(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s social media company Truth Social completed a merger Friday morning that could net the former president over $3 billion.
Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corporation — a special purpose acquisition company — approved a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social.
The company can begin trading as a public company, with the stock symbol DJT on Nasdaq, as early as next week.
Shares in DWAC currently stand around $40 per share.
With Trump owning 58.1% of the common stock in the company, the former president stands to make over $3 billion from the deal depending on how the stock ultimately trades. Experts say it represents a staggering valuation for a social media company that ranks below major competitors like Facebook, X, and TikTok.
However the deal currently includes a lockout provision that prevents Trump from immediately selling or getting loans based on his shares — potentially limiting Trump’s ability to use the windfall as collateral for a bond in his $464 million civil fraud judgment.
Trump faces a Monday deadline to secure a financial guarantee to cover the judgment, after a New York judge in February ordered him to pay $464 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest when he found the former president and his adult sons liable for using “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate his net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has appealed the decision in the case.
(WASHINGTON) — The House will vote on the $1.2 trillion government funding package Friday morning — the first in a series of steps to avert a government shutdown that still can’t be ruled out.
The House will vote between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced. If it passes the House, it will go on to the Senate — but members of the upper chamber are up against the clock to review the House-passed package and vote on it before a deadline at midnight on Friday.
It’s not clear when a Senate vote would happen, though Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked senator to remain flexible and ready to act. Any delay on the vote could mean that some agencies could feel a shutdown — albeit short.
The $1.2 trillion package — considered a major bipartisan effort in the highly divided House — provides funding for six bills including Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor and Health and Human Services and Education, Legislative Branch and State and Foreign Operations.
If the package passes, the government will be funded through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30 — putting an end to the continuing resolution cycle that has led to Congress nearly shutting the government down, at least partially, five times since October.
The government funding package will be introduced under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote for passage. This means, yet again, that House Speaker Mike Johnson will rely on Democrats to get this bill across the finish line.
House Republican leadership sources tell ABC News they have been working to shore up votes since the bill text dropped early Thursday morning. It is a toss-up if they have enough votes to meet the two-thirds threshold.
There is strong opposition from the far-right in the House, including members of the House Freedom Caucus.
In a news conference lambasting the government funding package Friday morning, the House Freedom Caucus members expressed frustration that not enough is being done to secure the southern border and end the release of migrants into the United States — a hang-up that was part of the Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations.
“No border, no budget,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who isn’t a House Freedom Caucus member, but said he joined in to express his displeasure with funding package.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., said “we don’t need 72 hours to vote against a bad bill,” alluding to a House has a rule requiring 72 hours for members to review legislation before voting.
Many spoke directly to Johnson about their frustrations.
“Mr. Speaker, do the right thing,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “Pull this bill.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have clinched their respective parties’ nominations, setting the stage for a rematch between the two in November.
But many Americans are not feeling favorable toward either candidate — and what these voters, sometimes referred to as “double haters,” decide could be decisive in a close election, like the ones in 2016 and 2020.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll taken in early March, 33% of Americans said they have a favorable impression of Biden, while 54% said they have an unfavorable view.
A similar 29% said they have a favorable view of Trump, while 59% said they had an unfavorable impression.
This isn’t a new phenomenon: According to polling tracked by 538, Biden’s approval rating has been underwater since September 2021 while Trump’s approval rating went negative in January 2017 — and his favorability rating from 2021 to 2024 has never been positive.
There continues to be a notable amount of those “double haters,” polling shows.
In the ABC/Ipsos survey from earlier this month, when asked if they’d trust Trump, Biden or neither to do a better job leading the country as president, 36% of Americans said they trust Trump to do a better job leading the country as president, while 33% trust Biden more — and 30% trust neither.
Shoring up support from those “double hater” voters who feel unfavorably toward both candidates, and who trust neither to lead the country, could be critical for Biden and Trump.
ABC News spoke with some of the voters who felt both ways, to see why they feel the way they do about the candidates — and if there’s anything that could shift between now and November that could change their opinions.
