(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will take up a constitutional challenge to state bans on gender-affirming care for minors in its next term.
The case from Tennessee involves the 15-year-old transgender daughter of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville.
The family alleges that Senate Bill 1, which prohibits certain types of medical treatments for minors with diagnosed gender dysphoria, violates the Equal Protection Cause of the 14th Amendment.
By denying only transgender youth access to these forms of medically necessary care while allowing non-transgender minors access to the same or similar procedures, SB 1 discriminates against transgender youth, they argue.
“It was incredibly painful watching my child struggle before we were able to get her the life-saving health care she needed. We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” plaintiff Samantha Williams said in a statement.
“I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her. We don’t want to leave Tennessee, but this legislation would force us to either routinely leave our state to get our daughter the medical care she desperately needs or to uproot our entire lives and leave Tennessee altogether,” she said. “No family should have to make this kind of choice.”
Tennessee is home to more than 3,000 transgender adolescents, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Williams family in the case.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee and other states with similar laws contend that each state is free to regulate medical standards and procedures as it sees fit.
Twenty-five states have passed bans on gender-affirming care, including Florida, Ohio and Montana, where the laws are currently on hold under court order during litigation.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate in Cleveland, OH, Sep. 29, 2020. (Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden and Donald Trump return to the debate stage Thursday for the first time in four years — but this time under a significant new set of rules.
ABC News spoke with experts on how that could help — or hurt — each candidate — and what difference it could make for American voters watching the showdown.
The two rivals will face off in a studio at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters in prime time on Thursday for the first presidential debate of the 2024 election.
While it won’t be the first time Biden and Trump have gone toe-to-toe on policy (the two sparred twice in 2020) it will look a lot different from debates past because of the guidelines established by CNN and agreed upon by both campaigns.
The candidates’ microphones will be muted unless it’s their turn to speak. There will be no live studio audience to react to zingers or other “moments” during the 90-minutes, a first since the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
There will be two commercial breaks, though Trump and Biden won’t be able to consult with their teams during them. The candidates are not allowed any props or prewritten notes, and will only be given a pen, paper and water.
A CNN coin flip won by Biden means he will stand at a lectern on the the right-side of the stage while Trump will be on the left, though Trump will get the last word by delivering his closing statement second.
Overall, experts told ABC News the rules could make for a more substantive, issue-focused debate rather than the raucous personal attacks and talking over each other that defined the first Biden-Trump matchup.
Still, they said there is more than enough room for the buzzy theatrics that have defined modern presidential debates.
“Despite the fact that these rules are pretty strict, we’re going to see some fireworks,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
“How will Joe Biden handle a kind of off-the-leash Donald Trump? How bold will Trump be?” Rottinghaus said. “This is really a clash of personalities, and as much as it was in 2020, I think you’ll see those factors as important in this debate as any other.”
Many of the debate conditions were set out by the Biden campaign when it challenged Trump last month to participate in two debates before November. The campaign posted a video baiting Trump to agree, which he and his team did almost immediately.
Several experts said they believe the format will in fact benefit Biden.
“I can’t think of a better scenario for Joe Biden,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “Whereas, Trump plays better in front of a crowd. A shut-off microphone for Trump with no audience seems to me a demotion from his grandiose campaign style.”
Mitchell McKinney, director of the University of Missouri’s Political Communication Institute, agreed that the various rules “really do play into Biden’s advantage.”
Trump’s bombastic style made for memorable moments in the 2016 cycle when he lashed out at his Republican primary opponents and later lurked behind Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The first 2020 debate between Biden and Trump spiraled into near-constant interruptions and candidates speaking at the same time. At one point, Biden turned to Trump and told him, “Will you shut up, man?”
Some microphone muting was implemented for their second and final debate, which turned out to be more civil.
There are still questions about how CNN’s rule about microphone muting will work in practice on Thursday.
Biden and Trump will be given two minutes to answer questions posed by moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, followed by one-minute each to respond and rebut. A red light will warn each candidate he has five seconds remaining. When their allotted time is up, the light will turn solid red. It’s unclear if a candidate’s microphone will be cut off if he’s still speaking.
It also remains to be seen whether the speaking candidate’s microphone will pick up efforts to interrupt by his opponent — even though that candidate’s mic would be muted.
“The attempt to control that, I think, is a good thing,” Alan Schroeder, a professor emeritus of journalism at Northeastern University who has written several books about presidential debates, told ABC News. “I don’t know in practice how that will work.”
Some experts said the more subdued setting could be good for Trump in that it could rein in some of his more inflammatory conduct — which was not popular with viewers in 2020.
“There’s a risk that no audience could make Trump look and act more like a normal candidate,” said Rottinghaus. “If there was an audience, he would definitely ham it up and would play to them, which oftentimes leads him astray.”
The CNN debate will be the first of two debates this cycle, and marks the earliest debate in U.S. history. The second will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.
