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“Had they not dropped the atomic bomb, he was actually going to be going to the Far East, but instead they sent him to Italy,” Beth Weiner explained. He was honorably discharged in 1947.

At the opening day game in March, Weiner was presented a flag by Mookie Wilson and John Franco — two all-time Mets greats. As he made his way through the tunnel, Weiner met Keith Hernandez, a former Mets player and broadcaster, and Howie Rose, one of the teams’ great announcers.

“He was so excited and delighted,” Beth Weiner said of the special day.

That day also catapulted Weiner into online stardom with social media users cracking jokes about his name.

“There were a lot of adult men making juvenile boy jokes about ‘see more weiner,’” his daughter said. “All of a sudden, my dad’s name was everywhere!”

The Athletic covered the frenzy about Weiner’s viral fame last year.

The Mets last April held a $1 hot dog night promotion using a photo of Weiner in its advertising that said: “A Seymour Weiner approved message” and “Everyone loves a Weiner.”

“They put his head on the rapper Lil Yachty’s body dancing with a hot dog and my father was loving it. People would say he must hate being made fun of. My dad said, ‘Doesn’t bother me at all! I love the attention!’” Beth Weiner said.

Weiner wasn’t well enough to attend the game himself, but his family received tickets to enter the field.

“People were chanting his name the way they chant players names. Every open opportunity, they would chant his name, and at the end of the game, they said we sold a record number of hot dogs,” she recalled.

Beth Weiner said that when she informed the Mets that her father had died, “I got the loveliest email back and they said were going to do a tribute to your dad.”

“He had this kind of lifelong connection. He was watching games while he was really in the last days of his life, he was listening on his phone,” Beth Weiner said.

“The day that before he passed, was the day that they scored 19 to 1 runs and I said, ‘They’re doing it for my dad,’” she said.

Beth Weiner described her father as a “lifelong social activist,” passionate about true patriotism, inclusivity and diversity.

“He lived those ideals to the very end,” she said.

“My father would be so tickled, because he grew up as a child in poverty and during the Great Depression, his family had nothing. He had immigrant parents. He had what we would now probably call learning disabilities, and some low self-esteem because of it. He was just so tickled to become a little superstar,” she said.

Weiner’s wife preceded him in death. He is survived by Beth Weiner and her children, Juliette Wilder and Jonathan Wilder. 

Tributes poured in online for Weiner.

“RIP Seymour. From defeating Nazis to being there for the Mets crazy 2024 season is a hell of a life I gotta say,” one user wrote on Reddit.

“2024 Mets magic season started with him, RIP,” one user wrote, as another added, “Seymour Weiner, the Mets’ glizzy king, WWII vet, and proud face of Dollar Dog Night. The man lived a hell of a life and still had the sense of humor to become a viral sensation for having the name of the season.”

LONDON — King Charles III on Wednesday opened up about the lessons he has learned from his cancer diagnosis and treatment, an experience he said “brings into sharp focus the very best of humanity.”

Speaking at a Buckingham Palace celebration of community-based initiatives raising cancer awareness and supporting those living with the disease, Charles said that “each diagnosis, each new case, will be a daunting and at times frightening experience for those individuals and their loved ones.”

“It has certainly given me an even deeper appreciation of the extraordinary work undertaken by the remarkable organisations and individuals gathered here this evening, many of whom I have known, visited and supported over the years,” he said. “And it has reinforced what I have long observed during these visits — that the darkest moments of illness can be illuminated by the greatest compassion.”

Charles thanked the healthcare professionals providing cancer treatment, saying at the London event that “they have my whole family’s deepest admiration and gratitude” and that their care “represents the very best our country can offer.”

“What strikes us repeatedly is the profound impact of human connection — whether in the careful explanation from a specialist nurse, the hand held by a hospice volunteer, or the shared experience in a support group,” he said. “These moments of kinship create what I might call a ‘community of care,’ one that sustains patients through the most difficult of times.”

The British monarch was diagnosed with cancer in February 2024. He has kept much of his dealings with the disease, including what type of cancer he has or the stage of the disease, private.

Most recently, Charles was hospitalized last month due to side effects from his treatment, according to Buckingham Palace.

Charles’s diagnosis last year came just weeks before news that the 43-year-old Princess Kate was undergoing “preventative chemotherapy,” piling onto shockwaves about the British monarchy around the world.

