News

(ATLANTA) — After months of speculation, fueled in part by public urging from former President Donald Trump, former NFL star and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker has officially launched his campaign for Georgia’s 2022 Senate race against Sen. Raphael Warnock.

“Our country is at a crossroads, and I can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. America is the greatest country in the world, but too many politicians in Washington are afraid to say that. … I have lived the American Dream, but I am concerned it is slipping away for many people,” Walker said in a statement Wednesday, pledging to “stand up for conservative values” if elected to the U.S. Senate.

Walker’s entry into the race marks a new phase in the Republican primary for what is set to be one of the most competitive races of the midterms and a top pick-up opportunity for Republicans. As the first electoral test since the state flipped for President Joe Biden in November and gave Democrats the slimmest of Senate majorities in January by electing Warnock and Jon Ossoff, Republicans are eager to show that Georgia is not a blue state.

In response to Walker filing his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday, the Democratic Party of Georgia released a statement calling Walker’s entrance “the nightmare scenario” for the GOP.

“Walker’s entrance into Georgia’s chaotic GOP Senate primary is the nightmare scenario that Republicans have spent the entire cycle trying to avoid. By the end of this long, divisive, and expensive intra-party fight, it’ll be clear that none of these candidates are focused on the issues that matter most to Georgians,” state party spokesperson Dan Gottlieb said in a statement.

While three other candidates have already launched bids, the race has been at somewhat of a standstill while Walker mulled a run.

None of the candidates on the GOP side has the national name recognition or profile that Walker brings with him, but one competitor — Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black — has already been elected to statewide office, a position he’s been elected to three times. He also has the endorsement of former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal.

Black has worked to solidify himself as the front-runner before Walker entered the race. He took on Walker before he announced his campaign, contrasting himself with the longtime Texas resident by touting his lifelong Georgian credentials.

“Welcome back to Georgia. Welcome to the U.S. Senate race. You know, I’ve been a big fan of yours since we were in college together before you moved away,” Black quipped in a video response to Walker filing his candidacy on Tuesday. Black was a student at University of Georgia when Walker was a freshman.

In addition to Black, also in the race to take on Warnock are Kelvin King, an Air Force veteran and owner of a metro-Atlanta construction firm, and Latham Saddler, a former Navy SEAL and National Security Council director of intelligence programs in the Trump administration.

Like King and Saddler, Walker has never been elected to office, but he enters the race as a front-runner — a status that could be solidified quickly with an endorsement from his longtime friend, the former president.

While he’d been living in Texas for decades before exploring a run in Georgia, and only re-registered to vote in the state last week, 59-year-old Walker grew up in the Peach State and played for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. The Bulldogs won the national title his freshman year and Walker came up just shy of winning the coveted college football trophy that year, placing third for the Heisman, but going on to win it his junior year.

Walker’s allegiance to Trump was evident throughout the 2020 campaign, while he acted as a surrogate for the former president. He appeared by video at the Republican National Convention in August to commend Trump’s character and dispute allegations he is racist. Last September, he participated in a radio ad touting Trump’s record of “fighting to improve the lives of Black Americans.”

But winning the primary is one thing; winning the general election is another — and having Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” — should he officially get it, as expected — could be a liability come November 2022, when the candidate will need to appeal to more than just base voters to come out on top.

Should he win the primary, he’ll also be up against a fundraising powerhouse. Coming in behind Ossoff and now-Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, Warnock raised the third-most money of any Senate candidate in the 2020 cycle. As of the end of June, the most recent campaign finance filing candidates have had to submit, the Georgia senator had over $10.5 million in the bank and received over $6 million in contributions in the second three-month period of 2021. He’s also the top fundraiser so far for the 2022 cycle, according to the FEC.

While senators serve six-year terms, Warnock, the first Black senator elected to represent Georgia, is facing voters again after just two years because he won a special election to finish out retired Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. But in the twin January runoffs, Warnock bested Biden’s November margin over Trump by nearly eight-fold and earned about 19,000 more votes than Ossoff did against former GOP Sen. David Perdue.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ALBANY, N.Y.) — Newly sworn-in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she’s cleaned house and removed individuals who allegedly contributed to a culture that allowed for sexual harassment under her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo officially left office this week after a report by the New York Attorney General’s Office released earlier this month alleged he sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo has repeatedly denied claims of sexual harassment and said he was resigning to prevent the distraction of an impeachment trial, though he was certain he would win.

The staffers implicated in the report “are no longer part of this administration,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning.

The day after he announced he’d resign, she vowed to fire anyone connected to the report who contributed to the culture of sexual harassment.

“It’s over. None of this is going to be accepted. I’ve surrounded myself with talented, young women and I want them to be the role models to others,” she said. “It’s a culture where they’re going to be OK. You don’t have to look over your shoulder. You don’t have to worry about harassment.”

Several Cuomo aides and staffers implicated in the report, including former secretary Melissa DeRosa and former Financial Services Superintendent Linda Lacewell, had already left state government. DeRosa, considered one of Cuomo’s top confidantes, stepped down just days before the governor announced his resignation. Lacewell left her position on Tuesday, the same day as Cuomo.

