(WASHINGTON) — As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepare to take the debate stage in Atlanta on Thursday night, voters across the key swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania spoke with ABC News about how they’re feeling during an election where they feel unhappy with both major candidates – and what they hope to hear on the debate stage.
“I’m at a point where I just can’t really, you know, have a decision because of what my choices are. You know, I’m gonna vote, but I’m just not comfortable with who I’m voting for,” Barbara Chatman told ABC News from Headmaster’s Barbershop in Atlanta. “”One, he’s just been convicted, I feel uncomfortable about that. The other one they’re saying he’s too old – I feel uncomfortable about that. I feel like we should have someone new that’s running.”
It’s a feeling Laura Ruesch, who lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, shares.
“I have never felt worse about the options for presidential candidates this year. I really feel like it’s not a valid choice; I’m very upset at both parties for the candidates that they’ve put forward,” she told ABC News.
Chatman and Ruesch are what some analysts call “double-haters” – voters who feel uneasy about both Biden and Trump. A poll published Thursday from 538 and Ipsos found 21% of likely voters expressing that view.
ABC News interviewed dozens of voters across the four battleground states – where Biden beat Trump by around only 267,000 votes in total in 2020. And while some say they lean toward a candidate – with some apprehensions – many are yet to decide who they’ll vote for and are looking to the debate to help make up their minds.
“We have two people who have been there before…. [in Pennsylvania,] everybody’s across the board and they don’t feel strongly one way or another. So the debate is going to do a lot for them to, I think, lean one way or another,” Jerry Longo, a second-generation owner of Jerry’s For All Seasons, a garden center in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, told ABC News.
Stan Kowalski, a construction worker in Scranton, said that he’s concerned that Trump is headed into the debate while facing legal battles and verdicts. “I wish there wasn’t so much stuff hanging over his back going into this, but… this courtroom stuff isn’t any picnic by no means for anybody, but, I think he’s holding together pretty good, and we’ll see what happens.”
And on what concerns him about Biden, Kowalski said his age, as well as border and economic issues that Biden has grappled with.
Age is top of mind for many of the voters across all four states.
In Waukesha, Wisconsin, college student Lucas Franke says he is concerned about the ages of the two candidates.
“With candidates as old as they are, any kind of medical anything, a heart problem, a stroke for either of them could be debilitating,” Franke told ABC News.
At Cozy Nook Farm, west of Waukesha, dairy farmer Tom Oberhaus is also concerned.
“I am approaching that age myself. I don’t know if there’s anybody that 70 years old and older that says they’re as sharp and shrewd as they were when they were 50. That’s just the way life is,” he told ABC News from his farm. “Why don’t we want our sharpest people as our president is our leader of our country?”
Like many of the voters ABC News talked to, Oberhaus – who has run the farm with his wife since 1985 – agonizes over the economy.
“The rampant inflation that we’re in right now is critical. I mean, it’s it’s eating us alive. We can’t, you know, as farmers, we don’t get to set our prices and and we’re getting beat up by inflation,” he told ABC News.
And he’s not the only one.
In Scranton, Pennsylvania, Jennifer Merceau said her husband owns a masonry business, and she wants to see the economy “back to where it was.”
“Self-employed people are really struggling in this economy to make sure their customers are taken care of,” Merceau told ABC News. “I’d like to see what they’re going to do for small businesses in this country. I think that small business owners work really hard, and they’re good to their customers. And I’d like to see what can be done for them, which will in turn stimulate our economy even more,” she said of what she hopes the candidates are asked about at the debate, in addition to the border and military.
“We’re all just struggling out here, you know, we work, we all work full time, and, you know, we’re trying to take care of our kids. We need help with childcare. Like, it’s. It’s a struggle out here,” Cierra Waterhouse, also from Scranton, told ABC News.
The voters hope the economy is center stage at the debate.
“I would need to hear from the candidates that they really understand what the average person is going through, what our financial situations are,” accounting assistant Destiny Johnson told ABC News in Milwaukee.
Voters also expressed concern over immigration policy and border security, as well as America’s involvement with the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars. Polling has shown that those issues, while not top of mind for voters, have been on their minds, and Biden and Trump have grappled with these issues differently while on the trail.
Janee Johnson, who works as a waitress at Toast ‘N Jams in Muskegon, Michigan, said the focus should be on doing the “right things for America.”
“I feel like the best thing that they can say is, I am here for America, and America only. That would make me happy. That would make me trust who I’m putting in office at that point,” Johnson told ABC News.
Michael Kordecki, the owner of that restaurant, wishes he could tell the candidates to “be more positive about America, about our future, and about what we can do with or without new people coming into the country.” He added, “We have an immigration issue. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue. I think it just needs to be regulated. I think that we also have an issue with, older Americans not being well taken care of. I think that issue needs to be addressed at some point.”
Despite their distaste for the candidates, the voters told us they are planning to show up to the polls in November.
“You have to like one of them more than another, and your vote matters. So whether it’s for someone who you feel strongly about or you just feel more strongly about the other one, it’s important to get out there and vote,” said Longo, the garden center owner in Pennsylvania.
