The latest on the 2024 campaign as Biden and Trump prepare to debate

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday criticized former President Donald Trump for being “proudly” responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade’s holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion two years ago.

In April, Trump said he believes abortion restrictions should be left to the states, while also declaring himself “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe v. Wade.

During Monday’s conversation with actress Francia Raisa and Arizona Corporation Commissioner Anna Tovar, Harris reiterated Biden’s commitment to sign a bill codifying abortion rights. 

“Let’s understand the connection between this issue and elections, because Joe Biden has been very clear — when Congress puts back in place the protections of Roe versus Wade, he will sign it into law,” she said to cheers from the audience.

While she claimed that “momentum” is on Democrats’ side on the issue, Harris warned that if Republicans can target abortion rights, “the most fundamental of rights, what’s next?”

Phoenix was Harris’ second stop of the day focused on abortion rights, which the vice president has made a particular focus.

President Biden and his team of advisers at Camp David are still convened for debate preparations and have yet to break for the day, according to a senior adviser who is there.

The group ate lasagna for dinner. As CNN previously reported, Biden is expected to be joined by more than a dozen of his top aides at the presidential retreat this week as he prepares to face off against Donald Trump on Thursday.

Former President Donald Trump said in a podcast interview today that he’s preparing for Thursday’s CNN presidential debate by taking questions and going to events.

CNN previously reported that Trump’s advisers are wary of using the words “debate prep” and that the former president has no plans to engage in mock debates. Instead, he’s participating in informal policy discussions.

Then-President Donald Trump and then-Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden participate in a presidential debate in October 2020.

The historic rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is anything but a rerun, with their first presidential debate on Thursday set to showcase a vastly different set of issues driving their bitter duel for the White House.

It feels like an upside-down lifetime ago since the pair last appeared together on a debate stage. The coronavirus pandemic was raging in the fall of 2020 and Trump’s chaotic presidency was at the center of it all. Now, Biden’s record is under the microscope in equal measure, even as he still presents himself as a safer alternative.

In the Biden-Trump sequel, an entirely new set of fights have been brewing on the campaign trail and in TV ads that offer a glimpse into at least some of the arguments likely to be aired when the two come face-to-face Thursday at the CNN debate in Atlanta.

To voters in Wisconsin earlier this month, Trump delivered a stark warning about an unstable world and, in his view, an unstable Biden presidency, saying: “We’re going to end up in World War III with this person. He’s the worst president ever.”

A new Biden ad minces no words about Trump’s May conviction on 34 felony counts: “This election is between a convicted criminal who is out for only himself and a president who is fighting for your family,” the narrator declares in the spot, which is part of a $50 million advertising campaign.

The competing messages not only crystallize the theory of the case for the two rivals, but underscore just how much the country, the world and, yes, the candidates themselves have changed in the past four years.

Read more about why the Biden-Trump rematch is anything but a rerun.

Patrick Jones, Shasta County supervisor and gun shop owner, displays a Sig Sauer Pistol on February 24 in Redding in Northern Califonia's Shasta County.

In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the most comprehensive gun-reform legislation in nearly 30 years.

The law, passed shortly after a White supremacist massacred 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, allocated more than $750 million to help states implement crisis-intervention programs, closed certain loopholes in existing gun-control legislation and required more thorough reviews for people aged 18 to 21 who wanted to buy firearms.

Biden has said he wants to go further.

He made a similar promise while running in 2020 but has not been able to get Congress’ support.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said he would undo the work that Biden has done related to gun control.

The former president also promised in the speech that the government would not infringe on citizens’ Second Amendment rights and that he would push Congress to pass a concealed carry reciprocity.

Read more about Biden and Trump’s campaign promises.

##Catch Up##

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff in Michigan on Monday.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is campaigning in Michigan on Monday, one of several events the Biden campaign has organized across battleground states to mark the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court.

“It’s not just reproductive freedom that’s at stake,” Emhoff warned at a roundtable in Flint, Michigan, explaining that access to contraception and rights for LGBTQ couples, which are also rooted in privacy rights, could also be in jeopardy.

He also emphasized the importance of having a Congress that would codify abortion access previously protected by Roe.

Emhoff was joined by Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Kaitlyn Joshua, who says she was turned away from two emergency rooms while experiencing a miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy.

Joshua is featured in a new TV ad from the Biden campaign running on national cable and in battleground states. In the ad, she describes her experience as “a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade” and slams the former president.

