Politics

(LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz.) — Former President Barack Obama continued his crisscrossing of midterm election battlegrounds Wednesday in Arizona — hoping to turn out voters so Democrats can hold the Senate and keep election deniers out of office.

“Our democracy is on the ballot, and nowhere is that clearer than here in Arizona,” Obama said.

A crowd of thousands, of all ages and races, packed inside Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen Village, held up their phones and stomped their feet as the former president delivered a roast and a warning on what he called the Republican “cast of characters” on the ballot in Arizona.

“They have decided it’s advantageous for them to just assert that Donald Trump won the last election, and now they want control over the next election. And their argument has no basis in reality,” Obama said. “If you’ve got an election denier serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy, as we know it, may not survive in Arizona.”

To shore up support, especially for incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, Obama tailored his attack lines to their opponents, Republicans Kari Lake and Blake Masters. Both have former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and have echoed his election denialism.

“Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important. I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care how poised they are or how well-lit they are,” Obama said, referring to Lake’s TV appearances.

For more from ABC News’ team of reporters embedded in battleground states, watch “Power Trip” on Hulu, with new episodes on Sunday.

Back in May 2016, when Obama was finishing his second term and Lake was still an anchor at a FOX affiliate in Phoenix, Lake interviewed him in Arizona where they discussed Senate Republicans blocking now-Attorney General Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. “Democracy only works when people play by the rules, where everybody is fair,” Obama told her at the time.

The former president said Wednesday he doesn’t remember thinking then that “she was the kind of person” to push conspiracies.

“I guess that stuff came later because she found it convenient — because she thought, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity to get attention,'” Obama said. “Listen, if we hadn’t just elected somebody whose main qualification was being on TV, you can say, ‘Maybe give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?’ Well, now we know. It doesn’t just work out just because somebody’s been on TV. Turns out, being president or governor is about more than snappy lines and good lighting.”

The crowd roared.

Notably, Lake contributed to Obama’s first presidential campaign and voted for him, but attributes that now to dissatisfaction with the Republican establishment.

“Katie, she may not be flashy,” Obama said of Hobbs before an outspoken attendee disagreed. “She could have been. She just chooses not to be, because she’s serious about her work.”

Hobbs, who has faced criticism for refusing to debate Lake, has run a low-key campaign when compared to her competitor’s large-scale rallies and moderated Q&A events. But Wednesday, she took a jab at Lake in front of her largest audience yet.

“Democracy is the system that sent Barack Obama to the White House, and democracy is the system that will send Kari Lake back to whatever dark corner of the internet she came from,” Hobbs said to cheers.

Several Democrats spoke at the rally, including secretary of state candidate Adrian Fontes and attorney general candidate Kris Mayes — and one lone Republican, Mesa Mayor John Giles, an outspoken Lake critic.

“Kari Lake is playing to an audience of one. I promise you if she’s elected, she’ll spend more time traveling to Mar-a-Lago than to Mesa,” Giles said. “Likewise, Blake Masters wants to go to the Senate to represent two people: One, a billionaire in California, the other, a want-to-be billionaire former president in Florida,” he added, referring also to Peter Thiel, a Masters-mega donor.

For his part, Obama said of Masters, “If you were trying to create, in a lab, a wacky Republican politician, it’d look a lot like this guy.”

The former president also knocked the 36-year-old conservative and venture capitalist for scrubbing his website after his primary win to soften some of his stances.

“His website had all kinds of lies about how the election was stolen, then after he won the nomination, poof, vanished. Along with his extreme views on abortion, poof,” Obama said. “I mean, this guy is supposed to know tech. Does he think like people can’t track that?”

Arizona Republicans, meanwhile, were quick to dismiss Obama’s visit and note that he never carried Arizona.

“Barack Obama has never won Arizona, and the fact that he is here is a testament to the toxicity of Joe Biden that has rubbed off on Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen said in a statement. “This election is a referendum on Biden’s abject failure on skyrocketing inflation, open borders and violent crime.”

Masters also brushed off the former president’s criticism of him and has dismissed any notion of a post-primary pivot, likening his website changes to a run-of-the-mill update. He responded by posting a family photo to Twitter, with his wife and three small sons, and saying, “This is what Democrats like Obama think is wacky.”

Lake, meanwhile, has countered characterizations of her election denialism to say Democrats have also not conceded elections and have raised doubts in results dating back to 2000.

