(WASHINGTON) — Are Facebook, Instagram and YouTube more like newspaper publishers or telephone companies?
The Supreme Court on Monday was wrestling with that question in a pair of cases being called the most important tests of the First Amendment in the internet era.
The justices’ answer could be critical to setting the terms of online speech for generations.
Florida and Texas each passed laws in 2021 ordering social media platforms to limit content moderation (e.g. removing or devaluing certain posts, at their discretion) and requiring them to issue notice and explanation any time a user’s content is removed or account suspended.
Both laws were enacted following the platforms’ decisions banning then-President Donald Trump after Jan. 6 and conservatives’ longstanding concerns about the sites’ censorship of content based on politics.
The states argue that social media platforms are akin to “common carriers,” like utility companies, which are subject to government regulation, and must accept all users’ content regardless of viewpoint.
But the internet companies insist they have the right to set their own standards, like any other publisher, and cannot be forced to host messages on their platforms that they don’t support, such as hate speech, misinformation and other malicious content.
Federal appeals courts have divided on the question: one striking down Florida’s law as a violation of the First Amendment, another upholding Texas’ law as permissible government intervention.
The nation’s high court is expected to deliver a decision in the cases by the end of June.
Republican presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley delivers remarks at her primary-night rally at the Grappone Conference Center on January 23, 2024 in Concord, New Hampshire. — (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Americans For Prosperity Action, an advocacy organization backed by billionaire Charles Koch and his network of wealthy conservatives supporting Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary, will no longer spend money on behalf of her campaign.
Following Haley’s defeat in the early primary states — including her home state of South Carolina, on Saturday night — AFP has decided to refocus its mission on United States Senate and House races, according to an internal staff email sent by Americans For Prosperity CEO Emily Seidel and reviewed by ABC News.
Seidel wrote that AFP remains confident in its endorsement and still supports Haley but recognizes the challenges moving forward into the next primary states.
“She has made it clear that she will continue to fight and we wholeheartedly support her in this effort,” Seidel wrote. “But given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory.”
Reacting to the news, the Haley campaign thanked the group for being an “ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government.”
“We thank them for their tremendous help in this race,” the statement from Haley’s campaign continued. “Our fight continues, and with more than $1 million coming in from grassroots conservatives in just the last 24 hours, we have plenty of fuel to keep going. We have a country to save.”
AFP had a hefty infrastructure in place to combat Haley’s rival, former President Donald Trump, which primarily focused on door-knocking and digital advertisements.
Seidel characterized their grassroots operations as a “force to be reckoned with” and congratulated staff for engaging with over 3 million voters.
The Koch-backed group stayed out of the 2016 and 2020 presidential cycles but utilized significant resources to try and boost Haley’s campaign. It is unclear how much money was spent over the last four months since its endorsement, but the group had cash on hand. It reported raising over $70 million in its last public filing in June, with $25 million coming from Koch himself and another $25 million from one of his nonprofit groups.
As the group turns its efforts to down-ballot races, Seidel suggested the “most important and hardest challenge” will be convincing independent voters who refuse to cast a ballot for Trump to support their Republican candidates.
Politico was first to report the news of AFP suspending funding for Haley.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel speaks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute’s ‘A Time for Choosing Speaker Series’ at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on April 20, 2023 in Simi Valley, California. — (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After seven years at the helm of the GOP, Ronna McDaniel will step down from her post as chair of the Republican National Committee on March 8, she said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
McDaniel’s resignation is expected to take effect after Super Tuesday on March 5.
McDaniel said that she would resign at the party’s spring training meeting in Houston, Texas, so as to “allow our nominee to select a Chair of their choosing.”
Hand-picked by Donald Trump to serve in the role shortly after his 2016 election, McDaniel is reported to have arranged her departure with the former president, who is far ahead of his sole primary challenger, Nikki Haley, in the delegate fight for the 2024 nomination.
“The RNC has historically undergone change once we have a nominee and it has always been my intention to honor that tradition,” McDaniel said. “I remain committed to winning back the White House and electing Republicans up and down the ballot in November.”
Trump endorsed current North Carolina GOP Chair and RNC general counsel Michael Whatley in early February to replace McDaniel as the new chair of the RNC. He endorsed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to replace current RNC co-chair Drew McKissick. RNC party rules mandate that their chair and co-chair must be of opposite sexes.
Trump also endorsed one of his senior advisers, Chris LaCivita, for chief operating officer. There is no one currently serving in that role for the RNC. When he announced his slate of RNC leadership endorsements, Trump predicted that the shakeup would come following the South Carolina GOP primary election, which he won on Saturday.
