Former U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the courtroom after a break during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 30, 2024. (EDUARDO MUNOZ/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail, hitting two battleground states Wednesday after severe weather and his legal calendar have prevented him from holding his traditional campaign stops for weeks.
Trump will first campaign in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and then head to Freeland, Michigan, for an evening rally, packing his campaign schedule on his only regularly scheduled off day from court during the week.
It’ll be the first time Trump has held a rally since the start of his criminal hush money trial in New York. The former president was scheduled to hold a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, two weeks ago but had to cancel it shortly before he was scheduled to take the stage due to incoming severe weather, and was only able to participate in a campaign fundraiser in Charlotte earlier that afternoon.
“I’m going to go into the icebox now and sit for about eight hours or nine hours,” Trump complained Tuesday as he entered his third week of the trial. “I’d much rather be in Georgia. I’d much rather be in Florida. I’d much rather be in states that are in play.”
Rather than campaigning in key swing states, Trump has instead been forced to make New York City his political stomping grounds, making statements outside the Manhattan courtroom and holding stops around the city in between his mandatory court appearances.
Trump stopped by a bodega in Harlem on April 16, two days into the trial, and a construction site in Manhattan last week to criticize Democratic policies in the area but also using it as a chance for reporters to shout questions at him. He has also allowed select media to capture arrivals from foreign leaders he has welcomed as he resides in Trump Tower for the duration of his court proceedings.
The choreographed stops highlight how Trump has had to balance being both a defendant and a presidential candidate.
Aside from the quick stops in New York and a couple of media interviews, Trump has had to rely on talking to reporters in the hallways of court; however, he has kept his statements relatively brief.
Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday morning fined Trump a total of $9,000 for nine violations of the case’s limited gag order, which prevents Trump from targeting potential witnesses and others involved in the case. Trump was ordered to pay the fine by the close of business Friday, and all nine of his social media posts cited by Merchan in his contempt of court ruling were removed.
Meanwhile, both President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their respective spouses have been campaigning aggressively in key states like Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida.
Wednesday will be Trump’s first time back in front of a large audience where, according to his campaign, he plans to attack Biden on the economy and crime, with Trump’s legal battles at the forefront.
Wisconsin and Michigan are states Biden flipped in 2020 from Trump, and key states that remain close heading into 2024. According to 538’s polling averages, Trump leads Biden in Wisconsin by close to 3 points, and just over a point in Michigan.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday, to focus on abortion access — the same day the state’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect.
Harris’ trip comes a little more than a week after President Joe Biden also traveled to the state for a campaign event in Tampa, where he blasted the pending ban, which has some narrow exceptions.
Their reelection campaign has been seeking to focus on abortion as a defining issue of the 2024 race.
During Biden’s Tampa event, the president called out former President Donald Trump by name, blaming him for the spread of abortion bans across the country following the overruling of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“He’s [Trump is] wrong, the Supreme Court was wrong. It should be a constitutional right in the federal Constitution, a federal right, and it shouldn’t matter where in America you live,” Biden said then, adding, “This is about women’s rights.”
Since the decision against Roe, handed down by the court’s six conservative-leaning justices, including three named by Trump, 21 states have enacted restrictions or bans on abortion access.
Biden’s remarks on abortion in Florida were also notable given his complicated relationship with the issue of abortion because of his faith as a devout Catholic.
Instead, the White House and campaign have largely used Harris as their primary messenger on abortion.
She launched a “Reproductive Freedom Tour” in January and quickly traveled to Arizona in April after that state’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the 160-year-old, near-total abortion ban.
Ahead of Harris’ trip to Florida, the Democratic National Committee held a call with reporters and southern Democratic leaders, including Democratic Party chairs from Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
Democrats have been underlining the Biden campaign’s attacks on Trump, connecting the former president to state bans and warning that if Trump is elected again, restrictions will become more widespread.
Democrats have also emphasized how abortion rights have come out on top every time voters have been casting ballots about it.
“We have seen reproductive rights initiatives win on every ballot since Roe v. Wade was overturned because the vast majority of Americans believe that reproductive health care decisions should be made by women and their doctors, not politicians,” Florida Democratic Chair Nikki Fried said. “And as President Biden has repeatedly said, Trump and extreme Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women in America, but they will soon find out.”
