The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday released an assistance guide for those affected by the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
FEMA said its disaster assistance can “jumpstart” the recovery process.
“FEMA disaster assistance is intended to meet the basic needs of your household for uninsured or underinsured necessary expenses and serious needs to jumpstart your recovery. If you have insurance and are applying for FEMA disaster assistance, you must file a claim with your insurance company first,” a release from the agency says. “By law, FEMA cannot duplicate benefits for losses covered by insurance. If insurance does not cover all your damage, you may be eligible for federal assistance.”
FEMA assistance can come in the form of many options, such as money for essential items like food, water, baby formula, breast feeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies. Those affected by the fires also can apply for further relief funds, which could cover a stay in hotels if a home was impacted and residents are unable to return, according to the agency.
The White House said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell is in Los Angeles and, according to a FEMA official, has been in regular contact with state and local leaders and is surveying the damage.
President Joe Biden is set to meet with senior White House and administration officials Thursday at 4:30 p.m. regarding the wildfires and the federal response. On Wednesday, the president declared a “Major Disaster Declaration” to aid in the recovery.
“Yesterday, President Biden approved a Major Disaster declaration for California, allowing impacted communities and survivors to immediately access funds and resources to get through the coming days and begin to recover from the devastation,” the White House said in a fact sheet earlier Thursday. “The Administration is in regular contact with state and local officials, including Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass, their teams, and other state and local officials throughout the impacted areas.”
To learn more about the types of assistance available, the agency says, the public can visit: fema.gov/assistance/individual/program.
(WASHINGTON) — The future of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance at the Supreme Court on Friday when the justices hear a last-ditch challenge to a law that would ban the video-sharing app in nine days unless its Chinese-based parent company sells its stake.
The momentous case — TikTok v. Garland — pits one of the world’s most popular social media platforms against all three branches of the U.S. government, which have aligned over the idea that the app poses a serious risk to national security.
Congress passed the law last April with large bipartisan majorities last year to target foreign adversary-owned platforms that collect troves of data on individual Americans and disseminate propaganda or disinformation. President Joe Biden signed it; lower federal courts have upheld it.
ByteDance, which owns TikTok and is headquartered in China, denies any malign activity in the U.S. and has argued the law violates free speech rights of the 170 million Americans it says use the app each month. It has previously ruled out a sale.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll last spring showed 34% of adults said they used the app, which matches an estimate from the Pew Research Center. Pew also reports that 63% of 13- to 17-year-olds use the platform. Together, these add up to about 103 million users.
The poll showed just 12% of adults reported using TikTok “often,” 10% said they used it “occasionally” and 12% said they use the app “rarely.”
Lower courts have rejected the company’s First Amendment challenges, saying the government’s justifications are compelling, given evidence of China’s extensive cyber espionage efforts and covert content manipulation.
“Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, “TikTok’s millions of users will need to find an alternative media of communication. That burden is attributable to the [People’s Republic of China’s] hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not to the U.S. Government.”
The Supreme Court is hearing the case on an unusually fast track, just days before a ban on TikTok is set to take effect on Jan. 19. A ruling is likely, though not guaranteed, this month.
If the ban is allowed, it would become unlawful for app stores run by U.S. companies like Apple and Google to offer TikTok downloads or updates with new features or technical fixes. It would not become a crime to use TikTok, and users who have downloaded the app could likely continue to use it for now, technology experts said.
More than a dozen countries, including India, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan, have already blocked or restricted TikTok. In 2023, the U.S. government banned the use of TikTok on any federal devices.
If the ban is put on hold, it would signal that the court has serious concerns about free speech.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has historically been highly deferential to the government’s position on matters of national security, but the justices are also likely to be cautious about a precedent-setting decision that could silence a wildly popular communication tool.
One wild card in the case may be the position of President-elect Donald Trump, who once unequivocally supported banning TikTok in the U.S. but now calls it a “unique medium for freedom of expression.”
Trump asked the court in a filing late last month to pause the divestiture deadline in order to give him a chance to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the app once he takes office on Jan. 20.
In an amicus brief, Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer, unusually invokes Trump as someone who “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.”
Trump does not take a position on the constitutionality of the law and, legal experts said, does not provide a legal basis for the justices blocking or delaying otherwise lawfully enacted legislation unless they find it patently unconstitutional.
