Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The 2024 presidential election is likely to face a complicated array of threats, from voter manipulation to physical violence, according to a new federal assessment — and authorities are already trying to figure out how to handle them.

The confidential analysis, compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, outlines concerns about online activity that could threaten the election’s legitimacy, potential real-world plots that could result in attacks — and the urgent need to thwart them in time.

“Threat actors intent on harming Americans through the use of violence may become more aggressive as Election Day approaches and may seek to engage in or provoke violence at voting locations, government facilities, public meetings, ballot drop box locations, or private-sector vendor locations that support elections,” according to the Jan. 2 DHS bulletin, obtained by ABC News.

The risk looms far beyond the security at local polling places, the document notes, from attempts to “intimidate election workers or election officials,” to potential cyber attacks on “election infrastructure, campaigns, candidates, public officials or political organizations,” to foreign influence operations “designed to undermine” the democratic “processes and institutions, steer policy, sway public opinion or sow division.”

The new assessment comes more than nine months before Election Day, as partisan tensions at home are already at a fever pitch, multiple wars are being waged abroad and political violence has already broken out overseas.

“We are heading into a highly dangerous, perfect storm,” said John Cohen, the former intelligence chief at the Department of Homeland Security, now an ABC News contributor.

“It’s not simply due to the fact that foreign and domestic threat actors will seek to exploit this election to achieve their ideological and geopolitical objectives. We can also expect the political discourse associated with this election will become even more polarized, more angry and more divisive. And all those factors together is what has law enforcement concerned.”

The 2024 race has been marked by increasingly toxic rhetoric, the intermingling of inflammatory campaign trail hyperbole and courtroom theatrics as former President Donald Trump faces four criminal trials, and the continued conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. In addition, hate speech, misinformation and disinformation are running rampant on social media, and rapidly evolving technology remains vulnerable, experts say.

Domestic extremists “likely remain emboldened” following the last presidential election, which was punctuated on Jan. 6, 2021, with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the bulletin notes.

And on both sides of the aisle, leading candidates are running on some of the most divisive issues – from abortion, to culture wars, to immigration at the Southern border – which authorities note could prove to be flashpoints.

“Elections that involve candidates connected to issues that historically have prompted violence — including COVID-19 mandates, firearms restrictions, or abortion access — face a heightened threat environment,” the analysis said. “DHS is concerned with identifying and disrupting possible violent acts perpetrated by entities or individuals as retribution for perceived unfavorable outcomes before or following the elections.”

Election officials like Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, as well as the head of the federal government’s election security agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, have already been victims of swatting incidents, as have some officials overseeing and involved in Trump’s cases. Separately, the FBI fielded “numerous” fake bomb threats in early January sent to various secretaries of state and state legislatures.

“We’re constantly being vigilant for – what’s the tipping point?” said Elizabeth Neumann, who was a DHS assistant secretary during the first years of Trump’s presidency and is now an ABC News contributor. “There are barrages of threats coming from multiple vectors – and multiple components of election infrastructure. It’s not just the voting machine – there’s multiple pieces that you’re worried about.”

The complex interplay of state and local election systems also means “different potential threat vectors and areas for protection,” the DHS bulletin said.

Online threat actors “seek to undermine the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of US election infrastructure,” the bulletin said – through phishing, IT disruptions, credential harvesting, supply chain compromise or brute force attacks.

Cyber attacks on local election infrastructure “have the potential for the greatest impact on the ability of jurisdictions to conduct elections,” the document said – attacks “on the integrity of state-level voter registration, poll books, and election websites, as well as on the preparation of ballots, voting machines, and tabulation systems.”

Threats may also target “agencies or civic organizations responsible for registering voters” or whose “infrastructure may feed into” those systems, the analysis said.

“These threats are not hypothetical. We’ve seen them occur. It may not have been such that it disrupted the election. But they still can have deep impacts,” Neumann said.

