Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Days before his highly anticipated primary, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie struck a defiant tone, asserting on Sunday that out-of-state billionaires “have funneled millions of dollars in here” in an effort to “buy a seat” in Congress.

“How did this race become the most expensive race in the history of Congress for a primary? It’s because three billionaires from outside of Kentucky have funneled millions of dollars in here. They’re trying to buy a seat,” Massie said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.”

On Friday, Massie told a reporter that his has “turned into a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.”

“This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Massie on the comment, asking him, “What did you mean by that?” 

Massie said that two of the individuals he named — major GOP donors Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer, along with the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are “all part of the Israeli lobby.”

Adelson and Singer are both major AIPAC contributors.

“That’s where all the money comes from, and it will be a referendum on foreign policy, whether Israel gets to dictate that by, you know, bullying members of Congress, and I’m the one they haven’t been able to bully, so they’re putting all the brunt, the force on me,” Massie said.

Massie said his opponents are “desperate” because he says he’s ahead in the polls.

“That’s why the president is losing sleep and tweeting about this,” the Kentucky congressman said.

In a statement to ABC News, RJC CEO Matt Brooks accused Massie of “antisemitism and bottom-of-the-barrel nativism at a time when Jew hatred is on rise.”

“The RJC stands with those who will combat antisemitism like Captain Ed Gallrein, and against those who foment it,” Brooks said, referring to Massie’s Republican opponent. “Massie’s record is indefensible, and the Republican primary voters of Kentucky will hold him accountable.” 

ABC News also reached out to AIPAC, Adelson’s foundation, Singer’s foundation and Singer’s investment management fund to request comment in response to Massie’s statements, but has not received a response.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Massie, including on Sunday morning, after another Republican who Trump wanted to oust from Congress — Louisiana’s Sen. Bill Cassidy — lost his primary on Saturday.

“Bad Congressman Tom Massie voted against Tax Cuts, the Border Wall, our Military and Law Enforcement. Actually, he voted against almost everything that is good. The Worst Republican Congressman in History. Kentucky, vote the bum out on Tuesday. We can’t live with this troublemaker for another two years. He is a true negative force!!!” Trump posted on his social media platform.

Massie is facing a primary challenge from former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who was endorsed by Trump before he even entered the race. In an Oct. 17 Truth Social post, Trump said he hoped Gallrein “gets into the Race against Massie”; four days later, Gallrein did just that.

The seven-term congressman has clashed with Trump throughout his second stint in the White House. But Massie argued he can overcome Trump’s opposition to win this primary.

“I have the endorsement of the right to life organizations, the gun organizations. I had four members of Congress come here yesterday and campaign with me. So, my situation is a little bit different [than Sen. Cassidy’s],” Massie said. “Plus, I’ve had millions of dollars come in from the grassroots, tens of thousands of donors, to my website, thomasmassie.com. And it’s still coming in. And that’s how we’re going to beat them.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Overturning a new congressional map in Virginia that would have favored Democrats has had an outsized impact on the state’s U.S. House primaries, with at least four high-profile candidates so far suspending their campaigns.

With Virginia keeping its current congressional map, which currently has six Democrats and five Republicans, Democratic candidates face the prospect of either running in a GOP-leaning district or of mounting primary bids to incumbent Democrats.

Virginia’s primaries are Aug. 4, having been changed from their original date of June 16. The state had also moved its candidate filing deadline to May 26, so candidates can still get on the ballot ahead of the primary.

Col. Bree Fram, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving in the Air Force and who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its ban on transgender individuals in the military, suspended her campaign for the proposed 11th District. She would have been mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. James Walkinshaw regardless of which map was in place.

“With only five weeks before early primary voting, the ruling left this campaign without sufficient time and resources to meaningfully pivot to the previous district and have the kind of substantive debate voters deserve,” Fram wrote.

 Dorothy McAuliffe, the former first lady of Virginia who was running in the redrawn 7th District, announced last Saturday that she will similarly suspend her campaign. The 7th District is represented by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman.

