Politics

(WASHINGTON) — A transcript of President Joe Biden’s interview with the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified information contradicts the president’s characterization of an exchange about the death of his son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer.

“There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” a visibly irate Biden told reporters hours after special counsel Robert Hur’s report was made public last month. “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself: It wasn’t any of their damn business.”

But according to an ABC News review of the transcript, it was Biden, not Hur, who first invoked his son’s death — and the president indeed struggled to recall the exact year it occurred.

During a line of questioning about Biden’s activities after leaving the vice presidency in 2017, a period in which he was writing a book about the loss of his son, the president reminded investigators that Beau Biden’s death weighed heavily on his decision to run for president.

Recalling that period in his life, Biden, according to the transcript, appeared to get confused about when Beau died, getting the date correct, but not the year.

“And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t at this point … I hadn’t walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I’d be running for president,” he said, per the transcript. “And, and so what was happening though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th–“

After two others present reminded him that Beau passed away in 2015, Biden said: “Was it 2015 he had died?”

“It was May of 2015,” another person said, according to the transcript.

The incident is cited by Hur, who characterized Biden in his 388-page of report as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — a description that Biden and his legal team sharply criticized in the aftermath of the report’s publication.

And while Hur declined to press forward with criminal charges against the president — despite finding some evidence that he “willfully retained” classified records — the damning descriptions of Biden’s recall have presented fodder for the president’s critics.

The Justice Department provided the transcript to lawmakers in the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees in response to their subpoena, hours before Hur was scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning. ABC News reviewed a copy of the roughly 250-page interview transcript, which shed fresh light on the five hours Biden voluntarily spent with investigators over the course of two days last October.

The president’s testimony included detailed descriptions of events that happened many years prior, including policy debates and his own foreign travel.

The image of Biden that emerges in the lengthy interview largely mirrors his public persona: at times steadfastly defensive, but in other moments jocular, conversational, and prone to lengthy tangents.

At the beginning of the interview, for example, after Hur instructed Biden to share his best recollection of events that were in some cases decades in the past, Biden quipped: “I’m a young man, so it’s not a problem.” He later joked that he hoped investigators “didn’t find any risqué pictures of my wife in a bathing suit” during their search of his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

“She’s beautiful,” he said.

For his part, Hur acknowledged that his line of inquiry could at times be “unclear or badly phrased,” and in one instance apologized for framing a question “clunkily.”

“I sometimes do that; I often do that,” Hur conceded.

Biden repeatedly insisted that he never intentionally kept classified material and that if he had found them, he would have returned them.

“I had no purpose for them, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to keep clearly classified documents,” the president said.

Biden did, however, admit to keeping personal notes from his time as vice president: “They’re my notes and they’re my property,” he said, referencing precedent set under previous administrations.

He also stressed repeatedly that he relied on staff to pack and move his belongings and papers when he left the White House.

“I don’t want to hold them responsible or get them in trouble, but I believe they were the ones who were packing up … and were deciding, you know, where, where things were going, to the best of my knowledge,” he said.

At one point, Biden described handling the boxes kept in the garage of his home in Wilmington — but without knowing what was in them.

“I remember moving boxes, literally physically moving them, with help, one side to the other so I could get the Corvette in that garage on the left,” Biden told investigators.

He also, according to the transcript, demonstrated signs of vitality — repeatedly declining offers to take a break, opting instead to power through hours of questioning.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are expected to scrutinize Hur’s handling of the investigation during Tuesday’s hearing. Democrats and allies of Joe Biden have called Hur’s reference to Biden’s age and memory gratuitous and irrelevant, while Republicans are expected to question Hur’s decision to absolve Biden of criminal conduct.

Hur’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee begins at 10 a.m. ET.

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(WASHINGTON) — Robert Hur on Tuesday will face lawmakers eager to question the findings of his yearlong probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, an investigation that ultimately absolved the president of legal culpability but left him with a trail of political liabilities.