A number of state legislators had demanded that officials close to Cuomo and his scandals be removed as Albany moved forward under new leadership.

New York Republican Sen. Robert Ortt demanded a “clean slate,” adding in a statement earlier this month, “I am calling for the immediate resignation of state agency officials with direct ties to the soon-to-be former Governor and the many scandals that have plagued state government.”

When asked how the culture will change now that she’s at the helm, Hochul told MSNBC, “Anyone who crosses the line will be addressed by me.”

She said she’ll require in-person sexual harassment and ethics training for all state government employees.

Basil Smikle, a political strategist and lecturer at Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs, told ABC News her decision to remove those staffers “sends a message to voters that the era of Andrew Cuomo is over.”

“It was a clear intent on her part. She talked a lot about accountability and transparency. The act itself is a follow through,” he said.

However, it may be a bigger challenge to change the culture in Albany as a whole.

“It would be wrong to assume that these early moves will erase all of the toxicity. She has to undertake a more thorough and sweeping investigation of state agencies, state contracts, even relationships with legislators and center her administrative policies on diversity and on women to really be able to affect the substantial change in the long run,” he added.

Hochul also said Wednesday she’s looking into staffers involved in the controversial handling of nursing home data during the pandemic.

“I need to continue working to identify principles involved in those decisions,” she told “Morning Joe.”

She noted she’s asked for a 45-day period to assemble her team.

“There’s just a lot of things that weren’t happening and I’m going to make them happen,” she said. “Transparency will be a hallmark of my administration.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — After President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of all U.S. troops by Aug. 31, the U.S. will continue to help U.S. citizens and residents and Afghans who worked with Americans or are otherwise at risk from the Taliban get out of the country, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

But it’s unclear how that will be possible after the U.S. cedes control of the airport to the Taliban and ends evacuation flights — and it will mean leaving thousands of Afghans that the administration had previously said they would help behind.

Biden and Blinken have each said that the U.S. is “on track to complete our mission” before that Aug. 31 deadline, without specifying what the administration considers the scope of that mission — including how many Afghans they will evacuate.

In contrast, Blinken detailed how many Americans the U.S. has evacuated — some 4,500 to date — and how many the administration believes are left behind — 500 with whom the State Department has made contact with and up to 1,000 more who registered with the embassy.

“Let me be crystal clear about this — there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past Aug. 31st,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday.

But starting on Sept. 1, that effort will rely on the Taliban, whose spokesperson said Tuesday they will not let Afghans leave the country.

In contrast, Blinken said, “The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third-country nationals and Afghans at risk going forward past Aug. 31st” and to keep Kabul’s international airport running.

He added the U.S., backed by international allies, will hold them to it, without specifying how beyond using “every diplomatic, economic, political and assistance tool at my disposal (and) working closely with allies and partners who feel very much the same way.”

The U.S. is in discussions already with the international community on how to keep the airport open, according to American officials, including countries like Qatar and Turkey that have closer ties to the Taliban.

Blinken didn’t detail what levers the U.S. could use to hold the Taliban to its promises, but he did say that if it let “people who want to leave Afghanistan” leave, upheld basic rights and prevented its territory from becoming a launching pad for terror attacks, “that’s a government we can work with.”

Pressed on whether the administration was abandoning Afghan allies, including interpreters or translators who weren’t far enough along in the special immigrant visa process, a senior State Department official told ABC News, “We have always said that we are committed to bringing out Americans who wish to be repatriated. We are going to do as much as we can for as many people as we can beyond that.”

But while the administration never specified how many Afghans that applied to, it has said repeatedly it would help those who served the U.S. military and diplomatic missions over the last 20 years.

“Our message to those women and men is clear — there is a home for you in the United States if you so choose, and we will stand with you just as you stood with us,” Biden said on July 8, before the Taliban surprised the administration with the speed with which it took over Afghanistan.

The senior State Department official said that “commitment we have to individuals who may be at risk” has to be weighed against “the safety and security of our diplomats, of our service members, of others who are involved in this operation.” Biden, Blinken and other officials have said the threat from the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan remains high, putting U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in danger.

“We’re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban, with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack. We’re taking every precaution, but this is very high-risk,” Blinken said Wednesday.

While the U.S. has been unclear about which Afghan interpreters will be evacuated, Blinken was more explicit about pledging to help those who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Several staffers have been blocked by Taliban fighters from approaching the Kabul airport and getting their seats on evacuation flights.

“Along with American citizens, nothing is more important to me as secretary of state than to do right by the people who have been working side-by-side with American diplomats in our embassy,” Blinken said. “We are relentlessly focused on getting the locally-employed staff out of Afghanistan and out of harm’s way, and let me leave it at that for now.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Wednesday sent records requests to eight government agencies, seeking records from the Trump White House and administration related to the Capitol Hill riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The letters, the first investigative steps taken by the panel since its July hearing, suggest the panel is ramping up its far-reaching inquiry that aims to examine efforts in and around the Trump administration to challenge and overturn the election results before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.

