Politics

(WASHINGTON) — House progressives on Friday urgently called on Democratic congressional leaders to pass legislation to extend the federal eviction moratorium after the Supreme Court ended an extension late Thursday night.

“As your fellow colleagues, we implore you to act with the highest levels of urgency to advance a permanent legislative solution in a must pass legislative vehicle in order to extend the life-saving federal eviction moratorium for the duration of the deadly global health crisis. We must continue to curb the spread of the Delta variant using every legislative tool at our disposal in Congress,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, exclusively obtained by ABC News.

The letter was led by Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jimmy Gomez, and Cori Bush. More than 60 lawmakers have signed on to the letter, ABC News is told.

In an eight-page ruling, the Supreme Court determined that Congress must extend the federal eviction moratorium unilaterally.

“Congress was on notice that a further extension would almost surely require new legislation, yet it failed to act in the several weeks leading up to the moratorium’s expiration,” the court wrote in an unsigned, eight-page opinion.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court said.

“It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID–19 Delta variant. But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends,” the court writes. “It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.”

The move will likely mean hundreds of thousands of tenants are lose their homes because they are unable to pay rent, and it comes as the Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to run rampant across the country.

Bush, who was formerly homeless, posted up on the Capitol steps to protest the moratorium ending earlier in August.

The moratorium, essentially a nationwide ban on evictions, was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last September. In June, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July but signaled in its ruling that it would block any further extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”

Amid public outcry, House Democratic leadership was looking to possibly take legislative action before its summer recess, but those efforts did not take place.

The CDC ended up passing another extension in early August, largely due to the public outcry and protests led by Bush.

In a statement Friday, Pelosi did not indicate that the House would return from its recess to pass legislation. She called on state and local governments to disperse rental assistance immediately. Only about $5.1 billion of the $46.5 billion in aid had been disbursed by the end of July, according to figures released earlier in the week.

“Earlier this month, thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Congressional Democrats, the imminent fear of eviction and being put out on the street was lifted for countless families across America with the issuing of a new CDC eviction moratorium. Last night, the Supreme Court immorally ripped away that relief in a ruling that is arbitrary and cruel,” she said in a statement.

“Congressional Democrats have not and will not ever accept a situation of mass evictions. We will continue our work to ensure that families suffering hardship during the pandemic can have the safety of home, as we also work with communities to ensure the immediate disbursement by states and localities of the over $45 billion allocated by Congress for rental assistance,” she added.

Following the release of the progressives’ letter, Pelosi also sent her own letter to the Democratic caucus, again reiterating that the chamber will assess “possible legislative remedies.”

“Preventing mass evictions is a priority that unites Democrats, and I remain proud of the work that our House Democratic Caucus has done to provide relief for families and landlords, including working with the Biden Administration to secure the new moratorium and allocating the $46.5 billion in emergency rental assistance initiated by Chairwoman Maxine Waters. We will continue to work with the Biden Administration and with our communities to urge a halt to evictions and to ensure the immediate disbursement by states and localities of the rental assistance,” she said in her letter.

“At the same time, the House is assessing possible legislative remedies. House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters is examining the most effective way to expedite the flow of funding of rental assistance by states and localities. Families must be protected during the pandemic, and we will explore every possible solution,” she said.

“As we all agree, eviction is a horror that no family should ever have to experience: cribs and personal belongings on the street, children in fear and distress and parents struggling to find basic shelter. As we work to prevent this crisis, I again salute our House Democratic Caucus for the relentless and values-based leadership that Members continue to bring to this fight,” she said, in a nod to progressives.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also released a statement late Thursday lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision.

“The Biden Administration is disappointed that the Supreme Court has blocked the most recent CDC eviction moratorium while confirmed cases of the Delta variant are significant across the country. As a result of this ruling, families will face the painful impact of evictions, and communities across the country will face greater risk of exposure to COVID-19,” Psaki said.

“In light of the Supreme Court ruling and the continued risk of COVID-19 transmission, President Biden is once again calling on all entities that can prevent evictions – from cities and states to local courts, landlords, Cabinet Agencies – to urgently act to prevent evictions,” she said.

