Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday unveiled a federal law enforcement reform plan that he’s calling “critically important” and overdue — and a preview of legislation he would push if he is elected president in 2024.

“If there’s anything that my life has represented, it is both my faith but it’s also support for the rule of law,” Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, told “GMA3.” “I’ve spent my private life, my public career, defending the rule of law and our justice system — and it needs a correction. We haven’t had a major reform in our federal law enforcement in over 20 years.”

Hutchinson said his proposal is intended to help restore confidence in federal law enforcement by giving them more accountability — by requiring agent interviews be recorded, for instance — without undercutting the mission of public safety and protecting the nation.

The proposal includes eight reforms: transferring drug enforcement responsibilities from the FBI to the Drug Enforcement Administration; elevating the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties now under the FBI’s general counsel to the FBI director’s office; requiring the FBI to record agent interviews; reassigning administrative support offices within the FBI to the Department of Justice; creating a unified charter for federal law enforcement agencies; establishing a commission on the future of federal law enforcement; reforming intelligence collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and reaffirming the relationship between the president and attorney general.

Hutchinson is holding a press conference at 3 p.m. ET at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the proposal.

“These will be some very bold reform proposals that are critical to make sure and our system works again, which is the envy of the world,” he said on “GMA3.”

Other Republicans in the 2024 race, led by former President Donald Trump, have been increasingly critical of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, claiming they are politicized — a charge that top law enforcement officials have pushed back against.

“We’ve lost confidence in the federal law enforcement in some ways, and that confidence needs to be rebuilt. And that’s the purpose of this reform,” Hutchinson said Monday.

Monday’s unveiling comes as he works to reach 40,000 unique donors to his campaign to qualify for the primary debate stage next month in Milwaukee. As of Friday, just before second-quarter filings were due, Hutchinson’s campaign said he had received donations from 7,000 individuals — meaning he has about a month to acquire more than 30,000 new donors.

“We’re not there yet. We need a lot of help to get there, but it’s really important,” Hutchinson acknowledged on “GMA3.” “Obviously, the voters are now starting to get tuned in with the Iowa caucus six months away. … So this debate is a way to contrast the candidates between themselves and their ideas.”

Some of those places of “contrast” that Hutchinson highlighted were on border security and support for Ukraine. While some GOP candidates, like biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have advocated for ending both birthright citizenship and U.S. support for military efforts in Ukraine — arguing the latter is not as much of a priority as countering China — Hutchinson said he offers true conservative policies, like a strong military and cutting federal spending.

“These are dramatic changes that I want to present, and that’s why we want on that debate stage as well,” he said Monday.

Hutchinson has been an outspoken critic of Trump for, as he claims, undermining the rule of law. (Trump denies all wrongdoing.)

He has called for the former president to drop out of the 2024 race as the various criminal investigations into Trump’s actions have become “a distraction” to the campaign, he’s said.

Still, Trump continues to hold a commanding lead among Republican voters, polling at an average of about 50% in an average of early national surveys, according to FiveThirtyEight. Hutchinson, by contrast, is polling around around 1%. Trump has also dismissed Hutchinson’s own prospects.

Asked on Monday if the GOP has moved too far away from the more moderate Republican Party that Hutchinson sees himself as representing — after, on Sunday, he was booed at one point and drowned out with chants of “Trump” while speaking at a Turning Point USA conference in Florida — Hutchinson said he’ll continue to make the case against Trump and called this “the most unpredictable election season that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

“First of all, it was a great event. There were thousands of young people there who were very well behaved. A few of the adults got out of hand, but it’s really important, as you said, to go to these audiences [who] might be pro-Trump and make your case — because the way to the nomination has to go through Donald Trump,” he said. “You have to make your case against him. You have to contrast it and we’re doing that every day. And over time, that’s going to make a difference.”

“The key is people want to win in 2024, and Donald Trump is not the path to victory,” he added. “And so right now, it is wide open.”

ABC News’ John Klarl contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Sens. Joe Lieberman and Doug Jones appeared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” to debate the viability of a bipartisan third-party presidential ticket in 2024 — and whether that effort could serve as a spoiler in the race for the White House.

Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent who represented Connecticut, is the founding chair of No Labels, which is preparing a possible “unity” ticket that would include both parties and offer, he said, another option for those voters dissatisfied with a potential rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

“We’re in this to give the majority of the American people who feel that the major two parties are failing them a third choice, both in policies, such as we’re going to release in New Hampshire [on Monday], but also possibly in a third candidate,” Lieberman told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “And we’ve been very explicit … If the polling next year shows, after the two parties have chosen their nominees, that, in fact, we will help elect one or another candidate, we’re not going to get involved.”

Jones, an Alabama Democrat and staunch Biden ally who has joined a group to counter No Labels, rejected that thinking.

“Those polls right now mean nothing,” he shot back at Lieberman, referencing reticence for both Biden and Trump. “This past weekend, you saw that the Biden-Harris team raised $70 million, 30% of those were new donors,” Jones added. “That is not a candidate that is being rejected by the American people.”

Of No Labels, he said, “There is no way on God’s green earth that they can get to 270 electoral votes, which means they will be a spoiler, one way or another.”

Not so, Lieberman insisted. The problem wasn’t No Labels, he said. “The problem is the American people are not buying what the two parties are selling anymore. And I think the parties would be wiser to think about that.”

Lieberman has experience facing third party bids himself: As the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he and presidential hopeful Al Gore lost Florida by a few hundred votes in a state where the Green Party’s Ralph Nader got nearly 100,000 ballots, with Lieberman at the time calling any vote for Nader actually a vote for opponent George W. Bush.

The dueling views on No Labels come amid Democratic handwringing over whether the group’s plan — which it says would comprise of one Democrat and one Republican on the same ticket next year — is more likely to peel off disaffected Republican voters who would vote for Biden in a pure head-to-head with Trump next year.

Lieberman said Sunday that No Labels would hold off on its campaign if Democrats and Republicans both embrace centrism.

“We have said all along that we’re not yearning to run a third-party ticket. If one or both parties move more toward the center in their policies … and maybe think about the two candidates being so unpopular among the American people, we won’t run,” he said.

Jones said there was already a more moderate option available in Biden, noting the president’s cooperation with Republican lawmakers in Congress.

“Look at what he has done, bringing the infrastructure package together, pulling that together for the first time in decades to do infrastructure, for the PACT Act [for veterans], the CHIPS Act [for manufacturing],” Jones said.

“I don’t know why in the world somebody thinks that Joe Biden’s administration is so far left, unlike a Donald Trump or someone else that is an extreme right,” he argued.

In interviews and public statements, the group has repeatedly insisted that while polling proves there’s an appetite for a third option in 2024, No Labels would take an “off ramp” if they are wrong.

“That sort of runs against human nature, doesn’t it? Once a campaign starts, it’s hard to stop,” Stephanopoulos pressed Lieberman on “This Week.”

“The American people don’t like what the two parties are doing,” Lieberman responded. “And they particularly don’t like the two candidates that they seem set on nominating.”

Jones, however, took issue with No Labels largely operating outside of public scrutiny.

“They’re not disclosing their donors. They’re not playing by the same rules,” he said. (A No Labels spokesperson previously told ABC News: “We never share the names of our supporters because we live in an era where far-right and far-left agitators and partisan operatives try to destroy and intimidate organizations they don’t like by attacking their individual supporters.”)

Jones on Sunday criticized how No Labels might also put together its ticket — not through a series of public primaries but through back-room discussions that undercut the very pitch Lieberman was making.

“That’s not very democratic. That’s not a choice,” he said. “It’s a false choice and really an illusion as to what they’re doing.”

Even some Republicans have cast doubts on No Labels’ viability, pointing to past failures by third-party candidates to make a legitimate run at the White House. The group has also faced roadblocks in its effort to get access to the ballot in all 50 states.

“I think it’s a fool’s errand. … I’m not in this for show time. I’m not in this, you know, for making a point. I’m in this to get elected president of the United States,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is running for the White House as a Republican, said on “This Week.”

