President Biden and Vice President Harris will hold separate bilateral meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, as U.S. leaders say they are in the final stages of closing a deal that will pause the fighting in Gaza and release hostages.

The meetings, part of Netanyahu’s hours-long visit to the White House, come a day after the Israeli leader delivered a defiant speech to a joint meeting of Congress. Netanyahu rejected criticisms from international organizations about Israel’s conduct, asserted without evidence that Iran was funding pro-Palestinian protesters and vowed Israel would settle for nothing less than “total victory.”

Biden, who announced this weekend he would drop out of the presidential race, has signaled ending the war in Gaza remains a top priority in his final months in office. He has repeatedly said a cease-fire deal was imminent, even though the U.S. and other negotiating partners have been frustrated for months by the lack of an agreement. The first phase would include a six-week pause in fighting and the release of some hostages. The second phase of the deal would continue a cessation of hostilities while Hamas and Israel negotiate a permanent cease-fire, determining the withdrawing of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Biden’s meeting on Thursday will be his first face-to-face encounter with Netanyahu since the president traveled to Israel in the days after the Oct. 7 attacks.

“I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war,” Biden said Wednesday during his Oval Office address.

Biden tightly embraced Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, but as Netanyahu has continued an all-out assault on Gaza, he has become more critical, calling on Israeli leaders to allow more aid into the territory, where nearly 2 million civilians are suffering from widespread starvation and a collapsed health-care system.

A senior U.S. administration official said Biden and Netanyahu will discuss a range of issues, including ongoing threats to Israel, developments in Gaza, the humanitarian situation and the ongoing negotiations over releasing hostages and implementing a cease-fire. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the president’s meeting, reiterated that the framework of a deal is largely agreed upon, and the leaders are now focused on the implementation phase.

The official, who did not watch Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and declined to comment on it, expressed optimism that a deal remains within reach, though refused to put a timeline on when it would be completed.

After Biden and Netanyahu hold a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, the two leaders will meet with families of Americans held hostage by Hamas. By including the families, the White House is hoping to elevate their message that Netanyahu needs to stop making new demands and agree to the hostage cease-fire deal on the table, officials familiar with the matter said.

Netanyahu’s government is negotiating for the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages, though of that number, many are believed to be dead.

“Not bringing home the hostages will amount to a total failure,” Jon Polin, the father of American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, told The Washington Post in an interview.

Polin reiterated that message to Netanyahu during a meeting with the Israeli prime minister earlier this week at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Netanyahu’s message to the families then was that his government is moving nearer to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal, a message they said was unsatisfactory.

“He did say we’re getting closer. I have no idea if he thought that that would appease us but for most of us, it did not,” Polin said.

Since the start of the Gaza War, Netanyahu has come under criticism for putting his military objectives related to the total destruction of Hamas ahead of the urgency of securing the release of hostages.

Earlier this summer, the United States placed blame on Hamas for adding new demands to the deal, but that outlook shifted earlier this month when Netanyahu directed Mossad Chief David Barnea to place new demands that moved the goal posts, said diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

Under the new conditions, Israel would not agree to withdraw its forces from the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egyptian border, the diplomats said. Israel would also not allow unrestricted access for Gazans seeking to return to their homes in the north — insisting that its forces be permitted to establish checkpoints to monitor the movement of the displaced.

A senior administration official said on Wednesday that the United States was looking for both Israel and Hamas to move on certain things to conclude a deal, but he did not spell out the details.

The State Department has used much less confrontational language toward Israel when describing its negotiating position in the talks.

When asked about Israel’s negotiating position, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We have been engaged with them over the course of the past few weeks trying to bridge the final differences. And what they tell us and what they continue to show is that they are working to try to get a deal.”

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

Vice President Harris addressed an influential teachers union in Houston on Thursday morning before traveling to Washington to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the afternoon, a preview of the delicate political and policy terrain she must navigate during her shortened and frenetic presidential campaign.

Calling herself a “proud product of public education,” Harris extolled the “noble” work of educators and attacked Republicans who have called for arming teachers to prevent school shootings.

“Just think about it. We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books,” she said during the speech, which wrapped in a range of issues such as collective bargaining, abortion, gun violence and same-sex marriage under the broader theme of “fundamental freedoms.”

The address to the American Federation of Teachers, a 1.8-million-member group that has endorsed Harris’s candidacy, was the latest in a string of events that have demonstrated support for her bid to defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump. After a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday and a speech to thousands of Black women at a sorority convention in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Harris’s speech to teachers was yet another foray into friendly territory with large, adoring crowds. The events, featuring boisterous crowds, have showcased how swiftly she has united much of the Democratic Party behind her candidacy since she jumped into the presidential race on Sunday.