Psaki said Friday that President Biden supported extension efforts in Congress but also called for action at the state level.

ABC News has reached out to Pelosi’s and Schumer’s offices for comment.

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle and MaryAlice Parks contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden had a clear and directed message for the assailants responsible for the deadly terror attack outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday, and for anyone else who might be planning an attack.

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this, we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.

“These ISIS terrorists will not win,” he added. “We will rescue the Americans in there. We will get our Afghan allies out. And our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”

Biden addressed the nation after 12 American service members were killed and 15 wounded, among scores of Afghan casualties in the attack outside the airport. The Pentagon has said security threats remain.

“A tough day,” Biden began. “This evening in Kabul, as you all know, a terrorist attack — that we’ve been talking about and worried about, that the intelligence community has assessed, has undertaken — an attack by a group known as ISIS-K took the lives of American service members standing guard at the airport and wounded several others seriously.”

“I’ve been engaged all day, in constant contact with the military commanders here in Washington and the Pentagon, as well in Afghanistan and Doha. And my commanders in Washington, in the field, have been on this with great detail, and you’ve had a chance to speak to some so far,” he said. “The situation on the ground is still evolving, and I’m constantly being updated.”

Pentagon officials confirmed earlier that two ISIS suicide bombers detonated in the vicinity of the Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul, where U.S. Marines were conducting security checks of potential evacuees, and in the vicinity of the nearby Baron Hotel, a short distance from the Abbey Gate.

A U.S. official confirmed later that the 12 U.S. military service members killed in Thursday’s attack included 11 Marines and one Navy hospital corpsman, or medic. It appears that the 15 other service members who were injured in the attack were also Marines.

“These American service members who gave their lives, that’s an overused word, but it’s appropriate here, were heroes,” Biden said from the White House. “Heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.”

Before taking questions from reporters, Biden asked to be joined in a moment of silence “for all those in uniform and out of uniform, military and civilian, who have given the last full measure of devotion.”

By Thursday afternoon, ISIS-K, an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, claimed credit for the attack. It comes days after Biden warned from the White House of on-the-ground security threats from the terrorist group known as the “sworn enemy of the Taliban.”

“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians,” he said at the time.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden had a clear and directed message for the assailants responsible for the deadly terror attack outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday, and for anyone else who might be planning an attack.

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this, we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.

Biden underscored that he has repeatedly warned that the evacuation mission in Afghanistan was a dangerous one — but that it will continue until the end of the month, even as threats persist.

“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission,” he added. “These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans in there. We will get our Afghan allies out. And our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”

Thirteen American service members were killed and 18 wounded, among scores of Afghan casualties in the attack outside the airport. Biden addressed the nation Thursday afternoon.

“A tough day,” Biden began. “This evening in Kabul, as you all know, a terrorist attack — that we’ve been talking about and worried about, that the intelligence community has assessed, has undertaken — an attack by a group known as ISIS-K took the lives of American service members standing guard at the airport and wounded several others seriously.”

“I’ve been engaged all day, in constant contact with the military commanders here in Washington and the Pentagon, as well in Afghanistan and Doha. And my commanders in Washington, in the field, have been on this with great detail, and you’ve had a chance to speak to some so far,” he said to reporters. “The situation on the ground is still evolving, and I’m constantly being updated.”

Pentagon officials confirmed earlier that two ISIS suicide bombers detonated in the vicinity of the Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul, where U.S. Marines were conducting security checks of potential evacuees, and in the vicinity of the nearby Baron Hotel, a short distance from the Abbey Gate.

U.S. officials confirmed later that the 13 U.S. military service members killed included Marines and at least one Navy hospital corpsman, or medic.

“These American service members who gave their lives, that’s an overused word, but it’s appropriate here, were heroes,” Biden said from the White House. “Heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.”

“They were part of the bravest, most capable, the most selfless military on the face of the Earth. And they were part of, simply what I call the backbone of America. They are the spine of America. The best the country has to offer,” he added.

