Politics

(NEW YORK) — Tuesday night’s lopsided result in the Kansas abortion referendum — which saw the anti-abortion measure defeated some 59-41 in a traditionally red state — has Democrats and Republicans wondering if the post-Roe fight over the social issue marks a sea change in the midterm landscape or a less dramatic shift in an environment that still favors the GOP.

The proposed amendment, which gave voters a direct choice over whether or not to strip the state constitution’s abortion protections, marked the first tangible answer to the question of how June’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will influence the electorate.

Turnout in the summertime primary spiked to nearly the same level of the 2018 midterm general election. And with an approximately 18-point win for abortion access advocates in one of the nation’s conservative bastions, debate is underway among many over whether that victory could ripple outward.

Democrats who spoke with ABC News insist they have a new lease on life after being pummeled by President Joe Biden’s low approval rating, historic inflation, high gas prices, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and more.

Republicans, meanwhile, insist the wind is still at their backs — though even some GOP operatives acknowledge the Kansas results indicate that their gains could be curtailed as the party largely embraces a strict anti-abortion agenda.

“If I were a Republican House or Senate candidate or a Republican strategist, I would be panicking right now,” said Democratic strategist Jon Reinish. “Voters are furious, and voters are mobilized. Looking at [Tuesday’s] extremely definitive results, I think that this scrambles a lot of conventional wisdom and calculations on the whole midterm landscape this November.”

Had the amendment passed, it would have offered the GOP-controlled state legislature a path to restricting or banning abortion, continuing a pattern seen in other conservative areas of the country. Kansas law currently allows most abortions to take place up to 22 weeks in a pregnancy.

However, Tuesday night’s results marked a comprehensive win for abortion rights supporters in a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 15 points just two years ago and where registered Republicans outpace registered Democrats by hundreds of thousands.

In a sign of intense enthusiasm on the issue, the vote against the amendment significantly outran President Joe Biden’s showing in Kansas in 2020.

Abortion access supporters won in Shawnee County, home of Topeka, by a 66-34 margin Tuesday. Biden won the county by only 3 points in 2020.

The same trend followed in Kansas’ rural expanses. In Hamilton County, for example, abortion opponents only defeated the amendment by about 12 points, whereas Trump beat Biden in the county in 2020 by 65 points.

Democratic operatives cited that as persuasive evidence of an argument they’ve made since before Roe’s demise: Abortion has the power to supercharge turnout in a midterm cycle that was previously expected to be characterized by a depressed Democratic base, given Biden’s unpopularity and economic headwinds.

“When voters know that abortion is on the ballot, they show up and they send a resounding message,” said Democratic pollster Molly Murphy. “Republicans are on the wrong side of that message, and as voters learn what Republicans’ priorities are if they take power, it is incredibly encouraging to see the way voters will respond.”

“Voters understand the difference between the parties on abortion, and they are increasingly seeing Republicans take steps to ban it,” Murphy said, “which can help create a real choice between the two parties.”

Leading Democrats seized on the results Wednesday.

“The voters of Kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the American people will vote to preserve and protect the rights and refuse to let them be ripped away by politicians,” Biden said in remarks before his interagency task force meeting on reproductive health care.

“The people of Kansas spoke yesterday, and they spoke loud and clear. They said this is not a partisan issue,” Vice President Kamala Harris added in her own remarks. “The women of America should not be the subject of partisan debate or perspective.”

It’s still unclear, though, how much voter enthusiasm on that one issue will translate to Democratic support.

Biden’s approval ratings have been stuck in the 30s, weakened in part by dissatisfaction among his base that key campaign promises are mired in the narrowly divided Congress, stymied by legal and administrative uncertainty or blocked by the courts.

ABC News polls and other surveys have also shown that economic issues remain top of mind for voters in a cycle that won’t feature many more single-issue referendums like the one in Kansas.

On top of those dynamics, some Republican strategists and pollsters cautioned against extrapolating the results of a unique abortion referendum onto the more typical midterm races this fall.

“A difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment ballot issue in a state does not erase two years of mismanagement, higher costs and incredible dysfunction in Washington,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “For those on the left and in the media breathlessly trying to change the political headwinds facing the Democratic Party, they should be reminded the midterm elections will not be an up-or-down [vote] on codifying abortion but instead a referendum on Biden, the economy and dysfunction in D.C.”

On top of that, the timing of Tuesday’s referendum could offer advice to Republicans running this November on how to message on abortion to avoid the significant backlash seen in Kansas.

Democrats have been pouncing on some states’ efforts to outright ban abortion, even in instances of rape and incest — proposals some Republicans said should be avoided.

