Politics

(WASHINGTON) — On the heels of a federal agency’s new assessment that COVID-19 “mostly likely” emerged from a lab leak rather than natural human exposure, a special panel formed by House Republicans to investigate the origins of the virus will hold its first hearing on Wednesday.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, chaired by Ohio Republican Brad Wenstrup, will meet at 9 a.m. ET to tackle a question that’s plagued intelligence and health officials for the past three years: Where did the virus that has killed more than one million Americans and nearly seven million people worldwide come from?

The two prevailing theories are a leak from a laboratory in China, which the Chinese government vehemently disputes, or humans being exposed to an infected animal.

U.S. agencies have said they remain “divided” on the matter and with no “smoking gun” and limited access to raw data, including via cooperation from China, discussion of the science has played out in a haze of circumstantial evidence.

Witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing will include Dr. Robert Redfield, the Trump-era director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Paul Auwaerter, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“The American people deserve real answers after years of suffering through the Coronavirus pandemic and related government policies,” Wenstrup said in a statement. “This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to ‘predict, prepare, protect, or prevent’ it from happening again.”

Jamie Metzl, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and former national security official in the Clinton administration, will also appear before the panel. According to a copy of his prepared testimony reviewed by ABC News, Metzl will say that “understanding how this pandemic began is essential to prioritizing our response” going forward and will help gear future oversight and attention to new threats.

“If, for example, we knew for certain the pandemic stems from a lab incident in Wuhan [in China], I can assure you that efforts to regulate the rapid proliferation of high-containment, and all too often high-risk, virology labs across the globe would get a massive boost,” Metzl plans to say. “Critically important biosafety efforts would finally get the high-level national and international attention they deserve.”

“Understanding how this crisis began and determining how we can do better is and must be the ultimate bipartisan and nonpartisan issue,” Metzl will say while urging pressure on and “demanding accountability from” Beijing.

“Doing so is not a hostile act, but the opposite,” Metzl will say. “Supporting and joining a full and unfettered investigation has always been the best way for the Chinese government to demonstrate its commitment to understanding what went wrong.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian previously said in a statement, “Origins tracing is a matter of science. China always supports and will continue to participate in the science-based origins study.”

According to reporting in The Wall Street Journal last week, the U.S. Energy Department, which oversees a network of labs, said it now believes COVID-19 “most likely” was the result of a leak from a lab — an assessment in line with that of the FBI.

“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” FBI Director Chris Wray said in response to the Energy Department’s evaluation, which the Journal wrote was made with “low confidence,” citing people who read the report.

Four other U.S. agencies, however, believe the virus was a result of natural transmission and that it jumped from animals to humans at a wet market. Two other agencies are undecided as to how it started.

“There’s just no consensus across the government. The work continues,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters last week.

While no firm conclusion has been made as to where exactly the virus originated, none of the findings so far indicate it was leaked intentionally.

Experts have said that, regardless of the number of hearings, successful investigation of COVID-19’s origins will almost certainly require fuller cooperation from the Chinese government. Looking into how outbreaks began takes extensive, on-the-ground scientific work.

Congressional Republicans have set their sights on investigating the origins of the virus, with House Republicans launching a probe not long after taking back majority control of the chamber.

A group of GOP senators are also now demanding to see the individual assessments on COVID-19 origins from each of the U.S. agencies.

“Congress should be able to review the independent evaluations without filters, ambiguity or interpretations of the intelligence,” a group of Republican senators, led by Kansas’ Roger Marshall, wrote in a letter sent Monday to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, who is set to separately appear this week before members of Congress’ intelligence committees.

“The ODNI has failed to be transparent with Congress and the American people by standardizing agency conclusions and thereby ignoring the breadth of scientific and other expertise in each agency,” the senators wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — Intelligence chiefs from across the U.S. government face a grilling Wednesday from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, with China likely a main focus.

The annual “Worldwide Threats” hearing features the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA director William Burns, FBI director Christopher Wray and Director of the National Security Agency Gen. Paul Nakasone, among others.

In recent weeks, Intelligence Committee leaders have gotten briefed by officials on a multitude of issues, including the spy balloon the United States shot down off the coast of South Carolina and classified documents found at the homes and offices of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The balloon was a People’s Republic of China asset, according to U.S. officials.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, ranking member on the committee, said in a letter sent to the Department of Defense on Feb. 8 that lawmakers needed more answers about how officials let the Chinese spy balloon travel over the U.S.