“And there are only two people who will get elected president of the United States in November of ’24 — the Republican nominee for president, and the Democratic nominee for president.”

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(WASHINGTON) — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the war in Ukraine hasn’t devolved into a stalemate but he acknowledged it remains “hard going” against Russia.

“We said before this counteroffensive started that it’d be hard going, and it’s been hard going,” Sullivan said in an interview with ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos, referring to a new push by the Ukrainians that began this summer. “That’s the nature of war, but the Ukrainians are continuing to move forward.”

“We’re continuing to supply them with the necessary weaponry and capabilities to be able to do that and they will keep attempting to take back the territory that Russia has illegally occupied,” Sullivan continued, pointing to what he called “progress both in the east and the south.”

He said the Biden administration is also confident that congressional Republicans will not waver on aid to Ukraine, despite divisions in the party and among GOP presidential candidates over how involved the U.S. should be.

Last week, a majority of Republicans rejected proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have curtailed Ukraine assistance. One such change only got 89 GOP votes.

But major conservative figures outside of Congress have voiced skepticism over the scope of U.S. support. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 2024 White House hopeful, said last week, “I think that right now you have an open-ended blank check. There’s no clear objective for victory. And this is kind of dragging on and on.” Other prominent voices, like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, contend that the U.S. should focus on domestic problems rather than look abroad.

At an event in Iowa on Friday, Carlson pushed former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also running in 2024, on Ukraine — with Pence at one point being booed. He told Carlson that the U.S. can tackle its own problems while still backing Ukraine.

Sullivan on Sunday singled out “a small cadre of Republicans who stand up and say we should stop helping Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.”

But, pointing to a joint statement from Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, he said, “I actually think there is a strong backing for Ukraine in the Congress, not just among Democrats, but among Republicans as well.”

The public, too, is still generally pro-Ukraine, Sullivan said: “The American people have really hung in there and supported the Ukrainian people.”

Longer-term, Sullivan said that the U.S. plans to help Ukraine join NATO once the country has made “certain democratic reforms” and after the Russian invasion is ended.

Despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s anger at the lack of a more concrete timeline for his country to enter the alliance, Sullivan said on Sunday that Zelenskyy had a “great conversation” with President Joe Biden at last week’s NATO summit in Europe and was “very satisfied with the support that he’s getting from his Western partners.”

Back at home, Sullivan had sharp words for how the House’s Republican majority has handled this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which they modified with some hot-button amendments, including on abortion access and transgender service members.

Asked by Stephanopoulos to respond to GOP criticism of Democrats who largely voted against the military spending bill in light of those changes, with conservatives arguing that Democrats were walking away from America’s troops, Sullivan maintained that it was “just the opposite.”

“Trying to mix up domestic political issues into support for America’s military and America’s troops, that’s what the set of amendments that the Republicans brought forward did,” Sullivan said.

He said lawmakers who opposed Republican amendments that took aim at abortion, transgender medical procedures and diversity, equity and inclusion programs were the ones who were focused on “what’s real.”

“What’s real is the necessary capabilities, technologies and fundamental social support for our troops and their families,” Sullivan said. “That’s what this all should have been about, not these domestic political issues.”

But the fight over the NDAA was “of a piece … with the larger challenge that we’re facing,” he said, referring to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who for months has blocked many military nominations because of his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy on supporting members who travel for abortions.

“For the first time in 150 years, we don’t have a commandant to the Marine Corps., we are very soon not going to have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or a chief of naval operations,” Sullivan said. “This is making America less safe. Any why? Because of the attempt to score domestic political points.”

“It’s just got to stop,” Sullivan said.

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(NEW YORK) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday that he believes Republican front-runner Donald Trump will — despite suggesting otherwise — end up attending the first GOP primary debate, in Milwaukee next month.

Christie, a former ABC News contributor, told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos he thinks Trump’s “ego” will “not permit him to have a big TV show that he’s not on,” as Stephanopoulos said Christie may be trying to “bait” Trump into changing his mind and attending the Aug. 23 debate.

“I don’t think I have to, but I’ll happy to say right now: Come on, Donald, get on the stage and defend your record,” Christie said.

