Secret Service holds public safety meeting amid anti-Israel protests on Day 2 of 2024 DNC

ABC News anchor and presidential debate moderator Linsey Davis echoed talking points from the Harris-Walz campaign when she linked former President Trump to the KKK during an interview Monday night.

At the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Davis spoke to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer about an upcoming campaign event Trump will hold in the town of Howell.

"As you know, former President Donald Trump is expected to go campaign in Howell, Michigan, tomorrow. Many people are aware that a month ago, in Howell, KKK protesters marched in the streets with the white robes on and suggested that they support Donald Trump. I’m curious if you make anything about that connection and him going in particularly to Howell tomorrow," Davis said.

Whitmer responded, "Well, you know, anyone who’s doing a little bit of research might have said, ‘That’s really a bad idea, look at the optics.’ You’re showing up where the KKK was just at the same time you’re in Michigan."

President Biden during his speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention stressed that he is not angry about fellow Democrats pressuring him to end his bid for a second term.

“All this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down: It’s not true,” Biden insisted.

Reports in recent weeks claimed Biden remained bitter at other senior Democrats for orchestrating an effort to force him out of the presidential race, culminating in his historic decision to step back and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to seek the office instead.

The group of dissidents included former President Barack Obama, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who relied on behind-the-scenes influence.

Biden rubbished those claims and stressed his devotion to his country over his desire to remain in office.“I love my country more, and we need to preserve our democracy,” Biden added, driving home the need to win not only the presidency but both the House and Senate.

“I’ve got five months left in my presidency,” Biden said. “I’ve got a lot to do: I intend to get it done. It’s been the honor of my lifetime to be your president. I love the job, but I love the country more.”

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

President Biden was lambasted overnight after critics drew comparisons between his comments on anti-Israel protesters and comments by former President Trump he has long criticized.

After torch bearing bigots descended upon Thomas Jefferson’s hometown that year and a paralegal was killed in the melee, Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" – He has since maintained he was comparing a local group opposed to the destruction of the city’s Gen. Robert E. Lee statue and those seeking its removal. 

"Biden just gave the Hamas/Israeli conflict a very fine people on ‘both sides’-type line. Disgraceful," said former McConnell adviser Scott Jennings in response.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on X: "And just like that, Joe Biden legitimizes Nazis."

Meanwhile, former Trump speechwriter Stephen Miller said it showed Biden is "leaning fully into the Charlottesville Hoax," going on to call it the most "debunked, disproven and discredited hoax in existence."

Miller, now the president of America First Legal, said Biden is deliberately "stirring up hatred" only weeks after Trump was nearly assassinated.

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

Political commentators responded to President Biden's speech being delayed past primetime on Monday, with some observers remarking the scheduling issues were disrespectful to the president who had already been forced off the 2024 ticket.

Biden, originally scheduled to speak at 10:30 p.m. ET, started his speech roughly an hour behind schedule and finished his remarks after midnight. 

"I’m tapping out - I can’t stay up this late, we all have lives and kids," former "View" co-host Meghan McCain wrote on X Monday. 

"God speed to our 81 year old President getting through the speech at this hour. Whatever producers did this to him and let it go over this long at this hour is an a------ and it is disrespectful to Biden."

"Democrats kicked Joe Biden out of the presidential race and now they aren’t even going to let him speak until after 11 pm eastern on the first night of the convention," OutKick founder Clay Travis wrote before Biden's speech. "Diabolical. They are nasty and play to win."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

A spokesperson for the DNC said excessive applause led to the delays in Monday's program.

Fox News' Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.

Former first lady Hillary Clinton addressed attendees at Day 1 of the 2024 Democratic National Convention with a fiery speech which took a number of swings at former President Donald Trump.

"Kamala locked up murders and drug traffickers," Clinton said.

"She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety." Clinton continued, "Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial and when he woke up, he made his own kind of history."

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reported from the courtroom that Trump appeared to have fallen asleep at one point during the trial, where a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts.

Trump denied falling asleep, writing on social media, "I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!"