“I think it’s going to be an historic and epic debate,” Brinkley said. “The fact is that with Trump and Biden, it’s the first time ever that we’ve had two people that have been president going at each other.”
Donald Trump is addressing the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority Conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, on June 22, 2024. (Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A trip to Mar-a-Lago taken by former President Donald Trump that aides allegedly “kept quiet” just weeks before FBI agents searched the property for classified materials in his possession raised suspicions among special counsel Jack Smith’s team as a potential additional effort to obstruct the government’s classified documents investigation, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The previously unreported visit, which allegedly took place July 10-12 in the summer of 2022, was raised in several interviews with witnesses, sources familiar with the matter said, as investigators sought to determine whether it was part of Trump’s broader alleged effort to withhold the documents after receiving a subpoena demanding their return.
At least one witness who worked closely with the former president recalled being told at the time of the trip that Trump was there “checking on the boxes,” according to sources familiar with what the witness told investigators.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get them back. His longtime aide, Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira pleaded not guilty to related charges.
Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.
Gathering evidence
Several witnesses who spoke to investigators described the trip as highly unusual, given that Trump typically spends the summer months at his Bedminster club in New Jersey, and because Trump’s living quarters at his Mar-a-Lago property were under construction at the time of the visit, sources said.
Other witnesses who were questioned by Smith’s team said they were led to believe that Trump returned to check on the status of the renovations, said sources.
Just weeks before the trip, as ABC News has previously reported, Trump allegedly had the lock on a closet in his residence changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told contained all such documents. The FBI failed to check the locked closet in Trump’s residence when they searched the estate in August 2022, which some investigators later came to believe should have been done.
The trip came as investigators were gathering evidence that Trump continued to possess classified documents, and followed a separate subpoena in late June 2022 seeking surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago that showed aides to Trump moving boxes between a storage room in the resort and his residence.
The trip also followed a similar instance of unplanned travel to Mar-a-Lago by Nauta, where, according to a superseding indictment, he is alleged to have conspired with Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira to attempt to delete security camera footage.
Contacted by ABC News, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, without providing evidence, accused prosecutors of lying and illegally leaking material.
“The entire documents case was a political sham from the very beginning and it should be thrown out entirely,” Cheung said in comments to ABC News.
A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment to ABC News.
‘Keeping this one quiet’
At the time of Trump’s trip in July 2022, some staff expressed confusion as to where Trump would even stay on the property, sources said, given the renovations that his living quarters were undergoing.
“They were keeping this one quiet … nobody knew about this trip,” one witness with direct knowledge of the trip told investigators, according to sources familiar with the witness’ statements.
Trump left New Jersey on July 9, 2022, for a campaign rally in Anchorage, Alaska, and was scheduled to return to New Jersey following that event, according to aircraft manifests described by sources to ABC News. But the plans changed in the days immediately leading up to the trip and he decided to fly to Florida instead, updated aircraft manifests of the trip show.
According to sources, investigators involved in the case identified what they believe to be a series of unusual steps taken by Trump and members of his inner circle to ensure the trip stayed under the radar.
Nauta, who traveled with Trump on the trip, sent a number of text messages to close staff members indicating that the Florida visit was to be kept quiet, according to sources familiar with the contents of the messages.
“I’m pretty sure [Trump] wants minimal people around on Monday,” Nauta texted one longtime Trump employee just one day before Trump arrived in Florida, according to a message sources detailed to ABC News.
And on July 8, when one Trump Organization employee reached out to Nauta wanting to confirm rumors of a Trump visit so proper preparations could be made, Nauta made clear he wanted the trip to remain “discreet,” sources familiar with the communications said. The sources said Nauta sent a text message to the employee that included emojis with zippers over the mouth, which is often used to convey a secret.
Nauta also wrote a message to De Oliveira on July 7 that said “Coming down to FL soon” with shushing emojis to indicate the visit be kept quiet, according to another text message described by sources.
De Oliveira initially told investigators that he had no knowledge of Trump’s trip to Florida — but the special counsel has evidence that supports the allegation De Oliveira was well aware of Trump’s travel plans, corroborated in part by security camera footage that shows Trump and De Oliveira together, according to sources familiar with De Oliveira’s meetings with investigators.
De Oliveira later told investigators he recalled seeing the former president very briefly during that trip, sources said.
Smith’s interest in the trip adds to the list of instances in which investigators appeared to suspect Trump was seeking to obstruct their probe.
Last month, a court filing from Smith’s team revealed additional steps prosecutors believed Trump and his associates had taken to obstruct their probe, alleging that after Trump was informed by his attorney of a government subpoena for video footage from Mar-a-Lago, Trump instructed aides to return several boxes they had previously removed from the storage room in the club’s basement — without being caught on camera.