During remarks at his victory party in Columbia, Trump forecasted the election of Whatley, a strong supporter of his baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. It “looks to me like he’s going to be going on to the national Republican party,” Trump said.
“That’s my kind of guy. He had hundreds of lawyers … to make sure they didn’t cheat and they didn’t cheat in North Carolina [during the 2020 election],” Trump said Saturday.
McDaniel’s resignation will take effect just days ahead of Super Tuesday, when a number of delegate-rich states vote in their presidential primaries, and over a week after her home state of Michigan will decide on a Republican nominee.
McKissick, who was also floated as a potential option to replace McDaniel as chair, dodged a question from ABC News on Saturday over whether he’d go against Whatley for the position, instead insisting he’s focused on working with the Trump campaign and the party on electing and supporting former President Donald Trump.
“I’m a team guy,” said McKissick, who was at Trump’s South Carolina victory party Saturday night, when asked about a possible bid against Whatley. “I’m going to work with the campaign and the RNC. Period. End of discussion.”
Some members of the RNC told ABC News over the weekend they expected the announcement of McDaniel’s resignation to come ahead of Michigan’s primary on Tuesday.
Haley has blasted Trump and his campaign for what she calls an attempt to take over the party, endorsing his political allies and family members for executive positions in the RNC and accusing the former president of planning to use the organization as a way to pay his legal bills.
On the day of the South Carolina GOP primary, when asked who she would endorse as chair of the RNC, Haley said, “it wouldn’t be a family member of a candidate.”
“I would hope that the people in the RNC know that they have the responsibility to put in people in the RNC who are going to look out in the best interest of all of the Republican Party, not just one person,” Haley said to reporters.
McDaniel’s resignation comes at a critical time for the national party. Following the former president’s endorsement of his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, she said in an interview that “every single penny” of RNC funds will be devoted to reelecting her father-in-law. Lara Trump’s statement led many to believe that there could be a possibility the RNC could pay some of the former president’s legal fees.
ABC News news previously reported that the former president’s campaign insists that RNC funds won’t cover his legal fees.
But some members of the RNC are working behind the scenes to ensure that does not happen.
Draft resolutions have been circulated to Republican National Committee members, which, if approved, would prevent the organization from covering his legal fees and would prohibit the party from treating him as the presumptive presidential nominee until he secures the required majority of 1,215 delegates, which is likely to take several more weeks.
McDaniel, the niece of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, has shepherded the Republican party through seven years of profound transformation, including most of Trump’s tenure in the White House, the 2020 general election, the 2022 midterm elections, and the 2024 presidential primary, including early state voting in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
“It has been the honor and privilege of my life to serve the Republican National Committee for seven years as Chairwoman to elect Republicans and grow our Party,” McDaniel said in her statement.
“Some of my proudest accomplishments include firing Nancy Pelosi, winning the popular vote in 2022, creating an Election Integrity Department, building the committee’s first small dollar grassroots donor program, strengthening our state parties through our Growing Republican Organizations to Win program, expanding the Party through minority outreach at our community centers, and launching Bank Your Vote to get Republicans to commit to voting early,” she said.
Because McDaniel is stepping down from her role, the next step to elect a new chair and co-chair would be a vote from the majority of the 168 RNC members present at their next gathering, according to party rules, which would be the spring training meeting on March 8.
To have their names placed in nomination, a candidate should have at least the majority vote of the RNC in each of three states.
ABC News’ SooRin Kim and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The annual Conservative Political Action Conference has long been a proving ground for would-be presidents, launching the political aspirations of heavyweights like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
This year, all eyes were on who could be No. 2.
Former President Trump has handily dispatched nearly all of his 2024 primary rivals, with only former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley hanging on while trailing by yawning polling margins and losing by double digits in every state that’s voted so far.
With the GOP nomination all but determined, speculation over Trump’s potential running mate is skyrocketing in the party — and many of the lead contenders gathered at CPAC at the same time in what was viewed by some political observers as a tryout of sorts.
“CPAC is an opportunity for the VP hopefuls to make their case to the MAGA base. At the end of the day, Trump will probably have an ‘Apprentice’-like audition for the VP slot,” said one senior GOP strategist in Trump’s orbit, who asked not to be quoted by name to speak more freely. “CPAC is a good venue because it is the most MAGA of the base — the true believers.”
“I think it’s wide open,” this person added. “Trump keeps his cards very close.”
