(LOS ANGELES) — Amidst confusion around budget cuts affecting the Los Angeles Fire Department while thousands of firefighters are battling at least five wildfires, ABC News dug into the city budgets and other publicly available documents for the city.
In May 2024, the city of Los Angeles adopted a Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025 budget that cut the appropriations for the fire department by $17.6 million from the previous year.
At the time, the city of Los Angeles was negotiating the union contract with the firefighters’ union, the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City.
On Nov. 5, the City Council voted to approve a union contract for 2024 – 2028. A report that was sent to the city a day prior outlined the fiscal impact of the contract and stated that it would cost approximately $76 million in the 2024 – 2025 fiscal year. This was to increase salaries and benefits for union members.
On Dec. 17, 2024, the LA Fire Commission sent a report to Mayor Karen Bass by Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. In it, Crowley stated that the department is facing “unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction” in overtime hours.
With the new contract approved, the budget for the fire department in Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025 increased from $819.6 million to $895.6 million. When compared to the previous year’s budget (Fiscal Year 2023 – 2024), this current year’s fire department budget in total is larger by $58.4 million. According to a document from the city administrative officer, the increase in this year’s budget was approved specifically to meet salary and benefit increases included in the new union contract.
In an interview with a local FOX station on Friday, Crowley responded after being repeatedly asked if the city failed her and her department, she said “yes,” echoing her letter to the mayor from December.
“My number one priority has been and will continue to be, that our firefighters get what they need, so that they can serve the community. That is number one. I’m going to turn down the noise when it comes to any type of criticism, because every decision that I make is going to be based off of what my firefighters need,” Crowley said.
At least 11 people are believed to be dead — with the Los Angeles County sheriff saying he expects that number to rise — as devastating fires spread across Southern California amid dry and windy conditions. The largest blaze, the Palisades Fire, in Pacific Palisades, has scorched over 22,000 acres, destroyed thousands of structures and is 11% contained. The Eaton Fire, in Altadena, now stands at more than 14,000 acres and 15% contained. More than 150,000 people are under evacuation orders.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is ordering the Justice Department to respond to arguments made by President-elect Donald Trump’s former co-defendants in his classified documents case by 10 a.m. Sunday.
Cannon wants the government to address whether anything in the first volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s report, which deals with Smith’s Jan 6 investigation, bears on any aspect of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case.
The judge’s order immediately followed a filing from DOJ that repeatedly argued she had no further jurisdiction to continue to weigh in on the release of the first volume of Smith’s final report after the department successfully appealed her initial injunction overnight to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The other motions — including Trump’s co-defendants’ motion to extend Cannon’s halt of the report’s public release — have not yet been ruled upon.
Attorneys for co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira on Friday asked Cannon, who earlier this week temporarily blocked the report’s release while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit, to extend her three-day restraining order prohibiting the report’s release.
The attorneys are seeking a hearing on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s proposed plan to release the portion of the report covering Smith’s classified documents investigation to the ranking members and chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
If successful, the move could result in a further delay of the report’s release, potentially past Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. He later pleaded not guilty to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Both cases were dismissed following Trump’s reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
(WASHINGTON) — Jack Smith, who investigated Donald Trump over allegations of interfering with the 2020 election and unlawfully retaining classified documents after leaving the White House, has formally resigned as special counsel after submitting his final report on the probes to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Smith resigned Friday, according to a court filing that noted his departure in a footnote.
His resignation was widely expected following Trump’s reelection in November, as both his cases against the president-elect were dismissed due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
Trump repeatedly vowed he would fire Smith upon taking office and has said Smith should be “thrown out of the country.”
Smith, who Garland tapped in November 2022 to lead both probes, charged Trump in June 2023 with 37 counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.
Two months later, Smith indicted Trump on charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases and slammed the prosecutions as a political with hunt, before both cases were dismissed in November due to presidential immunity.
The release of Smith’s final report on the two cases has been the subject of a court battle over the last week.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI has interviewed multiple individuals about Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s personal life as part of its background check investigation, asking questions about alleged extramarital affairs, his relationship with alcohol and his character, according to sources familiar with the matter.
As part of the background investigation, the FBI reached out to people in Hegseth’s past, including individuals Hegseth has known much of his adult life, according to multiple sources familiar with the FBI’s outreach and other sources briefed on the process.