Separately, Vice President Kamala Harris held a rally in Maryland and is set to hold another campaign event in Arizona later today to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Adamary Garcia studies inside of the Perry-Castaneda Library at the University of Texas at Austin on February 22 in Austin, Texas.

Former President Donald Trump announced plans in a September 2023 campaign video to close the Department of Education and send “all education and education work and needs back to the states.”

The former president has also promised to “put parents back in charge and give them the final say” in education. In a January 2023 campaign video, the former president said he would give funding preferences and “favorable treatment” to schools that allow parents to elect principals, abolish teacher tenure for K-12 teachers, use merit pay to incentivize quality teaching and cut the number of school administrators, such as those overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Trump also said in that campaign video that he would cut funding for schools that teach critical race theory and gender ideology. In a later speech, Trump said he would bring back the 1776 Commission, which was launched in his previous administration to “teach our values and promote our history and our traditions to our children.”

The former president said he would charge the Department of Justice and the Department of Education with investigating civil rights violations of race-based discrimination in schools while also removing “Marxists” from the Department of Education. A second Trump administration would pursue violations in schools of both the Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.

Biden, on the other hand, has criticized Republican-led drives to ban certain books from public schools.

In the same speech, Biden also called for expanded pre-kindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds, along with raises for teachers in public schools. He said he wants to continue making college more affordable by expanding access to Pell grants for working-class families, renewing a 2020 promise he made to double the grants’ value.

Read more about Biden and Trump’s campaign promises.

Joe Biden was on cleanup duty. The day was October 4, 2012, the morning after Barack Obama had turned in a debate performance so bad even Obama himself would come to judge it a “stinker.”

Flat, convoluted and passive, Obama’s turn at the podium was calamitous enough that aides backstage appeared paralyzed before emerging reluctantly to face reporters in the spin room.

It was left to Biden, the vice president, to stand outside a grocery store in Iowa and find a charitable way of describing his boss’s performance.

“He was presidential,” Biden offered, acknowledging later what had by then become obvious: “All debates are tough.”

Twelve years later, the memory of Obama’s tortured outing in Denver is lingering in the background as Biden undergoes practice sessions at Camp David ahead of his own first debate as an incumbent as he faces off with former President Donald Trump on Thursday in Atlanta.

Biden’s team — some of whom helped prepare Obama for his debates — undoubtedly hopes to elude a curse afflicting incumbents going back at least four decades: a weak first debate that left an opening for their rivals to gain the initiative.

Read more about how debates trip up presidents here.

As it races to issue the final opinions of the current term, the Supreme Court is adding two additional days this week when it will hand down decisions, and one of those days will coincide with the first presidential debate of the cycle.

The court announced it will issue opinions on Thursday and Friday this week at 10 a.m. ET.

The Supreme Court, which usually wraps up its term by the end of June, has as many as 14 cases outstanding.

The pending cases include some of the most significant this year, including whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution and whether Idaho may enforce its strict ban on abortions when the health of the pregnant woman is at stake. 

It is not yet clear whether the court will finish its work this week, or whether the term will slip into the first week of July. The last time that happened was during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump don’t agree on a lot, but they both have embraced tariffs as part of their trade policy. 

Tariffs raise the price of imported goods for American businesses. But they can also help protect some domestic manufacturers and — despite the cost — help score political points in swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

Trump’s tariff policy: While in office, Trump put new tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines and roughly $300 billion of Chinese-made goods. 

If he returns to the White House, Trump plans to add to those tariffs by enacting a duty of at least 10% on all imports from all countries, a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports and a 100% tariff on all cars made outside the US.

Biden’s tariff policy: Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs in place, including on Chinese-made goods like shoes, baseball caps and luggage. 

In May, Biden announced that he will increase tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese imports across a handful of sectors deemed strategic to national security, including electric vehicles, battery components, legacy semiconductors, steel and aluminum. The new tariff rates will take effect over the next two years.

The Democratic National Committee on Monday blasted Donald Trump’s potential vice president picks for being aligned with the former president’s abortion ban agenda.

The memo targets several politicians suspected to be in play to become Trump’s running mate, including GOP Ohio Sen. JD Vance and GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for previous comments opposing exceptions and GOP North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for signing one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.

Trump has said he would not sign a national abortion ban and recently addressed the issue in a meeting with House Republicans Washington, DC, where he advised them not to be afraid to talk about the issue, as CNN previously reported.

