The Republican National Convention continues
The 2024 Republican National Convention begins day 3 on Wednesday. On day 1, former President Trump was officially received the Republican nomination. On Truth Social, he announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance would be his running mate.
The widow of the volunteer firefighter who was shot and killed over the weekend at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania says the former president called her and was "very kind," a report says.
Helen Comperatore wrote on Facebook that Trump phoned her on Tuesday, three days after her husband Corey was struck with gunfire while trying to protect his family during the campaign event in Butler, according to the New York Post.
"He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead," the widow reportedly wrote. "I told him the same thing I told everyone else. He left this world a hero and God welcomed him in. He did not die in vain that day."
Helen Comperatore told the New York Post on Monday that her husband’s final words were "get down!"
"He’s my hero," Helen Comperatore said to the newspaper from her home in Sarver, Pennsylvania. "He just said, ‘get down!’ That was the last thing he said."
"Me and the kids were all there as a family," she added. "He was just excited. It was going to be a nice day with the family.
Corey Comperatore, 50, was the former fire chief for the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company. The department now has a memorial set up outside its firehouse featuring Comperatore’s uniform to honor who they described as a "brother, son, husband, father and friend."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Greg Norman
FIRST ON FOX: President Trump is showing "real leadership" to "not just America, but the world" following the attempt on his life over the weekend — drawing a stark contrast between himself and President Biden, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said.
McCarthy spoke with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, nothing that while JD Vance is a strong pick for vice president, this election is "all about Trump and he is stronger than he has ever been."
"Seeing President Trump, talking to him the day after the shooting, I mean, it is unbelievable that he is alive," McCarthy said. "I think just in that sheer moment he taught, not just America, but the world, that he is a real leader."
McCarthy told Fox News Digital that in the past several days following the assassination attempt against Trump, he has spoken with numerous world leaders who have called to check in on the former president.
The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes the line of succession in regard to the president, the vice president, and the president’s cabinet. Ratified two years after President John Fitzpatrick Kennedy’s assassination, the 25th Amendment contains four sections.
Section 1 establishes that the vice president assumes command should the president be removed from office, dies, or resigns. Section 2 establishes that the president may appoint a vice president should the office become vacant. Section 3 declares that the president may temporarily grant the powers of the presidency to the vice president in anticipation of temporary incapacitation, like an upcoming medical procedure. Section 4 declares that the president may be deposed by the vice president and a majority of the cabinet should the president be unfit to complete the duties of office.
Section 4 has never been formally discussed or proposed, but there are several instances when it has reportedly been considered. During the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, there were reportedly talks of removing former President Donald Trump via the 25th Amendment. Additionally, after President Biden’s 2024 debate performance raised concerns over his mental capacity, talks of removing him via the 25th Amendment have grown in the popular discourse.
MILWAUKEE, WI - The spotlight will shine firmly on GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance on day three of the Republican National Convention.
Vance on Wednesday night will address the roughly 2,400 delegates and thousands of other attendees packed inside Milwaukee's Fiserv Arena, and the millions of Americans watching the GOP convention from home, in his first speech since former President Trump on Monday named the 39-year-old senator from Ohio as his running mate.
"This is clearly the most important speech of JD Vance's career," Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and a prominent Republican donor and bundler who's attending the convention, told Fox News.
Trump, in making his greatly anticipated and high-stakes running mate announcement as the GOP convention kicked off in swing-state Wisconsin's largest city, will now share the ticket with one of his top supporters in the Senate and a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First ally.
The former president and Vance teamed up on Monday and Tuesday nights in the family box above the floor of the GOP convention.
Vance, a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" before running for elective office, on Wednesday night will appear on the podium to tell his story.
A source in Vance's political orbit told Fox News to "expect the speech to focus heavily on his bio and incredible life story and how that ties into the America First Agenda."
That story began with Vance growing up in a working-class family in a small city in southwestern Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young, and as his mother struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse, Vance was raised in part by his maternal grandparents.
Vance, who lives in Cincinnati, moved to San Francisco after law school and worked as a principal in a venture capital firm owned by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who later became a major financial supporter of Vance's successful 2022 campaign for the Senate.
This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News' Paul Steinhauser
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The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will be held in Chicago from Aug. 19 through Aug. 22, just one month after next week's Republican National Convention.
