(WASHINGTON) — Cameron Hamilton, who had been acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was fired Thursday, a day after telling Congress the agency should not be disbanded, putting him at odds with President Donald Trump’s suggestions that FEMA be downsized or dissolved.
The change at the top of the agency that coordinates federal disaster relief comes a few weeks before the start of of hurricane season on June 1.
“Cameron Hamilton is no longer the Senior Official Performing the Duties of Administrator,” Julia Moline, the acting chief of staff, wrote in an email to all employees Thursday that was reviewed by ABC News.
According to sources familiar with the situation, Hamilton was called to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s office at 10:30 a.m. Thursday. He returned to the FEMA office a short time later and told staff he was fired, according to sources.
Speaking to the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Hamilton told lawmakers that FEMA should not be disbanded, putting him at odds with public comments from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that the agency has “failed” and should be “eliminated” or downsized.
“I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he told lawmakers.
His comments came on the same day as Noem testified before the same committee.
“The president has indicated he wants to eliminate FEMA as it exists today, and to have states have more control over their emergency management response. He wants to empower local governments and support them and how they respond to their people,” Noem said.
Trump has been sharply critical of the agency’s work, and suggested that the federal government send funds directly to states to assist with disaster relief, rather than have a role coordinating responses to major disasters.
David Richardson, who recently served as DHS assistant secretary for countering the weapons of mass destruction office, will now lead the agency on an interim basis, an administration official told ABC News.
The email sent to all FEMA employees also announced the news of Richardson’s new role.
“Effective today, David Richardson is now serving as the Senior Official Performing the duties of the FEMA Administrator,” a FEMA spokesperson told ABC News. “Cameron Hamilton is no longer serving in this capacity.”
A DHS spokesperson also confirmed to ABC News that Richardson is serving as acting administrator but didn’t mention Hamilton.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Joe Biden, in a wide-ranging interview on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said he was not surprised by Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in the 2024 presidential election, but not because of her qualifications as a candidate — instead, pointing to sexism and racism he said had been leveled against her.
“I wasn’t surprised, not because I didn’t think the vice president was the most qualified person to be president … I wasn’t surprised because they went the route of — the sexist route, the whole route,” Biden said.
He continued: “I’ve never seen quite as successful and consistent campaign, undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country — and a woman of mixed race.”
But Biden, separately, said he still thinks he would have beaten Trump if he had stayed in the race.
“Yeah, he still got seven million fewer votes,” Biden said of Trump, noting by how much he beat Trump in the 2020 election popular vote.
His comments come after several months out of the spotlight for the former president as he and Democrats look to sort out his role post-presidency. Last month, Biden emerged from private life to deliver a speech on Trump’s potential impact on Social Security and made an appearance at Harvard University.
Questions persist on the party’s priorities and who may be the best to message and communicate on the Democrats’ behalf — questions that extend to both Biden and Harris.
Biden, for his part, told “The View” that he’s in the midst of self-reflection — and, to that end, writing a book.
“Things are moving along and we’re getting squared away trying to figure out what the most significant and consequential role I can play, consistent with what I’ve done in the past,” he said.
The former president also addressed his relationship with his former running-made-turned-candidate, saying that he and Harris had spoken as recently as Wednesday. Yet, he quickly stopped himself from addressing specifics of their “frequent” conversations, including side-stepping any chatter about Harris’ possible gubernatorial or potential presidential ambitions.
Sources have told ABC News previously that Harris may be mulling a run for governor of California, her home state; others have speculated she could mount a run for president in 2028 — a controversial notion within the Democratic Party.
Many of Harris’ longtime national supporters told ABC News in March that they are lukewarm on her potentially running for president in 2028; others have called for a full break from the Biden-Harris administration and for the party to consider new standard bearers.
But on Harris’ broader political future, Biden said he was hopeful that she stayed involved in some significant way, but stopped short of sharing which route he hopes she takes.
