(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will not be on the ballot in New Hampshire, the first primary election of the 2024 cycle, but Democrats from the state say there is a path forward — though a challenging one — for the president to clinch their contest.
Individual Democrats from the Granite State, without the help of their national or state parties, are organizing write-in efforts to get those around the state to still cast votes for the Democratic incumbent.
But they’re doing so begrudgingly. After months of refusing to come into compliance with Democratic National Committee calendar guidelines, Biden’s campaign wrote in a letter to New Hampshire Democrats earlier this week informing them that the president would not be filing in their primary, marking another blow to the state’s standing within the early nominating process.
The president “is obligated as a Democratic candidate for President to comply with the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2024 Democratic National Convention” the letter, obtained by ABC News, said, while noting he “looks forward to having his name on New Hampshire’s general election ballot.”
The first insult, in the eyes of some New Hampshire Democrats, came when the DNC approved in February a 2024 early nominating schedule that begins in South Carolina — the state that jumpstarted Biden’s campaign in 2020 — and moves New Hampshire to vote concurrently with Nevada as the second primary state in the nation. New Hampshire Democrats have resisted the changes, maintaining that the restructuring breaches state law that asserts New Hampshire must be the first primary in the nation.
“[The write in efforts] has nothing to do with the DNC. It has nothing to do with the Biden campaign, because frankly, we’re all still mad,” said Kathy Sullivan, the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, who has been one of the leaders of a robust campaign to organize write-in efforts.
“But despite that, we also are aware that, you know, it’s critically important that Joe Biden be elected next year. … The best way of handling our anger is to say, ‘We’re gonna vote anyway, despite what the DNC did. And we’re going to write in President Biden in because he’s our president [and] we think he’s done a great job.'”
The grassroots write-in efforts for Biden are still in their early stages, according to Sullivan, who said that the initiative — while doable — will certainly be a “heavy lift.”
So far, the group of well-sourced, veteran New Hampshire residents embarking on the sort of education campaign around the state is made up of people who have worked on presidential, senatorial and other campaigns, county chairs, local officials, young activists and more.
“We’ve got some great people working on this,” Sullivan said.
The group has been scrambling to figure out the logistics of writing in a candidate while remaining in compliance with state and federal election laws.
Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democrats’ chair, said that over 200 of their delegates signed up to be part of the efforts.
“It’s a pretty, pretty extensive ground game,” he said.
Sullivan declined to give a number of participating volunteers but said it was “a lot.” The group plans to have a formal announcement about its efforts in the coming days.
“Kathy and the others involved in this effort are very capable and experienced in NH Primary politics. The president has many friends and supporters here and I consider myself one of them,” said Terry Shumaker, a former ambassador who co-chaired President Bill Clinton’s New Hampshire campaigns, adding that Biden will likely win the New Hampshire primary “because he has done a great job in difficult times — and this write-in effort will undoubtedly increase his margin.”
New Hampshire Democrats have expressed willingness to write in Biden’s name despite their disappointment that he won’t be appearing on their primary ballots.
“Our first-in-the-nation primary is a great thing for candidates and for presidents, but I’ll be writing in President Biden because he is the one that is going to defeat Donald Trump in November,” said Alan Raff of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO.
The deadline to file in New Hampshire’s primary election was 5 p.m. on Friday. Among the Democrats on the ballot will be two longshot candidates: author and speaker Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who filed and announced his candidacy in the state just hours before the cutoff on Friday.
(LAS VEGAS) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has suspended his campaign for president, he announced Saturday.
“I came here to say it’s become clear to me, this is not my time. So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign right now,” Pence said on stage at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Annual Leadership Summit in Las Vegas.
“I’m leaving this campaign, but let me promise you I will never leave the fight for conservative values and I will never stop fighting to elect principled, Republican leaders to every office in the land,” he continued.
Pence, 64, announced he was joining the Republican race for president in June, running against his former running mate, former President Donald Trump.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — As the 2024 primary season rapidly approaches, influential Republican donors have been gathering across the country, putting their heads together to determine how to move forward as front-runner Donald Trump continues to hold a huge polling lead over the rest of the candidates.
But several anti-Trump donors and those familiar with the GOP fundraising world told ABC News they are feeling as fractured as ever between their personal favorites to take on the former president. And some of these same donors are also becoming increasingly alarmed that the 2024 field is showing no signs of consolidation behind an alternative to Trump.
“Nothing seems to work,” said Francis Rooney, a former representative from Florida, U.S. ambassador in the Bush administration and fundraiser for past presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush.