During the 2022 election cycle, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center received at least 85 reports of malicious cyber activity from election offices across 56 state, local, tribal and territorial entities, attempting to “find and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities,” the bulletin said.

“Just because we’ve shored up important vulnerabilities doesn’t mean new vulnerabilities can’t be introduced,” Neumann said. “The spectrum here is wide, and exponentially expanding.”

Would-be hackers’ incursion into election infrastructure is not the only threat lurking online: the mushrooming influence of false and misleading information on the internet could sway voters’ minds even before they reach the ballot box, the document warns.

Foreign governments could attempt “to influence US policy, distort political sentiment and public discourse, sow division, or undermine confidence in democratic processes and values to achieve strategic objectives,” the bulletin said – advising to look out for “indications that entities are producing or amplifying misleading information about the time, manner, or place of voting, including providing inaccurate election dates or false claims about voting qualifications or methods.”

Foreign actors could try to “influence US voters through psychological operations, the infiltration of political parties, or the covert dissemination of false or misleading information through social media or other means,” the document said.

Just before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary earlier this month, a fake robocall appearing to impersonate the voice of President Joe Biden began circulating, encouraging voters not to go to the primary polls and to “save your vote” for the general election.

“Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” the recording said – prompting a criminal investigation by New Hampshire’s Attorney General.

“You don’t have to hack into voter tabulation systems to disrupt an election,” Cohen said. “If a foreign adversary, or a terrorist group, can misinform voters, in a way that influences their opinions and decision-making before they enter or as they enter the ballot box, then these adversaries can influence the outcome of the election.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Warning that the Middle East is facing a “dangerous moment” in time, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday defended America’s seeming delay in responding to Sunday’s enemy drone attack that killed three American service members four days ago.

The remains of three Army reservists killed in the base attack were expected to arrive stateside on Friday, with Austin joining President Joe Biden and the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

In a press briefing, Austin said the U.S. is preparing a “multi-tiered response” to the attack that also minimizes collateral damage.

The goal, he said, would be to degrade the capabilities of Iran-backed militants without plunging the region into a broader war.

“There are ways to manage this so it doesn’t spiral out of control. And that’s been our focus throughout,” he said.

The Pentagon has declined to discuss operational details of the pending strikes, citing security concerns. A U.S. official familiar with the plan, but speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes will unfold across several days and hit multiple countries including Iraq and Syria and possibly Yemen.

Since the start of the Israeli-Gaza war, the U.S. has found itself under near-constant attack from Iran-backed militants targeting commercial ships along the Red Sea and U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. The tit-for-tat attacks have dragged on since fall, and U.S. officials say Iran is supplying the groups targeting U.S. assets.

On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said it stuck down a ground-based drone control station and 10 one-way attack drones in Yemen.

Hours later, on Thursday, Houthi rebels launched two missiles but missed a nearby cargo ship, according to Central Command. The U.S. also reported striking down a drone and an explosive uncrewed surface vehicle.

According to a U.S. official, the drone that successfully hit a U.S. base in Jordan last weekend was an Iranian-made Shahed drone, similar to those used by the Russians on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Reuters first reported that the drone that killed the Americans was Iranian made. Austin confirmed that most of the drones used in the region come from Iran.

When asked why the U.S. is pursuing a multi-tiered response, Austin said U.S. adversaries don’t have a “one-and-done mindset.”

He noted, “they have a lot of capability.” He added: “I have a lot more.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley insisted on Thursday that she won’t actually have to win in her home state in order to achieve victory there — after two huge losses in the first two states to vote in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Speaking with reporters after a campaign event in South Carolina, Haley was asked what winning looks like for her in the state’s Republican primary on Feb. 24.

“I think making sure it’s a competitive race, making sure that it looks close. If we do that — that’ll head us on into Michigan and Super Tuesday and that’s what we’re looking at,” she said.

Asked if she would stay in the race with a second-place finish, she asserted that she’s “not going anywhere.”

“This is about just closing that gap,” she said.

