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Former President Donald Trump spoke on Saturday night to some of his most staunch conservative supporters, filling a speech at the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala with praise for his political allies on the far right and doubling down on his controversial comment that he’d only be a “dictator” if reelected on “Day 1.”

He also bragged about his ability to win the 2016 election after the release of a video from behind the scenes of “Access Hollywood” years earlier, where he was seen making lewd and vulgar statements about women.

Trump spotlighting the “Access Hollywood” tape — an infamous episode late in his 2016 campaign that fueled widespread condemnation and calls for him end his campaign — started out on Saturday as a seemingly off-the-cuff remark.

In his speech, he mentioned “the biggest inescapable” situation he endured in politics and then shared more details, making it clear he was talking about the “Access Hollywood” video.

In that notorious clip, he had said, “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women] — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. … And when you’re a star they let you do it.”

“Grab them by the p—-,” Trump said in the video. “You can do anything.”

He later tried to play that down as “locker room talk,” including during one of the 2016 debates, but his defense only fueled some other notable Republicans to call for him to step aside.

Trump on Saturday described how all of his political advisers, except Steve Bannon, encouraged him to drop out of the 2016 race after the video resurfaced. Trump claimed that an unnamed general told him the “locker room talk” explanation he gave was the “bravest thing I’ve ever seen” over witnessing people die on the battlefield.

“It was an incredible campaign and we won and nobody thought we could win,” Trump said.

The unusual rehashing of the “Access Hollywood” video — which has not been in the headlines for years — is the latest example of how Trump continues to brush aside scandal while remaining popular with the Republican base.

Trump is campaigning for the White House for a third time while facing numerous legal battles, including four sets of criminal charges. He denies all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to all of his charges.

In Saturday’s speech, he claimed it was another example of his opponents attempting to stop his political rise — an accusation prosecutors have rejected.

“Our mission in this race is to win a historic and powerful mandate to take back our nation from the shadow government of corrupt alliances,” he said.

He also continued focusing on a theme of retribution and retaliation, seemingly threatening President Joe Biden.

He has said that as president, he would appoint a special prosecutor “to go after” Biden and Biden’s family, whom he blamed for the destruction of the country.

“They’ve opened up a Pandora’s box and I only can say to Joe is: Be very careful what you wish for,” Trump said Saturday.

In front of a friendly crowd, he joked about his comments from a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week where he said he wasn’t going to be a dictator if reelected “other than Day 1,” when he would focus on the border and drilling.

That statement raised new alarms about whether Trump would abuse his power as president, something he did not rule out when questioned by Hannity.

“You know why I wanted to be a dictator, because I want a wall. Right? I want a wall and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump said on Saturday to “build the wall” chants.

The club’s gala is known for making headlines with its speeches and a room full of guests with their own controversies.

Saturday’s event honored figures like Bannon, who was sentenced last year after being convicted of contempt of Congress.

Bannon has had an off-and-on relationship to Trump, including serving briefly as a senior White House strategist in 2017. Trump pardoned him in early 2021 after Bannon was accused of money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud by federal prosecutors. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to similar charges filed by prosecutors in New York City.

Other guests on Saturday included former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is charged with Trump in a Georgia election subversion indictment (Giuliani has pleaded not guilty); and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, who was previously censured and removed from committees after posting a graphic anime clip featuring violence against New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At one point during the gala, host Alex Stein tried to make a punchline out of stereotyping the Black and Hispanic community as criminals and gang members, saying it would be “good if Donald Trump went to jail” because it would help him earn the support from those communities.

Stein then repeated the joke later in the night when Trump was in the room.

“Once President Trump is back in office, we won’t be playing nice anymore. It will be a time for retribution,” the club’s president, Gavin Wax, said in his own remarks. “After baseless years of investigations and government lies and media lies against this man, now it is time to turn the tables on these actual crooks and lock them up for a change.”

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Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has issued a stark warning to the nation not to reelect Donald Trump to the presidency, arguing that thwarting the former commander in chief’s comeback bid must be the “focus” across the political spectrum.

“There’s a lot that has to be done to begin to rebuild the Republican Party, potentially to build a new conservative party,” Cheney told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an interview that aired Sunday. “But in my view, that has to wait until after the 2024 election because our focus has got to be on defeating Donald Trump.”

Cheney, author of the new book “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” said she hasn’t “ruled anything out” when asked if running as a third-party candidate next year is a possibility, but she stressed that she would not “do something that has the impact of helping Donald Trump.”