“This result does not mean pro-choice candidates are going to win in a rout this November. Other issues are still far more important, and candidates are a bundle of issues. The key for Republican candidates is to back away from a total ban and get in line with public opinion, including conservative opinion, that favors time limits and exceptions for the mother’s health,” said one GOP strategist.

Still, Republicans conceded they may have to temper their expectations for the fall.

Last year’s election results in Virginia, where now-Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won by 2 points in a state Biden took by 10 points in 2020, had the GOP boasting that even congressional districts Biden won by 10 points were no longer safe.

But with such a potent and prominent issue giving Democrats late momentum, operatives now say Republicans’ target lists may face a crunch even as their chances of flipping the House remain strong.

“There’s no doubt overturning Roe has given Democrats some momentum,” said one GOP strategist working on midterm races. “It seems the front-line races this fall won’t be as far down as a lot of folks had hoped. I think realistically we’re back to where D+5 districts are the front-line battles this fall.”

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(NEW YORK) — ABC News can report that Kari Lake, a former longtime news anchor in Phoenix who left her career in media last year and received former President Donald Trump’s backing, is projected to win the Republican primary in Arizona’s race for governor, after suggesting foul play in an election she already claimed victory in.

“Though the results took longer than they should have, Arizonans who have been forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake,” Lake said in a statement after her win was officially projected. “This is more than an election — it is a beautiful movement by so many people across our beautiful state to finally put Arizona First.”

Lake defeats Karrin Taylor Robson, a wealthy real estate developer and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, who was backed by Trump’s, now estranged, Vice President Mike Pence and Arizona’s current term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey. Trump and Pence traveled to Arizona on the same day last month to stump for the competing candidates, with Pence warning against “those who want to make this election about the past.”

Taylor Robson spent more than $15 million of her own money on the race, but it was Lake’s “ultra-MAGA” and “America First” stance, coupled with her repetition of Trump’s “Big Lie,” that ultimately prevailed, after a campaign season filled with attack ads from all angles, which Democratic nominee for governor Katie Hobbs described as a “primary race to the bottom.”

Hobbs released a statement following the projection calling Lake “dangerous for Arizona” and calling the November general election “a choice between sanity and chaos.”

“Throughout her campaign, Lake has counted Nazi sympathizers and far-right extremists as part of her coalition,” she said. “We know where she stands on the issues that matter most, vowing to ban abortion and reproductive health care, putting cameras in our children’s classrooms, and wasting taxpayer money relitigating the 2020 election and manipulating future elections if she doesn’t like the results.”

Despite a handful of hypocrisy scandals, with Pence swiping her as a “convert” to the GOP who donated to Barack Obama, Lake acknowledged her past support for Democratic causes on the campaign trail, but now takes a far-right stance on social issues. She opposes abortion and transgender rights and made election integrity and border security top campaign issues, saying she would declare an invasion at the southern border on day one as governor.

Entering the general election season, Lake has already said that she would not change her tone but continue to talk about the widely disproven conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, even as some Republicans are concerned that if Trump’s candidates don’t moderate their message for the general electorate, it will be harder to win in Arizona in November.

Arizona Republican strategist Barrett Marson, who supported Taylor Robson, told ABC News, “It’ll be up to them [the Trump candidates] to moderate, or to at least start to appeal to the broader audience. I just don’t get telling your voters that there’s fraud in the election that you won and then expect them to continue to come out and vote for you.”

Lake dismissed questions Wednesday on how she could declare victory in an election that she doesn’t have any confidence in and why voters should trust that she won this election fair and square, claiming to have evidence of irregularities but refusing to provide evidence of wrongdoing to the press.

“We’re going with the votes, and we’re going with what the people who really understand what’s happening [in this] this election now,” she said.

A first-time candidate for public office who has said she would not have fulfilled her legal duty to certify it in 2020, Lake said, if elected governor, she would sign legislation to eliminate electronic counting machines and move to “one-day voting” in the state where voting by mail is a popular method. On the night of her election-watch party in Scottsdale, she wielded a wooden sledgehammer she said was intended for electronic voting machines and Hobbs.

With Lake’s win official, Trump sees a slate of winning candidates in Arizona, his most primary wins in any state — and in one that helped deliver the presidency to Joe Biden.

“President Trump went 14-0 in Arizona as the MAGA wave continues to sweep across the nation. America is a nation in decline under Democrat leadership, but President Trump will not stop until America is made great once more through the election of America First fighters,” Taylor Budowich, a spokesperson for Trump, said in a statement Wednesday to ABC News.

One strategist told ABC News the wins prove that Arizona, though it has taken on a purple hue in recent years, is “still very much Trump country.”

Taylor Robson told Good Morning America and World News Tonight weekend co-anchor Whit Johnson that Lake priming her supporters for a stolen election — before Lake ultimately won the election herself — should “disqualify” her from the race, as many voters in Arizona are already mistrusting in the election process.