“If you want to be the nominee, you need to defend your record,” he said, criticizing Trump’s handling in the White House of the Affordable Care Act, the growing national debt and bolstering the southern border wall.

“He has a record, four years as president, where he didn’t deliver on a lot of issues that Republicans cared deeply about,” Christie said.

In an interview with Fox News last month, Trump said he didn’t see real value in a primary debate given his major lead in early polls. “I like to debate. I mean, I probably am here because of debates. … But why would I let these people take shots at me?” he told Bret Baier.

Trump has also dismissed Christie as a “failed governor” and told Baier that Christie has “got nothing going.”

Given Trump’s current status as, far and away, the leader in the early GOP primary polling, Stephanopoulos on Sunday pressed Christie on how he plans to change the hearts and minds of the base’s voters.

“Look, George, I think it’s just about patience and persistence on this,” Christie said.

“This guy’s been at the front of every Republican primary voter’s mind for eight years. I’ve been in the race for five weeks,” he said. “Give me some time. And you can see already … I think we’re in his head.”

Christie reiterated what has become a key part of his campaign so far: The only path he sees to the Republican nomination is through Trump.

“You have to make the case against Donald Trump and convince Republican primary voters two things: One, that he is not electable, and he will not beat Joe Biden, and probably, Joe Biden would bring a Democratic House and Senate with him,” Christie said. “And, two, that his record doesn’t merit him to be the nominee again given all the failures, both personal and policy, that he’s had.”

Christie also sought to draw a contrast between himself and some other conservatives, including fellow White House hopeful Ron DeSantis, who question the scope of U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson pushed back on the importance of American support in the war during an event in Iowa on Friday, which Carlson moderated with multiple other 2024 candidates, but not Christie.

“How would you have responded?” Stephanopoulos asked Christie.

“You’ve always been wrong about this, Tucker, and you’re still wrong. That, in fact, what’s going on, George, is that this is a proxy war with China. … If the Chinese watch us back away from Ukraine, as Tucker Carlson and others would advocate, believe me, the next move will be Taiwan,” Christie said.

Asked about the news that top officials in the Trump administration, including son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, have appeared before a federal grand jury investigating Jan. 6 and the push to overturn the 2020 race, Christie said those developments show special counsel Jack Smith is “running a serious investigation, and that’s what he should be doing because the American people are owed at least that much.”

“If you’re going to bring charges related to Jan. 6, you better be right, and you better have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a jury is going to be able to understand, and that’s unimpeachable,” Christie said.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the insurrection and claimed he is being politically persecuted.

Christie on “This Week” also explained why he has said he won’t get involved in the group No Labels’ push for a “unity” campaign in the 2024 race that would include Republicans and Democrats.

“It’s a fool’s errand. … I’m not in this for show time. I’m not in this, you know, for making a point,” Christie said.

“There are only two people who will get elected president of the United States in November of ’24: the Republican nominee for president and the Democratic nominee for president,” he said, “and I don’t want to participate in something, which by the way, is also a scattergun approach to this.”

“They want to hurt Donald Trump if he’s the nominee,” Christie continued. “But you know, when you get into a third-party campaign … you never quite know who you’re going to hurt in that process.”

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(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson clashed with 2024 Republican candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence at The Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on Friday, with some candidates expressing frustration that Carlson didn’t focus the “fireside chats” on family issues which unite the crowd of evangelical Midwesterners, but instead, on topics like Ukraine and the 2020 election.

“I regret that we didn’t have very much time during my time on stage talking about the progress for life or issues in the family,” Pence told reporters after a tense encounter with the former Fox News host.

Asked by ABC News Correspondent MaryAlice Parks if Pence was surprised that he had to spend a majority of the discussion defending Ukraine, Pence said, “I’m really never surprised by Tucker Carlson.”

Carlson, who has advocated for ending aid to the war-torn country, grilled Pence on his support for defense spending in Ukraine. At one point, the former vice president was booed when he tried to explain his reasoning.

“I believe that it is in the interest of the United States of America, to continue to give the Ukrainian military the resources that they need to repel the Russian invasion and restore their sovereignty,” Pence said, to some disapproving audience members.

