Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The bipartisan No Labels movement is facing a self-imposed soft deadline of early April to field a ticket in the 2024 presidential race, despite declaring last month that it would move forward with a third-party independent bid.

The official launch by No Labels in March offered hope to supporters who yearned for a different choice other than the presumptive nominees, incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. No Labels indicated, according to its internal polling, that more than 70% of Americans said they’d be open to another option.

While the group has said there’s no formal deadline for selecting and naming a candidate, No Labels National Convention Chair Mike Rawlings has suggested early April. Chief strategist Ryan Clancy said late last year the group could linger as late as June to decide if they would enter the 2024 election. But as of now, there is no candidate and, therefore, no third choice.

No Labels’ 800 delegates from 50 states met virtually in March to discuss the future of the movement and whether it would enter the 2024 presidential election. “They voted near unanimously to continue our 2024 project and to move immediately to identify candidates to serve on the Unity presidential ticket,” Rawlings said in a statement at the time.

After formally revealing the group would move forward with a White House bid last month, Clancy told ABC News that “any previous names floating around are being put out there by someone else,” which signaled efforts to reclaim the narrative of who might be on a potential “Unity Ticket” — composed of one Republican and one Democrat.

The centrist group then outlined a ceremonial Country Over Party committee tasked with selecting the candidates. It was the committee’s goal to gather information, reach out to prospective candidates and then meet behind closed doors before presenting a ticket to their delegates for a vote, according to Rawlings, who outlined the selection process.

For the past year and a half, No Labels leadership has held private conversations with potential candidates in an attempt to lure in former and current political figures, according to people familiar with the outreach.

It’s unclear how fast or serious the group has been in the past several weeks since their delegates signed off, and No Labels has been tight-lipped when approached about developments. ABC News has reached out to the group several times.

Who has been floated as a potential candidate?
A handful of delegates suggested to ABC News they heard a few names floated over the past two weeks, but no one was willing to provide any new names or disclose if they have received updates from the committee.

In conversations with ABC News, these delegates did suggest unicorn names such as Michelle Obama and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Both have ruled out running for president. When pressed further on potential candidates, delegates suggested there are still candidates being considered.

Adversely, a few former high-dollar donors to No Labels suggested to ABC News they were well-aware the group couldn’t move forward and weren’t surprised by the lack of candidate interest. Some suggested No Labels’ decision to move forward would only create a spoiler.

Several donors had thrown their support behind former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley — who suspended her 2024 campaign last month — but No Labels put that to rest, releasing a statement after Haley’s campaign suspension saying the group will take her “at her word” that she “isn’t interested in pursuing another route to the presidency.”

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan was also once speculated to be on the ticket, but announced he would run for U.S. Senate instead.

Other names that have been floated by the bipartisan group include former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

At the end of March, Christie said he won’t run against Trump on a third-party ticket with No Labels in the 2024 presidential race.

“While I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had with the American people, I also believe that if there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” Christie said at the time.

That same day, No Labels also faced a tragedy when the group’s founding chair, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, died due to complications from a fall.

Where is No Labels on the ballot?
No Labels is on the ballot in 19 states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

No Labels previously claimed it would be on the ballot in 34 states by the end of 2023, later saying it would attempt to get on the ballot in 33 states by the time a candidate was announced. The group has yet to hit these benchmarks.

The group has indicated that once it selects the Unity Ticket and hands over the ballot line, the candidate is responsible for the rest of the states, as well as campaigning.

“Once the Unity ticket is nominated, No Labels’ work is done. The Unity Ticket will assume the task of building a campaign and capturing the hearts and minds of the American people in the 2024 election,” Rawlings said.

The disappearance of No Labels once the ballot line is passed over to a candidate allows the group to remain a nonprofit, and no donor would be disclosed. No Labels could also stay mum on how much money it has raised and where that money might go moving forward if it’s not used for 2024.

No Labels hasn’t indicated its future role if and when a candidate is selected.

Timeline unknown
No Labels was slated to hold a Dallas convention on April 14 and 15 to hear from supporters and gauge whether the group would launch a third-party ticket.

