President Joe Biden announces the cancellation of an additional $1.2 billion in student loan debt for about 153,000 borrowers, at meeting with community at Culver City Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, CA. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(SAN FRANCISCO) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB,” while also taking a shot at former President Donald Trump for comparing his legal woes to the persecution of Alexei Navalny who died in a Russian jail this week.
“He’s comparing himself to Navalny and saying that he – because our country has become a communist country… [is being] persecuted just like Navalny [was] persecuted,” Biden said of Trump.
“Where the hell does this come from? If I stood here 10-15 years ago you all would have thought that I should be committed,” Biden continued, adding that Trump’s comment was “astounding.”
Biden was speaking at a big-dollar fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday as part of a three-day California fundraising swing that began in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
While speaking, Biden had choice words for Putin, though he said climate change is humanity’s biggest threat, according to reporters in the room.
“We have a crazy SOB, that guy Putin, others, and we always have to be worried about a nuclear conflict. But the existential threat to humanity is climate,” Biden told a gathering of about 20 deep-pocket donors.
Biden’s remarks at the fundraiser were heavily focused on climate change and the work his administration has done to fight it.
The White House on Tuesday said that the U.S. would announce a “major sanctions” package against Russia in response to Navalny’s death, which Biden has blamed on Putin.
“Whatever story the Russian government decides to tell the world, it’s clear that President Putin and his government are responsible for Mr. Navalny’s death,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Trump on Monday wrote on his social media platform, in his first comments since the leading dissident’s death, “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country.” He added that his political and legal opponents are “leading us down a path to destruction.”
The next day, Trump doubled down on the comparison in a televised town hall-style interview on Fox News.
“It’s a form of Navalny,” Trump said in reference to his legal challenges.
In recent weeks, Biden has sharpened his attacks against rival Trump as his campaign pivots to November’s general election.
“You got to prevent this other guy from being president,” Biden said of Trump at the fundraiser. “He’s made it absolutely clear everything you’ve done, everything we’ve done, he’s against.”
While making a joke about his age, “I know I don’t look it. I’m only 40. Forgive me, lord,” Biden also questioned the “moral compass” of the “MAGA Republican crowd,” saying he’s seen nothing like it, though he’s “been around a long time.”
Lara Trump, daughter-in-law to former President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump, speaks at a VFW Hall in Beaufort, S.C., Feb. 21, 2024. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — “Absolutely none” of the Republican National Committee’s funds will be used to pay former President Donald Trump’s multimillion-dollar stack of legal bills, a senior Trump campaign adviser insisted to ABC News as the former president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, says that “every penny” of the party’s funds should be prioritized toward his reelection.
“Every penny will go to making sure Donald Trump will be the 47th president, to ensuring that we have great candidates to expand our lead in the House and to take back the Senate,” Lara Trump, who was recently endorsed by the former president to head the RNC as co-chair, said to ABC News after her first surrogate event in South Carolina on Wednesday.
Later, at another event, Lara Trump told reporters that among her key roles as the RNC’s co-chair would be to “raise a ton of money,” saying, “We have to have a huge fundraising push.”
When pressed on whether any of RNC money would go toward covering Trump’s legal bills, she remained noncommittal: “I actually don’t know where they stand on that.”
Asked if she would support the RNC paying Donald Trump’s legal bills, Lara Trump said she believes “his legal bills have already been covered at this point” — citing a GoFundMe page set up by Trump supporters upset about his many court battles.
“They can see just how egregious and outrageous all of this is that he has to deal with,” she contended.
Donald Trump faces 91 criminal charges and has pleaded not guilty, along with other civil matters. He denies all wrongdoing.
Trump campaign officials say that instead of the RNC footing his legal bills, the candidate’s fundraising entities, including the leadership PAC Save America as well as Donald Trump himself, will continue to cover the costs.