According to GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, Trump pushed for exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother and the need to talk about abortion “correctly.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Trump told the group to “exercise your own conscience to talk about it, share your conviction, and do that in a way that makes sense to people.”

The DNC memo was first reported on by NBC News.

##Dobbs Anniversary##

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, on Monday.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday slammed Donald Trump over the issue of abortion, accusing the former president of premeditating the overturning of Roe v. Wade and stealing women’s reproductive freedom.

Harris specifically has become the administration’s foremost voice on reproductive rights, both in public events and behind the scenes. Earlier this year, she kicked off the “reproductive freedoms tour” in effort to focus on an issue the Biden campaign believes will be critical to mobilizing voters in November.

During her remarks at the University of Maryland, Harris emphasized the health risks women are facing as extreme bans are being implemented and limits are being placed on access to women’s healthcare across the country, as she continued to place blame on the former president.

The vice president warned of a second Trump term, arguing that “as much harm as he has already caused a second Trump term would be even worse.”

The vice president drew a contrast between the current and former administrations, telling attendees: “Donald Trump thinks the government is in a better position to tell women what’s in their best interest than women are to know for themselves.”

“But Joe Biden and I trust women and women trust all of us to fight for their most fundamental freedoms,” she added.

President Joe Biden launched his reelection campaign in April 2023, describing the contest between him and former President Donald Trump as a stark choice for voters between the continuation of democracy in America and its possible destruction. He is the oldest president to ever hold office and would be 86 at the end of a second term.

Meanwhile, Trump launched his bid to reclaim the White House in November 2022, aiming to become only the second commander in chief to win two nonconsecutive terms. Trump continues to deny the outcome of the 2020 election that he lost to Biden and promotes baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud. In May 2024, Trump was found guilty of all charges at his New York hush money criminal trial. He also faces charges in three other cases.

Here are some more key facts about Biden:

Here are some more key facts about Trump:

President Joe Biden speaks at an event on June 18.

Joe Biden is throwing everything at Donald Trump.

The president and his campaign are blasting the presumptive Republican nominee as a criminal and a racist who was found liable for sexual assault and who is now being driven so “crazy” by his loss in 2020 that he’s been left “unhinged.”

It’s one of the most searing portrayals in the modern age by an incumbent president of his challenger and is designed to define the 45th president as flagrantly unfit for a return to the office he left in disgrace in 2021. With his two impeachments, a criminal conviction and an attempt to overturn the last election, Trump gave Biden plenty to work with.

But Biden’s strategy may also tell the story of a reelection campaign that is going nowhere near as well as the president must have hoped, as he battles diminished standing across swathes of the electorate and faces a dauntingly narrow path to the 270 electoral voters needed to win in November.

For months, Biden’s team has argued that when the choice between the president and his predecessor became clear to voters, the stakes of the election would shift the political equation in his favor. The theory was that voters were slow to tune into the race and that they may need reminding about the chaos and the discord of Trump’s first term that ended in the worst assault on democracy in generations.

But it’s now midsummer, and the election is less than five months away. There’s every sign the race is still shaping up as much as a referendum on Biden – and a weary populace’s lost sense of economic security – as it is on the threat to the rule of law that Trump is making clear a second term would entail.

Read Collinson’s full analysis here.

The first 2024 presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, is just three days away and airwaves in the Peach State are being flooded with campaign advertising. 

In just the week leading up to the debate, campaigns and outside groups are spending a total of $3.5 million on advertising for the presidential race in Georgia, led by President Joe Biden’s campaign and pair of leading outside groups.

Biden’s campaign is spending just under $1 million, a super PAC backing him, Future Forward USA, is spending $1.3 million on a joint ad campaign with an environmental group, Climate Power. Countering those efforts, Securing American Greatness, a pro-Trump super PAC, is spending $1.2 million.

Trump’s campaign is effectively off the air in Georgia, and in other battleground states, relying on outside groups to take the lead in paid messaging for now. One of those groups, Securing American Greatness, which is spending $1.2 million in Georgia this week, is up with an ad slamming Biden’s management of the economy, specifically highlighting local housing prices and criticizing Biden’s comments downplaying price increases.

Georgia is among the top battleground states that are already drawing millions in ad spending. Since the start of June, Georgia has been targeted by $8.5 million in presidential advertising, and since the start of the cycle in 2023, Georgia has seen nearly $20 million in presidential advertising; Democrats have outspent Republicans in Georgia over that stretch by $16.5 million to $3.5 million. The only battleground states that have seen more ad spending over that time are Pennsylvania ($53.3 million) and Michigan ($27.7 million).