Rooney is an outspoken Trump critic looking for a challenger to successfully take on the former president. “No one has been able to crack the code to gain on Donald Trump,” he told ABC News.
Bobbie Kilberg, a longtime Republican donor and fundraiser, said “donors instinctively know the field needs to consolidate, narrow and they say so to each other. But it is almost always not the person you are supporting who should drop out. It is the other guy [or] gal.” (Kilberg considers former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie the strongest Trump challenger.)
As Kilberg indicated, Trump’s grip on the party is not absolute: While national polling shows he currently has about 57% support with conservative voters, the other candidates, all combined, are drawing nearly 40%, according to 538.
Many of Trump’s rivals argue he is not the best nominee for the party, given his many controversies and legal challenges. He denies all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in four criminal cases.
But the clock is ticking, Kilberg said, with some donors saying the field should slim down before the Iowa caucuses in mid-January while others say right after the subsequent New Hampshire primary.
“I don’t see donors yet coalescing around one alternative … but it is still four months until the first contest,” Kilberg said.
Earlier this month, two major donor summits took place in Utah and Dallas. Many of those gathered are looking to find a suitable 2024 candidate that can beat Trump. Meanwhile, the other GOP presidential hopefuls are ever more aggressively pitching themselves, urging uncertain donors to get off the sidelines.
The Utah summit, organized by Romney and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, sought to galvanize deep-pocketed supporters by inviting several of the current presidential candidates — former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — to speak directly before their potential backers.
The Dallas summit, led by an exclusive network of billionaire donors like Ken Griffin, Paul Singer and the Ricketts family, heard from representatives from a slightly different pool of campaigns — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott — to present their cases to some of the nation’s top GOP donors.
“I don’t know if, at the end of the day, anyone was moved enough to switch allegiance or to cut a check,” one attendee of the Dallas donor summit, who asked to remain unnamed to speak candidly, told ABC News afterward.
“But that’s to be seen in the fourth quarter,” when campaigns and various groups supporting them are scheduled to disclose their hauls in the final months of the year to the Federal Election Commission, the attendee said.
In Virginia Beach, Virginia, last week, a two-day donor retreat hosted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s allied super PAC ahead of the state’s legislative races in November attracted several national-level Republican benefactors that are have been sitting on the sidelines. Both Kilberg and Rooney attended while weighing their options in the 2024 primary.
“I would love to get involved — I just want to see somebody that can beat this guy,” Rooney said, adding that as of now, DeSantis, who remains a distant No. 2 in primary polling, seems to be the only one with the chance of beating Trump.
Rooney said he’ll have to make a final decision on his level of contribution in the fall.
He was a generous Republican donor during Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012, with his company dropping $1 million into a super PAC supporting the now-retiring Utah senator early in the primary season. Rooney did the same for Jeb Bush during the 2016 cycle, pouring millions of dollars into a super PAC supporting him early in the primary season before Trump won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
This election cycle, Rooney said, he’s been largely waiting in the wings until a persuasive Trump challenger arises.
Rooney said he mostly halted his donations to the Republican Party a couple of years ago because of the Republican National Committee footing legal bills for Trump, and he says he has only given $3,000 so far this cycle — to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has indicated he will drop out of the race by Thanksgiving unless his support increases.
The donor gatherings are taking place as an increasing number of the party’s biggest givers begin to reconsider their moves for 2024.
Griffin, the single biggest GOP donor after the late casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and one of the key members of the American Opportunity Alliance, the donor network that hosted the Dallas meeting, is among those putting the brakes on as he reassesses the field.
Earlier this year, Griffin expressed support for DeSantis as a challenger to Trump. But more recently, as DeSantis slid in the polls, Griffin halted his contributions and said he was “still on the sidelines.”
That sentiment, in which the enthusiasm for DeSantis has cooled, was present at the Dallas donor gathering, the attendee said.
Haley is seeking to capitalize on that — and what she has called her own bump in momentum in the wake of two debate performances — by fundraising last month with real estate mogul Harlan Crow, who also hosted the recent American Opportunity Alliance summit at his Dallas mansion.
ABC News has reported that Haley also nabbed a fundraiser with investor Keith Rabois, who previously expressed support for DeSantis.
One donor who asked to be unnamed so as to talk candidly told ABC News that several major GOP donors have turned away from DeSantis and are expected to coalesce around Haley soon.