President Joe Biden, notably, has not visited the Grand Canyon State and has not announced plans to do so, focusing instead on Florida, Maryland, New Mexico and California. But the White House announced Thursday plans for first lady Jill Biden to campaign with Kelly in Phoenix this weekend, the final weekend before Election Day.

At the same time, Biden, Trump and Obama will all be in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a state that has seen razor-thin margins in another Senate race that could determine the balance of power in Congress.

While Obama’s appearance could be seen as coming too late since a majority of Arizonans vote early, and early voting ends Friday, voters outside the rally in South Phoenix predicted he’s the one to bring more people to the polls.

“I’m hoping he can energize us,” Ann Wood of Phoenix told ABC News. “I think every single vote counts. It was so close last time, and I just hope it makes a difference.”

“It’s never too late,” said Nancy Shubert of Sun West City. “As Democrats, we’re very, very, very hopeful.”

Libby Cathey is one of seven ABC News campaign reporters embedded in battleground states across the country. Watch all the twists and turns of covering the midterm elections every Sunday on Hulu’s “Power Trip” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — In the wake of the 2020 election, state and local election officials have faced a wave of threats and misinformation, prompting mass resignations up and down their ranks — and stoking fear among some experts that their replacements would put partisan loyalties above the free and fair administration of the election.

In the weeks and months after the 2020 vote, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that one-third of election workers reported feeling unsafe because of their job. Nearly one-fifth of respondents listed threats to their lives as a job-related concern.

ABC News reported in June 2021 that dozens of election administrators at the state and local level had resigned their posts at an alarming rate in places like South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. In August, ABC News reported that persistent threats and misinformation had prompted a “second wave” of resignations in at least nine states.

Election worker threats

In Georgia, two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, were forced into hiding after Rudy Giuliani and conservative media outlets accused the mother-daughter duo of conspiring to commit election fraud. The two testified about their experience before the Jan. 6 committee.

Stephen Richer, the Republican chief elections officer in Maricopa County, Arizona, faced an onslaught of death threats after overseeing a controversial audit of the 2020 election, which lead him to cease attending political events for fear of his safety.

In response to the wave of threats targeting election workers, the Justice Department launched a task force focused on these complaints — but results have been paltry, state and local officials have said. In August, the task force said it had reviewed “over 1,000” reports of threats — though only 11% had met the threshold for federal criminal investigation. Seven cases have been charged — one of whom was convicted and sentenced in October to 18 months in prison.

Georgia’s office of secretary of state has launched a text message alert notification tool for election workers to report threats or security issues.

With so many election officials leaving their jobs, democracy experts fear their departures will leave an “institutional knowledge” gap about election administration, and their replacements may harbor partisan motivations.

Indeed, as ABC News reported in January, many Republican-led efforts to recruit new poll workers took on a partisan bent. More recently, ABC News reported that allies of former President Donald Trump have used false election claims to recruit ex-military members as poll workers.

Voting machines

Electronic voting machines became a target of many falsehoods and disproven conspiracy theories in the wake of 2022, with Republican activists falsely claiming that certain devices were somehow manipulated to switch votes from Trump to President Joe Biden, among others.

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the nation’s largest voting machine purveyors, filed multiple lawsuits against conservative news outlets and Trump allies over the promulgation of “outlandish” conspiracy theories involving its product.

Tina Peters, a county recorder in Mesa County, Arizona, was indicted in May 2021 on charges associated with a security breach in her office. Peters, a Trump supporter and election denier, allegedly allowed an unauthorized person to obtain voter machine logs and a forensic copy of its hard drive. The documents later emerged on the internet. Peters has pleaded not guilty.

Concerns over voting software and hardware will be front and center again in 2022, and the Ballotwatch team will be on the lookout for both unfounded claims and legitimate vulnerabilities with election infrastructure.

Nevada Secretary of State, Republican Barbara Cegavske, recently approved a proposal to allow counties to hand-count votes this fall after Nye County, based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, decided earlier this year to abandon the Dominion voting machines it had relied on for years.

Access to the vote

Long lines and access to polling locations have long been the scourge of democracy advocates — and 2022 will likely be no different. Republican-led state legislatures have enacted dozens of laws restricting voting access since 2020, including many that would repeal 2020 exceptions for the covid-19 pandemic.

Since the beginning of 2021, lawmakers have passed at least 42 restrictive voting laws in 21 states, according to the Brennan Center. Among those laws, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that is in effect for the midterms in 20 states.

ABC News recently reported that the promulgation of election-related threats has made some schools and churches reconsider whether it is safe to continue serving as polling locations, prompting concerns among some election officials that voters may face more difficulty casting their ballots in November and beyond.

