Politics

(WASHINGTON) — In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy told his conference he and the White House are “nowhere a deal” on the debt limit and spending, urging members to hold firm, sources told ABC News.

“I need you all to hang with me on the debt limit,” McCarthy told members in the room, according to sources. “We are nowhere near a deal yet.”

He spoke with nine days to go until the June 1 “X-date,” when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned the government might risk default. On Monday, she stepped up that warning in a letter to congressional leaders, calling it “highly likely” the Treasury will run out of money in early June.

Working against that deadline, after meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House Monday, McCarthy called the talks “productive” not “progress.”

On his way back into the Capitol from meeting with Republicans Tuesday, ABC News asked McCarthy what progress has been made.

“Look, we met again last night. We’re not there yet,” he said.

About the time he spoke, White House negotiators arrived on Capitol Hill for another day of high-stakes talks. Biden adviser Steve Richetti, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and Legislative Affairs chief Louisa Terrell arrived in a large black van and took a circuitous route to the speaker’s suite of offices.

“Just going to work. That’s it. Don’t have anything else. Off to do some more work!,” Ricchetti told reporters, joking that his team had probably had as little sleep as reporters.

They ignored all substantive questions about the talks and refused to say how long they would be in the Capitol.

“It really comes down to this,” McCarthy told ABC News. “Why are we in the problem we’re in? People have spent too much money. And the Democrats want to even spend more than we spent last year. That is not gonna happen,” he said.

McCarthy again outlined some of his demands: stricter work requirements for some federal aid programs and permitting reform for new energy projects.

“We’ve got to help people get back in the workforce with work requirements. You got to be able to have — cut this red tape where people can build again in America. There’s a lot of avenues out there that they’ve got to find. You’ve got to come to an agreement there,” he said.

“We can still finish this by June 1st in a timeline,” he said when asked about the deadline and just a few days left to sell any deal and get it passed by the House and Senate.

This, as members of both parties are raising objections, including House Republican hard-liners.

“Ninety-seven days the president didn’t want to meet, so we’re trying to condense everything in a short time frame. The House passed a bill and the Senate never passed one, so now it’s more difficult — what else do you have to negotiate with? From a lot of different perspectives. But we can still finish in time.”

When asked by reporters what he’d be willing to give up, McCarthy turned the tables back on Democrats.

“I passed a bill that raises the debt ceiling. So, what are you asking the senators? What are you asking the Democrats? What are you asking the president? Is the president going to hold fast and firm that he wants to spend more, create more inflation, make us more dependent on China? I don’t think so. I’m never going to give up on the American people. If you’ve watched anything about me, I won’t quit.”

House Democrats pushed back.

“Speaker McCarthy is beholden to the most extreme members of his conference,” chair of the House Democratic Caucus Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters.

“The speaker insists that there won’t be draconian cuts and yet continues to say the spending levels must go down. His position is simply untenable. Based on what Republicans have shown us with the appropriations bills, we are looking at a 30% cut across the board to the remaining domestic programs,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced a body-worn camera policy for all nine law enforcement components under the DHS umbrella, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Protective Service.

Currently, agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have 7,000 body-worn cameras that were issued starting in 2021, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is going through a pilot program for use of the cameras.

The policy announced by DHS allows all the agencies to have a standard for all body-worn camera operations, according to a senior department official.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas signed the policy into effect on Monday and it outlines when officers should wear body-worn cameras.

“As defined by Agency policy, in all appropriate circumstances when [law enforcement officers] are conducting patrol or are otherwise engaged with the public in response to emergency calls,” the policy says. “During a pre-planned attempt to serve an arrest warrant or other pre­ planned arrest, including the apprehension of fugitives sought on state and local warrants; or, during the execution of a search or seizure warrant or order.”

Mayorkas said this is aimed at gaining the public’s trust.

“Our ability to secure the homeland rests on public trust, which is built through accountability, transparency, and effectiveness in our law enforcement practices,” said Mayorkas. “Today’s policy announcement is designed to advance these essential values. Requiring the use of body-worn cameras by our law enforcement officers and agents is another important step DHS is making to bring our law enforcement workforce to the forefront of innovation, and to further build public trust and confidence in the thousands of dedicated and professional law enforcement officers at DHS.”

