Ukrainian open-source investigators said the new restrictions will make it harder to analyze Russian movements.

LOS ANGELES — Vice President Kamala Harris, in the warp-speed time it took to all but clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, has also nabbed a title that eluded her for decades — California’s favorite daughter.

Harris’ rising stock in her home state is most visible in the unanimous backing of California party delegates, who put her over the threshold this week as the likely heir to President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. It was a striking display of unity from a political class that at times has been openly skeptical of Harris’ political acumen, and in a state where many voters greeted her first presidential campaign with a shrug.

“Our politics in California are tough. There’s just a lot of factions, a lot of diverse opinions. And those have remained to this day,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), one of Harris’ most vocal supporters in the California congressional delegation.

The fact that the vice president got an overwhelming vote of confidence this week “is a testament to the work she’s done in the state, the desire to beat Donald Trump and the excitement around her candidacy,” Garcia continued. “It’s a historic moment.”

Harris was hardly unknown in the Golden State, having won three statewide elections before joining the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020. But with its vast geography and fractured political microclimates, California makes it exceedingly difficult for any politician to consolidate their influence statewide.

If Harris can maintain this level of support and cohesion, it could be rocket fuel for her campaign — mobilizing a vast network of donors and manpower for the improbable task of mounting a national presidential bid in a matter of months.

And if she wins the White House, it would catapult her into a rarefied class of iconic California Democrats such as fellow San Franciscans Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Brown. Also at stake is the state’s reputation as a subpar launching pad for the Oval Office; no Californian since Ronald Reagan — and no California Democrat ever — has successfully run for president.

Much of the exuberance among the state’s political class is reflective of Democrats nationwide, who have whipsawed from despondency to delirium with the belief that a November wipeout is no longer inevitable.

But even a close ally of the vice president, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly, reported being “pleasantly shocked” by the home state response.

Harris always had a base of longtime backers — a band of elected officials, donors, labor leaders and other powerbrokers now eager to tout their loyalty. But she has, for now, silenced the in-state doubters who are deeply familiar with her weaknesses as a candidate.

One Bay Area veteran Democrat said the recent days have been filled with conversations with other political insiders asking, “Do we know too much?” about her over-cautious instincts, periodic word salads on the stump and persistent staff upheavals. Now, they’re trying to squelch their previous Harris skepticism.

“Partially we just want it to be true so badly because we really really want to beat [Trump]. And we do love her as a person and what she believes,” the Democrat said. “Combined with [the fact] that this is kind of an ideal situation for her: she got past the primary, she has a united party, she inherited a structure already built for her. [And] also, she’s been really strong and good recently.”

Winning over the Democratic faithful is one thing; winning the public is another. It is too soon to know if California voters as a whole are coalescing around Harris like the party is. If Harris can sustain a broader home state boost, that could reverberate down ballot to the handful of congressional races that could tip the balance of the House.

While they wait to see if Harris’ ascent is more than a temporary sugar high, her allies are savoring it. One supporter noted the satisfaction of watching Pelosi, who, they said with some exaggeration, “never said anything particularly nice” about Harris, appearing at a virtual state party meeting Monday evening to offer the motion that convention delegates back Harris as the nominee.

“I, officially, personally, politically in every way, have great enthusiasm for Kamala Harris,” Pelosi said on the call.

The good vibes extend to Congress, where California Democrats have been quick to play up their long standing relationship with Harris and reminisce about her presence at delegation lunches. Those with doubts about her viability have an air of matter-of-fact resignation.

“She's not our best candidate, but she's gonna be the candidate,” said one member of the California delegation who expressed disappointment that there wasn’t an open process for multiple contenders. But, the member added, “There’s no point in not getting on board.”

The unity is a welcome change of pace for Harris, whose political career was forged in the bloodsport politics of San Francisco. In a city dominated by Democrats, the intra-party rivalries could be fiercely personal. It was a town led by machine politicians — the brothers Phillip and John Burton, Wille Brown, Feinstein, Pelosi — who used the city as a powerbase to build statewide heft.

Harris was part of that lineage, particularly via Brown, her one time boyfriend and long standing political mentor. But her relationship with some of the giants of that era could be chilly.

“There was a new kid on the block thing,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a political activist and fundraiser. “The Dianne Feinstein era was pretty elite. They just thought they had discovered it all and knew it all, and they weren’t as open to the coming-up generation.”

Feinstein dealt a withering blow early in Harris’ career by publicly calling out the young district attorney’s decision not to pursue the death penalty against a cop killer. They developed a more respectful working relationship as Harris advanced to the Senate, though the elder stateswoman nevertheless endorsed Biden over her fellow Californian during the 2020 primary.

But Harris tapped into a new wave of political influencers, particularly a network of Bay Area women with deep pockets and extensive Rolodexes such as billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Quinn Delaney, a major Democratic donor.

“She was burgeoning as a public figure exactly at the same time that women were being recognized as potential donors,” Tompkins Buell said.

Harris parlayed early buzz into a network of relationships, particularly in Silicon Valley and Hollywood — the twin power hubs that are now a prerequisite for any Californian with greater political ambitions. She exhibited a particular knack for the personal touches that cement political relationships: remembering people’s birthdays, bonding with their children, buoying the mood with chatter about food or office gossip.

Allies said Harris built a recognizable political brand through the state as she climbed the political ladder. California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis recalled, during her first campaign in 2018, touring all 58 counties to introduce herself to voters, handing out palm cards that touted Kounalakis as “endorsed by Kamala Harris.”

“Everywhere I went, it was so powerful to people that she supported me,” she said. “Even if people never met her or worked with her personally…people identified with her and felt like they knew her.”

Her supporters say she proved her political mettle through underdog victories. She ousted her much-better known boss as a novice candidate for San Francisco attorney in 2003 and beat a popular moderate GOP district attorney from Los Angeles — the state’s most populous county — in a nailbiter win for state attorney general in 2010.

But her non-competitive races — reelection bids for San Francisco district attorney and attorney general, her 2016 Senate run — are where Harris really flexed political muscle, lining up early fundraising and endorsements to scare off more serious Democratic challengers.

“She’s really good at clearing fields. She’s really good at the whole shock and awe thing,” said Dan Morain, author of the biography “Kamala’s Way,” noting the parallels to how quickly she locked up the shadow race to replace Biden in recent days.

Harris started her 2020 presidential race with a similar tack: a flashy launch rally in Oakland, early fundraising prowess and a list of heavy-hitting endorsements that ultimately included more than 150 elected officials in California.

Soon, she plummeted back to earth. Her clunky campaign reminded longtime Harris watchers of her downsides as a candidate. She struggled to clearly define her positions and carve out an ideological lane in a crowded pack of Democrats. She would notch strong moments — such as her lacerating exchange with Biden over school busing in the first primary debate — only to backtrack with mealy-mouthed follow-ups on policy specifics. Her fractious campaign operation, beset by competing centers of power and disorganization, fed into latent concerns about her management skills.