At Headmasters Barbershop in Atlanta, Chatman says she will still go out and vote this November.
“It’s sad that we only have two choices and neither choices are on the top of my list,” she said. “But at this point I have to go for someone because I am a voter. I feel like that my ancestors struggled to for me to have this right, so I refuse to allow anything to stand in the way of that. So I will be voting, just not sure who.”
ABC News’ Jacob Steinberg contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Progressive Democrats undeniably suffered their most significant defeat of the 2024 election cycle Tuesday when Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost his New York 16th Congressional District’s Democratic primary. What it means for the movement he belongs to, however, is less clear.
Bowman’s defeat at the hands of Westchester County Executive George Latimer laid bare the nasty divisions among Democrats over support for Israel. Pro-Israel outside groups dumped nearly $15 million — an unprecedented amount of cash — into the race, fueling an avalanche of ads that knocked Bowman and promoted Latimer’s own liberal bona fides on issues like abortion.
The strategy, led by groups allied with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Democratic Majority for Israel, worked. They netted their most significant win yet in the party’s internal battles over Israel, and a new playbook was born for how to challenge other progressive lawmakers — including Rep. Cori Bush, who is facing a well-funded primary challenger in her St. Louis district this August.
However, operatives estimated that Bowman was particularly low-hanging fruit for his critics. He offered pro-Israel groups ammunition by denying that Hamas committed rape during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel (he later apologized), reports later surfaced that he had spread 9/11 conspiracy theories, and he drew controversy for pulling a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol, vulnerabilities his compatriots lack.
“I think that this was a referendum on both his persona, his comportment, but also on his legislative record and his messaging,” said Jon Reinish, a New York Democratic strategist who worked with groups opposed to Bowman.
“I think that this is absolutely replicable,” Reinish said. “But you also can’t deny the fact that he was, in his own way, a unique case who inflicted a lot on himself here.”
Bowman, who first won his seat in 2020 by unseating a 16-term incumbent accused of losing touch with his district, entered office vowing a shakeup in Washington. Along the way, he ruffled feathers.
Bowman engaged in shouting matches in Capitol hallways. He voted against Democrats’ infrastructure bill, a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda. And last year, he pulled a fire alarm in a House office building in what he called an accident but what was believed by some to be an attempt at delaying a vote — an action that earned him a censure and misdemeanor charge.
Opposition to Bowman spiked when video went viral of him saying that stories of sexual violence that took place on Oct. 7 were false “propaganda,” which compiled on ceaseless criticisms of Israel and its military operations in the Gaza Strip. Resurfaced blog posts also revealed a past in trafficking 9/11 conspiracies.
All of that culminated in a 10-figure investment by outside groups opposed to Bowman and helped usher Latimer — a local politician with longstanding support — into the primary.
“[V]oters want members of Congress who are going to bring people together to get things done, not people who are divisive. And there is no question that Jamaal Bowman emerged as an extraordinarily divisive figure, not only on Israel issues, but on other issues as well,” said DMFI President Mark Mellman.
The push against Bowman is just the latest salvo in what is anticipated to be a concerted outside effort to defeat lawmakers who advocate for less support for Israel, with Bush widely anticipated to be the next target.
Like Bowman, Bush is a junior House member and staunch progressive. Where Bowman faced legal headwinds over the fire alarm, Bush is facing a Justice Department probe over her use of campaign funds. House Democratic leaders haven’t signaled that they’ll campaign with Bush, just like they didn’t with Bowman. And, like Latimer, primary opponent Wesley Bell Bell holds local office as the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County.
Seemingly chomping at the bit, DMFI Wednesday touted the results of an internal poll showing Bush virtually tied with Bell.
“You put those two things together, and if you don’t take them as a warning sign, you’re not a very capable politician,” Mellman said, referencing Bowman’s loss and DMFI’s survey. “Cori Bush has the same kind of vituperative, anti-Israel rhetoric, the same kind of anti-Israel votes, the same kind of divisive approach to politics on this issue and on broader Democratic issues.”
Liberals, meanwhile, predicted Bowman’s loss will serve as proof of concept for groups looking to boot progressives.
“They want to make sure that progressives don’t continue to grow power, speak out on Gaza, challenge the party line with Biden, and they wanted to get a head on a stick, and they did. And so, I think the warning sign is there. Will this make them double down? I think so,” added Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese.
Still, it’s possible that Bowman was uniquely vulnerable.
Bowman’s district is significantly more fertile ground for attacks than Bush’s; it boasts a hefty Jewish population and is plurality white. Bush’s district is more urban and about 45% Black, according to Census data.
Bowman also had some presence as a former middle school principal, but Bush rose to local prominence as an activist who played a role in the Ferguson protests after 2014 after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
Moreover, Latimer could prove to be what New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf called a “uniquely good candidate.”
And, operatives agreed, Bowman’s initial rape denialism sets him apart from other lawmakers who are critical of Israel’s government and operations in Gaza.
“Much of what occurred to Bowman was political suicide,” said Sheinkopf. “The rape denialism invigorated the anti-Bowmans and set the stage for the value of the kind of expenditure that was done here.”