All of the people quoted in this story told ABC News/Ipsos while taking the March poll that they would be willing to be interviewed.
General disillusionment with the 2024 election
Joann Kama, a retired African American voter from Amityville, New York, told ABC News that she feels “so discouraged” about the current election and politics in America.
“I don’t even want to vote anymore … it’s a nightmare,” she said.
At the moment, she said she does not plan on voting in November.
Kama said she feels pessimistic about the country’s future given what she called crime and public safety issues, along with the economy and immigration.
“I don’t know what would make me change my mind — I don’t even know what party I want to be,” she said.
John Jackson, a voter from Florida who said he is not currently employed, said he plans on voting in the general election but he’s “not excited” about it.
He had some praise for Biden: “I know Biden has done some things as far as the Inflation Reduction Act and different things to help with the climate issue and in lowering health care costs — the higher subsidies on the market have helped a lot.”
Criticisms of the front-runners on age, policy
Biden — who would be 86 years old by the end of a second term — has acknowledged the public’s concerns regarding his age throughout his campaign, which has caused some voters to doubt his ability to do his job, though he argues his record proves his fitness.
Trump, who is 77 years old, has also experienced gaffes while on the campaign trail.
Samantha Guerrero is a Republican from Austin, Texas, and though she said she voted for Trump twice, she has age-related concerns about both candidates.
“If you’re running a country, you should be able to make sound, wise decisions — and it’s not just like you’re making the decision for one person, you’re making a decision for the whole country,” Guerrero said. “I don’t think they can make the decisions that they could make even four years ago, five years ago.”
Linda Rosland self-identifies as an independent and is from Milwaukee. In 2020, she said she unenthusiastically voted for Biden and is now considering voting for a third party — as she doubts either candidate will be able to appeal to her ahead of November.
“I wonder about his [Biden’s] suitability and ability to do the job. I wonder the same thing about Trump,” she said.
Of the former president, she said, “Not all of these ideas are terrible … But the way he approaches everything is just so off-putting.”
“His ego is so enormous,” Rosland said.
Inflation has remained an issue for Biden’s reelection campaign, as some voters say they are still feeling the weight of rising consumer prices.
“Anybody who thinks inflation isn’t as bad as it is, is kidding themselves,” she also said.
Shauntey Singletary is a women’s health nurse practitioner in Delaware and said she has seen the impacts of high inflation up close “every day.”
“Patients are choosing between paying for medicine or getting treatment and I think that’s ridiculous,” Singletary said.
Jackson said he has “lots of concerns with both [candidates], especially Trump.”
“Biden has a lot of criticisms; he’s not doing right on a lot of issues,” Jackson said, raising the Israel-Hamas war as one example of an issue he feels Biden has not done well on.
“I voted for Biden in 2020; it’s going to be harder this time,” he said, later clarifying that he would not consider voting for Trump, however.
Kama, the New York voter, also expressed concerns about Biden’s age and gaffes but had sharper criticism for Trump, even though she said she felt her finances were slightly better during his presidency.
“He’s narcissistic … he’s not suited to be a president,” she said, citing Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” nickname for his onetime presidential race opponent Hillary Clinton as an example of why she feels his conduct disqualifies him.
Biden’s recent State of the Union address earlier this month did not do much to sway the opinion of those voters who spoke with ABC News.
Kama said she gets her news from local stations and watched part of the speech to Congress — but turned it off before it ended, because she felt discouraged watching it.
Jackson, who said he gets his news from YouTube and independent media outlets, said that he saw some clips of the State of the Union and felt they portray him as “more aggressive, bold. But that’s what’s so frustrating with these politics: A lot of it is just theater.”
Singletary said she begrudgingly voted for Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for him again for the same reason — to prevent Trump from getting elected. She watched Biden’s State of the Union address but said it’ll take concrete “action” to boost her view of him.
“He will say anything, you know, in front of the camera. But it really comes down to the action for me, so I want to see him put his money where his mouth is,” she said.
Jackson said he would consider voting for third-party candidates and has seen some videos of independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., although “I know [a] spoiler situation is always a risk,” he said, referring to the scenario where enough votes for a third-party candidate in a state tilt the result for one major party candidate or another — but don’t lead to the third-party candidate winning.
