(NEW YORK) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference case to hold special counsel Jack Smith and members of his team in contempt of court for what they claim are “violations” of the current stay of the case as the appeals process plays out.
In a filing Thursday, Trump’s lawyers argue that the special counsel continuing to file briefs and produce discovery to the defense while the case is on hold is just a tactic to “use this case a platform to advance” President Joe Biden’s “political talking points.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan last month agreed to Trump’s request to stay proceedings in the case while the appeals process plays out. Smith’s team opposed an all-out stay, saying they felt certain filings could still move forward to keep the case on track for its March 4 trial date.
In their Thursday filing, Trump’s lawyers say that the special counsel’s belief that only “deadlines” in the case are currently stayed — and not the filing of papers — is false.
“To remedy this outrageous conduct, the Court should issue an order to show cause why the prosecutors should not be: (1) held in contempt; (2) required to immediately withdraw their MIL and improper productions; (3) forbidden from submitting any further filing or production absent the Court’s express permission while the Stay Order is in effect; and (4) assessed monetary sanctions in the amount of President Trump’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in responding to the prosecutors’ improper productions and filings,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
In a related development, Trump is planning to attend next week’s appeals court arguments on his efforts to dismiss the case based on his claim of presidential immunity, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The plans are not set in stone and could shift, sources said.
Trump attending arguments would mark the first time he has been to the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., since his arraignment back in August. Arguments are scheduled to occur three days after the three-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which sits just blocks away from the courthouse.
As the campaign calendar gets into full swing, sources close to the former president say they expect the primaries and court appearances to start colliding. Trump has expressed a strong desire to attend the closing arguments in the New York attorney general’s $250 million fraud civil suit at the end of the next week, sources say.
Sources tell ABC News it’s also likely Trump will attend the second E. Jean Carroll’s defamation trial, which is slated to begin just after the Iowa caucuses. Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, sued Trump in November 2019 over comments he made shortly after Carroll publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. Carroll prevailed in a separate but related lawsuit in May that alleged defamation and battery, and was awarded $5 million in damages. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, is appealing that case.
Trump in August pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the Jan. 6 riot raged — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing and denounced the charges as “a persecution of a political opponent.”
The New York Times was first to report on Trump’s expected court appearances.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday led a delegation of 64 Republicans in a trip to the southern border as the GOP seeks to ramp up election-year pressure on President Joe Biden and Democrats to reach a deal on immigration restrictions.
The group toured the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry and held an afternoon news conference, during which the GOP lawmakers continued their demands for tougher restrictions and criticism of President Biden amid the tumult at the southwest border.
“It’s been an eye opener,” Johnson said at the news conference. “One thing is absolutely clear: America is at a breaking point with record levels of illegal immigration and today we got a firsthand look at the damage and the chaos the border catastrophe is causing in all of our communities. The situation here and across the country is truly unconscionable.”
Johnson called it a “disaster of the president’s own design.”
President Biden, returning to Washington late Tuesday, put the onus on Republicans to agree to bipartisan legislation to fund immigration operations.
“We gotta do something,” he told reporters when asked about the situation at the southwest border. “They ought to give me the money I need to protect the border.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, in a statement early Wednesday, slammed Republicans for blocking Biden’s request for funding and leaving Washington for holiday recess without a resolution.
“In fact, right now, instead of joining the Biden Administration and members of both parties in the Senate to find common ground, Speaker Johnson is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country,” Bates said.
The Biden administration has put forth a supplemental funding request that includes nearly $14 billion for the border as well as aid for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. The border provisions would include money to hire more border agents and immigration judge teams. Republicans have been insistent on tying the aid to more sweeping border changes, including tougher asylum protocols.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security,” Johnson said, which prompted a “here here” and “that’s right” from other members in attendance.
Johnson, who contended Biden can act unilaterally without legislation to make border changes, called for the administration to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and other provisions. He also called H.R. 2 — the GOP immigration bill passed by the House last year that would restart border wall construction and more — the “necessary ingredient.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier Wednesday hit Republicans for continually pointing to H.R. 2, which Democrats have rejected as “draconian.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, went so far as to say “no money” should be used “to process or release into the country any new migrants.”
