Former U.S. first lady Melania Trump delivers remarks during a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives on December 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Former first lady Melania Trump delivered remarks Friday at a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives in Washington.
It was a rare public appearance from Melania Trump, who is herself a naturalized citizen. She became a U.S. citizen in 2006 after immigrating from Slovenia, and she is just the second first lady to be foreign born.
Melania Trump discussed her own path to citizenship as she addressed the 25 people from 25 different nations who were being sworn in during the ceremony, telling them: “It is my privilege to share this great nation, America, with you.”
“For me, reaching the milestone of American citizenship marked the sunrise of certainty,” she said. “At that exact moment, I forever discarded the layer of burden connected with whether I would be able to live in the United States. I hope you’re blanketed with similar feelings of comfort right now.”
She went on to discuss the responsibility of becoming a citizen, which she said means “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom.”
Melania Trump’s involvement in Friday’s event was also noteworthy because of the criminal case facing former President Donald Trump related to the National Archives’ effort to wrangle back documents from his administration.
Earlier this year, special counsel Jack Smith’s office brought a 37-count indictment against Donald Trump over his handling of classified material after leaving the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors allege Trump willfully retained documents containing some of the country’s top secrets, showed them to some individuals and then tried to obstruct efforts to get them back.
It was the National Archives that had first reached out to Trump in spring of 2021, months after he’d left office, to say materials from his presidency were missing. Months later, in January of 2022, the National Archives received 15 boxes of documents that Trump had stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate and later reported to the Justice Department the boxes contained classified information.
A trial is set to start on May 20.
National Archivist Colleen Shogan also delivered brief remarks Friday, in which she said she is “committed to ensure that the National Archives remains a trusted resource for all Americans, regardless of creed, belief, or opinion.”
Melania Trump has kept an incredibly low profile since departing the White House. She rarely joins her husband on the campaign trail. But earlier this month, she appeared publicly alongside other former first ladies to attend a memorial service honoring the life of former first lady Rosalynn Carter.
In this Oct. 21, 2020, file photo, Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, speaks to members of the media outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. Polaris via Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
(ATLANTA) — A panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments Friday from former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as he continues his effort to move the election interference charges against him in Georgia out of state court and into federal court.
Meadows was charged in Fulton County this summer, alongside former President Donald Trump and 17 others, with conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. He pleaded not guilty and has since unsuccessfully sought to remove the case to federal court based on a law that calls for the removal of criminal proceedings when someone is charged for actions they allegedly took as a federal official acting “under color” of their office.
“This is not a case where the Chief of Staff went down to Georgia in his private capacity and got in some kerfuffle; it is a criminal prosecution of the Chief of Staff based on actions taken in the White House while discharging his official duties,” Meadows’ attorneys wrote in one brief for the appeals court. “He is here solely because he served as chief of staff.”
The appeal from Meadows came after a federal judge in September denied his request to move his case to federal court, finding that Meadows’ actions as charged in the indictment “were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign” — not on behalf of his duties with the federal government.
“The color of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign, except for simply coordinating the President’s schedule, traveling with the President to his campaign events, and redirecting communications to the campaign,” U.S. District Judge Steve Jones wrote in his order denying Meadows’ request.
The Fulton County district attorney’s office, in their brief to the appeals court, argued that Meadows’ conduct “advanced his and Trump’s personal interests” — not the government’s.
A panel is set to hear arguments from Meadows’ legal team and the DA’s office on Friday morning in Atlanta. It was not immediately clear if Meadows would personally attend.
During an August evidentiary hearing on the matter, Meadows personally took the stand for hours, recounting in detail his months working as the right-hand man to then-President Trump.
“I don’t know that I did anything that was outside of my role as chief of staff,” Meadows testified.
Jones wrote in his order that the court gave “less weight” to Meadows’ testimony on the stand, and highlighted the fact that Meadows “was unable to explain the limits of his authority, other than his inability to stump for the President or work on behalf of the campaign.”