Voter intimidation and poll watchers

Partisan poll watchers representing both Republicans and Democrats have observed elections for decades. But in the run-up to the 2020 election, former President Trump’s allies sought to weaponize these actors for their own political benefit, demonstrating behavior that some democracy advocates say amounted to voter intimidation.

Ahead of the midterms, more of the same appears to be underway.

In Arizona, for example, multiple cases of alleged voter intimidation at drop box locations have already been referred to the Justice Department. Complaints described individuals loitering near the drop box locations, filming, and photographing voters as they returned their ballots and, in some cases, taking photographs of the voters’ license plates.

On Tuesday, a federal issued a temporary restraining order to prohibit some people accused of voter intimidation from gathering near ballot boxes and surveilling voters, ruling that observers must remain at least 75 feet away from drop boxes and banning open carry and body armor within 250 feet.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump asked a Florida court on Wednesday to shield his revocable trust from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has filed a $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump and his family.

In a 41-page civil lawsuit laden with familiar grievances, the former president accused James of “intimidation and harassment” and of making repeated “attempts to steal, destroy or control all things Trump,” including the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust that contains his private estate plan, and decisions about the disposition of his assets upon death.

The lawsuit said the trust “requires protection from James’ demand to invade his privacy.” As part of her lawsuit, James has sought documents about the trust, its terms and its contents.

“These are private matters to President Trump, and under Florida law, revelation of a settlor’s revocable trust while the settlor is still alive threatens the settlor’s right to privacy guaranteed by Article I, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution and the common law,” Trump’s lawsuit states.

A spokeswoman for James issued a statement Wednesday night, saying, “Multiple judges have dismissed Donald Trump’s baseless attempts to evade justice, and no number of lawsuits will deter us from pursuing this fraud. We sued Donald Trump because he committed extensive financial fraud. That fact hasn’t changed, and neither will our resolve to ensure that no matter how powerful or political one might be, no one is above the law.”

James alleges that Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations” for 20 years, and her lawsuit accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.

The civil lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.

Trump’s filing comes hours before a hearing on Thursday in New York where a judge will hear oral arguments about the attorney general’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop alleged ongoing fraud.

The attorney general’s office claimed in a court filing last month that the Trump Organization allegedly appeared to be moving assets and taking other steps to restructure the business in an attempt to “evade liability.”

James also asked the court to appoint a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s preparation of financial statements to ensure accuracy.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has offered Trump aide Kash Patel an immunity deal to testify before a grand jury probing former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of documents marked as classified found at Mar-a-Lago, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Patel appeared before a grand jury probing the handling of the documents last month and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.

The immunity deal for Patel wouldn’t necessarily shield him from prosecution and wouldn’t protect him from any information investigators receive independent of his testimony.

But experts argue the extension of an immunity offer, nonetheless, could signal the advanced stage the investigation is currently in and how investigators are increasingly zeroing in on Trump’s attempts to hold on to documents that were among the most highly protected government intelligence.

Patel didn’t immediately respond to a text message seeking comment, and it’s not clear how he or his team will respond to the DOJ’s offer. A lawyer representing Patel declined to comment. Department of Justice officials declined to comment.

On Aug. 9, the day after FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and found scores of documents marked classified, Patel issued a statement calling the raid “unlawful” and saying “corrupt government gangsters” had engaged in “the blatant weaponization of our government for political gain.”

On Monday, Patel appeared on “The Benny Show,” a right-wing podcast, and said, “I’m all in with the boss, and you know that.” Patel was responding to a question about whether he would accept the FBI director post if Trump were to be reelected in 2024.

“First I tell people, let’s win the midterms,” Patel said. “And then let’s see what he does and, you know, you and I think I know what he’s going to do. And then it’s a two-year lift and you know what, they’re going to come after us.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON0 — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he hopes Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, acts “responsibly.”

“He’s going to be in a position of responsibility with respect to an important platform, and we hope that he exercises that position responsibly,” Mayorkas told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas during an interview at DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Musk, who acquired Twitter for roughly $44 billion last week, retweeted and since deleted inaccurate information regarding the assault of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.

The secretary noted that Musk removed the inaccurate post “rather rapidly.”

Mayorkas said that, ultimately, it’s up to Congress to regulate social media companies. The government, however, is within its purview to combat mis- and disinformation, he said.

