Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)(NEW YORK) — Since the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for children under age 5 last month, states have been able to pre-order doses directly from the federal government.
Roughly 300,000 children between ages six months and four years have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is equivalent to about 1.5% of the roughly 19.5 million children in the United States who recently became eligible.
Despite the low number, states are continuing to order vaccines as they expect infection numbers to increase and confidence to build over time.
ABC News reached out to all 50 state health departments between June 21 and July 7 asking how many doses had been ordered for children under age 5 and received data from 41 of them.
Those states have ordered at least 3.09 million vaccine doses for the youngest age group to be distributed to providers, hospitals, vaccination centers and more, according to the results.
This number does not include retail pharmacies in the states who have pre-ordered doses through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program.
“Having millions of doses out of the gate is incredibly helpful,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s a good start. My gut feeling is that there’s going to be an initial rush, like when doses became available for other age groups, and then a little bit more of stable access.”
As of June 21, California — the state with the largest population — has ordered more than 400,000 doses of the vaccine, the state’s Department of Public Health told ABC News.
Of those doses, more than 221,000 doses are of the two-dose Moderna vaccine and 176,00 are of the three-dose Pfizer vaccine, the California DPH said.
The doses “can be administered at the more than 8,500 vaccine sites throughout the state, with additional doses becoming available in subsequent weeks,” the DPH said in a statement.
Meanwhile the state with the smallest population, Wyoming, has ordered the fewest doses at 3,700 as of June 30, state health officials told ABC News.
The state’s health department there said 2,000 doses were of the Pfizer vaccine and 1,700 were of Moderna’s vaccine.
Brownstein said it’s incredibly important for young children to get vaccinated because they are also susceptible to severe effects of COVID-19.
“There’s always been this view that, for some reason, adults are the hardest hit with COVID-19,” he said. “And while that may be true proportionally, children also suffer severe consequences, sometimes deaths, even long COVID.”
He added, “Giving our kids that baseline protection through vaccines is incredibly important … especially as we head into the fall.”
Florida is the only state in the U.S. that didn’t preorder any COVID-19 vaccines for young children, federal officials told ABC News last month.
“The Florida Department of Health has made it clear to the federal government that states do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies,” a spokesperson for the department told ABC News in a statement.
Brownstein said he fears this will lead to disadvantaged groups that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 also having disproportionate access to vaccines.
“When states are administering vaccines, they can optimize vaccination sites, making sure they’re available to lower income families, minority families,” he said. “In the absence of that, higher income families will always be able to find time off to get off work and find vaccines for their kids. Ultimately what will happen is a lack of vaccine equity.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — “Keep making your point. It’s critically important,” President Joe Biden said as for his message to the thousands of abortion-rights activists who gathered outside the White House on Saturday.
President Joe Biden said Sunday he was looking into declaring a public health emergency in support of abortion access across the country after Roe v. Wade was overturned last month.
“That’s something I’m asking the medical people in the administration to look at, whether I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have,” Biden told reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while quickly taking questions during a bike ride near his home.
A public health emergency regarding abortion has been supported by members of Biden’s own party as well as abortion rights advocates.
The Women’s March, which helped organize a “Summer of Rage” in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe — which was widely praised by conservatives — has argued such a move would allow the administration to “utilize additional flexibilities, deploy resources where necessary, and act with the urgency that this moment requires.”
Broadly speaking, a public health emergency is made in the cases of disease outbreak or other health crises and unlocks certain government powers and funding sources.
Biden told reporters on Sunday he recognized he had limited executive powers to go further in supporting abortion access, saying, “I don’t have the authority” to reinstate Roe. He reiterated that he wanted Congress to pass a federal law codifying Roe after the Supreme Court reversed the landmark 1973 ruling and said there was no constitutional guarantee to an abortion.
As for his message to the thousands of people who gathered outside the White House on Saturday, pressuring him to do more to protect abortion rights, he said, “Keep protesting. Keep making your point. It’s critically important.”
