Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump can remain on Illinois’ presidential primary ballot, the State Board of Elections voted on Tuesday, dismissing another challenge to the former president’s eligibility under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the insurrection clause.

The eight-person, bipartisan board voted unanimously against a lawsuit brought by a group of Illinois voters represented by national group Free Speech for the People and Illinois elections lawyers.

The body said it lacked the authority to decide on the challenge, which cited Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 election loss and accused him of inciting the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol where Congress was gathered to certify Joe Biden as the next president.

Trump denies all wrongdoing and has previously attacked the 14th Amendment cases as anti-democratic.

“Trump did not engage in insurrection, as that term is used in the Constitution,” Trump’s attorney Adam Merrill said on Tuesday. “It is a complicated legal term that has been rarely interpreted and it wasn’t even articulated correctly by the hearing officer in this case and, frankly, never should have reached it because of the lack of evidence, and because of the lack of jurisdiction.”

The Illinois board considered the eligibility challenge for roughly an hour before unanimously affirming Trump’s candidacy.

Free Speech for the People said they will appeal and expect that, under review, the courts would show “why Illinois law authorizes that ruling despite Trump’s subjective belief that the Constitution doesn’t apply to him.”

In his own statement, on social media, Trump celebrated the board’s ruling and said it was “protecting the Citizens of our Country from the Radical Left Lunatics who are trying to destroy it.”

The decision comes just over a week before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Feb. 8 on a similar 14th Amendment challenge to Trump out of Colorado, after that state’s top court ruled the former president ineligible for their primary ballot under Section 3.

Dozens of 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s eligibility have been considered by courts, election boards or secretaries of state over the past year.

Only the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of state have ruled Trump ineligible to participate in their primary process.

The case in Maine is set for reconsideration by Secretary Shenna Bellows after the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the Colorado case.

The Illinois board on Tuesday upheld the recommendation of hearing officer Clark Erickson, who oversaw a two-hour administrative hearing for the case on Friday and suggested the body rule that Trump engaged in insurrection within the meaning of Section 3 but should still not have his name removed from the state’s 2024 primary ballot.

“I want it to be clear that this Republican believes that there was an insurrection on Jan. 6. There’s no doubt in my mind that he manipulated, instigated, aided and abetted an insurrection on Jan. 6,” board member Catherine S. McCrory, a Republican, said on Tuesday.

Erickson, a Republican retired state judge, wrote last week that the Illinois State Board of Elections should reject the case against Trump because their body “isn’t suited” to rule on this issue — that a decision on the challenge instead belongs to the courts.

He also noted the difficulty of considering such a “sophisticated” case ahead of the state’s fast-approaching March 19 primary.

“In the context of the events and circumstances of January 6, 2024,” Erickson recommended the board favor the Illinois voters’ argument that Trump engaged in insurrection “on the merits by a preponderance of the evidence.”

He then concluded: “The Election Code is simply not suited for issues involving constitutional analysis. Those issues belong in the Courts.”

“All in all, attempting to resolve a constitutional issue within the expedited schedule of an election board hearing is somewhat akin to scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth,” he wrote.

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(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — Gayle Manchin, the wife of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, was injured in a car crash as a suspect allegedly fled police in Birmingham, Alabama, authorities said.

On Monday, the Homewood Police began a pursuit of an individual wanted on felony charges, authorities said. Police units pursued the vehicle through North Birmingham onto 18th Street North before losing contact with the suspect vehicle in the 1300 block of 18th Street North, officials said.

Homewood Police officers continued pursuit on 18th Street North where they subsequently observed that the suspect vehicle had apparently collided with another vehicle at the intersection of 18th Street North and 15th Avenue North. The driver was then apprehended without incident, police said.

Birmingham Fire and Rescue medics were called to the scene to help the two occupants of the other vehicle, one of whom authorities confirmed Tuesday afternoon was Gayle Manchin, wife of United States Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin and the other occupant were treated and taken to UAB Gardendale before later being transported to UAB’s downtown campus, authorities confirmed. They are both in stable condition, police said.