Some of the most lasting wounds came from fellow Californians picking apart her in-state record. An op-ed by a Bay Area law professor that ran in the New York Times days before her campaign launch questioned Harris’ self-assigned brand of “progressive prosecutor.” The critique forced Harris on the defensive about her law enforcement resume, neutering the credentials that were supposed to be the backbone of the basis for her candidacy and damaging her standing with progressives in her home state.

“That’s just the fringe, but the fringe is pretty big in California,” said a veteran Democratic strategist. “So you have a Democratic Party with very mixed feelings about her.”

By the time Harris dropped out of the race in December 2019, she was polling in fifth place even in her home state, trailing Bernie Sanders, Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. More than 60 percent of voters in the state thought it would be better to suspend her campaign and return to her duties as senator.

Since becoming vice president, Harris’ approval ratings in California have largely tracked with national attitudes about her job performance. When her favorability slumped across the country, it took a dive here too. The rise in prominence of Gov. Gavin Newsom, her longtime friend and rival for the top of California political pecking order, gave California Democrats another option to project their White House dreams. One 2022 poll found that more Democrats and independents wanted to see Newsom or Sanders as the party’s presidential nominee if Biden was not on the ballot, while Harris was the third-place pick.

The lack of home state solidarity is less a reflection on Harris than it is on Californians’ relationships to their politicians more broadly. Former Govs. Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson, as well as the late Sen. Alan Cranston, learned the hard way that winning statewide was hardly a harbinger for a successful presidential run.

In such a sprawling, populous state, it is much harder for officials to establish familiarity with their voters. While every voter in Delaware likely has a personal Biden anecdote, most Californians have had little opportunity to encounter their politicians in the wild.

“We're a big state,” said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster based in San Francisco. “We're the fifth-largest economy in the world. And we're not provincial with how we approach our politics. We're not just voting for someone because they're from California.”

Nor do politicians tend to seep into Californians’ everyday consciousness. Case in point, Morain said, was the anecdote of Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff who, as a lawyer in Los Angeles, was asked when he was being set up with the then-Attorney General, “Kamala Harris – how do I know that name?”

“A lawyer in Los Angeles didn’t know who the attorney general was!” Morain said. “We don’t pay attention to politics in California.”

Now, however, Harris is being thrust into a whole new level of notoriety, remaking her relationship with California voters.

“She didn’t have a campaign where she really had to bond with California. That’s going to change now,” Morain said.

The reason, he suggested, had as much to do with Harris as the state from which she comes: “We like celebrities in California and she’s going to become quite the celebrity.”

Katherine Tully-McManus, Nicholas Wu and Rachel Bluth contributed to this report.

In most respects, President Joseph R. Biden is a thoroughly conventional president — a leader deeply respectful of precedent, a man whose style and values are shaped by living through more than half of the 20th century even as he ends his career navigating the disruptive politics of the 21st.

By contrast, the great foil of his presidency — predecessor Donald Trump — is in style and contempt for precedent the most radical person ever to hold the office.

Biden’s Oval Office address Wednesday night, however, underlined a paradox. There is one way that Trump represents continuity and Biden is the anomaly. This paradox is also the reason Biden won’t be his party’s nominee for a second term.

For most of American history — certainly since the start of the 20th century — the presidency has taken much of its power from the ability of its occupants to communicate. In other words, to use the singular power of the Oval Office to command the attention of the nation — more or less at will, on any topic or occasion — and shape the thoughts and mood of the country through the power of words and image. There is no better place to wage a national argument.

By this narrow but critical standard, it is Trump who used the presidential pulpit — and the mania and obsessive interest that followed him even after he lost it — in ways consistent with the grain of American history. He preoccupies the psyche of the nation, no less among those who loathe him as among the half or nearly half who are open to returning him to power.

It was Biden who is the tragic exception. He has been essentially a half president.

He has carried out the programmatic portion of the presidency — presiding over far-reaching legislation and aggressively using the policymaking tools of the executive branch — as effectively as any president in recent decades.

On the performative dimension of the presidency — using words to inspire his supporters, box in his enemies, to reframe debates — he has been arguably the weakest Oval Office occupant in more than a century, back to the days before television or even radio, when most Americans might read about a presidential speech but had never heard the president’s voice.

At the start of his presidency Biden’s voice was often inarticulate, except in a few grand set-piece speeches. (Many were written with influence by historian and former journalist Jon Meacham.) Now, at the end of his presidency, his voice has grown ever fainter, and a growing number of his thoughts straddle a line between discursive and incoherent.

There is yet more paradox here. Biden across his career has plainly wanted to be known as an exciting speaker, skilled in the theater of politics. Like most Democrats of his generation, he grew up venerating the Kennedys and aspiring to their example — a bust of Robert Kennedy was visible in the backdrop of his Oval Office speech. His first run for the presidency ended, in 1987, when it was revealed that he had cribbed high-flown phrases of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock.

For much his career he was known not for turning down interviews and extemporaneous speaking but for treasuring his own voice. A Democratic operative recounted the times Biden would speechify to an empty Senate floor. It was impossible for the sole leadership aide in attendance to shuffle papers or work his phone because Biden had locked eyes on him — craving attention, demanding an audience.

In terms of power, and Biden’s inability to retain it, it doesn’t really matter whether or not Biden’s faltering voice now, at age 81, is due to dangerous age-related decline or something more benign. The gap was a decisive limitation of his presidency.

Biden sympathizers — even, or especially, those who were relieved he gave up the nomination he won earlier this year in an all-but-uncontested race — lavished praise on his speech Thursday night and some predicted it will help enshrine his legacy for years to come.

Maybe so, but that legacy will likely be defined by the same contradictions that were on display in the brief Oval Office address. He said he was giving up the race for the second term that was merited by the achievements of his first because he needed to unify his party and that “nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy” from the dangers of Trump.

But a president who was effective at waging a national argument and reframing debates to his advantage would not be facing a potent threat from the same politician he beat in the last election. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer know that the most likely way Trump would be in position to undermine democracy is by not by stealing an election but by decisively winning it, while also carrying his party to full control of Congress.

Even if people liked the words in Biden’s speech, it was replete with reminders of the president’s weakened capacity to wage argument. Even with scripted remarks, there were noticeable halts and restarts in several sentences, or words that lacked crisp enunciation. A stiff and almost cotton-mouthed delivery at the beginning did warm up steadily to a more forceful close.

But there was little in the performance to make his skeptics in the party fear, “Did we act too hastily to push him out?” or make ordinary voters wonder, “What’s wrong with his aides?! Why have they been sheltering him from interviews and more impromptu events?”

