(NEW YORK) — A year before the presidential election, three-quarters of Americans (76%) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and the leading Democratic and Republican candidates are viewed broadly unfavorably, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. Only 23% of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction.
Republicans are overwhelmingly negative, with 95% thinking things in this country are heading in the wrong direction, followed by 76% of independents and 54% of Democrats, according to the poll.
Among the two candidates most likely to face off again in 2024, one in three (33%) Americans view President Joe Biden favorably, while former President Donald Trump is viewed favorably by only 29%, according to the poll.
Less than half of Black people (49%) and Hispanic people (33%) have a favorable impression of Biden. Both of these groups voted overwhelmingly for him in the 2020 presidential election. According to ABC News’ 2020 exit poll, 87% of Black voters supported Biden in 2020 as did 65% of Hispanic voters.
If someone other than Trump or Biden is the nominee of their respective party, about three in 10 Americans say they would be more likely to vote for the candidate of that party, but many more say that it would not make a difference in their vote.
By a 23-point margin (31% to 8%), Americans would be more likely to vote for the Republican candidate if someone other than Trump is the party’s nominee. That margin is slightly higher among Republicans (37% to 9%) and independents (38% to 9%). Just under half (48%) say someone other than Trump being on the ballot would make no difference in their vote.
Similarly, by a 25-point margin (29% to 4%), Americans would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate if someone other than Biden is the party’s nominee — with 55% saying it would make no difference. The margin is somewhat higher, 35 points, among both Democrats and independents.
A year out from the 2024 elections, the economy and inflation are top issues for Americans, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Seventy-four percent say the economy is very important to them, while 69% say inflation is very important.
Republicans are more likely to be trusted to do a better job on these two issues, according to the poll: Americans trust Republicans to do a better job handling the economy over Democrats 35%-25%, and, on inflation, they trust Republicans to do a better job 35%-21%. But across a range of issues asked about in the poll, around a third of Americans say they trust neither party.
Among other key issues, a majority of Americans also say healthcare (64%) and education (61%) are very important to them personally. On those issues, the Democrats have an advantage, according to the poll: Americans trust Democrats to do a better job than Republicans on healthcare (37%-18%). On education, they trust Democrats to do a better job over Republicans 33%-24%.
Most Americans also think that crime (57%) and gun violence (56%) are very important, but the public splits on which party they trust to do a better job. Republicans have the edge over Democrats, 32% to 20% on crime whereas Democrats have a 34% to 24% edge on gun control.
Abortion is seen as less of a priority to Americans, with less than half (45%) saying it is very important. Democrats are trusted more than Republicans on this issue, 40% to 23%.
How strong that advantage is and how important a factor abortion is in deciding voter choice could play out in Tuesday’s elections.
In Ohio, voters will decide on a proposed constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access in the state.
In Virginia, if Republicans capture the Senate and hold onto the House in the state legislature, that could open the door on conservative issues including Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed 15-week abortion ban.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® November 3-4, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 949 U.S. adults with oversamples of 18-29 year olds, Black people, Hispanic people, and Born Again Christians weighted to their correct proportions in the general population. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.3 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 25-25-42 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
ABC News’ Dan Merkle and Ken Goldstein contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — For the third time Friday, former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric is factoring into a court case against him.
A federal judge in New York said the upcoming civil defamation trial involving Trump and E. Jean Carroll will be heard by an anonymous jury, citing Trump’s “repeated public statements” about the case and the court.
As part of Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s order, the names of the jurors will not be revealed, they will be kept together during recesses and assigned a member from the U.S. Marshal Service who “shall take the petit jurors to, or provide them with, lunch as a group throughout the pendency of the trial,” and be transported together or in groups to an undisclosed location before they can return home.
The defamation trial is slated to begin in January.
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.
The former president said Carroll was “not my type” and suggested she fabricated her accusation for ulterior and improper purposes, including to increase sales of her then-forthcoming book, in statements following the allegations.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The judge in the case has already determined that Trump’s statements were defamatory, so the January trial will only determine damages. Carroll is seeking $10 million.
Carroll prevailed in a second lawsuit in May that alleged defamation and battery, and she was awarded $5 million in damages. Trump is also appealing that case.
Kaplan’s order came the same day that the judge in the New York civil fraud trial expanded the gag order and the judge in the federal election tampering case paused hers pending appeal.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Maine to grieve with a community reeling from a mass shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 others wounded.
The Bidens arrived in Lewiston on Friday afternoon, where they met with survivors, families of the victims and first responders. They were greeted upon their arrival by Governor Janet Mills, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline and other local officials.
Their first stop was Schemengees Bar, one of the locations of last week’s mass shooting. Biden carried a bouquet of white flowers in one hand and held the first lady’s hand in the other as they stopped at a memorial placed outside the bar with candles and signs, and held a moment of silence.
Biden then delivered remarks at the bowling alley where the gunman first stopped on Oct. 25. There, he took a moment to pay respect to the victims and renew his call for greater gun control measures.
“No pain is the same but we know what it’s like to lose a piece of our soul, and the depths of loss is so profound. Some of us have been there,” Biden said.