Guerrero said she plans on writing in a candidate like now-former GOP hopefuls Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, due to Trump’s failure to complete his promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and his handling of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“[Trump’s border wall] should have been completed,” Guerrero said.
What could change their minds — if anything?
Some of the voters said that they’ll be watching for what Biden might do with some policy issues between now and November.
Kama said she and her husband, a retired veteran, are “barely making ends meet” and she also called the influx of immigrants illegally entering the United States harmful to the country.
“Biden needs to do something with the economy” and with immigration, Kama said when asked what might motivate her to feel more favorably about either candidate or the election.
But with the election as a whole, “I don’t know what would make me change my mind — I don’t even know what party I want to be.”
Jackson said that issues he cares about include student loan debt — adding later that he has a small amount left in his own loans — as well as marijuana policy reform, climate change and health care.
If Biden could improve the “Israel situation” or deal more with some of those issues, Jackson said, that would motivate him to feel more favorable toward the president. (Jackson added that he recognizes there can be long bureaucratic delays on many issues.)
Biden sought to cancel federal student loans for an estimated 43 million borrowers, but that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2023 as overly broad.
Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services under Biden has proposed reclassifying marijuana from a restricted Schedule I to a less restricted Schedule III drug.
“What everybody’s looking for is something more bold — drastic actions,” Jackson said.
However, some voters said they can’t be convinced.
“I just don’t approve of either candidate at this point,” Guerrero said. “I don’t want another four years of either one of them.”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Dayton International Airport, on March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are, right now, facing a serious financial disadvantage in the early stages of the general election fight against President Joe Biden and his $100 million war chest, new filings show.
But with Trump becoming his party’s 2024 presumptive presidential nominee earlier this month, he and the RNC are full steam ahead to make up for their fundraising lag — launching a joint operation and planning a high-dollar event with GOP megadonors.
February financial filings for the Biden and Trump campaigns and respective Democratic and Republican parties, released on Wednesday, illustrate how much more money Biden has raised and currently has on hand compared to Trump, funds that can be used toward advertising, staffing and organizing.
Financial filings also detail the extent to which Trump’s legal bills have eaten into the cash flow of some of his allied political groups.
He faces 88 criminal charges and multiple civil issues — including the threat of seizure of his assets related to a $464 million judgment in a New York civil fraud case.
He denies all wrongdoing across the various cases and is appealing the civil fraud ruling, with just days left to provide a bond to cover that penalty.
Entering March, Trump’s presidential campaign and the RNC only had $42 million and $11 million respectively in the bank, about half of the more than $97 million the Biden campaign and the DNC jointly reported having as cash on hand in their latest filings.
Trump’s campaign fundraising ramped up in February as the former president continued to secure victories in early GOP nominating contests, holding successful events in Florida and South Carolina and bringing in roughly $11 million last month.
But so far this election cycle, the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party have enjoyed a major advantage over their Republican counterparts of being able to raise money together, because Democrats formally decided to rally around Biden even before the nominating race.
That allowed them to not only share fundraising resources but also to accept high-dollar donations north of $800,000.
Filings show that the Trump campaign, in turn, has been spending much less so far this cycle compared to the same point in the 2020 election cycle, reporting expenditures of just $17 million in the first two months of this year compared to nearly $30 million that the campaign spent during the same period in the last presidential election.
The Biden campaign spent even less in the first two months of this year — $12 million — as the president mostly stayed away from the campaign trail while the GOP fight played out, according to the financial filings. But the DNC was active instead, spending nearly $30 million in the first two months
The fundraising gap could soon close, with Trump now raising money with the Republican Party as their official presumptive nominee.
However, the way one of his new fundraising vehicles is arranged suggests a priority is also funneling money into a political action committee that has paid a significant portion of his ongoing legal bills.
Trump’s team recently set up two new joint fundraising committees with the GOP: one dubbed “Trump 47 Committee,” which raises money with his Save America leadership PAC, the RNC and 40 state GOP committees and can accept more than $800,000 per donor; and another named “Trump National Committee JFC,” which is likely going to focus on smaller-dollar joint fundraising.
