Politics
Newsom stands by Biden, repeats that he wouldn't run against Harris
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said he would not run for president against Vice President Kamala Harris and remained steadfast in his support for President Biden as talks about seeking an alternative presidential nominee continue among Democrats.
His comments indicate that if Biden gives into calls to step aside, the California governor will not challenge Harris, a front-runner in conversations about who should replace the president on the November ballot, if she seeks the nomination.
“Of course,” Newsom said when asked whether he stood by comments he made last year about not running against Harris. “Yes.”
Newsom’s vow would avoid a potentially ugly political battle for the party and its donors. Newsom and Harris rose up in Bay Area politics to become the state’s two most prominent elected officials. As vice president and Biden’s 2020 running mate, Harris would be the presumed Democratic front-runner to lead the ticket if called upon.
Newsom reaffirmed his stance during a news conference about California’s wildfire response at Sacramento McClellan Airport after returning from a swing-state tour on behalf of the Biden campaign.
Newsom campaigned for Biden in New Hampshire and Michigan as part of his effort to shore up support for the president after his poor debate performance against former President Trump in Atlanta in late June. The governor, who attended the debate as a surrogate for Biden, has attempted to swat down concerns about the president’s mental capacity and attested to the president’s abilities based on their personal interactions.
He’s continued to back Biden even as other Democrats question his ability to run.
On Wednesday, Newsom said he hadn’t read the full breadth of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments about Biden on MSNBC that morning.
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” Rep. Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”
Newsom said he had also not read an opinion piece written by actor George Clooney calling for a Democrat to replace Biden.
Biden repeatedly has said he intends to remain in the race and even challenged Democrats who think they can beat him to step up.
“I think I’ve had 100 media outlets asking the same question, and I think that I’ve amply answered my support for the president and the support I saw on the ground was demonstrable,” Newsom said Wednesday.
He referenced Biden’s support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and compared the president with Trump, who Newsom said “didn’t even know what NATO was.”
In the past, he’s said the vice president would be naturally lined up to run if Biden ended his campaign. In New Hampshire, Newsom said he thought Harris could beat Trump.
“I have no doubt about that,” Newsom told reporters. “If it comes to that, but I don’t expect it’s going to come to that.”
Staff writers Noah Bierman and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
Politics
Democrats start virtual roll call to nominate Harris to be the party's nominee against Trump
A virtual roll call to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee kicked off on Thursday.
The Democratic National Committee’s electronic voting for their party’s 2024 standard-bearer comes less than two weeks after President Biden, in a blockbuster announcement, ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president to succeed him at the top of the ticket.
Unlike the Republicans, who held their roll call in-person during their convention in Milwaukee last month, the DNC is using a virtual roll call which will conclude on Monday, two weeks ahead of the Aug. 19 start of the party’s convention at the United Center in Chicago.
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But similar to the GOP nomination of former President Trump, there is no drama, as the vice president is the only candidate who qualified by a Tuesday night deadline to have her name placed on the roll call.
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Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump at a late June debate that was held in Atlanta fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House.
It also spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his bid for a second term in the White House.
Biden’s immediate backing of Harris ignited a surge of endorsements for the vice president by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders and elders. Within 36 hours, Harris announced that she had locked up her party’s nomination by landing the verbal backing of a majority of the nearly 4,700 convention delegates.
The DNC decided to hold a virtual roll call – which is similar to the one they held four years ago to nominate Biden amid the coronavirus pandemic – in order to formally have a nominee topping their ticket ahead of an Aug. 7 ballot access deadline in Ohio.
“Our delegates have an important responsibility – and opportunity – in the days ahead to cast their history-making ballots for Vice President Harris, ensuring that she will be on the ballot in every state this November,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement earlier this week.
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The DNC reported that 3,923 delegates petitioned to put Harris on the ballot for the Democratic nomination, and that no other candidate met the party’s threshold of 300 delegate signatures to qualify for the ballot.
While the official nomination vote by the delegates is being held remotely, the DNC says a ceremonial roll call will be held at the convention in Chicago.
With the nomination of Harris not in doubt, speculation has soared in the past week over whom the vice president will choose as her running mate. The Harris campaign announced that the vice president and her soon-to-be-named running mate will embark on a swing through all seven key battleground states starting Tuesday in Pennsylvania.
The running mate announcement could potentially come as early as Monday evening.
That’s when it’s expected Harris will be announced as the nominee, following the 6 p.m. ET conclusion of the virtual roll call. DNC rules then allow for Harris to place the name of her running mate into nomination.
According to the DNC, the convention chair would then declare that candidate to be the party’s vice presidential nominee.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Politics
John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois named anchors of 'CBS Evening News' in major overhaul
CBS will attempt to reinvent its evening newscast after Norah O’Donnell leaves the anchor desk following November’s presidential election.
The network announced Thursday that “CBS Evening News,” which still draws as many as 5 million viewers a night, will have a pair of anchors and draw on correspondents from the division’s other signature programs.
John Dickerson, political editor for CBS News, and Maurice DuBois, a local news anchor for the network’s New York station, WCBS, will helm the revamped telecast. The program will be moved back to its former home at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, after several years in Washington, where O’Donnell was based.
It’s the first time the network has tried a multi-anchor format since it paired Dan Rather with Connie Chung in the mid-1990s. ABC News also tried it in 2005 with Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff when it replaced the late Peter Jennings. Neither pairing improved the ratings of the programs.