In a statement late Thursday, Taylor Robson said she accepted the results of the election and congratulated Lake on the win.

“This part of my life’s journey has come to an end. Now I need to be with my family and get back to my business,” she said.

“The voters of Arizona have spoken, I accept the results, I trust the process and the people who administer it,” she continued. “I have spent my life supporting Republican candidates and causes and it is my hope that our Republican nominees are successful in November.”

While Trump’s endorsed candidates are dominating the Arizona primary races, it was unclear if the MAGA agenda would show the same success in November.

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(DALLAS) — The annual Conservative Political Action Conference got underway Thursday in Dallas, Texas, one of the largest gatherings of conservatives and, since its inception in 1974, a crucial campaign stop for Republican hopefuls.

This year, organizers are hoping to galvanize a growing base of voters ahead of the upcoming midterm cycle with the aim of bringing a crashing “red wave” of GOP elected officials to Congress.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Fox News Anchor and GOP firebrand and Fox News host Sean Hannity kicked off the conference, focusing on migration, the weakness of Democrats, and big business. There was little mention of the issue of abortion despite the recent shift to a post-Roe America.

Headlining the three-day convention on Saturday night is Donald Trump who has teased running again president in 2024. The former president last spoke in late July at America First Policy Institute and Turning Point USA events in Washington where he focused primarily on promoting a harsh criminal justice agenda.

He’ll speak ahead of CPAC on Friday in Waukesha, Wisconsin, at a rally in support of Tim Michels, a Republican candidate for governor.

Abbott, who was absent from last year’s Dallas convention, was the first high-profile speaker on Thursday, joining a panel titled, “Texas: The Start of the Big Red Wave.”

He touted his friendship with Texas’ new business resident, Elon Musk of Tesla, addressed his busing of illegal immigrants to Washington and signified a growing trend of Latinos leaning toward Republican politicians.

“Texas believes in freedom Texas believes in the power of the individual. We want to have safe communities, a secure border. We want to cut your property taxes here in the Lone Star State because we know that is your money,” Abbott said to a cheering crowd on the panel with CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp and CPAC Senior Fellow Mercedes Schlapp.

“Keep Texas red. Fire Nancy Pelosi, impeach Mayorkas and put America on the right track.”

Speculation of a potential 2024 presidential bid has long followed Abbott, who energized the crowd talking about the potential economic growth in the Lone Star State.

“It was just in May this year that Texas became home to more Fortune 500 company headquarters than any other state in the United States of America,” he lauded.

He also took jabs at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, who has recently targeted with Republican peers like Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis while chatter swirls about his own ambitions for a 2024 the Democratic presidential nomination.

Newsom has swung at the Texas governor by modeling a new California gun restriction law after Texas’ “heartbeat act,” which prohibits abortions after as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The California governor has also run full-page ads in the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle and El Paso Times to criticize Abbott’s stances on abortion rights and gun laws.

“The number one state Texans are moving to is California. Why would someone from Texas move to California? It’s because they like the Gavin Newsom type of liberalism,” Abbott said. “We have an exchange program going on,” he joked. “We’re getting the [Californian] conservatives, we’re sending them our liberals.”

Several other Texas conservatives are scheduled to speak at CPAC, including Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday morning, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday evening. Recently elected Rep. Mayra Flores is also slated to speak. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick spoke on Thursday afternoon.

Along with Abbott on Thursday, in a speech titled “How We Fight,” was Orban — fresh off of meeting with Trump at the former president’s Bedminster, New Jersey, Golf Club. He repeated some of his most controversial views, railing against LGBTQ issues and migration and a decline in Christianity across the Western world.

“Our values save us from repeating history’s mistakes. The horrors of Nazis and Communists happened because Western states in Continental Europe abandoned their Christian values. And today’s progressives are planning to do the same. They want to give up on Western values,” he said.

“The globalists can all go to hell, I have gone to Texas,” Orban said as he closed his remarks.

Hannity then delivered a fiery speech, beginning with comments about “election integrity” in the ongoing vote counting in Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary on Tuesday.

“We still don’t know if Kari Lake won that race for governor. Why not? How do we expect to have integrity in our elections if they can’t count the votes in 24 hours?” he said.

Hannity also rallied the crowd about GOP chances in the coming midterm elections.

“We’ll get America back on track. And then we’ll win and 2024 and then we’ll be back in the ballgame. And we will be that that beautiful city on a hill that Reagan spoke about. Let’s make that our goal. Let’s make that our dream. Let’s make that our prayer. In Jesus name. You can say Jesus, this is CPAC,” he said.

