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(ATLANTA) — Visiting Georgia on Thursday to campaign for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, former President Barack Obama urged the crowd to turn out at the polls, laying out why the state’s Tuesday runoff is significant despite a decided Senate majority, touting Democratic accomplishments and taking multiple jabs at Republican Herschel Walker, who has lobbed his own criticisms at Warnock.

“Some folks are asking, ‘Well, if Democrats already have control of the Senate, why does this matter? What is the difference between 50 and 51?’ The answer is a lot. Let me break it down for you: An extra senator gives Democrats more breathing room on important bills. It prevents one person from holding up everything,” Obama said at a rally in Atlanta.

“The biggest reason 51 is better than 50 because it means Rev. Warnock will keep representing you in Washington,” Obama said to cheers.

“As your senator, Rev. Warnock hasn’t been off chasing wacky conspiracy theories, he hasn’t been drumming up fear and division. They talk about some folks being show horses and some folks being workhorses — and you’ve got a workhorse here. He’s been working,” Obama said, pointing to Warnock.

After Walker recently went viral for his campaign speech comments about vampires and werewolves, Obama joked that he also had those debates … when he was 7 years old.

“When you spend more time thinking about horror movie fantasies than you do thinking about the people you want to represent, that says something about your priorities,” Obama said.

“Mr. Walker decided he wanted to be a werewolf, which is great as far as I’m concerned. He can be anything he wants to be … except United States Senator,” the former president said.

Obama also echoed Warnock’s closing campaign pitch, which has largely revolved around what Warnock called a contrast in character — rather than just politics — between him and Walker. (Walker, in turn, has said Warnock has controversies of his own and said Warnock doesn’t believe in “redemption.”)

“You deserve a senator you can be proud of. Somebody who will talk straight to you. Somebody who will fight for you. Somebody who has garnered respect in Washington. Somebody like Rev. Warnock, who has been doing it,” Obama said.

Giving a midterm report card, Obama celebrated that many election deniers had lost.

“You may be feeling pretty good, because a few weeks ago people turned out to vote. And as a result, Democrats still have control of the Senate. And because of some of other concerted efforts, in a lot of important states, many of the most egregious, potentially dangerous and — let’s face it — somewhat crazy folks, election deniers, got beat. That’s the good news,” he said. “It turns out that most Americans prefer leaders who want to bring people together, to solve real problems as opposed to conspiracy theorists and fear mongers. That makes me somewhat optimistic. It’s good to know that folks would prefer normal to lunatics.”

When Warnock took the stage ahead of Obama on Thursday, he emphasized a common throughline in his campaign: “This is about character and competence.”

“We have political differences, that’s part of what makes this country a great country. But let me tell you: In my race, this is not about Republican and Democrat. This is not about right and left. This is about the difference between right and wrong,” he said.

“I believe in my soul that Georgia knows that Georgia is better than Herschel Walker,” he said.

“I don’t mind giving credit where credit is due: Herschel Walker was an amazing athlete,” he said of the University of Georgia football legend. Warnock added, “He was an amazing running back, and come next Tuesday we’re gonna send him running back to Texas.”

Talking about how he fought for Saturday voting, Warnock told the crowd that the record-breaking turnout in the runoff so far had “inspired” him but for supporters not to become complacent.

“I don’t want us to be lulled to sleep,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — All federal inmates housed in private prisons have been moved to Bureau of Prisons facilities and the agency has ended all contracts with private facilities, officials said.

Last year, in one of his first actions in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing BOP to move all inmates to federal facilities, rather than have them housed in private facilities.

“We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives,” Biden said just before signing the actions in January 2021. “And it’s time to act now, not only because it’s the right thing to do. Because if we do, we’ll all be better off.”

“This is the first step to stop corporations from profiting off of incarcerated — incarceration that is less humane and less safe, as the studies show. And it is just the beginning, in my view, to my administration’s plan to address systemic problems in our criminal justice system,” Biden said.