“The Court finds that Meadows did not adequately convey the outer limits of his authority, and thus, the Court gives that testimony less weight,” the order said.
Four other defendants charged as part of the case also moved for federal removal. All of them were denied by Jones.
Donald Trump had initially signaled his own intention in state court to remove the case, but he later abandoned that effort, with his attorneys writing in a subsequent court filing that they would fight the case in state court — a decision the filing said was based on Trump’s “well-founded confidence that this Honorable Court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case.”
(DETROIT) — Michigan’s Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that former President Donald Trump could remain on the state’s 2024 GOP primary ballot and wouldn’t be disqualified from running in the state under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The Michigan court upheld two lower courts’ rulings by rejecting an appeal filed by the watchdog group Free Speech For People on behalf of a group of Michigan voters.
The court said in a 3-0 opinion that the plaintiff’s challenge was not “ripe” on procedural grounds and did not specifically rule on whether Trump fell under the disqualification clause.
“As the Court of Claims recognized, it would be improper to decide whether to grant a declaration that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President of the United States at this time,” the court wrote.
“At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot. Thus, with respect to the presidential primary election, there is no actual controversy, as the only purported basis for removing Trump from the presidential primary ballot would not be a sufficient basis for removal of Trump’s name from that ballot,” the court said.
Trump’s team celebrated the ruling on Thursday evening.
“With the Michigan Court of Appeals’ affirmation of the Trump campaign’s victories in the lower court, the Soros-funded Democrats have once again failed in their desperate attempt to interfere in the election via a bad-faith interpretation of the 14th Amendment. President Trump remains undefeated against these frivolous legal claims and has never been in a stronger position to win next year’s election,” campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
President Joe Biden delivers a statement urging Congress to pass his national security supplemental from the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Dec. 6, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As war continues between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, President Joe Biden has drawn both praise and criticism for his support for Israel’s military response while pushing them to better protect Palestinian civilians.
The ongoing response in the U.S. to Biden’s handling of the war is already influencing public opinion in the early days of the 2024 presidential race, when Biden is seeking a second term.
But despite some outcry from progressive Democrats and Arab American groups — including calls to try to sink his reelection bid — a range of Biden-aligned political experts are pushing back.
Biden “did what he thought was right and consistent with American values,” said David Eichenbaum, a Democratic media consultant who worked for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s successful reelection campaign.
“I think that when you do that, the politics will take care of itself,” Eichenbaum told ABC News.
He and other supportive strategists and advocates said that they are still optimistic about how Biden’s handling of Israel and Hamas could help — or at least not seriously harm — his presidential bid with voting still a year away.
Looking ahead to 2024, the current war is unlikely to be central to Biden’s pitch, said Jim Gerstein, a researcher and pollster with the Democratic-aligned GBAO Strategies.
Gerstein said he thinks Biden will campaign “on his record, both in terms of his economic policies, and what he has done to protect abortion rights in this country, and as well as what he’s done on the international stage.”
Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), a left-leaning organization that endorsed Biden when he launched his reelection bid, told ABC News that Biden’s response to Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s retaliatory operations is consistent with his “long-standing support of Israel.”
Soifer said that the JDCA’s messaging about Biden to Jewish voters, as the election approaches, will touch upon a variety of issues and not solely focus on Israel.
Many Jewish organizations and leaders have praised Biden’s actions on the Israel-Hamas war, and Soifer said that Jewish voters largely appreciate Biden’s stances.
The White House declined to comment for this story, but officials have indicated that they do not believe it should be a political issue.
Facing and responding to dissent
This view is already being tested by the dissent and protests over how the Biden administration has addressed the Israel-Hamas war. More than 18,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry; 1,200 people have died in Israel, the prime minister’s office said.
In mid-November, anti-war protesters gathered outside of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington to demand a cease-fire.