A senior department official not authorized to speak publicly told ABC News the policy will likely not apply to Secret Service agents on the White House grounds, a key area the Secret Service covers.

“We had to come to the right balance,” the agency official said when asked about formulating a policy that would apply to all agencies under the DHS umbrella.

There are about 80,000 law enforcement officers within DHS — which is the largest within the federal government, the official said, however it is not clear that every officer or agent will have a camera.

Body-worn cameras will not be used in the case of First Amendment protected activity, “systemic, indiscriminate tracking of individuals, wide-scale monitoring, or unauthorized surveillance, recording undercover personnel, recording undercover agents or informants, and “for the purpose of recording a particular individual or group of individuals based solely on their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, gender identity or expression, or political affiliation,” the policy states.

Agencies within DHS “are directed to develop, or update, policies to address the content of this policy within 180 calendar days of this policy’s implementation. Agency policies shall include the responsibilities for LEOs to carry operate, maintain, and secure BWC equipment, including when to activate and deactivate the BWCs,” according to the policy.

“Agency policies shall identify specialized or sensitive investigative techniques or equipment that may require different treatment under the BWC policy. Implementation of DHS and Agency BWC policies are contingent on the Agency’s resource availability and the Agency’s deployment plan,” the policy says.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy left a White House meeting with President Joe Biden on Monday saying he was optimistic about progress toward a deal on the nation’s debt ceiling — but “philosophical differences” with Democrats remained, as the clock continues to tick down toward an unprecedented default.

“I think the tone tonight was better than any other time,” McCarthy said. “We still will have some philosophical differences, but I felt it was productive in that manner.”

“We don’t have an agreement yet, but I did feel the discussion was productive in areas that we have differences of opinion,” he said.

Negotiators for the president and the speaker will keep working toward a deal, McCarthy said, and he expects he’ll speak with Biden daily.

He said he had no additional in-person meetings scheduled with the president.

“We’ve had tough meetings, we’ve had difficult meetings. This meeting was productive,” North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, one of the Republican negotiators, said.

But neither McCarthy and McHenry would shed much light on where they’d made progress, which issues they’d worked on or what sticking points still need to be addressed — using only broad descriptions of the honesty and professionalism in the room.

Major disagreements so far have been on the scope of any spending cuts or freezes and the possibility of new taxes in a debt deal.

After speaking with Biden, McCarthy again threw cold water on the idea of a short-term extension of the federal government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, saying he didn’t think it “benefits anybody.”

At a press conference after seeing the president, McCarthy said, “We literally talked about where we were having disagreements and ideas. So to me that’s productive. Not progress, but productive.”

The speaker told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott that he sees a path where a potential “framework” could ultimately be agreed to but added, “You just got to have people who are willing to get to that point.”

Among the GOP asks are getting back unused COVID-19 relief funds, major government spending cuts, work requirements for some recipients of federal aid programs and changes to permitting for new energy projects.

Biden initially demanded a “clean” raise to the debt ceiling without preconditions, as has happened multiple times in the past. But he has since reversed himself and signaled some openness to the GOP position while pushing back on the size of any cuts and pushing for new government revenues.

McCarthy and other Republicans have repeatedly ruled out taxes as part of any deal. McCarthy also opposes defense spending cuts and any changes to immigration policy.

He told reporters earlier Monday that they would need a deal by “this week” in order for it to pass the House and Senate before the June 1 “X-date” when Treasury Secretary Jane Yellen has said the U.S. could default and be unable to pay all of its bills — likely upending the domestic and international markets.

In a brief statement Monday night, Biden echoed McCarthy’s assessment of their sit-down.

“I just concluded a productive meeting with Speaker McCarthy about the need to prevent default and avoid a catastrophe for our economy,” he said. “We reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement.”

Ahead of their White House meeting, Biden had said that “we’re optimistic we may be able to make some progress because we both agree that default is not really on the table. We got to get something done here.”

McCarthy, too, agreed.

“We both agree that we need to change trajectory — that our debt is too large,” McCarthy told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think at the end of the day, we could find common ground, make our economy stronger, take care of this debt but, more importantly, get this government moving again to [curb] inflation.”

