Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers warned the Trump administration that they’re “examining all legal options” to hold it accountable to Friday’s deadline ordering the Department of Justice to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accusing the administration of “breaking the law.”

The Justice Department was set to release on Friday hundreds of thousands of documents stemming from its investigations into Epstein, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview with Fox News.

But as the administration reviews the documents for sensitive materials, Blanche said more productions would be coming over the next several weeks — indicating the administration does not believe it can fully comply with a law mandating the release of all files by 11:59 p.m. on Friday.

“So today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said.

The comments set off immediate reaction from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Schumer charged that the administration is “hell-bent on hiding the truth” while asserting that failure to release all of the Epstein documents by Friday’s deadline would be “breaking the law.” 

“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out,” Schumer pledged in a statement. “People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past.”

Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and said he hadn’t spoken to Epstein for more than a decade at the time of his arrest in 2019.

Trump’s name was mentioned several times across the hundreds of Epstein files that were made public earlier this year. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an article published this week that Trump “is in the file” but that “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.” 

Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, said they’re examining “all legal options” after “the Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” Garcia and Raskin said in a statement.

“Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this Administration has broken the law. We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” they added.

The White House has not publicly commented  on the criticism from Democrats.

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who led the charge to force the vote to compel the Justice Department to release the files, posted the legislative text of the bill he co-authored highlighting the phrase “not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this act” and also the word “all” as it pertained to “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorneys’ Offices.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has long been investigating Epstein’s financial ties, proclaimed that anything short of a full release of the files by end of day Friday amounts to a “violation of the law.”

“The law Congress passed did not say ‘release some of the Epstein files’ or ‘release the files whenever it’s convenient for Donald Trump.’ Anything short of a full release today is a violation of the law and a continuation of this administration’s coverup on behalf of a bunch of pedophiles and sex traffickers,” Wyden wrote in a statement.

Blanche, during the Fox News interview, suggested that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims. 

Blanche added that “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is taking his message and vision on the economy directly to voters — but he faces an American public that, recent polling shows, feels largely negative toward how the president has handled economic issues.

“Here at home, we’re bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin,” Trump said during a primetime address to the nation on Wednesday night.

Vice President JD Vance also travelled to Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday to talk about the White House’s economic vision — just one week after Trump paid his own visit to the Keystone State for remarks on the economy.

But a Quinnipiac University poll published on Wednesday found that almost 6 in 10 registered voters disapprove of how Trump has handled the economy, while 65% say the state of the American economy is “not so good” or “poor.”

Quinnipiac University’s poll also found that 57% of registered voters think Trump is more responsible for the economy’s state right now, and 34% of voters think former President Joe Biden is.

Last week, Reuters and Ipsos published a poll that found that only 31% of Americans approve of how Trump has handled the cost of living — up from 26% in their late November polling.

Dan Schnur, a political communications and strategy expert who teaches at the University of Southern California, told ABC News that part of that comes from Republican voters, including working-class young men, feeling the impact of high costs.

“A lot of voters, particularly working-class young men, voted for him last year because they were angry about the inflation under Biden and they believed Trump would make things better,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet, and so we’re beginning to see their disappointment.”

Ryan Mahoney, a Republican strategist and former communications director for the Georgia Republican Party, told ABC News he thinks this low approval may be because of a “disconnect from the White House to the American people, about the president acknowledging and empathizing with the cost crunch that the American people are feeling.”

Asked on Tuesday if he was worried about recent polling and whether affordability would be a political liability, Vance brushed off concerns — instead shifting blame to Biden.

“When we go out there and we tell our story, that gasoline and energy got way too high under Joe Biden’s administration, but we’ve lowered the cost of energy — the American people will understand that … They know what Joe Biden broke is not going to be fixed in a week,” Vance said. 

ABC News has reached out to Biden’s office for comment on Vance’s remarks.

Inflation rose during Biden’s term (while slowing toward its end). At the time, Biden and his White House defended the administration’s performance on the economy by pointing to measures they took to bolster the economy, particularly as it struggled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economists have also said rising prices during Biden’s presidency did not occur in a vacuum, but emerged in part from factors such as the supply shortage imposed by the pandemic.

Despite the economic woes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. economy significantly outperformed other major industrialized nations as it emerged from the pandemic, according to an October 2024 report by the Brookings Institution.

