(WASHINGTON) — The judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case against former President Donald Trump says Trump has a right to free speech — but it’s not absolute.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is hearing arguments Friday morning on the terms of a protective order Smith is seeking against the former president.
Smith is seeking the protective order — which he wants in place prior to his team turning over to Trump’s attorneys materials gathered during the discovery process so they can prepare Trump’s defense — “to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” according to a court filing Smith made last week.
“Mr. Trump, like any American, has a right to free speech,” Chutkan said as Friday’s hearing got underway. “But that right is not absolute.”
Trump pleaded not guilty in June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.
Trump’s longtime aide, Walt Nauta, also pleaded not guilty to related charges.
A superseding indictment subsequently charged Trump, Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, head of maintenance at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, with two obstruction counts based on allegations that the defendants attempted to delete surveillance video footage at Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2022.
Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s campaign is making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris’ spot on the Democratic ticket in a strategic memo to donors, supporters and political strategists obtained exclusively by ABC News, as she courts the party’s base.
The document dated Friday defends the campaign’s strategy of centering the vice president ahead of a tough reelection fight, describing her as someone who has proven to be a prolific fundraiser that connects with Democrats’ voting base, and is critical to their success in the race.
“As we enter the heart of the 2024 cycle, Vice President Harris is positioned once again to be a strong political force and invaluable asset to the Biden-Harris reelection effort,” according to the memo written by campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and senior adviser Becca Siegel, who oversaw the 2020 campaign’s analytics.
In the next month, Harris will have a “big travel push” targeting young voters, a source with knowledge of the vice president’s plans tells ABC News.
Young voters have proven to be an essential constituency for Democrats in 2020 and in the 2020 midterm elections, though many aren’t yet sold on voting for Biden again.
At a young voters’ summit in Washington, D.C., last month, most young voters told ABC News that climate change was their top issue in the election and that they felt the Biden administration was not doing enough to combat it.
Biden this week traveled out West to highlight his administration’s efforts to protect the environment and announced a national monument near the Grand Canyon that would protect nearly a million acres of land and many Tribal Nation cultural sites.
The memo, sent exactly three years after Biden announced Harris as his vice-presidential running mate, comes as her approval rating among Americans is underwater. More, 52.3%, disapprove of her work compared to those who approve of it, 39.7%, according to a FiveThirtyEight polling average, though her net approval rating is an inch better than Biden’s.
The memo instead highlights polling that shows Harris with positive marks among specific groups Democrats court in elections: non-White voters and low-income Americans.
“More important than any approval polling, however, is that the Vice President has established herself as a fearless voice on many of the issues that are most important to the core voters in the Biden-Harris coalition,” Rodriguez and Siegel say in the memo.
Harris suffered a shaky start to her vice presidency. She faced a slew of staff turnover in her first year. And Biden tasked her with two priorities that were likely doomed from the start: Sorting out the root causes of migration amid surges of migrants arriving at the southern border, and ushering voting rights legislation through a near-evenly divided Congress, while contending with a filibuster requiring votes from Republicans.
Two years later, House Democrats’ “For the People” voting rights legislation is not law, and migration continues to be a political issue for the Biden administration.
Republicans have mocked Harris for her early struggles with some GOP presidential candidates concentrating a heavy amount of their attacks around Harris. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, has repeatedly targeted Harris, suggesting Biden, America’s oldest president, won’t be in office for an entire second term. In Haley’s GOP loyalty pledge, she crossed out Biden’s name and wrote “President Harris” instead.
But Harris appears to be finding her footing in an attacker role she’s recently taken on as part of the reelection campaign.
“Over the past few weeks alone, Americans have watched her be a powerful and effective messenger, calling out the extremist MAGA agenda and lifting up the issues that Americans care about: reproductive freedom, voting rights, economic opportunity, gun safety reform, and climate change and clean energy,” the memo states.
Throughout the summer, Harris has traveled the country including a “blitz of large-scale events with key constituencies” of Black American and Latinos, and gun safety advocates that her vice-presidential staff announced last month. Those six stops included remarks before the NAACP convention and a speech Friday at gun safety group Everytown’s conference in Chicago. (Everytown and other gun safety groups endorsed the Biden campaign on Thursday.)
She has also taken some notable previously unscheduled trips to take on political fights.
In July, just hours before Republican presidential candidates appeared on stage in Des Moines, Iowa, Harris traveled to the state to rail against abortion bans.
“As I travel the country, it becomes clear to me that so many people in these state legislatures don’t even know how women’s bodies work,” Harris told a mostly female audience.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do,” Harris later added.
Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed an abortion ban into law just weeks before Harris’ visit.
“We read in Scripture that the Author of life wants to give ‘a future and a hope’ to all his children and who are we to stand in His way,” Reynolds said minutes before signing the bill into law.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the law three days after it was enacted.
The Biden campaign sees abortion as a winning issue for them, pointing to multiple referendums on the issue that have gone their way, including in Ohio on Tuesday.
