(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is poised this week to pass landmark legislation to federally enshrine both same-sex and interracial marriage rights, amid what Democrats call a worry that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could overturn protections for both.
The first key test vote is set for Wednesday in the upper chamber.
A bipartisan group of supporters said this week that they are confident they have the necessary 60 votes — including 10 Republicans — to succeed there and have formal debate start on the bill. That would also set the measure on a track to pass as early as Thursday, if opponents agree to give up their dissent early before lawmakers head out on the week-long Thanksgiving recess.
“Individuals in same-sex marriages and interracial marriages need and deserve the confidence and the certainty that their marriages are legal and will remain legal,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., a lead co-sponsor of the bill and the first openly LGBTQ woman elected to Congress. “These loving couples should be guaranteed the same rights and freedoms as every other marriage.”
“I know passing the Respect for Marriage Act is as personal as it gets for many senators and their staffs, myself included,” added Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who said his own daughter and her wife, who are married, are expecting a baby in February.
Schumer argued that the concurring opinion issued by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas overturning Roe. v. Wade this summer, in which he said the court “should reconsider” the case granting the nationwide right to gay marriage, put the rights of LGBTQ Americans in jeopardy.
Other justices on the high court had taken pains to distance Thomas’ view from the majority opinion reversing Roe.
The Respect for Marriage Act would “require the federal government to recognize a marriage between two individuals if the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed,” according to a summary from the bill’s sponsors, including Congress’ first openly bisexual woman in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., along with Susan Collins, R-Maine, Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
The bill would not require any state to issue marriage licenses contrary to its laws but would mandate that states recognize lawfully granted marriages performed in other states, including same-sex and interracial unions.
For Portman, whose son came out to him as gay several years ago, it’s about giving people “security in their marriages.”
“It’s important to give people comfort that they won’t lose their rights as they move from state to state. It’s a pretty simple bill,” he said, adding that the American people have evolved to support the issue and Congress should too.
But some Republicans called the legislation unnecessary.
“I think it’s pretty telling that Sen. Schumer puts a bill on the floor to reaffirm what is already a constitutional right of same-sex marriage, which is not under any imminent threat, and continues to ignore national security and not take up the defense authorization bill,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, referring to the annual defense policy bill that has yet to be passed by the chamber this year.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., in charge of the vote operation for the GOP conference, has said he would not support the legislation but also made clear he would not be whipping against the measure.
Notably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has steadfastly refused to say how he would vote on the proposal.
A similar bill passed the House in July with 47 Republicans voting in favor, but its Senate sponsors, in order to garner enough GOP support for final passage, had to amend the legislation to add specific religious liberty and conscience protections.
Schumer also pushed off a vote past the midterms, hoping to draw more conservative votes in the Senate once the political considerations of the campaign had passed.
The bill, once through the Senate and then approved by the House for a second time, would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump announced a third presidential campaign on Tuesday evening in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort, setting off the 2024 cycle just days after the midterm elections.
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” the former president said.
Trump enters the Republican primary as the front-runner, though his sway over the party is being questioned by some others in the GOP after most of his endorsed candidates in marquee races fell short last week.
Beyond any political ramifications, Trump’s candidacy sets in motion various legal considerations, including over the funding around his campaign and his personal battles in court, experts told ABC News.
Here’s how a Trump campaign affects him financially and in the courtroom:
Once the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) assesses that Trump is a political candidate — as determined by an array of factors, including but beyond the official announcement — his campaign operation will be barred from directly cooperating with super PACs like the Trump-affiliated MAGA Inc.
Trump’s team on Tuesday night filed his statement of candidacy with the FEC. His new campaign committee, called Donald J. Trump for President 2024, is set up separately from the existing Save America PAC, or political action committee, and the Make America Great Again PAC but lists the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee as an affiliated committee.
Federal law states that campaigns and super PACs cannot have a direct relationship, though such bodies often work in tandem, including by the super PAC airing supporting ads.
MAGA Inc. will not be able to donate directly to Trump’s campaign, however.
“He will be unable to engage in certain joint activities with the super PAC, and he’s going to have to campaign with a lot more transparency,” said Dan Weiner, the director of elections and government at the Brennan Center. “He’s going to have to start filing reports, which will show what his campaign is spending. It’ll show, for instance, how much his campaign may be spending on his businesses and also will show the money coming in.”
Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, will still be able to donate to his own campaign — but only in small amounts.
“A leadership PAC can make comparatively small contributions. So the leadership PAC can write his campaign a $5,000 check, which his super PAC can’t, but it’s not supposed to do any more than that,” Weiner said.