Both sides have already spent years trying to reach a deal to institute new privacy protections and independent oversight mechanisms that would assuage concerns of U.S. officials. TikTok had proposed creating a data security subsidiary, based in the U.S., and establishing strict limits on what user data could be accessed by Chinese authorities.
Top U.S. national security agencies ultimately deemed the proposals insufficient.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman has accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to visit him at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, the senator said in a statement provided to ABC News.
“President Trump invited me to meet, and I accepted. I’m the Senator for all Pennsylvanians — not just Democrats in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said in the statement. “I’ve been clear that no one is my gatekeeper. I will meet with an have conversations with anyone if it helps me deliver for Pennsylvania and the nation.”
Fetterman, once branded as a progressive, has increasingly signaled he’s willing to act more independently.
He was one of the first Democrats in the Senate to meet with Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, and he’s expressed willingness to back some of Trump’s other Cabinet nominees.
He also broke away from the progressive wing of his party last year by becoming an outspoken advocate for Israel, at one point traveling there to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As Senate Majority Leader John Thune has made clear he won’t back changes to the Senate rules requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation, Trump will need Democratic allies in the Senate.
This could mark an early effort by Trump to court Fetterman.
In an interview last month with ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Fetterman said he hopes Trump is successful in his second term and that he’s not “rooting against him.”
“If you’re rooting against the president, you are rooting against the nation,” Fetterman said. “So country first. I know that’s become maybe like a cliche, but it happens to be true.”
Fetterman told Karl his Democratic colleagues need to “chill out” over everything Trump does.
“I’ve been warning people, like, ‘You got to chill out,’ you know? Like the constant, you know, freakout, it’s not helpful,” Fetterman said. “Pack a lunch, pace yourself, because he hasn’t even taken office yet.”
Fetterman was elected to the Senate in 2022, beating Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Trump has picked to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
He suffered a stroke during the campaign and was treated for depression the following year.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump shook hands with his former Vice President Mike Pence and spoke extensively with former President Barack Obama during the state funeral for late President Jimmy Carter on Thursday.
All five living U.S. presidents attended Carter’s service at Washington National Cathedral. Carter, the nation’s 39th president, died in late December at the age of 100.
Trump was the first of the presidents to arrive and sit in the second row, joined by his wife Melania Trump.
As he took his seat, Pence stood and the two men shook hands. It was a notable exchange as they have not interacted publicly in four years, after Pence broke with Trump by refusing his demands to unilaterally reject the 2020 election results.
Pence later launched his own campaign for the Republican nomination, though he dropped out before primary voting began. Pence also declined to endorse Trump for president.
Trump was seated next to Obama at the church. Before the program began, they were seen talking to one another and smiling in an extended conversation. Former first lady Michelle Obama was not in attendance.
Also in the second row were former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.
After they were all seated, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrived and took their places in the front row.
Harris, who faced Trump in the 2024 election and lost, did not greet Trump but at one point looked back as Obama and Trump were chatting with one another.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden joined Harris and Emhoff in the front row. Biden will deliver the eulogy for Carter.
Other high-profile figures spotted at Carter’s funeral were former Vice President Al Gore, Biden’s son Hunter Biden and former Vice President Dan Quayle.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland informed Congress in a letter Wednesday that special counsel Jack Smith has concluded his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
Garland informed members of Congress — as required by internal department regulations — that at no time did he interfere in to overrule Smith during the process of his investigation, according to the letter released by the Department of Justice.
Garland also acknowledged in the letter that at this time he is currently barred by district Judge Aileen Cannon from releasing the report outside of the Justice Department, but intends to make Volume One of the report regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election available to the public once he is “permitted to do so” by the courts.
Garland further confirmed he plans to make available the volume of the report pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as the 11th Circuit permits him to do so.
Volume Two will not be released as of yet due to ongoing court proceedings against Trump’s co-defendants.
“Consistent with local court rules and Department policy, and to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, whose criminal cases remain pending, I have determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that Volume Two should not be made public so long as those defendants’ criminal proceedings are ongoing,” Garland wrote.
He continued, “I have determined that once those criminal proceedings have concluded, releasing Volume Two of the Report to you and to the public would also be in the public interest, consistent with law and Department policy.”
