Election 2024 updates: 35 Democrats call on Biden to drop out; Trump speaks with Zelenskyy

The gunman who shot Trump in the ear at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday flew a drone over the rally site a few hours before Trump took the stage, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The camera drone made by DJI allowed 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Crooks, to get an overhead view that maybe helped him plan his attack, the source said.

Trump was shot in the ear in the assassination attempt and Crooks was killed by the Secret Service after the attack at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

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At a moment of existential turmoil for Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has stepped up as a firm ally of the embattled incumbent, using her platform to speak out against the flurry of Democratic voices who are calling on him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

As Trump was wrapping up his lengthy speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination last night, AOC — as she’s widely known — took to Instagram Live to speak directly to thousands of followers to make the case against Biden dropping out.

She questioned the viability of replacing Biden atop the ticket at this late stage, warning that some Republicans would challenge that legally and said doing so could lead to “a presidential election being decided by Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court,” like in 2000.

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Authorities arrested and charged a man in Florida over alleged social media threats against Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Michael M. Wiseman was arrested today on charges of written threats to kill, according to a statement from the Jupiter Police Department in Florida.

“After investigating the reports and the suspect’s Facebook account, JPD detectives found that Wiseman had made multiple threats against Trump and Vance, who earlier this week became the Republican nominees for President and Vice President, respectively,” the statement said. “Threats were also made concerning bodily harm to members of the Trump and Vance families.”

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Biden said he would return to the campaign trail next week. As the president recovers from Covid, his campaign said he is “more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump.” While more Democrats in the House and Senate called on Biden to end his campaign, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries reaffirmed his support of the president. NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell reports.

The Democratic pressure campaign to convince Biden to get off the ticket is rushing to get ahead of deadlines that would turn a political fight into a legal one, due to state laws on ballot certification and vacancies. 

Democrats are still on course to formally nominate the president again during the first week of August at a virtual delegate roll call vote before their convention later that month. And while party rules provide a clear path for Democrats to replace Biden before or after that vote, a decision to replace him for political reasons later than that gets into thorny territory, effectively becoming a lost cause by early September.

In short, Democrats may have only days after their convention to finalize their nominee or else they risk being left off the ballot in key states, risking key Electoral College votes and their ability to win the presidency along with it. By early September, trying to put a new presidential candidate on the ballot is no longer solely up to a national party once state laws on ballot certification and ballot vacancies go into effect.

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Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio called on President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign Friday, becoming the fourth Democrat in the chamber to ask Biden to drop out of the race.

“Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Brown said in a written statement shared first with NBC News. “These are the issues Ohioans care about and it is my job to keep fighting for them.”

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Gov. Spencer Cox, R-Utah, pledged his support to Trump in a two-page letter that outlined the governor's belief that "God had a hand in saving" him during the assassination attempt.

The letter marked a reversal for Cox, who just days ago on CNN said he would not vote for Trump and instead write in a candidate. Cox has said that he has not voted for the top of the ticket since 2012.

"I believe in our better angels, Mr. President, and I believe you are capable of being that kind of leader for this troubled nation," Cox wrote in the open letter. "It is a huge burden to be placed on any person, but I want you to know that I pledge my support and I know that millions of others will rally to that kind of leadership."

Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., called on Biden to bow out of the race, becoming the 34th congressional Democrat to join the calls for him to step aside.

In a statement, the frontline Democrat called Biden an "honorable public servant," adding that Americans "owe him a great debt of gratitude."

“However, I believe too many of our fundamental freedoms and the wellbeing of our nation are at risk under a Trump presidency and President Biden should step aside to give Democrats the best opportunity to win this November," Vasquez said. "With abortion rights under attack and our Democracy at stake, we must unite to defeat Donald Trump and MAGA extremists."

Vazquez narrowly defeated the Republican incumbent in 2022, garnering 50.3% of votes.

As Biden continues to recover for Covid, he appears to be growing politically isolated as calls grow louder for him to bow out of the 2024 race. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for TODAY on one of the biggest decisions of the president’s career.