That in-person convention turned to a virtual option allowing the group more time to proceed, with Clancy telling reporters they’d linger as late as June to decide if the group would enter the 2024 election.

The convention ended up taking place virtually in March — a month earlier than planned, despite wanting to allow for more time.

Following the delegate vote to move forward in March, No Labels entered a second phase to finalize the group’s candidate selection process. As a final step, No Labels will reconvene and present its candidate to the group for approval.

The “coming weeks” has become a standard phrase given to ABC News when some supporters and delegates have been pressed on whether the group has a candidate yet.

What are No Labels’ exit options?
Nancy Jacobson, chief executive and founder of No Labels, previously said No Labels will “either give our ballot line to a ticket with a clear path to victory, or we’ll step aside.”

Over the past year, No Labels has indicated it could cease its operations if they believed their ticket couldn’t win or couldn’t get 270 electoral college votes. The group also said it would exit if they believed they would spoil the election.

No Labels leadership has reiterated claims that they will not spoil the 2024 election.

“We will never fuel a spoiler candidate,” Clancy has said. “We don’t want to fuel any sort of candidacy that’s pulling more votes from one side.”

No Labels has indicated a future ticket would hold the 30 policy proposals introduced at a July event by Manchin and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in a No Labels policy agenda booklet.

Rawlings also reiterated these qualifications last month, suggesting that in order to represent a No Labels ticket, a candidate must believe in the six core values of No Labels and endorse the policy booklet that was established in July.

“This is a unique American moment where we have a chance to make history. We can leave behind the divisions and dysfunction and finally have leadership in the White House that speaks to and for America’s common sense majority,” Rawlings said at the end of his remarks during the virtual convention in March.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will host a group of Muslim leaders Tuesday evening to discuss “issues of importance to the community,” the White House said, as he faced growing criticism over his response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The White House meeting, behind closed doors, will be followed by a small iftar dinner to mark the end of the daily fast during Ramadan with Muslim administration staffers but not with the community leaders.

“He will be joined by Vice President Harris, senior Muslim administration officials and senior members of his national security team,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters about the meeting.

“And to continue the White House tradition of honoring Ramadan, as he did just last month, after the meeting, we will host a small breaking of the fast, prayer and iftar with a number of senior Muslim administration officials,” she added.

The events are a very scaled-down gathering to mark Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month, compared to previous years, when the president would host hundreds for a reception and deliver remarks in front of guests and the press.

Neither the meeting with Muslim community leaders nor the iftar dinner were on Biden’s public schedule.

They are also taking place as tensions remain high between the administration and the Arab American and Muslim communities over Biden’s support for Israel in its fight against Hamas as the war in Gaza approaches the six-month mark after Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7. More than 1,200 people were killed in that attack, according to Israeli officials.

On Tuesday, Biden is facing another protest vote in Wisconsin, where groups are organizing people to cast their ballot for “uninstructed” in the Democratic primary rather than for Biden. Similar campaigns in protest over the war have unfolded in Michigan and Minnesota.

Both the Biden-Harris campaign and the administration have ramped up outreach to these communities in recent months. One of those efforts, a meeting Biden campaign officials had planned in Michigan ahead of the primary, was rebuffed as local Arab American and Muslim leaders canceled.

Jean-Pierre said the gathering of Muslim leaders at the White House is seen as a “working group meeting” and was decided to be done privately at the “request from members of the community.”

“They thought it would be important to do that and so we did that,” she said. “We listened, we heard, and we adjusted the format to be responsive and so that we can get feedback from them. … This is what they wanted, and we understand that.”

Last month, Biden marked the start of Ramadan by reflecting on the Israel-Hamas war and the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children,” he said. “Some are family members of American Muslims, who are deeply grieving their lost loved ones today. Nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced by the war; many are in urgent need of food, water, medicine, and shelter.”

“As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many,” he continued. “It is front of mind for me.”

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is celebrating a court ruling that will add an abortion rights measure to the November ballot in Florida, giving voters the chance to undo the state’s current restrictions on the procedure.