Approximately 20 million cancer cases were newly diagnosed, and 9.7 million people died from the disease worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent global statistics from the American Cancer Society.

Charles concluded the speech and left listeners with a quote from Dame Deborah James, a British journalist, podcaster, and educator who died of bowel cancer in 2022 and whose parents were at the event.

“‘Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope,’” he said.

David Hodari reported from London and Matt Lavietes reported from New York.

The Trump administration wants to bring more auto manufacturing back to the United States with stiff tariffs. That could mean untangling supply chains that crisscross the border repeatedly, leaving some industry players unsure how their bottom lines will be affected.

Take Brendan Lane’s striker plates, which move between the United States and Canada four times before they’re installed. The common component — one of the roughly 30,000 individual parts that go into a single vehicle — is a small metal loop attached to a slab of steel allowing car doors to latch securely in place.

“The system is set up where we’re across the border all the time,” said Lane, the general manager of Lanex Manufacturing in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit. His parts are sold to suppliers of major American automakers, including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, and Lane said he has been making cross-border trips for his family-run company since he was 16.

Recent months have been a roller coaster ride for Lanex as President Donald Trump introduced tariffs on auto parts, steel and aluminum and Canadian imports.

On Tuesday, Trump adjusted his vehicle tariffs to offer some relief from import taxes that in many cases had threatened to stack up on top of one another. Under the revised policy, automakers paying tariffs on imported cars can get reimbursed for some other levies, including on foreign-made metals, though country-specific tariffs could still apply.

Lane welcomed the changes but said tariffs are “not good” for his business. He said he remains worried about how the still-fluid U.S. trade policies will affect costs and jobs across the industry.

“There’s thousands of people involved that it’s their everyday life,” he said.

American automakers have largely outsourced their parts manufacturing, mainly building only high-value components like engines, transmissions and bodies within the United States. Most other components — especially minor parts such as hoses, springs and striker plates — come from external suppliers, many of them abroad.

Reshoring more of that extensive global supply chain is “not as easy as just flipping a switch,” Lane said.

His striker plates are spared the 25% U.S. duties on auto imports, which remain on track to take effect Sunday, because they comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated during his first term. But Lane said he still isn’t sure what the long-term impacts on his business might be.

“It’s tough to plan for,” he said. “We don’t know how we’re going to navigate it yet.”

Even General Motors said Tuesday that it was “reassessing” its business outlook to account for tariff impacts that are still likely to be “significant.” It promised to share more with investors “when we have greater clarity.”

Ford CEO Jim Farley told CNN on Wednesday that the latest tariff plan “clarifies things, but boy, do we have a lot of work to do with the administration.”

“Affordability of parts is a really important thing for America because we’ve got to keep the vehicles affordable,” Farley said. Ford saw double-digit sales growth in March and April as people rushed out to buy cars, he added, and the company is extending its employee pricing offer through July 4.

The White House has indicated that the confusion is tactical.

“President Trump creates what I would call strategic uncertainty in the negotiations,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Tuesday. “The aperture of uncertainty will be narrowing,” he said, “and as we start moving forward announcing deals, then there will be certainty.”

Lane’s striker plates start with imported steel from Wixom, Michigan. Relying on American-made metal has already entailed a 25% cost hike due to Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, a response to equivalent levies on foreign steel that Trump imposed in February.

The Michigan steel travels across the border to the Lanex’s Windsor plant, which shapes it into striker plates. The components are then handed off to another Canadian company, in nearby Brampton, for heat treating.

Afterward, Lane drives the parts back over the border to Warren, Michigan, for plating, a process that applies a rust-protective coating. Finally, he brings them once more to Windsor, for inspection and packaging in his warehouse. Only then are the striker plates shipped to a vehicle assembly plant in the United States, where they’re mounted onto door frames. 

Horses honed skills such as running, jumping and pulling as humans bred and trained them for various purposes over millennia. And the 151st Derby — horse racing’s most-watched event — will draw attention not only to the animals’ skills, but also to concerns about their treatment and health. Advocates have long raised concerns about deaths and injuries — calls that were amplified two years ago, when 12 horses died at Churchill Downs.

There’s no doubt that war, agriculture and societies have been transformed by the human-horse relationship.