“There are a number of outstanding questions about what happened and why the Administration allowed an adversarial intelligence platform to move from Alaska to the Carolinas uninterrupted,” Sen. Roger Wicker and Rubio wrote.

Wicker is a ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We also lack a clear understanding of our senior national security leaders’ response to the Chinese surveillance balloon’s trajectory from first detection to January 28, when the Commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD Gen. Glen VanHerck notified his chain of command of the balloon, and until February 1, when President Biden finally ordered the Department to shoot down the balloon over water,” the lawmakers wrote.

China is also expected to take center stage on a variety of other fronts.

On Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, unveiled a bill that would empower the president to ban TikTok and maybe other Chinese technology in the United States — a measure with White House and bipartisan congressional support.

Wray will also face questions on China, after he said in an interview with Fox News that the COVID-19 pandemic “most likely” originated from a potential lab incident in Wuhan, China, and faulted the Chinese government for not acting quickly enough to prevent spread of the disease.

An FBI spokesperson, when asked about the hearing, said Wray will face a number of topics, but declined to share anything specific about what the focus would be.

“The hearing will have multiple speakers and cover a variety of topics,” FBI spokesperson Christina Pullen told ABC News in an e-mail.

GOP senators on Monday sent a letter to Haines demanding they receive an intelligence briefing on the origins of COVID-19.

“We write to request that you immediately deliver to Congress each IC assessment used and relied upon by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for its consensus publications,” Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine and Roger Marshall of Kansas wrote.

“Congress should be able to review the independent evaluations without filters, ambiguity or interpretations of the intelligence. There is clear bipartisan support in Congress to make these assessments available immediately in full as evidenced by the unanimous March 1, 2023 Senate passage of the COVID-19 Origin Act to declassify information related to the origin of COVID-19,” they said.

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(WASHINGTON) — According to law, former President Donald Trump can be elected president if indicted — or even convicted — in any of the state and federal investigations he is currently facing, experts tell ABC News. But there are practical reasons that could make it a challenge, experts say.

Trump said over the weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that he would “absolutely” stay in the race for president even if he were to be criminally indicted.

“I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” Trump told reporters ahead of his speech on Saturday. “Probably it will enhance my numbers.”

Special counsel Jack Smith is currently investigating Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as his handling of classified material after he left office. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have been investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. And in New York, the attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney have been probing Trump’s personal finances and those of his namesake real estate company.

In all cases, Trump has denied wrongdoing and has characterized the probes as part of a “witch hunt” against him.

The U.S. Constitution does not list the absence of a criminal record as a qualification for the presidency. It says only that natural born citizens who are at least 35 years old and have been a resident of the U.S. for 14 years can run for president.

Constitutional experts also told ABC News that previous Supreme Court rulings hold that Congress cannot add qualifications to the office of the president. In addition, a state cannot prohibit indicted or convicted felons from running for federal office.

“Some people are surprised to learn that there’s no constitutional bar on a felon running for president, but there’s no such bar,” said Kate Shaw, ABC News legal analyst and professor at Cardozo School of Law.

“Because of the 22nd Amendment, the individual can’t have been twice elected president previously,” Shaw said. “But there’s nothing in the Constitution disqualifying individuals convicted of crimes from running for or serving as president.”

Shaw said that while incarceration “would presumably make campaigning difficult if not impossible,” the impediment would be a “practical problem, not a legal one.”

James Sampler, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University, told ABC News that the Constitution sets the minimal requirements, but leaves the rest up to the voters.

“It depends on the wisdom of the people to determine that an individual is not fit for office,” Sampler said. “So the most fundamental obstacle that President Trump has in seeking office in 2024 is the obstacle that anyone has, but he has it in a different and more pronounced way — which is proving to the voters that the individual deserves the office.”

If Trump were to be indicted or convicted and prevented by law from traveling out of state, Sampler said, that would impose a practical limitation on his ability to travel the country and campaign — but it wouldn’t prohibit him from running.

Sampler also pointed out an irony in the electoral system, in which many states bar convicted felons from voting. According to the Sentencing Project advocacy group, 48 states have laws that ban people with felony convictions from voting.

“It is a sad day for a country that ostensibly values democratic participation and equality, that individuals who’ve been convicted of a felony can be prohibited from participating even as voters in our democracy, but a president convicted of a felony is still allowed,” he said.