Harris also took a swiftly planned trip to Jacksonville, Florida, last month to criticize proposed Black history curriculum the state’s board of education unanimously approved. The new standards’ “benchmark clarifications” included a call for instructing students about “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
The vice president, while on a pre-scheduled trip to Orlando a week later, took the opportunity to again attack the proposal.
DeSantis has defended his state’s Black history curriculum, though he said he was not involved in its creation. The governor invited Harris to Florida to debate the issue. She declined the invitation.
The campaign sees the nation’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president’s latest engagements as proof that she is “a uniquely effective messenger capable of calling out [Republicans’] attacks,” according to the memo.
Harris has also been on the fundraising circuit for the Biden campaign, raising money from deep-pocketed donors around the country, as the campaign looks to stuff its coffers in the early months of what is likely to be another expensive election.
Already in the third quarter, Harris has headlined three fundraisers with two more planned on Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday and one in Seattle on Wednesday. The campaign said Harris is on track to hold more fundraisers in the third quarter than Biden.
(NEW YORK) — With the Iowa State Fair now underway, much of the nation’s attention will soon turn to Des Moines as Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls descend on the Midwestern city to show face and make their cases to future caucus-goers.
But while other candidates pose with butter sculpted into the shape of a cow and munch assorted fried foods, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, now a GOP candidate for president, is continuing to hone his campaign’s focus on New Hampshire, evidenced in part by a new $400,000 media buy from the pro-Christie Tell It Like It Is PAC in the Granite State. The purchase marks the largest to date by the PAC.
“The first primary goal for our efforts was to do everything we could to make sure he [Christie] got on the debate stage, and that was accomplished,” a senior adviser from the PAC told ABC News. “And now it’s about supporting the broader mission in the state of New Hampshire, and he’s made no secret of the importance he’s placed on that state. It’s a state he knows well. It’s a state that he spent a lot of time in the last campaign on. And it’s a state that is going to be a big focus in this race.”
The 30-second ad spot, shared exclusively with ABC News, seeks to emphasize Christie’s legacy as a “successful blue-state governor” — a message the former governor has placed at the center of his pitch to voters as he attempts to bill himself as a uniting figure in an increasingly polarized nation.
“Tired of the drama, the distractions, the lies? It’s time for conservatives to win again,” the ad states. “Christie took on the teachers’ union and won, turned around Jersey’s most violent city, and got Democrats to cut taxes. A real conservative, Christie tells the truth, and he’ll beat Joe Biden — easily.”
Christie’s PAC said undeclared voters will be key in the New Hampshire primary since the Granite State allows undeclared voters to cast their votes in primary contests.
“Don’t forget there’s a lot of independents. Independents can vote in the Republican primary as well. Don’t forget that’s a factor. And Governor Christie has got a very clear message as to why he’s running and what he’s attempting to do,” the senior adviser said. “We feel good that that’ll resonate, and we will do everything we can to drive that home from the outside.”
Set to hit the New Hampshire broadcast and cable airwaves on Friday, the release of the television spot followed a town hall hosted by the PAC in Salem, New Hampshire, on Wednesday. It capped off several days of campaigning in the state by Christie, which included another town hall at Colby-Swayer College the night before and stops at two mental health and addiction treatment facilities.
Speaking to a crowd of a few hundred people Wednesday outside of an Elk Lodge on a muggy summer evening, Christie emphasized his desire to bring the country together to do “big things” and derided former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for “distracting” voters from issues that matter.
“They want to keep you in the little fights because the more they divide us, the easier we are to dominate. When we unite behind great causes, this country is undefeated,” Christie said.
“I’m tired of arguments and anger that lead to nothing but more arguments and anger. I want those arguments to lead to accomplishments for the American people. That’s what I did as the Governor of New Jersey, and that is what I will do as President of the United States if you give me the chance,” he told the crowd.
Christie blasted Trump several times throughout the evening, at one point calling him a “rotted building with the nice facade” and predicting New Hampshire voters would cause his demise despite the former president’s strong poll numbers in the state.
“When that facade gets broken through by the people of New Hampshire, the building will collapse. You will end his career in New Hampshire in January of 2024,” Christie said.
“I made some progress in two months,” Christie told the crowd on Wednesday night. “But it’s not enough. When your friends ask you, ‘Well, why the hell should I support Christie? He can’t win,’ you tell them, ‘He won’t be ahead in one poll until election night in New Hampshire, not one.'”
Two attendees at Wednesday night’s town hall, Michele and Bill Edwards, who said that they typically leaned towards Democrats in the past, told ABC News that Christie’s message resonated with them.
“He seems to be very close to the middle, which is a huge thing for us. That’s what we want,” Michele Edwards said following the town hall. “We want somebody in the middle. No arguments, no fighting, no cruelty. Just do what’s best for the country.”
“We just changed our designation to independent so that we can choose the right candidate who we think is best for the country. And it is clear that Chris Christie has something going for him,” Bill Edwards said.
