Politics

(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.

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(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.

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(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.”

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(PALM BEACH, Fla.) — President-elect Donald Trump declared in a left-field proposal on Tuesday that his administration will rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” in his latest attack on Mexico.

“We’re going to change because we do most of the work there and it’s ours,” Trump said. “It’s appropriate, and Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country,” Trump said in a long, winding news conference.

Trump criticized Mexico for the increase of drugs into the U.S. and said that he would make Mexico and Canada pay through “substantial tariffs.”

“We want to get along with everybody. But you know … it takes two to tango,” he said.

The gulf has been identified by several names throughout its history, with “Golfo de Mexico” first appearing on maps in the mid-16th century when Spain occupied the areas now known as Cuba to the south, Mexico to the west and the the U.S. states that surround it to the North.

It’s the ninth-largest body of water in the world and covers some 600,000 square miles.

Trump’s promise to rename the gulf isn’t the first.

In 2012, then-Mississippi State Rep. Steve Holland proposed a bill that also would have renamed the gulf into the “Gulf of America,” however the Democrat backtracked and said he was joking and using it as a way to criticize his Republican colleagues over their anti-immigrant stances.

“They are trying to really discriminate against immigrants, which offends me severely,” Holland told ABC News in 2012. “I just thought if we’re gonna get into it, we might as well all get into it, it’s purely tongue and cheek.”

Stephen Colbert suggested the same name during the 2010 BP oil spill on his Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report.”

“We broke it, we bought it,” he joked.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House voted at 1 p.m. Tuesday on the Laken Riley Act, passing the bill as its first piece of legislation of the 119th Congress on a vote of 264 to 159.

Forty-eight Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

Reintroduced by Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, the legislation pins Laken Riley’s death on the Biden administration’s open-border policies and grants power to attorneys general to sue the federal government if they can show their states are being harmed over failure to implement national immigration policies. The measure also allows states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to citizens allegedly due to illegal immigration.

“If you polled the populace and the voters, they would tell you that that was the top of the list, and we have a lot to do there to fix it. It’s an absolute disaster because of what has happened over the last four years, and the Laken Riley Act is a big part of that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday ahead of the vote.

The bill was named after Riley, a nursing student who was murdered by illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra while jogging on campus at the University of Georgia. Ibarra was sentenced to life in prison for the murder.

“The only thing President Biden did after Laken’s tragic death was apologize for calling her murderer an illegal,” Johnson added. “That’s outrageous. We all know the real victim here was young Laken. There are real consequences to policy decisions. This one was deadly.”

The House previously passed the bill in March by a vote of 251-170, with 37 Democrats voting in favor. The bill was expected to pass again with bipartisan support.

“When we brought this bill forward last Congress, shockingly, amazingly to me, 170 House Democrats voted against that legislation,” Johnson said. “But as Democrats struggle with their identity now as a party post-election, we’ll find out if they’re still clinging into that open border policy and that mantra despite the American people roundly rejecting all that in November. We’ll see. This will be a telling vote.”

The measure now heads to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune teed up a procedural vote on the Laken Riley Act, which could occur as soon as this week. It will be one of the first legislative actions taken by the new Senate.

The bill will need 60 votes to advance through the upper chamber. Even with the Republicans’ new 53-vote majority, it could prove difficult to court the necessary Democratic support to advance it.

So far, only one Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, is reportedly co-sponsoring the bill, which is being led in the chamber by Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Budd, R-N.C. It is unclear whether there will be requisite Democratic support to clear the Senate.

The Senate, under Democratic leadership last session, never considered the act as a standalone bill. But it previously considered the Laken Riley Act when Senate Republicans forced a vote on it as an amendment to a sweeping government funding package in March. The amendment was considered as a government shutdown loomed, and changes to the bill would have likely forced a government shutdown.

No Democrats voted for it at the time, though it later earned the support of Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who lost reelection to Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House will vote at 1 p.m. Tuesday on the Laken Riley Act as its first piece of legislation of the 119th Congress.

Reintroduced by Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, the legislation pins Laken Riley’s death on the Biden administration’s open-border policies and grants power to attorneys general to sue the federal government if they can show their states are being harmed over failure to implement national immigration policies. The measure also allows states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to citizens allegedly due to illegal immigration.

“If you polled the populace and the voters, they would tell you that that was the top of the list, and we have a lot to do there to fix it. It’s an absolute disaster because of what has happened over the last four years, and the Laken Riley Act is a big part of that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday.

The bill was named after Riley, a nursing student who was murdered by illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra while jogging on campus at the University of Georgia. Ibarra was sentenced to life in prison for the murder.