Jessica Levinson, a professor of election law at Loyola Law School, agreed.

“You could conceivably have a situation where the president of the United States is not disqualified from being president … but can’t vote for himself,” Levinson told ABC News.

“The interesting thing about the qualifications like you have to be born here, you have to live here for a certain amount of time … all of that is kind of getting at the idea that we want you to be loyal to our country,” Levinson said. “But you could conceivably be convicted of crimes against our country, and still be able to serve as president.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch privately bashed then-President Donald Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, following the 2020 election, according to court records made public on Tuesday as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

Murdoch wrote that Trump and Giuliani were “both increasingly mad” — using the British expression for “crazy” — in an email whose contents were read during a deposition taken as part of the lawsuit.

The voting machine company has filed court documents containing private communications from Fox News personnel appearing to cast doubt on claims that Dominion’s voting machines had somehow rigged the presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor.

Tuesday’s newly unveiled records included additional correspondence between Fox network executives and on-air hosts regarding Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch wrote of Trump, according to a transcript of the deposition. “Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls!”

Murdoch also acknowledged in a Jan. 21, 2021, email to a Fox News executive that “maybe Sean and Laura went too far,” referring to Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, two primetime hosts who echoed Trump’s claims of election fraud. The email was sent in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump, but what did he tell his viewers?” Murdoch wrote.

The thousands of pages of new documents provide additional evidence that network leaders privately acknowledged that Biden had won the election despite what Fox News’ on-air personalities told their viewers.

In response to the documents, Fox News officials said that Dominion was misleading the public by not providing the full context behind some of the quotes. In one example, Hannity’s statement about election fraud that he “did not believe it for one second,” which was included in an early Dominion filing, was only a partial quote and did not include that he said that he “waited for the proof.”

“Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion has been caught red-handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press,” Fox News officials said in a statement. “We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”

Other documents released Tuesday show one of Fox’s biggest stars, Tucker Carlson, privately saying that he hated Trump “passionately.”

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson privately wrote on Jan. 4, 2021, according to the documents. “I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” he said.

Separately, in a group chat between Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham, the Fox News hosts vented privately about the network, its declining ratings, and their fellow employees in mid-November, the records show.

“We are all officially working for an organization that hates us,” Ingraham wrote on Nov. 16, 2020, according to the documents. “My anger at the news channel is pronounced,” she said later.

“I’m disgusted at this point,” Hannity said later in the conversation, per the records.

The new material also documents backlash to Fox News’ decision to call Arizona for Biden before other networks had done so. After Fox News made the call, Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, urged executives to “back off AZ” and retract the call.

“The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg … the better we are. In my opinion,” Baier wrote on Nov. 5.

Murdoch also said during his deposition as part of the lawsuit that he “never” believed the theory that the voting company was involved in an effort to “delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump.”

“I never believed it,” he said during his deposition on Jan. 19, 2023, according to a more complete transcript that was released as part of the newer documents.

But elsewhere in the deposition, Murdoch acknowledged Trump’s importance, saying “nobody wants Trump as an enemy.”

When asked why, Murdoch said “because he had a great following, big.”

“Seventy-five million people voted for him,” Murdoch said.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is standing by his decision to grant Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to the raw security footage from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, telling reporters on Tuesday night that he has no regrets but repeatedly refusing to answer questions about what Carlson said on his show.

“Each person can come up with their own conclusion,” McCarthy said about what Carlson aired Monday night, which quickly drew rebuke from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, top Democrats and the U.S. Capitol Police chief, among others.

ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked McCarthy whether he had any concerns about what Carlson presented, pointing to an internal memo from Chief Tom Manger to Capitol Police officers where Manger described Carlson’s coverage as “cherry picked,” “misleading” and “offensive.”

“I didn’t see what was aired,” McCarthy said, insisting that he gave Carlson — and no other media outlet — access to the tapes for the purpose of “transparency.”

Carlson on Monday aired what he claimed to be new surveillance videos from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in an effort to minimize the rioting as a peaceful gathering and to discredit the work of the House Jan. 6 committee and federal investigators.

In contrast to Carlson’s claims now, in the days right after Jan. 6, McCarthy said, “Let me be clear, last week’s violent attack on the Capitol was undemocratic, un-American, and criminal.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland, asked on Tuesday about Carlson’s program, said, “I think it’s very clear what happened on Jan. 6.”

