Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Israel’s expected military invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza was the focus of President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call Monday — their first in more than a month — with the White House saying Biden is still not satisfied that Israel will do enough to prevent civilian casualties as it goes after Hamas fighters in the city.

In the latest development in a standoff between Biden and Netanyahu that’s gone on for weeks — with the U.S. demanding a satisfactory “plan” from Israel — national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Netanyahu, at Biden’s request, would be sending a delegation to Washington to try to work out what he called “an alternative approach.”

Speaking at a White House briefing, Sullivan had some of the administration’s strongest words yet for how Israel has conducted itself in Gaza and how the U.S. would view an invasion of Rafah, where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

“A humanitarian crisis has descended across Gaza. And anarchy reigns in areas that Israel’s military has cleared, but not stabilized,” Sullivan said.

“A major ground operation there would be a mistake; it would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worse than the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepening the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally,” he told reporters. “More importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means.”

Sullivan said during the call Monday, Biden “rejected” that “raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas.”

“That’s just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else,” he said.

Sullivan also highlighted that Rafah is also a “key entry point” for humanitarian assistance that could shut down or face a “great risk” if an invasion occurs, and that Egypt has also expressed concern for a military operation there.

He announced that Israel “in the coming days” will be sending a team of officials from across many areas of government to hear the administration’s concerns about the Rafah operation and to work on an alternative.

“On the call today, President Biden asked the Prime Minister to send a senior interagency team, composed of military, intelligence, and humanitarian officials, to Washington in the coming days to hear U.S. concerns about Israel’s current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt Gaza border without a major ground invasion,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that while Netanyahu agreed to send a team to the meeting, he “has his own point of view” on a Rafah operation.

“Send your team to Washington,” Sullivan said. “Let’s talk about it. We’ll lay out for you what we believe is a better way.”

Sullivan stressed several times that Israel needs a “coherent and sustainable strategy” for its military operations that are connected to a “clear strategic end game.” He repeated the administration’s public view that the White House has “every expectation” that no major military operation will happen in Rafah until the two sides meet.

At the same time, though, when pressed by ABC News’ Karen Travers, Sullivan declined to say whether the Biden’s call was the “come to Jesus” meeting with Netanyahu that Biden mentioned in a hot-mic moment on the House floor just minutes after his State of the Union address.

“I’m not going to characterize that on behalf of the president. I will just describe what happened in the conversation as I’ve done here today, and I’ll let you all draw your own conclusions.”

Sullivan said the leaders would stay in “close touch” in the coming days and weeks.

ABC News’ Karen Travers contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Devon Archer, a key witness in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, will not attend a high-profile open hearing this week, citing what his attorney characterized as a “patently unreasonable” amount of time to prepare.

Matthew Schwartz, an attorney for Archer — a former Hunter Biden business associate, revealed Monday in a letter to a top Oversight Committee investigator that the panel only contacted him on Friday in an “end-of-day email” to inquire about whether his client would attend the hearing, which Schwartz says “is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing that the committee has provocatively entitled ‘Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office.'”

“The answer is no,” Schwartz wrote to the committee, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ABC News. “Providing such short notice for a witness’s public appearance before the Committee on a matter of national importance is patently unreasonable.”

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer publicly invited Archer to appear alongside Hunter Biden and two other witnesses in their probe — Jason Galanis and Tony Bobulinski — at the public hearing on March 7 and has frequently promoted the hearing in public statements since then.

“This is an opportunity for Hunter [Biden] to have the hearing he wanted,” Comer said on Fox News over the weekend. “We want the public hearing. We actually need the public hearing because of the discrepancies” between Hunter Biden’s closed-door testimony and what other witnesses in the probe have told the committee, he said.

But according to Schwartz’s letter, Archer first received word from the committee late Friday. Schwartz alluded to an invitation attached to the Friday email dated March 6 and transmitted to Devon Archer “via counsel,” but he claimed “that latter was never sent to me.”

Schwartz suggested the letter dated March 6 was mistakenly sent to a different attorney.

“As you well know (and as the lawyer to whom you sent the letter has confirmed), I have been the only lawyer to represent Mr. Archer in the Committee’s work, including representing him at the July interview,” Schwartz said.

Archer’s testimony last year was promoted by House Republicans as some of the most damning evidence of the Biden family’s alleged influence peddling. Comer hoped to air some of Archer’s closed-door testimony — including a claim that Hunter Biden frequently put his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates — in a public setting.