This time around, the dual-anchor format is aiming to play up what CBS News executives are calling an “ensemble” approach that gives more on-air time to the network’s correspondents, including those on newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which is the most-watched non-sports prime-time show most weeks. Margaret Brennan, the Washington-based moderator of “Face the Nation,” will also have a prominent role.
Bill Owens, who has run “60 Minutes” since 2019, will be supervising producer for “CBS Evening News” in addition to his current duties. Wendy McMahon, chief executive of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures, said she is putting Owens in charge to assure the newscast can tap into the “the DNA of ’60 Minutes.’”
The newsmagazine has never had a single host, long relying on a cadre of correspondents.
“It should be more about the reporters than one person,” Owens said in an interview. “We are not trying to copy ’60 Minutes,’ but we want to bring in ’60 Minutes’ values. We don’t want to be following what everyone else is doing.”
The changes come after O’Donnell announced she will end her five-year stint in the anchor chair to take a new role as a senior correspondent. The program ranks third in the evening broadcast news ratings, behind “ABC World News Tonight With David Muir” and “NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt.”
The network newscasts are no longer the agenda-setting platforms they were in the era of Walter Cronkite. But while the internet has upended the news business, the long-running programs remain appointment viewing for more than 17 million viewers a night, according to Nielsen data.
The audience is largely older, as younger viewers have migrated to streaming platforms.
CBS has tried a series of anchors over the years since Rather left the job in 2004 after 25 years, including a five-year stint by Katie Couric, who was lured away from NBC’s “Today.”
But the network has had trouble improving its competitive position going back to the mid-1990s, when it lost a number of affiliates that provided potent audience lead-ins with their local newscasts.
Owens said the format change is a way for “CBS Evening News” to differentiate itself from its competitors. The program will offer a lower story count with longer reports and debriefings from the news division’s top correspondents, he said.
The approach worked in Cronkite’s glory days and can be an alternative to today’s faster-paced, picture-driven network newscasts, Owens said.
Owens named “60 Minutes” veteran Guy Campanile to be executive producer of “CBS Evening News.” He will succeed Adam Verdugo, who has held the post since 2022.
Dickerson and DuBois will both be deployed for breaking news coverage on the network. They had a dry run together on July 13 when they covered the attempted assassination of former President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa.
For Dickerson, “CBS Evening News” will be the fourth significant assignment since he joined the network in 2009. Known as a thoughtful analyst, he is the son of Nancy Dickerson, one of the first prominent woman network correspondents in the 1960s.
A veteran Washington journalist, formerly with Time magazine, John Dickerson succeeded Bob Schieffer as moderator of “Face the Nation,” the network’s Sunday roundtable program.
Dickerson moved to a co-host role on “CBS This Morning” after Charlie Rose departed due to sexual harassment allegations in 2017. He lasted a year on the morning program before being moved off into a correspondent role.
Since 2022, he has anchored a nightly program, “The Daily Report,” on CBS News 24/7, the division’s streaming service. McMahon said Dickerson will continue to have a presence on the streaming platform. Separately, he co-hosts Slate’s “Political Gabfest” podcast.
DuBois, 58, has been an evening local anchor at WCBS in New York since 2004 and was previously a staple of the city’s NBC station.
While not widely known nationally, DuBois has served as an occasional fill-in host on “CBS Evening News,” which means he should be familiar to habitual viewers. He is known as a smooth on-air presenter with experience handling breaking news stories on the local stations.
“We’ve done our homework,” said McMahon. “We feel quite confident about his value to our audience.”
The rejiggering comes at a time of significant change at CBS. Budgets and salaries at CBS News are expected to undergo scrutiny when new ownership takes over parent company Paramount Global next year.
The company’s board and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone recently approved an $8-billion agreement to merge with David Ellison’s Skydance Media.
Politics
House conservative who's twice moved to impeach Vice President Harris faces competitive GOP primary
A conservative congressman who has twice filed articles of impeachment against Vice President Kamala Harris is grabbing national attention as Tennessee holds primary elections on Thursday.
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a vocal critic of President Biden’s administration, is facing a primary challenge from Nashville councilwoman Courtney Johnston as he seeks a second term representing Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.
After filing articles of impeachment against both the president and Harris last year, Ogles filed impeachment articles against the vice president a second time after she replaced Biden at the top of the Democrats’ national ticket.
HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE 2024 ELECTIONS
Ogles faced several controversies two years ago, as he came out on top in a crowded nine-candidate Republican primary in the redrawn 5th District, which includes southern parts of Nashville and surrounding suburbs and rural areas.
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While they’re similar in supporting conservative policies, Johnston is taking aim at Ogles as a “do-nothing grandstander” who she argues is “mired in scandals.”
But Ogles enjoys the support of former President Trump, the party’s 2024 Republican presidential nominee, as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Bill Hagerty.
Johnston has the backing of many establishment Republicans, including former Sens. Bill Frist and Bob Corker, and former Gov. Bill Haslam.
The winner of the GOP primary will face Democrat Maryam Abolfazli in November’s general election.
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a former House member who’s seeking a second six-year term in the Senate, is the clear favorite as she faces a GOP primary challenge from Tres Wittum, a former state Senate policy analyst who came in last in the 5th Congressional District primary two years ago that was won by Ogles.
There’s a crowded primary field for the Democratic Senate nomination.
There are also primaries for seats in the state Senate and House, where Republicans hold super majorities in the red-dominated state.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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