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and Ohio Sen. JD Vance all spoke at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, offering a chance to test different messages to Trump’s most loyal enthusiasts and for the party to see how much their rhetoric resounds with the GOP base.
The schedule of participants was so packed that conservative activist Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, remarked right after Lake’s speech: “It feels like I’m the only one here not running for vice president.”
Donalds focused his speech largely on foreign policy, urging U.S. allies to invest more in shared defense and declaring, “Decide Joe Biden, which country matters more to you, the border of the United States or the border of Ukraine?”
Lake focused on the border, too, calling fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction while praising Trump as “exactly the man we needed in 2015, and he’s exactly the man we need today.”
Noem touted populist policies implemented in her state as a blueprint for America, sparking applause by declaring, “I was the only governor in this country who never once closed a single business” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramaswamy leaned into culture battles, warning of a “war between those of us who love the United States of America and our founding ideals and a fringe minority who hates this country and what we actually stand for.”
Stefanik echoed Trump in warning that his enemies would “stop at nothing” to “steal this next election,” a line that resounded with the crowd.
And Vance heaped praise on Trump while vilifying many lawmakers’ eagerness to further aid Ukraine in fending off Russia’s invasion rather than focusing more on domestic issues. “If the thing you care most about is a conflict 6,000 miles away, you should not be a leader in this country,” he said.
The speeches also featured subtle snipes, including Noem wondering “why did all these other people and candidates get in the race,” apparently referring to Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, two former 2024 candidates who are now being floated as potential Trump running mates.
Still, one thing that united everyone who spoke was their admiration for Trump’s time in office.
Before the conference was in full swing, another source in Trump’s orbit, who likewise didn’t want to be quoted by name to be candid, told ABC News that they expected as much.
“I think what you’re going to see at CPAC is a number of people who are trying to impress upon the crowd that they are as MAGA as Trump, that they are the best person to be his running mate,” this person said on Wednesday. “You’ve got a number of people who are going to come out and try and convince what is a very conservative crowd that their Trump bona fides are sufficient enough.”
Underscoring the focus on the “veepstakes,” CPAC added to its straw poll a question of who attendees want Trump to pick as his No. 2, the first time in at least a decade that was included in the well-known — but unscientific — survey.
The poll of 1,478 CPAC attendees showed a tie, with Noem and Ramaswamy knotted up at 15%, followed by former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at 9%, Stefanik and Scott tied at 8%, Donalds at 7% and Lake at 6%.
Conversations with more than a dozen attendees reflected those results and showed an array of preferences, with many talking about their choices with adjectives like “tough” while others said they’re remaining open to several of the floated names.
“I just think she’s tough,” said Pat Thomas, a retired hay farmer from North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, explaining why she’d like Noem to run with Trump.
“I love Byron Donalds. He was just up on the stage. He’d be an excellent VP candidate. Throw my weight behind him,” Thomas Siens, an economist from Fort Worth, Texas, said shortly after Donalds spoke to the crowd.
“I like Kristi Noem. I like Ramaswamy. JD Vance, some of the ones that I would like to see. But it’s a big decision. I think there’s a lot of really good options for them,” said Mark Wehrum, a physician from Orlando, Florida.
“I think there’s a lot of people who are auditioning,” said Jonathan Grier, a physician from Altoona, Pennsylvania. “I think CPAC is a good barometer for who’s who.”
But at the end of the day, the pitch to be Trump’s running mate has only one real audience: him. And there are still months to go before the GOP convention this summer, with the second source in Trump’s orbit skeptical that CPAC could make or break any one person’s chances for promotion this year.
“My guess is Donald Trump will not watch one speech at CPAC and will show up only to give his speech and then to leave,” this person said.
(WASHINGTON) — More than 2,000 people have served in the U.S. Senate since it was established in 1789. But just 12 have been Black — and only three have been Black women, none of whom have ever served together.
That could soon change. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Prince George County, Maryland, Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) are all running for open Senate seats and hope to serve there alongside one another.
“It’s about what we bring, what we bring as Black women, that has never been part of the consistent policy debate in the United States Senate, and it’s time,” Lee told ABC News in a segment that aired Sunday on “This Week.”
In 2017, future Vice President Kamala Harris became just the second Black woman to serve in the Senate, 24 years after the first, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, was sworn in.
Last year, following Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s death, California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, a prominent Democratic advocate and former labor organizer, to serve the remainder of Feinstein’s term.
Lee, who has represented Oakland, California, in the U.S. House since 1998, is running in a very competitive primary for the seat currently held by Butler.
