2024 Election Latest: Biden and Harris set to meet Netanyahu following his fiery Congress address

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to make a long-awaited White House visit to meet with President Joe Biden and likely Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at an important moment for all three politicians.

On Wednesday, Biden made his first address since his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. And at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of attack lines against Harris, whom he called his “new victim to defeat” and accused of deceiving the public about Biden’s ability to run for a second term.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters rallied to denounce Israel’s war in Gaza, while Netanyahu delivered a scathing speech to Congress to defend Israel’s conduct in the war and vowed “total victory” against Hamas. More protests against Netanyahu are expected outside the White House.

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Here's the Latest:

A major Democratic political action committee has launched its first digital ad effort on behalf of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

The topic: abortion rights.

The Priorities USA Action ad features an Arizona woman, identified in the ad as “Chloe,” recounting how she was denied abortion access after former President Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court appointees helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

“I was told that my baby was not compatible with life, and it was in my best option to terminate,” she says into the camera. “The Friday that Roe vs. Wade was overturned, my doctor calls me almost in tears telling me that the hospital board would not approve it.”

Another Trump term, she says, “scares me” and would be “detrimental to women’s health.”

Harris, she says, would be “another woman up there fighting for women’s rights.”

The $250,000 YouTube ad buy will circulate the spot to voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona.

Democrats and the Harris campaign believe the contrast with Trump on abortion rights will help the likely Democratic nominee, especially among women in metropolitan areas and younger voters who were ambivalent about President Joe Biden before he ended his reelection bid.

A man who was shot and critically wounded in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has been released from the hospital.

David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, was released from Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, a hospital spokesperson said Thursday.

The other Trump rally spectator who was shot and wounded, James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, remains in serious but stable condition.

Former President Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate has led to a surge in sales for “Hillbilly Elegy,” his best-selling memoir that came out in 2016.

A spokesperson for HarperCollins told The Associated Press that more than 600,000 copies have been sold since Trump’s announcement on July 15. The total includes physical books, audiobooks and e-books.

“We are printing hundreds of thousands of copies to fill the demand at our retail partners,” the publisher announced Thursday.

“Hillbilly Elegy,” which Ron Howard adapted into a feature film released in 2020, tells of Vance’s childhood in Ohio and his family’s roots in rural Kentucky.

After Trump’s stunning victory in 2016, the book was widely cited as essential reading for opponents trying to understand his appeal to working class whites — even as some critics faulted it as a narrow and misleading portrait of Appalachia and poverty in the U.S.

PARIS — Vice President Kamala Harris is a fan of the Golden State Warriors and has a friendship with Warriors coach — and U.S. Olympic men’s basketball coach — Steve Kerr.

That friendship may change a bit in November.

“I’ve met her a few times, so I call her Kamala,” Kerr said in Paris on Thursday, as the Olympic team was going through final preparations before its opening game Sunday against Serbia. “But if she wins, I need to adjust that. I can’t call her by her first name.”

Much has changed since Harris visited with the U.S. team and delivered a pep talk in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, including the decision by President Joe Biden to not seek reelection. He endorsed Harris as the Democratic candidate.

“She represents the Bay Area and is a big supporter of us,” U.S. guard and Warriors star Stephen Curry said. “And so, I want to give that energy right back to her.”

Trump, calling into “Fox & Friends” this morning, was asked if Biden should have used his speech last night to resign.

Many of his Republican allies have been making the case that if Biden isn’t fit to run again, he isn’t fit to serve and should step down.

But Trump seemed to disagree.

“Should he stay? I guess that’s up to him and it’s up to the people. And I don’t think they should use the 25th Amendment,” Trump told the hosts.

Trump went on to say that there’s “not long to go” on Biden’s term.

“You know, we have four months now and then he’s got another month-and-a-half,” he said, arguing the alternative — Vice President Kamala Harris taking over — would be worse. “I will say this: The world is at a very dangerous place. I think if he goes, she then takes over. And she’s worse than he is.”

Former President Donald Trump is again calling for jail time for flag burners following protests in Washington, D.C.

Responding to demonstrators who took to the streets on Wednesday to condemn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, Trump, in a call-in interview with “Fox and Friends,” said that those who “do anything to desecrate the American flag” should be sentenced to one year in jail.

“Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people,” he said. “Those are stupid people that say that. We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence.”

The Supreme Court has held that flag burning is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.

Thousands of protesters chanting “Free, free Palestine” marched toward the Capitol Wednesday.

Outside Washington’s Union Station, protesters removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place.

Trump made a similar call after being elected in 2016, saying anyone who burns an American flag should face “consequences,” such as jail or a loss of citizenship.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is rolling out its first video — and it has a pop culture flair.

Titled “We Choose Freedom,” it underscores a core message of the campaign: freedom on abortion rights, freedom from gun violence and freedom “not just to get by, but to get ahead.” It is set to a soundtrack of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.”

