Election 2024 live updates: RFK Jr. suspends his presidential campaign and rallies with trump in Arizona

trump introduced RFK Jr. by saying Kennedy had run "an extraordinary campaign" for president.

"I know because he also went after me a couple of times," trump said. "I didn’t like it."

trump said Kennedy was "brilliant" even as he noted, "We’ve been a little bit on the opposite side of the equation."

Kennedy also alluded to their differences but discussed policies where he said they're in agreement, citing agricultural and foreign policy as areas of common ground.

trump says Kennedy called him after he was the target of an assassination attempt last month at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and pledged that if elected, he would establish "a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts."

"They will be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F Kennedy," trump said, adding that the commission would also be tasked with conducting a "rigorous" review of the attempt on his life on July 13.

Former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Roughly 4,700 documents tied to the case remain partially or heavily redacted more than 60 years later.

RFK Jr. took the stage at a rally trump is holding in Glendale, Arizona, and was greeted by fireworks.

"I mean this sincerely: Had he been allowed to enter the Democratic Primary, easily beaten Joe Biden. But they wouldn’t let him," trump claimed.

"His candidacy has inspired millions and millions of Americans, raised critical issues that have been too long ignored in this country and brought together people from across the political spectrum in a positive campaign grounded in the American values of his father, Robert Kennedy, a great man. And his uncle, President John F. Kennedy," he continued.

The Harris campaign has tapped Yohannes Abraham for a top role in her presidential transition team, according to a source familiar with the planning.

Abraham is the U.S. Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and is based in Indonesia. A U.S. official confirmed that Abraham will conclude his tenure in Jakarta in the coming days.

In his new role, Abraham is expected to have a small team tasked with putting in place operations for Harris to begin building an administration after the election if she defeats trump. The source said that the team will not be making decisions about personnel in a potential administration or developing policies before Election Day.

Read the full story here.

The closing night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday drew about 26.2 million TV viewers, narrowly outpacing the Republican National Convention’s final night, according to data from the media measurement company Nielsen.

The convention’s final night aired across 15 television networks and drew about 820,000 more viewers than the estimated 25.4 million people who watched the final night of the Republican event, Nielsen reported.

Read the full story here.

At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Rep. Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., was met with thunderous applause as he proudly introduced transgender advocate Sarah McBride. 

“She is right now the first trans person ever to address a national convention,” Maloney boasted. “It’s about time.” McBride would go on to become a Delaware state senator, and she’s now poised to be the first transgender member of Congress.

Four years later, Virginia delegate Danica Roem — the first openly transgender person to be seated in a state Legislature — made a groundbreaking appearance during the virtual DNC in 2020.

But at this year’s Democratic convention in Chicago, trans people were notably absent from the stage.

Read the full story here.

The Iranian hacker group accused of targeting both U.S. parties’ presidential campaigns earlier this year also sent WhatsApp messages trying to trick members of the current Biden and former trump administrations, Meta said today.

The campaign began earlier this year and stopped before Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month, a Meta spokesperson said. The Iranian group, often referred to as “Mint Sandstorm,” used fewer than 10 accounts to target several dozen people around the world including public figures and political and diplomatic officials, the spokesperson said.

The WhatsApp accounts claimed to be tech support for companies like AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, according to a Meta blog post. The company learned of the campaign after several people who had received the messages reported them as potential phishing efforts.

Read the full story here.

Five of RFK Jr.'s siblings released a statement on X slamming his decision to endorse trump's campaign.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher Kennedy and Rory Kennedy co-signed the statement, calling RFK Jr.'s decision to endorse trump a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear."

"It is a sad ending to a sad story," the siblings wrote.

ActBlue, the main Democratic online fundraising platform, announced today that grassroots donors contributed more than $100 million during the party's convention this week.

Just during the hour after Harris’ acceptance speech last, donors sent $7.2 million to Democratic candidates through the platform, ActBlue said in a release.

“It is more than clear that Democrats are fired up and ready to win this thing,” said ActBlue president and CEO Regina Wallace-Jones said in a statement. "I’ve never seen anything like it — the momentum to elect Vice President  Kamala Harris, Governor Tim Walz, and Democrats up and down the ballot is remarkable."

In remarks in Las Vegas, trump thanked RFK Jr. for endorsing him shortly before, at a separate event.

"We just had a very nice endorsement from RFK Jr. Bobby. And I’ll be talking about that. We’re heading out right after this. We’re going to be going to Arizona. We’ll be talking about that and a lot of other things too, but I just want to thank everybody and I want to thank Bobby. That was very nice. That was really very — that’s big. He’s a great guy, respected by everybody," he said.

