Axios

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III in his bid to unseat the state's incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, giving Kennedy a crucial boost in a tight Democratic primary race.

Why it matters: Her move comes as many on the left have called for fresher, younger faces to represent party leadership. The 74-year-old Markey is backed by progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and co-authored the Green New Deal.

Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being indicted and taken into custody in New York on federal fraud charges.

The latest: A federal judge agreed to release Bannon on a $5 million bond. His travel will be restricted to the New York and Washington, D.C. areas, and he will not be allowed to use private jets or boats without permission.

Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign, tweeted that the "targeting" of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was charged with fraud on Thursday, is "another malicious political prosecution."

Why it matters: President Trump has attempted to distance himself from Bannon — saying Thursday he was only involved for a "small part of the administration" — even as some of his allies come out in support of the former White House chief strategist.

Democratic National Convention organizers are testing a more creative approach to online outreach around Joe Biden’s convention appearance, taking over four websites where the campaign has never advertised in an effort to draw more eyeballs to his speech tonight formally accepting his party's presidential nomination.

Driving the news: The team launched a six-figure digital campaign through which people visiting WebMD, FunnyOrDie, Patheos and GearPatrol online will see the Democratic nominee's face in ads instructing them to watch live at 9p ET.

One of the few policy specifics offered up repeatedly during the Democratic National Convention has been Joe Biden's promise to create millions of renewable energy sector jobs.

Axios Re:Cap digs into his plan with New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, whose state is a major player in both renewable energy and fossil fuels.

A group of 73 Republican national security officials and former Republican members of Congress issued a statement Thursday expressing support for Joe Biden's campaign, saying they will vote for the former VP rather than President Trump this fall.

Flashback: The same group released a statement in 2016 foreshadowing that Trump "would be the most reckless president in American history," the New York Times notes. “When we wrote in 2016, we were warning against a vote for Donald Trump, but many of the signatories were not ready to embrace his opponent,” said John Bellinger, a former State Department and National Security Council legal adviser, who was among the authors of both letters.

Kamala Harris's spouse, Doug Emhoff, is stepping into his public role by increasing pressure on the ticket, saying that margin matters in the Democrats' potential victory in November.

Driving the news: Emhoff, who took a leave of absence from his law firm job, signaled that he'll take an active role in the campaign at his first public event, when he spoke to LGBTQ activists Thursday afternoon.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, during the curtain-raiser to his father's high-profile acceptance speech as the Democratic nominee.

Why it matters: Trump and his allies have sought to exploit the controversy over Hunter Biden's paid board position at Ukrainian gas company Burisma — held while his father was the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine — to damage Joe Biden.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Thursday that he tested positive for the coronavirus, and is "strictly following the direction of our medical experts" by quarantining, local ABC affiliate WBRZ reports.

The big picture: Cassidy is the second senator to test positive, following Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in March. Cassidy said after being notified Wednesday night that he was exposed to someone with the virus, he was tested and plans to notify all those he came in contact with since.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Thursday became the highest-ranking House Republican to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory, calling it "dangerous lunacy that should have no place in American politics," per Politico's Melanie Zanona.

Driving the news: President Trump said on Wednesday that while he does not know much about QAnon, he understands its supporters "like me very much" and that they "love America."

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told the New York Times last year that President Trump gave his "blessing" to a Steve Bannon-guided campaign to privately fund a wall along the southern border.

Why it matters: The "We Build the Wall" project ultimately resulted in Bannon's arrest on fraud charges on Thursday, alongside three others, and Kobach's statement over a year ago highlights the president's closeness to many involved with it.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Microsoft President Brad Smith warned of ongoing election interference through technology on Thursday at an Axios virtual event on the Future of Employability.

What they're saying: "It was four years ago at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that our eyes were first opened to nation-state cyberattacks on candidates and campaigns ... Here we are again four years later ... We have stronger defenses ... but the threats are becoming more sophisticated," Smith said.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Microsoft President Brad Smith at an Axios event on Thursday called for expanding access to broadband in the United States in order to close the digital divide in education.

