Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The southwestern border mission and the detention operations at Guantanamo Bay have cost close to $330 million through mid-March, according to a U.S. official familiar with information briefed to Congress, as President Donald Trump attempts to fulfill his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration in the United States.

The deportation flights and detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, which only held a few hundred detainees at its peak, have cost nearly $40 million of that total.

There are only a few dozen deported migrants currently being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The estimated costs of the operations at the border and at Guantanamo Bay have not been previously reported.

The costs of the southwestern border operation are expected to continue to rise now that additional active-duty forces have continued to move to the border, where there are now more than 10,000 active duty troops as part of the mission on the border with Mexico.

Additional costs will likely include those associated with the new deployments of two U.S. Navy destroyers to that mission.

As of March 12, 2025, the military services had provided a total of $328.5 million in support for the border mission, including deportation flights and deployments to the border, according to a U.S. official familiar with the information briefed to Congress. Of that total, $289.2 million was for border security operations and $39.3 million was for the operations at Guantanamo Bay.

The cost at Guantanamo Bay is extremely high given the only several hundred detainees have been sent there — even though Trump had said tent cities there could hold as many as 30,000 deported migrants.

“There’s a lot of space to accommodate a lot of people,” Trump said of using Guantanamo Bay to house migrants on Feb. 4 after he signed an executive order to send migrants there on Jan. 29. “So we’re going to use it. … I’d like to get them out. It would be all subject to the laws of our land, and we’re looking at that to see if we can.”

Detainees with criminal records were housed at the detention facility that had been used to house enemy combatants from the War on Terror, and others were placed at the Migrant Operations Center that could only house 50 migrants.

Plans called for a tent city adjoining that migrant facility to be built that could house the numbers mentioned by Trump and other senior administration officials.

However, operations have come nowhere close to that as the phased construction initially envisioned building tent facilities for 2,500 people — but only 195 tents capable of housing 500 people have been built. And they have not been used at all because they did not meet U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention standards, such as including air conditioning.

On Friday, a delegation of Senate Democrats visited the migrant detention operations at Guantanamo Bay and later criticized what they called the “scale and wastefulness of the Trump Administration’s misuse of our military.”

“The staggering financial cost to fly these immigrants out of the United States and detain them at Guantanamo Bay — a mission worth tens of millions of dollars a month — is an insult to American taxpayers,” Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who sponsored the visit, said in a statement.

“President Trump could implement his immigration policies for a fraction of the cost by using existing ICE facilities in the U.S., but he is obsessed with the image of using Guantanamo, no matter the cost,” it added.

ICE has its own fleet of chartered aircraft that are used for deportation flights that cost about $8,577 an hour, according to its website. In contrast, the flights to Guantanamo Bay were conducted on C-130Js and C-17s.

The U.S. Transportation Command said it costs $20,000 per flight hour for C-130Js and $28,500 per flight hour for C-17s — and a one-way flight Guantanamo from El Paso, Texas is about 4 1/2 hours on a C-17 and six hours on a C-130J, allowing costs to add up quickly.

U.S. Transportation Command has also carried out deportation flights to Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, India and Panama. The most recent military flight occurred on Friday, when a military deportation flight landed in Guatemala.

ABC News reported last week that 21 deported migrants had been sent to Guantanamo Bay aboard a civilian flight coordinated by ICE, the first detainees to arrive there since the earlier removal of all 41 detainees at Guantanamo Bay to a detention center in Louisiana.

In late February, the 178 detainees at Guantanamo Bay at that time were flown out, with 176 returning to their home country of Venezuela and two others returned to the United States.

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(WASHINGTON) — Federal judges in D.C. on Friday partially blocked two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump targeting the Jenner and Block and WilmerHale law firms — temporarily halting Trump’s attempts to punish prominent law firms associated with his political foes.