Beyond working with the PACs, Trump’s campaign will also be limited in how much money it can receive from each individual donor, rather than the looser rules on his outside groups.
Legal implications for investigations into Trump
Trump’s business dealings and actions after the 2020 election are the subject of several criminal and civil probes. He has said he is being politically persecuted.
His personal business is under criminal and civil investigation over allegations it mischaracterized its value for tax benefits. Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to 15 counts, though Trump claims there was no wrongdoing by his namesake organization.
The Justice Department is also probing Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and removal of sensitive documents, including material with classified markings, from the White House to Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Experts said that while the Justice Department and any other more prosecutors are not obligated to adjust anything about their probes in light of Trump’s candidacy, it adds a political dimension to what authorities have insisted are apolitical cases.
Speculation has bubbled that once Trump launched his campaign, Attorney General Merrick Garland may appoint a special counsel to bolster the perception that his agency’s probes are independent form the White House.
“Historically, the Justice Department has been reluctant to investigate candidates. But we believe they have the same authority to do that as they would in any other circumstance,” said Weiner with the Brennan Center. “And his candidacy is not like other candidacies because he’s a former officeholder and there are a variety of other factors here. I think it makes the politics of investigating him more complicated, but there’s certainly no legal impediment to continuing with any investigation.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Donald Trump announced Tuesday he is running again for the White House, two groups are already working behind the scenes to mount a national push to get elections officials to stop him from being on the ballot because of Jan. 6 — even as similar such efforts have failed against other Republicans.
Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota are launching a campaign via TrumpIsDisqualified.org to urge secretaries of state and other chief elections officials to bar the former president from running for office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, known as the disqualification clause.
Enacted after the Civil War, the clause blocks any person from holding federal office who has taken an oath to protect the Constitution — including a member of Congress — but who has “engaged in insurrection” against the U.S. or “given aid or comfort” to its “enemies.”
Free Speech For People previously filed challenges against other elected Republicans like Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, arguing their actions around Jan. 6 and support for overturning the 2020 election results amounted to the disqualifying behavior. Neither Cawthorn nor Greene participated in the rioting, though Cawthorn spoke at a Trump rally beforehand; Greene has said she was a “victim” along with other lawmakers.
Free Speech For People said it intends to file similar legal challenges against Trump but declined to provide more details to ABC News.
Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong related to Jan. 6. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
“I can say that Donald Trump is going to face legal challenges for his eligibility, but he will also face scrutiny from secretaries of state and chief election officials, regardless of whether there will be a legal challenge,” said John Bonifaz, co-founder and president for Free Speech For People. “So, it’s not required that there be a legal challenge for the secretary of state to hold up his or her responsibility and bar Donald Trump from the ballot.”
None of the organization’s past suits have resulted in an elected official being barred from office.
The legal challenge that went the furthest was against Greene, resulting in a hearing at which she testified before an administrative law judge in Georgia ruled that she could stay on the ballot.
Nonetheless, both Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota insist that Trump’s actions surrounding the attack on the Capitol last year require a response like the campaign they are launching.
Bonifaz told ABC News that secretaries of state and other chief elections have a “duty” to stop Trump from running for public office under the disqualification clause.
Héctor Sánchez Barba, the executive director and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, told ABC News that the TrumpIsDisqualified.org campaign aligns with their organization’s mission “on the frontlines of protecting democracy and making it a better and more inclusive democracy via civic participation.”
There has been only one case where an elected official directly associated with the attack on the Capitol has been stopped from serving in public office on the grounds of the disqualification clause.
A New Mexico federal judge barred Otero County commissioner and “Cowboys for Trump” founder Couy Griffin from office, citing the disqualification clause — the only time in 150 years that the provision has been used to disqualify an official and the first time that a court ruled the events of Jan. 6 were an “insurrection.”
In Greene’s case, Judge Charles Beaudrot wrote that the burden of proof was on the challengers and that they “failed to prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence.”
Beaudrot also wrote in his 19-page opinion that the evidence in the case was insufficient to establish that Greene “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.”
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Trump-era policy of rapidly expelling migrants from the border in the name of pandemic health precautions.
The order relied on a decades-old public health law known as Title 42 and was implemented by Donald Trump’s administration at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authorities at the southern border have carried out more than 2.2 million Title 42 expulsions since it began.
Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Joe Biden attempted to pull back the order, but it was held in place by a legal challenge from Republican-led states. That case was rendered moot by Tuesday’s ruling, which takes issue with the original basis for conducting the expulsions.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the impact on public health was minimal, noting millions of people have crossed the land border since the Title 42 removals were first implemented in 2020.
Sullivan also wrote that the policy was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated federal law.
The CDC should not have ignored the consequences of sending migrants back to potential harm, Sullivan wrote.