Trump, for his part, has celebrated the end of Roe but said abortion should now be determined by each state: “At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart or in many cases, your religion or your faith,” he said earlier this month.
While he insists that he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban as president if Congress passes one, he also hasn’t said that he would veto such a law if needed.
“I won’t have to commit to it because it’ll never — No. 1, it’ll never happen, No. 2, it’s about states’ rights,” he told Time magazine in a recent interview. “You don’t want to go back into the federal government. This was all about getting out of the federal government.”
Harris’ trip to Florida will mark her 12th visit to the state since being sworn in as vice president, a sign of how seriously her and Biden’s campaign is about trying to win back Florida this election cycle following Trump’s 2016 and 2020 wins.
Evan Power, the chair of the Florida GOP, contends that abortion isn’t the issue to tip the state in the opposing party’s favor.
“Democrats made [abortion] the No. 1 issue that they ran in on in Florida in 2022 and we won by 19% of the votes,” Power previously told ABC News.
Referring to the six-week ban, Power has said, “This is what the voters sent their legislators to Tallahassee to deliver on and they did deliver on it. So I don’t think there’s a backlash coming in at all.”
But national and state Democrats believe that the combination of the state’s six-week abortion ban and an abortion ballot measure, which would allow access to the procedure up to viability — considered to be at about the 24th week of pregnancy — will give the party a stronger chance of flipping the state in November given that abortion access has been seen as a winning issue for Democrats since 2022.
“Our agenda, our coalition, and the unique dynamics this election presents make it clear: President Biden is in a stronger position to win Florida this cycle than he was in 2020,” Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, wrote in a memo in early April, reflecting the cautious optimism among some in her party.
(WASHINGTON) — In a historic shift, the Drug Enforcement Administration supports recommending the reclassification of marijuana as a less dangerous drug, moving it from a Schedule 1 classification, alongside drugs like heroin and ecstasy, to a Schedule 3 drug, like ketamine, steroids and testosterone, sources told ABC News.
A source confirmed that the Department of Justice on Tuesday will send its recommendation to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which will review it, further solidifying a process that will then take several more months.
The White House declined to comment, referring all questions to the DOJ, which then announced its decision later on Tuesday.
In a statement, department spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa said: “Today, the attorney general circulated a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Once published by the Federal Register, it will initiate a formal rulemaking process as prescribed by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act.”
As Hinojosa indicated, the Office of Management and Budget will soon initiate a public comment period before the issue gets sent back to DOJ to run their own process, which will include hearings and a review by an administrative judge.
The change is far from finalized and, even if approved, the move would not legalize marijuana outright.
However, rescheduling marijuana would have sweeping ramifications for how the federal government treats the drug — in terms of medical research, taxation and more — as marijuana has become more widely used across American society.
A majority of states have legalized marijuana use to varying degrees, including for medicinal purposes, according to the Pew Research Center.
“We classify marijuana at the same level as heroin – and more serious than fentanyl. It makes no sense,” President Joe Biden tweeted in October 2022, when he asked the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. attorney general to begin this review process.
Since then, Biden has also pardoned thousands of people convicted for federal offenses of simple marijuana possession. If the drug is reclassified to Schedule 3, it could impact those charges at the state level.
(JERUSALEM) — As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Tuesday that Israel would proceed with a military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah “with or without a deal,” the Biden administration — which has repeatedly warned against a Rafah offensive — appears to be holding out hope for a cease-fire agreement.
“We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in comments translated from Hebrew. “We will destroy the Hamas battalions there, we will complete all the objectives of the war, including the repatriation of all our hostages.”
Netanyahu said there would be an evacuation of the civilian population. No timeline has been given for an operation in Rafah, where it’s believed more than 1.4 million Palestinians have gathered in the wake of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Since the Hamas terrorist group’s unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, more than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza and at least 77,000 others injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. In Israel, at least 1,700 people have been killed and 8,700 others injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu said in a statement from his office Tuesday, The Associated Press reported. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate Hamas’ battalions there — with or without a deal, to achieve the total victory.”
President Joe Biden has previously called invading Rafah a “red line.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a trip to the Middle East in March, said a major military operation there would be a “mistake” that would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.