Sources tell ABC News that Hegseth sat for an interview with the FBI in recent weeks. The Armed Services Committee is expected to hold Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
On Friday, the top Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., were briefed on the results of Hegseth’s FBI background investigation by a representative from Trump’s transition team, according to sources familiar with the matter. The background investigation materials were also made available for Wicker and Reed to review if they chose to do so. At this point, the FBI’s findings are only being shared with Wicker and Reed, according to sources familiar with discussions between the committee and Trump’s representatives.
A spokesperson for Reed declined to comment to ABC News, and a spokesperson for Wicker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The extent of the traditionally thorough FBI background check is an indication that the Senate could be provided with more information about Hegseth’s personal life, amid reports, disputed by Hegseth, about alleged infidelity and personal behavior that some senators have found concerning.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who described her December meeting with Hegseth as a “good, substantive discussion,” told reporters last month that she “pressed” Hegseth “on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him.”
The Maine Republican said she would wait for the FBI review to help her determine how to vote.
“I, obviously, always wait until we have an FBI background check, and one is underway in the case of Mr. Hegseth, and I wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision,” Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, said in December.
Other Republican senators have downplayed some of the reports as “anonymous” allegations.
“If people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview on “Meet the Press” on Dec. 15. “We’ll decide whether or not it’s credible.”
As part of the process, the FBI has spoken to individuals in Minnesota, Hegseth’s home state, according to sources familiar with the outreach.
The FBI declined to comment on the details and focus of its inquiry. A spokesperson for Hegseth declined to comment. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New York Times has also published a 2018 email from Hegseth’ s mother, Penelope Hegseth, to her son, in which she said he mistreated women for years, amid his divorce from his first wife. She later told the newspaper that she regretted her original sentiments and expressed regret to her son in a follow up email. ABC News has not obtained or reviewed the email.
The Monterey Police Department released a report last month detailing how a woman told investigators in October 2017 that she had encountered Hegseth at an event afterparty at a California hotel where both had been drinking, and claimed that he sexually assaulted her.
No charges were filed, although Hegseth subsequently paid the woman as part of a settlement agreement, which Hegseth’s attorney said was only because Hegseth feared his career would suffer if her allegations were made public. The agreement stated that Hegseth made no admission of wrongdoing in the matter.
Hegseth, who has previously said he welcomed the FBI’s work, has denied the allegations against him, writing in the Wall Street Journal that “the press is peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down.”
“It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown. They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need to create a bogeyman, because they believe I threaten their institutional insanity,” he wrote in the op-ed.
As ABC News previously reported, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will review Hegseth’s nomination, has also reached out to the Monterey County, California, district attorney regarding the 2017 sexual assault allegations, and to the conservative veterans’ organization Hegseth once ran following a New Yorker report about alleged financial mismanagement, alcohol abuse and sexist behavior, which Hegseth has denied.
Hegseth has denied claims of alcohol abuse, and said in a podcast interview that he won’t drink if confirmed by the Senate.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said last month in an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
(TULSA, Okla.) — The Justice Department provided new insight and chilling details about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, describing the two-day raid that killed 300 Black residents and destroyed their businesses as a “coordinated, military-style attack” conducted by a white mob of over 10,000 people.
The DOJ released a 126-page report Friday following a four-month investigation into the attacks, which took place between May 31 and June 1 in 1921. In addition to the murders and property destruction, victims’ money and personal property were stolen, and they were not provided with any aid.
The report concluded that the 1921 one-week investigation done by an agent of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the FBI, was unfounded as it did not include key details about the violence, the victims and the perpetrators and implied Black men were responsible for the massacre.
“Contrary to the agent’s 1921 report, the situation did not ‘spontaneously’ grow out of control,” the new report said. “Rather, what had initially been sporadic and opportunistic violence became systematic, yielding a much more devastating result, due to coordinated efforts among white residents and law enforcement entities. Moreover, although the 1921 report asserts that the massacre (then called a riot) was not the result of ‘racial feeling,’ perpetrators of the massacre overtly expressed and acted upon racial bias.”