“We can do a lot of things to accommodate the rights of women. In the meantime, fundamentally, the only way to change this is to have a national law that reinstates Roe v Wade,” he said.
The prospects of that are dim in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats do not have enough votes to either overcome a Republican filibuster on the issue or approve an exception to the filibuster rule, which is opposed by moderates Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Biden on Friday signed an executive order aimed at supporting access to abortion despite efforts in dozens of states to outlaw or severely restrict it.
Speaking from the White House alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Biden urged women, specifically, to practice their “political power” by voting in November, saying it was the “fastest way” to reverse the high court’s ruling by giving congressional Democrats the majorities they need to the codify Roe.
In the weeks since a five-justice majority on the court rejected Roe — which has long been a goal of Republicans and conservatives who oppose abortion — Biden has faced criticism from other Democrats and from progressives who say he should be acting more aggressively.
“I want President Biden to do absolutely everything in his power to protect access to abortion in America—let’s really push the envelope to protect women in this country, and let’s do it now,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health Education and Labor, told ABC News in a written statement last month, adding that she understood that there were limits to his authority.
Biden’s executive order largely finalized what had already been announced by his administration, including instructions to the Justice Department to make sure women can travel out-of-state for abortion care.
The order addressed the elevated risks for patients, providers and clinics by focusing on protecting mobile clinics that have been deployed to state borders to offer care for out-of-state patients.
Biden’s action, the White House said, also directed Attorney General Merrick Garland and the White House counsel to convene volunteer lawyers and organizations to “encourage robust legal representation of patients, providers, and third parties lawfully seeking or offering reproductive health care services throughout the country.”
Biden has said he’ll provide leave for federal workers traveling for medical care, which could set an example for private companies to do the same.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As gun violence in America continues to take lives, lawmakers are pushing states to implement “red flag” laws, which allow law enforcement or family members to ask a civil court to temporarily remove guns from a person who poses a risk to themselves or others.
Nineteen states currently have “red flag” laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, on the books. Recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Parks, Illinois have reignited calls for the government to enact these types of gun laws.
Last month, President Joe Biden signed into law a bipartisan gun bill which included $750 million in funding to help states implement “red flag” laws and other violence prevention programs.
The bill also enhanced background checks for people under the age of 21 and closed a so-called “boyfriend loophole,” by preventing individuals in serious dating relationships who have been convicted of domestic violence from being able to purchase a gun.
Experts told ABC News that when they are more frequently used, “red flag” laws could be effective.
“There’s many documented cases of use of red flag laws in circumstances and when people are threatening or saying they’re going to commit mass shootings. And they use the order, they remove firearms, and there’s no documented case [that] that person, for example, found another firearm or just went and did it anyway,” Daniel Webster, director for the Gun Policy and Research Center at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News in an interview.
He added, “I wouldn’t call it necessarily ironclad, certain proof. But, it’s certainly compelling evidence that the laws are being used as intended to prevent these things.”
According to Webster, “red flag” laws are modeled after domestic violence restraining orders, which make them a quick response, allowing judges to immediately take action. The procedures allow due process for those whose guns are removed by giving them the opportunity to appear in court and present evidence as to why they should keep their guns.
Webster also said there is evidence these laws reduce suicide risk, which is the most common reason these orders are issued.
However, this tool is completely reliant on a good system response when there is evidence that someone might be a danger, Webster said.
Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychology and behavioral studies who is affiliated with the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University, told ABC News these laws are not being implemented on a large enough scale to determine whether they are effective.
“If nobody knows about it, it’s not used, it’s not scaled up, the police don’t have experience using it or aren’t accustomed to doing that, [or] you don’t have the infrastructure or the protocols in mind for it to become routine, you can’t expect it to do any good,” Swanson said.
