Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

Image source, Reuters

The hard part may be over for Kamala Harris - getting the party behind her.

But the next stop is way more uphill - beating Donald Trump.

Up until the weekend, Kamala Harris was preparing to debate his VP pick and now she is potentially facing Trump himself, who many polls suggest has the edge to win the White House.

It's a remarkable turn for Harris who has been underwater in the approval ratings for a long time.

Her own attempt to become presidential candidate for the Democratic Party went nowhere in 2020. Even many party voters felt they didn’t really know enough about her, never mind other voters.

Undoubtedly the party has been re-energised, but VP Harris will need to do three key things:

1. Reshape the campaign and show how she's different but similar enough to President Biden
2. Pick a strong running mate who is ideally from a swing state that can tap into a demographic she won’t be able to
3. Get out onto the public stage and show America exactly what she’s about

Image source, Getty Images

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Vice-President Kamala Harris has been a leading voice on US foreign policy and is a deeply respected figure around the world.

"I've seen her command a room full of world leaders," he says, adding that she is someone who asks "the penetrating questions, who cuts to the chase and is intensely focused on the interests of the American people".

Speaking with reporters, he says Joe Biden is now intensely focused on his duties as president for the next six months, including trying to bring a resolution to the ongoing Israel-Gaza war and dealing with Russia's war in Ukraine.

"It remains the honour of my life to work for President Biden," Blinken says.

Former President Donald Trump has been posting on his Truth Social platform following the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

Without directly mentioning Cheatle, Trump says the Biden/Harris administration "did not properly protect" him and he was forced to "take a bullet for Democracy" at his rally on 13 July. He adds that it was his "great honor do so".

He also goes on to say President Joe Biden is being turned into a "hero" following the announcement of his decision to not run for re-election.

In another post, he says Vice-President Kamala Harris "destroys everything she touches".

Ione Wells
Political correspondent reporting from Delaware

There’s still an increased security presence here in Rehoboth, Delaware around some of the roads leading up towards President Biden’s home.

He’s expected to leave later today and return to the White House. It’ll be his first public appearance since he said he was resigning from the presidential race.

He joined Kamala Harris virtually on a call when she visited campaign headquarters here in Delaware last night.

The sun is finally shining today after we were hit with a tornado here last night. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere about him concluding a tempestuous few weeks for him and the party with a dramatic twist(er.)

Image source, Reuters

President Joe Biden has just announced that he will be addressing the nation tomorrow at 20:00 ET (01:00 BST) from the Oval Office.

In a post on X, external, Biden says he will speak about "what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people."

He is expected to return to the White House from Delaware this evening, where he has been isolating with Covid.

We've seen a copy of the letter Kimberly Cheatle has sent to colleagues in the US Secret Service, in which she explains her decision to quit.

She says that the service's mission is to protect the nation's leaders and that she is taking responsibility for the service falling short, with security lapses that allowed the attempt on Donald Trump's life during his 13 July rally.

Cheatle says that she did not want calls for her resignation to be "a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission".

She goes on to say that she would always put the needs of the service first, and so made the "difficult" decision "with a heavy heart" to step down.

Cheatle goes on to thank her colleagues and say they deserve the nation's support in "carrying out our critical mission".

Image source, EPA

Kimberly Cheatle had nearly three decades of experience in the US Secret Service.

She first joined the Secret Service in 1995. During her time as an agent, Cheatle she was involved in evacuating then-Vice-President Dick Cheney from the White House - which many feared was in danger -during the 11 September, 2001 attacks.

She later went on to become supervisor of Joe Biden’s protective detail when he was vice-president, before becoming the deputy assistant director of protective operations.

Cheatle was the first woman to serve in that role, which oversees the safeguarding of the president and other VIPs.

After a short stint in the private sector working for PepsiCo, Cheatle was appointed to her current post of director by President Joe Biden in 2022.

President Joe Biden has reacted to the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle, now the former director of the Secret Service.

In a statement, the president says he and his wife Jill are grateful to Cheatle for her decades of public service.

"She has selflessly dedicated and risked her life to protect our nation throughout her career in the United States Secret Service," Biden says.

He adds that "it takes honor, courage and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service".

Biden says he is still looking forward to an independent review into what went wrong on 13 July, when a gunman had a clear line of view to Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania and tried to assassinate him.

Biden adds that he will be appointing a new director for the Secret Service soon.

Investigators believe a gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire at Trump while he was addressing a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July.

One audience member was killed and three people, including Trump, were injured.

Lawmakers say the Secret Service identified the gunman as suspicious some 20 minutes before he opened fire.

Calls for Cheatle to step down have been mounting in the wake of the incident, with Republicans, who control the House, unified in pushing for her to go.

Giving his immediate reaction to Kimberly Cheatle's resignation as head of the Secret Service, House Speaker Mike Johnson says "it is overdue".

Speaking at a press conference following a meeting of Republican leadership, he says "she should have done this at least a week ago".

But Johnson adds that he is "glad she has heeded the call" - from both Republicans and Democrats.

"Now we have to pick up the pieces", he says.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle plans to resign from her job in the wake of the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, according to CBS news.

Cheatle testified for nearly six hours during a contentious House committee hearing on Monday where she took responsibility for the security lapses and acknowledged that the incident marked "the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades".

But lawmakers ridiculed her answers and the lack of information the agency had made public.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for Cheatle's resignation. It's unclear when she intends to step down.