Early in his term, as he was passing major spending packages to stimulate the economy from the wake of the pandemic shutdowns, build new infrastructure and invest in a post-carbon economy, there were comparisons between Biden and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Those seem distant now, even as Biden leaves with more legislative milestones in one term than many presidents get in two.

Biden surely knows the wisdom of what FDR said during his first presidential campaign: “The presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is preeminently a place of moral leadership. All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.”

To reach this standard requires employing all tools of the modern presidency, not just half.

The potential candidates vying to join Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket have been thrust into a selection process under a compressed timeline — accelerating various factions’ push for their preferred pick.

Already, members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation are pushing their state’s governor, Roy Cooper. Pennsylvanians are championing Gov. Josh Shapiro, who won election two years ago by an almost 15-point margin in the crucial swing state. Some Senate Democrats have strong praise for their colleague Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

And the potential contenders are appearing on cable news shows and speaking at public events, raising their profiles in the unspoken audition process to be second in command.

“What I am focused on is making sure we don't go back to Donald Trump's chaos, and that we elect Kamala Harris the next president of the United States,” Shapiro said at an EPA event this week when asked whether he’s interested in serving as Harris’ running mate. “I will tell you that I have known the vice president for nearly 20 years. We have both been prosecutors.”

Harris, who has already earned the support of the majority of delegates after taking President Joe Biden’s place just four days ago, could officially become the Democratic nominee as soon as next week via a virtual vote. Harris is under pressure to quickly introduce a vice president to America before the Democratic National Convention, which is less than a month away. That tight time frame has prompted scrambling among Democratic lawmakers, interest groups, donors and advocates to make their case known — and throw knives in public and private at rivals competing for the job.

The cast of candidates discussed to be under consideration by the Harris campaign include Kelly, Shapiro, Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Their allies have been directly contacting the Harris campaign in their quest to rise, some from relative obscurity, to run with her.

This shortened timeline may play to Democrats' benefit because it comes in the days following the Republican National Convention, allowing the Democratic Party to dominate the airwaves as prospective vice presidents audition to be Harris’ sidekick, said Democratic strategist Tory Gavito.

It’s “fantastic” seeing “all of the bench out there stating a case for how Democrats are fighting for our freedoms and our future and our families,” Gavito said. “It’s been a great media week for Democrats.”

Many of the lawmakers on Capitol Hill have expressed a home-state bias for the officials on Harris’ shortlist. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) praised Cooper as a “very popular governor in a swing state where he’s won it twice at the same time as Trump. Not many can say that.”

Now facing term limits, Cooper has run successful campaigns up and down the ballot in cycles where Republicans also performed well, speaking to his ability to bring in moderates and ticket-splitters. He outperformed Biden by 6 points in 2020.

Cooper dodged questions about his interest in serving as vice president on an MSNBC appearance on Monday, instead expressing his support for Harris’ candidacy and the need to build out a campaign before any conversations about a vice president take place.

“I appreciate people talking about me, but I think the focus needs to be on her this week,” said Cooper, a Biden ally whom the president appeared with the day after his disastrous debate performance.

Some Pennsylvanians, on the other hand, are advocating for Shapiro, whom Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) praised for the benefits he could bring to the ticket by winning purple states. Shapiro, who was elected governor in 2022 by nearly a 15-point margin, worked to appeal to rural voters.

“I think we've got to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well. And you could do a lot worse than Governor Shapiro,” he said.

A potential sleeper candidate: Walz, who has piqued the interest of some progressives and is being pushed by his home-state Minnesota delegation. Walz has steered a progressive agenda through the state Legislature that Democrats took total control of in 2022, enacting paid family leave, abortion rights and universal free school meals. Walz is a veteran and former public high school teacher.

“He would be just a great, great addition to a ticket. You know, he can supervise a lunch room. He was a master sergeant. He was well respected and beloved here in the House. And he's been a fabulous governor,” said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), who said she’d advocated directly to Harris’ campaign.

Walz used an MSNBC appearance on Tuesday to attack GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, saying that the Ohio senator, who has emphasized his Appalachian roots, “know[s] nothing about small-town America … He gets it all wrong.”

“Their policies have divided small-town America, they’re in our exam rooms, they’re telling us what books to read,” he said.

And some members of the Illinois delegation would prefer their own governor.

“We have a deep bench. He would be a great choice,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) of Pritzker, whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain and who could self-fund a campaign.

Meanwhile, some of Kelly’s colleagues had favorable things to say about him even as they cautioned about the implications of taking a Democratic senator out of the narrowly divided chamber. Arizona law would allow Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to appoint his temporary replacement, but the election to permanently fill his seat is guaranteed to be a close race.

“I find him to be smart, thoughtful. He and I are both retired Navy captains, and he is an astronaut,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). “Having said that, the state that he represents is a tough state for Democrats to hold. … We have to be very careful, mindful of that.”

The jockeying extends far beyond home-state interests. Environmental groups are not yet actively lobbying on a vice presidential pick. But they do have thoughts about the environmental records of the most commonly talked-about candidates.

Cooper’s success ordering the cleanup of coal ash waste in the state could play well with the environmental base. Cooper also signed executive orders aiming to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 and to more directly consult residents on environmental projects.

Cooper “would be a solid pick,” said Collin Rees, political director at Oil Change U.S., although the green activist group hasn’t yet settled on a preferred vice presidential candidate.

Kelly’s prior opposition to the PRO Act, a sweeping set of reforms that would make labor law dramatically more favorable to organized labor and hammer employers who union bust, resurfaced past tensions with some labor groups.

Kelly quickly reversed his stance amid the flurry of vice presidential speculation. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the senator said he would support the legislation if it came to the floor again.

Yet just days into the vice presidential search, fault lines among the candidates are beginning to emerge, previewing potential schisms within the Democratic party and lines of attack for the GOP.

Shapiro in particular has been under attack online from some fellow Democrats, including Pennsylvania treasurer candidate Erin McClelland and Michigan state Sen. Dayna Polehanki.

Shapiro previously backed a controversial private school voucher program that rankled teachers unions in his state, and his criticism of pro-Palestinian demonstrators could put him at odds with several unions that have urged the Biden administration to go further in pressing Israel to curtail its war in Gaza. Still Shapiro has a strong overall record for unions during his tenure.

Shapiro could face an uphill battle winning support from far-left groups critical of both the Biden administration’s climate record and its actions in Gaza because of Shapiro’s staunch support of Israel, according to Rees and other progressives.

On the environmental front, Shapiro is seen as the best of a bunch of bad vice presidential options by fossil fuel industry sources.