“She’s got a difficult decision to make about what she’s going to do. I hope she stays fully engaged. I think she’s first-rate, but we have a lot of really good candidates as well. So, I’m optimistic. I’m not pessimistic,” Biden said.
Biden’s remarks don’t seem to have mollified progressives who felt he hamstrung Democrats’ chances in 2024. Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said in a statement after the interview that the former president is in “denial” over both his and Harris’ viability as strong candidates on the 2024 ticket, suggesting that anti-establishment Democrats would fare better to lead the party.
“Joe Biden is in denial about the fact that neither he nor Kamala Harris should have been the 2024 Democratic nominee if we wanted to defeat Donald Trump. In this moment, voters demand authentic anti-establishment figures who will shake up a broken political system and economic status quo rigged for billionaires against working people, and that’s not Biden or Harris.”
Asked on “The View” to respond to claims that he should have dropped out of the race and endorse Harris sooner, Biden said that Harris still had a long period to campaign and that they worked together “in every decision I made.”
Biden also denied reporting that claimed he had advised Harris to suggest that there was no daylight between the two of them — saying that they were partners and worked together.
“The View” co-anchor Sunny Hostin brought up Harris’ comments on “The View” in October, toward the end of her presidential campaign, when asked if she would have done “something differently” from what Biden had done over the last four years. She responded, “there is not a thing that comes to mind,” a moment widely seen as one that hurt her among voters who felt she needed to make a cleaner break from the Biden White House.
“I did not advise her to say that,” Biden said, adding that he thought Harris meant she would not change any of the successes that the Biden-Harris White House had achieved.
“She was part of every success we had. We’d argue like hell, by the way,” Biden added, stressing that the disagreements were all signs of a positive working relationship.
Even though he indicated no tension between himself and Harris, Biden did not answer directly when asked about tension between him and other longtime supporters, including former President Barack Obama, whose administration he served in as vice president.
Asked about what his relationship with Obama is like now, and how he addresses concerns Obama and others reportedly raised over his ability to serve a second term as president, Biden pivoted to why he got out of the race — and did not mention Obama.
“The only reason I got out of the race was because I didn’t want to have a divided Democratic Party … I thought it was better to put the country ahead of my interest, my personal interest,” Biden said.
Biden did say, in his response, that concerns over his age — 81 during the campaign — were valid, but pointed to what he still accomplished at the end of his presidency as evidence against claims he had cognitively declined.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler and Zohreen Shah contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats sparred with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday over whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s spending.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, asked if the Trump administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s decision that the U.S. government must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, Noem replied that the government is following the law but didn’t say yes or no.
“What I would tell you is that we are following court order,” Noem shot back. “Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming.”
Van Hollen said he isn’t “vouching for the man” but rather due process.
“I suggest that rather than make these statements here, that you and the Trump administration make them in court under oath,” he added.
Van Hollen then accused Noem of a political speech, and Noem said she would suggest Van Hollen is an “advocate” for victims of illegal crime.
Last month, after Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S. The Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on April 10.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., pressed Noem on whether she read the Supreme Court decision, noting that the court ruled 9-0 that the U.S. must facilitate his release.
“Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador. It is up to the president of El Salvador to make the decision coming back,” Noem replied. “It’s been a big topic of conversation between all of us. … The president has been very clear on this issue, as the secretary of state and I have as well. Abrego Garcia is not a citizen of this country and is a dangerous individual.”
Earlier in the hearing, Murphy blasted Noem, saying, “Your department is out of control.”
“You are spending like you don’t have a budget. You’re on the verge of running out of money for the fiscal year. You are illegally refusing to spend funds that have been authorized by this congress and appropriated by this committee,” he said. “You are brazenly violating the law every hour of every day. You are refusing to allow people showing up at the southern border to apply for asylum. I acknowledge that you don’t believe that people should be able to apply for asylum, but you don’t get to choose that.”
He added that DHS will run out of money by July on immigration and argued that the department isn’t giving migrants due process.