Mellman also conceded that without Bowman’s particular weaknesses, “it would have been a much closer campaign.”
Moving forward, progressives suggested that candidates can still talk about the war in Gaza, which has left tens of thousands dead, without alienating voters.
“I think she can talk about it. I think Jamaal’s rhetoric got rather intense and turned some people off in the last two months. Loaded terms, like ‘Zionist’ and ‘settler colonial,’ and the conspiracies, I think there’s better rhetoric you can use around the issue to get your point across without being so provocative,” said one New York progressive operative.
Already, pro-Israel outside groups don’t have a perfect record. Rep. Summer Lee, a Pittsburgh-based progressive, handily fended off a well-financed primary challenger in April, though AIPAC and DMFI largely stayed out of that race.
And while progressives took Bowman’s loss as a warning sign, it also could serve as a wakeup call.
“People suggest ‘this is a mortal blow to the anti-Israel progressives within the Democratic Party.’ That does not appear to be the case. People are underselling the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Justice Democrats. They’re going to redouble their efforts and organize,” Sheinkopf said.
Justice Democrats, one of the nation’s leading progressive groups, is already gearing up for Bush’s race, pushing the Democratic establishment to join it. And other progressives are pushing her to take an aggressive stance against an anticipated flood of funding for Bell.
“Cori Bush’s race is up next,” said spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. “The Democratic Party should put all of its resources behind folks like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush because they are going to be who leads them to a victory in November.”
“The most important thing for her to do in this moment is to inoculate, and that means to really speak to voters about what is going to come down the pike. ‘You’re going to get inundated with mail and TV advertising that says that I am not fighting for you. I am not fighting for this district, and it’s going to be lies.’ I think that’s the first thing I would take away. We’ve seen their playbook now unfold,” Geevarghese added.
Bush, for her part, appears ready for a fight.
“These same extremists are coming to St. Louis,” Bush said of anti-Bowman outside groups after Tuesday’s race. “We will continue to fight for the future St. Louis deserves and show that organized people beats organized money. Because St. Louis is not for sale.”
(WASHINGTON) — Despite the U.S. Supreme Court issuing a decision allowing emergency abortions in Idaho, many pro-abortion groups criticized Thursday’s ruling and said it was far from a win for abortion rights.
“This is not a time for applause for the way that the court has functioned,” Fatima Goss Graves, the CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said in a briefing with reporters. “This is a crisis of the court’s making.”
“We definitely deserve better from our court,” Goss Graves said.
The decision was the first time the court weighed in on abortion since it overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, ending federal protections for abortion rights. Since then, at least 14 states have ceased nearly all abortions and seven other states have imposed restrictions on care.
While the ruling will allow abortions to resume in cases of medical emergencies, abortion rights advocates criticized the court opinion, saying the ruling did not address the merits of the case and failed to find that patients are entitled to emergency abortion care to protect their health and lives.
“While the opinion temporarily restores the ability of doctors in Idaho to provide emergency abortions required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), by dismissing Idaho’s appeal without resolving the core issues in the case, SCOTUS will only continue to put pregnant patients at unnecessary risk,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.
Advocates also argued that the decision is “the bare minimum” and the court should have been more clear in ruling that EMTALA protects abortion in emergency situations across all states.
“The fact that this case was before the Court and remains open to further litigation tells us everything we need to know about the anti-abortion movement: They would rather let pregnant people suffer life-threatening health consequences than allow them to receive stabilizing abortion care,” Destiny Lopez, the acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement.
“This outcome does not remedy the harm that the Court’s anti-abortion justices inflicted with the Dobbs decision two years ago,” Lopez said.
Of the states restricting abortion, at least seven do not have clear exceptions for emergency care.
“The courts caused a months-long catastrophe that was completely unnecessary,” President of Planned Parenthood Alexis McGill Johnson told reporters.
“They had the opportunity to bring clarity to the chaos they caused … but they missed the mark,” McGill Johnson said.
The case now returns to the Ninth Circuit where it will be further litigated.
“The Court could have upheld this basic right, but they refused to. Instead, the conservative majority kicked the case back to a lower court, punting so that they didn’t need to weigh in before an election where attacks on abortion access are already top of mind for voters,” Reproductive Freedom for All, a pro-abortion group, said in a statement Thursday.
The Center for Reproductive Rights told reporters that the Thursday decision does not impact access to abortion in the 20 other states with restrictions or bans in effect — and a case over EMTALA could be back before the court next session.
Texas sued the U.S. government over EMTALA guidance, and the Fifth Circuit court successfully blocked the guidance.
Advocates issued warnings that echoed reactions to the court’s decision striking down an abortion pill ruling this month.
“Several justices provided a roadmap for just how they would strip pregnant people of this basic right when this case comes back to the Court,” Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement.
Anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, meanwhile, called the ruling “highly fractured.”
“The Court recognized based on representations by the Biden administration that Idaho may continue to enforce its pro-life law, and the rights of pro-life doctors and nurses will be respected in all circumstances as federal law requires. The case will develop further in the lower courts and the Supreme Court seems ready, willing, and able to review the case again once an appropriate factual record based upon the Biden administration’s actual position is developed,” said Steven Aden, chief legal officer and general counsel.