Her campaign was not, she said, “an anti-Trump movement.”

“At the end of the day, I’m doing this because the party that comes out with a new generational leader is the party that’s gonna win,” she said. “I’m doing this because I don’t want my kids to live like this.”

Haley has emerged as the last remaining major alternative to former President Donald Trump in the GOP’s nominating race after rival Ron DeSantis ended his campaign in January in the wake of a distant second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Haley came in third in Iowa, just behind DeSantis, but quickly celebrated a stronger showing in the New Hampshire primary where she trailed Trump by roughly 11 points.

She has argued, as she did again on Thursday, that her strategy is to lose by less and less to Trump and then, at some point around Super Tuesday in March, when many states vote at once, begin to overtake him.

“We went from 2% to 20% in Iowa. Then we went, we got 43% [in] New Hampshire. But you know what the tall tale of that is? Donald Trump didn’t get 43% of the vote. That should scare you,” Haley told voters in Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday.

She currently trails Trump by about 31 points in the polling in South Carolina, according to 538. While her support has recently increased, so has Trump’s.

Trump has targeted her for not leaving the race after her initial defeats in the first two states to vote in the race.

“Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory? She did very poorly,” Trump said on primary night in New Hampshire.

“She’s doing like a speech like she won,” Trump said then. “She didn’t win. She lost.”

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(NEW YORK) — Prescription drug prices have long been a back-and-forth issue between insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

Those who aren’t covered by insurance are usually left with a high bill for much-needed medicines.

The Biden administration has pushed a solution through the Inflation Reduction Act and gave Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with drug companies.

ABC News’ “Start Here” spoke with United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra about the negotiations, which started Thursday.

START HERE: Secretary Becerra, thanks for being with us. How is this about to work?

HHS SEC. XAVIER BECERRA: Brad, you hit it right on the money. It’s incredible to believe that for 65 million Americans, we could not try to get the best price. It’s one of those, take it or leave it. The drug company sets the price. And lo and behold, Americans today pay two or three times more than they probably should for those prescription drugs that folks around the world are paying so much less for. So it is now time. And the Inflation Reduction Act, as you said, now gives us a chance.

The president fought for that law and now we’re going to start negotiations. We have submitted our offer to the nine companies that have the 10 drugs that are the first to be negotiated, and we’ll have an out now have a chance to have a back and forth and negotiations.

START HERE: What types of drugs are we talking about?

BECERRA: These are drugs that cover cancer, diabetes, [and] heart disease. [They are] the types of chronic conditions that you and I know that affect so many Americans and cost us so much. These drugs, these 10 drugs alone cost us, the federal government, [and] taxpayers $46 billion in 2022, and they cost folks on Medicare, who are the ones that are getting the drugs, about $3.5 billion out of their own pocket.

START HERE: And these are, like you said, like the 10 most-used drugs in the Medicare system. What is the timeline for how this actually plays out? You guys start talking today. You said you submit your offers today; then what happens?

BECERRA: So the companies have about a month to give us a counteroffer. We then engage them as well and respond to what they’ve said. But by August 1, we have to finish the negotiations and have a price, a negotiated price. That price will then take effect the beginning of January 2026.

START HERE: You mentioned how expensive our drugs are compared to other countries; two and three times higher. Why is that? Is it just because the government can’t negotiate via Medicare, that’s the reason?

BECERRA: Well, I think of it this way. You go into a car dealership to buy a car. Do you pay the price you see on the sticker? Right? Of course, you don’t. You go in there saying, “That sticker price. I know you paid a lot less. Hey. And I also read Consumer Reports. I know that [it] really only costs you this much. And I know that the actual manufacturer gave you, the dealer, a further discount the more you sell, etc., etc. So this is the price I’ll offer you.” Then of course they go into that back room and they come back, and then they offer you a different price and you haggle back and forth until you get a price that you’re willing to live with. And if you say, “I don’t like the price, I’m going to go to the dealer down, down the street.” You try to get the best bargain you can. We could not do that. By law, we were restricted. Now we can do it. That’s why we think we’re going to drive the prices down.