Swanson said this was the case in Connecticut where a “red flag” law was passed in 1999, but wasn’t often put to use until around 2008. Researchers found that when used in the state, these laws were “modestly” effective in preventing suicides.
“For every 10 to 20 of these gun removal actions, one life was saved,” Swanson, a coauthor of the study, said.
After the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, police revealed they had deemed the suspect, Robert Crimo III, a “clear and present danger” after a family member revealed he had threatened to “kill everyone,” according to police records.
Police had also gone to the suspect’s home a number of times before the shooting, including in September 2019, when Highland Park police removed a 24-inch Samurai blade, a box containing a 12-inch dagger and 16 hand knives from Crimo’s house that day, according to an incident report.
However, when he made the threats, the suspect did not own any firearms. So when state police did not find a gun license for Crimo in their system, no action was taken. Later that year, the suspect’s father signed an affidavit allowing him to obtain a gun license.
While Illinois has a “red flag” law in place, Webster said the state’s law does not apply a “prospective” approach that would have prevented Crimo from obtaining guns in the months after he made the threats. Webster said it is worth considering preventing people who pose a threat from being able to get guns for a certain span of time.
“To me, that sounds very reasonable, because you’re using the same logic to disarm someone once they already have a firearm,” he said. “But, you’re not using it to prevent the acquisition. So, that’s, that’s the missing piece here.”
According to Webster, things to be considered when determining whether an individual presents a “clear and present danger” to those around them include whether they have a history of violent behavior and what evidence there is that they could commit a shooting (such as their online search history or things they have obtained like body armor).
Whether the individual has displayed behavioral signals common among mass shooters should also be considered, he added.
(FRESNO, Calif.) — A wildfire near Yosemite National Park is creeping closer to a grove of iconic sequoia trees that have been in the region for thousands of years.
The Washburn Fire, which originated on Thursday near the Washburn Trail in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, has since grown to nearly 1,600 acres and could soon threaten the survival of the sequoias, fire officials said.
The fire is burning in “difficult terrain” due to heavy fuel lingering nearby after a significant tree mortality event from 2013 to 2015, according to Yosemite Fire and Aviation Management.
The fuel consists of both standing trees and fuel that has fallen to the ground and is presenting safety hazards to firefighters, according to Yosemite fire officials.
The Mariposa Grove, one of the most popular destinations in Yosemite National Park and home to more than 500 mature giant sequoia trees, was evacuated and remains closed. People in the community of Wawona, which is surrounded by national park land and campground, were also ordered to leave their homes and campsites on Friday.
No reports of damage to any of the named trees in the grove have been reported. Some of the tree trunks were wrapped in fire-resistant foil, a similar method used in September to protect trees in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest when the KNP Complex Fire threatened their existence.
The trees, native to the Sierra Nevada range in California, are adaptive to fire, but intense fire could kill them, according to experts. Wildfires sparked by lightning have killed about a fifth of the 75,000 large sequoias, The AP reported.
The Washburn Fire is not fast-moving and is not impacting human safety, fire sources told ABC News. It will take several weeks for the fire to be fully extinguished because firefighters are managing the fire by setting off backfires to clear the fuel, the experts said.
Firefighters are also battling the blaze using air drops of fire retardant and by using bulldozers to create fire lines, The Associated Press reported.
A warming trend is forecast in the region over the next several days, but high wind events are not expected to exacerbate the wildfire.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison Lisette Rodriguez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 10, 11:41 am
15 killed in Russian missile strike on residential building in Donetsk region
At least 15 people were killed and two dozen more are feared trapped in rubble after Russian Uragan rockets slammed into a five-story apartment building in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, local officials said on Sunday.
Search-and-rescue workers were combing through the rubble for survivors on Sunday.
The missile strike came as Ukrainian officials reported clashes with Russian troops on the frontline in the eastern and southern Ukraine.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the strike on the apartment building occurred Saturday evening in the town of Chasiv Yar. The regional emergency service said Sunday that the death toll had climbed to 15 and that 24 more people could still be buried under the rubble.