Earlier this month, amid reporting that RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel discussed stepping down with the former president, he endorsed North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley as the new chair of the national party and said he would support Lara Trump as the co-chair, with his senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita as the chief operating officer — growing evidence of the Trump campaign pushing for the party’s national leadership to largely merge their operations ahead of the election.
Lara Trump on Wednesday praised McDaniel for her work as RNC chairwoman but said “it’s time for change” and that she believes McDaniel acknowledges that too. The RNC has said that its leadership will be resolved after the South Carolina presidential primary on Saturday.
“I think that fresh eyes are always good on a situation,” Lara Trump said. “I think Ronna has been there for a while and I think she probably herself feels like it’s time for a new chapter and time to pass on the torch.”
The former president’s various court battles have cost his various political fundraising committees more than $50 million in legal expenditures throughout last year and another $2.9 million just in January — amid growing questions about whether the Republican Party committee would begin to foot any of his bills again with donor money if the party unites its fundraising operation with his campaign.
Both the RNC and the Trump campaign have also been in something of a cash crunch as they ramp up for the 2024 general election, while President Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee’s joint fundraising operation — because Biden is not facing the same kind of contested primary as Trump — boasts a $130 million war chest entering February.
A former RNC member who spoke with ABC News anonymously in order to share their candid thoughts on a potential merge between the RNC and Trump campaign operation said they thought that rather than any significant shift in spending from a reorganized national party, the focus of new leadership would be on bolstering fundraising efforts.
When asked what they thought about Lara Trump’s comments that “every penny” should go toward her father-in-law, this former member said that, historically, most of the budget has already gone toward the presidential race and that the party would likely be unable “to get away” from their assistance to certain House and Senate races.
“I would say 75% of the [budget] is for the presidential,” the former member said. “I would say that the other part of the role of the RNC is to be in direct support of the parties that have targeted races in their states … I don’t see how the RNC is going to get away from that.”
Earlier this week, LaCivita, with fellow senior Trump campaign adviser Susie Wiles, wrote in a memo that the campaign and the RNC should join forces so they can begin coordinating “convention planning, fundraising, strategy, and state party tactics” with two other Republican campaign groups in preparation for the general election.
Several state party chairs from battleground states, who asked not to be named because of their roles, along with GOP congressional strategists who spoke with ABC News agreed that they were not concerned about an overhauled RNC’s disinvestment in their states or in key races.
Some of the most competitive House and Senate races are in California, Michigan and New York, where the RNC already has a robust ground game operation.
Lara Trump said on Wednesday that her priorities to revamp the RNC would include bolstering its organizing on the ground, increasing voter registration efforts and “legal ballot harvesting all across the country.”
Questions around the RNC’s potential new leadership and its spending stem from the party committee’s history of footing Donald Trump and his allies’ legal bills throughout multiple courtroom issues over the years.
During his presidency, the RNC covered hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills on behalf of Donald Trump Jr. and other close allies of the former president; and between 2021 and 2022, the RNC spent nearly $2 million in bills for Donald Trump related to investigations in New York.
That spending was approved by a vote of the RNC’s Executive Committee, per a party resolution adopted in 2009.
That same resolution would require that any significant contributions to Donald Trump’s future legal bills be considered beyond just the top rungs of RNC leadership.
Legal contributions to the former president have long been a divisive subject among some Republican supporters — with some major longtime donors even halting their contributions to the RNC.
Trump primary rival Nikki Haley has attacked the push to have Lara Trump become party co-chair, saying on ABC’s This Week that “We don’t anoint kings in America. … He’s trying to control the RNC.”
During the 2022 midterms, ABC News reported that some leaders of the RNC attempted to use legal bills as a leverage to delay Donald Trump’s announcement of his third presidential bid as they worried he could hurt their election chances if he announced too soon.
Both he and McDaniel denied the story at the time, but he eventually launched his third presidential bid after the 2022 midterms.