“When you’re not growing, you’re dying. … Poll decline and donor enthusiasm cannot go together,” this donor said about DeSantis.
“If people are not wanting another Trump-Biden match up, they need to be in to go with the person who best is able to do that,” the donor said. “And right now it’s Nikki. There’s nobody else who’s growing, not one of them except for Nikki.”
As Haley has noted, and as this donor referenced, some polls have shown her as the only Republican candidate who beats President Joe Biden in a hypothetical race in next year’s general election.
Hal Lambert, a fundraiser for DeSantis, disputed the sentiment that DeSantis’ campaign is not growing in its donor base, saying that earlier this week the governor raised $500,000 in Boston.
“I can assure you, nobody but Trump is raising $500,000 on a campaign stop,” Lambert said.
Another DeSantis fundraiser, Jay Zeidman, dismissed the idea that losing donors like Griffin is a big blow.
“One guy has an issue; there’s another guy stepping right up to the plate,” Zeidman said. “You can’t win them all, of course. We just got to keep putting our best foot forward and hope that over time, everybody will coalesce around the governor.”
Other DeSantis supporters remain committed to him. Some of his wealthy supporters are throwing a private fundraiser in Las Vegas ahead of the Republican Jewish Coalition annual summit, a source familiar with the event told ABC News, while the governor’s allied super PAC Never Back Down and former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt are hosting a breakfast gathering at the Treasure Island Saturday morning.
“DeSantis has a longer shelf life than Trump,” this source familiar with the fundraiser said, explaining donors’ mindset when supporting the Florida governor.
Despite many of the key members of the American Opportunity Alliance expressing interest in finding a Republican to replace Trump, some major allies of the former president were at the Dallas summit, too, including former Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon and former Trump White House Domestic Policy Director Brooke Rollins.
Rollins, who now leads the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute nonprofit, which can’t participate in campaign activities, was at the Dallas gathering to pitch the group’s agenda, which is to set the foundation for Trump’s possible second term, a person familiar with her attendance said.
As for the Trump campaign, the former president’s massive grassroots following has allowed him to continue to expand his war chest for 2024 despite some of his financial backers from past cycles turning away from him. His Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster clubs, in Florida and New Jersey, have been popular locations for events among his wealthy supporters.
Some in the GOP donor world who spoke with ABC News said they are hopeful the field will narrow soon, while some others remained uncertain about the best path forward — echoing a dynamic during the 2016 primary race, when Trump defeated primary rivals despite polls showing Republican voters, like donors, fractured among the long list of choices.
“I think there’s still a lot of questions about what consolidation looks like,” the person that attended the Dallas gathering said of the discussions there.
This attendee said nothing huge is happening anytime soon: “The indication by all three campaigns [DeSantis, Haley and Scott] and a lot of the folks that presented is that it probably doesn’t happen until New Hampshire.”
“Mainstream major donors were never big on Donald Trump and they’re never big on him now,” the donor that asked to be unnamed said. “Some of them might engage with him — they have to, at least eventually, but nobody wants to. So is it late? Yeah, just by the number of donors that aren’t engaged, waiting on the sidelines. But I think a lot of them will be coming off the sidelines soon.”
(WASHINGTON) — Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson is drawing fresh scrutiny for having played a key — if somewhat lower-profile — role in trying to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
House Republicans unanimously chose him this week despite his record as an election denier, something some GOP lawmakers previously had said would be disqualifying.
Back in 2020, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had argued Biden’s win was bogus because some states officials had changed voting procedures during the coronavirus pandemic without legislatures’ approval.
He appeared to pressure 125 House Republicans to join him in filing a brief to the Supreme Court supporting a Texas lawsuit to overturn Biden’s wins in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
He told them Donald Trump was watching.
He touted his conversations with then-president, who was fighting tooth and nail to hold onto the Oval Office after Biden beat him by about seven million votes and 74 votes in the Electoral College.
“I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system,'” Johnson posted on X — then known as Twitter — on Nov. 7, 2020, days after the election.
“President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted. Fair elections are worth fighting for!” Johnson added in a Nov. 9, 2020, post.
Johnson’s acceptance speech Wednesday in the House chamber touched both on the need for bipartisanship and several conservative talking points on immigration, the debt and more. And while he made no mention of the 2020 election — or how he’d handle next year’s presidential race — a review of his comments and actions at the time reveals a lawmaker overshadowed by more vocal election opponents but nonetheless someone who played a major role in trying to keep Trump in power.