“I have been in the House for many years. But it’s time for me to go to the Senate to be one of 100 because I truly believe that the perspective that I bring, the lens that I bring, is lacking in the United States Senate,” she said.
Lee recalled a conversation with Moseley Braun about the importance of representing all views and experiences in the Senate.
“[Moseley Braun] mentioned certain diseases that are unique to African Americans and people of color, lupus for example, no one would bring these issues up unless you understand them from your background and perspective,” Lee said. “What happens with representation is that not only new ideas, new experiences and new solutions come to the table — but you help strengthen the entire country because we want everyone to be able to participate in this democracy.”
Lee began her political career working for Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign. She credits Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, with convincing her to register to vote.
“I didn’t believe that the Democrats or Republicans were understanding the needs and the aspirations of myself as a young single mom. And she said, ‘Look, we need your voice. We need you on the inside … we need you to come help shake things up,'” Lee recalled. “I saw how she had to deal with the power structure and how oftentimes everyone was against her. But she stayed the course and she was bold.”
Primary polls show Lee trailing her fellow Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter and Republican Steve Garvey ahead of the state’s primary on March 5, with only the top two candidates advancing to the general election in the fall.
Asked about the challenges Black women encounter in running for office, Lee said they are frequently systemic.
“When you look at fundraising, for example, we have got to get to public financing of campaigns, we’ve got to overturn [the Supreme Court ruling in] Citizens United and get the ‘dark money’ out of campaigns. Because it’s not a level playing field, when you look at the wealth gap, for example, in the Black community,” Lee said. “The system oftentimes, and that’s one thing Shirley Chisholm reminded me of, it’s not built and made for the participation of certain people who have been shut out for so long. But as Dr. Maya Angelou said, ‘And still we rise,’ and so we have within us the desire and the passion, and the commitment to overcome these obstacles.”
“And that’s what you’ve seen historically, with Black women, overcoming these obstacles and fighting for our democracy,” Lee said.
Lee is perhaps best known as the sole member of Congress to vote against the military authorization for the invasion of Afghanistan, three days after the September 11th attacks. She said at the time that she wanted the country to avoid becoming entangled in a larger cycle of bloodshed.
“I was called a traitor. People were calling my telephone, leaving gun shots on voicemail, it was terrible. I had to have security and the death threats and the threats to my personal safety and my family was overwhelming. However, sometimes when you’re in public life, if you’re a public servant, you know the risks,” Lee said. “You have to be able to withstand the political pressure, and that’s why I want to be in the Senate, because there are gonna be some hard debates and some hard fights in the Senate in the next few years. And in fact, I don’t back down when I know that that’s the right position, even if it goes against my party.”
In Maryland, Alsobrooks is running for the seat held by retiring Sen. Ben Cardin.
“I recognize the power of the federal government, the infrastructure dollars, the health care access that we’ve been working to build here, and I realized how important it is to have individuals in those positions who are fighting hard for the people they represent and who understand them,” Alsobrooks told ABC News.
She is up against Rep. David Trone, D-Md., a wealthy, self-financed candidate in the May 14 primary, but has the endorsement of half of Maryland’s congressional delegation.
If she wins the primary, she could go head-to-head with popular former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in the general election, who just announced he was entering the race.
Like Lee, Alsobrooks described some of her strengths in terms of her personal background.
“I was the first woman elected as prosecutor here, I was the first woman to be elected as county executive — and what that has meant is that I have brought to bear solutions that are very different, they are based not only on my professional experience but lived experience,” Alsobrooks said. “I think it’s important to have people representing you who live like you, who can think like the people they represent and who understand and share the cares and concerns of the people they represent.”
Alsobrooks has been very close with Vice President Harris ever since they connected in 2010, she said.
“It has been a really wonderful relationship that we have developed,” she said of Harris. “She’s been in many of the spaces before me, if you think about it, as the first-ever [Black woman] district attorney elected in San Francisco, one of the youngest, the same experience that I’ve had here.”
Asked what lessons she’s taken away from Harris, Alsobrooks said, “It is not as important that you’re the first at something, it is that you create the kind of record and create the kind of roadway so that others can be successful too.”
“You are not truly successful until you’ve made someone else successful,” she said.
Blunt Rochester serves alongside Lee in the House. In 2017, she became the first woman and Black person to represent the state of Delaware in Congress.
“I had never run for anything in my life,” Blunt Rochester told ABC News about her decision to launch that original campaign. “I was over 50 when I decided to run, and I had just been widowed… and I said, ‘You know what, I’m still alive, I can still serve and I decided to run for office and in a six week primary, you know, beat five guys.'”