Shapiro aggressively litigated against natural gas companies during his time as Pennsylvania’s attorney general. But he has taken more moderate positions as governor of the second biggest energy-producing state in the union and is at least better versed in the intricacies of fossil fuel policy than some of the other people being floated, industry officials said.

“He understands the energy industry,” Frank Maisano, senior principal at the government relations firm Bracewell, said of Shapiro. “As governor he’s been way more available and worked closely with the energy industry.”

Nick Niedzwiadek contributed to this report.

A converted yoga studio a few blocks from the Capitol has become ground zero in a fierce conservative clash over Trump-era economics.

It’s the home of American Compass, a right-leaning think tank with eight staff members that’s spent the last four years challenging the GOP intelligentsia’s devotion to free markets and small government. Led for most of its life by former Mitt Romney aide Oren Cass, the group argues that Republicans should focus more on policies that help workers and domestic industry and be more skeptical of globalization and financialization. Among its ideas: Tax cuts don’t always work.

The approach has triggered intense criticism from the “legacy” conservative think tank world, even as the group has cultivated powerful connections on Capitol Hill and in former President Donald Trump’s orbit of economic thinkers.

Amid the resistance, American Compass is having a big moment and is poised to expand its influence. Sen. JD Vance, an ally whose own staff has deep ties to the organization, is indirectly bringing attention to its ideas as Trump’s running mate. The group will also announce Thursday that it has hired Michael Needham, the former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio and the one-time leader of the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm, to be its chair and grow its Washington footprint.

“Most Washington think tanks were stuck in the past when Donald Trump challenged Republican orthodoxy back in 2016,” Rubio said. “We’ve seen new institutions emerge since then, with American Compass being among the most impactful.”

The extent to which American Compass upends conservative economic policy will be an indicator of how durable economic populism is on the right. It’s a high-stakes fight, and even some who admire the group’s effectiveness doubt it can overcome an ideology that’s anchored GOP policy for decades.

“As much as I think Oren has been impactful and has been enormously successful in driving visibility to ideas and to his brand of conservative economics, I think there’s something fundamental about the party that hasn’t shifted and don’t see it shifting in the foreseeable future,” said John Lettieri, president and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group think tank.

According to Cass, who launched American Compass as a three-person team in 2020, a core value of the group is “intellectual combat with personal civility.” It hasn’t shied from openly criticizing senior Republicans on policy, and Cass often takes on his detractors on social media.

“We will never call names,” he said. “But within those parameters, we see a very core part of what we do as being willing to have a fight with anybody on any side who is just wrong and forcing those conversations, whether it’s with the AEIs and Heritages of the world, whether it’s with the Patrick McHenrys and Pat Toomeys of the world.”

“It goes all the way back to the reason for Compass’ existence, which is, you’re starting from such an ossified orthodoxy on the right and this view of, ‘Can we all just keep our heads down and not talk about some of this stuff?’ That’s just not healthy.”

American Compass makes the case that adherence to tax cuts, deregulation and free trade have been disastrous economic policy and that government can make capitalism work better for workers and families. It calls for more restrictions on trade with China, using public capital to stoke investments in critical industries, supporting organized labor and banning corporate share buybacks. (A spokesperson for Republicans on the House select committee on China said the group has been “a strong and effective advocate for common-sense policies to stop enabling our foremost adversary.”)

Cass wrote last month that the 2017 Trump tax cuts were “an expensive failure.” American Compass argues that tax increases as well as spending cuts are needed to tame the deficit, and it released a survey showing Republican support.

American Compass’ emerging influence is rooted in a younger generation of GOP leaders. Vance and Rubio, as well as Sens. Tom Cotton and Todd Young, appeared at an event last year marking the release of the group’s handbook for conservative policymakers. Each lawmaker praised the organization.

“If we are to succeed in building a new economic agenda that actually serves the interests of working people in this country, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work and rigorous policy analysis they continue to produce,” Vance said at the time.

American Compass’ “membership group” — an off-the-record confab that has seminars, salon dinners and an annual retreat on the Eastern Shore of Maryland — crossed 200 members earlier this year. Cass describes them as “young policy professionals” who are overwhelmingly between the ages of 25 and 35. Capitol Hill staff are the largest cohort, he said.

The group is undergoing an internal reshuffle. Cass, who is based in Massachusetts, left his executive director role this month to become chief economist and do more research and writing work. Abigail Ball, who had been communications director, is now executive director.

Needham, who has been on American Compass’ board since its founding, said his new role as chair will entail “waving the flag for American Compass” and meeting with lawmakers and staffers interested in the group’s work. (American Compass’ policy director, Chris Griswold, is also a Rubio alum.)

To give a sense of the group’s impact, Needham points to his experience leading the Rubio team that helped conceive the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program. The nearly $1 trillion rescue offered forgivable loans to small businesses that kept workers on their payroll.

“That’s a role that Compass helped us think through, not necessarily in real time during PPP, but from a year or two of conversations we’d been having with Oren,” he said. “We want to find more opportunities where, as offices are thinking about challenges the country faces, we can make sure that Compass’s economic thinking and economic perspective is present.”

How does American Compass fit into the community of much larger and older conservative think tanks?

Cass sees some areas of common ground and collaboration with the Heritage Foundation, including promoting restrictions on U.S. investment in China. He said Heritage president Kevin Roberts “deserves a ton of credit” for what he’s done during his tenure.

But with some other groups that continue to fight for low taxes and small government, there is intense, open conflict.

“I’m close friends with the AEI crowd, close friends with folks at Cato,” Lettieri said. “In that world, Oren has a lot of detractors. There’s nobody who’s more of a divisive figure in my personal network than Oren.”

Cass may be most at odds with the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity. In his view, as the Republican Party’s agenda shifts, the groups will have “nowhere to go because there’s no actual ideas underneath what they’re doing.”

Club for Growth President David McIntosh likewise said Cass “is not, and will never be, viewed as a legitimate voice in Republican policy circles.”

McIntosh, a former lawmaker, points to funding American Compass has received from the Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network, which also back progressive causes. He said most Republican voters want policies like tax cuts, spending cuts and deregulation. Americans for Prosperity vice president of policy Juliana Heerschap also said “the reason we’re so successful is because the vast majority of conservative voters agree with us.”

“He doesn’t like gravity,” said Americans for Tax Reform founder and president Grover Norquist, known for his no-new-taxes pledge for lawmakers. “It’s still there.” (Norquist said he’s gotten “a phone call a week the last five weeks on Oren Cass promoting himself.”)

The potential return of Trump to the White House is a new opportunity for the group. As Cass sees it, Trump isn’t beholden to rigid ideology and in his first term leaned on Capitol Hill to craft the GOP agenda. So Trump’s appointees — likely a mix representing new and old GOP thinking — will be key to policymaking, as will Congress, where American Compass has prominent allies.