That tone of cooperation is at odds with comments elsewhere, as Republicans have accused the Biden administration of slow-walking talks to avoid cutting back on government bloat while Democrats said the GOP was essentially holding the entire economy hostage to enforce extreme positions rather than raise the debt ceiling without strings.

Speaking with reporters on the Capitol steps Monday night, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sought to paint Republicans as having not made serious concessions so far in the debt ceiling negotiations.

“The president himself continued to be extremely reasonable in the face of unreasonable demands that the extreme MAGA Republicans continue to make,” Jeffries said.

Yellen had warned Sunday that June 1 is a “hard deadline” for raising the debt limit, and the possibility of making it to mid-June without default is “quite low.”

On the timeline for enacting legislation, McCarthy said Monday before going to the White House that “we’re going to need a couple of days to write it and to make sure that everyone’s able to read it.”

He pointed to a concession he made to become speaker, going back to a previous rule that requires House members get 72 hours to review legislation before voting on it.

The short timeline makes it “more difficult,” he said, but added, “I think this will make it all happen.”

Another looming concern as negotiations continue is whether McCarthy, if a deal is reached, will have the votes to pass it in the House.

When asked Monday if he can count on far-right House Republicans to vote for a debt ceiling deal or if he’ll need to get support from Democrats, McCarthy demurred.

“I think anytime you come to an agreement that you negotiate with the president, Democrats and Republicans are both going to vote for it,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, which boasts dozens of Republican hardliners, has called for talks with the Biden administration to stop and instead for the focus to be on getting the Limit, Save, Grow Act through the Senate — a bill that would deeply cut spending in exchange a one-year debt limit increase deemed a nonstarter by Democrats.

Their opposition means McCarthy would possibly need a substantial number of Democratic votes to pass a debt limit deal. Several progressives have warned of backlash if Biden concedes too much ground to Republicans, and are calling for him to use the 14th Amendment to act unilaterally on the issue.

Before meeting with Biden, McCarthy continued to criticize Democrats’ spending as he entered the Capitol, declining to say if there had been any movement with the White House.

“The underlying issue here is the Democrats, since they took the majority, have been addicted to spending and that’s going to stop. We’re going to spend less than we spent last year,” McCarthy said.

He also took the opportunity to slam Biden.

“Managing a crisis in the last deadline is the worst way to handle this. That’s why Republicans took action,” he said.

Biden and McCarthy previously spoke on Sunday after negotiations stalled over the weekend, primarily over the issue of spending and the length of budget caps.

In the Oval Office later on Monday, Biden was asked whether the way to solve the impasse was through “overall spending” caps.

“Not alone, not that alone,” he answered.

ABC News’ Rachel Scott has reported that Republicans rejected an offer from the White House that offered some cuts to military and domestic spending, including funds related to housing, education and scientific research.

Biden’s call for tax increases to also be included in a deal to raise the debt ceiling — “so people start paying their fair share,” he said Sunday — has been dismissed by the GOP.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, told ABC’s This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday that revenue increases were “not on the table for discussion.”

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s words about writer E. Jean Carroll may, again, come back to haunt him.

Carroll’s attorneys sought on Monday to amend her initial defamation lawsuit against Trump, filed in 2019, to account for allegedly defamatory statements he made about her after a jury found him liable for battery and defamation in a second lawsuit that the former Elle magazine columnist filed against him last November.

There was no immediate response from Trump or his lawyers.

Carroll’s first suit has been tied up on legal technicalities and, in the new court filing, her lawyers sought a judge’s permission to include Trump’s words after the May 9 verdict against him.

“Immediately after the verdict was announced, Trump began lashing out in response. He started by posting various messages and videos on his Truth Social account decrying the verdict, and disparaging Carroll, the jury, and the judicial system more generally,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote.

They wrote that “mere minutes after the verdict became public, Trump repeated the defamatory lie that he had no idea who Carroll was and again claimed that her accusation of sexual assault was politically motivated: ‘I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!'”

Carroll is seeking additional punitive damages if her first suit ultimately moves forward and is successful.

Earlier this month, Trump signaled his intent to appeal the verdict in Carroll’s battery and defamation suit.