The president said that he and first lady Jill Biden are “outraged as well as heartbroken” for Afghan families who lost loved ones, including small children, in what he called a “vicious attack” that will be met with “force and precision.”

“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission. We will continue the evacuation. I’ve also ordered my commanders to develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership and facilities,” he said.

Biden asked to be joined in a moment of silence “for all those in uniform and out of uniform — military and civilian — who have given the last full measure of devotion.”

He then took six questions from reporters in the East Room.

Asked whether he would send additional troops to Afghanistan, Biden said he did not anticipate needing more boots on-the-ground but that the U.S. can conduct retaliatory strikes against ISIS-K without large military operations.

“I’ve instructed the military, whatever they need, if they need additional force, I will grant it,” Biden said.

While saying that he bears “responsibility for fundamentally all that’s happened of late,” the president also defended his decision to withdraw troops by the end of the month.

“I have never been of the view that we should be sacrificing American lives to try to establish a democratic government in Afghanistan, a country that has never once in its entire history been a united country,” Biden said just before leaving the East Room. “Ladies and gentlemen, it was time to end a 20-year war.”

ISIS-K, an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, claimed credit for the attack Thursday afternoon. It comes days after Biden warned from the White House of on-the-ground security threats from the terrorist group known as the “sworn enemy of the Taliban.”

“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians,” he said at the time.

Thursday marks the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan in more than a decade and the first U.S. military death in Afghanistan since Feb. 2020.

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring the lower chamber back to Washington early from its scheduled recess to address the escalating situation in Afghanistan, which culminated in a deadly bombing at the Kabul airport Thursday as American citizens and allies attempt to flee the country.

The House convened for two days earlier this week to address unrelated matters, but is not expected to return to Washington until Sept. 20, long after the Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

McCarthy said Pelosi must bring the chamber back swiftly, in part to hold a vote on legislation proposed by Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher.

“It is time for Congress to act quickly to save lives. Speaker Pelosi must bring Congress back into session before August 31 so that we can be briefed thoroughly and comprehensively by the Biden Administration and pass Representative Gallagher’s legislation prohibiting the withdrawal of our troops until every American is out of Afghanistan,” McCarthy said in a statement.

It’s unlikely, however, Pelosi will call the House back and President Joe Biden has said he intends to stick to the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.

In a statement offering thoughts and prayers, Pelosi said Congress will continue to be briefed, but did not address McCarthy’s demand.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill tweeted in response to McCarthy and blasted him for “empty stunts and distractions.”

“Right now, American heroes are risking & giving their lives to execute an extraordinarily dangerous evacuation, & the Minority Leader wants to defund the mission & tie the Commander in Chief’s hands in the middle of the most dangerous days of the operation,” Hammill tweeted.

“What’s not going to help evacuate American citizens is more empty stunts & distraction from the Minority Leader who sat idly by as Pres. Trump proudly negotiated with the Taliban. The Biden Administration has repeatedly briefed the Congress & providing frequent updates each day,” he added.

Pelosi was briefed by phone on the situation in Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, her office told ABC News on Thursday.

McCarthy’s call came ahead of Pentagon officials confirming that 12 U.S. service members were killed by two suicide bombers believed to have been ISIS fighters in Kabul on Thursday.

Though Republicans have for weeks ridiculed Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Democrats in both chambers have been slower to comment on the unfolding mass evacuation at the Kabul airpot.

Following news of the deadly blast in Kabul, however, Democrats condemned the incident, branding it a terrorist attack against U.S. troops.

“I strongly condemn this act of terrorism and it must be clear to the world that the terrorists who perpetrated this will be sought and brought to justice,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was briefed by Austin Thursday, said in a statement.

“One thing is clear: We can’t trust the Taliban with Americans’ security,” Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez said in a statement. “This is is a full-fledged humanitarian crisis, and the U.S. government personnel, already working under extreme circumstances, must secure the airport and complete the massive evacuation of Americans citizens and vulnerable Afghans desperately trying to leave the country.”

