Politics

(ATLANTA) — Just days after a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, indicted former President Donald Trump on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, most of his GOP primary rivals converged on the same county for a conservative conference, with several calling on him — directly and indirectly — to show up at the first GOP primary debate on Wednesday.

They spoke just before sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that Trump is planning on not attending the debate in Milwaukee and is strongly considering sitting down for an interview with Tucker Carlson that day instead, confirming a development first reported by The New York Times.

“I always stood loyally by President Donald Trump until my oath to the Constitution required me to do otherwise,” former Vice President Mike Pence told conference moderator, syndicated talk show host Erick Erickson, at what’s called The Gathering. “But my differences with the president go far beyond that fateful day, and I hope to have a chance to debate them with him. Look, we have real differences about the future of the country as well. Sometimes people ask me, ‘How do you envision debating Donald Trump?’ I say, ‘I’ve debated Donald Trump 1000 times, just not with the cameras on,'” Pence said, a standard campaign line.

After Pence spoke, ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked him, “You made it clear that the Georgia election was not stolen. What impact do those false claims have on the Republican Party going forward?”

“I think Republican primary voters aren’t interested in looking in the rearview mirror,” he answered. “There’s too many challenges facing American families today, whether it’s the inflation at a 40-year high, mortgage rates at a 20-year-high as of yesterday, maybe going higher, whether it be gasoline prices still 60% over what they were when we left office, a crisis at our border, a steady assault on the traditional values of American families and parents — and that’s where the American people are focused today,” he continued. “And we’ll let these other issues work themselves out in a manner consistent with the rule of law, but for my part, we’re going to continue to remain focused on where the American people are focused — and I can’t wait to get to that debate stage. And I hope everybody shows up.”

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis told the conference everyone who’s qualified for the debate stage should show up, adding, “if you don’t “people are not going to look kindly on that.”

But he, too, suggested he doesn’t want Trump’s indictments to dominate next week’s event in Milwaukee.

“I hope that we will be focused on the future of the country rather than some of the other static that’s out there right now,” DeSantis said.

The Gathering is co-sponsored by Hardworking Americans, a PAC founded by Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp — who earlier this week again flatly denied Trump’s claim the state’s presidential election was stolen.

Kemp himself took the stage and insisted Republicans shouldn’t focus on the past election if they want to win the presidency in 2024.

“Through the whole 2020 election, there was a lot of things said, a lot of things done. At the end of the day, I followed the law and the Constitution. I was subpoenaed for the special grand jury so I’m sure I will be a witness in whatever goes forward,” Kemp said.

Kemp famously broke with Trump when the former president made advances for help in subverting the result in Georgia. After Trump was charged on Monday in an indictment that accuses him of heading up a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the last election, Kemp reverberated his stance that “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

On Friday, Kemp also predicted that the Georgia trial, “despite what dates anybody’s asking for or anything else,” won’t happen before voters go to the polls next year.

“Regardless of what you think about the indictment, when I came out, I guess it was two days ago now, and tweeted that the election wasn’t stolen here and that we need to stay focused on the future, one thing is certain about these indictments in my mind and my opinion: this trial, despite what dates anybody’s asking for or anything else, it is not going to happen before the election. And the Democrats want us to be focused on things like this so we’re not focused on Joe Biden’s record,” Kemp continued.

“It should be such an easy path for us to win the White House back, but if we are looking in the rearview mirror – and this is what my message has been to every candidate in the race, including former President Trump… is that we have to be focused on the future, not something that happened three years ago. We don’t need to be focusing on stupid things that aren’t going to happen before this election. We can deal with that later, after we win,” he said.

Former U.N. ambassador, and South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley is expected to speak at the conference on Friday afternoon, with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy slated to deliver remarks on Saturday.

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(WASHINGTON) — Philosopher and presidential Green Party candidate Cornel West currently owes more than half a million dollars between unpaid taxes and unpaid child support, according to tax records.