Harris joined a call this afternoon with major Democratic donors to discuss the campaign. The call began with presentations from field organizers who expressed anger at the ongoing debate within the Democratic Party about backing Biden, given what they’ve seen and heard from voters on the ground, according to one source with direct knowledge of the discussion.

Then, Harris joined and delivered remarks expressing confidence that Democrats would win the election in November.

"We are going to win this election,” Harris said, according to a second source who was on the call. “We are going to win.”

The vice president denounced Trump and Republicans, saying, "You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans of basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity."

More than four dozen former foreign and U.S. national security officials called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race today.

"We write as former U.S. officials who have strongly supported your presidency and your initiatives to strengthen U.S. foreign and national security policy," they wrote in a letter. "We have welcomed the measures you have taken to promote U.S. alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Americas; to manage relations with great powers; and to address global issues such as climate change. These initiatives have been built on your decades-long record of support for responsible U.S. international engagement."

"We strongly believe that now is the time to pass the mantle of leadership, and we respectfully urge you to do so," they wrote to Biden.

Among the signatories are Richard Clarke, former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, and Anthony Lake, who served as national security adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Freshman Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., just called on Biden to exit the presidential race.

In a statement shared on X, McGarvey called Biden an "incredibly effective and empathetic leader," listing some of the president's achievements.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said today in an op-ed that Biden didn't appear to recognize him when he saw him in Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

"For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognize me," Moulton wrote in the opinion piece in The Boston Globe. "Of course, that can happen as anyone ages, but as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem."

"It was a crushing realization, and not because a person I care about had a rough night but because everything is riding on Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November," he said, adding that he is "no longer confident that he can."

Democrats are in an unprecedented crisis over who should be their presidential candidate.

But the party committee that governs the nominating process met Friday and proceeded as if everything was normal and its entire plan was not at risk of being upended at any minute.

As calls mount for President Joe Biden to step aside and let another Democrat lead the party into the November election against former President Donald Trump, the Democratic National Convention’s Rules Committee held a virtual meeting where the message to delegates was, essentially: Everything is proceeding as planned.

The meeting was convened to discuss plans for a virtual roll call vote to formally nominate Biden weeks before the convention, but no votes were taken or decisions made. Instead, party leaders used the meeting to inform the nearly 200 members of the committee about the process that is currently planned, which they had already laid out in a letter earlier this week.

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Vice President Harris is scheduled to hold a call with major Democratic donors at 3 p.m. ET today, four sources familiar with the plans tell NBC News.

A Biden campaign official says the president’s advisers asked her to do the call. 

According to an email invitation obtained by NBC News, Harris will huddle with donors — among them Reid Hoffman— at 3 p.m. today to discuss “urgent, emerging” needs. 

Members of President Joe Biden’s family have discussed what an exit from his campaign might look like, according to two people familiar with the discussions. 

The overall tone of the conversations has been that any exit plan — should Biden decide to take that step, as some of his closest allies increasingly believe he will — should put the party in the best position to beat former President Donald Trump while also being worthy of the more than five decades he has served the country in elected office, these people said. 

Biden’s family members have specifically discussed how he would want to end his re-election bid on his own timing and with a carefully calculated plan in place. Considerations about the impact of the campaign on his health, his family and the stability of the country are among those at the forefront of the discussions, the people familiar with the discussions said.

The prospect of Biden’s considering stepping aside, much less that his family is gaming out a possible exit plan, is an extraordinary development that comes after he has repeatedly said he would not relinquish his position as the presumptive nominee of the party. 

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Biden's Covid symptoms have "improved meaningfully" since yesterday, White House physician Kevin O'Connor said in an update released by the White House.

O'Connor said that the president completed his fourth dose of Paxlovid this morning and is tolerating the treatment well.

A group of Democrats who believe Vice President Kamala Harris should be the party’s nominee if President Joe Biden steps aside have begun quietly mapping out what her presidential campaign apparatus would look like and what her path to victory could be in November, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the planning.