“We ran to the basement, there were three hits, the first somewhere in the kitchen,” a local resident, who gave her name as Ludmila, told rescuers as they removed a body wrapped in a white sheet and cleared rubble using a crane as well as their hands. “The second (strike), I do not even remember, there was lightning, we ran towards the second entrance and then straight into the basement. We sat there all night until this morning.”
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a Telegram post that the strike was “another terrorist attack” and that Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism as a result.
Russian officials claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery, near Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region, but, so far, has not claimed responsibility for the missile strike on the residential building in Chasiv Yar.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Jul 10, 11:21 am
Blinken claims world food insecurity ‘significantly exacerbated’ by Russian invasion
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “significantly exacerbated” a global food insecurity crisis and may have contributed to the economic collapse of Sri Lanka.
“What we are seeing around the world is growing food insecurity that has been significantly exacerbated by the Russian aggression against Ukraine and as we’ve had opportunity to discuss in recent days, there are more than 20 million tons of grain that are sitting in silos in Ukraine that can’t get out can’t get out to feed people around the world,” Blinken told reporters during his first official visit to Thailand.
He noted that he discussed the global food insecurity crisis during meetings with Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai and said a memorandum of understanding the two leaders signed commemorating a new collaboration will “make it easier for Thailand and the United States to quickly share information and consult on possible supply chain disruptions so that we can actually take early action to mitigate problems.”
Blinken added that the impact of this Russian invasion of Ukraine is being felt around the world, particularly in Sri Lanka, where the prime minister said late last month that the island nation’s debt-laden economy had “collapsed” and run out of money to pay for food and fuel. The economic turmoil has prompted massive protests in Sri Lanka and over the weekend demonstrators stormed the president’s residence in the capital of Colombo.
“So we’re seeing the impact of this Russian aggression to play out everywhere,” Blinken said. “Again, it may have contributed to the situation in Sri Lanka. We’re concerned about the implications that it has around the world.”
-ABC News’ Lauren Minore
Jul 08, 3:27 pm
US announces new $400M aid package for Ukraine, including more HIMARS
The Biden administration announced a new $400 million military aid package for Ukraine on Friday that includes four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.
Ukraine will now have a total of 12 of these precision rocket launcher systems, which have been “especially important and effective in assisting Ukraine in coping with the Russian artillery battle in the Donbas,” a senior defense official told reporters Friday.
The rockets have a range of 43 miles. The official said that Ukraine has been striking at Russian targets deep behind enemy lines but has not used them to strike inside Russia.
The new aid package also includes 1,000 new “greater precision” artillery. The name of the system was not shared for security purposes, the official said.
The new aid package is the 15th use of the presidential drawdown authority to give existing U.S. military stocks to Ukraine.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Jul 07, 9:26 am
Moscow views nuclear weapons only as a deterrent, Russian official says
Russia considers nuclear weapons only as a deterrent, according to Valentina Matviyenko, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council.
“Russia views nuclear weapons only as a deterrent,” Matviyenko said Thursday at a press conference.
The official noted that Russia has “clearly and strictly prescribed those exceptional cases when [nuclear weapons] can only be used in response to — God forbid that this never happens — a nuclear attack.”
“We behave like a civilized country, and we do it openly,” Matviyenko added.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol, and Fidel Pavlenko
Jul 07, 8:16 am
Russia claims no new ground for first time since invasion’s start
Russia claimed no territorial gains in Ukraine on Wednesday for the first time since the beginning of its invasion in late February, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its latest report.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed territorial gains every day from the start of the war but has not done so since completing the encirclement of the eastern town Lysychansk on July 3, the ISW said.
The Washington-based think tank said the lull in Russian ground force movements supports its assessment that Russian forces “have largely initiated an operational pause.”
The break in operations is not equal to a complete ceasefire, however, as Russian troops still conducted a number of unsuccessful attacks on all frontlines, the experts added.