“It is undisputed that the impact on migrants was indeed dire,” he wrote.
“The ruling hopefully puts an end to one of the most draconian asylum policies this country has ever enacted,” American Civil Liberties Union’s Lee Gelernt, lead attorney on the case, said Tuesday.
Immigrant advocates have fought the Title 42 order from the beginning, underscoring the severe limitations it placed on the ability for migrants to apply for humanitarian protections including asylum.
Given the fast-track nature of the Title 42 removals, migrants had little to no opportunity to secure legal resources or find an attorney before they were sent back. Under U.S. law, non-citizens on U.S. soil have the right to seek humanitarian relief.
Sullivan, in his ruling, noted that as well, writing that “it is unreasonable for the CDC to assume that it can ignore the consequences of any actions it chooses to take in the pursuit of fulfilling its goals, particularly when those actions included the extraordinary decision to suspend the codified procedural and substantive rights of noncitizens seeking safe harbor.”
While the Biden administration has fought the policy in court as well, it has continued relying on Title 42 to expel migrants at the border — over a million this past budget year.
The Department of Homeland Security said earlier this year it was making preparations for the end of the Title 42 order including by adding personnel at the border, streamlining processing and continuing to enforce expedited removal for those ineligible for humanitarian protections.
In the wake of Sullivan’s ruling, the government asked the court for a five-week hold on its order to end Title 42 protocols to allow for a transition period before resuming standard immigration processing across the southwest border.
“[The Department of Homeland Security] requires a short period of time to prepare for the transition from Title 42 to Title 8 processing, given the need to resolve resource and logistical issues that it was unable to address in advance,” Department of Justice attorneys wrote.
DHS said in a statement, in part, that “the delay in implementation of the court’s order will allow the government to prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border. But to be clear, under the unopposed motion, Title 42 would remain in place for some period. During the period of this freeze, we will prepare for an orderly transition to new policies at the border.”
The administration recently secured agreement with the government of Mexico to start sending back Venezuelan migrants who have made up a growing share of those who attempt to cross into the U.S. without authorization.
Simultaneously, the administration opened up a new legal pathway for some Venezuelans with valid passports.
(WASHINGTON) — Ivanka Trump said Tuesday that she does not plan to join dad Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign to return to the White House.
In a statement, Ivanka Trump cited a desire to spend time with the three kids she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.
“I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she said in her statement (first reported by Fox News).
She and Kushner worked as senior White House advisers to President Donald Trump during his four years in office, and both assisted his campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Ivanka Trump also introduced her father in 2015 at his kickoff event for his first Republican presidential campaign.
Since Donald Trump left office, however, Ivanka Trump and Kushner have maintained relatively low profiles in the Miami area, where they relocated after living in Washington, D.C.
Kushner attended Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign announcement, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday night. Ivanka Trump did not.
“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” she said in her statement. “I am grateful to have had the honor of serving the American people and I will always be proud of many of our administration’s accomplishments.”
Donald Trump Jr., who was a major outside adviser to his father in 2016 and 2020 while helping run the eponymous Trump Organization, also was not present at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
A source close to Donald Trump Jr. told ABC News that he was hunting out west and could not get a flight back due to “bad weather.”
Eric Trump, the third of Donald Trump’s adult children, was in attendance at the speech and was singled out by his father, receiving applause from the crowd.
The former president had long teased another run for office before announcing it on Tuesday.
In the wake of last week’s midterm results, however, in which major Donald Trump-backed candidates were defeated despite Republican predictions of a “red wave,” some in the party have said it is time to move beyond him.
(WASHINGTON) — House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday clinched the Republican nomination for speaker in the next Congress, multiple sources told ABC News, as the California lawmaker succeeded in a key early vote on the path to holding the gavel.
The sources said McCarthy received 188 votes in the GOP’s leadership elections, conducted behind closed doors via secret ballot from the incoming class of lawmakers. That compares to 31 for Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. (Representatives who lost in the midterms couldn’t vote in Tuesday’s leadership elections, but those in still-uncalled races could vote.)
Biggs challenged McCarthy amid frustration from some conservatives over a disappointing midterm cycle for the party.
Top Republicans including McCarthy had boasted of delivering sprawling House and Senate majorities in last week’s midterm elections, but Republicans are instead looking at razor-thin control of the House, while Democrats retained the Senate.
McCarthy only needed a majority of his conference to vote for him to secure the nomination on Tuesday. He will need 218 votes in the whole chamber on Jan. 3 to be elected speaker of the House if Republicans take the majority.