A jury in that case ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.

She said in her battery suit that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her account “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the nation heads toward a potential default, possibly as soon as June 1, President Joe Biden is facing pressure from some Democrats to use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.

With time growing short, Biden was asked again Sunday whether he was considering such action as tense negotiations continue between the White House and congressional Republicans.

“I’m looking at the 14th Amendment,” he told reporters in Japan. “As to whether or not we have the authority, I think we have the authority.”

But the never-tested issue, Biden noted, would almost surely be litigated — likely all the way to the Supreme Court — and it’s unclear if the matter could be resolved before the default deadline or even soon after. Some critics argue the uncertainty could have just as severe consequences as failure to reach a deal.

“We have not come up with a unilateral action that could succeed in a matter of two weeks or three weeks,” Biden said. “That’s the issue.”

At the same time, he said once this debt limit crisis is over, his intention is to find a way to take the matter to the courts “to see whether or not the 14th Amendment is, in fact, something that would be able to stop it,” referring to the recurring showdowns over raising the limit.

Here’s what to know about the 14th Amendment and how whether to use it is being argued in the debt ceiling showdown.

What does the 14th Amendment say?

The 14th Amendment is primarily known for its citizenship rights and equal protection clauses, but Section 4 of the amendment relates to the nation’s public debt.

The section reads, in part: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

It was written in the aftermath of the Civil War and refers to the debt incurred to fight the Civil War on the Union side.

Can Biden use it? Legal expert weighs in

Legal experts, both in recent weeks and in past debt ceiling battles, have debated whether the 14th Amendment can be used to essentially declare the debt limit unconstitutional and avert default absent congressional action to raise it.

“The 14th Amendment provides, in virtually no uncertain terms, that the public debt of the United States should not be questioned,” Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, told ABC News. “Biden could rely on that language to suggest that there’s no debt ceiling and that he may have a lot of room to operate given that sort of constitutional commitment.”

But there is no precedent for such a move, and it would immediately be challenged in court, Gerhardt said.

“Biden’s going to rely on the language of the Constitution,” Gerhardt said. “Republicans will argue that there’s some kind of original meaning that undercuts the broad language of the Constitution.”

Gerhardt said he believed the 14th Amendment was a “viable option” but “whether Biden can win is a separate question, and whether he can win in litigation that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court is unclear to me.”

Who is calling for the 14th Amendment to be used?

Eleven Senate Democrats and 66 House progressives wrote letters to Biden last week urging him to use the 14th Amendment.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a constitutional scholar, argued Monday that the 14th Amendment “provides that the ‘validity of the public debt…shall not be questioned.’ This is not an ‘option’ but a mandate. We can’t allow the MAGA fringe to crash the economy if we don’t cave into their demands to destroy critical social programs for vets, nutrition & health.”

“Is this the perfect solution, is imposing the 14th Amendment the perfect solution? No it is not,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said during a press conference on Capitol Hill last week. “But using the 14th Amendment would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on time and without delay, prevent an economic catastrophe, and prevent devastating cuts to some for the most vulnerable people in the country.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse, in a press call on Monday advocating for the use of the 14th Amendment, made a similar argument that Republicans were leaving them no choice.

“The best case scenario, obviously, would be for Speaker McCarthy and his MAGA crew to put down the hand grenade and negotiate through the regular process of government that we’ve adhered to for 200-plus years,” Whitehouse said.

“But again there’s one person who is responsible for this and he’s unwilling to put the pin back in the hand grenade,” Whitehouse said, “and we have to face that consequence.”

What’s been the Republican reaction?

Speaker McCarthy’s said he’s opposed to the 14th Amendment, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has advised, “Unconstitutionally acting without Congress is also not an option.”

“If you’re the leader of the free world, if you’re the only president and you’re going to go to the 14th Amendment to look at something like that, I would think you’re kind of a failure of working with people across the aisle or working with your own party to get something done,” McCarthy said earlier this month.

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(WASHINGTON) — More than $100 million will go to airports across the country to reduce potential runway incursions, the Federal Aviation Administration told ABC News exclusively.