Advocates, including the ACLU, have said that private prisons reap lucrative financial rewards while taking advantage of people who are behind bars.

On Nov. 30, the McRae Correctional Facility in McRae, Georgia, was closed, making it the final facility to shutter its doors.

Biden signed an order directing the attorney general to not renew contracts the Department of Justice has with privately-operated criminal detention facilities.

As expected it took about a year to complete the transition.

“BOP and privately managed facilities remained positive, while maintaining transparency and accountability,” a release from BOP said. “BOP inmates housed in these private prisons have been transferred to BOP facilities. In the mid-1980s, the BOP began designating low security inmates with specialized needs, such as sentenced criminal aliens, to privately managed facilities to better manage the increasing population. Over time, the BOP maintained contracts for 15 facilities, housing approximately 29,164 inmates. The overall BOP population peaked in 2013, with over 219,000 inmates.”

The head of the Bureau of Prisons union told ABC News that the prison population has declined to a point where private prisons aren’t needed, and has said previously the agency supports the president’s decision to shutter private prisons.

“The fact remains that our population has declined to the point where we can safely return offenders who were temporarily housed in private prisons to vacant BOP facilities,” Shane Fausey, president of the Council of Prison told ABC News through a text message.”The reality is additional beds are no longer needed and the most cost effective measure is not to renew or further private prison contracts at this time.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday voted to avert a looming strike of the nation’s railway workers by forcing a labor agreement.

A bipartisan majority of senators approved a House bill that will codify a tentative agreement between the rail companies and rail unions, which was brokered in September and subsequently rejected by some of the workers.

The Senate separately voted down two additional provisions to address the labor dispute: whether to institute a 60-day extension of the so-called cooling off period between both sides and whether to grant workers seven days of paid sick leave.

The first vote, on the cooling off period, failed 69-26.

The second vote, to add seven paid sick days for workers, needed 60 votes to pass and fell short with a 52-43 total. Six Republicans — Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Michael Braun and John Kennedy — voted to add sick leave while one Democrat, Joe Manchin, voted no.

The third vote, to uphold the agreement negotiated by the White House between freight employees and their bosses in September, passed 80-15.

Some of the same Republicans who voted for the sick leave provision joined five members of the Democratic caucus — Bernie Sanders, an independent, as well as John Hickenlooper, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey — in voting no. Those lawmakers were Sens. Susan Collins, Tim Cotton, Cruz, Bill Hagerty, Hawley, Rubio, Tim Scott, Rick Scott, Dan Sullivan and Pat Toomey.

President Joe Biden vowed in a statement on Thursday to sign the rail agreement bill “as soon as it comes to my desk,”

“I know that many in Congress shared my reluctance to override the union ratification procedures,” he said. “But in this case, the consequences of a shutdown were just too great for working families all across the country. And, the agreement will raise workers’ wages by 24%, increase health care benefits, and preserve two person crews.”

Biden said he’d work to further support paid sick leave.

“I have long been a supporter of paid sick leave for workers in all industries – not just the rail industry – and my fight for that critical benefit continues,” he said.

Congress’ move to end the labor fight came as the White House emphasized that they thought lawmakers must send legislation “by this weekend” to avert a work stoppage or the nation could see potentially “devastating effects,” given how much of the economy relies on rail to move goods.

The workers’ unions reacted with open dismay, they said, at the government’s intervention and Biden has described himself as a “proud pro-labor” president who made a difficult decision for the good of the larger economy.

“This shouldn’t be a Republican or Democratic issue, this should be an American issue,” Peter Kennedy, director of strategic coordination and research at Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, said in an interview with ABC News. “This should be about putting hardworking Americans first. This should be about putting our economy first. And you do that by fighting, by providing basic protections for workers.”

At Biden’s urging, the House on Wednesday passed a law enforcing the September tentative agreement plus separate legislation to add sick days for workers, which had become a major sticking point in the unsuccessful negotiations.