Records show West owes nearly $466,000 in federal income taxes from 2013 until 2017. This came after he accrued (and later repaid) a debt of nearly $725,000 from 1998-2005, and more than $34,000 in 2008, according to tax records in Mercer County, New Jersey – where he owns a home.

Additionally, West has an outstanding $49,500 child support judgement from 2003, records show.

The debts were first reported by the Daily Beast.

The tax debts have not been paid off as of 30 days ago – the last available data, according to Mercer County records. ABC News reached out to West and his campaign to see if West had plans to pay off the debt or set up a payment plan; they have not returned those requests for comment.

The outstanding child support payment is owed to Aytul Gurtas, his former partner and mother of one of his children. ABC News was unable to reach Gurtas for comment.

While it’s not clear how long West didn’t pay child support, New Jersey family lawyer Kathleen Stockton said that the amount of money appears substantial. The average U.S. child support obligation is about $5,800 per year, according to census data, making West’s nearly $50,000 more than eight times that.

Stockton noted that it is possible West paid Gurtas and didn’t register it with the court – though West has given no indication of that.

When the question of his debts was brought up on The Breakfast Club radio morning show last week, West told the radio show host “Charlamagne the God” that they were being used as a “distraction” from his presidential campaign, which has focused on ending poverty, mass incarceration and environmental degradation.

“Any time you shine a flashlight under somebody’s clothes, you’re gonna find all kind of mess, because that’s what it is to be human,” West said.

Earlier on the show, West mentioned he was “broke as the Ten Commandments financially, personally, collectively.”

West’s debts are personal, not related to the campaign, so they may not directly bear on the finances of his candidacy. Still, personal finance issues have been known to interfere with campaigns: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s sometimes imprudent management of his own finances were scrutinized during his 2016 campaign for president, and then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s personal debt seemed to undermine his message of fiscal hawkishness.

According to West’s financial disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission in August 2023, he currently makes at least $200,000 annually. That includes his professorship at the Union Theological Seminary, where his annual income falls upward of $100,000; his speaking engagements, where he makes at least another $100,000; and his retirement fund, which earns him somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000 annually. His spouse, a professor, makes at least $50,000 per year.

Kedric Payne, an ethics lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said in an email to ABC News that the U.S. Office of Government Ethics advises candidates to disclose debts the size of West’s.

“The federal disclosure law requires candidates for president to report liabilities owed over $10,000. Child support is excluded, but OGE advises that overdue taxes are reportable. If West in fact owes taxes, voters have a right to know why this isn’t disclosed,” Payne wrote.

West’s associate, author Christopher Phillips described West as “authentic” and someone who hasn’t hesitated to spend his own money to help others.

Phillips, who said he has known West for eight years, said that when he first met West over the phone, the scholar volunteered to lecture and spend time with his students at the University of Pennsylvania, where Phillips was a writing fellow.

“He said he could come down on his own nickel, and he spent the entire day breaking philosophical bread with my students … just because he likes what I do,” Phillips said.

The campaign did not respond to ABC News’ multiple requests for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s press conference previously scheduled for Monday regarding Georgia’s 2020 election results — in which he was expected to provide more unproven claims about voter fraud — is now canceled.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Thursday that the press conference was canceled because his lawyers would prefer putting his allegations “in formal Legal Filings.”

His campaign subsequently confirmed that the event has been called off.

Trump had scheduled the press conference after he and 18 others were charged in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.

The former president has said that his actions were not illegal and that the investigation is politically motivated.

In his Truth Social post Thursday, he wrote, “Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment.”

“Therefore, the News Conference is no longer necessary!” he wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — The three U.S. military academies must implement changes to stem an increase in sexual assaults, according to a Pentagon study released Thursday that showed cadets and midshipmen were receiving “mixed messages” about prevention measures due in part to a toxic culture of hazing and climate of “cynicism, distrust and stigma.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has accepted the recommendations from a team of Pentagon experts who made on-site visits to the three military academies — the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, the Air Force Academy in Colorado and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York — following a report earlier this year that showed a large increase in the number of reported sexual assaults during the 2021-22 school year.