“Eighteen precious souls stolen, 13 wounded: Children, grandchildren, spouses, siblings, parents, grandparents, bowling coaches, union workers, beloved members, advocates and friends of Lewiston’s deaf and hard of hearing community. All of them lived lives of love and service and sacrifice.”
While Biden didn’t explicitly renew his call for an assault weapons ban, as he urged in the day after the shooting, he said its time for “commonsense” reforms.
“This is about commonsense, reasonable, responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities,” he said. “Because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, a school, a church, without being shot and killed.”
Biden’s trip to Maine was one White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said has become “far too familiar.”
Biden repeated that sentiment during his remarks in Lewiston.
“As we mourn today in Maine, this tragedy opens a painful, painful wounds all across the country,” he said. “Too many Americans have lost loved ones or survived the trauma of gun violence. I know because Jill and I have met with them in Buffalo, in Uvalde, in Monterey Park and Sandy Hook — anyway, too many to count.”
The Oct. 25 rampage unfolded when a gunman armed with a semi-automatic weapon entered a bowling alley where a children’s league was taking place and a local bar. A two-day manhunt ensued for suspected gunman Robert Card, a 40-year-old U.S. Army reservist, who was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Three firearms were recovered from Card’s car and on his body that appeared to have been purchased legally, officials said.
Card experienced declining mental health in the months leading up to the shooting and authorities were warned by his family members and others about his concerning behavior, authorities said, leading many to question how the shooting could have been prevented.
Ahead of Biden’s visit, a White House official highlighted what the administration says it has done on the ground in the days following the shooting, including the coordination of federal resources like expansive victim services provided by the FBI and Justice Department as well as the deployment of behavioral health and public health staff support from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Recovering from this attack will be long and difficult, and President Biden is committed to marshaling resources from across the federal government to support Lewiston every step of the way,” Stefanie Feldman, the director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said in a statement.
“He will also continue to be relentless in doing everything in his power to stop the epidemic of gun violence tearing our communities apart and urging Congress to act on commonsense gun safety legislation,” Feldman said.
First responding the Maine shooting, Biden pointed to progress on addressing gun violence with last year’s passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major piece of gun reform legislation in 40 years — but said it’s not enough.
“Today, in the wake of yet another tragedy, I urge Republican lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their duty to protect the American people. Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers,” he said the day after the Maine shooting.
But an assault weapons ban has no path forward in the current Congress, where Republicans stand opposed to prohibiting assault rifles and other military-grade weapons.
One lawmaker, though, has shifted his stance in the aftermath of the Maine tragedy.
“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” Rep. Jared Golden, a conservative Democrat who represents the district that includes Lewiston, said last week. “The time has come for me to take responsibility for this failure,” he said. “Which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing.”
ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the leading promoters of false 2020 election fraud claims, is facing pushback from election officials and experts after announcing the rollout of a device that he says can help keep elections secure.
Lindell says the wireless monitoring device, which was formally unveiled two weeks ago after Lindell first announced it in August at his so-called Election Crime Bureau Summit, is designed to detect if voting machines are connected to the internet.
The MyPillow CEO, who falsely claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump, is facing defamation lawsuits from the voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Lindell has denied wrongdoing.
Lindell told ABC News that the monitoring devices have already been sent to election officials in several states including Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri.
“We hope to have them in all 50 states,” Lindell said.
“All it does is tell you if a [voting machine] is hooked up to the internet and transmitting,” Lindell said. “It’s already been checked out … 100% legal.”
Investigators have, at times in the past, found isolated instances where computer systems that control voting machines were unknowingly connected to the internet. But election officials ABC News spoke with said that, generally speaking, Lindell’s device is meant to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
Erran Huber, director of communications for Jefferson County, Kentucky, told ABC News their office “has no practical purpose for the devices” because their voting machines are “physically incapable” of receiving wireless internet connections.
“It is against the law in Kentucky for voting machines to be connected to the internet,” Jim Luersen, the clerk for Campbell County, told ABC News.
Michon Lindstrom, director of communications for Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, said the same thing.
“The presence of Wi-Fi in a building does not mean that ballot scanners are connected to the internet,” Lindstrom said. “State law prohibits that, and we do not certify ballot scanners for use if they have any capacity for connectivity.”
Beyond questions about the device’s usefulness, election officials said that in order for any new technology to be used during elections, it must undergo a process of approval and testing. Lindell cannot “just send devices to clerks and expect them to be used,” one election official told ABC News.
“It’s a regulated field,” said Brianna Lennon, the clerk for Boone County, Missouri. “Our voting equipment is certified both at the federal level by the Election Assistance Commission, and then it is certified again at the Secretary of State’s level before we are allowed to purchase it.”
As a result, said Lennon of Lindell’s device, “I do not intend to use it for anything.”
One county in Kentucky banned such devices in October after being made aware of them.
“On October 20, 2023, the Kenton County Board of Elections voted unanimously [to] deny entry to a polling location to any person possessing an electronic device, if that device is to be used for the purpose of recording or interfering with the proper functioning of any voting equipment,” said Gabrielle Summe, the Chair of the County Board of Elections.
Lindell told ABC News that each device cost him $500 to manufacture, and that he plans to send out 1,000 devices to at least three states that are conducting elections this month.