However, after Harris’s trip back to Washington, her planned a one-on-one meeting with Netanyahu is likely to be a more staid setting. In her first sit-down with a foreign leader since launching her campaign for president, Harris will have to confront the rifts that have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war in Gaza, which she has often described with forceful and empathetic language about Palestinian suffering. Voters who had vowed not to vote for Biden over his handling of the war will be watching Harris closely as she publicly deals with a thorny foreign policy matter for the first time since Biden’s exit from the presidential race.

Earlier Thursday, Harris released her campaign launch video in an attempt to introduce herself to the country during the 100-plus-day sprint to Election Day. The video aimed to draw a sharp distinction with Trump and amplify the pro-freedom theme that has become central to Harris’s pitch.

“In this election, we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris says in the video, which campaign officials said would air across social media platforms beginning Thursday. “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate. But us? We choose something different. We choose freedom.”

Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have criticized Harris more directly in recent days, aiming to define her before she has an opportunity to introduce herself more broadly to the public.

At a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump referred to Harris as a “lunatic” and “incompetent,” attacking her on immigration and painting her as incredibly liberal.

“If Kamala Harris gets in, she would be the most radical, far-left extremist ever to occupy the White House, times 10,” Trump said.

Harris’s campaign shot back Thursday by describing Trump as a “78-year-old criminal,” responding to the former president’s appearance on Fox News, in which he accused Harris of staging a “palace coup” against Biden.

“After watching Fox News this morning we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok?” the campaign said, offering Harris as “an alternative.”

Harris has largely focused on domestic policy in her appearances this week, while Biden has indicated he would spend the final six months of his term leaning into foreign policy objectives.

But groups like the American Federation of Teachers, while mostly focused on issues like educator pay, recruitment, school funding and collective bargaining, have also taken interest in the war in Gaza, calling for a cease-fire and debating whether to divest from companies linked to Israel’s military campaign. The conflict has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and created a humanitarian calamity in which thousands of children have been out of school for months.

Biden also plans to meet with Netanyahu on Thursday and speak privately with the families of hostages who were among the 250 taken captive during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which Israel estimates killed about 1,200 people. During an address to the American people on Wednesday evening, Biden pledged to use his remaining months to bring resolution to the long-running conflict.

“I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war,” he said.

Hours earlier, Netanyahu had delivered a defiant speech to Congress — one that Harris skipped — in which he described pro-Palestinian protesters as “useful idiots.” Thousands of protesters took to the streets to decry Netanyahu’s visit, and some burned an American flag near Union Station in Washington.

Harris issued a statement Thursday condemning the protesters who engaged in property destruction or hateful rhetoric, saying the flag “should never be desecrated in that way.”

“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation,” she said.

Harris steered clear of the issue during her speech in Houston, instead speaking out in favor of unions and the public education system and contrasting her positions with Trump’s views.

Hundreds of teachers and other attendees lined up at the American Federation of Teachers national educators’ union convention in Houston’s cavernous downtown convention center to hear Harris speak.

Some wore Biden-Harris shirts and said they were excited to hear her speak about education, particularly public schools and teacher recruitment. “It’s a special opportunity, being part of the democratic process,” said Eric Sutz, 45, an elementary school teacher from Long Island. Sutz said he’s an independent but a Harris supporter, and was wearing a Biden-Harris T-shirt. He was pleased to see so many Democrats endorsing Harris. “It should be whittling down to the best people,” he said, and if Harris becomes the nominee, he considers that “the best outcome.”

In describing various freedoms she says are at risk in the coming election, Harris has often listed key issues that Democrats hope will drive voter turnout, including gun safety and abortion.

“The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead,” Harris says in her campaign launch video. “The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body.”

At one point in the ad, when Harris says that “no one is above the law,” an image of Trump’s mug shot flashes on the screen. But during her speech in Houston, she did not mention Trump’s felony convictions, a departure from recent events in which she has contrasted her record as a prosecutor with the former president’s long list of indictments.

Harris is continuing to ramp up her travel schedule. She plans to hold a campaign event in Atlanta on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the trip who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview an event that has not been publicly announced. The visit will be Harris’s first campaign stop in the battleground state of Georgia as a 2024 presidential candidate.

Although Georgia was once more reliably Republican, the state helped deliver the presidency to Biden in 2020. That year, Georgia voters also elected two Democrats to the Senate.

Maegan Vasquez contributed to this report.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) announced Tuesday that he plans to resign effective Aug. 20, creating a Senate vacancy in the wake of his federal bribery conviction.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) subsequently said he plans to exercise his duty as the state’s governor to make a temporary appointment to fill the Senate vacancy “to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve.”

At a news conference on Wednesday, the governor called Menendez’s resignation “a sad end to what was a very productive career in public service.”

Senate resignations stemming from ethical scandals are rare. Only four other senators left the chamber in the post-World War II era under corruption clouds, the most recent being Al Franken (D-Minn.) in 2017.

Now, Murphy must pick an appointee to fill the position until Jan. 3 — the end of Menendez’s Senate term. Here are some of the prospective candidates who have been floated to temporarily replace Menendez in the Senate.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.)