That report found the number of student-reported assaults at the academies had jumped 18% overall compared to the previous year — making it the highest number of sexual assault incidents since the Defense Department began tracking them in 2006. Additionally, an anonymous survey accompanying the report indicated one out of every five female cadets and midshipmen had experienced unwanted sexual contact over the previous year.

Because of these assaults, Austin ordered the on-site evaluations of the military academies.

“While the service academies are dominant in many domains, they have far more work to do to halt sexual assault and harassment,” Austin wrote in a memo. “Data continue to suggest that the occurrence of these crimes is trending upward. That is disturbing and unacceptable. It endangers our teammates and degrades our readiness.”

Some of the recommendations to improve the military academies detailed in the report include offering trainings for student leaders to better help their classmates, encouraging and promoting mental health resources, and ending traditions of hazing and mistreatment.

“This is a difficult moment, and it must serve as a turning point for the service academies. I feel this especially strongly as a proud graduate of a service academy,” said Austin, who attended West Point. “We owe it to all of our cadets and midshipmen, to the troops whom they will lead, and to the American people to make determined progress toward eradicating harmful behaviors and enabling every Service member to contribute their very best each day.”

Findings and recommendations

Pentagon officials visited the three military academies to try to get a hands-on understanding of what might have contributed to the sharp increase in the number of reports in recent years. Based on dozens of visits, they drew recommendations accepted by Austin that will lead to changes in some of the academies’ leadership traditions that may have fostered toxic climates.

One of the things the Pentagon officials found was that hazing was degrading the positive efforts being made in other areas such as sexual assault prevention, reporting and treatment for victims.

“You can be doing a lot of good activities, but if they are implemented in unhealthy or toxic climates, it will degrade the effectiveness of those efforts,” Elizabeth Foster, executive director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Force Resiliency, told reporters Thursday.

“The reason for that is that when cadets and midshipmen learn one thing about leadership or prevention in the classroom, but don’t see that reinforced in other settings, it sends mixed messages about healthy norms and expectations for how they are to treat each other,” she said.

That mixed messaging was found to be different at each of the academies based on their individual traditions and mentoring concepts. That meant the team’s recommendations needed to be tailored specifically to each academy.

“While these structures, these pure leadership structures, may have been effective in the past, our finding suggests they may need some adjustment now because the culmination of all of this was a climate of cynicism, distrust and stigma,” said Andra Tharp, the senior prevention advisor for the Department of Defense’s Office of Force Resiliency.

“The cynicism and distrust really came from mixed messages that what was communicated and taught was a little bit different from what was modeled and reinforced,” she said.

Tharp said that is why the team’s recommendations are also focused on making “structural and foundational changes” at the academies to counter those effects.

“Our most significant recommendations really get at strengthening the peer leadership structure and these are the structural changes that we’re recommending, and again, they vary across the different service academies based on the severity of issues that we identified,” said Tharp.

For example, the Pentagon officials recommended that the Air Force Academy end its “fourth class” system, which they said they believe exposes first-year cadets to hazing and mistreatment. Under the current “fourth class” system at the academy, the first-year students are not given any leadership opportunities and are not acknowledged as actual “cadets” — a title they receive during their second year.

“These may be intended to create a bond within the class, but that’s certainly not everyone’s experience,” said Tharp. “And instead, they carry these negative experiences and unhealthy norms about how you treat others through their time at this service academy and into the force.”

At the Naval Academy, the officials recommended the addition of seasoned officers and non-commissioned officers to support their counterparts at the academy to provide mentorship opportunities and supervision to midshipmen.

At West Point, the officials recommended a review of the training given to cadets who are in leadership positions to enhance their ability to meet the needs of incoming cadets.