“There will be a level of interagency fighting and debating,” Cass said. “Where we will play a very important role is as essentially the provider of ammunition for one side of those debates.”

The four names at the top of this essay are an unusual combination. You may or may not know who we are, but the four of us have spent decades arguing with each other in public and private particularly before, during, and after the great financial crisis.

But there’s one thing we do agree on right now, and that is that the government must stop bailing out private investors. This is why we are taking the unusual step of joining forces to oppose a Treasury Department proposal on mortgage servicers that would further entrench the cycle of private gains and public bailouts that pretty much all Americans hate.

The truth is that today’s mortgage market isn’t your grandparents’ mortgage market. Mortgage origination and servicing are now increasingly dominated by nonbanks such as Lakeview, PennyMac, Rocket, United Wholesale and Mr. Cooper. A powerful group of regulators known as the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) recently released a report focusing on the risks arising from the current regulatory structure for mortgage servicing. We applaud attention to these risks. Unfortunately, the plan from FSOC, which is chaired by Treasury, included a suggestion that Congress create a permanent bailout fund to underwrite these risks. As a bipartisan group of longtime financial regulation experts, we think this is a terrible idea.

Massive growth in nonbank mortgage companies is one of the major structural changes that’s occurred in the mortgage market since it played a star role in the global financial crisis of 2008. Back then nonbank companies owned servicing rights for 4 percent of mortgages; today it is 54 percent. For Ginnie Mae, which includes VA, USDA and FHA mortgages, it’s well over 80 percent. Whether these companies originate your mortgage directly, or you get your mortgage from a bank or credit union, it’s likely that your mortgage would be serviced by a nonbank.

Mortgage servicing includes core functions of administering the mortgage. The mortgage servicer collects the borrower’s payment and distributes it to investors, and pays escrow payments to insurance companies and property taxes to local governments. Missing these payments could result in foreclosure or being denied coverage after a natural disaster. Servicers are also responsible for working out alternative payments with the homeowner when they face difficulties maintaining their mortgage. When all else fails, servicers manage foreclosures and evictions. When mortgage servicers can’t do their job right, the impacts on families, communities and the financial system can be significant.

Congress created FSOC after the financial crisis to “identify risks to … financial stability” along with the obligation “to respond to emerging threats to the stability of the … financial system.” Nonbank mortgage servicers may well pose such risks. That’s why FSOC is right to focus on mortgage servicers and ring the alarm bell before a massive wave of problems occur.

But Congress also tasked FSOC with the responsibility “to promote market discipline, by eliminating expectations … that the Government will shield … losses in the event of a failure.” By suggesting Congress create a backstop for mortgage servicers, FSOC undermined market discipline. If Congress were to go forward and create such a backstop, expectations in the market would be that mortgage servicers were guaranteed by taxpayers — undermining market discipline and reviving the cycle of privatizing gains and socializing losses. The last thing the country needs is to put taxpayers on the hook for mortgage servicers in addition to such expectations for other large financial institutions.

An alternative approach FSOC should consider is to focus on the banks, credit unions and government-sponsored enterprises who make or own most of these mortgages and ensure they are able to support themselves in times of stress. In its report, FSOC rightly highlighted that state regulators are the primary regulators overseeing nonbank mortgage servicers and many may need to step up their game, including by enhancing coordination between states and ensuring that a servicer has a resolution plan so that borrowers are not holding the bag should their servicer go under.

FSOC should also direct its member agencies to set standards for mortgage servicer companies that do business with banks, credit unions and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae. FSOC suggests that federal regulators lack current legal authority to do so in all cases. Lawyers may disagree how much is authority versus regulatory will, but if more authority is needed, Congress should consider that without establishing any bailout programs. If that means some mortgage servicers cannot remain profitable with enough private capital, then the market will decide and adapt.

The catastrophic financial crisis of 2008 was the result of multiple layers of failure, many of which involved the mis-regulated and flawed operation of America’s mortgage market. Congress passed multiple laws, which we helped create, with a simple goal in mind: creating a safer financial system that would never require taxpayer funded bailouts. This system already failed its first tests, as regulators and Congress bailed out investors and creditors when Covid-19 struck and again when Silicon Valley Bank failed.

Instead of accepting that bailouts are inevitable — or actively promoting them — FSOC needs to use its power and authority to improve the oversight of our mortgage markets, and make clear that if a mortgage servicer or any other financial institution fails, it will be private investors and creditors who lose money, not taxpayers. That is the way to ensure market discipline and end the bailout cycle.

A Nevada man accused of sending blunt death threats to federal judges, state officials and a member of Congress over the past eight months — a torrent of vitriol one prosecutor likened to “the Holocaust” — was ordered detained pending trial Tuesday by a magistrate judge who agreed the suspect was too dangerous to remain free.

The startling criminal case unveiled this week against Spencer Gear, 32, is a stark illustration of the atmosphere of threats enveloping the federal judiciary, as well as for state judges and other officials handling cases against former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors say Gear targeted five federal judges in Washington, D.C. He’s also accused of threatening U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw two civil trials against Trump in suits brought by a writer accusing him of sexual assault, and New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who recently presided over Trump’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan.

Gear is accused of an extraordinary spree of violent threats and misogynistic profanity. Prosecutors say he left voicemail messages accusing the officials of corruption and declaring that they would soon be executed.

“This defendant is a ticking time bomb,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Operskalski said at a bail hearing for Gear in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “His words are reminiscent of the Holocaust as he dehumanizes his victims, calling them filth, calling them trash.”

Operskalski said many of Gear’s messages were replete with “violent misogyny” and included a message to a federal judge repeatedly disparaging her for her gender and culminating in a threat.

“You are a woman. You have to have men do things for you …You can't do shit to Donald Trump unless you send a man to do it,” Gear said in the message, according to the prosecutor. “If you keep trying to fight this war against liberty, you will be dead.”

Operskalski did not identify any of the targets of Gear’s threats by name in court Wednesday, and the 22-count indictment references them by their initials. However, they include five district court judges in Washington — Beryl Howell, Reggie Walton, Christopher Cooper, Jia Cobb and Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, according to a person familiar with the case who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

All of the district court judges cited have handled criminal cases stemming from the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Operskalski also played aloud in court one of the messages Gear is accused of leaving: a June 3, 2024, threat directed to Merchan and the prosecutor who brought the hush money case against Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“The Constitution will reign supreme when we start executing filth like you. You are a dead man,” the caller says before complaining about officials taking “hundreds of millions of dollars to politically persecute the president of the United States.”

During the bail hearing, the prosecutor said that when a SWAT team was sent to arrest Gear at his Las Vegas home Tuesday, he grabbed a drone the FBI flew into his house and tossed it out the window.