Schnur said that while discussing Biden could be “part of, potentially, an effective message. The problem is that blaming your predecessor — for any president — has diminishing returns the longer they’ve been in office.”

From a tactical perspective, Mahoney said, “It’s OK to blame what happened for the four years before you got into office, that you’re having to wade through that … I think all of that is fair game,” Mahoney said. “I do think, though, you have to then present what your plan is.”

Trump is set to once again speak about the economy in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Friday — so will his administration’s focus on the issue and travels help Americans feel better about how they’re handling the economy? 

“I love the idea of getting on the road … but at the end of the day, the script, the teleprompter, the remarks to folks, the interviews with press, have to acknowledge the problem and then provide the solutions,” Mahoney said.

Doug Heye, another GOP strategist and a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, told ABC News, “In a normal political world, this is what you do, and this helps. But we just saw in Pennsylvania, where Trump was supposed to talk about the economy, and brings up all this other stuff, and all he does is get in the way of himself, and there’s no reason to think that that’s going to change.”

Schnur, meanwhile, cautioned that local visits may help Trump’s standing on the economy with older voters, but may have less impact on younger voters who get their news more through digital platforms — a challenge facing both major political parties.

David McIntosh, the president of the conservative political group Club for Growth, said Republicans should “take their message directly to the people this Christmas and in 2026” and explain that the way to reduce prices is “to have price transparency, reduce regulations, and allow free markets to bring back affordability.”

A White House spokesperson, in response to the recent polling and concerns raised by some in the GOP, pointed to how Trump was elected because of economic concerns and to Thursday’s better-than-expected inflation numbers as a sign of the administration’s success.

“President Trump was resoundingly re-elected one year ago precisely because he, unlike Democrats, understood and acknowledged Joe Biden’s economic disaster,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to ABC News.

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(PHOENIX) — Erika Kirk endorsed Vice President JD Vance for president during a Turning Point USA conference in Arizona, vowing to throw one of the most influential conservative organizations in the country behind Vance in 2028.

“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said during her speech on Thursday night at AmericaFest, the first major Turning Point event since her husband’s assassination.

While the endorsement is not a major surprise given Vance’s close relationship with Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk and Turning Point, it is significant given the group’s prominence on the right.

Turning Point, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012, played a key role in helping elect President Donald Trump and shaping the modern conservative movement, particularly among younger voters.

Vance has not yet officially said whether he will run in 2028. In an interview last month with Fox News, Vance said he was focused on the vice presidency and the 2026 midterms but would have a conversation with President Trump after next year’s elections about 2028 .

“​​We’re going to win the midterms, we’re going to do everything that we can to win the midterms, and then after that, I’m going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it,” Vance said. “But let’s focus on the now.”

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Vance credited the Turning Point founder for his own political rise and for building out President Trump’s second administration.

“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene. He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government,” Vance said in the days after Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10 during a campus event at Utah Valley University.

Erika Kirk’s endorsement follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that if the vice president were to run for president in 2028, he would support him. 

“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple.

Trump himself has said Vance and Rubio would be “great” options for presidential candidates.

“I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two,” Trump said in late October. “I think if they ever formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House announced Thursday that the board at the Kennedy Center, which President Donald Trump now chairs and is newly filled with his appointees, has voted “unanimously” to rename the building the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”

“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a social media post.

“Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur,” Leavitt continued.

The move raises legal questions, as it appears congressional approval would be needed to make the name change.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, told ABC News that federal statute (Title 20 of the U.S. Code, section 76i) designates the building “the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” 

“I suppose he could rename some parts of the building, but he cannot rename the building itself or the center itself,” Super said.

Back in February, Trump fired multiple members from the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees and became its chairman. Several of his administration officials were then installed as board members — including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, second lady Usha Vance, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, and U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.

When asked about the board’s vote to rename the center during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he was “honored” and “surprised.”

“Well, I was honored by it. It’s board, it’s a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. And I was surprised by it. I was honored by it,” Trump said.

While Trump and the White House said the vote was unanimous, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Board of Trustees as one of its ex-officio members, said she was muted on the call during the vote and could not voice her opposition to the name change.

Beatty told reporters that “a lot of time was spent praising the president” before a proposal was made to rename the building.

“At that point, I said, ‘I have something to say,’ and I was muted, and as I continued to try to unmute, to ask questions and voice my opposition to this, I received a note saying that I would not be unmuted,” Beatty said. “I was not allowed to vote because I was muted. I would not have supported this.”