Democrats are still not directly criticizing Biden, and many — offering thoughts and prayers — said they’re in touch with the state department as they monitor the situation on the ground in Kabul.

But some Democrats are beginning to break with the administration, suggesting that they would support an extension of the withdrawal deadline.

“Bringing the thousands of Americans and allies in Afghanistan to safety must remain our top priority, and pushing the evacuation deadline is a necessary and important step,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., tweeted.

Republicans have pointed the finger at Biden for weeks as the situation has grown more dire. Moments after the blast Thursday, Republicans sharpened their criticism.

​​”Joe Biden has blood on his hands,” tweeted Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican. “This horrific national security and humanitarian disaster is solely the result of Joe Biden’s weak and incompetent leadership. He is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.”

Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain tweeted: “Americans are dying at the hands of President Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from #Afghanistan.”

And Georgia Rep. Jody Hice, a loyalist of former President Donald Trump, tweeted that Biden needs to “RESIGN NOW!!.”

Outrage toward Biden is not limited to Republicans in the House. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has for weeks been outspoken in opposition to removal of troops in the region. In remarks Thursday that took place before the blast in Kabul, McConnell called the situation on the ground in Afghanistan an “unmitigated disaster.”

“These guys couldn’t organize a two-car funeral,” McConnell said of the administration’s withdrawal efforts. “And it’s tragic to see those young people clinging to the sides of the planes and falling to their death and how anxious they were not to be left behind.”

“What we are seeing is the result of a poor plan poorly executed,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement. “The Biden administration must use every resource it has available to get Americans and our allies to safety.”

Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called Thursday’s attack “horrifying” and warned that it could make rescue of Americans still stranded in Afghanistan “even more impossible.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has been briefed on a classified report from his intelligence community probing the origins of COVID-19, White House officials told ABC News.

As the assessment made its way to Biden’s desk, intelligence agencies were working in tandem to prepare an unclassified summary for public consumption, officials said.

The delivery of the assessment met the deadline for Biden’s 90-day deeper dig into the virus’ origins, which was launched when the president directed intelligence agencies in May to “redouble their efforts” after prior efforts failed to yield a definitive conclusion.

But with one deadline met, international scientists tasked with studying the virus’ origins warned Wednesday that another crucial window is “closing fast”: the shrinking opportunity for any thorough scientific study to be completed. As time wears on, potential evidence wanes, and tracing back biologic breadcrumbs will yield diminishing returns, said more than ten of the authors of a World Health Organization-led report that is urging action to “fast-track the follow-up scientific work required” for better answers by the WHO.

Assessing the intelligence and raw data available this spring, it became apparent to Biden and his top officials that a large cache of information had yet to be fully analyzed, officials told ABC News — including potential evidence that could hold clues to the virus that has now claimed more than four million lives worldwide.

Consensus among top officials in the Biden administration has been that the pandemic originated in one of two ways: The virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal, or from a laboratory accident.

But with no “smoking gun” and limited access to raw data, discussion of the science has played out in a haze of circumstantial evidence.

Following Biden’s call for clarity in May, intelligence agencies have spent the last three months poring over an untapped trove of information, and have amassed classified records and communications, genomic fingerprints of the virus, and early signals as to where and when the virus may have flared up first.

Biden’s August deadline marks zero hour for the next phase of a larger international quest: to trace back the virus in order to hold the responsible parties to account, and to understand its inception in order to prevent the next one.

Any emerging answers, however, come amid a roiling geopolitical debate, as COVID-19’s origins have become a contentious wedge issue at home — while abroad, the Chinese government vehemently denies the virus could have come from one of its labs.

“What the U.S. cares about is not facts and truth, but how to consume and malign China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday ahead of the U.S. report, claiming that China had welcomed collaborative research which “laid the foundation for the next-phase global origins tracing work.”

The Chinese government rejected the World Health Organization’s proposed audits of Wuhan’s labs in July, part of the UN agency’s recommended phase two study — saying they could not accept needless “repetitive research” when “clear conclusions” had already been reached.