The officials also suggested that training for sexual assault prevention, stress relief, misconduct, social media and other life issues be added to the academies’ school curriculums and graded to prioritize their importance. The Pentagon officials found during their visits that these discussions were taking place after hours and on weekends, according to the report.

Austin has ordered each of the military services to provide plans of action by Oct. 31 for how they plan to implement the recommendations made by the panel. He also ordered them to regularly review their plans after that.

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(WASHINGTON) — A group of influential Republicans are preparing for the possibility that their party will retake the White House next fall — and, if they do, they’re planning to scale back on the federal government’s oversight of online misinformation.

The proposal is part of Project 2025, a sweeping new initiative led by the Heritage Foundation think tank to prepare a policy agenda, transition plan and personnel database for the next GOP president.

Among hundreds of other changes, Project 2025’s nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint, called “Mandate for Leadership,” singles out the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which is the arm of the Department of Homeland Security focused on guarding the nation’s critical infrastructure, including the systems used to conduct elections.

CISA’s work around election misinformation has drawn the ire of former President Donald Trump — who continues to wrongly claim he won the 2020 election — and other conservatives who say it is interfering in speech. The agency has pushed back on that view, calling it “patently false.”

The Project 2025 blueprint recommends ending CISA’s efforts to counter the flow of mis- and disinformation and dismissing the panel of experts that advises the agency on matters of cybersecurity or else housing the agency under the Department of Transportation, rather than DHS.

“The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth,” the proposal states.

The net effect of the proposed overhaul would be to make CISA less powerful, said Herb Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University. Moving the agency into the DOT, for example, would hamper its ability to deal with national security.

“It’s a way of emasculating the agency — that is, it prevents it from doing its job,” Lin told ABC News.

During the 2020 election cycle, CISA alerted social media companies to posts that contained mis- or disinformation.

The Project 2025 proposal’s focus on CISA and the government’s role in handling false information online has alarmed some democracy experts.

“There are verifiably false things that are said about our elections … Regardless of party, we should all be against that,” said Lawrence Norden, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program. “And the fact that we can’t say that, I think, is very troubling for our democracy.”

Project 2025 more broadly calls to cut back on the federal bureaucracy, a goal for many conservatives, while concentrating more power in the presidency.

Republicans argue that CISA exceeded its mandate during the 2020 election, coordinating with nonprofits working on misinformation in order to outsource an action that would otherwise be considered illegal censorship.

“I don’t think the government needs to be policing digital social media platforms and sharing its thoughts and opinions on what it believes to be accurate and not accurate,” said Brian Cavanaugh, a former DHS official who helped author the CISA-related portion of Project 2025. He added: “Are they the appropriate individuals to be wearing the referees’ shirt on what’s misinformation, disinformation and what’s fact?”

Agency officials have defended their work.

“CISA does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship; any such claims are patently false,” Executive Director Brandon Wales said in a statement to ABC News, noting that CISA shares information on election literacy and security in response to concerns from the public.

Trump himself has rebuked the agency for its efforts to counter election misinformation. As president, he fired Chris Krebs, who was then the head of CISA, in late 2020 in response to Krebs debunking Trump’s baseless accusations of fraud.

“Honored to serve. We did it right,” Krebs tweeted shortly after his dismissal.

Despite Trump’s vocal criticisms of the agency, Cavanaugh disputed the idea that the former president’s wishes had any bearing on Project 2025’s policy recommendations.

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but … the Mandate of Leadership [proposal] is highlighting the concerns shared by many Americans,” he said.

Trump, currently the 2024 Republican primary front-runner, according to early polling, has built his comeback bid for the White House in part around his continued, unfounded claims that widespread fraud cost him the last election.

People and politicians of all partisan backgrounds make and spread false statements. But voters’ beliefs about how to handle misinformation are split by party, surveys have shown.