Russian troops are instead trying to set up conditions for a bigger offensive as they rebuild their combat power, the ISW report said.
Russia has already increased its fleet in the Black Sea on the shores of Ukraine, local media reported on Wednesday. The Russian naval presence grew by several missile carriers, as well as submarines and an amphibious assault ship.
Ukrainian officials refuted Russian claims on Wednesday according to which Russian troops destroyed two HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems supplied by the U.S.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy added that the Western supplied artillery “started working very powerfully” and at full capacity.
“Finally, it is felt that the Western artillery, the weapons we received from our partners, started working very powerfully,” Zelenskyy said in his Wednesday evening address. “Its accuracy is exactly as needed,” the president added.
Zelenskyy said the Western weapons have carried out strikes on depots and areas of logistical importance to Russian troops. “And this significantly reduces the offensive potential of the Russian army,” Zelenskyy noted, adding that Russian losses “will only increase every week, as will the difficulty of supplying [Russian troops].”
Ukrainian forces celebrated another symbolic victory on Thursday when they raised their national flag on Snake Island, a recaptured Black Sea isle located 90 miles south of the Ukrainian port of Odesa that became a symbol of defiance against Moscow, according to local reports.
Images released by Ukraine’s interior ministry on Thursday showed three Ukrainian soldiers raising the blue and yellow national flag on a patch of ground on Snake Island next to the remains of a flattened building.
But Russia responded to the flag-raising ceremony fast. It said one of its warplanes had struck Snake Island shortly afterwards and destroyed part of the Ukrainian detachment there.
Russia abandoned Snake Island at the end of June in what it said was a gesture of goodwill, raising Ukrainian hopes of unblocking local ports shut off by Russia.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol, and Fidel Pavlenko
Jul 06, 10:02 am
Blinken to urge G20 to press Russia on grain deliveries
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to appeal to G20 countries to put pressure on Russia to make it support the U.N. initiative on unblocking the sea lanes for Ukraine and allow grain exports, according to local media reports.
“G20 countries should hold Russia accountable and insist that it supports ongoing U.N. efforts to reopen the sea lanes for grain delivery,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs.
Toloui referred to a U.N. campaign aiming to expedite Ukrainian and Russian exports of harvest and fertilizer to global markets.
Around 22 million tons of grain remain blocked in Ukrainian ports due to the threat of Russian attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
Ukraine is in active negotiations with Turkey and the U.N. to solve the grain export stalemate, Zelenskyy added.
Blinken is also expected to once again warn China against backing Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
“[The upcoming G20 summit] will be another opportunity … to convey our expectations about what we would expect China to do and not to do in the context of Ukraine,” the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
Jul 06, 8:42 am
Russia aims to seize territory far beyond the Donbas, Putin’s ally suggests
Russia’s main objective in its invasion of Ukraine is still regime change in Kyiv and the dismantling of Ukrainian sovereignty, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev suggested in a speech on Tuesday.
Patrushev said the Russian “military operation” in Ukraine will continue until Russia achieves its goals of protecting civilians from “genocide,” “denazifying” and demilitarizing Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Russian official added that Ukraine must remain permanently neutral between Russia and NATO. Petrushev’s remarks nearly mirrored the goals Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at the onset of the war to justify the military invasion.
Patrushev, a close Putin ally, repeated the Russian President’s stated ambitions despite Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine and previous hints at a reduction in war aims following those defeats, the ISW pointed out.
Patrushev’s explicit restatement of Putin’s initial objectives “strongly indicates” that Russia does not consider its recent territorial gains in the Luhansk region to be sufficient, the ISW experts said.
Russia “has significant territorial aspirations beyond the Donbas” and “is preparing for a protracted war with the intention of taking much larger portions of Ukraine,” the observers added.