Abbott and Orban, Patrick and Hannity’s appearances will also be joined by and other high-profile Republican figures, including former vice presidential candidate and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake is also slated to speak. The former local Fox News anchor is currently awaiting official results from the state’s Republican primary, though she has already declared victory on multiple occasions and has indicated that she would not concede if the results weren’t favorable to her campaign.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is also in the lineup as the keynote speaker at CPAC’s Saturday night Cattleman’s Ball, a week after he was found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to to cooperate with investigations into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

CPAC will also feature its famed straw poll, a historically popular contest for gauging how popular Republican leaders are within the party.

This year will notably feature two separate straw polls — one with and another without Trump, who has won every one of the contests since 2019.

The CPAC main ballot will include Trump, DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Cruz, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Also on the ballot are former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

The 2024 straw poll without Trump will instead feature Donald Trump Jr., along with all the aforementioned potential hopefuls.

DeSantis emerged from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference held in Orlando, Florida, in February as the potential GOP presidential candidate most competitive with former President Donald Trump, coming in second at 28% and far more favored than other GOP prospects, including other CPAC speakers Pompeo, Noem and Cruz, who all got less than 2%.

ABC News’ Alina Kim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — While WNBA star Brittney Griner’s sentencing in Russia dominates headlines, members of Congress are urging the White House to do more to free yet another prominent figure — Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the acclaimed 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda.”

In a letter shared exclusively with ABC News on Thursday, Reps. Joaquin Castro and Young Kim asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “use all the diplomatic means at your disposal to ensure Mr. Rusesabagina’s safe return to the United States.” They implored the secretary to push Rwanda’s president for Rusesabagina’s “immediate release” during Blinken’s visit next week to the East African nation, where Rusesabagina has been held for nearly two years.

Rusesabagina, a lawful U.S. permanent resident, was the manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when divisions between Rwanda’s two main ethnic groups came to a head. The Rwandan government, controlled by extremist members of the Hutu ethnic majority, launched a systemic campaign with its allied Hutu militias to wipe out the Tutsi ethnic minority, slaughtering over the course of 100 days more than 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and the moderate Hutus who tried to protect them, according to estimates from the United Nations.

More than 1,200 people took shelter in the Hotel des Mille Collines during what is often described as the darkest chapter of Rwanda’s history. Rusesabagina, who is of both Hutu and Tutsi descent, said he used his job and connections with the Hutu elite to protect the hotel’s guests from massacre. The events were later immortalized in “Hotel Rwanda,” with American actor Don Cheadle’s portrayal of Rusesabagina earning an Academy Award nomination for best actor in 2005.

Rusesabagina, who fled Rwanda with his family in 1996 and later settled in San Antonio, Texas, rose to fame and was lauded as a hero after the movie’s release. In 2005, he was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given by the American president. He also wrote a book, gave paid speeches, and became an outspoken critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has been in office for the last two decades.

In August 2020, Rusesabagina traveled to Dubai to meet up with a Burundi-born pastor who Rusesabagina alleges had invited him to speak at churches in Burundi about his experience during the Rwandan genocide. The pair hopped on a private jet that Rusesabagina believed would take them to Burundi’s capital, according to Rusesabagina’s international legal team.

Rusesabagina did not know that the pastor was working as an informant for the Rwanda Investigation Bureau and had tricked him into boarding a chartered flight to Kigali. He was subsequently arrested and tried on a slew of terrorism-related charges, with Rwandan prosecutors alleging that Rusesabagina wanted to go to Burundi to coordinate with rebel groups based there and in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Last September, Rusesabagina, who has maintained his innocence, was convicted on eight of nine terrorism-related charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison. In May, the U.S. Department of State determined that Rusesabagina has been “wrongfully detained.” In June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution calling on the Biden administration to demand Rusesabagina’s release on humanitarian grounds.

In their letter to Blinken, Castro and Kim warned that if the U.S. does not take a firm stance on Rusesabagina’s detention, others may be at risk.

“Failure to address the actions of the Rwandan government will only embolden it to continue to target U.S. citizens and U.S. residents,” they wrote.

According to the State Department, Blinken intends to discuss Rusesabagina’s case during his upcoming visit to Rwanda. Speaking to ABC News on Thursday, a senior U.S. official declined to say whether Blinken would communicate any consequences for the Rwandan government if it fails to release Rusesabagina, but insisted that the Biden administration has been “very clear with the government of Rwanda about our concerns about his case, his trial, and his conviction, particularly the lack of fair trial guarantees.”

Castro and Kim said the Biden administration must move as a quickly as possible to secure Rusesabagina’s freedom due to his age and failing health.