(SANDUSKY, Ohio) — Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose put Ohio’s Issue 1, a measure that could have ultimately hindered statewide attempts at protecting abortion access, at the center of his recently announced campaign for Senate.
But now, after voters defeated the Republican-backed ballot measure, LaRose is left searching for a new campaign message.
LaRose said he had “left it all on the field” campaigning in support of the ballot measure over the past eight months, including the past three weeks, when he was also canvassing for his U.S. Senate bid. Then, Ohioans voted “no” on Issue 1.
The referendum’s 14-point loss Tuesday sent Republicans not only scrambling to address a drumbeat of losses after last year’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, but also speculating over the lifespan of LaRose’s nascent Senate campaign.
“I think the issue for LaRose is, what is the thing that would reinvigorate his campaign? Because Issue 1 was supposed to be the thing,” said David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati. “I don’t want to call the crash cart in, but what’s the thing that’s gonna make this a healthy campaign? It’s hard to see what that would be right now.”
LaRose’s Issue 1 campaign work could have been an attempt to win over a voter like Nancy McKeen from Sandusky, who, after LaRose’s stop at Berardi’s Catering in Sandusky, told ABC News she was poised to vote for LaRose’s opponent Bernie Moreno, but was swayed by LaRose’s stump speech defending the ballot measure.
“I’ve made a choice because I think he’s more in tune,” McKeen said after LaRose’s Sandusky stop.
“I liked – I loved everything [LaRose] said. He did a good job,” she said.
The GOP-led Issue 1, which would have raised the threshold for a ballot initiative amending the state constitution from over 50% to 60%, went down by a 57-43 margin.
The Issue 1 vote took on national significance given an Ohio referendum set for later this year over whether to add abortion protections to the state constitution — a vote that would have been subjected to the 60% threshold had Tuesday’s vote succeeded.
The referendum’s thorough thumping was seen across Ohio – from Butler County near Cincinnati, which Trump won by 30 points three years ago but supported the referendum by 0.6 points, to Montgomery County, where Trump lost by 2 points in 2020 but the referendum lost by 14 points Tuesday.
All three of the major GOP Senate candidates– LaRose, businessman Moreno and state Sen. Matt Dolan, all supported Issue 1. But none made it the cornerstone of their bids the way LaRose did – and now the knives are out.
“Frank LaRose is staking his entire political career on Issue 1. He’s our elected Secretary of State, and he has spent the entire summer campaigning for the ‘Yes’ campaign at the cost of doing his job of administering this election,” Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters told ABC News.
“I think the really interesting thing is how Republican politicians are going to use this issue to make political games and support their own ambitions.”
LaRose spun the loss as evidence of his bonafides as a fighter despite the results.
“I’ve said for months now that there’s an assault coming on our constitution, and that hasn’t changed,” he said in a statement. “I’m just getting started in the fight to protect Ohio’s values.”
In a phone interview after the election, LaRose noted that he didn’t regret fighting for a cause he called “worthwhile.”
“Of course, that’s the message that the Democratic Party is trying to drive because, I mean, they know that this race comes down to me vs. Sherrod Brown, and I’m the clear front-runner on the GOP primary side. And, you know, they’re already focused on trying to attack me because they know I’m the one that can be sure. But here’s what’s clear, Ohio, recognize who will go to battle for them and stand up for their values,” LaRose said.
“I don’t think there’s a reasonable person who could say that I didn’t give a full effort to winning the Issue 1 campaign and nobody worked harder than I did. Seventy-six different events throughout the state. Tens of thousands of miles.”
Missteps by LaRose?
Some Republican strategists in the state cautioned against drawing straight lines between a single-issue campaign and a Senate primary or general election that will see actual candidates debate a whole host of policies.
“I don’t think Issue 1 is going to affect, because the Republican base, Republican primary voters, I think they were supportive of Issue 1,” said one Ohio GOP strategist. “Any issues for Frank in the primary aren’t going to be from Issue 1, it’ll be from other things.”
Still, other strategists and critics pointed to what they said were missteps by LaRose that contributed to Tuesday’s results.
While many observers drew a connection between Issue 1 and the abortion referendum later this year, Republicans had made a concerted effort to argue Tuesday’s vote was about protecting the state constitution from what they warned as a wave of special interest spending that could sway such referenda in the future.
However, at a local event in June, LaRose seemed to say the quiet part out loud, telling the crowd Issue 1 was “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution,” jolting Republicans’ messaging and shifting the debate toward an issue where Democrats have taken the offensive, even in other red states.
LaRose later clarified that his comments were spliced out of context, telling ABC News that abortion is “just one of many reasons” for his support of Issue 1.
“It’s simply about protecting the Constitution from a whole lot of bad ideas,” he said.
Still, the anti-Issue 1 campaign and even his primary opponent Moreno seized on the remarks.
“The one thing I would knock Frank on is that he said it’s ‘100% about abortion,’ which has screwed up the messaging. It’s 100% about protecting the constitution,” Moreno said in a podcast ahead of the vote.