“We should put that one sentence in must-pass legislation,” Jordan said.
The influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is fueling a fierce immigration debate that will be a central campaign message for Republicans in 2024.
The U.S.-Mexico border saw a record number of migrant encounters in December. Sources told ABC News that preliminary data showed there were 302,000 encounters last month alone — an increase from the 242,416 encounters in November and 240,9988 in October.
Though the White House announced Tuesday it was reopening the Eagle Pass port of entry along with three others in Arizona and California due to the drop in migrant encounters in recent days.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are moving ahead with their effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The House Homeland Security Committee is expected to hold its first hearing on Jan. 10, a spokesperson for the panel confirmed to ABC News. The committee, which has conducted a yearlong probe into Mayorkas, is seeking to impeach him for his handling of and his role in the “unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border.”
Responding to the committee’s proceedings, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC News the GOP majority is “wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars pursuing a baseless political exercise.”
Mayorkas has been involved in the congressional negotiations over border provisions, and recently traveled to Mexico City with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet with the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and their Mexican counterparts behind closed doors to address urgent immigration issues.
Key Senate negotiators returned to Washington on Tuesday to continue talks on the supplemental aid package, sources familiar with the discussions told ABC News. The rest of Congress isn’t due back until next week.
Biden administration officials, in a press call Tuesday, said talks are “moving in the right direction.”
Schumer also said Wednesday that progress was being made, but noted “this is a very difficult issue” with challenges to overcome.
He also appeared to knock the Republican delegation to Texas, saying it was “nice” to go to the border “but the way to get something done is work as we are in the Senate on a bipartisan solution to the border crisis, which will then unlock money for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer watches as the House of Representatives holds an election for a new Speaker of the House at the Capitol, Oct. 25, 2023. (Win Mcnamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday earned an endorsement from House Majority Whip Tom Emmer — whom Trump called a “Globalist RINO” who is “totally out-of-touch” with Republican voters, effectively tanking Emmer’s speakership bid in October.
Emmer said Wednesday that it’s time for the GOP to unite behind Trump.
“Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power. We cannot let them. It’s time for Republicans to unite behind our party’s clear frontrunner, which is why I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President,” Emmer wrote on X.
During October’s chaotic speaker battle following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Emmer was among the House GOP leaders who threw his hat in the ring for the House’s top job. However, Trump posted on his social media platform that “voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”
Emmer’s endorsement came a day after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise backed the former president. When Scalise ran for the open speaker job in October, Trump snubbed him — instead backing House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan. Scalise took the nomination over Jordan in a secret ballot.
Trump later helped sink Scalise’s speakership bid after he questioned his health, bringing up Scalise’s cancer diagnosis.
Scalise said Tuesday he was “proud” to support the former president.
“I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024, and I look forward to working with President Trump and a Republican House and Senate to fight for those families who are struggling under the weight of Biden’s failed policies,” Scalise posted on X.
With endorsements from Emmer and Scalise, Trump now has the backing of all top four House Republican leaders. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik have already endorsed the former president in his 2024 White House bid.
Johnson and Stefanik have been vocal Trump supporters and were among the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Johnson also led the charge to get 125 of his Republican colleagues — including Stefanik — to sign an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, supporting Texas’ lawsuit that would have invalidated the election results in key battleground states.
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team on Wednesday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling disqualifying him from that state’s GOP primary ballot, his lawyers confirmed.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — After months of anticipation, the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses are less than two weeks away. Republican presidential candidates have been hitting the state for months to meet with Iowans who will cast their presidential preference cards at their respective caucus locations on Jan. 15.
This is a big year for Republicans with a still sizable pool of candidates and a bit to prove after a tumultuous 2020 in Iowa for the Democrats.
While polls show former President Donald Trump has a strong hold on the state, several other GOP candidates are crisscrossing Iowa to pitch their plan as an alternative to Trump.
Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has done the most events in Iowa so far; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley are leading in the polls among candidates who aren’t Trump. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has skipped the state altogether — instead focusing on New Hampshire.