What they're saying: "Broadband needs to be a fact of life in the United States and it needs to be free for everyone, and it needs to be regulated in a way that it can be made equitably distributed all throughout America," Weingarten said during a discussion on the Future of Employability.

Decisions on school re-openings should be left to scientists and experts, not ideologues, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said Thursday at a virtual Axios event on the Future of Employability.

What they're saying: "I am a social studies teacher and a lawyer. I'm not a scientist, but I have to follow what the experts are telling us. They have a sense of what you actually need to do and when you follow them. If we had done that, we would be in a lot better shape in the United States," Weingarten said.

Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon's fraud arrest on Thursday made him the sixth senior 2016 Trump campaign figure to be hit with federal charges.

The state of play: While Bannon was allegedly involved in a scheme to defraud donors to a private border wall construction project, the other five former Trump campaign officials found themselves wrapped up in the Mueller investigation.

DNC week: On Thursday, August 20 Axios co-founder Mike Allen hosted a conversation on the future of broadband access featuring Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Microsoft President Brad Smith and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

Randi Weingarten discussed coronavirus' impact on education and the necessity of expanding broadband access across America.

• On remote education becoming a fact of life: "In a global pandemic where you have a virus that is very contagious and spreads asymptomatically, we have an obligation to make remote [education] better because, until we can decrease community spread throughout the United States, distance learning and distance working is going to be a fact of life."
• On equitable broadband access: "A hotspot does not substitute for connectivity into a home or into a school. A hotspot does not substitute for reliable high speed Wi-Fi...We should be thinking about connectivity like we think about radio waves. It should be free to everyone."

Highlighting how public education now depends on not just hardware but internet connectivity, Brad Smith underscored the necessity of prioritizing broadband access as a critical part of infrastructure.

• On the challenge of bridging the digital divide: "The kids that lacked a broadband connection in May are probably going to lack it in September as well...[they'll] be facing that same problem as they start school in a couple of weeks. For a country for whom I think universal public education has been a defining value and attribute of our society, we have a huge problem."
• On the social responsibility of the tech sector: "We were born as an industry free of regulation. But given the impact of technology on society today, we need to step up and recognize we need to exercise more responsibility ourselves, and we need to help governments move forward and create a regulatory floor."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar discussed the security challenges of the fall election, unpacking her views on the Trump administration's efforts to suppress voter turnout.

• Her view on the chaos created by the Trump administration: "When it comes to what [the Trump administration] is doing on the postal service, what they are doing when it comes to not adequately funding and helping our states during the pandemic with elections...it feels like they're trying to foment chaos. Every one Democrat, Republican, Independent has a right to vote. And I would rather put ballots in the mail box and voters in the hospital."
• Her view on voting by mail versus voting machines: "For right now, at least, the mail in ballots can't be hacked into like the voting machines. It's another reason to vote by mail."

Thank you Microsoft for sponsoring this event.

The Paycheck Protection Program expired earlier this month, but the insidious PPP shame game remains very much alive.

Driving the news: On Tuesday, a left-leaning government watchdog group called Accountable.US emailed reporters about how at least five portfolio companies of Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm led by Joshua Kushner, received PPP loans.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) criticized President Trump's embrace of QAnon supporters, telling the Washington Post on Thursday that "real leaders" would denounce the "nuts" conspiracy theory.

Driving the news: Sasse's statement came a day after Trump said he does not know much about QAnon, but that he understands its supporters "like me very much" and that they "love America."

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from President Trump that sought to block Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's subpoena for his financial records.

Why it matters: The Supreme Court ruled last month that presidents are not immune from investigation, denying Trump the sweeping grant of presidential power he had asked for. The court gave Vance the right to access records from Trump's financial institutions as part of a criminal investigation, but sent the case back down to the lower courts so that Trump's lawyers could continue to fight the subpoena.

Joe Biden's campaign is emphasizing that he really, really doesn't like subsidies for fossil fuels at a time when climate activists are blasting the removal of anti-subsidy language from the Democratic National Committee platform.

What they're saying: "[Joe Biden] continues to be committed to ending U.S. fossil fuel subsidies [and] then rallying the rest of the world to do the same — as was outlined in his climate plan last year," Biden policy director Stef Feldman tweeted Wednesday.