But in his letter Monday, Schwartz wrote that “it is not remotely reasonable to ask an important witness in what is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing … to prepare witness testimony in one business day, and to prepare to give public testimony in less than three business days.”

Schwartz reiterated his client’s willingness to cooperate in the investigation and asked them to suggest other dates in the future for Archer to testify publicly. Archer is currently preparing to report to prison for defrauding a Native American tribe.

Hunter Biden last week also declined the panel’s invitation to testify publicly, despite previously expressing an interest in doing so, calling the hearing a “carnival sideshow” and a “blatant planned-for-media event.”

Archer and the two other witnesses invited to participate in the hearing — Galanis and Bobulinski — are former business associates of Hunter Biden who have since become critics of the Biden family.

Bobulinski released a statement last week signaling his intention to appear for the hearing.

Mark Paoletta, an attorney for Galanis — who is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence in Alabama for securities fraud — said his client “is willing to testify at this hearing to provide his firsthand knowledge of then-Vice President Joe Biden helping his son Hunter Biden in his business dealings.”

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan now says that he will not join No Labels’ potential third-party “unity” ticket in the 2024 presidential race.

“After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket,” Duncan said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. “It was an honor to be approached, and I am grateful to all those who are engaged in good-faith efforts to offer Americans a better choice than the Trump vs. Biden re-match.”

“In addition to my private sector career and earning a living for my family of five, I am focused on healing and improving the Republican Party with a GOP 2.0 so we can elect more common-sense conservative candidates in the future,” Duncan said.

ABC News reported earlier this month that, according to sources familiar with the group’s efforts, No Labels representatives have had meetings with Duncan about running as their presidential candidate.

Duncan served as Georgia’s lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023. While he is a conservative Republican, he has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which were focused, in part, on Georgia.

In January, Duncan wrote an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining why he would not support Trump for president in November.

“So now the uncomfortable part: admitting to your neighbors the ends don’t justify the means any longer,” he wrote. “Trump has become incapable of leading in a respectable or mature way. Until more of us are willing to acknowledge that hard truth, we will be on the outside looking in.”

On March 8, No Labels voted to move forward with its effort to field a bipartisan challenge to the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, President Joe Biden and Trump, with the group repeatedly citing polls that had suggested many people didn’t watch a rematch of the two.

With that decision in early March, No Labels entered a second phase of their process, nominating a “Country Over Party Committee” that is tasked to find their candidates. Once those people are chosen, No Labels will reconvene at a future date to present the ticket to their delegates for approval.

No Labels leadership has rejected criticism that they will spoil the 2024 election by running a third-party option.

“We will never fuel a spoiler candidate,” No Labels’ chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, previously said. “We don’t want to fuel any sort of candidacy that’s pulling more votes from one side.”

There is also a chance No Labels could decide to scrap all of its plans. While the group suggests that they have been talking to “exceptional leaders,” that list of potential contenders has dwindled as Election Day nears.

The group is on the ballot in 17 states — including three swing states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.

No Labels previously claimed that it would be on the ballot in 34 states by the end of 2023.

Now, the group says it will attempt to get on the ballot in 33 states by the time a candidate is announced. The ticket would be responsible for the remainder of the states.

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(WASHINGTON) — Congress is beginning the week without a deal to avert a partial government shutdown by Friday’s deadline — as funding for the Department of Homeland Security trips up negotiations.

The Friday deadline is for the remaining six of 12 spending bills after Congress passed the first six earlier this month — averting a partial government shutdown in the process.

This funding package will need to clear both chambers by Friday at midnight.

It was widely expected that negotiators would release legislative text for a government funding package by Sunday, but they blew through that deadline, raising questions about the prospects of a shutdown. Lawmakers are in crunch time to prevent a shutdown: the House has a rule requiring 72 hours for members to review legislation before voting; the Senate also can take a few days to process House-passed bills.

If there’s no bill text Monday, that potentially pushes votes off until the end of the week or weekend — increasing the chances of shutdown — unless House Speaker Mike Johnson speeds up the process.

The hang-up, according to GOP leadership sources, is funding for DHS, which would keep the agency funded at current levels. That would essentially be a cut – a strong signal given the surge of migrants at the southern border and that immigration is a key wedge issue in an election year.

A major sticking point is funding for border enforcement — something Republicans want more money allocated to after a record number of migrant encounters at the southern border late last year.