START HERE: By the way, in any real negotiation, like the one you just mentioned, you have to be willing to get up and walk away, right? Is that, is that the case with drugs, though? I mean, is there a chance that there’s going to be a drug no longer covered by Medicare because you guys couldn’t agree on a price?

BECERRA: Well, see, that’s the interesting part. Up until the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we didn’t have a choice. We had to accept the price that those manufacturers put on the drug, or we wouldn’t have access to it for the millions of Americans who get Medicare. And so now we have a chance to try to negotiate, to get the best price. And by the way, the drug companies aren’t forced to negotiate. They have a choice.

If they want to participate in the Medicare program, they get to continue to sell the drug to anyone they’d like. But if they want to do it through the Medicare program, they have to engage in negotiations with us now on these ten drugs.

START HERE: No, I get it. But say they’re like, it’s this much. And you guys are like, “Well, we’re not paying that.” Is there a chance drugs stop getting covered because you guys didn’t get the deal you wanted?

BECERRA: Well, we believe that by engaging in good faith upfront, negotiations will settle on a good price.

START HERE: Who saves money at the end of all this? This is not the average consumer, right? I’m not on Medicare. Uncle Sam’s not going to negotiate on my behalf. I assume Medicare folks would pay the same amount, maybe out of pocket. They don’t see a sticker price difference. So who actually saves money? Is it taxpayers writ large or something?

BECERRA: So, directly, folks who are on Medicare will benefit by Medicare being able to negotiate for the best fair price, on these drugs. The lower the price is, the more that the Medicare program and many Medicare beneficiaries spend. When the Medicare program saves money, taxpayers save money because taxpayers help cover the cost of the Medicare program for Medicare beneficiaries.

And so at the end of the day, all Americans will benefit by having lower cost on drugs under Medicare. But remember what happened with insulin, which was part of the Inflation Reduction Act, efforts. It has now been lowered to $35 at most per month for the insulin that a Medicare beneficiary needs. It could have been three or four times that amount before Jan. 1 of this year.

Now that the law has kicked in, it’s only $35 a month. But guess what? The manufacturers of insulin have also now moved to reduce the price of insulin for people who aren’t on Medicare, for whom the law didn’t reach.

START HERE: Oh so it changes the ecosystem kind of changes the expectation?

BECERRA: That’s right, that’s right.

START HERE: When do you see that happening? When would the average American actually see a difference? If you think.

BECERRA: Well, they’re already beginning to see the difference right now on insulin. While the price on these drugs that we’re negotiating now won’t actually take effect until the beginning of 2026, everyone will see what happens as of August of this year. And so we’ll see what goes on, but negotiation competition that’s as American as apple pie. And who would be against you trying to negotiate for the best price for your vehicle that you’re going to buy from that dealer?

START HERE: Who would argue with that? Maybe the pharma companies, right? They have said that this will hurt their chances to be competitive. They said it could hurt them having medical breakthroughs. They’ve sued the Biden administration to say that this is unconstitutional. You’ve got GOP, you got Republicans saying that this should not be the way the U.S. does business. What’s your response to that?

BECERRA: You know, I used to be the attorney general of California. I’d say that the fact that I’m being sued probably means I’m doing something right.

START HERE: So you don’t think it’s unconstitutional, though?

BECERRA: Oh, not at all. No, no, no, We see negotiations occurring in the federal government already. The Veterans Administration negotiates drug prices already. Indian Health Services, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services and provides direct care and also purchases drugs, goes through the same process of negotiating for prices. This is not new.

START HERE: And you don’t think that hurts the ability to innovate and be competitive and create the next new huge cancer drug that could affect millions of lives, that this doesn’t actually hinder companies from doing that.

BECERRA: Think of it this way: If we’re now negotiating to get the best price, there will be companies who know they’ll be able to compete with some of the brand-name pharma companies who are able to somehow muscle everyone out of the market. The more competition, the more innovation. The more innovation, the better the price for everyone.