The Homewood Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division is currently investigating and is in the process of charging the suspect with multiple felony warrants. The suspect is currently being held at the Homewood City jail pending warrants.

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(WASHINGTON) — A former secretary of homeland security has come out in stalwart support of current Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is soon set to face a historic impeachment vote by House Republicans.

In an interview with ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips on Tuesday, Michael Chertoff characterized the impeachment probe against Mayorkas as “a disagreement about policy.”

Chertoff, who ran the Department of Homeland Security from 2004 to 2009 under then-President George W. Bush, said there was “grim irony” in House Republicans attacking Mayorkas for his handling of the southern border when the secretary has actively been advocating for higher congressional funding to confront the issue — something conservatives say must be accompanied with sweeping immigration changes.

“At the same time they won’t give Secretary Mayorkas tools to increase his ability to control the border, they’re complaining that therefore he should be impeached, and that really is, almost by definition, a comedy,” Chertoff told ABC News.

Chertoff published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday in which he urged against an impeachment. “I can say with confidence that, for all the investigating that the House Committee on Homeland Security has done, they have failed to put forth evidence that meets the bar [for impeachable offenses],” he wrote.

The House Committee on Homeland Security is pushing to impeach Mayorkas while claiming he failed to enforce the law at the U.S.-Mexico border, an allegation he has called “false.”

“I have adhered scrupulously and fervently to the Oath of Office I have taken six times in my public service career,” Mayorkas wrote in a letter to the committee, published on Tuesday morning, ahead of a hearing to review two new impeachment articles against him.

In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Chertoff defended Mayorkas’ record, characterizing the committee’s accusations as “unsupported argument” and calling for House Republicans to “drop the impeachment charade.” He also said Congress had inadequately supported and refined existing immigration systems.

Leading Republicans disagree with that view.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, opened Tuesday’s hearing by saying Mayorkas “put his political preference above the law” and that his “actions have forced our hand” because “we cannot allow this border crisis to continue. We cannot allow fentanyl to flood our border.”

Mayorkas is accused in the two impeachment articles of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust.”

Only one Cabinet secretary has ever been impeached — in the 1800s.

Chertoff stressed to ABC News Live on Tuesday that he believes Congress needs to consider the reasons why people are being pushed to migrate to the United States, citing examples like climate change and autocratic rule in other countries.

“And those are issues which can’t simply be resolved by putting people at the border. We’ve got to work to alleviate the conditions that are chasing people to leave their homes and flee into the United States,” Chertoff said.

On Tuesday afternoon, House Republicans were continuing to push for Mayorkas’ impeachment during a hearing on Capitol Hill, with a vote expected by end of day that would put Mayorkas one step closer to a historic removal.

The full House would need to approve the impeachment articles in order to lead to a Senate trial. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that vote will be held soon.

ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The New York City Council voted Tuesday to override Mayor Eric Adams’ vetoes on a solitary confinement ban and a bill to document police stops.

The council voted 42-9.

“Public safety is a collective effort, but it can only be achieved when there is transparency and accountability and policing,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on Tuesday in support of the bills. “Black and Latino New Yorkers continue to be disproportionately subjected to unconstitutional stops that go underreported. Civilian complaints of misconduct are at their highest levels in a decade. These stops can no longer happen in the shadows.”

Mayor Adams slammed the decision to override the veto.

These bills will make New Yorkers less safe on the streets, while police officers are forced to fill out additional paperwork rather than focus on helping New Yorkers and strengthening community bonds,” he said in a statement. “Additionally, it will make staff in our jails and those in our custody less safe by impairing our ability to hold those who commit violent acts accountable.”

The bill on solitary confinement would require all people in city custody to have at least 14 hours of out-of-cell time in a congregate setting “unless for the purpose of de-escalation confinement or during emergency lock-ins,” which would limit the confinement to a maximum of four hours after an incident or confrontation.

A “How Many Stops” bill on police data would require the NYPD to publicly report on police-civilian investigative stops and consent searches, as well as to expand NYPD reporting on vehicle stops to include the justification and the type of offense observed, as well as other data connected to vehicle stops. Lawmakers who wrote the bill said this is not intended to apply to non-investigative, informal conversations with civilians.

Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain and transit officer, vetoed the solitary confinement bill on Jan. 19 because a veto would “keep those in our custody and our correction officers safer,” he said in a statement after vetoing the legislation.

Eric Adams said if the bill were to take effect, “the Department of Correction would no longer be able to protect people in custody, or the union workers charged with their safety, from violent individuals.”

Current city policy uses the term “restrictive housing” rather than solitary confinement.

The current policy requires someone placed in this “restrictive housing” to have a minimum of seven hours outside of their cell, according to the Board of Corrections. Steve Martin, the court-appointed monitor to the city’s correctional facilities, argues this policy does not constitute solitary confinement, which traditionally refers to the limitation of out-of-cell time to up to four hours a day.

Legislators behind the bill said ending solitary confinement will reduce violence in correctional facilities and end a practice they say causes “harm” to incarcerated populations.

“We cannot allow the human rights and safety crisis on Rikers to continue by maintaining the status quo of failed policies and practices,” said Adrienne Adams in a statement on Eric Adams’ veto. “This legislation has broad support and advances a new approach to reduce violence and prioritize safety.”

Regarding the “How Many Stops” bill,” Eric Adams called the bill “misguided.”

“This bill will handcuff our police by drowning officers in unnecessary paperwork that will saddle taxpayers with tens of millions of dollars in additional NYPD overtime each year,” the mayor said.

Legislators argued that the bill is aimed at creating transparency in police stops, as the NYPD has long been under scrutiny over allegations of discriminatory policing by marginalized communities.

“I am here to tell you as someone who works professionally within that system, this is not a burden,” said New York City Council Member Tiffany Caban, who previously worked as a public defender. “This is doing the right thing. And if we are going to solve the issues of racist, biased policing outcomes, then we must have the data to do so.”

ABC News’ Tesfaye Negussie contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Senate negotiators neared an agreement on a long-awaited bipartisan border deal, House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC News Tuesday that while he hasn’t seen the bill yet, the agreement is a “nonstarter in the House.”

“From what we’ve seen, clearly, what’s been suggested in this bill is not enough to secure the border,” Johnson told ABC Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott. “And we have to insist — we have a responsibility, a duty, to the American people to insist that the border catastrophe is ended. And just trying to whitewash that or do something for political purposes that it appears that may be, is not going to cut it.”

The border agreement worked out by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., comes as part of a national security spending bill that also includes aid packages for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

House Republicans have been coming out against the border deal, despite not yet seeing the bill text. This comes as former President Donald Trump has encouraged Republicans to reject the deal.

Trump on Monday said that “a border bill is not necessary,” blasting the ongoing negotiations.

Johnson said he has spoken with Trump about this issue “at length,” but called any allegations that he’s trying to kill the bill to give Trump a win for his campaign “absurd.”

“We have a responsibility here to do our duty. Our duty is to do right by the American people to protect the people the first and most important job,” Johnson told Scott.

During a closed-door meeting with his conference last week, Johnson assured House Republicans that the deal is “dead on arrival” in the House, according to multiple members who were in the room — leaving big questions about the prospect of additional aid to Ukraine.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., is among the House Republicans criticizing the bill.

“I think to really clarify what the President [Trump] is saying — that this deal sucks,” Donalds told ABC News. “It’s a bad deal and to give cover to Joe Biden for his terrible policies on the border.”

While Senate Republicans continue to work on the border deal with the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, House Republicans are working to impeach him.

The House Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., brought two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas on Tuesday, arguing the secretary has demonstrated “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust.”

“Alejandro N. Mayorkas knowingly made false statements to Congress that the border is ‘secure,’ that the border is ‘no less secure than it was previously,’ that the border is ‘closed,’ and that DHS has ‘operational control,’ of the border (as that term is defined in the Secure Fence Act of 19 2006),” the articles claim.

President Biden told reporters Tuesday that he’s exhausted all executive authority to address the immigration crisis at the southern border.

“I’ve done all I can do,” he said as he left the White House.