Over the last month in Georgia, Biden’s campaign has spent more than a million airing a striking new attack ad criticizing Trump’s character. The Biden campaign has also spent more than half a million dollars over the last month airing another attack ad, echoing the criticism of Trump’s character, and explicitly referencing his historic criminal conviction. 

The joint ad campaign from the pro-Biden groups, Future Forward USA Action and Climate Power, has also focused on touting Biden administration achievements, praising his approach to legislating.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

One is secluding himself at a mountainside retreat with a tight circle of advisers, poring over briefing binders, honing attack lines and bracing for personal smears. The other is workshopping responses and retorts with vice presidential hopefuls, sharpening policy lines while working to rein in his bombastic rhetoric.

In some ways, aides to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump describe similar goals heading into Thursday’s presidential debate: painting their opponent as presiding over disorder and wholly unfit for office.

For two men who have been circling each other rhetorically for the past four years, the debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta amounts to a moment of high consequence. Both candidates are aware of the stakes, officials in both campaigns say, as they huddle with their teams to prepare attacks, form rebuttals and frame the choice of November’s election.

Both teams have spent the past weeks working to fine-tune their message on a wide array of issues, from the economy to foreign affairs to their rival’s fitness for office. And each has found themselves distracted in some way: Trump by the criminal trial that consumed his spring and Biden by a stretch of intensive overseas travel and a painful legal saga for his family.

Yet the similarities mostly end there. How each man is preparing for the debate is ultimately a microcosm of their differences as candidates, and each will enter the CNN studio with divergent objectives.

Read more about Biden and Trump’s debate preparations.

Donald Trump is juggling a busy court and campaign schedule as he defends himself in several criminal cases while also vying for a second term in the White House.

The trial start date in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida had been set for late May, but the judge overseeing that case said on May 7 that the trial is “indefinitely postponed.” The Florida judge is holding two hearings today related to the case.

Meanwhile, the jury in Trump’s New York hush money trial found the former president guilty on all 34 felony counts in May. The charges stem from his alleged falsification of business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.

Judge Juan Merchan set a sentencing hearing for July 11, a week before the Republican National Convention.

The Biden campaign is spelling out some of its strategy this week, with plans for surrogate events, watch parties, advertising and “war rooms” for the first presidential debate hosted by CNN on Thursday.

The memo makes clear the three issues Biden will work to drive home in the debate: abortion, democracy and Trump’s economic plans. 

Former President Donald Trump greets supporters at a sandwich stop in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign began reserving advertising time last week around the first presidential debate on CNN, looking to capitalize on the attention surrounding the high-profile event.

According to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact, Trump’s campaign has been buying ad time for the day of the debate, June 27, making reservations on CNN and other stations, across several key battleground states, including Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Georgia.

The ad buys are still being placed, with the Trump campaign’s total spend to be determined as TV stations continue reporting the reservations — but it represents the first TV ad time that the Trump campaign has itself reserved since effectively clinching the 2024 GOP presidential nomination in mid-March.

Over the last few months, the Trump campaign has mostly left paid messaging to allied outside groups, such as MAGA Inc., the lead super PAC supporting his White House bid, which has spent about $14.8 million on ads since Super Tuesday.

But during that stretch, Democrats have opened up a significant advertising edge over Republicans, as both the Biden campaign and its allies have made major early investments in advertising.

As a result, between Super Tuesday, when Trump effectively clinched the nomination, through last Monday, including both campaigns and outside groups, Democrats have spent about $92.8 million on advertising for the presidential race, while Republicans have spent about $34.1 million.

Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a news conference at the White House in February 2020.

Being Donald Trump’s vice president didn’t end well for Mike Pence — but there’s no sign his painful split from the ex-president over his anti-constitutional demands is scaring off any of the hopefuls keen to slip into his shoes.

The presumptive GOP nominee’s search for a new number two is expected to culminate with a dramatic unveiling at the Republican National Convention in a month, likely choreographed to engineer a TV ratings bump.

At various points, the list of possible contenders has included:

Trump shattered all conventions about the business of running for president and serving in the Oval Office. And putting potential running mates through a televised audition process is no exception. The old school playbook, in which possible nominees feign a lack of interest in the post to maximize their chances of getting it, is antithetical to Trump’s way of operating.