But there have been no definitive conclusions as to where COVID-19 came from. The joint WHO-led team presented a range of options in their March report, calling a lab leak “extremely unlikely,” but offering pathways for further investigation. Team members have voiced frustration with the lack of cooperation from the Chinese government — echoed in international criticism that politics had stymied science.

Since then, the WHO has become increasingly receptive to the possibility that the virus resulted from a lab leak. In July, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that ruling out a lab leak theory was “premature” and recommended audits of the Wuhan labs in further studies. China’s subsequent rebuff left the WHO to proceed without them.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has underscored that the U.S. will continue the “diplomatic spadework” of rallying support for the WHO-led study — while warning that the administration will not accept Beijing’s stonewalling.

“Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where [COVID-19] came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,” Sullivan told Fox News in June.

A group of bipartisan lawmakers urged Biden not to let this month’s deadline hamstring a thorough investigation.

“If the 90-day effort you have announced does not yield conclusions in which the United States has a high degree of confidence, we urge you to direct the intelligence community to continue prioritizing this inquiry until such conclusions are possible,” Sens. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a late July letter to the president.

Asked about the report’s release, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it would take “several days” for an unclassified and collated version to come together, but that agencies were working “expeditiously to prepare that.”

With no definitive proof of the virus’ origin, scientists and policymakers alike have been left to speculate. Some of the first COVID-19 clusters occurred around Wuhan’s wet markets, where exotic wild fare was sold in close quarters, offering ample opportunity for the virus to jump from animals to humans, as in past epidemics.

No direct animal host for COVID-19 has been identified, and if there is one, it could take years to find, experts say. While environmental samples from the Wuhan markets tested positive, animal samples that were tested did not. Transmission earlier on and within the wider community would suggest the market was not the original source of the pandemic, experts say.

In late summer and early autumn of 2019, satellite imagery shared exclusively with ABC showed dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major Wuhan hospitals — suggesting the virus may have been spreading long before the world was alerted. U.S. intelligence officials had already been warning that a contagion was sweeping through the region as far back as late November 2019, changing patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the populations, according to sources briefed on the matter.

Proponents of the lab-leak theory point to gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a controversial study that amplifies a virus’ potency to understand how to neutralize it better. They also point to concerns over biosafety at the WIV’s facilities, where researchers had worked with bat coronavirus samples 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2 — as well as workers at the lab who were hospitalized with “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in November 2019.

Advocates of zoonotic origin, however, emphasize that the 4% discrepancy means a world of genetic difference — and WIV lead researcher Shi Zhengli insists that she tested all her workers for COVID-19 antibodies, and all tests came back negative.

Despite pressure to approach the “high degree of confidence” desired by the public and requested in the lawmakers’ July letter, such certainty remains elusive — something presaged by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in an interview with Yahoo News earlier this summer.

“We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” Haines said. “It’s challenging to do that.”

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(DETROIT) — A federal judge in Michigan has ordered sanctions against former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, attorney Lin Wood, and several other lawyers who brought a legal challenge seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the state.

In her ruling Wednesday, Judge Linda Parker described the suit as an “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”

“It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election,” Parker wrote in a scathing 110-page filing. “It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here.”

Parker ordered the group of nine attorneys involved in the lawsuit to pay all legal fees incurred by the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit’s attorneys, and mandated that they take legal education courses.

She also referred all nine to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission for investigation, which could possibly lead to potential suspension or disbarment.

Attorneys representing Powell and the other lawyers in the election suit did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In her ruling, Parker made note of the oath attorneys must take “to uphold and honor our legal system,” which she accused Powell, Wood and the others of flagrantly violating with their baseless and conspiracy-tinged challenge.

“Despite the haze of confusion, commotion, and chaos counsel intentionally attempted to create by filing this lawsuit, one thing is perfectly clear: Plaintiffs’ attorneys have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way,” Parker wrote.

Parker also took direct aim at the defense offered by Powell that “reasonable people would not accept” her statements about the election until they were tested in the courts.