In remarks today announcing that he would drop out of the presidential race, Kennedy said that he would only work to remove his name from ballots in battleground states because he wanted to give his supporters in “red states” and “blue states” a chance to vote for him without “harming or helping.”

Kennedy said that by remaining on the ballot, he could technically be eligible to assume the presidency in 2025 if no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College, a virtual impossibility because it would require him to win Electoral College votes.

RFK Jr. said that trump called him after his assassination attempt in July.

"President trump was anxious to talk to me about chronic disease and other subjects and to explore avenues of cooperation," he said, saying that his aide asked him if he would take a call from the former president.

"President trump telephoned me a few minutes later, and I met with him the following day," he continued. "A few weeks later, I met again with President trump and his family members and closest advisers in Florida in a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party, we talked about Abraham Lincoln's Team of Rivals."

RFK Jr. said in his remarks that he's not terminating his campaign, but suspending it, saying that his name will still appear on the ballot in certain states.

"My name will remain on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President trump or Vice President Harris, and red states, the same will apply. I encourage you to vote for me," he said.

Kennedy added that if enough people vote for him, he could "conceivably still end up in the White House in a contingent election."

He said he will be removing his name from the ballot in 10 states in which he believes his presence on it would be a "spoiler." He didn't specify which states.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bashed the Democratic Party in his remarks, saying that it used to be "the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power" and "the party of democracy."

But, he said, "I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically on the core values that I grew up with. It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech ... and big money."

He said that it "abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president."

"I left the party to run as an independent," he continued. "The mainstream of American politics and journalism derided my decision. Conventional wisdom said that it would be impossible even to get on the ballot as an independent, because each state poses an insurmountable tangle of arbitrary rules for collecting signatures."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign told a Pennsylvania court that he will be endorsing former President Donald trump, ahead of his own Friday afternoon announcement putting to rest a tumultuous independent presidential campaign.

The filing in Pennsylvania, in a lawsuit related to a legal challenge to his own ballot access in the state, said that Kennedy was withdrawing from the ballot “as a result of today’s endorsement of Donald trump for the office of President of the United States.”

The filing came shortly before Kennedy was set to take the stage at an Arizona news conference where he’s expected to formally end his presidential campaign.

Read the full story here.

Nebraska voters will weigh two different abortion-related constitutional amendments this fall, with the secretary of state’s office certifying both measures Friday to appear on the ballot.

“Barring any legal challenges, this November general election ballot will host two ballot measures that appear in direct conflict with each other, which could be the first time this has happened in Nebraska’s history,” Secretary of State Bob Evnen said in a statement.

One proposed amendment, known as “Protect the Right to Abortion,” would amend the state’s constitution to say that “all persons shall have a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.”

The other proposed amendment, called “Protect Women and Children,” bars abortions in the second and third trimesters, except in the case of a medical emergency or when the pregnancy is a result of sexual assault or incest.

Read the full story here.

Fresh off the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Democrats are blanketing swing states with digital billboards that include an image of Harris alongside the slogan, "A New Way Forward."

The billboards will cover 35% of inventory within a 12-mile radius of Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Omaha, Charlotte, Raleigh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and several smaller cities in battleground states.

After a brief post-convention hiatus, Harris and Walz will do their first joint interview next week as they resume their campaigning, with potential stops in Georgia and other battleground states as well.

Harris had previously indicated the interview would happen by the end of August. It’s unclear with whom or precisely when that will happen. 

Before then, Harris and Walz will take a few days to regroup and are not expected to have any public events this weekend, according to two campaign officials.

Multiple Secret Service officials have been put on leave for their actions leading up to and responding to the assassination attempt on trump at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a source familiar with the decisions told NBC News.

Those put on leave include the Secret Service’s special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office, whose office was responsible for coordinating the security plan with local law enforcement leading up to the rally.

The source familiar with the decisions did not confirm the exact number of officials on leave and said the number may continue to grow as an internal investigation into the assassination attempt continues.

Read the full story here.

During a virtual news conference yesterday, the executive director of the progressive group MoveOn, Rahna Epting, discounted the impact of a potential Kennedy endorsement of trump, saying it's less about the number of voters that could be swayed than about the candidates being "desperate."

"Their numbers are cratering," she said. "RFK's numbers are really low; this is why he's in this position. trump's cratering — not as popular, on the run — and this is a desperate attempt to change that narrative. And I think what RFK Jr. is trying to get is some quid pro quo from this, you know, how can I help you help me?"

She added that the impact of an endorsement on Harris or trump appeared to be "negligible."