The president has also faced headline-making criticism from Arab American and Muslim groups and leaders, some of whom said they no longer support him — even if that risks a Republican victory.
“All lives are not equal in the eyes of the Biden administration. There’s more precedent given to Israeli lives than there are to Muslim lives,” Niala Mohammad, director of policy and strategy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council and former senior policy analyst for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told ABC News in October.
In a statement to ABC News, Biden’s presidential campaign said that “Biden knows the importance of earning the trust of every community. … President Biden continues to work closely and proudly with leaders in the Muslim and Palestinian communities in America, to listen to them, stand up for them, and fight back against hate.”
Biden also joined a private White House meeting last month between him, his aides and Muslim American advocates, ABC News reported.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said earlier this month on CNN that “I have been out there for the president, and I will continue to be, even though I think that the way that the handling of this war started was, unfortunately, such that it has alienated huge communities.”
Jayapal called then for a “long-term solution” for both Israelis and Palestinians and said, “At the end of the day, the United States has its reputation to think about globally. And if we alienate all of our allies in the Middle East, that is not going to help us ensure that President Biden wins domestically at home.”
The backlash from some Democrats and Arab American groups could be a swing state issue.
The “Abandon Biden” movement, calling on voters to not support Biden over his stance on the war and Israel, was recently launched by Arab American and Muslim voters and will target battlegrounds like Michigan, which Biden won in 2020 by only about 150,000 votes.
“We’re really focused on just making sure that our signal to the White House is clear,” Hassan Abdel Salam, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and member of the “Abandon Biden” group, told ABC News in November.
What does polling show?
Biden allies say his view on the war — backing Israel’s “right to defend itself” but also, increasingly, saying Palestinian civilians must be protected and the military campaign must be less destructive — largely align with broader public attitudes.
In a battleground like Michigan, polling also indicates voters largely support Biden’s position: a CNN/SSRS poll from Nov. 29 through Dec. 6 found that a majority of voters there thought Biden was doing enough or too little to support Israel.
However, 49% of voters under 35 in Michigan said that the U.S. was doing too much to help Israel.
The long road ahead to 2024
Next year’s presidential election is nearly 12 months away — by comparison, at this same point in the 2020 cycle, COVID-19 wouldn’t emerge as a global issue for three more months — and the pro-Biden strategists who spoke with ABC News said they weren’t sure the war will still be a top concern by then.
“We are 11 months from this election, and things can certainly change … in the same way that we could not have foreseen Oct. 7 on Oct. 6, and certainly not the potential political implications,” Soifer said. “We cannot fully foresee what its impact will be in November of next year at this stage [either].”
What’s more, if the election turns into a rematch with former President Donald Trump, these political experts said, the Biden campaign could use that contrast to their advantage in rallying back Democratic-leaning voters who disagree with Biden on Israel-Hamas.
But, the strategists said, it is all hard to predict right now.
“The president is rightly expressing concern about the loss of life on both sides as well as the potential for Israel to lose support from her other allies the longer the war goes on,” Eichenbaum, the consultant, said.
“I think it’s premature to make any assumptions about how this will impact an election 11 months from now,” he added.
Gerstein said that voters themselves, according to polling, are not “taking a side” in the conflict and choosing between Israelis and Palestinians.
Voters “understand that this is a difficult and complex situation,” Gerstein said, “and that I would give voters credit for being able to hold sympathy for both peoples at the same time… and have complex feelings and emotions over that that don’t lead to simple responses.”
ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Zohreen Shah, Ayesha Ali, MaryAlice Parks, Isabella Murray, Alexandra Hutzler, Noah Minnie, and Rick Klein contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Chris Christie has become the first Republican presidential candidate to take an unequivocal stance on the headline-making case of Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was denied an abortion by the state Supreme Court ruling after she learned of her fetus’ fatal diagnosis.
Christie, a former New Jersey governor, said Wednesday night that the high court “got it wrong.”
