Harris vets VP candidates, billionaire gates endorses

Harris’ top fundraisers on Wall Street are planning to huddle in a private Zoom call to discuss fundraising strategies to bolster her already massive campaign war chest, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Zoom call is being organized by Lazard President Ray McGuire, Centerview Partners co-founder Blair Effron and Brad Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul, Weiss, these people explained. At least 50 major donors, with many having similar ties to the finance sector, will be on the call, one of the people said. These people were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about private matters.

McGuire, Effron and Karp raised money for Harris when she ran a failed Democratic primary campaign for president in 2019. The call is expected to take place on Wednesday, according to one of the sources, but another noted that it may end up happening another day this week.

Since Biden dropped out on Sunday and endorsed Harris, the vice president’s political operation has raised over $100 million, according to the campaign.

A similar call took place on Monday featuring over 200 donors to American Bridge 21st Century, a political action committee going on offense versus Trump in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, according to people familiar with the matter.

That call featured longtime Democratic strategist James Carville, who had called for Biden to drop out of the race after the president’s disastrous debate performance in June.

Carville told CNBC that donors on the call were “fired up” about Harris’ candidacy and they believe there is “hope” now that Democrats can win in November.

— Brian Schwartz

President Biden will deliver a speech from the Oval Office on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET to explain his decision to exit the race against Donald Trump and to lay out the plan to finish his term.

The president announced the timing of the speech in a post on X.

Biden is expected to return to Washington today from Delaware, where he was isolating with Covid-19 at his beach house.

The president’s remarks have been in preparation since Sunday when he announced in a social media post that he would drop his bid for a second term and endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him, a source told NBC News.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is praising Harris, applauding her foreign policy experience as vice president.

“I’ve seen her on the most critical foreign policy questions of our time,” Blinken said. “And my observation is she’s a very strong, very effective and deeply respected voice for our country around the world. When she speaks, she speaks on behalf of the United States.”

Blinken noted Harris’ international trips, including her visit to Switzerland last month where she represented the U.S. at a Ukraine peace summit.

“Time and again, I’ve seen her leadership in every corner of the world,” he said.

Blinken also said he spoke to the president after Biden decided he would no longer seek reelection.

“What he is intensely focused on is the work that remains over these next six months,” Blinken said. “Trying to bring peace to the Middle East, ending the war on Gaza, putting that region on a better trajectory, continuing to deal as effectively as he has been with the ongoing aggression by Russia against Ukraine, and making sure we continue to do everything we can to strengthen Ukraine.”

– Josephine Rozzelle

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch is backing Harris, saying in a post on X that “there is no candidate better equipped to take on Donald Trump and protect our democracy.”

“Throughout Kamala Harris’s career — as California’s top prosecutor, and as Senator, and as our Vice President — she has been a champion for hardworking families,” he says. “She is a leader in the fight to protect reproductive freedoms and the rights every person in this country deserves — at a time when those rights are under attack by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans.”

Welch was one of four senators who called on Biden to drop his reelection bid. After Biden did so, Welch originally said on Sunday that he would not endorse Harris at that time.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Hollywood star George Clooney, a major Democratic fundraiser, is backing Kamala Harris to replace President Biden in the race against Donald Trump.

“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again,” Clooney said in a statement to CNN. “We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest.”

Earlier in July, Clooney made waves in a New York Times op-ed calling on Biden to bow out of the race, joining the Democratic pressure campaign against the president.

Clooney’s op-ed came just weeks after he hosted a June fundraising event for Biden that hauled in $30 million with other Hollywood attendees like actress Julia Roberts and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Melinda French Gates, the philanthropist and former wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is endorsing Harris for president.

“There is so much riding on the election in November. We need a leader who will stand up for reproductive freedom. A leader who understands that supporting caregivers leads to healthier families and a stronger economy. A leader who knows that when women have their full power in society, we all thrive,” French Gates says in a post on X. “I am supporting Vice President Kamala Harris because she is that leader.”

“During her years in the White House, she has proven that she knows how to lead through crises while pushing for the change we need. I want her fighting for our country for the next four years,” she writes.