The president turned up the pressure on Republicans to reach a compromise on Friday, saying he would “shut down” the border when it’s overwhelmed, if given new emergency authority through this deal.

“Give me the border patrol. Give me the people, give me the people who judge it. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work,” Biden said Tuesday.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Allie Pecorin, John Parkinson and Quinn Owen contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he’s decided how the U.S. is going to respond to the drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan by Iran-backed militants that killed three American soldiers.

“Have you made a decision how you’ll respond to the attack,” Biden was asked leaving the White House as headed for fundraisers in Florida.

“Yes,” he said.

Retaliatory strikes by the U.S. so far have yet to deter any of these Iranian-backed groups in the region. Asked if this upcoming response will actually deter them, he said, “we’ll see.”

He reiterated that the U.S. is not looking for a “wider war in the Middle East,” explaining, “that’s not what I’m looking for.”

The president wouldn’t go as far as saying Iran is directly responsible for the attack, but that it is responsible for arming these proxy groups.

“I do hold them responsible in that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it,” he said.

The U.S. response to the drone attack twill be carried out “over the course of several days,” striking “multiple targets,” a U.S. official told ABC News.

“These are going to be very deliberate targets — deliberate strikes on facilities that enabled these attacks” on U.S. forces, the official said.

Also on Tuesday, the Iran-backed Hezbollah Brigades — based in Iraq — different from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon — said it would suspend its military operations against U.S. forces in Iraq.

“As we announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces — in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government we will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways … ” a statement from the group said.

Biden is facing increasing pressure to forcefully respond to Sunday’s drone attack without deepening the conflict in the Middle East.

“We are not looking for a war with Iran,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at Monday’s White House press briefing.

“We are not seeking a conflict with the regime in the military way,” Kirby continued. “We’re not looking to escalate here. This attack over the weekend was escalatory, make no mistake about it. And it requires a response.”

The president vowed Sunday that the U.S. would respond, and Monday met with members of his national security team in the White House Situation Room to discuss the latest developments on the attack in Jordan near the borders with Syria and Iraq, according to the White House.

Among those in the meeting were national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and chief of staff Jeff Zients.

Biden is now faced with a difficult decision on how best to respond to the attack that killed the first U.S. service members since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, without igniting a broader conflict in the region, something the administration has been steadfastly trying to avoid for months.

The White House would not confirm or deny if direct strikes against Iran were on the table, but a senior U.S. official told ABC News that Biden has deep misgivings about retaliatory strikes on Iran itself.

“There’s no easy answer here,” Kirby told reporters.

“That’s why the president is meeting with his national security team, weighing the options before him. He’ll do that as he’s done in the past in a very careful, deliberate way, so that our national security answers– our interests are best preserved.”

In a press conference Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested the U.S. response “could be multi-leveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time.”

Prior to Sunday’s deadly attack, there had been at least 164 attacks on U.S. forces in the region since mid-October.

The U.S. has launched repeated retaliatory strikes — nine in Yemen since Jan. 11 and four in Iraq and three in Syria since mid-October — although the president has noted they did little to deter future attacks.

Many Republicans have called on the administration to take stronger action against Iran, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“The entire world now watches for signs that the President is finally prepared to exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behavior. Our enemies are emboldened. And they will remain so until the United States imposes serious, crippling costs – not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor,” he said in a statement.

Complicating matters further is the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the ongoing hostage negotiations that the U.S. and other countries have been working to facilitate.

Kirby said Monday the talks were headed in a good direction, and the White House saw “no reason” that any U.S. response to these attacks should affect the negotiations. Still, he acknowledged it could.

“We’re not cocky. We understand there’s a lot of hard work ahead. And that work ahead of us, diplomatically certainly, might be affected by– by events elsewhere in the region. Not just — not just what happened in Jordan and what- what might come as a result of that, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t. And that’s why we’re gonna stay at that task,” Kirby said.

A growing conflict could also have major impacts on Biden’s reelection efforts. He has already faced political pressure on the campaign trail from pro-Palestinian protests at his events calling for a cease-fire.