“What you are doing both the individuals who have legal rights to stay here, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia or students who are just protesting Trump’s policies is immoral, and to follow the theme, it is illegal. You have no right to deport a student visa holder with no due process, simply because they have spoken in a way that offends the president. You can’t remove migrants who a court has given humanitarian protection from removal,” he said.
Noem also noted that the Biden administration let in upward of 20 million people into the country illegally.
Noem was also asked about the Trump administration’s plan for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Noem has said she wants to get rid of FEMA and return the funds to the states.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., asked Noem to “tread lightly” on dismantling FEMA, marking the first time a Republican has raised caution about the president’s plan to dismantle FEMA. Moore Capito said she is “concerned” that there could be issues with small states “subject to a lot of natural disasters, flooding,” in providing relief.
“I think it’s [a] vital function, and I’m concerned, if you turn it all over to the states, capacity for the state to really handle this is something that — so I would ask you to tread lightly,” she added.
On CISA, she said previously it was operating as the “ministry of truth” during the Biden administration and that the Trump administration is returning CISA to accomplish the stated goals of DHS.
“They were out doing election security missions where censorship and deciding what was truth and what wasn’t truth, and we have eliminated those functions within CISA,” Noem said. “CISA was created to be an entity that supported small and medium businesses and also critical infrastructure, our electrical grid, our water systems that are vulnerable to hacking attempts and influence from foreign countries but enemies of the United States of America.”
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., noted that there were 15 employees out of 3,000 who were working on misinformation.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump unveiled the framework for a trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, marking the first such accord with any nation since the White House suspended some of its far-reaching “Liberation Day” tariffs last month.
The Trump administration will adjust 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, and will lower auto tariffs from 25% to 10% on the first 100,000 British vehicles sent to the U.S., Trump said.
The agreement left in place 10% tariffs that the U.S. slapped last month on imported goods from nearly all foreign countries.
In exchange, the U.K. will ease trade barriers targeting a set of products, including ethanol, beef and machinery, among other products, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. That additional market access amounts to $5 billion worth of trade, the White House said.
The U.S. also secured a $10 billion purchase of Boeing airplane parts and a “secure supply chain” for pharmaceuticals, according to information shared by Trump on social media on Thursday.
The U.K. will fast-track U.S. imports through customs inspection, Trump said.
The U.S.-U.K. agreement left some details to be worked out later, setting the two countries on a path toward a wider deal, Trump said.
Addressing reports at the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump touted the agreement.
“This deal is working out for both countries,” Trump said, noting the “final details are being written up.”
In remarks made over a speaker phone on Trump’s desk, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said negotiations between the two sides moved toward an agreement in recent weeks.
“This is a really important deal,” Starmer said. “There are no two countries that are closer than our two countries.”
Starmer acknowledged some details still need to be “ironed out.”
The roughly $68 billion in imported goods from the U.K. last year accounted for about 2% of U.S. imported goods, U.S. data showed. The U.S. exported nearly $80 billion worth of products to the U.K. last year, which accounted for almost 4% of U.S. goods exports.
Dozens of nations face potential so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” but the U.K. is not among them, since the U.K. buys more than it sells to the U.S. The White House paused the reciprocal tariffs until July, as it seeks to strike trade agreements with dozens of countries.
Testifying before a House subcommittee on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration had commenced negotiations with 17 of the top 18 U.S. trade partners, excluding China. Those countries account for the vast majority of U.S. foreign trade, Bessent said.
Bessent is set to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for initial trade negotiations with China on Saturday. The U.S. last month imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting 125% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.
On Thursday, Trump said the negotiations between the U.S. and China would be “very substantive,” voicing a willingness to lower the tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump’s tariff escalation last month roiled markets and triggered recession warnings on Wall Street.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned Trump’s tariff policy could cause higher inflation and an economic slowdown.
“If the large increase in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation and a slowdown of economic growth,” Powell said Wednesday.
Still, key indicators suggest the economy remains in “solid shape”, Powell said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that he will soon announce a new nominee for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, replacing his pick, Ed Martin.