Another anti-abortion group called the decision “a setback.”
“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a setback, but our fight for babies and moms continues,” National Right to Life said in a statement. “With its sound ‘life of the mother’ provision that allows pregnant women to receive emergency care, Idaho’s pro-life law is consistent with EMTALA which requires hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to both mothers and unborn children. Under Attorney General Raul Labrador’s leadership, we are confident Idaho will eventually prevail on the merits of this case.”
(WASHINGTON) — The first presidential debate of the 2024 election will be the first ever to feature two former presidents, but that isn’t the only thing that makes it unprecedented: It’s also the earliest general election debate ever.
When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump take the stage at the CNN-hosted contest on Thursday — it will be 131 days ahead of the Nov. 5 Election Day — months ahead of the usual fall timeline.
Since 1960, Debates have been sanctioned — and scheduled — by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, with the previous earliest one taking place when Ronald Reagan faced off against Independent candidate John Anderson during the 1980 election cycle. That occurred on Sept. 21, 44 days ahead of that year’s general election.
Since 1976, the average length of time between the first general election debate and election date has been about 35 days, according to CPD records. The shortest interval was in 1992, when there were only 23 days between a debate an Election Day — when Democrat Bill Clinton debated Republican George H. W. Bush.
Biden and Trump will have about three extra months on the campaign trail following their first public faceoff — and experts ABC News spoke with said the early timing could have a significant impact on the race.
“The combination of having so many people with doubts about both candidates, coupled with the first debate occurring before either convention, heightens its potential importance,” said Republican political strategist Whit Ayres. “I don’t know that it will be actually important. But it certainly heightens the potential for importance.”
But Mitchell McKinney, a professor at the University of Akron and noted political communication scholar, took a different view, predicting that this early debate may not matter as much.
First, he said, at this stage in the cycle, voters aren’t as tuned in as they would be in early fall, when the debates are usually held.
“Our most recent general election presidential debates, which typically occur in late September into October, have continued to be big draws, as in 75 to 80 million” viewers, said McKinney. This time around, he continued, “It could be half that.”
The New York Times has reported that TV industry observers expect the debate to draw between 30 and 70 million viewers. For comparison, the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — in September 2016 — topped 84 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings.
Second, regardless of whether CNN’s debate exceeds ratings expectations Thursday night, the extra months between the first debate and election debate allow the candidates time to recover from a poor performance.
“If there is for a candidate — one or both of these candidates — some sort of gaffe or blunder,” McKinney said, “there is plenty of time for other events to take over … the candidate or candidates can recover,” he added.
But with Biden and Trump barreling toward a November rematch that voters are broadly unenthusiastic about, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told ABC News that any new information about the two presidents on debate stage could make a difference for some key voters.
“People’s attitudes are very fixed and voters tend to be pretty entrenched. The person that ‘wins’ — I don’t know how you determine that — in this debate is going to be the one that provides voters with some new information, something they thought about before,” said Carville, who ran Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.
“I guess this seems to be pretty, kind of hard to move a lot of people in this election, but if you move a few, it makes a big difference,” he added.
The decision to move up the timing followed disputes between the campaigns and the Committee on Presidential Debates — partially over scheduling.
Before the Biden and Trump campaigns declared their participation in a non-Commission for Presidential Debates-sanctioned broadcast, the candidates were planning on appearing on stage for the first time together this fall, on Sept. 16.
The Trump campaign urged the commission in May to move up its debate schedule, arguing that early voting would have already begun in some places by the time Trump and Biden debated at that date.
“As it always does, the CPD considered multiple factors in selecting debate dates in order to make them accessible by the American public. These factors include religious and federal holidays, early voting, and the dates on which individual states close their ballots,” the commission wrote in a statement.
(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump and his team continue to tease his vice presidential pick, his potential VP contenders were gathering in Atlanta Thursday to support the former president around the debate and make a case that they’re the best choice to be his running mate.
Potential vice presidential candidates, including Sens. J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are among the dozens of surrogates the campaign is expected to have on the ground in Atlanta, including in the debate spin room aftereard and at a watch party the campaign is holding Thursday night, where loyal supporters and donors will gather.
Trump himself was scheduled to arrive in Atlanta later Thursday afternoon from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, and is feeling confident and ready, his senior campaign advisers told ABC News.
As Trump was set to take the debate stage later Thursday, his campaign is fundraising off his much-anticipated running mate selection, suggesting that person could be present at the debate.
“Do you want to see my Vice President at the debate? They could be there, but you’ll never know until I make the OFFICIAL VP ANNOUNCEMENT!” a Trump campaign fundraising email sent out to supporters Thursday morning said.
Trump for weeks has been saying that he’s likely to announce his vice presidential candidate around the Republican National Convention scheduled to take place next month, but Trump in recent days has been teasing the idea of his potential running mate joining him in Atlanta, telling his supporters at a retail campaign stop in Philadelphia last week that that his vice president will “most likely” be in attendance at the debate site.