▶ Watch the video, which will be promoted on social media, here.

Overall, more than 60 Democrats boycotted the speech. Here’s a look at some of them, and other no-shows.

1. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called Netanyahu’s speech “the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress.”

2. Political independent Bernie Sanders.

3. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington declined to attend, so Sen. Ben Cardin, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, served as “senator pro tempore” in place of her.

4. The most notable absence: Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as president of the Senate, was away on an Indianapolis trip scheduled before Biden withdrew his reelection bid and she became the likely Democratic presidential candidate over the weekend.

5. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, who said campaigning would also make him a no-show for the Israeli leader’s speech.

Netanyahu’s White House visit, his first since before former President Donald Trump left office in 2020, comes at a time of growing pressure on all three to find an endgame to the nine-month war that’s left more than 39,000 dead in Gaza. What’s more, dozens of Israeli hostages — and the remains of others who have died in captivity — are still languishing in Hamas captivity

.Biden is pressing to get Israel and Hamas to seal his proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases — something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for the 81-year-old Democrat who abandoned his reelection bid earlier this week and endorsed Harris. It could also be a boon for Harris in her bid to succeed him.

White House officials say that the negotiations are in the closing stages, but there are still issues that need to be resolved.

▶ Read more on the upcoming meeting here.

President Joe Biden delivered a solemn Oval Office address Wednesday that laid out in the clearest terms yet why he abandoned his reelection campaign.

He wanted to send an unmistakable warning about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump while anointing Vice President Kamala Harris as his natural successor, without invoking an overtly political tone that would have been out of step in the official setting of the White House.

He was determined to show that he would not act like a lame-duck president, outlining an ambitious agenda that underscored his resolve to continue building on his legacy.

Just days into her new role as the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee, Kamala Harris is already facing a wave of Republican-backed attack ads questioning her personality, her progressive record and what she knew about President Joe Biden’s decline.

But for now, at least, Democrats have yet to engage in the summertime advertising fight. And in a sharp reversal from much of the year, Republicans are suddenly dominating the airways.

▶ Read more on the fight over airwaves.

Insisting that “the defense of democracy is more important than any title,” Biden used his first public address on Wednesday to deliver an implicit repudiation of former President Donald Trump.

“Nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy,” Biden said, in a somber coda to his 50 years spent in public office. “And that includes personal ambition.”

It was a moment for the history books — a U.S. president reflecting before the nation on why he was taking the rare step of voluntarily handing off power. It hasn’t been done since 1968 when Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection in the heat of the Vietnam War.

Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office surrounded by family and close advisers.

As he spoke, seated off to the side and along the curved wall, were mostly relatives. They included the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his granddaughter Finnegan Biden, as well as his daughter Ashley Biden.

First lady Jill Biden was also there, as were other family members and the president’s longtime adviser, Mike Donilon.

Biden’s voice was very soft and sometimes barely audible, though he got a bit louder occasionally. Toward the end of remarks, Ashley Biden reached for the hand of her mother, the first lady, who was seated next to her.

Standing in the back were White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other staff.

When Biden concluded, those assembled applauded. Jill Biden then walked to the Resolute Desk and stood next to her husband. “This has been the honor of a lifetime,” the president said.

No American incumbent president has dropped out of the race so late in the process. The last president to do so was Lyndon Johnson in March of 1968. When Johnson addressed the nation from the Oval Office, he spent the majority of his remarks talking about the Vietnam War, and his duty to focus on it.

He tried to make the case that American forces were making great progress in the war, and said, “One day, my fellow citizens, there will be peace in Southeast Asia.” That portrait was at odds with the politics in the Democratic Party, riven by division over the war, prompting several prominent Democrats, including Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy.

Johnson also acknowledged how the war was tearing the country apart. “In these times as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand. There is division in the American house now.”

He then made the stunning announcement that he would not seek reelection.

“I shall not be a candidate for reelection. I have served my country long, and I think efficiently and honestly. I shall not accept a renomination. I do not feel that it is my duty to spend another 4 years in the White House.”

Trump posted on his social media website that the president “was barely understandable, and sooo bad!”

During the speech, Biden called Vice President Harris “tough” and “capable.”

In a separate post, Trump slammed Biden and Harris as embarrassments, noting, “THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TIME LIKE THIS!"

As President Biden addressed the nation, his former opponent was among those watching.

Trump watched Biden’s 10-minute address from his campaign plane as he flew out of North Carolina following a rally.

Photographs showed Trump watching Biden speak intently, his head tilted sideways.

Trump adviser Chris LaCivita subsequently posted on X a different picture showing the former president turned sideways and frowning, intently not watching as Biden spoke.

“On Trump Force One …Hey Joe …You’re Fired!” LaCivita wrote over the picture.