Despite a dip in job approval ratings, President Trump is still beating out former Vice President Kamala Harris (D) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in an overall popularity contest.
In new NBC News survey results released Monday, 41 percent of respondents expressed favorable views of the president.
Only 34 percent of those polled responded favorably to Harris, compared with 27 percent for Newsom. The two politicians are frequently touted as potential Democratic candidates for the 2028 presidential race, but neither has committed to a run.
The former vice president sparked rumors recently that she was seeking another presidential bid after she revived her KamalaHQ social media accounts and released a new book about her loss to Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Harris also previously weighed jumping into the race last year to replace Newsom as California’s governor but decided against it. Newsom is term limited.
Harris has not ruled out a new White House run, telling podcaster Sharon McMahon in February that she “might” launch another presidential bid.
Newsom has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the Trump administration. He has said that his family will be the deciding factor in his choice to run for president.
Potential GOP presidential contenders Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance also lagged behind Trump in the poll. Thirty-four percent of respondents responded positively to Rubio, while 38 percent of those polled expressed support for Vance.
Neither Rubio nor Vance has officially declared their candidacy, but Trump said the two running together would be “unstoppable.” The president declined to say which of the two he would like to see on the top of the ticket.
Additionally, the president has not ruled out the prospect that he could seek a third term in the Oval Office — a move that would require a change to the U.S. Constitution.
“I haven’t really thought about it. We have some very good people as you know … but I have the best poll numbers that I’ve ever had,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One last October.
The NBC poll was conducted between Feb. 27 and March 3 among 1,000 respondents with a margin of error of approximately 3.1 percentage points.
Harris on Iran: ‘Trump has dragged America into a war that we don’t want’
Former VP’s appearance came a day after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran
Former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized President Donald Trump over his actions in Iran during a visit to Wisconsin.
Harris was in Madison Sunday for a book tour event the day after the U.S. and Israel started launching strikes with the goal of overthrowing the Iranian regime.
“In the last 48 hours Donald Trump has dragged America into a war that we don’t want,” Harris told the crowd at the ticketed event at the Orpheum Theater.
The former vice president added that, according to media reports, three American soldiers have died as a result of what she referred to as an “unauthorized war.”
The strikes from the U.S. came without Congressional approval.
President Donald Trump announced the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Truth Social Saturday. The Republican president also warned Iran that retaliatory strikes would result in further attacks from the U.S.
Harris was in Wisconsin’s solidly liberal capital city to plug “107 Days.” The book details Harris’ sprint-like campaign for president after then-President Joe Biden dropped out midway through the race.
Harris gave her remarks to a nearly-full theater. At one point, Harris elicited excited shouts from the crowd, when she asked for recommendations on what brand of cheese curds she should bring back from Wisconsin for her great-nieces.
The start of Harris’ remarks were interrupted by the sound of someone calling out “And then you funded a genocide!”
Harris’ position on Israel’s actions in Gaza caused splinters among the left during her unsuccessful campaign for president.
Shortly after the first heckler interrupted Harris, a second person started shouting about funding ICE, also known as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Audience members booed at the disruptions, and security escorted at least two people out of the theater.
The event’s moderator, podcaster and TikTok host V Spehar, started drowning out the sounds of shouting by singing the lyrics to Sesame’s Street’s “Sing.”
Spehar then pivoted to a question about how activists can best fight for their goals. Harris responded by addressing the protestors.
“There is a moment for quiet reflection, and there is — we had a person here just shouting out for reasons that I think we can all connect with, in terms of what we have seen, in terms of the atrocities,” Harris added. “I write about it in my book.”
“Our administration should have done more,” Harris added. “I feel strongly about the fact that we have to be candid and honest about that.”
Harris also referred to ICE’s actions in Minneapolis, and seemed to reference the killings of Minnesotans Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents.
“We should talk about (the) feelings that we have right now, which include the fear when we have a president of the United States who has deployed federal agents against the will of the people to murder innocent civilians who are standing up for their neighbor,” Harris said. “It is right to feel a sense of outrage.”
The interruptions came as Harris reminisced about her preschool years in south central Wisconsin. Harris lived in Madison during 1968 and 1969, while her parents worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Harris told the audience about her 2024 visit to her childhood home, which overlooks Lake Mendota on Madison’s far-west side.
“I love coming back,” Harris told the crowd. “I was very young child, but the memories that I have from my childhood of Madison and Wisconsin were of the lake and walking down the trail to the lake.”
Among the people in the crowd at the Orpheum was Stephanie Rahman.
The Menominee resident said hearing from Harris felt reinvigorating.
Rahman said she’s concerned about issues including food insecurity, the economy and war resulting from the U.S. intervening in other countries.
“There’s just so much going on.” Rahman said. “We just needed a little bit of hope.”