“He is a terrific person. He wasn’t getting the support from people that I thought,” Trump said during a White House event. “I’m very disappointed in that. But I have so many different things that I’m doing now with the trade. One person, I can only lift that little phone so many times in a day. But we have somebody else that will be great.”
Trump said his administration will “have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s gonna be great.”
Trump tapped Martin in mid-February to stay on permanently as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a role that requires Senate confirmation.
But Martin’s past, specifically his defense of Jan. 6 rioters and inflammatory rhetoric around the Capitol attack plagued his nomination.
Martin had to apologize in an interview for his past praise of a Jan. 6 rioter who had a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and had infamously posted photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a key Republican vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told ABC News this week he would not support Martin and that he had relayed his opposition to the White House.
The opposition from Tillis, who is up for reelection next year, combined with that from all Democrats, could block Martin’s nomination from getting out of committee.
Trump stood by choosing Martin and called the waning support for him “disappointing” — but that ultimately the decision was up to senators.
“They have to follow their heart and they have to follow their mind,” Trump said when asked about Martin’s uphill battle in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Martin has been acting interim U.S. attorney since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20. In that time, he has moved to fire or demote career attorneys who investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and has sent letters to top Democrats and other political opponents threatening them with potential criminal investigations.
Martin’s term as interim U.S. attorney, which can only last 120 days, is set to expire on May 20.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Alexander Mallin and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Joe Biden, on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said President Donald Trump has had the “worst 100 days” of any president.
Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden are joining the co-hosts live in-studio to discuss life post-presidency, the Democratic Party’s losses in 2024, and the current political landscape as President Donald Trump passes the 100-day mark of his second term.
It’s their first joint interview since leaving the White House.
The Bidens have kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington in January, though the former president is beginning to ratchet up his public appearances.
Joe Biden’s first major speech since departing the White House came last month in Chicago, when he rebuked the Trump administration’s approach to Social Security, accusing officials of “taking a hatchet” to the agency and more broadly causing “so much damage” to the federal government. Biden has appeared occasionally since.
In his first post-presidency interview, broadcast on the BBC on Wednesday, Biden sharply criticized the current administration on a host of issues: He likened Trump’s push for a peace deal that would have Ukraine cede territory to Russia to “modern-day appeasement,” and blasted Trump’s threats to acquire Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“What president ever talks like that?” Biden said. “That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity — not about confiscation.”
Trump, for his part, routinely criticizes Biden as “the worst president in American history” and blames him for various difficulties in his own administration, including recent stock market turmoil and a decline in U.S. gross domestic product.
Biden’s presidency marked the culmination of a career in public service that spanned more than five decades, including 36 years as a senator and eight years as vice president. He leaves behind a complex legacy, punctuated by Trump’s historic victory in November.
Biden and his team were criticized for his decision to seek reelection and later withdraw after a poor debate performance against Trump that moved some Democrats to publicly question his ability as he approached the age of 82 to campaign for and serve another term.
Even still, Biden and his allies have maintained a belief that he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race. He’s said he decided to drop out and endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris to help unify the party.
Asked by the BBC if he should have dropped out earlier, Biden said it wouldn’t have had an impact on the outcome.
“I don’t, I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she’s fully funded,” Biden said.
“I meant what I said when I started, that I think I’m prepared to hand this to the next generation, a transition government,” Biden added. “But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away from the ticket and it was a hard decision. But regret that? No, I think it was the right decision. I think that, well, it was just a difficult decision.”
Jill Biden, 73, who has also begun stepping up public appearances, has also emphasized she believes her husband would have been able to serve four more years.
“Sure,” she told the Washington Post in an interview before the Bidens left the White House in January. “I mean, today, I think he has a full schedule. He started early with interviews and briefings, and it just keeps going.”
More broadly, the Bidens’ appearance on “The View” comes as Democrats are in the midst of rebuilding their coalition and retooling some parts of their message; and grappling with what role — if any — the former president should play in the future of the party.