The Trump 47 Committee is already throwing a major $814,600-per-ticket fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, next month, hosted by billionaire John Paulson and featuring dozens of major Republican names, including several former ambassadors and Trump administration officials like former Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon and former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross as well as New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, according to an invitation to the fundraiser that was obtained by ABC News.
Other major co-hosts include a former Trump campaign finance chair, Todd Ricketts, and energy mogul Harold Hamm, aerospace executive Robert Bigelow, hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer and casino tycoon Phil Ruffin, the invitation shows.
Notably, amid the crush of legal bills, the new Trump 47 Committee is prioritizing Trump’s Save America PAC — which has footed tens of millions of dollars in Trump’s legal bills over the last few years and is unable to use its money in support of Trump’s reelection campaign because it’s set up as his leadership PAC.
According to an invitation for a fundraiser hosted by the joint fundraising committee, Save America is ahead of groups like the RNC and the 40 state party committees when it comes to the order for how donations are disbursed.
For example, the invitation’s fine print shows that if a hypothetical $15,000 comes through the committee, the first $6,600 from the donor (or $10,000 from a PAC) goes to the Trump campaign and the next $5,000 goes to Save America — before any of the funds would go to the Republican Party committees.
This joint fundraising committee setup comes on the heels of Trump’s Save America PAC burning through more than $8.5 million on legal bills just in the first two months of this year — including $5.6 million in February — as the former president continues to battle his criminal cases and civil trials across the country, per filings.
Legal bills make up nearly 80% of Save America’s total expenditures so far this year, according to financial filings. The PAC has relied almost entirely on tens of millions of dollars in returned money that Save America initially gave to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., while reporting only a couple thousand dollars raised itself, Save America’s filings show.
In the past few months, Save America relying on those returned contributions from MAGA Inc. for its source of funding has put something of a strain on the latter group, which was designed to spearhead a pro-Trump ad campaign operation outside of the campaign and to boost his reelection bid.
The super PAC money from MAGA Inc. to Save America is expected to dry up soon following a series of exchanges: Save America initially transferred $60 million to MAGA Inc. in 2022, but the latter group has now returned more than $50 million of those contributions back to Save America.
Trump’s new joint fundraising operation offers Save America PAC a fresh source of future support.
MAGA Inc., meanwhile, continues to rake in tens of millions of dollars from Trump’s wealthy supporters this year, filings show, but as of the end of February had $25.5 million in cash on hand — less than half of what the super PAC had entering 2023.
Sen. Bob Menendez arrives for a Senate Finance Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 21, 2024. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez said on Thursday that will not seek another term as a Democrat, as he faces corruption and other charges that he denies — but he left open the possibility of running in November as an independent.
“I will not file for the Democratic primary this June,” he said in a video statement. “I am hopeful that my exoneration will take place this summer and allow me to pursue my candidacy as an independent Democrat in the general election.”
He continued: “This would allow me the time to not only remind New Jerseyans of how I’ve succeeded in being your champion — but how we will secure our financial futures, meet the challenges of raising a family, owning a home, provide for a college education and secure a more peaceful world for all of us to live in.”
Menendez, should he run as an independent, would likely face a serious challenge from the Democratic nominee, given the state’s partisan lean. Gov. Phil Murphy’s wife, Tammy Murphy, and Rep. Andy Kim, are currently the leading candidates in the primary.
Prosecutors have accused Menendez of conspiring with his wife and a businessman to have the senator act as an agent of Egypt. According to the criminal accusations against him, in exchange for bribe payments, Menendez was meant to help lift a block on U.S. military aid to Egypt.
He has also been accused of accepting bribes in exchange for doing favors for the government of Qatar.
As he has consistently done since first being indicted in September, Menendez on Thursday maintained his innocence in his video. His wife has also denied wrongdoing.
“I know many of you are hurt and disappointed in me with the accusations I am facing. … All I can ask of you is to withhold judgement until justice takes place,” he said.