“Horses allowed us to circumvent our own biological limitations as a species,” said Timothy Winegard, a historian at Colorado Mesa University and author of a recent book, “The Horse.” “We combined our brains with the horses’ size, strength, stamina and speed to form the most unstoppable animal coalition.”

What makes horses so powerful?

A horse’s heart and lungs are the source of its extraordinary power.

The heart averages 10 to 12 pounds (4.5-5.4 kg), or about 1% of the animal’s body weight, compared with half a percent for the typical human heart. Secretariat, the storied horse that won the Triple Crown in 1973, was found after his death to have a heart weighing more than 20 pounds (9.1 kg).

Horse hearts are built for exertion. The average horse can go from a resting heart rate of about 34 beats per minute to 220 or 240 while racing — faster than a human heart during maximum exertion.

“One thing that’s really unique about horses is that they have an incredible capacity to move blood around their bodies — their heart rate can go really high and still be safe,” said University of Connecticut researcher Sarah Reed, editor in chief of the journal Animal Frontiers.

They also have a lung capacity of 60 liters — 10 times that of humans.

“That massive lung field allows for oxygen to transfer from the air into their blood, which is vitally important for sustaining aerobic energy,” Farmer said.

Recent research in the journal Science found that a genetic mutation enables horses to avoid negative side effects of super high energy production.

“Horses are great athletes because they can deliver a lot of oxygen to their muscles — way more than an elite human can —and by elite human, I mean Olympic athlete,” said Gianni Castiglione, the study’s co-author. “They have a bigger tank of gas and they have a more efficient engine … and this mutation is contributing to both of those things.”

What is behind horses’ speed and other skills?

Other aspects of a horse’s biology enhance its abilities.

Horses store extra red blood cells in their spleens. These cells are released to carry even more oxygen around the body during intense exertion.

“Adrenaline when exercising causes the spleen to release extra red blood cells into circulation,” veterinarian Hilary Clayton said. “What horses are doing is essentially ‘blood doping’ themselves.”

Meanwhile, horses’ brains allow them to process sensory information and react quickly. That’s despite having frontal lobes, parts of the brain used for thought and planning that are proportionally smaller than those in humans.

“Brainwise, they’re designed with a real desire to play and run independent of any fear,” said Dr. Scott Bailey, a veterinarian at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, a thoroughbred breeding farm where Secretariat is buried. Horses are also able to focus intently, which “is really important for an athlete.”

Bone structure and musculature also help. The ligaments and tendons in their hind legs act like springs, Farmer said, helping propel them forward. Like other large prey animals, he added, they have “long, thin legs that are meant to run.”

What about the risks for horses?

The adaptations that make horses faster also predispose them to injury, Reed said. Their skinny legs absorb the impact of each stride, she said, and over time the repetitive stress of racing and training can lead to deformation of tendons and ligaments.

In 2023, deaths occurred not only at Churchill Downs, but other major racing venues, affecting public perceptions of the sport and sparking changes. Reviews found no single cause for the deaths. But for 2024, Churchill Downs upgraded equipment used on its dirt surface and added an equine safety and integrity veterinarian.

A judge ordered Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi to be released from federal immigration custody on Wednesday.

Mahdawi, a 34-year-old U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was detained April 14 by armed DHS agents during his naturalization interview in Vermont to become a U.S. citizen.

“I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” Mahdawi said outside the Vermont courtroom.

“What we are witnessing now and what we’re understanding is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King has said before: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he added.

The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return requests for comment.

Mahdawi has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, the Northwest State Correctional Facility, in St. Albans, Vermont, since his arrest.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Mahdawi’s detention, saying his “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest,” according to the DHS notice for Mahdawi to appear.

Mahdawi, who has a green card, was a key organizer of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last year.

Ahead of this morning’s hearing in Vermont, the government and Mahdawi attorneys filed multiple court documents over his release, many of which were filed under seal but reviewed by NBC News. 

In the government’s opposition to releasing Mahdawi, it said that law enforcement records indicated that Mahdawi has admitted “to being involved in and supporting antisemitic acts of violence” and “an interest in and facility with firearms for that purpose,” according to court documents reviewed by NBC News.

The government included two exhibits with their filing, which have been filed under seal. One of the exhibits, which NBC News has reviewed, is a 2015 report from the Windsor Police Department in Vermont, where a gun shop owner told officers that Mahdawi “supposedly told” the owner that he used to build machine guns “to kill Jews while he was in Palestine.”