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is holding a press conference at the Pentagon podium, his first media briefing since his surgery and subsequent hospitalization — both of which were kept secret from the public and White House.

“We did not handle this right. I did not handle this right,” Austin said.

“I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis, and should also have told my team and the American public,” he continued. “I take full responsibility. I apologize to my teammates and to the American people.”

It is also the first time the public is seeing him standing. He continues to undergo physical therapy.

The defense secretary underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure for prostate cancer Dec. 22, which led to a urinary tract infection and serious intestinal complications. He was hospitalized again on Jan. 1, but the White House didn’t learn of it for three days.

The delay in informing President Joe Biden and top administration officials of his hospitalization prompted intense scrutiny and is under investigation by lawmakers and the Pentagon.

Austin said he never “directed anyone” to keep his Jan. 1 hospitalization from the White House, and also denied creating a “culture of secrecy.”

Austin also said he directly apologized to Biden, and told him he was “deeply sorry” for not letting him know of his diagnosis immediately.

Austin spoke frankly about his first response after learning about his cancer diagnosis.

“The news shook me, as I know that it shakes so many others, especially in the Black community. It was a gut punch,” he said. “And frankly, my first instinct was to keep it private. I don’t think it’s news that I’m a pretty private guy. I never like burdening others with my problems. It’s just not my way.”

“But I’ve learned from this experience,” he continued. “Taking this kind of job means losing some of the privacy that most of us expect. The American people have a right to know if their leaders are facing health challenges that might affect their ability to perform their duties — even temporarily. So a wider circle should have been notified, especially the president.”

On Jan. 12, Biden publicly faulted Austin for not informing him earlier that he was hospitalized for complications from cancer treatment.

When a reporter asked Biden whether it was “a lapse in judgment for him not to tell you earlier,” Biden replied, “Yes.”

At the same time, when asked by a reporter if he still had confidence in Austin, Biden replied he did.

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will appear at the Pentagon podium for a press conference on Thursday.

The news conference, at 10:30 a.m., will be his first media briefing since his surgery and subsequent hospitalization, both of which was kept secret from the White House and the public.

It also will be the first time the public will see him standing. He continues to undergo physical therapy.

On Jan. 12, President Joe Biden publicly faulted Austin for not informing him earlier that he was hospitalized for complications from cancer treatment.

When a reporter asked Biden whether it was “a lapse in judgment for him not to tell you earlier,” Biden replied, “Yes.”

At the same time, when asked by a reporter if he still had confidence in Austin, Biden replied he did.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s campaign is planning a fundraising event with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, a source familiar with the planning told ABC News.

The event will take place in either March or April, the source said.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on this report.

Representatives for Obama and Clinton did not respond to ABC’s request for comment.

NBC News was the first to report the fundraiser’s details with the three presidents.

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(WASHINGTON) — Is the U.S. on the brink of war with Iran? Officials hope not. But how President Joe Biden responds to this weekend’s deadly attack on an American military base in Jordan could have far reaching implications in the region for years.

Experts say Biden’s goal is to rein in Iran-backed militia groups operating out of Iraq, Syria and Yemen without plunging the Middle East into war.

Here’s what to know:

The US officially pins blame on Islamic Resistance in Iraq

Soon after the drone attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members and wounded 40 more early on Sunday, Biden vowed that he’d hold those responsible and pinned the blame on Iranian-backed militants.

On Wednesday, the White House said U.S. intelligence was certain which militants were responsible.

Identifying the group responsible sets the stage for the attack, which officials say could happen at any time.

“We believe that the attack in Jordan was — was a plan resourced and facilitated by an umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which contains multiple groups, including Kataib Hezbollah,” White National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.

He also said the response would involve multiple targets and that “the first thing you see won’t be the last thing.”

A U.S. official said Iranian assets outside of Iran could be targets, with most strikes inside Syria.