Operskalski called Gear a “domestic terrorist” and said the assassination attempt on Trump earlier this month was a vivid example of the risk posed by allowing people like Gear to remain free.

“We're … less than two weeks out from an assassination attempt on the Republican candidate for president,” the prosecutor said, according to audio of the session. “Although this is a far-right extremist, it's an example of what could happen if we let a person like Mr. Gear out of custody when he has told us exactly what he is going to do. We should take him at his word.”

Defense attorney Jeremy Baron said there was no indication that Gear had taken any steps to actually carry out any of the alleged threats.

“The statements are potentially concerning. They are, however, just statements. There's no indication that there was any actual, concrete plans tied to those statements,” Baron said.

The defense lawyer also claimed it’s now common for people to make extreme comments about politics without having any intention of backing them up. “It is a heated political climate right now. And I think there are many people who make statements on the internet, or over the phones, behind the cover of anonymity when that doesn't actually reflect how their behavior would be,” Baron said.

Magistrate Judge Brenda Weksler sided with prosecutors, ordering Gear detained based on his dangerousness. She said Gear, who sounded calm when speaking with the judge at the outset of the hearing, seemed to be in some sort of “altered state” when ranting on the calls that led to the indictment.

“It does not even seem possible the person that's sitting here before me is the same person that left those messages,” she said, adding that she doubted he would abide by any release conditions. “I also am concerned by the fact that he does not seem to respect the judicial system or have respect for judges.”

The court set a Sept. 24 trial date for Gear.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service, Barry Lane, declined to address the specific case but said threats against federal judges have surged in recent years, up from 224 in fiscal 2021 to 457 in 2023.

“Threats against the judiciary is a threat against our democracy,” Lane said. “The U.S. Marshals Service has increased judicial security units in our 94 districts, we have created a unit that tracks threats and communication concerns on various social media platforms, and we’ve increased the amount of training for deputies to conduct protective investigations.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement Tuesday highlighting Gear’s case and declaring that the Justice Department is aggressively pursuing all criminal intimidation of public officials.

“The citizens we rely on to serve the public must be able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives,” said Garland. “The Justice Department has no tolerance for acts and threats of violence targeting public servants, and we will stop at nothing to find and bring to justice those responsible.”

Space Transformation And Reliability Act (07/24/2024 legislative day)

Save Our Sequoias Act (07/24/2024 legislative day)

Water and Agriculture Tax Reform Act of 2023 (07/24/2024 legislative day)

Those of us capable of perceiving reality clearly don't need to conspire in this lie. We don't need to thank Joe Biden for his sacrifice.

The new populist right is far more amenable to workers and trade unions than the left wants to admit.

The vice president may have stopped the Democratic death march, but weaknesses remain.

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Even Donald Trump's supporters sense he suddenly has a tougher race on his hands.

As the former president unloaded on Kamala Harris in the swing state of North Carolina on Wednesday — calling her a “radical, left lunatic” at one point — faithful fans conceded that what had been a sleepy contest had abruptly become something quite different.

To some, it seemed like the vice president had momentum.

“Policy aside and everything, she definitely has the energy,” said Jessica Castillo, a self-described centrist from Charlotte who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 and was at the Charlotte event. “She is going to be a contender for Trump. Honestly, I think she’ll be more of a challenge.”

Taking the stage at the Bojangles Coliseum, his first rally since President Joe Biden dropped out of the campaign, Trump ripped into the vice president, casting her as “Lying Kamala Harris,” mispronouncing her name as he dubbed her “the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history,” and repeatedly declaring that she would “destroy” the United States, if elected.

Trump has some reason for concern. Harris, after being endorsed by Biden to run at the top of the Democratic ticket, in recent days has seen a bump in polling compared to Biden’s lagging performance, including among independents, people of color and women, among other critical voting blocs.

“Now,” said Bryson Davis, an 18-year-old from Statesville, “he’s running against somebody that’s competent. “Kamala is probably going to come off a little more fiery than Joe would.”

Or as Castillo put it, “The fact she isn’t suffering from old age … it’s definitely going to give her a huge bump right away. She can talk. She can laugh, obviously.”

For the former president, Harris’ ascension was but a new invitation to fight — and the crowd ate it up. They cheered when he conceded he was “not going to be nice” about Harris, despite saying he “became nice” after the attempted assassination on July 13.

Trump on Wednesday fumed over the news coverage Harris has received as Democrats have coalesced around her since Sunday, insisting that his crowd sizes were still larger.

“Three weeks, four weeks ago, she was the worst politician in America,” Trump said. “Now they say, ‘Isn’t it amazing? Look at her. She’s beautiful. She’s so magnificent.’”

Trump this week agreed to debate Harris, and said he would be “willing to do more than one debate” against her. It’s a forum his supporters appeared eager for.

While predicting an eventual Trump-Harris debate would sway voters toward Trump, Jo Wally of Mooresville acknowledged the race seems closer now, “because she’s got the momentum.”

Sitting next to her, Kelly Henderson said she feared some women who are soft Trump backers will shift away from him.

Trump focused his attacks at the rally against Harris on her history as a prosecutor and senator, describing her as “more liberal than Bernie Sanders,” who “destroyed San Francisco with her policies” and will “destroy our country if she’s elected.” His new Harris talking points were apparently distributed to speakers who took the stage before him, with Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, offering nearly identical criticism.

What kind of attacks Republicans will consider in bounds is still a matter of uncertainty. After Speaker Mike Johnson this week chided GOP members about attacking Harris based on her race or gender — a warning that came as at least one Republican congressman called her “a DEI vice president” — Trump supporters at the rally Wednesday largely shrugged off concerns about whether her status as a woman of color would be used against her by Trump or Republican operatives.

Before the rally Wednesday, Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, said the campaign hasn’t gone after Harris’ race or gender, and so they didn’t take issue with Johnson’s guidance. But asked if taking that approach was off limits for Trump, Cheung said that it wasn’t necessarily.

“I don’t know it’s off limits,” he said. “But it’s not something that we’ve done. So it’s not even on our radar.”

Similarly, Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee and former chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, in an interview declined to say whether he agreed with Johnson’s remarks about staying away from Harris’ race or gender — instead, he said what he thought the party should focus on.

“Look, I think we need to talk about her being an extreme California liberal,” Whatley said, criticizing policies she supported in her home state, in the Senate and as Biden’s vice president.

Pressed again, Whatley said the Republican Party is “going to focus all day, every day on the American voters,” and telling them about Trump’s policies.

Even before Trump took the stage, the GOP’s focus — evident in speakers’ remarks before him — had dramatically moved away from Biden and onto Harris. While the vice president came up at times throughout Trump’s Saturday night rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, now all but certain to become the nominee, she was the center of attack Wednesday.