Should President Biden remain in the race despite calls for him to step aside, he will likely accept the party nomination on Aug. 22, the final day of the convention.
Biden has vowed to remain in the race, but if he changes his mind, the party could decide to hold an open convention, which hasn't been done since 1968 following then-President Lyndon Johnson's decision to withdraw from the race.
An open convention would likely involve the party's delegates voting in rounds to select a new nominee, and could lead to a divide among party members or potential nominees seeking to take on former President Donald Trump in the November general election.
Experts largely believe Biden would retain enough delegates to remain the nominee if he decides not to withdraw from the race.
Throughout American history, political party conventions have become increasingly ceremonial formalities.
For the majority of primary elections, a winner is established well before the convention date, and therefore the party’s nominee for president is determined after the first round of voting. However, if a candidate does not receive a majority of primary votes during the primary elections, a candidate must be selected at an “open convention” by achieving a majority of delegate votes. While a handful of presidential candidates have been selected at open conventions, there has yet to be a true multi-round convention fight.
The last Democratic open convention was in 1984 when Walter Mondale was 40 votes short of a majority. However, there was little speculation of a contest as Gary Hart, Mondale’s chief rival, was backing Mondale in hopes of securing the vice presidential nomination.
The last Republican open convention was in 1976 between President Gerald Ford and California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Ford was backed by centrists and liberal Republicans from the northeast, whereas Reagan was backed by a coalition of western and southern conservatives, most notably, “Reagan’s Raiders” from the Texas delegation. While close, Ford ultimately won on the first ballot.
Fox News' Brooke Singman spoke with a source close to Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, and informed Fox News Digital of the exclusive conversation.
"Senator JD Vance just hung up the phone with Vice President Kamala Harris," she said. "It's their first conversation since he was picked as President Trump's running mate. The two had a brief and respectful conversation, the source told me. The two said they're both looking forward to debating."
While there is no date set for a Vance versus Harris debate, the Republican duo will hold an indoor rally one week following the assassination attempt on Trump.
The rally on July 20 will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is located around six hours from Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman opened fire on the former president and shot him in the ear.
Vance earned the vice presidential nomination Monday night, the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Dana Perino spoke with Fox News Digital on watching in-person as former President Donald Trump made his first public appearance since a gunman opened fire at a campaign event and attempted to assassinate him.
"There are few experiences in your life where you can feel the electricity coming from your toes all the way to the top of your head," she said. "The feeling of the charisma and the energy and the good will towards President Trump that the people in this room felt, and when he popped up on the jumbotron, which is just behind me, and you saw him for the first time, with a red tie and with a bandage on his ear, I think everybody in this room was like wow, look at that."
Perino added that it was just around 52 hours from when he had been shot and the crowd was chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" as Trump said immediately following the attack on his life.
"It was pretty emotional," she said. "I think he was even emotional just taking in the moment. He had an expression of gratitude for all the people that were here. I think he also realizes he was this close to not being here. If he hadn't moved his head like that, he might not have been here."
Perino called it "a remarkable night" and said that she was moved by the evening.
Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Despite a rising chorus of calls from within the Democratic Party, President Biden has repeatedly said he's not dropping out of his 2024 election rematch with former President Trump.
But if Biden changes his mind and ends his bid amid serious questions over his mental fitness following his disastrous debate last month with Trump, the spotlight would instantly focus on the piles of cash the president's campaign has raised.
Since the launch of the re-election campaign over a year ago, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have hauled in hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaign and various fundraising committees that have split funds between Team Biden-Harris, the Democratic National Committee, and nearly every state Democratic Party across the country.
All of those groups combined had around $240 million cash on hand as of the end of June. The Biden campaign alone said it had over $90 million in its coffers at the end of May.
If the president drops out, the campaign funds could only stay with the campaign if Harris becomes the nominee.
But if someone else became the party's presidential nominee, the money would have to be refunded to donors.
Another option if Biden ends his bid and the vice president doesn't become the Democratic Party standard-bearer - the millions of dollars currently in the campaign coffers could be transferred to a federal super PAC, which could use the cash to pay for ads on behalf of the new Democratic national ticket.
But there is a drawback, as super PACs by law are forced to pay higher rates for ad time.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice spoke during the second night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his companion, a Bulldog named Babydog Justice, appeared on stage alongside him.
