interview two weeks ago that it is “up to the president to decide if he is going to run” but that “time is running short” to make a final decision.
Several questions remain for the Democratic Party about whether Biden should drop out of the race.
Not only is it a question of whether Biden will endorse his vice president to take his place in the general election, but many Democrats also wonder if she will be able to win.
A new poll published Friday found that six in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job as president, but only three in 10 overall believe similarly.
Furthermore, the Democratic Party hasn’t had an open convention since 1968, following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy almost three months before the convention. Kennedy, in that election, also had the most delegates from the primaries.
Former President Donald Trump referenced his “right to try” experimental treatment legislation during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, signaling that expanding access to novel treatments for terminal patients may be a key proposal if he were to win reelection.
“‘Right to try’ is a big deal,” Trump said during his acceptance speech. “They were trying to get that for 52 years.”
Known as the Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn and Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act, the legislation equips terminally ill patients to receive experimental treatments when no other alternatives are available.
Although the Food and Drug Administration already had a process in place for such instances, namely the Expanded Access program (often referred to as “compassionate use”), lawmakers passed the Right to Try Act after identifying several problems with the system, including the difficulty in obtaining approval and the ability of manufacturers to decline the use of a drug.
The landmark healthcare achievement of the Trump administration was introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in 2017 and was signed into law in 2018.
During his RNC speech on Thursday, Trump alluded to the fact that the law limits liabilities for healthcare professionals, drugmakers, and insurance companies that “didn’t want the risk” of a failed experimental treatment.
“They can get all of this stuff,” Trump said. “They’re going to get it really fast, and what’s happened is we’re saving thousands and thousands of lives. It’s incredible.”
But there is scant evidence about the efficacy of the program and the exact number of people who have actually qualified to take advantage of it. Some reports suggest only four patients were able to take advantage of the federal “right to try” legislation in 2023.
Under the FDA’s traditional expanded use program, the agency granted 2,261 compassionate use requests for various drugs and biologics. Nearly 2,300 requests were submitted to the agency for approval.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a supporter of the former president and a co-sponsor of the House version of the 2018 law, signaled recently that he hopes to expand the “right to try” program further under a second Trump administration.
The lawsuit comes following extensive backlash regarding a rule promulgated this April by the Department of Health and Human Services that redefines “sex discrimination” in healthcare programs to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including Missouri, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, and Arkansas, argue that the rule violates the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, by requiring doctors to act against their sound medical judgment for patients with gender dysphoria.
HHS issued the rule change using the logic of the 2020 Supreme Court decisionBostock v. Clayton County, in which the court held that prohibitions against sex discrimination could also be interpreted to protect against gender identity and sexual orientation bias.
Julie Marie Blake, the senior counsel on the case from the conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, called the rule an “attempt to hijack medicine.”
“Medical professionals around the world and individuals who have undergone these experimental, body-altering procedures are warning about their risks,” Blake said. “Yet the Biden administration is working to force doctors to perform these harmful, often sterilizing procedures to make people appear as the opposite sex.”
Several countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, have rolled back their previously expansive policies on gender-transition medicine for children and adolescents following recent debates over the quality of evidence supporting their efficacy.
At least 25 states have passed restrictions on gender-transition medicine for minors, including Florida, Ohio, and Montana, where signed legislation is enjoined in state courts.
The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s lawsuit asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to enjoin the rule “preliminarily and permanently.”
Documents from the suit noted that three other federal courts in Tennessee, Florida, and Texas have thwarted the implementation of the rule since it was introduced in late April.
Republicans in Congress have also taken aim at the new rule, saying it does not leave sufficient room for conscience protections for doctors and other healthcare professionals who object to gender-transition medicine on religious liberty grounds.
Sens. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), along with Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) are spearheading the effort to issue a Congressional Review Act joint resolution to overturn the federal agency’s rule. If signed into law or passed with enough votes to override a presidential veto, the joint resolution would not be subject to judicial review.
Stock prices for the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk have fallen dramatically following a new finding that the active ingredient in its obesity management drug, semaglutide, is less effective than Eli Lilly’s competitor product.
A first-of-its-kind study was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine comparing semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy, to tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. Researchers found that patients on tirzepatide lost substantially more weight than those on semaglutide, sending ripples through the market.
Between 8 p.m. Monday and the market open Tuesday, Novo share prices had fallen by nearly 3 points, about 2%, and they further fell by more than 2% by noon. By contrast, Lilly prices increased modestly by nearly 2% from Monday evening to noon Tuesday.
Both semaglutide and tirzepatide belong to the same new drug class of GLP-1s, each mimicking a natural hormone that curbs appetite and creates a feeling of fullness. Tirzepatide, however, also mirrors the hormone GIP, which both decreases appetite and may improve how the body processes sugar and fat.
The dosage of the active ingredient makes the key difference between whether each drug is approved for treating Type 2 diabetes or obesity.
Zepbound, Lilly’s branding of tirzepatide for obesity management, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late 2023, making head-to-head comparison between the two drugs challenging.
In the study published in JAMA, researchers examined the health records of more than 41,000 patients, nearly 32,000 of whom were on semaglutide either for obesity management or Type 2 diabetes treatment.