And Vice President Kamala Harris previously told ABC News in an interview that the administration was not ruling out consequences if Netanyahu went ahead with an offensive despite U.S. concerns.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby tried to steer clear of Netanyahu’s comments Tuesday.
“I’ll let the prime minister speak for himself,” Kirby told reporters. “Our position on Rafah is absolutely the same. We don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah. Certainly, we don’t want to see operations that haven’t factored in the safety and security of those 1.5 million folks trying to seek refuge down there. And we conveyed that to our Israeli counterparts certainly privately, absolutely publicly, and nothing’s changed about that.”
Meanwhile, speaking with reporters Tuesday in Jordan amid another trip to the Middle East, Blinken said he’d want to see a hostage deal come together in the “coming days.”
Blinken, who will head to Israel next, seemed to echo Kirby’s earlier comments Tuesday morning that the hostage deal has to become a reality because there’s simply no good alternative.
“Our focus right now is on getting a cease-fire and hostages home. That is the most urgent thing,” Blinken said. “It’s also, I think, what is achievable because the Israelis have put a strong proposal on the table. They’ve demonstrated that they’re willing to compromise, and now it’s on Hamas. No more delays. No more excuses. The time to act is now. So our focus is on this and we want to see in the coming days, this agreement coming together.”
The United States has repeatedly called for Israel to present a plan regarding Rafah. Vedant Patel, the State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, said Tuesday the U.S. still has not seen a humanitarian plan presented by Israel and that it continues to oppose large-scale offensive operations in the Rafah region.
“We have been unambiguous about the concerns that we have when it comes to the more than a million people seeking refuge in that region,” Patel said. “So any kind of operation that does not address these concerns would be a nonstarter for us.”
Israel will not send a delegation to Cairo until Hamas provides an answer on the proposal Israel has offered them, an Israeli source told ABC News on Tuesday.
During a weeklong cease-fire between Hamas and Israel in late November, Hamas freed more than 100 people. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
There are 129 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of the 129, at least 34 are believed to be dead, with their bodies still held by Hamas in Gaza, Israeli officials say.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty, Molly Nagle and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Mike Johnson and other House Republicans are stepping up their criticism of the college protests happening nationwide in connection to the Israel-Hamas war.
Johnson, speaking on Tuesday alongside other GOP leaders at their weekly press conference, denounced the latest developments at Columbia University and called on President Joe Biden to speak more forcefully on the issue.
“Columbia is out of control,” he claimed, citing overnight developments of students occupying a campus building and defying the university’s order to disperse.
“They’re unable to operate the university at a time when the students are prepared for their final exams,” Johnson said. “It’s unfair, it’s unright, it’s unsafe and it must stop.”
Biden has tried to balance support for Israel with sympathy for Palestinians killed and suffering in Gaza, but has faced criticism from some in his own party and many Republicans on his approach to the fraught Israel-Hamas war. Last week, Biden said he condemned “antisemitic protests” but also condemned “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
The speaker and some of his New York Republican colleagues visited the New York City campus last week and met with Jewish students. Johnson was heckled and booed when he delivered remarks in front of protesters calling on Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to resign and suggested the National Guard be called to tamp down the demonstrations.
The college protests have been largely peaceful, officials say, but escalated in recent days following arrests and suspensions at some schools. Pro-Palestinian students and protesters have called for their colleges to divest from funding Israeli military operations as the humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza. Some Jewish students have called the demonstrations antisemitic and said they fear for their safety.
Congressional Republicans have seized on the protests to politically hit Democrats on the issue and show strong support for Israel. Many have called for colleges with these protests to lose federal funding.
House Republicans on Tuesday also unveiled the framework of a new congressional investigation examining how university leadership has dealt with the protests. House Committee on Education and Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx, joined by GOP leadership and committee chairs at a press conference Tuesday, said she’s notified the presidents of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to appear before the Education Committee on May 23.
“American universities are officially put on notice that we have come to take our universities back,” Foxx said.
Johnson said Congress has “a role” to play in this issue, but also called on Biden to do more.
“We need the president of the United States to speak to the issue and say this is wrong. What’s happening on college campuses right now is wrong,” Johnson said. “It is un-American. It is not who we are. The president seems unable or unwilling to do this.”