When Carlson alleged without evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government is suppressing and arresting Christians, Pence explained how he asked that very question when he traveled to Ukraine two months after the invasion began and again last month.

“I asked the Christian leader in Kyiv if that was happening, and he assured me it was not. People were not being persecuted for their religious beliefs,” Pence said, shutting down Carlson’s attempt to interrupt him. “Now, take a break here. I know we disagree on this strongly, but I respect your right, your opinion on Ukraine. I trust you to respect my time.”

“The problem is you don’t accept my answer,” Pence added when Carlson continued. “I just told you that I asked the religious leader in Kyiv if it was happening. You asked me if I raised the issue, and I did.”

The meeting between Pence and Carlson was expected to be awkward given the former Fox News host’s comments about Pence’s tenure as vice president. Last August, he called the idea of Pence running for president “delusional” in an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle.” Host Laura Ingraham played a clip of Pence urging Republicans to stop attacking the FBI during a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast gathering at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, which Carlson commented on.

“What is Mike Pence doing in New Hampshire? I mean, if Mike Pence doesn’t have a summer house in New Hampshire, then he’s delusional. Mike Pence, very nice guy, or seems like a nice guy, but he spent four years getting bossed around by Donald Trump like a concubine,” Carlson said. “He’s not in a position to lead anything.”

Pence has also been highly critical of Carlson ever since Carlson falsely portrayed the events of the Jan. 6 attack in cherry picked clips from security footage handed to him exclusively by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, including falsely describing rioters as “sightseers” on the former host’s Fox News show.

“I was there at the Capitol, and let me assure you it was not, as some would have us believe, a matter of tourists peacefully enjoying our Capitol,” Pence said in March at the annual Gridiron Club dinner for journalists in Washington, before he launched his campaign for president. “Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way.”

When Carlson asked Pence whether the events that took place on Jan. 6 were an “insurrection,” Pence said he’s never used that term but called it a “riot.”

Other presidential hopefuls were subjected to a similar grilling by the former Fox News host. Carlson asked Hutchinson right off the bat why he vetoed a bill in Arkansas that would have banned gender-affirming health care for minors — a law which has since been struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional.

Hutchinson reaffirmed his belief that the bill as governor he vetoed went too far:

“If there would have been a bill that said that you should not ever have transgender surgery as a minor, I would sign that. … But this bill did go too far,” Hutchinson said. “So I side with parents.”

“Permanent change is one issue but also hormonal treatment is a different issue,” he added.

When Carlson took issue with Hutchinson using the word “treatment,” Hutchinson replied, “I hope that we’ll be able to talk about some issues.”

“This is one of the biggest issues in the country, and I think every person in this room would agree,” Carlson replied, provoking applause. “It is a central issue.”

Speaking to reporters after his chat, Hutchinson said he maintains a consistent message he believes in, no matter the audience.

“Anytime you go against the grain a little bit to catch his audience’s off guard,” he said. “To me that’s refreshing that you actually see a candidate that thinks through it from a constitutional standpoint, from a parent’s standpoint, from a consistency standpoint, from a limited government standpoint, and I hope that they see that I think there’s some room for disagreement.”

“There’s obviously some room for disagreement, and so I think that I gained respect through that presentation — even with a difficult interviewer,” he added.

Twice during the chat, Hutchinson told Carlson to stop interrupting him. Another tense moment came when Carlson asked, “How many COVID shots did you take, and how do you feel about it now in retrospect?”

“How many COVID shots did you take?” Hutchinson quipped back.

“Zero,” Carlson said to applause. “I can see you recoiled when I asked you that question.”

Carlson has repeatedly promoted false claims concerning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Hutchinson defended how he signed a law forbidding the federal government from mandating government employees take the vaccine in Arkansas, and repeated that, in his view, parents shouldn’t be told whether they can — or can’t — vaccinate their child.

During the summit, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed HF 732, ceasing all abortions after six weeks. The measure is raising alarms among Democrats and abortion rights supporters who argue the majority of Iowans don’t agree with the legislation passed this week in a special session.