Joe Biden speaks, as President Donald Trump, left, listens during the U.S. presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Oct. 22, 2020. (Morry Gash/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face off in Thursday’s presidential debate, it will be a replay of 2020, but at the same time, much different now in 2024.
Hosted by CNN, the debate comes at a crucial time as undecided voters work to decide how to cast their ballots in what’s expected to be a close contest in November. It’s also an opportunity for Biden and Trump to highlight their competing visions for the United States should they become president.
It’s the earliest ever in a presidential race, taking place before the Republican and Democratic conventions in July and August — when both Trump and Biden will officially accept their party’s nominations.
The showdown is scheduled to go 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. There will be no live studio audience — a major change from previous debates.
How to watch
Moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the debate will air Thursday, June 27 at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT/6 p.m. PDT.
It will air live on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Max and stream without a cable login necessary on CNN.com.
CNN made the debate available to simulcast on additional broadcast and cable news networks in the United States.
It will be simulcast on ABC and ABC News Live with pre-debate coverage beginning at 8 p.m. EDT on the network and 7 p.m EDT on ABCNL.
ABC News Digital and 538 will live blog the latest from the debate stage as it happens and provide analysis and the biggest takeaways from the night.
What are the ground rules?
CNN recently shared its rules for the debate, which both Biden and Trump agreed to.
Biden and Trump will stand at lecterns decided earlier by a coin flip. Their microphones will be muted unless it is a candidate’s turn to speak, CNN said, which is likely to limit how much the candidates can interrupt each other.
Though it’s yet not clear who will control the ability to mute the candidates’ microphones, the moderators “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion,” according to the network.
According to CNN’s rules, Biden and Trump won’t be allowed to use any props or pre-written notes, but will be given paper, a pen and water. Their campaign staffs will not be allowed to interact with them during the debate.
To meet CNN’s debate qualifications, candidates had to appear on enough state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win the presidency. Also, they must receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.
CNN announced on Thursday that Biden and Trump met those requirements — meaning third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won’t make it on the stage.
What is the debate format?
The candidates will not give opening statements, CNN confirmed to ABC News.
They will each have two minutes to answer moderators’ questions. They also will have one minute for rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. Flashing red lights will warn them when they have five seconds left, and then turn solid red when their time has expired.
CNN has not yet given specifics about topics to be discussed.
How will this debate be different?
This isn’t the first time Biden and Trump have squared off at a debate: The pair squared off twice during the 2020 election, but this time the circumstances are considerably different. Both now have one presidential term under their belts — and several controversies as well.
This is Trump’s first debate since he was found guilty of 34 felonies in his New York hush money criminal trial. In the run-up to this debate, it’s something the Biden campaign has seized on through a $50 million advertising blitz, and many will be watching to see how Biden addresses Trump’s conviction.
It is also unclear if Trump will bring up Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son recently convicted on felony gun charges. Trump brought up Hunter Biden during their 2020 debate — and has many times since then.
Biden’s job approval rating will be ripe for Trump’ attacks as well, with about 56% disapproving as of June 20, according to 538’s polling average.
Trump will almost surely blame Biden for allowing a surge of migrants at the southern border, claim he’s caused inflation and mismanaged foreign conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
In addition to Trump’s conviction, Biden may hit Trump for his comments surround the Jan. 6 attacks at the U.S. Capitol.
Reproductive rights are another key issue for voters where Biden is likely to draw a comparison between his approach and Trump’s. The former president has taken credit for the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.
When is the next presidential debate? And what’s next?
The June 27 debate marks the first of two debates Biden and Trump have agreed to. The second will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on Sunday pushed congressional Republicans for a comprehensive deal on immigration after a bill was blocked earlier this year.
Warren, a member of the national advisory board for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, defended the president’s patchwork of executive actions after she claimed Republicans caved to former President Donald Trump by blocking bipartisan legislation to beef up border security, among other things.
“Right now, Joe Biden is using the tools available to him to try to do as much as he can. But keep in mind there was a deal that had been hammered out. In my view, it only had part of what was necessary, but it was a bipartisan deal. And we were just two days short of voting on it when Donald Trump said no, and the Republicans walked away,” Warren told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“He can’t deal with it if Congress and the Republicans continue to block him,” she added when pressed on the spike in border apprehensions under Biden compared to those under Trump. “And so, the president is using the tools available to him, both to create border security, but he doesn’t have the resources because the Republicans are blocking access.”
During Biden’s term so far, there have been more than 6.9 million border apprehensions, according to compiled data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. There were under 2.1 million such apprehensions during Trump’s four years in office, according to compiled CBP data.
Warren’s comments come as Democrats still point to Republicans’ rejecting a bill crafted by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., earlier this year.
Among other things, the bill would have implemented funding for beefed-up border security and additional immigration judges, while also allowing Biden to declare a border emergency and turn migrants away if unauthorized crossings averaged 4,000 or more each day at the southern border over the course of seven consecutive days.