“It is not acceptable to support a lawsuit with opinions, which counsel herself claims no reasonable person would accept as fact and which were ‘inexact,’ ‘exaggerate[d],’ and ‘hyperbole,’ Parker said. “Nor is it acceptable to use the federal judiciary as a political forum to satisfy one’s political agenda. Such behavior by an attorney in a court of law has consequences.”

Parker also criticized statements made by the attorneys claiming they would still file the same complaints even given the events of Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol incited by false claims of a “stolen” election.

“An attorney who willingly continues to assert claims doomed to fail, and which have incited violence before, must be deemed to be acting with an improper motive,” Parker said.

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(ATLANTA) — After months of speculation, fueled in part by public urging from former President Donald Trump, former NFL star and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker has officially launched his campaign for Georgia’s 2022 Senate race against Sen. Raphael Warnock.

“Our country is at a crossroads, and I can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. America is the greatest country in the world, but too many politicians in Washington are afraid to say that. … I have lived the American Dream, but I am concerned it is slipping away for many people,” Walker said in a statement Wednesday, pledging to “stand up for conservative values” if elected to the U.S. Senate.

Walker’s entry into the race marks a new phase in the Republican primary for what is set to be one of the most competitive races of the midterms and a top pick-up opportunity for Republicans. As the first electoral test since the state flipped for President Joe Biden in November and gave Democrats the slimmest of Senate majorities in January by electing Warnock and Jon Ossoff, Republicans are eager to show that Georgia is not a blue state.

In response to Walker filing his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday, the Democratic Party of Georgia released a statement calling Walker’s entrance “the nightmare scenario” for the GOP.

“Walker’s entrance into Georgia’s chaotic GOP Senate primary is the nightmare scenario that Republicans have spent the entire cycle trying to avoid. By the end of this long, divisive, and expensive intra-party fight, it’ll be clear that none of these candidates are focused on the issues that matter most to Georgians,” state party spokesperson Dan Gottlieb said in a statement.

While three other candidates have already launched bids, the race has been at somewhat of a standstill while Walker mulled a run.

None of the candidates on the GOP side has the national name recognition or profile that Walker brings with him, but one competitor — Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black — has already been elected to statewide office, a position he’s been elected to three times. He also has the endorsement of former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal.

Black has worked to solidify himself as the front-runner before Walker entered the race. He took on Walker before he announced his campaign, contrasting himself with the longtime Texas resident by touting his lifelong Georgian credentials.

“Welcome back to Georgia. Welcome to the U.S. Senate race. You know, I’ve been a big fan of yours since we were in college together before you moved away,” Black quipped in a video response to Walker filing his candidacy on Tuesday. Black was a student at University of Georgia when Walker was a freshman.

In addition to Black, also in the race to take on Warnock are Kelvin King, an Air Force veteran and owner of a metro-Atlanta construction firm, and Latham Saddler, a former Navy SEAL and National Security Council director of intelligence programs in the Trump administration.

Like King and Saddler, Walker has never been elected to office, but he enters the race as a front-runner — a status that could be solidified quickly with an endorsement from his longtime friend, the former president.

While he’d been living in Texas for decades before exploring a run in Georgia, and only re-registered to vote in the state last week, 59-year-old Walker grew up in the Peach State and played for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. The Bulldogs won the national title his freshman year and Walker came up just shy of winning the coveted college football trophy that year, placing third for the Heisman, but going on to win it his junior year.

Walker’s allegiance to Trump was evident throughout the 2020 campaign, while he acted as a surrogate for the former president. He appeared by video at the Republican National Convention in August to commend Trump’s character and dispute allegations he is racist. Last September, he participated in a radio ad touting Trump’s record of “fighting to improve the lives of Black Americans.”

But winning the primary is one thing; winning the general election is another — and having Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” — should he officially get it, as expected — could be a liability come November 2022, when the candidate will need to appeal to more than just base voters to come out on top.

Should he win the primary, he’ll also be up against a fundraising powerhouse. Coming in behind Ossoff and now-Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, Warnock raised the third-most money of any Senate candidate in the 2020 cycle. As of the end of June, the most recent campaign finance filing candidates have had to submit, the Georgia senator had over $10.5 million in the bank and received over $6 million in contributions in the second three-month period of 2021. He’s also the top fundraiser so far for the 2022 cycle, according to the FEC.