The effort, which Harris has not sanctioned as she continues to publicly and privately support Biden remaining in the race, comes as many are concerned that the vice president does not currently have the personnel or organization needed to quickly make the pivot to being the top ticket, the source said. If Biden were to step aside, it’s unclear how much of his campaign apparatus would remain intact and whether it would make sense to continue some of the same strategic efforts. 

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A day after officially accepting the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump is expected to speak by phone Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a source familiar with the plan told NBC News.

The call comes almost five years to the day after another call between the two led to Trump’s first impeachment, and while questions swirl about whether Trump would continue to support military aid for Ukraine in its battle against Russian invaders.

Trump has vowed that if he wins the election, he’d have the war “settled” while he’s still president-elect. He has not said how he’d do so. At his debate against President Joe Biden in June, Trump criticized the large amount of military aid going to Ukraine, but also said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms to end the war are “not acceptable.”

As for Ukraine’s president, Trump said, “Every time Zelenskyy comes to this country, he walks away with $60 billion. The greatest salesman ever.”

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Two more House Democrats have called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race: Reps. Greg Landsman of Ohio and Zoe Lofgren of California.

In a statement, Landsman, considered a front-line Democrat, praised Biden and his accomplishments as president, but said he should pass the torch.

"After weeks of consideration and hundreds of conversations with constituents, I have come to the conclusion that Joe Biden is no longer the best person to make that case. It is time for President Biden to step aside and allow us to nominate a new leader who can reliably and consistently make the case against Donald Trump and make the case for the future of America," he said.

Landsman said in an interview that he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris would be "an incredible leader" if she becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.

Biden said in a statement reacting to Trump’s speech last night that he will be back on the campaign trail next week.

“I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone,” Biden said.

It’s a notable line given reporting that the Biden family has begun discussing a possible exit plan should the president need one amid growing calls for him to drop out.

Rep. Nanette Barragán, of California, one of Biden's staunchest supporters, said that she spent the week with Biden in Nevada and that she's "1,000 percent behind this president," during an interview with MNBC's "José Díaz-Balart Reports."

"I saw him on the go. I saw the reception. I saw what people were saying to him," Barragán said. "They were telling him to stay in the fight."

Barragán, a member of BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Biden's stance on immigration has led her caucus to support his re-election efforts as the group officially endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign on Friday.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden campaign co-chair and close confidant to the president, said Biden is weighing the situation, when asked about the state of the race at the Aspen National Security Forum today.

"I think our President is weighing what he should weigh, which is, who is the best candidate to win in November and to carry forward the democratic party’s values,” Coons said.

The largest labor union in Washington urged the state congressional delegation to call on Biden to drop out of the race in a letter obtained by NBC News.

Washington’s chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union represents 55,000 grocery, health care and retail employees.

The letter, signed by UFCW 3000 President Faye Guenther and Secretary-Treasurer Joe Mizrahi, states: “We call on President Biden to pass the torch to the next generation. He has much to celebrate over his career of accomplishments fighting alongside working people, but it is time for him to retire with dignity, and campaign as hard as we all will for an alternative candidate. The stakes are simply too high to do otherwise.”

Rep. Adam Smith, of Washington, is among the House Democrats calling on Biden to step aside.

Former Maryland governor and Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan condemned the conservative Heritage Foundation's blueprint for another Trump administration, dubbed Project 2025, as a threat to "traditional American values" in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Friday.

"Toxic politics on both sides of the aisle are undermining faith in our system of government," Hogan wrote. "But Project 2025 sends this disturbing trend into overdrive, casting aside the checks on presidential power that have protected our democracy for more than 200 years."

Hogan pointed specifically to Project 2025's goals of carrying out mass deportations, targeting the federal workforce, disbanding the Department of Education, and undermining the Justice Department by closely aligning it to the presidency, some of which he described as "absurd and dangerous."