Hur wrote in a 388-page report published last month that he would not recommend charges against the president despite uncovering evidence that Biden “willfully retained” classified materials. In the course of explaining his rationale for that conclusion, Hur also included language critical of Biden’s mental acuity, saying that a potential jury would likely find him to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

President Biden and his allies welcomed Hur’s decision not to bring charges, but forcefully pushed back on his characterizations of the president’s age and memory.

Biden himself slammed prosecutors for including an anecdote about his failure to recall when his son, Beau Biden, passed away. And Bob Bauer, an attorney for Biden, called the report a “shoddy work product” that presented its conclusions in a “very misleading way.”

According to sources close to Hur, he is expected to address his decisions to include the specific anecdotes about Biden’s memory and dispute any suggestion that he violated Department of Justice policies by doing so.

Hur’s position was bolstered by a senior career official at the Justice Department, who — in a letter sent to Biden’s personal attorneys last month — pushed back on accusations that the language used by Hur was “gratuitous” and violated DOJ’s norms of not discussing the conduct of uncharged individuals.

“The identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly prejudicial because it is not offered to criticize or demean the President,” Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer wrote to Biden’s legal team. “Rather, it is offered to explain Special Counsel Hur’s conclusions about the President’s state of mind in possessing and retaining classified information.”

Rod Rosenstein, a former deputy attorney general and Hur ally who spoke with Hur in advance of Tuesday’s hearing, said he expected the special counsel’s commentary during the hearing “will be tied pretty closely to the substance of his report.”

“My advice to Rob was, just tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may,” Rosenstein said. “And these congressional hearings are partly directed at uncovering relevant information, but they’re mostly for show, and you need to recognize that you’re going to be criticized and might not have a fair opportunity to respond. And that’s just the way the process works.”

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee summoned Hur to testify in a public setting to examine his findings. The panel also subpoenaed the Justice Department for recordings, transcripts, notes and other documents pertinent to the investigation.

Hur and his team of investigators interviewed 147 witnesses and collected more than seven million documents as part of their probe. Investigators interviewed Biden for approximately five hours over the course of two days in early October, the same weekend of Hamas’ invasion of Israel.

Investigators ultimately found evidence that Biden knowingly retained classified documents — including military records about Afghanistan and personal notebooks with entries about sensitive intelligence matters — and relied on those records to pen his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad.

At one point, Hur wrote, Biden told the ghostwriter who helped him craft his memoir, that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”

Hur’s report said investigators found documents marked classified from as far back as the 1970s, including a box labeled “International Travel 1973-1979” containing materials from Biden’s trips to Asia and Europe that included “roughly a dozen marked classified documents that are currently classified at the Secret level.”

According to the report, among the classified documents Biden retained were materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge in Afghanistan, including a classified handwritten memo he sent then-President Barack Obama over the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.

The materials were found in “the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home,” the report said.

Despite his critical language about Biden’s ability to recall some basic details, Hur drew “several material distinctions” between Joe Biden’s conduct and that of former President Donald Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to a 40-count indictment filed by special counsel Jack Smith over his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House.

“Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” Hur wrote in his report. “In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview, and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A new Donald Trump-backed Republican National Committee leadership team has started the process of cleaning house among national party personnel.

Staff is being cut in political and data departments along with senior positions, with no fundraising positions expected to be reduced, sources tell ABC News. In addition, a source with direct knowledge said the RNC is cutting off contracts with some vendors.

The plan is part of efforts to merge the Trump presidential campaign with the RNC to effectively make them the same operation.

Around 60 RNC staffers are being let go under the merger, the source said.

Another source familiar with the changes occurring at the Republican National Committee under the new Trump-aligned leadership told ABC News certain staffers are being asked to resign and reapply for positions at the organization.

Chair Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump were voted into their new roles on Friday at an RNC meeting in Houston where now-former Chair Ronna McDaniel and former Co-Chair Drew McKissick stepped down.

On Friday, both Whatley and Lara Trump vowed to trim some fat at the RNC, an organization that has long suffered from fundraising lulls and controversy surrounding spending.