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing for more money for pay equity in the Transportation Security Administration.

Talks on funding for DHS were already in bad shape last week and congressional leaders ended up proposing a full-year continuing resolution to fund the department. The White House threatened to reject the CR over the weekend, according to a GOP leadership source.

The White House told ABC News that it didn’t have a comment on the matter.

“House Republicans will continue to work in good faith to reach consensus on the appropriations bills that reprioritizes DHS funding towards enforcing border and immigration laws,” Raj Shah, a spokesman for Johnson, said in a statement.

Sources says the other five funding bills are complete and agreed upon. The other bills include funding agencies such as the departments of Defense, State and Education.

This debacle is the latest challenge for Johnson, who has worked to come up plans to avert several shutdowns with his party’s razor-thin majority. He has had to rely on House Democrats’ votes to prevent shutdowns — something that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water with the party and contributed to his ouster last year.

Many House Republicans have not aligned with Johnson on his plans to fund the government, with many pushing back on his plans to use continuing resolutions.

At the Republican retreat in West Virginia last week, Johnson said he was confident they’d be able to avert a shutdown.

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(WASHINGTON) — After former President Donald Trump warned, as he talked about the auto industry, that the country would face a broader “bloodbath” if he’s not elected in November — spurring countless headlines and criticism from rival Joe Biden — Trump on Monday pushed back on the pushback and turned his defense of his comments into a fundraising appeal.

Posting on his social media platform, Trump claimed that his “bloodbath” warning was “simply” about the potential challenges for auto workers if he’s not back in the White House to impose tariffs on China.

Trump’s campaign is also capitalizing on the controversy, with a fundraising email sent on Monday insisting that his political opponents and others had “viciously” misquoted him as part of a broader effort to “keep control.”

“[T]hey fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,” Trump wrote on social media, in part.

Biden often touts his economic record, including the consistently low unemployment rate.

Creating some friction with union members, however, the administration also wants car companies to shift to make many more electric vehicles as part of a broader push to address climate change — a position that Trump argues will harm workers in America.

Here is what Trump said about a “bloodbath” on Saturday:

While appearing outside Dayton, Ohio, at an event in support of Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, Trump initially said that China is trying to undercut the American auto industry by manufacturing cars in Mexico.

“They think that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border. Let me tell you something to China. If you’re listening President Xi [Jinping], and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal: Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re gonna get that, you’re gonna not hire Americans and you’re gonna sell the cars to us — no.

“We’re gonna put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not gonna be able to sell those guys, if I get elected!” Trump said.

He then suggested there would be bigger issues if he isn’t returned to the White House by voters.

“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna to be the least of it — it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it,” he said.

“But they’re not gonna sell those cars, they’re building massive factories,” Trump continued, returning to talking about auto manufacturing.

Over the course of his roughly 90-minute remarks on Saturday, Trump segued back and forth, sometimes abruptly, between many different subjects as he spoke and indicated that he wasn’t using a teleprompter because of the wind.

President Biden’s campaign soon seized on the “bloodbath” comments, highlighting how Trump has often praised authoritarian leaders and starts many of his rallies by saluting the American flag while “Justice for All” by the “J6 Prison Choir” plays.

“This is who Donald Trump is,” Biden spokesperson James Singer said in a statement on Saturday night.

“He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,” Singer said.

Biden echoed that in a post on Sunday from his personal account on X, writing that despite Trump’s defense, “It’s clear this guy wants another January 6.”

Trump aides took on the criticism directly, too.

Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung posted on X: “Media wants to talk about ‘bloodbath.’ Fine, let’s talk about it.”

Cheung then went on to slam Biden for “the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal,” high rates of illegal immigration and “making America less safe with a feckless foreign policy,” among other issues.

At Saturday’s rally, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden, whom he is set to face again in the 2024 general election, while highlighting his record while he was in office.

He also criticized Biden for the high rate of migrants now trying to cross the southern border — some of whom, Trump said, are “animals” and “not people” — and said Biden had failed as a leader on the world stage.

ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.

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The trial for a former Wisconsin election official who allegedly requested mail-in ballots for three nonexistent military voters is scheduled to begin on Monday in a Milwaukee court.

Kimberly D. Zapata, 47, who served as deputy director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, was charged in November 2022 with three misdemeanor counts of election fraud and one count of felony misconduct in public office, according to officials and a criminal complaint.