French Gates made her first presidential endorsement ever in June when she announced she was backing Biden. The billionaire did not say in either endorsement whether she plans to contribute financially to the campaign.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Kamala Harris is traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the site of last week’s Republican convention, for her first campaign event as the Democratic frontrunner later today.

Several of the battleground state’s top Democrats will join her including Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Some of the state’s labor leaders will also attend like the Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale.

In a speech to the Biden-now-Harris campaign staff yesterday, the vice president previewed what could become her default presidential pitch. She tried to draw contrasts with Donald Trump by leaning into her resume as a criminal prosecutor and her willingness to take on big-money interests.

“”I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris said at the campaign’s Wilmington, Del. headquarters. “So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

The rally comes as the campaign touts its past 24 hours of high-speed momentum including a deluge of party endorsements and a record fundraising haul of over $100 million from over 1.1 million unique donors since President Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on Sunday. The campaign also said it saw a surge of over 58,000 people signing up to volunteer.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Harris’s campaign has requested vetting materials from five potential vice-presidential picks, two sources tell NBC News.

The list includes North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and his law firm, Covington & Burling, is leading the vetting process, according to NBC News.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly-launched campaign has generated an “unprecedented” positive response, and that she is “well on her way” to clinch the party’s nomination.

Harris has been endorsed by U.S. President Joe Biden and a majority of pledged Democrats, but is yet to receive the formal nomination of her faction.

“The Vice President is well on her way to secure this nomination, based on the reports I’m getting,” Harrison said Tuesday during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He stressed that the DNC must still undergo a formalized nomination process, which starts on Wednesday and will wrap by Aug. 7.

Harrison qualified the public response to Harris’ two-day-old campaign as “unprecedented, we’ve never seen this type of thing,” likening it to the support observed during the initial campaign of former President Barack Obama. He emphasized that the vice president has “really galvanized the party” — to such an extent that might send jitters through the rival Republican Party.

“I think they’re a bit nervous. For someone they said was not going to excite the party … she’s demonstrating that she has momentum, she has the energy on her side, and I think they’re scared about that,” Harrison said.

He refused to engage with comments such as those by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who previously described Kamala Harris as a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hire.

“As we love to say in the South, bless his heart,” Harrison said.

— Ruxandra Iordache

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, jointly announced a House task force to investigate the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump during a Pennsylvania rally on July 13.

The task force will comprise of seven Republicans and six Democrats and will be “empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again,” Johnson said on social media platform X.

Donald Trump was injured in a shooting during the rally, while one bystander was killed and two were seriously hurt. The gunman was shot down by a sniper of the Secret Service — which has come under criticism for its failure to ensure the former U.S. president’s security during the event.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker said that Vice President Kamala Harris is “energizing people all across the nation, young people, people of color,” while falling short of confirming whether he would join her ticket as a running mate.

“We’re doing a job of reaching out to the supporters of some of Donald Trump’s former rivals … that’s not the playbook for the Republicans,” he told “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, noting that the Republican Party is diminishing in numbers and betting on low turnout at the polls in November.

Asked whether he would consider becoming Harris’ running mate if the position were offered to him, Pritzker only said, “Look, I love being the governor of the state of Illinois, and I’ve been out on the campaign trail fighting hard for Democrats to win … I’m very interested in making sure that Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States.”

Chicago, the most populous city in the state of Illinois, is set to host the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19-22.

“We know how to run conventions here in Chicago,” Pritzker said, emphasizing that “every level of law enforcement” has been engaged to provide security for the gathering, and adding that Illinois is also benefitting from help from surrounding states toward that purpose.

“We expect that the energized Democratic party is going to have an amazing convention,” the Illinois governor added.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Vice President Kamala Harris, now a favorite for the Democratic nomination, represents the “future,” according to Steven Horsford, congressman of Nevada and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“She represents the fact that we are going to continue to address the issues from protecting women’s reproductive rights … as well as economic opportunities,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, stressing that Harris could galvanize a “move from a consumer-driven economy to one around ownership, where we all have a stake.”

By contrast, Horsford — who has endorsed Harris’ presidential bid — accused Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump of leading a campaign of “division.”