“For example, if it involves the election — if there is false information that [says] you don’t need to vote on Nov. 8… if you miss [the] voting date, you can ask … for permission to vote five days later — with no factual basis, inaccurate information that could deceive an individual into missing their right to exercise their vote. That is something that we will correct,” he said. “That is our responsibility. That is our mission. And we execute it quite proudly.”

Disinformation from nation-state actors could be seen by a vast audience, he said, including during the 2022 midterm election, if it is not stomped out.

“Here in the online environment, the potential audience is vast,” he said. “And what we do, we have a responsibility to make sure that the American public receives accurate information.”

Earlier this year, DHS established and then quickly shut down a Disinformation Governance Board that was aimed at combatting disinformation but it was criticized by both sides of the aisle.

Mayorkas told ABC News that leaders have a responsibility to combat misinformation.

“The words of leaders matter a lot, and we need leaders to act responsibly,” he said. “It is the responsibility of government, not just the Department of Homeland Security. The responsibility of government. It is a responsibility of leaders. It is the responsibility of people in positions of trust to communicate accurate information to the American public and disabuse them of falsehoods.”

He is concerned about the “temperature” in the country and the divisiveness, the secretary added.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump settled a civil lawsuit Wednesday that alleged his security guards violently assaulted protesters outside Trump Tower in 2015.

The case, brought by Efrain Galicia and four other protesters of Mexican origin against Trump and his head of security, Keith Schiller, was in the middle of jury selection in Bronx Supreme Court when the parties came to a confidential agreement.

Video from the September 2015 rally appeared to show Schiller smacking Galicia in the face after he reached for a sign that said “Trump: Make America Racist Again.”

“Defendants were staring down the barrel of a Bronx jury who were about to be presented with overwhelming evidence in support of plaintiffs’ claims,” Ben Dictor, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said in a statement to ABC News. “Nevertheless, plaintiffs are proud to have settled their claims and to have obtained written recognition by Donald Trump of their right to protest on the public sidewalk. Powerful men may put their names on buildings, but the sidewalk will always belong to the people.”

The settlement was announced in a stipulation that said the two sides agreed the matter should be “discontinued in its entirety.” The stipulation did not disclose terms.

“Although we were eager to proceed to trial to demonstrate the frivolousness of this case, the parties were ultimately able to come to an amicable resolution. We are very pleased with this outcome and are happy to finally put this matter to rest once and for all,” Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said.

A joint statement from Trump, signed by Habba on his behalf, and the plaintiffs, said, “The parties all agree that the plaintiffs in the action, and all people, have a right to engage in peaceful protest on public sidewalks.”

Trump said Schiller “did nothing wrong” and called the protesters “troublemakers” during a deposition in October 2021.

“I think they were troublemakers, yes I do. I think they were,” Trump said, according to a transcript.

The protesters said they were lawfully on the public sidewalk outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when they were “attacked and their property destroyed.” Their lawsuit also alleged infringement on their free speech rights.

Two of the protesters wore Ku Klux Klan outfits to call attention to David Duke’s endorsement of Trump’s immigration policies during the campaign.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden, with less than a week to go until the midterms, delivered a speech Wednesday night condemning political violence and urging voters to protect democracy.

“We must with an overwhelming voice stand against political violence and voter intimidation, period,” he said. “Stand up and speak against it. We don’t settle our differences in America with a riot, a mob, or a bullet or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the ballot box.”

Speaking from Union Station in Washington, a short distance from the U.S. Capitol, Biden began by addressing the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband last week, detailing how an intruder broke into their California home and assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

“The assailant entered the home asking, ‘Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’ Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, when they broke windows, kicked in the doors,” Biden said.

Biden then went on to denounce the Jan. 6 attackers as a mob “whipped into a frenzy” by former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Those falsehoods, Biden said, are still pervasive this election cycle with some Republican candidates espousing Trump’s lies about the 2020 race and are preemptively sowing doubt about the outcome in the races they’re running in this fall.

“American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election,” Biden said. “He refuses to accept the will of the people, he refuses to accept the fact that he lost.”

Biden also addressed vote tallies, trying to temper Election Day expectations by reminding the public that it may take a few days before full results are announced.

More than 28 million people have voted early in the 2022 general election, according to data analyzed by the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project.

“It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner,” he said.

The speech came just six days out from the Nov. 8 elections, where Democrats are defending their slim majorities in Congress.

Forecasts from FiveThirtyEight point to a potential Republican takeover of the House, while the Senate is in flux.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Barack Obama and other political heavyweights have been hitting the campaign trial these final days to shore up voter enthusiasm in contentious races across the country.