It could also spark a lengthy legal battle with the former president and his attorneys, who have criticized the inquiry and vowed to challenge efforts to obtain testimony and records.

The panel sent requests to the National Archives — which maintains and preserves Trump White House records — the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Interior, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and several intelligence community agencies.

Its 12-page letter to the National Archives also requested records pertaining to more than 30 White House aides, lawyers, Trump family members and outside advisers, along with West Wing communications, records and visitors logs on and around the day of the Capitol riot.

The requests to the Justice Department and Pentagon are focused on records related to the “potential invocation of the Insurrection Act” and martial law – both proposed by several Trump allies outside the administration aiming to challenge the election results.

The panel is also seeking communications between the Justice Department and the former president’s campaign legal team “dealing with the validity of the 2020 election of challenges to the election’s outcome.”

“We will look at all records at some point,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters on Monday, adding that the committee has a list of “several hundred people” investigators hope to contact as part of their investigation.

The panel requested from the Department of Homeland Security records related to intelligence gathered on threats prior to the Capitol attack, including those against Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Secret Service records regarding the protection of Pence and his family.

The panel is also poised to issue records preservation requests to telecommunications and social media companies, ahead of any potential subpoenas, for the phone, text, email and social media records of individuals of interest to the investigation – including, potentially members of Congress.

The committee, whose nine members meet in person or over Zoom roughly twice a week, could hold its next hearing in September when Congress reconvenes.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday sharply criticized two House members for taking an unauthorized trip to Afghanistan, and the Pentagon said their unexpected visit took time away from its urgent military mission at the Kabul airport.

Rep. Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican, and Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat — both Iraq War veterans — said they traveled to Kabul on Tuesday to review the situation at the Hamid Karzai International Airport — and have since defended the trip amid criticism that they distracted from the evacuation effort.

Pelosi on Wednesday chastised the two and warned other lawmakers not to try the same thing.

“There’s a real concern about members being in the region,” Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday. “This is deadly serious. We do not want members to go.”

Their trip, first reported by The Washington Post, prompted a letter to lawmakers from Pelosi on Tuesday evening, telling lawmakers not to travel to Kabul because it would distract from the ongoing evacuation and take up resources and that the Pentagon and State Department are adamantly against any external visitors.

She said at Wednesday’s press conference there was an “opportunity cost” of protecting the two congressmen in the region.

“It’s not just about them going to Afghanistan, but in going to the region, because there’s a call on our resources diplomatically, politically, militarily in the region as well, so this is deadly serious,” Pelosi said. “The point is, is that we don’t want anybody to think this was a good idea and that they should try to follow suit.”

“It was not, in my view, a good idea,” she added.

While Pelosi said she has not spoken to either Meijer or Molton since they returned, she noted that trips like this would require the approval of committee chairs — and it was not approved by the Democratic side.

“We put out the word to committee chairs, there ain’t going to be no planes or this or that for people going to the region,” Pelosi said.

The Pentagon echoed Pelosi’s sentiment in a briefing later Wednesday, saying that it had not been aware in advance of the visit and that it “took time away” from the military operations.

“They certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

He said there was “a need to flex and to — to alter the day’s — the day’s flow, including — including, you know, the need to have protection for these members of Congress.”

“There was certainly a pull-off of the kinds of missions we were trying to do to be able to accommodate that visit,” Kirby added.

Like Pelosi, Kirby also took a chance to deter others from heading to Kabul.

“We are obviously not encouraging VIP visits to a very tense, dangerous, and dynamic situation at that airport and inside Kabul generally. And the secretary, I think, would have appreciated the opportunity to have had a conversation before the visit took place,” he said, referering to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Colleagues in Congress, too, piled on the criticism.

Prominent Republicans and Democrats alike blasted Meijer and Moulton for their secretive and unauthorized trip during the last week of evacuations, calling it selfish and irresponsible.

“I was surprised and shocked,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. “I want to stay focused on the mission of bringing back our American citizens and our SIV’s and the Afghans who are in danger.I don’t think it helps necessarily for us to keep going over there, when we try to get people out of there was irresponsible for them to do that …it does not help.”

“I don’t think it’s the best decision, you put people at jeopardy,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on Fox News on Wednesday morning. “But I understand why they wanted to go.”

Rep. Madeline Dean, D-Penn., called it “troubling” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “anybody, such as a congressperson, would come in, A, without telling the admin, but B, knowing that they will take resources from people who desperately need it.”

Meijer and Moulton said in a joint statement Tuesday evening that the purpose of their travel was “to conduct oversight on the mission to evacuate Americans and our allies.”

The statement said the lawmakers conducted the visit in secret to gather information about operations there, not disrupt them.

“We left on a plane with empty seats, seated in crew-only seats to ensure that nobody who needed a seat would lose one because of our presence,” they said.

Moulton, a former candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, tweeted out an image from the airport following their visit, calling the scenes he saw there “indescribable.”

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.