Lindell said the inventor of the device is Dennis Montgomery, a computer programmer who was subpoenaed by voting machine company Smartmatic for documents and testimony the company said is relevant to its defamation suit against Lindell. According to a status conference record, Montgomery satisfied the request after he sat for a deposition.
Montgomery did not respond to requests for comment by ABC News.
Larry Norden, the senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan voter advocacy group, called Lindell’s devices and his continuous push to spread false claims about the 2020 election and voting machines “dangerous.”
“This is more peddling of his lies about election equipment,” Norden said regarding the device. “And I think the most important thing to know about voting machines in the United States is that virtually all of them have a paper record of every vote.”
“Mike Lindell has gotten away with lying a lot about elections, but it’s not without consequences and not without harms to individuals who work in elections — and more broadly to the functioning of our democratic system,” Norden said.
(WASHINGTON) — In a final push ahead of Election Day in Virginia’s high-stakes elections, Democrats are receiving a boost from President Joe Biden in a new fundraising email urging donations for candidates.
“Folks, in Virginia, the stakes have never been higher,” Biden said in the fundraising email sent through the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Governor Glenn Youngkin and extreme Republicans have made it clear that they’re trying to take our country back on issues like choice.”
The email, obtained first by ABC News, marks the latest example of Democrats at the national level getting actively involved in next week’s high-stakes elections in Virginia.
The party’s show of support comes as Virginia is the only Southern state that has not tightened restrictions on abortion since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year.
If Republicans win full control of the Legislature, Democrats say Youngkin will try again to ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions after a previous push was blocked by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“President Biden’s involvement in the final push for next week’s crucial legislative elections highlights the importance of these races to the entire country,” DLCC President Heather Williams told ABC News. “[His] fundraising for the DLCC shows Democrats are united as we head down the home stretch and get out the vote.”
The support from Biden follows another Democratic national figure to join the race.
Former President Barack Obama recorded robocalls through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, urging voters in Virginia to head to the polls.
Back in September, Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to pour $1.2 million to counter fundraising by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
“Democrats are playing defense in Virginia,” said Dr. Chapman Rackaway, a professor and chair of political science at Radford University. “They very much want to keep Governor Youngkin from getting Republican majorities in both chambers, so they see the stakes as very high. They have gone all-in on the Virginia legislative races.”
Youngkin has also raised historic amounts of money, his Spirit of Virginia political action committee reported over $22 million since March to support Republican candidates.
“Governor Youngkin doesn’t seem to need much help from the national party,” said Rackaway. “If he is the main outside source of money for state candidates and he gets Republican control of both chambers, the new majority will have him and only him to thank for their power and should help enact his agenda.”
Democrats collectively reported a fundraising edge with all legislative candidates raising $46 million over four weeks in October, according to finance disclosures.
Democrats want to regain control of the House of Delegates and maintain their narrow majority in the state Senate.
Meanwhile, Republicans hope to hold their current, narrow majority in the House and flip the Senate, aiming to gain complete control of the General Assembly.
(WASHINGTON) — White House national security spokesperson John Kirby on Thursday said that Israel agreed to a temporary pause in the fighting in order for two American hostages to be safely freed last month and said the U.S. would be working to secure more pauses — the first time the Biden administration has called for multiple pauses in an effort to allow aid in and help people leave Gaza.
“I mean, we’re really not just talking about, like, one pause. What we’re trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid [in], and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages,” Kirby said.
The administration has resisted calling for a general cease-fire in the conflict.
“The president already worked on one such pause when we were able to get those two Americans out. And that’s … what we’re kind of looking at,” Kirby added. “And just to remind when we’re talking about humanitarian pause, what we’re talking about are temporary, localized pauses in the fighting to meet a certain goal or goals, as I said, get aid in, get people out.”
Even while touting what he said was Israel’s agreement to a temporary pause, Kirby appeared less than certain about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support for multiple pauses, saying that the U.S. is “certainly hoping that that kind of cooperation will continue.”
“Each instance of it, each effort to get a pause is going to be unique in its own way. And it’s going to require negotiation and diplomacy. And the president, you heard him talking about this yesterday, is 100% committed to doing what it takes to pursue that kind of diplomacy,” Kirby added.
Asked what the parameters of the pause to get the two Americans out were or how long it lasted, Kirby said he would not share.
“No, I won’t go into the details of that, since we’re going to be trying to see what we can do to get additional temporary pauses — humanitarian pauses — in place,” Kirby told reporters.
Kirby said these pauses were critical for the safe passage of hostages.
“But in order to move hostages from where they were being held to safety, it does require a short pause in the fighting so that you can do it safely,” Kirby added.
“I mean, why wouldn’t you? I mean it would be — it would be completely unsafe and irresponsible if you weren’t trying to find some safe passage for hostages you got released while there’s an area of combat going on,” Kirby continued.
Kirby later argued the administration is specifically against a “general cease-fire,” although the White House has tried to avoid using the word “cease-fire” since the war began.
“When we’re talking about a general cease-fire, we’re talking about a stoppage of fighting all across the front, if you will, all across the battlespace, where neither side is just everybody lays down your arms and it’s a general cease-fire,” Kirby explained. “Usually, when you’re talking about a general cease-fire, it is about trying to find a cessation to the hostilities, to try to get to a truce, right, or to some sort of end — end of the war. That’s what we mean by a general cease-fire.”