Biden’s hoped to cast the 2022 cycle not as a referendum on his presidency but as a choice between Democrats and “MAGA Republicans” who he describes as extremists that threaten rights to abortion, privacy and same-sex marriage.

“I appeal to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance,” Biden said. “We must vote, knowing what’s at stake and not just the policy of the moment.”

But polling has shown kitchen-table issues are top of mind for a majority of voters. The latest survey from ABC News and Ipsos found 26% of Americans identify the economy as their single most important issue determining their vote while 23% cite inflation.

“People are worried about disorder. And whenever there’s disorder — in this case in crime and economic news — they tend to vote for the opposition,” Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist, told ABC News.

Sheinkopf said it’s “hard to imagine” Biden’s message on democracy will move the needle before next week’s elections.

“[Biden] has to show that he is a unifier at a time of great division, but is it really going to move voters?” Sheinkopf questioned.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The divisiveness in the United States is something adversaries seek to take advantage of, especially during the midterm elections, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News in an interview on Tuesday.

“The divisiveness that now grips this country is something that our adversaries, our adverse nation-states seek to exploit,” Mayorkas told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas. “And they do that on online platforms.”

The three main adversaries, he said, are Russia, China and Iran, which purposely attempt to sow discord “in the American public.”

The secretary was asked whether or not former President Donald Trump makes his job harder because people believe his falsehoods about the 2020 election. The secretary, while not directly addressing Trump by name, said the words of leaders “matter” and that the misinformation leaders perpetuate makes their job harder.

He was also asked if DHS has a responsibility to neutralize claims of election fraud.

“It is the responsibility of government, not just the Department of Homeland Security, the responsibility of government. It is a responsibility of leaders. It is the responsibility of people in positions of trust to communicate accurate information to the American public and disabuse them of falsehoods,” he said.

Mayorkas, when asked, said he has not communicated with the former president about taking the temperature of the rhetoric down.

Last week, the department warned in a bulletin obtained by ABC News that violent extremists could pose a “heightened threat” to the midterm elections, which are on Tuesday.

“The integrity of an individual’s right to vote and to be able to vote with a complete feeling of safety and security is absolutely vital. That is the foundation of our democracy,” Mayorkas said. “Freedom of speech is a fundamental right in this country. That does not mean that one gets to scream fire in a movie theater or incite people to violent acts.”

Mayorkas, who oversees the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is primarily in charge of securing the nation’s cyber infrastructure during the midterms and beyond, said they are doing everything they can do to protect the vote, including by combatting misinformation, and that the election infrastructure is “safe and secure.”

“I think what’s important is that we will do everything that we can to protect the American public, to protect the integrity of the vote,” he said, adding that there is no credible direct threat to the election.

“It is our responsibility as a country to make sure that the American public understands what is true and what is not, in the sense that we have to build digital literacy. We have to make sure that an individual who reads things online or otherwise learns to assess the credibility of the source and make decisions for themselves as to fact or fiction,” he said.

Mayorkas also said there are a “number of forces that are fueling violent extremism, ideologies of hate, false narratives, anti-government sentiment, personal grievances.”

The attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, is just one example of the moment the country is in, he said.

On Friday, a suspect assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer after breaking into the couple’s San Francisco home in what the district attorney called “politically motivated violence.” The suspect is facing a slew of state and federal charges.

Since Mayorkas took the job in 2021, he has been sounding the alarm on domestic violent extremism in the United States. On Tuesday, he called what happened on Jan. 6 a wake-up call, along with the assault at the Pelosi home.

“Let’s think about that assault and the fact that there is not unanimity of condemnation and abhorrence in this country over that brutal act,” the secretary said. “It should be another wake-up call with respect to the moment that we’re in.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday will announce new steps the Biden administration is taking to help lower energy costs for Americans this winter.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is providing $4.5 billion in assistance to help cut heating costs for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), according to the White House.

“In addition to covering home heating costs this winter and unpaid utility bills, the program will help families make cost-effective home energy repairs to lower their heating and cooling bills,” the White House said in a statement.

Over the last year, LIHEAP has helped 5.3 million households across the United States with heating, cooling and weatherization, according to the White House.

The U.S. Department of Energy will also allocate $9 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to support up to 1.6 million households nationwide in upgrading their homes to decrease energy bills. This will be separated into two rebate programs: one for whole home energy efficiency retrofits and another for highly efficient and electric home appliances, according to the White House.