“They want to give ultra-wealthy and big corporations tax cuts, in order to do what? Cut healthcare,” Horsford said of the Trump platform.

— Ruxandra Iordache

About 58,000 people signed up to volunteer for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, her campaign said — estimating that the figure is 100 times its average sign-up rate.

The campaign added that it had raised more than $100 million of donations over the same time period, accruing funds from more than 1.1 million unique donors. More than 62% of these contributions came from first-time donors, the campaign said.

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to renounce his presidential bid signals a generational shift in American politics, said Qian Feng, senior research fellow at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University and the Taihe Institute, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

“Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, as well as the selection of JD Vance as the Republican Party’s candidate for the post of Vice President, has accelerated the process of ‘out with the old, in with the new’ in the political arena of the United States,” Feng said.

He described the upcoming presidential race — where Democratic favorite Vice President Harris would face off with former President Donald Trump if she formally clinches her party’s bid — as a “pressure cooker.

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.S. markets typically outperform in an election year, but greater volatility is expected in the final months before the Nov. 5 vote, Nuveen’s chief investment officer said Tuesday.

Saira Malik told CNBC U.S. stocks could be expected to rally by around 10% in an election year, but those gains would vary by sectors depending on the expected victor.

“If the markets shift to more of a view that Republicans will win, financials and energy tend to outperform, the U.S. dollar becomes stronger,” Malik told “Squawk Box Europe.”

“If it shifts the other way to Democrats, you’ll be looking at more climate focused companies outperforming,” she said.

Malik added that healthcare stocks tend to outperform in an election year, but noted that pockets of value would emerge once the result is decided.

— Karen Gilchrist

There’s a renewed sense of excitement among European officials as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination ahead of the all-important election this fall.

The U.S. election just ‘”got way more interesting,” a senior EU diplomat, who did not want to be named due to the political sensitivity of the topic, told CNBC on Monday.

″[President Joe] Biden is a great man, with an impressive life behind him, but he is not the future,” added an EU official, who also asked to remain anonymous. They also dismissed 78-year-old former President Donald Trump, adding that “the U.S. needs younger leaders.”

Read the full story here.

— Silvia Amaro

Vice President Kamala Harris will likely win the Democratic nomination but still lose the presidency to Republican rival Donald Trump, according to David Roche, president and global strategist at Quantum Strategy.

“I think she’ll definitely be the [Democratic] candidate, because if she wasn’t the presidential candidate of the Democrats, there would be a degree of chaos, including affecting funding, which would mean the Democrats would be wiped across the board,” he told “Street Signs Europe” on Tuesday, noting that this impact would also affect the Democrats’ position in Congress and the House of Representatives.

But despite that forecast on Harris securing the formal Democratic endorsement and foreseeing a “closer race than people imagined” during the fall elections, Roche stressed, “I don’t think she can beat Trump.”

“I suspect that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. And markets will start to wonder about the costs to that, as we get closer to the election. Costs in terms of security policy, like say NATO and Europe, costs in terms of Taiwan, costs in terms of tariffs, which are extremely detrimental to the U.S. economy,” he said, adding that investors will likely adopt a cautious wait-and-see approach for the time being.

Some, he noted, might “even actually rejoice to some extent in the likelihood of a Trump victory, because they may see this as a way of getting more shovelfuls of money pushed their way.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has emerged as a favorite to clinch the Democratic nomination in the two days since launching her campaign, may have to expedite selecting a running mate, says Syga Thomas, CEO at Ensah Advisory Partners.

“That pick’s going to have to come rather quickly,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Tuesday, noting that this decision will have to be made before the Democratic National Committee’s convention in Chicago, which will take place from Aug. 19-22.

Several names have been floated as potential running mates, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

“Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro being a key one, in sort of a swing state that could prove to be very important,” Thomas agreed — but said the possibility of an unexpected pick should not be discounted.

“I think it’s important to take a step back and say, potentially, she might come out and do something that is totally different,” Thomas said. “So, something that is not being touted now. So, she could come and make it an all-women ticket, which is certainly, with [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer, which would certainly be an interesting way, sort of, to approach the ticket.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

First lady Jill Biden will lead a presidential delegation to the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, scheduled to take place on July 26, according to a White House statement.