“Now, look, I’m pro-life and I believe that we should try to save every life that we can, because I believe every life is a precious gift from God, but there was no saving this life,” Christie told a packed town hall in New Hampshire, opening his remarks to the crowd by talking about Cox’s case.
A lower court originally had allowed Cox a medical exemption to terminate her 20-week pregnancy after multiple emergency room visits and being informed of the non-viable condition of her fetus, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — a vocal abortion opponent — halted the authorization and passed the case to the Texas Supreme Court.
Unsure when a high court decision would come, Cox sought abortion care in another state, according to her counsel.
Other top Republicans vying for the party’s nomination have called for empathy, but have yet to directly judge the court’s decision.
“We got to approach these issues with compassion because these are very difficult issues and nobody would wish this to happen on anybody,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a CNN town hall Tuesday.
Days earlier, DeSantis admitted to not being fully read in on Cox’s story and compared the Lone Star State’s laws to Florida’s, citing the Heartbeat Protection Act’s exceptions, including “for rape, incest, life of the mother, victims of human trafficking, and then when you have these situations where you have real significant abnormality,” he said.
During a press conference Tuesday evening, GOP candidate Nikki Haley called herself “pro-life” and said, “We don’t want any women to sit there and deal with a rare situation and have to deliver a baby in that sort of circumstance any more than we want women getting an abortion at 37, 38, 39 weeks. We have to humanize the situation and deal with it with compassion.”
Earlier in the week, Haley said she disagreed that the “issue needed to be in the hands of unelected justices,” instead arguing it “needs to be in the hands of the people because it’s a personal issue for every woman and man.”
Haley did not explicitly support or oppose the Texas decision.
Former President Donald Trump has not directly commented on Cox’s case, but has in the past called state-level restrictions “terrible.”
President Joe Biden’s campaign quickly put blame on Trump, who during his term, rallied behind leaders like Paxton who staunchly oppose abortion. The president himself issued a statement condemning the high court’s decision in Cox’s case and holding Republicans responsible for the situation.
“No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs. But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican-elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period,” the statement, issued Tuesday, read.
Conversely, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy told reporters in New Hampshire Monday that issues like Kate Cox’s are for the states to address.
“What I have said is that this is an issue reserved to the States and as a U.S. presidential candidate, I’ve been crystal clear on that,” he responded after being pressed by reporters for comment on the Texas Supreme Court decision.
Ramaswamy continued, focusing on fatherhood and paternal responsibility. “We need policies that stand for our pro- life view by saying that men bear sexual responsibility for their decisions that give a woman sole option to make the man responsible for raising a child as the principal financial caretaker. So, that’s what I believe is the Republican Party’s path forward on this issue and I’d love to see other candidates embrace it,” he said.
Other than Paxton, who escalated Cox’s case and said the state would endure an “irreparable loss” should she have an abortion, top Texas officials, all Republicans who have in the past been outspokenly anti-abortion, have remained largely mum on the issue.
Neither Texas Gov. Greg Abbott nor Sen. Ted Cruz responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn’s office referred back to a previous statement in which Cornyn said: “This should not be decided by the Supreme Court. It should be decided by the states, and different states are deciding it differently … I think it will change over time as people — as elected officials try to understand where the voters are and what their wishes are on a highly sensitive and controversial topic.”
(WASHINGTON) — Controversial former Iowa Rep. Steve King is backing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in his home state’s caucuses — with Ramaswamy telling ABC News that shared opposition to proposed pipelines to capture carbon dioxide is what “brought us together.”
King, who has been introducing Ramaswamy at some events, cited their mutual view during remarks at a town hall for Ramaswamy on Wednesday.
“I intend to caucus for a candidate that’s a strong defender of our property rights and against the CO2 boondoggle,” he said. “And the man that does that the best right now today is right over here — I’d like to introduce Vivek Ramaswamy.”
In Pocahontas, King told potential voters that “America needs a voice, a voice like Vivek Ramaswamy.”