“Based on what I know, I do think it is accurate to treat him as the equivalent of some of the others in Congress who played as much of a leadership role, like Ted Cruz tried to play on the Senate side,” said Edward Foley, an election law expert at The Ohio State University, referencing the Texas Republican who loudly advocated for an invalidation of the 2020 election results.
The amicus brief that Johnson rallied his GOP colleagues behind was tied to a lawsuit from Texas that was ultimately thrown out for a lack of standing, but the Louisianan continued to advocate for reasons that Trump should remain in office, at times veering into the conspiratorial.
Among other things, Johnson raised the unfounded theory that voting machines from Dominion were “rigged” and had ties to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who was dead, echoing conspiracy theories floated by Trump supporters such as Sidney Powell, a former Trump lawyer who ultimately pleaded guilty to state charges in Georgia over her efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
“I don’t concede anything,” he declared on Nov. 17, 2020, on a Louisiana radio show.
Democrats have highlighted Johnson’s dedication to overturning the 2020 election as a sign he’s out of step with the American mainstream.
“Johnson would be the most extreme speaker of the House in history. Republicans nationwide will have to answer for his extreme MAGA track record of election denialism, abortion extremism, and bold-faced partisanship in 2024,” Democratic National Committee Executive Director Sam Cornale wrote in a Wednesday memo.
But Johnson’s push around the 2020 election seems not to have been a hinderance — but rather a GOP argument for — his bid to become speaker.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said that the House speaker must reflect “the values of Republican voters that can lead our conference” after voting against Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., for speaker, in part over his vote “to certify Biden’s 2020 election.”
And Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who shot down speaker bids from Reps. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, over their refusal to definitively say Biden won the 2020 race, said Johnson was appropriate to bring his concerns to the courts.
“What [Johnson] did was he went to the courts. That’s what the courts are set up for. And it’s absolutely appropriate,” Buck said Wednesday. “It’s fundamentally different than somebody who is actively involved in moving the protesters from the Mall up here, actively involved in arguing with the White House counsel’s office about how we could decertify the election, two completely different things.”
It’s unclear how Johnson would act if Biden were to defeat Trump again in 2024 even if he were still speaker, though new guardrails exist after the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, which, provided more structure to Congress certification of future Electoral College results.
“That’s a really good reform, and really clarifies and pins down exactly what is supposed to happen in Congress with respect to the counting of electoral votes. And as long as that was followed as it should be, the process will go smoothly, and it wouldn’t really matter who’s speaker or which party is in control of either chamber,” Foley said.
The Electoral College Act more clearly defines the role of the the vice president in presiding over the congressional joint session in counting of electoral votes.
However, Johnson as speaker would have significant power over the House floor and could have some avenues to push for Trump in the event of a 2024 defeat — avenues Foley said were unlikely.
“But there’s some risk, I suppose, some small risk, that the House could say, ‘we don’t love this new law, and here’s a different procedure that we want to follow and we’re gonna follow in the House, at least in terms of our role in the process.’ That puts the country in a crisis situation two weeks before Inauguration Day. And if they’re doing that because they really want to try to change the outcome of who’s the winner, it’s very dangerous,” he said.
Johnson could also try to run out the clock and not convene the House floor to certify the Electoral College before inauguration, another scenario Foley cast as possible but improbable.
“The one thing that we know under the 20th Amendment is the current terms of office of the president and the vice president end at noon on January 20. That’s a given. And if there has not been, for whatever reason, a resolution of who won the 2024 presidential election, the 20th amendment spells out what happens. And what happens is Congress has the right to pass a statute to designate who gets to serve as acting president,” Foley said.
Johnson’s handling of the 2024 is purely hypothetical, and he may not even be speaker on Jan. 6, 2025, when the House will convene to certify the 2024 Electoral College results. For him to maintain the gavel, Republicans would have to keep the House next year and again choose Johnson to lead them.
On Wednesday, when Biden was asked, “If you win reelection in 2024, are you worried that a Speaker Johnson would, again, attempt to overturn the election?” he shot back, “No.”
“Why not?” the reporter asked.
“Because they can’t — well look — look, just like I was not worried that the last guy would overturn the election,” Biden said. “They have about 60 lawsuits all the way to the Supreme Court, and every time they lost. I understand the Constitution.”
For now, Republicans appear eager to avoid election denial questions.
When ABC News’ Rachel Scott on Tuesday asked Johnson whether he stood by his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, she she was booed by Johnson’s fellow GOP lawmakers gathered around him.
