Kamala Harris raised $50m in donations as she emerged as Joe Biden’s replacement in race for White House
KAMALA Harris raised $50million in donations yesterday as she emerged as Joe Biden’s replacement in the race for the White House.
Grassroots supporters rushed to back the US Vice President in what Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue said it was its best day so far this year.
Several of her potential rivals also got behind Harris, 59, who President Biden endorsed after he decided to stand down.
Biden, 81 — recovering at his holiday home from Covid — had seen funds dry up after last month’s bumbling TV debate with Trump.
He gave no reason for his decision but aides are said to have shown him polls confirming he would lose the November election.
Harris hailed his “unmatched” recent record.
Those backing her to replace him included former Democrat President Bill Clinton and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
However, others, such as Barack Obama, another Democrat ex-president, did not mention her while praising Biden’s decision.
Harris, who yesterday welcomed National Collegiate Athletics Association teams at a White House event, is widely seen as unpopular with voters.
Democrats have sought to frame her campaign against Trump, 78, as prosecutor against convicted criminal.
She served six years as California’s attorney general while he was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records over hush money to a porn star.
Yet Trump’s campaign team wasted no time in releasing an advert claiming Harris had covered up Biden’s mental decline.
In it, she was accused, as “border czar”, of doing very little to stem the flow of millions of illegal immigrants to the US.
Trump’s pick for Vice President, JD Vance, added: “Joe Biden has been the worst President in my lifetime and Kamala Harris has been right there with him every step of the way.
“She co-signed Biden’s open border and green scam policies. She owns all of these failures, and she lied for nearly four years about Biden’s mental capacity — saddling the nation with a president who can’t do the job.”
Ex-Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka accused Harris of being “the face of open borders” on our “Never Mind the Ballots” show.
Harris was last night still the only person to have put their name forward to replace Mr Biden.
‘We failed’ Trump on rally kill bid
SECRET Service director Kimberly Cheatle has said “we failed” over it not protecting Donald Trump from an assassination bid.
She told US lawmakers it had been the “most significant operational failure … in decades.”
Ms Cheatle was grilled yesterday on how gunman Thomas Crooks was able to shoot at the Republican presidential nominee at a rally on July 13.
Mr Trump, 78, was struck in the ear in the attack, while a former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed and two other rally-goers were seriously injured.
Ms Cheatle told the House Oversight Committee in Washington DC: “On July 13, we failed. As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse.”
But she went on say she graded her agents efforts on the days as an “A”.
Ms Cheatle also said “adjustments” had been made to Vice President Kamala Harris’s security since President Joe Biden quit the re-election race.