While senators serve six-year terms, Warnock, the first Black senator elected to represent Georgia, is facing voters again after just two years because he won a special election to finish out retired Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. But in the twin January runoffs, Warnock bested Biden’s November margin over Trump by nearly eight-fold and earned about 19,000 more votes than Ossoff did against former GOP Sen. David Perdue.

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(ALBANY, N.Y.) — Newly sworn-in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she’s cleaned house and removed individuals who allegedly contributed to a culture that allowed for sexual harassment under her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo officially left office this week after a report by the New York Attorney General’s Office released earlier this month alleged he sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo has repeatedly denied claims of sexual harassment and said he was resigning to prevent the distraction of an impeachment trial, though he was certain he would win.

The staffers implicated in the report “are no longer part of this administration,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning.

The day after he announced he’d resign, she vowed to fire anyone connected to the report who contributed to the culture of sexual harassment.

“It’s over. None of this is going to be accepted. I’ve surrounded myself with talented, young women and I want them to be the role models to others,” she said. “It’s a culture where they’re going to be OK. You don’t have to look over your shoulder. You don’t have to worry about harassment.”

Several Cuomo aides and staffers implicated in the report, including former secretary Melissa DeRosa and former Financial Services Superintendent Linda Lacewell, had already left state government. DeRosa, considered one of Cuomo’s top confidantes, stepped down just days before the governor announced his resignation. Lacewell left her position on Tuesday, the same day as Cuomo.

A number of state legislators had demanded that officials close to Cuomo and his scandals be removed as Albany moved forward under new leadership.

New York Republican Sen. Robert Ortt demanded a “clean slate,” adding in a statement earlier this month, “I am calling for the immediate resignation of state agency officials with direct ties to the soon-to-be former Governor and the many scandals that have plagued state government.”

When asked how the culture will change now that she’s at the helm, Hochul told MSNBC, “Anyone who crosses the line will be addressed by me.”

She said she’ll require in-person sexual harassment and ethics training for all state government employees.

Basil Smikle, a political strategist and lecturer at Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs, told ABC News her decision to remove those staffers “sends a message to voters that the era of Andrew Cuomo is over.”

“It was a clear intent on her part. She talked a lot about accountability and transparency. The act itself is a follow through,” he said.

However, it may be a bigger challenge to change the culture in Albany as a whole.

“It would be wrong to assume that these early moves will erase all of the toxicity. She has to undertake a more thorough and sweeping investigation of state agencies, state contracts, even relationships with legislators and center her administrative policies on diversity and on women to really be able to affect the substantial change in the long run,” he added.

Hochul also said Wednesday she’s looking into staffers involved in the controversial handling of nursing home data during the pandemic.

“I need to continue working to identify principles involved in those decisions,” she told “Morning Joe.”

She noted she’s asked for a 45-day period to assemble her team.

“There’s just a lot of things that weren’t happening and I’m going to make them happen,” she said. “Transparency will be a hallmark of my administration.”

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(WASHINGTON) — After President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of all U.S. troops by Aug. 31, the U.S. will continue to help U.S. citizens and residents and Afghans who worked with Americans or are otherwise at risk from the Taliban get out of the country, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

But it’s unclear how that will be possible after the U.S. cedes control of the airport to the Taliban and ends evacuation flights — and it will mean leaving thousands of Afghans that the administration had previously said they would help behind.

Biden and Blinken have each said that the U.S. is “on track to complete our mission” before that Aug. 31 deadline, without specifying what the administration considers the scope of that mission — including how many Afghans they will evacuate.

In contrast, Blinken detailed how many Americans the U.S. has evacuated — some 4,500 to date — and how many the administration believes are left behind — 500 with whom the State Department has made contact with and up to 1,000 more who registered with the embassy.

“Let me be crystal clear about this — there is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past Aug. 31st,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday.