Blunt Rochester is favored to win November’s election. If elected, she would become the first woman and person of color to represent Delaware in the Senate.
“I think about the little girls, I think about those women who have been widowed or who are over 50,” she said. “For me to be able to represent and bring those lived experiences, the professional experiences, the policy issues. I mean, we know that Black women die from childbirth more than their white counterparts [and] have 43% more student loan debt than our white counterparts.”
“I don’t really think about the history so much because, you know, my intention is to make a difference and to have an impact on people’s lives,” Blunt Rochester added, “and should there be a history making moment, that’s great.”
The Delaware congresswoman shares a close relationship with President Joe Biden. She endorsed him the day he launched his White House bid in 2019 and serves as a national co-chair of his reelection campaign.
“When my dad unexpectedly passed away from leukemia, President Biden called when we were all taking care of dad during hospice … He and the first lady came to the visitation at the church for 45 minutes and spent time with us,” Blunt Rochester reflected. “I was holding it all together … But there was something about him, looking at my face, and saying, ‘It’s going to be OK, kid,’ and that just made me lose it. I just fell into his arms crying.”
If just two of these candidates win, they could make even more history, as the Senate has never had multiple Black women serve at the same time.
“I’m very proud of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, I’m very proud of Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester. They are just really dynamic women. They’re warm, they’re purposeful and so it’s been an honor to run in the same year,” Alsobrooks said.
Lee said she’s spoken to both Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester about the history they could make serving together.
“We say ‘one is not enough’ — all of us need to be elected to the United States Senate,” she said.
Blunt Rochester said working alongside women who share some of her lived experiences “is always a good thing, particularly when times are hard.”
“You think about Shirley Chisholm in this moment, where she said, ‘If they don’t give you a seat at the table, you bring a folding chair,'” Blunt Rochester said. “Well, maybe we’ll have many folding chairs.”
(WASHINGTON) — John Hoge has run a family-owned sporting goods business in Long Island, New York, for decades, selling kayaks and paddle boards imported mainly from China.
In 2019, Hoge said, the company faced an emergency. Then-President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on the vast majority of the company’s products, said Hoge, co-owner of Sea Eagle Boats.
“We had shipments that were already on the water waiting to get in port that suddenly were 25% more expensive,” Hoge told ABC News, saying the added cost forced him to raise prices. “It was jarring.”
Even after receiving an exemption from the tariffs, his company shifted most of its supply chain out of China as a precaution, Hoge said. Either way, Hoge added, the business has never sourced products from the U.S.
“This is not an industry that had a substantial U.S. presence and fired everyone. It never existed here,” Hoge said, noting that domestic manufacturing for these products would bring added costs and higher prices.
“If you want to involve the American middle class in the outdoors, you need products that the American middle class can afford,” Hoge said.
On the campaign trail, Trump has vowed to escalate the trade war initiated during his first term. However, studies have shown that his trade policies fell short of promises made to rejuvenate U.S. manufacturing and spur job growth. In some cases, analysts told ABC News, the policies harmed U.S. producers while raising prices for consumers.
A heightened trade war over a long period could expand certain areas of U.S. manufacturing, some analysts said. But, they added, the move would come at significant cost for consumers already worn out by inflation.
“The tariffs raised costs for American businesses and raised some prices for American consumers,” Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News. “And there’s quite a bit more Trump could do.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stephen Moore, who previously served as an economic adviser to Trump and says he has helped shape Trump’s 2024 agenda, previously told ABC News that escalating tariffs would hinder foreign producers and make domestic industries more competitive.
In turn, the policy would create jobs and boost manufacturing in the U.S., Moore said.
“Trump wants jobs here in America,” Moore added. “He wants things made in America.”
During his tenure, Trump placed tariffs on aluminum and steel from a host of countries, including Mexico, Canada and the European Union.
Meanwhile, he taxed hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from China, raising import costs for everything from shoes to BMX bikes to computer chips.
In all, the U.S. levied tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Tax Foundation.
Trump’s tariffs decreased U.S. employment by 166,000 jobs, the group found, citing increased import costs for U.S. employers.
A nonpartisan working paper released by a global team of researchers last month focused on the consequences wrought for the Midwest. The study found little effect on jobs in the region in industries directly affected by the tariffs, while noting a slight decline in employment as a result of retaliatory tariffs placed on U.S. goods.
When asked about the trade war’s objectives of job creation and rejuvenated manufacturing, Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said, “There’s no evidence that it achieved these goals.”