“Shut up,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. “Shut up.”
(NEW YORK) — Rep. George Santos pleaded not guilty Friday to the charges contained in a superseding indictment that accused him of stealing people’s identities, making charges on his donors’ credit cards without their authorization and lying to federal election officials.
Trial was set for Sept. 9, 2024, and is expected to last three weeks.
The 23-count superseding indictment filed earlier this month charges the New York congressman with “two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of access device fraud,” the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York said in a release.
Santos is keeping his lawyer, Joe Murray, despite a potential conflict of interest involving others associated with the case.
The new charges followed the indictment this month of Santos’ former campaign finance chief Nancy Marks. Prosecutors allege they enlisted 10 family members without their knowledge to donate to the campaign to make it seem like Santos was getting enough support to qualify for party funds.
According to the charges, Santos allegedly said he lent his campaign $500,000 when he only had $8,000 on hand.
There was no change in bail conditions at Friday’s hearing. The next status conference is set for Dec. 12.
In May, Santos was indicted by federal prosecutors on 13 criminal counts, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Dean Phillips is running to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, he announced on CBS News on Friday morning.
The three-term Minnesota congressman will challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024 — a move that moves the moderate to the fringes of the party as he battles the well-funded and establishment-backed incumbent.
Phillips will also compete against longshot candidate Marianne Williamson for the nomination.
At 54, Phillips has for months been urging Democrats to put forward another primary challenger to the 80-year-old Biden — highlighting concerns over his age and approval ratings.
“I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country. But it’s not about the past. This is an election about the future. I will not sit still I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we’re going to be facing an emergency next November,” Phillips said as he announced his run Friday.
He is expected to file for the New Hampshire primary election later Friday and then formally announce his candidacy shortly after, at the statehouse plaza in Concord. He’ll embark on a bus tour after the announcement.
There have been clues foreshadowing Phillips’ run all week: on Monday, the Concord Department of Administrative Services confirmed reports that Phillips has obtained permits for plaza the State House Plaza on Friday– potentially for the launch of his White House bid. Then, on Tuesday, a local Minnesota radio station posted on X that someone had spotted a bus with ‘Dean Phillips for President’ plastered on the side in Ohio, presumably on its way to New Hampshire.
Outside of the New Hampshire statehouse on Thursday evening was a van with the same Phillips’ campaign slogan and branding.
Still, the Democratic congressman had not publicly let onto his bid until a teaser for his interview with CBS came late on Thursday.
Chatter over Phillips’ potential candidacy began in July, when it was first reported that he was being courted to throw his hat in the 2024 Democratic primary ring against Biden. Then he’d said he was not the best option to run, but that he would not close the door on the possibility.
Phillips, a millionaire businessman who stepped down from Democratic House leadership last month — had engaged in a number of media interviews since July, calling for high-profile Democrats like “moderate governors from the heartland” to jump in.
Over a year ago, Phillips made news by saying publicly that he would not support Biden in 2024 amid a slew of new polling reflecting Democrats’ desire for an alternative candidate.
He has since referenced national and state polling as reason that there needed to be a party alternative to Biden — especially data that indicates Biden’s age as a concern for voters. A poll published on Thursday from Gallup found that Biden’s job approval has dropped among Democratic adults in the U.S., although a vast majority still support him. Biden’s general approval rating remains relatively low.
By launching his bid in New Hampshire, a state that has bucked the new White House-blessed Democratic National Committee-approved early nominating calendar– one that bumps the Granite State from their spot as first-primary-in-the-nation and elevates South Carolina to the perch, Phillips further solidified his fate as a party outsider.
The Democratic National Committee, nor the Biden campaign, plans to comment on Phillips’ entrance into the race.
Phillips’ launch, especially in New Hampshire — a state where the Biden campaign announced on Tuesday that he would not file to be on the ballot because they did not comply with the DNC’s calendar — has garnered sharp criticism from his Democratic colleagues.
“It’s a vanity project,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said on Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s the right thing.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said that while he respected Phillips, he disagreed with his challenging Biden.
“First of all, Dean is a friend of mine. I respect him greatly. I disagree with this. It is not going to have any impact whatsoever on this. Joe Biden’s our nominee. And I hope this just, I hope for Dean he’s alright on this one, but it’s not going to make any difference. Our nominee is the president,” Walz told ABC News on Wednesday.