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote, some members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus threw their support behind McCarthy despite a former chair of their group, Biggs, mounting a long-shot bid against him.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., backed McCarthy on Steve Bannon’s podcast on Monday, saying she thought it was “bad strategy” for the Freedom Caucus to mount a challenge to McCarthy since Republicans are likely to have a thin majority.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s vote that he supported McCarthy and is eyeing the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee.
While Biggs drew nearly three dozen votes of his own, McCarthy’s margin in Tuesday’s vote indicates he is headed for the speakership — though he will have to win back those defections by January’s vote in the House.
“Every five people is essentially a veto now. That means that it’s probably not going to be Kevin McCarthy as speaker, because there are five of us would not want to see him,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said on Charlie Kirk’s show prior to the vote. “It is probably not going to be somebody like Jim Jordan, who I would prefer, because there are probably five people who don’t like him. So, we’ve got to go down the list of the Republicans and see who could actually unite a conference.”
Republicans on Tuesday also rounded out their top three leadership positions during a closed-door vote should they clinch the House majority.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the current House minority whip, was elected via a voice vote as Republican majority leader should the GOP take control of the House.
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, who served as the National Republican Congressional Committee chair for the midterms, won a hotly contested whip race despite Republicans having a lackluster showing this cycle, beating Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Drew Ferguson of Georgia.
(WASHINGTON) — Control of the Senate will no longer hinge on Georgia.
Nevada incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto defeated Republican Adam Laxalt, giving Democrats at least 50 seats and control of the upper chamber.
Now, the results of Georgia’s runoff election between incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will determine whether Democrats have a one-seat cushion in the Senate — which would ease Democrats’ control of committees and processes like confirming judges that currently require extra steps to overcome the 50-50 split — or if it’ll be another term of relying on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Both sides of the aisle agree that Georgia’s Senate runoff still remains important even if the majority no longer hangs in the balance.
“Congratulations to my colleagues, but our message is the same,” Warnock said at campaign stop on Sunday.
“This election is about who’s ready and who’s fit to serve the people of Georgia in the United States Senate. It’s a race about competence and about character and on both of those scores, there’s a world of difference between me and Herschel Walker,” he said. “And so I look forward to prosecuting that case over the next few weeks.”
At a campaign stop in Peachtree City on Sunday, Walker made no mention of the balance of the Senate, focusing squarely on his battle against Warnock and his personal choice to launch a campaign.
“The Lord prepared me to get in his way right now because as I started looking, I said that I’m not — I wasn’t supposed to be running on no politics. You think that I wanted to be a senator? Guys, I was doing OK,” he said. “I was doing alright but I said ‘no, no, no, no, you’re not gonna hurt my family.’ And all of you are my family I don’t care what color your skin is.”
Democrats celebrated their victories over the weekend even though many quickly shifted back to emphasizing Georgia’s runoff, highlighting the party’s legislative struggles this term with a split chamber.
Should Warnock win reelection, it would offer Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., flexibility in the moments that he loses the votes of either Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., or Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., two centrists who have at times disrupted Democrats’ agenda in the upper chamber. And with a full-fledged majority, rather than a 50-50 split, Democrats would be able to move beyond equally balanced committees and take control of major panels, smoothing the party’s path to passing legislation and acting on President Joe Biden’s nominees.
“We will still have a Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin problem. And if Democrats want to continue on our winning streak, we must deliver for Americans — all Americans. We need Sen. Warnock in the senate,” said Hillary Holley, executive director of Care in Action, a nonpartisan group advocating for domestic workers.
Republicans, meanwhile, are working to highlight how a divided Congress has at times worked to their advantage. Walker would only boost that advantage, they said.
“There are senators who have, in certain instances, voted with the GOP on key pieces of legislation. With a victory for Herschel Walker, it takes away that extra vote cushion from the Democrats and makes consensus building and compromise more likely,” Republican strategist Julianne Thompson said.
Warnock, Walker’s runoff campaigns take shape
Operatives are also cautioning voters not be complacent, reminding them of what happened last time Georgia’s Senate race went into a runoff, in 2021 — after the GOP candidates won in the first round — and Republican voters were apathetic, leading to two flips.
“While the majority of the Senate is no longer in question, Georgia Republicans are still salty from losing the two U.S. Senate seats in 2021 and want to regain the seat,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a former chief of staff to Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Heading into another runoff, Warnock’s campaign manager Quentin Fulks said the senator will continue to grow his coalition of support, touting Warnock’s performance in urban and suburban counties where he performed better than Biden did in 2020.
“Reverend Warnock will win the runoff by continuing the strategic investments in paid communication and field organizing, continuing to hold the diverse coalition that has driven Reverend Warnock’s success, and emphasizing that this race is about who is able to represent our state,” Fulks said.