Another official told ABC News the attack would be carried out “over the course of several days” on facilities that enabled the drone strike.

On the determination that the drone attack in Jordan was facilitated by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a senior State Department official said the U.S. is continuing to develop its assessment and may still conclude that a specific group or specific groups within that umbrella played more a direct role.

While Iran has denied involvement, the senior State Department official said the U.S. has made clear to Iran since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, which sparked a war with Israel, that America will hold it responsible for the actions of its proxies.

Worries the US is acting too slowly

As the days ticked by since Sunday’s attack, military experts surmised that the U.S. was using its time to gather assets for a more significant and complex response than seen previously. But Republican critics were quick to say Biden was losing ground, giving the Iranians time to evacuate potential targets or move their own military assets.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. attack should have already happened by now and that Iran’s leadership and weapons caches should be hit directly.

“Every day that passes without a strong and unambiguous reprisal for the deaths of American service members invites our enemies – and allies – to question this administration’s resolve,” Wicker told ABC News in a statement.

‘A pretty big target list’

Retired Gen. Roger Abrams, a former combatant commander and an ABC News contributor, said the delay suggests to him that the U.S. response will be forceful and consequential and more widespread than recent strikes in the region.

“The longer it takes indicates to me that this is not going to be a little pinprick. A pinprick they could have done within six to 10 hours depending on available strike capability,” he said.

Instead, Abrams said there’s a “pretty big target list,” including command-and-control nodes, storage facilities, any transit route for weapons or even an Iranian intelligence ship on the Red Sea.

“If they’ve got a smoking gun on who actually flew this suicide drone into Tower 22, you can expect that that [command-and-control] network, the emitters where the nodes, where commands were coming from …those are all going to be fair game,” he said.

For its part, Iran has warned that its own response will be “decisive and immediate.”

“The U.S. should stop using the language of threats and pinning the blame on others and rather focus on a political solution. Iran’s response to threats will be decisive and immediate,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Triggering a retaliatory response from Iran and spurring a broader conflict is of obvious concern for the U.S, but experts and government officials say America must act.

“We’ve been trying to determine Iran’s red line for many years,” Abrams said. “And we haven’t found it.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump continues to brag and exaggerate about acing a cognitive test as his Republican challenger Nikki Haley highlights his recent stumbles on the trail to suggest he’s getting “confused” as he gets older.

Defending himself, Trump has repeatedly appeared to allude to taking the Montreal Cognitive Assessment while he was in the White House and afterward.

“There’s only about 2% in this room can do it, but I did it. I did it very easily,” Trump said about his results on the test at an event in Las Vegas over the weekend. “But I got mocked — they said, ‘Oh, that’s so easy.’ It’s not easy. It’s not easy. Go home and try doing it.”

Trump was seemingly referring to taking the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is not a test of intelligence and which doctors use to uncover early signs of cognitive impairment such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

The test involves various questions like identifying animals, recalling a list from memory and drawing a given time on a clock.

Trump took one as part of a physical exam in 2018, while he was president, ABC News previously reported.

He has been bragging about his results of the exam since at least the 2020 presidential campaign; however, at Saturday’s rally in Nevada he also claimed he recently took a test again and that there was a difficult question involving math.

The only math question on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment involves counting backwards from the number 100 in increments of seven.

But that’s not what Trump described. “Multiply 4,733, multiply times seven, divide — without paper and pencil by the way — divide it by four, add up another 37 and a half, point five,” he said this weekend, remembering the question. “I remember that. What’s your number? How many people in this room could do it? Not too many.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump usually brings up his cognitive testing as part of his stump speech questioning Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness, mocking the sitting president’s speech or movements. (Biden has acknowledged concerns about his age — at 81, he’s four years older than Trump — but also said his record proves his fitness.)

On Biden’s 81st birthday, Trump released a letter from his doctor regarding a physical exam he had taken which, according to the letter, reported his cognitive exams as “exceptional.”

