In Major Blow, Pro-Harris Group Disbands Over DNC Protest Response

Kamala Harris is beginning to face the consequences of not pushing for a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic National Convention, amid widespread backlash to Israel’s deadly U.S.-backed military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 people.

Muslim Women for Harris-Walz announced late Wednesday that it would disband after members of the Uncommitted delegation at the DNC were notified that Harris’s team had denied their many requests to have a Palestinian American speaker appear on the main stage.

“We cannot in good conscience, continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information from the Uncommitted movement that VP Harris’ team declined their request to have a Palestinian American speaker take the stage at the DNC,” the group said in a statement.

“The family of the Israeli Hostage that was on the stage tonight, has shown more empathy towards Palestinian American speakers than our candidate or the DNC has,” the statement said. “This is a terrible message to send to Democrats. Palestinians have a right to speak about Palestine.”

Earlier Wednesday, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of 23-year-old Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been invited to speak from the main stage, making an emotional plea for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the safe return of the remaining hostages. “There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East and a competition of pain,” Polin said. “There are no winners.”

In a statement posted to X, the Uncommitted Movement, which organized massive “uncommitted” votes during the Democratic primaries, wrote that they supported the decision to have the family of an Israeli hostage speak, and asked the DNC “to reject a hierarchy of human value by ensuring Palestinian voices are heard on the main stage.”

“Excluding a Palestinian speaker betrays the party’s commitment in our platform to valuing Israelis and Palestinian lives equally. Vice President Harris must unite this party with a vision that fights for everyone, including Palestinians,” the statement said.

The 30 Uncommitted delegates in attendance at the DNC began a sit-in outside of the convention center Wednesday night, requesting that Harris’s team reconsider their decision. Representative Ilhan Omar sat with them, and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez called in via FaceTime to lend her support, although earlier this week, she had neglected to advocate for Palestinians during her rousing primetime speech.

The United Auto Workers, which has endorsed Harris, posted a statement to X Thursday, urging Harris’s team to reverse course on its decision. “If we want the war in Gaza to end, we can’t put our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of the Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party,” the statement said. “If we want peace, if we want real democracy, and if we want to win this election, the Democratic Party must allow a Palestinian American speaker to be heard from the DNC stage tonight.”

Earlier this week, the Uncommitted Movement was invited to host a panel discussion about Palestinian human rights at the DNC, the first time such an event has happened. At the time, the group thanked the DNC and reiterated a request that Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Palestinian American pediatric physician who has been working in Gaza throughout Israel’s assault, should be invited to speak from the convention’s main stage.

Inside the United Center, pro-Palestinian speech has been entirely absent, and attempts to protest have been repeatedly quashed. On Monday, several members of the Florida delegation dropped a banner that read “Stop Arming Israel” during Joe Biden’s speech but were blocked and even hit with signs by others standing around them. The protesters were then escorted out of the main room. Outside the convention center, more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched in Chicago for a third day, after violent clashes with the police outside of the Israeli consulate.

“The word Palestine is not allowed inside the Democratic National Convention. The word cease-fire has barely been uttered,” said Rabbi Brant Rosen, a founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, Wednesday night. “This is a Hollywood-style coronation of a candidate. They assume they are entitled to our votes, but they are not entitled to our votes.”

As the DNC enters its fourth and final day Thursday, the clock is ticking on Harris’s team to reverse its decision to exclude Palestinians from its big tent.

Donald Trump removed a campaign video using Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” on Wednesday after the international superstar threatened to send him a cease and desist letter, officially blocking the Republican presidential nominee’s use of the song.

A source close to Beyoncé told Rolling Stone that the Trump campaign did not have permission to use the song, which has since become an unofficial anthem of the Harris-Walz campaign. The offending clip was posted to Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung’s account, and set the Lemonade single to a 13-second video of Trump stepping off a plane in Michigan.

Beyonce isn’t the only artist who’s torched Trump for using their music without permission to advance his campaign. Sinéad O’Connor, The Beatles, Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, Leonard Cohen, Queen, Prince, Pharrell, The Rolling Stones, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Rihanna, Neil Young, Linkin Park, the late Tom Petty, the Village People, and Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler have all barred the former president from using their work.

And the trend seems to be growing. Just last week, two more musicians yanked their rights away from Trump: Isaac Hayes and Celine Dion.

Meanwhile, the DNC turned their roll call—a typically grueling snooze-fest—into an all-out party by merging the state-by-state delegate count with meaningful songs, hand-selected by each state. That included tracks by some of the artists who’ve banned their music from Trump’s events (such as Tom Petty) and even featured a wildly unexpected guest performance by Atlanta-born rapper Lil Jon, who got the entire arena bouncing to “Turn Down for What.”

“V-P Harris, Governor Walz!” Lil Jon shouted to the chorus of “Get Low.”

Tim Walz walked off stage after his speech Wednesday night to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” Young reportedly personally approved use of the song.

And that’s just part of it. The entire liberal convention has been awash in talent. So far, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Sheila E, and Maren Morris have brought some of their biggest hits to the main stage, alongside comedians Kenan Thompson and Mindy Kaling. What might frustrate Trump most of all, however, is a surprise guest appearance rumored for Thursday: Beyoncé, in the flesh.