“For me, representing Virginia in Congress was an opportunity to do good, make government deliver, protect fundamental freedoms, lower costs, defend democracy, and fight for those too often ignored,” said McAuliffe, who is married to former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

J.P. Cooney, who had launched a bid for the 7th District and was the top deputy for former special counsel Jack Smith, who led investigations into President Donald Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, suspended his campaign last Friday.

“I am disappointed that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision at the expense of the Commonwealth’s voters is now final. Although this means the end of my congressional campaign, our movement to fight corruption and lawlessness is just beginning,” Cooney wrote on X.

Dan Helmer, a Virginia state delegate who had also launched a bid for the redrawn 7th District, said last Friday he had ended his campaign. 

“While I’m incredibly disappointed at tonight’s news, I can’t say I’m surprised. The MAGA playbook is straightforward: if you can’t win at the ballot box, pack the courts… While our candidacy for Congress has ended, the path forward is clear: as I’ve said consistently, we need reform of the courts, here in Virginia, and in the federal judiciary,” he wrote in a statement on X. 

One major name has not yet confirmed her plans.

Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who changed parties and was running as a Democrat in the proposed 7th District, wrote in a blog post last Wednesday that she had visited an ICE detention facility on the day of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and that both that visit and the court decision “made me more certain than ever that I cannot walk away from this fight.”

Troye has not confirmed if she plans to withdraw from the race. ABC News has reached out to Troye and her campaign. Troye was among the highest-profile Trump administration officials to become a critic of the president during his first term.

One candidate has said he’s staying in the race even with the Democratic-favoring map thrown out.

Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress who had planned to run in the redrawn 5th District, said the day the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling dropped that he is still going to run for Congress but is shifting to the current 5th District to try to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. John McGuire. Perriello represented the 5th from 2009 to 2011. 

“We are obviously aware of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and as we said from the launch of the campaign, we will respect the will of the voters and the courts … having done hundreds of listening sessions across Central and Southside Virginia over the last few months, I can say one thing that people on the right, left and center, seem to agree on is that McGuire needs to be fired and replaced by somebody who actually cares about Central and South Side Virginia,” he told reporters on Friday, just hours after the seismic court decision.

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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the longtime Black representative from South Carolina whose seat could be at stake in mid-decade congressional redistricting, told ABC News that he sees the redrawing of congressional seats held by Black lawmakers as part of a larger history of discrimination and disenfranchisement against Black Americans.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to understand this. The country is attempting what I call ‘Jim Crow 2.0.’ It’s just that simple,” Clyburn said.

Some experts have told ABC News that the redistricting in the South could wipe out up to a third of seats in Congress held by African American legislators, and Black lawmakers have been expressing similar concerns ever since the mid-decade redistricting push by Republicans kicked off last year.

Republicans have argued that they are redrawing congressional maps to comply with the Supreme Court or to remedy unfairly-drawn districts, and that the districts that could be changed may still elect Black representatives to Congress.

But Clyburn told ABC News that if the focus remains solely on redistricting, the bigger picture is being missed.

“When I released the book [“The First Eight”], and that’s the whole thing my book was about. I think a lot of people thought I was just whistling Dixie. But no,this is real. It’s as real as anything can be. And we got to come to grips with that. So it’s not just about congressional districts. It’s affirmative action, closing colleges and universities to ordinary Blacks, it’s about we’re not able to get a job in the federal government, state government,” Clyburn said.

“They want to take away federal jobs in the federal government, remove that protection … getting rid of any kind of diversity and inclusion. So this is a very comprehensive thing.”

Clyburn was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, the first Black member of Congress from South Carolina in a century, after previously teaching high school history and being involved in political activism.

He spoke with ABC News just hours before South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced Thursday evening in an executive order that he would call the state legislature in for an “extra” session to consider mid-decade redistricting.

McMaster’s announcement came amid other states redrawing maps after the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against Louisiana’s congressional map. It also came just two days after, even in the face of pressure from President Donald Trump, the state Senate rejected a key bill that would have let the legislature consider mid-decade redistricting even after formally adjourning.

However, that specific, specialized bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass. In the extra session, a bill that could redraw the congressional map would only need a simple majority.