The funding, announced Monday, will be allocated to 12 airports in the wake of a series of close calls involving passenger planes earlier this year.

Runway incursions occur when an aircraft, vehicle or person is incorrectly on the protected areas at an airport designated for takeoff.

This round of grant money from the agency — as part of its annual distributions — will fund projects that will reconfigure taxiways that cause confusion, install better airfield lighting and construct new taxiways to provide more flexibility on the airfield, the FAA said.

“It’s a matter of perspective for pilots most of the time because when you land at a large or small airport, while you can make out the runways and taxiways pretty easily looking at a paper diagram, when you’re down on the surface it becomes a lot more difficult, especially at night or especially at night in rain,” ABC News contributor and former commercial pilot John Nance said.

Grant recipients include Miami International Airport (MIA), which will receive $6 million to shift one taxiway and fix an intersection between two other taxiways, the FAA said.

Jose Ramos, the division director for planning, land use and grants at MIA, called the area a “hot spot” that can be confusing for pilots. The new funding will “enhance the safety in the area of a very complex part of the airport,” he said.

“What this project is going to do is basically reconfigure the area, provide clear delineation of the taxi lanes where the aircraft transit through,” Ramos told ABC News. “It’s going to better identify the approach areas to the runway, so generally it’s a safety improvement to that area.”

Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport will also receive $13.4 million to reconfigure four taxiways, shift two runways and install runway status lights that alert pilots and others if it’s safe to enter the runway.

Tucson International Airport in Arizona will get $33.1 million — the largest FAA grant — to construct a new taxiway and shift and rebuild a runway to be further away from a parallel runway.

Following a slew of runway incursions at airports this year, the FAA’s acting administrator, Billy Nolen, launched a safety review team to examine the national aerospace system’s structure, culture, systems and integration of safety efforts.

“We are experiencing the safest period in aviation history, but we cannot take this for granted,” Nolen said at the time. “Recent events remind us that we must not become complacent. Now is the time to stare into the data and ask hard questions.”

Nolen also faced scrutiny from lawmakers during testimony on Capitol Hill in February.

Data from the FAA shows the number of the most serious close calls at U.S. airports has actually been decreasing even as overall incidents have risen.

Last year, there were at least 1,633 runway incursions at U.S. airports, according to the data — up from the 1,397 incursions reported a decade prior, in 2012, and the 987 reported in 2002.

But the most serious incursions in which a collision was “narrowly avoided” or in which “there is significant potential for a collision” have decreased over the past 20 years, according to the FAA.

In 2022, there were 18 serious runway incursions in the U.S., agency data shows. That number is up from a low of five reported in 2010 but down from a high of 32 reported in 2007.

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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Tim Scott, who grew up in working-class poverty to become South Carolina’s first Black senator, and now the Senate’s lone Black Republican, was set to declare his candidacy for president on Monday, coming into the 2024 race with more cash on hand than all of his competitors — and a story that he says embodies the American dream.

The 57-year-old senator is holding the official announcement event inside the Buccaneer Fieldhouse on Monday morning at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University.

“We live in the land where it is possible for a kid raised in poverty by a single mother in a small apartment to one day serve in the People’s House and maybe even the White House,” Scott will say, according to an excerpt of his speech.

“When I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I re-funded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the N-word,” he is expected to say. “I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disproves their lies.”

Scott on Friday filed official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to enter the race, setting into motion a $6 million ad-buy in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states of the Republican nominating contest, which will air starting Wednesday and run through the first GOP primary debate in late August.

Choosing to take on the president as opposed to any primary opponents, Scott offered a more positive outlook than others to say “America is not a nation in decline,” but under President Joe Biden, he said it has become “a nation in retreat.”

John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, endorsed Scott and was set to deliver the opening prayer at his announcement in Charleston.

Scott will travel to Iowa and New Hampshire later this week, adding to a handful of visits he’s already made this year. His official campaign committee, Tim Scott for America, will be based in the Palmetto State, where he will return for Memorial Day weekend.

While he’s polling in the low single digits, major donors, including Oracle founder Larry Ellison, are banking on the senator’s optimistic disposition breaking through — and allowing him to overtake former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, both ahead of him in voter surveys.