Patrushev’s comments dampened hopes for a “compromise ceasefire or even peace based on limited additional Russian territorial gains,” the experts concluded.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
(WASHINGTON) — Following a stronger-than-expected jobs report released on Friday, the Biden administration is continuing to push back on fears of looming economic downtown while working to tame historic inflation.
“I don’t see any reason to think that we will have a serious recession,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday when asked about the trajectory of future growth as the Federal Reserve signals further interest rate hikes to slow spending and demand.
Raimondo said the “fundamentals” of the U.S. economy are “very strong” and tackling inflation is “our top priority.”
“We’ve recovered all the jobs since the pandemic. People’s household balance sheets are strong,” she said. “Companies are doing well. Companies are hiring, companies are growing.”
She acknowledged the strain of inflation on daily life and said she expected the economy to “transition to a more traditional growth level,” but said that the public should not “be talking ourselves into a recession.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics last week announced that 372,000 jobs were added in June — nearly 100,000 more than economists had forecast — and the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.6%.
Asked on Sunday by Stephanopoulos to explain divide between “the strong economic fundamentals” and the “lowest consumer confidence” in the economy in years, Raimondo said it points back to “one word.”
“Inflation. … And people talk about it in different ways. But if you ask folks what they’re worried about, they’ll either say, ‘Grocery store prices are high, food prices are high, energy prices, gas prices,’ that’s in people’s daily lives.”
“Until we do get a handle on inflation, I think it’s natural for a family to be feeling that pinch,” she added.
But the administration will “get a handle” on the rising cost of goods and services, she said.
Amid calls from within the Democratic party to do more to combat inflation, Raimondo was pressed on what further actions President Joe Biden could be doing right now. But she turned some of the responsibility over to the Senate.
“Congress needs to pass the CHIPS Act,” she said, referring to one of two bills that would help accelerate U.S. manufacturing of semiconductor chips. “That has to pass. Has to pass now. Not in six months from now. Now. It’s bipartisan. [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell just threw a wrench in that about a week ago saying that he wasn’t going to allow Republicans to move on that unless we move down reconciliation. That’s a perfect example, George, of increasing supply. We have inflation now because of lack of supply.”
“Doesn’t that mean the CHIPS bill is dead?” Stephanopoulos asked Raimondo, echoing her point that McConnell has said he will block the legislation as long as Biden continues to push for a reconciliation spending bill over GOP objections.
“It shouldn’t be dead. Why can’t we do both?” Raimondo said. “It’s a false choice. He’s playing politics with our national security, and it’s time for Congress to do its job on both of those dimensions.”
Raimondo was also asked if she was confident in the effectiveness of the global price cap on Russian oil that Biden proposed, with Stephanopoulos pointing to “a lot of economists” who “are skeptical about whether that can really work.”
“I think it can [work],” she said of a price cap. “Yes, I think it can.”
(WASHINGTON) — Steve Bannon, a former top adviser in Donald Trump’s White House, recently told the House panel investigating the Capitol riot that he would be willing to testify since Trump now says he won’t cite executive privilege.
In a letter on Saturday to the committee, obtained by ABC News, Bannon said he would prefer testifying in a live, public hearing after the former president had sent him a separate letter on Saturday — also obtained by ABC — waiving objections.
Both the House committee and federal prosecutors who sought to speak with Bannon have said the executive privilege claims never covered him, since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection took place long after Bannon left his post as chief White House strategist in 2017.
Bannon previously defied a subpoena from the committee and is awaiting trial on criminal contempt charges.
His attorney wrote on his behalf in the letter this weekend that “circumstances have now changed.”
“President Trump has decided that it would be in the best interests of the American people to waive executive privilege for Stephen K. Bannon, to allow Mr. Bannon to comply with the subpoena issued by your Committee. Mr. Bannon is willing to, and indeed prefers, to testify at your public hearing,” lawyer Bob Costello wrote. “Mr. Bannon is willing to, and indeed prefers, to testify at your public hearing.”