In a statement celebrating McMaster’s announcement, South Carolina Republican Party Chair Drew McKissick wrote, “Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, Republicans have an opportunity to get this done, and we should maximize it. Now is the time for lawmakers to stand with President Trump, defend the Constitution, and finish the job.”

Clyburn, speaking before the special session became official, told ABC News he saw the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana vs. Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, as the continuation of a long line of other Supreme Court decisions he sees as detrimental – including the Citizens United v FEC ruling that unleashed billions of dollars from corporations, labor unions and other groups into American campaigns as a protected form of free speech; as well as the Dred Scott decision, which in 1857 held that Black Americans could never be citizens.

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified 11 years after Dred Scott, was drafted to repudiate that decision and to prevent the creation of a hereditary class of noncitizens within the United States.

“I’ve been saying this about five or six years. Back when the Supreme Court made a decision … a lot of people look at me like I was some drunken sailor,” Clyburn said. “I said, when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in the so-called Citizens United case, and that is when they created dark money. And I said at the time, I said, this Supreme Court decision will take its place along — will compete with Dred Scott as one of the worst decisions ever made by the Supreme Court.”

“Now, people couldn’t see what I was saying at the time, but I’ve been studying history all my life. And when I saw that [Citizens United] decision, I knew that the foundation was being laid for taking over this country,’’ Clyburn said.

But Clyburn told ABC News that despite all of that, he does have hope for the nation’s future.

“I’m a South Carolinian. Do you know what our state motto is? ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ I’m a real South Carolinian. Breathing and hoping,” he said.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and ABC News legal contributor James Sample contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Two Republican challengers, Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, will advance to a runoff election in Louisiana’s closely watched GOP primary, The Associated Press projected Saturday — a defeat for Sen. Bill Cassidy who had drawn the ire of President Donald Trump.

Letlow had been endorsed by Trump in a three-way race that was seen as a test of the president’s influence among Republicans.

Letlow and Fleming will face off again in the runoff on June 27.

With nearly 100% of the estimated vote counted, Letlow led with about 45% of the vote, followed by Fleming with about 28%, according to the AP. Cassidy trailed with about 25% of the vote.

The primary defeat marks a stunning loss for Cassidy and a potential warning to other Republicans who risk defying the president, as Trump has sought to oust those he views as disloyal. Trump-backed candidates recently defeated several Indiana state senators who opposed his redistricting plans.

Cassidy’s defeat makes him the first sitting senator to lose a primary since 2017 and the first elected incumbent senator to lose a primary since 2012 — when Indiana GOP Sen. Richard Lugar lost his race to a Tea Party challenger.

Cassidy expressed gratitude for his time in office and acknowledged the race didn’t go like he would have liked.

“But you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen,” he said. “You don’t manufacture some excuse –you thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you’ve had that privilege, and that’s what I’m doing right now.”

He also took a thinly veiled jab at Trump without naming him.

“Our country is not about one individual, it is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution,” he said. “And it is the welfare of my people and my state and my country and our Constitution, to which I am loyal.”

Trump celebrates

In a post on his social media platform, Trump celebrated Cassidy’s projected defeat and congratulated Letlow.

“Julia Letlow is a fantastic person and, after taking care of some additional business, will make a brilliant Senator for the Great People of Louisiana,” Trump said in the post.

In speech to supporters in Baton Rouge on Saturday night, Letlow opened her remarks thanking Trump.

“I want to say thank you to a very special man, who you all know – the best president this country has ever had: President Donald Trump,” Letlow said.

“When he endorsed me in January, I knew this was going to be a tough race, but tonight Louisiana sent a clear message — that they want a candidate to represent them in the Senate who will always put America first and never turn her back on Louisiana voters,” Letlow continued.

Fleming expressed full confidence he will win the runoff.

“I embrace this challenge enthusiastically. The runoff starts today, and I could not be more energized,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

“The people of Louisiana deserve a senator who cannot be bought, will not be bossed, and will never back down,” Fleming said.

On the campaign trail

On the campaign trail, Letlow, a three-term congresswoman, was anything but shy about Trump’s endorsement, casting Cassidy as disloyal and Fleming as out of touch with the president. Her campaign messaging focused in part on defending parental rights and securing the border.