“The RNC will work hand in glove with President Trump to campaign President Trump’s campaign to deliver on these core missions. If $1 that we have is not directed towards winning this November, that dollar will not be spent,” Whatley said at the party’s spring training meeting on Friday.

The news of the RNC staff cuts was first reported by Politico.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is accusing the Biden administration of improperly attempting to silence immigration judges who frequently highlight shortcomings in the immigration court system, calling a recent Justice Department decree a “blatant attempt” to “discourage and obstruct” federal workers from exercising legally protected speech.

The Justice Department last month informed the National Association of Immigration Judges that they must seek supervisor approval before engaging in any public remarks or press interviews, according to a copy of the email obtained by ABC News.

Sheila McNulty, the newly appointed chief immigration judge, acknowledged in her email that “the agency understands this is a point of contention” for the judges’ union, but ordered leaders to consult with the department before agreeing to participate “in writing engagements (e.g., articles; blogs) and speaking engagements (e.g., speeches; panel discussions; interviews).”

The policy change reverses more than 50 years of precedent, according to Matt Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE), a broader organization that includes the judges’ union. Immigration judges, who are federal employees housed within the Justice Department, have for decades been entitled to speak publicly at forums, before Congress, and in press interviews.

McNulty, who was appointed chief immigration judge in January, did not expressly restrict the judges from speaking to Congress, but invoked “recent awareness of [the judges’] public engagements” in her letter — a reference interpreted by Biggs as a nod to union president’s testimony before Congress in late 2023.

In a letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday, Grassley suggested the move was intended to quell dissent from government officials about backlogs in the immigration court system amid scrutiny of the Biden administration’s handling of the influx of migrants entering the country through Mexico.

“It’s critically important that immigration judges communicate with Congress particularly when the Biden administration’s leadership and policy failures have created an unprecedented immigration crisis at our Southern Border,” Grassley wrote.

Judge Mimi Tsankov, the president of the judges’ union and a recipient of McNulty’s email decree, has been a vocal critic of the backlog of some three million cases pending resolution in the immigration court system.

In an October 2023 interview with ABC News — prior to the Justice Department’s updated policy — Tsankov highlighted several deficiencies in the immigration court system, including a lack of resources and pressure from the department to resolve cases quickly.

Tsankov described how she and her colleagues “can be fired for failing to meet performance metrics” handed down by the Justice Department — an arrangement she said poses a “due process-denying imposition on the court.”

“We end up getting pressure that ordinarily is not the type of thing that you would see a court experience,” she said. “A judge should never feel pressure to complete a case any faster than it’s supposed to be addressed from a fairness standpoint.”

“That’s why we need to be able to push back” on the administration’s handling of immigration policy and the structure of the immigration courts, Tsankov said in the October interview.

Reached by ABC News over the weekend, Tsankov said she could not comment, citing the updated DOJ policy.

“Following receipt of an email from the Chief Immigration Judge on February 15, I’m not permitted to participate in writing or speaking engagements, including any interviews in my capacity as president of the National Association of Immigration Judges without prior supervisory approval,” she said. “So, for this reason, I need to decline this interview at this time.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden advocated for the passage of a bipartisan immigration bill that would allow funding for 100 additional immigration judges.

The Federal Labor Relations Board during the Trump administration voted to revoke the judges’ union of their collective bargaining rights, effectively busting their union, amid scrutiny from the union of the growing backlog of cases.

But until McNulty’s February email, Tsankov continued to speak publicly — often in terms critical of the Justice Department’s oversight of the immigration courts.

Biggs, the IFPTE president, told ABC News that the policy shift is an “embarrassment” for the Biden administration and cuts against his reputation as a pro-union leader.

“Who knows better about what’s going on in the immigration courts than the frontline judges themselves?” said Biggs. “This gag order denies policymakers and the public from the valuable feedback these judges can provide.”

According to IFPTE, Tsankov recently sought permission from the department to attend a series of speaking engagements in March and April — including long-scheduled educational programs and judicial conferences — but has not yet received a response.