“We aren’t advocating for a general cease-fire at this point,” Kirby said. “As I said earlier, we believe that a general cease-fire would benefit Hamas in providing them breathing space and time to continue to plot and execute attacks on — on the Israeli people.”
“Humanitarian pause, when we talk about that, is temporary, localized and focused,” Kirby continued. “Focused on a particular objective or objectives, humanitarian aid in, people out. And in a pause, again, each one would have to be negotiated separately and distinctly, but the general idea is that in that geographic space, for that limited time, there would be a cessation of hostilities, enough to allow whatever it is you’re trying to allow.”
So far, 74 Americans have left Gaza since the Rafah crossing into Egypt opened Wednesday, and more are expected to cross in the “coming days,” according to President Joe Biden.
Biden said Wednesday night he believes there should be a “pause” in the Israel-Hamas conflict to get the hostages out after he was interrupted by a heckler at a campaign fundraiser, according to a report from the event.
“I think we need a pause,” Biden told the heckler, who had interrupted a speech to call for a cease-fire in the conflict.
The heckler asked what Biden meant by his comment and the president replied, “A pause means give time to get the [hostages] out. Give time.”
“I’m the guy that convinced Bibi to call for a cease-fire to let the [hostages] out. I’m the guy that talked to Sisi to convince him to open the door,” Biden said of Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the latter remark seemingly a reference to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
U.S. officials have reached out the roughly 400 American citizens and 600 of their immediate family members that have expressed a desire to leave Gaza, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Wednesday.
“We’ve asked them to continue to monitor their email regularly for the next 24 to 72 hours for specific instructions about how to exit. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is standing by to provide assistance to U.S. citizens as they enter Egypt,” Miller said.
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Nancy Pelosi is pushing back on No Labels — “perilous,” she calls it, earning some pushback of her own — as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott echoed some of the election fraud fears that have become popular among his party.
And Donald Trump share more of what he will be doing next week instead of debating his 2024 rivals in Miami.
Here are campaign takeaways for Thursday.
Pelosi vs. No Labels
“Perilous to our democracy”: That’s what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to say about the group No Labels possibly launching a third-party “unity” ticket to run in the 2024 presidential race given voter dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democratic front-runners.
“I think that No Labels is perilous to our democracy. I say that completely without any hesitation,” Pelosi said at an event with the nonprofit Third Way.
No Label co-founder and former Sen. Joe Lieberman soon shot back with a rhetorical question.
“Do you know what is ‘perilous’ to democracy? When leaders try to tell Americans what they are allowed to think and when they try to prevent competition from participating in the political process. That’s apparently what my friend Rep. Nancy Pelosi said this morning, and it is wrong,” Lieberman said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Abby Cruz, Hajah Bah and Kelsey Walsh
Tim Scott weighs in on election integrity
During a meet-and-greet in Independence, Iowa, on Thursday, Scott did not defend the integrity of the 2020 election when asked but did say he has more confidence heading into 2024 than in years past.
“I’m more confident today than I was in 2020, and 2022,” Scott replied, drawing laughter.
He went on to single out Georgia and Pennsylvania as he raised baseless concerns about the mail ballots used by those states in 2020: That to me sounds like an invitation for high levels of fraud. Anybody disagree?”
He said signature verification and voter ID law, are “common sense, from my perspective,” but he also talked about reducing drop boxes and having compact windows for early voting.
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Libby Cathey and Hajah Bah
Trump’s debate ‘spin room’
Former President Trump and his campaign continue to attempt to pull the focus away from the upcoming GOP debate, on Nov. 8 in Miami.
Not only is Trump counterprogramming with a rally in Hialeah, Florida, his campaign just announced they will be holding a “Team Trump Spin Room” after he speaks.
Throughout the Republican primary, Trump has indicated he sees no point in attending the debates, to face scrutiny from the other candidates, given his large polling lead.
ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Kendall Ross
Sununu gushes about Haley
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley attended a town hall alongside New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu at the Poor Boy’s Diner in Londonderry, where Sununu — a vocal Trump critic — lapped praise on her and called winning “the issue of 2024.”
“That’s all that matters. If you cannot cross the finish line in November of ’24, get your ass off the ballot,” he said.
At one point, Haley poked fun at Sununu, asking if he was going to endorse her.
“I’m getting closer every day. Getting closer every day,” he retorted, later clarifying he meant that he was getting closer to an endorsement overall as the state’s GOP primary draws nearer.
-ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr and Abby Cruz
Ramaswamy says he’s fighting back with ads
Vivek Ramaswamy is blaming his stagnant polling — after an earlier brush with increased support around the first primary debate — on advertisements targeted at him.
Just one day after telling reporters that he’s “going to put [his] money where his [mouth] is, Ramswamy’s campaign has announced an eight-figure ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Campaign spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin tells ABC News that the campaign is investing $7-8 million in Iowa and $3-4 million in New Hampshire.
Ramaswamy has said that the money will not go to more events, as he already has a lot: “I think if the election was held amongst the subset of people who go to events, I think we’d probably win Iowa and New Hampshire right now.”