The popular governor was applauded by the audience as she signed the bill, but her neutrality in the primaries has become a sticking point for former President Donald Trump, who did not attend the summit, citing scheduling conflicts. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose remarks capped off the festivities Friday evening, called Trump’s rebuke of Reynolds a “misstep.”

Other Iowa summit attendees included Sen. Tim Scott, S.C., former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the State Department faces historic demand for passports, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on Friday renewed his calls for changes in the monthslong renewal process.

The State Department received a record 22 million requests last year and is on track to shatter that mark with an estimated 25 million more this year.

Warner held a news conference outside the Washington, D.C., passport office, one of 29 offices across the U.S., after receiving a tour. The senator commended the federal workers and contractors who work on passports.

But he criticized processing times, flaws in the now-shuttered online renewal pilot system and hourslong waits on the travel emergency phone line.

“We’ve seen these workers, you know, work on Saturdays, work overtime, as we try to get through this enormous challenge,” Warner said. “The flip side is we also know this is a crisis.”

Warner blamed a “perfect storm” of government hiring freezes, drops in renewal fees and lack of travel during the pandemic for the backlog. And he criticized Republicans, who he said cut funding.

Processing estimates for both regular and expedited passports have increased multiple times in the last months, the State Department’s website says. Routine applications now process in an estimated 10 to 13 weeks, while applicants can pay $60 to expedite their application for processing in seven to nine weeks, the website shows.

Warner said he would push the State Department to hire more staff and said he would support an increase in the expedited processing fee to pay for improvements. He emphasized that new hires must include technology specialists who could fix up the State Department’s Online Passport Renewal System.

Piloted from August 2022 to February 2023, the system was shut down after technical bugs frustrated applicants, including Warner’s constituents. Warner wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March, urging him to find a solution to the confusion.

Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, noted that passport production requires security clearances. He admitted that the bulk of the issues, from the online system to the hiring concerns might not be resolved until next year.

The senator said he met applicants including his own constituents and other Washington-area residents, as well as a family that traveled from New York to secure their passports. He said the Washington office had just received the highest number of visitors in its history.

Warner said he was hopeful that the summer rush for passports might recede significantly soon, though he warned a possible strike from a union behind package carrier UPS could be crushing.

“If we have the UPS strike, on August 1, all bets are off,” he said.

Warner said his goal is for people to be able to get passports in one day like they could before the pandemic — without three-hour phone calls on the emergency line or glitchy programs.

Still, he urged travelers to think through their plans right now.

“Don’t book that international trip two weeks from now if you don’t have passports,” Warner said.

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(WASHINGTON) — A pro-Trump super PAC paid former President Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump $155,000 in 2021, a newly certified personal financial disclosure report from the former president revealed Thursday — prompting attacks from some Trump critics.

The super PAC, dubbed Make America Great Again, Again, in its separate Federal Election Commission filing from earlier last year, had listed the expenses to a firm called Designer’s Management Agency, thereby masking the true recipient of its payments to the firm. The firm lists Melania Trump as a client on its website.

The super PAC’s filing showed two payments to the firm — one which came on Dec. 2, 2021, in the amount of $30,000, and the next payment the following day, in the amount of $125,000. But Trump’s financial disclosure shows the super PAC’s payment of $155,000 on Dec. 2, 2021, directly to Melania Trump.

The personal financial disclosure report, which was first reported by the New York Times, revealed the payment to Melania Trump was for a “speaking engagement.”

Republican presidential candidate and outspoken Trump critic Chris Christie called Trump “shameless” in response to the news.

“A billionaire using donor money to pay personal legal fees, and now paying his wife more than 2x what the average American makes just to pick some tableware,” the former New Jersey governor tweeted. “There’s grifting and then there’s Trump grifting. Undisputed champs.”

The Make America Great Again, Again super PAC has since dissolved, transferring $8.9 million to a new Trump-aligned super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the payment to the former first lady.

Melania Trump has been absent from the campaign trail since her husband launched his third presidential bid. She previously told Fox News in May that the former president “has my support.”