Moreno also kicked off his Senate run amid the Issue 1 campaign, but hung his political future much less on the issue. In Cuyahoga County on the Southern edge of Cleveland on the Monday morning before the Issue 1 vote, the two-time Senate hopeful made a few mentions of Issue 1 while delivering a robust introductory speech on the stump, where he pitched himself as a savvy businessman (like Trump) who was uninterested in political ambition (unlike LaRose).
“Anytime something you say is being used by the other campaign, anytime something you say is viewed as so productive that the other side’s putting it in their campaign ads, it’s really, really emblematic of failure,” Niven said.
Critics also went after LaRose for not investing his own money in the referendum, especially after telling NBC News he had put in “sweat equity” but that Republicans ultimately lost because of a wave of Democratic spending against Issue 1.
LaRose raised $1 million for Leadership for Ohio, an outside group that is now supportive of his Senate campaign. While he could have directly coordinated with the group before he launched his run, LaRose did not send any of that money to back up the referendum.
“He blamed the loss on Republicans getting outspent by Democrat dark-money groups, yet despite raising a million dollars into an organization to assist with his Senate run the past six months, he admitted that he didn’t direct a single dollar towards passing Issue 1, despite being legally allowed too,” said one GOP strategist backing a rival candidate.
LaRose told ABC News that the outside group did not invest money through the group to avoid illegal “coordination,” though he did not explain why the organization didn’t donate money before his Senate campaign’s launch.
Fight for Senate control
The GOP setback Tuesday takes place in the broader context of Republicans’ hopes of taking back the Senate next year with the help of a highly favorable map.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, along with fellow Democratic senators in West Virginia and Montana, is a top GOP target next year. Losing the chance to unseat him would mark a significant blow to flipping the chamber in Republicans’ favor in 2025 — and his opponents are warning that a LaRose nomination could throw off the GOP’s focus in 2024.
“Make no mistake about it, if Frank is the Republican nominee, the entire campaign against him is going to be about abortion. Is that what Republican voters, operatives and donors want?” asked the strategist working for a rival.
The Issue 1 results also could energize Democrats to boost Brown after being burned by a string of losses in the erstwhile swing state.
“This is really the first proof of life that we’ve seen from Ohio Democrats, Ohio progressives, since Sherrod Brown won in 2018,” he said.
Brown is still undoubtedly headed for a knife fight in a state that jolted to the right during the Trump years. But for now, at least, Democrats are celebrating, in part at LaRose’s expense.
“Tonight was an important victory for our state, the voters of Ohio and the principle of majority rule,” Walters said in a statement. “Ohio Democrats were proud to play our part in stopping this political power grab by out-of-touch politicians at the statehouse – most notably Frank LaRose, who made himself the face of this effort and is now officially Ohio’s biggest loser.”
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Grilling pork chops, chowing down on corn dogs, visiting the famous “Butter Cow” dairy sculpture: these festivities and more await the 2024 presidential candidates starting Thursday at the Iowa State Fair.
The fair, an annual celebration of Iowa’s agriculture industry, is a rite of passage for presidential candidates looking to mingle with early-state voters. And with so many unscripted interactions, and a selection of unique foods, it also presents landmines for White House hopefuls.
In 2011, Democrats seized on then-candidate Mitt Romney’s offhand response to a heckler that “corporations are people, my friend” to paint him as out-of-touch for the rest of the campaign.
Former candidates Michelle Bachmann, Bernie Sanders and Rick Perry have all struggled to eat the Iowa State Fair’s famous corn dogs with dignity in front of the cameras.
While running for president in 2004, John Kerry made the faux pas of ordering a strawberry smoothie at the fair, rather than the typical beer.
The moment followed Kerry for years: “In my defense, it was delicious — but you’re right Matt, that smoothie clearly killed me in the Iowa caucuses,” he tweeted in 2019.
This year, as always, the political dramas of the race are sure to follow the candidates through the festivities.
At the center of those dramas is former President Donald Trump, who remains in the lead in the race for Iowa’s Republican nomination, according to statewide polling amassed by FiveThirtyEight. Trump is consistently garnering support from about half of Iowa Republicans, according to the polls.
Trump is the only candidate in attendance who has declined Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ invitation to sit down one-on-one for a “Fairside Chat.” Trump soured on Reynolds last month, after she affirmed that she would be staying neutral in the nomination contest.
“I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL,'” he wrote in a blistering Truth Social post last month.
Trump, who currently faces three federal indictments, will arrive prepared to jab his chief rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appears to be gaining on Trump in the Iowa polls, despite a turbulent few weeks for DeSantis’ campaign. Trump is bringing to Iowa a contingent of Floridian politicians who have endorsed him over their own governor.
The fair will also see visits from underdog candidates who are growing desperate for a “break-out moment” that can launch their popularity. Among them are Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who was the lone candidate to step off at Wednesday night’s parade commencing the event. Former Vice President Mike Pence is in a similar position, having just barely qualified for the Republican debate stage despite his formerly prominent position in the party.
