Kamala Harris responds to Trump’s attack on her racial identity as DNC virtual roll call begins to make her nominee: Live updates

With just over two weeks to go before the Democratic National Convention, the party’s virtual roll call, during which Kamala Harris is expected to become the party’s official nominee, has begun.

The vice president is expected to run unopposed and the voting process got underway at 9am ET today. It runs through August 5. Harris will announce her running mate next week before embarking on a tour of key battleground states.

On the campaign trail, Harris has rebuked Donald Trump’s comments about her race, claiming that he put on the “same old show” and says that “America deserves better”.

Trump had appeared at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Chicago, where he wildly, and falsely, claimed that the vice president only recently “became a Black woman.” Harris’s father is from Jamaica and her mother is Indian.

Harris doubled down on her response and called for an end to “Trump’s divisiveness and disrespect,” she wrote on X.

Senior Democrats, pundits, and members of the public have reacted with shock to the remarks, which many have dubbed “Birtherism 2.0” — a reference to Trump’s previous attempts to spread false conspiracy theories about Barack Obama being born in Africa.

President Joe Biden released the following statement about securing the release of US prisoners formerly detained by Russia.

Today, three American citizens and one American green-card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally coming home: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy. All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia—including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political