That will “help mobilize and expand the electorate in the state” based on how widely supported similar such efforts have been elsewhere, Biden aides argue.

“Protecting abortion rights is mobilizing a diverse and growing segment of voters to help buoy Democrats up and down the ballot,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a memo on Monday, in part.

Exit polling previously found that the issue of abortion access was a driving factor for some voters in key battlegrounds like Michigan in 2022 — and the inclusion of the ballot initiative in Florida in November is seen by some Democrats and abortion rights advocates as helpful in driving voter turnout.

That optimism challenges recent political history: Florida shifted more conservative in key races since 2020, after years of being seen as one of the biggest battleground states in the country, with elections sometimes decided by mere hundreds of votes.

Former President Donald Trump narrowly won Florida in 2016 and then less narrowly in 2020.

In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 points.

Until 2020, Florida had also voted for the winning presidential candidate every cycle dating back to 1996.

But recent elections indicate the state’s partisanship may be changing. After decades of Democrats holding an official edge with voter registration in the state, that flipped starting in 2021 and there are now nearly 1 million more registered Republicans, data shows.

Rodriguez acknowledged in her memo on Monday that “Florida is not an easy state to win,” but she indicated that Biden’s campaign wouldn’t need to in order to beat Trump, who faces his own challenges of winning back longtime GOP states like Arizona and Georgia.

“Winning Florida requires being strategic with resources, while putting in the work early and often to reach its many diverse constituencies. That’s exactly what Team Biden-Harris is doing,” Rodriguez wrote.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Biden allies and aides including Rodriguez reiterated their case for why Florida is not out of reach, despite the GOP’s success.

“Look, we’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida,” Rodriguez said.

“But,” she argued, “we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag.”

In her memo, Rodriguez cited what she said was Biden’s support with seniors, a key voting bloc in Florida, as well as the success of some Democrats in local races, like Donna Deegan — who won Jacksonville’s mayoral election in 2023.

Floridians have rejected “MAGA politics” since the 2022 midterms, Rodriguez wrote, and Biden is in a good position to “assemble a winning coalition” of key voter groups in the state: seniors, Hispanic voters, Black voters and voters who previously supported Nikki Haley over Trump in the GOP primary.

Rodriguez also singled out issues like the cost of living, health care access and welfare programs like Social Security.

Biden allies are aiming to make reproductive rights important in 2024, too, including through a new swing state ad that links Trump to — and blames him for — the growing number of restrictive abortions bans in recent years.

“The only thing standing between Americans and a national abortion ban: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the White House,” Rodriguez said on Tuesday, echoing what’s become a major campaign message. “These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them.”

On the trail, Trump often takes credit for naming three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices that voted to overrule Roe v. Wade’s guarantees for abortion access.

“We did something that was a miracle,” he said during a town hall in January, suggesting that the lack of abortions since the court ruling two years ago had “saved” millions of lives.

“Nobody has done more in that regard than me,” he said then.

But Trump has refused to give a consistent, specific response on the limits he now favors.

Trump has voiced public support for three exceptions (rape, incest and life of the mother) and he has privately expressed that he may back a 16-week national abortion ban with those three exceptions, ABC News reported in February, citing two sources.

At the time, the Trump campaign did not deny the reporting but issued a statement that said he would work to find middle ground on abortion.

Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement to ABC News on Tuesday that “President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states’ rights because he supports the voters’ right to make decisions for themselves.”

Hughes went on to knock what he said were Democrats’ far more permissive abortion policies.

ABC News’ Libby Cathey, Fritz Farrow, Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Amid concerns from some family members — and attacks from Democrats — that his independent campaign could swing a close race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is continuing to push ahead to gain access to ballots around the country, which will ultimately determine his success with voters.

Kennedy said Monday in a a CNN interview that he would have “no problem” getting on the ballot in every state, including several key battleground states where Biden and Trump’s small margins of victory in previous elections could be whittled away by Kennedy. Only one state has confirmed he is on the ballot: Utah.

Kennedy is running for president as an independent candidate, which means he is not guaranteed to a spot on any state’s ballot. That means his campaign is working to gather signatures — anywhere from about 900 to 42,000 required signatures — to get on states’ ballots.