Polling conducted by Pew Research Center in June found that 55% of Americans supported the U.S. government “taking steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits people from freely publishing or accessing information,” while 65% believed that tech companies should do the same.

Democrats were about twice as likely to believe those statements than Republicans, the poll found.

Lin, the Stanford researcher — and, he said, a registered Republican — cast the dispute over information this way: “If I asked you to take down a message that says that the elections are held on Wednesday rather than Tuesday, is that censorship? I don’t think it is … but somebody else might, and that person and I could have an interesting debate about that.”

But regardless of the definition, “If I can disrupt the functioning of that infrastructure by telling lies … That’s a threat to the elections infrastructure,” Lin said. “If that’s true, then you might want to have an agency part of whose mission is to focus on trying to prevent people from saying that.”

The Project 2025 proposal is not the only place where Republicans are pursuing changes to CISA. Some members of the House have proposed a bill, which hasn’t received a floor vote, “prohibiting CISA from classifying the speech of a U.S. person as mis-, dis-, or mal-information, or working with organizations that recommend social media companies censor the speech of U.S. persons on social media platforms.”

Cavanaugh, the former DHS official who worked on the Project 2025 proposal, instead offered that an inter-agency working group — such as one established by National Security Presidential Memorandum 13, a Trump-era directive which deals with election cybersecurity — as a more appropriate venue for dealing with international misinformation originating outside the U.S.

Asked what part of the government should address the threat of domestic information, he said, “There’s a lot of room for open debate on how that should be played out … and it should not be decided exclusively by the executive branch.”

Spencer Chretien, the associate director of the Project 2025 project, told ABC News that his team has made the major GOP presidential candidates aware of the blueprint and is “building ties” with the campaigns.

The Heritage Foundation touts the fact that Trump drew heavily on a prior edition of the blueprint during his time in the Oval Office.

“We represent the whole conservative movement,” Chretien said. “And so it’s important to be able to speak as a movement and to say to the next president, ‘This is what the movement expects from you and your administration.'”

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(WASHINGTON) — Now that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has filed a motion to move the Georgia election interference case to federal court, his former boss — Donald Trump — is expected to follow suit, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The potential advantages for Trump in doing so, attorneys and law professors said, would be the possibility of a more sympathetic jury pool and the potential delays such a move could cause.

The law allows federal officers facing state charges to have the prosecution moved to federal court if the conduct at issue was done under the “color of” their office, or within the ambit of their professional responsibilities.

Trump tried this maneuver in New York, where he’s charged with falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. A federal judge rejected the attempt last month, stating he failed to show the alleged conduct fell under the scope of his official duties.

Several attorneys and legal experts who spoke to ABC News said Trump may have a better argument in Georgia than he did in New York for moving the case to federal court, but still questioned whether it would be a winning strategy.

“He’s going to argue that as president he believed there was fraud in the election and he had a duty to do something about it,” said Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at the University of Georgia.

Cunningham said he believed Trump’s alleged efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia was done as a candidate for reelection rather than for his role as president, but that Trump has “enough of an argument to drag things out.”

There is not a lot of precedent to draw on, attorneys said, because the removal statute is not as commonly used in criminal cases as it is in civil cases.

“This rarely happens on the criminal side — rarely,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the law firm West Coast Trial Lawyers.

Why Trump and others would want to move the case

There are several reasons why Trump and other defendants may seek to move the case out of Georgia state court and into a federal jurisdiction, attorneys and law scholars said.

One rationale would be to try to get a broader pool of potential jurors. Trump has claimed he won’t be able to get a fair jury in New York and Washington, and is likely to make the same assertion in heavily-Democratic Fulton County.

If the case were moved to federal court, it would wind up in the Northern District of Georgia, according to Atlanta-based attorney and trial consultant Denise de La Rue.

One likely scenario is that it will land in the district’s Atlanta division, which encompasses 10 counties — including areas where Trump performed better in the 2020 election than he did in Fulton County. Another possibility, though one de La Rue said is more remote, would be that a jury is drawn from the entire district and include more rural and conservative towns.