Carlson and some House Republicans had been hyping the report up for weeks, but after viewing 40,000 hours of video given to him by McCarthy, the host played on repeat only select scenes of the security camera footage.

Carlson defended “protesters” on Jan. 6, claiming they were “right” to “believe that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted.” Notably, Carlson’s comments come on the heels of new court filings by Dominion Voting Systems in their lawsuit against Fox News that showed in mid-November 2020, Carlson texted one of his producers that “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election.

Despite what he’s said in private, Carlson said on Monday that “taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection,” though he also showed familiar footage of rioters violently breaking into the Capitol.

Reporters on Tuesday asked if McCarthy believed the Jan. 6 riot was an insurrection, but McCarthy avoided the question entirely.

He said he “worked with Capitol police” on what video would be provided to Carlson, but Chief Manger said in his memo that Fox News never reached out to the Capitol Police for context about what clips they aired.

A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the memo.

On his way to the House floor, McCarthy told ABC News “no” when asked if he had heard any concerns from any Capitol Police officers or any officers on his detail about what was show on Carlson’s show.

ABC News’ Luke Barr and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.

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(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) — Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declined on Tuesday to close the door on a third-party presidential bid in 2024 after he said Sunday that he would not seek the Republican nomination.

Hogan clarified in an exclusive interview with ABC News that an independent presidential campaign is not something he’s “actively” mulling, but he would not definitively say he would not wage one depending on who the Democratic and Republican nominees are.

“I have ruled out seeking the Republican nomination. And I haven’t ruled that out [running as an independent]. But it’s not something I’m really working toward or thinking about,” Hogan said, adding that “the question keeps popping up more and more.”

A popular Republican governor in a blue state, Hogan was term-limited out of office earlier this year and had been considering a campaign as an anti-Donald Trump candidate in the 2024 Republican primary.

However, he said over the weekend that he would not contribute to a crowded nominating field in which the former president could emerge as the winner with just a plurality of support, as Trump did in 2016 again Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from Donald Trump. There are several competent Republican leaders who have the potential to step up and lead. But the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination,” Hogan said in a statement on Sunday.

Even without him in the race, though, Hogan conceded on Tuesday that any conservative other than Trump — who has criticized Hogan as a RINO, or Republican in name only — or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the only other potential candidate polling in double digits, faces an uphill climb in clinching the GOP nomination.

The potential crowd is still anticipated to include multiple notable lawmakers, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley already running alongside Trump, and there’s no significant consolidation in sight.

“We got to find a candidate that can do that. And I don’t know who that is at this point,” Hogan said of the path for a candidate other than Trump and DeSantis to be successful. “But there can only be one.”

“Trump has to stumble, which is hard. And he’s been diminishing. But still, he’s the 800-pound gorilla. And then if he doesn’t make it, it goes to DeSantis, and then DeSantis has to stumble,” Hogan said. “And then you have to consolidate everyone else and overcome that.”

Yet if Trump does win the GOP primary, Hogan said the centrist political group No Labels, of which he is an honorary co-chair, could cobble together a third-party ticket.

Hogan said the group has “raised about $50 million to get access in all 50 states as kind of an insurance policy” for an “in case of ’emergency break glass'” scenario, referencing a general election matchup between Trump and President Joe Biden, who has said he will run in 2024 as well.

“I mean, they’re not trying to start a third party. They’re not committed to doing that. But in case the country is burning down, you may have to have an alternative,” he said.

Hogan insisted such a ticket would be a last-case scenario but could be sparked by a general election matchup between Trump and Biden — two politicians with consistently tepid approval ratings nationally who are nonetheless still seen by many as the likeliest nominees for each of their parties.

“I think that would be the trigger. I think that’s what they’re talking about. I’m not sure we’re gonna get to that point. I don’t know that. Frankly, I’m hopeful that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. And I’m going to work toward that goal. And I’m assuming Biden may be the nominee, but who knows? I mean, he’s 80 years old. And we got a long ways to go,” Hogan said.

As for his own future, Hogan appeared open — among other possibilities — to having his name on such a ticket should one be launched.

“I’m not sure if it’s feasible. And it’s also just not something I’m working toward,” he said. “But, I mean, look, if you got to an election when the nominees were Biden and Trump and 70% of America didn’t want that, you wouldn’t rule it out, right?”