"As vice president, Kamala sat in the Situation Room," said Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election, before being interrupted by "lock him up" chants from the crowd.

"I know what it takes, and I can tell you as commander-in-chief, Kamala won’t disrespect our military and our veterans," Clinton said.

Former President Bill Clinton is expected to speak at Day 3 of the DNC.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’ public record on border security has been relatively low key prior to his entry into the presidential election fray. But given Vice President Kamala Harris’ so-called position as “border czar” – and with Walz and her running mate – he has since been forced to take a stronger stance on the issue. 

“[Trump] talks about this wall. I always say, ‘Let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory,'” Walz told Anderson Cooper in a CNN interview. “He’s not interested in that. He wants to demonize.”

Attempting to turn the narrative on Trump, Walz pointed to a Senate compromise bill that Trump-aligned Republicans killed. “The Border Patrol agents endorsed it. These are folks who know what needs to be done, but he’s not interested in solving the problem,” Walz said on the bill. “What Democrats need to do is acknowledge, and he has ginned up fear, but our border can work better.”

Delegates and superdelegates will be in the spotlight at the Democratic National Convention for their role in formally nominating Vice President Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic nominee. 

What are delegates?

Delegates are those who are determined during primaries and are bound to specific candidates, and are bound to vote for them at the convention if they remain in the race. 

What are superdelegates?

The 775 superdelegates, also known as automatic delegates, are comprised of Democratic National Committee members, all Democratic members of the House and Senate, Democratic governors and all former Democratic presidents, vice presidents, Senate leaders, House speakers, Democratic minority leaders and DNC chairs.

Those superdelegates do not vote on the first ballot but, if additional ballots are needed, can vote for whichever candidate they wish.

CHICAGO — Former President Obama will headline the second night of the Democratic National Convention under the banner of the Democrats' "Bold Vision for America’s Future."

The convention, which is being held at United Center, started Monday and runs through Thursday, when Vice President Harris will formally accept the Democrat presidential nomination with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The Democrats’ theme Tuesday night is "A Bold Vision for America’s Future." The night is expected to focus on how the Harris-Walz ticket intends to present a "brighter vision where everyone will have a chance not just to get by, but to get ahead." 

The Democrats have stressed that the 2024 presidential race "isn’t just a choice between two candidates." 

"It’s a choice between two very different visions of America," the DNC said. "While Donald Trump believes our best days are behind us, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz know the best days lie ahead."

On Tuesday night, the Democrats plan to draw a "stark contrast" between their vision and former President Trump’s. 

Sources told Fox News Digital it was a group of Obama allies and former advisers who helped to lead the charge in calling on President Biden to drop out of the race last month, including his former adviser, David Axelrod, George Clooney, a personal friend of the Obamas, and others. 

Obama, who had Biden as his vice president for two terms, ultimately endorsed Harris after Biden exited the race, but not immediately.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Brooke Singman

Chicago, thanks in part to its geographical centrality, is the most popular city when it comes to major party political conventions.

Between 1860 and 1996, Chicago hosted 14 Republican Party national nominating conventions and 11 Democratic Party conventions.

After a near three-decade drought, Chicago is hosting the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois as well as the state's congressional delegation and Chicago city officials were instrumental in helping to land the convention. And one of their selling points was the vast number of hotel rooms in Chicago, which means that the thousands of delegates, officials, and journalists covering the confab would be able to stay within the city limits.

That is far from the case for many political conventions. Just last month, some delegates and journalists were housed in hotels far from downtown Milwaukee, site of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

The abundance of hotel rooms in downtown Chicago means that there will be easy access to both of the convention's venues - the United Center, an arena on the city's West Side where the prime time programming will take place, and McCormick Place, which is downtown near Lake Michigan, where daytime events will occur.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will debate on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC News, the network announced earlier this month. 

The announcement came shortly after Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said he had proposed three debates with three television networks and that he agreed on certain dates in September. 