In June, Kim won the New Jersey Senate Democratic primary for Menendez’s seat. If Kim wins in November, he will replace Menendez in the Senate for a full term beginning in 2025.

Kim, a former State Department official who joined the House in 2018, has indicated that he would accept the temporary appointment to the Senate if the governor asks. But the Republican candidate running against Kim in the Senate race, Curtis Bashaw, has urged Murphy to “appoint a caretaker to this seat, as is the long-standing New Jersey tradition, and not give either [Senate] candidate the advantage of incumbency in this election.”

Kim’s potential appointment is also complicated by the fact that he ran in the competitive Senate Democratic primary against the governor’s wife, Tammy Murphy.

Tammy Murphy, who dropped out of the Senate race before primary votes were cast, has also taken herself out of consideration for the temporary Senate appointment.

Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way

Way was appointed by Murphy to be the state’s lieutenant governor in 2023, one month after the death of the then-lieutenant governor, Sheila Oliver. She is also New Jersey’s Secretary of State.

She previously was an administrative law judge for the state of New Jersey. Among her other local New Jersey government roles, in 2006 Way was elected to the Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders — a term in the state that was a precursor to what’s now referred to as county commissioners.

Patricia Campos-Medina

Campos-Medina is a labor activist who serves as executive director of The Worker Institute at Cornell University. She told Politico that she would be willing to serve if the governor asked.

As one of the Democratic candidates who ran in the Senate primary in New Jersey. she came in second in the race, after Kim, with 16 percent of the vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas

Salas, who was appointed to her current role in 2011, was floated as a potential Senate contender last year. She’s a former Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey president and federal magistrate judge.

In 2020, Salas and her family were the target of an attack at their home by a self-declared men’s rights activist who had filed a case before Salas. Her son was killed and her husband was critically wounded in an attack. Following the incident, Salas called for tighter restrictions on the personal information of judges.

Nina Mitchell Wells

Wells was New Jersey’s Secretary of State from 2006 to 2010 under then-Gov. Jon Corzine (D). She’s married to Ted Wells, a prominent defense attorney who has mentored House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.)

Watson Coleman has been in Congress since 2015 and, before that, she served in the New Jersey General Assembly.

When asked about the prospect of the Senate appointment, Watson Coleman’s spokesperson, Mike Shanahan, told the New York Times that she “would gladly continue to serve New Jersey in whatever capacity is asked of her.” But Shanahan conceded that the congresswoman “doesn’t expect that call.”

The federal judge overseeing Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy proceedings threatened to force the former New York mayor to testify under oath about the state of his finances after Giuliani failed to explain how he plans to pay roughly $350,000 in administrative fees incurred in the case.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in the Southern District of New York said in a written order Thursday that he is holding off on finalizing his decision to dismiss Giuliani’s bankruptcy case and may decide to keep the proceedings going after Giuliani claimed “he does not have the ability to pay such fees” — which must be resolved before the case can be closed.

But Lane, who has been critical of Giuliani’s lack of financial transparency throughout the proceedings, was skeptical of the former mayor’s claim that he doesn’t have the money, citing Giuliani’s ownership of two apartments that are of “considerable value.”

“What little we know about the Debtor’s financial situation makes his stance here more troubling,” Lane wrote. “Even assuming that the Debtor does not have the funds on hand to immediately pay these bankruptcy expenses, he certainly has considerable assets upon which he can draw to pay such expenses.”

Echoing his remarks in a hearing last week, Lane said the “most obvious path forward is to initiate proceedings to assess the details” of Giuliani’s “current financial circumstances” with an evidentiary hearing that would potentially include “the disclosure of documents” and “testimony under oath” by Giuliani.

A spokesman for Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The order comes two weeks after Lane threw out Giuliani’s bankruptcy case, paving the way for numerous creditors, including two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation claim against the former mayor, to pursue and potentially seize his assets.

But the case can’t be dismissed until Giuliani explains how he plans to pay fees in the case, including expenses his creditors incurred when they retained an investigative accounting firm made up of former CIA and FBI officials to probe his finances.

That hiring came after Giuliani repeatedly failed to fully disclose his cash and assets, including information about his businesses and other holdings that is required in bankruptcy proceedings — a lack of transparency the judge has called “troubling.”

On July 12, an attorney for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, former Georgia election workers Giuliani falsely accused of helping to steal the 2020 presidential election, filed a motion asking the judge to order Giuliani to immediately turn over all of the cash in his bank account. They also pressed that Giuliani be ordered to sign over control of his New York apartment to a trustee appointed by the group to manage its sale — all to resolve costs related to the bankruptcy proceedings.

Lane declined to immediately take up the issue, calling it “premature.” But in a hearing last week, Rachel Strickland, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, urged the judge to take action quickly, accusing Giuliani of financial “shenanigans” and continuing to spend freely without authorization from the court.