The White House said on Tuesday that it believed that protesters “forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach.”
“That is not an example of peaceful protest. And of course, as we’ve rightly noted, hate speech and hate symbols also have no place in this country,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who told ABC News the administration was “watching this carefully.”
Kirby previously said Biden respected the rights of demonstrators to peacefully protest, but made clear they “don’t want to see anybody hurt in the process.”
“The president knows that there are very strong feelings about the war in Gaza. He understands that, he respects that, and as he has said many times, we certainly respect the right of peaceful protest,” Kirby said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Kirby added that the administration also condemned “the antisemitism language that we’ve heard of late and certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there.”
This week, the House is expected to vote on legislation titled the “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023.” The bill, backed by Republicans and some Democrats, would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism when applying anti-discrimination laws.
But several Democrats have taken issue with the alliance’s definition of antisemitism and some of the contemporary examples on antisemitism listed by the group. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is Jewish, said he took issue with the bill because it would put the “thumb on the scale” in favor of one definition of antisemitism and could “chill” constitutionally-protected free speech.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries urged Johnson to consider a different bipartisan bill targeting antisemitism introduced by North Carolina Democrat Kathy Manning and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith titled the “Countering Antisemitism Act.” The legislation would establish within the White House a national coordinator to counter antisemitism; require the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center to jointly produce an annual threat assessment of antisemitic violent extremism; and require the Department of Education to designate a senior official to advise on countering antisemitic discrimination in higher education.
“There is nothing scheduled on the floor this week that would accomplish the concrete, thoughtful strategies outlined by the Biden administration, set forth in the legislation and echoed by leading Jewish organizations across the country,” Jeffries said in a letter to Johnson on Monday.
“The effort to crush antisemitism and hatred in any form is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s an American issue that must be addressed in a bipartisan manner with the fierce urgency of now. In this spirit,” Jeffries added.
ABC News’ Arthur Jones and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic leadership announced on Tuesday that if a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson is brought to the House floor for a vote, they would vote to table the effort — effectively saving the speaker from ouster. Less than an hour later, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene indicated that she will trigger a move to oust Johnson to put members on the record.
Greene introduced a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair last month. Her push to remove Johnson came after a vote to fund the government to prevent a shutdown — which Johnson needed Democratic votes to pass.
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” the leaders wrote in a statement.
This means Democrats have now put it on the record that they would save Johnson if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote.
Greene — who had not provided a timeline or any insight into if she will make the motion to vacate resolution privileged, meaning it would force the House to take it up at some point — signaled in a post on X shortly after the Democrats’ announcement that she will force a floor vote to remove Johnson from the speakership.
“Mike Johnson is officially the Democrat Speaker of the House. Here is their official endorsement of his Speakership,” Rep. Greene said in a statement on X, citing the statement from House Democratic leadership.
Greene said he should “resign” or “switch parties.”
“If the Democrats want to elect him Speaker (and some Republicans want to support the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the chance to do it. I’m a big believer in recorded votes because putting Congress on record allows every American to see the truth and provides transparency to our votes. Americans deserve to see the Uniparty on full display. I’m about to give them their coming out party!” Greene wrote on X.
Greene ignored reporters’ questions regarding her motion to vacate effort. Greene did say that “plans are still developing” when asked about her timeline with the motion to vacate.
Johnson reacted to the Democrats’ statement Tuesday morning, denying that he cut a deal with the Democrats to save his job.
“The first I have heard of it,” Johnson said when asked about the statement. “Look, I have to do my job.”
Johnson said “no” when asked if he spoke to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about receiving Democratic support if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote — and if that conversation happened before allowing votes on a $95 billion foreign aid package, a move that earned him bipartisan praise.
“I’ve not requested assistance from anyone … I’m not focused on that at all. I focused on getting the job done and getting the legislation passed,” Johnson said.
“No, there’s no deals at all,” he added.
Pressed on if he would be comfortable leading Congress by having support of Democrats — a tactic that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water and eventually contributed to his ouster — Johnson said he aims to work with all in the House while maintaining his conservative values.