Check out the rest of the party’s roll track playlist here.

J.D. Vance, in trying to come up with a response to criticism from the Democratic National Convention, ended up owning his running mate, Donald Trump.

Just after midnight Thursday morning, Vance was interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper, who played a clip of Representative Jamie Raskin pointing out that Vance is only on the Republican ticket because Mike Pence faced death threats for certifying the election results on January 6, 2021. 

Vance tried to brush off Raskin’s comments and accused the Maryland congressman of claiming victimhood.

“I just don’t understand a person in American politics in 2024 who’s whining about what happened to them instead of using their leadership and using their influence to make the lives of American citizens better,” Vance responded.

The remark, unchallenged by Tapper, quickly brought to mind the many times Trump has whined about his many grievances, from the criminal and civil charges against him to his baseless allegations of election fraud in 2020, among so many others.

Vance and Trump seem to be flailing every time they are criticized. Every day, an old clip of Vance resurfaces where he says something bizarre, followed by him doubling down or trying in vain to explain it away. Meanwhile, Trump can’t seem to stay on message, or answer basic, easy questions, like whether he’d accept the election results. Democrats have successfully put Trump and Vance on their heels, and Republicans have no response.

An “undercover” Mike Lindell is running around the Democratic National Convention arguing with Democrats.

Like other right-wingers, including Matt Walsh, the MyPillow CEO has found his way into the DNC sporting a disguise: shaving off his legendary mustache. He announced he did so “in order to go undercover at the DNC and deliver FrankSpeech viewers undercover footage,” referring to his conservative news website. Instead, all he did was fight a child.

On Wednesday, the disgraced CEO was spotted fighting with 12-year-old content creator Knowa De Brasco.

Taking questions from the Democratic influencer, Lindell refused to cite sources for his election denial claims.

“They just found 257,000 votes … that are missing from the 2020 election,” Lindell shouted at the child.

“So your source is ‘trust me bro?’” Knowa shot back. “Alright, you’re full of crap.”

Lindell was not the only Republican weirdo to get schooled by Knowa. Charlie Kirk, who also somehow got into the convention, was also caught on video embarrassing himself.

“Why did you say that the civil rights bill should be overturned,” the teenager asked the conservative infiltrator. “I didn’t say that,” said Kirk, “I said it was a mistake.”

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump went on an absurdly long and winding tirade Thursday when asked to respond to Tim Walz’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.

During a morning appearance on Fox & Friends, Trump was asked to respond to the Democratic vice presidential nominee’s speech linking Trump to Project 2025, which has been proven time and time again.

“Their Project 2025 will make things much much harder for people who are just trying to live their lives,” Walz said. “They spend a lot of time pretending they know nothing about this. But look, I coached high school football long enough to know—and trust me on this—when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

When asked to respond to Walz, Trump took off on a winding rant that touched on a little bit of everything. Although it is broken up below into more digestible chunks, it should be understood as a wall of uninterrupted text.

“Well, first of all, he’s a total lightweight. And he shouldn’t be even having any access to possibly being president. The guy, he’s been a terrible governor. They’ve had nothing but problems in their state. He has no capability. They call him coach. He’s a semi-coach. You coach some football for a little while. This guy is a lightweight, and he shouldn’t have access,” Trump ranted.

“And for him to say about Project 25 is disgraceful. They know I have nothing to do with it. I had no idea what it was. A group of people got together. They drew up some conservative values, very conservative values, and in some case, perhaps they went over the line. Perhaps they didn’t. I have no idea what Project 25 is, but they use it, and they know it.”

Then began Trump’s rapid-fire word association rant, which has been painstakingly edited for brevity. The Republican nominee claimed that, like his controversial comment about the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which was often touted by President Joe Biden as his reason for running, his links to Project 2025 had been “totally discredited.”

Trump lamented the so-called “coup” against Biden, who was probably sitting on a beach in “crime-ridden” California, where everything Kamala Harris “touched turned bad,” with its “terrible, terrible crime trouble, and every other form of trouble.”

“You go into Los Angeles and you can’t walk down the streets,” and “San Francisco is unlivable,” Trump said. If Harris is elected, he said, “this country would turn out to be a big version of San Francisco.” Gentle reminder, he was supposed to be responding to Walz.

Trump then complained that Democrats had wrongly claimed he called veterans “losers” and “suckers” after he had done so much for the military, and the Biden administration had abandoned “$85 billion” in equipment in Afghanistan, although it was more like $7 billion. Trump was briefly interrupted by Brian Kilmeade, who said Harris had been “the last one in the room, and she was the last one in the room when that decision was made.”

Trump then managed to speak uninterrupted for another three minutes, about Afghanistan, China, and people falling off of planes. He mentioned crime rates, the border, and a recent report that found that U.S. employers added 818,000 fewer jobs in the year ending in March than initially reported.

“They thought they were going to keep those numbers until right after the election, when they could announce a revision. But they weren’t able to do that because they had a leaker and somebody leaked the numbers. They were fraudulent job numbers, just like they have fraudulent crime numbers,” Trump said. Another gentle reminder, he was supposed to be responding to Walz.