Investigation provides detailed timeline of violence
At the time of the massacre, Tulsa was dubbed “Black Wall Street” due to the thriving businesses and community established by Black residents. However, white residents who lived in the city and nearby towns harbored a deep resentment, which built up in the years leading to the attack, the report said.
Investigators from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “spoke with survivors and with descendants of survivors, examined firsthand accounts of the massacre given by individuals who are now deceased, studied primary source materials, spoke to scholars of the massacre and reviewed legal pleadings, books, and scholarly articles relating to the massacre,” according to the DOJ.
The investigation determined the attack was triggered by an unfounded condemnation alleging 19-year-old Dick Rowland assaulted a white woman who operated an elevator he used. The department said this tactic was commonly used to justify violence against Black residents.
After a local newspaper sensationalized the story, a mob of white Tulsans gathered outside the courthouse, demanding a lynching, according to the report.
When a local sheriff called a group of Black World War I veterans to come to the courthouse to prevent the lynching, the white mob grew, and a shot rang out, the investigation found.
The Tulsa police exacerbated the conflict by deputizing hundreds of white residents, many of whom were “advocating for a lynching and had been drinking,” the report said.
“Law enforcement officers helped organize these special deputies — as well as other white Tulsans — into the martial forces that ravaged Greenwood. Over the next several hours, they looted, burned, and destroyed 35 city blocks while Greenwood’s residents tried desperately to defend their homes,” the report said.
“Some Black residents were shot (or otherwise assaulted), and many were arrested or detained,” it continued. “Law enforcement actively participated in the destruction, disarming Black residents, confiscating their weapons, and detaining many in makeshift camps under armed guard.”
By the morning of June 1, the violence and arsons had become “systematic.”
Left with nothing
Although city officials offered to rebuild and help the victims, they not only failed to do so but put up barriers, the report said.
“White local leaders rejected outside aid, claiming they could handle the recovery, but then provided little to no financial support. Instead, claiming the area was best suited for industrial use, they imposed harsh new fire codes that priced residents out of the area, although a court later enjoined those provisions,” the report said.
“Compounding the injustice, insurance companies denied Black residents of Greenwood compensation due to the ‘riot clause’ in their policies,” it added. “Legal attempts to hold the city accountable also failed. Black residents of Tulsa were left with no avenue for redress.”
No legal avenues left for justice
Due to the statute of limitations and the fact that the perpetrators and almost all of the survivors and witnesses of the attack are long dead, the Justice Department cannot take any legal action for the crimes committed, the report concluded.
“The report recognizes that some may find the department’s inability to prosecute a painful or dissatisfying outcome,” the DOJ said in a statement. “However, the review recognizes and documents the horrible events that occurred as well as the trauma and loss suffered by the residents of Greenwood.”
Family members of survivors said they were not given notice of report
The DOJ said it would be meeting with Greenwood District officials, survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Tulsa civil rights community and other stakeholders to discuss the probe.
DOJ members held a meeting at the Historic Vernon AME Church in Tulsa on Saturday to discuss the report.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the family of two of the survivors, Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, however, expressed disappointment with the DOJ, claiming they were not given notice about the report.
Solomon-Simmons said in a statement that he was only made aware of the report after his office saw news reports. Furthermore, he said his team was not told of Saturday’s meeting at the church.
“Neither my legal team nor the massacre survivors will be able to attend due to time constraints amid our ongoing review and discussion with the DOJ,” he said in a statement.
Solomon-Simmons said he and his team will have further comment after they review the report and speak with the DOJ.
The DOJ did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment about Solomon-Simmons’ claims.
(WASHINGTON) — As deadly wildfires burn through Southern California, President-elect Donald Trump has spent the week attacking Democratic officials and continuing a pattern of spreading misinformation about natural disasters.
“I think that Gavin is largely incompetent, and I think the mayor is largely incompetent, and probably both of them are just stone-cold incompetent,” Trump said on Thursday night while hosting Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Since the fires broke out, Trump has pointed fingers at Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden, spreading false claims about California’s water policy and federal assistance.
For example, Trump blamed Biden as he falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had “no money” to help California despite Congress recently passing a disaster relief supplemental totaling $29 billion.
The president-elect also pushed exaggerated claims as he accused Newsom of refusing to sign a “water restoration declaration,” saying he instead diverted water resources in order to protect the endangered Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s smelt fish.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
While there are regulations that limit the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the species, the governor’s office said there was no such declaration, calling the accusation “pure fiction.”