The only Republican candidate who has not announced plans to attend the fair is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose late entry into the race has caused his campaign to focus on New Hampshire, another early state, rather than Iowa.
On the Democrats’ side, the two candidates challenging President Joe Biden for the nomination – author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – will make brief stops at the fair. Biden himself, who remains the race’s clear frontrunner, has no plans to attend.
Democrats also will host programming on the fairgrounds to “contrast 2024 Republicans’ MAGA agenda with President Biden and Democrats’ record of success.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart will hold a press conference to tout the party’s legislative victories.
The issue of abortion may loom over the festivities, since on Tuesday Ohio voters became the latest red-leaning state to side with Democrats on an abortion-related ballot measure.
Iowa recently passed its own law banning abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, though the tightest restrictions are temporarily blocked while it faces legal challenges. Republican candidates’ stances on abortion are especially important to Iowa’s evangelical voters, who make up a large voting bloc in the early primary state.
Since festivities began Thursday morning, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has squeegeed the window of the fair’s famous “Butter Cow,” after the refrigerated environment caused it to cloud; presidential candidate Larry Elder sat down with Reynolds; and presidential candidate Perry Johnson has toured the fair’s sheep barn.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Republicans suffered their latest electoral setback on a vote related to abortion, this time over a referendum in Ohio on Tuesday, leaving party operatives who spoke with ABC News saying the same thing: The GOP still hasn’t figured out how to talk about the issue.
The conservative-led effort in Ohio would have raised the threshold for future changes to the state constitution via ballot initiative from 50%-plus-one to 60%. It failed by a 14-point margin.
Citing comments by a leading Republican in the state who said the change was an effort to curb future abortion access, opponents of the effort linked the vote to a special election later this year over whether to add abortion protections to the Ohio constitution.
The defeat compounds similar results since last year that were about or associated with abortion in other states, included in typically Republican-leaning terrain like Kansas and Kentucky.
With Ohio, specifically, some strategists argued there may have been obstacles with the nature of the proposal.
“The way this initiative was written in the first place was probably not the best way to go about it,” said one GOP strategist with experience in Ohio.
“Swing voters and a lot of Republicans just don’t like the idea of changing the state constitution. So if you go into a ballot initiative and you’re undecided, you’re going to err on the side of ‘don’t make any changes.’ … I also think people forget about this a lot: If you poll it, around 30% of Republicans nationally identify as pro-choice [favoring abortion access],” the strategist said.
Abortion is thought to have played an outsized role in the 2022 midterms — the first after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade — and exit polling showed it was top of mind for voters in some states.
In those elections, Democrats limited their losses in the House and expanded their Senate majority despite widespread expectations of a red wave given President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and concerns over inflation.
Critics said Tuesday’s ballot measure was organized during a rushed August special election in order to head off the abortion access amendment that was recently added to November’s election.
“We know that the special election was put ahead of the November vote because our opposition saw the support … And they wanted to get ahead of us,” Lauren Blauvelt, co-chair of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, the umbrella organization leading the effort to enshrine abortion access in the Ohio Constitution, told ABC News at an election night victory party in Columbus.
Democrats knew ahead of Tuesday’s vote that a victory for their anti-ballot initiative coalition would add to the pile of wins they’ve racked up during their battle for increasing abortion access protections via referenda. (Anti-abortion proponents counter that they have seen state success as well, with governors like Georgia’s Brian Kemp supporting major restrictions and remaining popular.)
“Kansas was an emphasis for the anti-abortion movement in this country for many years. But that amendment [winning] last year gave me hope. Why? Because people there rose up. It wasn’t just Democrats. It wasn’t just independents. It wasn’t even just moderate Republicans,” Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Ken Martin said at a canvassing kick-off in Dublin, Ohio on Saturday.
Nearly 700,000 Ohioans voted early, either in-person or by mail, which is nearly five times the amount of voters who cast ballots in last August’s primaries and far outpaces the 288,700 people who voted early for the May 2022 primary election, when competitive U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races were on the ballot.
Total turnout came close to some recent general elections. The unofficial election results from Tuesday show a 38.54% turnout across the state, which is just a 14% drop in-person election day ballots cast during the November 2022 general election.
The Republican operatives who spoke with ABC News said Ohio’s election underscored the risk the issue still poses to the GOP’s aspirations for taking back the White House and Senate.
The Ohio referendum’s supporters initially cast their campaign as an effort to protect the state constitution from outside special interests who might use ballot measures to make unacceptable changes to public policy.
But opponents mounted their own campaign around drumbeat messaging that Tuesday’s vote was a proxy for the issue of abortion.
“You need to get up early and define the issue. The other side got up with more than three weeks of saturating level advertising, defining the issue before the ‘yes’ side even got up,” said one Ohio GOP strategist. “And you look at the early voting returns, the die was cast.”