Lesser-known candidates such as businessman and faith leader Ryan Binkley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, are still sticking it out as Iowans prepare to vote.
Here’s what to know about the upcoming caucuses and how candidates have worked to connect with Iowa voters.
Why are the Iowa caucuses considered a big deal and how do they work?
Iowa’s caucuses, along with New Hampshire’s primary, have historically received outsized attention from the public and from the news media because they offer the first look at who voters want to run in the next presidential election. Since 1972, Iowa’s caucuses have been a testing ground for presidential candidates and an opportunity for leading candidates to inject a surge of momentum into their campaigns.
GOP caucuses are different from regular elections — and even differ from Iowa’s Democratic causes.
The caucuses, which start at 7 p.m. CT on Jan. 15, require voters to caucus at the location assigned to the precinct in which they live, divvying Iowans up among the more than 1,600 precincts across the state’s 99 counties.
During a caucus, precinct captains pitch their candidates before attendees talk, or even debate, among themselves. Voters eventually cast their secret ballot, writing down a name — any name — on a piece of paper to be collected and counted in view of attendees.
Soon after, a winner is announced to caucusgoers and results are reported electronically to the Republican Party of Iowa to verify the results.
The presidential preference contest can take 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how many people show up, or what happens in the room.
Caucus rules dictate that all participants: be a resident of Iowa, be 18 years old by the general election in November, be a registered Republican and have a voter ID.
Democrats will still hold an in-person caucus to conduct party business on Jan. 15, but no one will be casting presidential preference cards.
What have GOP presidential candidates done around Iowa?
Donald Trump
Polls show Trump has a strong lead over the other candidates. While nothing is guaranteed, and many voters are indeed shopping their options, he has remained the front-runner.
Beyond name recognition and, of course, being a former president, Trump has an eight-year advantage over his competition. He has already done this twice, and won once (in 2020, and put up a fight in 2016, too). For Trump, it may not be a matter of garnering support, but making sure those voters turn out and that their caucus captains know how to win others over.
Trump has been at 30 events over his 18 visits to Iowa since March. His campaign has hosted “Commit to Caucus” events, holding several with Trump himself, and others with surrogates. Trump will make his first visit of 2024 to Iowa on Jan. 5 in Sioux Center.
According to 538’s latest Iowa polling averages, Trump has the lead at 50%.
Ron DeSantis
DeSantis was the only candidate to ring in the new year in Iowa after attending an event hosted by the Never Back Down PAC on New Year’s Eve and then making an appearance at a Citrus Bowl watch party on New Year’s Day alongside a not-so-secret weapon, his wife Casey DeSantis.
The Florida governor was endorsed by beloved (among Iowa Republicans) Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vanderplaats in November. On Dec. 2, he completed the “Full Grassley,” visiting all 99 counties in the state — a reference to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s efforts to visit them all every year.
DeSantis and the Never Back Down PAC, in particular, have a solid presence in the state helped by major door-knocking and mailer efforts and (recently pulled) ads.
DeSantis is polling at 18.4%, according to 538’s latest Iowa polling averages.
DeSantis has appeared at 138 events in the state since the start of his campaign in May. He will be back on the trail in Iowa on Wednesday.
Nikki Haley
Haley has really been splitting her time on the campaign trail, spending time across several early states including New Hampshire and South Carolina, rather than taking on Iowa head-on. She has held about 62 events in Iowa so far — far fewer than DeSantis and Ramaswamy, while still polling not too far behind DeSantis at 15.7%, according to 538’s national polling averages.
Haley has spent the most on January Iowa ads so far. Between the SFA Fund ($3.3 million) and Haley’s campaign ($1.3 million), $4.6 million have gone to TV and radio ad reservations between Jan. 1 and Jan. 15, according to tracking from AdImpact and reported by NBC.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy’s campaign took a grassroots approach with the help of former Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who chaired the Iowa campaigns of 2012 and 2016 caucus winners Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz and is now hoping to win a third.