Scott’s campaign has touted his joining the race with $22 million in campaign cash, which they say is the most of any presidential candidate in American history.

The official campaign launch follows a season of courting voters including his “Faith in America” town hall series after forming a presidential exploratory committee, a step which allows for candidates to start raising money. Staffers say his campaign for president really came to light after he won 63% of the vote in his reelection to the Senate in November, despite an increasingly polarizing climate.

The junior senator rolled out his exploratory committee on April 12, which he noted marked the anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. His announcement video was filmed at Fort Sumter, where he once again called for Americans to overcome deep political divisions.

A source close to Scott said he had not spoken to Trump ahead of his announcement. The two share a cordial relationship, but Scott sparingly condemned Trump during his presidency for racially-charged comments, such as after Trump expressed support for the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Scott responded, “Racism is real. It is alive.”

Scott has declined to say whether he would support Trump if Trump were to win the GOP nomination, while Trump’s team has painted the primary as a race for second place.

“Tim Scott’s entrance, and aggressive media purchase, doesn’t only kneecap DeSantis, but Scott sees the same thing as Youngkin, Sununu, Burgum, Christie and others: the path to 2nd place is wide open,” said Taylor Budowich, CEO of the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again Inc. PAC. “They smell Ron DeSantis’ blood in the water and no longer see him as an obstacle.”

Scott’s personal story

Not only is Scott coming into the race with a heft of cash on hand, but his campaign also says he brings a different personal story to the race.

Scott credits his mother, who he says worked 16-hour days as a nursing assistant to support him, and a Chick-fil-A store operator, who helped Scott get his first job at a movie theater at age 13, with enabling him to pave a path from working-class poverty to the U.S. Senate.

“Those 16-hour days put food on our table. And kept our lights on. They empowered her to move her boys out of a place filled with anger into a home full of love,” Scott is expected to say Monday.

He also cites his experience at South Carolina’s Palmetto Boys State program as influential in his decision to pursue public service. After working in insurance and financial services post-college, Scott ran for Charleston County Council and the South Carolina House of Representatives.

Scott was first appointed to the Senate in 2013, plucked from the U.S. House of Representatives by then-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — who he’ll now face in the primary. This after another senator, Jim DeMint, resigned to lead the Heritage Foundation. Scott retained his seat in a 2014 special election and glided to victory again in 2016 and 2022, with more than 60% of the vote in both cycles.

Long seen as a rising star in the GOP, Scott delivered the Republican Party’s rebuttal to Biden’s inaugural joint address to Congress in 2021.

Scott’s signature legislation creating “opportunity zones” was passed as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act under Trump. In 2020, he was tapped by Republican leaders to negotiate on police-reforms but those bipartisan talks collapsed.

He’s starting off his campaign with multiple colleagues’ endorsements, with South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds joining Thune. Fellow South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is among 11 Senate Republicans already endorsing Trump, although back in 2016 he infamously said, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”

Scott joins a primary field that includes Haley, Trump, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Others are expected to officially enter in the coming days, including DeSantis and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

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(WASHINGTON) — Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington, the House Budget Committee chairman, on Sunday pushed back on President Joe Biden’s call for tax increases as part of a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit to avoid an unprecedented default.

“No. 1, it’s not on the table for discussion. No. 2, taxes right now would only be passed on to consumers at higher prices. So we will exacerbate inflation,” Arrington told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

He was responding to comments Biden made earlier Sunday in Japan, where the president was attending a summit of the Group of Seven countries.

Biden said that he is “willing to cut spending, as well as raise revenue, so people start paying their fair share” but that revenues are where Democrats and Republicans continue to have “significant disagreement” in reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

“There’s a lot of things that they refuse to entertain, and they just said revenue is off the table. Well, revenue is not off the table,” Biden said.

Arrington said on “This Week” that the issue of taxes remains a nonstarter with conservative lawmakers.

“You couldn’t get tax policies and tax revenues in the Senate …. We certainly weren’t going to put it in the House bill,” he said, referring to lack of Republican support in the Senate, where most legislation needs 60 votes to pass.

Citing the revenue increases in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, as well as concerns that the economy’s growth is slowing, Arrington argued that “the last thing we want to do is add another tax.”