Public polling indicates Kennedy is a long shot to win the presidency. He scratches double-digits in some recent general election polls, but that’s it. In the early phase of the election, surveys have indicated some interest in third-party options compared with Biden or Trump, however. An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in early January found that 37% of adults said they would be somewhat or very likely to seriously consider a third-party option with Biden and Trump as the major party nominees.

With a rematch now set between Biden and Trump in November, despite what polling shows are low approval ratings for both men, Kennedy’s independent campaign has attracted more notice — and increasing criticism from Democrats that he’s nothing more than a “spoiler” who will siphon off enough Biden-leaning voters to ensure Trump’s reelection.

He rebuffed that worry during his CNN interview, describing his White House bid as unique from either Biden or Trump.

On Monday, he rejected the idea that he selected Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan as his running mate because she is wealthy enough to help fund his effort to access every state’s ballot.

“We don’t need her money to get on the ballot in every state,” he said of Shanahan, who has donated millions of dollars to a pro-Kennedy Super PAC, during a CNN interview.

While only Utah has confirmed Kennedy is on the ballot, Kennedy and the PAC supporting him say they have enough signatures to get him on the ballot in eight other states. He still has enough time to get on many more ballots if his campaign or the super PAC get enough signatures.

His campaign says they have gotten enough signatures to get on the ballot in four states as either an independent candidate or as registering the “We the People” party, the party formed by Kennedy: Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Hawaii.

In Nevada, Kennedy’s team failed to name a running mate when it filed its petition to get him on the state’s ballot, which Nevada statutes require of independent candidates, according to documents filed by Kennedy’s campaign and shared with ABC News by the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. The campaign claims this is an attempt to invalidate the candidate. The office has yet to announce how it is moving forward and whether Kennedy could be added.

In North Carolina, the state board of elections said Kennedy has until May 17 to submit signatures to county boards, and then until June 3 to submit to the state board of elections. As of April 1 the state board said it had not received any signatures.

In 2020, Trump won North Carolina by around 74,000 votes — about a 1% margin over Biden.

In New Hampshire, the secretary of state’s office doesn’t start counting signatures until September.

In Hawaii, the We the People party qualification petition is facing an objection from the Democratic Party of Hawaii, with a hearing to be held on April 5.

The super PAC supporting Kennedy, American Values 2024, said it received enough signatures to get Kennedy on the ballot in four states: Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and South Carolina.

In Georgia, petitions can only be filed starting in June.

In Arizona, the candidate filing period opens on July 28.

In 2020, Biden won Arizona by just 10,457 votes, and Georgia by just 11,779 votes.

In Michigan, as of March 12, the secretary of state’s office has not gotten any petitions from RFK; he has until July 18 to turn them in.

In South Carolina, the South Carolina Elections Commission received a petition on March 21.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans have introduced a bill to rename Washington Dulles International Airport after former President Donald Trump — a move in an election year that brings added attention to the presumptive Republican nominee.

The bill, which was referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for further consideration, would designate Dulles Airport — located outside the nation’s capital in Virginia — as the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

“Freedom. Prosperity. Strength. That’s what America stood for under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump — the best president of my lifetime. And that’s why I’m introducing legislation to rename Dulles as the Donald J. Trump International Airport,” Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler said on X.

The Pennsylvania Republican introduced the legislation last Friday and six other members co-sponsored it: Reps. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz, Troy Nehls, R-Texas, Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., Barry Moore, R-Ala. and Mike Waltz, R-Fla.

It’s not yet clear how the bill will fare in the GOP-controlled House, though it’s likely to be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate — meaning it would not become law.

Several of Virginia’s House Democrats slammed Republicans’ efforts.

Rep. Gerry Connolly said in a statement on X that “Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.” Trump denies wrongdoing in his cases stemming from the charges.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger called the bill “ridiculous, but sadly real.”

“Congress must act on pressing issues like reauthorizing the FAA and passing the national security supplemental. Yet this is what a Member of House Republican leadership focuses on — renaming Virginia’s Dulles airport after Trump,” Spanberger wrote on X.