Sen. Kamala Harris paid tribute to her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, during her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday night, saying: "My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives."

Why it matters: Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is the first Black and Asian American woman to accept a spot on a major party’s presidential ticket. Family was the overarching theme of Harris's acceptance speech, which capped a night of convention programming that included a blistering rebuke of President Trump by former President Obama.

Speaking from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, former President Barack Obama tore into President Trump for failing, after four years, to "feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care."

Why it matters: It was an extraordinary moment in American history — an ex-president saying the sitting president would tear down our democracy to hold power.

For the finale of the Democratic National Convention, historian Jon Meacham will speak from Nashville, urging Americans to remember that "history, which will surely be our judge, can also be our guide. ... From Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, we're at our best when we build bridges, not walls."

The assignment from the Democratic Party was spare yet daunting: Define "The Soul of America," the title of Meacham's 2018 bestseller. Oh, and please keep it under five minutes.

President Trump's re-election campaign is launching a new ad as Joe Biden accepts the Democratic nomination, accusing him of embracing "radical left" policies for the country.

Why it matters: The 30-second ad, "Mainstream," aims to scare centrists and older Americans watching the Democratic National Convention who feel uneasy about figures to the left of Biden, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — both of whom were featured prominently at the convention this week.

Attorney General Bill Barr announced at a Kansas City, Mo., news conference Wednesday almost 1,500 people have been arrested since federal law enforcement's "Operation Legend" started in U.S. cities some six weeks ago.

Why it matters: The deployment began in Kansas City in July after President Trump blamed violence spikes across the U.S. on Black Lives Matter protesters' efforts to "dismantle and dissolve" local law enforcement. It has since expanded to eight U.S. cities Democrats have accused Trump of targeting Democratic-run cities as part of his "law and order" messaging strategy.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) promoted universal child care during her Wednesday evening address to the Democratic National Convention.

Why it matters: Warren argued that child care should be part of the "basic infrastructure of this nation," adding that Biden and Harris "will make high-quality child care affordable for every family, make preschool universal and raise the wages of every childcare worker."

Michigan has agreed to pay $600 million to settle civil lawsuits brought over the deadly Flint water crisis, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer confirmed on Thursday.

Why it matters: Flint's drinking water was contaminated with high levels of lead in 2014 after the city changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water to the Flint River — causing a public health crisis.

In her address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton called for voters to turn out for Joe Biden in "overwhelming" numbers so that Trump can't "sneak or steal his way to victory," reminding the audience that she won the popular vote and still lost the election in 2016.

Why it matters: Clinton lost by a narrow margin of about 80,000 votes in three critical swing states in 2016. She used her address to the DNC to call on those who regret voting for Trump to immediately request their mail-in ballots or vote early in-person. "This can’t be another woulda-coulda-shoulda election," she said.

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), in her longest public remarks since suffering a severe brain injury in a 2011 assassination attempt, addressed the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night with a call to action for voters seeking to end gun violence in America: "We can let the shooting continue, or we can act."

Why it matters: The third night of the DNC began with a strong emphasis on policy — first gun control, with appearances from Parkland Shooting survivor Emma González and the parents of gun violence victims, and then climate change. Both consistently rank as key issues for young voters.

President Trump claimed at a press conference Wednesday that he doesn't know much about the fringe conspiracy theory QAnon, but that he understands its supporters "like me very much" and that they "love America."

Why it matters: QAnon is a sprawling internet conspiracy theory that baselessly alleges that a powerful cabal of sex traffickers within the "deep state" is engaged in a global fight to take down Trump. The FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories, like QAnon, as domestic terrorist threats in 2019.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush criticized President Trump Wednesday for praising QAnon believers during a White House press conference, tweeting that Trump should have told them that they "have no place in either party."

Why it matters: Few Republicans have spoken out about the surge in popularity of QAnon, a fringe conspiracy theory that claims a powerful cabal of child sex traffickers and cannibals within the "deep state" is engaged in a global fight to take down Trump.