It will mark the first major public appearance for Jill Biden, who been supporting her husband, President Joe Biden, since his decision to drop his reelection bid.

A second delegation led by Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, will helm a delegation attending the close of the games on Aug. 11.

Two other presidential delegations due to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the Paralympic Games will be announced at a later time.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly launched presidential campaign will lead to a closer race against Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump, according to Aaron Anderson, member of Fisher Investments’ Investment Policy Committee.

“I think the knee-jerk reaction or interpretation of the wild political scene that we’ve seen here in the U.S. is that the race just got a little bit closer, maybe the potential for one party sweeping heavily in one direction or another has probably diminished a bit, and so it’s kind of back to business as usual,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Tuesday, stressing that this has translated into big growth stocks performing well this year to date.

“It does look increasingly likely that [Harris] will be the [Democratic] candidate, but that’s certainly not a sure thing as this point,” Anderson added. “But what I would say is, this is a pretty modest change from what the ticket looked like previously.”

He emphasized that both Harris and Trump are known quantities to investors, as each politician spent four years in top White House leadership positions.

“Here you’ve got two politicians that are well known by the marketplace, I think [it’s] hard to get a surprise out of the election, should that happen,” Anderson noted.

— Ruxandra Iordache

S&P 500 futures eased 0.14% at 08:52 a.m. London time in the Tuesday premarket session, as investors shifted focus toward anticipated earning reports, including giants like General Motors, Coca-Cola, Alphabet and Tesla.

Traders have been keeping an eye on the U.S. political background after President Joe Biden relinquished his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris — whose rapidly launched campaign rallied key Democratic pledges and grassroot donations. The S&P 500 on Monday posted its best day since June 5 on a rebound in tech shares.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House this week to meet U.S. President Joe Biden, amid pressure to end the war that has devastated the Gaza Strip since October.

Israel, which maintains it does not target civilians and only pursues Palestinian militant group Hamas, has faced international criticism over the proportionality of its military response in the Gaza enclave and harm to the Palestinian people.

The U.S. has staunchly supported Israel throughout the conflict, but has increasingly also urged Netanyahu’s administration to minimize civilian casualties. Both sides simultaneously pursue the release of dozens of hostages that remain in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip — which include American nationals. The visit could ease the path to an elusive cease-fire deal with Hamas, which the U.S., Qatar and Egypt have been mediating.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu is set to meet with Biden, whose career he praised profusely following the president’s decision to drop his reelection bid. Harris will be unable to preside over Netanyahu’s scheduled Wednesday address before a joint Congress session because of a trip to Indianapolis, her aide said, according to Reuters.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on immigration, once more labeling her as a “Border Czar” in an update on his Truth Social media platform.

Trump claimed that Harris “never visited the Border,” in a likely reference to the U.S.-Mexico perimeter, which has seen record levels of illegal crossings in the past year.

Republican rivals are likely to lash Harris with further criticism on immigration — a key concern for U.S. voters — with Trump alleging that the vice president’s performance “gave us the WORST and MOST DANGEROUS Border anywhere in the World.”

Back in 2021, Harris was tasked with helming the diplomatic mission to address the “root causes of migration in Central America” — but not to oversee or enforce immigration policy, or the border itself.

— Ruxandra Iordache

After a flurry of key Democratic endorsements in the first full day since her rapid campaign launch, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that she looks forward to accepting her party’s formal nomination.

“When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon,” she said.

Harris also made her case against the rival candidacy of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has once more gained the Republican nomination.

“This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has not just the opportunity to get by, but to go ahead,” she said.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Harris has secured written or spoken endorsements from a simple majority of the Democratic party’s pledged convention delegates, NBC News estimates.

The threshold number of delegates is 1,976. NBC estimates that Harris has received statements of support from groups representing 1,992 delegates, as of 10:30 p.m. ET

The exact dates and process for the Democratic party’s nominating roll call vote will be finalized at a meeting Wednesday afternoon of the Rules Committee.

— Christina Wilkie

Read CNBC’s blog updates covering Kamala Harris’ campaign of July 22 here.