Another attendee, Betsy Wood of Fitchburg, said hearing Harris speak brought forward feelings of grief over “what could have been.”
Wood said she sees a political future for Harris, but perhaps just in California rather than on the national stage.
“If it were me, I would be too bruised to try and put myself forward at that level,” Wood said.
Harris calls Trump ‘incompetent and unhinged’ and makes call to ‘fight fire with fire’
President’s 2024 election rival delivers fiery remarks while accepting Congressional Black Caucus Foundation award
Donald Trump has proven himself to be an “unchecked, incompetent, unhinged president,” and his opposition must follow leaders who are ready to “fight fire with fire,” his 2024 election rival Kamala Harris has said.
The former Democratic US vice-president delivered those fiery remarks on Saturday evening while accepting an award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington DC – and after Trump’s fellow Republican allies have demanded that his liberal opponents tone down their rhetoric in the wake of the 10 September shooting death of rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk.
During a nearly eight-minute speech recorded by C-SPAN, Harris alluded to how the second Trump administration has cut healthcare protections as well as nutrition assistance benefiting the poor. She pointed to the administration’s implementation of tariffs that preceded a reported rise in consumer prices in August. She also mentioned the administration’s axing of $500m in funding for vaccines like the ones that helped end the Covid-19 pandemic, its deploying US military troops into the streets of multiple cities and other controversial actions as Trump’s approval rating has plummeted on average to -9.4% as of Saturday.
“Let us be clear – we predicted all that,” Harris said, echoing her 2024 campaign predictions that a second Trump presidency would be “a huge risk for America” and “dangerous”.
But Harris said what she never foresaw “was the capitulation” to him from once proud institutions. Top universities have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle antisemitism claims. Law firms have acquiesced to performing pro bono work for causes that are dear to Trump – and to not engage in race-conscious hiring – to avoid executive orders from the president that could substantially slow their business down. And major US media platforms such as ABC and CBS have settled lawsuits, at multi-million dollar costs, brought against them by Trump rather than contest what pundits widely perceived to be winnable cases.
“Universities, law firms, media corporations, the titans of industry … have been so quick to kneel before a tyrant,” Harris said.
Harris held up what she considered to be a meaningful act of resistance: one centering on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to air after ABC temporarily suspended the late-night host’s show over comments criticizing the Trump administration’s response to Kirk’s killing.
Kimmel’s suspension was announced on 17 September after a regulator loyal to Trump threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates unless the network took action against him. The move sparked protests, free-speech concerns and a drive to cancel subscriptions to products of ABC’s owner, Disney. ABC reinstated Kimmel six days later, with his industry peers crediting that development to those who had boycotted Disney.
And by Friday, two companies that own a combined 70 ABC affiliates and had continued boycotting Jimmy Kimmel Live! despite the host’s reinstatement agreed to broadcast it again, effectively punctuating the show’s full on-air comeback.
“When a president with a fragile ego couldn’t take a joke and brought down the weight of the federal government to silence the voice of a citizen, folks spoke with their pocketbook, and Jimmy Kimmel is now back on the air,” Harris said.
Harris argued too many members of Congress were content to “bend the knee and fail to uphold their constitutional duty” to serve as a check to the presidential administration. That, she said, demanded Democrats win the 2026 midterms determining which political party controls Congress for the back half of Trump’s second presidency – and then “enforce checks and balances on this unchecked, incompetent, unhinged president”.
The ex-US senator from California subsequently called on the caucus to support leaders who know “we must fight fire with fire”.
Harris was Joe Biden’s running mate when he ended Trump’s first presidency by defeating him in the 2020 election. As she recounts in her new memoir 107 Days, Biden initially sought a rematch with Trump in 2024 but then dropped out less than four months prior to the election after a disastrous debate performance, endorsing Harris to succeed him instead.
Trump then defeated Harris in November, setting the stage for his second presidency beginning in January.
Asked by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on 22 September whether she had ambitions to contend for the presidency in 2028, Harris replied that was not her “focus at all”.
“It really isn’t,” said Harris, who in July ruled out running for California governor in 2026.
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Trump ends Secret Service protection for Harris
President Donald Trump has cancelled Secret Service protection for Kamala Harris, which had been extended by Joe Biden before he left office, according to one of her advisers.
As a former vice-president, Ms Harris was entitled under law to receive six months of security after leaving office in January, which was due to expire in July.
Her protection had been quietly extended for another year by a directive signed by her former boss but was revoked by Trump in a memo dated on Thursday, according to the memo seen by the BBC.
The move comes just before Harris embarks on a national book tour to promote “107 Days” – a memoir of her short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign.
A copy of a letter seen by the BBC, dated 28 August, directs the Secret Service to “discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorised by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law” for Harris from 1 September.
A senior White House official confirmed the move.