Strickland said records from the only bank account Giuliani had disclosed to creditors showed that in recent days he had burned through more than half of the $60,000 in the account — including $39,000 in fees related to his Florida condo and New York apartment. Giuliani also spent money on travel and other expenses related to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, she claimed.

Giuliani did not appear at the virtual hearing. And his attorneys, Heath Berger and Gary Fischoff, told Lane they’d had trouble reaching their client — an answer that frustrated Lane, who ordered them to file a plan by noon last Thursday about how Giuliani would pay. He warned if they didn’t, he’d summon Giuliani to the “witness box” to explain himself.

But at the deadline, there was only a letter from Berger, who told the judge that Giuliani’s legal team had been in “extensive negotiations” with attorneys for the creditors but there was not yet an agreement. “The parties are still talking, and I am hopeful a joint resolution will be forthcoming shortly,” he wrote.

A short time later, Strickland faxed her own letter in challenging Berger’s claim of “extensive negotiations.” “Much of the day has been spent with Debtor’s counsel trying to reach his client,” she wrote.

The next day, Berger filed a letter disputing Strickland’s claim, telling the judge he “had been in contact all day” with Giuliani, who had authorized him to make “numerous offers to try to resolve” the dispute over court fees. The letter did not say what those offers were.

On Tuesday, attorneys for Giuliani sent another letter to the court defending their client’s spending on travel to Milwaukee for the GOP convention. The filing included a letter from My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, a fellow election denier and Trump associate, who told the court his media company, FrankSpeech, paid for Giuliani’s “first class airfare and hotel” for the RNC.

Lindell had previously been subpoenaed by creditors in the Giuliani’s bankruptcy case amid questions about Giuliani’s finances and income.

The back-and-forth comes nearly seven months after Giuliani sought bankruptcy protection after he was ordered to immediately pay millions in damages to Freeman and Moss for the false claims he made about them in the aftermath of the 2020 election when he was serving as former president Donald Trump’s personal attorney.

In court documents, Giuliani has listed roughly $153 million in debts to at least 20 people and businesses, including Freeman and Moss. A list of top creditors filed in February said Giuliani owes more than $3.7 million in unpaid legal fees to three law firms — though he is disputing some of those bills — and more than $1 million in state and federal taxes.

The former federal prosecutor has claimed about $11 million in assets — including an estimated $5.6 million New York apartment and his Palm Beach, Fla., condo, which is valued at $3.5 million. While Giuliani has put his New York property on the market, he has so far successfully resisted selling his Florida home, with one of his lawyers claiming the sale could render the 80-year-old former mayor “homeless.”

A financial disclosure report filed last month said Giuliani had less than $100,000 in the bank at the end of May and was funding his living expenses through a rapidly diminishing retirement account. But creditors have repeatedly complained that Giuliani has not filed a complete picture of his net worth and have accused him of hiding money and assets.

In recent weeks, Giuliani repeatedly shifted legal strategies in the case. In December, he sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which allows an individual to reorganize and file a plan to pay off debts. But on July 1, Giuliani changed course, asking a judge to reclassify his case under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would hand control of his personal and business finances to an outside trustee to liquidate. The request prompted immediate objections from the election workers and other creditors who accused Giuliani of more delay tactics.

On July 10, an hour before a hearing on the matter, Giuliani abruptly changed position yet again, asking the judge to dismiss the bankruptcy case altogether. While some of the creditors pressed the judge to appoint a trustee, Freeman and Moss supported the dismissal and Lane ultimately agreed — saying there was no evidence that Giuliani’s “uncooperative conduct will change.”

A dismissal would allow Freeman and Moss and other creditors to pursue legal remedies to collect money owed to them by Giuliani. It also allows other pending lawsuits against the former mayor that had been frozen by the bankruptcy proceeding to resume, including defamation suits by the voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic and a sexual harassment and wage theft claim by former Giuliani associate Nicole Dunphy.

All are part of a committee of “unsecured creditors” that had sought relief in the bankruptcy case.

But last week, Lane threatened to hold off on finalizing that order to dismiss Giuliani’s bankruptcy, to press him to pay the creditor costs first — a requirement by law but also an acknowledgment that it may be the only money that any of the creditors see in the near future as they seek to collect what Giuliani owes them.

“There are a lot of bad things that can happen,” Lane warned Giuliani’s attorneys if their client didn’t comply. “There are a lot of things your client doesn’t want to happen that will happen.”

On Thursday, Lane reiterated that warning in writing and said the court may have to reconsider whether closing Giuliani’s bankruptcy case is the “appropriate course of action.”

The judge suggested he could re-entertain the appointment of a trustee who would oversee Giuliani’s finances and “promptly liquidate” his assets but said he wanted to hear from attorneys for Giuliani and his creditors by next week before “determining the path forward.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that she would support the creation of a committee of judges to examine potential violations of the Supreme Court’s new ethics code, speaking out as President Biden and others are increasingly calling for reform at the high court.