Biden and other emergency officials have also rejected Trump’s claims, maintaining the fire was caused by fierce winds and extremely dry conditions and that the initial water shortage occurred due to power being shut off in order to avoid sparking additional fires.
Still, Trump has long pushed these claims, suggesting while on the campaign trail that he’d withhold aid from California if Newsom didn’t reinstate Trump’s policies.
“The water coming here is dead. And Gavin Newsom is going to sign those papers, and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires, and we don’t give him the money to put out his fires. He’s got problems,” Trump said at a press conference at his Los Angeles golf course in September.
After a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans at the Capitol on Wednesday, Trump continued to criticize Newsom’s handling of the pandemic while ultimately asserting that the two would need to work together.
“So, what’s happened is a tragedy, and the governor has not done a good job,” Trump told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott.
“With that being said, I got along well with him — when he was governor, we worked together very well, and we would work together,” Trump said. “I guess it looks like we’re going to be the one having to rebuild it.”
It isn’t the first time Trump has gone after emergency officials in the wake of disasters. When hurricanes caused devastation in parts of Georgia and North Carolina last year, Trump quickly pivoted his campaign schedule to focus on those areas.
During those visits, Trump repeatedly spread misinformation about FEMA’s response, incorrectly casting blame on federal officials in the Biden administration.
“They got hit with a very bad hurricane, especially North Carolina and parts of Georgia. But North Carolina really got hit. I’ll tell you what, those people should never vote for a Democrat, because they held back aid,” Trump claimed in an October interview.
Local and federal officials warned Trump about how his politically motivated rhetoric could be causing harm as the areas hit attempted to rebuild; however, the president-elect often refused to backtrack.
While visiting Asheville, North Carolina, Trump refused to denounce the violence against FEMA workers after being asked about threats made against the workers.
“I think you have to let people know how they’re doing,” he said. “If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that, too, because I think they should be rewarded. But if they’re not doing — does that mean that if they’re doing a poor job, we’re supposed to not say it?”
As he attacked his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump politicized the events even more, scheduling a hurricane visit alongside Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom he had intensely criticized up until that point for his refusal to give in to Trump’s demands around the 2020 election.
In the battleground state of Georgia, Trump’s tune changed: “Your governor is doing a fantastic job, I will tell you that, and we’re all with them and with everybody.”
Now, during his transition, Trump has used his social media platform to share his unfiltered thoughts, often responding to disasters in short, rapid-fire statements, sometimes with misleading context, before all the information has been uncovered.
For example, in the hours after a driver plowed into a crowd on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, Trump responded online by saying, “The criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country,” falsely implying that the suspect was an immigrant who had crossed into the United States illegally.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was actually a U.S. Army veteran who was born in the U.S. and lived in Houston.
Even while in office, Trump received pushback at times for peddling misinformation.
For example, when he claimed that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian in 2019, leading the National Weather Service to issue a public service announcement refuting Trump’s claims. Then, that same year, when senators first failed to pass disaster relief aid to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, Trump blamed local leaders as he spread false claims about the amount of assistance they had already been given.
“The people of Puerto Rico are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt,” Trump posted at the time.
Despite this pattern, Republican governors still came to Trump’s defense on Thursday night, touting his leadership skills as president during disasters.
“You could criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
“I worked well with Biden during his time at natural disasters, but I work well with Donald Trump, so I’m very confident as a state that knows we face these that a Trump administration is going to be very strong and is going to be there for the people, regardless of party,” he added.
(LOS ANGELES) — There has been a reprieve from the strongest winds in Southern California over the past 24 hours, but winds are expected to pick up later Saturday into the night, raising the fire danger yet again.
The fire outlook for Saturday is back at the “Critical” level for much of southern California as dry, gusty winds fan the flames.
Wind alerts, including a High Wind Warning, are in effect for much of the Los Angeles area as this next round of Santa Ana winds arrive.
Northeast winds of 30 to 40 mph are expected by Saturday night with gusts up to 65 mph.
Another major wind event is expected between Monday night and Wednesday, which may lead to rapid fire spread yet again.