The letter was addressed to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
(WASHINGTON) — After meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump appeared ambivalent about the debate over whether to craft two legislative attempts to reshape fiscal policy for his agenda or settle on one sweeping package in an “all-in” approach.
Trump told reporters that he had “a great meeting” with the senators, although it appeared that the closed-door meeting that lasted more than 90 minutes did not lock down an agreement on how to proceed.
“There’s great unity,” Trump said. “I think there’s a lot of talk about two [bills], and there’s a lot of talk about one, but it doesn’t matter. The end result is the same. We’re going to get something done that’s going to be reducing taxes and creating a lot of jobs and all of the other things that you know about.”
Despite Trump’s comments, senators in the room heard Trump loud and clear: His preference, though he’s open to alternative ideas, is one “big, beautiful bill” to deal with many of his legislative priorities in a single swoop.
But just because senators heard him doesn’t mean they agree with him.
There was hope going into tonight’s meeting with Trump, the Senate’s first since he won the presidential race in November, that it could bring the Senate, which has largely favored a two-bill approach, and the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson prefers a one-bill approach, into one line of thinking on the matter.
Senators leaving the room Wednesday night seemed unmoved.
“It’s no mystery we’re advocating for two,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said as he departed.
There were a number of senators, including Trump allies like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who forcefully made the case for a two-bill solution while in the room with Trump. Cruz and his allies want one bill to address border security, military spending and energy. A second bill addressing tax policy could come later, they said.
With little to no support expected from Democrats, Republicans plan to push forward through “reconciliation” — a fast-track process limited to spending and revenue legislation that needs only a majority rather than the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to pass legislation.
While the debate might seem in the weeds, it could have serious implications for Trump’s agenda. Bills passed through reconciliation give Republicans more wiggle room to pass certain measures that Democrats oppose. But these bills are cumbersome, bound by a number of rules about what may and may not be included, and will require the near-unanimous support of Republicans.
Senate Republicans continue to break with Trump and Johnson on the issue because they believe they can notch a win early in Trump’s presidency by breaking the package into two chunks.
“I expressed vigorously, as did numerous other people that the best path to success is winning two major victories rather than putting all the eggs in one basket and risking — a very real risk — of it not getting the votes to pass,” Cruz said. “I strongly believe the path that makes sense is to take up two bills. Why? Because that unifies Republicans. We can get that passed. We could have a major victory early on, and then to move to extending the tax cuts.”
Cruz said there was “complete consensus” among the senators on a two-part solution. “Not a single senator disagreed.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., who told reporters she served as the moderator for the meeting, said Trump was listening intently to their suggestions but she believes two bills provide the most viable path to victory.
“The two-bill approach that [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune had liked, I think is generally the direction the Senate has been wanting to go to get that quick victory,” Capito said. “I think there’s a lot of discussion that’s going to go on. What can the House pass? What does the Speaker think? So he [Trump] heard from us and from our leader that a two-bill strategy is very much alive over here and something we’re still very interested in. So no decisions were made.”.
Capito seemed uncertain if there would be cohesion with Trump moving forward.
“I don’t know — we’ll see,” she said, adding, “I think, you know, the leaders will get together with the president and they’ll make those decisions.”
Republican Whip John Barrasso will be a key part of rounding up votes for whatever package is ultimately advanced and he also sees two bills as the right direction to go.
“We think there’s a lot of advantages to get an early win and to focus immediately on the border, on energy and on the strong military,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso said he was there when the Senate used this same fast-track budget tool to implement the Trump tax cuts in 2017. That took time, he said.
“There’s a lot of detail to be done with that, and so that’s going to take awhile” he said. “I think we can much more quickly deal with the border, energy, and military funding.”
Still, Trump continues to prefer the one-bill approach backed by Johnson, senators said.
“I think he’s still open to whatever can work. I think there seems to be movement from the House to do one, and so I think that’s the way he leans,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said.
Another option that was floated was holding a “horse race” which would see the House originating a sweeping proposal that includes tax policy as its base while the Senate originates a more narrowly tailored bill that just includes border and energy reform then see which package gains more momentum.
“I said, ‘Well, Mister President, you love a horse race, why don’t you set it up as a horse race? And then whatever works best is great,'” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. “HIs preference is one bill, but I think he’s open to it.”