In an interview before a crowd of judges and lawyers at a judicial conference, Kagan suggested that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. could appoint an outside panel of highly respected, experienced judges to review allegations of wrongdoing by the nine justices.

Last fall, in response to criticism from Democratic lawmakers and outside experts about perceived ethics violations, Roberts announced that the court for the first time had agreed to abide by an ethics code specific to the justices. But the policy did not include a way to examine alleged misconduct, or to clear or sanction justices who might violate the rules. Since then, a new round of ethical questions, and the court’s rulings this term, have increased calls for change.

Kagan said the court’s code of conduct, embraced by all the justices, is a “good one,” but said criticism about the inability to enforce it is “fair.”

“Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this one, this set of rules, does not,” she said, adding that “however hard it is, we could and should try to figure out some mechanism for doing this.”

Kagan emphasized that the high court does not have such a plan in the works and that she was speaking only for herself.

“This is one person’s view, and that’s all it is,” she said.

Kagan, one of three liberals on the high court, spoke at the 9th Circuit conference less than a month after the conclusion of a momentous Supreme Court term in which the conservative majority greatly expanded presidential power while making it more difficult for government agencies to regulate vast areas of American life.

The court split along ideological lines in two major decisions: granting former president Donald Trump — and all future presidents — broad immunity from prosecution for official actions, and overturning a 40-year-old precedent that had required judges to defer to government agency experts to determine how to implement ambiguous legislation passed by Congress.

In the case involving Trump, two justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.— dismissed calls to recuse themselves because of perceived potential conflicts of interest involving political activity by their wives.

Public confidence in the high court is at historic lows. Seven in 10 Americans think the justices make decisions based on their own ideologies, rather than serving as an independent check on the government, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll released in June.

Biden is preparing to endorse proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, The Washington Post reported this month. He is also considering whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional officeholders.

In his speech from the Oval Office Wednesday night, Biden said the issue would be a priority during his final months in office. “I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform, because this is critical to our democracy,” Biden said.

Many conservatives have opposed such changes, however, accusing liberals of trying to disrupt a court that has shifted dramatically to the right with the addition of three justices nominated by Trump. The changes Biden is talking about would be highly unlikely to pass unless Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Welcome to The Campaign Moment, your guide to the biggest developments in a stubborn 2024 race that’s showing some signs of being shaken up.

(Make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter here. And also listen to Campaign Moment podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify and elsewhere. We had a brand-new episode Wednesday on Kamala Harris’s VP search!)

The big moment

It’s the question that’s been on everyone’s minds since 1:46 p.m. Eastern time Sunday: How much did the 2024 election actually just change?

A literal criminal conviction of one of the candidates, after all, had a muted impact. And President Biden’s stumbling June 27 debate performance appeared to move the needle only slightly against him — often within polls’ margin of error.

Well, we’ve now got some real data on the race, post-Biden’s exit from the presidential contest. And the short answer is: The switch to Vice President Harris appears to have improved Democrats’ chances modestly. But it’s still very early to draw too many conclusions.

On the plus side for Harris, she appears to be pulling in some key, Democratic-leaning voter groups that had soured on a Biden-led Democratic ticket, and her poor image seems to have improved. She’s also gained at least somewhat in most polls. On the plus side for Trump, his image numbers appear as good as they’ve been in a long time, potentially narrowing Harris’s opening.

The toplines

While an NPR/PBS/Marist College poll showed a slight gain for Trump, three others this week showed the Democratic ticket gaining at least a few points. Democrats gained four points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, three points in a CNN poll Wednesday and five points in a New York Times/Siena College poll Thursday.

All show the national race is now neck-and-neck — between a three-point Trump lead and a two-point Harris lead.

The Marist poll was probably a bit of an outlier at the time — it actually showed Biden ahead by two points earlier this month — and it’s worth noting that the pollster changed its methods for the quick-turnaround poll. So the results aren’t strictly comparable. The other surveys, meanwhile, suggest some movement toward Harris.

And those aren’t the only encouraging signs for Harris and the Democrats.

The key groups

One of the big ones is young voters. The CNN poll showed the Democratic ticket gaining five points among voters under 30 since April and June. The Times/Siena poll showed it gaining 11 points since earlier this month. The Marist poll showed fewer young people ditching the ticket for third-party candidates in a crowded race.

Another is Black and Latino voters. The CNN poll showed Democrats gaining seven and six points with those groups, respectively. The Marist poll showed Trump’s vote share among non-White voters dropping by eight points. (But the Times/Siena poll actually showed Trump gaining among Black voters.)

These are important numbers, because these were perhaps the three most troubling groups for a Biden-led Democratic ticket. The groups have favored Democrats by substantial margins for decades, but Biden was performing historically poorly among them. And notably, the Marist poll showed significant increases in enthusiasm among all three — higher than most any other group.