ABC News’ Kendall Ross, Kelsey Walsh, Soo Rin Kim and Lalee Ibssa
(DENVER) — After two and a half days of testimony about how former President Donald Trump allegedly played a key role in the violence on Jan. 6 and how that should disqualify him as a future political candidate, Trump’s team has begun mounting their defense in a historic, dayslong hearing in Denver that will wrap up on Friday.
Trump faces a challenge from six Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado, represented by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who argue that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from the 2024 presidential election.
He and his attorneys have rejected that argument outright.
Over the past few months, efforts to keep Trump from the Republican primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment, which was first enacted after the Civil War, have gained traction in a few states.
A hearing was separately held on Thursday in Minnesota on a similar 14th Amendment complaint against Trump.
Section 3 of the amendment states that someone isn’t eligible for future office if, while they were in office, they took an oath to support the Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” unless they are granted amnesty by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
Supporters of this theory argue it applies to Trump because of his conduct after he lost the 2020 election but sought to reverse the results, including on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. Trump maintains he did nothing wrong.
Previous such efforts focused on other Republicans have failed, except in New Mexico, where a local commissioner convicted of trespassing at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was booted from his office.
Among the witnesses that Trump’s attorneys called at the Colorado hearing on Wednesday and Thursday were former Trump administration official Kash Patel, former Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and another organizer of the event near the White House on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, when then-President Trump addressed supporters shortly before the attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded.
Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls and Michael van der Veen, who represented Trump during his second impeachment trial, will not be witnesses in this case as originally planned.
However, retiring Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican who has spoken out against 2020 election denialism, will begin testifying later on Thursday.
In his testimony on Wednesday, Patel mostly fielded questions about National Guard resources and operations — including the authorization of the forces, his recollection of correspondence with then-President Trump and local governing bodies about deploying the National Guard and the Department of Defense’s timeline of involvement in and around the events of Jan. 6.
During cross-examination, there were sometimes contentious back-and-forth exchanges between CREW lawyers and Patel over the dates of his National Guard-related meetings with Christopher Miller, who was the acting defense secretary in the final days of the Trump administration.
“A lot was going on…Sue me,” Patel said at one point, to which one of the CREW attorneys responded: “The timing does matter, sir.”
“From my perspective, and my conversation with the secretary of defense and the chairman and secretary of the Army, we had what we needed to initiate under the law … the deployment and activation of the National Guard,” Patel said.
“Did any senior DOJ leader ever state in words or substance that they felt they needed … a different authorization from President Trump before they could deploy National Guard troops to keep the peace on Jan. 6?” Trump’s lawyer asked.
“No,” Patel said.
That testimony rebutted one of the arguments about Trump’s behavior around Jan. 6: that he did not act properly in surging National Guard members.
Miller has previously testified before Congress about the timeline of sending in those forces, which did not arrive to the Capitol on Jan. 6 until nearly 5:30 p.m. — hours after the rioting broke out.
Miller said in 2021 that he was aware of the breach at the Capitol by the time Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser called on then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy at 1:34 p.m.
Under questioning from lawmakers in 2021, however, Miller admitted that he did not approve an operational plan to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol until 4:32 p.m., more than three hours after he first learned that demonstrators had breached the Capitol perimeter.
Miller testified then that he did not speak with Trump during the attack.
Patel, in his testimony at Trump’s 14th Amendment hearing in Denver, said on Wednesday that none of the delay in deploying the National Guard had anything to do with Trump.
Patel said he still works for Trump — as senior counsel — and is paid $15,000 per month by a Trump-aligned political group.
Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for Trump’s 2016 campaign and one of the organizers of the rally on Jan. 6 held at the Ellipse near the White House, testified on Wednesday after Patel and repeated some of what she previously told the House special committee that investigated Jan. 6.
She said she had concerns about fringe right-wing figures, such as Alex Jones, potentially speaking at the Ellipse rally. Ultimately, they weren’t involved.
Pierson also testified to meetings she had with Trump officials in light of her issues with Jones and others.
At one meeting, she spoke with Trump directly, she said, and they touched on broader topics. “I let him know that there were some groups that were going to the Capitol that had been planning to go to the Capitol,” she said.
Trump asked her if they were expecting “trouble,” she said.
“I said, ‘Well, there have been some incidents at some of the previous rallies.’ And he said, ‘Well, we should call the National Guard,'” she testified.
After Pierson, another organizer of the Jan. 6 rally, Amy Kremer, appeared as a witness for Trump on Thursday.
Kremer said that as people were listening to Trump speak at the rally, she “absolutely did not” get the feeling that he was telling people to storm the Capitol — seeking to bolster a main argument of Trump’s attorneys against the 14th Amendment theory.
Scott Gessler, one of Trump’s attorneys, has highlighted how Trump encouraged supporters to protest peacefully at the Capitol during his speech on Jan. 6.
However, during his remarks at the Ellipse, Trump also repeated his baseless allegations that the 2020 election was fraudulent and said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
During cross-examination of Kremer’s testimony on Thursday, CREW’s lawyers went through some of her past social media posts and she doubled down on a number of her views on Jan. 6.