The referendum took place against the backdrop of the Republican presidential primary, with White House hopefuls in the party staking out their own messaging on abortion.
Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two leading contenders in the race so far, have largely avoided answering when asked about what kind of abortion legislation they’d sign into law if they become president.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has said he’d fight for a 15-week ban at the federal level, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley earlier this year teased a major policy speech on the issue only to call for “compassion.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been the strictest in his policies, citing his long-standing commitment to restricting abortion as part of his Christian faith and saying he would ban the procedure even for nonviable pregnancies.
Pence was the only GOP candidate for president to urge a vote on the ballot measure ahead of the election, coming out with a video on Tuesday morning where he said a “yes” vote would “save Ohio.”
Beyond a cutoff time for abortion restrictions during pregnancy, Republicans across the country have also found little consensus on exceptions for instances of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.
But the results in Ohio and elsewhere are leading some in the party to say that there is too great an electoral risk in supporting too strict of a ban.
“A six-week abortion ban at the federal level is absolutely a loser. Part of this is how you message it,” said the strategist with experience in Ohio. “How about a 15-week national minimum standard with the three exceptions? That doesn’t sound as terrifying as an abortion ban. I don’t think you lose the middle when you get to something like 15 weeks with the reasonable exceptions.”
Anti-abortion groups, who are influential among the Republican base, have repeatedly and publicly pressed candidates to support strict stances, saying anti-abortion voters favor that commitment.
After Tuesday’s vote, the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in a statement that “it is a sad day for Ohio and a warning for pro-life states across the nation.” The group added, “A broad coalition of passionate pro-life Ohioans came together to … try to take victory from the jaws of defeat.”
Conservative operatives said candidates’ lack of flexibility on policy can make some races harder to win.
“In more competitive districts, you oftentimes have Republican candidates whose position on abortion is not as hard-line as more rural or right-to-life-type organizations positions are. And that’s why that issue in different places needs to be litigated differently by those candidates,” said Ohio GOP strategist Nick Everhart.
Until that happens, though, the Republicans who spoke with ABC News forecasted more defeats — including in November, when Ohioans will vote on adding abortion protections to the state constitution.
“While it might have been possible to keep this campaign away from the issue in the fall, I think messaging-wise, some things get crossed-winded,” Everhart said. “I think what we saw is really an early version of what the result in the fall election is going to be on this specific issue in Ohio.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration has unveiled a $40 billion supplemental funding request to Congress, which includes aid for the war in Ukraine, border and migration, disaster response and firefighter pay — an ask that will be a hard sell to Republican lawmakers in the House.
For Ukraine and other international needs, the administration is asking for roughly $24 billion. That total includes $9.5 billion “for equipment for Ukraine and replenishment of DOD stocks; and $3.6 billion for continued military, intelligence, and other defense support.” The administration is also asking for $7.3 billion for economic, humanitarian, and security assistance to Ukraine and other impacted countries and populations.
Senior administration officials said this supplemental request is funding for the first quarter of 2024. They left the door open to future requests for aid to Ukraine if needed.
The administration is also seeking $4 billion for border and migration, $12 billion for the disaster relief fund and wildland firefighter pay.
Now that the administration has asked for supplemental funding, the ball is in Congress’ court. Time is running out for lawmakers to act before existing U.S. aid for Ukraine runs dry. Per senior administration officials, existing funds could run out by the end of September.
But can a divided Congress actually approve this spending request?
Ukraine funding is going to face a much steeper resistance in Congress than any previous funding package has. Whether opposition from hard-line House Republicans can be overcome remains to be seen, and a looming government shutdown means Congress could be locking horns over this issue as soon as next month.
Popularity of Ukraine funding is waning in some camps on the Hill
Ukraine funding has waned in popularity among some Republicans for months. There’s a number of reasons for that, ranging from concern about lack of oversight for the funding to worries about draining US resources in service of foreign countries.
In a House vote last month, 70 House Republicans voted in favor of an amendment that would have stripped all funding for Ukraine. That’s not enough to doom Thursday’s request yet, but it signals a shifting priority for House Republicans.
Ukraine funding is also less popular with Americans, with 55% of Americans opposing authorizing additional funding to support Ukraine, according to a CNN poll released last week.
Looming government shutdown brings Ukraine aid into focus
President Joe Biden’s request for additional Ukraine aide comes as Congress is gearing up for a September battle over government funding, which will run out on Oct. 1 if Congress doesn’t act. The possibility of a shutdown could make passage of additional Ukraine aid even more cumbersome.
As some lawmakers look to include funding for Ukraine in the discussion about government funding more generally, they’ll be somewhat hamstrung by a deal struck by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden earlier this year that set caps on defense and non-defense spending in exchange for Republican agreement to suspend the debt limit.
Some Senate Republicans decried the caps on defense spending in the debt limit deal in part due to concern that it would make it more difficult to continue aid to Ukraine, so Senate leaders offered up the possibility of a supplemental aid package, like the one the White House requested Thursday, to augment the defense cap in order to get their sign off.