Beyond that, Harris appears to have gained some popularity. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed her image going from 14 points underwater (39 percent favorable, 53 percent unfavorable) last week to just six points underwater (44 to 50). The Times/Siena poll showed her favorable rating rising 10 points since February. And the CNN poll showed her with her highest favorable rating since 2021.

The caveats

But even that latter number was far from sterling — 39 percent favorable vs. 52 percent unfavorable. For all the Democratic talk about the game being changed, they still have a likely nominee who is more disliked than liked in all of these polls.

There are also conflicting findings on how older and White voters might have shifted, raising the possibility that Harris could lose ground with some voters while gaining with others.

And in the meantime, Trump’s own image appears to be improving. The CNN poll (43 percent favorable) and a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll (40 percent) showed more Americans had a favorable opinion of Trump than at any point since 2020. And a Quinnipiac University poll (46 percent) showed that number higher than at any point since Trump launched his first campaign in 2015.

It’s possible that’s temporary and owes to the recent assassination attempt and last week’s Republican National Convention. (Conventions usually provide a boost.) But so too is it possible that Harris is benefiting from her own honeymoon period that might not hold up over time as scrutiny increases — particularly of the left-wing policies she embraced in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

If there’s a plus side for Harris, it’s that she’s less defined and has more room for growth. For now, she’s benefited from that and appears to have expanded the appeal of the Democratic ticket. Democrats have gone from fearing that 2024 is lost to at least having reason to believe.

But the 2024 script has proved difficult to rewrite before. And we’re dealing with lots of significant factors converging all at once. That means it’ll take some time to shake out.

Another moment you might have missed

There has been debate within the Democratic Party about how much they should focus on Trump’s criminal conviction, which as noted doesn’t appear to have affected the race much thus far.

The early signs are that Harris intends to drive it home early and often:

• The campaign’s first ad, released Thursday morning on social media, features a reference to how “no one is above the law,” while images of Trump’s mug shot and headlines about his Manhattan conviction flash on screen.
• The campaign later Thursday put out a press release off Trump’s Fox News interview titled, “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance.”
• In the most oft-quoted and -clipped line from Harris’s presidential campaign debut Tuesday, she prominently featured her time as a prosecutor and California attorney general. “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” Harris said, as the crowd began to pick up on where she was going. “So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

While Biden made reference to Trump’s conviction at times, and the campaign even ran some advertising featuring it, it hasn’t been a huge centerpiece of the campaign so far.

Harris stepping forward could change the dynamic somewhat. She’s more active on the campaign trail, for one. But more than that, it’s arguably a better line of attack with a former prosecutor atop the ticket and given these issues were somewhat uneasy for Biden to talk about, possibly due to his son’s own recent conviction.

A momentous number

29 percent, 32 percent, 33 percent

Those are the percentages of respondents who said Biden should resign from the presidency right now in the CNN, Marist and Reuters/Ipsos polls. In each, around twice as many or more said he should stay.

That’s notable for a couple reasons.

One is that after Biden pulled out, Republicans set about arguing that he must resign, too. Another is that a huge majority of Americans have said for a long time that Biden is too old and not mentally sharp enough to serve as president.

The lesson: Americans seem to see a difference between Biden not being up to the job for four more years and being able to serve out the next six months.

It’s also, notably, far lower than the percentage of Americans who said Trump should resign at various points in his presidency. After Jan. 6, as many as 53 percent of Americans said Trump should resign. And half said he should resign early in his term, amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Take a moment to read:

• “‘Not going to be nice’: Trump, Harris trade sharp attacks as 2024 race resets” (Washington Post)
• “Biden seeks to define his legacy in address explaining his campaign exit” (Washington Post)
• “What key-state voters think about Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden” (Washington Post)
• “Why almost everyone assumes Kamala Harris has to pick a White man as VP” (Washington Post)
• “Could Republicans get buyer’s remorse with JD Vance?” (Washington Post)
• “Kamala the Prosecutor” (The Atlantic)
• “Biden Lost His Voice, Then His Power” (Politico)

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s falsifying business records conviction should not be reversed because of the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity ruling for reasons including a wealth of incriminating evidence, prosecutors said in a court filing made public Thursday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision giving broad meaning to presidential immunity involving formal duties does not have any bearing on the May jury verdict that found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts for illegally trying to conceal the nature of a hush money payment to an adult-film actress shortly before the 2016 election.

Trump’s lawyers have argued that jurors were improperly exposed to witness testimony and records that were generated in 2017, his first year in office, that were extensions of the former president’s official duties. Prosecutors said the nation’s highest court did not hand down any finding that should disturb the verdict or see the case dismissed.

“The Supreme Court’s recent ruling thus has nothing to say about defendant’s conviction,’ lawyers for Bragg’s office wrote. “But even if that decision required the exclusion of all of the evidence that defendant cites here, there would still need be no basis for disturbing the verdict because of the other overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt.’