One of those conferences, according to IFPTE, is a First Amendment symposium at Columbia University.

In his letter to Garland, Grassley asked the Justice Department to “fully review” the updated policy to ensure that it adheres to whistleblower rights and to share details of the order with his office by March 25.

“Federal agencies cannot conceal their misconduct behind illegal nondisclosure policies and related actions,” Grassley wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the relationship between President Joe Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown increasingly fraught and tense, a looming ground incursion into Gaza’s southernmost city has emerged as a new flashpoint — threatening to turn the allies even further against each other.

Biden said Monday he has not had what he called a “come to Jesus meeting” with Netanyahu that he was heard speaking about on a hot mic as he spoke with lawmakers after his State of the Union address on Thursday.

But he is leaving that option on the table.

“We’ll see what happens,” Biden said when asked if he still planned to have that conversation.

In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Biden said an Israeli invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are currently sheltering, would be a “red line” before immediately appearing to walk back his comments.

Exactly what the consequences would be were unclear because at the same time he said, “I’m never gonna leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical.”

Nevertheless, a defiant Netanyahu shot back at Biden in a separate interview, vowing to charge ahead.

“We’ll go there,” the prime minister said. “You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”

On Monday, Washington officials attempted to clean up the president’s comments — explaining that the administration would support an incursion into Rafah if Israel presented a plan to prevent civilian suffering first, but that it had yet to review any proposal.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to say whether Israel would face any consequences if it proceeded into Rafah without satisfying that requirement or share details on what commitments the U.S. was hoping to extract ahead of an incursion.

“Let’s wait and see what it is that they come up with,” Miller said.

The administration attempting to position itself as an authority that can either approve or reject plans for Israeli military operations is a significant pivot in its approach to conflict.

U.S. officials previously encouraged a degree of separation between the countries — concerned they would be seen as directly culpable for collateral damage in Gaza if they played a hand in devising war plans.

Ironically, the Biden administration’s newfound desire to be intertwined in Israeli military schemes comes as the rift between the countries’ leaders seems to be growing.

According to White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton, Biden hasn’t spoken to Netanyahu in nearly a month. And although Secretary of State Antony Blinken has journeyed to Israel five times since Oct. 7 — making an appearance in the country roughly every four weeks — he has not paid a visit since early February and has no immediate plans to do so.

As private conversations between leaders have become scarce, Biden and Netanyahu have become increasingly outspoken in public, signaling opposing positions through the press.

“This exchange of different views via the media highlights gaps that have been emerging for several months now,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute and a former National Security Council official.

He argues the divide has been exacerbated by domestic politics inside both countries, and that it is likely to continue unless Biden and Netanyahu can find common ground on short-term issues, like humanitarian aid delivery, as well as the U.S.’ long-term ambition to establish a Palestinian state.

Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues Biden and Netanyahu are poised to move further away from each other on both fronts.

“Israel’s planned assault on the city of Rafah promises to make the humanitarian situation worse,” he said. “Palestinians in Gaza are confronted with the fact that there is no place left for them to seek safety.”

And Cook said that even though Biden has now “put his administration squarely behind the idea of two states—Israel and Palestine,” the odds of reaching the diplomatic goal are extremely low.

“Opposition to a two-state solution has only increased among the Israeli public since the war with Hamas began,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony about what she was told of then-President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 was contradicted, in part, by Trump’s driver that day, a new report from a Republican-led House committee claims.

Hutchinson was a key witness in a previous, Democratic-led House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. She testified both privately and publicly.

Among other details, Hutchinson testified that she was told Trump was “irate” on that day and attempted to go meet with supporters at the Capitol, where the rioting then unfolded as Congress gathered to certify Trump’s election defeat to Joe Biden.

Hutchinson recalled a conversation she had at the White House on Jan. 6 with Bobby Engel, part of Trump’s security detail, who was “sitting in the chair, looking somewhat discombobulated,” and Tony Ornato, she testified before the committee in June 2022.