Kennedy said he “disagreed” with Biden’s call on Congress to pass legislation to try and avert a strike, saying it takes away their ability to go on strike.

“I still believe that President Biden is the most pro-union president that there is, based on my experience in life. Now, with that being said, I disagree with his call on Congress. And because it takes away our ability to strike more or less, and we don’t want to lose that ability because the only way we can get paid sick days and we believe is by withholding our labor,” Kennedy said.

The House voted 290-137 to adopt the deal between the rail companies and employees that was negotiated by the White House and 221-207 for the sick leave — a key provision in addressing progressive Democrats’ concerns to further protect workers.

Sanders had been urging his colleagues to consider boosting paid leave provisions for the rail workers and spoke on the floor between votes on Thursday.

“Workers who do difficult and dangerous work have zero paid sick days. Zero. You get sick, you’ve got a mark against you. Couple of marks, you get fired. This cannot and must not happen in America in 2022,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the commencement of votes after a luncheon meeting with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh concluded.

“I’m very glad that the two sides got together to avoid a shutdown which would be devastating for the American people, the American economy and so many workers across the country,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Biden said on Thursday that Congress would get a deal done to avert a railroad shutdown and that paid sick leave for those union workers would not be “within this agreement.”

An ABC analysis of the report of what had been negotiated between the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) and the unions and freight railroad carriers found that the railroad workers essentially didn’t have sick days under their current contracts. They have “personal leave days” that they can schedule, which is what prompted their ask for guaranteed sick days –15 of them– that they could use at any point.

Their bosses and the president’s board both rejected that push, fearing what they called serious operational problems. The PEB decided to give workers “one additional day of personal leave time.”

The House-passed but Senate-failed bill would have given workers “7 days of paid sick leave annually.”

Biden warned on Thursday that if the nation’s rails were to close over the labor dispute, “It’s going to immediately cost 750,000 jobs and cause a recession.”

“We’re going to avoid the rail strike, keep the rails running, keep things moving, and I’m going to go back and we’re going to get paid leave, not just for rail workers but for all workers,” he insisted.

The Transportation Trades Department, a department of the AFL-CIO union, on Thursday said they “unequivocally and wholeheartedly” did not support a cooling off period extension past the current deadline of Dec. 9.

“Freight railroads have made it clear that they are not interested in further negotiations with rail unions. Thus, any proposal to further extend the cooling off period would yield zero progress. Rather, an extension would simply allow the railroads to maintain their status quo operations while prolonging the workforce’s suffering,” Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, president and secretary-treasurer of TTD, said in a joint statement.

The legislative votes on the labor dispute drew a number of unusual dividing lines between Republicans and Democrats: For example, Hawley, R-Mo., joined Sanders as an early proponent of the sick leave provision.

Rubio, R-Fla., publicly tweeted his support against union leaders.

“The railways & workers should go back & negotiate a deal that the workers, not just the union bosses, will accept,” he wrote in a tweet on Monday. “But if Congress is forced to do it, I will not vote to impose a deal that doesn’t have the support of the rail workers.”

“Union bosses & Biden sold out the workers to make a deal,” Rubio then wrote in a Wednesday tweet.

Cruz, R-Texas,, said earlier on Thursday that Republicans were “the party of railroad union workers.”

After he voted yes on the amendment for paid sick leave, he walked over to Sanders on the floor and gave him a fist bump.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Sarah Kolinovsky, Amanda Maile and Trish Turner contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Thursday he’s open to talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about bringing an end to the war in Ukraine but only if the Russian leader is serious about peace negotiations.

“The fact of the matter is I have no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin,” Biden told reporters as he stood alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at a joint news conference.

“I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war,” Biden said. “He hasn’t done that yet. If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants, has in mind. He hasn’t done that yet.”

Biden and Macron pledged to work together to hold Russia accountable and mitigate the war’s impact on the rest of the world.