“Listen, I am the Speaker of the House — serves the whole body. I’m a conservative Republican, a lifelong conservative Republican. That’s what my philosophy is. That’s what my record is and will continue to govern on those principles. I mean, you know, you hope you have the support of everyone the entire country,” he said.
While Greene pushes to oust Johnson, many Republicans tell ABC News that they are not on board with her effort. Greene’s effort comes in an election year, when many Republicans do not seem interested in engaging in another speakership battle that could project uncertainty in their conference.
Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said he has not heard of any movement on her motion vacate effort.
“I am not going to support it. She can pull it — it’s her right — but I am not going to support it,” Rep. Norman said.
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said, “I don’t think it will happen” and “I don’t think it’s a good idea to move it forward” when pressed on a motion to vacate.
Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida said the motion to vacate effort is “dead.”
“There is no will to do the motion to vacate,” Cammack said. “People recognize that it is not what we need at this time. So yeah, we are focused on winning.”
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said he would oppose the ouster of Johnson from the House’s top job.
“I am going to oppose it,” Bacon said. “I think Speaker Johnson is doing a great job.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic leadership announced on Tuesday that if a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson is brought to the House floor for a vote, they would vote to table the effort — effectively saving the speaker from ouster.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair last month. Her push to remove Johnson came after a vote to fund the government to prevent a shutdown — which Johnson needed Democratic votes to pass.
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” the leaders wrote in a statement.
This means Democrats have now put it on the record that they would save Johnson if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote.
Johnson reacted to the Democrats’ statement Tuesday morning, denying that he cut a deal with the Democrats to save his job.
“The first I have heard of it,” Johnson said when asked about the statement. “Look, I have to do my job.”
Johnson said “no” when asked if he spoke to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about receiving Democratic support if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote — and if that conversation happened before allowing votes on a $95 billion foreign aid package, a move that earned him bipartisan praise.
“I’ve not requested assistance from anyone … I’m not focused on that at all. I focused on getting the job done and getting the legislation passed,” Johnson said.
“No, there’s no deals at all,” he added.
Pressed on if he would be comfortable leading Congress by having support of Democrats — a tactic that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water and eventually contributed to his ouster — Johnson said he aims to work with all in the House while maintaining his conservative values.
“Listen, I am the Speaker of the House — serves the whole body. I’m a conservative Republican, a lifelong conservative Republican. That’s what my philosophy is. That’s what my record is and will continue to govern on those principles. I mean, you know, you hope you have the support of everyone the entire country,” he said.
Greene has not provided a timeline or any insight into if she will make the motion to vacate resolution privileged, meaning it would force the House to take it up at some point.
On Monday, Greene posted to X that Johnson “has completely sold out the Republican voters.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Schnecksville Fire Hall in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump maintained in a new interview that he’d leave it up to individual states whether or not they want to monitor women’s pregnancies to determine if someone gets an abortion after their state’s legal ban and then prosecute them.
Asked whether he’s comfortable with states prosecuting women who have abortions after the legal limit, which now varies widely by state, Trump told Time magazine: “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”
Time also asked, “Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?”
“I think they might do that. … You’ll have to speak to the individual states,” Trump responded.
When previously asked if doctors should be punished for performing abortions, Trump had said it was a “state’s rights issue.”
Trump also repeatedly dodged a question from Time about whether he’d vote for an abortion referendum in Florida in November that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban — even as he doubled down on his previous comment that he believes that time frame is “too severe.”
“I don’t tell you what I’m gonna vote for,” he said. “I only tell you the state’s gonna make a determination.”
As his general election fight against President Joe Biden heats up, Trump is now seeking to stake out a seemingly more cautious stance on abortion.
He said in early April that, with the reversal of Roe v. Wade’s nationwide abortion access protections, the issue should be left to individual states as long as they include exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant woman.
However, he has repeatedly touted his role in ending Roe by naming three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overruled it in 2022.
He has also called out some abortion policies he disagrees with, including saying a Civil War-era ban in Arizona, which was recently ruled to be enforceable, goes too far.
The rival Biden campaign, and the president himself, have seized on Trump’s role in overruling Roe and in abortion bans across the country. Trump’s shift in rhetoric has also drawn some criticism from abortion opponents who contend he’s being “inconsistent.”