She pleaded not guilty in December 2022, according to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court’s docket. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.

Zapata allegedly used Wisconsin’s online voter-registration portal, MyVote, to request the ballots, prosecutors said in a complaint filed in November 2022. Investigators said she later admitted in an interview to filing the requests.

“Zapata admitted that she was attempting to highlight flaws within the absentee system,” investigators said, according to the criminal complaint. “She stated that attempting to highlight the flaws within the system is an attempt to maintain election integrity, which is part of her job.”

Zapata allegedly accessed the public website from home at about 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 25, 2022, about two weeks prior to the midterm elections. She allegedly used her city-issued laptop to submit all three requests within a 10-minute window, according to the complaint.

The three fake voters — Holly Brandtjen, Holly Jones and Holly Adams — shared a single birthday, prosecutors said. Officials said municipal clerks in South Milwaukee, Shorewood and Menomonee Falls handled the requests.

“The three requests contained the purported name, address and date of birth of the voter, but contained no proof of identification or residency,” prosecutors said. “All were listed as military voters.”

Military voters are not required to register to vote and are exempt from providing a photo ID, Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the state’s Election Commission, told reporters in November 2022.

“So, it’s my belief that [Zapata] was pointing out that you can go onto the public system, make up a person and request a ballot,” Woodall-Vogg said at a press conference at the time. “She sent it to a state Legislature member in order to alert them to this vulnerability, is our understanding at this point.”

State Assembly Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican who served as chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections and who had previously questioned the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections, said in a statement that she received all three ballots at her home. She posted photos of the envelopes online, saying she had notified the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Eric Severson’s office said in a statement posted online on Oct. 31, 2022, that it had opened an investigation.

After news of the investigation broke that day, Woodall-Vogg sent Zapata a news story about it, according to the complaint against Zapata. Zapata allegedly told Woodall-Vogg she hadn’t heard about the case, officials said. Prosecutors said Woodall-Vogg then sent a follow-up message, noting a “statement that was put out by JB regarding how easy it was to receive military ballots.”

“She has a point,” Zapata allegedly replied, according to the complaint.

Zapata walked into Woodall-Vogg’s office the following day, prosecutors said, and allegedly told her she’d filed the requests for the ballots.

“Zapata told Woodall-Vogg that she made up the identities of the voters and sent them to show how easy it is to commit fraud in this manner,” the complaint said.

According to the complaint, Zapata told investigators in a later interview that she’d created the requests in part because “she felt overwhelmed due to the threats of violence the Election Commission was receiving, in addition to the constant daily harassment and accusations of lying and hiding things.”

Zapata began working for the commission in 2016 and became deputy director in 2022, officials said. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told reporters during a Nov. 3, 2022, press conference that Zapata had been fired, saying her actions “had every appearance of being an egregious, blatant violation of trust.”

The felony charge against Zapata carries maximum penalties of both three and a half years in prison and $10,000 in fines, according to the complaint. Each misdemeanor charge carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison or $1,000 in fines.

After Zapata had been fired, Brandtjen and a group of veterans filed a complaint on Nov. 4, 2022, against the Wisconsin Election Commission seeking to sequester all military mail-in ballots that arrived ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.

The identities of the military personnel who’ve sent those mail-in ballots should be verified before the ballots are counted, the motion said. Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael P. Maxwell on Nov. 7, 2022, denied the motion, according to court records.

ABC News has reached out to Brandtjen and an attorney representing Zapata for comment.

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman contributed to this report.

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As Donald Trump faced backlash for saying some immigrants who come to the U.S. are “not people” but “animals,” the former president defended some of his divisive characterizations of people crossing the border, insisting that he has to use “certain rhetoric” to “stir debate.”

“It also gets people thinking about very important issues that, if you don’t use certain rhetoric, if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen. That did stir debate,” Trump told Fox News’ Howard Kurtz in a pretaped interview that aired Sunday.

Kurtz had pointed to Trump previously saying migrants who come to the country illegally are “poisoning the blood” of the country. That rhetoric echoes past dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

“I didn’t know that,” Trump said on Fox News.

But, he added, “Our country is being poisoned.”

“Everything I’ve said has been right. … We have millions of people coming into our country that shouldn’t be here,” Trump continued, repeating baseless warnings about “migrant crime.”

U.S. citizens commit crimes at higher rates than unauthorized immigrants, according to a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump has frequently used derogatory language while talking about immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally.