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CNBC today that he hasn’t discussed if Biden should end his re-election bid with other members of the president's Cabinet.

Buttigieg, who ran against Biden for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination, did not directly answer when asked if the president was fit to serve another term but said he was proud to serve in the president’s administration.

“I have been so proud to serve under President Biden’s leadership,” Buttigieg said. “And every time I have needed him for a decision, for guidance to do the things that Cabinet secretaries need from their president, he has been there.”

When asked if he would consider entering the race if Biden steps aside, Buttigieg said that he could not discuss election issues while traveling in his official capacity due to campaign law.

In response to four House Democrats calling on Biden today to drop out of the race, a campaign official pointed NBC News to a comment made by the campaign's chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, during an MSNBC interview this morning.

“You have heard from the president directly time and again: He is in this race to win, and he is our nominee, and he's going to be our president for a second term," O’Malley Dillon said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

The campaign official also said there is "extensive support on Capitol Hill for the Biden-Harris campaign, including from swing state members, the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses, and voices all across the party."

The four House Democrats — Reps. Jared Huffman of California, Marc Veasey of Texas, Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin — said it is time for Biden "to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders" in a joint statement.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, of New Mexico, today became the third Senate Democrat to call on Biden to drop out of the 2024 race.

While acknowledging that it’s Biden’s decision “alone," he said in a statement, "I believe it is in the best interests of our country for him to step aside."

"By passing the torch, he would secure his legacy as one of our nation’s greatest leaders and allow us to unite behind a candidate who can best defeat Donald Trump and safeguard the future of our democracy," he added.

Sen. Jon Tester, of Montana, last night became the second Democrat in the Senate to issue the same call, joining Sen. Peter Welch, of Vermont.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., one of the congressional Democrats calling on Biden to step aside, said it's not just "elite Democrats" calling on Biden to step aside, but also the people in his district.

"It is just not a viable campaign anymore, and we have better options. We need to take them,” Smith said in an interview on MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports.”

"After that debate performance, after the presentation since then, the country's bringing it up," he added. "My constituents are bringing it up."

When asked about the campaign's response following the debate, Smith said the White House needs to be more transparent and release a full assessment of Biden's to the public.

Former President Donald Trump pitched a familiar worldview Thursday night: an administration that would stop wars, curb inflation and end illegal immigration.

But his third Republican National Convention speech — the longest nomination acceptance address in modern history, at 93 minutes — included a series of false claims on topics from taxes to crime to foreign policy.

Here’s what Trump said in Milwaukee and the facts behind his claims.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will testify before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, the agency's chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement.

"The Secret Service is fully accountable for the safety of its protectees. We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure it never happens again," Guglielmi said.

"That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI, and other relevant investigations," he added.

The House Oversight panel subpoenaed Cheatle earlier this week to appear before the committee.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters in Brooklyn this morning that Biden remains the Democratic presidential nominee.

He refused to divulge details about the meeting he recently had with Biden, saying that it was "a private conversation with President Biden that shall remain private."

Asked if he thinks Biden is the best person to defeat Trump, Jeffries said, "President Biden, as I’ve said repeatedly, is our nominee. He has a tremendous track record of success. He’s one of the most accomplished American presidents in our history, and he has the vision, I believe, the ability, the capacity and the track record to make a case to the American people that will result in us being successful in November."

NBC News reported yesterday that Biden feels personally hurt and betrayed by the way so many Democrats, including party leaders, have wavered on his candidacy.

Reps. Jared Huffman of California, Marc Veasey of Texas, Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin on Friday called on Biden to drop his re-election bid in a joint statement, saying that concerns about his "age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign."

"Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders," the House members said. "We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy, protect our alliances and the rules-based international order, and continue building on the strong foundation you have established over the past few years."

They added, "Mr. President, you have always been our country and our values first. We call on you to do it once again, so that we can come together and save the country we love."

Michael Beer of Delaware, who says he campaigned door to door for Biden’s 1972 Senate race, told NBC outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, where a group was protesting this morning, that it’s time for the president to pass the torch.