Beatty and Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, the ranking member on the House Appropriations subcommittee on the interior, said they were looking at ways to push back on the change in Congress.

“We also believe this is illegal. This is our living monument to JFK,” Pingree said.

Though Trump said he was “surprised,” he has repeatedly referred to the center as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” before the change was announced on Thursday.

“On Dec. 5 of this year, the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw will take place at the Kennedy Center. Some people refer to [it] as the Trump-Kennedy Center, but we’re not prepared to do that quite yet– maybe in a week or so,” Trump said on August 22.

Trump on Thursday said his administration “saved” the historic arts and culture center.

“We’re saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape — physically, financially, in every other way,” he said. “And now it’s very solid and very strong.”

Despite Leavitt and Trump’s claims that he has rescued the building financially, the Washington Post reported in late October that ticket sales have plummeted since Trump’s takeover.

Several high-profile artists and shows have canceled appearances at the venue since Trump became its leader, including actress Issa Rae and the Broadway show “Hamilton.”

ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said during his presidential address on Wednesday night that his administration is “bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin,” claiming that he has brought prices down across the board.

“I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast,” Trump said from the White House’s Diplomatic Room, adding, “Let’s look at the facts.”

He made sweeping claims about prices — from gasoline and groceries to airfare and hotel flights — comparing the current price to that of former President Joe Biden’s administration.

But according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the president’s claims in some cases appeared to be exaggerated, false or unverifiable.

BLS is set to release updated numbers on Thursday providing an updated look at consumer prices — the first inflation report since the end of the government shutdown.

The president said that under Biden, gasoline prices rose 30 to 50%, hotel rates rose 37% and airfares rose 31%.

“Now, under our leadership, they are all coming down and coming down fast. Democrat politicians also sent the cost of groceries soaring, but we are solving that, too,” Trump claimed.

Trump claimed that egg prices are down 82% since March and that “everything else is falling rapidly.”

ABC News has compiled fact checks on some of Trump’s claims.

Gas prices

It’s true that gas prices hit an all-time high in June 2022 under Biden, with an average price of $5.016 per gallon, per AAA.

According to AAA, the new average is $2.998. That would be an almost 50% decrease from the highest point under the Biden administration.

But when you compare gas prices to where they were just a year ago, Sept. 2025 to Sept. 2024, the latest CPI report puts gas down just .5%.

Airfare

Airline fares were up 3.2% in September under the Trump administration compared to a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hotel rates

Hotel room rates are down .8% and car rental prices are down 5.0% over the past year, per BLS data.

Groceries

The average price of a dozen grade A eggs was $3.49 as of September, down from an all-time high of $6.23 in March — a 43% decrease, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s important to note, also, that egg prices were heavily affected by the avian flu.

Overall, meat prices have gone up 8.5% in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Beef prices are at a record high — up 14.7% in the past year.

Notably, Trump also doesn’t mention coffee. Coffee is up 18.9%, according to BLS data from September, the most recent available. The price of coffee has risen in part due to the president’s tariffs on places like Brazil — although last month the White House began exempting coffee from his tariffs.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has installed plaques underneath portraits of presidents at the White House, using them to insult and make unfounded claims about some of his predecessors including Joe Biden and Barack Obama — the latest in a series of controversial White House changes under Trump.

The plaques, many of which the White House said Trump penned himself, add to what the president has dubbed the “Presidential Walk of Fame” — a portrait gallery along the West Wing Colonnade — and describe the tenures of former commanders in chief in an overtly political way.

Trump’s most recent predecessors’ plaques read the most editorialized. The permanent signs are stylistically similar to the president’s social media posts, with sporadic capitalizations and punctuation — including many exclamation points.

Under Biden, depicted only by his signature written by the presidential autopen, the plaque includes claims such as “Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History,” adding that he took office “as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States” and that “Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”

Trump also attacked Biden for his economic record, his climate, immigration and foreign policies, including the Afghanistan withdrawal (calling it “among the most humiliating events in American History”). He also said that because of Biden’s “weakness,” Russia invaded Ukraine, and “Hamas terrorists launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel.”

The plaque also cites what Trump calls Biden’s “severe mental decline, and his unprecedented use of the Autopen.”

Under Obama, Trump wrote: “Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History.” 