Trump reiterated his preference for one bill when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, but said he could live with two.
“Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, he said. But if two is more certain [to pass], it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” he said.
Johnson said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week in April, but it remains to be seen if he can get fiscal conservatives in his conference, who have long opposed all-in-one bills like the one Johnson is proposing, on board.
The speaker pushed back on Wednesday about the one-bill approach being a kitchen sink approach.
“This is not an omnibus spending bill, but appropriation,” Johnson said. “This is reducing spending, which is an objective we talked about. I’ll keep reiterating this: that just because the debt limit is raised, to give stability the bond markets and to send a message around the world that we will pay the nation’s debt. We are doggedly determined to decrease the size of scope of government and to limit spending, cut spending so you can you’ll see both of those things happen simultaneously.”
Johnson also intends to handle the debt limit in the reconciliation bill — without Democratic support.
“That way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we again get to determine the details of that. If it runs through the regular order, regular process… then you have to have both parties negotiating. And we feel like we are in better stead to do it ourselves,” he said Tuesday.
But it remains to be seen whether Johnson can sell the fiscal conservatives in his conference on that idea. They nearly derailed the short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown last month after Trump demanded that it dealt with the debt ceiling.
Trump will meet with groups of House Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida this weekend.
“He’s bringing in big groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend three days in a row to meet with and talk with all of our team members about what’s ahead of us and the challenges and how we can accomplish all this together,” Johnson said, though the speaker is not expected to attend.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump will meet with Senate Republicans Wednesday to try to get lawmakers “on the same page” on how to advance some of his major policy initiatives after he takes office on Jan. 20.
Trump will meet with Senate leadership and the rank and file after paying his respects to former President Jimmy Carter, who lies in state in the Capitol before his funeral on Thursday.
The president-elect wants to deliver on campaign promises, but how to move them forward has divided congressional Republicans.
Trump has pitched one massive bill that would include several of Trump’s top priorities: Immigration reform and energy production, and extending the tax cuts passed during his first term and other spending cuts. He’s also suggested that the bill should raise the debt ceiling or eliminate it altogether.
With small majorities in each chamber and little to no support expected from Democrats, Republicans plan to push “reconciliation” — a fast-track process limited to spending and revenue legislation that needs only a majority rather than the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to pass legislation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson faces resistance to the one-bill approach from fiscal conservatives in his conference. And some Senate Republicans are advocating for two bills — one on border issues and a second to deal with fiscal policy.
One of the key objectives in Wednesday’s meeting will be “how we get on the same page with the House,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Tuesday.
Barrasso said the “goal is the same,” whether it’s done with one or two bills, but he said a two-part plan would allow Trump to deliver on some of his promises and allow more time to address tax policy that doesn’t expire until the end of the year.
“It was a suggestion by [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune — this was before Christmas — he said, ‘Let’s get an early win on the border,'” Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. “It was an issue in the election and it is a big issue for the American people and it is a big issue for national security, and we just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with a focus on that, on taking the handcuffs off of American energy as well as military strength, and then have the longer time to work on the financial component of this.
“These issues and the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until the end of the year to the level that these other issues have the higher urgency right now,” he said.
Trump reiterated his preference for one bill when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, but said he could live with two.
“Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, he said. But if two is more certain [to pass], it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” he said.
In the House, Johnson said he remains convinced that the one-bill strategy is the “best way to go,” but conversations with Thune are continuing.
“Yes, Leader Thune and I are on exactly the same page with regard to the objectives, and we’re determining right now the final sequence of the play call, so to speak,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “This is not some sort of, I feel like sometimes the media tries to make this an existential threat to the objectives or to what we’re doing with the legislation. It’s not that, this is two chambers deciding the best sequence of events, and we’ll get to a perfect alignment here in the next I think a couple of days.”
Johnson said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week in April, but it remains to be seen if he can get fiscal conservatives in his conference, who have long opposed all-in-one bills like the one Johnson is proposing, on board.
The speaker pushed back on Tuesday about the one-bill approach being a kitchen sink approach.
“This is not an omnibus spending bill, but appropriation,” Johnson said. “This is reducing spending, which is an objective we talked about. I’ll keep reiterating this: that just because the debt limit is raised, to give stability the bond markets and to send a message around the world that we will pay the nation’s debt. We are doggedly determined to decrease the size of scope of government and to limit spending, cut spending so you can you’ll see both of those things happen simultaneously.”