Supplemental funding requests are not impacted by the cap.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in response to the White House’s actions on Thursday, is already signaling that he’ll try to pass the supplemental funding request.
“There is strong bipartisan support in the Senate for doing more to help our fellow citizens impacted by natural disasters, fight the scourge of fentanyl, and support our partners in Ukraine,” Schumer said in a statement. “We hope to join with our Republican colleagues this fall to avert an unnecessary government shutdown and fund this critical emergency supplemental request.”
Schumer very well may succeed despite the opposition from some Republicans. While there’s a growing contingent of Senate Republicans who oppose Ukraine aid, there’s still pretty broad support for Ukraine in the upper chamber, including from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.
At a press event on Wednesday, McConnell said he “looked forward” to viewing the administration’s request, and reaffirmed his support for Ukraine.
“Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons, and improving our own military, for what may lie ahead,” McConnell told reporters.
But passage is less likely in the House. Hard-line Republicans oppose supplemental funding because they feel it flies in the face of the hard-fought budget cuts they secured in the debt limit deal.
McCarthy told ABC News back in June that he supports Ukraine but is not interested in providing supplemental funding.
“I support our actions in Ukraine,” McCarthy said. “But just like any aid that anybody asks [for], if they ask me for more funding for something in a street, you gotta tell me how much money you need, what do you want to achieve, and would this solve the problem.”
“We just worked on an agreement,” McCarthy said, referring to the debt ceiling deal. “Working [on] a supplemental right now is only blowing up the agreement. That’s all about spending more money. So, no, I do not support a supplemental.”
There’s a number of ways that lawmakers could try to get a vote on the supplemental funds. The timing is not clear, but Congress could be grappling with this request as soon as next month.
As the threat of a shutdown grows nearer and nearer, it’s possible Congress would need to consider a stop gap measure to keep the government funded, at least until they can reach broader agreement on government funding bills. If that happens, the Senate could join the supplemental funding to that package, clearing the way for easier passage in the Senate. What’s less clear is whether the House would take up such a bill.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Amid remarks on the Pact Act, President Joe Biden addresses the devastating wildfires in Hawaii.
President Joe Biden, speaking on the deadly Maui wildfires, said a new disaster declaration will “get aid in the hands of people desperately needing help now.”
“Our prayers are with the people of Hawaii, but not just our prayers,” Biden said. “Every asset we have will be available to them. They’ve seen their homes or businesses destroyed, and some have lost loved ones, and it’s not over yet.”
Dozens of people have died, hundreds of structures have been destroyed and cultural landmarks have been damaged as a result of the fires.
Before his remarks, Biden approved an emergency declaration to make federal funding available to help those affected in Maui County. The money can be used for temporary housing, home repairs and other programs as well as for state and local governments to remove debris and to institute protective measures.
“Anyone who’s lost a loved one, whose home has been damaged or destroyed, is going to get help immediately,” Biden said, appearing from Salt Lake City as part of a three-state blitz to tout policy achievements.
Biden had a phone call with Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, the White House said, during which he offered his condolences for the lives lost and destruction of land.
The president said he let Green know he will make sure “the state has everything it needs the federal government to recover.”
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell will arrive in Maui Friday, Biden said, and has been directed to streamline any request for federal assistance from survivors.
The death toll has risen to 36 as fires continue to devastate the Hawaiian island. Adam Weintraub, the communications chief for Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, told “Good Morning America” they feared that number could rise.
The wildfires, which broke out early Tuesday, have been fueled by extremely dry conditions and powerful winds. As of Thursday, there were three active fires burning that were not contained, according to Mahina Martin, chief of communications and public affairs in Maui County.
A federal team arrived in Maui on Wednesday to assist with search-and-rescue efforts.
Biden said Thursday he’s directed an in increase support for firefighters and first responders “working around the clock there risking their lives” to battle the blaze.
More than 270 structures have been impacted so far, and thousands have been without power for the last several days. Hundreds of people camped out overnight in Kahului Airport as they tried to leave the island.
The historic town of Lahaina, a famous tourist destination and one-time capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, has been particularly decimated by the flames.
Officials have said it could take years for Maui to fully recover.
“Our beautiful island has been ravaged by fires from the mountain to the ocean,” Maui Chamber of Commerce President Pamela Tumpap told ABC News Live.
(ATLANTA) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has responded to a recent attack ad from former President Donald Trump, writing in an internal memo sent to staff urging them not to respond and reminding them that “we have a job to do,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by ABC News.
“We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any,” Willis wrote in the memo on Wednesday. “This is business, it will never be personal.”
The memo came in response, Willis wrote, to an attack ad taken out by Donald Trump to run in the Atlanta area to run through Sunday.
In the memo, Willis told her staff not to “comment in anyway on the ad or the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months.”
“In this office, we prosecute based on the facts and the law. This law is non-partisan. You should feel no need to defend me,” she wrote. “I am not concerned with the calls, emails, or ads and you should not concern yourself with them.”