Obama’s plaque ends with a more false claims that he “spied on the 2016 Presidential Campaign of Donald J. Trump, and presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the worst political scandal in American History.” 

The plaques also make two references to Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of State and the 2016 Democratic nominee who lost to Trump. Under Obama’s portrait, it says that Hillary Clinton was his “handpicked successor,” and noted that she “would then lose the Presidency to Donald J. Trump.” Under Bill Clinton’s portrait, it says that “President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump.”

Obama had no comment about the plaque. ABC News did not receive immediate responses from Biden and the Clintons for comment.

Many of the plaques were “written directly by the President himself,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement about the new decor.

“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself,” Leavitt said in the statement.

Trump had teased these bronze plaques during an interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham in November, saying that each would describe what the respective president did during his tenure.

In addition to the changes he has made to the colonnade, Trump has also altered the White House by paving over the Rose Garden, renovating White House Palm Room that was originally designed by former first lady Jackie Kennedy and connects the front of the White House to the Rose Garden in the back and redesigning the Oval Office. He has added statues around the Rose Garden and added ample gold leafing and decor to the Oval Office.

Most notably, Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House earlier this year, making room for a sweeping, multimillion-dollar ballroom that the president has said will be completed by the end of his term. 

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson denied he has “lost control of the House” after a group of moderate Republicans revolted and joined Democrats’ effort to force a vote on a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.

“We have the smallest majority in U.S. history, OK? These are not normal times. There are [processes] and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities,” Johnson said. “When you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures in the book people think are on the table, and that’s the difference.”

Johnson’s assertion comes after four Republicans broke ranks and signed onto House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition, giving it the 218 signatures needed to force a vote though the vote is not likely to occur until January 2026 at the earliest.

The decision by moderate Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie to join Democrats came after the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee on Tuesday night blocked amendments to extend the ACA subsidies from advancing.

Johnson has also resisted from allowing an up or down amendment vote on extending the expiring subsidies, which were Democrats’ focal point of the record 43-day government shutdown this fall.

Asked if he will allow a vote on the ACA extension in January, Johnson said, “Everybody stay tuned. We are having conversations.”

The speaker, who was spotted huddling with moderates on the floor during votes on Wednesday morning, said, “We just had some intense fellowship … We’re working through very complex issues, as we do here all the time, and it’s good. Everybody’s working towards ideas. We’re keeping the productive conversation going. That’s what happens.”

Moderate Republicans who signed onto the petition took aim at House leadership.

Lawler, of New York, said he doesn’t endorse the Democrats’ bill as written, but “when leadership blocks action entirely, Congress has a responsibility to act. My priority is ensuring Hudson Valley families aren’t caught in the gridlock,” Lawler wrote on X.

Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick again urged for an up or down vote on extending the ACA subsidies — calling on leadership to “let the House work its will.”

ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Jay O’Brien pressed Fitzpatrick on if signing the Democrats’ discharge petition will force GOP leadership to take a different approach.

“I sure hope so,” he said. “But you have to let the people’s voice be heard on the House floor. You cannot not put bills on the floor because you’re afraid they’re going to pass. That’s not how this place should operate.”

Bresnahan, who also represents Pennsylvania, said leadership on both sides of the aisle failed to reach a bipartisan compromise on the ACA subsidies.

“Doing nothing was not an option, and although this is not a bill I ever intended to support, it is the only option remaining,” he said in a statement.

What happens next? 

The Republican-controlled House will hold vote on a clean three-year extension of the ACA subsidies; however, the vote is not expected to occur until January 2026 at the earliest given the rules for when a discharge petition can hit the floor.

The big question now is how the Senate will respond. The Senate already rejected a clean three-year extension of the subsidies in a pair of dueling health care votes last week, though several Republican senators crossed the aisle to join all Democrats in supporting it.

On Wednesday night, the House will hold a vote at approximately 5:30 p.m. on a narrow Republican health care package that does not address the expiring ACA tax credits.

Johnson needs a simple majority for the bill to pass and can only afford to lose three Republican votes. Democratic leaders are whipping their members against the bill. The vote will be tight for Johnson, who continues to navigate a slim majority.

The House GOP proposal would expand the availability of association health plans and what are known as “CHOICE arrangements;” impose new transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers to lower drug costs; and appropriate money for cost-sharing reductions to reduce premiums in the individual market. 