After the bill failed, Biden has leaned on executive orders and actions to grant his administration the ability to declare such an emergency while also offering protections for undocumented spouses of American citizens. He cannot, however, create new funding for border security and judges — money that can only be allocated by Congress.
“He can’t manufacture more judges, he can’t manufacture more guards if Congress doesn’t give him the resources to do that. The president is out there doing everything he can, not just at the border but overall for families. And the action he took in this last week is exactly Joe Biden being Joe Biden,” Warren said.
Liberals have been torn over Biden’s executive actions. Many were pleased with the order announced this past week allowing undocumented spouses to stay in the country, but others — including Warren — criticized his move in early June to allow his administration to declare a border emergency and restricting asylum claims at the border.
“I understand President Biden’s urgency to make changes at the border, but we can — and should — do better than a functional ban on asylum,” she said earlier this month.
Warren, who debated Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary, also forecasted that the president would present a contrast between his economic vision and Trump’s at this Thursday’s debate.
“He’ll be out there for working families,” Warren said. “He’s going to say $35 insulin, and 5 million people have seen their student loan debts canceled. He’s going to talk about getting rid of junk fees and how his administration is going after the price gougers at the oil pump and the grocery store, and that’s the contrast with Donald Trump.”
(WASHINGTON) — After a week of record-breaking extreme heat across the nation, science educator Bill Nye told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz that the extreme heat and flooding making headlines is “a taste of the new normal.”
“The latest research is that there’s not a turning point or a tipping point or a knee in the curve. It’s just gonna get hotter and hotter and worse and worse and more and more extreme,” Nye said Sunday. “So this is a taste of the normal of the future, unless we humankind get to work and address it.”
More than 100 million Americans across 27 states are under heat alerts Sunday from coast to coast, including two of the nation’s largest cities, New York and Los Angeles.
Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related fatalities, according to the National Weather Service.
Research has shown that extreme heat waves like these have been amplified due to human-induced climate change, which has increased the intensity, frequency and length of many naturally occurring weather events.
The average number of heat waves that major U.S. cities experience each year has doubled since the 1980s, according to the federal government’s fifth National Climate Assessment.
“Our [ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent] Ginger Zee talks about climate change a lot, global warming,” Raddatz told Nye. “What do we need to do right now, in your view?”
“The first thing is talk about climate change,” Nye said. “If we were talking with our families and friends and people we vote for about climate change, we’d be much more inclined to do something about it.”
“And then the other thing I always say is vote,” he added. “We have a situation right now here in the United States where one side, one political party isn’t acknowledging the problem, let alone coming up with a plan to do something about it. Furthermore, the other side is kowtowing — is doing what the fossil fuel industry wants to do.”
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that only 4% of registered voters consider climate change the most urgent issue facing the country today.
Democrats and Republicans have also grown further apart on climate change and environmental issues in recent years, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” Trump has said that, if elected in November, he would roll back many of the Biden administration’s climate policies.
“If you meet with people who don’t believe in climate change, don’t believe in global warming — and there are a lot of them — what do you say to them? What do you say to them to convince them?” Raddatz asked Nye.
“If I could convince people in one sitting that would be fabulous, but that is proven quite difficult,” Nye said. “The problem we have in climate change is we don’t have a 9/11 or a Pearl Harbor. It’s slow motion.”
Meanwhile, some environmental activist groups, like the Sunrise Movement, have long been calling on Biden to declare a national climate emergency and take what they consider to be more aggressive action to combat climate change in the U.S.
Raddatz asked Nye about the push for a national climate emergency on Sunday, saying, “Some advocates are pushing for President Biden to declare a national climate emergency. Is that something that he should do, in your view?”
“I don’t know how well that would work,” Nye said. “People who are already inclined to dismiss what he says will just be that much more dismissive, perhaps. What we want to do is get everybody to work together to acknowledge that we have this problem. And I, as I say, I strongly believe that the United States has to lead the world.”
Nye explained that part of his work has been pointing out that humans are causing climate change.
“We’re doing it because we’ve created this wonderful quality of life for so many people by burning ancient carbon — ancient swamps — coal, oil, gas. We just got to stop doing that,” he said. “And so there are many alternative sources of energy, but we have to work together to share it. And I’m talking about transmission lines and energy storage, as well as developing more efficient renewable sources at the same time.”
ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke and Dan Peck contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — At an invite-only event in downtown Atlanta, hip-hop fans from across the country came together for a unique voter outreach event.
The Black Male Voter Project, an organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement among Black men, partnered with some of the biggest names in the battle rap to host the No Cap Conference.
The political conference aimed to educate and galvanize a sector of young Black men who are disengaged and unlikely to vote in the November election.
“It’s called No Cap. No cap, in a young Black man’s language, means ‘no lies. This is the truth,” Mondale Robinson, the organization’s founder, told ABC News Chief National Correspondent and “Nightline” Co-Anchor Byron Pitts.