“As the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought they were going out of the Capitol and when Bobby had relayed to him, ‘We’re not, we don’t have the assets to do it, it’s not secure, we’re going back to the West Wing,’ the president had a very strong, very angry response to that,” she recalled then.

“Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now’ — to which Bobby responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’ The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol,'” Hutchinson said.

“Mr. Trump used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” she said.

But the new 81-page report from the House Administration Committee’s subcommittee on oversight, which is examining both the previous committee’s investigation and what happened on Jan. 6, calls Hutchinson’s account into question.

The new report cites testimony that was given by four other Trump White House employees to the previous Jan. 6 committee and the account of Trump’s Secret Service driver when the purported altercation took place.

“None of the White House employees corroborated Hutchinson’s sensational story about President Trump lunging for the steering wheel …. However, some witnesses did describe the President’s mood after the speech at the Ellipse [earlier on Jan. 6],” the report states.

“It is highly improbable that the other White House Employees would have heard about the President’s mood in the SUV following his speech at the Ellipse, but not heard the sensational story that Hutchinson claims Anthony Ornato, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, told her,” the report continues, adding, “[N]one of them ever testified they heard anything even similar to the story recounted by Hutchinson.”

According to the new report, the driver, who is not named, was interviewed by the previous Jan. 6 committee in November 2022 and “testified that he specifically refuted the version of events as recounted by Hutchinson.”

The driver said he “did not see him reach [redacted]. [President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all,” the report states.

Ornato was also interviewed by the previous Jan. 6 committee, in January, March and November 2022, both before and after Hutchinson testified publicly, according to the new report, which stated that the January 2022 interview was not released to the public along with other materials the earlier committee shared, with exceptions.

Ornato said in his November 2022 interview that he didn’t remember the incident with the former president that Hutchinson described.

“I relayed that this is not a story I recollect and I don’t recall that story happening,” he told members of the previous Jan. 6 committee, according to excerpts included in the new report.

The new report released by House Republicans seeks to undercut Hutchinson’s credibility in various ways, including by citing Ornato and others who offer differing accounts and pointing out what it calls shifting details in what Hutchinson said when she was interviewed about Jan. 6.

The report also notes some places where Hutchinson’s remembrance is corroborated.

For example, a Trump White House employee “did testify that Ornato told him that the President was ‘irate’ on the drive back to the White House,” the report states.

In a statement, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who led the previous Jan. 6 committee, pushed back on the new report’s findings and said the work, led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican, was “dishonest.”

Thompson said that his committee’s final report “took into account the testimony of all witnesses” and that “all the evidence points to the same conclusion”: Trump was angered because he wasn’t able to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and also attacked Hutchinson’s character.

Hutchinson’s attorney referred ABC News to a letter he sent to Loudermilk in January in which he wrote, in part, that Hutchinson “has and will continue to tell the truth.”

“Ms. Hutchinson will not succumb to a pressure campaign from those who seek to silence her and influence her testimony, even when done in the name of ‘oversight,'” her lawyer wrote.

Before her bombshell public testimony about being told Trump had an incident with Secret Service on Jan. 6, Hutchinson switched from an attorney paid for by a Trump-aligned political group to another attorney, ABC News previously reported.

She has written about having concerns that speaking out about what she knew could raise concerns with Trump, given who her lawyer was.

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(PHILADELPHIA) — Two 18-year-old men have been taken into custody in connection with a mass shooting at a SEPTA bus stop in Philadelphia last week, authorities announced Monday.

Charges against the two 18-year-olds include criminal attempted murder, aggravated assault and conspiracy, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said.

At about 3 p.m. Wednesday, three masked gunmen exited a car parked near the bus stop and fired more than 30 rounds toward high schoolers who were trying to board a bus, Philadelphia police said.

Eight teens — ages 15 to 17 — were shot, and two of them were hospitalized in critical condition, police said. One of the teens was shot nine times, according to police. That victim has since been “upgraded [at the hospital] and is talking,” police said Monday.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel called it a “heinous crime.”