Possible picks trying to catch Trump’s eye go on television, knowing he’s probably watching, and sprinkle compliments, talk up his chances of winning, amplify his voter fraud conspiracy theories and slam his criminal conviction. Some have made clear that they wouldn’t have done what Pence did on January 6, 2021, when he concluded that he did not have the power to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Congress.

The almost total adoption of Trump’s mantras suggests that the experience of the last Republican vice president — who was hunted with calls of “Hang Mike Pence” by members of the Trump mob that attacked the Capitol — is not giving them much pause. This is despite history suggesting that, at some point in their potential mandate, a possible President Trump might ask them to do something that tests their consciences, the law or the Constitution.

Read more analysis about Trump’s potential vice president picks.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Raleigh, North Carolina, in March.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to criticize former President Donald Trump for making a “premeditated” effort to restrict abortion access in America while speaking in Maryland Monday, marking the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe. v. Wade.

The vice president has emerged as the administration’s primary messenger on the issue in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, holding roundtables and delivering remarks in states across the country facing restrictive abortion bans.

Harris is one of the many administration and campaign surrogates fanned out around the country Monday to mark the occasion — per the campaign, they’ve organized more than 50 events featuring officials and surrogates across the country to drive the message home.

Harris is also set to slam Trump for comments boasting over his part in overturning the constitutional right to an abortion. In the days following the Supreme Court’s decision that the outcome was “only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.”

“Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions. Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe,” Harris is expected to say. “In a court of law, that would be called an admission. Some would say, a confession…In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.”

A man rides a scooter past CNN's Atlanta headquarters on Monday.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are gearing up for a historic showdown, with the stage now set for CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday.

The showdown will make history as the first debate between a sitting president and a former president. It will also be the first debate since 2020 featuring either Biden, who did not face a serious challenge for the Democratic nomination, or Trump, who skipped those held during the Republican primary race.

The debate could be a defining moment in a presidential race that took shape earlier than usual and features two universally known candidates.

A key departure from the two Biden-Trump debates of 2020, both of which were hosted by universities, is that the clash will have no studio audience. CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will host the 90-minute debate in Atlanta. Both candidates have accepted the network’s invitation and agreed to accept the rules and format of the debate, as outlined in letters sent to the campaigns by the network in May.

The debate qualification window closed at 12:00:01 a.m. ET last Thursday, with Biden and Trump meeting the constitutional, ballot qualification and polling thresholds set by the network.

In order to qualify for participation:

Biden and Trump were the only candidates to meet those requirements.

President Joe Biden will remain at Camp David where he has been hunkered down with staff preparing for his debate against Donald Trump until Thursday when he will fly to Atlanta for the debate.

After the debate, he will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he will participate in a campaign event Friday before traveling to New York. There, he will participate in an official event as well as a campaign reception.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is planning a rally in Virginia on Friday.

On Saturday, Biden will participate in campaign receptions in New York and New Jersey before returning to Camp David where he will remain until Tuesday.

The first lady will be traveling with him throughout the week.

GOP Florida Rep. Byron Donalds defended Donald Trump’s contributions to the national debt in comparison with President Joe Biden — calling the Covid-19 pandemic an “anomaly.”

The Florida Republican, and a potential vice president pick, rebuked a new report that estimated the 10-year debt impact, which showed that even without the pandemic, Trump contributed more than double to the national debt than Biden. 

“Most of the debt incurred by Donald Trump does come from Covid-19, because the entire country’s economy was shut down. And at that point, yes, Congress and the White House had a responsibility to step into that gap to make sure that Americans didn’t just have their lives completely destroyed by Covid-19,” Donalds told CNN.

According to a new analysis conducted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, during his term as president, Trump approved $8.4 trillion of new 10-year borrowing during his full term in office, compared with Biden in his first three years in office, who approved $4.3 trillion of new ten-year borrowing.

Excluding the CARES Act and other COVID relief, Trump approved $4.8 trillion and Biden $2.2 trillion, excluding the American Rescue Plan.

“If you want to talk about debt projections, it is crystal clear Joe Biden has no concern about taxing and spending on the backs of the American people. Donald Trump will have a plan in order to be able to curtail federal spending to get our debt under control,” he said.

Donalds claimed the “math does simply not add up” that Trump contributed more than double than Biden excluding the pandemic.