Ramaswamy, his campaign and King himself maintain that King’s supportive remarks were not a formal endorsement, but King remains a respected figure among some Republican voters in the region he represented in the House for eight years before losing his 4th Congressional District seat to Randy Feenstra in 2020.
By then, King had become effectively shunned by the larger Republican Party after saying in a 2019 interview: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”
He later clarified that he “reject[ed] those labels and the evil ideology they define” and called himself a “nationalist.”
Still, King faced vocal rebuke from leading conservatives like Sen. Mitch McConnell and he was quickly removed from his committees, drastically reducing his influence in Congress.
Ramaswamy — a businessman and conservative commentator with his own provocative style, including floating conspiracy theories — told ABC News that he’s not worried about whether King’s support will affect the public’s perception of him.
“I’m not doing that calculus. … I’m speaking the truth on this issue. It affects my perception of the broken Republican establishment in this country and, increasingly, even in this state,” he said before pivoting back to his opposition to the potential Iowa pipelines.
Ramaswamy has been a vocal critic of policies to curb climate change, which scientists believe is leading to deadlier weather events among other environmental changes.
Ramaswamy called the carbon-capture pipelines “the greatest violation of property rights. … And it matters to Iowans here in their backyard and I’m the only candidate who’s able to stand for it.”
The proposed pipelines are intended to capture carbon dioxide that fuels climate change and which is produced by Iowa’s widespread corn farming and ethanol industries.
But the pipelines have drawn opposition, and not just from King and Ramaswamy: Some environmental activists and land-owners in the state don’t want them either, contending the pipelines will be hugely disruptive relative to other climate change solutions.
Of King, Ramaswamy told reporters that “I don’t want people to tell their kids to try to judge or disassociate with somebody because they disagree with something that they might have once said. … I prefer to get to know a person on their own terms and so far, it’s only been relatively recently I’ve gotten to know Steve King, but I think that he is a solid person who cares about the Constitution in this country.”
On Tuesday, Ramaswamy told a voter in Northwood that he didn’t believe King “is a white supremacist. I don’t think he’s anything close to that.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House kicked off its holiday recess Thursday while the Senate will return to Washington next week as Congress faces a long to-do list that includes aid to Ukraine and Israel, which President Joe Biden says is urgently needed.
A massive military aid package for Israel and Ukraine remains stalled in Congress, where Republicans are pushing for major changes to border policy.
As pressure mounts to strike a deal, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will delay its holiday recess and return next week to continue negotiating the Ukraine funding supplemental bill that would include border policy provisions. He announced that the Senate will vote on the national security aid package sometime next week. The Senate was expected to depart for the holidays Friday.
Schumer, who had said there was “significant progress” on a border talks, said negotiators will work through the weekend to “reach a framework agreement.”
“This might be one of the most difficult things we have ever had to work through. But we all know that so much hangs on our success,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
The House cast its last vote Thursday morning, with members racing to the airport to catch flights home and begin their three-week-long holiday recess. It’s not yet clear if the House would return next week.
Schumer called on Congress to stay and continue talking, but without an emerging deal on the border, his calls for action are likely futile.
“If Republicans are serious about getting something done, they should not be so eager to go home. This may be our last best chance to get this legislation done,” Schumer said earlier Thursday.
“After weeks of deadlock, we have seen significant progress over the past few days, and we should take advantage of the opportunity, because we may not get one again for quite a while. It is not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated, but so much hangs on our success, so we need to try with everything we have,” he said.
Schumer said the world is watching what Congress is doing — including adversaries such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“[Putin] is eager to see us abandon Ukraine and thinks he is getting that done, working, in part, through Donald Trump,” Schumer said.
Putin said Thursday there would be no peace in Ukraine until Russia achieves its goals, which he says remain unchanged after nearly two years of fighting.
“I sure hope that those House Republicans, who have for months held hostage critical assistance to Ukraine, heard Putin’s message loud and clear,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during the White House press briefing Thursday. “Instead, they’re heading home for the holidays. While Ukrainians are heading right back into the fight.”