Similarly, moving it to federal court means a new judge will take over the case. Trump, as president, appointed four of the 15 district court judges currently presiding in the Northern District of Georgia.

Another reason to seek to move the case is to try to hold up the proceedings.

“Delay is his friend,” Rahmani said of Trump. “Even if he loses, he’s going to slow the process down.”

The motion could take months to resolve, Cunningham said, noting Trump and other defendants could take their cause to the 11th Circuit of Appeals or even to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“And then I think that the whole issue of where the case is tried could drag on for at least a year, maybe longer because it’s unprecedented,” he said.

Still, the attorneys and law scholars who spoke with ABC News agreed Trump and other defendants would be tried under state law with Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis’ team still leading the prosecution.

“That means that if he were to be convicted, he would then be convicted under state laws,” said Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University. “So, the federal pardon power would be unavailable.”

Under Georgia law, complete pardons are only granted after completion of a sentence. The RICO charges Trump and 18 others face carry a minimum mandatory sentence of five years.

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(WASHINGTON) — The countdown to the first Republican primary debate has begun, with just six days until candidates take the stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.

A slew of documents drawing back the curtain on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ possible debate preparation were published online by a group associated with the DeSantis-allied super PAC Never Back Down — outlining how he might get attacked by his rivals and advising how he should strike back.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and national Democrats are planning to use the moment to highlight their competing vision for the country.

And former President Donald Trump, who has yet to commit to the debate, lashed out at the network that will host the event: Fox News.

Here’s what to know from the trail on Thursday.

Debate advice from DeSantis’ allies revealed

Documents prepared by Axiom Strategies and posted online, which were first reported by New York Times, show how those DeSantis’ allies want him to respond to his rivals’ attacks.

The group anticipates the biggest hits to DeSantis will be for his battle with Disney (the parent company of ABC News), his stance on Ukraine, Florida’s Black history standard, the culture wars and abortion.

The group also zeroed in on more specific attacks from certain campaigns. The research highlights how Sen. Tim Scott has remarked, in regard to DeSantis, that being “tough” isn’t enough to win. Nikki Haley, they said, repeatedly criticizes him for “copying Trump.”

A memo to DeSantis contained in those online documents said he needs to “Take a sledge-hammer to Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake.'”

“This was not a campaign memo and we were not aware of it prior to the article. We are well accustomed to the attacks from all sides as the media and other candidates realize Ron DeSantis is the strongest candidate best positioned to take down Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said.

– Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Abby Cruz, Hannah Demissie, Nicholas Kerr, Will McDuffie, Isabella Murray, Kendall Ross, and Kelsey Walsh

Biden plans counterprogramming to GOP debate

Biden’s 2024 team and the Democratic National Committee are planning a blitz to counter the first Republican primary debate.

It will include its third largest ad campaign of the cycle, some of which focused on Black and Hispanic media, and on-air interviews with Biden surrogates to spread his reelection message. Billboards will also be placed across Milwaukee contrasting the “MAGA agenda” with Biden’s record of accomplishments, according to the Biden campaign, including a billboard truck that will circle the debate venue.

“Next week’s Republican debate will put on display just how extreme and out of touch the Republican candidates are with the American people,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “That’s why we’re using the debate as an opportunity to activate and energize our supporters, as well as expand support for the Biden-Harris ticket and our agenda for the middle class and protecting Americans’ freedoms.”

-Fritz Farrow

Trump criticizes Fox News over supposedly unflattering photos

Trump, as he continues to keep people guessing about whether he’ll join the debate stage, took aim at Fox News on Thursday.

One of his issues with the network? What he says is their purposeful airing of unflattering photos of him.

“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot. They just won’t do it! Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big “orange” one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again…And then they want me to debate!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will moderate the first GOP debate on Wednesday.