Fleming, a former congressman who later served in various roles in the first Trump administration, pitched himself to voters as the most staunch conservative, though he did not receive a public endorsement from Trump.

For his part, Cassidy, a physician who was first elected to the Senate seat in 2014, argued his record proved he delivered for Louisianans and sought to tie himself to Trump — campaigning on a conservative agenda, arguing against abortion, supporting “strong borders” and co-sponsoring the SAVE America Act, a legislative priority for Trump.

Trump’s endorsement

Trump upended Cassidy’s reelection bid in January when he encouraged Letlow to enter in hopes of defeating Cassidy.

Trump sought to punish Cassidy, who broke with the party as one of seven senators to vote to convict Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The 57-43 vote fell shy of the 67 vote threshold needed to convict Trump.

In a Saturday morning social media post — roughly two hours after polls opened –Trump again ripped on the two-term incumbent while endorsing Letlow. He called Cassidy “disloyal” and castigated him for using his name throughout the campaign.

Despite their fraught relationship, Cassidy has, at times, supported Trump’s agenda. Cassidy, a physician and longtime proponent of vaccines, grilled Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a vaccine skeptic — during his confirmation hearing but cast the deciding vote to advance his nomination.

Yet for some, Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump may have been enough to do him in.

Robert Hogan, a political science professor at Louisiana State University, told ABC News ahead of the primary that some voters still had a “visceral” reaction to Cassidy’s vote to convict the president.

“The Republican activists have been unforgiving,” Hogan said. “This says less about Cassidy, I would say, than it says about the nature of the attraction that voters have towards Trump.”

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(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP and the potential political fallout for his perceived enemies will face another test on Saturday in Louisiana’s Republican primary.

Incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy is competing against Trump-backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow (LA-5) and John Fleming, the state Treasurer and a former House Freedom Caucus Freedom member who served in multiple posts in the first Trump administration.

It’s expected the threeway split could cause the race to go to a runoff next month if no candidate wins an outright majority in Saturday’s primary.

Trump upended the race in late January when he encouraged Letlow to enter in hopes of defeating Cassidy, who in 2021 voted to convict the president in his second impeachment trial. She launched her campaign just days later.

Cassidy, asked by CNN on Friday why Trump wants him replaced, said, “I can’t understand the president’s mind.”

He continued, “I’m not claiming the president loves me, no, but you can work with people even if you don’t love each other if you got a common goal. And my goal is to make my country and my state and everybody who lives here better off.”

Throughout the campaign, Cassidy has argued his record proves he delivers for Louisianans. The two-term senator has touted his work helping pass the HALT Fentanyl Act, negotiating the passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and championing healthcare.

In 2024, Trump won the deep-red state with 60% of the vote, and if his preferred candidate wins, it would mark another victory for the president in his efforts to oust those he views as disloyal. Trump-backed candidates recently defeated several Indiana state senators who opposed his redistricting plans.

Cassidy could now be staring down the end of a long political career as part of a shrinking class of GOP lawmakers to have broken with the president. He is one of three remaining senators in the upper chamber to have voted to convict Trump.

Letlow has been anything but shy about Trump’s endorsement, casting Cassidy as disloyal and Fleming as out of touch with the president. Her campaign messaging has focused in part on defending parental rights and securing the border.

The first Republican woman from Louisiana to be elected to Congress, Letlow romped to victory in 2021. She ran in a special election for the House after her husband, who was elected to the office, died from COVID-19-related complications before he could take office.

Cassidy’s campaign has labeled her “Liberal Letlow” and unleashed a wave of attacks portraying her as a champion of DEI over comments she made in 2020 while working at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

In a recent debate against Fleming, Letlow defended her position at the time, arguing “the left completely hijacked” DEI and she has “spent the last five years in Congress working against it.”

Meanwhile Fleming, who argues he is the most conservative candidate, told ABC News some pressured him to drop his campaign.

Fleming said he was eventually able to reach Trump by phone and the president called him “fantastic.”

However Trump’s public endorsement of Letlow has not changed.