Johnson also intends to handle the debt limit in the reconciliation bill — without Democratic support.
“That way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we again get to determine the details of that. If it runs through the regular order, regular process… then you have to have both parties negotiating. And we feel like we are in better stead to do it ourselves,” he said Tuesday.
But it remains to be seen whether Johnson can sell the fiscal conservatives in his conference on that idea. They nearly derailed the short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown last month after Trump demanded that it dealt with the debt ceiling.
After his meeting with senators, Trump will meet with groups of House Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida this weekend.
“He’s bringing in big groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend three days in a row to meet with and talk with all of our team members about what’s ahead of us and the challenges and how we can accomplish all this together,” Johnson said, though the speaker is not expected to attend.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden believes he could have won the 2024 election if he had decided to stay in the race, he told USA Today in a wide-ranging interview.
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes,” he told the newspaper during a nearly hourlong interview on Sunday. He said his view was based on polling he’d seen.
The president’s comments come as he prepares to hand over the Oval Office to President-elect Donald Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Biden, the oldest sitting president at 82, withdrew from the race in July, as questions about his age and fitness for office surged following a disastrous CNN debate performance in June.
Biden also told USA Today on Sunday that he was unsure if he would have had the vigor to serve another four years in office.
“I don’t know. Who the hell knows?” Biden said, though he also added that when he first decided to run, he “also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old.”
Biden, who pardoned his son, Hunter, in December, said he has not decided whether to issue more preemptive pardons for potential Trump targets before leaving office in less than two weeks. When Biden and Trump met in the Oval Office after the election, Biden urged Trump not to follow through on his threats to target his opponents.
“I tried to make clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores,” Biden said, adding that Trump “listened” but did not say what he planned to do.
If there were to be more preemptive pardons, Biden said the decision would be based “a little bit” on whom Trump taps for top administration roles.
Possible names being considered for pardons included current and former officials such as retired Gen. Mark Milley, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Adam Schiff and Dr. Anthony Fauci, ABC News previously reported.
Trump frequently attacks Biden’s handling of the economy, including on Tuesday when he was asked about grocery prices during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. But, in private, Biden said Trump was complimentary of his some of his actions.
“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden said. “And he talked about — he thought I was leaving with a good record.”
Biden also reflected on his relationship with former President Jimmy Carter and his visit with Carter in Georgia in 2021 as he prepares to deliver the eulogy at Carter’s state funeral in Washington on Thursday.
“We talked,” Biden said. “He was not a big fan of my predecessor and successor. Well, he was never pointedly mean about it. But he was just very encouraging.”
Looking beyond his time in office, Biden said he doesn’t know yet where his presidential library will be, but ruled out his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He expressed his hope that it will end up in Delaware, but didn’t rule out the University of Pennsylvania either.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Friday’s sentencing in his New York criminal hush money case.
In a filing Wednesday, defense lawyers argued that a New York judge lacks the authority to sentence the president-elect until Trump exhausts his appeal based on presidential immunity.
“This Court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
The move came after a New York appeals court earlier Tuesday denied Trump’s request to delay the Jan. 10 sentencing.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, Trump has presented the court with an unprecedented situation of a former president — whose appointment of three justices cemented the court’s conservative majority — asking the country’s highest court to effectively toss his criminal conviction less than two weeks ahead of his inauguration.
Trump asked the Supreme Court to consider whether he is entitled to a stay of the proceedings during his appeal; whether presidential immunity prevents the use of evidence related to official acts; and whether a president-elect is entitled to the same immunity as a sitting president.
If adopted by the justices, Trump’s argument about immunity for a president-elect could expand the breadth of presidential authority, temporarily providing a private citizen with the absolute immunity reserved for a sitting president.
In a 6-3 decision last year, the Supreme Court broadened the limits of presidential immunity, finding that a former president is presumptively immune from criminal liability for any official acts and absolutely immune related to his core duties. The decision not only expanded the limits of presidential power but also upended the criminal cases faced by Trump.