“We’ll continue the strong support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their homes and families and their sovereignty and territorial integrity against Russian aggression, which has been incredibly brutal,” Biden said. “I knew Russia was, but didn’t anticipate it to be as brutal as it was.”

Macron told reporters the U.S. and France “clearly condemn” Russia’s “war crimes.”

Speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Macron said he believes negotiation is still “possible” with Putin to end Russia’s invasion and that he was going to speak to Putin “in the coming days.” Macron previously held a call with Putin in March, but said there was nothing reassuring about the conversation.

“A good peace is not a peace which will be imposed to the Ukrainians by others, No. 1,” Macron told Stephanopoulos, adding, “A good peace is not a peace which will not be accepted on the mid-to-long run by one of the two parties.”

Macron’s state visit this week is the first of the Biden administration, and will culminate with a dinner on the South Lawn Thursday night in a candlelit pavilion.

“The design of this dinner was inspired by the shared colors of our flags — red, white and blue — and our common values: liberty and democracy, equality and fellowship,” Jill Biden said Wednesday as she previewed the event. “These form the bedrock upon which our enduring friendship was built.”

Ahead of the state dinner, the two families dined in Washington on Wednesday night before a formal meeting at the White House on Thursday morning.

The diplomatic tradition, put on hold for the past several years due to COVID-19, highlights the crucial partnership between the U.S. and France, officials said.

Along with Ukraine, Biden and Macron discussed the challenges posed by China, how to strengthen African economies and continuing support for the people of Iran and calling for accountability for those committing human rights abuses.

They also “outlined a shared vision to strengthen security and increase prosperity worldwide, combat climate change, build greater resilience to its effects, and advance democratic values,” according to a joint statement following their closed-door meeting in the Oval Office.

“My administration’s built our foreign policy around the strength of our alliances, and France is the very heart of that commitment,” Biden said at the joint press conference.

Still, the bilateral relationship has also been fraught at times, including last year when Australia canceled a massive, multibillion-dollar submarine deal with France in exchange for a partnership with the U.S and the U.K.

More recently, French officials and other European leaders have raised concerns about climate and energy provisions included in the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, specifically the tax subsidies for American-made technologies related to renewable energy, like components for electric vehicles. European Union leaders have said the subsidies may break the rules of the World Trade Organization and will have negative side effects for their economies.

Pressed by a reporter on the issue, Biden said Thursday he makes “no apologies” for the Inflation Reduction Act but acknowledged there are changes they can make to ensure European companies can participate.

“I never intended to exclude folks who were cooperating with us,” Biden said. “That was not the intention.”

Macron said the U.S. and France “need to resynchronize” on the issue of trade but both countries intend to create a clean energy future.

“We want to succeed together, not one against the other,” Macron said.

Macron, France’s president since 2017, was also the first foreign leader that then-President Donald Trump invited for a state visit. The two at first had a cordial relationship that turned sour over policy differences on issues like the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.

Macron began his U.S. visit on Tuesday by joining Vice President Harris at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., where they vowed to cooperate on space and in other realms.

On Friday, Macron will travel to New Orleans to meet with state leaders and the Francophone community, participate in a cultural event, meet with local companies involved in the transition to renewable energy and promote French language instruction in under-served communities in Louisiana, French officials said.

ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — On Thursday, former President Barack Obama is set to stump for Sen. Raphael Warnock for a second time this campaign cycle — five days before the Democratic incumbent runs for a full Senate term in next week’s runoff against Republican Herschel Walker.

Obama, who enjoys a broad following among Democrats, will appear with Warnock in Atlanta to “encourage Georgians to cast their ballots ahead of the final day of early voting,” Obama’s office said.

He first campaigned with Warnock in Georgia in late October during the early voting period before the regularly scheduled race in November. Warnock moved to a runoff with Walker after neither clinched 50% of the vote last month.