Smoke has also lead to significantly reduced air quality all across the Los Angeles area and there won’t be any major improvements until these fires subside.
Southern California is not out of the woods yet when it comes to fire danger.
At least 11 people have been killed by the devastating wildfires. The two biggest are the Palisades Fire, which has decimated the coastal community of the Pacific Palisades, and the Eaton Fire, which has scorched home after home in Altadena.
As of Saturday morning, the Palisades fire, at 21,596 acres, was 11% contained and the Eaton fire, at 14,117 acres, was 15% contained, according to Cal Fire.
(WASHINGTON) — Taking office at the start of the Biden administration, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., hasn’t had that much face time with a commander in chief.
On Saturday, she’ll be one of a handful of blue-state Republicans meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, in one of several planned strategy sessions between Trump and House Republicans this weekend, less than two weeks from his inauguration.
“It’s going to be a good discussion,” Malliotakis said Thursday.
Trump’s meetings come as Republicans debate how to best advance their policy agenda. They have spent the week debating whether to pass an energy, tax and border security package along party lines in a single package — an approach favored by House leaders and Trump — or split it up into two bills, which Senate Republicans have endorsed.
Trump hosted members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus on Friday. Over the weekend, he will meet with other groups of lawmakers, including House GOP committee chairs, blue-state Republicans and appropriators.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters it was Trump’s “idea to bring in small groups of Republicans to come together and just have fellowship together, to talk about the issues and talk about the vision that we have for the year ahead of us.”
The Republican balancing act
The groups are each expected to push different priorities for the all-encompassing policy bill — from various proposed spending cuts to regional tax and policy issues that could be difficult for the GOP to fit into its legislative package.
New York Republicans plan to bring up changes to the cap on state and local tax deductions, a limit imposed in the 2017 Republican rewrite of the tax code set to expire at the end of 2025 and affects taxpayers in high-tax states such as New York, California and New Jersey. That change helped finance other tweaks the law made to the tax code.
Nearly all of the 12 Republicans who voted against Trump’s tax package came from one of those states. But now, with a one-seat majority in the House, the president-elect and Johnson can’t afford any defections.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who will meet with Trump this weekend and has introduced legislation to boost the cap on the “SALT” deduction, said it’s unlikely Republicans will be able to reverse the tax provision fully.
“We will work to get the number as high as we can as part of the negotiation, but you have to look at everything in totality,” he said. “There’s a lot of factors here, as you work through it.”
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee who is scheduled to meet with Trump over the weekend, said it’s important for Republicans to discuss policy as they figure out the broader strategy to move legislation through Congress.
“This is a process where you have to do everything at the same time,” he said. “There are a million different conversations about every potential issue at the same time.”
Republicans, he added, “don’t have the luxury to say, ‘I’m going to deal with that later.'”
Malliotakis, who compared the discussions and intraparty negotiations to a “Rubik’s Cube,” said she also plans to bring up other topics in the meeting, including New York City’s new congestion pricing system and how the incoming administration can challenge it.
Democrats debate approach to new administration
In the early days of the new Congress, Democrats have taken a more cautious, less resistant approach to elements of the GOP agenda following Trump’s victory and sweep of the popular vote in the presidential election.
For the first time in decades, no Democrats raised an objection to any state’s electoral votes on Jan. 6, when the vice president presided over Congress’s counting and certifying of the presidential election results.
Forty-eight Democrats voted with House Republicans this week on a bill that would require the detention of any illegal immigrant charged with “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting,” and a number of Democrats supported advancing the measure in the Senate.
And 45 House Democrats supported a GOP bill to sanction the International Criminal Court in response to the ICC issuing arrest warrants for top Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes.
Centrist Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., who voted for the ICC bill but against the immigration proposal, has called for Trump to lead bipartisan negotiations over changes to the SALT deduction cap.
“I disagree with President Trump strongly on most things — to be clear, I don’t pull my punches on that or anything,” Ryan said. “But this is a tangible thing that he said he wants to do, and I’m going to take him at his word.”
ABC News’ Lauren Peller, Allison Pecorin, Katherine Faulders and Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — As his time in the White House comes to a close, President Joe Biden has implemented a series of executive orders and rules, trying to cement his policies before Donald Trump returns with the threat of undoing them.