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(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Florida Republicans filed legislation to impose a six-week abortion ban on Tuesday, during the first moments of the state Legislature’s 2023 session — a bill that Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he would sign should it be sent to his desk.

“We’re for pro-life. I urge the legislature to work, produce good stuff, and we will sign,” DeSantis said during a February briefing when asked if he would approve a so-called heartbeat bill that would ban abortions after six weeks.

The state currently prohibits almost all abortions after 15 weeks, restrictions that were put in place in July as the state appealed after a judge’s ruling that the law violated the state’s constitution.

The new bill would prohibit “physicians from knowingly performing or inducing a termination of pregnancy after the gestational age of the fetus is determined to be more than 6 weeks, rather than 15 weeks,” according to its text, with exceptions for rape and incest or if needed to save the life of the mother — under specific conditions.

For example, two doctors, if available, would have to certify in writing that an abortion is needed to prevent the pregnant woman’s death or “avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

In the case of a fatal fetal abnormality as attested to two by two physicians, the pregnancy could not be in the third trimester.

For victims of rape and incest, the pregnancy can’t be further than 15 weeks along and the woman has to provide a police report, restraining order, court order or other such documentation.

A six-week abortion ban would bar the procedure before many people identify their pregnancies. Pregnancies are counted based on the first day of a person’s last menstrual period, so by the time they miss their next period and take a test, they can already be four weeks in. And people with irregular cycles, or those uncertain of their cycle dates, might not recognize a missed period that quickly — taking them to six weeks or beyond before they know they’re pregnant.

The bill also prohibits any party other than a physician from inducing a termination of pregnancy, requires that medications intended for use in an abortion be dispensed in person by a physician and prohibits the dispensing of such medication through the U.S. Postal Service or any other courier or shipping service.

The proposal was introduced on the first day of the state’s 60-day legislative session by freshman state Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican who, when she was in the House last session, introduced Florida’s current 15-week ban. State Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka on Tuesday also filed a six-week abortion ban in her chamber.

“I believe that we have a unique opportunity in the fact that the Supreme Court is considering 15 weeks right now, and this would allow Florida to save as many babies as possible as soon as possible after that decision is made,” Grall said during a hearing in January 2022.

The White House quickly responded to the legislation on Tuesday, saying it would have a “devastating impact on women’s health.”

“Republican state legislators in Florida proposed today a bill that would ban abortion before many women know if they are even pregnant, virtually eliminating a woman’s right to make health care decisions about her own body,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing on Tuesday.

She said that the ban would also impact women in southern states who rely on Florida as an “option to access care.”

“Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, the president and the vice president believe women should be able to make health care decisions with their own doctors and families, free from political interference. Period,” Jean-Pierre said. “They are committed to protecting access to reproductive care and continuing to call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade [the overruled Supreme Court abortion decision].”

The Florida bill was filed Tuesday just ahead of DeSantis’ State of the State address, though he did not refer to or comment on it during his speech.

The rising-star Republican who has visited various parts of the country — including Iowa, the first presidential nominating state, this week — is expected to energize the state’s GOP majority this session with conservative policy even as he’s quelled any discussion about his own White House ambitions.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie, Alexandra Hutzler and Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Sarah Huckabee Sanders touted her endorsement from former President Donald Trump to help win the Arkansas governor’s mansion, but although Trump reportedly has asked her to return the favor for his 2024 White House bid, Sanders so far has kept publicly silent.

With his reelection bid underway, Trump asked Sanders for her endorsement in a phone call “weeks ago,” according to the New York Times. The Times reported Sanders replied she wouldn’t yet do so and hasn’t weighed in publicly since.

Trump, for his part, denied asking for her endorsement on Sunday on his Truth Social media platform, saying he never asked Sanders for her endorsement, while taking credit for her political success.

“I give endorsements, I don’t generally ask for them,” Trump posted. “With that being said, nobody has done more for her than I have, with the possible exception of her great father, Mike.”

Trump’s spokesperson and Sanders’ office had not responded to ABC News’ requests for comment as of Tuesday afternoon.

Sanders, the longest-serving White House press secretary under Trump, followed in the footsteps of her father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, to become the first father-daughter governor duo in the nation.

But it was serving in Trump’s White House that propelled Sanders to become a household name herself.

Some of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, such as Steve Bannon, are questioning why Trump hadn’t seen more endorsements. Bannon and Sanders worked together in Trump’s White House until he was removed from his position as chief strategist in Aug. 2017.