The entrepreneur has invested most of his time, and in recent weeks, just about all of it, in Iowa, crisscrossing the state to meet with voters face-to-face in hopes of “delivering a surprise result” in Iowa due to first-time caucusgoers including young people and newly turned Republicans.
This week, he celebrates the completion of his “Double Grassley” tour — meaning he has visited all 99 counties at least twice. He has had more than 250 events in Iowa as of Tuesday — the most of any of his competitors by far.
And after opening a campaign headquarters in Des Moines, door knocking and phone banking have ramped up in addition to virtual and in-person voter outreach.
Ramaswamy hasn’t secured any major endorsement, but on Tuesday was endorsed by controversial former Rep. Steve King, who had said they see eye-to-eye on opposing the use of eminent domain to push carbon capture pipelines in the state.
Ramaswamy halted TV ad spending last week, telling ABC News his team’s data show it’s unjustified given the projected return on investment.
According to 538’s latest Iowa polling averages, Ramaswamy is trailing at 6%. He will be in Iowa all week.
Asa Hutchinson
As reported by Axios, “Asa’s Normal Express” launches in Des Moines on Wednesday. It’s a push by the Hutchinson campaign to convince Iowa voters that there’s an alternative to Trump.
“People are looking for normal after the chaos that we’ve had … I offer normal. I’m sort of building on that,” Hutchinson told Axios.
538’s latest polling averages place him at .5% in Iowa. He has done 37 events in Iowa this cycle.
Ryan Binkley
Binkley, a Texas pastor, told ABC News he’s committed to staying in the race through the caucuses. Though he established a presence in Iowa early on in the race, Binkley acknowledged to ABC News in October that a lack of name recognition remains a hurdle. He was the first candidate to complete the “Full Grassley.”
Chris Christie
Christie, who finished 10th in Iowa in 2016, has not been to Iowa at all this cycle and is polling at 3.7%, according to 538’s latest Iowa polling averages.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on his economic policies at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Dec. 20, 2023. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will lay out what he sees as the stakes of the 2024 presidential election — democracy and freedom — in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 6, his first campaign event of the new year.
“This Saturday will mark the three-year anniversary of when, with encouragement from Donald Trump, a violent mob breached our nation’s Capital. It was the first time in our nation’s history that a president tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie-Chavez Rodriguez told reporters on a call.
Principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Valley Forge was selected for its historical significance as it is “the same spot where nearly 250 years ago, our nation’s forefathers transformed a disorganized alliance of colonial militias into a cohesive coalition united in their fight for our democracy, where General Washington united American willpower and went on to lead this nation as commander and as president – before relinquishing power – the ultimate precedent and the experiment of American democracy.”
In Saturday’s speech, Biden is expected to lay out in an official capacity on the campaign trail what he sees as the stakes of the 2024 election as he ramps up toward a likely rematch against former President Donald Trump.
“There, the president will make the case directly that democracy and freedom — two powerful ideas that united the 13 colonies and that generations throughout our nation’s history have fought and died for … remains central to the fight we’re in today,” Fulks said.
Last month, the campaign announced it planned a hiring spree of “thousands of staff dedicated to Team Biden-Harris across the country,” which includes leadership teams in every battleground state by mid-January.
Pennsylvania, one of those battleground states, holds a key pathway to the presidency. In 2020, Biden won by just over 1 point, which helped push him over the finish line to win the Electoral College. Going into 2024, he remains dead even with Trump, according to 538’s latest polling average.
After his Valley Forge stop, as ABC first reported, Biden will then continue to carry this message to Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday. It’s his fourth trip to the Palmetto State as president and his first as a 2024 candidate, having only made stops in key battleground states and fundraisers in Democratic strongholds like California. He’ll deliver remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the site of a mass shooting in 2015, where he’ll “talk directly to voters who propelled him to the highest office in the land four years ago,” a campaign rep said.
Prior to Biden’s visit, Vice President Kamala Harris will make her seventh visit to South Carolina on Saturday to speak at the Seventh Episcopal District AME Church before returning for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 15, to headline an event at the South Carolina State House.
These visits come as the campaign pushes to attract Black, Latino, women and young voters as Biden’s numbers have begun slipping among these constituencies that the team carried back in 2020.