Warnock, on the campaign trail, has distanced himself from the national party, trying to emphasize bipartisanship instead. He often dodges questions about a possible Biden 2024 run, talks about working with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in his stump speeches and only appeared with a couple of surrogates on the campaign trail, mainly his Georgia counterpart Sen. Jon Ossoff.
On the other hand, Walker has garnered support from multiple leading Republican senators who have sought to make the case for a Republican majority, arguing that the road led through Georgia.
Though now unable to frame the election as a fight to retake control of the Senate, Walker will now have to focus on why he is the better person to represent Georgia as his personal history remains at center stage.
“He definitely needs to focus on exactly what he’s going to do if he gets elected. Instead of knocking the opponent, bringing any kind of campaign like that, focus on exactly what his plan is, what his policies would be so people can know what he would do,” Melissa, a Georgia voter who supports Walker, told ABC News when asked how he could appeal to apprehensive Georgians.
Walker will also need to improve his performance in rural and urban communities. In last week’s midterms, he underperformed compared to the rest of the Republican statewide ticket, drawing 200,000 fewer votes than Gov. Brian Kemp, according to the secretary of state’s election results.
Kemp, who won reelection over Democrat Stacey Abrams, is lending his support to Walker’s runoff bid. Kemp’s ground data and analytics operation — including paid door knocking, phones, modeling, absentee ballot program, and tracking — will partner with the Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), which will fund the operation at a level of “over two million dollars,” SLF spox Jack Pandol told ABC News.
Though runoffs have become a well-known scenario for Georgia, candidates and voters will have to navigate new rules, questions around voter apathy and a political environment that could already be looking ahead to 2024.
New voting rules add a wrinkle
Both candidates kicked off their runoff campaigns on Thursday, hoping to sustain an energized base.
Standing in front of the John Lewis Mural, Warnock continued to frame his battle against Walker as one centered more around morality rather than policy.
“This is not a race about Democrat and Republican. It’s not a race of right versus the left. Fundamentally, this is a race about right and wrong. Who’s right for Georgia and who’s clearly wrong for Georgia,” he said.
“And when it comes to that, the choice could not be more clear between me and Herschel Walker. Some things in life are complicated. This ain’t one of them,” he said.
Walker started his runoff campaign before a crowd of thousands in Canton, where he was joined by Texas Sen. Cruz. He invoked his famed college and professional football career.
“We’re in overtime, that means we got a runoff. Hey, I was built for this,” he said to cheers. “He hung around and got into this runoff and he’s thinking he’s gonna win. We need to prove him wrong.”
Both candidates will have to make the case to their base to turnout despite Senate control being decided, battling the Thanksgiving holiday in the middle of the runoff cycle. Warnock will also have to split his time between campaigning on the trail in Georgia and fulfilling his duties in Washington.
New voters won’t be able to vote in the runoff; they must have registered by Nov. 7.
In 2020, thousands of voters were able to register for the runoff after the general election, leading to a surge in voters who didn’t vote in November but turned out for Democrats the following January. (State Republicans subsequently changed the rules for runoff elections, including by shortening the window when one is scheduled after a general election.)
Walker already stumbled on the voting rules while speaking with voters Sunday.
“I want you to go out and — because you can only vote if you voted in the last time, that’s what they told me. So I want you, if you voted last time, go vote for me again,” Walker said.
The shorter early voting period became even shorter due to the holidays as voters also won’t be able to cast their ballots on the last Saturday of the month. Georgia state law bars early voting within two days of a holiday, and Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday this year.
Warnock and Democratic party officials have now sued to try and require that Saturday of early voting, arguing that the rule about the holiday cutoff doesn’t apply to runoffs.
Counties may choose to have early voting the Sunday after Thanksgiving and potentially the Tuesday and Wednesday before if preparations are completed by then.
In 2020, when Democrats secured two major victories in the state and flipped control of the U.S. Senate, candidates were forced into a nine-week runoff cycle; however, under Georgia’s new voting law, this election will be held four weeks after Election Day on Dec. 6.
“Well there’s no question that they looked at our victory the last time in the runoff, and sought to make it harder. But the people of Georgia pushed through those barriers during the general election. I’m calling on them to do the same thing again,” Warnock told reporters Sunday.
Former President Donald Trump also looms large over the runoff after some Republicans notably blamed his vociferous claims of election fraud in 2020 for a depressed GOP base that cost the GOP two Georgia Senate seats in 2021 runoffs.
Now, Trump is expected to launch a third presidential campaign Tuesday evening, more deeply inserting himself into the national conversation shortly before Georgia voters head to the polls for a second time and sparking handwringing even among allies and voters.