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(WASHINGTON) — A group of moderate House Republicans broke ranks with GOP leadership on Wednesday to force a vote on a clean, three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.

Four Republicans signed onto House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition, giving it the 218 signatures needed to force a vote.

The decision by moderate Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie to join Democrats comes after the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee on Tuesday night blocked amendments to extend the ACA subsidies from advancing.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also resisted from allowing an up or down amendment vote on extending the expiring subsidies, which were Democrats’ focal point of the record 43-day government shutdown this fall.

Moderate Republicans who signed onto the petition took aim at House leadership.

Lawler, of New York, said he doesn’t endorse the Democrats’ bill as written, 

“…When leadership blocks action entirely, Congress has a responsibility to act. My priority is ensuring Hudson Valley families aren’t caught in the gridlock,” Lawler wrote on X.

“Our only request was a Floor vote on this compromise, so that the American People’s voice could be heard on this issue. That request was rejected,” Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “Then, at the request of House leadership, me and my colleagues filed multiple amendments, and testified at length to those amendments. House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments. As I’ve stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge. Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome.”

What happens next? 

The Republican-controlled House will hold vote on a clean three-year extension of the ACA subsidies; however, the vote is not expected to occur until January 2026 at the earliest given the rules for when a discharge petition can hit the floor.

The big question now is how the Senate will respond. The Senate already rejected a clean three-year extension of the subsidies in a pair of dueling health care votes last week, though several Republican senators crossed the aisle to join all Democrats in supporting it.

On Wednesday night, the House will hold a vote at approximately 5:30 p.m. on a narrow Republican health care package that does not address the expiring ACA tax credits. 

Johnson needs a simple majority for the bill to pass and can only afford to lose three Republican votes. Democratic leaders are whipping their members against the bill. The vote will be tight for Johnson, who continues to navigate a slim majority. 

The House GOP proposal would expand the availability of association health plans and what are known as “CHOICE arrangements;” impose new transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers to lower drug costs; and appropriate money for cost-sharing reductions to reduce premiums in the individual market. 

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(ST. CLOUD, Minn.) — For Justice Anne McKeig, the high-stakes endeavor of deciding cases on the Minnesota Supreme Court is increasingly an exercise in stress management and risk tolerance.

“It is an overwhelming responsibility,” said McKeig, an amateur musician and the first indigenous woman justice anywhere in the country.

An unprecedented surge of violent threats directed at state and federal judges in Minnesota and across the country has created taxing new dimensions to life as a judge and to upholding rule of law in America.

“I think people are extremely unhappy, and they don’t know where to take out their anger, or how to take out their anger in a way that is not involving violence,” McKeig told ABC News.

Nearly three quarters of Minnesota judges have reported receiving threats, according to a 2024 report from the Minnesota District Court Judges Association. About as many say they fear for their safety because of the job they do.

“Also, it’s the public response to the decisions that we make,” McKeig added. “We’re in the press more than some of our district court colleagues, but all of our families get impacted by this.”

As courts at all levels of the judiciary raise alarm about an influx of vitriolic phone calls, swatting and doxxing incidents involving judges’ personal homes, and social media posts threatening bodily harm, Justice McKeig says many arbiters of justice have been searching for new ways to cope.

“I thought, OK, we need to find out a way to have some fun, because this is a pretty serious job,” McKeig said.

Her answer is called the Reasonable Doubts, an all-judge rock band that meets twice a month to blow off steam and jam together inside an old law library.

“The job is tough, and you have to have outlets for something to get you out of your own head every once in a while,” said retired Judge Dale Harris, who plays guitar.

The group of 9 from across the state plays classics from Johnny Cash to contemporary hits from Elle King, part of a diverse repertoire that has a decidedly law and order vibe.

“Being a judge is not only stressful, but there’s a lot of secondary trauma. We sit through trials where you have victims testify who have suffered through some really difficult criminal experiences,” said Sarah Hennessy, an associate justice of the state Supreme Court.

“This is therapy for us. This is a way to use something creative to feel better,” she said.

The judges — which hail from rural, suburban, and urban communities and include Republican and Democrat appointees — have also begun performing in public, taking the stage at community gatherings.

“I think that it shows people a side of judges that they don’t expect,” McKeig said. “It’s like, well, no, actually, we’re people.”