In recent weeks, Trump has also been asking his donors at fundraisers who they want to see as his running mate and sending out fundraising emails to small-dollar donors asking the same question.
Those on the vice presidential shortlist — including Vance, Rubio and Burgum — were staying mostly quiet on the eve of the debate as they prepared to rally behind their Republican leader. Other Trump surrogates have been on a media tour, holding intimate campaign stops in Atlanta on Wednesday and making television appearances Thursday morning.
In a taped interview on “Fox and Friends,” South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott said he had told Trump “never forget the provocative racial past of Joe Biden,” when asked if he helped the former president in prepare for the debate.
“Donald Trump has done more for progress from a racial perspective economically than any president in my lifetime,” Scott continued. “He should focus on that.”
Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, asked by CNN Thursday morning if he expects Trump to discuss looking forward as a country during the debate rather than focusing on the past, said the former president has been looking forward but added that he might still comment about the 2020 election and the hush money trial and verdict.
“If you’ve been on a trail with the president — I’ve been on a trail with him — if you listen to everything that he says, he’s been talking a lot, significantly, a lot about what’s going on in our country, inflation, the border, foreign policy, all the issues that really matter to the American people,” Donalds said.
Donalds and GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt made rounds of surrogate campaign stops in Atlanta on Wednesday to court black voters on behalf of Trump, stopping by a barbershop and local cigar lounge.
Trump called into the barbershop event earlier on Wednesday, touting his administration’s record, bashing CNN ahead of Thursday’s debate, and once again repeating his argument that he is gaining support with the Black community because of his indictments.
“Since that happened, the Black support, I think my representatives will tell you this, the Black support has gone through the roof and, I guess they equated to problems that they’ve had,” Trump said.
At the watch party Thursday night, where Trump is advertised to potentially make post-debate remarks, Burgum, Vance, Rubio, Donalds, Hunt as well as Rep. Elise Stefanik, former Trump Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Sen. Lindsey Graham are scheduled to attend as featured guests.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court, nearing the end of its term, is poised to soon deliver rulings in high-profile cases on everything from presidential power to abortion access.
The justices is releasing opinions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. It will mark the first time in at least a decade the justices have done three opinion days in a row.
The timing means key decisions, some with enormous consequences for the 2024 campaign, could be handed down just as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump meet on stage in Atlanta for their first debate.
Blockbuster cases still to be resolved include whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution on charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and whether alleged Jan. 6 rioters were improperly charged with obstruction.
Here is a deeper dive into the some of the remaining cases pending before the nation’s high court.
Presidential immunity
In what is likely the most consequential case before the court this term, the justices will decide whether a former president is shielded from criminal liability for “official acts” taken while in the White House.
In Trump v. United States, Trump is seeking to quash the federal election subversion case brought by special counsel Jack Smith by claiming immunity.
Lower courts flatly rejected Trump’s argument, but the justices appeared open to the idea of some level of immunity for former presidents when they heard arguments in April. Their questioning largely focused on what types of official acts would be protected and which would not.
How the justices make that determination will set a new standard for presidential power, and will affect whether Trump stands trial for his unprecedented actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Jan. 6 obstruction charges
A felony obstruction charge used by federal prosecutors against alleged Jan. 6 rioters is being put to the test in Fischer v. United States.
A former Pennsylvania police officer charged for his alleged participation in the U.S. Capitol attack is challenging the government’s use of a 2002 law enacted to prevent the destruction of evidence in financial crimes. The law includes a sweeping provision for any conduct that “otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes an official proceeding.”
The Supreme Court appeared divided on whether the government’s broad interpretation of the law should stand or be narrowed, with conservatives on the bench questioning the lack of prosecutions under the law for matters unrelated to financial or documentary crimes.
The court’s decision could upend hundreds of Jan. 6 cases, including Trump’s. Felony obstruction is one of the four charges the former president is facing in his federal election subversion case.
Idaho abortion ban and emergency care
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling that will allow emergency abortion access in Idaho, for now, despite the state’s near-total ban on the procedure.
In Moyle v. United States, the question before the court was whether a federal law requiring emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care to all patients overrides Idaho law prohibiting nearly all abortions except in reported cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk.
The Biden administration argued the law is conflict with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires hospitals receiving Medicare funds to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment.”
The court dismissed the case without considering the core issues, instead sending it back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
The case marked the first time the court heard arguments about state-level abortion restrictions passed after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Since the court’s conservative majority struck down Roe, 21 states have successfully enacted restrictions or bans on abortion and 14 of those states have total bans with few exceptions.
Homeless encampment ban
In the most significant case on homelessness in decades, the justices are weighing whether a local ordinance to bar anyone without a permanent residency from sleeping outside amounts to “cruel and unusual” punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Officials in Grants Pass, Oregon argue the ordinance is necessary to protect public spaces and encourage a growing tide of unhoused residents to seek shelter. A lower court ruled that punishing homeless people with fines and the possibility of jail time for public camping when they have nowhere else to go is unconstitutional.
A majority of Supreme Court justices seemed to favor the city’s arguments when it heard the case in April.