“There was no insurrection …. There was a riot,” she said.
Later Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Gosar’s chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, began testifying for Trump. Much of the questioning had to do with his communications with Ali Alexander, a lead organizer of the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse.
Tom Bjorklund, the Colorado Republican Party’s treasurer, was the last witness on Thursday morning — and is expected to resume testifying after a break — and he spoke about how he traveled to Washington on Jan. 6, both for the Ellipse event and then to go to the Capitol that day.
Bjorklund has said that he didn’t enter the complex.
Minnesota court also hears 14th Amendment argument
While the Denver hearing continued, the Minnesota Supreme Court, a few states away, heard oral arguments on whether a similar 14th Amendment challenge to Trump should proceed to an evidentiary hearing.
“This is a case of extraordinary importance,” Ron Fein, an attorney for the group Free Speech for People, representing the plaintiffs, said in his opening.
“Section 3 of the 14th Amendment protects the republic from oath-breaking insurrectionists because its framers understood that if they’re allowed back into power, they will do the same or worse. Section 3’s plain text bars Trump from ever holding office,” Fein argued.
Chief Justice Natalie Hudson raised the worrying prospect of chaos at the ballot if different states address the 14th Amendment issue in different ways.
“There could “potentially [be] 50 different states who, depending on the nature of the statutes in those states, [are] deciding this question differently,” she said.
Fein played down the risk from that, contending it was “the way that our constitutional system is set up.”
Nick Nelson, representing Trump, argued in his remarks that when there is a dispute about who is able to be president, “The courts overwhelmingly say that’s not a decision that should be made in the judiciary, that’s a decision that should be made elsewhere.”
Asked by the justices why the court shouldn’t focus on the plain text of Section 3, Nelson said it should be considered in the context of when it was written in the 1800s, after the Civil War.
At one point, Justice Gordon Moore asked Nelson, in his view, what it means to engage in insurrection.
“It doesn’t have to be the Civil War, but that’s the paradigm that we’re working from,” Nelson said. “I would say it’s some sort of organized form of warfare or violence … that is oriented towards breaking away from or overthrowing the United States government.”
When asked about Trump’s impeachment in the wake of Jan. 6, Nelson noted the Republican-led Senate at the time acquitted Trump and said that should be factored into the court’s analysis.
The Minnesota Supreme Court does not have a deadline to make a decision but was urged by the secretary of state’s attorney to do so quickly to ensure a smooth process for the state’s early March primary.
ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Thursday he is not backing down after his fiery battle with Republican colleagues on the Senate floor over his unprecedented move to hold up hundreds of military nominations and promotions.
Senate Republicans, led by Sens. Dan Sullivan and Joni Ernst, on Wednesday night angrily challenged Tuberville in an all out Republican-on-Republican brawl on the floor, during which they held the floor for more than four hours as they repeatedly tried and repeatedly failed to get Tuberville to cave on his military holds — his attempt to change Pentagon abortion policy. Republicans brought 61 military nominees up for individual consideration on the Senate floor Wednesday night. Tuberville spiked every single one.
The Senate on Thursday did confirm three military nominees using a process to circumvent Tuberville’s hold. The process to confirm the nominees was underway before Wednesday’s drama on the Senate floor. The Senate confirmed Lisa Franchetti to be Chief of Naval Operations, Gen. David W. Allvin to be Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Lt. Gen Christopher J. Mahoney to be Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.
On Thursday, Tuberville doubled down, saying he “works for the American people” and speculated that many don’t want their money to go toward service members’ abortions. Tuberville has been holding military nominees for months over objection to a Department of Defense policy that allows service members to receive compensation to travel out of state for abortion, asserting that it is taxpayer-funded abortion and a violation of the Constitution.
“I’ve told you all along — I hate I have to do this, but somebody has got to listen to us. I work for the people of this country; I don’t work for another senator or a president — I work for the tax payers of this country,” he said at the Capitol Thursday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuberville’s actions are allowing for vacancies that are “causing damage to our military readiness.”
“The world is too dangerous to play political games with our military,” she said during Thursday’s White House press briefing.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in Thursday’s White House press briefing that Tuberville’s moves are “beyond ridiculous” and listed some of the crucial military positions that are vacant as a result of Tuberville’s blockade.
Tuberville has maintained that his hold does not impact troop readiness.
ABC Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Tuberville what his message was to his Republican colleagues who say that he’s weakening the military by continuing to block confirmation of generals.
“They’re wrong — we’ve been doing this nine months, all of a sudden it’s an emergency,” Tuberville told Scott. “We tend to drag our feet around a little bit, so I don’t agree.”
Tuberville was clear he will not be changing his position on military nominees despite growing frustration among his GOP colleagues about his methods. Scott asked him if he would consider budging, he was blunt: “No.”
Republicans were out in full force Thursday airing their frustration with Tuberville.
“Well I’m frustrated on behalf of the force,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. “The effect on the force is real, people are losing their slot … and the ripple effect is going to the lower ranks.”
‘It needs to change’
On Wednesday, Sullivan was defiant, sarcastic and even sullen in his pleas to Tuberville. At times, Sullivan was livid. One after one, Republicans raised specific military nominees, reading off impressive lists of credentials and then asking for consent for their confirmation. One after one, Tuberville stood on the floor and blocked them.