Kirby said Ukraine needs help immediately, “not after the eggnog.”
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Biden at the White House where they discussed the urgent need for aid for the Eastern European nation in its fight against Russia.
“Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine,” Biden said. “We must, we must, we must prove him wrong. The United States Congress must act.”
Biden said any stalling from Congress is a “gift” to Putin.
“Congress needs to pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess, before they give Putin the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give him.”
The White House has warned that failing to get aid to Ukraine before the year’s end will “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and benefit Russia.
Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. But the request is caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans said they are not budging on their border demands.
“A number of Senate Republicans have been working in good faith to make sure that supplemental legislation makes substantive policy changes at the border, instead of just throwing money at the problem. Meanwhile, we’ve had to explain to members of President Biden’s own party why the border security issue he included in his proposal was not extraneous to America’s national security,” McConnell said on the floor Thursday.
“Here’s the bottom line: The Senate cannot claim to address major national security challenges without a solution to the one we’re facing on the southern border. We can’t pretend to be serious about threats facing America and our allies without fixing the broken system that lets 10,000 illegal aliens cross our border in a single day,” he added.
On Wednesday, the House formalized its ongoing impeachment inquiry into Biden. The resolution directs three House committees to continue their investigations, which have yet to yield any hard evidence to support Republicans’ claims that Biden was directly involved and benefited from his son and brother’s foreign business dealings.
Biden called the “impeachment stunt” a sign that Congress’ priorities are out of whack. He said House Republicans should focus on aid to Ukraine and Israel, law enforcement at the southern border, progress on the economy and a looming government shutdown.
“There is a lot of work to be done,” Biden said in a statement. “But after wasting weeks trying to find a new Speaker of the House and having to expel their own members, Republicans in Congress are leaving for a month without doing anything to address these pressing challenges.”
One thing Congress can check off on its to-do list is the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, the $886 billion defense bill that was considered must-pass legislation. It was the subject of bipartisan squabbles over policy.
It passed in the House Thursday by a vote of 310-188 with lawmakers up against the clock before recess. The legislation now heads to Biden’s desk.
The version of the bill that passed the Senate also includes a temporary extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a move that has frustrated some House Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul led an effort to strip the FISA extension from the Senate bill Wednesday night, but it failed to get the 60 votes needed to pass.
The temporary reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA allows the government, without a warrant, to collect vast swaths of communications of non-Americans overseas who message on U.S.-based platforms.
When Congress returns after the holiday break, it will have about two weeks to thwart a looming government shutdown. Speaker Mike Johnson’s “laddered CR” — or continuing resolution — that passed in November extended government funding until Jan. 19 for the Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Energy departments, as well as for military construction. The rest of the government is funded until Feb. 2.
Johnson has said he is confident in his ability to lead his conference — even as his margin of error narrows with the resignation of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the end of the year. Johnson will only be able to lose three GOP votes on each measure before falling below a simple majority.
“Our conference is working well together. And I’m confident in that,” Johnson said after the announcement of McCarthy’s resignation.
(WASHINGTON) — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley sought to draw a distinction with Donald Trump, her former boss and the Republican primary front-runner, in a new interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Appearing alongside New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a top Trump critic who endorsed her earlier this week, Haley said that there were several areas where she and the former president disagree.
Haley has been gaining some momentum in the polls but still trails Trump by double digits. Unlike some other primary candidates, like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Haley has not focused on heavily criticizing Trump’s record or character but often suggests he’ll bring “chaos” back to the White House.
Karl pressed her on that position in the interview, which was taped on Thursday and will air on Sunday on “This Week.”
“At one of your town halls this week, there was a voter that stood up and said, ‘You really need to turn it up on Donald Trump, you need to go after him hard and not just say it’s ‘chaos.’ It’s interesting, because I just heard you say that he was the right president for the right time. What do you say to voters like that that say you really need to draw that line?” Karl asked.