In a lawsuit brought by Jenner and Block, D.C. District Judge John Bates described Trump’s executive order — which aims to strip the firms’ attorneys of any security clearances they may hold and severely restrict any business they may have before the federal government — as “troubling” and “disturbing.” He said it targets the firm’s and its employees’ First Amendment rights and rights to due process.

Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, temporarily enjoined the administration from enforcing aspects of the order that seek to restrict government officials from engaging with officials from Jenner and Block, after he said the government failed to provide any substantive answers as to how employees from the firm threaten national security.

The judge said that attorneys representing Jenner and Block showed that they were likely being targeted on the basis of their protected free speech rights, and that they would suffer irreparable economic harm if it were fully implemented.

Later Friday, Judge Richard Leon also granted a temporary restraining order partially enjoining another executive order signed by Trump targeting the law firm WilmerHale.

Leon, also an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said several parts of Trump’s order clearly show “retaliatory actions based on perceived viewpoint” of employees of WilmerHale.

“There is no doubt this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy, or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm,” Leon said in his written order, following a hearing late Friday.

Leon is now the third federal judge to largely accept arguments from law firms targeted by Trump that his orders are likely unconstitutional — and that if implemented, Leon said, WilmerHale “faces crippling losses and its very survival is at stake.”

Both law firms filed suit in D.C. federal court on Friday to block the executive orders — the same day another major law firm struck a $100 million deal to preemptively avoid a similar Trump executive order.

The lawsuits accuse Trump of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms who have represented plaintiffs currently suing the administration, or who have represented or at one point employed those he dislikes.

The Trump executive order threatened their futures as well as “the legal system itself,” Jenner and Block said in its lawsuit.

“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the Jenner and Block suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”

The two firms are the latest firms seeking to counter what has been a rapid onslaught by the White House seeking to target individual firms that have hired or otherwise represented Trump’s political enemies.

Meanwhile, Trump said on Friday that the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom struck a deal to avoid one of his executive orders by providing $100 million in pro bono work during the Trump administration — among other guarantees.

The move has sent shockwaves through the legal community. The White House is prepared to target more big law firms, sources tell ABC News, and there are ongoing discussions among top advisers on strategy associated with possibly entering into negotiations with more of them.

Legal scholars have said there is little legal precedent for Trump’s war on Big Law, which has created a chilling effect across the legal community, and most will certainly have a chilling effect on his opponents who will need legal representation against him.

The firms’ legal actions come on the heels of successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie, which earlier this month secured a court order blocking similar executive action signed by Trump.

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(WASHINGTON) — Dozens of emotional Department of Education employees took part in a final “clap-out” in Washington, D.C., after losing jobs amid the Trump administration’s agency restructuring.

The administration slashed about 50% of the department’s workforce as part of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s strategy to abolish the department and send education decisions to the states.

The departing civil servants, who have either been terminated, retired or voluntarily bought out, have each been given about 30 minutes to retrieve their belongings this week — before exiting the building to clapping colleagues who were screaming “thank you!” outside the offices in Washington, D.C.

The last education chief, former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, visited his old office to celebrate employees affected by the workforce shakeup.

Clapping, shaking hands and cheering them along, Cardona told the civil servants, “Thank you for your service.”

“These public servants that are walking out right now deserve a thank you. They deserve respect. They’ve worked hard — not just during the time that I served as secretary but before that,” Cardona, wearing plain clothes, told reporters in a brief statement outside agency headquarters.

“I’m here, for the staff here, to say thank you,” he added.

DeNeen Ripley shook Cardona’s hand and told him her entire transportation division was eliminated. Ripley has worked at the department over 30 years and said she is taking an early retirement now.

“It feels like a death,” Ripley told ABC News. “It feels like a bad divorce of sorts, it just feels heartbreaking.”

Despite the massive overhaul and almost 2,000 employees lost, McMahon has stressed the Department of Education will continue to administer its statutory functions that students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely on, including grants, formula funding and loans.