On average, semaglutide patients lost 3.6% of their body weight after three months, 5.8% after six months, and 8.3% after one year.
By comparison, tirzepatide patients lost 5.9% in three months, 10.1% after six months, and 15.3% after one year.
Stock prices for Novo soared last year, rising by 53% by the end of 2023. This is mostly thanks to the growth in popularity of Wegovy for weight loss, and several key studies showing its benefits for cardiovascular health.
Novo’s portfolio also benefited immensely when the FDA approved Wegovy specifically for cardiovascular disease treatment following successful clinical trials.
Lilly’s shares also skyrocketed since the FDA approved Zepbound last year, growing by 55% in the first half of 2024. With shares hovering around $900 each, it is possible that prices will top $1,000 per share by year’s end.
Both drug companies are competing for breakthroughs in oral routes for their medication compared to the current once-weekly injection.
The clash between women’s rights and transgender issues may be a looming problem as the United Kingdom’s new Labour Party prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, begins his tenure at 10 Downing Street.
The left-of-center Labour Party won a landslide victory on Thursday after 14 years of Conservative Party governance. Labour won a whopping 412 out of 650 seats, marking the party’s best showing since the days of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But Starmer has previously found himself in a complex situation when it comes to supporting the position that biological males who identify as women are equivalent to biological women.
In 2021, Starmer clashed with Rosie Duffield, a fellow Labour Party member of Parliament, over whether only women have cervixes, a dispute which has become known as “cervix-gate.”
Duffield, who also won reelection Thursday, came under fire in 2021 after criticizing a Twitter post that used the phrase “individuals with a cervix” instead of the word “women.”
Starmer, head of the Labour Party at the time, said it was “not right” to say that only women have cervixes.
In April 2023, Starmer received heat for saying that 99.9% of women “of course haven’t got a penis” but a “very small number” of people who identify with a different gender than their biological sex must be given sufficient medical care and social dignity according to their self-identity.
Starmer echoed similar thoughts in a 2022 interview with the Telegraph, saying that for most women, identifying as a woman is a straightforward biological process, but for others, it is not as clear-cut.
“I also think the discussion should be less toxic,” Starmer said in 2022. “It’s just got so divided, and the moment anybody expresses a view or even inquires, there’s an immediate shutdown, and I just think that’s unhealthy in politics.”
In his 2022 interview, Starmer also said he believed in certain sex-segregated spaces for women, understanding their importance after having worked with victims of sexual violence.
But Labour political strategists have been warning for over a year that Starmer and others in his party would lose in a general election if they did not deal sufficiently with the so-called “woman problem,” especially on the matter of whether an individual can simply self-identify as the opposite sex.
JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and outspoken women’s rights advocate, explained in a piece in the Times last month why she would struggle to vote Labour in the coming election. The piece cited multiple other members of Parliament, not just Starmer, who also struggled to walk the line on transgender rights versus women’s rights.
Rowling recalled how during the cervix-gate fiasco, the Labour Party did not just see “the rights of women as disposable but struggled to say what a woman was at all.”
The U.K. has also been at the forefront of the debate over whether gender transition medicine is safe for children.
In April, the National Health Service sponsored the writing of a 388-page report on gender transition medicine by Hilary Cass, a longtime pediatrician and the president of the Royal College of Pediatrics.
The three-year project, known as the Cass Report, found that the affirmation model of treating gender dysphoria, especially among minors, is “built on shaky foundations” and evidence that is “exaggerated or misrepresented.”
Following the release of the Cass Report, but not directly as a result of it, Starmer said in April that his views on transgender issues “start with biology.”
“As a country, we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch, and most people know that there are a small number of individuals who do not identify with the gender that they were born into,” Starmer said this spring.
Starmer acknowledged that many people who identify as transgender have experienced significant amounts of trauma and that, when possible, accommodations should be made out of respect.
“I do not accept this is an issue that cannot be resolved with respect and dignity,” Starmer said in April.
Breakthrough diabetes and weight loss medication may lower a patient’s risks of common cancers closely linked with obesity, a study published on Friday suggests.
Patients taking Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes management developed fewer obesity-related cancers than patients on insulin alone, according to the new study from a team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Ozempic, along with the newer drugs Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, all belong to the GLP-1 drug class. These have shown dramatic progress in reducing the side effects of obesity, including heart attack, stroke, and obstructive sleep apnea.
Researchers used the electronic health records for more than 1.6 million Type 2 diabetes patients for a 15 year period ending in 2018. They found patients on GLP-1 had a significant risk reduction for 10 of 13 tested obesity associated cancers.
The newer drug, however, performed equally as well as the older diabetes medication metformin. The study also found that patients on GLP-1s may have a slightly elevated risk of kidney cancer compared to metformin.
Excessive body fat increases the risk of developing a variety of cancers that make up 40% of all cancer diagnoses in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Body changes due to obesity and being overweight, including long-term inflammation and higher insulin levels, are thought to be related to colorectal, gallbladder, liver, and pancreatic–all of which were significantly reduced by GLP-1s in the new study.