Biden, Trump tied when it comes to favorability

Trump and Biden have a common problem: their favorability ratings.

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll found most Americans view both Biden (54%) and Trump (55%) in a negative way.

The two early 2024 frontrunners had the same exact favorability score, the survey showed, at 31%.

Tim Scott launches $8 million ad buy

The South Carolina senator is launching the second major ad buy of his campaign, this time laying out $8 million for television, radio, and digital ads.

Most of the money — $6.6 million — will go toward television ads that will air statewide in Iowa and New Hampshire and run through the end of November.

So far, he is the only candidate to have ads placed post-Labor Day.

“As he prepares to take the debate stage, it is clear he not only is the best messenger and most consistent conservative in the race, but also has the resources to win,” a senior campaign official said.

-Gabriella Abdul-Hakim

Will Hurd gets closer to debate stage

The Republican presidential candidate announced Thursday afternoon he now had 42,500 donors to his campaign, which means he has surpassed the unique donor threshold required to make the first GOP primary debate stage next week.

“We did it, y’all. Thank you to everyone who donated and helped us cross the 40,000 donor threshold. Next up, 50,000!” he said in a social media post.

Hurd’s team told ABC News they are “confident” that he has also made the polling requirements and are scheduled to speak with the Republican National Committee to get those surveys approved.

But there’s another key hurdle to Hurd getting on stage: He has said he won’t sign the RNC’s loyalty pledge without revisions to the agreement.

-Isabella Murray

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s promised press conference to refute the allegations in the indictment handed up by the Fulton County DA’s Office is now very much in doubt, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisors have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.

Trump announced the planned press conference with a social media post shortly after he and 18 co-defendants were indicted late Monday in Georgia. He said he would present, “A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia.”

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, responded to that with his own social media post declaring, “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law.”

Campaigning in Iowa, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he agreed with Kemp. And so did former Vice President Mike Pence, who said on Wednesday, “The Georgia election was not stolen.”

Georgia’s 2020 presidential election has been thoroughly examined and re-examined. The results were confirmed in three separate counts, include a hand count of the nearly five million ballots cast in the state. Under Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump’s own Justice Department looked at allegations made by Trump. So did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

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(NEW YORK) — In a week where former President Donald Trump was indicted for a fourth time, a majority (63%) of Americans say that the charges approved by a grand jury in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state are serious (47%) or somewhat serious (16%), according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Trump’s latest indictment was handed up on Monday in Fulton County and charges him and 18 others in what District Attorney Fani Willis alleged was a “criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results.”

Trump maintains he did nothing wrong and has claimed the four cases against him are politically motivated and “un-American,” which prosecutors deny. He has pleaded not guilty to his three previous indictments but has not yet appeared in court in Georgia.

The public’s view on the gravity of Trump’s latest charges is similar to an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in early August right after Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in the nation’s capital on charges related to Jan. 6 and efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

That poll found that 65% of Americans thought Trump’s federal indictment was serious or somewhat serious.

Only a quarter of adults say the indictment this week is not too serious (10%) or not serious at all (15%). Earlier in August, a similar number (24%) said Trump’s Jan. 6-related charges were not serious.

A plurality of Americans — 49% — think Trump should have been charged with a crime in the Georgia case, while 32% do not think he should have been. Fifty percent of Americans say Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, while 33% don’t think he should, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

At the same time, a plurality (49%) think that the charges in Georgia against Trump are politically motivated, while 35% think they are not. All of these findings are similar to the poll taken right after Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment.

These results depict a public that thinks Trump’s charges in Georgia are more serious than his two non-election-related indictments earlier this year.

In ABC News/Ipsos polls in the wake of those previous indictments, 42% of Americans said the charges in the federal case in Florida concerning Trump’s alleged mishandling of and refusal to return government secrets after leaving office were very serious; and fewer, 30%, said the state case in New York City over hush money payments to an adult film actress in the days before the 2016 election was very serious.