“The president made clear today that none of the funding will stop for these [programs],” McMahon told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott after Trump’s executive order signing last week, which directed McMahon to use all necessary steps permitted under the law to abolish the agency she’s been tapped to lead.

“I think it is his hope that even more funding could go to the states. There will be more opportunity for it. And, you know, he means what he says. And so there’s not going to be any defunding or reduction in funding,” she added.

A dream job “snatched”

Washington, D.C., native Leondra Richardson and a crowd of emotional colleagues across the department left the near-defunct agency’s headquarters for the final time Friday.

“It was a dream job,” Richardson told ABC News. “And that dream was snatched from me by the new administration.”

Richardson said her entire office, the Office of the Chief Data Officer, was folded earlier this month by the “reduction in force” implemented on March 11.

Sydney Leiher, a midlevel career public servant, said she felt forced out and doesn’t know what’s next for her. After leaving with her belongings, including a beach volleyball and Trader Joe’s sack, Leiher stressed the reforms are not only unjustified but also unpopular.

“It’s definitely emotional,” Leiher said, holding back tears. “I feel bad for all of the people in the Chief Information Office who have to, like, gather all of our laptops and equipment — like, they don’t want to be doing this either.

“It’s just a really sad day. But seeing the support out here from all of other Department of ED staff and then also, like, other federal agencies and then the public just makes it shows to me that, like, people do not want this, and like, this is not popular, and this shouldn’t be happening,” Leiher added.

Richardson and Leiher both worked in the same division, the OCDO, that was shuttered. Without the office, Richardson said there will hardly be anyone left at the federal level to collect data to show student improvements or delays.

The Trump administration has claimed it is making cuts to rid the government of bureaucratic bloat, but Richardson told ABC News her IT job was not policy based or bureaucratic. Leiher, an analyst who worked on artificial intelligence machine learning, told ABC News that she took this job after returning from the Peace Corps. She added that civil service work shouldn’t be about politics.

“I believe in public service,” Leiher said. “I believe in a nonpartisan civil service. We’re important, we matter.”

Meanwhile, departing civil servants such as Dr. Jason Cottrell, a data coordinator in the Office of Postsecondary Education, the largest grant-making division in the department, said he believes students are being put in jeopardy as the Department of Education is diminished.

“Our nation’s students are going to suffer,” Cottrell said. “I think of the doctoral students that are, you know, trying to do research on cancer or, you know, learning or whatever it may be, and without the funds to support them, they are going to — it’s going to be hard for them to succeed without those funds, and we’re not going to gain that knowledge that we need.”

The farewell ceremony at the department comes as “clap-outs” are set to continue across the country next week at regional offices in places such as Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco. But these moments hit especially close to home for Richardson, who detailed how she overcame a teenage pregnancy while growing up east of the river in the Southeast quadrant of the city.

She said it’s so close yet so “far away” from the federal government.

“I hate that I can’t be a voice or inspiration to the young girls growing up in Southeast D.C. that I wanted to inspire,” Richardson said, adding that she “wanted to give a chance to, you know, show that there’s another way and you can make it forward.”

“You can make a big impact and a big difference in the country coming from where we from,” she said.

ABC News’ Alex Ederson contributed to this report

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(WASHINGTON) — Two law firms — Jenner and Block and WilmerHale — filed suit against the Trump administration on Friday to block executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last week that targeted their attorneys’ security clearances and bring to a halt any interactions they may have with the federal government.

“The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” Jenner and Block said Friday in its lawsuit. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”

Jenner and Block and WilmerHale are the latest firms seeking to counter what has been a rapid onslaught by the White House seeking to target individual firms that have hired or otherwise represented Trump’s political enemies.

“The President’s sweeping attack on WilmerHale (and other firms) is unprecedented and unconstitutional,” the lawsuit said. “The First Amendment protects the rights of WilmerHale, its employees, and its clients to speak freely, petition the courts and other government institutions, and associate with the counsel of their choice without facing retaliation and discrimination by federal officials.”