“It shouldn’t matter where in America you live,” Biden said in a speech last week. “This isn’t about states’ rights, this is about women’s rights.”
Biden’s campaign manager slammed Trump’s comments to Time on Tuesday, saying in a statement, “Simply put: November’s election will determine whether women in the United States have reproductive freedom, or whether Trump’s new government will continue its assault to control women’s health care decisions.”
Throughout his new interview with Time, Trump also laid out his agenda for a potential second term, including on immigration, tariffs and more.
(WASHINGTON) — When Donald Trump began to claim presidential immunity from criminal prosecution related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, many legal analysts ABC News spoke with considered it a weak argument.
But last week, in nearly three hours of oral arguments, several Supreme Court justices seemed open to some limited protection for former presidents from criminal liability for official acts they undertook while in the White House.
It was a shocking turn of events, according to some veteran court observers.
“It was surprising to hear, at least from some of the justices, the possibility that a president could somehow commit criminal misconduct for which they could never be held liable in court,” Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional expert at the University of North Carolina, told ABC News. “I think that has struck many people as just, up until now, inconceivable.”
“That’s exactly the part that I think most of the American public is going to find fairly incredulous,” said David Schultz, a professor at the University of Minnesota and national expert in constitutional law. “The idea of saying that the president of the United States is above the law compared to the rest of us.”
While the justices seemed poised to reject Trump’s more sweeping claim of “absolute” immunity, how they attempt to devise what official acts are and are not exempt from criminal prosecution will set a new standard for presidential power.
“That is a whole new territory for the court that we’ve never seen before,” Schultz said, “and will make major new law in the United States.”
The justices grappled with the unprecedented nature of the case during Thursday’s hearing. Justice Neil Gorsuch said what they decide will be a “rule for the ages.”
While Trump is the first ever president to be criminally charged, the arguments were largely devoid of references to the former president and the specific allegations against him.
The immunity question came before the Supreme Court in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, alleging election interference; Trump is facing four felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. He pleaded not guilty and denies all wrongdoing.
Puzzlingly, “in some sense, Trump did not seem to be important in this case,” Schultz said.
Instead, the debate largely focused on hypothetical scenarios as justices expressed concern about the consequences of too much or too little protection for future presidents.
“The question quickly became, ‘What’s the scope of official conduct?’ And that’s where, I think, the disagreements among the justices were revealing,” said Gerhardt.
At one point, Justice Elena Kagan pressed Trump attorney John Sauer if a president could order the military to stage a coup and be immune. Sauer said, in their view, a president could.
“The answer that she got was one of the most disturbing I’ve ever heard at the Supreme Court,” said Gerhardt.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor also asked Sauer if a president could order the military or someone else to kill a political rival, which Sauer also said could be considered an official act depending on the circumstances.
“If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked.
On the other side, several conservative justices appeared primarily concerned about future bad faith prosecutions against former presidents and whether that would hamper their ability to make the “tough decisions” entailed by their job.
Trump’s attorney also made that case in his opening statement, stating the looming threat of prosecution would “distort the president’s decision-making precisely when bold and fearless action is most needed.”
Justice Samuel Alito even posited if, without immunity, presidents would be incentivized to commit crimes in order to stay in power rather than peacefully retire because of concern they will be prosecuted by a “bitter political opponent” after leaving office.
“Will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito asked.
One expert described Alito’s line of questioning as stepping through the looking glass into an alternate reality.
“The fact that we haven’t had something like this happen before is consistent with the government’s position that there are institutional norms that have largely held,” said Ray Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School. “So, to upset that delicate balance because, in the words of Justice Alito, we can’t hold the president accountable for trying to subvert democracy in the fear that a future president might try to subvert democracy is just totally Alice in Wonderland.”
Though Stanley Brand, a former House general counsel and now an attorney for several former Trump aides, said he considered Alito’s question “timely.”
“What about Joe Biden when he leaves office? Is a Republican Department of Justice going to allege that some of the things he did were illegal? So I don’t think that was a hyperbolic or imaginary concern,” Brand said.
The conservative justices also highlighted controversial conduct by previous presidents, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to inter Japanese Americans during World War II and John F. Kennedy’s scheme to undermine Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba, and whether they could have been subject to prosecution.