At a recent event in Virginia, Biden faced more than a dozen interruptions from the crowd calling for an end to the conflict.

When asked whether politics would play a role in the president’s response, Kirby was adamant it wouldn’t.

“”He’s not looking at political calculations, or the polling, or the electoral calendar as he works to protect our troops ashore and our ships at sea — and any suggestion to the contrary is offensive,” he said.

The White House on Tuesday confirmed that Biden had spoken with the families of the service members killed and that we would attend the dignified transfer of their remains on Friday at Dover Air Force Base.

ABC News’ Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. response to a drone attack that killed three American service members in Jordan last weekend will be carried out “over the course of several days” and striking “multiple targets,” a U.S. official told ABC News Tuesday.

“These are going to be very deliberate targets — deliberate strikes on facilities that enabled these attacks” on U.S. forces, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive details.

Officials would not say whether any of the targets would be inside or outside Iran.

Leaving the White House Tuesday morning, President Joe Biden said he had decided how the U.S. would respond to the attack by Iran-backed militants, but gave no more details.

When asked if Iran is responsible, he said Tehran is arming these proxy groups. “I do hold them responsible in that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it,” he said.

At the same time, he told reporters the U.S. is not “looking for” a “wider war in the Middle East.

Details about how an enemy attack drone was able to reach a remote U.S. military base in Jordan were still trickling in Tuesday, as the military continued its investigation.

According to three officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive battlefield details, the one-way enemy attack drone approached the base around the same time as a U.S. surveillance drone, causing confusion and preventing the U.S. from deploying air defenses.

The enemy drone hit the living quarters of the base early in the morning Sunday while troops were still sleeping, wounding at least 40 and killing three.

The Pentagon on Monday announced the names of the three Army reservists killed as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia.; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia., all from an Army Reserve engineering unit from Georgia.

The deadly attack, which several officials have described as simple luck by the enemy, is a dramatic escalation in the months-long tension between Iran-back militants and US forces stationed in Iraq and Syria.

Since mid October, there have been at least 165 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The U.S. has launched several retaliatory strikes, including in Iraq.

In response to the strikes, a spokesperson for the Iranian Mission for the U.N. said late Sunday, “Iran has nothing to do with the attacks in questions. The conflict has been initiated by the United States military against resistance groups in Iraq and Syria; and such operations are reciprocal between them.”

Gen. Robert Abrams, a retired combatant commander, said U.S. Central Command, which oversees forces in the region, will be trying to provide several military strike options to the president.

“Biden needs to send a message, but he also doesn’t want to escalate the tensions … That’s the hard conversation that is happening right now between the Pentagon, CENTCOM and the White House,” Abrams told ABC News Live.

Some Republicans have questioned Biden’s strategy in the Middle East so far, suggesting he should attack Iran more directly. Officials ABC News spoke with Tuesday would not say where the U.S. strikes might occur or whether they would target Iranian officials directly.

“We need a major reset of our Middle East policy to protect our national security interests and restore deterrence,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement as House Speaker Mike Johnson called for “a crystal clear message across the globe that attacks on our troops will not be tolerated.”

In an interview taped last week with ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked if Americans being killed in the Middle East would impact his decision making.

He said the military was doing “everything we can to protect our forces” and noted the U.S. does not want “broader conflict” in the region — and that he doesn’t believe Iran wants war with the U.S., either.

“We don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict within the region,” Brown said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the “could be multi-leveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time.”

“We’ve taken steps to defend ourselves and defend our partners, as well as prevent escalation,” he added. “And the president has been crystal clear: we will respond decisively to any aggression, and we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops and do so at a time and place of our choosing.”

ABC News’ Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday faced increasing pressure to forcefully respond to Sunday’s drone attack by Iran-backed militants that killed three American service members and wounded at least 40 others, without deepening the conflict in the Middle East.

“We are not looking for a war with Iran,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at Monday’s White House press briefing.

“We are not seeking a conflict with the regime in the military way,” Kirby continued. “We’re not looking to escalate here. This attack over the weekend was escalatory, make no mistake about it. And it requires a response.”