The firms’ legal challenges against what they have described as blatantly “unconstitutional” executive orders come on the heels of successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie, which earlier this month secured a court order blocking similar executive action signed by Trump.

The lawsuits, filed in federal court in D.C. on Friday, accuse Trump of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms who have represented plaintiffs currently suing the administration, or who have represented or at one point employed those he dislikes.

“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the Jenner and Block suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”

Both lawsuits were initially assigned Friday to D.C. District judge Beryl Howell, who previously enjoined the Trump administration from enforcing its executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie — and described it as very likely unconstitutional. But on Friday afternoon, Howell ordered them to be randomly reassigned to a different judge — noting they raise separate factual and legal questions than the Perkins Coie case.

Earlier this week, Howell rejected an effort from the Trump administration to have her removed from overseeing the Perkins Coie lawsuit after they argued she showed clear bias against Trump.

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(WASHINGTON) — In a pair of back-to-back rallies held over the phone on Thursday night, President Donald Trump praised the two Republican candidates in the upcoming special elections for Florida’s 6th and 1st Congressional districts, amid recent concerns among Republicans over whether their candidate in the 6th Congressional District, State Sen. Randy Fine, can keep the seat in Republican hands.

Fine has lagged behind his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, in fundraising, and Republicans have expressed concerns about his campaign, although many still believe he will be able to hold the seat in the ruby-red district.

The special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, which is on the state’s eastern coast and includes the city of Daytona Beach, is being held on Tuesday, April 1, to fill the vacancy created by former Rep. Mike Waltz when he resigned to become Trump’s national security adviser.

The tele-rallies also came amid broader concerns among Republicans about maintaining their razor-thin majority in the U.S. House, and on the same day that Trump asked Rep. Elise Stefanik to withdraw her nomination to be United Nations ambassador, citing “a very tight Majority” in the U.S. House.

House Republicans currently hold a narrow majority with 218 Republicans to 213 Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson has a two-vote cushion for his majority.

Fine, at the start of the telephone rally for him, emphatically praised Trump and said he would serve in Congress as one of the president’s strongest allies.

“Mr. President, I’m immensely grateful for your unwavering support, trust and confidence in me. I believe that God saved your life in Butler, Pennsylvania, so that you could save the world,” Fine said, referencing the July assassination attempt Trump survived. “And it will be one of the most profound honors of my life to be one of your foot soldiers as you make America great again.”

Trump praised Fine’s early endorsement of him during the 2024 election cycle, adding, “that’s why Randy will always have a very open door to the Oval Office. He will be there whenever I need him, and he wants to be there whenever we need him. He wants to be there for you.”

“I’ve gotten to know him under pressure situations, and he can react well under pressure. So go vote for Randy,” Trump said later.

Fine reiterated he would work to carry out Trump’s agenda in Congress.

“It’s not overstating things to say that your agenda is at stake in this election, and this district can’t let you down. Your agenda is on the ballot on April 1,” he said.

During the earlier telephone rally supporting the Republican candidate in the 1st Congressional District, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, Trump praised Patronis’ work in Florida and framed the special election as important for his own agenda.

That special election, which will determine who takes the seat vacated by now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz, has gotten less concern from Republicans.

“The 1st Congressional District is special, and I won it by a lot, and Jimmy is going to win it by a lot. And remember, you’re five days away from this all important special election taking place in your district on Tuesday, April 1, so April Fool’s Day. So it’s going to be the fool for the Democrat candidate, who happens to be terrible,” Trump said of Patronis’ Democratic opponent Gay Valimont, a gun violence prevention activist.

Praising Patronis, Trump said, “Jimmy’s done an outstanding job as the chief financial officer of the state of Florida, helping to guide your state to tremendous economic success. And now he wants to keep on fighting for Florida in Congress.”