Trump is rejoining the ABC debate days after posting on his social media network that he would not appear on the network, citing a lawsuit he has filed, the Associated Press reported. His decision sets up a highly anticipated moment in an election where President Biden’s first debate against Trump led to Biden dropping out of the race and endorsing his running mate, Harris, to lead the ticket. 

“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Trump said earlier this month. “I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight.”

Officials at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago pushed back on criticism of the scheduling program that saw President Biden delayed well past his prime time slot into the late hours of the night on Tuesday.

Convention officials told Fox News' Kellianne Jones that they skipped elements of the program to even ensure Biden spoke when he did. Biden's speech began at roughly 11:30 Eastern Time and did not conclude until well after midnight.

“Because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker, we ultimately skipped elements of our program to ensure we could get to President Biden as quickly as possible so that he could speak directly to the American people. We are proud of the electric atmosphere in our convention hall and proud that our convention is showcasing the broad and diverse coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the week on and off the stage," officials said.

Many critics argued it was disrespectful to so severely delay a speech by the president of the United States. Other observers argued it was further evidence that the party had fully shifted its focus away from Biden toward Harris.

At the Democratic National Convention Monday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked yet again whether there is any enduring animosity between her and President Biden after he relinquished the nomination.

Biden made history when he declared last month he would be dropping out of the 2024 race, endorsing Vice President Harris for the top of the Democratic ticket. This came after weeks of defections from Democratic lawmakers who implored him to withdraw from the presidential race after his widely criticized performance in the presidential debate, with some reporting that Pelosi had coordinated the effort to force Biden to step down.

CNN’s Jake Tapper spoke to Pelosi on the first night of the DNC about whether there is lingering resentment among Biden and his allies toward her. 

"I know that it was very difficult for him," Tapper said. "That’s been made very clear by some of his top aides like Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, and there does seem to be- even though Anita Dunn said earlier today, ‘Nobody wants to have a fight with Nancy Pelosi at this time.’ It does seem like there’s some residual bad blood or resentment, and I‘m wondering if you‘ve spoken to him and what your response is to that."

Pelosi replied to the news host by joking, "Sometimes you just have to take a punch for the children."

Tapper pressed further on Dunn's comments and whether Pelosi had spoken to Biden.

"You know what?" Pelosi said as she made a gesture to stop. "I had to do what I had to do. He made the decision for the country. My concern was not about the president, it was about his campaign. As he has seen with the exuberance, the excitement that has come forth in our country."

"Nobody is questioning the fact that the Democratic Party seems much better positioned right now than it did 4 weeks and 2 days ago, there’s no question about that," Tapper said.

"So why are we even talking about it?" Pelosi asked."So why are we even talking about it?" Pelosi asked.

"They put it in my script and made me read it," he replied.

"Okay, Ron Burgundy," co-host Dana Bash laughed.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Alexander Hall

Fox News' Harris Faulkner, host of "The Faulkner Focus," caught up with Fox News Digital to question why Democrats are not denouncing anti-Israeli protesters gathered outside of the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

"We know tens of thousands of protesters just on the footsteps of the DNC convention right now are anti-Israel," Faulkner said.

She added that protesters are holding signs that read "Killer Kamala," among others.

"When you don't denounce that, when you don't disavow it, when you don't say that is wrong and that we don't stand for that as a Democratic Party, then yeah, that has an affect on every Jewish person and every American no matter what their faith is across the country," she added. "Because what it tells you is this is a party that would rather have your vote than say and do the right thing consistently."

Faulkner said that pro-Hamas crowds, including pro-terrorism groups, are chanting "violence is inevitable" outside of the convention.

"When Democrats don't say anything about that from inside one of the most watched places on the planet right now, it really does communicate to every voter out there, is this a party that necessarily cares about the issues that are actually on their doorstep?" Faulkner concluded.

Democrats will be hoping for a big boost in ratings from the selection of Vice President Kamala Harris as nominee, with eyes on whether they can get more viewers than their 2020 convention.

Democrats have been given a major boost in enthusiasm with the replacement of President Biden. Harris last week announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, a move that also enthused the Democratic base.