Asked by reporters if the trips to South Carolina are meant to shore up support among Black voters, Fulks said the trips don’t come from a “place of worry” but from “practicing what we preach.”
Later on in the month, Harris will kick off her official reproductive freedoms tour in Wisconsin on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Jan. 22.
“The 2024 field has made clear time and time again that they don’t just accept, they give their full-throated endorsement to Donald Trump’s anti-democratic, anti-freedom rhetoric and actions,” Chavez Rodriguez said, referring to Trump’s fellow GOP presidential candidates. “The choice for the American people in November 2024 will be about protecting our democracy and every American’s fundamental freedoms.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team on Tuesday appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ ruling that deemed him ineligible from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot to Maine’s Superior Court, the state’s top trial court.
Trump appealed to Kennebec Court Superior Court. A decision from the trial court could later be appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bellows, a Democrat, wrote in her Dec. 28 decision that Trump was disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because of his actions after the 2020 election that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021.
In their filing to the state’s Superior Court, Trump’s team argued that Bellows is a “biased decisionmaker” who “failed to provide lawful due process.”
They also said Bellows had “no legal authority” to make such a determination on federal constitutional issues, and “made multiple errors of law and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”
Steven Cheung, the spokesman for the Trump campaign, echoed those arguments in a statement after the appeal was filed.
“Maine’s Secretary of State went outside of her authority, completely ignoring the Constitution when she summarily decided to remove President Trump’s name from the ballot, interfere in the election, and disenfranchise the voters of her state,” Cheung said.
Bellows had suspended the impact of her decision pending an appeal. Maine is set to hold its Republican primary contest on March 5.
Bellows acknowledged the unprecedented nature of her decision, writing last week: “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection,” she continued.
Maine is the second state to bar Trump from the primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court has also said Trump is ineligible to run for the White House because, it said, he “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6 — an explosive ruling Trump’s team is expected to soon appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The former president has won battles in Michigan, California and more than a dozen other states to remain on the ballot. There are still 14th Amendment-related lawsuits playing out in more than a dozen states, placing pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the complex and novel legal questions.
The Trump campaign vowed Tuesday to continue to “fight these bad-faith attempts to destroy American democracy and he looks forward to victory both in the state courts and in the presidential election this November.”
(NEW YORK) — Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., faces additional allegations of wrongdoing contained in a superseding indictment returned Tuesday in New York.
The superseding indictment accuses Menendez, who has pleaded not guilty to all prior counts, of making positive comments about Qatar in exchange for items of value, including luxury wristwatches.
According to the new indictment, the luxury wristwatches Menendez was allegedly offered were valued between $10,000 and $24,000.
“How about one of these,” the indictment quoted co-defendant Fred Daibes saying in a message he sent to Menendez along with photos of the watches.
Menendez and Daibes had attended an event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government, prosecutors said.
Two days later on Sept. 29, 2021, Daibes sent Menendez a message about a Senate resolution supportive of Qatar as the Qatari Investment Company considered a real estate investment with Daibes.
By March 2022 the Qataris were offering Mendendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix in Florida, prosecutors said, and by 2023 the Qatari Investment Company completed a joint venture with Daibes worth tens of millions of dollars.
According to the indictment, Menendez “continued to receive things of value” from the Qataris.
Menendez, who has been charged with conspiring to act as an agent of Egypt and other alleged offenses, is scheduled to stand trial in May. He had sought a two-month delay to account for what his lawyers described as voluminous evidence that required more time to examine.
The senator has said he will not step down from office and has strongly denounced the charges.
The trial is set to begin May 6.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect Menendez faces new allegations contained in a superseding indictment, but not new charges.
Former U.S. President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Dec. 19, 2023. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team as early as Tuesday could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the Colorado Supreme Court decision barring him from the GOP primary ballot under the 14th Amendment.
Trump’s team has already said it intends to appeal the decision, which said that Trump violated Section 3 of the amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office, over his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
His team also plans on appealing the Maine secretary of state’s decision keeping him off that state’s primary ballot on the same grounds — to that state’s highest court.