Social media regulation and free speech
The Supreme Court will determine whether state laws restricting how social media companies moderate content violate the First Amendment.
The measures from Florida and Texas seek to place limits on how the private companies can manage user accounts and feeds on their platforms. Both were passed amid conservative concerns that Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, were censoring viewpoints on their site based on politics.
In another case, Murthy v. Missouri, the justices on Wednesday rejected a challenge to the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies about misinformation on their sites about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
Republican-led states and five individual users had argued the government’s conduct amounted to illegally coercion, while the administration argued their contact with the companies was aimed at protecting national security and public health.
The justices struck down the challenge, stating the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to sue the government because they could not show the government outreach directly resulted in censorship of their views.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a decision that will allow emergency abortion access in Idaho, for now, despite the state’s strict ban on the procedure.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out an opioid settlement for Purdue Pharma that would have shielded the Sackler family from criminal liability.
The 5-4 opinion was delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Signage outside of the McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus ahead of the first presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The presidential debate on Thursday will showcase Joe Biden and Donald Trump going toe-to-toe on policy for the first time this election cycle.
The matchup is the only time a sitting president has squared off with a former president, meaning each candidate will have a record to defend and a possible second-term strategy to lay out to the American people.
Hot-button topics all but certain to be discussed include immigration, the economy, reproductive rights and democracy.
Here is a closer look at where Biden and Trump stand on key election-year issues, as reflected and ranked in a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll:
Cost of living
Inflation has consistently polled as a top issue for voters, leaving both candidates eager to draw favorable contrasts at the debate.
On the campaign trail, Trump has frequently criticized Biden for the nation’s yearslong bout of elevated inflation. Consumer prices have climbed roughly 20% over the three-plus years since Biden took office, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.
“Inflation has killed our economy,” Trump said at a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, last week. “It’s a nation buster.”
For his part, Biden has acknowledged that price increases remain too high but he has touted significant progress in bringing inflation down well below its peak. He has also noted that wage increases are outpacing inflation, leaving Americans with greater spending power despite the high prices.
On policy, Trump has targeted Biden over environmental regulations such as limits placed on some oil and gas drilling, though last year the U.S. produced more oil than any year in its history, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Biden, by contrast, has promoted proposals that seek to alleviate stubborn prices for goods such as housing and prescription drugs. He has portrayed Trump’s proposed tax cuts and tariffs as policies that would raise prices and benefit the wealthy.
“They’re fighting for billionaires on Park Avenue — I’m fighting for families like the ones I grew up with in Scranton,” Biden said in a statement earlier this month.
Crime, gun violence
Both Biden and Trump are expected to boast about their records on lowering crime. In his State of the Union Address in March, Biden said the nation reported a historically low murder rate in 2023 and that overall violent crime had plummeted to one of the lowest levels in 50 years.
But Trump can counter that the U.S. violent crime rate in the nation’s 70 major cities is still much higher than when he was president with murders up 20% and aggravated assaults up 16% since 2019, according to the Major Cities Chief’s Association.
Democracy
Both candidates are making what happened in November 2020 and on Jan. 6, 2021, central to their 2024 campaigns — in very different ways.
Defending democracy is an animating theme of Biden’s reelection bid, as he and his team paint Trump as an existential threat to the country’s founding principles and the upcoming election as a battle for the nation’s “soul.”
“It’s clear that when he lost in 2020, something snapped in him,” Biden said of Trump at a campaign reception last month, where he criticized Trump for “unleashing an in insurrection,” calling Jan. 6 rioters “patriots” and his comment that he would be a dictator on “Day 1.”
Trump is now trying to flip the script and counter that Biden is the “threat to democracy” and accuses him of weaponizing the federal government and judicial system to prosecute a political opponent.
At the same time, he continues to make false claims about the 2020 election and vows to enact retribution on his political foes if elected.
Health care, drug prices
During his presidency, Trump tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but he was able to make some significant changes, including ending the individual mandate penalty — issuing a fine if you are uninsured. Trump is vowing that if elected to a second term, he will replace the ACA with his own “much better” program. If the ACA is repealed, it would result in millions of people losing their insurance, missed health screenings and even lost jobs, estimates suggest.
Meanwhile Biden has restored some of the cuts Trump made, including funding for consumer assistance and a record number of people signed up for health insurance through ACA in 2023. The HHS has said the Biden administration “continues to make increasing coverage a top priority”
Both Trump and Biden have spoken about the high price of prescription drugs but have tackled the issue differently.
The Trump administration did not do much to lower prices or propose a plan of its own but did start a program to lower out-of-pocket insulin costs for seniors on Medicare and started a pathway for states to bring in lower-priced drugs from Canada, which Biden followed through.
In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which capped out-of-pocked insulin costs at $35. Additionally, last year, the Biden administration announced that it would begin direct price negotiations on 10 widely-used drugs under Medicare, an attempt to drive down out-of-pocket costs for seniors, which will go into effect in 2026.
The administration said it plans to negotiate more drug prices through 2029 for up to 60 different medications.
Immigration, border security
Throughout most of Biden’s presidency, Republicans have seized on the high number of apprehensions made by the U.S. Border Patrol — a key indicator of illegal crossing attempts.