By filing for the presidency in New Hampshire, Phillips is not receive any delegates from the state for the DNC next year, because the Granite State Democrats will likely have theirs stripped away after not coming into compliance with the party’s nominating calendar. Phillips has already missed the filing deadline for candidacy in Nevada, so he will not be on the ballot for the firs-in-the-West early nominating state.
Artie Blanco, a Democratic National Committee member from Nevada, claimed that by just filing for the presidency in New Hampshire and by snubbing Nevada, the Democrat was not on path to being a competitive challenger to Biden.
“He’s not serious about running for president. For someone to jump in and only file for one state– he doesn’t understand that if you want to run for the President of the United States, you need to be backed by a diverse coalition,” Blanco said.
“Basically, by missing the state of Nevada’s deadline– he knew when the deadlines were. It seems like he is only taking what he wants, and to me it’s not a real candidacy,” she continued.
A native of Edina, Minnesota, Phillips attended Brown University and then earned his MBA from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Business. He helped build up the Talenti Gelato chain and is the founder of Twin Cities-based coffee shop ‘Penny’s Coffee.’
ABC News’ Libby Cathey and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Los Angeles police dealt with an intruder at the home of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while the Republican field got slightly smaller as one hopeful dropped out and another contender urged donors to help him make the next debate stage.
Here are the campaign takeaways for Thursday:
An intruder at Kennedy’s home
Kennedy’s campaign said that he was at his LA property at the time an intruder was detained by his security team and arrested on Wednesday — and that the man returned a second time after being released earlier in the day.
LA police have also confirmed to ABC News that the suspect, who was initially arrested and then cited and released on Wednesday morning, returned to Kennedy’s home again later that day despite a restraining order against him.
The suspect was then again taken into custody and booked into jail, authorities said.
Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines, was also home, according to his campaign.
According to the campaign, the man asked specifically to see Kennedy.
The candidate has repeatedly requested Secret Service protection for his White House bid. Such protection is not often extended this far out from a general election — though it has happened multiple times.
Kennedy and his team have cited, in part, his family’s own history of being targeted including his father and uncle’s assassinations.
-ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr, Abby Cruz and Alex Stone
Elder exits the race
Former radio show host and California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder has dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign race and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
“The reason that I’m doing this is because in the very beginning, the [Republican National Committee] shafted me … if you can’t make the first debate, it’s almost impossible for you to make the second debate, let alone the third debate. So I’m being realistic,” Elder told ABC News, referring to how he failed to meet the national party’s donor and polling qualifications to be at the debates.
Elder is the fourth Republican candidate to drop out.
He never reached the 1% mark, according to 538’s national polling average. He had about $244,000 cash on hand in the third quarter of 2023, according to his filings, and he told ABC News he hopes to put those funds toward his PAC to get rid of “soft on crime” prosecutors.
The first thing he’ll do after campaigning? “Rest.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Scott campaign pleads for donations ahead of next debate
Despite confidently telling reporters “I’ll see you in Miami” a couple of weeks ago, as the deadline ticks down to qualify for the third GOP primary debate in Florida in November, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s campaign has still not crossed the donor threshold.
He initially told Fox News that he was just a few hundred donors away and then later, on a radio show, said he was a “few thousand” donors short.
His fundraising emails are underscoring that urgency:
“Sorry to bother you, but I just had an important meeting with my team. As of right now, I’m not going to qualify for the debate stage in Miami next month and we have 9 days left to turn things around!”
With millions still on hand, according to his federal disclosures, Scott has not yet had a breakthrough in polling, according to 538.
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Biden’s potential Dem challenger draws intraparty ire
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips’ expected decision to launch a long shot Democratic primary challenge against President Joe Biden on Friday has upset several major non-white members of the party who think him starting a campaign by filing for the New Hampshire primary will be emblematic of what they argued was his “disregard” for Democrats’ emphasis on the South and diverse voters.
“He’s skipping a very diverse state to go to a non-diverse state,” one senior Black Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told ABC News, adding, “I think that is a telltale sign of where your values are.”
Phillips’ team did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
He has repeatedly teased a bid against Biden in the primary but hasn’t confirmed one yet, though he is thought to be gearing up to file for New Hampshire’s nominating contest on Friday — the deadline to enter.
Indeed, a number of state residents received a mass text that states Phillips will announce he is running for president on Friday in front of the Statehouse, according to messages reviewed by ABC News, which state that they were “paid for by Dean 24.”
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd, Isabella Murray and Kelsey Walsh
(WASHINGTON) — Hours before a suspect, a U.S. Army reservist with mental health concerns, fatally shot 18 people in Lewiston, Maine Wednesday, the Senate approved an amendment that would scale back background check requirements for some veterans and service members with mental health issues.