The RNC continued to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills related to Donald Trump up until his announcement of 2024 candidacy, including nearly $200,000 paid to attorneys representing him in criminal cases in New York.
The RNC could not be reached by ABC News for comment on their contributions to Trump’s past legal bills.
(WASHINGTON) — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is addressing former President Donald Trump’s mocking jabs at her husband, Maj. Michael Haley, who is serving a one-year deployment overseas in the South Carolina National Guard.
In a new interview with ABC News’ co-anchor Eva Pilgrim, Nikki Haley discussed the comments about her husband from the former president, suggesting they were offensive to military families across the country.
“It’s not personal for me and Michael; we can handle that,” Haley told Pilgrim on Wednesday. “It’s personal when you think of military families. They go through a lot. They don’t complain.”
Haley’s husband, who was deployed last year to Africa, was recently targeted by Trump, who seemingly implied during a campaign event in Conway, South Carolina, earlier this month that he is in Africa to get away.
“What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone. He knew. He knew,” Trump said then.
He later doubled down on singling out Haley’s husband, saying, “I think he should come back home to help save her dying campaign.”
“And so, for someone to mock or make light of that, it cuts deep no matter what because military families, military spouses and their kids go through so much during this deployment,” Nikki Haley told Pilgrim on Wednesday. “Don’t make light of that.”
In her interview, Haley also reflected on her 26-year marriage to her husband.
“I’ve never done anything without him, we met when I was 17 … he’s all I ever known,” Haley said. “He’s the last person I think about when I go to bed because safety is front of mind. But also, I’m just grateful for him and so many other men and women who believe our country is worth fighting for.”
Having now run a presidential campaign for a year, Haley said that it has not been easy on her family but they understand the “sacrifice.”
“Our kids know we’re a family of service. They’ve watched their dad get deployed before. They’ve watched me run for office before, and they know this is all about sacrifice and service,” she said. “And so, I’m incredibly proud of Michael [and] I’m incredibly proud of the kids and how they continue to just stay humble and true to themselves.”
U.S. President Joe Biden pays a visit to Culver City for his campaign at Julian Dixon in Los Angeles, California, United States on Feb. 21, 2024. (Grace Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden touted a new pathway for debt relief that kicked into gear Wednesday for 153,000 student loan borrowers, calling it a ticket to “chase dreams” in a speech in Culver City, California, and highlighting a key part of his 2024 campaign strategy.
“Folks, I’m happy to have been able to forgive these loans because when we realize and relieve Americans of their student debt, they’re free to chase their dreams,” Biden told a small group gathered at Julian Dixon Public Library.
The debt relief announced Wednesday is for those enrolled in a new student debt repayment plan rolled out this past fall, who took out a small initial balance and have been paying it down for a decade or longer.
“This action will be a huge help to graduates of community college and borrowers with smaller loans, putting them back on track faster for debt forgiveness than ever before,” Biden said.
The Department of Education has estimated that 85% of community college students would be debt free within 10 years if they enrolled in the new plan, called SAVE.
Roughly 7.5 million people are currently enrolled in SAVE so far, so the roughly 150,000 people who qualify equates to only 2% of all enrollees. Another four million people in the SAVE Plan have also had their monthly payments reduced to $0 a month because their incomes are below minimum wage.
The plan also shields borrowers from unpaid interest accrual, one of the largest additional fees that borrowers face on their loans, because unpaid interest is forgiven so long as qualified borrowers make their monthly payments on the loan itself — even if their required payment is $0.
Starting this summer, the plan will also cut down the amount that borrowers have to make on their monthly payments by half — from 10% of their discretionary income to 5%.
“This plan is the most generous repayment program ever and today we’re doing it even faster and quicker than ever before,” Biden said.
College debt is a major 2024 campaign issue for young voters, and many were left disappointed when Biden couldn’t follow through on his pledge to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 in debt last year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his sweeping debt relief policy.