“Our purpose was to talk to the Black men who don’t participate in the election,” Robinson said.
Popular underground rappers sparred bar for bar to earn cash prizes and bragging rights as a packed crowd cheered them on.
There were no slogans, no campaign buttons, and no candidates. ABC News’ “Nightline” was granted exclusive access to the event.
The rap battle was an appetizer for No Cap conference-goers, and civic education was the main course. Attendees, many of whom have never voted in any election, participated in seminars about election misinformation and the history of the 15th Amendment, which granted African American men the right to vote.
The conference also showcased ways for the rappers to leverage their platforms to amplify political campaigns and politicians they support.
The ultimate goal was to ignite political awareness among those who are typically disengaged from the election process.
For Robinson, the hope is that through camaraderie and shared interest, the Black men in attendance would be inspired to become more politically involved in both local and federal elections.
“We talk to the brothers that the world doesn’t want to talk to,” Robinson said. “Nobody’s doing that.
In every election cycle, presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle historically court Black men with a formulaic strategy: making stops at pulpits in churches, hosting barbershop talks, and appearing in roundtables at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
However, Robinson argues that the usual campaign strategy often misses the opportunity to engage with some of the most marginalized and disenchanted voters.
The narrative that young Black male voters are apathetic to the importance of the election is false, Robinson told “Nightline.” He said that it’s ineffective campaign messaging and stalled delivery of campaign promises that ultimately impact voter turnout among the Black male voting bloc.
“There’s no apathy in Black men. There’s a level of antipathy. Antipathy is a whole different emotion. You hate what politics is and does because you’ve not seen the growth, or benefit of it. Black men are not better off because of politics,” Robinson said.
Black men have been a core of the Democratic Party’s path to victory, with more than 80% of them identifying with the party for the last 25 years, according to Pew Research.
And while the Black community still overwhelmingly supports Democrats, some of that support could be eroding. A recent ABC News poll shows that more Black people may have moved away from President Joe Biden.
Some of the Black voters most likely to support former President Donald Trump are those under the age of 50, according to Pew Research.
In 2020, record turnout among Black voters in battleground states delivered the Oval Office to Biden. It’s an acknowledgment the president makes often on the campaign trail.
“Because Black Americans voted, Kamala [Harris] and I are president and vice president of the United States. Because of you. That’s not hyperbole,” Biden told a crowd of Black voters during a campaign stop in Philadelphia on May 29.
However, a Washington Post/ Ipsos poll released in May is raising alarms among Democrats that voter turnout may be a challenge for the party in November, as nearly 1 in 5 Black voters who turned out for Biden in 2020 say they are less than certain about whether they will vote at all this year.
In an election year that could be a toss-up in key battleground states, younger Black men showing up at the polls could play a pivotal role.
Headlining the No Cap conference was Hitman Holla and John John Da Don, two artists, entertainers, and fathers in their 30s. They told ABC News that up until the conference they never discussed politics with each other despite being friends in the music industry for years.
They have only voted once in their lives, helping to elect former President Barack Obama in 2008.
However, Hitman Holla told Pitts that he saw very little change in the social issues impacting the Black community, noting the ongoing battle with disproportionate police brutality.
Since Obama’s first term, the rapper says he has been reluctant to vote again. “Voting is the last thing on my mind,” Hitman Holla said.
“They all want me to vote, but for what? So Mike Brown can get shot . . .? That’s what I’m voting for? So, George Floyd can get killed on camera? What am I voting for? What am I going to stand in this line for and vote for one of these people? Y’all want to act like my vote really matters.”
Hitman Holla and John John Da Don are still undecided, but tell ABC News they are leaning toward voting for Trump.
“I feel like there was more change when Trump was in office than Biden if we have to compare what’s going on,” John John Da Don said, highlighting his trust in the former president on issues relating to the economy.
The rapper is not alone in his sentiments. On issues related to the economy and inflation, adults surveyed by ABC News/Ipsos said they trusted Trump over Biden by a margin of 14 percentage points.
But for Hitman, the reticence toward Biden is not a full-throated endorsement of Trump, either.
“I’ll vote, but they’re my only options?” Hitman Holla continued. “It’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to burn your hand in the oven, or do you want to burn your hand in the toaster?”
On the campaign trail, the Biden administration has focused outreach efforts in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, touting progress in student debt relief, support for Black-owned businesses, as well as improvements in inflation and employment.
The Trump campaign has also tried to court Black voters in myriad ways.
Trump spoke during a roundtable at a church in Detroit with Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Former Housing Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, two prominent Black conservatives and vice presidential contenders, to highlight his record on the economic and funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
During the roundtable Trump also highlighted his record on criminal justice reform, particularly for his signing of the First Step Act of 2018, legislation that created a system of rehabilitation incentives for incarcerated individuals meant to reduce recidivism rates.