In his declaration, Mahdawi said he recalled visiting a gun shop in Windsor, Vermont, but that he is “absolutely certain that I never expressed the words the report falsely attributes to me, in that exchange or ever.”

“I am a peaceful person, and would never express wanting to harm or kill anyone,” he wrote. “I am heartbroken to have such appalling words, which stand in complete contrast to my philosophy on life and spiritual beliefs, misattributed to me.”

Mahdawi grew up in al-Fara, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, where much of his family remains, according to a court filing. When he was 15 years old, he was shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier, the document states. He came to the U.S. more than a decade ago before enrolling at Columbia in 2021, according to the filing.

The Trump administration has used similar justification to apprehend other foreign students, most of whom are from countries in the Middle East, who were active in the pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses last year or who have been critical of Israel.

On March 8, immigration authorities detained Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead student protests against the war in Gaza at the school last year, at his New York apartment.  A judge ruled on April 11 that the Trump administration can deport Khalil, but Khalil has been permitted to fight the ruling while in detention in the U.S.

In the days leading up to his release, while still detained, Mahdawi told NPR’s “Morning Edition” that he believed he would be freed.

“I’m centered, internally I am at peace,” Mahdawi told NPR. “While I still know deeply that this is a level of injustice that I am facing, I have faith. I have faith that justice will prevail.”

Vietnam on Wednesday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the communist victory over U.S. forces — but with an eye on ties with America that have blossomed in recent decades but are at risk of fraying under President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people, some of whom camped out overnight, lined the streets of what is now called Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, waving red flags and singing patriotic songs as they watched a grand parade down the main boulevard to Independence Palace.

It was there that a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates April 30, 1975, bringing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War to a dramatic end as Americans evacuated and many of the South Vietnamese they had backed in their war against the communist-run North were left behind.

In the 20 years until the fall of Saigon, the conflict had killed more than 58,000 U.S. service members and about 3 million Vietnamese.

The parade, held every year on what Vietnam calls “Liberation Day,” featured marching troops, as well as an air show with Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters flying over the palace.

Even U.S. diplomats were spotted on stage here after the Trump administration reportedly eased an order not to attend events.

The anniversary comes as the Southeast Asian nation of 100 million people is at a crossroads in its relations with the United States and China.

Despite the legacy of war, the U.S. is highly popular in Vietnam and the two countries have strong ties. Trade has grown exponentially, and the U.S. considers Vietnam a vital security partner in countering Chinese influence.

“I just find it absolutely extraordinary that the U.S. and Vietnam, after going through such a brutal and tragic period, have now built 50 years later this amazing partnership and friendship that we enjoy today,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Joe Biden and a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, who is now a partner at the Asia Group.

“But that work was not easy,” he said, “and even 50 years later, many of these historical issues and issues related to our tragic past remain very sensitive.”

France’s foreign ministry explicitly accused Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency on Tuesday of mounting cyber attacks on a dozen entities including ministries, defense firms and think tanks since 2021 in an attempt to destabilize France.

The accusations, levelled at GRU unit APT28, which officials said was based in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, are not the first by a Western power, but it is the first time Paris has blamed the Russian state on the basis of its own intelligence.

The ministry said in a statement that APT28’s attacks on France go as far back as 2015, when the station TV5 Monde was taken off air in a hack claimed by purported Islamic State militants.

France said APT28 had been behind the attack, and another in the 2017 presidential election when emails linked to the party and campaign of the eventual winner, Emmanuel Macron, were leaked and mixed with disinformation.

According to a report by France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), APT28 has sought to obtain strategic intelligence from entities across Europe and North America.

Officials said the government had decided to go public to keep the public informed at a time of uncertainty in domestic politics and over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russia’s embassy in Paris did not respond to a request for comment.

ANSSI said there had been a jump last year in the number of attacks on French ministries, local administrations, defense companies, aerospace firms, think tanks and entities in the financial and economic sector.

They said APT28’s most recent attack was in December, and that some 4,000 cyber attacks had been ascribed to Russian actors in 2024, an increase of 15% on 2023.

“These destabilizing activities are unacceptable and unworthy of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,” the foreign ministry said.