RNC attendees went wild for the dog and his political owner as they walked the convention floor together.Babydog, who often appears on Justice's social media accounts supporting and promoting his agenda, patiently waited on stage for Justice. She panned the scene from left to right with a big smile as she hung back awaiting his speech's conclusion.
Babydog's summer bucket list includes attending a campaign event, eating chicken nuggets, meeting new voters, traveling the Great State of West Virginia, taking car rides and earning constituents' votes, according to Justice's Instagram account.
In January, Babydog accompanied his owner as he filed the paperwork to guarantee former President Donald Trump will appear on the ballot in the Mountain State come November.
Former President Trump's pick to serve as his running mate on the Republican ticket this year, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has been a staunch critic of the Biden administration's student loan handout as part of the White House's repeated efforts to cancel borrowers' debt.
President Biden campaigned on forgiving student loan debt derived from undergraduate tuition at two- and four-year public universities for borrowers earning up to $125,000 a year. His administration developed the handout plan in the first year and a half of his time in office, and he announced in August 2022 that he would move to cancel $10,000 per borrower and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
Biden's plan encountered stiff resistance from Republicans, with several states filing legal challenges and Vance joining the ranks of its vocal opponents in his 2022 U.S. Senate race against Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio.
"Forgiving student debt is a massive windfall to the rich, to the college educated, and most of all to the corrupt university administrators of America," Vance wrote in a post on X in April 2022. "No bailouts for a corrupt system. Republicans must fight this with every ounce of our energy and power."
"Thanks to Tim Ryan and Joe Biden, Ohio workers are paying off the loans of Harvard Law students. If this seems unfair and illegal, it's because it is," he added in an X post that August.
After his victory in the 2022 Senate race, Vance cosponsored a bill in the Senate that would have rejected the Biden administration's regulation for implementing the student loan handout using the Congressional Review Act. Although an identical bill passed both the House and Senate, it failed to override President Biden's veto.
The various legal challenges to the Biden administration's proposal eventually led to the handout plan being blocked by the Supreme Court in June 2023. However, the White House has continued its pursuit of a plan that will pass legal muster and has since issued more narrowly tailored proposals.
Vance has also looked to advance other reforms to other aspects of federal student loans, and to that end he sponsored a bill known as Domenic and Ed's Law in May.
This is an excerpt of an article by Fox Business' Eric Revell
Fox News' Brooke Singman gives the lowdown on Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump's vice presidential pick in the 2024 elections.
Vance, 39, is a first-term senator from Middletown, Ohio. His wife, Usha Vance, née Chilukuri, was raised in San Diego, California, and attended Yale Law School as Vance did. The couple met while at Yale.
"His youth could represent a valuable demographic the GOP is hoping to woo," Singman said. "That's millennials and Gen Z."
Singman adds that Vance is a best selling author of the book "Hillbilly Elegy" which has seen a spike in sales since day one of the 2024 RNC when Trump revealed Vance as his running mate.
The book was turned into a movie produced by Netflix and starred Glenn Close, Amy Adams and Gabriel Basso the American actor who played Vance in the film.
Vance was selected after weeks of speculation as to who the VP pick could be. Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio and Vivek Ramaswamy, among others, were floated as potential picks.
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While a comprehensive list of the Republican National Committee speakers had not been released by press time, several reports from around the country cited lawmakers and other political figures who were confirmed to be speakers at the Milwaukee forum.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., spoke during Tuesday's primetime spot.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle said Banks' prominent appearance is evidence of his rising-star status within the GOP.
The report cited Banks' working-class upbringing as a key aspect of his appearance.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , once an opponent of former President Trump during the campaign, spoke Tuesday during a prominent speaking spot. Another 2024 contender -- former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley -- also spoke in favor of Trump on Tuesday.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., a top Trump ally in the House and chairwoman of the chamber's Republican conference, spoke earlier in the day at the RNC.
Dr. Ben Carson following Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders late Tuesday night before Sen. Marco Rubio took the stage in support of Trump.
Earlier in the day, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice gave a speech with his dog, Babydog, by his side.
Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, whose union is otherwise reliably Democratic, spoke at the RNC on Monday night and UFC President Dana White also has been given time on stage.
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