Democrats have contended that third-party candidates would only hurt President Joe Biden and benefit Trump in the general election, if he is the Republican nominee. They have particular animosity toward No Labels, a group working to secure ballot access across the country as it weighs putting forward an independent, bipartisan “unity ticket” made up of one Republican and one Democrat as the presidential and vice presidential nominees.

Cheney believes that because there are several third-party candidates already in the race — like Cornel West, Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — that even without a No Labels ticket, there is still going to be “a fractured electorate,” so the principal question remains: “What do we do to defeat the man who is an existential threat to our republic?”

The former three-term Wyoming congresswoman and member of Republican leadership said that it’s also “crucially important in this next cycle … to elect candidates who believe in the Constitution” to ensure that the peaceful transfer of power is completed after the next election, including on Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress will be tasked with counting the electoral votes submitted by the states — the final step before the next inauguration.

“I’ve expressed very clearly my view that having Mike Johnson as the speaker, having this Republican majority in charge, you can’t count on them to defend the Constitution at this moment,” Cheney said.

Johnson joined with more than 100 other House Republicans in 2020 in supporting a lawsuit to overturn Biden’s win in some key swing states; Johnson and numerous other Republicans also voted against certifying the 2020 election results. After winning the speakership, Johnson declined to say whether he stood by that.

In her new book, Cheney writes about how she came to believe Trump needed to be impeached as the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was unfolding and lawmakers were being whisked out of the chambers to safety. As the House Republican Conference chair at the time of the riot, Cheney ended up being the highest-ranking Republican — and one of just 10 Republicans total — to vote to impeach Trump on Jan. 13, 2021.

He has repeatedly maintained he did nothing wrong and was ultimately acquitted by Senate Republicans in a 57-43 vote, but Cheney continued to speak out against Trump, arguing he bore responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack.

Before losing her 2022 primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger, she served as vice chair of the House select committee investigating that attack.

Trump, for his part, has long criticized Cheney as well. He wrote in a recent social media post that she was “crazy” and has called her “smug.”

In a March 18, 2021, interview, Karl asked Trump if he really wanted to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, as the riot was unfolding.

“I was thinking about going back during the problem, to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn’t like that idea too much. And you know what? I would have been very well received,” Trump said, according to Karl’s latest book, “Tired of Winning.”

“Don’t forget — the people that went to Washington that day, in my opinion, they went because they thought the election was rigged,” Trump said then.

Karl asked Cheney in Sunday’s interview: “Isn’t that right there an admission by Trump himself of his own culpability?”

“Yes,” Cheney said. “One of the things that’s really important throughout all of this is Donald Trump’s intent. And we see again and again sort of the premeditation for this whole plan, the premeditation to claim victory, but also the fact that while the mob, the violence, was underway and the electoral vote was stopped — the armed mob at that point was carrying out his wishes.”

Three days after Jan. 6, Karl spoke to then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. In that interview, McCarthy told him, “What’s real crazy is back in our district, there’s tons of people who are ready to storm the Capitol again. I just don’t know about these people.”

Cheney told Karl that, behind closed doors, McCarthy initially “was being responsible” but then changed course.

“One of the things that was striking to me in writing the book was it was absolutely clear in those days, just after the sixth, on the calls that we were having in leadership, Kevin McCarthy was very clear and very strong about the potential for violence against members of the House,” Cheney said. “He actually understood reality and was being responsible in the beginning. But it didn’t take long until the political necessity of appeasing Donald Trump caused him to take a different path.”

A McCarthy spokesman said in a recent statement to CNN, responding to Cheney’s book, that she had “McCarthy Derangement Syndrome.”

Not even a month after the attack, which McCarthy had said Trump “bears responsibility” for, McCarthy visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, a move that was seen by many as re-legitimizing Trump’s place in the Republican Party.

Cheney and others who have publicly taken a stance against Trump and how his influence has changed the Republican Party have faced threats in response. She called that a “sad” reality of the political environment today.

“This isn’t sort of the threat of physical violence because of terrorist organizations or outside entities. This is the threat of violence because of a former president of the United States. And I think we have to be very careful as a country that we stop and we think about what that means and the path that we’re going down,” she said.

Karl asked Cheney what she thinks people will say about her and her legacy, years in the future.

“I hope that they will say she did the right thing and that she put the country ahead of politics and ahead of partisanship at a moment when it really mattered,” she said.

“And that project is, in your mind, just getting started?” Karl asked.

“Certainly,” Cheney said. “Once we get through this election cycle and we defeat Donald Trump, I think there’s clearly a huge amount of work that has to be done to restore, to right the ship of, our democracy.”

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The U.S. is trying to lower civilian casualties from Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack that sparked the current war, but there is a “gap” between the Israeli military’s intention and results, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday.