However, after border apprehensions reached historic highs last December, the numbers have since declined. The Border Patrol made 117,906 apprehensions along the southwest border in May — marking the third consecutive monthly decline.
Additionally, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday that authorities at the border have nearly doubled the number of migrants deported or returned since the Biden administration implemented its latest round of restrictions on the right for migrants to claim asylum.
“We are imposing stricter consequences for those who crossed the border without authorization,” Mayorkas said in Tucson, Arizona Wednesday. “These actions are changing the calculus for those considering crossing our border.”
Over the past three weeks, Mayorkas said, the DHS has operated more than 100 international removal flights, returning more than 24,000 people to more than 40 countries.
Border Patrol encounters have also dropped by more than 40% across the southern border since the restrictions were implemented, Mayorkas said.
Foreign policy, world standing
In polls ranking voters’ priorities, foreign policy tends to lag well behind domestic issues. But two major wars raging overseas, pressing U.S. national security concerns, and division over Biden’s approach to Gaza amid an extremely tight race have the potential to change that.
Trump has often falsely claimed his time in the White House was free of international conflicts and asserted that he could have the war in Ukraine wrapped up in a matter of hours. But aside from political bluster, Trump has said little about his actual plans other than suggesting he would cut back on U.S. military aid to Kyiv.
Similarly, Trump has also called for a speedy end to the Israel-Hamas war — urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “get it over with” while also criticizing the optics of the country’s campaign in Gaza during an April interview.
But the former president does have some experience with attempting to resolve the decades-long, underlying conflict driving the war today. In early 2020, the Trump stood alongside Netanyahu as rolled out his detailed plan for a two-state solution, but the proposal was seen as one-sided in favor of Israel and flatly rejected by Palestinian leaders.
Rather than expounding on his plans for another four years in office, Biden’s biggest challenge is justifying what’s currently happening on the ground in Gaza to would-be Democratic voters who are outraged about his administration’s ongoing support for Israel.
And that outrage is likely to be on full display as the candidates face off. In recent weeks, Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have staged large protests outside of the White House and fundraisers, and a coalition of several groups are planning to gather outside CNN’s studios the night of the debate.
Biden announced a U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire-hostage release plan that his administration believes could ultimately end the Israel-Hamas war in late May. However, Hamas has not accepted it. Negotiators are still trying to move talks forward, but some lawmakers in the president’s own party are growing anxious and pressing the White House for a fallback plan.
The Biden campaign is likely to see Ukraine as more favorable terrain and emphasize the president’s work to strengthen critical alliances like NATO — drawing a sharp contrast with Trump, who said in February that he would encourage Russia to invade members that did not meet defense spending requirements.
US military
Both Biden and Trump agree that no U.S. military troops should be sent to Ukraine to counter Russia’s invasion. But they differ on whether to continue providing U.S. military aid to Ukraine that so far totals $70 billion with Biden strongly advocating for it to continue. Trump had previously supported providing aid to Ukraine via a loan arrangement, but has more recently indicated that he would quickly move to cut it off.
Most of the military aid provided to Ukraine by the Biden administration comes from existing U.S. military stocks so it can get to the battlefield quickly. The dollar cost associated with the aid is the amount being spent on new weapons, built in the United States, to replace those being given to Ukraine.
The Biden administration has continued the Trump administration’s strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific to deter China’s aggressive behavior in the region. But the war between Hamas and Israel has once again shown how that turn can be difficult when there are flare-ups in the Middle East.
Stateside, the U.S. military has become a target of domestic political debates on abortion and diversity as some of the Pentagon’s policies were criticized by Republicans. For example, Biden reversed a Trump administration decision to end diversity training within the department which triggered Republican criticisms that the military’s recruiting was being affected by what they labeled as a “woke military.”
Reproductive rights
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights, care has transformed across the country.
The candidates are on opposite sides of the issue: Trump — fulfilling his 2016 campaign promise — nominated three of the five conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overrule Roe, has taken careful steps back from the issue, saying it should be left up to the states to regulate access, while Biden supports abortion rights and has called on Congress to codify protections available under Roe.
At least 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services since Roe was overruled, and seven others have restricted access to abortion care. In the first half of 2023, one in five patients had to travel across state lines to access abortion care, nearly double the number of patients traveling for care in 2020.
In the midterm elections, voters in every state who had abortion questions on the ballot chose to uphold abortion rights, including conservative states Kansas and Kentucky. At least four more states have abortion or reproductive rights related questions on the ballot this November.
Culture wars, education
A new era of culture wars has dominated politics in recent years, a war Trump plans to embrace in his plans for education.
Trump’s campaign platform “Agenda 47” details a plan centering on prayer in public schools, an expansion of parental rights, patriotism as a centerpiece of education and the “American Way of Life.”
Trump’s plan also states he “will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique.”
Trump has promised to shut down the Department of Education, sending “all education work and needs back to the States,” according to his Agenda 47 plan.
As for higher education, Trump’s agenda states that he plans to create a new university called the “American Academy” and fund it by “taxing, fining, and suing” private universities.