Despite their fraught relationship, Cassidy has, at times, supported Trump’s agenda. Cassidy, a physician and longtime proponent of vaccines, grilled Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a vaccine skeptic — during his confirmation hearing but cast the deciding vote to confirm his nomination out of committee.

Most recently, Trump blamed Cassidy, chairman of the Senate health committee, for the stalling of his surgeon general pick, Make America Healthy Again-aligned Casey Means.

The shift from open, nonpartisan primaries to a closed system also complicates Cassidy’s road to victory. Registered and unaffiliated, or “No Party” voters, choose between the two parties. If no candidate receives a majority, the race will head to a runoff on June 27.

In Louisiana, Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans with roughly 1 million registered voters in each party, according to the Secretary of State office. There are more than 813,000 “No Party” voters.

Adding to the fire is Landry’s move to postpone the House primaries in the nationwide redistricting battle — even as absentee ballots had been returned — while keeping the Senate race on May 16. Lawsuits have been filed in response and some, including Cassidy and Fleming, warn the move is leaving voters confused.

Fleming hedged on whether he would endorse an opponent should he lose the race, adding he takes issue with what he calls dishonest ads, particularly from those backing Letlow.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Business owner Mark Spencer is also running in the GOP primary.

In the Democratic primary, Nick Albares, Gary Crockett and Jamie Davis are vying for the nomination to unseat Cassidy. The Cook Political Report rates the race as solid Republican in the Pelican State.

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. CDT on May 16.

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(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Steve Cohen, a longtime Tennessee Democrat, announced Friday he will not seek reelection and instead retire at the end of his term, after his Memphis district was carved up in the state assembly’s redistricting effort.

“This is by far the most difficult moment I’ve had as an elected official,” Cohen said. his voice choked with emotion as he announced he sent a letter Friday to the state capital asking not to appear on the ballot.

“I don’t want to quit. I’m not a quitter, but these districts were drawn to beat me. They were drawn to defeat me,” Cohen said.

Cohen is the first Democratic representative to opt for retirement after the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which held that race-conscious redistricting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional.

After the ruling, Tennessee state lawmakers passed a new congressional map that could allow Republicans to flip the state’s lone Democratic-held seat.

Cohen’s majority-minority district, Tennessee’s 9th congressional district, is being split in three. Cohen has sued over the new map in court, as have several civil rights groups.

“Butchered,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat whose district shares a border with Cohen, told ABC News about the Tennessee district.

“He’s represented a majority-minority district as a white person. He’s been well. He’s had a consistent vote on behalf of his constituents, and all of a sudden, the court says take that opportunity away,” Thompson said of Cohen. “But worse than that, Tennessee legislature split Memphis in three different ways. So now, as far as the Congress is concerned, there’s no real community of interest in Memphis, because they’re so divided.”

Cohen is the 22nd House Democrat to opt against reelection to the House this midterm election cycle.

“Memphis is my home, and that’s what I fight for, and I want to do it again. If I get the chance, I’ll do it, but otherwise I’ll be retiring from Congress, and from, I guess, from public life,” Cohen said.

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(WASHINGTON) — After a second day of high-stakes meetings with China’s Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump is not committing to approving the latest round of arms sales to Taiwan and brushed off previous U.S. assurances not to consult with Beijing about those sales.

“I’ll make a determination over the next fairly short period,” Trump said when asked about the arms sales by reporters aboard Air Force One.

The president’s remarks came after Xi’s stark warning that if the issue of Taiwan is handled “improperly,” then the two nations could “come into conflict,” according to China’s official state news source Xinhua. However, Xi did say that if the issue is handled “properly” then “bilateral relations can remain generally stable.”

Trump has been delaying the latest round of arms sales, for months refusing to sign off on the record $14 billion package that was approved in January 2025, despite urging from some lawmakers.   

Trump also told reporters that Xi asked him if he would come to Taiwan’s defense if China were to attack, but Trump claims to have not revealed his thinking.  

“That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said, ‘I don’t talk about, I don’t talk about that,'” Trump said.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh said they are “paying close attention” to the Trump-Xi meeting.

Earlier Friday, Trump participated in a tea and working lunch with Xi.