“As a U.S. Marine Corps colonel, I know we all know here in the Senate, America needs to have our best players, most combat-capable leaders on the field, and right now that’s not happening,” Sullivan said. “It needs to change.”
The Republican senators who challenged Tuberville Wednesday night were especially frustrated that the Alabama senator blocked the nominees as they were being brought up individually. For months, Tuberville has blocked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer from advancing military nominees en bloc, but Tuberville had previously said he wouldn’t object to votes on individual nominees.
“We have done the best we can to honor the request of a fellow senator that these nominations be brought to the floor and voted on individually,” Ernst said. “I really respect men of their word. I do not respect men who do not honor their word.”
While unanimous confirmation requisitions like the ones made Wednesday night aren’t quite the same as individual Senate votes, which could in theory take several days to clear, Senate Republicans hoped this tactic would be the dam break they needed.
It wasn’t. Tuberville blocked every single nominee.
“I cannot simply sit idly by while the Biden administration injects politics in our military from the White House and spends taxpayer dollars on abortion,” Tuberville said on the floor.
Wednesday night’s debacle was a rare moment of Republican infighting on full display on the Senate floor, and speaks to the palpable frustration the Republican conference has with Tuberville for his nine-month blockade.
Ernst, leaving the floor at the end of the night warned that Tuberville’s move Wednesday night would have consequences: “This will be remembered. This will be a dark evening,” Ernst said.
It’s not expected to be the last either. After trying and failing to confirm the 61st military officer of the evening, Sullivan vowed he would continue his efforts to bring nominees up for individual consideration.
“My message to our generals and admirals who are being held up: hang in there. Some of us have your back — we have your back, we will be coming here every night to try to get you guys confirmed,” Sullivan said.
“…You deserve it and our nation has to have it,” Sullivan added.
Sen. Jack Reed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has for months been trying to find a way around Tuberville’s hold, was presiding over the chamber when Sullivan concluded his remarks for the night. He later called Tuberville’s unwillingness to allow nominees to be confirmed an act of “willful ignorance or stubborn hubris.
“After tonight, one has to wonder why Senator Tuberville persists in his obstruction, which only benefits America’s enemies,” Reed said in a statement. “Over the last ten months Senator Tuberville has undermined our military readiness and callously mistreated military families.”
Reed applauded the Republican senators who tried to get nominees confirmed Wednesday night.
Most of Tuberville’s Republican colleagues have said they agree with his position on the Pentagon’s abortion policy, but not his tactics.
“I’m as pro-life as they come, I strongly disagree with what Secretary [Lloyd] Austin and President [Joe] Biden have done with their politicization of the military on a whole host of fronts including the abortion policy,” Sullivan said.
But Republicans are fed up with Tuberville’s blockade on nominees, who they say should not be punished for the policy decisions of the administration.
“Our service members have been failed by their commander in chief and we must do right by them and the security and protection of our own nation,” Ernst said.
Kennedy: Senate rule change could be a ‘double-edged sword’
Senate Majority Leader Schumer Schumer earlier Wednesday announced intentions to support a Reed-authored proposal that would allow the Senate to temporarily circumvent Tuberville’s hold and to confirm the more than 300 nominees Tuberville is now preventing from going through.
Details of that resolution aren’t quite clear yet, and it will need to go through the Senate Rules Committee to determine the threshold of votes it would need to pass.
The Thursday confirmations are part of a procedural tool to force votes on individual nominees. Schumer had been reluctant to use this tool to overcome Tuberville’s holds over the last nine months because he’s argued it risks playing to Tuberville’s hand and politicizing the military.
Even as frustration mounts with Senate Republicans, most ABC News spoke to Thursday morning are pushing back on a growing effort by Democrats to pass the temporary change to the Senate rules.
Senate Republicans have been resistant in recent years to any sort of modification to the rules. This move, they say, would weaken the individual power of each senator. Rules that allow senators to hold certain nominees or policies make the chamber distinctly unique from the House.
Republicans warned on Thursday that if Democrats try to circumvent Tuberville by modifying the chamber rules, it could backfire on them down the line.
“I think it would be an extraordinary mistake to change the rules on holds, and that I would remind my Democratic colleagues that’s a double-edged sword,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said.
Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., all said they would also reject efforts to skirt the rule on nominee confirmation.
“I’m pretty reluctant to change the rules …” Hawley said. “If we’re going to change the rules, if we are going to depart from the tradition that we leave the rules as they are, then I have a whole bunch of rules I’d like to see changed so if we’re going to do that, I’ll have my own thoughts about what other rules we’d like to change.”
Schumer has been clear he will support it, and advance it to the Senate floor.
(NEW YORK) — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna met for a debate on Wednesday and what started out as a friendly exchange soon turned into a fiery conversation over fundamental differences.
The hourlong event — held at St. Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester and moderated by Boston Globe reporter James Pindell — comes after months of back and forth between the two politicians about facing off.
Ramaswamy has built a national profile through his campaign for the 2024 presidential nomination while Khanna, first elected in 2016, is seen as a lawmaker with potentially larger future of his own
According to organizers, the debate was designed to avoid questions about process, the campaign horse race or hypotheticals. Instead, Ramaswamy and Khanna focused on the economy, foreign affairs, climate change and the future of America, in 10-minute segments.