Patronis, speaking after Trump, told listeners, “Look, if you’re not fired up to hearing the president right now, then you need to get your pulse checked with President Trump and the White House. A Republican majority in Congress — we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform this country.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The law firm Jenner and Block filed suit against the Trump Administration Friday seeking to block an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week that targeted its attorneys’ security clearances and essentially shuttered any interactions with the federal government.

“The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” the firm said Friday in its lawsuit. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”

Jenner and Block is now the second of five firms targeted by Trump to bring a legal challenge against what it describes as a blatantly “unconstitutional” executive order, following a successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie to have a federal judge temporarily block a similar order that targeted it over its representation of then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. Friday, accuses the Trump Administration of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms that either represented or once counted among its ranks individuals who he has labeled his political enemies.

“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”

The filing comes amid a crisis that has gripped other “Big Law” firms in Washington, as top attorneys debate whether to fight back, cut a deal or stay quiet wondering whether they will be singled out next.

On Thursday, Trump signed another executive order targeting WilmerHale — citing its hiring of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and two of his top deputies, after they had investigated the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

In a statement reacting to the order, a spokesperson for WilmerHale said they planned to pursue “all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance are making their way to Greenland on Friday morning for a scaled back visit to the Pituffik Space Base.

The couple boarded Air Force Two shortly after 6 a.m. ET and were joined on the trip by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Energy Sec. Chris Wright and Sen. Mike Lee. They are expected to arrive at approximately 11:45 a.m. ET.

The trip was originally planned as a visit by the second lady to attend a dogsled race but that plan was scrapped after heavy criticism.

Vice President Vance is expected to deliver remarks and receive briefings at the Pituffik Space Base, according to a spokeswoman.

The visit comes as President Trump has repeatedly suggested that the U.S. should take over Greenland “one way or the another” for national security purposes and as he continues to emphasize Greenland’s importance as China and Russia ramp up activity in the Arctic.

Ahead of the Vance’s trip, Trump discussed how he views Greenland as vital to U.S. national security.

“We need Greenland for national security and international security. So we’ll, I think, we’ll go as far as we have to go,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We need Greenland. And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark. Denmark has to have us have Greenland. And, you know, we’ll see what happens. But if we don’t have Greenland, we can’t have great international security,” Trump said.

The president made overtures about buying Greenland in his first term in office.

In a press release announcing the visit, Vance said, “In the decades since neglect and inaction from Danish leaders and past US administrations have presented our adversaries with the opportunity to advance their own priorities in Greenland and the Arctic. President Trump is rightly changing course.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who is also making the trip, told Fox News on Thursday that Greenland has tried for years to interest U.S. mining companies to develop resources there because there’s not enough infrastructure to make mining economical.

“So, heck, maybe that is going to happen,” he said. “I think that is in the best interest of Greenland and Greenlanders and they have expressed that for years. If the United States can have the right cooperation, I think capital can flow there which would bring jobs and economic opportunity to Greenland and critical minerals and resources to the United States — a win for both sides.”

The idea of Greenland becoming part of the U.S. is opposed by many in Greenland and Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory.

Usha Vance was originally scheduled to make the trip to learn about Greenland’s cultural heritage and attend a national dogsled race before it was announced that the vice president, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright would join her. The trip was later scaled back to just a visit to the space base. The White House confirmed Thursday that Waltz will make the trip.

JD Vance and Waltz are at the center of the scandal over the purported conversation discussing the attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen over the commercially available Signal app that inadvertently included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who reported details of the conversation on Monday.

Officials in Greenland and Denmark have pushed back against the visit.

Reuters reported that Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called Trump’s statements an “escalation” in Trump’s rhetoric.

“These very powerful statements about a close ally do not suit the U.S. president,” Poulsen told reporters in Copenhagen on Thursday. “I need to clearly speak out against what I see as an escalation from the American side,” he said.

On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a post on social media the U.S. is putting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark ahead of the unsolicited visit, adding that the two regions will “resist.”