The financial report also shows Melania Trump received two $250,000 payments from Log Cabin Republicans, an advocacy group focused on LGBTQ conservatives, and Fix CA, an organization founded by Ric Grenell, who served as Acting Director of National Intelligence in former President Trump’s 2020 cabinet.

In all, the former first lady made over $1.2 million for speaking engagements following Trump’s presidency, according to the financial report.

Trump himself made over $12 million for speaking engagements during his post-presidency, the report said.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s campaign announced Friday that it, along with the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees, raised a collective $72 million since the president launched his reelection bid in April.

The groups say they finished the quarter with a massive $77 million on hand.

The campaign said 97% of all donations came from small-dollar donors donating under $200, and that money flowed in from all 50 states.

It said teachers, nurses, and retirees were the most common occupations among donors this quarter.

The campaign also said 30% of its donors were first-time donors to the Biden operation, compared to when he ran in 2020. They add that the campaign held 38 fundraisers last quarter.

The haul came from 394,000 donors who made over 670,000 contributions, the campaign said.

Biden was slow to kick off campaign events after his announcement, holding his first — and so far his only — campaign rally nearly two months after he declared. But the president and his team have made a big push on fundraising.

In the final days before the filing deadline, Biden barnstormed the donor circuit, holding big-dollar fundraisers in New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, and Maryland.

He held nine fundraisers over 11 days in the final stretch of the quarter.

Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff also made the rounds to collect money from deep-pocketed donors.

Biden’s haul falls short of the $86.8 million former President Barack Obama and the DNC raked in at the same point in his bid for a second term. Biden announced his reelection campaign on April 25, meaning Obama had only a three-week head start over his former lieutenant.

Biden’s net approval has remained below that of Obama’s over the same period of their presidencies, according to tracking poll data analyzed by FiveThirtyEight. Biden is currently 13.7% underwater, compared to Obama having a positive 1% net approval rating at this point in 2011.

Unlike Obama, however, Biden is facing potentially serious, albeit long-shot, primary challenges in anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and thought-leader and New York Times bestselling author Marianne Williamson, who also ran in 2020 but dropped out before the first votes.

The 2020 presidential election was the most expensive in American history, with $5.7 billion spent in that race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Biden’s campaign made history that year, becoming the first to raise more than $1 billion.

The 2024 election, as of now, is gearing up to be a rematch of the last, with Biden and Trump comfortably leading their respective fields in every national poll, and it could be another costly contest.

Presidential campaigns have until Saturday to disclose how much money they raised in the second quarter of 2023, offering an early gauge of their war chests and how much enthusiasm they’ve been able to gin up from the public so far.

Former President Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee says it took in over $35 million from April through June, roughly doubling the $18.8 million it raised in the first three months of 2023.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Mike Pence is making clear that his opposition to abortion extends beyond some of his most conservative 2024 White House rivals.

He told the Associated Press in an interview that he supports banning abortions in cases where the pregnancy isn’t viable and the baby wouldn’t survive outside the womb, as in the case of extreme fetal abnormalities.

“I’m pro-life. I don’t apologize for it,” Pence told the AP, also saying, “I want to always err on the side of life. I would hold that view in these matters because … I honestly believe that we got this extraordinary opportunity in the country today to restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law.”

Members of the medical community have criticized his comments, saying that abortion services can be critical for women facing pregnancy complications.

Pence, who was Indiana’s governor before serving as vice president in the Trump administration, has been staunch in his support for sweeping abortion restrictions, citing his Christian faith and principles.

He has called for a nationwide abortion ban starting at least at 15 weeks of pregnancy but possibly sooner — after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. He has supported the availability of abortion in cases of rape and incest and the pregnant woman’s health.

“I want to say from my heart, every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard,” he said last month.

Former President Donald Trump also supports abortion bans with exceptions for cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, he has said. Although Trump has suggested the federal government should play a role “in protecting unborn life,” he has avoided backing a specific federal abortion ban.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who trails Trump in early polls but is the No. 2 most popular primary candidate so far, recently signed into law a six-week abortion ban in Florida — which Trump argued was “too harsh” — including exceptions for unviable pregnancies and rape, incest and the mother’s health. DeSantis also has not endorsed a federal abortion ban.