Now, as the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination comes down to two people, Haley is increasingly attempting to make Trump’s age and fitness a central focal point, too.

Trump continues to make some stumbles on the trail, including mixing up Nancy Pelosi for Haley as he was talking about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack at a campaign rally in Concord, New Hampshire, earlier this month.

“He’s not what he was in 2016. He has declined. That’s a fact,” Haley said about Trump during an appearance on CBS on Tuesday.

“Are we really in this country going to have two 80-year-olds running for president? It is a fact that when you are their age, you have mental decline,” Haley said.

Trump has backed mental aptitude or cognitive tests for people running for office, which Haley has proposed, but said he’s not as old as she suggests.

“She talks about, ‘Yeah, we don’t need 80 year old.’ Well, I don’t mind being 80 — but I’m 77. That’s a big difference,” he joked at a campaign stop earlier this month.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Senate negotiators neared an agreement on a long-awaited bipartisan border deal, House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC News Tuesday that while he hasn’t seen the bill yet, the agreement is a “nonstarter in the House.”

“From what we’ve seen, clearly, what’s been suggested in this bill is not enough to secure the border,” Johnson told ABC Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott. “And we have to insist — we have a responsibility, a duty, to the American people to insist that the border catastrophe is ended. And just trying to whitewash that or do something for political purposes — that it appears that may be — is not going to cut it and that’s a nonstarter in the House.”

The border agreement worked out by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., comes as part of a national security spending bill that also includes aid packages for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

On the House floor Wednesday, Johnson criticized the rumored details from the emerging Senate border deal.

“But apparently, we’re concocting some sort of deal to allow the president to shut down the border after 5,000 people break the law. Why is it 5,000? If you add that up, that’d be a million more illegals into our country every year before we take remedial measures. This is madness. We should be asking what kind of enforcement authority kicks in at 5,000 illegal a day. The number should be zero,” he said.

“Anything higher is simply surrender. Anything higher than zero is surrendering our border, surrendering our sovereignty and our security.”

House Republicans have been coming out against the border deal, despite not yet seeing the bill’s full text. This comes as former President Donald Trump has encouraged Republicans to reject the deal.

Trump on Monday said that “a border bill is not necessary,” blasting the ongoing negotiations.

Johnson said he has spoken with Trump about this issue “at length,” but called any allegations that he’s trying to kill the bill to give Trump a win for his campaign “absurd.”

“We have a responsibility here to do our duty. Our duty is to do right by the American people to protect the people the first and most important job,” Johnson told Scott.

During a closed-door meeting with his conference last week, Johnson assured House Republicans that the deal is “dead on arrival” in the House, according to multiple members who were in the room — leaving big questions about the prospect of additional aid to Ukraine.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., is among the House Republicans criticizing the bill.

“I think to really clarify what the President [Trump] is saying — that this deal sucks,” Donalds told ABC News. “It’s a bad deal and to give cover to Joe Biden for his terrible policies on the border.”

While Senate Republicans continue to work on the border deal with the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, House Republicans are working to impeach him.

The House Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., brought two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas on Tuesday, arguing the secretary has demonstrated “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust.”

“Alejandro N. Mayorkas knowingly made false statements to Congress that the border is ‘secure,’ that the border is ‘no less secure than it was previously,’ that the border is ‘closed,’ and that DHS has ‘operational control,’ of the border (as that term is defined in the Secure Fence Act of 19 2006),” the articles claim.

President Biden told reporters Tuesday that he’s exhausted all executive authority to address the immigration crisis at the southern border.

“I’ve done all I can do,” he said as he left the White House.

The president turned up the pressure on Republicans to reach a compromise on Friday, saying he would “shut down” the border when it’s overwhelmed, if given new emergency authority through this deal.

“Give me the border patrol. Give me the people, give me the people who judge it. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work,” Biden said Tuesday.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Allie Pecorin, John Parkinson and Quinn Owen contributed to this report.

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