Rep. Don Beyer said that after Trump enacted a controversial travel ban that barred immigration to the United States from certain foreign countries, he went to Dulles Airport “to try to help innocent people caught up in the chaos.”

“I remember grandparents detained for hours as their terrified families waited,” Beyer wrote on X.

“I remember Republicans like those who wrote this bill hiding and giving mealy mouthed responses when asked about the suffering Trump’s Muslim ban caused,” Beyer said of the travel ban. “They know Dulles will never be renamed after Trump. Again, that’s not the point, the point is to suck up to their Dear Leader.”

Dulles Airport, 26 miles west of Washington, D.C., was named for John Foster Dulles, who served as secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959. The airport was formally dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962; it was later renamed Washington Dulles International Airport in 1984.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Dulles Airport, did not have a comment about the bill.

ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday doubled down on his suggestion that President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than former President Donald Trump because of what Kennedy claimed was the Biden administration’s censoring of political speech online.

Kennedy, a former Democrat, appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” where he was asked to expand on a recent comment of his that Biden is arguably a “much worse threat to democracy.”

“I said I can make that argument, and I think it’s an argument that we ought to be having,” Kennedy responded.

He then seemingly cited a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court over claims that federal officials had engaged in a “broad pressure campaign” to censor certain viewpoints related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election.

In one example at the center of that dispute, a White House official sent an email to a Twitter staffer after a post from Kennedy suggested, without evidence, that baseball legend Hank Aaron had died from the COVID-19 vaccine.

The White House has argued that its contact with the companies has been aimed at protecting public health, national security and election integrity and has never involved threats of adverse consequences. The private companies have said publicly that they can and do moderate content as they wish.

During oral arguments before the high court last month, a majority of justices signaled they did not believe the Biden administration had gone too far.

But Kennedy on Tuesday took a darker view of the government’s actions — seeking to blame Biden directly.

“President Biden has done something that no other president in the history has done, which is to order media, particularly the social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google — to censor his political opponents,” Kennedy alleged.

He warned of the “undermining” of the First Amendment.

“I think, you know, what President Trump said about, you know, questioning the election and, you know, to the extent that he engaged in an effort to overthrow that, of course that’s a threat to democracy. But it is not the worst threat,” he said.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on Kennedy’s latest criticism, but national Democrats have been increasingly attacking Kennedy and seeking to tie him to Trump.

“He is an extremist, he is not in the mainstream of this country,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said on CNN last week. Democratic spokesperson Matt Corridoni also slammed Kennedy in a previous statement as a “stalking horse” for Tump, which Kennedy rejects.

“We’re facing an unprecedented election and we know the GOP is already working to prop up third party candidates like Robert Kennedy Jr.,” Corridoni said.

Kennedy, on Fox, also repeated his umbrage at being denied Secret Service protection despite earlier requests.

ABC News previously reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about why Kennedy was denied protection and the agency declined to comment.

Such decisions are made in consultation with an advisory panel that includes congressional leaders.

The Secret Service’s website lays out several factors that the DHS and the committee consider in whether to assign a candidate a protective detail, including but not limited to a Real Clear Politics national polling average of 15% or greater for over 30 days, a risk assessment conducted by the agency and the level of campaigning that is occurring nationally.

The Secret Service is legally required to protect presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their families 120 days out from a general election — a measure taken in response to the 1968 assassination of Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

The younger Kennedy has repeatedly requested Secret Service protection beyond the private security he already employs.

Appearing on CNN on Monday, Kennedy complained about his lack of a Secret Service detail, which he linked to what he called Biden’s more troubling habit of using power compared to Trump.

“I think that is a threat to democracy — him [Trump] trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said. “But the question was: Who is worse threat to democracy? And what I would say … I’m not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is.”

He pointed to the importance of the First Amendment in the eyes of the founding fathers.

“We put the guarantee of freedom of expression in the First Amendment because all of our other constitutional rights depend on it. If you have a government that can silence its opponent, it has license for any atrocity,” he said.