Obama also appeared in Warnock’s final television ad; his wife, Michelle, likewise recorded a get-out-the-vote message for the campaign.

Neither President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump — both of whom are unpopular, polling shows — are appearing in the state ahead of the runoff.

While Democrats retained control of Congress in last month’s elections, an extra seat would both help the party move political nominees through the chamber and try to hold their majority in two years when they face a challenging Senate map.

Walker, Warnock’s challenger, was largely off the campaign trail last week amid the holiday.

He is receiving notable support from the Republican Party, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

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(WASHINGTON) — A panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday to overturn the appointment of a special master tasked with reviewing thousands of documents seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate this summer.

The ruling by the three-judge panel, including two Trump appointees, goes into effect in seven days, absent intervention by the full circuit court or the Supreme Court.

“The law is clear,” the judges found. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”

The order effectively eliminates what federal authorities had described as a major obstacle in their ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump illegally retained highly classified records after leaving the presidency and obstructed efforts by the government to recover them. He denies wrongdoing.

The appellate judges had signaled in a hearing last week that they were likely to order an end to the special master’s review. They repeatedly expressed concern that the appointment of third-party judge Raymond Dearie by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida lacked any clear precedent.

The panel was also skeptical of assertions from Trump’s lawyer Jim Trusty, who described the search of Trump’s home as “an extraordinary case” that warranted intervention from an outside arbiter to review all the materials seized in August.

Cannon had empowered Dearie, as special master, to evaluate the approximately 13,000 materials taken from Trump’s club, including roughly 100 documents with classification markings.

Dearie was supposed to analyze if any of the documents that were taken raised privilege concerns, either executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

Thursday’s opinion makes clear the appellate judges’ belief that Cannon stepped widely outside of her jurisdiction in appointing the special master.

The judges wrote that Trump had made no argument and presented no proof that the government exercised a “callous disregard” for his rights in carrying out the search, which would be the necessary standard for such an extraordinary intervention by the courts into the executive branch’s law enforcement functions.

They also dismissed as a “sideshow” Trump’s legal team’s argument that the Presidential Records Act gives him some right of personal possession over the documents, noting that even if he was correct — the items would still likely be subject to seizure under the search warrant.

“The status of a document as personal or presidential does not alter the authority of the government to seize it under a warrant supported by probable cause; search warrants authorize the seizure of personal records as a matter of course,” they wrote.

The judges also addressed whether Trump’s status as a former president would create some kind of exemption or carve-out to justify judicial intervention in the search.

“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president—but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” they wrote. “To create a special exception here would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies “to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”

The Department of Justice had accused Trump’s legal team of using the special master proceedings as a “shell game” to try and delay the progress of their investigation and called Cannon’s appointment of a special master an “extraordinary judicial intrusion into a core executive branch function.”

The 11th Circuit previously granted a request from the DOJ to stay portions of a ruling by Cannon that blocked the government from using the roughly 100 documents with classification markings recovered from Mar-a-Lago in its investigation and demanded they be handed over to special master Dearie.

Trump’s attorneys then appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which declined to take up the matter.

Following that ruling, federal officials quickly moved for an expedited appeal to have the 11th Circuit end Dearie’s review in its entirety — arguing that the government’s inability to access the roughly 13,000 remaining non-classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago was also hampering their investigation.

Authorities will now be able to use the documents as evidence as they question witnesses and further examine the circumstances behind Trump’s decision to remove thousands of government records — including some with markings that refer to the nation’s most protected secrets — from the White House and store them at his private resort.

Earlier this month, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee the Mar-a-Lago investigation as well as a separate probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Last week, Trump’s lawyers separately asked Cannon to order the Justice Department to hand over the full, unredacted affidavit that was used to justify the search warrant on Trump’s residence. Cannon has yet to respond to their motion, but the Justice Department has expressed concern that disclosure of the details in the affidavit could jeopardize their investigation and potentially endanger cooperating witnesses.

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