Biden’s continued efforts to cancel debt in a more piecemeal fashion have now reached nearly 3.9 million borrowers, which he continues to highlight on the campaign trail in an attempt to gain support from a key voting group.
“This is the kind of relief that can be life changing for individuals and for their families. And it’s good for the economy as a whole. By freeing millions of Americans from the crushing debt of student loan programs it means they can finally get on with their lives instead of getting their lives being put on hold,” Biden said on Wednesday.
Some of the other approaches the Biden administration has taken on debt relief include fixing programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment plans, or going after colleges that have defrauded students.
And the administration is continuing to work on a plan B to Biden’s initial debt relief proposal that was rejected by the Supreme Court, taking a narrower approach that could cancel debt for people most constrained by it.
The administration hopes this more bureaucratic approach will not be overturned by the court yet again — though borrowers should be cognizant that it is almost certain to face lawsuits once it reaches its final stages this summer.
The number of borrowers who may receive student loan debt forgiveness under the new policy proposal is vast: it could range from automatic cancellation for people who are on the edge of defaulting on their loans in the near future to application-based relief that could be used on more individualized cases, like people who are struggling to pay down their debts because of costs like health care or housing.
But it doesn’t stop there. Other factors include looking at the amount borrowers are paying toward their student loans compared to how much money borrowers have, including income and assets, as well as loans they have outside of higher education and whether they’ve been able to pay those down.
The department also wants to look at whether borrowers received a Pell Grant, designed for low-income college students, and whether they use any other government support programs.
Other aspects of the proposal, which are less sweeping but had been discussed in the past three monthly meetings held by the Department of Education, focus on borrowers who have more debt now than they initially took out, have loans that they first took out over 25 years ago, have large loans from schools that provided insufficient career advancement opportunities and who qualify for debt relief already under programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or income-driven repayment plans — but haven’t received it.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is looking at the possibility of taking executive action to tighten asylum restrictions, an administration official confirms to ABC.
One of the possibilities under consideration would be to bar migrants from seeking asylum if they crossed into the U.S. illegally between ports of entry. The migrants would instead have to prove they had a basis to remain through other avenues, such as a medical emergency.
However, the potential changes are far from decided and it is possible that this does not come to pass.
CNN was first to report the consideration.
The discussion comes after Republicans on Capitol Hill, under pressure from Donald Trump, killed a bipartisan border deal in the Senate that was tied to tens of billions in foreign aid.
While President Biden has sought to stress his focus on southern border security, tightening asylum restrictions could also put him at odds with progressives in his own party who will likely argue that these kinds of changes are reminiscent of Trump-era immigration policies that Biden campaigned against.
“The Administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement, referring to the Senate agreement that was rejected by many conservatives as insufficient.
“Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents have said they need, and then gave themselves a two-week vacation,” Hernández contended.
He went on to stress that the administration feels Biden can only do so much as “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide.”
(WASHINGTON) — The indictment of Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, is roiling the ongoing impeachment inquiry being led by House Republicans against President Joe Biden.
Smirnov, once touted as a star witness by Republicans, was charged last week for allegedly making false statements about Biden and his son Hunter, including a story about both men taking $5 million in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
New Justice Department court documents unveiled Tuesday allege Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing the story.
“I think the Smirnov revelations destroy the entire case,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told ABC News Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas on Wednesday.
“Smirnov was the foundation of the whole thing,” Raskin continued. “He was the one who came forward to say that Burisma had given Joe Biden $5 million, and that was just concocted in thin air.”
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was also pressed by ABC News’ Thomas about the allegations surrounding Smirnov.
“Well, all I’m saying is you got to ask the FBI about that,” Jordan said. “He may, in fact, have given false I don’t know. But what I do know is everything we knew ahead of time.”
Jordan also told reporters that the Smirnov development “doesn’t change the fundamental facts.”
The comments came as the House Oversight Committee gathered Wednesday for a closed-door deposition with James Biden, President Biden’s brother. James Biden told lawmakers the president “has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his family’s business ventures.
The Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, James Comer, also sought to downplay the impact the Smirnov allegations would have on the impeachment probe.
In a statement last week, Comer said the “inquiry is not reliant” on Smirnov.
“It is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings,” Comer said.
Republicans have alleged that President Biden was directly involved in and benefited from his family’s business dealings — accusations staunchly denied by the White House — though they have not found evidence of a crime committed by the president.
Since formalizing the impeachment inquiry in mid-December, Republicans have held one public hearing and interviewed other witnesses, some of whom have similarly said President Biden wasn’t involved in his family’s business endeavors.
“It was that foundation that the whole house of cards has been built on and the entire thing has collapsed,” Raskin said Wednesday of the Smirnov revelations. “But of course, we don’t even have to rely on Smirnov’s own words because there have been somewhere near a dozen witnesses who have completely repudiated and refuted these essential allegations.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican businessman Eric Hovde officially entered the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin this week, touting his entrepreneurial success as he tries to topple two-term Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin and help his party retake one half of Congress.
“Our country is facing enormous challenges: our economy, our health care, crime and open borders,” Hovde said in an ad that preceded a kickoff speech in his home town of Madison on Tuesday. “Everything is going in the wrong direction. All Washington does is divide us and talk about who’s to blame. And nothing gets done.”
“We need to come together to find common sense solutions to restore America,” he added.
Hovde’s announcement sets up what will be one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country this year, in a state where major races — for senator, for governor, for president — have sometimes been decided by razor-thin margins. Hovde is not the only potential GOP contender: Businessman Scott Mayer has said he is considering a campaign.
In each of the last two presidential elections, less than a percentage point divided the candidates in Wisconsin, the only state where that was the case.
Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by less than 23,000 votes, while Biden took the state four years later by less than 21,000.
Further increasing the stakes is the two-seat edge Democrats currently hold in the U.S. Senate allowing them to approve Biden’s judicial picks and help further his legislative agenda.
“This [race] is for the 51st vote, for both sides,” Brandon Scholz, a Wisconsin Republican operative, told ABC News.
In his kickoff speech on Tuesdy, Hovde, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2012, argued that “politicians in large part don’t understand how an economy works,” suggesting he would bring “economic competency” to the Senate.
He serves as chief executive officer of multiple companies, including a real estate development firm and a bank holding company, according to a biography on one of the firms’ websites.
Hovde’s campaign site calls him a “classic entrepreneur” and notes that he founded his first company in his twenties.
But that same background — particularly the fact that some of Hovde’s businesses are based in states besides Wisconsin — has already become fodder for Democrats, who accuse him of being an out-of-touch elite who is too wealthy to understand the needs of everyday Wisconsinites, echoing past attacks on failed Senate candidates like Republican Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.
“California bank owner Eric Hovde is running for Senate to impose his self-serving agenda, putting ultra rich people like himself ahead of middle-class Wisconsinites,” Arik Wolk, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement, referring to the fact that Hovde owns a home in southern California.
Democrats believe that narrative around Hovde will contrast neatly with Baldwin, whom party leaders laud for paying heed to each corner of the state when she is in Wisconsin.
“She works tirelessly to get around the state and not ignore any community, any type of community that exists in Wisconsin, and because of that she has a proven track record of doing well all over the place,” Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist, told ABC News.
Moreover, Democrats have outperformed Republicans in statewide elections in recent years, a pattern Zepecki, who attributes it in part to the growth of liberal Madison, believes bodes well for Baldwin.
“I am feeling as good as I can about the Senate race here,” Zepecki said.
Republicans, meanwhile, are banking on Hovde’s economic message to break through at a time when Americans are still suffering from high inflation.
“This race is likely to be about the economy,” Scholz, the Republican operative, told ABC News.
Scholz said a challenge for Hovde will be how closely to tie himself to former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee for president, who, along with President Joe Biden, suffers from low favorability and approval numbers nationally.