It is possible then that the DNC brings higher ratings than it did four years ago.

Viewership for the Republican convention had narrowly beaten its 2020 event, Axios reported, with about 19 million viewers across four nights. However, it was also down around 22% from the 2016 convention, the outlet reported, citing numbers from Nielsen.

Former President Trump’s speech this year similarly drew more viewers than his 2020 speech, but fewer than his 2016 speech.

"I have been a registered Democrat since the day I turned 18," Jewish activist Shabbos Kestenbaum, told Fox News. "I have only voted for Democrats. I'd like to think the last 10 months I've been calm, cool and collected but I am so sick and tired, with the election less than 100 days away, of pretending that this anti-American, intellectually challenged, allergic to reality, petulant children have any role in normative policy making or in electoral politics."

Kestenbaum ripped Democrats for antisemitic protests among those in the party's progressive wing, "They want a cease fire. They want a two state solution. Hamas rejected a cease fire two days ago and then sent a suicide bomber to go blow up Jews."

"That is the reality that we are dealing with in the Middle East ," he said. "Let me remind not only my fellow democrats, but to the American people, this war could be over the minute Hamas releases the G-- d--- hostages and surrenders."

In Gaza, 115 hostages still remain unreturned since the terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

"We have been perpetrating a fantasy that Jews are somehow colonizers in the very land that they are literally named after and universities, college students, the media and far left politicians have fed into this fantasy," Kestenbaum said. "That's this crap that you're seeing at the DNC right now in Chicago of 100,000 who really can influence policy and that's what so concerns me as a Democrat and as a Jewish American."

President Joe Biden’s declining health, put on full display during his July debate performance against Donald Trump, has continued to put the octogenarian president under scrutiny.

Biden delivered the final speech at the first day of the DNC in Chicago on Monday. His address was delayed for hours and didn't conclude until after midnight. Many observers argued it was disrespectful for the Democrats to push the president of the United States out of his prime-time slot and into the late hours of the night.

Nevertheless, Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in his speech and also touted his accomplishments in office. He also addressed the widespread anti-Israel protests taking place outside the venue in Chicago. He said the protesters "have a point."

“It’s possible, depending on Biden’s true capacities, that by rights he should have resigned and Harris should be president already — which probably would have put her in a better position to win the election even than her current honeymoon does," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote in a recent Saturday column.

Ross even predicted the possibility of a major Biden health “crisis” in the next few months, which he argued would make Democrats wish he had resigned, not just given up his bid for reelection.

Concern over Biden’s health has continued following his disastrous debate performance particularly due to reports that some of his closest advisers and family members worked to hide the true nature of Biden’s physical and cognitive deficiencies from the public.

Just days before Biden announced he would not seek reelection, for example, White House senior deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president, Andrew Bates, called speculation that Biden faced a medical emergency while traveling to Las Vegas “100% false.”

However, recordings from Las Vegas police released this week by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project show that Biden was experiencing a sudden illness after canceling a speaking engagement he had planned in Sin City that day.   

Since announcing that he would not be running for reelection on July 21, Biden has held only six public events, according to his publicly available schedule.

Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report

Fox News' Brooke Singman takes viewers behind the scenes of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, and guides Americans through the schedule for the week of political speeches.

"Each night the Democrats will have a theme, a host and a few big name speakers," Singman said.

Monday's theme was "For the People" and included Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jill Biden and President Joe Biden as speakers.

Earlier on Monday, House Republicans voted to impeach Biden just hours before his speech.

On Tuesday, "A Bold Vision for America's Future" will take center stage as the theme. Former President Barack Obama is expected to headline the evening.

"A Fight for our Freedom" is Wednesday's theme and former President Bill Clinton is expected to speak on Day 3 of the 2024 DNC.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' vice presidential running mate, is also anticipated to formally accept his nomination for the position on Wednesday night.

For the week's finale, viewers can expect actress Kerry Washington to host the evening leading into the acceptance speech headlined by Harris.