From using provisions in federal law to ban much offshore drilling to commuting the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates, Biden has been determined to accomplish the political goals he set out to do four years ago.
Trump, never one to mince words against his rival, has condemned Biden’s moves, claiming he was hurting his agenda — what he says Americans voted for in November.
“They say we’re going to have a smooth transition. All they do is talk,” the president-elect told reporters Tuesday.
“I’m going to put it back on day one. I’m going to have it revoked on day one. We’ll go immediately if we need to… they try to be sneaky,” he said of Biden’s drilling ban.
Some academic policy experts, however, say Biden’s eleventh-hour decisions are not out of the ordinary, especially when it comes to a change of parties in the White House.
“This is pretty typical. Trump is just complaining about it louder,” Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told ABC News.
The experts noted that Trump’s claims Biden is tying his hands are far from true as some of Biden’s policies can be overturned and mitigated.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for asylum seekers from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine. Over 900,000 current beneficiaries will now have 18-month extensions, according to the order.
TPS is one of the few ways that an administration can protect a large group of migrants without congressional approval, however, it’s also within the DHS secretary’s power to end it. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have vowed to end the program, which Trump attempted to do back during his first administration.
Biden announced earlier in the week a ban on offshore drilling using provisions in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to push forward with the proposal. Under the act, the policy change can only be reversed through an act of Congress.
Dan Mallinson, a professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, told ABC News that it’s not unusual for administrations to pore through federal laws and regulations to find loopholes for executive orders that can’t be easily overturned.
“In a lot of cases, the executive order will be overturned even if it takes time, so those administrations will look for every win they can in the lame-duck session,” he said.
Mallinson said that Biden’s announcement this week of two national monuments in California which would preserve 840,000 acres from any federal drilling, was also done with the same kind of meticulous planning. He did note that Trump could change the plan by limiting the size of the monuments, which he did during his first term after similar moves by President Barack Obama.
Trump himself issued several of eleventh-hour orders during the last weeks of his first presidency, including one two days before he left office that would have scaled back punishments for regulations, only for Biden to reverse them in his first months in office.
“On the face of it, it’s pretty standard. Biden is not doing anything unusual compared to other presidents. It’s the normal course of things for decades,” Hanson said.
The experts pointed out that Trump also faced a similar situation in his first administration and undid several executive orders and changed various policies instituted by Obama in his first months of office, including his ban on offshore drilling.
Trump’s reversal of Obama’s order, however, was scaled back after then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a key Trump ally, raised concerns about how it would affect his state. The ban continued for Florida lands.
“It’s not always crystal clear if executive orders or last-minute policy changes will be reversed by the new president,” Mallison said.
The experts said when it comes to Biden’s moves, what was different is the messaging.
The president has been mostly silent during his lame-duck session and pushed on his policy changes with little fanfare, however, Trump has been making more headlines by sounding off on social media, interviews and other media appearances, Mallison noted.
And while Trump may make claims and boast as if he were in office, Biden still has power until Jan. 20, Mallison said.
“Trump is trying to exploit this mentality, which is wrong, that the government has to operate under the president-elect. But the reality is that, constitutionally, Biden is the president now and he can act on his authority,” he said.
K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Image
(LAS VEGAS) — Six years before packing a rental truck with firework mortars and gas cannisters before shooting himself in the head — an act he called a “wake-up” call to America in a note later found by law enforcement — Army Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger told an ex-girlfriend he was spiraling.
“Sometimes, I get so hopeless and depressed, it’s [expletive] ridiculous,” he texted, at one point describing a close-range firefight in which he killed two men.
“By far the worst of my life,” he wrote in 2018.
The violent death of Livelsberger, a 37-year-old decorated war veteran and Green Beret, on New Year’s Day is reviving questions about the unique risks that military personnel, and in particular special operations forces, face in their jobs and whether enough is being done to identify members in crisis.
Experts say the military has dramatically ramped up access to mental health support in recent years but that special operations forces in particular still remain vulnerable, in part out of fear that if they seek help their careers will be sidelined.
SOF personnel are more frequently exposed to the kinds of severe mental trauma that can trigger post-traumatic stress syndrome, as well as repeated concussive blasts from high-powered weapons that military officials suspect cause scarring and other physical changes to the brain.