In recent weeks, he has dedicated a considerable amount of time on the campaign trail to emphasizing border security and highlighting immigration issues, claiming that immigrants are taking over the jobs of Americans and blaming President Joe Biden for the death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was allegedly killed by a suspect identified as an immigrant who came to America illegally.

Trump’s most recent attacks on some migrants came Saturday, during what was scheduled to be a guest appearance at a campaign rally for Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno.

Instead, the event quickly turned into Trump saying there would be a “bloodbath” for the country if he doesn’t win the 2024 general election — while also railing against the electric vehicle industry manufacturing automobiles outside the U.S.

“We’re gonna put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not gonna be able to sell those guys if I get elected,” Trump said while criticizing overseas manufacturing production.

“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for … that’s gonna be the least of it, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it,” he said.

Trump’s campaign has pushed back on claims that he was talking about violence throughout the country should he lose reelection in 2024, arguing he was talking about the destruction of the auto industry.

However, President Biden’s campaign seized on the comments, highlighting how Trump has often praised authoritarian leaders and starts many of his rallies saluting the American flag while “Justice for All” by the “J6 Prison Choir” plays.

“This is who Donald Trump is,” Biden spokesperson James Singer said in a statement Saturday night.

At the Saturday rally, Trump also claimed some unauthorized immigrants are “not people” while making unfounded claims that other countries are letting criminals out of prisons to cross into the United States.

Trump then quickly downplayed the weight of his comments, saying Democrats will criticize him for his rhetoric by saying he lacks humanity.

In his pretaped interview on Fox News, beyond talking about his rhetoric on migrants, Trump discussed his recent reversal on pushing a ban on TikTok.

He claimed he did not know that Jeff Yass, a billionaire GOP donor he met with a few days prior to publicly changing his stance on the issue, had a major financial interest in the China-based parent company of the popular social media app.

He also said he never spoke to Yass about legislation currently being considered in Congress that could lead to TikTok being banned if it isn’t sold.

Trump posted on his social media platform earlier this month 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.

Yass has praised TikTok as supporting “free speech and innovation.”

Elsewhere during his Fox News interview, Trump sounded hesitant to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, though he conceded Putin “probably” had a role in it and said “something happened that was unusual” while repeating “I don’t know.”

The Kremlin denies any role in Navalny’s death, while the White House blames Putin.

“I don’t know, but perhaps, I mean, possibly, I could say probably, I don’t know,” Trump said when asked if he believes Putin was responsible.

“He’s a young man, so statistically he’d be alive for a long time, if you go by the insurance numbers, he’d be alive for another 40 years. So something happened that was unusual,” Trump said of Navalny.

When pressed for a more direct answer, Trump said, “Well, I don’t know, you certainly can’t say for sure, but certainly that would look like something very bad happened.”

He then dodged a question on whether he’d provide further funding to Ukraine or allow Russia to seize some Ukrainian territory if reelected, saying the nine months between now and Jan. 20, 2025, the date for the next presidential inauguration, are “an eternity in terms of war.”

“I hope that it doesn’t come to that,” he said, adding, “If we had a real leader, he [Putin] would have never never done that.”

Trump again boasted of his “good relationship” with Putin and blamed Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he called a “terrible situation.”

Trump also alluded to a possibility of backing a nationwide abortion restriction, saying “there will be a certain spot” as he railed against Democrats for being “radical” on the issue for typically supporting access later in pregnancy.

He said he wants to seek to make “both sides happy” but praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision two years ago that ended Roe v. Wade’s guarantees of national abortion access.

Since then, numerous GOP-led states have widely restricted or essentially ended access to abortion.

Polls have shown the issue has been a key motivator for voters in some states and abortion access has prevailed each time it has directly been put up for a vote since the Supreme Court decision in 2022.

Trump has so far avoided endorsing a federal abortion ban while signaling in public comments that it would be better as a state issue.

In private, he has expressed support for a 16-week abortion ban, ABC News reported in February.

He said on Fox News that he will be making a recommendation on the issue “fairly soon” while again emphasizing his support for three exceptions: rape, incest and life of the mother.

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The White House on Sunday reiterated support for a controversial bill meant to cut China’s ties to TikTok by forcing the popular app’s Chinese parent company to sell it — or face a ban in the U.S.

At the same time, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said on ABC News’ “This Week,” the administration acknowledges the concerns of many American users.