A fourth suspect remained in the car during the shooting, police said.

Bethel said one officer’s tourniquet application may have saved a victim’s life.

While two of the four suspects believed to be at the scene are in custody, two remain at large, police said Monday.

“We’re not done,” Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said during a news conference. “We have other people that we need to contact. We know who they are and we’re gonna continually move with our investigation.”

“If you are in any way a witness to what occurred here, please reach out to the Philadelphia Police Department immediately,” Krasner said. “If you are involved, then get smart — turn yourself in.”

Police said they recovered a gun that matches multiple casings from the shooting scene: a fully loaded .40 caliber Glock 22 pistol with an extended magazine.

“It also had laser sights on it. And it had what we call a Glock switch, which made that firearm fully automatic — it was a machine gun,” Vanore said.

Mayor Cherelle Parker addressed Philadelphia residents at the news conference, saying, “I’ve heard you tell me that you are afraid and concerned about riding SEPTA. You have told me that you have concerns about going to work, to school, to the store.”

“To the people of our city: We want you to know that we are unapologetic about engaging every partner available to assist us,” she said. “Every partner who is needed to assist our Philadelphia Police Department and work in partnership with them to get answers and to assure that folks are held accountable for their actions, they will work together to get it done.”

All eight victims attend Philadelphia’s Northeast High School, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI.

The mayor said, “We just left a meeting a few minutes ago with the principal of Northeast High School and he said to me that, ‘Although our city and those children’s lives were shattered last week, we will not be broken.’ And we won’t.”

The mass shooting was just the latest in an outbreak of gun violence in Philadelphia, and the fourth shooting involving a local SEPTA bus in one week, according to WPVI.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden “absolutely did not apologize” for his use of the term “an illegal” during last week’s State of the Union address, principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters Monday.

“I want to be really clear about something: the president absolutely did not apologize. There was no apology anywhere in that conversation,” Dalton said. “He did not apologize. He used a different word.”

Biden made the “illegal” comment during an ad-libbed exchange with GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after being heckled by her and other Republicans to say the name of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student police say was murdered in Georgia last month. The suspect is a Venezuelan migrant whom officials say was illegally in the U.S.

Biden, appearing to mispronounce her name as “Lincoln Riley,” called her “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” a term many immigrants and advocates find offensive.

Dalton was pressed by reporters about comments Biden made when he was questioned about the exchange during an interview with MSNBC that aired Saturday in which he said he regrets his use of the term.

“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” he told Jonathan Capehart. When Capehart asked, “So, you regret using that word?” Biden responded, “Yes.”

Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans seized on Biden’s interview comment. “Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia Saturday. “Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer.”

In the interview, Biden went on to say that during his address he was speaking of immigrants as a group.

“And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about in the border was that his — the way he talks about ‘vermin’ and the way he talks about these people ‘polluting the blood,” Biden said to Capehart. “I talked about what I’m not going to do, what I won’t do. I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect.”

Dalton said Biden was speaking “passionately about knowing what it means to lose a child and extended his deep grief and condolences to Laken Riley’s family in front of the entire country.” She also criticized Republicans who have not acted on a bipartisan border bill, saying they are “playing politics” with Riley’s death.

“I think it’s unconscionable that there are some people who are playing politics with this young woman’s tragic murder,” Dalton said. “And particularly at a time, when let’s not forget, House Republicans are standing in the way of a bipartisan border security agreement.”

Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t say whether she was comfortable with Biden’s use of the term when asked about it by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce in an interview Friday.

“Well, I was there, as you know, and it was a pretty chaotic scene in terms of the crosstalk that was happening in the room,” Harris said. “But I think the president really did an important point that he wanted to make, which was to express his empathy with the family of that victim, and to let them know that he understood their pain or that there should be accountability.”

ABC News’ Mary Bruce, Fritz Farrow and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Donald Trump reverses his position on potentially banning TikTok ahead of an expected House vote this week on legislation that could lead to it being blocked in the U.S., the former president has been rebuilding his relationship with a GOP megadonor who reportedly has a major financial stake in the popular social media platform.