GOP candidates’ views on abortion are likely top of mind for evangelicals in Iowa, a critical bloc in the early-voting state in the 2024 primary.

On Wednesday, the Iowa Legislature passed a six-week abortion ban, which is being challenged in court by abortion access advocates. Gov. Kim Reynolds is set to sign the bill into law on Friday.

“I am also committed to continuing policies to support women in planning for motherhood, promote the importance of fatherhood, and encourage strong families. Our state and country will be stronger because of it,” she said this week.

The ban, which was passed during a two-day special session, comes less than a month after the Iowa Supreme Court, in a split decision, prevented a previous six-week abortion ban from going into effect.

In stressing his strict views on abortion as he campaigns in Iowa, Pence could be aiming to get early momentum in the primary race.

During a three-day tour of Iowa last week, he sought to differentiate himself from the former president regarding abortion. He criticized Trump for Trump’s characterization of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year as well as his lack of support for a stringent federal abortion ban.

“I take issue with the former president and with others who had suggested that the Supreme Court only returned that question to the states,” Pence said. “What the Supreme Court did was essentially return the question of abortion to the states and the American people.”

“But for the president to be unwilling to commit to a minimum national standard and attempt to relegate this issue exclusively to the states I think is an example of shying away from the cause of life when we led the most pro-life administration in history,” he added.

ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.

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(MIAMI) — Special counsel Jack Smith’s office on Thursday urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to reject an effort by Donald Trump’s legal team to indefinitely postpone setting a date for the former president’s trial on charges that he withheld government secrets and obstructed justice after leaving office, which he denies.

“There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none,” prosecutor David Harbach wrote in the filing.

Harbach directly disputed several of the legal issues put forward by Trump’s attorneys in their own filing earlier this week, when they previewed plans to challenge the authority of the special counsel to bring charges and the intersection that they contend the Presidential Records Act has with the case.

The government countered that putting forward the PRA as a defense to the charges against Trump “borders on frivolous.”

“The PRA is not a criminal statute, and in no way purports to address the retention of national security information,” Harbach wrote. “The Defendants are, of course, free to make whatever arguments they like for dismissal of the Indictment, and the Government will respond promptly. But they should not be permitted to gesture at a baseless legal argument, call it ‘novel,’ and then claim that the Court will require an indefinite continuance in order to resolve it.”

Prosecutors also rejected that the volume of discovery already produced to Trump’s team — which included more than 800,000 pages of materials — should warrant an indefinite delay in setting a trial date.

Harbach noted that the government has singled out a much smaller set of “key” documents, roughly 4,500 pages, that constitute most of the unclassified discovery at issue in the case.

The special counsel’s office similarly dismissed as meritless the arguments by Trump’s lawyers that his busy schedule leading into the 2024 election season while already battling a state indictment out of New York — to which he’s pleaded not guilty — gives reason to postpone.

“Many indicted defendants have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel,” Harbach wrote. “The Speedy Trial Act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance, and the Court should not indulge it here.”

It’s not clear when Cannon will ultimately rule on the competing motions on setting a trial date.

Both Trump’s attorneys and the special counsel’s office are set to appear in court on Tuesday for a hearing related to the handling of classified information in order to move forward in the case.

In a court filing late Monday night, Trump’s lawyers had called for a lengthy delay of his trial, suggesting it would not be possible to try the case prior to the 2024 election next November.

“Based on the extraordinary nature of this action, there is most assuredly no reason for any expedited trial, and the ends of justice are best served by a continuance,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

As a result, they wrote, “The Court should, respectfully, before establishing any trial date, allow time for development of further clarity as to the full nature and scope of the motions that will be filed, a better understanding of a realistic discovery and pre-trial timeline, and the completion of the security clearance process.”

Trump pleaded not guilty last month to the 37 counts he faces in the federal case. Separately, he faces 34 charges in the New York case in connection with money paid to an adult film actress during the 2016 election.

Trump has denounced Smith’s probe as a political witch hunt.

Smith defended his work last month, saying, “This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”

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