He spent most of his taped statement touting his accomplishments during his time in the Senate, focusing on time after Hurricane Sandy and the COVID-19 pandemic.
(WASHINGTON) — With the so-called “Ghost Army,” its World War II mission of fooling the enemy was so secret because most of the people who knew about it took it to the grave.
A secret no more and nearly 80 years after the end of the war, the Ghost Army on Thursday was recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal and credited with helping American troops achieve key victories in Germany and Italy during the conflict.
The Ghost Army — comprised of 1,300 U.S. soldiers — helped trick the Third Reich with deceptive battlefield shenanigans that protected their fellow Americans and helped defeat Nazi Germany. Some of those tactics included using inflatable tanks, camouflage and innovative acoustic sound effects to misdirect German forces, according to details of their actions that were finally declassified in 1996, more than 50 years after they happened.
“The soldiers included technicians and artists from around the country and they used their talents to deceive and divert the Nazis,” Speaker Mike Johnson said during the event Thursday. “Some of them paid the ultimate price, but because of the courageous work of this group, it is estimated that 15,000 to 30,000 lives were saved.”
Three surviving veterans from the “Ghost Army” were in attendance at the Capitol to participate in the ceremony: John Christman, Seymour Nussenbaum and Bernie Bluestein.
Author Rick Beyer, who has dedicated a career to telling the Ghost Army’s story and advocating for its members to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, said that many of the veterans who have passed away since he began researching the unit would be surprised to learn of the recognition bestowed upon its members Thursday. Four soldiers from the operation were killed in action.
“No soldier who served in this unit considers himself a hero. I have talked to many veterans of the Ghost Army and each told me that the real heroes were the infantrymen and the tankers who bore the brunt of the frightening,” Beyer said. “But it has always struck me that the Ghost Army’s deception mission demanded a special kind of courage: to protect strength when you have none, [and] to purposely draw any fire to keep it from falling on others. A dangerous business, not for the faint of heart.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell credited the unit’s efforts for having a lasting impact on post-war counterintelligence operations.
“They weren’t just helping win a World War,” McConnell said. “Whether they knew it or not, they were developing top secret ways to help preserve a hard-won peace through the Cold War.”
That sentiment was echoed by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, who said current Army planners are taught that the basis of military deception is storytelling — and the Ghost Army was made up of master storytellers, whose techniques can still be found on the battlefield.
“Even though technology has changed quite a bit since 1944, our modern techniques build on a lot of what the Ghost Army did and we are still learning from your legacy,” she said. “Our experience observing the war in Ukraine has shown us that even with an increasingly transparent battlefield, military deception can still have a significant impact on military operations.”
Johnson read from a now-declassified report, which summed up the contributions of the unit, quipping “This would be recommended reading if you can get your hands on it.”
“Rarely, if ever, has there existed a group of such few men, which had so great an influence on the outcome of a major military campaign,” Johnson said, quoting the report. “That’s really something.”
The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest honor that Congress can bestow on any group or individual. The Ghost Army soldiers are the 185th entity to receive the award. George Washington was the first recipient in 1776.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday that he will invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress — a move that comes days after Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for Israel to hold a new election seen as a way to replace Netanyahu.
“We will certainly extend that invitation,” Johnson said in an interview with CNBC.
“We’re just trying to work out schedules on all this,” Johnson added.
For a joint session of Congress to occur, Schumer would need to sign off on Johnson’s invitation.
Schumer said in a statement Thursday that he would not oppose Netanyahu coming to speak to lawmakers “in a bipartisan way.”
“Israel has no stronger ally than the United States and our relationship transcends any one president or any one Prime Minister,” Schumer said in a statement. “I will always welcome the opportunity for the Prime Minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way.”
Their comments came a day after Netanyahu had a video conference with Senate Republicans where they discussed a wide range of topics including aid to Israel and Schumer’s comments, according to multiple senators who were in the meeting.
Netanyahu notably spoke only to Senate Republicans Wednesday. Schumer declined a request from Netanyahu to virtually address the Senate Democratic caucus because, according to a spokesperson, “Sen. Schumer made it clear that he does not think these discussions should happen in a partisan matter.”
Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that he was considering inviting Netanyahu to address Congress in response to last week’s scathing speech from Schumer that was highly critical of Netanyahu. In the speech, Schumer said Netanyahu is an “obstacle to peace” and that he has “lost his way” as Israel bombards Gaza amid a growing humanitarian crisis there.
“As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7. The world has changed — radically — since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” Schumer said in the speech.
Johnson called Schumer’s comments “staggering” and “unbelievable.”
“For the leader of the Senate to say such a thing is just outrageous,” he said. “…It sends a terrible signal to our allies and our enemies around the world.”
Asked about if Schumer would agree to a joint session, Johnson said “I guess we will find out.”
“I’m the one that extends the invitations to speak in the House and if we just have the House that’s fine too,” Johnson said. “But I think a big majority of that Senate would want to come and stand in support of Netanyahu and Israel.”
(WASHINGTON) — The long-awaited bipartisan government funding package bill text was released early Thursday morning, and Congress is now racing to meet Friday’s deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.
The $1.2 trillion package — considered a major bipartisan effort in the highly divided House — provides funding for six bills including Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor and Health and Human Services and Education, Legislative Branch and State and Foreign Operations.
Both Republicans and Democrats are ticking off their wins in the package — including several controversial measures such as blocking funds for the main United Nations humanitarian organization operating in Gaza as well as increasing enforcement at the southern border and addressing women’s reproductive rights.
If the package passes, the government will be funded through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30 — putting an end to the continuing resolution cycle that has led to Congress nearly shutting the government down, at least partially, five times since October.
It’s expected that the House will vote on the funding package Friday, which gives the Senate limited time to take up the package before the Friday deadline.
Even with the bill’s text finalized, lawmakers are up against the clock 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. That means that unless the Johnson waives the 72-hour rule or the Senate speeds up the process, there could be a small administrative shutdown over the weekend, which would have little-to-no impact the federal agencies that are included in the bill.
Johnson hasn’t said if he will waive the 72-hour rule. Asked about it on CNBC Thursday morning, Johnson said he believes a shutdown will be avoided.
“We have to keep moving, we have to keep the government funded, we have to keep operating, keep the train on the tracks — and you’re seeing that happen here,” Johnson said on CNBC. “Because of divided government, it’s not a perfect piece of legislation. It’s not the one we would draft and pass if Republicans had control of the House, Senate and the White House … but right now we are managing it and getting it through and I think that we will avoid a long shutdown for the government.”
Johnson said in a statement the government funding package “is a serious commitment to strengthening our national defense” and “halts funding for the United Nations agency which employed terrorists who participated in the October 7 attacks against Israel.”
The spending deal would extend a Biden administration freeze on the U.N. agency through March 2025, a move that could leave the agency with a shortfall amid the hunger crisis in Gaza — and could make it more difficult for the White House to eventually restore funding.
Johnson adds the bill “moves the Department of Homeland Security’s operations toward enforcing our border and immigration laws. It significantly cuts funding to NGOs that incentivize illegal immigration and increases detention capacity and the number of border patrol agents to match levels” in the Secure the Border Act, known as H.R.2.
The bill takes back $6 billion in unused COVID-era funds, Johnson added.
“House Republicans have achieved significant conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts to wasteful agencies and programs while strengthening border security and national defense,” Johnson said.
Democrats are touting several wins on their end, too.
Ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement that the package “helps with the cost of living, sides with hardworking Americans, protects women’s rights, reinforces America’s global leadership, and helps our communities be safe and secure — while ensuring the biggest corporations pay the taxes they owe.”
Democrats’ listed several policy achievements in the package including 12,000 more Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who have assisted the United States, $1 billion increase for childcare and Head Start, $120 million increase in funding for cancer research at National Institutes of Health and $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s disease and dementias research.
The bill also protects women’s reproductive health by preserving the Department of Defense’s travel policy to ensure service members and their families can access reproductive healthcare, Democrats pointed out.