On Iran, Trump said he and Xi feel “very similar” in wanting the war to end and prohibiting Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“We feel very similar in Iran. We want that to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the [Strait of Hormuz] opened. We’re closing it now. They closed it, and we closed it on top of them, but we want the straits open, and we want them to get it ended, because it’s a crazy thing,” Trump said at a photo opportunity earlier Friday.

Later, aboard Air Force One, Trump was pressed on whether Xi actually committed to pressuring Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“I’m not asking for any favors, because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return. We don’t need favors,” Trump said.

Trump was seeking to bolster international support amid a push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. war with Iran stretches on. China is Iran’s principal oil consumer.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, responding to inquiries to confirm whether Trump and Xi discussed Iran, sidestepped the question but reiterated China’s position that the ceasefire and negotiations should continue and that the Strait of Hormuz should be reopened.

“There is no need to continue this war that should not have happened,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said. “Finding a solution earlier is beneficial to the United States and Iran, as well as to the countries in the region and even the whole world.”

“Since the door of dialogue is open, it should not be closed again,” the spokesperson said.

Before Friday’s meeting, Trump met Xi to tour the gardens at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party leadership compound.

Xi said he picked the location “especially to reciprocate the hospitality extended to me in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago.” Xi said Trump was interested to learn about the plants in the garden including the Chinese roses. Xi said he “agreed” to gift Trump seeds for those roses. 

Tech and trade have also been key themes during the talks. Trump said the two leaders “made some fantastic trade deals.”

CEOs Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Tim Cook of Apple and Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, among others, traveled with the president to Beijing. Trump said the business leaders joined him to “pay respects” to Xi.

The White House said one of Trump’s goals going into the summit with Xi is to secure purchasing agreements with China in the aerospace, agriculture and energy sectors and the CEOs traveled with the president to help push for that.

Trump said Xi agreed to initially purchase 200 Boeing planes, which could go up to 750 planes if all goes well. Boeing has not confirmed this deal, referring inquiries to the White House. 

Trump also said China has agreed to buy “billions of dollars” of soybeans, though he didn’t get into specifics.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer had said on Friday that the U.S. expects China to buy tens of billions of dollars worth of American agricultural products in the next few years.

“We expect to also see an agreement for double-digit billion purchases … over the next three years, per year, coming out of this visit, and that’s more general, that’s aggregate, that’s not just soybeans, that’s everything else,” Greer told Bloomberg.

ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Mariam Khan, Michelle Stoddart and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping feel “very similar on Iran” in wanting the war to end and prohibiting Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the two started their second day of meetings in their high-stakes summit.

“We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar in Iran. We want that to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the [Strait of Hormuz] opened. We’re closing it now. They closed it, and we closed it on top of them, but we want the straits open, and we want them to get it ended, because it’s a crazy thing,” Trump said at a photo opportunity before the two leaders had tea and a working lunch.

Trump said they had discussed a number of issues, “and I think we’re very much in agreement.” Representatives from China did not offer further comment on what was discussed in the meetings.

He also said the two leaders “made some fantastic trade deals.”

Before Friday’s meeting Trump met Xi to tour the gardens at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party leadership compound.

Xi said he picked the location “especially to reciprocate the hospitality extended to me in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago.” Xi said Trump was interested to learn about the plants in the garden including the Chinese roses. Xi said he “agreed” to gift Trump seeds for those roses.

The meetings come amid some tension on the issue of Taiwan — an issue about which Xi issued a stark warning to the U.S. during the leaders’ first sit-down — and questions about the role of China in ending the war with Iran.

Trump was seeking to bolster international support amid a push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. war with Iran stretches on. China is Iran’s principal oil consumer.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, responding to inquiries to confirm whether Trump and Xi discussed Iran, sidestepped the question but reiterated China’s position that  the ceasefire and negotiations should continue and that the Strait of Hormuz should be reopened.

“There is no need to continue this war that should not have happened,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said. “Finding a solution earlier is beneficial to the United States and Iran, as well as to the countries in the region and even the whole world.”

“Since the door of dialogue is open, it should not be closed again,” the spokesperson said.