In this week’s poll, 47% think the Georgia counts are very serious. By contrast, 51% thought Trump’s charges related to Jan. 6 were very serious.

The new ABC News/Ipsos poll also comes on the heels of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment on Friday of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a special counsel in his investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty to tax charges.

A plurality of Americans (48%) are not confident that the U.S. Justice Department is handling its investigation of Hunter Biden in a fair and nonpartisan manner, while only 32% express confidence in the investigation.

And during the week that the investigation into the president’s son was assigned a special prosecutor and the former president was criminally indicted again, the favorability numbers for both Biden and Trump — their parties’ 2024 front-runners — remain well under water but unchanged in the two weeks since the last Trump indictment.

Biden and Trump’s favorability ratings both stand at 31%, and most Americans view both Biden (54%) and Trump (55%) unfavorably.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® August 15-16, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 508 U.S. adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.7 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 26-25-41 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.

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(NEW ORLEANS) — The abortion drug mifepristone should be more tightly regulated than it is now, with limits on the drug at seven weeks of gestation and requirements that patients obtain the pill in person instead of through the mail, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals won’t have an immediate impact on access to the drug, at least for now. But the ruling paves the way for the case to land before the U.S. Supreme Court in coming months as expected, putting the hotly contested question of abortion rights before the high court ahead of the 2024 election.

In a statement drugmaker GenBioPro noted that the medication remains accessible and legal.

“We remain concerned about extremists and special interests using the courts in an attempt to undermine science and access to evidence-based medication, as well as attempts to undermine the US Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority,” the company wrote. “We will continue to use our company’s legal and regulatory tools to ensure access to mifepristone, which is essential to the health of many in the United States.”

At issue is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of abortion medication, which has grown in popularity in recent years and is now used in more than half of all abortions. Under FDA rules, the brand name drug MIfeprex by Danco Laboratories and its generic counterpart by GenBioPro can be used up to 10 weeks of gestation and provided via mail after a telehealth appointment so long as the clinician follows certain rules.

After the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, the drug became illegal in states that banned abortion. Still, anti-abortion rights groups say access has been difficult to regulate because the medication remains so widely available in other parts of the country and around the world.

In a bid to curb access, at least within the U.S., a conservative-backed group known as Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed a lawsuit arguing that FDA approval of the drug should be suspended entirely, and that if that doesn’t happen, access to the drug should at least be severely restricted. A Trump-appointed judge in Amarillo, Texas, sided with the plaintiffs, although his ruling was ultimately put on hold by the Supreme Court who wanted to give the case a chance to be heard in full by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Wednesday, the appeals court said it didn’t think the FDA’s 2000 approval could be eliminated entirely because too much time had passed. The judges also upheld the FDA’s approval of the generic version of the drug in 2019.

But the appeals court three-judge panel said it did believe the FDA should impose the same restrictions on the drug as when it first hit the market in 2000, including a seven-week gestation limit and a prohibition on mailing the drug.

“The scientists at the FDA deserve our respect and our gratitude, but not our blind deference,” the judges wrote.

The FDA cites more than two decades in safety data in defending its decision in recent years to ease access to the drug.

Kirsten Moore, director of an advocacy group focused on expanding abortion medication access called the EMAA Project, said politically appointed judges shouldn’t get to replace FDA judgement on drug safety.

“While the court has acknowledged that mifepristone – both brand and generic versions – can stay on the market, they are insisting we should roll back the clock to 2000 and put the medication under lock and key,” Moore said in a statement. “The extremist judges ignored the FDA, our basic rights, and more than 20 years of scientific evidence showing mifepristone is safe and effective, rolling back decades of advancement in the standard of care.”

The Justice Department said it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

“As the Attorney General has said before, the Justice Department is committed to defending the FDA’s scientific judgment and protecting Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care. The Department strongly disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA and will be seeking Supreme Court review of that decision,” a spokesperson said.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

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