“We also ask that you visit Mr. Rusesabagina, who is imprisoned under unsafe conditions and suffering from health issues that jeopardize his life,” they wrote in their letter. “Paul Rusesabagina is a 68-year-old cancer and stroke survivor who remains in poor health. He has been imprisoned for over 700 days without proper medical care.”

In a statement to ABC News on Thursday, Rusesabagina’s family expressed their gratitude that his case “is receiving attention from senior levels within the [Biden] administration and across Capitol Hill.”

“We appreciate in particular Secretary Blinken’s dedicated visit and hope his direct engagement will help bring our family nightmare to an end,” said Rusesabagina’s daughter, Anaise Kanimba.

“Rwanda is not an adversary country like Russia, China or Iran; it is a country that significantly benefits from U.S. taxpayer money and judicial cooperation,” she added. “If the administration can bring back other wrongfully detained [citizens] from Russia, it can certainly leverage its relationship with Rwanda.”

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(WASHINGTON) — All eyes are on Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as Democrats look to begin debate on their major health care, tax and climate bill this weekend.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced Thursday that the chamber is expected to take its first vote on the Inflation Reduction Act on Saturday afternoon. The vote will be on a motion to proceed to the $740 billion bill, which if passed will kickstart up to 20 hours of debate.

Aiming to fast-track the legislation with a process known as reconciliation, under which bills can pass with a simple majority, Democrats need the support of every member of their caucus in the face of expected unanimous Republican opposition.

That’s where Sinema comes in. The moderate Arizona Democrat has occasionally thwarted the party’s agenda, along with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. Manchin is already on board and has claimed credit for the last-minute agreement on the spending bill.

Sinema has spoken very little about the bill publicly, avoiding repeated questions by reporters on where she stands.

ABC News has learned from two sources familiar with the matter that Sinema is seeking changes to the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically the removal of a provision that would close the so-called “carried interest” loophole that allows wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives to pay lower tax rates on investments.

Sinema is also seeking to add $5 billion in drought resiliency.

Sinema spent Thursday shuttling back and forth from her pale pink-walled office in the basement of the Capitol to the Senate chamber – once meeting with Manchin – and to Sen. Schumer’s office. When asked if she had agreed to any bill changes, the enigmatic senator told ABC, “I can’t tell you anything.“

It’s unclear what impact such changes would have on the outcome of the legislation.

Sinema is also still waiting for word from the Senate Parliamentarian — the chamber’s nonpartisan rule-keeper — who is scrubbing the legislative text to see that each provision meets the strict test of reconciliation.

Manchin told reporters on Tuesday that he and Sinema have discussed the Inflation Reduction Act but didn’t reveal where she may land, stating “she’ll look at all of this and make her own decision.”

Amid Sinema’s silence, a video of her talking to Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell went viral this week, though the topic of their conversation is unknown.

McConnell, the Republican leader in the chamber, has sharply criticized the tax provisions in the bill. McConnell on Wednesday accused Democrats of wanting to pass “huge, job-killing tax hikes.”

Democrats have countered that the tax provisions, including a 15% corporate minimum tax, won’t increase taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year — one of President Joe Biden’s key campaign promises — and will target corporations and professionals they say aren’t paying their fair share.

Biden pushed for passage of the law himself on Thursday as he participated virtually in a roundtable with business and labor leaders.

“The Inflation reduction Act lowers prescription drug prices, lowers health insurance premiums, invests in clean energy that will create jobs and economic opportunities for business and labor, reduces the deficit and makes common sense reforms to our corporate tax code,” Biden said.

Biden did speak directly to members of Congress in his remarks, urging them to pass the bill “for the American people.”

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(WASHINGTON) — With her competitive primary contest less than two weeks away, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is out with a striking new ad on Thursday featuring a direct-to-camera testimonial from her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, defending his daughter and warning against former President Donald Trump, who has backed Cheney’s top challenger.

“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump,” the former vice president says. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.”

With the three-term Republican congresswoman betting on a fierce anti-Trump message, her father, a powerhouse in Wyoming, calls Trump a “coward” in the scathing 30-second spot, saying, “A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”

“He lost his election, and he lost big. I know he knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know it,” he said, wearing a cowboy hat and sporting an “I Voted” sticker.

Cheney said he and his wife were “proud” of his “fearless” daughter for “honoring her oath to the Constitution, when so many in our party are scared to do so.”

“There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again or the Oval Office. And she will succeed,” he said.

Liz Cheney faces a competitive primary battle for Wyoming’s only congressional district on Aug. 16 against challenger Harriet Hageman, a lawyer who ran for Wyoming governor in 2018 and espouses the widely disproven conspiracy that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Asked at a candidate forum on Wednesday to clarify her stance, Hageman said, “The election was rigged.”