“You know, I’d rather see DeSantis at this point. I love Trump. I appreciate him. But I’ve got some mixed feelings about him coming in. I definitely would prefer that he wait to announce until this until this election is over,” Steve Bolen, a Walker supporter, told ABC News. “I think that would take away attention. We got to put all of our focus on getting Herschel elected.”
Given comments like that, Republican allies and critics alike are suggesting a presidential campaign launch could impede efforts to defeat Warnock.
“Of course, President Trump had said he’d be making an announcement on Nov. 15, next Tuesday. I’m advising the president to hold off until after the Georgia race,” Jason Miller, a former adviser on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, said on Newsmax. “Priorities A, B and C need to be about Herschel [Walker] right now.”
“[I]f Pres. Trump announces his run next week, Sen. Warnock raises twice as much money for the Georgia runoff,” tweeted Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official.
Still, runoffs are historically unpredictable, and Democrats say with such a narrow window to organize before Dec. 6, anything can happen.
Democrats who worked on the 2021 runoffs said the fact that Senate control is already decided could depress turnout on both sides, possibly exacerbating an already anticipated dropoff in turnout.
“If we’re in a world where we already have control of the Senate and this is just icing on the cake, I think that you have to question, is that going to be enough of a motivating factor to get Democrats back out to vote on Dec. 6? I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion to assume that they would,” one senior adviser on Warnock’s 2020 campaign said in an interview before Nevada’s Senate race was called, adding that losing the Senate could be an “energizer” for Republicans.
“I’d say this one is even more unpredictable than the last one,” said a second Democrat who worked on the 2021 runoffs. “A shorter [early vote] period is a challenge for Dems especially. Warnock will need a massive turnout and education game to make sure people vote that week.”
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Mitch McConnell is confident he’ll have the votes to remain the GOP leader as party finger-pointing continues over the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterms.
But for the first time in 15 years leading the conference, McConnell is facing opposition as Florida Sen. Rick Scott mounts a historic challenge for the post atop the Republican conference.
McConnell, the stolid Kentuckian currently on track to break a Senate record for longest serving leader in history in 2023, has not previously faced any such defiance. And while McConnell is expected to be reelected to another term, the Scott move, recently pushed by former President Donald Trump, surprised many.
Scott, a McConnell critic of late — who has clashed with the leader over Republicans not putting forward a plan ahead of the midterms for how they would govern if they gained the majority — exhorted his conference both in a speech behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon and in a letter to them to make a change from “the status quo.”
Scott, in charge of the GOP campaign arm this cycle in which the party performed far below expectations, explained why he was the better choice over McConnell.
“Like each of you, I am deeply disappointed by the results of the recent election. Despite what the armchair quarterbacks on TV will tell you, there is no one person responsible for our party’s performance across the country,” Scott wrote.
He added, “Unfortunately, we have continued to elect leadership who refuses to do that and elicits attacks on anyone that does. That is clearly not working and it’s time for bold change. The voters are demanding it.”
And while enough Republican senators could vote to delay the Wednesday morning GOP Conference leadership elections, McConnell minced no words in talking to reporters after the meeting saying it was a matter of when — not if — he would be elected leader.
“I think the outcome is pretty clear, I want to repeat again, I have the votes and I will be elected,” McConnell said during a press conference Tuesday’s contentious conference meeting. “The issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”
Asked to respond to Scott’s challenge, McConnell said: “I don’t own this job. Anybody in the conference is certainly entitled to challenge me. I welcome the contest.”
The GOP conference met for more than three hours Tuesday behind closed doors for what one senator called “a spirited discussion” and another said was “kind of a rhetorical slugfest.”
“It was a really, really, good discussion. People have a desire to be a team and win, but we realize that we’re 50 individuals. The new people (senators) were probably, like, ‘Woah! What’s going on?’ But it was a healthy discussion,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., a McConnell supporter who is in line to be elected conference secretary by her colleagues on Wednesday.
About 15 to 20 senators stood to speak at the marathon conference meeting. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who spoke second, announced that he would be supporting Scott.
“When you measure how we’ve done in recent elections, especially the presidential ones, swing state Senate races, we got to do better,” Braun, who joined the Senate with Scott in 2018, said. “It’s very clear to me, I ran a business for 37 years, that if you don’t have a master plan, a mission statement, which I don’t think we have as a Republican Party, that it’s not going to work. And I think independents elect the swing state senators and the president and that was on view here in these [midterm] elections.”
“I think that when you keep having the same results, and presidential elections, we’ve won one popular vote since, what, 2004? It ought to cause you to have some deep thought about what you need to do differently,” continued Braun.