House Republicans last month passed their own bill to raise the debt ceiling, cut spending and roll back core aspects of Biden’s agenda. Republicans have said that now puts the onus on Biden and the Democratic-controlled Senate to propose competing legislation as both sides work toward a compromise.

“How confident are you that America will not default?” Raddatz pressed Arrington on “This Week.”

“We listened to [Treasury Secretary] Janet Yellen and her warning that we needed to move with urgency and purpose,” he said of House Republicans, adding, “The question is, will President Biden listen to Janet Yellen, his own secretary? And with the window closing on the x-date, the default date, then respond? We’ve done our job.”

The goal for Republicans, Arrington said, was cutting down on the size of the federal government’s spending, which he said had grown too large in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve got to rightsize and rein in this bureaucratic bloat,” he said.

Negotiators in Washington have a shortening runway to figure out a deal to raise the amount the government can borrow. Yellen has said that the government could run out of funds to pay all of its existing obligations as soon as June 1.

Failure to do so would spark an unprecedented default that would likely destabilize domestic and international markets, and Biden is anticipated to speak with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., later on Sunday to move negotiations along.

Biden said in Japan that, in the event of default, “No one would be blameless.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet on Monday to directly negotiate on how to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling in the final days before the country defaults on its bills.

McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters on Sunday that a conversation he’d just had with Biden as the president flew back from an international summit in Hiroshima, Japan, was “productive” and that “I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at.”

“But look, there’s no agreement. We’re still apart,” he said.

He declined to provide specifics on how long the debt limit would be raised under a deal and said negotiations are ongoing about the length of any budget caps.

Those comments mark a tone shift after an earlier war of words between McCarthy and Biden on Sunday — the latest twist in the roller coaster negotiations to raise the current $31.4 trillion debt limit before the country runs out of funds to pay all of its existing obligations, which will happen as soon as June 1, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Such a default would be unprecedented and almost certainly roil the U.S. and international markets, risking major financial damage.

In exchange for hiking the nation’s borrowing limit, House Republicans are seeking spending cuts and policy changes, particularly around aid programs and government permits.

Biden has signaled some openness while also calling for tax increases.

Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and White House adviser Steve Richetti are expected to come to Capitol Hill later Sunday to meet with Republican Reps. Garret Graves and Patrick McHenry to ensure Biden and McCarthy are prepared in advance of Monday’s meeting.

Last week, the White House and Republicans spoke optimistically about reaching a debt and budget deal. But both the president and speaker earlier Sunday publicly rebuked the other for placing partisanship over the economy.

Talking with reporters in Hiroshima, Japan, before he spoke with McCarthy, Biden emphasized that the only deal to be made was through bipartisan negotiations.

Biden hammered Republicans over what he called their “extreme positions” on raising the debt ceiling, which was reached in January.

“It’s time for the other side to move from their extreme positions because much of what they’ve proposed is quite frankly unacceptable,” Biden said. “It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely on their partisan terms. They have to move as well.”

“I’m not going to agree to a deal that protects, for example, a $30 billion tax break for the oil industry, which made $200 billion last year. They don’t need an incentive of another $30 billion, while putting health care of 21 million Americans at risk by going after Medicaid,” he said.

The president said that it has been “hard to determine where they [Republicans] are, quite frankly” but that working with McCarthy directly could be fruitful.

Biden initially resisted negotiating on raising the debt limit — saying lawmakers must hike it without preconditions — but has since agreed to budget talks alongside a debt increase.

McCarthy said earlier this weekend that the debt talks would be paused until after Biden returned from overseas, contending that “the White House moved backwards” during bargaining.

“My guess is he’s going to want to deal directly with me,” Biden said in Japan. “We’re going to have to sit down. I’m hoping that Speaker McCarthy is just waiting to negotiate with me when I get home, which has been — I don’t know whether that’s true or not, we’ll find out.”

It will take several days to turn any legislative deal into law, including moving the bill through Congress and to Biden’s desk. However, McCarthy indicated on Sunday that the timeline remains workable for a compromise.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down to avoid a default, which would likely upend both U.S. and international markets.