The timing of the visit was criticized in both Greenland and Denmark as Greenland tries to put together a coalition government after parliamentary elections two weeks ago.

-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Thursday that about 10,000 full-time employees will soon lose their jobs, on top of the nearly 10,000 who have already left the agency in the last few months through buyout offers or early retirements.

That puts the total employees at around 62,000 people — down from 82,000 at the start of the Trump administration. The agency oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — among other divisions.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement on Thursday.

“This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That’s the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy claimed the latest cuts will save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year. The cuts will reduce the number of regional offices — from 10 down to five. It will also combine the current 28 divisions at HHS into 15 divisions, including a new one focused on Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, to be named the Administration for a Healthy America.

Despite cutting nearly one-quarter of the agency, the department maintains that the restructuring won’t impact “critical services.”

The real-world impact of the newest round of cuts, however, remains to be seen. Already, cuts have hit top researchers at the National Institute of Health’s Alzheimer’s research center and disease detectives who identify new infectious diseases.

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(FLORIDA) — Some Republicans are raising concerns ahead of a key special election in Florida on Tuesday in what appeared to be a safe U.S. House district for the party as Republican state Sen. Randy Fine vies for the chance to take the seat vacated by former Rep. Mike Waltz.

The special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, which is on the state’s eastern coast and includes the city of Daytona Beach, is being held on Tuesday, April 1, to fill the vacancy created by Waltz when he resigned to become President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

Some concerns have been raised with Fine’s own party over his fundraising and campaigning as he has lagged behind Democratic candidate Josh Weil, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

Fine has raised or received about $987,000 from late November 2024 through mid-March, while Weil has raised or received over $9 million from Oct. 1, 2024, through mid-March. Fine also donated $600,000 to himself last week, according to other FEC filings.

(Weil’s campaign has spent over $8 million of its money, per the filings. Fine’s campaign also spent much of its money before his own donations last week.)

Another special election, in the state’s 1st District, will also occur on April 1 to fill the vacancy left by former Rep. Matt Gaetz when he resigned from Congress late last year.

While Republicans are favored to win both races, given that the districts were ruby-red in 2024, some have speculated that the margin between the Republican and Democratic candidates could be tighter than anticipated, given Trump’s voter disapproval ratings and Democrats’ success in some recent legislative district elections.

Those voicing concerns about the 6th District race include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who told reporters on Tuesday, “Regardless of the outcome in that, it’s going to be a way underperformance from when I won that district by in ’22 [as a candidate for governor] and what President Trump won in November.”

“They’re going to try to lay that at the feet of President Trump,” DeSantis added. “That is not a reflection of President Trump. It’s a reflection of the specific candidate running in that race. And President Trump, if he were on the ballot in this special election, he would win by 30 points, no question.”

DeSantis did say that he still expects a Republican candidate will be successful in the district. Still, DeSantis and Fine have clashed before, including when Fine switched his endorsement in the 2024 presidential primaries from DeSantis to Trump.

Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, said on Monday on his podcast show that “Trump won that district by 30 points in November. … We have a candidate that I don’t think is winning. That’s an issue.”

ABC News reached out to Fine’s campaign for comment about the Republican concerns.

Fine, on social media, has continued to express optimism, writing on X on Tuesday night, “As I sit in my [state] Senate office for the last time, I want to thank the voters who have elected me seven times to represent them in Tallahassee. It’s been a profound honor, and I can’t wait to do it again.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, has not invested in the race but indicated it is not worried about a loss.

“Randy Fine is going to be a member of Congress. Everything else is just noise,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the NRCC, told ABC News.

Fine, who was elected to the Florida state Senate in 2024, previously served as a state House representative and worked beforehand as a casino executive. In the state legislature, Fine promoted bills on school choice, immigration, combating antisemitism and other issues.