The amendment was authored by Republican Sens. John Kennedy and Jerry Moran, who had concerns that veterans could lose gun rights. It prohibits the Department of Veterans Affairs from reporting certain veterans to the National Criminal Background Check system when their finances are being managed by a conservator at the VA.
According to Kennedy, under current law, if the Department of Veterans Affairs steps in to help manage a veteran’s financial benefits in a conservatorship, the VA is required to report that veteran to the criminal background check system.
The Kennedy amendment, which passed by a vote of 53-45, prohibits the secretary from transmitting the information to the criminal background check system unless “a relevant judicial authority rules that the beneficiary is a danger to himself or others.”
“Every veteran who bravely serves our country has earned VA benefits, and it’s wrong for the government to punish veterans who get a helping hand to manage those benefits. Veterans who sacrificed to defend our Constitution shouldn’t see their own rights rest on the judgment of unelected bureaucrats — but right now, they do. The Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act would prevent government workers from unduly stripping veterans of their right to bear arms,” Kennedy said in a statement when the amendment was introduced over the summer.
Maine mass shooting suspect Robert Card allegedly behaved “erratically” while deployed over the summer with his Army Reserve Unit to Camp Smith Training Center in upstate New York to support summer training for West Point cadets. Investigators are probing potential mental health issues Card may have had, and how he was in possession of a weapon when he opened fire at two different locations in Lewiston Wednesday evening, killing 18.
Maine officials did not speak to a potential motive, but said they are looking into Card’s mental health when asked during a Thursday press briefing about his background and gun possession.
Card is still at large — considered armed and dangerous.
Democratic state lawmakers in Maine have repeatedly tried to pass laws that require universal background checks for all firearms but have failed. Certain people with criminal and medical histories are prohibited from legally owning a firearm in Maine.
In the 2016 election, Maine voters were presented with a referendum that would have required background checks for all firearm sales with the exception of “hunting, self-defense, lawful competitions, and shooting range activity.” Roughly 51% voted no.
Kennedy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News about this amendment given the Maine shooting.
The amendment is still a long way from becoming law.
It passed as an amendment to a package of three massive spending bills that the Senate is working through in an effort to fund the government. The Senate is currently considering dozens of amendments to the package, Schumer said Thursday he expects work on amendments to take the chamber through next week.
Even if the package passes the Senate, it will still need to go through a lengthy process to be squared with the House’s version. Right now, the chambers are on very different pages about their spending bills, so it’s unclear if the Kennedy amendment would make it on to the final product. It could easily be stripped from the bill in conference.
And then, both chambers will then have to pass the bills before they are signed by President Joe Biden. That’s if Congress even ends up passing individual appropriations bills at all, which is far from a given in the current political environment.
ABC News’ Sarah Beth Hensley and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on Thursday, the first day of his three-day visit to Washington.
Wang acknowledged that China and the United States have “disagreements” and “differences” but said the two countries “share important common interests and we face challenges that we need to respond to together,” according to a translation of remarks delivered alongside Blinken on Thursday at the State Department.
“I’m sure that our discussion will be constructive and forward-looking,” Wang added, per his translator.
“I agree with what the foreign minister said,” Blinken said as he shook Wang’s hand.
The high-level talks come just weeks before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, a potential venue for a face-to-face between President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping.
Wang is expected to speak with Biden when he visits the White House on Friday, according to a U.S. official.
While there is no shortage of issues in the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China for the officials to delve into, the conflict in the Middle East is expected to weigh heavily on the agenda.
Officials anticipated that both Blinken and Sullivan would “push the Chinese to take a more constructive approach” when it comes to its stance on the Israel-Hamas war, but China — which has reportedly stationed warships in the region following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel — shows no willingness to align itself more closely with the West on the matter.
At the United Nations Security Council, China joined Russia in vetoing a U.S. resolution affirming Israel’s right to defend itself while calling for humanitarian pauses on Wednesday, while voting in favor of a Russian resolution urging a ceasefire that failed to condemn Hamas, which the U.S. had designated a terrorist organization.
The importance of “sustained” military-to-military communications between the U.S. and China are also expected to be a critical focus during Wang’s time in Washington, American officials said.
Blinken said he raised the issue “repeatedly” during his visit to Beijing in June but was dismissed. He vowed the U.S. would “keep working on” revitalizing those channels, but so far there is no evidence the situation has improved.