Trump has also expressed plans to dismantle so-called “woke” or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in education across the board.
For Biden, his administration has been focused on tackling student loan debt, increasing funding to public schools and addressing COVID-19 era education setbacks.
Throughout his time in office thus far, the Biden administration has approved $167 billion in relief for 4.75 million borrowers across the country,
Biden also touts his American Rescue Plan for sending $130 billion in funding to “address the academic and mental health needs of students,” with a focus on low-income and high-need schools, including the hiring of teachers, counselors, social workers, and others.
Biden has denounced the recent rise in book banning efforts across the country, as well as Republican-backed legislation that restricts lessons on race, sex, gender, and more in schools.
Instead, he has embraced diversity initiatives aiming to tackling inequality with direct funding to low-income schools, the development of magnet schools, HBCUs, and more.
On LGBTQ issues, the two sides also continue to be at odds.
Biden has signed several executive orders to combat anti-LGBTQ discrimination, including ending funding to any programs running conversion therapy, expanding resources for LGBTQ youth suicide prevention, expanding HIV/AIDS prevention strategies and research, and more.
Biden also supports the Equality Act, which would expand federal civil rights law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.
Biden recently expanded Title IX to include gender identity under sex-based discrimination protections.
Trump has vowed to dismantle the new Title IX addition, prevent gender-affirming care for transgender youth, remove federal funding from institutions that support transgender identities and more, according to his Agenda 47.
Trump also states he plans on asking Congress to pass a bill that would declare that there are only two genders and that they are determined at birth.
Republican nominee Donald Trump speaks as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton looks on during the final presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Oct. 19, 2016. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — When former President Donald Trump takes the debate stage against President Joe Biden Thursday night, among those monitoring his performance could be the federal prosecutors seeking to take Trump to trial on criminal charges of attempting to subvert the last presidential election.
In previous filings in their case against Trump — which remains stalled as the Supreme Court weighs his claim of presidential immunity — prosecutors have singled out comments Trump made in presidential debates in both 2016 and 2020 that they said could be introduced at an eventual trial.
The exchanges, prosecutors claim, would be used to help them prove to a jury Trump’s intent and state of mind as he engaged in his alleged criminal effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.
“To ensure the destabilizing impact of his widespread election fraud claims, in the run-up to the 2020 election, the defendant repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of presidential power if he lost the election,” prosecutors said in a December court filing. “The Government will offer proof of this refusal as intrinsic evidence of the defendant’s criminal conspiracies because it shows his plan to remain in power at any cost — even in the face of potential violence.”
Specifically, prosecutors said they planned to use Trump’s exchange in his debate against Hillary Clinton in October of 2016 where he repeatedly refused to accept the results of the upcoming election — saying that Trump then “pursued the same strategy” four years later.
In that debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump, “You’ve been warning at rallies recently that this election is rigged and that Hillary Clinton is in the process of trying to steal it from you. Your running mate Governor Pence pledged on Sunday that he and you, his words, will absolutely accept the result of this election … I want to ask you here on the stage tonight, do you make the same commitment that you’ll absolutely accept the result of the election?”
“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied.
Prosecutors said in their filing, “The defendant’s consistent refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign, is admissible evidence of his plan to undermine the integrity of the presidential transition process when faced with the possibility of an election result that he would not like, as well as his motive, intent, and plan to interfere with the implementation of an election result with which he was not satisfied.”
In the same filing, prosecutors separately pointed to Trump’s exchange during his September 2020 debate against Biden where he was pressed to denounce the extremist group the Proud Boys.
Wallace, again the moderator, asked Trump, “You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”
“Sure, I’m willing to do that,” Trump replied, saying, “Give me a name, go ahead, who would you like me to condemn?”
“Proud Boys,” said Biden, to which Trump, addressing the camera, said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
Prosecutors, in their filing, said that “Members of the group embraced the defendant’s words as an endorsement and printed merchandise with them as a rallying cry.”
Three days after the debate, Trump told Fox News in an interview, “Let me be clear, I condemn the KKK, white supremacists and the Proud Boys.”
In their filing, prosecutors said Trump’s debate remark demonstrates his “encouragement of violence,” further noting that, “after the Proud Boys and other extremist groups participated in obstructing the congressional certification on January 6, the defendant made clear that they were acting consistent with his intent and direction in doing so.”
Trump and his attorneys have pushed back on accusations that his rhetoric sparked the Capitol attack, stressing that Trump told the crowd at his rally that morning, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
But prosecutors have made clear in other filings that, should the Jan. 6 case make it to trial, they would also introduce other public remarks made by Trump.
For instance, prosecutors said in a filing last November that they would plan to cite public statements Trump has made supporting defendants charged in the Capitol attack in an effort to establish his “criminal intent” to a jury.
Arguing that Trump “has never wavered in his support of January 6 offenders,” prosecutors said his statements in recent years calling Jan. 6 “a beautiful day” and stating his intentions to pardon many rioters would be submitted as evidence at trial.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the Jan. 6 riot raged — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing and denounced the charges as “a persecution of a political opponent.”