It’s unclear if Bannon now also plans to comply with the committee’s demand for documents, which accompanied his subpoena.
In Trump’s letter to Bannon, Trump reiterated his criticisms of the House committee and wrote that he felt his former aide — now a right-wing commentator — had been treated “unfairly.”
“When you first received the Subpoena to testify and provide documents, I invoked Executive Privilege. However, I watched how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, and all of the trauma you must be going through for the love of your Country, and out of respect for the Office of the President,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, if you reach an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive Executive Privilege for you, which allows you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly…”
Speaking on CNN on Sunday morning, Jan 6 committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren suggested the panel had not yet considered Bannon’s reversal but hinted that a public testimony may be unlikely. “This goes on for hour after hour after hour. We want to get all our questions answered, and you can’t do that in a live format,” Lofgren told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
The panel has typically held private depositions with witnesses before they end up testifying live in a hearing room — or clips from their depositions are aired to the audience.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, another member of the committee, was asked by ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday about Bannon’s possible testimony. Kinzinger said that “on a high-level position, anybody that wants to come in, that knows information to talk to the select committee, we welcome them to do so.”
“We welcome them to do so under oath. And we all know the history with our requests to have talked to Steve Bannon. So we’ll see how that comes out,” Kinzinger said.
After defying a Jan. 6 subpoena last year, Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, though he argued Trump’s privilege claim protected him.
He pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial next week.
Bannon remained an outside adviser to Trump after helping to lead his first presidential campaign and a short stint in the White House. He was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the 2020 presidential election results, the Jan. 6 committee claimed in a 2021 letter to Bannon along with his subpoena.
He was quoted as saying, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” the panel wrote in that letter, citing a Jan. 5, 2021, episode of his podcast “War Room.”
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot, said Sunday that Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone didn’t contradict previous testimony by other witnesses and will be featured in the investigation’s final report after he sat for a transcribed, videotaped interview with the panel last week.
“You’ll see over the next couple of hearings a little of what he said. Certainly you’ll see a lot of that in the report,” Kinzinger, R-Ill., told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “But at no point was there any contradiction of what anybody said.”
Cipollone was recently subpoenaed and spoke with the committee on Friday. The subpoena came after he was repeatedly mentioned during startling testimony last month by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
Hutchinson told the committee under oath in a public hearing that Cipollone had been wary of then-President Donald Trump’s desire to march with his supporters from the Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, where Congress was working to certify the 2020 Electoral College results.
“Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, ‘Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy, keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,'” Hutchinson said.
The Jan. 6 panel had repeatedly referenced Cipollone as someone who pushed back against Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
Both CNN and The New York Times reported that Cipollone was not asked about some specifics from Hutchinson during his own interview on Friday.
Kinzinger was asked on “This Week” about a report that Trump may wave executive privilege for his former adviser Steven Bannon, who was charged with contempt of Congress for rejecting a subpoena related to the Jan. 6 investigation. (Bannon pleaded not guilty.)
“Does the committee still want to hear from him?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“I will just say, on a high-level position, anybody that wants to come in, that knows information to talk to the select committee, we welcome them to do so,” Kinzinger said. “We welcome them to do so under oath. And we all know the history with our requests to have talked to Steve Bannon. So we’ll see how that comes out.”
Kinzinger said he felt the same about possible testimony from Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers. But these examples had something in common, Kinzinger said: “They went from initially saying that this committee was nothing but a sideshow, something that nobody was interested in, to all of a sudden — ‘oh, yeah, I want to testify publicly in front of it.'”
Still, Stephanopoulos noted, the committee’s work on the deadly rioting “doesn’t appear to be breaking through to Republicans,” according to recent polls.
“On the margins, yes, it is puncturing through,” Kinzinger said. “And I think what’s most important is, again, what does history say in five or 10 years? Because I can guarantee — well, I can get about as close as I can to guaranteeing that — in about 10 years, there’s not going to have been a single Trump supporter that exists anywhere in the country. It’s like [Richard] Nixon. There were a lot of people that supported Nixon until he was out of office, and then everybody was like, ‘No, nobody supported Nixon.'”