Trump met with the donor, hedge fund manager Jeff Yass, earlier this month at a Club for Growth donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1.

The Club for Growth, a conservative political organization to which Yass has donated millions, has opposed anti-TikTok efforts.

The group’s president last year wrote: “Giving the government the power to ban apps and pick and choose between competing apps is a huge restriction on phone freedom.”

The former president, who had originally spearheaded efforts to ban TikTok during his time in the White House, reversed his stance last week, posting on his own social media platform that getting rid of TikTok would benefit Facebook and that he doesn’t want that to happen, suggesting Facebook is a bigger problem for the country.

“I don’t want Facebook … doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” he wrote.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for more information about what motivated Trump’s changing view, and it’s not yet known what he and Yass discussed in their March 1 meeting.

But speaking at the Club for Growth retreat, Trump said Yass, in addition to Club for Growth President David McIntosh, had called him to invite him to the event, according to a video clip from that night obtained by ABC News.

Yass, who did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, owns a significant stake in in TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.

“I’ve supported libertarian and free market principles my entire adult life,” Yass told the Journal then. “TikTok is about free speech and innovation, the epitome of libertarian and free market ideals. The idea of banning TikTok is an anathema to everything I believe.”

ByteDance has long been under scrutiny in the U.S. over concerns that TikTok’s data could be accessed by the Chinese government, though TikTok has repeatedly denied sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government or receiving a request along those lines.

Under the legislation currently being considered in Congress, ByteDance would be forced to sell TikTok to an American company for the social media platform to remain operating in the United States.

Last week, a House panel unanimously voted to send the bill to the floor for a full vote, with the legislation now set to be debated and voted on this week, and Biden has said he will sign the bill if Congress passes it.

It’s not yet known what impact, if any, Trump’s comments on the TikTok ban will have on lawmakers’ views on the bill, and the future of the proposal in the Senate remains unclear as well.

On Monday morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Trump spoke out against the potential TikTok ban, saying he believes TikTok is a national security risk because of its Chinese ties but that there are other apps that are risks as well — and again saying he doesn’t want Facebook to benefit.

At the same time, Trump bragged that he could have banned TikTok as president if he wanted to but that Congress wouldn’t let him.

While in the White House, Trump signed an order calling on ByteDance to divest from TikTok’s U.S. operations, but it was later blocked in court.

TikTok has defended itself by citing Project Texas, an initiative that the company said keeps all U.S. user data on servers within the country — “outside the reach or influence of any foreign government.”

The company also blasted the legislation in the House, saying in a statement: “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

Trump’s shifting views on TikTok coincide with his mended relationship with Yass — as well as with Yass’ biggest beneficiary, the Club for Growth — who had been on thin ice with the former president in recent years, especially after the Club for Growth clashed with Trump over multiple endorsements during the 2022 midterms.

And Yass, who was opposed to Trump earlier in the 2016 cycle but still bankrolled Club for Growth after the group supported Trump as the GOP’s presumptive nominee, said in September 2022 that he was considering supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 nominating race, not Trump.

In 2023, Yass donated millions of dollars to a super PAC supporting Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential candidacy. Both Ramaswamy and DeSantis ended their campaigns in January.

At the Club for Growth’s donor retreat earlier this month, Trump declared he was growing closer with Yass and McIntosh, saying, “We’re back in love.” That signals potentially significant support from the group in the coming months ahead of the November general election.

Politico reported on Saturday that Trump’s former senior aide Kellyanne Conway has also been hired by Club for Growth in its defense of TikTok.

A source familiar confirms to ABC News that Conway, who works as a pollster, has been looking at data on the “public appetite for an outright ban,” but not divestment.

In a statement to Politico, in part, Conway said, “Why would the GOP wish to be seen as the party of ‘bans’?” She pointed the finger at the Biden administration, saying they pushed for bans on things like menthol cigarettes.

ABC News’ Adam Carlson and Max Zahn contributed to this report.

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Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.