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan delayed Trump’s sentencing more than two months until Sept. 18 to give defense lawyers time to formally argue that evidence used by Bragg’s trial team was not admissible under the immunity doctrine which prohibits prosecution based on a president’s official acts.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its controversial ruling July 1. The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that a president can’t face prosecution for official acts or through the use of evidence related to official conduct. Private conduct is not covered by that protection.

With the new timeline, the Republican presidential nominee could receive a jail sentence less than two months before the November election. He could also get a non-jail sentence or a sentence that is stayed pending the outcome of his appeal.

If Merchan upholds the verdict, the matter could be locked up in appeals until well after the election. An appeals court could stay enforcement of Trump’s sentencing.

Defense lawyers have argued that a significant amount of the evidence used against Trump at trial involved presidential actions and should have been excluded. The indictment should be dismissed altogether, they said, because the district attorney’s case has been intertwined with prohibited evidence since the case was presented to a grand jury last year.

The defense argued recently that Bragg’s office relied heavily “on official-acts evidence, including witness testimony regarding events in the Oval Office that [the prosecution] described as ‘devastating.’ ”

Bragg’s reply to Trump’s motion said “evidence that [Trump] claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty of all 34 felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

A federal court judge has already ruled that Bragg’s case against Trump had nothing to do with his presidency. U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein last year denied Trump’s bid to have the case transferred to federal court partially on that basis.

Separately, a New York civil judge on Thursday refused to step down from oversight of a wide-ranging business fraud case that resulted in a $450 million finding against Trump and his company. Judge Arthur Engoron defended himself against a claim by a lawyer not involved in the case, who told a news outlet that he had influence over Engoron.

Engoron wrote in his ruling that the attorney subjected him to a “90-second, unsolicited diatribe about a law” in the courthouse lobby and it had no impact on his bench trial verdict.

CHARLOTTE — In his first mention of the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Donald Trump told a Wednesday night crowd here that “KAH-mala” Harris was the “new victim we have to defeat.”

A short time later, tying her to the war in Ukraine, he went with a different variation of her first name: “KUH-mala.”

And about halfway through his speech, he promised to name migrant crime after “Kah-MAL-a.”

Again and again at Trump’s campaign rally, the former president invoked her by first name. His 90-minute speech included about four dozen references — and in many of those, he botched the pronunciation. It wasn’t a first for Trump — he similarly botched it in 2020, even cracking jokes in the process.

With Vice President Harris now expected to head the Democratic ticket this fall, political figures are saying “Kamala” more and more. Often, instead of the correct “COMMA-la,” they’re saying it wrong.

Trump and other prominent Republicans are the most public offenders, with Harris’s supporters accusing them of intentionally bungling the pronunciation or using it as a racist dog whistle about the first Black woman and the first Asian American woman named to a major party’s ticket.

At the GOP national convention last week, nearly half of the speakers who uttered Harris’s first name blew it. Bob Unanue, the chief executive of Goya Foods, mockingly uttered “Que mala” — which translates as “so bad” in Spanish. Among the speakers who offered a correct pronunciation: former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and Usha Vance, the wife of Trump running mate JD Vance — both of whom are Indian American.

Harris’s campaign has placed a special emphasis on her first name — which in Sanskrit means “lotus flower,” an important symbol in Indian culture — by relabeling “BidenHarrisHQ” social media channels to “KamalaHQ” and handing out white and navy blue signs that declare “KAMALA” in a bold san-serif on one side and “USA” on the other.

Asked Wednesday about Trump’s latest flub and whether it was intentional, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung texted “Hahahahaha!”

“Kamala Harris has even pronounced her name in different ways,” Cheung added. When asked for evidence to support that claim, he did not respond.

Aimee Allison, founder of She The People, a group that supports women of color seeking political office, said Trump’s voters have hardened to the rhetoric he uses, but it has the potential to turn off others or trigger people’s feelings about not belonging.

“He’s going to continue his strategy of name calling and dehumanization, to attempt to rally his base, and this is just another way he’s actually message testing,” she said. “Mispronouncing a name is a common tactic used by people who try to do what we call other, to other someone.”

Other women of color, such as Haley, have used Anglicized names to appeal to a broader base of voters. She was born as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa but adopted her middle name as her first before she went into politics and then dropped her maiden name because it “wouldn’t fit on a yard sign,” as she told the Charlotte Observer in 2010. Yet neither moved stopped Trump from repeatedly referring to her as “Nimbra” when the two faced off in the primaries this cycle.

Trump also taunted his immediate predecessor in the White House, referring to the 44th president as “Barack Hussein Obama” with an emphasis on that middle name. He also shared false conspiracy theories that Harris and Obama, as well as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have questionable citizenship claims — despite each having been born in the United States.

The crowd at Wednesday’s rally in Charlotte jeered Trump’s repeated mentions of Harris. Afterward, some said they didn’t notice him saying her name wrong. Others excused him.