“We’re focused on two things: We’re focused on — what is their intent, and are they [the Israelis] taking necessary measures to make sure that they’re acting in adherence with humanitarian law and international law? But then also, what are the results?” Blinken told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

“We’ve seen the results,” Raddatz responded. She noted reports of numerous civilians, including women and children, killed in the fighting. More than 17,700 people have died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Israeli officials maintain they take steps to curb the risk to non-Hamas fighters.

“There’s a gap between the intent and the results, and that’s the gap that we’re trying to make sure is closed,” Blinken said. “Look, this could be over tomorrow. This could be over tomorrow. If Hamas got out of the way of civilians instead of hiding behind them, if it put down its weapons, if it surrendered.”

The “entire world” should put pressure on Hamas “to do just that,” Blinken said. “That would stop this tomorrow. But in the absence of that, Israel has to take steps not only to defend itself against the ongoing attacks from Hamas, but against Hamas’s stated intent to repeat Oct. 7 again and again if given the opportunity.”

Political pressure and public outcry have ramped up in the U.S. over its support for Israel’s government in the fight against Hamas after the terror group’s attack two months ago killed 1,200 people, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Hamas is also thought to have taken more than 200 captives back to Gaza after the October attack, though more than 100 were freed in a hostage-prisoner exchange deal as part of a now-lapsed cease-fire.

When pressed by Raddatz on Sunday over U.S. military aid to Israel during the fighting, even amid mounting criticism and scrutiny over how Israel has carried out its retaliatory operations in Gaza, Blinken insisted weapons transfers like 13,000 more rounds of tank ammunition come with strings attached — including keeping civilians out of harm’s way as much as possible.

The tank ammo sale was done under an emergency authorization that bypasses congressional review.

“We are in almost constant discussions with the Israelis to ensure that they understand what their obligations are, to make sure that we understand how they’re using whatever arms we’re providing to them,” Blinken said.

Raddatz asked if he had “seen anything in the Israel campaign, with thousands and thousands of civilians killed, many, many of those children, that you believe should be investigated, or has been investigated?”

“I can’t evaluate a specific instance in the moment. But I can tell you, we’re looking at everything,” Blinken responded.

The U.S. has largely remained steadfast in support for Israel’s military campaign while voicing vocal concerns for Palestinian civilian casualties.

“We are deeply, deeply aware of the terrible human toll that this conflict is taking on innocent men, women and children,” Blinken said on Sunday.

But, he said, Israel’s push to eliminate Hamas after the October attack was a legitimate goal that could not be set aside — including through a U.N. demanding a cease-fire, which the U.S. recently vetoed.

“When it comes to a ceasefire in this moment, with Hamas still alive, still intact, and again, with the stated intent of repeating Oct. 7 again and again and again, that would simply perpetuate the problem,” Blinken said.

The fighting in Gaza has sparked concerns over wider violence in the Middle East, particularly as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to attack ships in the Red Sea, which is a vital lane for goods and travelers.

While the militant group has said its strikes are about Israel, Blinken noted that numerous other countries’ ships are vulnerable. He told Raddatz that sanctions that have been applied to weaken the Houthis’ funding and he would not rule out future military action.

The U.S. is balancing its role in the Israel-Hamas war with providing Ukraine with further aid to fend off Russia’s invasion.

Congress is currently weighing a package that would send billions of dollars in more assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan while also increasing security measures on the southern border.

Democrats are largely aligned in support of the package proposed by the Biden administration, but Republicans have become more skeptical of additional Ukraine funding and are calling for major immigration policy changes to be attached to any legislation. A Senate vote on the money failed last week.

Blinken called for passage of the Biden-backed bill “as quickly as possible” so that Ukraine could continue to weaken Russia’s military.

“Ukraine has done an extraordinary job in defending against this Russian aggression,” he said. “Over the past years, it’s taking back more than 50% of its territory. It’s engaged in a ferocious battle right now along the eastern and southern fronts. We are running out of resources already in the bank to continue to assist them.”

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Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley sat down with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis in a network interview in which she discussed a wide range of topics including former President Donald Trump, the Israel-Hamas war, abortion and her life before stepping into the public eye.

Haley sat down with Davis in Sioux Center, Iowa, before she continued her swing around the state just days after the fourth Republican primary debate.

“I don’t think he’s the right person to be president.”

During the fourth GOP debate, held Wednesday, candidates were asked whether Trump is fit to be president — and while former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a staunch Trump critic, said that he was not, the other three contenders offered less clear answers.

Haley did not answer during the debate, but when asked by Davis, she said it was not about fitness but rather that Trump is just not the right person to be president right now.