“We passed historic criminal justice reform. Something that they’ve been after, people have been after, mostly the Black community, for years and years,” Trump said at the roundtable. “President Obama tried and was unable to get it done. You needed conservative votes and I got conservative votes. We got criminal justice reform done. Nobody else could’ve done that,” Trump continued.
Critics have scrutinized some of the Trump campaign’s outreach strategies. Earlier this year, the former president faced backlash after insinuating that his multiple indictments and ongoing legal woes made him more relatable to Black voters.
“My mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population,” Trump said while speaking at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual BCF Honors Gala at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 23.
During the gala, Trump also said, “I got indicted a second time and a third time. I got a fourth time and a lot of people said that, ‘That’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.”
Addul Ali, a Black Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina’s 12th district, who supports Trump, was in the room when Trump made the controversial remarks. He told ABC News he was not offended.
“The problem is that we have a double standard,” Ali said. ”Donald Trump’s mug shot T-shirt is racist, but you all having some hip-hop gerbils sell me a car is not. Black culture in America is identified as ‘gangsta,’” Ali said.
The former president also unveiled Trump-branded sneakers and has aligned himself with rappers and pop culture figures in recent years to woo young Black voters.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, college students who will be voting for the first time in November told Pitts that Trump’s outreach attempts aren’t translating.
“I kind of feel disgusted that he felt like he could get to us by making jokes about going to jail and relating to us that way. It’s not what we stand for as people. That’s not us as a whole,” Aaron McKinley Veal, a junior at Winston-Salem State University, said.
Ahmad Blair, a junior at North Carolina A&T University, said that while he finds it offensive, he recognizes how it energizes some voters who support Trump.
“The thing is they say those things and while we know them to be wrong, it’s effective. It energizes the people that it needs to,” Blair said.
Much like Hitman Holla and John John Da Don in Atlanta, Blair says it’s difficult not to be disillusioned by the current political landscape.
“I’m so politically tired,” Blair told ABC News. “I don’t even know what issues I care about anymore. I know that reproductive rights are important to me, but I’m tired. Constantly having to fight as a Black man in every space. You have to fight when you enter these white spaces. You’re fighting in a housing market applying for apartments because you can be discriminated against just for being Black. It’s like every system is built in opposition to our success,” Blair continued.
Despite feeling political fatigue, Black male HBCU students told “Nightline” they are still committed to casting ballots in the upcoming presidential election.
“I think it’s really important. Our ancestors fought for this. We’re coming into one of the biggest elections ever. So I feel like it’s very important for Black people, in general, to vote, to go out and voice their opinions,” Blair said.
North Carolina has been a mainstay in the story of Black political progress in America and HBCUs have been at the center.
In Greensboro, North Carolina, four HBCU students famously spearheaded the nationwide sit-in movement in 1960, which led to widespread desegregation of stores in the South.
The Tar Heel state was among one of the common stops for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his crusade for civil rights.
For generations, the Black church has been instrumental in getting voters to the polls and fighting for access to the ballot box.
In Charlotte, it’s a history that will continue at Chappell Memorial Baptist Church. Rev. Dr. Gregory Moss has helped organize voter outreach, including the “Souls to the Polls” program, for much of the 46 years he’s been a pastor.
“The church cannot tell you who to vote for, but we can emphasize the importance of exercising your right as a citizen,” Moss said, adding that he sees his voter outreach as an extension of Sunday service.
“We have a predominance of working-class people and oftentimes when the polls are open, they don’t always have the luxury of being able to leave their job to go to the polls,” Moss said.
While the Biden campaign has made several stops in North Carolina, Moss still hopes to see more intentional ground game and creative outreach in the Black community.
“At the end of the day, again, it’s getting out there touching people,” Moss said.
“It’s not just on social media. It’s not just through 10-second sound bites. It’s getting out there among folk and doing old-school politics.”
ABC News’ Rachel Rosenbaum and Stephanie Lorenzo contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Republican National Committee is launching a nationwide recruitment effort for poll workers ahead of November’s election as former President Donald Trump continues to spread doubts about election security.
The RNC says it has promised Trump it will enlist at least 100,000 people to serve as poll watchers, poll workers, and poll judges — and have kicked off what they are calling the “Protect Your Vote” tour, holding in-person and virtual training sessions in battleground states such as Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
On Friday, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley emphasized the committee’s commitment to the effort above nearly all others, stressing a refocus of priorities at a stop on New York’s Long Island.
“We cannot be all things to all people. We are going to do two things, and we are going to do only two things. We are going to get out the vote, and we are going to protect the ballot — that’s it,” Whatley told a packed room of volunteers in Westbury Friday morning, flanked by top local Republican brass. “The most important thing we can do is get back to basics.”
(New York, notably, has been a reliably Democratic haven for decades, though Trump now says he believes a major flip is within his grasp, following a string of down-ballot GOP wins in The Empire State’s “purple” suburbs during the midterm elections.)