The importance of such communication in avoiding escalation was underscored on Sunday, when Chinese vessels undertook “dangerous and unlawful actions” to obstruct a Philippine resupply mission in the South China Sea, according to the Biden administration.
“By conducting dangerous maneuvers that caused collisions with Philippine resupply and Coast Guard ships, the [People’s Republic of China] Coast Guard and maritime militia violated international law by intentionally interfering with the Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller asserted.
During a press availability on Wednesday, Biden vowed that his administration would uphold its commitment to a 1951 mutual defense agreement with the Philippines if the nation came under attack.
“I want to be clear. I want to be very clear. The United States defense commitment to the Philippines is ironclad,” he said.
Biden also portrayed China as operating from a position of weakness.
“We’re going to compete with China in every way,” he said. “China is having their own internal and external difficulties right now. China’s economic growth is stagnant compared to what it was.”
But House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific Chairwoman Young Kim, R-Calif., argued that hosting Wang is a sign of what they argue is the administration’s weak strategy for reining in China.
“Wang Yi’s visit to DC is the first time a Chinese Foreign Minister has visited the United States since 2019. Unfortunately, we have seen the Chinese Communist Party become increasingly aggressive during that time period,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
“From its military aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines, to arbitrarily detaining American citizens like Mark Swidan and holding political prisoners, to coercing countries into debt trap infrastructure projects, the CCP has made clear that it is an unreliable partner,” they added. “During its meetings with Wang Yi, the Biden administration should not fall for false promises but demand deliverables such as releasing Americans taken hostage in China, stopping the export of fentanyl precursors, and halting its military expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.”
In July, the U.S. recommended Americans reconsider travel to China, citing arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans and the risk of wrongful detentions.
The U.S. in October announced a crackdown on the fentanyl trafficking threat, indicting and sanctioning several Chinese companies and executives who officials said imported the chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid. Attorney General Merrick Garland noted that “this global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China.”
Xi is instructing his military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan, according to U.S. intelligence.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Jamaal Bowman will plead guilty after being charged with falsely pulling the fire alarm at a congressional office building before the House of Representatives voted on a stopgap spending bill to fund the government last month.
“I’m thankful for the quick resolution from the District of Columbia Attorney General’s office on this issue and grateful that the United States Capitol Police General Counsel’s office agreed I did not obstruct nor intend to obstruct any House vote or proceedings. I am responsible for activating a fire alarm, I will be paying the fine issued, and look forward to these charges being ultimately dropped,” Bowman said in a statement Wednesday after he was hit with the misdemeanor charge. “I think we all know that Republicans will attempt to use this to distract everyone from their mess, but I look forward to putting this behind me and to continue working hard to deliver for New Yorkers.”
The office of the D.C. attorney general confirmed in a statement that Bowman “is pleading guilty and has agreed to pay the maximum fine.”
Court documents say Bowman, D-N.Y., knowingly pulled the fire alarm in the Cannon House office building on Sept. 30 while the House was voting to keep the government funded.
Security camera footage reviewed by the Capitol Police show Bowman allegedly looking at the doors which read “Emergency Exit Only Push Until Alarm sounds,” and when those doors were locked, looked at the fire alarm and allegedly pulled it, according to the court documents.
The complaint alleges that after sounding the fire alarm, Bowman walked by Capitol Police officers and didn’t say anything or alert them that he was the one that pulled the fire alarm.
Four minutes after pulling the alarm, he entered the Capitol.
“At approximately 1208 hours, the defendant enters the United States Capitol Building and while showing his credentials, he walks by two USCP officers who are posted at the inside entrance, staffing the metal detector,” the complaint says.
“We finished our investigation. Our agents gathered all the evidence, packaged it up, and sent the entire case with charges to prosecutors for their consideration,” The United States Capitol Police said in a separate statement
Bowman admitted to pulling the alarm — though he told ABC News the incident was an “innocent mistake.”
“I was rushing to make a vote,” Bowman said.
“I didn’t know it would trigger the whole building,” he added.
In an interview with Capitol Police, Bowman explained that the door he pulled was usually unlocked during votes and that he didn’t tell anyone he pulled the fire alarm, because he didn’t want to miss votes to keep the government funded. Still, Republicans accused Bowman of intentionally delaying the vote to allow more time for Democrats to vote to fund the government — accusations Bowman swatted away.
Bowman is set to be arraigned at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in D.C. Superior Court.