“Sarah … are you listening?” he said on his podcast “The War Room.”

In an interview in January on “Fox News Sunday,” Sanders declined the opportunity to endorse Trump and said her focus was on serving Arkansas, not 2024.

“My focus right now has been on 2022, winning the election in November, preparing through transition and getting ready to take office, as I did this past week. I love the president. I have a great relationship with him. I know our country will be infinitely better off if he was in office right now instead of Joe Biden,” Sanders said. “My focus isn’t on 2024.”

The Arkansas state legislature on Tuesday is expected to pass Sanders’ landmark legislation, the LEARNS Act, which imitates elements of Florida’s education policy enacted under Gov. Ron DeSantis — thought to be Trump’s closest competitor in 2024. Sanders also tapped DeSantis’ education secretary Jacob Oliva to bring Florida’s plan to Arkansas as it’s unclear if she could be waiting for another candidate to endorse.

According to an Axios report on Tuesday, Sanders is among four women Trump is currently considering as vice presidential pick. The others include South Dakota Kristi Noem, Gov. former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the most high-profile of Trump’s announced challengers, and Kari Lake, who has not conceded the race for Arizona governor.

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(WASHINGTON) — A bipartisan group of senior senators on Tuesday unveiled plans to introduce a bill they hope will effectively ban TikTok — as well as future apps that they say might jeopardize U.S. national security — joining a growing chorus of lawmakers seeking a nationwide ban of the popular social media platform used by some 100 million Americans, including politicians, every day.

The legislation, authored by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner and No. 2 Senate Republican John Thune, would give new powers to the Commerce Department to scrutinize foreign technology from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba, including applications like TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

The new powers would include the ability to disband any company deemed a national security threat. Warner also cited the concerns voiced by many lawmakers that the video-sharing app could be used as a propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party.

“The Restrict Act is more than about TikTok and will give us that comprehensive approach,” Warner said in unveiling the bill.

“Our legislation says that any foreign communications technology that poses a national security risk — and one of the key things about or bill as well says that it’s incumbent upon the intelligence community to declassify as much information as possible to make that case — that we give the commerce secretary the tools to mitigate to divest up to and including banning these sort of technologies,” he told ABC News.

The Biden administration at the end of February gave federal agencies 30 days to wipe TikTok from all federal government systems and devices, per a congressional ban enacted with sweeping bipartisan support in December.

Many agencies, including the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security, had already enacted bans. Canada and the European Union have taken similar steps. India has long banned the app.

Warner said he and Thune worked very closely with the White House on the legislation and as they unveiled it, the White House put out a statement supporting the measure and urging Congress to send it to President Joe Biden to sign.

“This legislation would empower the United States government to prevent certain foreign governments from exploiting technology services operating in the United States in a way that poses risks to Americans’ sensitive data and our national security,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “We look forward to continue working with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to act quickly to send it to the President’s desk.”

All of this is coming at a time of growing strife between the two superpowers particularly in the wake of the China spy balloon that entered U.S. airspace and was shot down on the orders of President Biden and threats that the Asian nation might arm Russia in its war against Ukraine, among numerous examples of conflict.

“The Chinese Communist Party has proven over the last few years that is willing to lie about just about everything. That likely won’t end with TikTok, which is why it’s important to establish a holistic and methodical approach to the challenges that are posed by technology from foreign adversaries. Safe to assume that the CCP is willing to lie about its spy balloon and cover up the origins of the worst pandemic than 100 years, they’ll lie about using Tiktok to spy on American citizens,” Thune told reporters in a news conference Tuesday.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a co-sponor of the bill, said, “We have to recognize that we face geopolitical adversaries that are serious and threaten our security, our prosperity, and even the peace and freedom that we enjoy.”

Noting criticism that the bill would infringe on the privacy of Americans, Romney said, “One thing a lot worse than having our government infringe on our privacy is having the Chinese Communist Party infringe on our privacy and be able to track us and follow us. And whether it’s with social media or other technologies, communication technologies or hardware that they devise over the coming years, we have to make sure that we have the resources in place and the authorities in place to stop those things before they endanger us.”

TikTok has consistently denied that its China-based parent company is using the app to spy on Americans. And following approval in the House Foreign Affairs Committee of a bipartisan bill that would empower President Biden to ban TikTok, the company fired back, “A US ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide. We’re disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free-speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok.”