“Like many Wyomingites, I supported Liz Cheney when she ran for Congress,” Hageman said when announcing her bid last September, the same day Trump endorsed her. “But then she betrayed Wyoming, she betrayed this country, and she betrayed me.”

Responding to the news of Trump’s endorsement in a tweet, Cheney said, “Here’s a sound bite for you: Bring it.”

A vocal critic of Trump resisting a peaceful transfer of power, Cheney first drew Trump’s ire when she became one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection” after the Jan. 6 attack. In the following months, she was removed by the House GOP as GOP conference chair, and her subsequent rank as the No. 3 Republican in the House was stripped, as well as the Wyoming GOP censuring her and no longer recognizing her as a member — backlash encouraged by Trump.

The attacks escalated when Cheney accepted a position on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. As vice chair of the committee, in a series of public hearings, she has appeared like a federal prosecutor as she lays out a case implicating Trump in what the committee has called a “sophisticated seven-point plan” to overturn the election.

Although Cheney’s voting record paints her as a credentialed Republican, siding with Trump on policy matters 93% of the time — up from the 78% of her successor in House leadership, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. — and she carries an “A” rating from the NRA and a 96% ranking from the conservative Heritage Foundation, her criticism on fellow Republicans for downplaying the events of Jan. 6 has made her a party outlier. Cheney’s support in 2020 was strong with 68.6% of the vote in the general election and an even stronger turnout in the Republican primary with 73.5% of the vote there — but the upcoming primary presents her first test to voters since taking on Trump.

In what could be a preview of Cheney’s fate, Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan this week became the second Republican who supported Trump’s impeachment to lose his primary. Only Rep. David Valadao of California narrowly survived his race. (Four representatives are not running for reelection, and two others are in Washington state races too close to call.)

She told ABC News This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl that she knew her vote to impeach Trump was not popular with many of her constituents but said she’s committed to making sure voters in her state understand her reasoning — and why it shouldn’t mean the end of her political career.

“The people of Wyoming fundamentally believe in the Constitution and faithfulness to it and our oath,” Cheney said. “If the choice is between somebody that Donald Trump decides he’s going to anoint and that person’s basis for being in this race is their loyalty to some person, to Donald Trump, every day of the week I will stack my record and my commitment to the Constitution and my commitment to people of Wyoming up against that.”

She told Karl in another interview in July that she has not ruled out a presidential run as a Republican or an independent “down the road,” but said, “The single most important thing is protecting the nation from Donald Trump.”

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(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended Tampa’s top prosecutor over public statements he made indicating he would not criminalize abortion.

DeSantis announced Thursday that he has suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, effective immediately, due to neglect of duty, saying during a press briefing that Warren has “put himself publicly above the law.”

The Republican governor cited a statement Warren signed along with other elected prosecutors nationwide after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which stated in part that “we stand together in our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions.”

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortions after 15 weeks are barred in Florida, with exceptions if the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s life and if the fetus has a fatal anomaly. Doctors who violate the law could face up to five years in prison.

“That is what the legislature has enacted, and it’s not for him to put himself above that and say that he is not going to enforce the laws,” DeSantis said about Warren.

“When you flagrantly violate your oath of office, when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty, you have neglected your duty and you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to perform those duties,” DeSantis continued.

The governor named Susan Lopez, a judge he appointed to the Hillsborough County Court, to replace Warren and serve as temporary state attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit.

Warren, a Democrat, was twice elected to the county seat, most recently in 2020.

DeSantis said the suspension follows a statewide review of state attorneys that narrowed in on Warren’s office. The governor said he did not speak with Warren throughout that process.

Warren called the governor’s actions an “illegal overreach that continues a dangerous pattern by Ron DeSantis of using his office to further his own political ambition.”

“It spits in the face of the voters of Hillsborough County who have twice elected me to serve them, not Ron DeSantis,” he said in a statement.

Warren also defended his work as a state attorney in the face of what he said was a violation of his constituents’ rights.

“In our community, crime is low, our Constitutional rights — including the right to privacy — are being upheld, and the people have the right to elect their own leaders — not have them dictated by an aspiring presidential candidate who has shown time and again he feels accountable to no one,” he said. “Just because the governor violates your rights, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

While outlining Warren’s “troubling record” as state prosecutor during Thursday’s press briefing, DeSantis also referenced a letter Warren signed last year condemning the criminalization of gender-affirming health care.

“In June of 2021, he signed a letter saying that he would not enforce any prohibitions on sex change operations for minors,” DeSantis said.

Florida currently does not have any laws that criminalize gender-affirming health care, which the order suspending Warren for “neglect of duty” acknowledges.

“[Although] the Florida Legislature has not enacted such criminal laws, these statements prove that Warren thinks he has authority to defy the Florida Legislature and nullify in his jurisdiction criminal laws with which he disagrees,” the order states.