In an emotional interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., reflected on the standing ovation she received Thursday at the Democratic National Convention.

"All I could see was this huge room full of volunteers, of people who had taken their vacation time, spent their own money to come to Chicago because they got in a fight, because they don't want to see young people crushed by student loan debt, because they want gun safety," Warren told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

"I thought of this as a moment in democracy ... that was the moment last night that there was so many people who said 'We're in this fight together,'" she added.

Basketball star Steph Curry and Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda will meet with volunteers during the voter registration group When We All Vote's virtual "Countdown to the Polls" event next week.

The group, founded by former first lady Michelle Obama, billed the event as a virtual rally and training for its volunteers ahead of its voter registration drive in September.

Comedian Loni Love is also set to appear at the event alongside Curry and Miranda.

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., on Thursday honored Biden, whom she called “a decent man” from Delaware, before she urged Americans to vote for Harris in November.

“On Jan. 8, 2011, a man tried to assassinate me. ... I almost died, but I fought for my life, and I survived,” Giffords said, referring to a mass shooting at a constituent meeting in Tucson when she was a congresswoman.

She added: “So many people held me as I worked hard to recover, including a decent man for Delaware who always checked in. He still does.”

“Thank you. Joe Biden, thank you for everything,” Giffords continued, telling the crowd: “Joe is a great president. My friend Kamala will be a great president.”

Read the full story here.

Harris offered a full-throated defense of Israel in her convention speech last night, echoing the language of Biden that has drawn criticism from pro-Palestinian protesters.

Harris, who spent a lengthy segment of her acceptance speech talking about the war in Gaza, also expressed sympathy for the innocent lives lost and called for a cease-fire deal.

The war was a source of tension at the convention. Crowds of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the convention hall every night. Delegates inside the arena who were elected as “uncommitted” in protest votes against Biden’s support of Israel had tried to haggle over a speaking slot but were denied. Several stood in silent protest at various points in the week.

The Exonerated Five, previously known as the Central Park Five, described during the Democratic National Convention how trump has not apologized for calling for the return of the death penalty when the then-teenagers were falsely accused of raping a jogger.

Yusef Salaam, now a member of New York’s City Council, said that trump “never changed, and he never will.”

“45 wanted us unalived,” he said, referring to trump as the 45th president.

“He wanted us dead. Today, we are exonerated because the actual perpetrator confessed and DNA proved it. That guy says he still stands by the original guilty verdict,” Salaam said, referring to trump.

NBC News’ Steve Kornacki highlights the key states that trump and Harris must win, with 75 days left until election night.

trump will appear at a campaign event in Las Vegas later today to tout a policy proposal to eliminate taxes on tipped income for service and hospitality workers.

Harris has also supported the idea and, like trump, has pledged to remove taxes on tips if she wins the election in November.

Later today, trump will appear at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, where he will be joined be a yet-to-be-revealed special guest, his campaign said in a news release.

"President trump will be joined by a special guest as he delivers remarks about his America First policies and his vision to lower inflation and the cost of living, secure the border, and make our cities safe again," the campaign said.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will deliver remarks in Phoenix this afternoon on "his path forward" amid reports that he intends to end his independent bid for president.

NBC News previously reported that Kennedy plans to endorse trump after dropping out of the race.

After Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president, "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker and NBC’s Hallie Jackson join "TODAY" to discuss the key takeaways from her acceptance speech and how she reintroduced herself to the nation.

CHICAGO — The delegates wore suffragette white; Vice President Kamala Harris wore black.

Actress Eva Longoria led the crowd in a chant of “she se puede“ and other speakers touted the chance to put a woman in White House, but Harris never acknowledged that she would be the first female president in American history during her acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention last night.

And the word “representation” was barely uttered from the stage during all four nights the convention. 

Eight years after Hillary Clinton made “I’m with her” her slogan and framed her campaign around “shattering the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Harris has let the history-making potential of her candidacy speak for itself, following a golden rule of storytelling: Show, don’t tell.

Amid a cacophony of cheering Democrats and a canopy of red, white and blue balloons, Harris made history.

The first woman elected vice president of the United States officially became the first Black and South Asian woman named a major-party presidential nominee, lifting Democrats’ hopes of defeating trump and keeping the White House for another four years. 

Read the full story here.

Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last night, wrapping up an electric four-day convention that showcased a unified party singularly determined to defeat trump.

Democrats were exuberant about their improving political fortunes one month after Biden withdrew from the race. While the race between Harris and trump is neck and neck, the momentum has been on Harris’ side. Walz, her running mate, introduced himself to the country on the penultimate night of the convention.

Read the full story here.