“We love you, your legacy is now firmly established. Pass the torch, now,” Beer said. “We’ve got young people who can really handle this.”

“He’s going to have to listen,” Beer said when it was noted that Biden says he’s already made a decision. “Ultimately, we make the decision, not him, as members of the Democratic Party.”

But what will Beer do in November if Joe Biden remains on the ticket? “We’ll vote for Joe Biden,” Beer said. “We’ll vote for a corpse over Trump.”

BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, endorsed Biden-Harris's re-election campaign on Friday.

"From historic investments in our infrastructure system to expanding access to affordable health care, they have championed policies that lifted up our families and communities,” Linda Sánchez, the BOLD PAC chairwoman, said in a statement. "This administration has led with working families in mind and shown an unwavering commitment to Latinos. There is so much work left to do and the stakes couldn’t be higher."

Lines are long at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport this morning after the Republican convention amid widespread flight delays because of a global IT outage. 

Biden’s Democratic detractors are trying to reach him directly through a TV ad on one of his favorite shows, marking an escalation in the pressure campaign to urge the president to step aside.

The ad, created by the new group Pass the Torch, will start running Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which Biden known to watch regularly, and other daytime MSNBC programming. It will run in Washington, D.C., and the media market that includes Rehoboth, Delaware, where Biden has a beach home in which he is currently isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.

"We want to get this message — that we’re so grateful for all you’ve done, and now it’s seriously time to pass the torch — directly to President Biden,” said Aaron Regunberg, a member of Pass the Torch’s steering committee. “We’ll be going up on his favorite programs, and we plan to stay up until we hear the announcement that he’s going to do the right thing and step aside. Hopefully we’ll be able to take it off the air in the very near future.”

Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois today became the 23rd congressional Democrat to call on Biden to drop out.

In an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune, he reflected on Biden's accomplishments during his time in office and expressed his fears about the upcoming election, saying his constituents "wonder whether our nation — and indeed, our world — can survive another Trump administration."

"As long as this election is instead litigated over which candidate is more likely to be held accountable for public gaffes and 'senior moments,'" Casten added. "I believe that Biden is not only going to lose but is also uniquely incapable of shifting that conversation."

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., called on Biden to withdraw yesterday.

The Biden campaign is insisting Biden will remain at the top of the ticket in November, arguing in a new memo that voters are still backing him despite concerns over his age and that the party has “no plan for an alternative nominee.”

In a new memo obtained by NBC News, the campaign’s battleground states director, Dan Kanninen, says that despite intense media coverage on Democratic divisions, organizers talking to voters consistently found that issues such as women’s rights and the potential GOP agenda of Project 2025 are paramount.

“While voters consistently mention President Biden’s age when contacted, our target voters — both re-engagement and true swing voters — are still planning to vote for him, making it clear the debate has not hurt support among the voters who will decide this election,” he writes in the memo.

With his name in lights, Trump took the stage at the Republican National Convention to accept the nomination for president. During his speech, he recounted the moment he was shot during a rally in Pennsylvania less than a week before. NBC’s Hallie Jackson reports for "TODAY."

MILWAUKEE — Trump last night formally accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in a speech heavy with references to the shooting he survived last week and elongated by ad-libbed applause lines and riffs — capping a long-anticipated moment that came only after a winding and dramatic campaign.

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Trump began his speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination by describing in the greatest detail yet being the target of an assassination attempt — and said he may never tell the story again.

It was his first major address since he was shot at a campaign rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooting, which injured Trump and two other people and killed a man, has loomed over the Republican National Convention this week.

Here’s what Trump, wearing a bandage over his injured right ear, told convention attendees.

Biden feels personally hurt and betrayed by the way so many Democrats, including some of the party’s top leaders, have hung him out to dry as he faces the biggest crisis of his political career, according to two sources familiar with his thinking.

And privately, many of those leaders have expressed doubts about his path forward.

Read the full story here.