The suspension is in effect pending further action from the governor.

Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., who is running for governor, criticized the suspension of the elected official.

“DeSantis’ decision to suspend him is that of a wannabe dictator who puts partisan politics first. Make no mistake, it’s an attack on Florida’s women,” he said on Twitter.

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., whose jurisdiction includes Hillsborough County, called the governor’s actions an “extreme abuse of power” and a “new low.”

“Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren is an honest public servant who respects the Florida Constitution [including] our right to privacy which allows girls and women to determine their pathways in life,” she said on Twitter. “He is right to exercise discretion and not prosecute women and doctors.”

Several law enforcement officials spoke during the briefing in support of the suspension, expressing frustration with the prosecutor, who has been vocal on criminal justice reform issues.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said Warren “seems intently focused on empathy for criminals and less interested in pursuing justice for crime victims.”

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said during the briefing that the state constitution requires that DeSantis ensure the state’s laws are being enforced.

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(DALLAS) — Fresh off a meeting with Donald Trump and facing criticism for his comments on “mixed-race” nations, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban was welcomed by conservatives at their annual convention this week.

Orban kicked off the Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC, in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday afternoon, with a speech titled, “How We Fight.”

“My country, Hungary, is the Lone Star State of Europe,” Orban said, introducing himself as an “old-fashioned freedom fighter.”

In the 30-minute speech, which was met with a standing ovation, Orban railed against the “leftist media” and progressive liberals as he called for conservatives to be “brave enough to address even the most sensitive questions: migration, gender and the clash of civilizations.”

Orban’s appearance alongside high-profile Republican figures, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Fox News host Sean Hannity, has raised eyebrows amid international backlash to his authoritarian leadership and far-right rhetoric on migration and LGBTQ issues.

Most recently, he was under fire for a July 23 speech in which he said he wanted to prevent his country from becoming a “mixed-race” society.

“We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race,” he said.

Orban continued, “Migration has split Europe in two — or I could say that it has split the West in two. One half is a world where European and non-European peoples live together. These countries are no longer nations: they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples.”

A longtime associate of Orban resigned over the remarks, calling it a “pure Nazi” speech. The International Auschwitz Committee said survivors of the Holocaust viewed his statements as “hollow, ignorant and dangerous.”​​

Despite this, he’s received a friendly reception so far from big-name conservatives.

On his way to CPAC, Orban met with Trump at his New Jersey golf club. Trump is slated to headline the convention on Saturday.

“Great spending time with my friend,” Trump said in a statement. “We discussed many interesting topics — few people know as much about what is going on in the world today. We were also celebrating his great electoral victory in April.”

Conservative media have also given Orban a platform, with Fox’s Tucker Carlson traveling to Hungary for a week last year to profile the leader.

But what is Orban’s appeal to American conservatives?

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, says Orban is providing a blueprint on how to be electorally successful.

“Just like Sweden was the model of the social democratic state, Orban has provided this model for leading the culture wars and ending by denying the liberals any possibility of being elected,” Scheppele told ABC News.

“It’s this little country that shows your policies work in some actual location,” she added.

Scheppele said not only are conservatives looking at his policies on migration or LGBTQ issues, but also his use of the power of his office to rewrite the Constitution and remake the nation’s courts to his liking.

“Orban could be a model to American conservatives on a lot of different dimensions, and none of that would be good for the future of constitutional democracy,” Scheppele said.

In his CPAC address, Orban said his nation and American conservatives face the same challenges.

“I’m here to tell you that we should unite our forces because we Hungarians know how to defeat the enemies of freedom on the political battlefield,” he said.

Thursday’s speech wasn’t the first time Orban has addressed CPAC members. He spoke at a special CPAC session in Hungary in May, in which he called Hungary “the bastion of conservative Christian values in Europe.”

“Let’s listen to the man speak,” CPAC chair Matt Schlapp said in an interview at the America First Policy Institute summit after Orban’s controversial speech, according to Bloomberg. “We’ll see what he says. And if people have a disagreement with something he says, they should raise it.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security will review electronic retention policies, according to a memo obtained by ABC News Thursday, and will halt wiping political appointees’ phones until the review is complete.

The policy comes in the wake of a retention policy that caused the U.S. Secret Service to wipe text messages from Jan. 6 and surrounding days, losing all text messages from the days and drawing ire from the House Jan. 6 committee.

“Earlier this month, Secretary Mayorkas directed the Office of the Chief Information Officer and the Office of the General Counsel to create and lead a Department-wide working group to conduct a 30-day review of the policies and practices for electronic message retention currently in effect throughout DHS and to recommend any necessary improvements,” the memo written by General Counsel Jonathan Meyer said.