Two key electoral races this year will stress test those changes: gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. It’s unclear if Joe Biden will be involved in campaigning.
Both Joe Biden and Harris have signed with the CAA talent agency.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden, who retired from her longtime teaching career in December, was recently named as chair of the recently launched Milken Institute’s Women’s Health Network, which will promote research and investments for women’s health.
Speaking about the initiative in Los Angeles on Monday, Jill Biden said that she does not think the federal government will be as involved with women’s health investments and research as it used to be.
“I think this is really an opportunity for business, for private equity to, you know, it doesn’t seem like the federal government is really going to be as involved as they were … I think we all have a part to play in every aspect of this,” Biden said when discussing what excited her about the initiative.
She was seemingly referencing federal government cuts, which have heavily hit health research initiatives as well, although she did not call out the White House or any figures explicitly.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Republican-led House is voting Thursday on Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman’s motion to send legislation formalizing the Gulf of Mexico’s proposed name change to Gulf of America back to committee.
The legislation, which was introduced by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, codifies an executive order from President Donald Trump to rename the body of water.
Its fate in the Senate is more of a challenge, given that it will need bipartisan cooperation to overcome a filibuster.
“Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper or other record of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico shall be deemed to be a reference to the ‘Gulf of America,'” the bill text states.
The measure also instructs each federal agency to update each document and map in accordance with the name change, which Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will oversee.
“Codifying the rightful renaming of the Gulf of America isn’t just a priority for me and President Trump, it’s a priority for the American people. American taxpayers fund its protection, our military defends its waters, and American businesses fuel its economy,” Greene argued in a post on X.
One of Trump’s first executive orders when he started his second term was to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed the bill, which is expected to clear the lower chamber in a party-line vote.
“We’ve been working around the clock to codify so much of what President Trump has been doing … to make sure that we put these into statutory law so that it can’t be reversed and erased by an upcoming administration,” Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday.
House Democrats, including Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have criticized the measure.
“Why is the top thing that House Republicans — going to do this week on their legislative agenda renaming the Gulf of Mexico?” Jeffries said at a news conference Monday. “Because Donald Trump and House Republicans are on the run. They are on the run.”
The Republican-led House is set to vote Thursday on a bill to make the Gulf of Mexico’s name change to Gulf of America permanent.
The legislation, which was introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, codifies an executive order from President Donald Trump to rename the body of water.
Its fate in the Senate is more of a challenge, given that it will need bipartisan cooperation to overcome a filibuster.
“Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper or other record of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico shall be deemed to be a reference to the ‘Gulf of America,’” the bill text states.
The measure also instructs each federal agency to update each document and map in accordance with the name change that Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will oversee.
“Codifying the rightful renaming of the Gulf of America isn’t just a priority for me and President Trump, it’s a priority for the American people. American taxpayers fund its protection, our military defends its waters, and American businesses fuel its economy,” Rep. Greene argued in a post on X.
One of Trump’s first executive orders when he started his second term was to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed the bill, which is expected to clear the lower chamber in a party-line vote.
“We’ve been working around the clock to codify so much of what President Trump has been doing … to make sure that we put these into statutory law so that it can’t be reversed and erased by an upcoming administration,” Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday.
House Democrats, including Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have criticized the measure.
“Why is the top thing that House Republicans — going to do this week on their legislative agenda renaming the Gulf of Mexico?” Jeffries said at a news conference Monday. “Because Donald Trump and House Republicans are on the run. They are on the run.”
Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will appear on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday for their first joint interview since leaving the White House.
The pair will join the co-hosts live in-studio to discuss life post-presidency, the Democratic Party’s losses in 2024, and the current political landscape as President Donald Trump passes the 100-day mark of his second term.
The Bidens have kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington in January, though the former president is beginning to ratchet up his public appearances.
Joe Biden’s first major speech since departing the White House came last month in Chicago, when he rebuked the Trump administration’s approach to Social Security, accusing officials of “taking a hatchet” to the agency and more broadly causing “so much damage” to the federal government. Biden has appeared occasionally since.