Part of Whatley’s retooled approach at the RNC is an emphasis on early, mail-in voting, a practice Trump once called “corrupt.” Trump has now shifted his stance, and Whatley hopes voters will follow suit. To this end, the committee has launched “Swamp the Vote USA,” a website that instructs supporters how to submit their ballots before Election Day, featuring a video of Trump endorsing those various methods.
Whatley told ABC News after Friday’s event he sees no indication that supporters are being sheepish about early voting. In fact, he expects nearly half of all votes to be cast before Election Day.
“We want to make sure that everybody understands on the Republican side, as the president has said, multiple times, it’s great to vote early. It’s great to vote by mail. It’s great to vote on Election Day,” Whatley said.
He’s also directing resources to ensure the “right rules of the road” are in place, meaning interfacing with various boards of elections, secretaries of state, governors, and local and state parties to alter or add laws that align with their efforts to monitor voting.
The goal is to have volunteers supervise polling sites in order to monitor early and Election Day voting in order to ensure that elections are “secure and transparent and inspire voter confidence.”
“You have to be in the room,” stressed Whatley. “We need Republican attorneys and Republican volunteers serving as poll workers and poll judges and poll observers in any room where voting is taking place or votes or being counted. It’s absolutely critical for us to be in the room.”
In these training sessions, volunteers learn about how to monitor polling sites in accordance with state law and interact with Whatley and RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, as well as other local GOP officials, to increase engagement.
The committee has also set up an “election integrity” department with staff deployed across the nation to keep in constant contact with the trained volunteers.
“No one can sit idly by during this election, and we are excited to help every patriot play a role in the most important election of our lifetime,” Lara Trump said in a press release announcing the Protect the Vote tour.
Whatley denied criticism that he, and the Republican Party broadly, are participating in election denialism.
“I’m not an election denier, I’m an election winner,” said Whatley. “Republicans, Independents, and Democrats want to know that the sanctity of their ballot is going to allow their vote to count.”
Even still the initiative comes as Trump and his Republican allies have continued to spread unfounded claims about prior and forthcoming elections.
“We need to watch the vote. We need to guard the vote,” Lara Trump said while speaking at Turning Point’s “The People Convention” in Michigan last weekend. “It’s so corrupt, the whole election process.”
(NEW YORK) — Facing 16 felony charges in federal court, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez launched a long-shot bid for reelection earlier this month as an independent, but he appears to have held no campaign events, raised almost no money through the first quarter of this year, reportedly has no paid staff and — by siphoning votes from the Democratic Party’s Senate nominee, Rep. Andy Kim, could hand a safe-blue seat to Republicans.
New Jersey Democrats ABC News spoke with are split over Menendez’s motivation.
Some — including Kim — speculate his independent campaign could help him fundraise to cover mounting legal costs. Others said they believe he could be seeking leverage with the Democratic Party. And some state Democrats can’t even agree on whether Menendez will go through with the race at all.
“It’s unfathomable to think I’m running for reelection for any reason other than to continue to uphold my oath of office to help and protect New Jerseyans,” Menendez said to ABC News in an emailed statement. “My candidacy is not, and never was, about leveraging my fellow Democrats.”
Many of those fellow Democrats disagree.
Kim, who won the New Jersey Democratic Senate primary earlier this month, said in an interview with ABC News that he assumed Menendez was running as an independent because he needed money to pay legal fees — incurred in his ongoing trial.
Menendez is charged with allegedly accepting cash, gold bars, luxury wristwatches and other perks from a New Jersey businessmen in exchange for official favors to benefit the businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
He has pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing.
“Depending on what happens with this trial, there could be a long appeals process or other things, so he may have to fundraise for a while,” Kim said.
Julie Roginsky, a veteran New Jersey Democratic political strategist, said she agreed.
“Bob Menendez is staring down millions and millions of dollars in legal fees” and, not being independently wealthy, he has to raise funds to cover them, Roginsky said.
Campaign funds can be used to cover some legal expenses under Federal Election Commission rules, according to former FEC Chairman Michael Toner.
In New Jersey, independent candidates can remove their names from the ballot up until Aug.16. Even if Menendez were to withdraw before that deadline, lobbyists and supporters who might be unwilling or unable to contribute to Menendez’s legal defense fund could donate until then to his campaign instead, Roginsky said.
Toner confirmed that a candidate cannot raise funds for a campaign once they fail to qualify for the ballot in an upcoming cycle. By qualifying for the ballot as an independent, Menendez can therefore continue to raise funds.
Two Democratic operatives close to New Jersey Democratic leadership have a different theory.
New Jersey is a reliably blue seat, and if Menendez pulls votes from Kim, it could imperil that standing — and potentially the U.S. Senate majority in Washington.