Acute stress and relationship problems also can play a role in a person’s deteriorating mental state. In a 2020 study sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command that examined the suicide deaths of 29 special operations personnel, nearly all of them experienced emotional trauma in their first deployments. But other issues factored in as well, the study found.
“The downhill trajectory with compounding relationship issues, financial issues and legal issues occurs over many years,” the report found, noting the “large number of variables” typically involved.
In the case of Livelsberger, the Army will soon have to decide whether his nearly two decades of service as a special forces soldier with nine overseas deployments contributed to his death.
Enlisted by the Army in 2006 to train as a member of its special forces, Livelsberger became a member of the 10th Special Forces Group, which conducts counterterrorism and training missions around the world. He deployed five times to Afghanistan, as well as had stints in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo.
Livelsberger was awarded five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire. He also was awarded an Army Commendation Medal with valor.
His ex-girlfriend Alicia Arritt, who shared her text exchanges with Livelsberger with ABC News, said she remembered the Green Beret as funny, generous and kind and someone who loved children. He also liked art, basketball and fast cars. She said he was not impulsive.
If the Army finds that his suicide was caused by his service and “in the line of duty,” Livelsberger’s survivors would receive increased benefits.
With an FBI investigation ongoing, the Army has said only that Livelsberger participated in a holistic treatment program offered to special operations forces called the “Preservation of the Force and Family” program but that there were no red flags. The program, called POTFF, includes “physical, cognitive, medical and support resources as appropriate to each individual.”
Livelsberger, who was stationed in Germany at the time, didn’t display any “concerning behaviors” and was granted personnel leave shortly before his death, a spokesperson said.
“We encourage our Soldiers, if they need help, mental health treatment or need to speak with someone, to seek proactive behavioral health treatment either on base or online. They also have the option of talking to an Army chaplain,” Brig. Gen. Amanda Azubuike, chief of Army Public Affairs, said in a statement.
Dr. Rachel Yehuda, a professor of psychiatry and the neuroscience of trauma at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, said there are risk factors that seem to explain why some people are more vulnerable to PTSD than others.
This can include a person’s family history, exposure to trauma at a young age and biological factors that could make it more difficult for a person to “recalibrate” their nervous system after a traumatic event.
Yehuda, who is not involved in Livelsberger’s case and did not want to speak to his particular situation, said the trauma faced in general by service members in combat can be particularly challenging because it often occurs overseas when members are far away from close family and friends who can provide support. That support system, she said, can be critical to calming the nervous system.
“I think that we have to understand that trauma is a real thing. And it can really be detrimental to mental health, especially if you’re not in an environment where people can help you cope with all the things that you’re carrying,” she said.
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Fran Racioppi, a former 10th Special Forces Group officer who hosts a podcast on Green Berets and leadership, said the profile of a Green Beret soldier is unique because it’s someone capable of “extreme degrees of compassion” while also capable of going to war and maintaining the highest standards in warfighting.
“Whenever we have an incident when the behavior of a special operator drastically deviates from the standard profile, we need to understand the driving cause of that change and what contributing factors may cause a grievance,” he said.
Racioppi said he thinks the resources are there to support personnel like Livelsberger.
“But the first step will always be an operator’s self-assessment and willingness to seek help for themselves,” he said.
The SOCOM-sponsored study, conducted by the American Association of Suicidology, found at the time of its review, from 2012 through 2015, that many personnel were reluctant to raise their hands out of fear of getting sidelined, with suicide prevention training seen as a “check in the box.”
Livelsberger’s ex-girlfriend Arritt said he told her he feared getting help “because he wouldn’t be deployable.”
Sara Wilkinson, a suicide prevention advocate whose Navy SEAL husband died by suicide, said that while PTSD can be prevalent in the military, it’s not an arbitrary label that can be used to explain everyone’s experience. Wilkinson’s husband, Chad, was found to have suffered a unique type of brain scarring found in other deceased Navy SEALS.
Service members should know their story in life also can be one of tremendous resilience, she said.
“The point is you served. That comes at a price because of our last 20-plus years” of war, she said. “And you owe it to yourself, your loved ones and your life to be your own advocate physically and mentally.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Myers, Alex Stone, Matt Seyler and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