The bill also provides more funding for TSA personnel by more than $1 billion to sustain pay equity, a priority for Democrats.
Top Senate appropriators — Sens. Patty Murray and Susan Collins — said in a statement, “Passing full-year funding bills that meet the current challenges we face at home and abroad is critical, and anything less is an abdication of our responsibilities. Let’s get this done.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Washington, D.C. Police Union is set to declare a “crisis” during its testimony at a hearing before lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. The hearing, which will focus on the impact of crime in Washington on Congressional operations and visitors, comes a little over a week after the city passed a bill aimed at curbing crime in the nation’s Capital.
Although violent crime is down 17% compared to the same time last year, crime was up significantly in 2023, especially in Ward 6, which includes Capitol Hill. The ward experienced “a 188% increase in homicides, a 66% increase in robberies, a 42% increase in sex assaults, a 57% increase in carjackings, and a 44% increase in violent crime” last year, according to planned testimony from Gregg Pemberton, chairman of the D.C. Police Union, and obtained by ABC News.
Pemberton will further reveal that since 2020, the Metropolitan Police Department has lost 1,426 officers, one-third of its department. Forty percent of those leaving the department were people who resigned specifically from the police agency. He says the police force has over 500 vacancies and notes that Police Chief Pam Smith has said it will take over a decade to fill the positions.
“D.C. residents and business owners are under siege. Members of Congress are being assaulted and carjacked. Your Congressional Staff members are being robbed and stabbed. Tourists and visitors, your constituents, are being targeted and attacked. Yet, the D.C. Council fails to admit that their policies have played a significant role in this outcome,” Pemberton’s remarks read.
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this month attacked Washington’s crime bill with a new series of bills just days after the city council passed a major series of sweeping public safety bills aimed at curbing crime and closing significant loopholes by finally updating the district’s criminal code for the first time since 1901. The last attempt to update the archaic crime code failed in 2023, and Republicans in the House and Senate blocked the bills from becoming law. Because D.C. is not a state, Congress has oversight of the city’s governance.
Despite his support of D.C. statehood, President Joe Biden refrained from intervening in 2023, publicly saying he would not block Republicans’ efforts to kill the city’s crime bill.
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said in a statement earlier this month, “I am deeply concerned about the violent crime spike in D.C., though violent crime is down this year. On Tuesday, the D.C. Council passed legislation that it believes will reduce crime. To suggest that a member of Congress from Florida knows or cares more about public safety in D.C. than D.C.’s locally elected officials is patronizing.”
Holmes Norton noted that this is the ninth bill Congress has marked up to repeal or amend, which was created by the D.C. city council, the only local legislative body in D.C.
Additionally, on Thursday, Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger is slated to speak about plans to create a new Protective Intelligence Operations Center, which he says will “include monitoring for protectees and intelligence analysis.”
The new plans call for creating a “command center for our Protective Services Bureau.”
Manger plans to tell Congress the PIOC is a “critical law enforcement tool” in keeping folks safe.
The PIOC is expected to help with “case intake of threats, Intelligence operations, and Event Security/LE Coordination, air operations monitoring, detail tracking, residential security,” according to Manger’s testimony, which was posted online ahead of Thursday’s hearing.
In his planned remarks, he notes threats have “morphed from securing our buildings and dealing with traditional criminal activity to the threat of a 9/11 scenario to the lone offender and now to an unprecedented increase in threats to Members and their families.”
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, on March 20, 2024. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that about 78,000 public service workers will have their student loans forgiven by his administration.
The workers, which include teachers, nurses, firefighters and others, have “dedicated their careers to serving their communities,” Biden said in a statement.
The debt cancellations will bring his administration’s total forgiveness to about $144 billion for nearly four million Americans, according to the White House.
“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” he said.
He added, “I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up.”
The student loan forgiveness announced on Thursday brings the administration’s total cancellations for public service workers to 870,000, Biden said. That’s up from only about 7,000 such borrowers “ever receiving forgiveness prior to my Administration,” he added.
“And through all of our various student debt relief actions, nearly four million Americans have had their student debt cancelled under my Administration,” he said.