In his first post-presidency interview, broadcast on the BBC on Wednesday, Biden sharply critiqued the current administration on a host of issues: He likened Trump’s push for a peace deal that would have Ukraine cede territory to Russia to “modern-day appeasement,” and blasted Trump’s threats to acquire Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“What president ever talks like that?” Biden said. “That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity — not about confiscation.”
Trump, for his part, routinely criticizes Biden as “the worst president in American history” and blames him for various difficulties in his own administration, including recent stock market turmoil and a decline in U.S. gross domestic product.
Biden’s presidency marked the culmination of a career in public service that spanned more than five decades, including 36 years as a senator and eight years as vice president. He leaves behind a complex legacy, punctuated by Trump’s historic victory in November.
Biden and his team were criticized for his decision to seek reelection and later withdraw after a poor debate performance against Trump that moved some Democrats to publicly question his ability as he approached the age of 82 to campaign for and serve another term.
Even still, Biden and his allies have maintained a belief that he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race. He’s said he decided to drop out and endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris to help unify the party.
Asked by the BBC if he should have dropped out earlier, Biden said it wouldn’t have had an impact on the outcome.
“I don’t, I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she’s fully funded,” Biden said.
“I meant what I said when I started, that I think I’m prepared to hand this to the next generation, a transition government,” Biden added. “But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away from the ticket and it was a hard decision. But regret that? No, I think it was the right decision. I think that, well, it was just a difficult decision.”
Jill Biden, 73, who has also begun stepping up public appearances, has also emphasized she believes her husband would have been able to serve four more years.
“Sure,” she told the Washington Post in an interview before the Bidens left the White House in January. “I mean, today, I think he has a full schedule. He started early with interviews and briefings, and it just keeps going.”
More broadly, the Bidens’ appearance on “The View” comes as Democrats are in the midst of rebuilding their coalition and retooling some parts of their message; and grappling with what role — if any — the former president should play in the future of the party.
Two key electoral races this year will stress test those changes: gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. It’s unclear if Joe Biden will be involved in campaigning.
Both Joe Biden and Harris have signed with the CAA talent agency.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden, who retired from her longtime teaching career in December, was recently named as chair of the recently launched Milken Institute’s Women’s Health Network, which will promote research and investments for women’s health.
Speaking about the initiative in Los Angeles on Monday, Jill Biden said that she does not think the federal government will be as involved with women’s health investments and research as it used to be.
“I think this is really an opportunity for business, for private equity to, you know, it doesn’t seem like the federal government is really going to be as involved as they were … I think we all have a part to play in every aspect of this,” Biden said when discussing what excited her about the initiative.
She was seemingly referencing federal government cuts, which have heavily hit health research initiatives as well, although she did not call out the White House or any figures explicitly.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois has announced his bid to run for Senate in 2026, confirming speculations that he would join the quickly expanding field of primary competitors looking to win the safe Democratic seat left open by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is retiring at the end of his term.
In an interview with ABC News, the five-term congressman said he’s running on a record of confronting “bullies” like Donald Trump and is keenly focused on opposing agencies such as the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk.
“I have a track record of standing up to Donald Trump in Congress. I voted for impeaching him twice, but I also … played a big role in the first impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill,” said Krishnamoorthi, who entered the House in 2016, now serves as the top Democrat on the House’s China select committee on the Chinese Communist Party and is a senior member of the Intelligence and Oversight committees.
“But I have a track record of standing up to lots of bullies, whether it’s the e-cigarette companies that prey on our youth and try to hook them on vapes or it’s Purdue pharmaceuticals that try to hook a generation to Oxycontin. I’ve gone after all of them. They put a target on my back, but I got results, and now we need results with Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE,” he added.
Krishnamoorthi added that he is running to fight for the economic prosperity of Illinoisans who are “suffering under the economic chaos unleashed by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE.”
“We need to focus like a laser on their economic problems right now, even at the same time that we’re standing up to Donald Trump,” he told ABC News.