He also sponsored a high-profile measure in 2022 that would eliminate some special districts in Florida, including one that encompasses Walt Disney World, amid a fight between the Florida government and The Walt Disney Company. (ABC News is owned by The Walt Disney Company, which also owns Walt Disney World.) A settlement was reached in March 2024.

The Florida special elections could affect the balance of power in the House of Representatives. As of Wednesday, less than a week out to the special election, Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House, with 218 seats to Democrats’ 213 seats. (Four seats, including the two Florida seats, are vacant.)

Fine does have some momentum — for instance, he does have Trump’s strong endorsement.

Trump wrote in late March on his social media platform Truth Social, “A highly successful, Harvard educated businessman, and greatly respected State Legislator, Randy has been a tremendous Voice for MAGA.” The president also encouraged Republicans to vote early. The early voting period began on March 22.

Fine also has recent history pointing in favor of Republicans holding on to the district.

In the U.S. House general election in this district in 2024, Waltz received 67% of the vote, while Democratic candidate James Stockton received 33% of the vote. In this district in the presidential race, meanwhile, Trump received about 65% of the vote, while Vice President Kamala Harris received about 35% of the vote.

Both Democrats and Republicans have said special elections are not necessarily comparable to regular elections, given that voter turnout can be much lower during the special elections.

ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Amid the fallout from The Atlantic’s Monday article reportedly detailing the Signal group chat discussing the U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen, Vice President JD Vance appearing to break with President Donald Trump is also getting attention.

Vance made a noteworthy statement in the chat, appearing to break with Trump and questioning whether the president recognized that a unilateral U.S. attack on the Houthis to keep international shipping lanes open was at odds with his tough talk about European nations paying their share of such efforts, according to an account by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic editor-in-chief who said he was inadvertently included in the conversation.

“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote in the chat, according to Goldberg. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

On the day before the attack, according to The Atlantic’s reporting published on Monday, Vance participated in the chat as he told the group he was traveling to Michigan for an economic event.

“Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake,” Vance wrote in the chat, according to Goldberg. “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

Ultimately, he supported the attack, telling Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” according to Goldberg’s account.

The White House has insisted the communications in the group chat were not war plans and criticized The Atlantic journalist who detailed the account.

“This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X on Wednesday.

William Martin, Vance’s communications director, said the vice president and Trump “are in complete agreement.”

“The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations. Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement,” he said in a statement.

Asked if Vance and Trump had spoken between the time Vance raised his concerns with the group, as reported by The Atlantic, and he concurred with those advocating to go ahead with the strike, a spokesperson for Vance said the statement Martin provided to ABC News made it clear that they did, pointing out the line that they had “subsequent conversations about this matter.”

The comments from Vance are striking, given that he has been in lockstep, at least in public, with Trump, his top defender most of the time since being chosen as his running mate last July.

No situation depicted that more than Trump and Vance’s Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month, where the three men got into a shouting match in front of the media over the prospects of a ceasefire deal to end the war in Ukraine. Vance berated Zelenskyy for not being thankful for the support the U.S. has provided Ukraine.

“Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance said to Zelenskyy. “Right now, you guys are going around enforcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”

During the campaign cycle, where Vance was the policy attack dog for the president and previously said that Trump needs a vice president who wouldn’t “stab” him in the back, there was only a handful of times he deviated from Trump on policy, with the most notable incident occurring in an NBC interview during the presidential campaign when he said Trump would veto a national abortion ban. A few weeks later, Trump, during his debate with Kamala Harris hosted by ABC News, was asked about Vance’s comments on an abortion ban.

“Well, I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness,” Trump said.

Since then, Vance has been more careful not to deviate publicly from the president’s policy position.

Following their victory in November, a source close to Vance told ABC News that the vice president was tasked to ensure that all of the priorities of the Trump administration move forward and would work on any of the issues Trump needs him to further.

In November, a source familiar with Vance and Trump’s relationship said Vance was focused on doing whatever was needed to support the president-elect and the administration.

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