“Alongside its partners, France is determined to use all means at its disposal to anticipate, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behavior in cyberspace.”

APT28 has been active worldwide since at least 2004, primarily in the field of cyberespionage, hacking experts say.

In May 2024, Germany accused APT28 of launching cyber attacks on its defense and aerospace firms and ruling party, as well as targets in other countries.

At the time, Russia’s embassy in Berlin called the accusations “another unfriendly step aimed at inciting anti-Russian sentiments in Germany.”

The massacre set off tit-for-tat diplomatic measures between India and Pakistan that included cancellation of visas and a recall of diplomats. New Delhi also suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty with Islamabad and ordered its border shut with Pakistan.

Indian and Pakistani troops have also exchanged gunfire along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir into parts administered by each country.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has previously insisted that the security situation in Kashmir was stabilized after a decades-long separatist insurgency, has vowed retribution. He was expected to convene a security committee meeting on Wednesday, following a meeting with his top military and security officials.

“India has signaled a certain posture vis-a-vis Pakistan to domestic audiences in ways that makes it difficult for them not to carry out a strike in the face of a terrorist attack,” Srinath Raghavan, a professor of International Relations and History at Ashoka University in India.

Tensions have ramped up between the nuclear-armed neighbors since U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which experts have said has historically deterred violence between India and Pakistan.

President Donald Trump said the two countries will figure it out between themselves.

“They’ll get it figured out one way or the other,” he told reporters. “There’s great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been.”

The strategic and policy decisions surrounding Indian military actions have historically been the prerogative of its elected government, Raghavan said.

He added that the military has the “operational attitude to decide what kinds of targets they want to respond to and how they want to carry out these operations.”

“This means that there is no restraint on them,” he said. “Of course, the military will make a presentation to Modi but after that, they will get a go ahead.”

WASHINGTON — A case that could weaken the separation of church and state goes before the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices consider whether Oklahoma can approve the first-ever religious public charter school.

Although the oral argument concerns only St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would operate online throughout the state with a remit to promote the Catholic faith, the case could have broad ramifications.

The dispute, which pits Republicans in Oklahoma against each other, highlights tensions within the Constitution’s First Amendment. While the Establishment Clause prohibits state endorsement of religion or preference for one religion over another, the Free Exercise Clause outlaws religious discrimination.

Lawyers for St. Isidore, who are defending the proposal along with the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, have a narrow interpretation of the Establishment Clause and say barring religious entities from applying to run charter schools would run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa jointly proposed the school.

“It’s not establishing a religion. It’s the government realizing that there are benefits to having private entities, and we just happen to be a religious private entity providing a valuable service,” Michael Scaperlanda, a former law professor who is now chancellor of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, said in an interview.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican who challenged the decision to approve the school, said that although supporters of the idea are pushing a religious liberty narrative, he sees it differently.

“It is what it is, and that’s religious indoctrination,” he said.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly strengthened the Free Exercise Clause in cases brought by conservative religious liberty activists, sometimes at the expense of the Establishment Clause. Some conservatives have long complained that the common understanding that the Establishment Clause requires strict separation of church and state is flawed.

The case raises two legal questions. The first is whether charter schools are public schools that are effectively instruments of the state or entirely private bodies that just happen to receive state funding.

If they are “state actors” in legal terms, then the state, wary of violating the Establishment Clause, is free to require that charter schools be secular.

The second question is, assuming charter schools are private entities, whether it is a form of religious discrimination under the Free Exercise Clause to bar religious schools from a state charter school program that other entities can participate in.

Although the court has a 6-3 conservative majority that often backs religious rights, the case is complicated somewhat by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s decision to recuse herself. Were the court to split 4-4, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that said the school was unconstitutional would remain intact.

Barrett did not explain why she stepped aside. Before she become a judge, she was a professor at Notre Dame Law School and has close ties there. The law school’s Religious Liberty Clinic represents St. Isidore.

The campaign to authorize religious public charter schools dovetails with the school choice movement, which supports parents’ being able to use taxpayer funds to send their children to private school. Public school advocates see both as broad assaults on traditional public schools.

The school’s lawyers present the case as strictly a Free Exercise Clause issue and cite to a trio of recent rulings in which the Supreme Court said states cannot bar religious entities from programs that nonreligious private groups can apply for.