“Such messages include, but are not limited to, email, social media messages, instant messages, and text messages. As technology continues to rapidly evolve, the working group will ensure DHS continues to comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and guidance so as to fully meet the expectations of Congress and our other oversight entities, other key stakeholders, and the American public,” the memo said.

The directive, sent to department heads, also said the agency will not wipe political appointees phones until the review is complete.

“Effective immediately and until such time as any additional technical controls recommended by the working group are implemented, DHS agencies and offices are directed to preserve either the actual mobile devices (and accompanying access information) or complete fully accessible backups of all device content for all members of the Senior Executive Service or equivalent and political appointees, whenever such an employee departs or would have their device replaced or wiped for any reason. Mobile devices include smart phones, tablets, and other devices with equivalent capabilities,” the memo read.

Component heads will have until Aug. 5 to identify who will be in charge for each review.

Top Democrats in Congress investigating the events of Jan. 6 continued to allege that the government’s federal watchdog for Homeland Security abandoned efforts to collect texts and phone records from that day.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chair the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees, on Monday renewed calls for Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to step away from the watchdog’s investigation.

“We recently called for you to step aside from this matter and for a new IG to be appointed in light of revelations that you had failed to keep Congress informed of your inability to obtain key information from the Secret Service,” the chairs said in a letter to Cuffari. “Removing yourself from this investigation is even more urgent today.”

“These documents also indicate that your office may have taken steps to cover up the extent of missing records,” the chairs added.

Last month, Cuffari told Congress that the U.S. Secret Service had deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6 and that record reviews by DHS attorneys were causing months-long delays.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service acknowledged in a recent statement that some phone data from January 2021 was lost as the result of a pre-planned data transfer, noting that the transfer was underway when the IG office made the request in February 2021.

The committees also said that former DHS Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli was using his personal phone, potentially for official government businesses, and Congress was not notified by the inspector general.

A report from the government accountability group Project on Government Oversight found that messages from Cuccinelli and then-DHS Secretary Chad Wolf have also gone missing.

ABC News’ Quinn Owen contributed to this report.

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(ATLANTA) — Pregnant people in Georgia will now be able to count their fetus as a dependent on their tax return and file for child support, according to state law.

The state’s Department of Revenue announced this week it will recognize “any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat” as “eligible for the Georgia individual income tax dependent exemption,” which totals $3,000.

The new tax guidance from state officials comes just two weeks after a federal appeals court ruled Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat law,” titled the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, could take effect immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, giving power back to states to decide abortion access.

The law was previously declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in July 2020, and barred from taking effect.

Under the legislation — which Gov. Brian Kemp originally signed into law in 2019 — abortions in the state are banned after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. There are exceptions for medical emergencies, “medically futile” pregnancies and rape and incest, if a police report has been filed.

The law has other implications, including for taxes, because it also redefines “natural person” under Georgia law to mean “any human being including an unborn child” — including an embryo or fetus at any stage of development.

Under that definition, a pregnant person may also request child support, amounting to the “direct medical and pregnancy related expenses of the mother.”

“I think what legislators tried to do is to say on the one hand, we’re going to ban abortions at about six weeks. But on the other side of the equation, we’re going to attempt to counter arguments that the state isn’t doing enough to support women who are going to be forced to carry pregnancies to term that otherwise would have elected to have an abortion,” Anthony Michael Kreis, J.D, Ph.D., assistant professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law, told ABC News.

Georgia is now one of around a dozen states in the U.S. that include fetal personhood language in legislation restricting or banning abortion, according to National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), a nonprofit organization that supports abortion rights.

The issue recently made headlines when a pregnant woman in Texas, Brandy Bottone, said she planned to protest a ticket she received while driving in a local highway’s high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, which requires two people to be in the car. Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, told ABC News she counted herself and her unborn baby as two passengers but was issued a $275 ticket for being a single occupant in an HOV lane.

In Texas, a law set to go into effect this summer, following the Supreme Court’s decision, defines life as beginning at fertilization. The state’s transportation code does not specify an unborn child as a person.

Kreis said similar scenarios and legal challenges are bound to happen in Georgia under the new abortion law.

“They opened up a whole can of worms by changing the definition section of state law,” Kreis said of lawmakers. “And so we’re really just in a in this kind of quagmire that will take some time for us to get through.”

Kreis cited an example: If a person were to have one or more miscarriages, and had claimed their fetus or fetuses as dependents on their taxes, would that trigger an investigation beyond a tax audit? There could be potential privacy concerns if state agencies request medical records.

“It’s going to take prosecutors and law enforcement and litigation and appellate court decisions and attorney general opinions to all sort this out,” said Kreis. “And that that’s the kind of thing that will play out over months and years and not necessarily over days or weeks.”

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