Both rulings have been stayed to allow appeals to be considered. The Colorado Republican Party has already appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court that state’s high court decision.
It’s unclear what the U.S. Supreme Court plans to do, but taking up any appeal would likely freeze many of the legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy over the 14th Amendment taking place in over a dozen states.
Beyond Trump’s legal setbacks in Colorado and Maine, the former president has found success in places like Michigan and California, which have swatted away bids to keep him of those states’ primary ballots.
Trump has railed against the Colorado and Maine decisions, including calling the first state’s ruling a “sham” and a sign the country was turning into a “banana republic” before claiming — without evidence — that national Democrats are behind the rulings.
The decisions have sparked a wave of reactions, with even some Democrats arguing they go too far.
“I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection. I do not believe he should be re-elected as President of the United States. However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot,” said Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.
Even some of Trump’s GOP primary rivals have expressed frustration with the ruling, noting it could help the former president solidify support among his base.
“It makes him a martyr. You know, he’s very good at playing ‘Poor me, poor me,’ he’s always complaining,” said former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie.
“I don’t think Donald Trump needs to be president. I think I need to be president. I think that’s good for the country. But I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions,” said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is rising in the polls but still double digits behind Trump in the primary.
It’s very possible the rulings pose no threat to Trump’s primary chances given his double-digit leads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where a clean sweep of the three states could set him on a glide path to the nomination before Colorado and Maine even hold their nominating contests.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl interviews Sarah Matthews, left, Cassidy Hutchinson, center, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, Dec. 15, 2023, in Washington. (Lou Rocco/ABC)
(WASHINGTON) — Three women who served in former President Donald Trump’s White House are now warning against a possible second Trump term, with one of them saying it could mean “the end of American democracy as we know it.”
For the first time, former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, and former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson sat down together with ABC News This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl to discuss their roles in speaking out against Trump in the wake of Jan. 6.
“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin, now a co-host of ABC’s The View, told Karl, accusing the former president of having gone to “historic and unconstitutional lengths” in attempting to “steal a democratic election” and to stay in power.
“I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like,” Griffin continued.
“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would like because we already saw it play out,” Matthews told Karl.
“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent,” Matthews said, claiming Trump’s rhetoric has become “increasingly erratic,” citing his threats to skirt the Constitution and suggestions about weaponizing the Justice Department to retaliate against his political enemies.
Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — and who stood by Trump the longest after the 2020 election — said “there’s a large portion of the population that’s not recognizing their mistakes, that’s not working to continue to better our country.”
“This is a fundamental election to continue to safeguard our institutions and our constitutional republic,” Hutchinson said. “We’re extremely fragile as a country, and so is the democratic experiment.”
This was the first time Griffin, Matthews, and Hutchinson, who all cooperated with the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, gathered to share their experiences.
Griffin, who had resigned from her White House post on Dec. 4, 2020, sat for a private closed-door interview with the Jan. 6 committee, while Matthews, who resigned on Jan. 6, 2021, and Hutchinson, who left the White House at the end of the Trump presidency, testified publicly at televised hearings in addition to closed-door testimony. Most transcripts of the Jan. 6 committee’s closed-door witness interviews were eventually published.
The bombshell testimony from Hutchinson played a major role in the House Jan. 6 investigation, providing detailed accounts of Trump’s frame of mind surrounding the 2020 election he lost as well as the events before, during and after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing with regard to Jan. 6.
The Trump campaign responded to ABC’s interview with a statement calling the women “ungrateful grifters” who “used the opportunities given to them by President Trump” and had gone “full Judas.”
Putting politics aside to choose democracy, they say
“Our singular focus needs to be, if he is the nominee, on making sure that he is not elected the president again next November,” said Hutchinson, once a staunch Trump defender who has become a frequent target of attacks by him and his allies since her testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee.
That is, they said, even if it means electing a Democrat as president, which is a disappointing and upsetting thought for Matthews, who has long backed Republicans.
“I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life, but I think that in this next election, I would put policy aside and choose democracy,” Matthews told Karl, saying she’s still hopeful that Trump can be defeated in the Republican primary but that the clock is ticking.