“I mean, you’re one of those too. Y’all want me to either love him or hate him all the time,” Haley shot back.
“I’m just asking you to respond to a New Hampshire voter,” Karl replied.
Haley said that she told the voter that “anti-Trumpers want me to hate him, pro-Trumpers want me to love him” before detailing several fronts where she believes the two do not see eye to eye, ranging from national security to the economy to Trump’s behavior on the world stage.
“There are things I agree with the president on. I had a good working relationship with him. There are things I don’t agree. I don’t agree with the fact that, yes, we had a good economy while he was there but he put us $8 trillion in debt that our kids are never going to forgive us for,” she said. (Tax cuts and the federal government’s COVID-19 response were large factors in that increase.)
In her interview with Karl, Haley went on to attack Trump for his handling of relations with China, arguing that he focused on trade and – though Trump did take several notable actions on opioids — failed to adequately address the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. or the “spy base off our shores in Cuba.”
Haley repeated her criticism of Trump’s praise for Hezbollah, in which he called the Iranian-backed militant group “very smart,” and his swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump’s comments, in the days right after Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel and sparked a war, received widespread criticism.
At the time, a Trump spokesman said in a statement in response that he “was clearly pointing out how incompetent Biden and his administration were …. Smart does not equal good.”
Haley told Karl: “I don’t think you should praise Hezbollah. I don’t think you should criticize Netanyahu when Israel’s down on her knees. I don’t think you should congratulate the Chinese Communist Party on their 70th anniversary [which Trump did in October].”
“I think that when it comes to national security, we don’t praise thugs. We let them know where we stand and we let them know that there will be hell to pay if they do anything against us,” Haley said. “That’s who I am.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans on Wednesday passed a resolution formalizing their ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The resolution, approved 221-212 in a party-line vote, directs three House committees to continue their investigations, which have yet to yield any hard evidence to support Republicans’ claims that Biden was directly involved and benefited from his son and brother’s foreign business dealings.
Republicans have called Wednesday’s vote a necessary step to fortify the inquiry’s legal standing and combat what they said was obstruction from the Biden administration.
After the resolution was approved, the House’s GOP leaders said in a joint statement, in part, that “we will continue to follow the facts where they lead.”
“The American people deserve answers. This impeachment inquiry will help us find them,” they said.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer had emphasized that voting in favor of the resolution did not equal impeachment, and Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday they “can’t prejudge the outcome” of the probe.
The White House, which has labeled the inquiry a “political stunt,” has pushed back, saying that Republicans have already received thousands of documents, including bank records, and hours of testimony.
“There’s no evidence here,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at Wednesday’s daily briefing.
A key figure in the GOP probe, the president’s son Hunter Biden, defied a subpoena to sit for a closed-door deposition earlier Wednesday. Instead, he appeared outside the Capitol to offer public testimony to answer “any of the committees’ legitimate questions” but refused to testify in a private setting.
“Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry or hear what I have to say,” the younger Biden said. “What are they afraid of? I am here.”
Hunter Biden slammed the GOP probe, saying so-called “MAGA Republicans” have assailed his character in an effort to embarrass his father and damage him politically.
“Let me state as clearly as I can. My father was not financially involved in any of my business — not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma [a Ukrainian energy company], not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist,” Hunter Biden said.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said they plan to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. And House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan seized on Hunter Biden’s comment that his father was not “financially involved,” characterizing it as a “huge departure” from past statements.
Wednesday’s vote means the GOP-led impeachment investigation will continue into 2024, as the presidential race kicks into high gear — and raises the prospect of more serious votes against Joe Biden, including on whether to bring articles of impeachment against him.
An hour of debate ahead of the vote offered a distilled view of both sides on the inquiry. Republicans said the resolution and investigation were about process, while Democrats criticized it as a smear campaign.