ABC News’ Luke Barr, Devin Dwyer, Nicholas Kerr and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The White House said Tuesday it is “outraged” after a strike by Israel Defense Forces killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen who were on the ground in Gaza to provide relief to civilians caught in the conflict.

President Joe Biden called Chef José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, to express his condolences and that he was “heartbroken” by the news, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“The president conveyed he is grieving with the entire World Central Kitchen family,” she said. “The president felt it was important to recognize the tremendous contribution World Central Kitchen has made to the people in Gaza and people around the world.”

Biden also conveyed to Andrés that “he will make clear to Israel that humanitarian aid workers must be protected,” Jean-Pierre said.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who joined Tuesday’s press briefing, offered the administration’s strongest condemnation yet of the IDF attack.

“We were outraged to learn of an IDF strike that killed a number of civilian humanitarian workers yesterday from the World Central Kitchen, which has been relentless in working to get food to those who are hungry in Gaza, and quite frankly, around the world,” Kirby said. “We send our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic incident” and unintentional. The food-relief charity has paused its work in Gaza after the attack.

International organizations have warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with a report in mid-March noting that famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza, as the entire population of the strip experiences high levels of food insecurity amid the ongoing war.

Kirby said a preliminary IDF investigation is expected to be completed Tuesday but they also expect a “broader” probe of the strike to be conducted.

“We hope that those findings will be made public, and that there is appropriate accountability held,” he said, though he noted there is no evidence IDF deliberately targeted World Central Kitchen workers.

More than 200 aid workers have been killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, Kirby said, who called the war one of the “worst” for such workers in recent history.

World Central Kitchen said in a statement that their team was traveling in clearly marked armored cars in a deconflicted zone when the vehicles were hit, despite the workers having coordinated movements with the IDF.

One of the aid workers killed was a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, the World Central Kitchen said. The other victims were from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and Palestine.

“This incident is emblematic of a larger problem and evidence of why distribution of aid in Gaza has been so challenging,” Kirby said of the World Central Kitchen strike. “But beyond the strike, what is clear is that the IDF must do much more … to improve deconfliction processes so that civilians and humanitarian aid workers are protected.”

But Kirby again rejected the idea of conditioning military aid on Israel, as some U.S. lawmakers have called for as the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza continues to grow.

“They’re still under the viable threat of Hamas,” Kirby said. “We’re still gonna make sure that they can defend themselves and that the 7th of October doesn’t happen again. That doesn’t mean that it’s a free pass, that we look the other way when something like this happens, or that we aren’t and haven’t since the beginning of the conflict urge the Israelis to be more precise, to be more careful.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro has asked Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to reconsider Chief Justice John Roberts’ denial of Navarro’s motion to remain out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress case.

Navarro reported to prison on March 19 in Miami after being convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“We respectfully request your reconsideration of the Chief Justice’s denial,” Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward wrote in a filing on Tuesday.

In the filing, Woodward noted that the D.C. Circuit court set a “briefing schedule in his appeal” that will not be concluded until July 19, 2024 — after Navarro is scheduled to have completed his four-month prison sentence.

In March, Justice Roberts wrote that he saw “no reason to disagree” with lower courts, which also rejected Navarro’s request.

In testimony during Navarro’s trial, former Jan. 6 committee staff director David Buckley said the House panel had wanted to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress’ certification of the 2020 election, a plan Navarro dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep” in his book “In Trump Time.”

Navarro unsuccessfully argued that former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony and document production.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden spoke on the phone Tuesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, their first conversation since meeting last November in California.

The two leaders were set to speak about climate change, the economic relationship between the U.S. and China as well as progress on artificial intelligence and countering illegal drug flow, such as fentanyl, according to a senior administration official.

Officials downplayed expectations ahead of Tuesday’s call, describing it as a “check in” amid the administration’s efforts to “maintain regular open lines of communication to responsibly manage competition and prevent unintended consequences.”

Though the call between Biden and Xi Jinping lasted 105 minutes, an administration official told ABC News, longer than previous phone conversations between the two leaders.