“Yet, that is precisely what the state did here,” they wrote in court papers.

Drummond countered in his own briefing that charter schools in Oklahoma are like all other public schools, meaning the state can require them not to be sectarian.

How the court ultimately rules will have nationwide implications. All 46 states that allow public charter schools do not allow religious entities to participate, so a ruling in favor of St. Isidore would open the doors to other states’ either changing their laws to allow religious schools or facing lawsuits that would require them.

Drummond said in court papers that such a ruling would bring charter school laws nationwide into question and give “special status” to religious charter schools, because, unlike secular schools, they may not have to comply with certain laws that apply to charter schools if they conflict with religious beliefs.

He told NBC News, “If we go down this road, we have to be prepared for the ramifications.”

A win for St. Isidore could also have unintended consequences, lawyers for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools warned in a friend-of-the-court brief. They noted, for example, that many charter schools would risk losing vital state funding if the court concluded they are not public schools given that the state bans public money going to any private schools, whether they are religious or not.

The case could also have repercussions at the federal level, where a program that provides funds to charter schools prohibits money from going to sectarian schools.

A state board approved the proposal for St. Isidore in June 2023 despite concerns about its religious nature.

Drummond immediately took legal action, asking the state Supreme Court to intervene and declare the plan unlawful.

The state court ruled last year that the school would violate both state law and the First Amendment.

When Kamala Harris delivers her first major public address Wednesday after her bitter defeat to Donald Trump, she will step into the political spotlight in a way she has not yet done since November.

Harris has mostly stayed out of the public eye since she left office as vice president in January, and she has opted not to weigh in on Trump and his policies in the way other prominent Democrats have.

That will change Wednesday. She is to deliver the keynote address at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, honoring the group’s role in electing more Democratic women in California politics. She is expected to call out Trump over his policies and how she believes they are failing Americans. 

“There is a clamoring for her voice right now,” said a former Harris senior adviser who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “No one can better prosecute the case while inspiring a call to action than the former vice president.” 

Harris shot to the top of the Democratic ticket last year, abruptly replacing President Joe Biden just 15 weeks before Election Day. The historic switch happened after Biden took part in a devastating debate against Trump in June, when he at times stared off into space and could not complete a sentence.

A firestorm of concern from the party about Biden’s cognitive abilities erupted, and eventually he bowed out of the race. Harris brought new life to the ticket, filling venues across battleground states and shattering fundraising records. 

But after a whirlwind 107-day, $1.5 billion presidential campaign, Harris could not overcome discontent among voters who wanted change and largely said they believed Trump would usher in a booming economy.     

That has not happened, however. Instead, his tariff policies have triggered chaos in the markets and brought on fears of a trade war. He has been accused of ignoring court orders and has pushed the limits of presidential power — including, at times, intimidating independent institutions, such as universities, saying they must capitulate on policies that support diversity, for instance, or their federal funding will be cut.

An NBC News Stay Tuned poll, powered by SurveyMonkey, found that 55% of adults disapprove of his handling of his job. Several other national polls timed for the 100-day mark had similar results, including Fox News, one of Trump’s favorite outlets. The Pew Research Center found that Trump’s approval stood at 40%. 

“Clearly many voters are regretting their 2024 choice, and Harris utilizing Emerge’s 20th anniversary as the vehicle to deliver pointed remarks is the right place at the right time with the right group of people,” the former adviser said. 

Some of Harris’ advisers have insisted that she simply ran out of time to make her case — she had come onto the scene too late. She has not yet said whether she intends to run again or whether she would run for governor of California — a serious consideration, according to aides — and neither announcement is expected Wednesday.  

Harris has taken part in lower-profile public events, one of them this month when she spoke at the Leading Women Defined Summit.

“We’re seeing people stay quiet. We are seeing organizations stay quiet. We are seeing those who are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats. And these are the things we’re witnessing each day in these last few months in our country, and it understandably creates a great sense of fear,” Harris said then. “There were many things that we knew would happen.”  

“I’m not here to tell you I told you so,” she added, laughing. “I swore I wasn’t going to say that!” 

“Fear has a way of being contagious,” she said. “But I say this also, my dear friends: Courage is also contagious.”  

A source familiar with Harris’ upcoming remarks said she is expected to expand upon those themes Wednesday and highlight those who have stood up against Trump.