Harris takes 5-point lead in new poll as stage set for presidential debate: Live

The Republican has tried out a number of nicknames as he scrambles to define Kamala Harris in the presidential race.

There was “Laffin’ Kamala” and there was “Lyin’ Kamala” but he now appears to have settled on the frankly confusing “Kamabla.”

Nobody knows what it means but Gustaf Kilander has attempted to find out.

The former San Francisco mayor and speaker of the California State Assembly, who was once in a relationship with Kamala Harris, has rubbished Trump’s story that he told the Republican “terrible things” about her during a near-death experience on a helicopter ride.

James Liddell reports on a story Brown insists is total invention.

Michael Kosta had plenty of fun with one of the Republican’s dumbest claims in some time during yesterday’s press conference.

Myriam Page has this on what he had to say.

The Vice President has surged to a five-point lead over Donald Trump in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, putting her on 42 per cent to the Republican’s 37 per cent nationally with less than three months to go to November’s presidential election.

The survey found that Harris had widened her lead since a July 22-23 poll from the same source found her up 37 per cent to 34 per cent over Trump.

The nationwide poll of 2,045 American adults was conducted between August 2 and 7 and found just 4 per cent of those surveyed backing independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, down from 10 per cent in July.

Here’s more on the revenant Jan 6 case.

Justice Department special counsel moved quickly yesterday to ask for more time on how to reframe the case, which some pundits suggest indicates his team have not yet worked out how to go about it.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has revived Jack Smith’s Jan 6 case against Trump and is calling on both sides to present revised arguments on how to move it forward in light of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling on July 1.

This is what the Republican has had to say about it on Truth Social:

Alex Woodward has the latest.

A week after Trump’s attempted assassination, the Atlantic published a headline declaring: “Trump is Planning for a Landslide Win.”

Now, a little over a month and one presidential candidate swap later, the 2024 presidential election’s likely results appear a great deal less obvious.

With the photo of a defiant Trump pumping his fist in the rear-view, the former president has become increasingly frustrated by the surging poll numbers enjoyed by his presumed opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, according to five people close to the situation who spoke to The Washington Post.

The former president reportedly told a supporter he felt it was “unfair” that after he “beat” Joe Biden he had to turn around and run against Harris.

“It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too.”

Former president Donald Trump spent nearly an hour at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday ranting to a room full of reporters as he tried to regain the spotlight from a resurgent Democratic ticket fronted by Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

The ex-president’s campaign had summoned the hand-picked group of journalists to Trump’s residence, where he attacked Harris as a “radical left person” during a rambling monologue in which he claimed that America is “in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in” and “very close to a world war” without offering evidence to support those assertions.

Here he is bemoaning Joe Biden, threatening mass deportations and claiming, unconvincingly, that he is not “weird” but actually the embodiment of “common sense”.

The only bit of news to emerge from this open therapy session came when Trump revealed he has “agreed” to debates hosted by Fox News on September 4, ABC on September 10 and NBC on September 25, only the second of which Harris has agreed to join him at.

The real question is why isn’t Trump out campaigning? Remember? Like he wanted to be when he was on trial in New York?

Here’s CNN’s Jamie Gangel asking that very question:

Andrew Feinberg watched the bizarre hour at Mar-a-Lago and sends this.

While Kamala Harris is no stranger to politics, her unexpected entry into the 2024 presidential election means voters quickly need to pivot from Biden’s stances to hers on key issues like the border, abortion, climate, the economy and immigration.

The vice president generally skews more to the left than Biden. In her failed 2020 campaign, she backed several progressive priorities such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

But as a presidential candidate and without a competitive primary, she will likely need to move more toward the center.

The Independent has broken down key policy areas to understand where Harris might differ from Biden.

As Minnesota governor, Walz oversaw the state’s response to the protests and riots which were triggered when white police officer Derek Chauvin murdered Floyd on Memorial Day 2020.