On the other hand, the tariffs hiked prices for some U.S. goods, since many U.S. importers passed the elevated costs along to consumers, Lovely said.
Tariffs placed on washing machines in 2018, for instance, raised the price of these appliances by 12%, according to a working paper from researchers at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Federal Reserve.
To be sure, the measures have succeeded in reducing the share of U.S. imports that come from China, though the trend has coincided with an increase in share from Mexico and Vietnam, which some analysts attribute to the use of those countries as a pass-through for Chinese goods.
President Joe Biden, for his part, has kept many of the tariffs in place.
Ken Fritz, who works at North Carolina-based manufacturer Marsh Cabinets, said he welcomes further tariffs as a means of protecting U.S. cabinet producers against low-cost Chinese alternatives.
He criticized Chinese firms for flooding the market with cheap cabinets, saying those companies have found ways to circumvent tariffs imposed in 2019. American importers may suffer under tariffs, Fritz acknowledged; but he said observers shouldn’t overlook U.S. manufacturers that face unfair competition from abroad.
“What about the manufacturers that have to close their doors, that lose thousands of jobs?” Fritz said. “The climate needs to continue to be pro-American-made products.”
Trump has recently vowed to expand the trade war if he takes office next year, promising to impose tariffs on most imported goods. Speaking with Fox Business in August, Trump said the tax on imported items could ultimately stand at 10%.
Earlier this month, when asked by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo whether he would consider implementing a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, Trump said: “No, I would say maybe it’s going to be more than that.”
Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, said such a policy would dramatically impact the U.S. economy, sending prices skyward while helping some domestic industries and hurting others.
“Imposing a 60% tariff would turn a fence into essentially an impenetrable barrier,” Prasad told ABC News. “It would shut the U.S. out of the global trading system.”
“There could be some benefits in terms of employment growth in the U.S.,” He added. “But overall, history shows restricting trade can end up having negative consequences that far outweigh positive ones in terms of employment growth in domestic industries.”
(WASHINGTON) — Reacting to a controversial new Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos should be considered people under the law, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said on Sunday that she was “devastated” for how this could affect treatments like in vitro fertilization.
She also called out conservatives whom she suggested were being disingenuous in distancing themselves from the case.
“Let’s make it clear: Republicans will say whatever they need to say to try to cover themselves on this, but they’ve been clear and Donald Trump has been the guy leading this effort to eliminate women’s reproductive rights and reproductive choice,” Duckworth, an Illinois lawmaker, told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “And so this is the next step.”
Referring to her Access to Family Building Act, which would guarantee access to IVF and other reproductive services, Duckworth added, “It’s been crickets since the Alabama ruling … not a single Republican has reached out to me on the bill. I’ve introduced a bill, multiple times, now multiple Congresses — but frankly, let’s see if they vote for it when we when we bring it to the floor.”
Duckworth understands firsthand the fertility challenges many women face. After years of trying to have children, she turned to IVF, eventually having two daughters because of the procedure. She even made history in 2018 by becoming the first senator to have a child, her second daughter, while serving in the chamber.
She reflected on her experience with IVF on “This Week” in describing the potential ramifications of the Alabama ruling by the all-Republican state Supreme Court.
“The decision is very clear that a fertilized egg is a child, is a human being, which means that for example in my case, when we have five fertilized eggs and three were non-viable. When my doctor discarded those with my consent — that would be considered potentially manslaughter or murder,” Duckworth said.
Alabama’s attorney general has said he won’t prosecute IVF providers or families who use the treatment, but some Alabama clinics have already halted their IVF services over fears the court ruling creates new legal risks for the clinics, doctors and patients.
“Republicans have put the rights of a fertilized egg over the rights of the woman. And that is not something that I think the American people agree with,” Duckworth said Sunday.
Trump and other leading Republicans have come out in support of IVF since the Alabama court ruling — “We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies not harder,” Trump said last week — but they have not said, specifically, how the law should change regarding whether embryos are people.
Some previous Republican proposals on reproductive rights also did not include exceptions for IVF.
Duckworth on Sunday linked the latest ruling to the decadeslong push to restrict abortion, which led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversing Roe v. Wade in 2022, after Trump named three conservative-leaning justices to the bench.
Going into the 2024 presidential campaign, Duckworth argued, “This is what we’re going to be talking about.”
“We’re going to talk about the fact that Donald Trump is the guy and Republicans have been working literally for years to take away your reproductive choice, which includes access to IVF for people struggling to start families,” she said.
In the wake of Trump’s latest double-digit win in the GOP primary race, in South Carolina on Saturday, Duckworth, a co-chair of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, said their message will be to contrast him with Trump, who is hammering at Biden over inflation, immigration and foreign policy.