Twice in his on-stage remarks, Whatley referred to her as “Border Czar Kamala Harris,” and slammed her record in the Senate. Hudson one-upped Trump on describing Harris as a progressive senator, not only saying that she was “more liberal” than Sanders, but also Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Criticizing Harris for failing to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress earlier Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed that Harris, whose husband is Jewish, is “totally against the Jewish people.”

“It amazes me how Jewish people will vote for the Democrats when they’re being treated so disrespectfully,” Trump said.

Throughout the rest of his speech, Trump railed against transgender athletes, briefly discussed his attempted assassination, reiterated his position in favor of exceptions for abortion restrictions, bashed Democrats’ southern border policies, falsely claimed Harris wants to “outlaw red meat” and gave what has now become his standard shoutout to Hannibal Lecter, a fictional character from the movie “Silence of the Lambs.”

Asked whether Republicans would need to reevaluate their plans to spend time and money flipping blue states like Minnesota, where Trump is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday, Whatley said they were still focused on their 10-battleground state plan.

“Right now, we’re playing offense,” Whatley said. “Right now, the Democrats aren’t even playing defense yet. They’re circling the wagons and trying to figure out how they can put a new candidate who’s never won a single primary state in as their nominee, and how they can pick somebody to be the vice presidential nominee.

“It’s important to note they not only had a bad messenger, but they had a bad message.”

Kierra Frazier contributed to this report.

Providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 1371) strongly condemning the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris's, failure to secure the United States border. (07/24/2024 legislative day)

Establishing the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump. (07/24/2024 legislative day)

Speaking for the first time about his historic decision to end his reelection bid, President Joe Biden said that “saving our democracy” was “more important than any title.”

During an Oval Office address, Biden told the country that his painstaking choice to step aside, which only came after weeks of pressure from fellow Democrats, was made with the good of his party and country in mind.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term. But nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy, and that includes personal ambition,” Biden said. “The best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation.”

Magnanimous and optimistic in tone as he spoke from behind the Resolute Desk, Biden spoke both to history and the present moment, attempting to push back on critics who say he must resign the office now and to salvage a legacy that could be deeply tarnished by the events of the last month.

The president, at 81 the oldest person to hold the office, did not explicitly say that he quit because of his health or polls showing him likely to lose, acknowledging only that he stepped aside “to unite my party.”

He presented himself as a truth-teller, a response to weeks of questions about whether he and aides had concealed the truth about his health and growing frailty as they sought another four-year term. “When I was elected, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth,” Biden said. “The truth is that the sacred cause of this nation is bigger than any one of us.”

Unlike Lyndon B. Johnson’s announcement in March 1968 that he would not seek a second term, the last time a president did so, Biden’s address lacked any real element of surprise. But the speech marked the president’s first spoken words on his decision to call off his reelection campaign since he posted the news on X on Sunday, while he was still isolating at his home on the Delaware shore after testing positive for Covid-19.

The prime-time address aimed to offer a deeper, more personal explanation to the country than his initial written letter, as well as a rallying call of support for Vice President Kamala Harris, his replacement as the Democratic nominee, and their shared legacy.

Biden praised Harris, calling her “experienced,” “tough” and “capable.”

“There’s a time and place for new voices, fresh voices — yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now,” he added, tapping the Resolute Desk to punctuate the sentence.

He ticked off a number of accomplishments, including having no American troops in conflict zones, as well as his priorities for the remainder of his term, including pushing for his cancer “moonshot” and reforms of the Supreme Court.

“Over the next six months I will be focused on doing my job as president,” he said. “That means I will continue to lower costs for hard-working families and grow our economy. I will keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights — from the right to vote — to the right to choose.”

The president, in his 12-minute address, embraced a legacy as the bridge-builder he vowed he would be four years ago. But the speech also came at a moment when the party — and the nation’s political discourse — has already moved on, transfixed for the moment with Harris, who has taken the baton and run with it in a way Biden no longer could.

The change atop the ticket has, in fact, sparked euphoria across what had been just days ago a divided and dispirited Democratic Party. Harris has received an avalanche of endorsements, enthusiasm and new donor contributions that were never there for him.

In a way, not seeking a second term may be the most broadly popular decision Biden has made as president. A CNN/ORC poll on Wednesday showed that 87 percent of all registered voters approved of his decision to end his campaign.

While Biden framed his decision as an instance of a politician putting his country above his own ambition, the last three-plus weeks made clear that he had wanted to remain in the race. He only became the transitional figure he promised he’d be in 2020 after his path to victory in 2024 collapsed following his disastrous June 27 debate performance and the ensuing calls from dozens of Democrats for a new nominee.

Reflecting on a 50-year career in Washington, Biden expressed his gratitude that he, “a kid with a stutter” from Claymont, Delaware, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, could ascend to such heights.

“I’ve given my heart and my soul to this nation, like so many others,” Biden said, calling America “a nation of promise and possibilities.”

He continued: “The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America — lies in your hands.”

Biden did not mention Trump by name. But as he has done for more than a year, he spoke again about the coming election as “an inflection point.” His concluding words carried a valedictory air, and a final challenge for the American people.

“Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands,” Biden said.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 17. His symptoms remained mild and have since resolved, according to his treating physician. But fueled by days without a public sighting and Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race, social media posts have baselessly claimed that Biden was gravely ill or had a medical emergency.

Full Story

On July 21, President Joe Biden announced he was no longer running for president in the 2024 election. Just four days before, while campaigning in Las Vegas, he tested positive for COVID-19, leading him to fly to Delaware that evening to isolate. He remained in isolation at his beach house and was not seen in public again until July 23, when his symptoms had “resolved” and he tested negative for COVID-19, according to his physician.

Daily letters from Biden’s doctor show that the president never got seriously ill and he continued to perform his duties. But since his COVID-19 diagnosis — and particularly after his announcement that he would no longer seek the presidency — online posts have trafficked in unfounded rumors and speculation about Biden’s health.

“A verified source has informed the Global Press team that Joe Biden is currently in hospice care and is unlikely to survive the night,” proclaimed a July 22 X post later shared on Facebook. The “Global Press” account on X that made the original claim appeared to subsequently delete its account.

Some declared Biden to be terminally ill or even spread rumors that the president was dead.

Others, including conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, pointed to purported reports from local police in Las Vegas to suggest or claim that Biden had or might have had a medical emergency. 

According to an unnamed source, Kirk said, “US Secret Service informed LV Metro that there was an emergency situation involving Joe Biden and to close necessary streets so that POTUS could be transported immediately to University Medical, which they began to do in earnest.” 

“Then, mysteriously, there was a stand down order and the USSS informed local Vegas PD that they were going to ‘medivac’ POTUS to Johns Hopkins, which they presumed meant fly him back east ASAP,” Kirk’s post continued. “Apparently the rumor mill in the police department was that Joe Biden was dying or possibly already dead.”