Citing past Congressional efforts to ban the federal government use of products from foreign companies deemed a threat to U.S. national security, like Russian based anti-malware company Kaspersky Lab, and China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE, Warner said he wants to move beyond the current “whack-a-mole approach that we’ve had with the threats of foreign technology.” Instead, the Virginia Democrat and former tech entrepreneur said it’s time to view national security threats through a modern day lens and not “the old definition…which were planes, tanks, and guns.” The senator said the new field of confrontation is “morphing into who controls and wins the technology battle.”

The Warner-Thune bill, also sponsored by five Democrats and five Republicans, might also withstand court scrutiny with specific legislation empowering a new federal agency within the Commerce Department. Cold War-era laws designed to protect entertainment industries from any retaliation by the president, and later expanded to include First Amendment concerns, were used by TikTok in a suit during the Trump administration which sought to restrict the social media behemoth.

Not all lawmakers are on board with such a ban, either.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC News Live Tuesday, “I think that we have to get all of the evidence first, as opposed to the bill that was produced in the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, where it basically said that there should be a ban on TikTok almost immediately. I believe that the bill as written, you know, basically ties the Biden administration’s hands,” who pointed to a department within the Treasury Department that analyzes foreign investments in the U.S.

“I think that as opposed to rushing into it, there’s ways that we could make sure that we protect and should sanctions be needed, then the administration has the power to do it as opposed to having mandatory sanctions now, which I think would be–could cause more headaches than others because it could cause headaches with our allies.”

ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and several other New York Republicans are pushing to stop embattled GOP colleague George Santos from potentially making money from his fame if he is indicted or convicted of certain crimes, according to legislation introduced Tuesday.

It’s a move that D’Esposito and the others, who have worked to distance themselves from their fellow freshman lawmaker, say is about holding members of Congress accountable — though Santos was “an inspiration” for their proposal.

“No one should be able to profit off lying to the American people and swindling their way into the people’s house,” D’Esposito, who introduced the legislation, said at a Tuesday press conference.

The “No Fortune for Fraud Act” would prevent House members “from receiving compensation for biographies, media appearances, or expressive or creative works” if they have been convicted of financial offenses or campaign finance fraud, according to the bill’s text.

A separate resolution, the “No Fame for Fraud Resolution,” offers a similar proposal that would alter the House rules to prohibit members from being paid for their celebrity status if they are indicted for finance or fraud crimes.

“If you’re defrauding the American people, if you’re making a mockery out of the people’s house or violating campaign finance law, you should not be able to turn it into a payday,” D’Esposito said at the press conference, where he introduced the two pieces of legislation.

The legislation is co-sponsored by New York freshmen Republicans Reps. Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams.

“He’s trying to use his new infamy to enrich himself, to further what he set out to do three years ago, to use his persona as a public figure to enrich himself,” LaLota argued to reporters on Tuesday. “And we New York Republicans can smell a scam from a mile away. And George Santos’ scam absolutely stinks.”

D’Esposito said that the group of lawmakers has had conversations with GOP leadership about their legislation and are “confident” that it will make it to the House floor for consideration.

While Santos’ name isn’t specifically mentioned in the text or resolution, a spokesperson for D’Esposito told ABC News that “Santos was certainly an inspiration for it.”

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Santos said, “It is unfortunate that after two years of abysmal policies that been put forth by House Democrats and the Biden Administration that there is a legislative focus on a specific Member of Congress. As a legislative body, our top priorities should be tackling high inflation as well as reducing high levels of crime.”

D’Esposito took another view. He said Tuesday that he could both fight for his district while also pushing for accountability for controversial members like Santos.

“I gave my word to the people of the 4th Congressional District back in Nassau County that I would fight for them, for their interests and for community values. Now as members of Congress, we’re going to continue to do that. But we’re going to hold those accountable that have violated the trust of not only the American people, but the people of the great state of New York,” he said.

Santos, who has admitted lying about parts of his biography while being challenged about other parts of his life, such as how his mother died, faces multiple probes from prosecutors in New York as well as Congress, amid calls for his resignation.

He has denied criminal wrongdoing and insisted he will continue to serve his constituents.

The House Ethics Committee announced Thursday that it had voted to establish an “Investigative Subcommittee” into Santos to look into numerous allegations against him, including about his campaign finances.

Santos previously told ABC News he would “100%” comply with the Ethics Committee’s investigation.

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