The president vowed Sunday that the U.S. would respond, and Monday met with members of his national security team in the White House Situation Room to discuss the latest developments on the attack in Jordan near the borders with Syria and Iraq, according to the White House.

Among those in the meeting were national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and chief of staff Jeff Zients.

Biden is now faced with a difficult decision on how best to respond to the attack that killed the first U.S. service members since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, without igniting a broader conflict in the region, something the administration has been steadfastly trying to avoid for months.

The White House would not confirm or deny if direct strikes against Iran were on the table, but a senior U.S. official told ABC News that Biden has deep misgivings about retaliatory strikes on Iran itself.

“There’s no easy answer here,” Kirby told reporters.

“That’s why the president is meeting with his national security team, weighing the options before him. He’ll do that as he’s done in the past in a very careful, deliberate way, so that our national security answers– our interests are best preserved,” Kirby said.

In a press conference Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested the U.S. response “could be multi-leveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time.”

Prior to Sunday’s deadly attack, there had been at least 164 attacks on U.S. forces in the region since mid-October.

The U.S. has launched repeated retaliatory strikes — nine in Yemen since Jan. 11 and four in Iraq and three in Syria since mid-October — although the president has noted they did little to deter future attacks.

Many Republicans have called on the administration to take stronger action against Iran, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“The entire world now watches for signs that the President is finally prepared to exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behavior. Our enemies are emboldened. And they will remain so until the United States imposes serious, crippling costs – not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor,” he said in a statement.

Complicating matters further is the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the ongoing hostage negotiations that the U.S. and other countries have been working to facilitate.

Kirby said Monday the talks were headed in a good direction, and the White House saw “no reason” that any U.S. response to these attacks should affect the negotiations. Still, he acknowledged it could.

“We’re not cocky. We understand there’s a lot of hard work ahead. And that work ahead of us, diplomatically certainly, might be affected by– by events elsewhere in the region. Not just — not just what happened in Jordan and what- what might come as a result of that, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t. And that’s why we’re gonna stay at that task,” Kirby said.

A growing conflict could also have major impacts on Biden’s reelection efforts. He has already faced political pressure on the campaign trail from pro-Palestinian protests at his events calling for a cease-fire.

At a recent event in Virginia, Biden faced more than a dozen interruptions from the crowd calling for an end to the conflict.

When asked whether politics would play a role in the president’s response, Kirby was adamant it wouldn’t.

“He’s not looking at political calculations, or the polling, or the electoral calendar as he works to protect our troops ashore and our ships at sea — and any suggestion to the contrary is offensive,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senate negotiators are racing to put the finishing touches on a national security spending bill they hope can simultaneously fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and offer legislative solutions to slow the surge of migrants at the southern border. Yet fresh criticism Monday from former President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders threatened to derail the efforts that the White House is accusing them of treating like a “political football.”

Trump on Monday said that “a border bill is not necessary,” blasting the ongoing negotiations.

“They are using this horrific Senate Bill as a way of being able to put the BORDER DISASTER onto the shoulders of the Republicans. The Democrats BROKE THE BORDER, they should fix it,” Trump posted on his social media network.

On Saturday, at a campaign rally in Nevada, the Republican presidential front-runner seemed to gloat about his efforts to kill the bill.

“As the leader of our party there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. It’s not going to happen,” Trump said. “I notice a lot of the Senators are trying to say — respectfully they are blaming it on me, I say that’s OK please blame it on me, please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill.”

As Trump has become more and more forceful in opposition to the bill, many congressional Republicans have fallen in line behind him — even though they haven’t even seen the bill. Some Republicans have made clear they don’t want to give Biden a political win in the run-up to the November election.

“Biden people admit they don’t want to secure the border. What they want is bipartisan support for a Senate bill they know is dead in House & that he will never enforce anyways,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., posted on X. “Then he can both keep the border open AND blame House GOP for it.”

According to sources, the deal, worked out by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., would require the Department of Homeland Security to nearly shut down the border if migrant crossings increase above 5,000 per day on any given week or if average daily encounters reach a 4,000-a-day threshold in a one-week span.