The Trump Campaign recently released an ad which attacked Willis with a number of unproven or exaggerated allegations.
In her memo, Willis did not specifically name which ad she was referring to, but the Atlanta Journal Constitution — which first reported the memo — reported that the Trump campaign paid $79,000 for that ad to run on cable news channels in metro Atlanta between Aug. 9 and 13, according to Medium Buying.
In her memo, Willis said the ad contained “derogatory and false information about me as the District Attorney of the Atlanta Judicial Circuit.”
ABC News previously reported that Willis, who for over two and a half years has been investigating Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, is expected to bring her case before the grand jury next week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Willis also reminded staff of a policy not to comment on matters “on social media or any public forum.”
“No employee of this office may make any public comments related to the noise,” Willis continued. “You instruction from me is to ignore all the noise and keep doing your job with excellence.”
(WAILUKU, Hawaii) — Hawaii residents recounted fleeing from deadly, ferocious wildfires, which have prompted an emergency proclamation from the acting governor.
“We started smelling the smoke, and that’s when we knew we had trouble,” Maui resident Steve Scott ABC News’ Gio Benitez on Wednesday. “It came, and it came quick.”
The wildfires are spreading rapidly in very dry conditions combined with powerful trade winds being squeezed across Hawaii. The winds are being caused by a strong high pressure system to the north and a strong low pressure system — Hurricane Dora — well to the south.
Scott said they had winds “like we’ve never had before.” He said he tried to fight the fire with a hose before managing to flee.
“I was trapped,” he said. “We had to run to the harbor.”
Maui resident Malika Dudley described to ABC News Live on Wednesday her experience evacuating from the raging wildfires with her two children in the middle of the night.
“We were in the very first evacuation at 1 a.m. I started to smell smoke in my home, and I woke my husband up and he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’ At 1:30, I thought, ‘No, something’s on fire in our house.'”
Eventually, they got a call from their neighbor and the fire was right above their property.
“We got a call from our neighbor who said, ‘Get out of your house.’ And we looked out the window and there was a red glow outside of our window,” she said. “The fire was right above our property.”
Currently in Haliimaile, which is on the slopes of Haleakalā, Dudley can still see the fire from the mountain growing and spreading.
Scott said the loss is “horrible,” especially along Front Street in downtown Lahaina, just as the tourist-driven area started to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t know if we can recover from this,” he said.
Travel discouraged amid emergency
The emergency proclamation was issued for Hawaii’s Maui and Hawaii counties on Tuesday by acting Gov. Sylvia Luke. On Wednesday, the emergency proclamation was extended to all counties and non-essential air travel to Maui is now being discouraged. All affected state agencies have also been ordered to assist with the evacuation.
The proclamation encourages visitors in West Maui to depart the island as soon as safe and practicable.
“We are closely following the wildfires caused by the strong winds of Hurricane Dora,” Luke said. “The safety of our residents is paramount, and this emergency proclamation will activate the Hawaii National Guard to support emergency responders in the impacted communities.”
In addition to Hawaii’s National Guard being activated to assist with the fires on Maui and the Big Island, the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division will be sending helicopters to help with fire suppression if the winds die down enough, according to Jeff Hickman, a spokesman for Hawaii’s Department of Defense.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for the leeward portions of all Hawaiian Islands.
As of Tuesday night, six fires have burned over 1,800 acres across Maui and the Big Island. Officials said the situation on Maui is very dynamic and fast-moving.
Evacuations were in place Tuesday near two fires burning near Maui — the Lahaina and Upcountry Maui fires, county officials said.
“Multiple structures have burned and multiple evacuations are in place, as firefighter crews continue battling brush and structure fires in Upcountry and Lahaina areas,” officials said in a statement. “In West Maui, fire crews from Napili, Lahaina, Kihei and Wailuku responded to the fast-moving fire, which was fueled by strong winds as Hurricane Dora passed well south of Hawaii.”
The U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies are also responding. The Coast Guard’s Hawaii Pacific patrol said they successfully rescued 12 people from the waters off Lahaina. The individuals are believed to have jumped into the water to escape the flames, according to the state’s EMA.
Travel headaches
There has been no formal closure of Kahului Airport, the main airport on Maui, but there have been disruptions from the smoke. Travelers should check with their airlines for their flight status, according to the EMA.
About 1,800 people sheltered at Kahului Airport overnight, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation.
The Hawaii DOT has also urged visitors to leave Maui if possible and not travel to the island. The warnings have caused panic on flights headed to the island.
An Alaska Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Maui has been delayed for hours and twice allowed passengers off the plane after being told about the conditions on the island.
“I was going to West Maui but don’t know if I am anymore because I guess it’s on fire and they’re evacuating people to Honolulu,” Sam Herring, a passenger still on the plane, told ABC News. “I was going to stay with somebody I know on the west side but now I guess I’m going to sleep in the rental car.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Will Carr, Timmy Truong and Marilyn Heck have contributed to this report.
