This year was a wild one in politics: there were multiple assassination attempts on President-elect Donald Trump, Jasmine Crockett caused a stir on the House floor and the Democratic National Convention was a full-fledged party. Here are the most outrageous political moments of 2024.
In July, President Biden announced that he would not be seeking re-election. He quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his predecessor. She had just 107 days to campaign, and wound up losing the election to Donald Trump.
On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt while speaking at an open-air campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. This event rocked the world and renewed the conversation around gun violence in America.
In September, prosecutors accused Ryan Wesley Routh of stalking Donald Trump in Florida for over a month before setting up what they called a “sniper’s nest” on the fence boarding the former president’s West Palm Beach golf course. Routh pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate.
In November, Trump defeated Harris in the presidential election. Trump called his victory a landslide victory, although that’s not true. However, he did win both the electoral college and the popular vote with a little over 77 million votes.
In May, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insulted Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s eyelashes during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Crockett clapped back by saying Greene had a “bleach blonde bad built butch body.” The insult went viral and was trademarked by Crockett.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost a suburban New York race that became the most expensive House primary in U.S. history. Moderate Democrat George Latimer defeated Bowman in June by 17 points with 88 percent of the vote in, making Bowman the first member of the Squad to lose an election since the far-left group formed in 2018 per Politico.
In August, the Democratic National Convention took place in Chicago. Folks heard speeches from the likes of President Biden, the Obamas, the Clintons, even Oprah Winfrey as well as Vice President Kamala Harris. Other celebrities that made cameos included Lil Jon, Patti LaBelle, Kerry Washington and Stevie Wonder. It truly was an incredible party.
Model and former video vixen Amber Rose not only pledged to support Donald Trump shortly before the 2024 presidential election, but she also gave a cringey speech at the Republican National Convention earlier this year.
“My entire family is racially diverse and I believed the left-wing propoganda that Donald Trump was a racist...I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re Black, white, gay or straight. It’s all love,” she said per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In October, Charlamagne tha God laughed in Lara Trump’s face when she said her father-in-law, Donald Trump, is not racist on Charlamagne’s show “The Breakfast Club.” The radio host pointed out the Central Park Five, Trump’s birtherism claims against former President Barack Obama and his rhetoric around Haitian immigrants.
In September, Vice President Kamala Harris put Donald Trump in his place during the presidential debate. After a campaign full of lies, racist rhetoric and personal attacks on Harris, many folks believed it’s what Trump deserved. She reminded him that conservatives turned their backs on Trump and foreign military leaders think he’s a joke.
In July, a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson with then-Senate-candidate JD Vance resurfaced. In the clip, Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” The backlash Vance experienced was swift and justified.
In September, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals, according to CNN. Though he pleaded not guilty to the charges, Adams is still the first mayor in New York City history to be charged with federal crimes while still in office.
In May, Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes after a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a plan to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. In November, he became the first convicted felon president after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the election.
In September, the Fearless Fund—an Atlanta-based venture capital fund— revealed that it would permanently close its grant program for Black women business owners after a year-long battle over racial discrimination. Last year, American Alliance for Equal Rights—led by Edward Blum—sued the Fearless Fund and its foundation over the Strivers Grant alleging it was “racially discriminatory” against non-Black business owners. Blum has worked for years to overturn affirmative action policies in colleges and universities.