Despite that favorable opinion, Trump faces uncertainty in convincing the justices to halt his sentencing. The Supreme Court does not typically take on random interlocutory appeals, even by a president-elect.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that the former president’s conviction relied on evidence of official acts, including his social media posts as president and testimony from his close White House advisers. The New York judge in the case, Juan Merchan, ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
“This appeal will ultimately result in the dismissal of the District Attorney’s politically motivated prosecution that was flawed from the very beginning, centered around the wrongful actions and false claims of a disgraced, disbarred serial-liar former attorney, violated President Trump’s due process rights, and had no merit,” Trump’s filing to the Supreme Court said.
(WASHINGTON) — World Wresting Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon has been getting high marks from her meetings with the Republican senators who could decide whether she’ll be the next secretary of education.
McMahon has run a large government organization before — she led the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019 in President-elect Donald Trump’s first term — but critics say she has little professional education experience beyond earning a teaching certificate from East Carolina University.
Since then, McMahon has primarily focused her time as a WWE executive, serving on the boards of colleges and state education agencies, and as chair of the board for think tank America First Policy Institute.
McMahon allies suggest her business experience will not only disrupt but also help reshape a federal agency that’s long been criticized by Republicans. As a confidant to the president-elect who co-chaired his transition, McMahon is uniquely positioned to carry out his promises to close the education department, restore power to parents, and inject choice in schools, they say.
“Linda McMahon is a win for parents and will root out radical ideology and get DEI out of America’s education system,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn wrote in a post on X after their meeting on Tuesday.
McMahon said she will carry out Trump’s platform if confirmed by the Senate. When asked if she would dismantle the Department of Education like Trump campaigned on in her new role, she told ABC News, “If I am secretary of education, I will certainly fall in with what the president’s policy is.” However, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to dissolve the department, which is highly unlikely with just a 53-47 Republican majority.
The slim majority may not be enough to create immediate changes at the department, but senators who talked to ABC News expect her to be the department’s next leader.
What are senators saying?
Ultimately, McMahon’s nomination rests with the 100 senators who will vote on whether to confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks. The Senate hasn’t yet formally set a date for a confirmation hearing for McMahon, but she told ABC News she is looking forward to it.
Like Trump’s most vulnerable Cabinet nominees, McMahon has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill in advise and consent meetings with everyone from newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune to freshman Republican Sen. Jim Banks. The GOP senators McMahon has met with have signaled a smooth process ahead.
“She’s awesome,” Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin told ABC News. “I’m looking forward to getting her over to be the secretary of education. She’s going to do the reform that needs to be done there.”
Mullin added, “I think she’s going to get through pretty easy. She’s really good.”
McMahon first met with Mullin and most of his colleagues on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP). This committee is expected to hold hearings for the nominees to lead the departments of Education, Labor and Health. Mullin explained that he and McMahon discussed reforming Washington, not outright dismantling agencies such as the DOE.
“I think all these federal agencies need to have a hard look at,” Mullin said. “The American people were very clear about that in the election, they gave President Trump and they gave the Republicans a mandate that they want the government to start working for them and not working for a party.”
McMahon and her team have been marching through the Senate halls for weeks. The meetings typically last between 30 to 45 minutes. After his meeting, HELP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he and McMahon “speak the same language” on education issues.
Tuberville, R-Ala., also stressed that McMahon is the right leader to execute Trump’s goal of closing the education department, arguing states already have their own departments of education so Washington doesn’t need one.
“I’ve seen the downgrade of our curriculum, of the discipline, you know, between the students and the parents and the teachers,” Tuberville said. “We need to be more of a family when it comes to education, instead of an individual agency. We need to make it more personal, and I think that she’ll have a great opportunity to do that. She knows a lot about it.”
Tuberville is one of five current or former GOP members on the HELP committee who told ABC News the closed-door meetings with McMahon have been going “great.” McMahon has not told ABC News if her meetings will include Democrats.
HELP Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., told ABC News she wants to see full vetting of Trump’s nominees including FBI background checks. Baldwin said she hopes McMahon is going to be a “good steward” of the education department and looks forward to reviewing her case to be its next secretary.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., struck a different tone condemning Trump’s nominees.
“[McMahon] definitely wouldn’t be my first choice or my second choice, or third choice, or fourth choice, or fifth choice, or sixth or seventh,” Fetterman said, then added, “But I forgot they won, so, they can pick these kinds of things.”
