Axios

The Harris campaign is casting a drastically wider net in recruiting House Democrats to stump for the presidential ticket, gauging the interest of almost every member, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Over a dozen Democratic lawmakers and aides described a "night-and-day" contrast with the surrogate operation under President Biden.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office has been working behind the scenes to get House conservatives to drop their demands that a short-term funding bill include an immigrant voting crackdown, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: A GOP showdown is brewing ahead of the Oct. 1 government funding deadline. Conservatives have shown a willingness to flirt with shutdowns to push their priorities, which McConnell's team wants to avoid.

On Friday, former President Trump posted to Truth Social: "My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights." In an interview that aired Sunday, his running mate told NBC News Trump would veto a federal abortion ban.

While Trump, who has touted himself as the person who "was able to kill Roe v. Wade," appears to be softening his messaging on abortion, his campaign surrogates are being pressed to clarify his changing stance on the issue.

Here's what you may have missed when newsmakers hit the airwaves this Sunday, August 25.

GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said in an interview aired Sunday that while "I regret ... that a lot of people took it the wrong way," his past comment about "childless cat ladies" is not high among his list of regrets.

Why it matters: The statement, made during a 2021 "Tucker Carlson Tonight" interview has been repeatedly framed by Vance as a sarcastic comment underscoring his view of an "anti-family" country and haunted his reputation throughout the campaign.

CHICAGO — Vice President Harris tapped into her family's immigrant story and ties to civil rights during her acceptance speech — but didn't dwell on race, Axios' Russell Contreras and Delano Massey write.

• Why it matters: Harris, the first woman of color who's a major-party presidential nominee, hasn't taken the bait as former President Trump repeatedly questioned her intelligence and mispronounced her name.

Israel hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon overnight in what Israeli officials say was a preemptive strike against Hezbollah, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

• The strike comes ahead of what was expected to be a major missile and drone attack on Israel by Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials say.

Hezbollah has said it is preparing to launch a major attack against Israel in retaliation for the assassination of its top military commander in Beirut by Israel.

Scientists are opening generative AI's black box and beginning to understand the models' inner workings.

• Why it matters: The prospect of harnessing genAI to make decisions and perform tasks is pushing researchers to better understand how AI systems work, Axios managing editor Alison Snyder writes.

🧠 Zoom in: One way AI researchers are trying to understand how models work is by looking at the combinations of artificial neurons that are activated in an AI model's neural network when you engage with it.

• These "features," as they're known, relate to different places, people, objects and concepts.

OpenAI looked at part of its GPT-4 network and found 16 million features, "akin to the small set of concepts a person might have in mind when reasoning about a situation," the company said.

Just 11% of U.S. adults say they've smoked cigarettes in the last week, Gallup found in July.

• Why it matters: That's a historic low. In the 1950s, it was 45%, and in the 1980s, it was more than a third.

Zoom in: A sharp decline in rates of cigarette smoking among America's young adults — once the likeliest group to smoke — is driving the trend.

• In the last three years, around 6% of people under 30 say they've smoked cigarettes in the past week — compared to 35% in the early 2000s.

A steady stream of bureaucratic rule changes in Georgia is creating a framework that election deniers could use to delay the certification of the presidential election results come November, Axios Atlanta's Thomas Wheatley reports.

• Why it matters: Former President Trump and Vice President Harris know the road to the White House runs through Georgia, and the new rules could help cast doubt and fan flames of suspicion on the democratic process like it's 2020 all over again.

"Elections are meant to be slow and deliberate processes with a whole lot of redundancies and checkpoints," Cathy Woolard, the former chair of the Fulton Board of Registration and Elections, told Axios. "You can't just drop in new processes and think that they logically work."

• Keep reading ... Get Axios Atlanta ... 30 Axios Local cities.

Nearly 3 in 4 older Americans eligible for a key federal food assistance program aren't taking part, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj write from a National Council on Aging and Urban Institute report.

• People who qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits must apply in order to get them.

Stunning stat: 70% of Americans 65 and older who qualify for SNAP aren't participating in the program. That's 9 million people who may be struggling to afford groceries.

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What do the White House, Dunkin' Donuts and Kim Kardashian have in common? They all claim to be "very demure."

• TikToker Jools Lebron's massively viral video describing her "very demure, very mindful" workplace-friendly makeup and clothing style has sparked a marketing movement from brands hoping to hop on the "demure" buzzword bandwagon, Axios' Avery Lotz reports.

Why it matters: A 30-second TikTok video can become a global trend in a couple of weeks.

📈 The video Lebron first shared modeling her "demure" eyeliner and face-framing braids has picked up over 45 million views as of yesterday.

• The creator, who identifies as a trans woman, shared a video earlier this month reflecting on the fame stemming from the post — which brought her from the phone screen to late-night and morning TV — saying she can now finance the rest of her transition.

Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America's most lavish displays of opulence: An ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world.

• Such plots of land dotted Britain's colonies and served as status symbols for the elite. They were the 18th-century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini, AP reports.

The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in Virginia's colonial legislature — and was the first father-in-law of Martha Washington, who married future President George Washington.

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign announced Sunday that it saw its best fundraising hour since its launch following the Democratic nominee's Thursday night Democratic National Convention speech.

Driving the news: That post-convention boost brought the campaign's fundraising total to $540 million in just over a month, campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a memo.

CHICAGO — Kamala Harris tapped into her family's immigrant story and ties to civil rights during her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention — but notably avoided dwelling on race.

Why it matters: Harris' history-making nomination as the first woman of color to represent a major U.S. party in the presidential election reset the 2024 campaign — and led Donald Trump to launch attacks that many have seen as racist and sexist.