“In addition to lowering costs, energy-efficient and electric building and appliance upgrades can reduce indoor and local outdoor air pollution, improving health in our communities,” the White House said. “In addition, they will cut millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year to help tackle climate change.”

Harris will discuss the initiatives while visiting a union hall and training facility in Boston on Wednesday, according to the White House.

Nearly half of U.S. households rely on natural gas for heating and their bills could jump 28% this winter, compared with last winter, while bills for heating oil are projected to be 27% higher and electricity 10% higher, according to a recent analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Energy.

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents the state directors of LIHEAP, said in a recent report that energy costs are expected to be the highest this winter in more than a decade. This comes amid soaring inflation rates, with U.S. consumer prices increasing to a 40-year high 6.6% in September.

There are a number of contributing factors, including a rebound in global energy consumption from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has triggered price spikes, and Russia’s war in Ukraine further increasing prices and reducing supplies.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Prosecutors accused former President Donald Trump ally Tom Barrack of “leveraging his access” while the defense accused the prosecution of “misdirection” as closing arguments concluded Tuesday in Barrack’s trial on charges of illegal foreign lobbying.

The government has accused Barrack, a billionaire California real estate investor who ran Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee, of illegally lobbying the Trump campaign and administration on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. The nearly two-month trial included mentions of Trump himself and some of his closest associates.

Prosecutors urged the jury to convict Barrack on charges that he acted as a foreign agent for the UAE from 2016 to 2018 without registering with the Department of Justice. He also faces charges of obstruction and multiple counts of lying to the FBI during a 2019 FBI interview.

“There are two Tom Barracks,” prosecutor Ryan Harris told the jury. “The man who talks about weaving a web of tolerance, and the man he really is when the cameras are off, when no one is watching, when the facade is stripped away — a man ultimately just leveraging his access and influence within the Trump administration to make money and acquire power.”

In exchange for acting under the “direction and control” of the UAE, prosecutors said, UAE officials in turn “unlocked its purse strings” and invested nearly $375 million in Barrack’s business from sovereign wealth funds.

“Mr. Barrack sold the UAE on his political connections,” Harris said.

Barrack has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. On Tuesday, his attorney said in his summation that there was a “total lack of evidence in this case.”

“Instead of proof of direction and control, I submit to you that throughout this entire case what they have given you is misdirection and control,” Barrack’s attorney, Randall Jackson, told the jury.

During the trial, Barrack testified in his own defense to deny the charges against him, and spent nearly three days on the stand answering questions about his contacts with UAE officials, which he said were part of his long-standing business ties to the Middle East.

Barrack, who at times denounced Trump on the stand, denied prosecutor’s allegations — including that he agreed to act on behalf of the UAE during a spring 2016 meeting with the head of the UAE’s security council.

“Did he ask you if you wanted to be a UAE foreign agent?” his defense attorney, Michael Schachter, asked him during his testimony.

“No,” replied Barrack.

Barrack, whose family is from Lebanon, testified that his interactions with UAE officials were well-known, and that he did not think there would have been any restrictions on his ability to discuss the Trump campaign’s positions with UAE officials.

“I thought that was actually a great thing,” Barrack said. “The idea of having somebody that had knowledge in both confused arenas that could create some web of understanding and tolerance is what I know we all needed.”

He laughed when asked by his attorney about the government’s allegation that he was working to “manipulate the public” and “spread UAE propaganda.”

“Not at all,” Barrack said.

Barrack also testified that he briefed then-candidate Trump on his interactions with United Arab Emirates officials as he tried to help Trump better understand Middle East issues.

“I talked to President Trump about it, and he said, ‘You do the right thing,'” Barrack testified about one of his meetings with a UAE official.

The high-profile case at times offered a glimpse into the workings of Trump’s inner circle during the 2016 campaign and the early days of his administration, including their contacts with foreign officials. Trump associates including Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Rick Gates were all mentioned over the course of the trial.

The majority of the government’s case rested on hundreds of Barrack’s emails and text messages, which prosecutors and witnesses read aloud to the jury over several days. The correspondences showed Barrack arranging meetings with senior UAE government officials to discuss policy initiatives over the course of several months.

Matthew Grimes, Barrack’s aide at his real estate firm, is also charged in the case and has also pleaded not guilty. Grimes’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, told the jury that prosecutors had “failed miserably” in their case.

The jury is expected to receive the case Wednesday for deliberations, the judge said in court.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.