Donalds also acknowledged how Trump appointed three conservatives to the Supreme Court, which ultimately led to the overturn of Roe v Wade. He said Trump is responsible for kicking it back to the states.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Policy Conference in Washington, DC, on Saturday.

President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party raised more than $85 million in May, his campaign said Thursday – trailing his rival, former President Donald Trump, and the Republican National Committee for the second month in a row.

Trump’s political ambitions, meanwhile, received a huge boost in May with a $50 million cash infusion to a super PAC backing his campaign from Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and heir to a banking fortune who has emerged as one of the single largest donors in this year’s presidential election.

The May haul by Biden’s team marked the second-best grassroots fundraising month for the president this cycle, his campaign said, but it fell well short of the staggering $141 million that Trump and his political operation said it collected last month – fueled by tens of millions of dollars collected in the immediate aftermath of his May 30 conviction in a New York criminal case for falsifying business records.

Biden’s campaign said Thursday that his committees entered June with a massive $212 million cash stockpile. The Trump campaign has not yet disclosed cash-on-hand figures for all of its committees.

Campaigns don’t have to do so until next month, but Federal Election Commission filings late Thursday offered a partial picture, showing Trump’s main committee with more than $116.5 million in cash reserves on May 31 while Biden’s main campaign account held $91.6 million. It underscores how much Trump’s fundraising success in recent months has eroded the financial advantage Biden held for much of the campaign cycle.

Read more about Biden’s and Trump’s fundraising hauls.

Former President Donald Trump, in keeping with his preference for shunning traditional debate prep, spent his last Saturday before his first one-on-one showdown with President Joe Biden out on the campaign trail.

Trump addressed a gathering of Christian conservatives Saturday afternoon in Washington, DC, touching upon his familiar campaign messages while emphasizing his efforts to undo the federal right to an abortion by nominating the justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

Later Saturday, he traveled to Philadelphia for a more traditional campaign rally in a key battleground state.

The back-to-back public appearances stand in stark contrast to Biden’s approach to the first of two presidential debates. The president and his team spent the weekend before the debate at Camp David, poring over briefing binders and holding mock debate sessions as he crams for his high-stakes meeting with Trump.

While Trump has held informal briefing sessions with advisers and allies, he has also kept up an active campaign schedule. He held a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday last week and attended a fundraiser Thursday night in Ohio.

Trump’s campaign is relishing the juxtaposition of the two candidates’ preparation styles.

Read more about Trump’s Saturday events here.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is hosting 50 events to mark two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

The events, which range from roundtables to news conferences to rallies, will take place in a number of battleground states including Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Pennsylvania. 

A list curated by the Biden campaign, which was shared with CNN, showed that First Lady Jill Biden participated in two “Women for Biden-Harris” events on Sunday in Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris is also expected to participate in two events – one in Arizona and one in Maryland – on Monday to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s highly consequential decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Some campaign surrogates will also take part in events, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running for governor in Virginia, and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will also participate in a number of events for the Biden campaign in battleground Wisconsin.

Some background: Abortion has emerged as a key issue in the 2024 election. About half of registered voters in the United States say this year’s elections will have a “major impact” on access to abortion, and about one in eight voters says abortion is the most important issue driving their vote, according to a KFF survey from earlier this year.

Fourteen states have total or near-total bans on abortion, including Alabama, Texas, Idaho and Tennessee.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on June 18.

Former President Donald Trump will get the final word when he debates President Joe Biden on Thursday, after a coin flip to determine podium placement and the order of closing statements.

The coin landed on the Biden campaign’s pick — tails — which meant his campaign got to choose whether it wanted to select the president’s podium position or the order of closing statements.

Biden’s campaign chose to select the right podium position, which means the Democratic president will be on the right side of television viewers’ screens and his Republican rival will be on viewers’ left.

Trump’s campaign then chose for the former president to deliver the last closing statement, which means Biden will go first at the conclusion of the debate.

Biden and Trump are set to make history Thursday in the first presidential debate between an incumbent and a former president. It will also be the first debate since 2020 featuring either Biden, who did not face a serious challenge for the Democratic nomination, or Trump, who skipped those held during the Republican primary race.

For Trump, delivering the final closing statement in CNN’s debate is a notable difference from his New York criminal trial and conviction last month. He seethed during the hush money case that his lawyer wouldn’t get the last word — even though prosecutors delivering the final remarks in a trial is common practice.