Republican senators said McConnell appeared surprised by the Scott move but offered a retort eventually, saying that being leader is not an easy thing.
“He counter-punched a time or two … in just the difficulty of the job, which is true. It’s not like any side has a mandate,” Braun told reporters.
According to Sen. Josh Hawley, who said he plans to support Scott, McConnell also took jabs at Scott’s performance in his current role.
“Senator Scott disagrees with the approach that Mitch has taken in recent years, and he made that clear, and Senator McConnell criticized Senator Scott’s management at the NRSC and I imagine we’ll hear more about that tomorrow,” Hawley said.
As head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, Scott controls the purse string of the GOP’s campaign arm. Under his leadership, the NRSC rounded the home stretch of campaign season with relatively little cash on hand, opening Scott to severe criticism, including from McConnell whose Super PAC had to pick up the slack. .”If you’re gonna assess blame for election losses, I don’t know how you trade in the leader for the gentleman at the NRSC,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told the Huffington Post.
Multiple GOP senators pointed to the sheer fundraising prowess of McConnell and his aligned Super PAC, Senate Leader Fund, this cycle, as a top reason to keep him at the helm.
“I’m certainly supporting the current leadership team. Mitch raised an extraordinarily large amount of money, used it to help elect Republicans,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
McConnell’s super PAC, according to AdImpact, raised “a total of $205M pooled across nine Senate races.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, currently a member of leadership and McConnell supporter, said she had no problem with the Scott challenge, but she said the Florida Republican failed to make a substantive case for why he should be chosen.
“I do think that elections are okay, and I think if people want to make challenges or throw their name in, I think that’s fine,” said Ernst, R-Iowa. “But what they have to do is present a real plan on what they want to see for the future of our conference, and I didn’t necessarily hear that coming from Rick Scott. He had a lot of things that he wanted to air out his grievances about, but we haven’t heard a conclusive plan yet.”
But Scott actually did offer a plan for the party in advance of the midterms. In February, he put forward his “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.” It made him no friends on either side of the aisle.
Congressional Democrats and the White House alike lambasted the Scott proposal, quickly turning it into a talking point. McConnell scorched Scott for suggesting that Republicans might raise income taxes.
“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell said in March, shortly after Scott announced his plan. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”
The public disagreement was the earliest sign that the relationship between McConnell and Scott was beginning to fracture. Trump, who has made his disdain for McConnell public, even nudged Scott to challenge McConnell for his seat, adding salt to the wound.
But while several Trump-aligned senators are expected to support Scott’s bid during the closed-door vote, it’s clear most Senate Republicans are prepared to keep McConnell a top the party.
Asked on Tuesday whether he thought Scott had any chance, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., didn’t mince words: “Not at all. Not at all.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has officially announced he is running for president in 2024, marking his third bid for the White House.
Saying “We are a nation in decline” and “America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump made the announcement Tuesday night in an address from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The announcement, which Trump had been hinting at for months, comes as the embattled former president faces multiple criminal and civil investigations and as his party is grappling with a worse-than-expected showing in the midterm elections, raising questions about the former president’s power over the GOP.
Trump, who lost his reelection bid in 2020 but did not concede and has continued to spread false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen,” repeatedly teased another run for the White House throughout the last year and told a rally crowd last week to expect a “big announcement.”
The third presidential run for Trump, who transformed himself from a real estate mogul into a reality TV star before becoming the self-described “MAGA king,” comes at an unprecedented point in American history that sees a former one-term president who never conceded his election loss enter a bid to regain power as the frontrunner for his party’s nomination.
Trump’s election falsehoods culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that was carried out by pro-Trump supporters, for which nearly 1,000 people have now been criminally charged. The former president has repeatedly downplayed the riot and has vowed to pardon those charged in the attack if he becomes president again.
Trump is the subject of several federal investigations, including the Jan. 6 probe, the investigation into Trump’s handling of documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, and an investigation into his fledgling social media company, Truth Social.
Some aides have suggested the former president believes that declaring his candidacy will shield him from the probes — but many legal experts say a run will not result in any special protections for the former president.
In addition, Trump’s namesake family real estate business, The Trump Organization, is currently on trial in New York for tax evasion and fraud — charges that would not be affected if he’s reelected president. The company has denied wrongdoing.
Trump, who was twice impeached during his four years in office but was not convicted either time, maintains a tight grasp on his Republican base. Six in 10 Republicans back the former president as their party’s leader, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll from earlier this year.
In the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, Trump’s Super PAC poured millions into key races, and the former president wielded his political power by endorsing hand-picked candidates for major congressional seats, including Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia. The former president ramped up his already busy rally schedule in the final weeks of the campaign, holding multiple events over the weekend leading into Election Day.