Trump and Xi also attended a state banquet earlier during the visit.

On the first day of the summit, the U.S. president was greeted with pomp and pageantry upon his arrival in Beijing and again before his bilateral meeting with Xi at the Great Hall of the People that lasted for more than two hours.

Regarding the issue of Taiwan, Xi said that if the issue of Taiwan is handled “improperly,” the two nations could “come into conflict,” according to China’s official state broadcaster Xinhua. However, Xi did say that if the issue is handled “properly,” “bilateral relations can remain generally stable.”

Tech and trade have also been key themes during the talks.

Trump said before the trip that he planned to ask Xi to “open up” the Chinese economy. CEOs Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Tim Cook of Apple and Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, among others, traveled with the president to Beijing.

Trump said the business leaders joined him to “pay respects” to Xi.

“We asked the top 30 in the world. Every single one of them said ‘yes,’ and I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top. And they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China, and they look forward to trade and doing business, and it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf,” Trump said.

The White House said one of Trump’s goals going into the summit with Xi is to secure purchasing agreements with China in the aerospace, agriculture and energy sectors and the CEOs traveled with the president to help push for that.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday that the U.S. expects China to buy tens of billions of dollars worth of American agricultural products in the next few years.

“We expect to also see an agreement for double-digit billion purchases … over the next three years, per year, coming out of this visit, and that’s more general, that’s aggregate, that’s not just soybeans, that’s everything else,” Greer told Bloomberg.

Greer didn’t provide any more specifics about the terms of the agreement he said the administration expects.

Before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Trump called Xi a “great leader” and touted their relationship.

“Such respect for China, the job you’ve done. You’re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader,” Trump said. “Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true. I always say the truth.”

“We’ve had a fantastic relationship. We’ve gotten along,” Trump said. “When there were difficulties, we worked it out. I would call you, and you would call me, and whenever we had a problem — people don’t know — whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly, and we’re going to have a fantastic future together.”

Xi told Trump that China and the U.S. “both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”

“We should be partners, not rivals,” he continued.” We should help each other succeed and prosper together and find the right way for major countries to get along well with each other in the new era.”

ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Mariam Khan, Michelle Stoddart and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Almost a third of the membership of the Congressional Black Caucus — 19 of its 62 members — are at risk of losing their seats through the 2028 election cycle as Republicans in southern states where they control the legislature move swiftly to redraw congressional maps less than two weeks after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The mid-decade redistricting push is a continuation of an effort that began in 2025 and that President Donald Trump has encouraged in hopes of increasing the likelihood that the GOP will retain control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

Republicans have argued that they are redrawing congressional maps to comply with the Supreme Court and that the districts that could be changed may still elect Black representatives to Congress.

A spokesperson for the Congressional Black Caucus told ABC News that the group is coordinating with groups such as Elias Law Group and the Legal Defense Fund to challenge the GOP’s redistricting efforts.

The Supreme Court on Monday evening opened the door for Alabama to eliminate at least one of its majority-Black congressional districts before this year’s midterm elections, potentially handing Republicans an additional House seat in the fight for control of the closely divided chamber.

Following Republicans’ redistricting efforts in the South in states like Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed a strong response, listing specific states without sharing specific actions.

“Over the next year or so, what you’re going to see in state after state are Democrats making clear that we are not going to unilaterally disarm,” Jeffries said.

“And as a result of that, in places like New York, New Jersey, Oregon, as well as Washington, in Colorado and, of course, in Illinois and Maryland, we’re going to take the steps necessary to ensure that in advance of the 2028 election, we have a decisive and overwhelming response.”

Alabama Rep. Shomari Figures, whose seat is now in jeopardy as a result of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling, said in a statement to ABC News that the decision “sets the stage for Alabama to go back to the 1950s and 60s in terms of Black political representation in the state.”

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri, whose seat was one of the first targeted by redistricting, said that the ongoing redistricting efforts are “trying to send us back to Reconstruction.”

Cleaver told ABC News that he is supportive of Jeffries’ stance of “maximum warfare” against GOP-led redistricting efforts, but he worries that “if we fight fire with fire, nothing would be left in the station but ash.”