“Trump is too much of a wild card,” said Scholz, who attributed Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin in part to the president’s ability to rally a large anti-Trump coalition. “I think candidates have to stand on their own. You run on your record. If you don’t have a record, you run on your qualifications. You are your own person.”
Scholz, referring to the 12-year gap between Hovde’s Senate runs, said he “has to rebuild the Hovde name.”
“People have to talk about Eric Hovde, not anything else.”
(WASHINGTON) — A 19-year-old has been charged with first-degree theft and unauthorized use of a vehicle in connection with the break-in of a Secret Service limo in November outside President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden’s home in Washington, court records show.
Robert Kemp, a 19-year-old Washington resident, was charged in early February after investigators recovered the sedan that Kemp is believed to have used in the break-in and then connected him to the crime, Kemp’s criminal complaint states.
According to the complaint, which was obtained by ABC News, two Secret Service agents first reported the incident at Naomi Biden’s residence late on Nov. 12.
While the complaint does not specifically name Naomi Biden, sources familiar previously confirmed to ABC News that the incident occurred outside her home.
Kemp’s criminal complaint states that the Secret Service agents said that they saw a red sedan stop on Nov. 12 near a “Secret Service limo used for members of the first family.”
One of the agents “observed a black male, legs hanging out of the broken driver side rear window” of the Secret Service vehicle, according to the complaint.
As the agent yelled police, the suspect fled in the sedan, “almost striking” one of the agents, who fired his weapon, the complaint states.
It is unclear if Naomi Biden heard the commotion but she was made aware afterward, sources have said.
Among the equipment stolen from the van were night vision goggles and a portable router, according to the complaint.
Investigators later found the sedan used in the break-in and discovered it had been stolen earlier in November, the complaint states. A McDonalds receipt and McDonald’s bag in the vehicle matched Kemp’s fingerprints and those of an unnamed juvenile, allowing law enforcement to trace back to Kemp himself.
The juvenile believed to have been with Kemp was also under GPS monitoring, which showed the juvenile was in the area at the time of the break-in, per the complaint.
Kemp agreed to speak with investigators at his home in December, according to the complaint, and he allegedly said that he’d been driving the sedan at the time of the break-in, which he blamed on someone named “JR.”
He “denied knowing the whereabouts of the items stolen and wasn’t sure of what was taken from the ‘black truck,'” the complaint states.
Kemp is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 29.
His attorney did not return a call seeking comment on Wednesday.
ABC News’ Adam Carlson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said in an interview Wednesday that she agrees with an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are considered people in the state.
“Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News.
“When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” the former U.N. ambassador said.
Asked about some of the potential ramifications of the court’s decision, however, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
Haley, who said she used artificial insemination to have her son, noted that women need to speak with their doctors about their goals and what’s best for their family.
“I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley said. “We also took precautions of how this was going to go and how it wasn’t so we knew before we went in exactly what we were looking at.”
“Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
A majority of the justices in Alabama found on Friday that “unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”
Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker quoted the Bible in a concurring opinion, citing the sanctity of unborn life.
Some outside advocates have warned that reclassifying the embryos as people rather than property could create new complications in procedures such as in vitro fertilization.
On Wednesday, The University of Alabama at Birmingham paused IVF procedures following the Alabama Supreme Court decision due to fear of lawsuits and prosecutions.
Alabama is one of 13 states that implemented a total ban on abortions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had protected the constitutional right to abortion.
The U.S. Supreme Court is also expected to rule on another case about abortion pill access in the coming months.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said in a new interview that she agrees with an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are considered people in the state.
“Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News.
“When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” she said.
When asked about some of the potential ramifications of the court’s decision, however, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
A majority of the justices in Alabama found on Friday that “unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”
Some outside advocates have warned that reclassifying the embryos as people rather than property could create new complications in procedures like in vitro fertilization.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