Image source, AFP

Next up is House Speaker Mike Johnson who says "weak leadership of the White House" has led to unprecedented and challenging times for the US, claiming that Democratic bosses had forced Joe Biden off the ballot.

He says the "self-proclaimed party of democracy can't claim to be that anymore" after "steamrolling" democracy and "making a decision in a back room".

Johnson says that US was facing increased threats from around the globe because of the situation, and claimed that America "needs strong resolute leadership", which he says Biden and Harris are not capable of providing, and says the presidential election cannot come soon enough.

Taking the stage in Washington now is Steve Scalise - the Republican majority leader of the House of Representatives - who says Kamala Harris has been the "architect of many of Biden's worst failures".

On migration over the southern border Scalise says Harris has overseen the "largest crisis" in the US at the moment. (The vice-president had been tasked at looking at the root causes of migration.)

Moving on to her stance on energy, Scalise says Harris "has been against American energy her whole career", and has allowed countries like Russia and Iran to put "billions in their pockets".

He accuses Harris of "boycotting" a speech, expected tomorrow, to Congress from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is "disgraceful", Scalise says: "Why will she not come?"

He ends by calling on President Biden to remove Secret Service head Kim Cheatle from her job, after former President Donald Trump was shot at during a rally last week.

Image source, AFP

We're hearing from the Republican leadership following their meeting in Washington this morning.

Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, tells reporters that Joe Biden withdrawing from the presidential race is a "direct attack on democracy" accusing senior Democrats, and their donors, of conducting backroom deals to deny the democratic will of the voters who had backed Biden as their nominee.

She goes on to say that Kamala Harris is as much to blame for what she describes as Biden's "catastrophic and failed policies" on inflation, energy, crime and immigration.

She says Harris has failed to secure the borders, and extends that blame to all elected Democrats.

Several Democrats who endorsed Harris have been speaking about her becoming the party's presumptive nominee on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning. Here's what they had to say:

• Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says Harris knows how to bring people together around shared values. He points to Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, who he says knows "nothing about small town America", adding: “He gets it all wrong. It's not about hate."

• Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who is on the short list of possible vice-presidential contenders, says he has not received any vetting materials from the Harris campaign about possibly serving as her running mate. He dodges when pressed if he would be open to it. "Look, I love being the governor of the state of Illinois," he says.

• Congressman Steven Horsford, a Democrat from Nevada, serves as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus which endorsed Harris on Sunday. "We’re in a multi-racial, multi-generational society," he says. "We are not moving back, we are moving forward and Kamala Harris represents our future."

Image source, Getty Images

Democrats have poured $100m (£77m) in donations into Vice-President Kamala Harris' presidential bid since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, according to her campaign.

The tally was boosted by what her team calls a record 24-hour period of fundraising with $81m raised.

It is the largest 24-hour period of campaign funding in presidential history with more than 888,000 donors making contributions of less than $200 in the day after Biden stepped aside.

Joe Cotchett, a San Francisco-based political fundraiser for the Democrats, told NBC News that donors were now “ready to dig into their pockets".

Among them is Gideon Stein, president of the Moriah Fund and a donor for the party, who told US news outlet that he would resume his funding after having paused it because of concerns over Biden’s electability.

You can read more about it here.

Image source, EPA

We're expecting to hear from some of the key players today as Republican and Democratic campaigns realign to the likelihood that Kamala Harris will be facing off against Donald Trump in November's presidential election.

Republicans will be kicking things off with a news conference after a meeting among their leaders. That's expected within the next hour.

Joe Biden is expected to return to the White House today after spending most of the last week isolating with Covid at his home in Delaware.

And we are expecting to hear more from Kamala Harris as she steps up her presidential bid with an event in Milwaukee.

We'll bring you coverage of all that and more on this page.

Vice-President's Kamala Harris made her first speech as a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination from the White House yesterday.

Harris paid tribute to Joe Biden’s integrity, his love for his country and his accomplishments during his time as president at an event to celebrate National Collegiate Athletic Association championship teams.

Later, in Delaware at her campaign HQ, Harris took the opportunity to set out her vision for an America where every person has the "opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead", and highlight her key policies such as restoring abortion rights and a ban on assault weapons.

She also focussed her attack on Donald Trump, saying he "wants to take our country backwards" and highlighted her time as a prosecutor when she took on perpetrators who abused women, fraudsters and cheaters.

"I know Donald Trump's type", she said to thunderous applause.

Image source, EPA

Following on from receiving the immediate backing from President Biden, Kamala Harris has also had endorsements from senior figures across the Democratic Party.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker all rallied round her.

And potential rivals for the nomination including Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro and Pete Buttigieg also backed her for president.

She has also received support from the Clintons, but Barack Obama has yet to officially endorse her, the former president has often delayed endorsing any candidates until the last moment.

Image source, EPA

On Monday, JD Vance - Donald Trump's running mate in November's election - held solo rallies in Ohio and Virginia. And he didn't hold back.

“Now, history will remember Joe Biden as not just a quitter, which he is, but one of the worst presidents of the United States of America," he said in Virginia.

"But my friends, Kamala Harris is a million times worse, and everybody knows it."

He added: "And while we’re on the subject of Joe Biden, can anybody just admit that if Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he ain’t fit to serve as president of the United States either?

"If Kamala Harris is too blind or too corrupt to admit to the American people that Joe Biden should have never been in there, she’s not fit to serve either."