Cleaver has held his seat for more than two decades and is running for reelection, but now says he has “no idea” what district he’s running in and that Democrats may need to redistrict in states like Illinois, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Colorado to fight back.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, who is also at risk of losing his seat if redistricting succeeds in South Carolina, took aim at a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that he said had enabled this sort of targeting of Black legislators, as well as actions by Trump that he said threaten American democracy.

“You know, this is whether or not you’re going to have a democracy. And that’s not a one-party thing, that’s not a one-person thing; that is, this country has come to grips with the fact that we are on the verge of a kleptocracy,” Clyburn said.

While CBC members have continued to push for the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Cleaver said that in the current Congress, the legislation “could not get a hearing in the United States of America right now.”

Last Thursday, Tennessee became the first state after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana ruling to officially redraw and pass a new map at the urging of the president, who called the state’s governor about the topic just one day after the ruling. And in one week, a new congressional map was created, presented and passed. The new map will give Republicans a chance to flip the state’s lone current Democratic-held, majority-Black district, which is primarily made up of Memphis.

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday evening that opened the door for Alabama to eliminate at least one of its majority-Black districts before this year’s midterms, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has set new special primary elections for the affected districts in the state: the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th.

Louisiana and South Carolina are also working through their own redistricting process in hopes of delivering more House seats to the GOP ahead of November’s elections. In South Carolina, Republicans on Friday formally unveiled a new proposed congressional map that would redraw the district held by Clyburn.

But as Republicans look to add House seats, Black representation in Congress is at risk of dropping substantially over the next couple of years.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement to ABC News, “We are witnessing a return to Jim Crow. And anybody who is alarmed by these developments — as everybody should be — better be making a plan to vote in November to put an end to this madness while we still can.”

“This Supreme Court did not dismiss the case, so the litigation will certainly continue. My hope is that this is a temporary setback and that three-Republican appointed judges will again find what they found the first time: that the State of Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters in drawing its congressional district lines,” Figures added.

ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim and Jeff Ballou contributed to this report
 

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(WASHINGTON) — One of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s top public affairs spokespeople resigned from his post over the FDA’s fruit-flavored e-cigarettes authorization and its potential impact on minors, according to a resignation letter to President Donald Trump reviewed by ABC News.

In the letter, Richard Danker, the former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, accuses senior agency officials in Kennedy’s immediate office of approving e-cigarette flavors that would allegedly expose children to “nicotine addiction, lung damage, and a higher risk of cancer.”

Danker also said the vape authorization “undermines” the department’s recent guidance document related to youth risks of flavored nicotine, according to the letter.

He thanked Trump for the “honor of a lifetime” to serve in both presidential administrations. Danker’s work portfolio includes economic regulatory roles, including a senior advisor position at the Department of Treasury during the first Trump administration. Danker hadn’t worked in healthcare prior to his time at HHS.

The Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again movement has touted its focus on combatting chronic disease and improving children’s health. In a statement to ABC News, an HHS spokesperson said Kennedy is advancing the MAHA agenda to confront the chronic disease epidemic head-on.

“Political appointees are here to execute that mission with urgency, discipline, and focus,” according to the spokesperson.

“Individuals who lose sight of the mission and the responsibility they were entrusted with are free to move on from the agency. HHS remains fully committed to delivering results for the American people,” the spokesperson said.

Danker provided ABC News with a copy of the resignation letter, but did not provide further comment.

The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

The news comes as former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary left office after clashing with the White House over pressure from Trump to authorize the flavored vapes, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The issue has raised concerns with Makary, pediatrician groups and advocacy organizations about the potential impact on minors, ABC News reported.

The FDA approved four new devices made by Glas, including classic menthol, fresh menthol, gold, and sapphire pods. “Gold” is mango-flavored and “sapphire” is blueberry-flavored.

While the FDA said on its website last week that it continues to prioritize the removal of illicit vapes — including those that target minors — the approval of a flavored vape represents a significant shift for the agency.

Makary told ABC News’ Linsey Davis in July, “There is not an approved vaping product in the United States that has one of these cutie-fruity flavors.”

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