“Donald Trump has been very clear about what he’s doing. He’s not running for president for the American people. He’s not running for president to take care of working families. He’s running for president for himself,” Duckworth said.
She also blamed Trump for the failure of a bipartisan border package in the Senate despite “compromise” from both parties, calling it a “knife” in the back of Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, who worked for months to broker the deal — only to have Trump and some other conservatives dismiss it as insufficient and weak.
“When we gave Republicans what they wanted, it was Donald Trump who killed the compromise,” Duckworth said.
When pressed by Raddatz on whether she would support Biden taking executive action that would make it harder for migrants to claim asylum — something that is under consideration and likely to draw backlash from progressive Democrats — Duckworth said she was in favor of that because of the “crisis” at the border.
She also highlighted provisions in the failed border package that would have allowed asylum-seekers to work while their cases were being adjudicated.
“There was stuff that fixed the border problems but also allowed us to let to be humane about how we take care of the migrants who are here,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s national security adviser on Sunday pushed Speaker Mike Johnson to put a bipartisan Senate foreign aid bill to a vote in the House, arguing that doing so could help turn the tide in Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion.
“This is one of those instances where one person can bend the course of history. Speaker Johnson, if he put this bill on the floor, would produce a strong bipartisan majority vote in favor of the aid to Ukraine. We saw that in the Senate,” Jake Sullivan told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“So it comes down to one person, Speaker Johnson. Will he put the bill on the floor? I have spoken with him personally. He has indicated that he would like to get the funding for Ukraine. He’s trying to figure out a way to do it. Right now, it comes down to his willingness to actually step up to the plate and discharge his responsibility at this critical moment,” Sullivan said. “And history is watching.”
Johnson has voiced support for Ukraine but helped lead opposition to the Senate legislation that combined funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan with significantly increased border restrictions over criticism that the immigration changes were insufficient.
There is also growing conservative skepticism about the value of sending more aid to Ukraine over domestic issues like the border.
While the Senate deal languishes, some House Republicans have proposed a similar but alternative bill. It’s unclear if either proposal will get a vote soon.
“The Republican-led House will not be jammed or forced,” Johnson told reporters earlier this month after the Senate legislation passed that chamber.
Sullivan, on Sunday, said U.S. support has been and would likely continue to be vital to Ukraine’s stand against Russia, two years into its war, which has morphed into a stalemate as both sides press for a breakthrough.
“Ukraine stands. It stands as a proud, free democracy, but it is still continuing to fight against a vicious Russian onslaught in the east. And for that, it needs weapons, it needs ammunition and it needs resources from countries like the United States,” Sullivan said on “This Week.”
“This is not about a shortage of will, Martha. This is about a shortage of bullets,” he told Raddatz.
Citing her own reporting from Ukraine, Raddatz pressed Sullivan on Ukraine’s major counteroffensive last year, which was unsuccessful. Raddatz said the Ukrainians felt it was “because they did not have the training and the war fighting equipment they wanted.”
“I can understand the frustration and the pain that they are going through,” Sullivan acknowledged before defending the U.S. response, saying an American-led coalition of countries “delivered to Ukraine all of the pieces of equipment, all of the shells, all of the rockets that they’ve requested in advance of their counteroffensive.”
Raddatz also pressed Sullivan on America’s apparently incremental approach to providing some major munitions, such as Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets, which the U.S. had initially said Ukraine didn’t need before later reversing course.
“If you look at the sum total of what the United States is provided to Ukraine in this fight, it is an incredible quantity of material delivered at speed, at scale, outpacing the expectations of anyone,” Sullivan said.
“So the idea that we did not mobilize a massive quantity of resources and capabilities to deliver to the Ukrainians simply doesn’t wash,” he maintained.
Of the fighter jets, specifically, Sullivan said, “There aren’t very many Ukrainian pilots to be able to pilot those aircraft. It’s not about whether or not F-16s could possibly have been on the battlefield in the spring of last year.”
Sullivan also defended 500-plus new sanctions against Russia, targeting various people and entities, after the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony, which the U.S. blames on Vladimir Putin. (The Kremlin denies this.)
Raddatz asked about the strategy behind continued sanctions, if previous penalties have not sufficiently deterred Russia, and why it took so long to punish the new targets revealed last week.
Sullivan said sanctions are intended to “drive down Russia’s access to revenue,” as well as to starve “the Russian defense industrial base” and to hold specific people “accountable” for Navalny’s death.