Vice President Kamala Harris spe during a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today's rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris warned that “everything is at stake” in the upcoming election as she emphasized extreme abortion bans are creating a “health care crisis” nationwide during a pretaped interview that aired on the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

Harris reflected on being the first US vice president believed to visit an abortion provider, referring to her visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota back in March.

The vice president, who has been leading the charge for the Biden White House and campaign on the issue of reproductive rights, blasted extreme abortion bans following the overturning of Roe as “immoral.”

CNN’s John King has taken to the road to speak with Americans about the upcoming election for a new podcast, the All Over the Map project.

All of them — despite their political differences — share one common feeling: frustration.

Voters feel they don’t have a good choice at the upcoming election, and many are unsure how they will vote in November.

In Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Michael Pesce a 60-year-old meat processing plant employee said he would vote for “anyone but Trump.”

Pesce voted for Trump in 2016, and Biden in 2020 but he said as someone who served in the military, he could not get past Trump’s attempts to overthrow the government.

Listen to what other voters had to say on the podcast here.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled the last name of the voter. He is Michael Pesce.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Thursday’s CNN debate will be hosted by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta and will mark the first in-person showdown of the 2024 campaign between President Joe Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Both candidates accepted the network’s invitation and agreed to accept the rules and format of the debate, as outlined in letters sent to the campaigns by the network in May.

The 90-minute debate will include two commercial breaks, according to the network, and campaign staff may not interact with their candidate during that time.

Here are more details of the parameters for the event:

Read more about the rules and how candidates qualified.

President Joe Biden waves as he walks to board Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before departing for Camp David on June 20.

President Joe Biden will remain at Camp David, where he has been hunkered down with staff preparing for his debate against Donald Trump, until he flies to Atlanta on Thursday.

After the debate, he will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he will participate in a campaign event Friday before traveling to New York. There, he will participate in an official event as well as a campaign reception.

On Saturday, he will participate in campaign receptions in New York and New Jersey before returning to Camp David, where he will remain until Tuesday.

The first lady will be traveling with him throughout the week.

The Biden campaign is blasting former President Donald Trump over abortion rights in a new TV ad coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and days ahead of the first presidential debate.

The ad, which was first shared with CNN, features a testimonial from Kaitlyn Joshua, a Louisiana woman who says she was turned away from two emergency rooms while experiencing a miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy. She describes her experience as “a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade” and slams the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

“We want to support someone that does have our best interests at heart, and that’s why I’m so adamant about supporting President Biden,” adds Joshua, who is set to join second gentleman Doug Emhoff on Monday for a Michigan event marking the second anniversary of Roe’s reversal.

Why this matters: The 30-second spot highlights an issue the campaign sees as key to rallying voters, especially the young and female blocs that are crucial to his reelection chances. The ad, which marks the second time President Joe Biden’s campaign has used Trump’s felony conviction in its advertising, will run on television and internet-connected TV in battleground states and on national cable as part of the campaign’s $50 million ad push in June.

President Joe Biden and his team of advisers have been hunkered down at Camp David through the weekend for intensive debate preparations – including getting ready for different versions of Donald Trump that could show up to the CNN presidential debate Thursday night.

Biden aides are gearing up for what they believe is the very real possibility that “a very disciplined” Trump may step on to the debate stage this week, one senior adviser involved in the preparations told CNN, in what would mark a stark contrast from the unhinged former president that created chaos during the first Biden-Trump debate four years ago.

In that face-off in September 2020, Trump memorably unleashed a torrent of insults, interruptions and long-winded rambling answers that made it, at times, nearly impossible for the moderator to keep the debate under control.

But as this one Biden adviser put it, the president’s team believes that Trump’s presidential campaign has been far more disciplined this time around than in 2020 or 2016, in no small part at the direction of political operatives like Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, and that that could result in Trump being relatively restrained on Thursday.

Still, Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that ultimately “it really doesn’t matter how Donald Trump shows up – if he comes in unhinged, like he is most of the time, or he sits there and is quiet.”

“People are going to know that he’s a twice-impeached, convicted felon who has been found to have defamed somebody, sexually abused somebody and gone bankrupt six times,” Landrieu said. “They will always know that.”

CNN has reported that Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer is likely to reprise his role of Trump in mock debate sessions at Camp David this week. Bauer, who has repeatedly declined to comment on the strategy behind this year’s debate prep, did say on CNN last week that playing the role of Trump was about striking a balance between “trying to approximate the experience” of facing off against the ex-president, but also not letting “theatrics” become a distraction. 