Kirk’s speculations were later amplified in a Tucker Carlson video on Instagram. Citing an unnamed, non-medical source, another person online claimed Biden might have had a transient ischemic attack, or a mini stroke. 

Former President Donald Trump also chimed in on July 21, baselessly saying on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Biden “never had Covid.”

It’s true, according to local media and a statement from the police department, that a hospital in Las Vegas was on standby to potentially receive the president after he tested positive for COVID-19, and that police proactively shut down roads to ensure safe passage. But this doesn’t mean Biden had a medical emergency. The president never went to the hospital, and according to a letter posted by his treating physician, he only ever experienced mild COVID-19 symptoms. In an email to FactCheck.org, the White House denied that Biden had any kind of medical emergency.

In the afternoon of July 23, Biden appeared on a tarmac and told reporters he was “feeling well” before ascending the stairs to Air Force One to fly back to the White House. This put to rest the most extreme claims about his health, although conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer continued to insist he was dying. Biden is scheduled to address the nation this evening to discuss his decision to exit the 2024 presidential race.

No Evidence of a Medical Emergency

While suspicion has focused on road closures and preparation for a hospital in Las Vegas to possibly receive the president, there’s no evidence that Biden experienced a medical emergency. Instead, the posts appear to have spun contingency plans following Biden’s positive COVID-19 test into conspiracy theories.

“President Joe Biden did not visit UMC last week,” Scott Kerbs, a public relations director for University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, said in a statement to FactCheck.org. “On July 17 at approximately 2:15 p.m., UMC received notification to prepare for a potential medical visit from the president. As Nevada’s only Level I Trauma Center and the hospital tasked with caring for the Commander-in-Chief during official visits to the area, UMC was fully prepared to provide the state’s highest level of care for the president.”

In a local news report on July 17, the hospital’s CEO, Mason Van Houweling, indicated that the hospital prepared for a “medical” issue, rather than a trauma or accident, but did not elaborate further. He praised his hospital’s response, but referred to it as a “non-event.”

Van Houweling echoed that sentiment in another article about the hospital’s preparations, published on July 19 in Becker’s Hospital Review, which noted that the hospital “adjusted its preparation to arrange an appropriate facility and team for medical care based on the specific potential needs identified — in this case, diagnostic requirements.”

Kerbs told us in an email that this was describing “the fact that UMC, as a Level I Trauma Center, adjusted its default preparations from trauma care to general medical care, which involves diagnostics.”

Local police similarly confirmed that they prepared for Biden to travel to the hospital, but explained that it was precautionary. 

“The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was notified that President Joe Biden was sick on July 17th during his visit to Las Vegas. We did not know the nature of his illness,” the department told us in an email. “As a precaution, LVMPD proactively began to shut down roads leading to UMC Hospital. The Secret Service then advised LVMPD the President was going directly to Harry Reid International Airport and would be leaving Las Vegas.”

“It has been standard practice for many years, across administrations, for hospitals to be among the wide range of resources that are always put on standby when any president travels,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told us in an email.

Bates denied that the president experienced a medical emergency, including a mini stroke. “The only medical situation was his covid diagnosis, which was publicly announced,” he said. 

A reporter who accompanied the president on the flight back to Delaware did not make note of any kind of medical emergency. Instead, he reported that the flight was “quite bumpy,” and that his request for an informal press briefing was denied. Upon landing, while not looking in the best of health — as might be expected for someone sick with COVID-19 — Biden was still able to walk and speak.

COVID-19 can be dangerous, particularly for older adults and those who have not been infected or vaccinated previously, but all available evidence points to the 81-year-old president’s case as being mild. 

Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, Biden’s physician, provided daily updates on the president’s condition. In his last letter, on July 23, he reported that Biden had tested negative for the coronavirus and his symptoms, which had included a runny nose, cough and general malaise, had “resolved.”

“Over the course of his infection, he never manifested a fever, and his vital signs remained normal, to include pulse oximetry. His lungs remained clear,” O’Connor said of Biden, adding that the president “continues to perform all of his presidential duties.”

Although Biden did not make a public appearance until July 23, he called into his former campaign’s headquarters — now Vice President Kamala Harris’s HQ — on July 22. While in isolation, he also received briefings, spoke to a variety of politicians and supporters following the termination of his candidacy, and made a call to the head of the European Commission, according to White House officials.

As with his first bout of COVID-19 in 2022, Biden took the antiviral Paxlovid to treat his illness.

It’s not the first time that social media claims about Biden’s health have gone viral. Earlier this month, popular posts falsely claimed Biden had a “medical emergency” aboard Air Force One, the AP reported.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

Sources

“Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.” Press release. White House. 17 Jul 2024.

Letters from Kevin C. O’Connor, Physician to the President. Available from WhiteHouse.gov. 18 Jul to 23 Jul 2024.

Drummond, Cristen. “Las Vegas hospital on standby to treat President Biden during COVID-19 diagnosis.” KSNV. 17 Jul 2024.

Madhani, Aamer. “Biden will address the nation Wednesday on his decision to drop his 2024 Democratic reelection bid.” AP. 23 Jul 2024.

President Biden (@POTUS). “Tomorrow evening at 8 PM ET, I will address the nation from the Oval Office on what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.” X. 23 Jul 2024.

Kerbs, Scott. Brand and Public Relations Director, University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Emails to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Gooch, Kelly. “A Las Vegas hospital’s playbook for presidential care.” Becker’s Hospital Review. 18 Jul 2024.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Office of Public Information. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Bates, Andrew. White House spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Jul 2024.

Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. “Travel Pool Report #8 Dover landing.” White House pool report. 17 Jul 2024.

“Biden lands in Delaware after testing positive for COVID.” AP video. 18 Jul 2024.

Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. “From Buoyant to Frail: Two Days in Las Vegas as Biden Tests Positive.” New York Times. 18 Jul 2024.

“The Changing Threat of COVID-19.” CDC. 23 Feb 2024.

“Remarks by President Biden and Vice President Harris at a Campaign Event | Wilmington, DE.” White House. 22 Jul 2024.

Miller, Zeke and Chris Megerian. “Biden tests positive for COVID.” AP. 21 Jul 2022.Goldin, Melissa. “FACT FOCUS: Online reports falsely claim Biden suffered a ‘medical emergency’ on Air Force One.” AP. 6 Jul 2024.

The post Online Rumors Baselessly Claim Biden Experienced Medical Emergency After COVID-19 Diagnosis appeared first on FactCheck.org.

As the Boeing Dreamliner that is the Democrats' 2024 presidential campaign falls apart in midair, many of the GOP campaigns I speak to as a political consultant are in a holding pattern, eating their proverbial popcorn and waiting for the dust to settle.