“Presidents have to do a lot of things that in retrospect or under the microscope of a lawsuit might not look very good,” said Brand. “You have to look carefully at those, and I think that’s certainly what at least five of the justices expressed concern over.”
The back-and-forth reflected the difficult road ahead for the court in crafting an opinion.
“The path that they went down the other day is a very messy one and I don’t know how they’re going to come up with a clean answer on it,” said Schultz.
A trial for Trump’s election subversion case was originally set for March 4 but is delayed as the immunity question works its way through the courts. The Supreme Court agreeing to hear Trump’s immunity claim and its approach in crafting an opinion, which is not expected until well into June, is largely seen as a win for the former president as it makes it less likely than ever that the trial will proceed before the November election.
In some previous high-profile opinions involving presidential authority, including U.S. v. Nixon (in which the court said a president does not have executive privilege in immunity from subpoenas or other civil court actions) and Clinton v. Jones (which said a president has no immunity from civil damages for acts done before taking office or unrelated to the office) the Supreme Court ruled in unanimous fashion.
But experts said in this case, whatever the court decides, it is likely to be divided.
“It’s clear to me that this will likely be a split decision,” said Schultz. “I saw clear divisions and that’s just not good for the court and it’s not good for America in such an important case like this.”
(WASHINGTON) — Emerging technologies in artificial intelligence will make it easier for bad actors to “conceptualize and conduct” chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security on Monday.
Selected excerpts of the report to President Joe Biden were made public after he signed an executive order three months ago on artificial intelligence.
The lack of regulations in existing U.S. biological and chemical security, combined with the increase in using AI, when combined with the increased use of AI tools “could increase the likelihood of both intentional and unintentional dangerous research outcomes that pose a risk to public health, economic security, or national security,” according to the DHS report.
“The responsible use of AI holds great promise for advancing science, solving urgent and future challenges and improving our national security, but AI also requires that we be prepared to rapidly mitigate the misuse of AI in the development of chemical and biological threats,” said Assistant Secretary for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Mary Ellen Callahan.
“This report highlights the emerging nature of AI technologies, their interplay with chemical and biological research and the associated risks, and provides longer-term objectives around how to ensure safe, secure and trustworthy development and use of AI,” she said.
DHS also said that the diverse approaches of AI developers make it crucial that the U.S. and international partners communicate and harness “AI’s potential for good.”
“The degree to which nation states or groups interested in pursuing these unconventional weapons capabilities will harness such AI tools remains unclear, however, since there are various technical and logistical hurdles that have to be met to develop fully functioning weapons systems that can be used,” Javed Ali, the former senior counterterrorism coordinator on the National Security Council, told ABC News. “That said, it is more likely that AI tools will be more helpful on the research and theoretical design end of the spectrum than the actual manufacture and deployment of such weapons, especially with respect to nuclear weapons.”
A separate DHS report produced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) last week highlighted that some attacks could be carried out of helped by using AI — including those targeting critical infrastructure.
“It is clear that foreign intelligence services, terrorist groups and criminal organizations have embraced the power of technology and incorporated the use of advanced computing capability into the tactics they use to achieve their illegal objectives,” John Cohen, the former Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at DHS, said. “Terrorists, criminals and other threat actors can use AI to acquire the instructions on how to develop explosives and other weapons of mass destruction. They can also glean greater insights on potential targets, and on delivery methods to use to achieve the greatest possible disruptive result.”
Last year, the European Parliament approved landmark legislation that aimed to regulate the use of AI and promote “trustworthy” uses.
Last week, the DHS announced the creation of a new AI board that includes 22 representatives from a range of sectors, including software and hardware companies, critical infrastructure operators, public officials, the civil rights community and academia.
Some notable members of the board include: Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI; Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Airlines; Satya Nadella, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft; Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet; and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
The board, according to the agency, will help DHS stay ahead of evolving threats posed by hostile nation-state actors and reinforce national security by helping to deter and prevent those threats.
Cohen, now an ABC News contributor, said the board is a good step, but there is more to be done.
“In many respects, we are using investigative and threat mitigation strategies that were intended to address the threats of yesterday, while those engaged in illegal and threat related activity are using the technologies of today and tomorrow to achieve their objectives,” he said.