“The only thing President Biden did after Laken’s tragic death was apologize for calling her murderer an illegal,” Johnson added. “That’s outrageous. We all know the real victim here was young Laken. There are real consequences to policy decisions. This one was deadly.”

The House previously passed the bill in March by a vote of 251-170, with 37 Democrats voting in favor. The bill is expected to pass again with bipartisan support.

“When we brought this bill forward last Congress, shockingly, amazingly to me, 170 House Democrats voted against that legislation,” Johnson said. “But as Democrats struggle with their identity now as a party post-election, we’ll find out if they’re still clinging into that open border policy and that mantra despite the American people roundly rejecting all that in November. We’ll see. This will be a telling vote.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune teed up a procedural vote on the Laken Riley Act in the Senate, which could occur as soon as this week. It will be one of the first legislative actions taken by the new Senate.

The bill will need 60 votes to advance through the upper chamber. Even with the Republicans’ new 53-vote majority, it could prove difficult to court the necessary Democratic support to advance it.

So far, only one Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, is reportedly co-sponsoring the bill, which is being led in the chamber by Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Budd, R-N.C. It is unclear whether there will be requisite Democratic support to clear the Senate.

The Senate, under Democratic leadership last session, never considered the act as a standalone bill. But it previously considered the Laken Riley Act when Senate Republicans forced a vote on it as an amendment to a sweeping government funding package in March. The amendment was considered as a government shutdown loomed, and changes to the bill would have likely forced a government shutdown.

No Democrats voted for it at the time, though it later earned the support of Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who lost reelection to Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy.

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(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump, speaking at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, blasted President Joe Biden’s final actions before leaving office.

Trump accused the outgoing administration of not providing a “smooth transition.”

Trump kicked off the presser by announcing a $20 billion investment in the U.S. from DAMAC Properties, a Middle East-based company. He said the investments will focus on building new data centers across the Midwest and Sun Belt.

He quickly shifted focus, however, to criticizing the Biden’s recent moves — including a ban all future offshore oil and natural gas drilling off America’s East and West coasts.

“We are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration, and they’re trying everything they can to make it more difficult,” Trump said.

On Biden’s oil drilling ban, Trump vowed: “I will reverse it immediately. It’ll be done immediately. And we will drill baby drill.”

The president-elect also claimed he would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

“What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate,” he said.

Trump also continued his public push for the U.S. to control the Panama Canal and Greenland. Asked by a reporter if he would commit to not using military force or economic coercion in his quest to acquire the territories, he flatly said no.

“No, I can assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security,” Trump said.

The president-elect went on to criticize former President Jimmy Carter, whose remains are being transported to Washington on Tuesday for a state funeral, for ceding control of the critical waterway to the Central American nation.

“Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion, more so maybe than the hostages,” Trump said, calling it a “very big mistake” on Carter’s part.

Trump, who last held a news conference in mid-December, is speaking to the press one day after his 2024 election victory was certified by Congress. The Monday ceremony, which marked a return to a peaceful transition, came exactly four years after a mob violently stormed the Capitol and disrupted the counting of President Biden’s electoral win.

Republicans are preparing for Trump to visit Washington on Wednesday, ABC News has learned. Currently, lawmakers are debating how best to fund Trump’s major policy initiatives once he is back in the White House.

This is Trump’s second news conference since becoming president-elect.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump, speaking at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, blasted President Joe Biden’s final actions before leaving office.

Trump accused the outgoing administration of not providing a “smooth transition.”

Trump kicked off the presser by announcing a $20 billion investment in the U.S. from DAMAC Properties, a Middle East-based company. He said the investments will focus on building new data centers across the Midwest and Sun Belt.

He quickly shifted focus, however, to criticizing the Biden’s recent moves — including a ban all future offshore oil and natural gas drilling off America’s East and West coasts.

“We are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration, and they’re trying everything they can to make it more difficult,” Trump said.

On Biden’s oil drilling ban, Trump vowed: “I will reverse it immediately. It’ll be done immediately. And we will drill baby drill.”

The president-elect also claimed he would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

“What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate,” he said.

Trump, who last held a news conference in mid-December, is speaking to the press one day after his 2024 election victory was certified by Congress. The Monday ceremony, which marked a return to a peaceful transition, came exactly four years after a mob violently stormed the Capitol and disrupted the counting of President Biden’s electoral win.

Republicans are preparing for Trump to visit Washington on Wednesday, ABC News has learned. Currently, lawmakers are debating how best to fund Trump’s major policy initiatives once he is back in the White House.

This is Trump’s second news conference since becoming president-elect.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(GREENLAND) — Donald Trump, Jr., son of President-elect Donald Trump, arrived in Greenland on Tuesday after emphasizing that the trip is just a personal one, indicating he is not meeting with government officials.