Krishnamoorthi’s bid will kick off with three campaign stops on Friday as he “vows to ‘stand up and fight back’ against Trump’s agenda. The congressman, who represents much of Chicago’s northwestern suburbs, will make stops in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, and in Schaumburg, Illinois, where he currently lives.
“My roots are in Peoria. I represent the suburbs. I’ve worked in the city for many years. So I want to try to trace that journey that I’ve had in Illinois but also speak to as many people as possible across Illinois,” he told ABC News.
In an announcement video released on Wednesday, Krishnamoorthi called the actions occurring within the White House “insanity” and suggested that he is a Democrat who can “fight back” against the Trump administration. The Democratic Party is grappling with questions over its political direction following the startling loss of all three branches of government during the 2024 elections.
“People want to know, at this moment, in this time, where is the power to fight back? What does it look like?” Krishnamoorthi said in the video. “Well, I’ll tell you: It looks like you and you and you, all of us ready to stand up and fight back. I spent my life standing up to bullies, fighting for everyday people. So I’ll never be quiet while billionaires like Elon Musk and a convicted felon deny the dreams of the next generation for their own egos and personal profit. That’s why I’m running for the United States Senate.”
The Harvard University-educated lawyer who received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Princeton University was born in central Illinois to Indian immigrants.
Ahead of his election to Congress, Krishnamoorthi served in a number of state roles and as a policy director in the Obama administration. In his announcement video released on Wednesday, the congressman referred to himself as “Raja” and referenced the fact that former President Barack Obama, too, had an ethnically ambiguous sounding name, saying, “I worked on a friend’s campaign who showed that Illinois will give you a shot even if you have a funny name. And inspired by Barack’s example, I was elected to Congress.”
“Yes, I know the name is long, so like always, just call me Raja,” he concluded the video.
Krishnamoorthi, one of the front-runners in the already hotly contested race, has amassed over a $19 million war chest ahead of his launch, with a stunning $3 million raised in just the first three months of 2025.
His bid comes after Durbin announced in April that he would not seek a sixth term. Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton jumped in the race less than 48 hours after Durbin’s announcement and quickly earned the endorsements of billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois’ other senator, Tammy Duckworth.
“At the end of the day, the most important thing is I get the endorsement from the people of Illinois,” Krishnamoorthi told ABC News when asked about his posture among the already crowded primary field.
“They need to have their say. … We need to make sure that the process plays out, unfolds, that they are able to kick the tires and assess who they want to hire to represent them in the U.S. Senate, and I’m going to do everything in my power to earn their support,” he added.
Krishnamoorthi’s announcement also comes just a day after his colleague, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., declared her own bid for the seat. In an announcement video posted on Tuesday, Kelly brought up how in Congress, she does not stand up during moments of silence to mark mass shootings because, she said, “moments of silence in Congress just aren’t going to cut it anymore.”
Kelly is also the former Illinois Democratic Party chairwoman and a member of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership team. It’s reported that Rep. Lauren Underwood, who is also a member of Jeffries’ leadership circle, is still exploring a run for the seat.
Krishnamoorthi told ABC News that his record, paired with his ability to “stand up” to Trump distinctly, makes him uniquely positioned for the role.
“I think that your track record matters. I think that the diversity of your experiences, plus … where you come from, I think that matters,” he said. “I think that most of all, who is going to be the most effective at standing up to Donald Trump but also delivering for constituents?”
Durbin said he doesn’t plan on endorsing any particular candidate but is not ruling out the possibility in an “extreme case.”
“I hope I do not have to,” Durbin said.
Still, Krishnamoorthi linked himself to Durbin as he launched his bid for Senate on Wednesday, lauding him as a “titan” who was a “fellow son of downstate.”
“Senator Dick Durbin is a titan who will go down as one of the most effective and dedicated public servants in Illinois history. I am deeply humbled by the encouragement I have received from friends, family members, and community leaders encouraging me, a fellow son of downstate, to run for the U.S. Senate,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement announcing his candidacy.