But after at least 30 of Trump’s endorsed candidates, including Oz, lost their races, some have begun to question his ability to continue winning elections for the party.
Trump has already taken aim at some potential presidential primary opponents, including possible 2024 rival Ron DeSantis, who on Tuesday cruised to reelection as governor of Florida. In a statement released last week, Trump attacked DeSantis as an “average” governor, saying that DeSantis was “politically dead” until Trump endorsed him in 2018 and griping over DeSantis’ refusal to say whether he’ll run for president in 2024.
“Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer,” Trump said, disparaging the Florida governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
Sources close to Trump say he has soured on DeSantis as the Florida governor’s political star has risen and as some in the party have expressed that they would prefer DeSantis to run for president instead of him.
(WASHINGTON) — “GMA3” welcomed Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, the nation’s first Latina senator. Her reelection allowed Democrats to maintain control of the Senate.
Cortez Masto discussed how abortion rights, the fight for democracy and kitchen table issues fueled her victory and why Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock is instrumental to achieving more progress.
GMA3: Joining us now for a GMA3 exclusive in her very first network interview since being reelected to the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto. Sen. Cortez Masto, I’m going to ask you. We just said it was narrow. It was a nail biter. All eyes were certainly on this race. How does it feel now to have won?
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO: Well, good afternoon. And, you know, there was so much energy in Nevada and I felt it. And I’m just honored, honored that our voters came out and the energy was there. And just, you know, this is a state that I have was born and raised in. I’m so honored to represent the people in Nevada and the businesses there. So it was an exciting day for everyone that worked so hard to really get us across the finish line.
GMA3: [You] worked so hard and something must have worked because here you sit as the winner now. But one of those things that may have worked and again, don’t want to harp on this too much or make it sound so bad, but you didn’t have President Biden out there on the campaign trail for you. Now, again, some we will talk about that a little bit. Was that a calculated decision that now seems to have worked in such a close race?
CORTEZ MASTO: Well, let me just say, my focus was just getting out and talking to Nevadans. You know, I feel very strongly if you’re going to if you’re going to represent people, you got to get out there and ask for their votes. Got to talk to them. You listen to them. Talk to them about how we’re going to work together to address the challenges. And what I was hearing from Nevadans were the issues dealing with the kitchen table issues and high inflation and costs there and dealing with housing costs. And the concern about the repeal of Roe v. Wade in a state that is a proud pro-choice state. And I was also hearing about the concerns about what happened on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.
So to me, it was really more about just getting out and talking to so many Nevadans. Now, with that said, there were so many people that came into the state. They were welcome. They came in to help us turn out the vote. And there were people on the ground, there were organized labor that was out there. There were so many people. And I was so pleased to see that that overwhelming excitement and energy from not just people in Nevada, but so many that really came in to help us knock on doors and turn out that vote. It was instrumental.
And, you know, I just have to say, I’m very proud and proud of the Nevadans and the hard work that they did and the ability now that we have to continue the work that we need to get done for so many people in Nevada and across the country.
GMA3: You’re going to have a lot of focus over the next few weeks, going to be on Georgia. I’m wondering about your take now that we thought it was, thought that maybe over the next month we were going to see all that money and attention go to Georgia, because that was going to be the deciding Senate race. That’s not going to be the case anymore, given that you have now won and Democrats are going to hold on to the Senate. So what do you think the significance now of Democrats holding on to that seat in Georgia will be?
CORTEZ MASTO: Well, let me just say, in general, what I saw in Nevada, one thing in particular, because people know in Nevada, when they came out and elected me the first time, that really was a vote to protect and guard the Affordable Care Act, which in Nevada has helped so many, so many people there, right. If I hadn’t been elected, it would have been repealed. And so now coming out, so many people came out knowing that even though we’re a pro-choice state, that if there’s a federal abortion ban that would restrict or Lindsey Graham’s abortion ban were to get on the floor and passed, it would preempt our state law.
So now we are guarding against that happening, at least in the Senate. And I think it’s important that what I’ve seen is by electing Raphael Warnock, who was instrumental in the bipartisan infrastructure package, in working in bringing manufacturing back to this country and working about to address health care in his state and lower those costs, we can continue the good work on behalf of Americans in solving the problems that I hear. And I know he’s hearing in his community that we still have to address for so many, so many people that are still struggling at this point in time.
We have an opportunity to move forward, make major investments in this country that will grow and create jobs and grow our economy. And to me, that’s worth — is still — this fight. And I know Raphael Warnock is in an instrumental part of that future and what we want to achieve here in this country.
GMA3: Well, congratulations, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate your time today.