Kinzinger said he wasn’t fazed by the possibility that Republicans would “review” the panel’s investigation if the GOP retakes the House in the November midterm elections.
“I welcome them to see the work that we’ve done,” Kinzinger said.
The committee will continue its work this week, with a hearing on Tuesday focusing on ties between Trump’s orbit and extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and another on Thursday that Kinzinger said would focus on Trump’s activity during the insurrection itself.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Police in Philadelphia are seeking seven teenage suspects wanted in an attack on a 73-year-old man who later died from head injuries sustained during the assault.
The Philadelphia Police Department released disturbing surveillance footage on Friday of the deadly attack, which occurred around 2:30 a.m. on June 24.
In the footage, a group of teens can be seen chasing a person, who is blurred, across a street in North Philadelphia. One of the teens is captured hurling a traffic cone at the victim. A girl is then seen picking up the traffic cone and repeatedly throwing it at the victim. Another suspect appears to be filming the assault on a cellphone.
“The teens struck the victim several times with objects, knocking the victim to the ground causing injuries to his head,” the department said in a statement. “The victim was transported to the hospital where he died of his injuries the following day.”
Police identified the victim as James Lambert of North Philadelphia.
Homicide Capt. Jason Smith told reporters during a briefing Friday that the medical examiner has ruled the cause of Lambert’s death as blunt force trauma, ABC Philadelphia station WPVI reported.
Police said they are seeking four boys and three girls who appear to be in their early to mid-teens. Smith said at least two teens took part in the assault, WPVI reported.
The city is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, as is the case with all open homicides.
Smith is appealing to the parents of the suspects to come forward.
“The message I would like to put out there is to the parents of these juveniles, if they are aware that their son or daughter is involved in this incident, I think that the best course of action would be for them to contact an attorney and then contact the homicide unit,” he said.
News of the assault comes a day after a summer curfew for minors went into effect.
Through Sept. 29, those between the ages of 14 and 17 are required to be home by 10 p.m. Previously, the latest some teenagers were able to be out was midnight. Those under 13 are required to be home by 9:30 p.m.
The modified curfew is an attempt to keep young people off the streets and safe during a high-crime season, officials said.
“We’re seeing our young people involved in more criminal incidents, criminal activity simply because they’re out late,” Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who proposed the bill that modified the curfew, told WPVI.
For those found violating the curfew, police will attempt to reunite them with their families at home or a precinct or bring them to one of several community centers that have been established during the curfew.
(SANGER, Calif.) — Two people have been arrested and charged with attempted murder after getting into an argument with a man and then lighting him on fire.
The incident occurred at approximately 9:15 p.m. on Thursday, July 7, when the Sanger Police Department responded to reports of an injured man suffering severe burns to his upper body in Sanger, California — about 15 miles east of Fresno.
When authorities reached the victim, who remains unnamed, he told them that a woman had set him on fire several blocks away when they encountered each other at Sanger Park. He was immediately transported to a local area hospital due to the severity of his injuries.
“Investigators used video surveillance and witness statements to identify Patricia Castillo and Leonard Hawkins as the suspects,” the Sanger Police Department said in a statement released on social media. “The video shows Castillo approaching the victim and throwing a liquid from a cup onto him, and she and the victim appear to argue before Castillo sparks a lighter and lights the victim on fire. Further investigation revealed that Leonard Hawkins had provided the accelerant used to light the victim on fire to Castillo.”
Authorities were able to locate both suspects and reportedly arrested them without incident. Patricia Castillo, 48, and Leonard Hawkins, 43, were subsequently booked into the Fresno County Jail and charged with attempted murder, arson, and conspiracy.
The victim’s condition is currently unknown but he is expected to survive.