But some sources familiar with negotiations refute that the bill would allow thousands of migrants into the country each day. The number that triggers the border to shut, one source familiar with the bill said, is based on capacity. When there’s no longer capacity within the county to detain migrants, the authority to shut the border down would be triggered. The authority remains in place until crossings reduce to 75 percent of the trigger number.

Lankford appeared on Fox News on Sunday to defend the package against attacks from his colleagues and clarify the migrant-crossing numbers. He called the assertion from some Republicans that the bill would allow 5,000 illegal crossings a day “the most misunderstood section of this proposal.”

“They’re still waiting to be able to read the bill on this. And this has been our great challenge of being able to fight through the final words, to be able to get the bill text out so people can hear it,” Lankford said on Fox News Sunday. “Right now there’s internet rumors is all that people are running on. It would be absolutely absurd for me to agree to 5,000 people a day. This bill focuses on getting us to zero illegal crossings a day. There’s no amnesty.”

Still, Lankford acknowledged the shifting political realities that make passing the bill a steeper uphill climb.

“It is interesting, Republicans, four months ago, would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy. So, we actually locked arms together and said, ‘We’re not going to give money for this. We want a change in law,'” Lankford said.

“And now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because of presidential election year,'” he added.

Even if the bill passes in the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who regularly talks with Trump, has said the deal appears “dead on arrival” in the House.

On Saturday, Johnson drew even further away from the bipartisan bill while responding to President Joe Biden, who said in a statement Friday that he would use new authorities granted in the bipartisan bill to “shut down the border” on “the day I sign the bill into law.”

“President Biden falsely claimed yesterday he needs Congress to pass a new law to allow him to close the southern border, but he knows that is untrue,” Johnson said in a statement. “According to reports, the Senate’s pending proposal would expressly allow as many as 150,000 illegal crossings each month (1.8 million per year) before any new ‘shutdown’ authority could be used. At that point, America will have already surrendered.”

During the White House press briefing Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Johnson of making the bipartisan Senate border negotiations a “political football,” arguing that the deal would take action at the border and “is exactly what [House Republicans have] been asking for.”

“The speaker seems to want to make this a political, a political football, right? It’s like a hot potato. They don’t want to hold on to it,” Jean-Pierre said.

The bipartisan bill, as drafted, would give Biden and any future president greater authority to regulate the border, though many Republicans insist that Biden is currently failing to utilize authorities he’s already granted.

On Monday, Jean-Pierre said the deal being discussed includes new “enforcement tools” that do not currently exist.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will ultimately have to help navigate the bill. A staunch advocate of Ukraine aid, McConnell’s support was a key component in tying the border package to funds for Ukraine in the first place. Waning support for the border package could very well jeopardize future aid to Ukraine as well.

Republican advocates of the bill have long maintained they need a strong bipartisan showing to pass this bill to the House with any hope of passage.

McConnell faces a challenge to see if he can move forward without majority support from Senate Republicans. Presently, it’s unclear if the legislation can even get the 60 votes it’ll need to clear the chamber, as some progressive Democrats are likely to oppose it as well.

It’s not yet clear exactly if or how the border legislation may move through the chamber once it’s eventually released.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice is investigating a Democrat in the House of Representatives for allegedly misusing government funds for personal security, according to sources familiar with the matter.

DOJ issued a grand jury subpoena to the House Sergeant at Arms for documents.

“This is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the House of Representatives that the office of the sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives has been served with a grand jury subpoena for documents issued by the U.S. Department of Justice,” the clerk announced on the House floor earlier Monday.

It was not immediately clear what the subpoena is seeking and what member it relates to, but sources told ABC News it relates to a House Democrat allegedly misusing government funds.

Punchbowl News first reported the subpoena was related to allegations involving a House Democrat using government funds related to personal security.

The Department of Justice declined to comment. Representatives for the office of the House Sergeant at Arms have not responded to ABC’s inquiries. Speaker Mike Johnson did not answer questions from reporters regarding the matter.

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