The Republican candidate for state education superintendent, Michele Morrow, who has made her own controversial statements calling for violence against Democrats, said she didn’t hear any mispronunciation by Trump. And, like Cheung, she claimed Harris had stumbled over her own name in the past.

“I’ve heard she actually used to pronounce her name ‘Camela’ like “Pamela” back in the day,” she said, citing a local Caribbean newspaper that ran an incorrect headline of “It’s Kamala, Rhymes With Pamela” in 2020. Pressed further, Morrow blamed a friend for telling her it was Harris who got her own name wrong.

Trump’s incendiary attacks aren’t just happening on a national scale. Nadia Brown, a Georgetown University political scientist, said that she has heard similar stories while holding focus groups with Black women in politics. But Brown said Harris is pushing back in a unique way by fully embracing her first name.

“This is a conscious decision to use her full ethnic name,” she said. “Kamala is [in] a league of her own compared to her peers.”

The Kamala Harris ad blitz has launched.

Future Forward, the largest Democratic-leaning super PAC, will spend $50 million on advertising in six states over the next three weeks to introduce the vice president and boost her candidacy before the Democratic nominating convention in Chicago begins, the group announced Thursday.

American Bridge 21st Century, the second-largest independent advertiser for the Democratic presidential campaign, will restart its advertising Friday in the northern battlegrounds of Michigan, continuing a direct-to-camera testimonial campaign that began in May before taking a break, according to a person familiar with that spending, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the plans. Women Vote, the ad spending arm of the Democratic-leaning Emily’s List, also announced on Thursday a $2 million digital effort for Harris aimed at younger women in four of the states.

“We’re ready to hit the ground running to make sure voters know that Kamala Harris will be a President that fights for them,” Future Forward President Chauncey McLean said in a statement Thursday. “She is focused on improving the lives of all Americans, while Donald Trump is only focused on himself.”

The ads will begin airing Saturday, with a positive biographical spot about Harris.

That ad describes Harris as “the district attorney who protected children from sexual predators,” “the attorney general who stood up to the big banks to protect homeowners and won,” “the senator who fought to defend a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions,” and “the vice president who fought to cap the price of insulin at $35 a month.”

The Harris campaign also launched its first ad on Thursday, aiming to draw a sharp distinction with Republican nominee Donald Trump and amplify the pro-freedom theme that has become central to her pitch.

“In this election, we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris says in the ad. “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate. But us? We choose something different. We choose freedom.”

The ad backup for Harris counters a short-term advantage that Republicans have had in ad spending in swing states since Sunday, when President Biden announced he was dropping out of the race and endorsed Harris. MAGA Inc., a group supporting Trump, spent $2.9 million on ads between Sunday and Thursday, according to AdImpact, a tracking firm. That included a spot alleging that “Kamala was in on it. She covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline,” before blaming her for increased immigration and inflation.

The Harris and Biden operation spent just under $2 million during the same period, according to AdImpact. The Harris campaign has separately launched a massive digital ad campaign through her affiliated victory fund to raise money this week, spending $4.8 million over five days, according to Ad Impact. In the five days before Biden’s exit, the same victory fund spent $1.6 million on digital ads.

MAGA Inc. is also adding $32 million in ads attacking Harris between now and Labor Day, bringing the group’s planned total for that period to $72 million, according to a super PAC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans. (The official later said the correct number is $70 million.) Politico first reported the new MAGA Inc. spending Thursday.

The attack ads will be focused in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, the MAGA Inc. official said. Spots are expected to criticize Harris’s handling of the southern border — for instance, her past comments that “the border is secure” — as well as her record as a prosecutor.

Future Forward’s ad-makers have produced more than 50 potential spots for Harris since Sunday, said a person familiar with the strategy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Those spots will form the basis for the coming campaign, with more than half of the spending occurring alongside Olympics coverage, when the group’s strategists expect many of their targeted voters, including those less engaged with politics, will be watching.

Future Forward announced a $250 million post-convention advertising commitment in January, the largest single purchase in political history. But the group, which spends through a committee called FF PAC, did not rule out additional spending, either before or after the convention. Discussions of launching ads earlier in July were put on hold after Biden stumbled in a June 27 presidential debate, raising questions about whether he would stay in the race.

Future Forward USA Action, an affiliate of Future Forward that does not disclose its donors, has already been one of the biggest spenders of the cycle. The group spent nearly $25 million on broadcast, cable and digital spots last year on its own and $40 million in partnership with Climate Power. Those spots focused on Biden’s policy achievements as president.

Women Vote released two ads on Thursday, both contrasting Harris’s work to ensure abortion access with Trump’s record on the issue. American Bridge has said it plans to spend $140 million in the northern battleground states through November on voter testimonial ads warning about another Trump term in office. The ads focus on attacking Trump for on such issues as democracy, his criminal convictions and members of his own administration distancing themselves from him.

Hannah Knowles and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.