When Biden and Xi met in Woodside outside San Francisco last year, both men agreed to keep talking as they face global challenges. Their phone conversation on Tuesday, a senior administration official said, was about “finding a chance for the two leaders to talk through the tough issues.”

The White House called the conversation “candid and constructive.”

“They reviewed and encouraged progress on key issues discussed at the Woodside Summit, including counternarcotics cooperation, ongoing military-to-military communication, talks to address AI-related risks, and continuing efforts on climate change and people-to-people exchanges,” according to a readout of the phone call.

Biden also emphasized “the importance of maintaining peace and stability” in Taiwan and raised concerns about China’s support for Russia’s military defense.

On the domestic front, according to the White House, Biden talked with Xi about trade policies and other economic practices that “harm American workers and families.”

It was also announced Tuesday that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to China on Wednesday for a week of bilateral meetings and other engagements. Her trip will focus on pressuring her Chinese counterparts on those trade practices as well as expanding cooperation between the U.S. and China against illicit finance and progressing work on shared priorities like financial stability and addressing climate change, according to a senior Treasury official.

“The two leaders welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship through high-level diplomacy and working-level consultations in the weeks and months ahead, including during upcoming visits by Secretary Yellen and Secretary Blinken,” the White House said.

China has economic reasons to engage more with the U.S. as it’s economy is in a downturn and Xi wants to restore confidence in its market and attract more foreign investment. Just last week, the Chinese president met with a delegation of American CEOs in Beijing.

The readouts of Tuesday’s call from both countries underscored the litany of areas where the two leaders still fundamentally disagree. Beijing believes that Biden’s policies are “suppressing” China and its economy.

One of Xi’s biggest concerns is around U.S. exports of advanced chips. Notably, the Chinese readout accuses the U.S. of “suppressing China’s high-tech development” and threatens that “we will not stand idly by” if the U.S. continues to do so.

The Biden administration has described its economic restrictions on China as a “small yard, high fence” strategy. That means they place strict curbs on a few areas that have important military applications, while keeping regular economic relations in other areas.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, declined an offer to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate in his independent presidential bid, she tells ABC News.

“I met with Kennedy several times, and we have become good friends,” she said in a statement. “He asked if I would be his running mate. After careful consideration, I respectfully declined.”

Gabbard declined to explain why she turned down that offer, which has not previously been reported.

She is among an eclectic group of people whom Kennedy had considered for the role, including former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and TV host Mike Rowe.

He announced at an Oakland, California, rally last week that he had chosen Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan, whose younger age, work in health and artificial intelligence appealed to him.

Kennedy and his campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Gabbard’s statement. However, a person close to him told ABC News, “There were definitely meetings, but it didn’t work out.”

“We talked to a bunch of people,” this person added. “Tulsi’s a rock star no matter what.”

Gabbard’s name has also been floated by some allies of former President Donald Trump to be his potential vice-presidential pick.

She ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2019 before departing the party three years later, an exit she chronicled in a book she is releasing this month, “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind.”

In announcing she would no longer be a Democrat, Gabbard blamed “warmongers” in the party “who are driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue.”

However, she had also become increasingly out of step with the party’s mainstream, including on issues like Florida’s controversial ban on LGBTQ+ topics in some public school classrooms, which she supported.

During her White House run, Gabbard made history when she became the first woman of color since 1972 to net a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Gabbard is also a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves who was deployed twice to Iraq and Kuwait and took a two-week absence from the presidential campaign trail in 2020 to report for active duty in Indonesia with the Hawaiian Army National Guard.

As a member of Congress, Gabbard drew scrutiny after she traveled to Syria in 2017, saying that she was going to see how U.S. policies were directly impacting Syrians. While there, she met with religious leaders and accepted a meeting with Syria’s autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad, amid the country’s still-ongoing civil war.

She defended her meeting, which she insisted she did in the pursuit of peace, despite backlash from some other Democratic lawmakers.

The former congresswoman also drew criticisms after she voted “present” during the House’s formal impeachment vote against then-President Donald Trump in 2019.

At the time Gabbard said that her vote was an “active protest” against the “terrible fallout of this zero-sum mindset” between the two political parties.

ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.