“We are here today on the House floor, wasting time and taxpayer dollars on an illegitimate impeachment inquiry, because Donald Trump, the puppet master, has directed the extreme MAGA Republicans to launch a political hit job against Joe Biden,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said as he displayed a sign with the hashtag “Do-Nothing Republican Congress.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a constitutional scholar who led the second impeachment effort against former President Trump, said Republicans aren’t able to “tell us what President Biden’s crime was.”
“This stupid, blundering investigation is keeping us from getting any real work done for the people of America,” the Maryland Democrat said.
Republicans, on the other hand, said the vote was part of their responsibility to investigate claims against the president and his family.
“I take no joy in today’s resolution, but I know the House will do its duty,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said during debate.
“We are the sole institution in the country granted the awesome power of impeachment,” he added. “It is a power that must be used selectively and wisely and only after full deliberations. With today’s resolution, we are ensuring that the House will be able to complete its inquiry.”
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., echoed that: “We owe it to the country to get to the bottom of these allegations.”
(WASHINGTON) — The families of people being held hostage by Hamas terrorists praised what they called their “terrific” meeting on Wednesday with President Joe Biden.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, speaking on behalf of the family members of the eight Americans believed to be held hostage in Gaza, said, “We could have no better friend in Washington or in the White House than President Biden himself and his administration,” as he recounted their meeting at the White House.
The families said they left the meeting feeling the Biden administration was “completely committed” to securing the release of their loved ones.
“We’ve seen that the U.S. administration from the previous round of negotiations and hostage release, the U.S. administration is completely committed to getting the hostages out, the eight Americans who remain there and the other nearly 130,” Dekel-Chen said. “We have no doubt about that.”
Dekel-Chen added that the meeting with Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “only reinforced that and that they are willing and ready to do all that they possibly can, by any number of means, to get the hostages home.”
While the families declined to get into the specifics of the conversation when asked about updates on their loved ones, they said that the administration has been in frequent and transparent communication with members of the families since Hamas terrorists took the hostages during the Oct. 7 attack.
Liz Naftali, the great aunt of Abigail, the Israeli American toddler released last month after her parents were reportedly killed in front of her by Hamas terrorists, said the families were appreciative of the work Biden and his administration have done.
“What I can tell you is that Abigail is a miracle. She is a light in this very dark time and metaphorically. … We are here because the president and his team have been bringing out light in this dark time,” Naftali said.
“We are thankful to the president and to his team because we know that they are working 24 hours a day and they are going to work through the holidays, and they are going to do everything they can to make sure that all of our loved ones, real people, come home to us and to the families across the world and in Israel,” Naftali said.
Biden has publicly expressed his commitment to repatriating the hostages, saying Monday at a White House Hanukkah celebration, “I’m not going to stop until we get every one of them home.”
Naftali also said the administration has demonstrated empathy towards the hostages.
“That is what the president and Secretary Blinken understand — is that they’re just not numbers and they’re just not faces. They are sons. They are sons. They are grandparents. They are mothers. And that is what the president and his team understand,” Naftali said.
Biden was “moved” by the U.S. hostages’ families’ stories during his meeting with them at the White House on Wednesday, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday afternoon.
“I would only add that the president was very grateful for the time that they afforded him, and he was moved by their stories, by the love they feel, by the hope that they still harbor, and he harbors that hope too, but as [White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre] rightly noted, he’s acting on that,” Kirby said. “The other thing that he made sure to do was to promise them that we’re going to keep them informed every single step of the way. And we’ll do that.”
Dozens of the more than 240 hostages have been released as part of a cease-fire and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in the wake of Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 terror attack. Of those, 135 still remain as hostages, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
While the White House and families of hostages have advocated for pauses in the fighting to allow for aid and hostages to move within particular regions of the conflict, Israel has been more reluctant to do so, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arguing that breaks in the fighting allow Hamas time to regroup. The U.S. has agreed that a broad cease-fire would benefit Hamas and instead called for localized and limited pauses.