Democrats currently hold a narrow 51-seat majority in the Senate but are facing long odds to keep it, with Cook Political Report rating one currently Democratic seat as solid for Republicans and a three others as toss-ups.
Roginsky said she thinks Menendez would not want to cost Democrats the Senate majority.
Knowing that, Menendez could be looking for leverage to extract concessions in exchange for dropping out of the race before late summer, the operatives said. Concessions Menendez might seek, the operatives speculated, could range from financial support to even a pardon from President Joe Biden — as politically improbable as that might be — especially in an election year.
But for many of the state Democrats ABC News interviewed, the question is not why, but whether Menendez will go through with the reelection bid.
“He’s not running again,” said David Wildstein, the editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Globe and a longtime observer of New Jersey politics who says he has known Menendez for 35 years. “I just don’t believe that he’ll want to suffer the indignity of a defeat.”
Kim, for his part, said he isn’t listening to the speculation surrounding Menendez.
“My working assumption right now is that he will be on the ballot,” said Kim, who previously told ABC News “everyone knows Bob Menendez isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself.”
And, Kim said, he will have the support of national Democrats in the event that Menendez does go through with the reelection bid.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer drew criticism for declining to immediately endorse Kim after his primary victory — and still has not done so. But Kim said that he spoke with Schumer after his victory last Tuesday and that they have been “talking more and more” since.
“I’ve certainly felt like we’re getting the support that we need,” Kim said. “And if there are things that we need going forward, I think that we’ll certainly be able to have that kind of coordination.”
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a longstanding federal ban on firearms for people under domestic violence restraining orders.
The 8-1 opinion was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter.
“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may—consistent with the Second Amendment—be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” Roberts wrote. “Since the founding, our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”
The ban, Roberts concluded, “fits comfortably within this tradition.”
U.S. v. Rahimi centered on a dispute over a 1994 federal statute that requires domestic violence restraining orders (DVROs) issued by federal and state judges to be reported to the national background check system, and thus serve as a basis to deny a gun sale.
The law has blocked more than 77,000 attempted firearm purchases by people under DVROs since 1994, according to the FBI.
Challenging the law was Zackey Rahimi, a Texas drug dealer with a history of domestic violence, who argued the Second Amendment guarantees his right to possess a gun.
The case marked a major test for the court since its controversial 2022 decision New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen that expanded individual gun rights and created a new framework for evaluating gun regulations saying only those with ties to the nation’s founding history and tradition can be constitutional.
The Bruen decision triggered a flood of challenges to gun safety laws on claims they don’t have a historical parallel and has become a source of confusion for judges who have struggled to apply the new rule consistently.
Roberts, seeming to acknowledge a course correction, wrote that “some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our recent Second Amendment cases. These precedents were not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a concurring opinion wrote that a “wider lens” on history is essential when interpreting gun laws: “Historical regulations reveal a principle, not a mold,” she wrote.
Thomas, who authored the Bruen opinion, wrote in his dissent that “not a single historical regulation justifies the statute at issue.”
“Yet, in the interest of ensuring the Government can regulate one subset of society, today’s decision puts at risk the Second Amendment rights of many more,” Thomas wrote.
The National Rifle Association, which had supported Rahimi’s challenge to the law, expressed disappointment in the ruling but emphasized its limited scope.
“The Supreme Court’s narrow opinion offers no endorsement of red flag laws or of the dozens of other unconstitutional laws that the NRA is challenging across the country that burden the right of peaceable Americans to keep and bear arms,” said NRA Institute for Legislative Action executive director Randy Kozuch in a statement on X. “This decision holds only that an individual who poses a clear threat of violence may be temporarily disarmed after a judicial finding of dangerousness.”
The court’s ruling on Friday comes at a time when firearms are a leading factor in intimate partner violence nationwide. So far this year, there have been 952 domestic violence murders involving guns, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
“They listened. They listened to survivors, they listened to us,” said La’Shea Cretian, a 45-year-old mother of two who was shot five times by her ex-boyfriend and survived, praising the Court’s decision. “Because there’s not a day, a minute, or a second that we don’t think about it and we don’t feel the pain… but we have to continue to go on in spite of it all.”
More than 12 million American adults are victims of domestic abuse every year; when a gun is involved, it’s 5 times more likely someone will die, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.
“We know that firearms make domestic abuse situations significantly more deadly, and firearms’ effects on women’s safety is a crisis,” said former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who founded a gun safety group after being shot in 2011. “This ruling is a small step in the fight to stop violence against women.”
“Our country has stood at a tipping point, with the safety of survivors of domestic violence on the line. But today, we took a step toward protecting millions from their abusers,” Janet Carter, the senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, part of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Justice Department’s view the federal firearm ban for domestic abusers is a “commonsense prohibition” consistent with the Second Amendment.
“The Justice Department will continue to enforce this important statute, which for nearly 30 years has helped to protect victims and survivors of domestic violence from their abusers,” Garland said.