His trip comes as his father continues to float the possibility of the U.S. purchasing and taking over Greenland, an autonomous territory administered by Denmark. Trump had also suggested the possibility during his first administration.

Abut the same time as his eldest son landed, the president-elect, celebrating his son and his advisers’ trip to Greenland, floated a “deal” that he claims “must happen,” while not elaborating on what deal that is.

“Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland. The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen,” Trump wrote in a social media post Tuesday morning. “MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”

Danish officials have continued to emphasize that Greenland is not for sale.

Traveling on a Trump plane, Donald Trump Trump Jr. landed in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday morning, joined by incoming White House Director of the Presidential Personnel Office Sergio Gor, incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs James Blair, and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Trump Jr. posted photos of himself and others in Greenland on X on Tuesday, writing, “Greenland is beautiful!!!”

On Monday, Trump Jr. discussed the visit while emphasizing that it is not a political trip.

“No, I am not buying Greenland,” Donald Trump Jr. said on Monday on his podcast show on Rumble. “Funny enough, I’m actually going on a very long personal day trip to Greenland tomorrow [Tuesday].”

“So, I’m going as a tourist. But apparently someone leaked that, so it made all sorts of news, so I figured I’d address it here. No meetings with the government officials, none of that. But I do love Greenland,” Trump Jr. said.

A source familiar with the matter told ABC News that Donald Trump Jr. is visiting Greenland just for the day to shoot videos for a podcast and reiterated he’s not scheduled to meet with any government officials or political figures.

President-elect Trump, on Monday, mentioned his son’s visit in a post on his social media platform, and wrote, “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation.”

The president-elect had reintroduced his proposal to take over Greenland in December during his announcement of Ken Howery as United States Ambassador to Denmark.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity. Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the United States,” Trump wrote in the announcement.

On Christmas, Trump claimed in a social media post that Greenland needs the United States to be there for “national security purposes,” before adding, “and we will!”

During his first administration, Trump tried to buy the country; however, the United States ended up giving the island $12 million for economic development instead.

Officials from Greenland and Denmark have pushed back both explicitly and implicitly against Trump’s stated desire to purchase the territory.

In December, Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede wrote in a statement, “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale.”

Separately, The Independent reported on Tuesday that the king of Denmark has adjusted the Danish coat of arms to show symbols representing Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the two autonomous territories administered by Denmark.

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(WASHINGTON) — House and Senate lawmakers on Monday met for joint session to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who presided over the ceremony, read the results aloud.

Republicans cheered loudly as she announced Trump’s 312 electoral votes, while Democrats did the same for her 226 electoral votes.

The vote count occurred exactly four years after thousands of pro-Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily disrupting lawmakers affirming President Joe Biden’s 2020 win.

Monday’s events marked a return to the traditional ceremonial task that had long been a subdued affair until Trump’s challenge of his loss to Biden, though heightened security measures remain in place.

A winter snowstorm blanketed Washington but lawmakers forged ahead with the constitutionally mandated responsibility. The House floor was packed with lawmakers for the count, which was the final step in validating Electoral College results.

This year, President Biden emphasized the importance of America’s bedrock principle of a peaceful transfer of power but urged the country to never forget what happened in 2021.

“We should be proud that our democracy withstood this assault,” Biden wrote in an op-ed published late Sunday by the Washington Post. “And we should be glad we will not see such a shameful attack again this year.”

Harris, too, called it a “sacred obligation” — one she said she would “uphold guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution and my unwavering faith in the American people.”

As she made her way to the House chamber, Harris was asked what people should take away from Monday’s events.

“Democracy must be upheld by the people,” she said, raising one finger in the air.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who was just elected to a second term to lead the House with Trump’s assistance, and Vice President Harris called the chamber to order shortly after 1 p.m. ET after the procession of ballots and senators through the Capitol.

Harris opened the votes from each state and handed them to the House tellers, who read aloud the result.

Unlike in 2021, there were no objections to the results. Harris conceded to Trump the day after Election Day, and no Democrats have challenged the outcome as many Republican allies of Trump did in 2020.

Vice President-elect JD Vance, who was a senator from Ohio when he was tapped to be Trump’s running mate, was seated in the front row during the count.

Trump, ahead of the certification, posted on his social media platform that it will be “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY. MAGA!”

The president-elect will be sworn in on Monday, Jan. 20.

Trump has claimed his win is a “mandate” from the American people to implement his agenda for the economy, immigration and more.

He is returning to the White House with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate. The 119th Congress was sworn in last Friday.

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and John Parkinson contributed to this report.

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