“I want to stress again, over and over, that this isn’t about a ban,” Kirby told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “We don’t want to see a ban on TikTok. We understand there’s a lot of people whose economic life relies on it.”

He said the administration instead wants to see TikTok split from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, who staunchly opposes the legislation and maintains that the data fears around the use of TikTok are unfounded.

“We want to see divestiture from this Chinese company because we are concerned, as every American ought to be concerned, about data security and what ByteDance and what the Chinese Communist Party can do with the information they can glean off of Americans’ use of the application,” Kirby said.

Kirby also reacted to Israel saying it has military plans to invade Rafah, in the southern part of Gaza, amid its ongoing war with Hamas in the wake of Hamas’ October terror attack.

“We would not support such an operation unless or until they can accommodate the 1.5 million refugees that are there [in Rafah] and preserve their safety and security,” Kirby said.

“We have continued and will continue to press the Israelis to do more to reduce civilian casualties, to do more to get more [aid] trucks in and to, again, help us come to closure on this temporary cease-fire so that we can get all those hostages out,” he said.

Raddatz pressed Kirby on President Joe Biden’s recent comments that a Rafah invasion for him would be a “red line” before appearing to walk that back.

So — “what is it?” Raddatz asked.

“I don’t want to get ahead of where we are. They haven’t moved into Rafah,” Kirby said, stressing Biden’s opposition to an invasion that doesn’t consider civilian safety.

He later added, “Now the Israeli Defense Forces say that they have such a plan for an evacuation, they talked about humanitarian islands in Gaza. Again, we welcome the opportunity to see that, to see if that’s actually executable and doable.”

In the meantime, the U.S. is continuing the “emergency” mission it announced earlier this month to construct a floating pier off Gaza’s coast in an effort to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory — a delicate operation that brings American forces closer to the conflict.

Kirby said the first parts of the pier left Norfolk, Virginia, last week.

“It’s going to probably take about six to eight weeks or so for all the pieces to get in place for it to become operational,” he said. “We are working with partners in the region to figure out the details of how the material will be secured on and off the floating dock and, of course, how it will be distributed inside Gaza.”

Kirby did not directly answer Raddatz’s question as to how the mission could be completed without U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza.

The White House is also working to provide additional military assistance to Ukraine as it continues to fight Russia’s invasion after legislation to do so stalled in Congress over a fight about immigration policy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said last week that he now expects to pass the funding bill with Democratic votes.

Kirby said “the White House has been in touch with Speaker Johnson and his team about this moving forward,” adding, “Time is of the essence.”

“They are running out of ammunition in the Donbass and they are falling back now on second and third lines of defense as the Russians continue to try to push west,” Kirby said of the Ukrainians. “They’ve got to have the support and we need it now.”

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Rep. Ro Khanna said on Sunday that the TikTok bill the House of Representatives passed last week wouldn’t actually protect Americans, instead pushing for other legislation that he says would better prevent foreign countries from obtaining private information.

The bill in the House would force China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face having the wildly popular app banned outright in the U.S. It was sparked by concerns that ByteDance could share (or be forced to share) Americans’ data with the Chinese government, claims the company calls unfounded as it vigorously advocates against the new legislation.

Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley in California, voted against the bill, citing First Amendment concerns, though the legislation was approved by a broad, bipartisan majority.

“There are two national security issues that proponents of the bill have cited. Both are legitimate. One, will the data get to a foreign government, in this case the Chinese Communist Party? Two, will the Chinese Communist Party have an influence on algorithms? We can deal with both with a narrowly tailored law,” Khanna told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

“Let’s ban any data going to a foreign country and protect American data. Second, let’s ban any foreign interference in a social media app, whether that’s TikTok or another app. And by the way, those laws would also cover data brokers, which are selling data to Chinese companies,” Khanna said. “So this bill is not actually addressing the issue.”

Debate over the popular app raged on Capitol Hill last week, culminating in the House’s vote to send the forced-sale bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hasn’t committed to putting it up for a floor vote.

It’s also unclear if 60 senators would back the proposal, as would be needed. The White House supports the legislation.

In the House, the bill transcended traditional political alliances, with China hawks in both parties uniting behind it and free speech absolutists opposing it, arguing, like Khanna, that it went too far and was too focused on TikTok.

On “This Week,” Khanna said a more effective solution would be multi-step.