Aides who were involved in debate preparations four years ago credited Bauer for having a knack for capturing what the team back then anticipated would be an implacable Trump on the debate stage.

“What he was excellent at was mimicking Trump’s relentlessness,” former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield recalled.

And there is one detail about Thursday night’s debate that the Biden team is glad about: the two campaigns agreeing that a candidate’s mic would be muted whenever it is not their turn to speak. The senior Biden adviser said that voters made clear after the first chaotic debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 that “their interests had not been served.” There was simply too much interrupting and yelling, the adviser said, and ultimately, the chaos meant voters were not able to hear clearly from both candidates. 

Clearly showcasing that contrast between Biden and Trump on everything from policy issues to broader vision for the country, is a top priority for the Biden campaign for this week. At the end of the night, the president’s campaign wants the audience to have seen a divisive and chaotic Trump – and standing next to him, a steadier and wiser Biden. 

The Biden team is hoping that the muted mics might help to demonstrate that.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Philadelphia on Saturday.

After months lampooning President Joe Biden as a cognitively impaired “brain-dead zombie” who can’t finish a sentence or navigate off a stage, former President Donald Trump and his campaign are changing their tune days ahead of the critical debate of the election.

The commander in chief has suddenly morphed into a “worthy debater,” someone of considerable ability and a veteran political performer who is not to be underestimated, according to Trump and his lieutenants.

The game of pre-debate expectation-setting is often absurd – one aide to former President George W. Bush once claimed that John Kerry, his Democratic opponent in 2004, was a better debater than Roman rhetorician Cicero. But the Trump team’s shift is remarkable given their relentless assault on Biden’s faculties. And it hints at their possible concerns that they’ve set an unnecessarily low bar for the president’s performance ahead of Thursday’s clash hosted by CNN in Atlanta.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a possible Trump vice presidential pick, tried to reset the balance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “The guy’s run for office more than a dozen times. He’s run for president four times. He’s been campaigning since President Nixon was in office,” he said. “This guy has got the ability.”

Trump is also hedging against a stronger-than-expected Biden showing by suggesting his opponent will be “jacked up” on drugs to ensure a strong performance.

Here’s what else to know about Trump’s approach to this Thursday’s debate.

The Biden campaign has announced a $1.5 million dollar “investment” with the National Newspaper Publisher’s Association.

The association houses Black-owned newspapers across the country, including members in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Georgia.

“This partnership with the NNPA is a continuation of those efforts, and will strengthen our work in meeting Black voters where they are, to underscore the stakes of this election for Black America,” Biden-Harris Black Media Director Jasmine Harris said in a statement.

President Joe Biden’s debate prep sessions at Camp David reflect that he is “not the man he was four years ago,” Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida said Sunday, casting doubt on the president’s stamina and mental acuity ahead of the debate.

Biden and Donald Trump face off this Thursday on CNN for the first presidential debate.

Biden’s preparation alongside senior advisers ahead of the debate “does not bode well” for Biden, Donalds said on Fox News. The lawmaker sought to draw a contrast between Biden and Trump, who he said is “prepared.”

The congressman’s comments echo Trump’s remarks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, in which he suggested the president’s Camp David debate prep sessions consisted of “sleeping” so Biden will be “good and strong” ahead of the debate. Trump also baselessly suggested Biden would be “jacked up” on drugs during the June 27 debate.

Donalds said he believes Trump is going to focus on policy issues and attack Biden’s record.

Donalds, who has previously been reported to be a contender for the Republican vice presidential nomination, said being selected as Trump’s running mate could show a “direct contrast between me and Vice President Harris” with Black voters. Donalds added that he believes that Trump winning 25% of Black voters in November is “very possible.”

Former President Donald Trump is planning a rally in Virginia on Friday after the CNN debate against President Joe Biden.

He’s expected to sleep at his Virginia golf club Thursday.

The Trump campaign does not have a venue but they are looking at Virginia Beach, according to multiple sources briefed.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday said the first presidential debate in Atlanta will “make clear the contrast” between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.

“On the one hand, you have Joe Biden who has spent his life and career fighting for the well-being of other people, including health care. On the other hand, you have the former president who spent full-time when he was president trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which if he is successful as president again, would mean over 100 million people would be stripped of health care coverage,” she added.

Harris outlined the administration’s efforts to tackle gun violence, specifically Biden signing into law the first major federal gun safety legislation passed in 2020, which marked a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in Washington.