Sources familiar with the situation told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner, that a recent threat assessment found nothing alarming that would warrant extending her detail past the legally-mandated six month period she was entitled to.
In 2008, the US Congress enacted a law permitting the Secret Service to provide protection to former Vice Presidents, their spouses and any children under the age of 16 after leaving office.
It has been just over seven months since Harris left office at the end ofJoe Biden’s administration in January.
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, had his own protections end on 1 July at the end of the legally mandated period.
Harris will lose the agents that are assigned to protect her and her property in Los Angeles, as well as proactive threat intelligence carried out to identify and pre-empt any potential threats.
The price of similar protections, if privately funded, could add up to millions of dollars per year.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have both expressed outrage at the announcement.
“This is another act of revenge following a lost list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more,” Ms Bass told CNN, who were first to report the story.
The LA mayor said this puts Harris in danger and she would make sure she was safe in Los Angeles.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has revoked Secret Service protections for a number of people, including Hunter and Ashley Biden, the children of the former president, and Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Several former Trump officials and allies have also had their protections revoked, including ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, a former national security adviser who had become a vocal critic.
Harris faced several security threats during her time in office, and former Secret Service officials have said that the dangers were compounded by the fact that she was the first woman and first person of colour to serve in the office.
In August 2024, for example, a Virginia man was charged with making online threats to kill, kidnap or injure Harris and former President Barack Obama.
In an earlier incident in 2021, a 39-year old Florida woman pled guilty to making threats against Harris after admitting she sent videos to her imprisoned husband in which she displayed weapons and said that a “hit” could be carried out within 50 days.
Trump faced two assassination attempts during last year’s presidential campaign, during which the Secret Service played a key role in protecting him.
Unpacking claim Kamala Harris said Venezuela ‘is a country, but we don’t live there, so it’s not our country’
In January 2026, after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during an overnight mission in Caracas that reportedly left dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban officers dead, a claim (archived) circulated online that former Vice President Kamala Harris said, “Venezuela is a country, but we don’t live there, so it’s not our country. And when we go there, we are in another country.”
One X user who shared the claim commented, “Kamala in deep thought after Maduro’s capture…”
The alleged quote also spread on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and Threads (archived). Some claims shared a TikTok video (archived), which in turn appeared to be based on a separate Instagram post (archived) that all furthered the claim. Snopes readers searched our site to find out if Harris really spoke the reported words.
We found no evidence that Harris actually said, “Venezuela is a country, but we don’t live there, so it’s not our country. And when we go there, we are in another country.”
We reached out to Harris’ office to ask about the quote. We also reached out to Terrence K. Williams, a comedian who posted an early version of the quote, to ask for his source. We await replies to our queries and will update this story if we receive further information.
Searches of Google, Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo revealed no credible reports of the quote, which, given the international interest in the U.S. mission in Venezuela and Harris’ high profile as a former vice president, would likely have been widely reported if true (archived, archived, archived, archived).
We also found no reports or posts from before Jan. 3, 2026, that indicated Harris spoke the alleged quote.
At the time of this writing, the most recent reporting about Harris and Venezuela centered on a post (archived) on the former VP’s X account on Jan. 3, the date the Trump administration announced the capture of Maduro.
Harris criticized the mission, writing, “Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable,” and accused Trump of wanting to “play the regional strongman.”
Harris’ January 2026 post did not contain the alleged quote, nor did a previous post (archived) about Venezuela from 2019, in which she called for Venezuelans to receive Temporary Protected Status, a legal status that nationals of certain designated countries can apply for.
Harris on Trump: ‘We’re dealing with a communist dictator’
Former Vice President Kamala Harris bashed President Trump on Monday night, saying the United States is dealing with a communist dictator in the White House.
Harris wrote in her memoir “107 Days,” which was released Tuesday, that she predicted how Trump would act in a second term, but she didn’t expect the level of capitulation from the private sector toward him.
She was pressed on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” about why she didn’t anticipate such action and responded that she believed “titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy.”
“And one by one by one, they have been silent, they have been … feckless,” Harris said. “It’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons.”
“Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And, right now, we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse, a tyrant,” she said, referencing her rally last year on the White House Ellipse in Washington. “We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up,”
Harris predicted that corporate leaders haven’t spoken up because they fear Trump’s threats, want a merger approved or want to avoid an investigation.
The former vice president in her Ellipse speech before the 2024 election called Trump a “petty tyrant” and warned that “the United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”
Harris pointed to the announcement that late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel would return to his show Tuesday to argue that is an example of “the power being with the people.”
“We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction,” she said.
Disney said Monday it would reinstate Kimmel after pulling the late-night host off the air over remarks related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The remarks lead to a sharp rebuke from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and Kimmel’s suspension sparked outrage from Democrats and First Amendment advocates.
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