But starting on Sept. 1, that effort will rely on the Taliban, whose spokesperson said Tuesday they will not let Afghans leave the country.

In contrast, Blinken said, “The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third-country nationals and Afghans at risk going forward past Aug. 31st” and to keep Kabul’s international airport running.

He added the U.S., backed by international allies, will hold them to it, without specifying how beyond using “every diplomatic, economic, political and assistance tool at my disposal (and) working closely with allies and partners who feel very much the same way.”

The U.S. is in discussions already with the international community on how to keep the airport open, according to American officials, including countries like Qatar and Turkey that have closer ties to the Taliban.

Blinken didn’t detail what levers the U.S. could use to hold the Taliban to its promises, but he did say that if it let “people who want to leave Afghanistan” leave, upheld basic rights and prevented its territory from becoming a launching pad for terror attacks, “that’s a government we can work with.”

Pressed on whether the administration was abandoning Afghan allies, including interpreters or translators who weren’t far enough along in the special immigrant visa process, a senior State Department official told ABC News, “We have always said that we are committed to bringing out Americans who wish to be repatriated. We are going to do as much as we can for as many people as we can beyond that.”

But while the administration never specified how many Afghans that applied to, it has said repeatedly it would help those who served the U.S. military and diplomatic missions over the last 20 years.

“Our message to those women and men is clear — there is a home for you in the United States if you so choose, and we will stand with you just as you stood with us,” Biden said on July 8, before the Taliban surprised the administration with the speed with which it took over Afghanistan.

The senior State Department official said that “commitment we have to individuals who may be at risk” has to be weighed against “the safety and security of our diplomats, of our service members, of others who are involved in this operation.” Biden, Blinken and other officials have said the threat from the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan remains high, putting U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in danger.

“We’re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban, with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack. We’re taking every precaution, but this is very high-risk,” Blinken said Wednesday.

While the U.S. has been unclear about which Afghan interpreters will be evacuated, Blinken was more explicit about pledging to help those who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Several staffers have been blocked by Taliban fighters from approaching the Kabul airport and getting their seats on evacuation flights.

“Along with American citizens, nothing is more important to me as secretary of state than to do right by the people who have been working side-by-side with American diplomats in our embassy,” Blinken said. “We are relentlessly focused on getting the locally-employed staff out of Afghanistan and out of harm’s way, and let me leave it at that for now.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Wednesday sent records requests to eight government agencies, seeking records from the Trump White House and administration related to the Capitol Hill riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The letters, the first investigative steps taken by the panel since its July hearing, suggest the panel is ramping up its far-reaching inquiry that aims to examine efforts in and around the Trump administration to challenge and overturn the election results before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.

It could also spark a lengthy legal battle with the former president and his attorneys, who have criticized the inquiry and vowed to challenge efforts to obtain testimony and records.

The panel sent requests to the National Archives — which maintains and preserves Trump White House records — the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Interior, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and several intelligence community agencies.

Its 12-page letter to the National Archives also requested records pertaining to more than 30 White House aides, lawyers, Trump family members and outside advisers, along with West Wing communications, records and visitors logs on and around the day of the Capitol riot.

The requests to the Justice Department and Pentagon are focused on records related to the “potential invocation of the Insurrection Act” and martial law – both proposed by several Trump allies outside the administration aiming to challenge the election results.

The panel is also seeking communications between the Justice Department and the former president’s campaign legal team “dealing with the validity of the 2020 election of challenges to the election’s outcome.”

“We will look at all records at some point,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters on Monday, adding that the committee has a list of “several hundred people” investigators hope to contact as part of their investigation.

The panel requested from the Department of Homeland Security records related to intelligence gathered on threats prior to the Capitol attack, including those against Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Secret Service records regarding the protection of Pence and his family.

The panel is also poised to issue records preservation requests to telecommunications and social media companies, ahead of any potential subpoenas, for the phone, text, email and social media records of individuals of interest to the investigation – including, potentially members of Congress.

The committee, whose nine members meet in person or over Zoom roughly twice a week, could hold its next hearing in September when Congress reconvenes.

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