“They can contribute to a strategic result and we are going to stay patient and resolved and relentless in the application of these sanctions,” Sullivan said.
He played down questions about the timing of the new targets, which he said are continually being assessed.
“This is the latest turn of the crank,” he said, “and there will be more.”
(WASHINGTON) — A coalition of countries led by the U.S. and U.K. on Saturday carried out a new round of strikes on the Houthis in Yemen “in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against commercial and naval vessels” in and around the Red Sea, officials said.
According to a joint statement from the eight countries involved, the strikes were against 18 targets, including those related to “underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter.”
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, naval vessels, and the lives of innocent mariners in one of the world’s most critical waterways,” the joint statement reads.
It continues: “The Houthis’ now more than 45 attacks on commercial and naval vessels since mid-November constitute a threat to the global economy, as well as regional security and stability, and demand an international response.”
The U.S. has targeted dozens of Houthi locations already this year. Six countries supported the U.S. and U.K. in Saturday’s strikes: Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
In his own statement, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, in part: “We will continue to make clear to the Houthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage, and disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries.”
The Houthis have said their attacks are in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza while targeting Hamas in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, which sparked a war.
The U.S. has publicly stressed that it hopes to prevent that conflict from spilling out into the region and described its own strikes in Yemen as de-escalatory.
Still, the tit-for-tat pattern that has been established has also raised questions about the immediate effectiveness and long-term goals of the U.S. strategy regarding the Houthis.
“We’ve got to be thoughtful about our approach in these areas, and we can’t predict exactly how any one of these groups is going to respond,” Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview in January. “And so we’ve got to make sure we look at the key partner force protection, but also the ability to take away their capability.
“And we don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict, within the region,” Brown said.
He told Raddatz then that the American airstrikes have “had an impact” on the Houthis’ ability to continue carrying out missile and drone attacks, though he declined to say by how much.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Meghan Mistry contributed to this report.
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — Former President Donald Trump said he was speaking to President Joe Biden’s worst nightmare while courting Black conservatives at the Black Conservative Federation Gala in Columbia, South Carolina: “Hundreds of proud Black conservative American patriots.”
Trump spent the night using racially charged sentiments by suggesting he has strengthened his appeal to Black Americans by claiming they relate to his multiple criminal indictments.
“I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing,” Trump said to applause.
He continued, asserting that Black people are starting to turn to him because “what’s happening to me, happens to them,” centering his appeal to Black voters by equating his criminal prosecutions to the historic discrimination Black Americans have faced.
“I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them. Does that make sense?”
Trump is charged with 91 felony counts and faces charges including racketeering, conspiracy to obstruct justice and falsifying business records.
Throughout the evening, Trump portrayed himself as a victim of an unjust criminal justice system which he said appeals to Black voters, especially in the Fulton County election interference case, where he was ordered to take a mugshot.
“My mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot. And you know who embraced it more than anybody else: the Black population. It’s incredible,” he said.
Trump’s comments come as he also likened himself to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the wake of Navalny’s death, saying the more than $350 million in penalties he faces in his New York civil fraud trial are a “form of Navalny.”
Trump was joined on stage by the leaders of the organization as well as some of his Black political allies, including Reps. Byron Donalds and Wesley Hunt and his former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson who engaged with him repeatedly as he made off-the-cuff remarks.
“These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones. You see, that’s how far I’ve come. That’s how far I’ve come,” Trump said, quipping about a racial stereotype that Black people can’t be seen in the dark as the lawmakers laughed behind him.
The ballroom was mainly filled with Black Republicans who seemed to enthusiastically cheer the former president on from their dinner tables.
“That’s real,” Kevin McGaray told ABC News. “We get picked on all the time unnecessarily and, and he understands what that feels like now, so there’s a connection.”
McGary is a Black Republican from San Francisco. He voted for Trump in 2020 and 2016.
“I appreciate the track record that he has with the Black community,” he said. “Everything he did was on point for communities of color. So I appreciate that.”
Meanwhile onstage, Trump touted his policy appeals to the room which included boasting about his help in securing the passage of the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice bill, and claimed he was able to help economic growth in the Black community.
Voters like Karqueta Lindsey from Raleigh, North Carolina, don’t like the way he compares his legal troubles to Black Americans. However she tells ABC News that his “words” on race are not a deal breaker.
“I’m not saying that everything that Donald Trump says that I’m for it, but I’m not for 100% of what any politician says,” Lindsey said. “I am pro-life and the borders need to be secured. So those are things that affect me, not the words.”