The band is believed to be the only of its kind in the country — heightening public exposure of the judges at a time when safety risks have kept many others shying from the spotlight.

Recent cases of political violence in Minnesota, in particular, have unsettled McKeig and her peers. Earlier this year, a gunman killed the top Democrat in the state House and her husband, and wounded a state senator and his wife, both at their homes.

“I tell my kids, you are to never acknowledge that I’m your mom,” McKeig said, “and that’s a sad statement. If somebody says, is your, mother Anne McKeig, you say no. I don’t want them to get hurt.”

Federal judges have also experienced a wave of threats, particularly those who have handed down rulings against the Trump administration.

Federal District Court Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island, who recently ordered the Trump administration to pay out SNAP food benefits in full during the shutdown, says he’s had six credible death threats against his life.

“I’ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say it’s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system, in the rule of law, in the work we do,” McConnell said earlier this year during a rare public forum of active federal judges speaking publicly about security concerns.

Dozens of federal and state judges nationwide have reported cases of unsolicited pizza deliveries to their personal homes as acts of intimidation.

A delivery to Judge McConnell’s home was in the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of federal Judge Ester Salas of New Jersey who was murdered in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer posing as a delivery man outside Salas’ home.

“To hear that my beautiful son’s name — everything that Danny stands for is love and light, you know — and to hear people using it as a weapon, weaponizing his name to inflict fear on Judge McConnell,” said an emotional Judge Salas during the forum. “Now Florida judges, state judges that are just doing their jobs, are getting pizzas in my beautiful boy’s name.”

Members of the Reasonable Doubts say they hope the band can inject a spirit of humanity into divisive public rhetoric around courts and judges and maybe even deepen respect for those tasked with upholding rule of law.

“You can have disagreements, but it doesn’t mean that we have to be at war with each other,” McKeig said.

“And we take care of each other,” added Hennesy.

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Tuesday that he won’t release the full unedited version of video showing a Sept. 2 attack on a suspected drug boat that killed 11 people, calling the video “top secret” and said releasing that version to the public would violate “longstanding Department of War policy.”

Democrats balked at the explanation, which he also shared during a closed-door briefing with Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Capitol Hill. They note that Hegseth, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Southern Command for several weeks have been posting edited clips of some two dozen boat attacks on their social media accounts.

“In keeping with longstanding Department of War policy, Department of Defense policy, of course we’re not going to release a top secret full unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters. Lawmakers on the House and Senate armed services committees and those overseeing appropriations will see it, Hegseth added, “but not the general public.”

Some Republicans said they thought the video should at least be shared more broadly in Congress in the interest in transparency and because it would show a lawful operation.

“I think the video should be given to everybody in Congress,” said South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime ally of Trump.

“Release it. Make your own decisions,” he later added, saying “I’d like all of us to see it.”

At issue is whether the Sept. 2 military strike on the alleged drug boat amounted to a war crime, as some lawmakers have suggested. Officials have confirmed there were four military strikes against the boat — the first strike killing nine of the 11 people aboard. Some 40 minutes later, a second strike was ordered to kill the remaining two survivors. Two more strikes were ordered to sink the boat, officials say.

Trump initially said he would release the video, telling reporters on Dec. 3 “whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem.” Trump later backtracked, saying he would defer to Hegseth.

Some lawmakers have seen extended portions of the video of the strikes in a classified briefing earlier this month, but described the state of the survivors before being killed in a second strike in starkly different terms. Democrats insisted the survivors were helpless and should have been rescued to comply with international laws that call for either sides in a conflict to help combatants who fall overboard or are shipwrecked. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, however, said the survivors were trying to “flip” the boat “so they could stay in the fight.”

Adm. Mitch Bradley, who ordered the strikes, was expected to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to brief the House and Senate armed services committees behind closed doors, two officials told ABC News on Tuesday.

After two weeks of saying he was reviewing the matter, Hegseth told lawmakers during the closed-door briefing on Tuesday that he has no plans to do so. He said Adm. Mitch Bradley, who ordered the strikes, would share the video with members of the House and Senate armed services committees on Wednesday. 

He added that Bradley “has done a fantastic job, has made all the right calls, and we’re glad he’ll be there to do it.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that if classification was a problem, Hegseth could at least share the video with every senator in a classified setting.

“Every senator is entitled to see it,” Schumer said.

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