“Pass a law, one, to prevent these apps, whether it’s TikTok or Facebook or YouTube, from collecting data. That bill has been sitting in the House Commerce Committee for years, and it doesn’t move. Second, pass a law that if there’s any evidence that the data goes to China, then [server company] Oracle and TikTok would be held liable, civilly or criminally,” Khanna said.

“Third, pass a law that if Chinese nationals are involved in the algorithms — people are claiming these algorithms are manipulating Americans — if there’s any information, insight, evidence that a Chinese national or any foreign national is manipulating algorithms, that would be illegal,” he said.

When pressed by Raddatz on how conceivable it is to craft and enact such legislation, Khanna insisted it would be “easier” to pass than the current bill.

“If we passed a law saying you can’t transfer data, you can’t collect data, that would actually solve the problem,” he said.

He also pointed to the concerns of many of the app’s users that a potential ban threatens not just their platform but their businesses. He dismissed the idea that these people could simply migrate to another app.

“The audience is very different …. I think it would be hard,” he said.

More broadly, Khanna chafed at the spotlight on TikTok versus what he called larger issues.

“The frustration is that we haven’t been able to pass these data privacy laws. … We haven’t passed the laws to ban foreign interference,” he said.

Khanna, a prominent surrogate for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, separately defended the president’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, saying that the U.S. has an obligation to help Israel protect itself but that the administration is listening to critics of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas and its allies.

A protest movement to have Democratic primary voters cast “uncommitted” ballots against Biden has gained some traction in a few states, including the key battleground of Michigan.

“President Biden, now, and his team, are shifting and understanding that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s policies have not been in the interests of protecting civilian life, that too many innocent civilians have died, and he has finally called for a cease-fire with the release of hostages, and they’re being heard,” Khanna said. (Israel insists it takes steps to curb civilian casualties.)

“Now, it’s obvious that I have had disagreements with President Biden on this,” said Khanna, who has called for a permanent cease-fire. “But here’s what I know: At least he’s listening. Donald Trump wouldn’t listen.”

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Rep. Mike Turner, a top House Republican, on Sunday said he disagreed with former President Donald Trump calling some migrants “not people” and “animals” but insisted that only Trump “is going to be able to fix this crisis” at the southern border.

Appearing on ABC News’ “This Week,” Turner placed the blame for the high rate of migration into the U.S. on President Joe Biden, who has said that he needs Congress to help him do more to address the border.

But “when you talk about what’s happening at the border, this is absolutely a crisis that’s created by this administration,” Turner argued, going on to cite warnings from the FBI about “dangerous” people entering the U.S. across the border.

While the Ohio lawmaker wanted to focus on Biden’s immigration policies, “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz pressed him for his views on Trump’s latest disparaging comments about migrants.

“I’ve disagreed with those in the past, and I think the American people disagree with those. But I do think that people see that Donald Trump is the only candidate in this race that’s going to be able to fix this crisis,” Turner said.

He noted he was not present at the Saturday event in Vandalia, Ohio — in Turner’s home district — in which Trump, boosting a Senate candidate aligned with him, attacked some immigrants and called people jailed for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021, “hostages.”

Turner, who is supporting a different candidate than Trump in the Ohio GOP Senate primary, said he disagreed with that characterization as well.

“I believe in our judicial system,” he said, though he also referenced some court actions related to the Capitol riot that were “overturned.”

“You would think, of course, that Donald Trump would have very strong emotional feelings about the individuals who have been in jail and gone to prison over these,” he said.

Of Trump’s campaign rhetoric, Turner said, “I think, certainly, there are statements that he makes that many Americans would not agree with and many Americans would agree with it.”

Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, separately also defended legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House last week which would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media platform or face it being banned in the U.S.

Casting the issue as part of a “battle between authoritarianism and democracy,” Turner said Beijing has sought a “greater surveillance society” and that American data obtained through TikTok could be used much in the way China “uses [social media] to control its own population.”

TikTok insists that fears over data breaches are unfounded, in part because U.S user traffic is managed in the U.S. “outside the reach or influence of any foreign government.” ByteDance adamantly opposes the divest-or-ban legislation.

Turner on “This Week” pointed out that China has blocked X, Facebook and YouTube and said the U.S. should move forward with the legislation to force a sale of TikTok for national security reasons.

While “there are great concerns about the individual privacy and issues of data,” Turner said his “greatest concern” is TikTok being used as a “propaganda tool … able to manipulate a society.”

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