During his press conference Sunday, Biden still expressed confidence that “we can reach an agreement,” although minutes later, he said, “I can’t guarantee that they [GOP] wouldn’t force a default by doing something outrageous.”

Pressed about the possibility of default while appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington insisted that Republicans had done their part by passing a bill last month to raise the debt ceiling, cut spending and reverse key Biden policies — a bill that was quickly rejected by Democrats.

“The question is, will President Biden listen to Janet Yellen, his own secretary? And with the window closing on the x-date, the default date, then respond? We’ve done our job,” Arrington said.

“We’ve got to rightsize and rein in this bureaucratic bloat” while addressing the “spending problem that’s driving the inflation crisis and some of the economic woes that we’re experiencing,” he said

The president in Japan singled out an impasse over revenue growth, arguing that Republicans are opposed to his proposals to raise some taxes.

He said he is “willing to cut spending, as well as raise revenue, so people start paying their fair share,” but that revenues are where negotiators continue to have “significant disagreement.”

McCarthy shot back Sunday, insisting that Biden previously acknowledged raising taxes would not be part of any agreement on the debt limit.

“But the president has really shifted right after the more progressive socialist wing of the party stood up and says they want to spend more money. He’s now bringing something to the table that everyone said was off the table. It seems as though he wants to default more than he wants to deal,” McCarthy said on Fox Business.

Biden commented Sunday on the possibility of unilateral action, saying he had considered invoking the 14th Amendment, which states that the public debt “shall not be questioned.” However, he said that leaning on the amendment to get around the debt ceiling would likely cause a court challenge and a subsequent appeal, a delay that would push the country toward default anyway.

“I think we have the authority,” Biden said. “Question is, could it be done and invoked in time that it would not be appealed and, as a consequence, past the date in question, and still default on debt? That’s a question that I think is unresolved.”

The debt ceiling debate has played out during Biden’s trip to Hiroshima to meet with leaders from the G7 and allied countries, making headlines even while the president grapples with issues like sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine and relations with China.

The U.S. and other nations broke longstanding vows to not send the planes to Ukraine when they announced this weekend they would start training Ukrainian pilots on the jets and ultimately send some to Kyiv. Western countries had previously been wary of such a move over fears of antagonizing Russia and potentially broadening the conflict in Ukraine.

“I have a flat assurance from Zelenskyy that they will not, they will not, use it to go on and move into Russian geographic territory. But wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine in the area, they would be able to do that,” Biden said Sunday, referencing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On China, he added that he expected relations between Washington and Beijing to “thaw very shortly” months after the U.S. shot down what intelligence agencies have said was a Chinese spy balloon, an incident Biden called “silly” on Sunday.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.

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(LINCOLN, Neb.) — Nebraska lawmakers voted on Friday to restrict abortion access after 12 weeks and to ban gender affirming care for trans youth.

The bill, passed by the Nebraska legislature in a 33-15 vote, will head over to Republican Gov. Jim Pillen’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.

The bill will prohibit gender-affirming procedures for anyone under the age of 19 and give the state’s chief medical officer responsibility for establishing limitations on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for the same age range.

Abortions will also be prohibited after 12 weeks of pregnancy. There will only be exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person.

In April, a bill to ban abortion once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks, failed.

Legislative Bill 574 comes after a wave of legislation that have taken place in other states like Texas and Florida which have passed similar legislation restricting or prohibiting the provision of gender-affirming healthcare to minors. The abortion amendment was added on Tuesday.

Supporters of the bill claimed it would prevent teenagers from having irreversible medical operations they might later regret as well as abortions on unborn children.

“This bill is about protecting children. That’s it. It’s titled ‘Let them Grow,'” said Republican Sen. Kathleen Kauth, one of the bill’s authors. “Let them grow to be adults, and they can make whatever decisions it is that they want. And we will support and encourage and love them.”

“We know it in our head. And we know that this bill is the right bill. It’s a compromise,” Republican State Sen. John Lowe said.

Lawmakers who opposed the bill sought to block the anti-trans legislation by filibustering nearly every bill that came up during the legislative session.

“You have to live with your vote. You have to live with the role that you play in history in the making today. You have to live with the fact that you voted to take away people’s rights,” Democrat State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said.

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