And because the former president has made “retribution” a major theme of his reelection campaign, Hutchinson, Matthews and Griffin, who have already faced harassment from Trump and his followers, say they fear the consequences of his rising to power again.
“What scares me as much as [Trump] and his retribution is the almost cult-like following he has over his most diehard supporters,” Griffin said. “The threats, the harassment, the death threats that you get when he targets you — and he’s deliberate in targeting — is really horrifying and has no place in our American discourse.”
“A lot of these people won’t come forward even if privately they’ll acknowledge that Trump is unfit or will privately acknowledge that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen,” Matthews added of her fellow Republicans. “It’s because they know that they will face death threats, that their families will face death threats.”
Hutchinson made a reference to one of Trump’s recent most controversial comments: “The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man.”
During a town hall-style interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this month, Trump said he would not be a dictator “except for Day One.” Trump has since defended the comment as a joke and said he will not be a dictator but has faced backlash nonetheless as he repeated rhetoric that mirrored the words of past authoritarian leaders.
Griffin noted that former Vice President Mike Pence has “seen more than any of us have seen” while in office, and called on him to come forward more publicly against Trump.
“I would just hope in this moment, when we are less than a year out … that he would think about speaking out more forcefully just about the unfitness of Donald Trump,” Griffin said. “This is not about politics. It’s not about policy. It is about the character of the man who is the leader of the free world.”
Reliving Jan. 6 and the House investigation
Matthews and Hutchinson, who both lived through the Jan. 6 insurrection as White House officials, told Karl how they dealt with their conflicting emotions.
Matthews said she resigned from her post the night of Jan. 6 because she couldn’t live with herself knowing she’d have to defend the insurrection.
“I could not walk into the White House gates the next day after Jan. 6, especially as someone who is a spokesperson, because I knew that I would have to defend that and defend what we saw that day and his dereliction of duty,” Matthews said. “And I couldn’t live with myself. And so that was why I made that decision and then going forward to testify before the January 6 committee.”
Hutchinson, who was still loyal to the administration at the time, said she was upset to see Griffin on television the next day being critical of Trump.
“I still felt that sense of loyalty to the administration, and I don’t say that with pride,” Hutchinson said. “And I had — that was sort of the beginning when I had this — these split emotions about how to actually process what happened that day and how to process my own involvement in it and what I could do moving forward.”
“I was really upset with Alyssa on one hand, because we were very, very close … And there’s also the side of me where I was really proud and somewhat envious of the courage that you displayed,” Hutchinson continued.
Matthews and Hutchinson both gave credit to Griffin for connecting them with the GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two GOP members of the Jan. 6 committee, eventually leading to their public televised testimony before the panel.
“It was all secretive,” Matthews recalled of her initial meeting with Cheney and Griffin in a “little basement office” on Capitol Hill. “We sat there for probably like, what, four or five hours or something. And I just gave her my best recollection of the events leading up to January 6 and the aftermath of the election.”
Hutchinson said she was still on the Mar-a-Lago payroll when she was contacted by Griffin about talking to the Jan. 6 committee.
“I was at this really delicate point in my so-called journey in all of this where I, I really wanted to come forward,” Hutchinson said. “But I also had concerns about — I didn’t know if there’d be any lasting implications.”
Asked about women’s roles in speaking out against Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection, Griffin emphasized what she called the courage Hutchinson and Matthews — who are both still in their 20s — showed in stepping forward.
“For some reason, in moments that call for it, women tend to show an astonishing amount of courage, and I credit these women who are younger than me, had not as senior of titles, and stepped forward,” Griffin said.
“I think that there are a lot of people who saw some dangerous things, but they’ve made the calculation that he very well may be president again,” she continued. “They not only don’t want to be on his bad side, they also want to preserve themselves for future opportunities with him.”
“For me, it fundamentally came down to, I want to be able to look my future kids in the eye and say, when history called for it, I did the right thing and I had the courage to do it,” Griffin said. “That matters to me more than any future, you know, job or power structure that might exist if he’s president again.”