“It’s not about fitness. I think he’s fit to be president. It’s ‘Should he be president?’ I don’t think he should be president. I thought he was the right president at the right time,” said Haley.

“We’ve got to look at the issues that we’re dealing with, coming forward with new solutions, not focusing on negativity and baggage of the past. So it’s not about being fit. It’s just I don’t think he’s the right person to be president,” she added.

Haley has insisted that Trump was the right president at the right time in remarks from the campaign trail, but recently, she has taken to calling for the country to move past him. However, at the first GOP debate, she signaled she would support the president as nominee even if he were convicted of a felony.

The former U.N ambassador was asked about her waffling on her loyalty towards Trump, something that the former president himself has called her out on, saying, “She criticizes me one minute, and 15 minutes later, she un-criticizes me.”

“You know, anti-Trumpers don’t think I hate him enough and pro-Trumpers don’t think I love him enough. I call it like I see it,” she said.

“I’m not going to be 100% with him. I’m not going to be 100% against him. It’s not personal for me. This is about what’s right for the country,” she continued. “This is about how we’re going to lead. This is about the direction we should go. It’s not about the personal thoughts of an individual. It’s about the fact that we have a country to save.”

“Israel does not want Gaza”

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise terror attack on Israel, Haley has called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish” Hamas and has largely pushed aside concerns about the humanitarian crisis playing out in Gaza.

While she talked about making a distinction in combat between “civilians versus terrorist” at the November GOP debate, she has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a cease-fire repeatedly, including that evening.

“The best way to save people in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas because they should not live under that,” Haley said at the debate. “If you do a cease-fire, people die, because we’ve done this before and what Hamas did before, they killed Israeli soldiers and they took more Israeli soldiers hostage. That’s what would happen.”

Davis asked Haley who she believed should control Gaza.

“I think Israel, Israel does not want Gaza, but they don’t want terrorists living in Gaza. So I think it needs to be a situation where the Israeli border is safe and protected and Gaza is no longer a bed for terrorists to act. And so I think we have to figure out how this is going to work,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s something that Israel wants. I do think that it’s a place that should be free and open and safe, but not with terrorist activity. So Israel is going to have to be involved in that. You can’t go through something like Oct. 7 and chance that happening to your people again because Hamas has already said that they’re going back. They’re going to do it again,” she added.

“A personal issue”: Haley discusses abortion

On the trail, Haley has tried to walk a fine line on abortion, dodging support for any specific federal ban and trying to strike a “humanizing” tone in her response. She often discusses a college roommate she says was raped and her own struggles with having children.

But she has also said she would sign “anything that would pass” the Senate, always adding the caveat that it would be unlikely any ban would pass under the current filibuster rules.

At the third Republican debate in Miami, Haley sidestepped directly answering questions about supporting Sen. Tim Scott’s 15-week federal ban using that very tactic.

“When it comes to the federal law, which is what’s being debated here, be honest: It’s going to take 60 Senate votes, a majority of the House and a president to sign it,” Haley said. “So no Republican president can ban abortions any more than a Democrat president can ban these state laws.”

When referring to the case of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Texas mother who had to go before a judge saying that she needed to get an abortion in order to save her uterus and preserve her chance to have healthy children in the future, Davis asked Haley how a Haley administration would handle the case. Haley responded that abortion is a personal issue.

“I don’t know the details of the case that you’re referring to. What I can tell you is I don’t think that this issue needed to be in the hands of unelected justices. It needs to be in the hands of the people because it’s a personal issue for every woman and man,” said Haley.

“We’re watching states make these decisions. Some states are going more pro-life. I welcome that. Some states are going more on the choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case, but the people decide,” she said.

“Uncalled for”: Haley’s daughter speaks on Ramaswamy TikTok comment

Haley, who was later joined by her daughter Rena during the interview, has said on the campaign trail that she would ban TikTok and has quibbled with some of her Republican competitors over the topic.

Most notably, Haley sparred with fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy after he brought up Haley’s daughter previously having a TikTok account, which she has since deactivated.

“How do you get TikTok banned if you use it?” was the question posed to Ramaswamy, who himself has a TikTok account.

“I want to laugh at what Nikki Haley said. Her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first,” Ramaswamy started, getting booed by some audience members.

Nikki Haley quickly told Ramaswamy to “Leave my daughter out of your voice” before calling him “scum.”

Haley’s daughter Rena told Davis that she felt Ramaswamy mentioning her use of TikTok was unnecessary and uncalled for.

“I mean, I felt like it was unnecessary,” she said. “I feel like it’s, people know not to bring kids into a situation. And so I felt like it was kind of uncalled for.”

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