“I thought instead of just trying to score rhetorical points online, why not have a civil, substantive discussion about the future of America with someone you disagree with?” Rhanna said in breaking the ice with Ramaswamy.
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He continued, with a moment of laughter: “I want to stop getting confused at airports for you — I’m hoping this is going to clear that up.” (Both men are of Indian descent.)
Foreign policy
The debate became notably heated when the two sparred over wars elsewhere in the world, taking opposite stands on the amount of funding and support that should be given to Ukraine, amid Russia’s invasion, and other foreign conflicts.
“My view is that Israel has an absolute right to its own national self-defense. That’s the answer,” Ramaswamy said bluntly when asked about Israel’s war with Hamas in the wake of the extremist group’s terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Ramaswamy continued, referring to U.S. military assets in the Middle East largely intended for counterterrorism: “By the way, our bases in Syria and Iraq, where our sons and daughters are sitting, are sitting targets. We shouldn’t be there in the first place.”
Ramaswamy also reiterated his stance against American military involvement in foreign conflicts — something he called the “George Washington America First conservatism,” modifying rival Donald Trump’s own platform.
Khanna, who prefaced the conversation on foreign affairs with his background of starting out his political career opposing the Iraq War, disagreed, saying “American leadership” is needed — not “American isolationism.”
“One point though …. I agree with you. We should not be in a ground war. We should not get involved in the war,” he said of Israel and Hamas. He then said he supports a push for a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians.
When discussing Ukraine, Khanna said, “American interest requires American leadership.”
Standing with Ukraine was also a useful “deterrent” to China potentially taking any action against self-governing Taiwan, Khanna said.
Ramaswamy then took a swipe at Khanna, saying it disappoints him that people who opposed past conflicts were now “marching into the same conflicts.” He also contended that Ukraine has issues with trying to live up to its democracy.
Khanna advised him, repeatedly, to “get a briefing” on the matter “because you’re running, you have a big platform.”
The economy
On the economy, Ramaswamy argued in favor of increasing the domestic supply of “everything that’s worth producing” — including increasing energy production through drilling, nuclear power, fracking and more — but said government regulations and bureaucracy are the “basic obstacle.”
He laid the blame with President Joe Biden.
“It is, I think, regrettable to be carrying the water of Joe Biden when in fact … everyday Americans know they’re suffering at the hands of policies that came from this administration,” Ramaswamy said.
Khanna disagreed with Ramaswamy, stressing what he saw as the importance of government involvement in stimulating economic growth.
“Vivek and I completely disagree with what I call ‘economic patriotism’: the role of the government to rebuild industry which has been hollowed out,” he said.
Khanna called Ramaswamy’s proposal to cut the federal bureaucracy by 75% a “horrible idea.” Such a move would likely face logistic and legal challenges of its own.
“You need the federal government investments to be able to scale factories. You need it to be able to build,” Khanna said.
On energy, he said, “If something is faster and cleaner — use it. No one is saying don’t use fossil fuels.”
He pushed back on Ramaswamy’s broader campaign message: “We’re not going to have patriotism if we don’t have a vision for economic empowerment. … Just saying, ‘Let’s study the founders, let’s appeal to rhetoric’ isn’t gonna give us a common ground.”
Climate change
Pindell, the moderator, referenced a poll on climate change that suggested one out of three Republicans think it should be declared a national emergency.
Ramaswamy laughed: “I’m not one of those three Republicans.”
He contended that “climate change policies” could cause more harm than the changing climate, which has raised numerous alarms from scientists and environmentalists.
Khanna responded in disbelief, saying human flourishing requires a planet. He referenced flooding in the state earlier this year.
“When we were going to have this conversation, I was going to come in with all these scientific facts. And then one of the young folks on my team said, ‘Ro, you don’t have to convince people in New Hampshire that climate change is real or that it’s an existential threat,'” he said.
Ramaswamy took a much more skeptical view: “A lot of this agenda has nothing to do with the climate. It is about flogging ourselves … apologizing for our modern way of life. I’m not against developing alternatives.”
The future
One point of agreement? The country’s future.
“When I was growing up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, my parents could not have met a staff member or a member of Congress. Today, there are five South Asians in the United States Congress. This is a country of progress,” Khanna said.
He said that what is needed next is an end to the tax cuts favored by Republicans to give “working, middle-class families” a “shot at the American dream.”
Ramaswamy stuck to a line he often repeats on the campaign trail.
“I think we’re really just a little young right now [as a country],” he said. “Actually — going through our version of adolescence. We’re going through hard times. I’m not going to come here and tell you, ‘It’s morning in America.’ It’s not. But it can be again.”
He concluded that Americans have a lot in common.
“We might disagree on corporate tax rates or whatever those details are. But we agree on the basic rules of the road to meritocracy, free speech, the pursuit of excellence, self-governance over aristocracy, I think most of us in this country do,” he said. “We still share the ideals of the American Revolution in common, but now it’s up to us to move just beyond celebrating diversity and differences to celebrate those ideals that unite us.”
